Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Pilar Somoza and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
THE
MIRACLE MAN
BY
FRANK L. PACKARD
AUTHOR OF
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN, ETC.
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
1914
TO
NEARLY
EVERYBODY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE "ROOST"
II A NEW CULT
III NEEDLEY
IV THE PATRIARCH
V A STRANGE CONVERSATION
VI OFFICIALLY ENDORSED
VII THE PATRIARCH'S GRAND NIECE
VIII IN WHICH THE BAIT IS NIBBLED
IX THE PILGRIMAGE
X THE MIRACLE
XI THE AFTERMATH
XII "SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY"
XIII REAL MONEY
XIV KNOTTING THE STRINGS
XV THE MIRACLE OVERDONE
XVI A FLY IN THE OINTMENT
XVII IN WHICH HELENA TAKES A RIDE
XVIII THE BOOMERANG
XIX THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS
XX TO THE VICTOR ARE THE SPOILS
XXI FACE VALUE
XXII THE SHRINE
XXIII THE WAY OUT
XXIV VALE!
THE MIRACLE MAN
--I--
THE "ROOST"
He was a misshapen thing, bulking a black blotch in the night at the
entrance of the dark alleyway--like some lurking creature in its lair.
He neither stood, nor kneeled, nor sat--no single word would describe
his posture--he combined all three in a sort of repulsive, formless
heap.
The Flopper moved. He came out from the alleyway onto the pavement, into
the lurid lights of the Bowery, flopping along knee to toe on one leg,
dragging the other leg behind him--and the leg he dragged was limp and
wobbled from the knee. One hand sought the pavement to balance himself
and aid in locomotion; the other arm, the right, was twisted out from
his body in the shape of an inverted V, the palm of his hand, with half
curled, contorted fingers, almost touching his chin, as his head sagged
at a stiff, set angle into his right shoulder. Hair straggled from the
brim of a nondescript felt hat into his eyes, and curled, dirty and
unshorn, around his ears and the nape of his neck. His face was covered
with a stubble of four days' growth, his body with rags--a coat; a
shirt, the button long since gone at the neck; and trousers gaping in
wide rents at the knees, and torn at the ankles where they flapped
around miss-mated socks and shoes.
A hundred, two hundred people passed him in a block, the populace of the
Bowery awakening into fullest life at midnight, men, women and
children--the dregs of the city's scum--the aristocracy of upper Fifth
Avenue, of Riverside Drive, aping Bohemianism, seeking the lure of the
Turkey Trot, transported from the Barbary Coast of San Francisco. Rich
and poor, squalor and affluence, vice and near-vice surged by him,
voicing their different interests with laughter and sobs and soft words
and blasphemy, and, in a sort of mocking chorus, the composite effect
rose and fell in pitiful, jangling discords.
Few gave him heed--and these few but a cursory, callous glance. The
Flopper, on the inside of the sidewalk, in the shadow of the buildings,
gave as little as he got, though his eyes were fastened sharply, now
ahead, now, screwing around his body to look behind him, on the faces of
the pedestrians as they passed; or, rather, he appeared to look through
and beyond those in his immediate vicinity to the ones that followed in
his rear from further down the street, or approached him from the next
corner.
Suddenly the Flopper shrank into a doorway. From amidst the crowd
behind, the yellow flare of a gasoline lamp, outhanging from a
secondhand shop, glinted on brass buttons. An officer, leisurely
accommodating his pace to his own monarchial pleasure, causing his
hurrying fellow occupants of the pavement to break and circle around
him, sauntered casually by. The Flopper's black eyes contracted with
hate and a scowl settled on his face, as he watched the policeman pass;
then, as the other was lost again in the crowd ahead, he once more
resumed his progress down the block.
The Flopper crossed the intersecting street, his leg trailing a
helpless, sinuous path on its not over-clean surface, and started along
the next block. Halfway down was a garishly lighted establishment. When
near this the Flopper began to hurry desperately, as from further along
the street again his ear caught the peculiar raucous note of an
automobile horn accompanied by the rumbling approach of a heavy motor
vehicle. He edged his way now, wriggling, squirming and dodging between
the pedestrians, to the outer edge of the sidewalk, and stopped in front
of the music hall.
A sight-seeing car, crammed to capacity, reaching its momentary Mecca,
drew up at the curb; and the guide's voice rose over the screech of the
brakes:
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, we will get out here for a little while.
This is Black Ike's famous Auditorium, the scene of last week's
sensational triple murder! Please remember that there is no charge for
admission to patrons of the company. Just show your coupons, ladies and
gentlemen, and walk right ahead."
The passengers began to pour from the long seats to the ground. The
Flopper's hat was in his hand.
"Fer God's sake, gents an' ladies, don't pass me by," he cried
piteously. "I could work once, but look at me now--I was run over by a
fire truck. God bring pity to yer hearts--youse have money fer pleasure,
spare something fer me."
The first man down from the seat halted and stared at the twisted,
unsightly thing before him, and, with a little gasp, reached into his
pocket and dropped a bill into the Flopper's hat.
"God bless you!" stammered the Flopper--and the tears sprang swimming to
his eyes.
The first man passed on with a gruff, "Oh, all right," but he had left
an example behind him that few of his fellow passengers ignored.
"T'ank you, mum," mumbled the Flopper, as the money dropped into his
hat. "God reward you, sir.... Ah, miss, may you never know a tear....
'Twas heaven brought you 'ere to-night, lady."
They passed, following the guide. The Flopper scooped the money into a
pile in his hat, began to tuck it away in some recess of his shirt--when
a hand was thrust suddenly under his nose.
"Come on, now, divvy!" snapped a voice in his ear.
