Kitabı oku: «The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI», sayfa 2
UP AND DOWN OLD BRANDYWINE
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Up and down old Brandywine,
In the days 'at's past and gone—
With a dad-burn hook-and-line
And a saplin'-pole—i swawn!
I've had more fun, to the square
Inch, than ever anywhere!
Heaven to come can't discount mine
Up and down old Brandywine!
Haint no sense in wishin'—yit
Wisht to goodness I could jes
"Gee" the blame world round and git
Back to that old happiness!—
Kindo' drive back in the shade
"The old Covered Bridge" there laid
Crosst the crick, and sorto' soak
My soul over, hub and spoke!
Honest, now!—it haint no dream
'At I'm wantin',—but the fac's
As they wuz; the same old stream,
And the same old times, i jacks!—
Gim me back my bare feet—and
Stonebruise too!—And scratched and tanned!
And let hottest dog-days shine
Up and down old Brandywine!
In and on betwixt the trees
'Long the banks, pour down yer noon,
Kindo' curdled with the breeze
And the yallerhammer's tune;
And the smokin', chokin' dust
O' the turnpike at its wusst—
Saturd'ys, say, when it seems
Road's jes jammed with country teams!—
Whilse the old town, fur away
'Crosst the hazy pastur'-land,
Dozed-like in the heat o' day
Peaceful' as a hired hand.
Jolt the gravel th'ough the floor
O' the old bridge!—grind and roar
With yer blame percession-line—
Up and down old Brandywine!
Souse me and my new straw-hat
Off the foot-log!—what I care?—
Fist shoved in the crown o' that—
Like the old Clown ust to wear.
Wouldn't swop it fer a' old
Gin-u-wine raal crown o' gold!—
Keep yer King ef you'll gim me
Jes the boy I ust to be!
Spill my fishin'-worms! er steal
My best "goggle-eye!"—but you
Can't lay hands on joys I feel
Nibblin' like they ust to do!
So, in memory, to-day
Same old ripple lips away
At my cork and saggin' line,
Up and down old Brandywine!
There the logs is, round the hill,
Where "Old Irvin" ust to lift
Out sunfish from daylight till
Dew-fall—'fore he'd leave "The Drift"
And give us a chance—and then
Kindo' fish back home again,
Ketchin' 'em jes left and right
Where we hadn't got "a bite!"
Er, 'way windin' out and in,—
Old path th'ough the iurnweeds
And dog-fennel to yer chin—
Then come suddent, th'ough the reeds
And cat-tails, smack into where
Them-air woods-hogs ust to scare
Us clean 'crosst the County-line,
Up and down old Brandywine!
But the dim roar o' the dam
It 'ud coax us furder still
Tords the old race, slow and ca'm,
Slidin' on to Huston's mill—
Where, I 'spect, "The Freeport crowd"
Never warmed to us er 'lowed
We wuz quite so overly
Welcome as we aimed to be.
Still it peared-like ever'thing—
Fur away from home as there—
Had more relish-like, i jing!—
Fish in stream, er bird in air!
O them rich old bottom-lands,
Past where Cowden's Schoolhouse stands!
Wortermelons—master-mine!
Up and down old Brandywine!
And sich pop-paws!—Lumps o' raw
Gold and green,—jes oozy th'ough
With ripe yaller—like you've saw
Custard-pie with no crust to:
And jes gorges o' wild plums,
Till a feller'd suck his thumbs
Clean up to his elbows! My!—
Me some more er lem me die!
Up and down old Brandywine!…
Stripe me with pokeberry-juice!—
Flick me with a pizenvine
And yell "Yip!" and lem me loose!
—Old now as I then wuz young,
'F I could sing as I have sung,
Song 'ud surely ring dee-vine
Up and down old Brandywine!
JONES
BY LLOYD OSBOURNE
I
I could have taken "No" like a man, and would have gone away decently and never bothered her again. I told her so straight out in the first angry flush of my rejection—but this string business, with everything left hanging in the air, so to speak, made a fellow feel like thirty cents.
"It simply means that I'm engaged and you are not," I said.
"It's nothing of the kind," she returned tearfully. "You're as free as free, Ezra. You can go away this moment, and never write or anything!"
Her lips trembled as she said this, and I confess it gave me a kind of savage pleasure to feel that it was still in my power to hurt her.
