"Well, Don," he said, after a thoughtful pause, "I am going to be candid with you. The scheme you have outlined would be considered, as you must know, by nine-tenths of our friends, as absolutely senseless. To me it really has some points in its favor, if it can be carried out. You have left the advertis.e.m.e.nt for insertion? Very well. If you like to trust me so far, bring a batch of your answers here next Tuesday and we will go over them together. There will be a certain per centum that we shall both agree are not worth attention. We will cla.s.sify the others, and pick out a dozen or so to look up. My time, my services, are at your disposal. The Law is not pressing me particularly just now, and I shall be glad if I can be of use to anybody."
I accepted the proposition with delight.
"And now," added Hume, "come over and get a drink."
But this I was obliged to decline. I had made a solemn promise to Dr.
Chambers, nearly a year before, that there were two things from which I would refrain for twelve whole months; and one of them was drinking anything of an alcoholic nature between meals, or stronger than claret even then. This I explained to Harvey, with the additional information that I had not broken my pledge and that the time specified would expire within three weeks.
"Meet me on the day it is up and let me see you quaff your first Manhattan," he said, laughingly.
"If I have good luck I shall be far away, on the Briny," I answered. "I shall begin very gingerly, wherever I am. I would rather shoot myself to-night than get into the condition I was when Chambers squeezed that promise out of me. He said the other day that when I entered his office I had eyes like those of a dead fish and so little pulse he could hardly distinguish it."
"He is quite correct," said Hume. "I saw you about the same time, and I thought, as I live, that you were a goner. You"re all right now, though, and--upon my soul!--I hope you"ll keep so. The charms of Bacchus are not your worst danger, Venus, my boy, is the lady you want to keep shy of."
"Don"t I know that?" I answered. "Confound her and all her nymphs!"
"Well, good day," he said, taking my hand in his and putting the other on my shoulder affectionately. "Tuesday I shall look for you, remember, with a dray load of letters from the fair maidens of this metropolis!"
CHAPTER III.
AN EVENING AT KOSTER & BIAL"S.
Before I actually engaged pa.s.sage to any foreign port I thought it wise to pay a parting visit to good Dr. Chambers. It was six months since I had last called on him, for finding that I was gaining in every way I did not care to fill myself up with medicines. His advice about abstinence from things hurtful had been religiously followed, and I presented the outward appearance of a man in fairly good health when he came into his office and took my hand. Between us there has grown up a feeling warmer than generally, I am afraid, exists between physician and patient. I am intensely grateful for the skill that changed me from a desponding invalid to one so nearly the opposite in spirits, and the odd five dollar bills I have paid seem no equivalent for the great boon he conferred upon me.
In plain terms, he saved my life and more. He redeemed me from a sort of h.e.l.l which I think the old romancers would have subst.i.tuted for their fire and brimstone had they ever had personal experience of it, as a means of deterring the sinful from their ways. Money cannot pay for such service, and I shall feel an affection for Dr. Chambers as long as memory remains to me.
If you have the pleasure of his acquaintance, you know that the Doctor is probably the handsomest man in New York. He has a good physique that has not degenerated into mere muscle and brawn; a fine color which does not lead you to suspect that too much old port and brandy is responsible for it. His hair is nearly white, though he has hardly seen fifty years, and has no other sign of age. His mustache and imperial would do credit to a trooper and yet has not that bovine appearance shown in portraits of the late Victor Immanuel. His manner is delightful, his voice musical, though by no means effeminate.
I ascribe my cure partly to a perfect confidence in his powers with which he inspired me on our very first meeting. He is not one to make rash predictions, to tell you that he will bring you around all right in a week; but rest on his superior powers with the confidence of a child and the result will justify your faith.
No physician can cure a man against his will or without his a.s.sistance.
Go to Dr. Chambers with your heart open, tell him no more lies than you would tell your confidential attorney, obey every injunction he gives you, summon whatever of courage is left in your failing heart, take his medicines according to direction. If you do that and die, be sure your time has come and that no mortal could bring about a different result.
If you recover, as you probably will, be honest and ascribe the result as much to the Doctor"s intuitive knowledge of persons as to his eminent acquaintance with the best medical discoveries.
One of the nervine preparations that he gave me is manufactured in Paris, and I have heard jealous physicians say that no one here knows the precise formula by which it is compounded; which is, it appears, a technical violation of the rules of the Medical Society, and consequently "unprofessional." If Dr. Chambers cures his patients by the help of this remedy, and other physicians let theirs perish, his course is certainly preferable from a layman"s point of view. He has proved the efficacy of the article. Whether it be composed of one thing or another, or whatever be the proportions of the mixture, is of little interest to the one it benefits and less still to the victims of more scrupulous pract.i.tioners, after they have pa.s.sed from earth for want of it. There is a great deal of nonsense in the medical profession and the establishment of set rules to meet all cases is bound to result in disaster.
