It was rare sport for a certain element in the town when old Bulger
joined the Salvation Army. Bulger was the town's odd "character," a
shiftless, eccentric old man, and a natural foe to social conventions.
He lived on the bank of a brook that bisected the town, in a wonderful
hut of his own contriving, made of scrap lumber, clapboards, pieces of
tin, canvas and corrugated iron.
The most adventurous boys circled Bulger's residence at a respectful
distance. He was intolerant of visitors, and repelled the curious with
belligerent and gruff inhospitality. In return, the report was current
that he was of unsound mind, something of a wizard, and a miser with a
vast amount of gold buried in or near his hut. The old man worked at
odd jobs, such as weeding gardens and whitewashing; and he collected
old bones, scrap metal and bottles from alleys and yards.
One rainy night when the Salvation Army was holding a slenderly
attended meeting in its hall, Bulger had appeared and asked permission
to join the ranks. The sergeant in command of the post welcomed the
old man with that cheerful lack of prejudice that distinguishes the
peaceful militants of his order.
Bulger was at once assigned to the position of bass drummer, to his
evident, although grimly expressed, joy. Possibly the sergeant, who
had the success of his command at heart, perceived that it would be no
mean token of successful warfare to have the new recruit thus
prominently displayed, representing, as he did, if not a brand from
the burning, at least a well-charred and sap-dried chunk.
So every night, when the Army marched from its quarters to the street
corner where open-air services were held, Bulger stumbled along with
his bass drum behind the sergeant and the corporal, who played "Sweet
By and By" and "Only an Armor-Bearer" in unison upon their cornets.
And never before in that town was bass drum so soundly whacked. Bulger
managed to keep time with the cornets upon his instrument, but his
feet were always wo-fully unrhythmic. He shuffled and staggered and
rocked from side to side like a bear.
Truly, he was not pleasing to the sight. He was a bent, ungainly old
man, with a face screwed to one side and wrinkled like a dry prune.
The red shirt, which proclaimed his enlistment into the ranks, was a
misfit, being the outer husk of a leviathan corporal who had died some
time before. This garment hung upon Bulger in folds. His old brown cap
was always pulled down over one eye. These and his wabbling gait gave
him the appearance of some great simian, captured and imperfectly
educated in pedestrian and musical manoeuvres.
The thoughtless boys and undeveloped men who gathered about the street
services of the Army badgered Bulger incessantly. They called upon him
to give oral testimony to his conversion, and criticized the technique
and style of his drum performance. But the old man paid no attention
whatever to their jeers. He rarely spoke to anyone except when, on
coming and going, he gruffly saluted his comrades.
The sergeant had met many odd characters, and knew how to study them.
He allowed the recruit to have his own silent way for a time. Every
evening Bulger appeared at the hall, marched up the street with the
squad and back again. Then he would place his drum in the comer where
it belonged, and sit upon the last bench in the rear until the hall
meeting was concluded.
But one night the sergeant followed the old man outside, and laid his
hand upon his shoulder. "Comrade," he said, "is it well with you?"
"Not yet, sergeant," said Bulger. "I'm only tryin.' I'm glad you come
outside. I've been wantin' to ask you: Do you believe the Lord would
take a man in if he come to Him late like--kind of a last resort, you
know? Say a man who'd lost everything--home and property and friends
and health. Wouldn't it look mean to wait till then and try to come?"
"Bless His name--no!" said the sergeant. "Come ye that are heavy
laden; that's what He says. The poorer, the more miserable, the more
unfortunate--the greater His love and forgiveness."
"Yes, I'm poor," said Bulger. "Awful poor and miserable. You know when
I can think best, sergeant? It's when I'm beating the drum. Other
times there's a kind of muddled roarin' in my head. The drum seems to
kind of soothe and calm it. There's a thing I'm tryin' to study out,
but I ain't made it yet."
"Do you pray, comrade?" asked the sergeant.
"No, I don't," said Bulger. "What'd be the use? I know where the hitch
is. Don't it say somewhere for a man to give up his own family or
friends and serve the Lord?"
"If they stand in his way; not otherwise."
"I've got no family," continued the old man, "nor no friends--but one.
And that one is what's driven me to ruin."