It was the driver of the car, who had dropped from his seat to the
ground. A gleam of hate replaced the tears in the Flopper's eyes.
"Go to hell!" he snarled through thin lips--and his hand closed
automatically over the cap.
"Come on, now, I ain't got no time to fool!" prompted the man, with a
leer. "I'm dead onto your lay, and there's a bull comin' along now--half
or him, which?"
The Flopper's eyes caught the brass buttons of the officer returning on
his beat, and his face was white with an inhuman passion, as, clutching
a portion of what was left in the hat, he lifted his hand from the rest.
"Thanks!" grinned the chauffeur, snatching at the remainder. "'Tain't
half, but it'll do"--and he hurried across the sidewalk, and disappeared
inside a saloon.
Oaths, voicing a passion that rocked the Flopper to his soul, purled in
a torrid stream from his lips, and for a moment made him forget the
proximity of the brass buttons. He raised his fist, that still clenched
some of the money, and shook it after the other--and his fist, uplifted
in midair, was caught in a vicious grip--the harness bull was standing
over him.
"Beat it!" rasped the officer roughly, "or I'll--hullo, what you got
here? Open your hand!"--he gave a sharp twist as he spoke, the
Flopper's fingers uncurled, and the money dropped into the policeman's
other hand--held conveniently below the Flopper's.
"It's mine--gimme it back," whined the Flopper.
"Yours! Yours, is it!" growled the officer. "Where'd you get it? Stole
it, eh? Go on, now, beat it--or I'll run you in! Beat it!"
With twitching fingers, the Flopper picked up his cap, placed it on his
head and sidled away. Ten yards along, in the shadow of the buildings
again, he looked back--the officer was still standing there, twirling
his stick, one hand just emerging from his pocket. The Flopper's finger
nails scratched along the stone pavement and curved into the palm of his
hand until the skin under the knuckles was bloodless white, and his lips
moved in ugly, whispered words--then, still whispering, he went on
again.
Down the Bowery he went like a human toad, keeping in the shadows,
keeping his eyes on the ground before him, a glint like a shudder in
their depths--on he went with hopping, lurching jerks, with whispering
lips. Street after street he passed, and then at a corner he turned and
went East--not far, only to the side entrance of the saloon on the
corner known, to those who _knew_, as the "Roost."
The door before which he stopped, on a level with the street, might
readily have passed for the entrance to one of the adjoining tenements,
for it was innocent to all appearances of any connection with the
unlovely resort of which it was a part--and it was closed.
The Flopper rang no bell. After a quick glance around him to assure
himself that he was not observed, he reached up for the doorknob, turned
it, and with surprising agility hopped oven the threshold and closed the
door behind him.
A staircase, making one side of a narrow and dimly lighted hall, from
down whose length came muffled sounds from the barroom, was before him;
and this, without hesitation, the Flopper began to mount, his knee
thumping from step to step, his dangling leg echoing the sound in a
peculiar; quick double thump. He reached the first landing, went along
it, and started up the second flight--but now the thumping sound he made
seemed accentuated intentionally, and upon his face there spread a grin
of malicious humor.
He halted before the door opposite the head of the second flight of
stairs, opened it, wriggled inside and shut it behind him.
"Hullo, Helena!" he snickered. "Pipe me comin'?"
The room was a fairly large one, gaudily appointed with cheap
furnishings, one of the Roost's private parlors--a girl on a couch in
the corner had raised herself on her elbow, and her dark eyes were fixed
uncompromisingly upon the Flopper, but she made no answer.
The Flopper laughed--then a spasm seemed to run through him, a horrible
boneless contortion of limbs and body, a slippery, twitching movement,
a repulsive though almost inaudible clicking of rehabilitated
joints--and the Flopper stood erect.
The girl was on her feet, her eyes flashing.
"Can that stunt!" she cried angrily. "You give me the shivers! Next time
you throw your fit, you throw it before you come around me, or I'll make
you wish you had--see?"
The Flopper was swinging legs and arms to restore a normal channel of
circulation.
"Y'oughter get used to it," said he, with a grin. "Ain't Pale Face Harry
come yet, an' where's the Doc?"
"Behind the axe under the table," said the girl tartly--and flung
herself back on the couch.
"T'anks," said the Flopper. "Say, Helena, wot's de new lay de Doc has
got up his sleeve?"
Helena made no answer.
"Is yer grouch painin' you so's yer tongue's hurt?" inquired the Flopper
solicitously.
Still no answer.
"Well, go to the devil!" said the Flopper politely.
He resumed the swinging of his arms and legs, but stopped suddenly a
moment later as a step, sounded outside in the hall and he turned
expectantly.
A young man, thin, emaciated, with gaunt, hollow face, abnormally bright
eyes and sallow skin, entered. He was well, but modestly, dressed; and
he coughed a little now, as though the two flights' climb had overtaxed
him--it was the man who had headed the subscription list to the Flopper
half an hour before in front of Black Ike's Auditorium.
"Hello, Helena!" he greeted, nodding toward the couch. "I shook the
rubber-neck bunch at Ike's, Flopper. That was a peach of a haul, eh, old
pal--the boobs came to it as though they couldn't get enough."
A sudden and reminiscent scowl clouded the Flopper's face. He stepped to
the table, reached his hand into his shirt, and flung down a single
one-dollar bill and a few coins.
"Dere's de haul, Harry--help yerself"--his invitation was a snarl.
Pale Face Harry had followed to the table. He looked first at the money,
then at the Flopper--and a tinge of red dyed his cheek. He coughed
before he spoke.
"Y'ain't going to stall on _me_, Flopper, are you?" he demanded, in an
ominous monotone.