It may sound unkind, but still you must admit that the whole situation was exasperating. Here was five-foot-five of exquisite, blooming, twenty-year-old American girlhood sending away the man she confessed to care for, because, forsooth, she would not marry before her elder sister! I always thought it was beautiful of Freddy (she was named Frederica, you know) to be always so sweet and tender and grateful about Eleanor; but sometimes gratitude can be carried altogether too far, even if you are an orphan, and were brought up by hand. Eleanor was thirty-four if a day—a nice enough woman, of course, and college bred, and cultivated, and clever—but her long suit wasn't good looks. She was tall and bony; worshipped genius and all that; and played the violin.
"No," repeated Freddy, "I shall never, never marry before Eleanor. It would mortify her—I know it would—and make her feel that she herself had failed. She's awfully frank about those things, Ezra—surprisingly frank. I don't see why being an old maid is always supposed to be so funny, do you? It's touching and tragic in a woman who'd like to marry and who isn't asked!"
"But Eleanor must have had heaps of offers," I said, "surely—"
"Just one."
"Well, one's something," I remarked cheerfully. "Why didn't she take him then?"
"She told me only last night that she was sorry she hadn't!"
Here, at any rate, was something to chew on. I saw a gleam of hope. Why shouldn't Eleanor marry the only one—and make us all happy!
"That was three years ago," said Freddy.
"I have loved you for four," I retorted. I was cross with disappointment. To be dashed to the ground, you know, just as I was beginning—"Tell me some more about him," I went on. I'm a plain business man and hang on to an idea like a bulldog; once I get my teeth in they stay in, for all you may drag at me and wallop me with an umbrella—metaphorically speaking, of course.
"Tell me his name, where he lives, and all."
"We were coming back from Colorado, and there was some mistake about our tickets. They sold our Pullman drawing-room twice over—to Doctor Jones and his mother, and also to ourselves. You never saw such a fight—and that led to our making friends, and his proposing to Eleanor!"
"Then why in Heaven's name didn't she" (it was on the tip of my tongue to say "jump at him") "take him?"
"She said she couldn't marry a man who was her intellectual inferior."
"And was he?"
"Oh, he was a perfect idiot—but nice, and all that, and tremendously in love with her. Pity, wasn't it?"
"The obvious thing to do is to chase him up instantly. Where did you say he lived?"
"His mother told me he was going to New York to practice medicine."
"But didn't you ever hear from him again? I mean, was that the end of it all?"
"Yes."
"Then you don't even know if he has married since?"
"No!"
"Nor died?"
"No."
"Nor anything at all?"
"No."
"What was his first name?"
"Wait a moment … let me think … yes, it was Harry."
"Just Harry Jones, then, New York City?"
Freddy laughed forlornly.
"But he must have had antecedents," I cried out. "There are two ways of doing this Sherlock Holmes business—backward and forward, you know. Let's take Doctor Jones backward. As they say in post-office forms?—what was his place of origin?"
"New York City."
"He begins there and ends there, does he, then?"
"Yes."
"But how sure are you that Eleanor would marry him if I did manage to find him and bring him back?"
"I'm not sure at all."
"No, but Freddy, listen—it's important. You told me yourself that she—I want the very identical words she used."
Freddy reflected.
"She said she was almost sorry she hadn't accepted that silly doctor!"
"That doesn't seem much, does it?" I remarked gloomily.
"Oh, from Eleanor it does, Ezra. She said it quite seriously. She always hides her feelings under a veil of sarcastic humor, you know."
"You're certainly a very difficult family to marry," I said.
"Being an orphan—" she began.
"Well, I'm going to find that Jones if I—!"
"Ezra, dear boy, you're crazy. How could you think for a moment that—"
"I'm off, little girl. Good-by!"
"Wait a second, Ezra!"
She rose and went into the next room, reappearing with something in her hand. She was crying and smiling both at once. I took the little case she gave me—it was like one of those things that pen-knives are put in—and looked at her for an explanation.
"It's the h-h-hindleg of a j-j-jack-rabbit," she said, "shot by a g-g-grave at the f-f-full of the moon. It's supposed to be l-l-lucky. It was given to me by a naval officer who got drowned. It's the only way I can h-h-help you!"
And thus equipped I started bravely for New York.