"Free yourself!" cried the sergeant. "He is no friend, but an enemy
who stands between you and salvation."
"No," answered Bulger, emphatically, "no enemy. The best friend I ever
had."
"But you say he's driven you to ruin!"
The old man chuckled dryly: "And keeps me in rags and livin' on scraps
and sleepin' like a dog in a patched-up kennel. And yet I never had a
better friend. You don't understand, sergeant. You lose all your
friends but the best one, and then you'll know how to hold on to the
last one."
"Do you drink, comrade?" asked the sergeant.
"Not a drop in twenty years," Bulger replied. The sergeant was
puzzled.
"If this friend stands between you and your soul's peace, give him
up," was all he could find to say.
"I can't--now," said the old man, dropping into a fretful whine. "But
you just let me keep on beating the drum, sergeant, and maybe I will
some time. I'm a-tryin'. Sometimes I come so near thinkin' it out that
a dozen more licks on the drum would settle it. I get mighty nigh to
the point, and then I have to quit. You'll give me more time, won't
you, sergeant?"
"All you want, and God bless you, comrade. Pound away until you hit
the right note."
Afterward the sergeant would often call to Bulger: "Time, comrade!
Knocked that friend of yours out yet?" The answer was always
unsatisfactory.
One night at a street corner the sergeant prayed loudly that a certain
struggling comrade might be parted from an enemy who was leading him
astray under the guise of friendship. Bulger, in sudden and plainly
evident alarm, immediately turned his drum over to a fellow volunteer,
and shuffled rapidly away down the street. The next night he was back
again at his post, without any explanation of his strange behaviour.
The sergeant wondered what it all meant, and took occasion to question
the old man more closely as to the influence that was retarding the
peace his soul seemed to crave. But Bulger carefully avoided
particularizing.
"It's my own fight," he said. "I've got to think it out myself. Nobody
else don't understand."
The winter of 1892 was a memorable one in the South. The cold was
almost unprecedented, and snow fell many inches deep where it had
rarely whitened the ground before. Much suffering resulted among the
poor, who had not anticipated the rigorous season. The little squad of
Salvationists found more distress then they could relieve.
Charity in that town, while swift and liberal, lacked organization.
Want, in that balmy and productive climate, existed only in sporadic
cases, and these were nearly always quietly relieved by generous
neighbours. But when some sudden disastrous onslaught of the
elements--storm, fire or flood--occurred, the impoverished sufferers
were often too slowly aided because system was lacking, and because
charity was called upon too seldom to become a habit. At such times
the Salvation Army was very useful. Its soldiers went down into alleys
and byways to rescue those who, unused to extreme want, had never
learned to beg.
At the end of three weeks of hard freezing a level foot of snow fell.
Hunger and cold struck the improvident, and a hundred women, children
and old men were gathered into the Army's quarters to be warmed and
fed. Each day the blue-uniformed soldiers slipped in and out of the
stores and offices of the town, gathering pennies and dimes and
quarters to buy food for the starving. And in and out of private
houses the Salvationists went with baskets of food and clothing, while
day by day the mercury still crouched among the tens and twenties.
Alas! business, that scapegoat, was dull. The dimes and quarters came
more reluctantly from tills that jingled not when they were opened.
Yet in the big hall of the Army the stove was kept red-hot, and upon
the long table, set in the rear, could always be found at least coffee
and bread and cheese. The sergeant and the squad fought valiantly. At
last the money on hand was all gone, and the daily collections were
diminished to a variable sum, inadequate to the needs of the
dependents of the Army.
Christmas was near at hand. There were fifty children in the hall, and
many more outside, to whom that season brought no joy beyond what was
brought by the Army. None of these little pensioners had thus far
lacked necessary comforts, and they had already begun to chatter of
the tree--that one bright vision in the sober monotony of the year.
Never since the Army first came had it failed to provide a tree and
gifts for the children.
The sergeant was troubled. He knew that an announcement of "no tree"
would grieve the hearts under those thin cotton dresses and ragged
jackets more than would stress of storm or scanty diet; and yet there
was not money enough to meet the daily demands for food and fuel.
