The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. Marshall Pinckney Wilder
the policeman darkly regarding me as an incipient madman.
The second Jones was a man of about thirty, a nice, gentlemanly fellow, in a fine office. I have usually been an off-hand man in business, accustomed to quick decisions and very little beating about the bush. But I confess I was rather nonplussed with the second Jones. How the devil was I to begin? His waiting-room was full of people, and I hardly felt entitled to sit down and gas about one thing and the other till the chance offered of leading up to the Van Coorts. So I said I had some queer, shooting sensations in the chest. In five minutes he had me half-stripped and was pounding my midriff in. And the questions that man asked! He began with my grandparents, roamed through my childhood and youth, dissected my early manhood, and finally came down to coffee and what I ate for breakfast.
Then it was my turn.
I asked him, as a starter, whether he had ever been in Colorado?
No, he hadn't.
After forty-five minutes of being hammered, and stethoscoped, and punched, and holding my breath till I was purple, and hopping on one leg, he said I was a very obscure case of something with nine syllables!
"At least, I won't be positive with one examination," he said; "but kindly come to-morrow at nine, when I shall be more at leisure to go into the matter thoroughly."
I paid him ten dollars and went sorrowfully away.
The third Jones was too old to be my man; so was the fourth; the fifth had gone away the month before, leaving no address; the sixth, however, was younger and more promising. I thought this time I'd choose something easier than pains in the chest. I changed them to my left hand. I was going to keep my clothes on, anyhow. But it wasn't any use. Off they came. After a decent interval of thumping and grandfathers, and what I had for breakfast, I managed to get in my question:
"Ever in Colorado, Doctor?"
"Oh, dear me, no!"
Another ten dollars, and nothing accomplished!
The seventh Jones was again too old; the eighth was a pale hobbledehoy; the ninth was a loathsome quack; the tenth had died that morning; the eleventh was busy; the twelfth was a veterinary surgeon; the thirteenth was an intern living at home with his widowed sister. Colorado? No, the widowed sister was positive he had never been there. The fourteenth was a handsome fellow of about thirty-five. He looked poor and threadbare, and I had a glimpse of a shabby bed behind a screen. Patients obviously did not often come his way, and his joy at seeing me was pitiful. I had meant to try a bluff and get in my Colorado question this time free of charge; but I hadn't the heart to do it. Slight pains in the head seemed a safe complaint.
After a few questions he said he would have to make a thorough physical examination.
"No clothes off!" I protested.
"It's essential," he said, and went on with something about the radio-activity of the brain, and the vasomotor centers. The word motor made me feel like a sick automobile. I begged to keep my clothes on; I insisted; I promised to come to-morrow; but it wasn't any good, and in a few minutes he was hitting me harder than either of the two before. Maybe I was more tender! He electrocuted me extra from a switchboard, ran red-hot needles into my legs, and finally, after banging me around the room, said I was the strongest and wellest man who had ever entered his office.
"There's a lot of make-believe in medicine," he said; "but I'm one of those poor devils who can't help telling a patient the truth. There's nothing whatever the matter with you, Mr. Westoby, except that your skin has a slightly abrased look, and I seem to notice an abnormal sensitiveness to touch."
"Were you ever in Colorado, Doctor?" I asked while he was good enough to help me into my shirt.
"Oh, yes, I know Colorado well!"
My heart beat high.
"Some friends of mine were out there three years ago," I said. "Wouldn't it be strange if by any chance the Van Coorts—"
"Oh, I left Denver when I was fifteen."
Five dollars!
The fifteenth Jones was a doctor of divinity; the sixteenth was a tapeworm specialist; the seventeenth was too old, the eighteenth was too old, the nineteenth was too old—a trio of disappointing patriarchs. The twentieth painted out black eyes; the twenty-first was a Russian who could scarcely speak any English. He said he had changed his name from Karaforvochristophervitch to something more suited to American pronunciation. He seemed to think that Jones gave him a better chance. I sincerely hope it did. He told me that all the rest of the Jones family was in Siberia, but that he was going to bomb them out! The twenty-second was a negro. The twenty-third—! He was a tall, youngish man, narrow-shouldered, rather commonplace-looking, with beautiful blue eyes, and a timid, winning, deprecatory manner. I told him I was suffering from insomnia. After raking over my grandfathers again and bringing the family history down by stages to the very moment I was shown into his office he said he should have to ask me to undergo a thorough physical—! But I was tired of being slapped and punched and breathed on and prodded, and was bold enough to refuse point-blank. I'd rather have the insomnia! We worked up quite a fuss about it, for there was something tenacious in the fellow, for all his mild, kind, gentle ways; and I had all I could do to get off by pleading press of business. But I wasn't to escape scot-free. Medical science had to get even somehow. He compromised by stinging my eye out with belladonna. Have you ever had belladonna squirted in your eye? Well, don't.
He was sitting at the table, writing out some cabalistic wiggles that stood for bromide of potassium, when I remarked casually that it was strange how well I could always sleep in Colorado.
He laid down the pen with a sigh.
"A wonderful state—Colorado," I observed.
"To me it's the land of memories," he said. "Sad, beautiful, irrevocable memories—try tea for breakfast—do you read Browning? Then you will remember that line: 'Oh, if I—' And I insist on your giving up that cocktail before dinner."
"Some very dear friends of mine were once in Colorado," I said. "Morristown people—the Van Coorts."
"The Van Coorts!"
Doctor Jones sprang from his chair, his thin, handsome face flushing with excitement.
"Do you mean to say that you know Eleanor Van Coort?" he gasped.
"All my life."
He dropped back into the chair again and mumbled something about cigars. I was only to have blank a day. In his perturbation I believe he limited me to a daily box. He was trying—and trying very badly—to conceal the emotions I had conjured up.
"They were talking about you only yesterday," I went on. "That is, if it was you! A Pullman drawing-room—"
"And a mistake about the tickets," he broke out. "Yes, yes, it's they all right. Talking about me, did you say? Did Eleanor—I mean, did Miss Van Coort—express—?"
"She was wondering how she could find you," I said. "You see, they're busy getting up a house-party and she was running over her men. 'If I only knew where that dear Doctor Jones was,' she said, and then asked me, if by any possible chance—"
His fine blue eyes were glistening with all sorts of tender thoughts. It was really touching. And I was in love myself, you know.
"So she has remained unmarried!" he exclaimed softly. "Unmarried—after all these years!"
"She's a very popular girl," I said. "She's had dozens of men at her feet—but an unfortunate attachment, something that seems to go back to about three years ago, has apparently determined her to stay out of the game!"
Doctor Jones dropped his head on his hands and murmured something that sounded like "Eleanor, Eleanor!" Then he looked up with one of the most radiant smiles I ever saw on a man's face. "I hope I'm not presuming on a very short acquaintance," he said, "but the fact is—why should I not tell you?—Miss Van Coort was the woman in my life!"
I explained to him that Freddy was the woman in mine.
Then you ought to have seen us fraternize!
In twenty minutes I had him almost convinced that