"Stall!"--the word came away in a roar too genuine to leave any doubt of
the Flopper's sincerity, or the turbulent state of the Flopper's soul.
"Stall nothin'! De driver held me up fer some of it, an' de cop pinched
de rest."
"And you the king of Floppers!" breathed Pale Face Harry sadly. "D'ye
hear that, Helena? Come over here and listen. Go ahead, Flopper, tell us
about it."
Helena rose from the couch and came over to the table.
"Poor Flopper!" said she sweetly.
"Shut up!" snapped the Flopper savagely.
"Go on," prompted Pale Face Harry. "Go on, Flopper--tell us about it."
"I told you, ain't I?" growled the Flopper. "De driver called a divvy
wid de cop comin', an I had ter shell--an' wot he left de cop pinched.
Dat's all"--the Flopper's mouth was working again with the rage that
burned within him.
Pale Face Harry, with pointed forefinger, gingerly and facetiously laid
the coins out in a row on the table.
"And you the king of Floppers!" he murmured softly. "It's a wonder you
didn't let the Salvation Army get the rest away from you on the way
along!"
Helena laughed--but the Flopper didn't. He stepped close to Pale Face
Harry, and shoved his face within an inch of the other's.
"You close yer jaw," he snarled, "or I'll make yer map look like wot's
goin' ter happen ter dat cross-eyed snitch of a guy dat did me--him an'
de harness bull, when I--" The Flopper stopped abruptly, and edged away
from Pale Face Harry. "Hullo, Doc," he said meekly. "I didn't hear youse
comin' in."
A man, fair-haired, broad-shouldered, immaculate in well-tailored
tweeds, reliant in poise, leaned nonchalantly against the door--inside
the room. He was young, not more than twenty-eight, with clean-shaven,
pleasant, open face--a handsome face, marred only to the close observer
by the wrinkles beginning to pucker around his eyes, and a slight,
scarcely discernible puffiness in his skin--"Doc" Madison, gentleman
crook and high-class, polished con-man, who had lifted his profession to
an art, was still too young to be indelibly stamped with the hall-marks
of dissipation.
His gray eyes travelled from one to another, lingered an instant on
Helena, and came back to the Flopper.
"What's the trouble?" he demanded quietly.
It was Pale Face Harry who answered him.
"The Flopper's got it in for a couple of ginks that handed him one--a
bull and a chauffeur on a gape-wagon," he grinned, punctuating his words
with a cough. "The Flopper's got an idea the corpse-preserver's business
is dull, and he's going to help 'em out with two orders and pay for the
flowers himself."
Doc Madison shook his head and smiled a little grimly.
"Forget it, Flopper!" he said crisply. "I've something better for you to
do. You fade away, disappear and lay low from this minute. I don't care
what you do when you're resurrected, but from now on the three of you
are dead and buried, and the police go into mourning for at least six
months."
"What you got for us, Doc?--something nice?"--Helena pushed Pale Face
Harry and the Flopper unceremoniously out of her line of vision as she
spoke.
"Yes--the drinks. Cleggy's bringing them," Madison laughed--and opened
the door, as the tinkle of glass and a shuffling footstep sounded
without.
A man, big, hulking, thick-set and slouching, with shifty, cunning
little black eyes and the face of a bruiser, his nose bent over and
almost flattened down on one cheek, entered the room, carrying four
glasses on a tin tray. He set down the tray, and, as he lifted the
glasses from it and placed them on the table, he leered around at the
little group.
"Gee!" he said, sucking in his breath. "De Doc, an' Helena, an' Pale
Face, an' de Flopper! Gee, dis looks like de real t'ing--dis looks like
biz."
"It does--fifty-cents' worth--ten for yourself," said Doc Madison
suavely, flipping the coin into the tray. "Now, clear out!"
"Say"--Cleggy put his forefinger significantly to the side of his
nose--"say, can't youse let a sport in on--"
"Clear out!" Doc Madison broke in quite as suavely as before--but there
was a sudden glint of steel in the gray eyes as they held the bruiser's,
and Cleggy, hastily picking up the tray, scuffled from the room.
Madison watched the door close, then he began to pace slowly up and down
the room.
"Pull the chairs up to the table so we can take things comfortably," he
directed.
"There ain't but two," grinned Pale Face Harry.
"Oh, well, never mind," said Madison.
"Slew the couch around and pull that up--Helena and I will sit on the
head of it."
Still pacing up and down the length of the room, his hands in his
pockets, Doc Madison watched the others as they carried out his
directions; and then, suddenly, as he neared the door, his hand shot
out, wrenched the door open, and, quick as a panther in its spring, he
was in the hall without.
There was a yell, a scuffle, the rip and crash of rending bannisters, an
instant's silence, then a heavy thud--and then Cleggy's voice from
somewhere below in a choice and fervent flow of profanity.
Doc Madison re-entered the room, closed the door, dispassionately
arranged a disordered cuff, brushed a few particles of dust from his
sleeves and shoulder, and, this done, started toward the table--and
stopped.
Helena had swung herself to the table edge, and, glass in hand, dangling
her neatly shod little feet, was smoking a cigarette, her brown hair
with a glint of amber in it, her dark eyes veiled now by their heavy
lashes; on the other side of the table Pale Face Harry coughed, as, with
sleeve rolled back, he was intent on the hypodermic needle he was
pushing into his arm; while the Flopper, his eyes with a dog-like
admiration in them fixed on Madison, stood facing the door, a grotesque,
unpleasant figure, unkempt, unshaven, furtive-faced, his rags hanging
disreputably about him, his trousers with their frayed edges, now that
he stood upright, reaching far above his boot tops and flagrantly
exposing his wretched substitutes for socks.
