given his wife another bill of sale, covering both stock and fixtures, and had had this one recorded! I also learned that the druggist owed the landlord for rent and that the landlord had sworn to have his money whether the others got theirs or not. MAKING THE ROUNDS. A pretty big proposition for a young fellow without any previous experience to straighten out, wasn't it? After my wholesale account and the neighbor's and landlord's claims were settled, there wouldn't be more than a couple of hundred left for the druggist. I spent the remainder of the afternoon going from the druggist to the neighbor, from the neighbor to the landlord, from the landlord to the druggist's wife, and then back over the route again, reasoning and arguing with them all. And most of the time the arguing was pretty hot and spicy. Each one thought that he had the best right to the money, and that the others, myself included, were conspiring to cheat him out of his claim. And they all seemed to think I was a pretty cheeky sort of kid, and some of them didn't mind telling me so! Two and a half times I went around without any apparent hope of a settlement. Then I gave it up. I wandered out of the town to a lonely spot on the bay shore, and sat down on the bank with my head between my knees and with the biggest crisis of my life staring me in the face. What should I do? Should I give it up and go back, and be an employee perhaps the rest of my days? I loved freedom and independence, and I had just now got a smell of them, and they smelled good and I wanted more. What hope was there of success anyhow? Others, I had learned, had tried to unravel the tangle and had failed. What was the use! Just then the words of the old minister back home flashed into my mind and I straightened up, and as I straightened up the evening breeze coming up the bay struck me full in the face, fresh and salt from the ocean. ANOTHER INHERITANCE. It stirred the blood in my veins, inherited from generations of seagoing ancestors. Those seagoing ancestors, I knew, had not been men who had given up. They were men who had faced the storm and won out-or had gone down fighting. I was made of the same stuff as they. I would win out, too! I jumped to my feet and hurried back to the town. And my, how easy it all was! While I had been away the neighbor and the landlord had come to their senses and realized that they had perhaps lost a chance of getting at least a part of their money, and now they might never get any. The druggist's wife had got him to bed with an ice-bag on his head, had sobered him up, and had convinced him that it was better to get a couple of hundred out of it than to have it go to the courts and perhaps lose all. In an hour I had the whole thing finished and an agreement drawn up in black and white and signed by all of them. On a certain day I was to take over the business, the drug company's account was to be deducted from the purchase price, the landlord's and the neighbor's claims were to be settled, and the balance was to go to the druggist's wife. A KEEN SENSE OF SATISFACTION. The news soon spread. Sitting in the hotel office that night I heard the local bank manager discussing the deal with some one else in the next room. "I don't believe it," he said, "and I won't believe it till I see him there behind the counter in full possession of the place." And he saw me there soon enough; and I stayed there for a number of years, and I wasn't buried alive, either. I spent some of the pleasantest and happiest years of my life there, and one of the greatest pleasures and satisfaction to me now is to go back there and find the hole that was made when I was torn up by the roots and transplanted elsewhere, still empty. The druggist, I am pleased to say, has since reformed and has gone into another line of business, at which he is making a success, and is one of the most respected men of the town. Well, when I got back to the city I went to the "boss" and told him all I had done and showed him the written agreement. He looked at me hard, then a smile a foot wide spread over his face, and, grasping me by the hand, he nearly shook it off in congratulating me. And he was complimentary enough to say that he was doubtful if he could have done better himself; in fact, he doubted if he could have done as well! PLANNING A MODERN DRUG STORE it is the only store in town or has a competitor on each side of it, and what the competitor's methods are, that every druggist faces a different problem. These may be termed varying conditions, but the permanent factor, which can seldom be changed, is the size and shape of the room, whether square, or long and narrow; and in this there is comparatively little variation. By far the most common type is the long and narrow, or "tunnel-shaped" store, and it is not the easiest kind to plan for effective arrangement. We have selected the plan of an extreme example of this type. As shown in our illustration on page 110, this drug store is only 20 feet wide, and 43 feet long-over