"No, I won"t." Then he added, "And not then unless I know WHY you ask for it, you can bet on that."
Galusha was as grateful as if he had been granted a great favor. As they walked through the outer office together he endeavored to express his feelings.
"Thank you, thank you very much, Cousin Gussie," he said, earnestly. His relative glanced about at the desks where rows of overjoyed clerks were trying to suppress delighted grins and pretend not to have heard.
"You"re welcome, Loosh," he said, as they parted at the door, "but don"t you ever dare call me "Cousin Gussie" again in public as long as you live."
Galusha Bangs returned to his beloved work at the National Inst.i.tute and his income was reinvested for him by the senior partner of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot. Occasionally Galusha requested that a portion of it be sent him, usually for donation to this department or that or to a.s.sist in fitting out an expedition of his own, but, generally speaking, he was quite content with his modest salary. He unwrapped his mummies and deciphered his moldering papyri, living far more in ancient Egypt than in modern Washington. The Great War and its demands upon the youth of the world left the Inst.i.tute short-handed and he labored harder than ever, doing the work of two a.s.sistants as well as his own. It was the only thing he could do for his country, the only thing that country would permit him to do, but he tried to do that well. Then the Hindenburg line was broken, the armistice was signed and the civilized world rejoiced.
But Galusha Bangs did not rejoice, for his health had broken, like the enemy"s resistance, and the doctors told him that he was to go away at once.
"You must leave all this," commanded the doctor; "forget it. You must get away, get out of doors and stay out."
For a moment Galusha was downcast. Then he brightened.
"There is an expedition from the New York museum about to start for Syria," he said. "I am quite sure I would be permitted to accompany it.
I"ll write at once and--"
"Here, here! Wait! You"ll do nothing of the sort. I said forget that sort of thing. You can"t go wandering off to dig in the desert; you might as well stay in this place and dig here. Get away from it all. Go where there are people."
"But, Doctor Raymond, there are people in Syria, a great many of them, and most interesting people. I have--"
"No. You are to forget Syria and Egypt and your work altogether. Keep out of doors, meet people, exercise--play golf, perhaps. The main trouble with you just now is nerve weariness and lack of strength. Eat, sleep, rest, build up. Eat regular meals at regular times. Go to bed at a regular hour. I would suggest your going to some resort, either in the mountains or at the seash.o.r.e. Enjoy yourself."
"But, doctor, I DON"T enjoy myself at such places. I am quite wretched.
Really I am."
"Look here, you must do precisely as I tell you. Your lungs are quite all right at present, but, as you know, they have a tendency to become all wrong with very little provocation. I tell you to go away at once, at once. And STAY away, for a year at least. If you don"t, my friend, you are going to die. Is that plain?"
It was plain, certainly. Galusha took off his spectacles and rubbed them, absently.
"Dear me!... Dear me!--ah--Oh, dear!" he observed.
A resort? Galusha knew precious little about resorts; they were places he had hitherto tried to avoid. He asked his stenographer to name a resort where one would be likely to meet--ah--a good many people and find--ah--air and--ah--that sort of thing. The stenographer suggested Atlantic City. She had no idea why he asked the question.
Galusha went to Atlantic City. Atlantic City in August! Two days of crowds and noise were sufficient. A crumpled, perspiring wreck, he boarded the train bound for the mountains. The White Mountains were his destination. He had never visited them, but he knew them by reputation.
The White Mountains were not so bad. The crowds at the hotels were not pleasant, but one could get away into the woods and walk, and there was an occasional old cemetery to be visited. But as the fall season drew on the crowds grew greater. People persisted in talking to Galusha when he did not care to be talked to. They asked questions. And one had to dress--or most DID dress--for dinner. He tired of the mountains; there were too many people there, they made him feel "queerer" than ever.
On his way from Atlantic City to the mountains he happened upon the discarded magazine with the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the Restabit Inn in it.
Just why he had torn out that "ad" and kept it he was himself, perhaps, not quite sure. The "rest" and "sea air" and "pleasant people" were exactly what the doctor had prescribed for him, but that was not the whole reason for the advertis.e.m.e.nt"s retention. An a.s.sociation of ideas was the real reason. Just before he found the magazine he had received Mrs. Hall"s postcard with its renewal of the invitation to visit the Hall cottage at Wellmouth. And the Restabit Inn was at East Wellmouth.
His determination to accept the Hall invitation and make the visit was as sudden as it was belated. The postcard came in August, but it was not until October that Galusha made up his mind. His decision was brought to a focus by the help of Mrs. Worth Buckley. Mrs. Buckley"s help had not been solicited, but was volunteered, and, as a matter of fact, its effect was the reverse of that which the lady intended. Nevertheless, had it not been for Mrs. Buckley it is doubtful if Galusha would have started for Wellmouth.
