Then you ought to have seen us fraternize!
In twenty minutes I had him almost convinced that Eleanor had
loved him all these years. But he worried a lot about a Mr. Wise
who had been on the same train, and a certain Colonel Hadow who
had also paid Eleanor attention. Jones was a great fellow for
wanting to be sure. I pooh-poohed them out of the way and gave
him the open track. Then, indeed, the clouds rolled away. He
beamed with joy. In his rich gush of friendship he recurred to
the subject of my insomnia with a new-born enthusiasm. He
subdivided all my symptoms. He dived again into my physical
being. He consulted German authorities. I squirmed and lied and
resisted all I could, but he said he owed me an eternal debt that
could only be liquidated by an absolute cure. He wanted to tie
me up and shoot me with an X-ray. He ordered me to wear white
socks. He had a long, terrifying look at a drop of my blood. He
jerked hairs out of my head to sample my nerve force. He said I
was a baffling subject, but that he meant to make me well if it
took the last shot in the scientific locker. And he wound up at
last by refusing point-blank to be paid a cent!
I waltzed away on air to write an account of the whole affair to
Freddy, and dictate a plan of operations. I was justified in
feeling proud of myself. Most men would have tamely submitted to
their fate instead of chasing up all the Joneses of Jonesville!
Freddy sent me an early answer--a gay, happy, overflowing little
note--telling me to try and engage Doctor Jones for a three-day
house-party at Morristown. I was to telegraph when he could
come, and was promised an official invitation from Mrs.
Matthewman. (She was the aunt, you know, that they lived with
--one of those old porcelain ladies with a lace cap and a rent-roll.)
However, I could not do anything for two days, for we had
reached a crisis in the labor troubles, and matters were
approaching the breaking point. We were threatened with one of
those "sympathetic" strikes that drive business men crazy. There
was no question at issue between ourselves and our employees; but
the thing ramified off somewhere to the sugar vacuum-boiler
riveters' union. Finally the S.Y.B.R.U. came to a settlement
with their bosses, and peace was permitted to descend on Hodge &
Westoby's.
I took immediate advantage of it to descend myself on Doctor
Jones. He received me with open arms and an insomniacal
outburst. He had been reading up; he had been seeing
distinguished confreres; he had been mastering the subject to the
last dot, and was panting to begin. I hated to dampen such
friendship and ardor by telling him that I had completely
recovered. Under the circumstances it seemed brutal--but I did
it. The poor fellow tried to argue with me, but I insisted that
I now slept like a top. It sounded horribly ungrateful. Here I
was spurning the treasures of his mind, and almost insulting him
with my disgusting good health. I swerved off to the house-party;
Eleanor's delight, and so on; Mrs. Matthewman's pending
invitation; the hope that he might have an early date free--
He listened to it all in silence, walking restlessly about the
office, his blue eyes shining with a strange light. He took
up a bronze paper-weight and gazed at it with an intensity of
self-absorption.
"I can't go," he said.
"Oh, but you have to," I exclaimed.
"Mr. Westoby," he resumed, "I was foolish enough to back a
friend's credit at a store here. He has skipped to Minnesota,
and I am left with three hundred and four dollars and
seventy-five cents to pay. To take a three days' holiday would
be a serious matter to me at any time, but at this moment it is
impossible."
I gave him a good long look. He didn't strike me as a borrowing
kind of man. I should probably insult him by volunteering. Was
there ever anything so unfortunate?
"I can't go," he repeated with a little choke.
"You may never have another opportunity," I said. "Eleanor is
doing a thing I should never have expected from one of her proud
and reserved nature. The advances of such a woman--"
He interrupted me with a groan.
"If it wasn't for my mother I'd throw everything to the winds and
fly to her," he burst out. "But I have a mother--a sainted
mother, Mr. Westoby--her welfare must always be my first
consideration!"
"Is there no chance of anything turning up?" I said. "An
appendicitis case--an outbreak of measles? I thought there was a
lot of scarlatina just now."
He shook his head dejectedly.
"Doctor," I began again, "I am pretty well fixed myself. I'm
blessed with an income that runs to five figures. If all goes
the way it should we shall be brothers-in-law in six months. We
are almost relations. Give me the privilege of taking over this
small obligation--"
I never saw a man so overcome. My proposal seemed to tear the
poor devil to pieces. When he spoke his voice was trembling.
"You don't know what it means to me to refuse," he said. "My
self-respect my--my . . . " And then he positively began to
weep!
"You said three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents,
I believe?"
He waved it from him with a long, lean hand.
"I can not do it," he said; "and, for God's sake, don't ask me
to!"
I argued with him for twenty minutes; I laid the question before
him in a million lights; I racked him with a picture of Eleanor,
so deeply hurt, so mortified, that in her recklessness and
despair she would probably throw herself away on the first man
that offered! This was his chance, I told him; the one chance of
his life; he was letting a piece of idiotic pride wreck the
probable happiness of years. He agreed with me with moans and
weeps. He had the candor of a child and the torrential sentiment
of a German musician. Three hundred and four dollars and
seventy-five cents stood between him and eternal bliss, and yet
he waved my pocketbook from him! And all the while I saw myself
losing Freddy.