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Magda
An uptown druggist, says the New York Sun, has added another laurel to Herman Sudermann's fame. A blond-haired young woman came into his store the other day, and stepped up to the soda water counter. "I'll take a Magda, with cream, please," she said; and the man in charge mixed a glass of soda which looked, when it was ready, like ordinary chocolate soda. An undecided man standing near the young woman waited until the drink had been consumed, and then asked the druggist what it was. "Oh, that's chocolate and coffee syrup mixed," he said, "and I call it 'Magda.' That's one of the things Magda did in the play that shocked her family when she came back as a famous singer, drink chocolate and coffee mixed. I saw Duse in the play, and read that in the libretto; and I made up my mind then that this summer I should have a new kind of soda, and call it 'Magda.' I put a sign in the window for a few days, and already it is one of the drinks that people ask for most. I don't know whether or not they all know where the idea came from, but they seem to like the result just as well as though they did." This illustrates the value of keeping abreast of the times. A dispenser by occasionally putting on some new combination and calling it after an event or book or play that is at the time creating a furor, can advertise and make popular his soda fountain and increase his business.