dwellers of New York steals an army of beings that were once men. Even
yet they go upright upon two limbs and retain human form and speech;
but you will observe that they are behind animals in progress. Each of
these beings follows a dog, to which he is fastened by an artificial
ligament.
These men are all victims to Circe. Not willingly do they become
flunkeys to Fido, bell boys to bull terriers, and toddlers after
Towzer. Modern Circe, instead of turning them into animals, has kindly
left the difference of a six-foot leash between them. Every one of
those dogmen has been either cajoled, bribed, or commanded by his own
particular Circe to take the dear household pet out for an airing.
By their faces and manner you can tell that the dogmen are bound in a
hopeless enchantment. Never will there come even a dog-catcher Ulysses
to remove the spell.
The faces of some are stonily set. They are past the commiseration,
the curiosity, or the jeers of their fellow-beings. Years of
matrimony, of continuous compulsory canine constitutionals, have
made them callous. They unwind their beasts from lamp posts, or the
ensnared legs of profane pedestrians, with the stolidity of mandarins
manipulating the strings of their kites.
Others, more recently reduced to the ranks of Rover's retinue, take
their medicine sulkily and fiercely. They play the dog on the end of
their line with the pleasure felt by the girl out fishing when she
catches a sea-robin on her hook. They glare at you threateningly if
you look at them, as if it would be their delight to let slip the dogs
of war. These are half-mutinous dogmen, not quite Circe-ized, and you
will do well not to kick their charges, should they sniff around your
ankles.
Others of the tribe do not seem to feel so keenly. They are mostly
unfresh youths, with gold caps and drooping cigarettes, who do not
harmonize with their dogs. The animals they attend wear satin bows in
their collars; and the young men steer them so assiduously that you
are tempted to the theory that some personal advantage, contingent
upon satisfactory service, waits upon the execution of their duties.
The dogs thus personally conducted are of many varieties; but they
are one in fatness, in pampered, diseased vileness of temper, in
insolent, snarling capriciousness of behaviour. They tug at the leash
fractiously, they make leisurely nasal inventory of every door step,
railing, and post. They sit down to rest when they choose; they wheeze
like the winner of a Third Avenue beefsteak-eating contest; they
blunder clumsily into open cellars and coal holes; they lead the
dogmen a merry dance.
These unfortunate dry nurses of dogdom, the cur cuddlers,
mongrel managers, Spitz stalkers, poodle pullers, Skye scrapers,
dachshund dandlers, terrier trailers and Pomeranian pushers of the
cliff-dwelling Circes follow their charges meekly. The doggies neither
fear nor respect them. Masters of the house these men whom they hold
in leash may be, but they are not masters of them. From cosey corner
to fire escape, from divan to dumbwaiter, doggy's snarl easily drives
this two-legged being who is commissioned to walk at the other end of
his string during his outing.
One twilight the dogmen came forth as usual at their Circes' pleading,
guerdon, or crack of the whip. One among them was a strong man,
apparently of too solid virtues for this airy vocation. His expression
was melancholic, his manner depressed. He was leashed to a vile white
dog, loathsomely fat, fiendishly ill-natured, gloatingly intractable
toward his despised conductor.
At a corner nearest to his apartment house the dogman turned down a
side street, hoping for fewer witnesses to his ignominy. The surfeited
beast waddled before him, panting with spleen and the labour of
motion.
Suddenly the dog stopped. A tall, brown, long-coated, wide-brimmed man
stood like a Colossus blocking the sidewalk and declaring:
"Well, I'm a son of a gun!"
"Jim Berry!" breathed the dogman, with exclamation points in his
voice.
"Sam Telfair," cried Wide-Brim again, "you ding-basted old
willy-walloo, give us your hoof!"
Their hands clasped in the brief, tight greeting of the West that is
death to the hand-shake microbe.
"You old fat rascal!" continued Wide-Brim, with a wrinkled brown
smile; "it's been five years since I seen you. I been in this town a
week, but you can't find nobody in such a place. Well, you dinged old
married man, how are they coming?"
Something mushy and heavily soft like raised dough leaned against
Jim's leg and chewed his trousers with a yeasty growl.
"Get to work," said Jim, "and explain this yard-wide hydrophobia
yearling you've throwed your lasso over. Are you the pound-master of
this burg? Do you call that a dog or what?"
"I need a drink," said the dogman, dejected at the reminder of his old
dog of the sea. "Come on."
Hard by was a café. 'Tis ever so in the big city.
