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Old Waldorf Bar Days
But every time he sought to illustrate the definition of
the term, the aftermath was a headache from which there
was no refuge but sleep, and the next morning he would
have what was euphuistically described as "a head." Nat–
urally, he would turn for relief to his own prescription
counter, but none of the patent medicines or any formula
he compounded had seemed to solve the difficulty. One
night, it so happened that Mrs. Emerson was waiting up
for him. She followed him into the drug store and watched
as, from force of habit, he took a little something from a
bottle here, and from another bottle there, until he had ap–
parently satisfied himself that he had put together enough
things to achieve definite results. Now his wife watched
him go to the spigot and turn it on. To her amazement, the
stuff in the glass began to foam until it "boiled" over. At
that point, her husband lifted the glass and drank it down.
A half hour later, his head was as clear as a bell.
His wife was amazed. "Why, I have never seen you get
over it so quickly," she said.
"You are right," her spouse replied. Then, as a thought
struck him, he exclaimed: "Do you know, if I could only
remember what I put in that tumbler, I believe I'd have
somethin·g to make a fortune out of!"
"I can tell you," his wife assured him. "I watched you as
you took up every bottle, and I know exactly what you
used and how much of each thing."
Not long afterward, Emerson 'approached a member of a
well known Baltimore banking firm. His story was received
with skepticism.
"But," said the banker, according to the locally current
version of the incident, "if it does what you say it does,
there is a fortune in it. I'll tell you what," he added; "I'll
get on a jag and if your remedy does the same thing for
me that it did for you, I'll see that you get financed."
And so, the story goes on, the banker went out one
evening and treated himself to one glorious toot. Emerson
met him at an appointed hour, showed him the powder, put
it in a glass, and added water. The stuff fizzed up. The
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