Drank His Pepsin Straight

1895

His Mild Hypocrisy Brought Trouble to a Pillar of the Church.

There is now living in one of the hotels of Indianapolis a rather prominent business man who, although a pillar in the church he attends and a fervent disciple of temperance when he is called upon to address a meeting, yet rather admires the shade of liquor when it is red. Now, this same man got the idea somewhere that he really needed a good, stiff bracer of whisky before each meal, and after pondering over several schemes in the hope of arriving at something which would keep the snap concealed he fixed it with the clerk that he was to have sent to the room at a certain hour each day a silver pot in which was concealed a glass of "pepsin," as it was christened for the occasion. And this went into effect. Before each meal the bellboy would be sent up by the clerk with a pot of "pepsin."

One day the head clerk was very busy, and, as he saw it was the time for sending up the liquor, he turned to another clerk and told him to send up Mr. ——'s pepsin right away. And it so happened that the new clerk wasn't on to the scheme, and so he called a bellboy, sent him into the drug store and told him to have prepared a stiff dose of the real pepsin and take it up to the room designated. The bellboy afterward told what he saw. The gentleman met him at the door with a benign smile and lordly air of condescension.

"Ah, my boy," said he as he wiped his mouth with his tongue, "you have brought my pepsin, I see. You are a good boy. I'll just drink it right here while my wife is getting ready for dinner."

He turned the glass into the air, opened his throat and threw back his face. Just here the bellboy isn't clear as to what happened. He at first said that the man gave a gasp of horror and shouted that he was poisoned by enemies who were jealous of his social successes, and then the boy remembers that somebody's foot came in contact with his trousers and he began going down stairs at a most terrible rate.

It seems clear that the business man did make his appearance in the office a few minutes later and asked what kind of pepsin that was he had been given. The new clerk replied that it had been bought at the drug store. But just then the head clerk came up, and the whole thing was explained. Real pepsin was too much for the old man's digestion. — Indianapolis Sentinel.