On the night of December the 20th the sergeant decided to announce
that there could be no Christmas tree: it seemed unfair to allow the
waxing anticipation of the children to reach too great a height.
The evening was colder, and the still deep snow was made deeper by
another heavy fall swept upon the wings of a fierce and shrill-voiced
northern gale. The sergeant, with sodden boots and reddened
countenance, entered the hall at nightfall, and removed his threadbare
overcoat. Soon afterward the rest of the faithful squad drifted in,
the women heavily shawled, the men stamping their snow-crusted feet
loudly upon the steep stairs. After the slender supper of cold meat,
beans, bread, and coffee had been finished all joined in a short
service of song and prayer, according to their daily habit.
Far back in the shadow sat Bulger. For weeks his ears had been
deprived of that aid to thought, the booming of the big bass drum. His
wrinkled face wore an expression of gloomy perplexity. The Army had
been too busy for the regular services and parades. The silent drum,
the banners, and the cornets were stored in a little room at the top
of the stairway.
Bulger came to the hall every night and ate supper with the others. In
such weather work of the kind that the old man usually did was not to
be had, and he was bidden to share the benefits conferred upon the
other unfortunates. He always left early, and it was surmised that he
passed the nights in his patchwork hut, that structure being
waterproof and weathertight beyond the promise of its outward
appearance. Of late the sergeant had had no time to bestow upon the
old man.
At seven o'clock the sergeant stood up and rapped upon the table with
a lump of coal. When the room became still he began his talk, that
rambled off into a halting discourse quite unlike his usual positive
and direct speeches. The children had gathered about their friend in a
ragged, wriggling, and wide-a-wake circle. Most of them had seen that
fresh, ruddy countenance of his emerge, at the twelve-stroke of a
night of splendour, from the whiskered mask of a magnificent Santa
Claus. They knew now that he was going to speak of the Christmas tree.
They tiptoed and listened, flushed with a hopeful and eager awe. The
sergeant saw it, frowned, and swallowed hard. Continuing, he planted
the sting of disappointment in each expectant little bosom, and
watched the light fade from their eyes.
There was to be no tree. Renunciation was no new thing to them; they
had been born to it. Still a few little ones in whom hope died hard
sobbed aloud, and wan, wretched mothers tried to hush and console
them. A kind of voiceless wail went among them, scarcely a protest,
rather the ghost of a lament for the childhood's pleasures they had
never known. The sergeant sat down and figured cheerlessly with the
stump of a pencil upon the blank border of a newspaper.
Bulger rose and shuffled out of the room without ceremony, as was his
custom. He was heard fumbling in the little room in the hallway, and
suddenly a thunderous roar broke out, filling the whole building with
its booming din. The sergeant started, and then laughed as if his
nerves welcomed the diversion.
"It's only Comrade Bulger," he said, "doing a little thinking in his
own quiet way."
The norther rattled the windows and shrieked around the corners. The
sergeant heaped more coal into the stove. The increase of that cutting
wind bore the cold promise of days, perhaps weeks, of hard times to
come. The children were slowly recovering the sad philosophy out of
which the deceptive hope of one bright day had enticed them. The women
were arranging things for the night; preparing to draw the long
curtain across the width of the hall, separating the children's
quarters and theirs from those of the men.
About eight o'clock the sergeant had seen that all was shipshape; and
was wrapping his woolen comforter around his neck, ready for his cold
journey homeward, when footsteps were heard upon the stairway. The
door opened, and Bulger came in covered with snow like Santa Claus,
and as red of face, but otherwise much unlike the jolly Christmas
saint.
The old man shambled down the hall to where the sergeant stood, drew a
wet, earth-soiled bag from under his coat, and laid it upon the table.
"Open it," he said, and motioned to the sergeant.
That cheery official obeyed with an indulgent smile. He seized the
bottom of the bag, turned it up, and stood, with his smile turned to a
gape of amazement, gazing at a heap of gold and silver coin that
rolled upon the table.
"Count it," said Bulger.
The jingling of the money and wonder at its source had produced a
profound silence in the room. For a time nothing could be heard but
the howling of the wind and the chink of the coins as the sergeant
slowly laid them in little separate piles.