I asked Dr. Chambers to re-examine me in a general way, and to say, when he had finished, whether he saw any reason why I should not go at once on an ocean voyage. He devoted the better part of an hour to this task and ended with the declaration that the sooner I went the better my plan was.
"I have urged you before to take a long journey to some interesting place," he reminded me. "At this time of year a warm country is better than a frigid or even a temperate one. You will thus secure a natural action of the skin on account of the perspiration, much better than any Turkish bath, which is at best only a makeshift. You will be able to partake of tropical fruits in their best state, fresh from the trees and vines. Your mind will be stimulated in a healthful manner. The voyage will do you great good. All I insist on now is that you do not go alone. While you have made immense progress you must run no risks. A bright, cheerful companion to fill in a dull hour is very necessary.
And, although I believe the year for which I interdicted some of your habits has about expired, it does not follow that you are to plunge into excesses. Use the common sense you have been acquiring. Take all your pleasures sparingly. Still consider yourself a convalescent. I don"t want you coming here again in the shape you were last winter."
I a.s.sured him that there was no danger; that I had learned my lesson well; and that I would make a sensible use of my liberty. Then, when he had added that I need carry very little medicine--and that only for emergencies--and made me promise to write him once in a month or so, in a friendly way, I grasped his hand warmly and took my leave.
If he had been a woman I would certainly have kissed him. He will never know, unless he happens to read these lines, how near my eyes came to filling with grateful tears.
The next thing was a visit to my Uncle, Dugald Camran, that staid old bachelor, who still possesses the virtues of our Scotch ancestry, that I have put so often to shame. He has charge of my father"s estate, which he manages with the same ac.u.men that he handles his own, and which is as safe in his hands as in that of the Bank of England. Between my Uncle and me there has been much good will, but very little confidence. Our relations have been little more than business ones. He has no curiosity apparently as to my personal conduct, and I would be the last to wish him to know what it has been in some respects.
He attributed my late illness, as did most of my other acquaintances, to over-study, and I had no intention of undeceiving him. There was no attempt on his part to influence me in any way, when I gave up my course at Yale without graduating. He only said that I was the best judge.
He could see well enough that I was not cut from the same piece as the rest of the Camrans, staid, methodical getters together of money as they are. Probably, bad as things went, he would have made them no better had he interfered. His is not a nature that could understand mine. When I became twenty-one years of age he handed over without demur the ten thousand dollars that my father"s testament said was to be given me on that date, and although he knew well that I had not a penny of it left at the end of a twelve-month he never uttered a word against my folly.
He was, as far as appeared, an automatic machine to obey the provisions of the will.
For nine years to come there was the five thousand a year for me, either in lump annual sums or monthly, as I might prefer. With the knowledge that I could not retain my hold on anything in the shape of money I decided to take it in the safer way. My illness had enabled me, in spite of the special expense to which it subjected my purse, to get a couple of thousand ahead, which I was foolish enough to think did me credit. As a matter of fact, I was never extravagant in the necessaries of life, and might have gained a reputation as a very careful fellow had I not fallen into habits that sent my change flying like geese feathers in a storm.
Uncle Dugald listened without approval or disapproval to my statement that I was going on a sea voyage, which I took pains to say was advised by Dr. Chambers. In spite of our relation he evidently regarded me much as the cashier of my bank did when I presented a check--if there was a balance to my credit, all right; if there was none I should meet with a polite refusal.
It was not necessary for this canny Scot to turn to his books to see how my balance stood. His head was full of figures and if a fire had destroyed every account he had, I believe he could have restored his ledgers accurately from memory alone.
"I shall want a letter of credit," I said, "and I shall be obliged if you will attend to the matter for me. I suppose it is necessary to deposit the amount with the firm on which the letter is drawn."
"That is the customary way," he answered, "but I can arrange it a little better to your advantage, by guaranteeing payment through my banker.
That will save interest on the money. What size shall the letter be?"
My Uncle had no idea of being responsible for a penny beyond the amount in his hands, out of my annual allowance. Ah, well, that would be more than enough, probably. At the worst, my income was acc.u.mulating, and at the end of a few months I could send to him for another letter, if I remained away so long. So I told him to get a credit for $2000 and send it to my lodgings at his convenience. Then having asked after the health of my two maiden aunts, with whom he lived--as if I cared whether they were sick or well; they never had bothered about me when I was at the worst of my long illness!--I took my departure.
That evening I studied the advertis.e.m.e.nts of the steamship lines, both in the Herald and in the Commercial Advertiser. There were excursions going to the Mediterranean, which presented most attractive prospectuses, but they did not convince me that they were what I wanted.