Doc Madison reached thoughtfully into his pocket, brought out a silver
cigarette case, and carefully selected a cigarette from amongst its
fellows.
"Yes; Cleggy was right," he said softly, tapping the end of the
cigarette on his thumb nail. "You're the real thing--the real, real
thing."
--II--
A NEW CULT
Doc Madison swung Helena lightly down from the table to the head of the
couch, sat down beside her, one arm circling her waist, and motioned the
Flopper to a chair--then he leaned forward and watched Pale Face Harry
critically, as the latter carefully replaced the shining little
hypodermic in its case.
"Harry," said he abruptly, jerking his free hand toward the hypodermic,
"could you give up that dope-needle?"
"Sure, I could--if I wanted to!" asserted Pale Face Harry defiantly.
"That's good," said Madison cheerfully. "Because you'll have to."
"Eh?"--Pale Face Harry stared at Doc Madison in amazement.
"Because you'll have to--by and by," said Madison coolly. "And how about
that cough--can you quit coughing?"
"When I'm dead--which won't be long," sniffed Pale Face Harry. "D'ye
think I cough because I like it? How'm I going to quit coughing?"
"I don't know," admitted Doc Madison, frowning seriously. "I only know
you'll have to."
Pale Face Harry, with jaw dropped, accentuating the gaunt leanness of
his hollow-cheeked, emaciated face, gazed at Doc Madison with a curious
mingling of incredulity and affront--and coughed.
"Say," he inquired grimly, "what's the answer?"
Doc Madison took his arm from Helena's waist, pulled a newspaper from
his pocket, spread it out on the table--and his manner changed
suddenly--enthusiasm was in his eyes, his voice, his face.
"I've steered you three through a few deals," said he impressively,
"that have sized up big enough to keep you out of the raw vaudeville
turn you, Harry, and you, Flopper, are so fond of, and that would have
put Helena here on easy street, if you hadn't blown in all you got about
ten minutes after you got your hands on it--but I've got one here that
sizes up so big you wouldn't be able to spend the money fast enough to
close out your bank account if you did your damnedest! Get that? It's
the greatest cinch that ever came down from the gateway of heaven--and
that's where it came from--heaven. It couldn't have come from anywhere
else--it's too good. And it's new, bran new--it's never had the string
cut or the wrapper taken off. It's got anything that was ever run beaten
by more laps than there are in the track, and it's got a purse tied on
to the end of it that's the biggest ever offered since Adam. But you've
got to work for it, and that's what I brought you here for to-night--to
learn your little pieces so's you can say 'em nice and cute when you get
up on the platform before the audience."
The Flopper's tongue made a greedy circuit of his upper and under lips,
and he hitched his chair closer to the table.
A flush spread over Pale Face Harry's cheeks, and his eyes, abnormally
bright, grew brighter.
"You're all right, Doc," he assured Doc Madison anxiously. "You're all
right."
"U-uu-mm!" cooed Helena excitedly. "Go on, Doc--go on!"
"Listen," said Doc Madison, his voice lowered a little. "I found this
tucked away as a filler in a corner of the newspaper this evening. It's
headed, 'A New Cult,' with an interrogation mark after it. Now listen,
while I read it:"
A NEW CULT?
Needley, Maine, offers no attraction for aspiring young medical
men. One who tried it recently, and who pulled down his shingle in
disgust after a week, says competition is too strong, as the
village is obsessed with the belief that they have a sort of
faith-healer in their midst to whom is attributed cures of all
descriptions stretching back for a generation or more. The healer,
he adds, who rejoices in the name of the Patriarch and lives in
solitude a mile or so from the village, is something of an anomaly
in himself, being both deaf and dumb. We--
"But that's all that interests us," said Doc Madison, as he stopped
reading abruptly and lifted his head to scrutinize his companions
quizzically.
Pale Face Harry's eyes had lost their gleam and dulled--he gaped
reproachfully at Doc Madison. Helena's small mouth drooped downward in a
disappointed _moue_. Only the Flopper evidenced enthusiastic response.
"Sure!" he chortled. "Sure t'ing! I see. De old geezer'll have a pile of
shekels hid away, an' he lives by his lonesome a mile from de town. We
sneaks down dere, croaks de guy wid de queer monaker, an' beats it wid
de shekels--sure!"
Doc Madison turned a sad gray eye on the Flopper.
"Flopper," said he pathetically, "your soul, like your bones, runs to
rank realism. No; we don't 'croak de guy'--we cherish him, we nurse him,
we fondle him. He's our one best bet, and we fold him to our breasts
tenderly, and we protect him from all harm and danger and sudden death."
The Flopper blinked a little helplessly.
"Mabbe," said the Flopper, "I got de wrong dope. Some of dem words you
read I ain't hip to. Wot's anymaly mean?"
"Anomaly?"--Doc Madison reached for his glass, tossed off the contents
and set it down. "It means, Flopper, in this particular instance," he
said gravely, "that there shouldn't be any interrogation point after the
heading."
Again the Flopper blinked helplessly--and his fingers picked uncertainly
at the stubble on his chin. The other two gazed disconsolately--and
Helena a little pityingly as well--at Doc Madison.
Doc Madison flung out his arms suddenly.
"What's the matter with you all?" he demanded sarcastically. "You look
as though your faces pained you! What's the matter with you? You're
bright enough ordinarily, Helena, and, Harry, you're no dub--what's the
matter with you? Can't you see it--can't you see it! Why, it's sticking
out a mile--it's _waiting_ for us! The whole plant's there and all we've
got to do is get steam under the boilers. We'll have 'em coming for the
cure from every State in the Union, and begging us to let them throw
their diamond tiaras at us for a look-in at the shrine. Don't you see
it--can't you get it--can't you _get_ it!"