"Six hundred," said the sergeant, and stopped to clear his throat,
"six hundred and twenty-three dollars and eighty-five cents!"
"Eighty," said Bulger. "Mistake of five cents. I've thought it out at
last, sergeant, and I've give up that friend I told you about. That's
him--dollars and cents. The boys was right when they said I was a
miser. Take it, sergeant, and spend it the best way for them that
needs it, not forgettin' a tree for the young 'uns, and--"
"Hallelujah!" cried the sergeant.
"And a new bass drum," concluded Bulger.
And then the sergeant made another speech.
A Professional Secret
The Story of a Maid Made Over
Dr. Satterfield Prince, physician to the leisure class, looked at his
watch. It indicated five minutes to twelve. At the stroke of the hour
would expire the morning term set apart for the reception of his
patients in his handsome office apartments. And then the young woman
attendant ushered in from the waiting-room the last unit of the
wealthy and fashionable gathering that had come to patronize his
skill.
Dr. Prince turned, his watch still in hand, his manner courteous, but
seeming to invite promptness and brevity in the interview. The last
patient was a middle-aged lady, richly dressed, with an amiable and
placid face. When she spoke her voice revealed the drawling, musical
slur and intonation of the South. She had come, she leisurely
explained, to bespeak the services of Dr. Prince in the case of her
daughter, who was possessed of a most mysterious affliction. And then,
femininely, she proceeded to exhaustively diagnose the affliction,
informing the physician with a calm certitude of its origin and
nature.
The diagnosis advanced by the lady--Mrs. Galloway Rankin--was one so
marvelously strange and singular in its conception that Dr. Prince,
accustomed as he was to the conceits and vagaries of wealthy
malingerers, was actually dumfounded. The following is the matter of
Mrs. Rankin's statement, briefly reported:
She--Mrs. Rankin--was of an old Kentucky family, the Bealls. Between
the Bealls and another historic house--the Rankins--had been waged for
nearly a century one of the fiercest and most sanguinary feuds within
the history of the State. Each generation had kept alive both the hate
and the warfare, until at length it was said that Nature began to take
cognizance of the sentiment and Bealls and Rankins were born upon
earth as antagonistic toward each other as cats and dogs. So, for four
generations the war had waged, and the mountains were dotted with
tombstones of both families. At last, for lack of fuel to feed upon,
the feud expired with only one direct descendant of the Bealls and one
of the Rankins remaining--Evalina Beall, aged nineteen, and Galloway
Rankin, aged twenty-five. The last mortal shot in the feud was fired
by Cupid. The two survivors met, became immediately and mutually
enamoured, and a miracle transpired on Kentucky soil--a Rankin wedded
a Beall.
Interposed, and irrelevant to the story, was the information that coal
mines had been discovered later on the Rankin lands, and now the
Galloway Rankins were to be computed among the millionaries.
All that was long enough ago for there to be now a daughter, twenty
years of age--Miss Annabel Rankin--for whose relief the services of
Dr. Prince was petitioned.
Then followed, in Mrs. Rankin's statement, a description of the
mysterious, though by her readily accounted for, affliction.
It seemed that there was a peculiar difficulty in the young lady's
powers of locomotion. In walking, a process requiring a coordination
and unanimity of the functions--Dr. Prince, said Mrs. Rankin, would
understand and admit the nonexistence of a necessity for anatomical
specification--there persisted a stubborn opposition, a most contrary
and counteracting antagonism. In those successively progressive and
generally unconsciously automatic movements necessary to proper
locomotion, there was a violent lack of harmony and mutuality. To give
an instance cited by Mrs. Rankin--if Miss Annabel desired to ascend a
stairway, one foot would be easily advanced to the step above, but
instead of aiding and abetting its fellow, the other would at once
proceed to start downstairs. By a strong physical and mental effort
the young lady could walk fairly well for a short distance but
suddenly the rebellious entities would become uncontrollable, and she
would be compelled to turn undesirable corners, to enter impossible
doorways, to dance, shuffle, sidestep and perform other undignified
and distressing evolutions.
After setting forth these lamentable symptoms, Mrs. Rankin
emphatically asserted her belief that the affliction was the result of
heredity--of the union between the naturally opposing and contrary
Beall and Rankin elements. She believed that the inherited spirit of
the ancient feud had taken on physical manifestations, exhibiting them
in the person of the unfortunate outcome of the union of opposites.