They sat at a table, and the bloated monster yelped and scrambled at
the end of his leash to get at the café cat.
"Whiskey," said Jim to the waiter.
"Make it two," said the dogman.
"You're fatter," said Jim, "and you look subjugated. I don't know
about the East agreeing with you. All the boys asked me to hunt you up
when I started. Sandy King, he went to the Klondike. Watson Burrel, he
married the oldest Peters girl. I made some money buying beeves, and
I bought a lot of wild land up on the Little Powder. Going to fence
next fall. Bill Rawlins, he's gone to farming. You remember Bill, of
course - he was courting Marcella - excuse me, Sam - I mean the lady you
married, while she was teaching school at Prairie View. But you was
the lucky man. How is Missis Telfair?"
"S-h-h-h!" said the dogman, signalling the waiter; "give it a name."
"Whiskey," said Jim.
"Make it two," said the dogman.
"She's well," he continued, after his chaser. "She refused to live
anywhere but in New York, where she came from. We live in a flat.
Every evening at six I take that dog out for a walk. It's Marcella's
pet. There never were two animals on earth, Jim, that hated one
another like me and that dog does. His name's Lovekins. Marcella
dresses for dinner while we're out. We eat tabble dote. Ever try one
of them, Jim?"
"No, I never," said Jim. "I seen the signs, but I thought they said
'table de hole.' I thought it was French for pool tables. How does it
taste?"
"If you're going to be in the city for awhile we will - "
"No, sir-ee. I'm starting for home this evening on the 7.25. Like to
stay longer, but I can't."
"I'll walk down to the ferry with you," said the dogman.
The dog had bound a leg each of Jim and the chair together, and had
sunk into a comatose slumber. Jim stumbled, and the leash was slightly
wrenched. The shrieks of the awakened beast rang for a block around.
"If that's your dog," said Jim, when they were on the street again,
"what's to hinder you from running that habeas corpus you've got
around his neck over a limb and walking off and forgetting him?"
"I'd never dare to," said the dogman, awed at the bold proposition.
"He sleeps in the bed, I sleep on a lounge. He runs howling to
Marcella if I look at him. Some night, Jim, I'm going to get even with
that dog. I've made up my mind to do it. I'm going to creep over with
a knife and cut a hole in his mosquito bar so they can get in to him.
See if I don't do it!"
"You ain't yourself, Sam Telfair. You ain't what you was once. I don't
know about these cities and flats over here. With my own eyes I seen
you stand off both the Tillotson boys in Prairie View with the brass
faucet out of a molasses barrel. And I seen you rope and tie the
wildest steer on Little Powder in 39 1-2."
"I did, didn't I?" said the other, with a temporary gleam in his eye.
"But that was before I was dogmatized."
"Does Misses Telfair - " began Jim.
"Hush!" said the dogman. "Here's another café."
They lined up at the bar. The dog fell asleep at their feet.
"Whiskey," said Jim.
"Make it two," said the dogman.
"I thought about you," said Jim, "when I bought that wild land. I
wished you was out there to help me with the stock."
"Last Tuesday," said the dogman, "he bit me on the ankle because I
asked for cream in my coffee. He always gets the cream."
"You'd like Prairie View now," said Jim. "The boys from the round-ups
for fifty miles around ride in there. One corner of my pasture is in
sixteen miles of the town. There's a straight forty miles of wire on
one side of it."
"You pass through the kitchen to get to the bedroom," said the dogman,
"and you pass through the parlour to get to the bath room, and you
back out through the dining-room to get into the bedroom so you can
turn around and leave by the kitchen. And he snores and barks in his
sleep, and I have to smoke in the park on account of his asthma."
"Don't Missis Telfair - " began Jim.
"Oh, shut up!" said the dogman. "What is it this time?"
"Whiskey," said Jim.
"Make it two," said the dogman.
"Well, I'll be racking along down toward the ferry," said the other.
"Come on, there, you mangy, turtle-backed, snake-headed, bench-legged
ton-and-a-half of soap-grease!" shouted the dogman, with a new note in
his voice and a new hand on the leash. The dog scrambled after them,
with an angry whine at such unusual language from his guardian.
At the foot of Twenty-third Street the dogman led the way through
swinging doors.
"Last chance," said he. "Speak up."
"Whiskey," said Jim.
"Make it two," said the dogman.