Helena bent suddenly over Doc Madison's shoulder, her eyes opening wide
with dawning comprehension.
"The cure?" she breathed.
"Sure--the cure," said Doc Madison earnestly. "The new cult--that's us.
Get the people talking, show 'em something, and you'll have to put up
fences and 'keep off the grass' signs to stop the lame and the halt and
the blind and the neurasthenics from crowding and suffocating to death
for want of air. We'll start a shrine down there that'll be a winner,
and the railroads will be running excursion-rate pilgrimages inside of
two months."
Pale Face Harry's chair creaked, as, like the Flopper, he now crowded it
in toward the table.
"I get you!" said he feverishly. "I get you! I've read about them
shrines--only you gotter have churches, and a carload of crutches, and
that sort of thing laying around."
Doc Madison smiled pleasantly.
"Yes; you've got me, Harry--only we'll do the stage setting a little
differently. Mostly what is required is--faith. Get them going on that,
and everybody that's sick or near-sick in this great United States,
that's got the swellest collection of boobs and millionaires on earth,
will swarm thitherward like bees--there won't be any one left in the
sanatoriums throughout the length of this broad land of freedom but the
bell boys and the elevator men. Get them going, and all we've got to do
is look out we don't let anything get by us in the crush--a snowball
rolling down hill will size up like a plugged nickel alongside of a
twenty-dollar gold piece when it gets to the bottom, compared with what
we start rolling."
"I've got you, too," said Helena. "But I don't see where the faith is
coming from, or how you're going to get them coming. You've got to show
them--you said so yourself--even the boobs. How are you going to do
that?"
"Well," said Doc Madison placidly, "we'll start the show with--a
miracle. I haven't thought of anything more effective than that so
far."
"A what?" inquired Pale Face Harry, with a grin.
"A miracle," repeated Doc Madison imperturbably. "A miracle--with the
Flopper here in the star rôle. The Flopper goes down there all tied up
in knots, the high priest, alias the deaf and dumb healer, alias the
Patriarch, lays his soothing hands upon him, the Flopper uncoils into
something that looks like a human being--and the trumpets blow, the band
plays, and the box office opens for receipts."
Helena slid from her seat, and, with hands on the edge of the table,
advanced her piquant little face close to Doc Madison's, staring at him,
breathing hard.
"Say that again," she gasped. "Say that again--say it just once more."
Pale Face Harry's hand, trembling visibly with emotion, was thrust out
across the table.
"Put it there, Doc," he whispered hoarsely.
The Flopper, practical, earnestly so, lifted his right arm, wriggled it
a little and began to twist it around, as though it were on a pivot at
the elbow, preparatory to drawing it in, a crippled thing, toward his
chin.
Doc Madison reached out hurriedly and stopped him.
"Here, that'll do, Flopper," he said quietly. "You don't need any
rehearsal to hold your job--you're down for the number and your check's
written out."
"Swipe me!" said the Flopper to the universe. "I can smell de pine woods
of Maine in me nostrils now. When does I beat it, Doc--to-morrer?"
Doc Madison laughed.
"No, Flopper, not to-morrow--nor for several to-morrows--not till the
bill-posters get through, and the stage is dark, and you can hear a pin
drop in the house. I don't want you camping out and catching cold and
missing any of the luxuries you're accustomed to, so I'll start along
ahead in a day or so myself and see what kind of accommodations I can
secure."
"Swipe me!" said the Flopper again. "An' to think of me wastin' me
talent on rubber-neck fleets!"
A puzzled little frown puckered Helena's forehead.
"I was thinking about the deaf and dumb man," she said slowly. "How
about him, when we pull this off--will he stand for it--and what'll he
do?"
"Aw!" said Pale Face Harry impatiently. "He don't count! He'll have bats
in his belfry anyway, and if he ain't he'll go off his chump for fair
getting stuck on himself when he sees the stunt he'll think he's done.
He'll be looking for the wings between his shoulder blades, and hunting
for the halo around his head."
"Harry is waking up," observed Doc Madison affably. "That's about the
idea, Helena. I haven't seen the Patriarch yet, but I don't imagine from
his description that it'll be very hard to make him believe in himself.
He doesn't stand for anything--we don't deal him any cards--he's just
the kitty that circles around with the jackpots while we annex the
chips."
Doc Madison reached into his vest pocket, took out a penknife whose
handle was gold-chased, opened it, and very carefully cut the article he
had read from the paper.
"Flopper," said he, "you've heard of gold bonds, haven't you?"
The Flopper's eyes gleamed an eloquent response.
"Only you've never had any, eh?" supplied Doc Madison.
"Where'd I get 'em?" inquired the Flopper, with some bitterness.
"Right here," smiled Doc Madison, handing him the clipping. "Here's a
trainload and a bank vault full of them combined. Put it away, Flopper,
and don't lose it. Lose anything you've got first--lose your life. It's
worth a private car to you with a buffet full of fizz, and Sambo to wait
on you for the rest of your life. Get that? Don't lose it!"
The Flopper tucked the clipping into the mysterious recess of his shirt.
"Say," he said earnestly, "if you say so, Doc, it'll be here when dey
plant me."
"All right, Flopper," nodded Doc Madison. "And now let's get down to
cases. I've been able to pay my club dues lately, and there's money
enough on deck to buy the costumes and put the show on the road. I start
for Needley as soon as I can get away. When I'm ready for the support,
you three will hear from me--and in the meantime you lay low. Nothing
doing--understand? You'll get all the lime-light you want before you're
through, and it's just as well not to show up so familiar when they
throw the spot on you that even the school kids will know the date of
your birth, and the population will start in squabbling over the choice
of reserved niches for you in the Hall of Fame. See?"
