Shottle Bop

"Shottle Bop" is a fantasy short story by American writer Theodore Sturgeon, first published in 1941 in the magazine Unknown.

[2] The protagonist discovers a mysterious shop – "The Shottle Bop", between Twentieth and Twenty-first Streets, on Tenth Avenue in New York City – which has bottles containing all manner of strange things.

The proprietor dislikes his pompous attitude, paralyzes him by spraying him with the essential oil from the hair of a Gorgon's head, and only releases him after extracting a grudging apology.

The proprietor then mixes up a strange potion, saying it will, when drunk, "cure" him and give him a "talent".

He sets himself up as a psychic investigator: a business at which he is highly successful, with the aid of unseen disembodied assistants.