Mr. Winthrop Laine threw his gloves on the table, his overcoat on a
chair, put his hat on the desk, and then looked down at his shoes.
"Soaking wet," he said, as if to them. "I swear this weather would
ruin a Tapley temper! For two weeks rain and sleet and snow and
steam heat to come home to. Hello, General! How are the legs
tonight, old man?" Stooping, he patted softly the big, beautiful
collie which was trying to welcome him, and gently he lifted the
dog's head and looked in the patient eyes.
"No better? Not even a little bit? I'd take half if I could,
General, more than half. It's hard luck, but it's worse not to know
what to do for you." He turned his head from the beseeching eyes.
"For the love of heaven don't look at me like that, General, don't
make it--" His breath was drawn in sharply; then, as the dog made
effort to bark, to raise his right paw in greeting as of old, he put
it down carefully, rang the bell, walked over to the window, and for
a moment looked out on the street below.
The gray dullness of a late November afternoon was in the air of New
York, and the fast-falling snowflakes so thickened it that the people
hurrying this way and that seemed twisted figures of fantastic
shapes, wind-blown and bent, and with a shiver Laine came back and
again stood by General's side.
At the door Moses, his man, waited. Laine turned toward him. "Get
out some dry clothes and see what's the matter with the heat. A
blind man coming in here would think he'd struck an ice-pond." He
looked around and then at the darkey in front of him. "The Lord gave
you a head for the purpose of using it, Moses, but you mistake it at
times for an ornament. Zero weather and windows down from the top
twelve inches! Has General been in here to-day?"
"No, sir. He been in the kitchen 'most all day. You told me this
morning to put fresh air in here and I put, but me and General ain't
been in here since I clean up. He's been powerful poorly to-day,
sir."
"I see he has." Laine's hand went to the dog and rested a moment on
his head. "Close up those windows and turn on the lights and see
about the heat. This room is almost as cheerful as a morgue at
daybreak."
"I reckon you done took a little cold, sir." Moses closed the
windows, drew the curtains, turned on more heat, and made the room a
blaze of light. "It's a very spacious room, sir, and for them what
loves books it's very aspirin', but of course in winter-time a room
without a woman or a blazin' fire in it ain't what it might be.
Don't you think you'd better take a little something, sir, to het you
up inside?"
Laine, bending over General, shook his head. "No, I don't. I want
sleep. I came home early to try and get a little, but--"
"You ain't had none to speak of for 'most a week." Moses still
lingered. "I wish you'd let General come in my room to-night. You
can't stand seein' him suffer, and you'll be sick yourself if you
keep a-waitin' on him all night. Can't I get you a little Scotch,
sir, or a hot whiskey punch? I got the water waitin'. They say now
whiskey ain't no permanent cure for colds, but it sure do help you
think it is. Experience is better than expoundin' and--"
Again Laine shook his head. "Get me some dry clothes," he said, then
went to the table and looked over the letters laid in a row upon it.
"Have a taxi-cab here by quarter past six and don't come in again
until I ring. I'm going to lie down."
A few minutes later, on a rug-covered couch, General on the floor
beside him, he was trying to sleep. He was strangely tired, and for
a while his only well-defined feeling was one of impatience at having
to go out. Why must people do so many things they don't want to do?
He put out his hand and smoothed softly General's long ears. Why
couldn't a man be let alone and allowed to live the way he preferred?
Why-- "Quit it," he said, half aloud. "What isn't Why in life is
Wherefore, and guessing isn't your job. Go to sleep."
After a while he opened his eyes and looked around the book-lined
walls. When he first began to invest in books he could only buy one
at a time, and now there was no room for more. He wondered if there
was anything he could buy to-day that would give him the thrill his
first books had given. He had almost forgotten what a thrill could
mean. But who cared for books nowadays? The men and women he knew,
with few exceptions, wouldn't give a twist of their necks to see his,
would as soon think of reading them as of talking Dutch at a
dinner-party, and very probably they were right. Knowledge added
little to human happiness. Science and skill could do nothing for
General. Poor General! Again he smoothed the latter's head. For
years he had barked his good-bye in the morning, for years watched
eagerly his coming, paws on the window-sill as dusk grew on, for
years leaped joyously to meet him on his return, but he would do
these things no longer. There was no chance of betterment, and death
would be a mercy--a painless death which could be arranged. But he
had said no, said it angrily when the doctor so suggested, and had
tried a new man, who was deceiving him.
"You are all I have, General"--his hand traveled softly up and down
the length of the dog's back--"and somewhere you must wait for me.
I've got to stay on and play the game, and it's to be played
straight, but when it's called I sha'n't be sorry."
From a box on a table close to him he took a cigar, lighted it, and
watched its spirals of smoke curl upward. Life and the smoke that
vanisheth had much in common. On the whole, he had no grievance
against life. If it was proving a rather wearisome affair it was
doubtless his own fault, and yet this finding of himself alone at
forty was hardly what he had intended. There was something actually
comic about it. That for which he had striven had been secured, but
for what? Success unshared is of all things ironic, and soon not
even General would be here to greet him when the day's work was done.
He blew out a thin thread of smoke and followed its curvings with
half-shut eyes. He had made money, made it honestly, and it had
brought him that which it brought others, but if this were all life
had to give--He threw his cigar away, and as General's soft breathing
reached him he clasped his hands at the back of his head and stared
up at the ceiling.
Why didn't he love his work as he used to? He had played fair, but
to play fair was to play against the odds, and there were times when
he hated the thing which made men fight as fiercely to-day as in the
days of the jungle, though they no longer sprang at each other's
throats. On the whole, he preferred the cavemen's method of attack.
They at least fought face to face. As for women--
He got up, stooped down, and patted General softly. "I'm sorry to
leave you, old man, but you'll sleep and I won't be long. Why Hope
didn't telephone what she wanted me to do, instead of beseeching me
to come to her that she might tell me, is beyond male understanding.
But we don't try to understand women, do we, General?"
The big brown eyes of the collie looked up in his master's face and
in them was beseeching adoration. With painful effort he laid first
one paw and then the other on Laine's hand, and as the latter stroked
them he barked feebly.
For a moment there was silence, the silence of understanding
comrades, then Laine turned away and began to dress.