II
In the directory I found eleven pages of Joneses; three hundred and eighty-four Henry Joneses; and (excluding seventeen dentists) eighty-seven Doctor Henry Joneses. I asked one of the typists in the office to copy out the list, and prepared to wade in. We were on the eve of a labor war, and it was exceedingly difficult for me to get away. As the managing partner of Hodge & Westoby, boxers (not punching boxers, nor China boxers, but just plain American box-making boxers), I had to bear the brunt of the whole affair, and had about as much spare time as you could heap on a ten-cent piece. I had to be firm, conciliatory, defiant and tactful all at once, and every hour I took off for Jonesing threatened to blow the business sky-high. It was a tight place and no mistake, and it was simply jack-rabbit hindleg luck that pulled me through!
My first Jones was a hoary old rascal above a drug store. He was a hard man to get away from, and made such a fuss about my wasting his time with idle questions that I flung him a dollar and departed. He followed me down to my cab and insisted on sticking in a giant bottle of his Dog-Root Tonic. I dropped it overboard a few blocks farther on, and thought that was the end of it till the whole street began to yell at me, and a policeman grabbed my horse, while a street arab darted up breathless with the Dog-Root Tonic. I presented it to him, together with a quarter, the policeman darkly regarding me as an incipient madman.
The second Jones was a man of about thirty, a nice, gentlemanly fellow, in a fine office. I have usually been an off-hand man in business, accustomed to quick decisions and very little beating about the bush. But I confess I was rather nonplussed with the second Jones. How the devil was I to begin? His waiting-room was full of people, and I hardly felt entitled to sit down and gas about one thing and the other till the chance offered of leading up to the Van Coorts. So I said I had some queer, shooting sensations in the chest. In five minutes he had me half-stripped and was pounding my midriff in. And the questions that man asked! He began with my grandparents, roamed through my childhood and youth, dissected my early manhood, and finally came down to coffee and what I ate for breakfast.
Then it was my turn.
I asked him, as a starter, whether he had ever been in Colorado?
No, he hadn't.
After forty-five minutes of being hammered, and stethoscoped, and punched, and holding my breath till I was purple, and hopping on one leg, he said I was a very obscure case of something with nine syllables!
"At least, I won't be positive with one examination," he said; "but kindly come to-morrow at nine, when I shall be more at leisure to go into the matter thoroughly."
I paid him ten dollars and went sorrowfully away.
The third Jones was too old to be my man; so was the fourth; the fifth had gone away the month before, leaving no address; the sixth, however, was younger and more promising. I thought this time I'd choose something easier than pains in the chest. I changed them to my left hand. I was going to keep my clothes on, anyhow. But it wasn't any use. Off they came. After a decent interval of thumping and grandfathers, and what I had for breakfast, I managed to get in my question:
"Ever in Colorado, Doctor?"
"Oh, dear me, no!"
Another ten dollars, and nothing accomplished!
The seventh Jones was again too old; the eighth was a pale hobbledehoy; the ninth was a loathsome quack; the tenth had died that morning; the eleventh was busy; the twelfth was a veterinary surgeon; the thirteenth was an intern living at home with his widowed sister. Colorado? No, the widowed sister was positive he had never been there. The fourteenth was a handsome fellow of about thirty-five. He looked poor and threadbare, and I had a glimpse of a shabby bed behind a screen. Patients obviously did not often come his way, and his joy at seeing me was pitiful. I had meant to try a bluff and get in my Colorado question this time free of charge; but I hadn't the heart to do it. Slight pains in the head seemed a safe complaint.
After a few questions he said he would have to make a thorough physical examination.
"No clothes off!" I protested.
"It's essential," he said, and went on with something about the radio-activity of the brain, and the vasomotor centers. The word motor made me feel like a sick automobile. I begged to keep my clothes on; I insisted; I promised to come to-morrow; but it wasn't any good, and in a few minutes he was hitting me harder than either of the two before. Maybe I was more tender! He electrocuted me extra from a switchboard, ran red-hot needles into my legs, and finally, after banging me around the room, said I was the strongest and wellest man who had ever entered his office.
"There's a lot of make-believe in medicine," he said; "but I'm one of those poor devils who can't help telling a patient the truth. There's nothing whatever the matter with you, Mr. Westoby, except that your skin has a slightly abrased look, and I seem to notice an abnormal sensitiveness to touch."
"Were you ever in Colorado, Doctor?" I asked while he was good enough to help me into my shirt.
"Oh, yes, I know Colorado well!"
My heart beat high.
"Some friends of mine were out there three years ago," I said. "Wouldn't it be strange if by any chance the Van Coorts—"
"Oh, I left Denver when I was fifteen."
Five dollars!
