THE INVALID
The girls intercepted Maud Stanton when she returned to the hotel that
evening, and told her all about A. Jones. The tale was finished long
before that dyspeptic youth had wakened from his slumbers. Then they all
dressed for dinner and afterward met in the lobby, where Uncle John told
them he had arranged to have a big round table prepared for the entire
party, including a seat for A. Jones, who might like to join them.
However, the young man did not make his appearance, and as they trooped
into the dining room Patsy said resentfully:
"I believe A. Jones is in a trance and needs rolling on a barrel again."
"He probably found himself too weak to appear in public," replied Flo
Stanton. "I'm sure if I had been all but drowned a few hours ago, I would
prefer bed to society."
"I'm astonished that he summoned energy to visit us at all," declared
Mrs. Montrose. "He may be weak and ill, but at least he is grateful."
"Jones seems a vary gentlemanly young fellow," said Mr. Merrick. "He is a
bit shy and retiring, which is perhaps due to his lonely life on his
island; but I think he has been well brought up."
As they came out from dinner they observed the porters wheeling several
big trunks up the east corridor. The end of each trunk was lettered:
"A. Jones."
"Well," said Beth, with an amused smile, "he intends to stay a while,
anyhow. You'll have a chance to meet him yet, Maud."
"I'm glad of that," answered Maud, "for I am anxious to calculate the
worth of the life I helped to save. Your reports are ambiguous, and I am
undecided whether you are taking the boy seriously or as a joke. From
your description of his personal appearance, I incline to the belief that
under ordinary circumstances I would not look twice at Mr. Jones, but
having been partly instrumental in preserving him to the world, I
naturally feel a proprietary interest in him."
"Of course," said Flo. "He's worth one look, out of pure curiosity; but
it would be dreadful to have him tagging you around, expressing his
everlasting gratitude."
"I don't imagine he'll do that," observed Patsy Doyle. "A. Jones strikes
me as having a fair intellect in a shipwrecked body, and I'll wager a
hatpin against a glove-buttoner that he won't bore you. At the same time
he may not interest you--or any of us--for long, unless he develops
talents we have not discovered. I wonder why he doesn't use his whole
name. That mystic 'A' puzzles me."
"It's an English notion, I suppose," said Mrs. Montrose.
"But he isn't English; he's American."
"Sangoese," corrected Beth.
"Perhaps he doesn't like his name, or is ashamed of it," suggested
Uncle John.
"It may be 'Absalom,'" said Flo. "We once knew an actor named Absalom,
and he always called himself 'A. Judson Keith.' He was a dignified chap,
and when we girls one day called him 'Ab,' he nearly had hysterics."
"Mr. Werner had hysterics to-day," asserted Maud, gravely; "but I didn't
blame him. He sent out a party to ride down a steep hill on horseback, as
part of a film story, and a bad accident resulted. One of the horses
stepped in a gopher hole and fell, and a dozen others piled up on him,
including their riders."
"How dreadful!" was the general exclamation.
"Several of the horses broke their legs and had to be shot," continued
Maud; "but none of the riders was seriously injured except little
Sadie Martin, who was riding a bronco. The poor thing was caught under
one of the animals and the doctor says she won't be able to work again
for months."
"Goodness me! And all for the sake of a picture?" cried Patsy
indignantly. "I hope you don't take such risks, Maud."
"No; Flo and I have graduated from what is called 'the bronco bunch,' and
now do platform work entirely. To be sure we assume some minor risks in
that, but nothing to compare with the other lines of business."
"I hope the little girl you mentioned will get well, and has enough money
to tide her over this trouble," said Uncle John anxiously.
"The manager will look after her," returned Mrs. Montrose. "Our people
are very good about that and probably Sadie Martin's salary will continue
regularly until she is able to work again."
"Well," said Beth, drawing a long breath, "I suppose we shall read all
about it in the morning papers."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Maud and added: "These accidents never get into the
papers. They happen quite often, around Los Angeles, where ten thousand
or more people make their living from motion pictures; but the public is
protected from all knowledge of such disasters, which would detract from
their pleasure in pictures and perhaps render all films unpopular."
"I thought the dear public loved the dare-devil acts," remarked
Arthur Weldon.
"Oh, it does," agreed Mrs. Montrose; "yet those who attend the picture
theatres seem not to consider the action taking place before their eyes
to be real. Here are pictures only--a sort of amplified story book--and
the spectators like them exciting; but if they stopped to reflect that
men and women in the flesh were required to do these dangerous feats for
their entertainment, many would be too horrified to enjoy the scenes. Of
course the makers of the pictures guard their actors in all possible
ways; yet, even so, casualties are bound to occur."
They had retired to a cosy corner of the public drawing room and were
conversing on this interesting topic when they espied A. Jones walking
toward them. The youth was attired in immaculate evening dress, but his
step was slow and dragging and his face pallid.
Arthur and Uncle John drew up an easy chair for him while Patsy performed
the introductions to Mrs. Montrose and her nieces. Very earnestly the boy
grasped the hand of the young girl who had been chiefly responsible for
his rescue, thanking her more by his manner than in his few carefully
chosen words.
As for Maud, she smilingly belittled her effort, saying lightly: "I
know I must not claim that it didn't amount to anything, for your life is
valuable, Mr. Jones, I'm sure. But I had almost nothing to do beyond
calling Patsy Doyle's attention to you and then swimming out to keep you
afloat until help came. I'm a good swimmer, so it was not at all
difficult."
"Moreover," he added, "you would have done the same thing for anyone in
distress."
