"Is my wife all right?"
"Yes."
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Here now!" cried Doctor Keene in a perfect pa.s.sion of irritation, "I"ll ask you to go and see for yourself. Outrageous!" He snapped the last word out in almost one syllable, then he turned away muttering: "Do you imagine a case like this will help my professional reputation?
One more would ruin me--ruin anybody."
"What"s the matter?" demanded Mr. b.u.t.ton appalled. "Triplets?"
"No, not triplets!" answered the doctor cuttingly. "What"s more, you can go and see for yourself. And get another doctor. I brought you into the world, young man, and I"ve been physician to your family for forty years, but I"m through with you! I don"t want to see you or any of your relatives ever again! Good-bye!"
Then he turned sharply, and without another word climbed into his phaeton, which was waiting at the curbstone, and drove severely away.
Mr. b.u.t.ton stood there upon the sidewalk, stupefied and trembling from head to foot. What horrible mishap had occurred? He had suddenly lost all desire to go into the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen--it was with the greatest difficulty that, a moment later, he forced himself to mount the steps and enter the front door.
A nurse was sitting behind a desk in the opaque gloom of the hall.
Swallowing his shame, Mr. b.u.t.ton approached her.
"Good-morning," she remarked, looking up at him pleasantly.
"Good-morning. I--I am Mr. b.u.t.ton."
At this a look of utter terror spread itself over girl"s face. She rose to her feet and seemed about to fly from the hall, restraining herself only with the most apparent difficulty.
"I want to see my child," said Mr. b.u.t.ton.
The nurse gave a little scream. "Oh--of course!" she cried hysterically. "Upstairs. Right upstairs. Go--_up!_"
She pointed the direction, and Mr. b.u.t.ton, bathed in cool perspiration, turned falteringly, and began to mount to the second floor. In the upper hall he addressed another nurse who approached him, basin in hand. "I"m Mr. b.u.t.ton," he managed to articulate. "I want to see my----"
Clank! The basin clattered to the floor and rolled in the direction of the stairs. Clank! Clank! It began a methodical descent as if sharing in the general terror which this gentleman provoked.
"I want to see my child!" Mr. b.u.t.ton almost shrieked. He was on the verge of collapse.
Clank! The basin reached the first floor. The nurse regained control of herself, and threw Mr. b.u.t.ton a look of hearty contempt.
"All _right_, Mr. b.u.t.ton," she agreed in a hushed voice. "Very _well!_ But if you _knew_ what a state it"s put us all in this morning! It"s perfectly outrageous! The hospital will never have a ghost of a reputation after----"
"Hurry!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "I can"t stand this!"
"Come this way, then, Mr. b.u.t.ton."
He dragged himself after her. At the end of a long hall they reached a room from which proceeded a variety of howls--indeed, a room which, in later parlance, would have been known as the "crying-room." They entered.
"Well," gasped Mr. b.u.t.ton, "which is mine?"
"There!" said the nurse.
Mr. b.u.t.ton"s eyes followed her pointing finger, and this is what he saw. Wrapped in a voluminous white blanket, and partly crammed into one of the cribs, there sat an old man apparently about seventy years of age. His spa.r.s.e hair was almost white, and from his chin dripped a long smoke-coloured beard, which waved absurdly back and forth, fanned by the breeze coming in at the window. He looked up at Mr. b.u.t.ton with dim, faded eyes in which lurked a puzzled question.
"Am I mad?" thundered Mr. b.u.t.ton, his terror resolving into rage. "Is this some ghastly hospital joke?
"It doesn"t seem like a joke to us," replied the nurse severely. "And I don"t know whether you"re mad or not--but that is most certainly your child."
The cool perspiration redoubled on Mr. b.u.t.ton"s forehead. He closed his eyes, and then, opening them, looked again. There was no mistake--he was gazing at a man of threescore and ten--a _baby_ of threescore and ten, a baby whose feet hung over the sides of the crib in which it was reposing.
The old man looked placidly from one to the other for a moment, and then suddenly spoke in a cracked and ancient voice. "Are you my father?" he demanded.
Mr. b.u.t.ton and the nurse started violently.
"Because if you are," went on the old man querulously, "I wish you"d get me out of this place--or, at least, get them to put a comfortable rocker in here."
"Where in G.o.d"s name did you come from? Who are you?" burst out Mr.
b.u.t.ton frantically.
"I can"t tell you _exactly_ who I am," replied the querulous whine, "because I"ve only been born a few hours--but my last name is certainly b.u.t.ton."
"You lie! You"re an impostor!"
The old man turned wearily to the nurse. "Nice way to welcome a new-born child," he complained in a weak voice. "Tell him he"s wrong, why don"t you?"
"You"re wrong. Mr. b.u.t.ton," said the nurse severely. "This is your child, and you"ll have to make the best of it. We"re going to ask you to take him home with you as soon as possible-some time to-day."
"Home?" repeated Mr. b.u.t.ton incredulously.
"Yes, we can"t have him here. We really can"t, you know?"
"I"m right glad of it," whined the old man. "This is a fine place to keep a youngster of quiet tastes. With all this yelling and howling, I haven"t been able to get a wink of sleep. I asked for something to eat"--here his voice rose to a shrill note of protest--"and they brought me a bottle of milk!"
Mr. b.u.t.ton, sank down upon a chair near his son and concealed his face in his hands. "My heavens!" he murmured, in an ecstasy of horror.
"What will people say? What must I do?"
"You"ll have to take him home," insisted the nurse--"immediately!"
A grotesque picture formed itself with dreadful clarity before the eyes of the tortured man--a picture of himself walking through the crowded streets of the city with this appalling apparition stalking by his side.
"I can"t. I can"t," he moaned.
People would stop to speak to him, and what was he going to say? He would have to introduce this--this septuagenarian: "This is my son, born early this morning." And then the old man would gather his blanket around him and they would plod on, past the bustling stores, the slave market--for a dark instant Mr. b.u.t.ton wished pa.s.sionately that his son was black--past the luxurious houses of the residential district, past the home for the aged....
"Come! Pull yourself together," commanded the nurse.
"See here," the old man announced suddenly, "if you think I"m going to walk home in this blanket, you"re entirely mistaken."
"Babies always have blankets."
With a malicious crackle the old man held up a small white swaddling garment. "Look!" he quavered. "_This_ is what they had ready for me."