"I don't know," said the ranchman, "where I'll find the man I want
to take charge of the Little Powder outfit. I want somebody I know
something about. Finest stretch of prairie and timber you ever
squinted your eye over, Sam. Now if you was - "
"Speaking of hydrophobia," said the dogman, "the other night he chewed
a piece out of my leg because I knocked a fly off of Marcella's arm.
'It ought to be cauterized,' says Marcella, and I was thinking so
myself. I telephones for the doctor, and when he comes Marcella says
to me: 'Help me hold the poor dear while the doctor fixes his mouth.
Oh, I hope he got no virus on any of his toofies when he bit you.' Now
what do you think of that?"
"Does Missis Telfair - " began Jim.
"Oh, drop it," said the dogman. "Come again!"
"Whiskey," said Jim.
"Make it two," said the dogman.
They walked on to the ferry. The ranchman stepped to the ticket
window.
Suddenly the swift landing of three or four heavy kicks was heard,
the air was rent by piercing canine shrieks, and a pained, outraged,
lubberly, bow-legged pudding of a dog ran frenziedly up the street
alone.
"Ticket to Denver," said Jim.
"Make it two," shouted the ex-dogman, reaching for his inside pocket.
VII
THE CHAMPION OF THE WEATHER
If you should speak of the Kiowa Reservation to the average New
Yorker he probably wouldn't know whether you were referring to a new
political dodge at Albany or a leitmotif from "Parsifal." But out
in the Kiowa Reservation advices have been received concerning the
existence of New York.
A party of us were on a hunting trip in the Reservation. Bud
Kingsbury, our guide, philosopher, and friend, was broiling antelope
steaks in camp one night. One of the party, a pinkish-haired young man
in a correct hunting costume, sauntered over to the fire to light a
cigarette, and remarked carelessly to Bud:
"Nice night!"
"Why, yes," said Bud, "as nice as any night could be that ain't
received the Broadway stamp of approval."
Now, the young man was from New York, but the rest of us wondered how
Bud guessed it. So, when the steaks were done, we besought him to
lay bare his system of ratiocination. And as Bud was something of a
Territorial talking machine he made oration as follows:
"How did I know he was from New York? Well, I figured it out as soon
as he sprung them two words on me. I was in New York myself a couple
of years ago, and I noticed some of the earmarks and hoof tracks of
the Rancho Manhattan."
"Found New York rather different from the Panhandle, didn't you, Bud?"
asked one of the hunters.
"Can't say that I did," answered Bud; "anyways, not more than some.
The main trail in that town which they call Broadway is plenty
travelled, but they're about the same brand of bipeds that tramp
around in Cheyenne and Amarillo, At first I was sort of rattled by the
crowds, but I soon says to myself, 'Here, now, Bud; they're just plain
folks like you and Geronimo and Grover Cleveland and the Watson boys,
so don't get all flustered up with consternation under your saddle
blanket,' and then I feels calm and peaceful, like I was back in the
Nation again at a ghost dance or a green corn pow-wow.
"I'd been saving up for a year to give this New York a whirl. I knew
a man named Summers that lived there, but I couldn't find him; so
I played a lone hand at enjoying the intoxicating pleasures of the
corn-fed metropolis.
"For a while I was so frivolous and locoed by the electric lights
and the noises of the phonographs and the second-story railroads
that I forgot one of the crying needs of my Western system of natural
requirements. I never was no hand to deny myself the pleasures of
sociable vocal intercourse with friends and strangers. Out in the
Territories when I meet a man I never saw before, inside of nine
minutes I know his income, religion, size of collar, and his wife's
temper, and how much he pays for clothes, alimony, and chewing
tobacco. It's a gift with me not to be penurious with my conversation.
"But this here New York was inaugurated on the idea of abstemiousness
in regard to the parts of speech. At the end of three weeks nobody in
the city had fired even a blank syllable in my direction except the
waiter in the grub emporium where I fed. And as his outpourings of
syntax wasn't nothing but plagiarisms from the bill of fare, he never
satisfied my yearnings, which was to have somebody hit. If I stood
next to a man at a bar he'd edge off and give a Baldwin-Ziegler look
as if he suspected me of having the North Pole concealed on my person.
I began to wish that I'd gone to Abilene or Waco for my _paseado_; for
the mayor of them places will drink with you, and the first citizen
you meet will tell you his middle name and ask you to take a chance
in a raffle for a music box.
"Well, one day when I was particular hankering for to be gregarious
with something more loquacious than a lamp post, a fellow in a caffy
says to me, says he:
"'Nice day!'