The fifteenth Jones was a doctor of divinity; the sixteenth was a tapeworm specialist; the seventeenth was too old, the eighteenth was too old, the nineteenth was too old—a trio of disappointing patriarchs. The twentieth painted out black eyes; the twenty-first was a Russian who could scarcely speak any English. He said he had changed his name from Karaforvochristophervitch to something more suited to American pronunciation. He seemed to think that Jones gave him a better chance. I sincerely hope it did. He told me that all the rest of the Jones family was in Siberia, but that he was going to bomb them out! The twenty-second was a negro. The twenty-third—! He was a tall, youngish man, narrow-shouldered, rather commonplace-looking, with beautiful blue eyes, and a timid, winning, deprecatory manner. I told him I was suffering from insomnia. After raking over my grandfathers again and bringing the family history down by stages to the very moment I was shown into his office he said he should have to ask me to undergo a thorough physical—! But I was tired of being slapped and punched and breathed on and prodded, and was bold enough to refuse point-blank. I'd rather have the insomnia! We worked up quite a fuss about it, for there was something tenacious in the fellow, for all his mild, kind, gentle ways; and I had all I could do to get off by pleading press of business. But I wasn't to escape scot-free. Medical science had to get even somehow. He compromised by stinging my eye out with belladonna. Have you ever had belladonna squirted in your eye? Well, don't.
He was sitting at the table, writing out some cabalistic wiggles that stood for bromide of potassium, when I remarked casually that it was strange how well I could always sleep in Colorado.
He laid down the pen with a sigh.
"A wonderful state—Colorado," I observed.
"To me it's the land of memories," he said. "Sad, beautiful, irrevocable memories—try tea for breakfast—do you read Browning? Then you will remember that line: 'Oh, if I—' And I insist on your giving up that cocktail before dinner."
"Some very dear friends of mine were once in Colorado," I said. "Morristown people—the Van Coorts."
"The Van Coorts!"
Doctor Jones sprang from his chair, his thin, handsome face flushing with excitement.
"Do you mean to say that you know Eleanor Van Coort?" he gasped.
"All my life."
He dropped back into the chair again and mumbled something about cigars. I was only to have blank a day. In his perturbation I believe he limited me to a daily box. He was trying—and trying very badly—to conceal the emotions I had conjured up.
"They were talking about you only yesterday," I went on. "That is, if it was you! A Pullman drawing-room—"
"And a mistake about the tickets," he broke out. "Yes, yes, it's they all right. Talking about me, did you say? Did Eleanor—I mean, did Miss Van Coort—express—?"
"She was wondering how she could find you," I said. "You see, they're busy getting up a house-party and she was running over her men. 'If I only knew where that dear Doctor Jones was,' she said, and then asked me, if by any possible chance—"
His fine blue eyes were glistening with all sorts of tender thoughts. It was really touching. And I was in love myself, you know.
"So she has remained unmarried!" he exclaimed softly. "Unmarried—after all these years!"
"She's a very popular girl," I said. "She's had dozens of men at her feet—but an unfortunate attachment, something that seems to go back to about three years ago, has apparently determined her to stay out of the game!"
Doctor Jones dropped his head on his hands and murmured something that sounded like "Eleanor, Eleanor!" Then he looked up with one of the most radiant smiles I ever saw on a man's face. "I hope I'm not presuming on a very short acquaintance," he said, "but the fact is—why should I not tell you?—Miss Van Coort was the woman in my life!"
I explained to him that Freddy was the woman in mine.
Then you ought to have seen us fraternize!
In twenty minutes I had him almost convinced that Eleanor had loved him all these years. But he worried a lot about a Mr. Wise who had been on the same train, and a certain Colonel Hadow who had also paid Eleanor attention. Jones was a great fellow for wanting to be sure. I pooh-poohed them out of the way and gave him the open track. Then, indeed, the clouds rolled away. He beamed with joy. In his rich gush of friendship he recurred to the subject of my insomnia with a new-born enthusiasm. He subdivided all my symptoms. He dived again into my physical being. He consulted German authorities. I squirmed and lied and resisted all I could, but he said he owed me an eternal debt that could only be liquidated by an absolute cure. He wanted to tie me up and shoot me with an X-ray. He ordered me to wear white socks. He had a long, terrifying look at a drop of my blood. He jerked hairs out of my head to sample my nerve force. He said I was a baffling subject, but that he meant to make me well if it took the last shot in the scientific locker. And he wound up at last by refusing point-blank to be paid a cent!