That in Miss Annabel Rankin was warring the imperishable antipathy of
the two families. In other words, that one of Miss Rankin's--that is
to say, that when Miss Rankin took a step it was a Beall step, and the
next one was dominated by the bequeathed opposition of the Rankins.
Doctor Prince received the communication with his usual grave,
professional attention, and promised to call the next day at ten to
inspect the patient.
Promptly at the hour his electric runabout turned into the line of
stylish autos and hansoms that wait along the pavements before the
most expensive hostelry on American soil.
When Miss Annabel Rankin entered the reception parlour of their choice
suite of rooms Doctor Prince gave a little blink of surprise through
his brilliantly polished nose glasses. The glow of perfect health and
the contour of perfect beauty were visible in the face and form of the
young lady. But admiration gave way to sympathy when he saw her walk.
She entered at a little run, swayed, stepped off helplessly at a sharp
tangent, advanced, marked time, backed off, recovered and sidled with
a manoeuvring rush to a couch, where she rested, with a look of
serious melancholy upon her handsome face.
Dr. Prince proceeded with his interrogatories in the delicate,
reassuring gentlemanly manner that had brought him so many patrons who
placed a value upon those amenities. Miss Annabel answered frankly and
sensibly, indeed, for one of her years. The feud theory of Mrs. Rankin
was freely discussed. The daughter also believed in it.
Soon the physician departed, promising to call again and administer
treatment. Then he buzzed down the Avenue and four doors on an
asphalted side street to the office of Dr. Grumbleton Myers, the great
specialist in locomotor ataxia and nerve ailments. The two
distinguished physicians shut themselves in a private office, and the
great Myers dragged forth a decanter of sherry and a box of Havanas.
When the consultation was over both shook their heads.
"Fact is," summed up Myers, "we don't know anything about anything.
I'd say treat symptoms now until something turns up; but there are no
symptoms."
"The feud diagnosis, then?" suggested Doctor Prince, archly, ridding
his cigar of its ash.
"It's an interesting case," said the specialist, noncommittally.
"I say, Prince," called Myers, as his caller was leaving.
"Er--sometimes, you know, children that fight and quarrel are shut in
separate rooms. Doesn't it seem a pity, now, that bloomers aren't in
fashion? By separ--"
"But they aren't," smiled Doctor Prince, "and we must be fashionable,
at any rate."
Doctor Prince burned midnight oil--or its equivalent, a patent,
electric, soft-shaded, midnight incandescent, over his case. With such
little success did his light shine that he was forced to make a little
speech to the Rankins full of scientific terms--a thing he
conscientiously avoided with his patients--which shows that he was
driven to expedient. At last he was reduced to suggest treatment by
hypnotism.
Being crowded further, he advised it, and appeared another day with
Professor Adami, the most reputable and non-advertising one he could
find among that school of practitioners.
Miss Annabel, gentle and melancholy, fell an easy victim--or, I should
say, subject--to the professor's influence. Previously instructed by
Doctor Prince in the nature of the malady he was about to combat, the
dealer in mental drugs proceeded to offer "suggestion" (in the
language of his school) to the afflicted and unconscious young lady,
impressing her mind with the conviction that her affliction was
moonshine and her perambulatory powers without impairment.
When the spell was removed Miss Rankin sat up, looking a little
bewildered at first, and then rose to her feet, walking straight
across the room with the grace, the sureness and the ease of a Diana,
a Leslie-Carter, or a Vassar basketball champion. Miss Annabel's sad
face was now lit with hope and joy. Mrs. Rankin of Southern
susceptibility wept a little, delightedly, upon a minute lace
handkerchief. Miss Annabel continued to walk about firmly and
accurately, in absolute control of the machinery necessary for her so
to do. Doctor Prince quietly congratulated Professor Adami, and then
stepped forward, smilingly rubbing his nose glasses with an air. His
position enabled him to overshadow the hypnotizer who, contented to
occupy the background temporarily, was busy estimating in his mind
with how large a bill for services he would dare to embellish the
occasion when he should come to the front.