twice as long as it is wide. Being on the corner it has one advantage over a store in the middle of the block-it has a display window on each street. The owner of this store has made the most of these windows, by giving special attention to his displays. These are changed frequently, which is made easy by the convenience of the special window backing. (See illustration No. 1.) This backing contains two large lights By F. STANDISH Of the Wilmarth Show Case Company of plate glass in the upper section, which admit plenty of daylight into the store. Between them is a door which gives easy access to the window. A DEBATABLE FEATURE. To the right of the entrance, near the fountain, is a five-foot leather settee. This feature is a debatable one with druggists, some of them claiming that it is a good thing and attracts some trade from people who come in to wait for cars, etc. Others state that it is merely a nuisance, because it affords a lounging place for the steady "hangers-out," the population of youths who have (apparently) no home to go to. The fountain at the front of the store is an advertisement to draw people into the place, and in order that they may see all the rest of the displays in the store, the soda tables are placed at the rear. As only a few people, comparatively, can be served at the fountain, this means that most of the soda-fountain trade has to pass every other department. Next to the soda fountain is a seven-foot English wall-cases. cigar case of the all-plate-glass variety with a twenty-four inch marble base, which stands in front of a tobacco wall-case of the same length. The cash register section, tucked in between the soda fountain back-bar and the tobacco wall-case, is very convenient both for soda fountain and cigar trade, where so much small change is needed and quick service essential. The candy display is made in a six-and-ahalf foot all-plate-glass case next to the cigar case, on the theory that the smoker will take "her" a box of candy if he sees it when he is buying cigars for his own comfort. Next to the candy case the rubber goods are Floor plan, showing the entire store. It will be seen that the front entrance is at a corner, permitting two large display windows. To the right, as one enters, is the fountain, then the cigar case and two display cases following in order. Then comes the wrapping counter, near the prescription case. On the other side of the store, English wall-cases run from the prescription case nearly to the window. Wall-cases also constitute the prescription partition. The room is so narrow that it is impossible to have show-cases on the left-hand side of the store, even were this deemed desirable. Another view of the English,wall-cases. Showing the wall-cases the entire length of the right-hand side of the store. H shown in a case of the same length, while at the extreme rear, in convenient proximity to the prescription department, is a combination wrapping and display counter. This counter has a display compartment in front, equipped with sliding plate-glass doors and two six-inch adjustable shelves suitable for the display of any small articles. The customer waiting for his prescription, or for any package to be wrapped, thus has another opportunity to see something else he may desire. This final suggestion to purchase reaches him when his mind is free to receive it, his original purchases having been made, and many sales are made that would otherwise have never even been contemplated. The rear of the counter is fitted with drawers and shelves convenient for wrapping paper, etc. The line-up of wall-cases on the right-hand side of the store is completed by three sevenfoot sections of patent medicine cases, the lower sections of which contain small drawers for pills, small package goods, etc. THE PRESCRIPTION PARTITION. The prescription partition is formed by two six-foot wall-cases across the rear of store, in which are shown rubber goods, surgical supplies, etc. There is only one entrance to the prescription room, which is at the right-hand side next to the wrapping counter. Twenty-three feet of wall-cases, in which both upper and lower sections are purely for display, complete the equipment, and are the only fixtures on the left-hand side of the store. In these cases are shown stationery, toilet articles, perfumes, wines, camera supplies, brushes, etc. This store carries a full line of all goods usually found in a drug store, and all articles are well displayed in spite of the fact that the store is so narrow that only one line-up of floor cases is possible. There is no space to spare, and yet there is enough room to do business comfortably. The important points are that (1) the people are led back into the rear of a long store by having the soda tables well back in between displays of profit-bearing sundries, and (2) a complete display can be made in wall-cases of the type having display compartments in both lower and upper sections, thus saving the space that would ordinarily be occupied by a