"Have you got something for it?" she says.
"I got the money."
"Well," I says, "of course a doctor has to learn all sorts of things while he's learning to roll calomel; he cant help himself.
But I dont know about your trouble."
"He told me I could get something.
He told me I could get it at the drugstore."
"Did he tell you the name of it?" I says.
"You better go back and ask him."
She quit looking at me, kind of turning the handkerchief in her hands.
"I got to do something," she says.
"How bad do you want to do something?" I says.
She looks at me.
"Of course, a doctor learns all sorts of things folks dont think he knows. But he aint supposed to tell all he knows.
It's against the law."
Up front Jody says,
"Skeet."
"Excuse me a minute," I says.
I went up front.
"Do you see him?" I says.
"Aint you done yet?" he says.
"Maybe you better come up here and watch and let me do that consulting."
"Maybe you'll lay a egg," I says.
I come back.
She is looking at me.
"Of course you realise that I could be put in the penitentiary for doing what you want," I says.
"I would lose my license and then I'd have to go to work.
You realise that?"
"I aint got but ten dollars," she says.
"I could bring the rest next month, maybe."
"Pooh," I says, "ten dollars?
You see, I cant put no price on my knowledge and skill.
Certainly not for no little paltry sawbuck."
She looks at me.
She dont even blink.
"What you want, then?"
The clock said four to one.
So I decided I better get her out.
"You guess three times and then I’ll show you," I says.
She dont even blink her eyes.
'I got to do something," she says.
She looks behind her and around, then she looks toward the front.
"Gimme the medicine first," she says.
"You mean, you're ready to right now?" I says.
"Here?"
"Gimme the medicine first," she says.
So I took a graduated glass and kind of turned my back to her and picked out a bottle that looked all right, because a man that would keep poison setting around in a unlabelled bottle ought to be in jail, anyway.
It smelled like turpentine.
I poured some into the glass and give it to her.
She smelled it, looking at me across the glass.
"Hit smells like turpentine," she says.