Amid repeated expressions of gratitude, the two professional gentlemen
made their adieus, a little elated at the success of the treatment
which, with one of them, had been an experiment, with the other an
exhibition.
As the door closed behind them. Miss Annabel, her usually serious and
pensive temper somewhat enlivened by the occasion, sat at the piano
and dashed into a stirring march. Outside, the two men moving toward
the elevator heard a scream of alarm from her and hastened back. They
found her on the piano-stool, with one hand still pressing the keys.
The other arm was extended rigidly to its full length behind her, its
fingers tightly clenched into a pink and pretty little fist. Her
mother was bending over her, joining in the alarm and surprise. Miss
Rankin rose from the stool, now quiet, but again depressed and sad.
"I don't know what did it," she said, plaintively; "I began to play
and that arm shot back. It wouldn't stay near the piano while the
other one was there."
A ping-pong table stood in the room.
"A little game, Miss Rankin," cried Professor Adami, gayly, trying to
feel his way.
They played. With the racquet in the refractory arm, Miss Annabel
played in fine style. Her control of it was perfect. The professor
laid down his racquet.
"Ah! a button is loose on my coat," said he. "Such is the fate of
sorrowful bachelors. A needle and thread, now. Miss Rankin?"
A little surprised, but smiling acquiescence, Annabel brought the
articles from another room.
"Now thread the needle, if you please," said Professor Adami.
Annabel bit off two feet of the black silk. When she came to thread
the needle the secret was out. As the hand presenting the thread
approached the other holding the needle that arm was jerked violently
away. Doctor Prince was first to reduce the painful discovery to
words.
"Dear Miss and Mrs. Rankin," he said, in his most musical
consolation-baritone, "we have been only partially successful. The
affliction, Miss Rankin, has passed from your--that is, the affliction
is now in your arms."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Annabel, "I've a Beall arm and a Rankin arm, then.
Well, I can use one hand at a time, anyway. People won't notice it as
they did before. Oh, what an annoyance those feuds were, to be sure!
It seems to me they should make laws against them."
Doctor Prince looked inquiringly at Professor Adami. That gentleman
shook his head. "Another day," he said. "I prefer not to establish the
condition at a lesser interval than two or three days."
So, three days afterward they returned, and the professor replaced
Miss Rankin under control. This time there was, apparently, perfect
success. She came forth from the trance, and with full muscular
powers. She walked the floor with a sure, rhythmic step. She played
several difficult selections upon the piano, the hands and arms moving
with propriety and with allied ease. Miss Rankin seemed at last to
possess a perfectly well-ordered physical being as well as a very
grateful mental one.
A week afterward there wafted into Doctor Prince's office a youth,
generously gilded. The hallmarks of society were deeply writ upon him.
"I'm Ashburton," he explained; "T. Ripley Ashburton, you know. I'm
engaged to Miss Rankin. I understand you've been training her for some
breaks in her gaits--" T. Ripley Ashburton caught himself. "Didn't
mean that, you know--slipped out--been loafing around stables quite a
lot. I say, Doctor Prince, I want you to tell me. Candidly, you know.
I'm awful spoons on Miss Rankin. We're to be married in the fall. You
might consider me one of the family, you know. They told me about the
treatment you gave her with the--er--medium fellow. That set her up
wonderfully, I assure you. She goes freely now, and handles her
fore--I mean you know, she's over all that old trouble. But there's
something else started up that's making the track pretty heavy; so I
called, don't you understand."
"I had not been advised," said Doctor Prince, "of any recurrence of
Miss Rankin's indisposition."
T. Ripley Ashburton produced a silver cigarette-case and contemplated
it tenderly. Receiving no encouragement, he replaced it in his pocket
with a sigh.
"Not a recurrence," he said, thoughtfully, "but something different.
Possibly I'm the only one in a position to know. Hate to discuss
it--reveal Cupid's secrets, you know--such a jolly low thing to
do--but suppose the occasion justifies it."
"If you possess any information or have observed anything," said
Doctor Prince, judicially, "through which Miss Rankin's condition
might be benefited, it is your duty, of course, to apply it in her
behalf. I need hardly remind you that such disclosures are held as
secrets on professional honour."