The Flopper, Pale Face Harry and Helena nodded their heads with one
accord.
"Give us the whole lay, Doc," urged Pale Face Harry. "And give it to us
quick."
"Me mouth's waterin'," observed the Flopper, licking his lips again.
Helena lighted another cigarette, and swung herself back to her perch on
the head of the couch.
Doc Madison surveyed the three with mingled admiration and delight.
"The world is ours!" he murmured softly.
"Oh, hurry up and give us the rest of it," purred Helena. "We know we're
an all-star cast, all right."
"Very good," said Doc Madison--and laughed. "Well then, the order of
your stage cues will depend on circumstances and what turns up down
there, but we'll start with the Flopper now. First of all, Flopper,
you've got to have a name. What's your real name--what did they decorate
you with at the baptismal font back in the dark ages?"
The Flopper scrubbed at his very dirty chin with a very dirty thumb and
forefinger.
"I dunno," said the Flopper anxiously.
"Well, never mind," said Doc Madison reassuringly. "Maybe you are
blessed above most people--you can pick one out for yourself. What'll it
be?"
The Flopper's thumb and forefinger scratched desperately for a moment,
then his face lighted with inspiration.
"Swipe me!" said he excitedly. "I got it--Jimmy de Squirm."
Doc Madison shook his head gravely.
"No, Flopper, I'm afraid not," he said gently. "That's another weak
point in your interpretation of the rôle, that I'll come to in a minute.
We'll give you an Irish name by way of charity--it'll help to make your
classical English sound like brogue. We'll call you Coogan--Michael
Coogan--that lets you off with plain Mike in times of stress."
"Swipe me!" said the Flopper, with perfect complacence.
"Glad it pleases you," smiled Doc Madison, "Here's your lay, then.
You've got to remember that you were born crooked and--"
Helena giggled.
"I didn't mean it"--Doc Madison's gray eyes twinkled. "You are waking
up, too, Helena. I mean, Flopper, you've got to remember that you were
born twisted up into the same shape you are in when you hit Needley. You
come from--let's see--we'll have to have a big city where the next door
neighbors pass each other with a vacant stare. Ever been in Chicago?"
"Naw! Wot fer?" said the Flopper, with withering spontaneity. "Noo Yoik
fer mine."
"Well, all right--New York it is, then," agreed Doc Madison. "You're
poor, but respectable--and that brings us to the other point. Before you
go down there, Helena's going to start a little night-school with a
grammar, and teach you to paddle along the fringe of the great American
language so's you won't fall in and get wet all over every time you open
your mouth."
"My!" exclaimed Helena. "Won't that be nice!"
"I hope so," said Doc Madison drily. "And don't run away with the idea
that I'm joking about this--that goes. I don't expect to make a
silver-tongued orator out of you, Flopper, and perhaps not even a
purist--but I hope to eradicate a few minor touches of Bad Land
vernacular from your vocabulary."
"I've gotcher--swipe me!" grinned the Flopper. "Me at school! Say,
wouldn't that put a smile on de maps of de harness bulls, an' de dips,
an' de lags doin' spaces up de river!"
"Quite so," admitted Doc Madison pleasantly.
"You won't laugh when I get through with you," remarked Helena, her eyes
on the curl of smoke from her cigarette.
"There's just one more thing," went on Doc Madison, "and I'm through
with you, Flopper. Don't come down there looking like a skate--that's
too raw. Get new clothes and a shave--and keep shaved. And from the
minute you buy your ticket, you keep your bones, or whatever a
beneficent nature has given you in place of them, out of joint--see?"
"I'm hip," declared the Flopper--and the dog-like admiration for Doc
Madison burned in his eyes. "Say, Doc, youse are de--"
"Never mind, Flopper," Madison cut in brightly. "It's getting late. Now,
Harry, about you. You've got a name, I believe. Evans, isn't it?
Yes--well, that will do. Now, don't kill yourself at it, but the more
you work your dope needle overtime before you start, and the harder you
cough when you first land there the better. We've got to have variety,
you know. You're a physical wreck with the folks back home sending the
casket and trimmings after you on the next train in care of the station
agent."
"I guess," coughed Pale Face Harry, with a sickly smile, "I look the
part."
"You certainly do," said Helena cheerfully, beating a tattoo with her
heels on the end of the couch.
Pale Face Harry scowled.
"I ain't no artist with the paint," he sniffed.
"I don't paint," said Helena sweetly. "It's rouge."
"Are you through?" inquired Doc Madison patiently. "Because, if you are,
I'll go on. When the train whistles for Needley, Harry, you put the soft
pedal on the dope--that ought to help some. And then you begin to taper
that cough off and become a cure--that's all."
"I ain't like the Flopper," said Pale Face Harry ruefully. "I told you
once I can't stop the hack, and I ask you again how'm I going to?"
"Have faith in the Patriarch," suggested Helena innocently.
"You close your trap!" exclaimed Pale Face Harry savagely; then, to
Madison: "Go on, Doc--it's up to you."
"No," said Doc Madison coolly, "it's up to you. You've got to try, and
if you can't stop altogether you can make yourself scarce when you feel
the fit coming on--you won't have to climb up on the grandstand and
cough in people's faces, will you?"
"He might carry a screen around with him and cough behind that,"
volunteered Helena. "That's enough about the Flopper and Pale Face--what
about muh? Where do I get off?"
"You?" said Doc Madison calmly. "Oh, you're a moral neurasthenic."
"And what's that when it's at home?" demanded Helena sharply.
Doc Madison threw out his hands in a comically helpless, impotent
gesture.
