or Piccadilly, but in St. Paul's Churchyard, and even in famous old Paternoster Row, where books have been the feature for centuries. Here books have been pushed aside, and window after window has been adorned with souvenir post-cards of all kinds and descriptions.

Their charm lies in mankind's love for pictures. People will stop to look at photographs who would otherwise pass a store unnoticed. This is not confined to any class. It is true in all our cities. In Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other places the rich, the poor, the high and low all elbow each other to look at the pictures on exhibition. In London I often saw the elegant gentleman of that city, in frock coat and high hat, jostled out of his place before a post-card window by some queer cockney or some newsboy, equally anxious to see the latest thing in souvenir postcards. The same is true of all Continental cities and towns. The boulevardier of Paris stops for a look and watches the rich American (they think that we are all rich) select his cards.

THE CRAZE IS GENERAL THROUGHOUT EUROPE.

Everywhere the interest is the same. In Switzerland, away up on the Alps, or in Italy, or Germany, everybody looks with open eyes, and often with open mouths, upon the post-card display. Then why should we differ from these other nations?

I am a strong advocate of the souvenir postcards as a side-line for druggists. It is a profitable one as well as a great advertising medium. People will talk about them, and tell their friends where the nicest assortment can be found, which brings a good class of patronage in lines other than postcards.

A WINDOW EXHIBIT.

In making displays, we usually string the views across the windows from little wire clips, and try to fill the space as well as possible, producing, as it were, a curtain of cards. Abroad, all displays are in front against the glass, which may have some advantages. We generally cover the floor with the post-card albums, or stack them, to make a good showing. Sometimes we combine with them the

little ten-cent passe-partout frames. Each one is made to hold a post-card, sells very well, and adds to the window display from an artistic standpoint. We always sell stamps, and have a little desk where customers find pen and ink for addressing and writing the cards. This has proved a great comfort and convenience to strangers.

The sale of the comic postal has fallen off, as most persons have no longer any interest in them. That was a passing fad. The local view cards, picturing places of interest, bits of picturesque scenery, and public buildings, as well as the finer quality of cards, still sell, and will continue to do so as long as people have any artistic sense. As long as people travel the souvenir card will continue to tell the home folks where the traveler is and what he is doing.

Birthday postals are always in demand. Some one is having a birthday every day, and his friends. will send cards. These we sell at from two for

five to twenty-five cents each. One nice feature in our trade has been the sale of artistic floral and fruit designs, which have filled a popular demand for dinner cards. We have sold thousands of these at five cents each, or six for twenty-five cents; also dainty, pretty copies of water-colors at ten cents each, or three for twenty-five cents.

ADVERTISING.

They make very acceptable dinner favors, and I have developed quite a demand for them. One of the best methods of developing a post-card business is advertising, in conjunction with the window displays. A tactful, well-worded advertisement rarely fails to bring returns, besides bringing our store more prominently before the public.

As a side-line the souvenir post-card has proved a very remunerative one. I may add that the average price is two for five cents, or twenty-five cents a dozen.

It lacked only a few minutes of closing time as Cameron came from the rear room of his store to wait on a customer who had just come in. It was a little girl, and she wanted a bottle of soothing syrup for her baby sister.

Cameron followed her to the door, and as he closed it after her departing figure his eye fell on two men, one much larger and heavier than the other, apparently waiting for a car, and occupying themselves meanwhile by looking at the articles displayed in the window. The store was located on the corner, and people were in the habit of inspecting Cameron's window displays while waiting for the cars. In fact, he had always considered his location of distinct advantage for this very reason.

Now, however, he had the unpleasant recollection that he had seen the same men twice before at earlier stages of the evening, and they had then been apparently engaged in the same business of waiting for a car. His old friends, Granby, Dunton, and Earle, had dropped in later, made themselves at home in his back room, and announced their intention of remaining until Cameron was ready to go home with them. They were now deeply engrossed in a game of cards.

Cameron did not return to his friends immediately. The presence of the men outside gave him some uneasiness, and he decided to remain in the front of the store until the next car passed. He could hear it approaching now. It rumbled by without stopping, and Cameron's suspicions were aroused when the men immediately entered the store and asked for some horehound drops. He turned his back a moment to reach a bottle on the shelf behind. When he faced around again it was to look into the muzzle of an ugly-looking revolver! "Don't make a sound, or you're a dead one!" commanded the larger of the two men, keeping Cameron covered with the gun. The other man started for the cash register, which contained upwards of one hundred dollars.

