"If he takes your note, it looks as if he expected to be repaid."
"It's treating me white, I'll say that," Algernon said. And again his
face reddened slowly to his forehead and he would not meet Dr.
Lavendar's eye. "But I don't want their favors," he cried,
threateningly.
"It's business, if you give your note," Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Come,
Algernon, let her father do something for her sake. And as for
you--it's a chance to play the man; don't you see that?"
Algy caught his breath. "Damn!--if I borrowed his money I'd pay
it--I'd pay it, if it took the blood out of me."
"I will make your feeling clear to him," Dr. Lavendar said. "Let's
make out the note now, Algy."
The old man got up and hunted about for pen and paper. "Here's a
prescription blank," he said; "that will do." An ink-bottle stood on
the narrow mantel-shelf, a rusty pen corroding in its thickening
depths; but Dr. Lavendar, in a very small, shaky old hand, managed to
scrawl that "Algernon Keen, for value received, promised to pay to John
Gordon--"
--"in a year," Algy broke in; "I ain't going to have it run but a
year--and put in the interest, sir. I'll have no favors from 'em.
I'll pay interest; I'll pay six per cent.--like anybody else would."
--"and interest on same," Dr. Lavendar added. "Now, you sign here,
Algy. There! that will please Mary."
"Oh, my!" said Algernon, his poor, red-rimmed eyes filling--"oh, my!
my! what will I do without her?"
V
The next day Dr. Lavendar carried the note back to old John Gordon, who
took it, his mouth tightening, and glanced at it in silence. Then he
shuffled over to a safe in the corner of his library and pulled out a
japanned tin box. Dr. Lavendar watched him fumble with the combination
lock, holding the box up to catch the light, and shaking it a little
until the lid clicked open. "He'll never pay it," John Gordon said.
"He'll try to," Dr. Lavendar said; "but it's doubtful, of course. He's
a sickly fellow, and he hasn't much gumption. But if there's any good
in him, your trusting him will bring it out."
"There isn't any good in him," the other said, violently.
And that was the last they said about it; for the time Algernon Keen
dropped out of their lives.
He set up his little store in Mercer, and struggled along, advertising
his samples of perfumery and pomade upon his own person; trying to
drink a little less, for Mary's sake; whimpering with loneliness and
sick-headache in his grimy room in the hotel where Mary had died; and
never forgetting for a day that promise to pay on the back of the
prescription paper in John Gordon's possession. But when the year came
round, on the 2d of December, he had not a cent in hand to meet his
obligation. And that was why Dr. Lavendar heard of him again. Would
the doctor--this on perfumed paper, ruled, and with gilt edges--would
the doctor "ask him if he would extend?" Algernon could pay the
interest now; but that was all he could do. He wasn't in very good
shape, he said. He'd been in the hospital for a month, and had had to
hire a salesman. "I guess he cheated me; he was a kind of fancy
talker, and got me to let him buy some stock; he got off his slice, I
bet." That was the reason, Algy said, that he could not make any
payment on the principal. But he was going to introduce a new article
for the lips (no harmful drugs in it), called Rosebloom--first-class
thing; and he expected he'd do first rate with it. And in another year
he'd surely pay that note. It hung over him, he said, like a ton. "I
guess he don't want it paid any more than I want to pay it," Algy
ended, simply.
Of course Dr. Lavendar asked for an extension, and got it, though John
Gordon's lip curled. "I never expected to hear from him or his note
again," he said. "Probably his honesty won't last over another year."
Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to see Algy, and they talked things over
in the store between the calls of two customers. Algy's hair was sleek
and curly as before, for business is business; but he looked draggled
and forlorn; his color had gone and he was thinner, and there were
lines on his forehead, and his bright, hazel eyes, kind and shallow as
those of some friendly animal, had come into their human birthright of
worry. "It's this note that takes the spunk out of me," he said. "If
I could only get it paid! Then I'd hire a house and have the shop in
front. I've thought some I'd get married, too. It's hard on your
digestion living in one of these here cheap hotels. But I can't get
over thinking of Mary. I don't seem to relish other ladies. I suppose
they're all right; but Mary was so pleasant." And his eyes reddened.
"And, anyway, it would cost more to keep a wife, and I don't propose to
spend money that way. _He's_ treated me white, I'll say that for him;
and I propose to show him--Dr. Lavendar, I haven't drunk too much only
three times in the last year--honest, I haven't. I thought you'd think
that would please Mary?"
"I'm sure it does," said Dr. Lavendar.
"I suppose you think," the drummer said, sheepishly, "that it was
pretty darned foolish to drop three times?"
"I think pretty soon it won't be even three times," Dr. Lavendar
declared; "but it's hard work; I know it is."