"It's what we need to keep up the standard of variety," he said. "We're
playing to the masses. Don't you like the rôle, Helena--it's the leading
woman's."
"What do I do?" countered Helena non-committingly.
"Do?" echoed Doc Madison. "Why, you go down there like a whole parade
and a gorgeous pageant rolled into one, in feathers and paint and
diamond boulders in your ears--and you come out of it in a gingham apron
and coy sunbonnet as sweet sixteen."
"Oh!" said Helena--and her eyes were on the curl of smoke from her
cigarette again.
"Say," said Pale Face Harry suddenly, evidently still worried about his
cough, "we ain't going to have no easy cinch of this."
"No," said Doc Madison, with a grim smile; "you're not! It's going to be
the hardest work any of you have ever done--you've got to lead decent
lives for awhile."
"Sure--dat's right," said the loyal Flopper; "but we stands fer anyt'ing
dat de Doc says--an' dat goes!"
"It'll come hard on some of us," remarked Pale Face Harry, with a sly
glance at Helena, which met with contemptuous silence.
Doc Madison leaned back, felt carefully at his carefully adjusted
tie--and smiled engagingly.
"Well?" he asked. "Can you see them coming?"
Pale Face Harry stared at him with a far-away expression in his eyes.
"When we get through with this, if I ain't handed in my checks before,"
he said dreamily, "it's mine for a brownstone on the Avenue, and one of
them life-size landscapes with a shack on it for the season down to Pa'm
Beach that they call country cottages. I'll dress the ginks that scrub
the horses down in solid gold braid, and put the corpse of chamber
ladies in Irish lace--I bust into society, marry a duke's one and only,
and swipe her coronet for my manly brow. Did you ask me anything, Doc?"
"Swipe me!" said the Flopper. "Me in me private Pullman in a plush seat
an' anudder to put me feet in, an' me thumbs in de armholes of me vest.
I wears a high polished lid an' a red tie, an' scatters simoleans outer
de window in me travels to the gazaboes on de platforms as I pass--an'
den I joins Tammany Hall so's I can stick me fingers to me nose every
time I sees a cop."
"Flopper," said Doc Madison in an awed voice, "the honor is all mine."
Helena went off into a peal of rippling, silvery, contagious laughter,
and her little heels again beat an exuberant tattoo on the end of the
couch.
"Yes?" invited Doc Madison, smiling at her.
"I'm seeing them coming," said Helena--and one heel went through the
cretonne upholstery of the couch.
"Good!" said Doc Madison--and from the inside pocket of his coat he
pulled out a package of crisp, new, yellow-backed bills. "You
understand that down there none of you ever heard of each other or of me
before, and you drop the 'doc'--bury it! My name is John G. Madison--G.
for Garfield." His fingers passed deftly over the edges of the bills. He
pushed a little pile toward the Hopper, another toward Pale Face Harry,
and tucked the remainder into his coat pocket again. "That'll do for
expenses," he said. "And now, if you understand everything, principally
that you're to go to church Sundays till you hear from me, and you're
quite satisfied with the lay, we'll adjourn, _sine die_, to Needley."
Helena was holding out a very dainty hand, with pink, wiggling fingers.
"I'll need, oh, ever so much more than they will," she declared, with a
bewitching pout. "And, please, I'm waiting very patiently."
Doc Madison laughed.
"By and by, Helena," he said, patting her hand. "Well, Flopper, well,
Harry--what do you say?"
The Flopper pushed back his chair and stood up hesitantly like a man
unexpectedly called upon for an after-dinner speech. He stood there
awkwardly a moment gazing at Doc Madison, his tongue slowly circling his
lips; then, with a gulp, as though words to express his feelings were
utterly beyond him, he turned and started for the door.
Pale Face Harry, as he rose, shoved out his hand.
"I don't deserve my luck to be in on this," he said modestly. "Only,
Doc, push it along on the high gear, will you--I ain't going to be able
to sleep thinking about it." He looked at Helena a little
undecidedly--and compromised on brevity. "'Night, Helena," he flung out.
"Oh, good-night, Harry," she smiled.
The Flopper turned at the door and came back a few steps into the room.
"Say, Doc," he said, blinking furiously, "youse can wipe yer feet on me
any time youse like--dat's wot!"
"All right, Flopper," said Doc Madison gravely. "When you've joined
Tammany Hall--good-night." He followed across the room, and from the
doorway watched the two descend the stairs. "Good-night," he said again,
then closed the door and came back into the room. "Well, Helena?" he
remarked tentatively.
"Well--Garfield?"--Helena clasped her hands around one knee and rocked
gently.
"Don't be familiar, Helena," Doc Madison chuckled. "Is that all you've
got to say?"
"I'm busy thinking about The Great American Play," she said pertly.
"There's one thing you forgot."
"What's that?" he asked, still smiling.
"The curtain on the last act," she said. "The getaway."
Doc Madison shook his head.
"Nothing doing!" he returned. "There's no getaway. It's safe--so safe
that there's nothing to it. We don't guarantee anything, and there's no
entrance fee to the pavilion--all contributions are strictly voluntary."
"That's all right," said Helena. "But of course we can't really cure
them. We can get them going hard enough to make them think they are for
awhile, but after they've thrown away their crutches and got back
home--what then?"
"Well, what then?" inquired Doc Madison easily.
"They'll yell 'fake!' and swear out warrants," said Helena, her dark
eyes studying Doc Madison.
"Not according to statistics," replied Doc Madison, and his lips
twitched quizzically at the corners. "According to statistics they'll
buy another crutch and come back to buck the tiger again. Say, Helena,
to-morrow, you go up to the public library and read up on
shrines--they've been running since the ark--and they're running still.