"He was a kind of a manager of the place, and I reckon he'd seen me
in there a good many times. He had a face like a fish and an eye like
Judas, but I got up and put one arm around his neck.
"'Pardner,' I says, 'sure it's a nice day. You're the first gentleman
in all New York to observe that the intricacies of human speech might
not be altogether wasted on William Kingsbury. But don't you think,'
says I, 'that 'twas a little cool early in the morning; and ain't
there a feeling of rain in the air to-night? But along about noon it
sure was gallupsious weather. How's all up to the house? You doing
right well with the caffy, now?'
"Well, sir, that galoot just turns his back and walks off stiff,
without a word, after all my trying to be agreeable! I didn't know
what to make of it. That night I finds a note from Summers, who'd
been away from town, giving the address of his camp. I goes up to
his house and has a good, old-time talk with his folks. And I tells
Summers about the actions of this coyote in the caffy, and desires
interpretation.
"'Oh,' says Summers, 'he wasn't intending to strike up a conversation
with you. That's just the New York style. He'd seen you was a regular
customer and he spoke a word or two just to show you he appreciated
your custom. You oughtn't to have followed it up. That's about as far
as we care to go with a stranger. A word or so about the weather may
be ventured, but we don't generally make it the basis of an
acquaintance.'
"'Billy,' says I, 'the weather and its ramifications is a solemn
subject with me. Meteorology is one of my sore points. No man can
open up the question of temperature or humidity or the glad sunshine
with me, and then turn tail on it without its leading to a falling
barometer. I'm going down to see that man again and give him a lesson
in the art of continuous conversation. You say New York etiquette
allows him two words and no answer. Well, he's going to turn himself
into a weather bureau and finish what he begun with me, besides
indulging in neighbourly remarks on other subjects.'
"Summers talked agin it, but I was irritated some and I went on the
street car back to that caffy.
"The same fellow was there yet, walking round in a sort of back corral
where there was tables and chairs. A few people was sitting around
having drinks and sneering at one another.
"I called that man to one side and herded him into a corner. I
unbuttoned enough to show him a thirty-eight I carried stuck under my
vest.
"'Pardner,' I says, 'a brief space ago I was in here and you seized
the opportunity to say it was a nice day. When I attempted to
corroborate your weather signal, you turned your back and walked off.
Now,' says I, 'you frog-hearted, language-shy, stiff-necked cross
between a Spitzbergen sea cook and a muzzled oyster, you resume where
you left off in your discourse on the weather.'
"The fellow looks at me and tries to grin, but he sees I don't and he
comes around serious.
"'Well,' says he, eyeing the handle of my gun, 'it was rather a nice
day; some warmish, though.'
"'Particulars, you mealy-mouthed snoozer,' I says - 'let's have the
specifications - expatiate - fill in the outlines. When you start
anything with me in short-hand it's bound to turn out a storm signal.'
"'Looked like rain yesterday,' says the man, 'but it cleared off fine
in the forenoon. I hear the farmers are needing rain right badly
up-State.'
"'That's the kind of a canter,' says I. 'Shake the New York dust off
your hoofs and be a real agreeable kind of a centaur. You broke the
ice, you know, and we're getting better acquainted every minute. Seems
to me I asked you about your family?'
"'They're all well, thanks,' says he. 'We - we have a new piano.'
"'Now you're coming it,' I says. 'This cold reserve is breaking up
at last. That little touch about the piano almost makes us brothers.
What's the youngest kid's name?' I asks him.
"'Thomas,' says he. 'He's just getting well from the measles.'
"'I feel like I'd known you always,' says I. 'Now there was just one
more - are you doing right well with the caffy, now?'
"'Pretty well,' he says. 'I'm putting away a little money.'
"'Glad to hear it,' says I. 'Now go back to your work and get
civilized. Keep your hands off the weather unless you're ready to
follow it up in a personal manner, It's a subject that naturally
belongs to sociability and the forming of new ties, and I hate to see
it handed out in small change in a town like this.'
"So the next day I rolls up my blankets and hits the trail away from
New York City."
For many minutes after Bud ceased talking we lingered around the fire,
and then all hands began to disperse for bed.
As I was unrolling my bedding I heard the pinkish-haired young man
saying to Bud, with something like anxiety in his voice:
"As I say, Mr. Kingsbury, there is something really beautiful about
this night. The delightful breeze and the bright stars and the clear
air unite in making it wonderfully attractive."
"Yes," said Bud, "it's a nice night."