"I believe I mentioned," said Mr. Ashburton, his fingers still
hovering around the pocket containing his cigarette case, "that Miss
Rankin and I are ever so sweet upon each other. She's a jolly, swell
girl, if she did come from the Kentucky mountains. Lately she's acted
awful queerly. She's awful affectionate one minute, and the next she
turns me down like a perfect stranger. Last night I called at the
hotel, and she met me at the door of their rooms. Nobody was in sight,
and she gave me an awful nice kiss--er--engaged, you know, Doctor
Prince--and then she fired away and gave me an awful hard slap in the
face. 'I hate the sight of you,' she said; 'how dare you take the
liberty!'" Mr. Ashburton drew an envelope from his pocket and
extracted from it a sheet of note paper of a delicate heliotrope tint.
"You might read this note, you know. Can't say if it's a medical case,
'pon my honour, but I'm awfully queered, don't you understand."
Doctor Prince read the following lines:
My dearest Ripley:
Do come around this evening--there's a dear boy--and take
me out somewhere. Mamma has a headache, and says she'll be
glad to be rid of both of us for a while. 'Twas so sweet
of you to send those pond lilies--they're just what I
wanted for the east windows. You darling boy--you're so
thoughtful and good--I'm sure you're worth all the love of
Your very own
Annabel.
P.S.--On second thoughts, I will ask you not to call this
evening, as I shall be otherwise engaged. Perhaps it has
never occurred to you that there may be two opinions about
the vast pleasure you seem to think your society affords
others. Clothes and the small talk of clubhouses and
racetracks hardly ever succeed in making a man without
other accessories.
Very respectfully,
Annabel Rankin.
Being deprived of the aid of his consolation cylinders, T. Ripley
Ashburton sat, gloomy, revolving things in his mind.
"Ah!" exclaimed Doctor Prince, aloud, but addressing the exclamation
to himself; "driven from the arms to the heart!" He perceived that the
mysterious hereditary contrariety had, indeed, taken up its lodging in
that tender organ of the afflicted maiden.
The gilded youth was dismissed, with the promise that Doctor Prince
would make a professional call upon Miss Rankin. He did so soon, in
company with Professor Adami, after they had discussed the strange
course taken by this annoying heritage of the Bealls and Rankins. This
time, as the location of the disorder required that the subject be
approached with ingenuity, some diplomacy was exercised before the
young lady could be induced to submit herself to the professor's art.
But evidently she did so, and emerged from the trance as usual without
a trace of unpleasant effect.
With much interest and some anxiety Doctor Prince passed several days
awaiting the report of Mr. Ashburton, who, indeed, of all others would
have to be depended upon to observe improvements, if any had occurred.
One morning that youth dropped in, jubilant.
"It's all right, you know," he declared, cheerfully. "Miss Rankin's
herself again. She's as sweet as cream, and the trouble's all off.
Never a cross word or look. I'm her ducky, all right. She won't
believe what I tell her about the way she used to treat me. Intimates
I make up the stories. But it's all right now--everything's running on
rubber tires. Awfully obliged to you and the old boy--er--the medium,
you know. And I say, now, Doctor Prince, there's a wonderful
improvement in Miss Rankin in every way. She used to be rather stiff,
don't you understand--sort of superior, in a way--bookish, and a habit
of thinking things, you know. Well, she's cured all round--she's a
topper now of any bunch in the set--swell and stylish and lively! Oh,
the crowd will fall in to her lead when she becomes Mrs. T. Ripley.
Now, I say. Doctor Prince, you and the--er--medium gentleman come and
take supper tonight with Mrs. and Miss Rankin and me. I'd be delighted
if you would, now--I would indeed--just for you to see, you know, the
improvement in Miss Rankin."
It transpired that Doctor Prince and Professor Adami accepted Mr.
Ashburton's invitation. They convened at the hotel in the rooms of the
Rankins. From there they were to proceed to the restaurant honoured by
Mr. Ashburton's patronage.
When Miss Rankin swept gracefully into the room the professional
gentlemen felt fascination and surprise conflicting in their feelings.