"Certainly."
"I realize that. I am quite a stranger to you. Nevertheless, my gratitude
is your due and I hope you will accept it as the least tribute I can pay
you. Of all that throng of bathers, only you noticed my peril and came to
my assistance."
"Fate!" whispered Flo impressively.
"Nonsense," retorted her sister. "I happened to be the only one looking
out to sea. I think, Mr. Jones, you owe us apologies more than gratitude,
for your folly was responsible for the incident. You were altogether too
venturesome. Such action on this coast, where the surf rolls high and
creates an undertow, is nothing less than foolhardy."
"I'm sure you are right," he admitted. "I did not know this coast, and
foolishly imagined the old Pacific, in which I have sported and played
since babyhood, was my friend wherever I found it."
"I hope you are feeling better and stronger this evening," said Mr.
Merrick. "We expected you to join us at dinner."
"I--I seldom dine in public," he explained, flushing slightly. "My
bill-of-fare is very limited, you know, owing to my--my condition; and so
I carry my food-tablets around with me, wherever I go, and eat them in my
own room."
"Food-tablets!" cried Patsy, horrified.
"Yes. They are really wafers--very harmless--and I am permitted to eat
nothing else."
"No wonder your stomach is bad and you're a living skeleton!" asserted
the girl, with scorn.
"My dear," said Uncle John, gently chiding her, "we must give Mr. Jones
the credit for knowing what is best for him."
"Not me, sir!" protested the boy, in haste. "I'm very ignorant
about--about health, and medicine and the like. But in New York I
consulted a famous doctor, and he told me what to do."
"That's right," nodded the old gentleman, who had never been ill in his
life. "Always take the advice of a doctor, listen to the advice of a
lawyer, and refuse the advise of a banker. That's worldly wisdom."
"Were you ill when you left your home?" inquired Mrs. Montrose, looking
at the young man with motherly sympathy.
"Not when I left the island," he said. "I was pretty well up to that
time. But during the long ocean voyage I was terribly sick, and by the
time we got to San Francisco my stomach was a wreck. Then I tried to eat
the rich food at your restaurants and hotels--we live very plainly in
Sangoa, you know--and by the time I got to New York I was a confirmed
dyspeptic and suffering tortures. Everything I ate disagreed with me. So
I went to a great specialist, who has invented these food tablets for
cases just like mine, and he ordered me to eat nothing else."
"And are you better?" asked Maud.
He hesitated.
"Sometimes I imagine I am. I do not suffer so much pain, but I--I seem
to grow weaker all the time."
"No wonder!" cried Patsy. "If you starve yourself you can't grow strong."
He looked at her with an expression of surprise. Then he asked abruptly:
"What would you advise me to do, Miss Doyle?"
A chorus of laughter greeted this question. Patsy flushed a trifle but
covered her confusion by demanding: "Would you follow my advice?"
He made a little grimace. There was humor in the boy, despite his
dyspepsia.
"I understand there is a law forbidding suicide," he replied. "But I
asked your advice in an attempt to discover what you thought of my absurd
condition. Now that you call my attention to it, I believe I _am_
starving myself. I need stronger and more nourishing food; and yet the
best specialist in your progressive country has regulated my diet."
"I don't believe much in specialists," asserted Patsy. "If _you_ do, go
ahead and kill yourself, in defiance of the law. According to common
sense you ought to eat plenty of good, wholesome food, but you may be so
disordered--in your interior--that even that would prove fatal. So I
won't recommend it."
"I'm doomed, either way," he said quietly. "I know that."
"_How_ do you know it?" demanded Maud in a tone of resentment.
He was silent a moment. Then he replied:
"I cannot remember how we drifted into this very personal argument. It
seems wrong for me to be talking about myself to those who are
practically strangers, and you will realize how unused I am to the
society of ladies by considering my rudeness in this interview."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Uncle John; "we are merely considering you as a
friend. You must believe that we are really interested in you," he
continued, laying a kindly hand on the young fellow's shoulder. "You seem
in a bad way, it's true, but your condition is far from desperate.
Patsy's frankness--it's her one fault and her chief virtue--led you to
talk about yourself, and I'm surprised to find you so despondent
and--and--what do you call it, Beth?"
"Pessimistic?"
"That's it--pessimistic."
"But you're wrong, sir!" said the boy with a smile; "I may not be elated
over my fatal disease, but neither am I despondent. I force myself to
keep going when I wonder how the miserable machine responds to my urging,
and I shall keep it going, after a fashion, until the final breakdown.
Fate weaves the thread of our lives, I truly believe, and she didn't use
very good material when she started mine. But that doesn't matter," he
added quickly. "I'm trying to do a little good as I go along and not
waste my opportunities. I'm obeying my doctor's orders and facing the
future with all the philosophy I can summon. So now, if you--who have
given me a new lease of life--think I can use it to any better advantage,
I am willing to follow your counsel."
His tone was more pathetic than his words. Maud, as she looked at the boy
and tried to realize that his days were numbered, felt her eyes fill
with tears. Patsy sniffed scornfully, but said nothing. It was Beth who
remarked with an air of unconcern that surprised those who knew her
unsympathetic nature:
"It would be presumptuous for us to interfere, either with Fate or with
Nature. You're probably dead wrong about your condition, for a sick
person has no judgment whatever, but I've noticed the mind has a good
deal to do with one's health. If you firmly believe you're going to die,
why, what can you expect?"
No one cared to contradict this and a pause followed that was growing
awkward when they were all aroused by the sound of hasty footsteps
approaching their corner.