VIII
MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN
The burglar stepped inside the window quickly, and then he took his
time. A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before
taking anything else.
The house was a private residence. By its boarded front door and
untrimmed Boston ivy the burglar knew that the mistress of it was
sitting on some oceanside piazza telling a sympathetic man in a
yachting cap that no one had ever understood her sensitive, lonely
heart. He knew by the light in the third-story front windows, and by
the lateness of the season, that the master of the house had come
home, and would soon extinguish his light and retire. For it was
September of the year and of the soul, in which season the house's
good man comes to consider roof gardens and stenographers as vanities,
and to desire the return of his mate and the more durable blessings of
decorum and the moral excellencies.
The burglar lighted a cigarette. The guarded glow of the match
illuminated his salient points for a moment. He belonged to the third
type of burglars.
This third type has not yet been recognized and accepted. The police
have made us familiar with the first and second. Their classification
is simple. The collar is the distinguishing mark.
When a burglar is caught who does not wear a collar he is described as
a degenerate of the lowest type, singularly vicious and depraved, and
is suspected of being the desperate criminal who stole the handcuffs
out of Patrolman Hennessy's pocket in 1878 and walked away to escape
arrest.
The other well-known type is the burglar who wears a collar. He is
always referred to as a Raffles in real life. He is invariably a
gentleman by daylight, breakfasting in a dress suit, and posing as a
paperhanger, while after dark he plies his nefarious occupation of
burglary. His mother is an extremely wealthy and respected resident
of Ocean Grove, and when he is conducted to his cell he asks at once
for a nail file and the _Police Gazette_. He always has a wife in
every State in the Union and fiancées in all the Territories, and the
newspapers print his matrimonial gallery out of their stock of cuts of
the ladies who were cured by only one bottle after having been given
up by five doctors, experiencing great relief after the first dose.
The burglar wore a blue sweater. He was neither a Raffles nor one of
the chefs from Hell's Kitchen. The police would have been baffled
had they attempted to classify him. They have not yet heard of the
respectable, unassuming burglar who is neither above nor below his
station.
This burglar of the third class began to prowl. He wore no masks,
dark lanterns, or gum shoes. He carried a 38-calibre revolver in his
pocket, and he chewed peppermint gum thoughtfully.
The furniture of the house was swathed in its summer dust protectors.
The silver was far away in safe-deposit vaults. The burglar expected
no remarkable "haul." His objective point was that dimly lighted
room where the master of the house should be sleeping heavily
after whatever solace he had sought to lighten the burden of
his loneliness. A "touch" might be made there to the extent of
legitimate, fair professional profits - loose money, a watch, a
jewelled stick-pin - nothing exorbitant or beyond reason. He had seen
the window left open and had taken the chance.
The burglar softly opened the door of the lighted room. The gas was
turned low. A man lay in the bed asleep. On the dresser lay many
things in confusion - a crumpled roll of bills, a watch, keys, three
poker chips, crushed cigars, a pink silk hair bow, and an unopened
bottle of bromo-seltzer for a bulwark in the morning.
The burglar took three steps toward the dresser. The man in the bed
suddenly uttered a squeaky groan and opened his eyes. His right hand
slid under his pillow, but remained there.
"Lay still," said the burglar in conversational tone. Burglars of the
third type do not hiss. The citizen in the bed looked at the round end
of the burglar's pistol and lay still.
"Now hold up both your hands," commanded the burglar.
The citizen had a little, pointed, brown-and-gray beard, like that
of a painless dentist. He looked solid, esteemed, irritable, and
disgusted. He sat up in bed and raised his right hand above his head.
"Up with the other one," ordered the burglar. "You might be amphibious
and shoot with your left. You can count two, can't you? Hurry up,
now."
"Can't raise the other one," said the citizen, with a contortion of
his lineaments.
"What's the matter with it?"
"Rheumatism in the shoulder."
"Inflammatory?"
"Was. The inflammation has gone down." The burglar stood for a moment
or two, holding his gun on the afflicted one. He glanced at the
plunder on the dresser and then, with a half-embarrassed air, back at
the man in the bed. Then he, too, made a sudden grimace.
"Don't stand there making faces," snapped the citizen, bad-humouredly.
"If you've come to burgle why don't you do it? There's some stuff
lying around."
"'Scuse me," said the burglar, with a grin; "but it just socked me
one, too. It's good for you that rheumatism and me happens to be old
pals. I got it in my left arm, too. Most anybody but me would have
popped you when you wouldn't hoist that left claw of yours."