second row of floor-cases. Space is still further conserved by having display wall-cases across the rear of the store, instead of a merely ornamental prescription partition. Next month Mr. Standish will present another set of plans and suggestions for the arrangement of a drug store of a different shape and size. AND THE BOSS Now right at the beginning let it be said that I do not approve of selling liquor in a drug store. It is altogether wrong; there can be no excuse for it whatever. A drug store ought to be a drug store, not an eyeless Berkshire. And a druggist ought to be a dignified man, not a bull-necked booze-slinger. But—well, I've said enough. Here is the story: Once upon a time, before I began collecting hair-tonic formulas, I was head prescription clerk in a drug store in one of Ohio's smaller cities. The other prescriptionist owned the store. The junior clerks, cashier, soda boy, and porter existed only in the letters the boss By NORMAN I. SCHILLER occasionally wrote to his pharmacy classmates located in distant towns. At that, he was a dandy fellow, who worked as hard for his meal-ticket as I did-a condition that induced me to assume a multiple personality just to lend a semblance of truth to his messages of good cheer. One of our regular patrons-let us call him Mr. Fish, because that wasn't his name but his proclivity-was a big, jolly chap whose shadow, at midday, extended much further in front of his toes than it did behind his heels. He was one of the town's most prosperous manufacturers. Fond of a risque story, a connoisseur of Bourbon and Scotch, and a lover of fast horses, he was—well, you know. His wife was of the type so often chosen by such men. She was prominent in W. C. T. U. circles and bought Job's tears necklaces for her babies. It was our custom to mail statements to our trade the first of each month, and we unluckily addressed one to Mr. Fish during his absence from the city on a business trip. The next day a carriage stopped in front of the store, and Mrs. Fish sailed in like a hydroplane, with beak high in the air. She landed in front of the boss's desk and laid a statement before him which ran somewhat like this: "Mr. Still," she began, "that statement is the most outrageous thing I ever saw. Just look at it. Now, I got the Castoria, the Favorite Prescription, and the toilet soap all right, but we buy our spices at the grocery, and we don't pay your outlandish drug-store prices, either. Four dollars for pepper! The idea! "You might have itemized all the bill, too, instead of trying to be funny. I do care when I am asked to pay $2.60 and don't know what I am paying it for. Mr. Fish has always paid our drug bills before, but after this I am going to attend to that. He is so careless that people just cheat the eyes out of him." With what dignity he could muster the boss mumbled an explanation that didn't explain anything. He also promised to mail a corrected statement. And the controlling member of the House of Fish majestically returned to her carriage. INDUCING CUSTOMERS TO COME INTO OUR STORE Special policemen are stationed in front of our store on Saturday nights to keep a pathway open through the crowd. On many different occasions the people striving to get a look at our window have overflowed the sidewalk and held up the street-car service for several minutes at a time. The manager of the local telephone company tells us that it sometimes keeps two operators busy handling the calls that come in over our three 'phones. The reasons? There are a dozen of them apparent from the outside of the store and double that many on the inside. They are the ways we have adopted to show the people of our town-Cambridge, Ohio that we are willing to extend to them every courtesy and accommodation possible. A news bulletin service is the big feature of the many devices used to bring people to our store. This is a live, up-to-the-minute news bureau, built up by means of five years of hard, By SAMUEL SCHLUP, Manager Wilson's Drug Store, Cambridge, Ohio diligent work. Through it we give the people of Cambridge all important foreign, State and local news and give it to them, in many instances, several hours before they can find it in a newspaper. We get the local news by taking, at an opportune time, each customer and asking him to 'phone or tell us of any happenings in his neighborhood, assuring him that we will not impart his name or even mention from where we received the story. We impress on the minds of these people that details are not needed. If we are given a 'phone tip we will get the story. When a customer 'phones us a good live story we thank him for his kindness and hand out a cigar or candy when next we see him. He then becomes one of our "regular" reporters. We have been building up this corps of city and country correspondents for the last five years, and now we are reaping the harvest. One of the human-interest features in the Bulletin next month will be a true narrative entitled "Taking a Gun on a Questionable Account." |