“Sure,” I says. “That’s just the beginning of the treatment. You come back at ten o’clock tonight and I’ll give you the rest of it and perform the operation.”
“Operation?” she says.
“It won’t hurt you. You’ve had the same operation before. Ever hear about the hair of the dog?”
She looks at me. “Will it work?” she says.
“Sure it’ll work. If you come back and get it.”
So she drunk whatever it was without batting a eye, and went out. I went up front.
“Didn’t you get it?” Jody says.
“Get what?” I says.
“Ah, come on,” he says. “I ain’t going to try to beat your time.”
“Oh, her,” I says. “She just wanted a little medicine. She’s got a bad case of dysentery and she’s a little ashamed about mentioning it with a stranger there.”
It was my night, anyway, so I helped the old bastard check up and I got his hat on him and got him out of the store by eight-thirty. I went as far as the corner with him and watched him until he passed under two street lamps and went on out of sight. Then I come back to the store and waited until nine-thirty and turned out the front lights and locked the door and left just one light burning at the back, and I went back and put some talcum powder into six capsules and kind of cleared up the cellar and then I was all ready.