She was radiant, bewitching, lively to effervescence. Her mother and
Mr. Ashburton hung, enraptured, upon her looks and words. She was most
becomingly clothed in pale blue.
"Oh, bother!" she suddenly exclaimed, most vivaciously, "I don't like
this dress, after all. You must all wait," she commanded, with a
captivating fling of her train, "until I change." Half an hour later
she returned, magnificent in a stunning costume of black lace.
"I'll walk with you downstairs, Professor Adami," she declared, with a
charming smile. Halfway down she left his side abruptly and joined
Doctor Prince. "You've been such a benefit to me," she said. "It's
such a relief to get rid of that horrid feud thing. Heavens! Ripley,
did you forget those bonbons? Oh, this horrid black dress! I shouldn't
have worn it; it makes me think of funerals. Did you get the scent of
those lilacs then? It makes me think of the Kentucky mountains. How I
wish we were back there."
"Aren't you fond of New York, then?" asked Doctor Prince, regarding
her interestedly.
She started at the sound of his voice and looked up vivaciously.
"Indeed I am," she said, earnestly. "I adore New York. Why, I couldn't
live without theatres and dances and my daily drives here. Oh,
Ripley," she called, over her shoulder, "don't get that bull pup I
wanted; I've changed my mind. I want a Pomeranian--now, don't forget."
They arrived on the pavement.
"Oh, a carriage!" exclaimed Miss Rankin; "I don't want a carriage, I
want an auto. Send it away!"
"All right," said Ashburton, cheerily, "I thought you said a
carriage."
In obedience to orders the carriage rolled away and an open auto
glided up in its place.
"Stuffy, smelly thing!" cried Miss Rankin, with a winsome pout. "We'll
walk. Ripley, you and Doctor Prince look out for mamma. Come on,
Professor Adami." The indulgent victims of the charming beauty obeyed.
"The dear, dear child!" exclaimed Mrs. Rankin, happily, to Doctor
Prince. "How full of spirits and life she is getting to be! She's so
much improved from her old self."
"Lots," said Ashburton, proudly and fatuously. "She's picked up the
regular metropolitan gaits. Chic and swell don't begin to express her.
She's cut out the pensive thought business. Up-to-date. Why she
changes her mind every two minutes. That's Annabel."
At the fashionable restaurant where they were soon seated, Doctor
Prince found his curiosity and interest engaged by Miss Rankin's
behaviour. She was in an agreeably fascinating humour. Her actions
were such as might be expected from an adored child whose vacillating
whims were indulged by groveling relatives. She ordered article after
article from the bill of fare, petulantly countermanding nearly
everyone when they were set before her. Waiters flew and returned,
collided, conciliated, apologized, and danced at her bidding. Her
speech was quick and lively, deliciously inconsistent, abounding in
contradictions, conflicting statements, "bulls," discrepancies and
nonconformities. In short, she seemed to have acquired within the
space of a few days all that inconsequent, illogical frothiness that
passes current among certain circles of fashionable life.
Mr. T. Ripley Ashburton showed a doting appreciation and an addled
delight at the new charms of his fiancee--charms that he at once
recognized as the legal tender of his set.
Later, when the party had broken up, Doctor Prince and Professor Adami
stood, for a moment, at a corner, where their ways were to diverge.
"Well," said the professor, who was genially softened by the excellent
supper and wine, "this time our young lady seems to be more fortunate.
The malady has been eradicated completely from her entity. Yes, sir,
in good time, our school will be recognized by all."
Doctor Prince scrutinized the handsome, refined countenance of the
hypnotist. He saw nothing there to indicate that his own diagnosis was
even guessed at by that gentleman.
"As you say," he made answer, "she appears to have recovered, as far
as her friends can judge."
When he could spare the time. Doctor Prince again invaded the sanctum
of the great Grumbleton Myers, and together they absorbed the poison
of nicotine.
"Yes," said the great Myers, when the door was opened and Doctor
Prince began to ooze out with the smoke, "I think you have come to the
right decision. As long as none of the persons concerned has any
suspicion of the truth, and is happy in the present circumstances, I
don't think it necessary to inform him that the _feuditis Beallorum et
Rankinorum_--how's the Latin, doctor?--has only been driven to Miss
Rankin's brain."