BUSINESS CHANGES
We have now recorded some of the events which characterized the five
months during which Doctor Keene had been vainly seeking to recover his
health in the West Indies.
"Is Mr. Frowenfeld in?" he asked, walking very slowly, and with a cane,
into the new drug-store on the morning of his return to the city.
"If Professo' Frowenfel' 's in?" replied a young man in shirt-sleeves,
speaking rapidly, slapping a paper package which he had just tied, and
sliding it smartly down the counter. "No, seh."
A quick step behind the doctor caused him to turn; Raoul was just
entering, with a bright look of business on his face, taking his coat
off as he came.
"Docta Keene! _Teck_ a chair. 'Ow you like de noo sto'? See? Fo'
counters! T'ree clerk'! De whole interieure paint undre mie h-own
direction! If dat is not a beautiful! eh? Look at dat sign."
He pointed to some lettering in harmonious colors near the ceiling at
the farther end of the house. The doctor looked and read:
MANDARIN, AG'T, APOTHECARY.
"Why not Frowenfeld?" he asked.
Raoul shrugged.
"'Tis better dis way."
That was his explanation.
"Not the De Brahmin Mandarin who was Honoré's manager?"
"Yes. Honoré was n' able to kip 'im no long-er. Honoré is n' so rich lak
befo'."
"And Mandarin is really in charge here?"
"Oh, yes. Profess-or Frowenfel' all de time at de ole corner, w'ere 'e
_con_tinue to keep 'is private room and h-use de ole shop fo' ware'ouse.
'E h-only come yeh w'en Mandarin cann' git 'long widout 'im."
"What does he do there? _He's_ not rich."
Raoul bent down toward the doctor's chair and whispered the dark secret:
"Studyin'!"
Doctor Keene went out.
Everything seemed changed to the returned wanderer. Poor man! The
changes were very slight save in their altered relation to him. To one
broken in health, and still more to one with a broken heart, old scenes
fall upon the sight in broken rays. A sort of vague alienation seemed to
the little doctor to come like a film over the long-familiar vistas of
the town where he had once walked in the vigor and complacency of
strength and distinction. This was not the same New Orleans. The people
he met on the street were more or less familiar to his memory, but many
that should have recognized him failed to do so, and others were made to
notice him rather by his cough than by his face. Some did not know he
had been away. It made him cross.
He had walked slowly down beyond the old Frowenfeld corner and had just
crossed the street to avoid the dust of a building which was being torn
down to make place for a new one, when he saw coming toward him,
unconscious of his proximity, Joseph Frowenfeld.
"Doctor Keene!" said Frowenfeld, with almost the enthusiasm of Raoul.
The doctor was very much quieter.
"Hello, Joe."
They went back to the new drug-store, sat down in a pleasant little rear
corner enclosed by a railing and curtains, and talked.
"And did the trip prove of no advantage to you?"
"You see. But never mind me; tell me about Honoré; how does that row
with his family progress?"
"It still continues; the most of his people hold ideas of justice and
prerogative that run parallel with family and party lines, lines of
caste, of custom and the like they have imparted their bad feeling
against him to the community at large; very easy to do just now, for the
election for President of the States comes on in the fall, and though we
in Louisiana have little or nothing to do with it, the people are
feverish."
"The country's chill-day," said Doctor Keene; "dumb chill, hot fever."
"The excitement is intense," said Frowenfeld. "It seems we are not to
be granted suffrage yet; but the Creoles have a way of casting votes in
their mind. For example, they have voted Honoré Grandissime a traitor;
they have voted me an encumbrance; I hear one of them casting that
vote now."
Some one near the front of the store was talking excitedly with Raoul:
"An'--an'--an' w'at are the consequence? The consequence are that we
smash his shop for him an' 'e 'ave to make a noo-start with a Creole
partner's money an' put 'is sto' in charge of Creole'! If I know he is
yo' frien'? Yesseh! Valuable citizen? An' w'at we care for valuable
citizen? Let him be valuable if he want; it keep' him from gettin' the
neck broke; but--he mus'-tek-kyeh--'ow--he--talk'! He-mus'-tek-kyeh 'ow
he stir the 'ot blood of Louisyanna!"
"He is perfectly right," said the little doctor, in his husky undertone;
"neither you nor Honoré is a bit sound, and I shouldn't wonder if they
would hang you both, yet; and as for that darkey who has had the
impudence to try to make a commercial white gentleman of himself--it may
not be I that ought to say it, but--he will get his deserts--sure!"
"There are a great many Americans that think as you do," said
Frowenfeld, quietly.
"But," said the little doctor, "what did that fellow mean by your Creole
partner? Mandarin is in charge of your store, but he is not your
partner, is he? Have you one?"
"A silent one," said the apothecary
"So silent as to be none of my business?"
"No."
"Well, who is it, then?"
"It is Mademoiselle Nancanou."
"Your partner in business?"
"Yes."
"Well, Joseph Frowenfeld,--"
The insinuation conveyed in the doctor's manner was very trying, but
Joseph merely reddened.
"Purely business, I suppose," presently said the doctor, with a ghastly
ironical smile. "Does the arrangem'--" his utterance failed him--"does
it end there?"
"It ends there."
"And you don't see that it ought either not to have begun, or else ought
not to have ended there?"
Frowenfeld blushed angrily. The doctor asked:
"And who takes care of Aurora's money?"
"Herself."
"Exclusively?"
They both smiled more good-naturedly.
"Exclusively."
"She's a coon;" and the little doctor rose up and crawled away,
ostensibly to see another friend, but really to drag himself into his
bedchamber and lock himself in. The next day--the yellow fever was bad
again--he resumed the practice of his profession.
"'Twill be a sort of decent suicide without the element of
pusillanimity," he thought to himself.