She came upon him first one brilliant afternoon when he was sitting upon a rock, resting his weary legs--they wearied so easily nowadays--and looking off at the mountain-side ablaze with autumn coloring. She was large and commanding, and she spoke with a manner, a very decided manner. She asked him if--he would pardon her for asking, wouldn"t he?--but had she, by any chance, the honor of addressing Doctor Bangs, the Egyptologist. Oh, really? How very wonderful! She was quite certain that it was he. She had heard him deliver a series of lectures--oh, the most WONDERFUL things, they were, really--at the museum some years before. She had been introduced to him at that time, but he had forgotten her, of course. Quite natural that he should. "You meet so many people, Doctor Bangs--or should I say "Professor"?"
He hoped she would say neither. He had an odd prejudice of his own against t.i.tles, and to be called "Mister" Bangs was the short road to his favor. He tried to tell this woman so, but it was of no use. In a little while he found it quite as useless to attempt telling her anything. The simplest way, apparently, was silently and patiently to endure while she talked--and talked--and talked.
Memories of her monologues, if they could have been taken in shorthand from Galusha"s mind, would have been merely a succession of "I" and "I" and "I" and "Oh, do you really think so, Doctor Bangs?" and "Oh, Professor!" and "wonderful" and "amazing" and "quite thrilling" and much more of the same.
She followed him when he went to walk; that is, apparently she did, for he was continually encountering her. She came and sat next him on the hotel veranda. She bowed and smiled to him when she swept into the dining room at meal times. Worst of all, she told others, many others, who he was, and he was aware of being stared at, a knowledge which made him acutely self-conscious and correspondingly miserable. There was a Mr. Worth Buckley trotting in her wake, but he was mild and inoffensive.
His wife, however--Galusha exclaimed, "Oh, dear me!" inwardly or aloud whenever he thought of her.
And she WOULD talk of Egypt. She and her husband had visited Cairo once upon a time, so she felt herself as familiar with the whole Nile basin as with the goldfish tank in the hotel lounge. To Galusha Egypt was an enchanted land, a sort of paradise to which fortunate explorers might eventually be permitted to go if they were very, very good. To have this sacrilegious female patting the Sphinx on the head was more than he could stand.
So he determined to stand it no longer; he ran away. One evening Mrs.
Buckley informed him that she and a little group--"a really select group, Professor Bangs"--of the hotel inmates were to picnic somewhere or other the following day. "And you are to come with us, Doctor, and tell us about those wonderful temples you and I were discussing yesterday. I have told the others something of what you told me and they are quite WILD to hear you."
Galusha was quite wild also. He went to his room and, pawing amid the chaos of his bureau drawer for a clean collar, chanced upon the postcard from Mrs. Hall. The postcard reminded him of the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the Restabit Inn, which was in his pocketbook. Then the idea came to him.
He would go to the Hall cottage and make a visit of a day or two. If he liked the Cape and Wellmouth he would take lodgings at the Restabit Inn and stay as long as he wished. The suspicion that the inn might be closed did not occur to him. The season was at its height in the mountains, and Atlantic City, so they had told him there, ran at full blast all the year. So much he knew, and the rest he did not think about.
He spent most of that night packing his trunk and his suitcase. He left word for the former to be sent to him by express and the latter he took with him. He tiptoed downstairs, ate a hasty breakfast, and took the earliest train for Boston, The following afternoon he started upon his Cape Cod pilgrimage, a pilgrimage which was to end in a fainting fit upon the sofa in Miss Martha Phipps" sitting room.
CHAPTER III
The fainting fit did not last long. When Galusha again became interested in the affairs of this world it was to become aware that a gla.s.s containing something not unpleasantly fragrant was held directly beneath his nose and that some one was commanding him to drink.
So he drank, and the fragrant liquid in the tumbler descended to his stomach and thence, apparently, to his fingers and toes; at all events those chilled members began to tingle agreeably. Mr. Bangs attempted to sit up.
"No, no, you stay right where you are," said the voice, the same voice which had urged him to drink.
"But really I--I am quite well now. And your sofa--"
"Never mind the sofa. You aren"t the first soakin" wet mortal that has been on it. No, you mind me and stay still.... Primmie!"
"Yes"m. Here I be."
"Did you get the doctor on the "phone?"
"Yes"m. He said he"d be right down soon"s ever he could. He was kind of fussy "long at fust; said he hadn"t had no supper and was wet through, and all such talk"s that. But I headed HIM off, my savin" soul, yes!
Says I, "There"s a man here that"s more"n wet through; he ain"t had a thing but rum since I don"t know when.""
"Heavens and earth! WHAT did you tell him that for?"
"Why, it"s so, ain"t it, Miss Marthy? You said yourself he was starved."
"But what did you tell him about the rum for? Never mind, never mind.
Don"t stop to argue about it. You go out and make some tea, hot tea, and toast some bread. And hurry, Primmie--HURRY!"
"Yes"m, but--"
"HURRY!... And Primmie Cash, if you scorch that toast-bread I"ll sc.r.a.pe off the burned part and make you eat it, I declare I will. Now you lie right still, Mr.--er--Bangs, did you say your name was?"
"Yes, but really, madam--"
"My name is Phipps, Martha Phipps."