I never liked travelling by route, preferring to leave everything open for any change of mind. There were the usual lines to England, France and Germany, but I had seen those countries several years earlier, just before entering college, and according to my recollection they were anything but restful. The particular temptations I was to avoid were rather too plenty on the other side of the Atlantic to trust myself there. I was more inclined toward some of the South American countries, till I happened to read in a despatch that yellow fever had broken out there, and I knew that those quarantines were something to be avoided at all hazards.
Thinking of quarantines suddenly brought back the memory of a trip I had taken three years earlier to the Windward and Leeward Islands, where I had been detained in the most comfortable quarantine station in the world--the one at St. Thomas.
I smiled to recall the discouraged feeling with which I and my travelling acquaintances heard, at the little town of Ponce, in Porto Rico, that we would have to be detained under guard fifteen days when we reached St. Thomas; how we had the blues for twenty hours; how the indigo darkened, when we were taken from our steamer and landed from a row boat, bag and baggage, at the foot of a long path that led up to the Station.
And then the revulsion of feeling when we found the cosiest of homes awaiting us! The hearty welcome of Eggert, the quarantine master and lighthouse keeper; the motherly smile of his wife; the cheery welcome of his daughter, Thyra; the bright little faces of Thorwald, his son, and of the baby, Ingeborg; even the rough growl of "Laps," the Danish hound, had no surliness about it.
Then the comfortable beds in the little rooms, curtained from all obnoxious insects; the five o"clock sea baths in the morning, inside the high station fence that we must not pa.s.s; the meals an epicure need not have scoffed at; our first acquaintance with a dozen varieties of the luscious fish that abound in that part of the Caribbean.
I remembered them all, as if it were yesterday, and at this juncture that meant but one thing: I must see St. Thomas again, if only to determine whether that fortnight was a dream or a reality.
The craze which this decision inspired brought to my mind the fact that I was still liable to excitements from which I must free myself. The great desideratum for which I must strive above all things was repose.
It was mere suicide to go wild over everything that happened to please me for the moment. The chance was more than even that if my feelings ran away with me over the delights of the Antilles I would awake the next morning with an aversion to that part of the world. It was one of the penalties of my illness that the pendulum of a wish could not swing violently in one direction without swinging just as far in the other. I was afraid this would be the result in the present instance; and I sent for a ticket to Koster & Bial"s, while I went to take my dinner at the Club, in order to get a diversion that would be effective.
Among the entertainments presented at the great Vaudeville house that evening was the startling sensation known as "Charmion," and I was not sorry to see it, even though I had to hold my breath during part of the exhibition. At the risk of relating what a large number of readers must already know, I will describe briefly the act given by the young woman appearing under that t.i.tle.
When the curtain rose nothing was visible except a trapeze about twenty feet above the stage, and a rope hanging loosely beside it. Presently there entered a woman in full street costume, who inserted one hand nonchalantly in a ring at the end of the rope and was drawn lightly to the trapeze. Here she sat comfortably for an instant; and then, as if by accident, fell backward and hung head down by one leg, bent at the knee.
Her gown and skirts naturally dropped in a ma.s.s over her head, leaving the hosiery and minor lingerie in full exposure, with a liberal supply of what was undoubtedly silken tights, but was meant to simulate the flesh of her lower limbs, in full view. For a second she remained in this posture, and then regained her seat on the trapeze, smoothing her skirts into place, with a pretended air of chagrin at what was intended to be considered her accidental fall.
Next, with a bit of pantomime which indicated that concealment of her charms was useless after what had happened, "Charmion" stood up on the trapeze and began deliberately to disrobe, in full view of the audience, composed nearly equally of well garbed men and women, and completely filling the house.
She took off first her immense "picture hat," black with great ostrich plumes, and let it fall into a net spread beneath her. Then she slowly unb.u.t.toned her basque and removed it, exposing some very shapely arms and shoulders. Next came the corset, followed by a delicious rubbing with the hands where the article had closed too tightly around the form.
The skirts tumbled to the feet, then the remaining garments, and the woman stood in her long black stockings, blue garters encircling the lower portion of the thighs.
At this stage I noted a special expectancy in the occupants of the front seats--men leaning forward, with outstretched hands--the cause of which was soon apparent. The fair occupant of the trapeze seated herself, untied her garters and, with a moment of hesitation, cast them, one after the other, into the crowd, where they were seized by the most agile or most lucky of the spectators, and retained as souvenirs. Then came, last of all, the hose themselves, and the actual work of the performer as a trapeze artist began in earnest.
I will do Charmion the credit of admitting that her act was truly wonderful. Suspended first by the insteps and then by nothing, apparently, but her heels, she pa.s.sed easily from one round of a horizontal ladder to another, backward and forward, hanging head down in mid-air.