"How long have you had it?" inquired the citizen.
"Four years. I guess that ain't all. Once you've got it, it's you for
a rheumatic life - that's my judgment."
"Ever try rattlesnake oil?" asked the citizen, interestedly.
"Gallons," said the burglar. "If all the snakes I've used the oil of
was strung out in a row they'd reach eight times as far as Saturn, and
the rattles could be heard at Valparaiso, Indiana, and back."
"Some use Chiselum's Pills," remarked the citizen.
"Fudge!" said the burglar. "Took 'em five months. No good. I had some
relief the year I tried Finkelham's Extract, Balm of Gilead poultices
and Potts's Pain Pulverizer; but I think it was the buckeye I carried
in my pocket what done the trick."
"Is yours worse in the morning or at night?" asked the citizen.
"Night," said the burglar; "just when I'm busiest. Say, take down that
arm of yours - I guess you won't - Say! did you ever try Blickerstaff's
Blood Builder?"
"I never did. Does yours come in paroxysms or is it a steady pain?"
The burglar sat down on the foot of the bed and rested his gun on his
crossed knee.
"It jumps," said he. "It strikes me when I ain't looking for it. I had
to give up second-story work because I got stuck sometimes half-way
up. Tell you what - I don't believe the bloomin' doctors know what is
good for it."
"Same here. I've spent a thousand dollars without getting any relief.
Yours swell any?"
"Of mornings. And when it's goin' to rain - great Christopher!"
"Me, too," said the citizen. "I can tell when a streak of humidity the
size of a table-cloth starts from Florida on its way to New York. And
if I pass a theatre where there's an 'East Lynne' matinee going on,
the moisture starts my left arm jumping like a toothache."
"It's undiluted - hades!" said the burglar.
"You're dead right," said the citizen.
The burglar looked down at his pistol and thrust it into his pocket
with an awkward attempt at ease.
"Say, old man," he said, constrainedly, "ever try opodeldoc?"
"Slop!" said the citizen angrily. "Might as well rub on restaurant
butter."
"Sure," concurred the burglar. "It's a salve suitable for little
Minnie when the kitty scratches her finger. I'll tell you what! We're
up against it. I only find one thing that eases her up. Hey? Little
old sanitary, ameliorating, lest-we-forget Booze. Say - this job's
off - 'scuse me - get on your clothes and let's go out and have some.
'Scuse the liberty, but - ouch! There she goes again!"
"For a week," said the citizen. "I haven't been able to dress myself
without help. I'm afraid Thomas is in bed, and - "
"Climb out," said the burglar, "I'll help you get into your duds."
The conventional returned as a tidal wave and flooded the citizen. He
stroked his brown-and-gray beard.
"It's very unusual - " he began.
"Here's your shirt," said the burglar, "fall out. I knew a man who
said Omberry's Ointment fixed him in two weeks so he could use both
hands in tying his four-in-hand."
As they were going out the door the citizen turned and started back.
"'Liked to forgot my money," he explained; "laid it on the dresser
last night."
The burglar caught him by the right sleeve.
"Come on," he said bluffly. "I ask you. Leave it alone. I've got the
price. Ever try witch hazel and oil of wintergreen?"
IX
AT ARMS WITH MORPHEUS
I never could quite understand how Tom Hopkins came to make that
blunder, for he had been through a whole term at a medical
college - before he inherited his aunt's fortune - and had been
considered strong in therapeutics.
We had been making a call together that evening, and afterward Tom
ran up to my rooms for a pipe and a chat before going on to his own
luxurious apartments. I had stepped into the other room for a moment
when I heard Tom sing out:
"Oh, Billy, I'm going to take about four grains of quinine, if you
don't mind - I'm feeling all blue and shivery. Guess I'm taking cold."
"All right," I called back. "The bottle is on the second shelf. Take
it in a spoonful of that elixir of eucalyptus. It knocks the bitter
out."
After I came back we sat by the fire and got our briars going. In
about eight minutes Tom sank back into a gentle collapse.
I went straight to the medicine cabinet and looked.
"You unmitigated hayseed!" I growled. "See what money will do for a
man's brains!"
There stood the morphine bottle with the stopple out, just as Tom had
left it.
I routed out another young M.D. who roomed on the floor above, and
sent him for old Doctor Gales, two squares away. Tom Hopkins has too
much money to be attended by rising young practitioners alone.
