Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/365

 and nine. You do that day after day and week after week with a grouchy, cold-eyed manager holding a watch over you and see how long you can keep from going cuckoo!

One night I am laying awake in bed thinking over this and that and wondering just where I will wind up, when the idea of composing this drink begins hammering at my head again. I just can't get rid of this thought and go to sleep. Instead, I find myself turning over various combinations of flavors in my mind till finally I get so excited about the thing that although it's after midnight I jump up and dress and sneak quietly out of the house without disturbing nobody. If Nate knew I was prowling around at this hour of the morning with a important fight only a few weeks off he'd be fit to be tied! I'm bound for the syrup room of Ajariah Stubbs's drug store, because I got a sudden hunch that this night I'll concoct a beverage which will be drank around the world! I got a set of keys which Ajariah give me so's I could come and go whenever I pleased and I let myself in, clear off a table, set out test tubes, vials, jars of syrups and bottles of drugs, a mortar and pestle, etc., and get down to business.

Like before, the first dozen or more experiments results in nothing but punishment for my stomach. I am getting a little sleepy and a whole lot discouraged, when I take one more chance and mix up—well, let's say it was four flavors, two extracts and a harmless drug. The formula is on file at Washington now and I'd rather you'd see it there. Anyhow, I taste this combination without much hope that it's going to be