I waltzed away on air to write an account of the whole affair to Freddy, and dictate a plan of operations. I was justified in feeling proud of myself. Most men would have tamely submitted to their fate instead of chasing up all the Joneses of Jonesville! Freddy sent me an early answer—a gay, happy, overflowing little note—telling me to try and engage Doctor Jones for a three-day house-party at Morristown. I was to telegraph when he could come, and was promised an official invitation from Mrs. Matthewman. (She was the aunt, you know, that they lived with—one of those old porcelain ladies with a lace cap and a rent-roll.) However, I could not do anything for two days, for we had reached a crisis in the labor troubles, and matters were approaching the breaking point. We were threatened with one of those "sympathetic" strikes that drive business men crazy. There was no question at issue between ourselves and our employes; but the thing ramified off somewhere to the sugar vacuum-boiler riveters' union. Finally the S.V.B.R.U. came to a settlement with their bosses, and peace was permitted to descend on Hodge & Westoby's.
I took immediate advantage of it to descend myself on Doctor Jones. He received me with open arms and an insomniacal outburst. He had been reading up; he had been seeing distinguished confrères; he had been mastering the subject to the last dot, and was panting to begin. I hated to dampen such friendship and ardor by telling him that I had completely recovered. Under the circumstances it seemed brutal—but I did it. The poor fellow tried to argue with me, but I insisted that I now slept like a top. It sounded horribly ungrateful. Here I was spurning the treasures of his mind, and almost insulting him with my disgusting good health. I swerved off to the house-party; Eleanor's delight, and so on; Mrs. Matthewman's pending invitation; the hope that he might have an early date free—
He listened to it all in silence, walking restlessly about the office, his blue eyes shining with a strange light. He took up a bronze paper-weight and gazed at it with an intensity of self-absorption.
"I can't go," he said.
"Oh, but you have to," I exclaimed.
"Mr. Westoby," he resumed, "I was foolish enough to back a friend's credit at a store here. He has skipped to Minnesota, and I am left with three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents to pay. To take a three days' holiday would be a serious matter to me at any time, but at this moment it is impossible."
I gave him a good long look. He didn't strike me as a borrowing kind of man. I should probably insult him by volunteering. Was there ever anything so unfortunate?
"I can't go," he repeated with a little choke.
"You may never have another opportunity," I said. "Eleanor is doing a thing I should never have expected from one of her proud and reserved nature. The advances of such a woman—"
He interrupted me with a groan.
"If it wasn't for my mother I'd throw everything to the winds and fly to her," he burst out. "But I have a mother—a sainted mother, Mr. Westoby—her welfare must always be my first consideration!"
"Is there no chance of anything turning up?" I said. "An appendicitis case—an outbreak of measles? I thought there was a lot of scarlatina just now."
He shook his head dejectedly.
"Doctor," I began again, "I am pretty well fixed myself. I'm blessed with an income that runs to five figures. If all goes the way it should we shall be brothers-in-law in six months. We are almost relations. Give me the privilege of taking over this small obligation—"
I never saw a man so overcome. My proposal seemed to tear the poor devil to pieces. When he spoke his voice was trembling.
"You don't know what it means to me to refuse," he said. "My self-respect … my—my...." And then he positively began to weep!
"You said three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents, I believe?"
He waved it from him with a long, lean hand.
"I can not do it," he said; "and, for God's sake, don't ask me to!"
I argued with him for twenty minutes; I laid the question before him in a million lights; I racked him with a picture of Eleanor, so deeply hurt, so mortified, that in her recklessness and despair she would probably throw herself away on the first man that offered! This was his chance, I told him; the one chance of his life; he was letting a piece of idiotic pride wreck the probable happiness of years. He agreed with me with moans and weeps. He had the candor of a child and the torrential sentiment of a German musician. Three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents stood between him and eternal bliss, and yet he waved my pocketbook from him! And all the while I saw myself losing Freddy.
I went away with his "no, no, no!" still ringing in my ears.
At the club I found a note from Freddy. She pressed me to lose no time. Mrs. Matthewman was talking of going to Europe, and of course she and Eleanor would have to accompany her. Eleanor, she said, had ordered two new gowns and had brightened up wonderfully. "Only yesterday she told me she wished that silly doctor would hurry up and come—and that, you know, from Eleanor is almost a declaration!"