When Gales came we put Tom through as expensive a course of treatment
as the resources of the profession permit. After the more drastic
remedies we gave him citrate of caffeine in frequent doses and strong
coffee, and walked him up and down the floor between two of us. Old
Gales pinched him and slapped his face and worked hard for the big
check he could see in the distance. The young M.D. from the next floor
gave Tom a most hearty, rousing kick, and then apologized to me.
"Couldn't help it," he said. "I never kicked a millionaire before in
my life. I may never have another opportunity."
"Now," said Doctor Gales, after a couple of hours, "he'll do. But keep
him awake for another hour. You can do that by talking to him and
shaking him up occasionally. When his pulse and respiration are normal
then let him sleep. I'll leave him with you now."
I was left alone with Tom, whom we had laid on a couch. He lay very
still, and his eyes were half closed. I began my work of keeping him
awake.
"Well, old man," I said, "you've had a narrow squeak, but we've pulled
you through. When you were attending lectures, Tom, didn't any of
the professors ever casually remark that m-o-r-p-h-i-a never spells
'quinia,' especially in four-grain doses? But I won't pile it up on
you until you get on your feet. But you ought to have been a druggist,
Tom; you're splendidly qualified to fill prescriptions."
Tom looked at me with a faint and foolish smile.
"B'ly," he murmured, "I feel jus' like a hum'n bird flyin' around a
jolly lot of most 'shpensive roses. Don' bozzer me. Goin' sleep now."
And he went to sleep in two seconds. I shook him by the shoulder.
"Now, Tom," I said, severely, "this won't do. The big doctor said you
must stay awake for at least an hour. Open your eyes. You're not
entirely safe yet, you know. Wake up."
Tom Hopkins weighs one hundred and ninety-eight. He gave me another
somnolent grin, and fell into deeper slumber. I would have made him
move about, but I might as well have tried to make Cleopatra's needle
waltz around the room with me. Tom's breathing became stertorous, and
that, in connection with morphia poisoning, means danger.
Then I began to think. I could not rouse his body; I must strive to
excite his mind. "Make him angry," was an idea that suggested itself.
"Good!" I thought; but how? There was not a joint in Tom's armour.
Dear old fellow! He was good nature itself, and a gallant gentleman,
fine and true and clean as sunlight. He came from somewhere down
South, where they still have ideals and a code. New York had charmed,
but had not spoiled, him. He had that old-fashioned chivalrous
reverence for women, that - Eureka! - there was my idea! I worked the
thing up for a minute or two in my imagination. I chuckled to myself
at the thought of springing a thing like that on old Tom Hopkins. Then
I took him by the shoulder and shook him till his ears flopped. He
opened his eyes lazily. I assumed an expression of scorn and contempt,
and pointed my finger within two inches of his nose.
"Listen to me, Hopkins," I said, in cutting and distinct tones, "you
and I have been good friends, but I want you to understand that in the
future my doors are closed against any man who acts as much like a
scoundrel as you have."
Tom looked the least bit interested.
"What's the matter, Billy?" he muttered, composedly. "Don't your
clothes fit you?"
"If I were in your place," I went on, "which, thank God, I am not, I
think I would be afraid to close my eyes. How about that girl you left
waiting for you down among those lonesome Southern pines - the girl
that you've forgotten since you came into your confounded money? Oh,
I know what I'm talking about. While you were a poor medical student
she was good enough for you. But now, since you are a millionaire,
it's different. I wonder what she thinks of the performances of that
peculiar class of people which she has been taught to worship - the
Southern gentlemen? I'm sorry, Hopkins, that I was forced to speak
about these matters, but you've covered it up so well and played your
part so nicely that I would have sworn you were above such unmanly
tricks."
Poor Tom. I could scarcely keep from laughing outright to see him
struggling against the effects of the opiate. He was distinctly angry,
and I didn't blame him. Tom had a Southern temper. His eyes were
open now, and they showed a gleam or two of fire. But the drug still
clouded his mind and bound his tongue.
"C-c-confound you," he stammered, "I'll s-smash you."
He tried to rise from the couch. With all his size he was very weak
now. I thrust him back with one arm. He lay there glaring like a lion
in a trap.
"That will hold you for a while, you old loony," I said to myself. I
got up and lit my pipe, for I was needing a smoke. I walked around a
bit, congratulating myself on my brilliant idea.
I heard a snore. I looked around. Tom was asleep again. I walked over
and punched him on the jaw. He looked at me as pleasant and ungrudging
as an idiot. I chewed my pipe and gave it to him hard.