Cameron made no sound, but he instantly dropped below the counter in an effort to secure his own revolver. The man with the gun understood the move and immediately pulled trigger. Two shots whizzed uncomfortably close to Cameron's head and broke some bottles beyond. Things immediately assumed a dramatic tone, and the air became vibrant with expectation.

Hearing the shots and the falling glass, Cam

eron's friends came hurrying from the back room. For a moment they were too astonished to do anything but stare speechless at the intruders. The men, surprised at the sudden reënforcement, made a dash for the door.

Dunton sprang forward and managed to grab the smaller man, while Granby and Earle pursued his companion out of the store and down the street. The advantage lay with the fleeing burglar, however, and a block or two from the store he turned and opened fire. The young men returned to the store in time to see Dunton and Cameron not too

Writing one's own biography is not often attempted. Most people are so modestly constructed that they leave the task to others. Some people, however, write their own lives because they believe they can do it better than any one else; others do it because they are afraid no one else will.

Judging from my name, you would think me of German descent, but I'm not. I merely mention this in the beginning to show how wrong it is to jump at conclusions. I selected this nom de plume because I intend to be truthful in what I shall write, and as I value my good name and liberty I deem it therefore better to hide my identity.

I trust the Editor will not feel alarmed at this. I will assure him that my autobiography will not interfere with his sending the journal through the mail, and I do not believe it will shock any of the hardened readers of drug-store literature.

In sizing up the situation from the very beginning, I do not see how I could have avoided being a druggist. In the first place, my father had been a druggist for about fifteen years before he married. The first year of their wedded life my parents resided above the store. In order that they might become better acquainted with each other, my mother spent all her spare time in the store, and they conversed between sales. Now the point is this: What chance had I of becoming anything else when the pre-natal influences were so strong in favor of pharmacy?

I was simply a victim of circumstances, and they say that as a baby I took note of the color of the milk in the bottle, shook it up, and then with deep

interest watched the dark-colored precipitate sink to the bottom. Later on in life I took great pleasure in mixing things, and I remember one time I was severely reprimanded for trying to dissolve the salt container in the soup. As I grew older I developed a taste for sweetwood and licorice, and like a true pharmacist, tasted everything I put my hands on.

I remember one time having found a nice, white, sugar-coated pill. It looked splendid and tasted good, but on reaching my stomach it acted in a manner not conducive to regular habits. My mother was not at all pleased with the results, and I was then taken in hand and forcibly reminded that everything sweet is not necessarily eatable, and after this experience I became sadder and wiser.

I never really realized what an annoyance I had been until years later when I became an apprentice in a drug store. We had a little puppy whose habits were similar to mine, and everything he found, from corks to coal, went into his mouth. One day he found a white pill and ate it, and needless to say acted in the usual manner. As I went around the store with a box of sawdust in one hand and the broom in the other I felt true contrition of heart for my past. But then, things in this world seem to even up: some one had to care for me, and in my turn I cared for the puppy.

It was not my intention to make this a discourse on the use and abuse of cathartics, but when one's train of thought starts along a certain route it is rather difficult to stop it, and the most one can do is to put on the brakes and go slow.

About a year later, when I had mastered the details of sweeping the floor and washing bottles, I was allowed to wait on an occasional customer, and I felt the dignity of my privilege very much. One day a rather elderly gentleman came in and I went forward to learn his wishes.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"Five cents' worth of skullcap, son," he replied. I looked at him in amused contempt, and feeling the superiority of an education, I smiled benignly, saying: "What do you think this is a clothing store?"

Then, thinking I had been a little harsh on the old fellow, I directed him to a place across the

street where such things were sold. He gave me a disgusted look and went out. Hurrying behind the prescription counter, in a boastful manner I told the clerk what had happened. "Well," he said, "you are pretty wise, but you still have a lot to learn."

Taking down the Dispensatory, he turned to "Scutellaria." I read, and as my knowledge grew my self-esteem diminished. If this displacement had continued through life, by the time I became an old man my opinion of myself would be out of sight entirely. Fortunately, it did not. I still believe I know a few things, and I shall continue to until some one can show me that I don't.