gleaming blue glasses.

Save for his regular luncheon at the Cafe Bavaria, no Sixth Avenue
habitue had ever seen Mr. Fritz Braun at concert, theater, or any
of the places of local or suburban amusement.

As to woman, he seemed to be sternly indifferent, Save to the
semi-professionals who were as anxious to escape Sing Sing's gloomy
embrace as the man who supplied them with the drugs for their various
"Ladies' Homes." These were welcome "Greeks bearing gifts" of the
coveted "long green" which was Fritz Braun's god.

Braun was never in the pharmacy after six o'clock, and from that
evening hour when all well-conducted men and women turn to dinner
as the day's culmination, no one had ever set their eyes upon the
bustling manager.

Friendless he seemed, yet ever cheerful, a man distantly respected
for the open frankness of his business dealings, the order and quiet
of his shop, and his rare capacity for minding his own business.

It was only in the evening that Mr. Ben Timmins' reign was uncontested.
The flashy young fellows of his caught-up friendships then lurked
around Magdal's Pharmacy where Timmins dispensed complimentary drinks
and lorded over his fluctuating harem of unemployed "soubrettes"
and light-headed shop girls freed from their daily toil.

In a rough average at a half-way honesty, Timmins "turned in"
habitually about half of the evening's receipts of the "joint,"
which, to use his own language, he "ran for all it was worth."