You never heard any howl about them, did you? What's the answer to those
cures?"
"That's different," said Helena. "That's religion, and they've got
relics and things."
"It's faith," said Doc Madison, "and it doesn't matter what the basis of
it is. Faith, Helena, _faith_--get that? And we're going to imbue them
with a faith that'll set them crazy and send them into hysterics. And
talk about relics! Haven't we got one? Look at the Patriarch! Can't you
see the whole town yelling 'I told you so!' and swopping testimonials
hard enough to crowd the print down so fine, if you tried to get it all
into the papers, that you'd have to use a magnifying glass to read it,
once we've pulled off the miracle? Don't you worry about the getaway. If
there's any sign of anything like that, you and I, Helena, will be
taking moonlight rides in the gondolas of Venice long before it breaks."
Helena choked--and began to laugh deliciously.
Doc Madison stared at her for a moment whimsically--then he, too, burst
into a laugh.
"Oh, Lord!" he gurgled. "It's rich, isn't it?" And sweeping Helena off
the couch and into his arms, he began to dance around and around the
table. "Ring-around-a-rosy!" he cried. "We haven't done so bad in the
misty past, but here's where we cross to the enchanted shore and play on
jewelled harps with golden strings and--"
"Is that all?" gasped Helena, laughing and breathless, as at last she
pulled herself away.
"No," panted Doc Madison. "There's a table I've reserved up at the
Rivoli that's waiting for us now. We're about to part for days and days,
lady mine, that's the tough luck of it, but we'll make a night of it
to-night anyway--what?"
"You bet!" said Helena, doing a cake-walk towards the door. "Come on!"
--III--
NEEDLEY
"Needley?"
It wasn't wholly an interrogation--it seemed to Madison that there was
even sympathy in the parlor-car conductor's voice, as the other took his
seat check.
"Health," said Madison meekly. "Perfect rest and quiet--been overdoing
it, you know."
"_Needley_!"--the train conductor of the Bar Harbor Express, collecting
the transportation, threw the word at Madison as though it were a
personal affront.
The tone seemed to demand an apology from Madison--and Madison
apologized.
"Health," he said apologetically. "Perfect rest and quiet--been
overdoing it, you know."
"We're five minutes late now," grunted the conductor uncompromisingly
and, to Madison, quite irrelevantly, as he passed on down the aisle.
Somehow, this inspired Madison to consult his timetable. He drew it from
his pocket, ran his eye down the long list of stations--and stopped at
"Needley." Needley had an asterisk after it. By consulting a block of
small type at the bottom of the page, he found a corresponding asterisk
with the words: "Flag station. Stops only on signal, or to discharge
eastbound passengers from Portland."
John Garfield Madison went into the smoking compartment of the car for a
cigar--several cigars--until Needley was reached some two hours later,
when the dusky attendant, as he pocketed Madison's dollar, set down his
little rubber-topped footstool with a flourish on a desolate and
forbidding-looking platform.
Madison was neither surprised nor dismayed--the parlor-car conductor,
the train conductor and the timetable had in no way attempted to deceive
him--he was only cold. He turned up his coat collar--and blew on his
kid-gloved fingers.
As far as he could see everything was white with a thin layer of
snow--he kicked some of it off his toes onto the unshovelled platform.
The landscape was disconsolately void of even a vestige of life, there
was not a sign of habitation--just woods of bare trees, except the firs,
whose green seemed out of place.
"I have arrived," said John Garfield Madison to himself, "at a
cemetery."
There was a very small station, and through the window he caught sight
of a harassed-faced, red-haired man. There was a thump, another one, a
very vicious one--and Madison stirred uneasily--the train, with its five
minutes' delinquency hanging over it, was already moving out, as his
trunks, from the baggage car ahead, shot unceremoniously to the
platform. Madison watched a man, the sole occupant of the platform apart
from himself, save the trunks from rolling under the wheels of the
train; then his eyes fastened on a rickety, two-seated wagon, drawn by a
horse that at first glance appeared to earn all it got.
The train left the platform--and left quite as uninviting a perspective
on the other side of the track as had previously greeted Madison's
restricted view. But now the man who had salvaged his baggage came down
the platform toward him. Madison inspected the approaching figure with
interest. The man ambled along without haste, his jaws wagging
industriously upon his tobacco, his iron-gray chin whiskers, from the
wagging, flapping like a burgee in a breeze. He wore a round fur cap,
quite bare of fur at the edges where the pelt showed shiny, and a red
woollen tippet was tied round his neck and knotted at the back with the
ends dangling down over his coat. The coat itself, a long one of some
fuzzy material, with huge side pockets into which the man's hands were
plunged, reached to the cavernous tops of jackboots where the nether
ends of his trousers were stowed away.
The man halted before Madison, and, reaching a mittened hand under his
chin, reflectively lifted his whiskers to an acute angle, while his blue
eyes over the rims of steel-bowed spectacles wandered from Madison to
Madison's dress-suit case and back to Madison again.
"Be you goin' to git off here?" he inquired.
Madison smiled at him engagingly.
"Well," he said, "I wouldn't care to have it known, but if you can keep
a secret--"
"Hee-hee!" tittered the other. "Now that's right smart, that be. Waren't
expectin' nobody to meet you, was you? I ain't heerd of none of the
folks lookin' for visitors."
"No," said Madison. "But there's a hotel in the town, isn't there?"
"Two of 'em," said the other. "The Waalderf an' the Congress, but the
Waalderf ain't done a sight of business since we got pro'bition in the
State an' has kinder got run down. I reckon the Congress'll suit you
best if you ain't against payin' a mite more, which I reckon you ain't
for I see you come down in the parler car."