"I want you to recover yourself and get out of my rooms as soon as
you can," I said, insultingly. "I've told you what I think of you. If
you have any honour or honesty left you will think twice before you
attempt again to associate with gentlemen. She's a poor girl, isn't
she?" I sneered. "Somewhat too plain and unfashionable for us since we
got our money. Be ashamed to walk on Fifth Avenue with her, wouldn't
you? Hopkins, you're forty-seven times worse than a cad. Who cares
for your money? I don't. I'll bet that girl don't. Perhaps if you
didn't have it you'd be more of a man. As it is you've made a cur
of yourself, and" - I thought that quite dramatic - "perhaps broken a
faithful heart." (Old Tom Hopkins breaking a faithful heart!) "Let me
be rid of you as soon as possible."
I turned my back on Tom, and winked at myself in a mirror. I heard
him moving, and I turned again quickly. I didn't want a hundred and
ninety-eight pounds falling on me from the rear. But Tom had only
turned partly over, and laid one arm across his face. He spoke a few
words rather more distinctly than before.
"I couldn't have - talked this way - to you, Billy, even if I'd heard
people - lyin' 'bout you. But jus' soon's I can s-stand up - I'll break
your neck - don' f'get it."
I did feel a little ashamed then. But it was to save Tom. In the
morning, when I explained it, we would have a good laugh over it
together.
In about twenty minutes Tom dropped into a sound, easy slumber. I felt
his pulse, listened to his respiration, and let him sleep. Everything
was normal, and Tom was safe. I went into the other room and tumbled
into bed.
I found Tom up and dressed when I awoke the next morning. He was
entirely himself again with the exception of shaky nerves and a tongue
like a white-oak chip.
"What an idiot I was," he said, thoughtfully. "I remember thinking
that quinine bottle looked queer while I was taking the dose. Have
much trouble in bringing me 'round?"
I told him no. His memory seemed bad about the entire affair. I
concluded that he had no recollection of my efforts to keep him awake,
and decided not to enlighten him. Some other time, I thought, when he
was feeling better, we would have some fun over it.
When Tom was ready to go he stopped, with the door open, and shook my
hand.
"Much obliged, old fellow," he said, quietly, "for taking so much
trouble with me - and for what you said. I'm going down now to
telegraph to the little girl."
X
A GHOST OF A CHANCE
"Actually, a _hod_!" repeated Mrs. Kinsolving, pathetically.
Mrs. Bellamy Bellmore arched a sympathetic eyebrow. Thus she expressed
condolence and a generous amount of apparent surprise.
"Fancy her telling everywhere," recapitulated Mrs. Kinsolving, "that
she saw a ghost in the apartment she occupied here - our choicest
guest-room - a ghost, carrying a hod on its shoulder - the ghost of
an old man in overalls, smoking a pipe and carrying a hod! The very
absurdity of the thing shows her malicious intent. There never was a
Kinsolving that carried a hod. Every one knows that Mr. Kinsolving's
father accumulated his money by large building contracts, but he never
worked a day with his own hands. He had this house built from his own
plans; but - oh, a hod! Why need she have been so cruel and malicious?"
"It is really too bad," murmured Mrs. Bellmore, with an approving
glance of her fine eyes about the vast chamber done in lilac and old
gold. "And it was in this room she saw it! Oh, no, I'm not afraid of
ghosts. Don't have the least fear on my account. I'm glad you put me
in here. I think family ghosts so interesting! But, really, the story
does sound a little inconsistent. I should have expected something
better from Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins. Don't they carry bricks in hods?
Why should a ghost bring bricks into a villa built of marble and
stone? I'm so sorry, but it makes me think that age is beginning to
tell upon Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins."
"This house," continued Mrs. Kinsolving, "was built upon the site of
an old one used by the family during the Revolution. There wouldn't
be anything strange in its having a ghost. And there was a Captain
Kinsolving who fought in General Greene's army, though we've never
been able to secure any papers to vouch for it. If there is to be a
family ghost, why couldn't it have been his, instead of a
bricklayer's?"
"The ghost of a Revolutionary ancestor wouldn't be a bad idea," agreed
Mrs. Bellmore; "but you know how arbitrary and inconsiderate ghosts
can be. Maybe, like love, they are 'engendered in the eye.' One
advantage of those who see ghosts is that their stories can't be
disproved. By a spiteful eye, a Revolutionary knapsack might easily be
construed to be a hod. Dear Mrs. Kinsolving, think no more of it. I am