The Clarion Part 8

"You'll never get another puller like Old Lame-Boy," Hal heard the head designer say with a chuckle, and his father reply: "If I could I'd start another proprietary as big as Certina."

"Where does that lead to?" inquired Hal, as they approached a side pa.s.sage sloping slightly down, and barred by a steel door.

"The old building. The manufacturing department is over there."

"Compounding the medicine, you mean?"

"Yes. Bottling and shipping, too."

"Aren't we going through?"

"Why, yes: if you like. You won't find much to interest you, though."

Nor, to Hal's surprise, did Dr. Surtaine himself seem much concerned with this phase of the business. Apparently his hand was not so close in control here as in the other building. The men seemed to know him less well.

"All this pretty well runs itself," he explained negligently.

"Don't you have to keep a check on the mixing, to make sure it's right?"

"Oh, they follow the formula. No chance for error."

They walked amidst c.h.i.n.king trucks, some filled with empty, some with filled and labeled bottles, until they reached the carton room where scores of girls were busily inserting the bottles, together with folded circulars and advertising cards, into pasteboard boxes. At the far end of this room a pungent, high-spiced scent, as of a pickle-kitchen with a fortified odor underlying it, greeted the unaccustomed nose of the neophyte.

"Good!" he sniffed. "How clean and appetizing it smells!"

Enthusiasm warmed the big man's voice once more.

"Just what it is, too!" he exclaimed. "Now you've hit on the second big point in Certina's success. It's easy to take. What's the worst thing about doctors' doses? They're nasty. The very thought of 'em would gag a cat. Tell people that here's a remedy better than the old medicine and pleasant to the taste, and they'll take to it like ducks to water.

Certina is the first proprietary that ever tasted good. Next to Old Lame-Boy, it's my biggest idea."

"Are we going into the mixing-room?" asked his son.

"If you like. But you'll see less than you smell."

So it proved. A heavy, wet, rich vapor shrouded the s.p.a.ce about a huge cauldron, from which came a sound of steady plashing. Presently an attendant gnome, stripped to the waist, appeared, nodded to Dr.

Surtaine, called to some one back in the mist, and shortly brought Hal a small gla.s.s br.i.m.m.i.n.g with a pale-brown liquid.

"Just fresh," he said. "Try it."

"My kidneys are all right," protested Hal. "I don't need any medicine."

"Take it for a bracer. It won't hurt you," urged the gnome.

Hal looked at his father, and, at his nod, put his lips to the gla.s.s.

"Why, it tastes like spiced whiskey!" he cried.

"Not so far out of the way. Columbian spirits, caramel, cinnamon and cardamom, and a touch of the buchu. Good for the blues. Finish it."

Hal did so and was aware of an almost instantaneous glow.

"Strong stuff, sir," he said to his father as they emerged into a clearer atmosphere.

"They like it strong," replied the other curtly. "I give 'em what they like."

The attendant gnome followed. "Mr. Dixon was looking for you, Dr.

Surtaine. Here he comes, now."

"Dixon's our chief chemist," explained Dr. Surtaine as a shabby, anxious-looking man ambled forward.

"We're having trouble with that last lot of cascara, sir," said he lugubriously.

"In the Number Four?"

"Yes, sir. It don't seem to have any strength."

"Subst.i.tute senna." So offhand was the tone that it sounded like a suggestion rather than an order.

As the latter, however, the chemist contentedly took it.

"It'll cost less," he observed; "and I guess it'll do the work just as well."

To Hal it seemed a somewhat cavalier method of altering a medical formula. But his mind, accustomed to easy acceptance of the business which so luxuriously supplied his wants, pa.s.sed the matter over lightly.

"First-rate man, Dixon," remarked Dr. Surtaine as they pa.s.sed along.

"College-bred, and all that. Boozes, though. I only pay him twenty-five a week, and he's mighty glad to get it."

On the way back to the offices, they traversed the checking and accounting rooms, the agency department, the great rows of desks whereat the shipping and mailing were looked after, and at length stopped before the door of a small office occupied by a dozen women. One of these, a full-bosomed, slender, warm-skinned girl with a wealth of deep-hued, rippling red hair crowning her small, well-poised head, rose and came to speak to Dr. Surtaine.

"Did you get the message I sent you about Letter Number Seven?" she asked.

"h.e.l.lo, Milly," greeted the presiding genius, pleasantly. "Just what was that about Number Seven?"

"It isn't getting results."

"No? Let's see it." Dr. Surtaine was as interested in this as he had been casual about the drug alteration.

"I don't think it's personal enough," pursued the girl, handing him a sheet of imitation typewriter print.

"Oh, you don't," said her employer, amused. "Maybe you could better it."

"I have," said the girl calmly. "You always tell us to make suggestions. Mine are on the back of the paper."

"Good for you! Hal, here's the prettiest girl in the shop, and about the smartest. Milly, this is my boy."

The girl looked up at Hal with a smile and brightened color. He was suddenly interested and appreciative to see to what a vivid prettiness her face was lighted by the raised glance of her swift, gray-green eyes.

"Are you coming into the business, Mr. Surtaine?" she asked composedly, and with almost as proprietary an air as if she had said "our business."