NEW FRIENDS
William Carmody opened his eyes to a sense of drowsy contentment and
well-being. That the elegantly appointed room over which his glance
traveled was not his room, disturbed him not at all.
He realized that his head was heavily bandaged and that the
white-capped, linen-clad young woman at the window was a nurse. He
watched her fingers move swiftly and surely in the fashioning of a
small round of needlework.
Her face was turned from him but somehow he knew that she was young
and, in a dreamy sort of way, hoped she was pretty. He thought of
attracting her attention but decided to prolong the suspense--the
chances were against it--so many girls are not.
He closed his eyes and tried to think. The fact that he was in a
strange room with his head swathed in bandages, and that a young and
possibly pretty nurse sat at the window, evidently for the purpose of
ministering to him, suggested a hospital.
Young Carmody had never been in a hospital, but the atmosphere of this
room did not in any way conform to his rather vague notion of what a
hospital should be. There was no long row of white beds all just alike,
nor white walls, nor tiled floors over which people tip-toed to and fro
and talked in hurried, low-voiced tones; nor was the air laden with the
smell of drugs which he had always associated in his mind with such
places. He must ask the nurse.
He was so drowsily comfortable that it was with an effort he opened his
eyes. A rebellious lock of hair strayed from under her cap as she
leaned over her work. The sunlight caught it and through the rich
threads of its length shot tiny glints of gold.
"Ethel!" The name sprang involuntarily from his lips and even as he
spoke he smiled at the thought. The girl laid aside her work and
crossed to the bed.
"You called?" she asked, and the man realized vaguely that her voice
was low and very pleasant.
"Yes--that is, no--I mean, you _are_ pretty, aren't you?" He smiled
frankly up at her, and somehow the smile was contagious--she even
blushed slightly.
"You must excuse me this time," he continued, "I must have been
thinking out loud."
"You seem to be a--well, a rather abrupt young man," she smiled. "But
you must not try to think--yet. And my name is not Ethel."
"Oh, that's all right. You can't help that, you know--I mean, I think
your name is very pretty--whatever it is," he floundered. "The truth
is, I don't seem to be able to say what I do mean. But really I am not
a fool, although I don't suppose you will ever believe it."
"There, you have talked quite enough. The doctor said you must rest and
not get excited." She smoothed the covers with little pats of her soft
hands.
"But what I want to know," he persisted, with a frown of perplexity,
"is, where am I?"
"You are all right," she soothed. "You are here."
"But why am I here?"
"Because. Now go to sleep like a good boy. The doctor will be here
before long and he will hold me responsible for your condition."
Oddly enough her answers seemed eminently sufficient and satisfactory,
and he closed his eyes and slept contentedly.
Hours later he was awakened by the opening of a door.
A tall, dark man, with a brown beard neatly trimmed to a point, entered
closely followed by an elderly man who carried his arm in a sling, and
whom young Carmody recognized as his fellow-passenger of the smoker.
At once the whole train of recent events flashed through his brain: the
wild escapade on Broadway, the scene with his father, his parting with
Ethel Manton, the wreck, and his fight in the dark--each in its proper
sequence.
He was very wide awake now and watched the brown-bearded man eagerly as
he picked up a chart from the table and scrutinized it minutely.
"How is the head?" the man asked, with his fingers on the pulse.
"Fine, doctor. Wouldn't know I had one if it were not for these
bandages. And your arm, sir?" he added, with a smile of recognition
toward the elderly man.
"Doing fairly, thank you. It is broken, but our friend here thinks it
will come along all right."
The doctor, with a nod of approval returned the watch to his pocket and
was preparing to leave when his patient detained him with a question.
"I have not been able to locate myself. This is not a hospital, is it?"
"Hardly," smiled the other, "although it answers the purpose admirably.
This is the Brownstone Hotel."
"With rooms at twenty per!" gasped the invalid. "Doctor, some one has
blundered. After buying my railroad ticket I had just four dollars
left, and no chance in the world of getting hold of any more until I
connect with a job."
The men laughed.
"I must be going," said the doctor. "You two can chat for a while.
Don't tire yourself out, young man, and in a day or two you will be fit
as a fiddle. Wish I had your physique! That system of yours is a
natural shock absorber. We run across them once in a long
while--half-killed one day and back the next hunting for more on the
rebound."
At the door he paused: "Take care of yourself, eat anything that looks
good to you, smoke if you want to, talk, read, sleep, and in the
morning we will let you get up and stretch your legs. Good by!"
"Some doctor, that," laughed the patient. "Does a man good just to hear
him talk. Most of them go away leaving the patient guessing whether the
next visit will be from them or the undertaker--and rather hoping for
the latter. But with this fellow the professional man is swallowed up
in the human being--he fairly radiates life."
The other smiled as he settled himself into the chair near the bedside,
vacated by the physician.
"Yes, he is a great doctor. Stands well toward the head of his
profession. We have no finer in the Northwest." Young Carmody's face
clouded.
"But how am I to pay for all this? It is all well enough for you to
laugh, but to me it is a serious matter. I----"
"Young man, you are my guest. I don't know who you are, nor where you
came from, but, by gad, I know a man when I see one! From the time you
sat in that game to save that poor young fool from being fleeced until
you dove into that black hole and throttled that skunk----"
"They caught him, did they?"
"Caught him! They had to pry him loose! You have got the grip of the
devil himself. The police surgeon told me they would have to put a
whole new set of plumbing in his throat. Said he wouldn't have believed
that any living thing, short of a gorilla, could have clamped down that
hard with one hand.
"And there I had to lie pinned down and watch him go through a dead
man's pockets--it was our friend the reporter. And then he turned
around and calmly went through mine. Gad! If I'd had a gun! All the
time he kept up a run of talk, joking about the wreck and the easy
pickings it gave him.
"He was disappointed when he failed to find you--said he owed you
something for gumming his game. Well, he found you all right--and when
he gets out of the hospital he is slated for twenty years in Joliet."
The man paused and glanced at his watch.
"Bless my soul! It is after two o'clock! We will have luncheon served
here."
"It is a peculiar situation," mused the invalid. "The last thing I
remember is being in the thick of a railroad wreck, and here I wake up
in bed, with a trained nurse in the room, to find myself the guest of a
man whose name I do not even know."
"Appleton--H. D. Appleton, of Minneapolis. I am a lumberman--just
returning from the National Lumberman's Convention in Buffalo. And
yours?"
He was interrupted by a tap at the door and a couple of waiters entered
bearing trays.