Some of my best friends happened to be in the club. It occurred to me that poor Nevill was diabetic, and that Charley Crossman had been boring everybody about his gout. I buttonholed them both, and laid my unfortunate predicament before them. I said I'd pay all the expenses. In fact, the more they could make it cost the better I'd be pleased.
"What," roared Nevill, "put myself in the hands of a young fool so that he may fill his empty pockets with your money! Where do I come in? Good heavens, Westoby, you're crazy! Think what would happen to me if it came to Doctor Saltworthy's ears? He'd never have anything more to do with me!"
Charley Crossman was equally rebellious and unreasonable.
"I guess you've never had the gout," he said grimly.
"But Charley, old man," I pleaded, "all that you'd have to do would be to let him talk to you. I don't ask you to suffer for it. Just pay—that's all—pay my money!"
"I'm awfully easily talked into things," said Charley. (There was never such a mule on the Produce Exchange.) "He'd be saying, 'Take this'—and I'm the kind of blankety-blank fool that would take it!"
Then I did a mean thing. I reminded Crossman of having backed some bills of his—big bills, too—at a time when it was touch and go whether he'd manage to keep his head above water.
"Westoby," he replied, "don't think that time has lessened my sense of that obligation. I'd cut off my right hand to do you a good turn. But for heaven's sake, don't ask me to monkey with my gout!"
The best I could get out of him was the promise of an anemic servant-girl. Nevill generously threw in a groom with varicose veins. Small contributions, but thankfully received.
"Now, what you do," said Nevill, "is to go round right off and interview Bishop Jordan. He has sick people to burn!"
But I said Jones would get on to it if I deluged him with the misery of the slums.
"That's just where the bishop comes in," said Nevill. "There isn't a man more in touch with the saddest kind of poverty in New York—the decent, clean, shrinking poverty that hides away from all the dead-head coffee and doughnuts. If I was in your fix I'd fall over myself to reach Jordan!"
"Yes, you try Jordan," said Charley, who, I'm sure, had never heard of him before.
"Then it's me for Jordan," said I.
I went down stairs and told one of the bell-boys to look up the address in the telephone-book. It seemed to me he looked pale, that boy.
"Aren't you well, Dan?" I said.
"I don't know what's the matter with me, sir. I guess it must be the night work."
I gave him a five-dollar bill and made him write down 1892 Eighth Avenue on a piece of paper.
"You go and see Doctor Jones first thing," I said. "And don't mention my name, nor spend the money on Her Mad Marriage."
I jumped into a hansom with a pleasant sense that I was beginning to make the fur fly.
"That's a horrible cold of yours, Cabby," I said as we stopped at the bishop's door and I handed him up a dollar bill. "That's just the kind of a cold that makes graveyards hum!"
"I can't shake it off, sir," he said despondently. "Try what I can, and it's never no use!"
"There's one doctor in the world who can cure anything," I said; "Doctor Henry Jones, 1892 Eighth Avenue. I was worse than you two weeks ago, and now look at me! Take this five dollars, and for heaven's sake, man, put yourself in his hands quick."
Bishop Jordan was a fine type of modern clergyman. He was broad-shouldered mentally as well as physically, and he brought to philanthropic work the thoroughness, care, enthusiasm and capacity that would have earned him a fortune in business.
"Bishop," I said, "I've come to see if I can't make a trade with you!"
He raised his grizzled eyebrows and gave me a very searching look.
"A trade," he repeated in a holding-back kind of tone, as though wondering what the trap was.
"Here's a check for one thousand dollars drawn to your order," I went on. "And here's the address of Doctor Henry Jones, 1892 Eighth Avenue. I want this money to reach him via your sick people, and that without my name being known or at all suspected."
"May I not ask the meaning of so peculiar a request?"
"He's hard up," I said, "and I want to help him. It occurred to me that I might make you—er—a confederate in my little game, you know."
His eyes twinkled as he slowly folded up my check and put it in his pocket.
"I don't want any economy about it, Bishop," I went on. "I don't want to make the best use of it, or anything of that kind. I want to slap it into Doctor Jones' till, and slap it in quick."
"Would you consider two weeks—?"
"Oh, one, please!"
"It is understood, of course, that this young man is a duly qualified and capable physician, and that in the event of my finding it otherwise I shall be at liberty to direct your check to other uses?"
"Oh, I can answer for his being all right, Bishop. He's thoroughly up-to-date, you know; does the X-ray act; and keeps the pace of modern science."
