THE MIRACLE MAN. Frank L. Packard
feel the fit coming on—you won't have to climb up on the grandstand and cough in people's faces, will you?"
"He might carry a screen around with him and cough behind that," volunteered Helena. "That's enough about the Flopper and Pale Face—what about muh? Where do I get off?"
"You?" said Doc Madison calmly. "Oh, you're a moral neurasthenic."
"And what's that when it's at home?" demanded Helena sharply.
Doc Madison threw out his hands in a comically helpless, impotent gesture.
"It's what we need to keep up the standard of variety," he said. "We're playing to the masses. Don't you like the rôle, Helena—it's the leading woman's."
"What do I do?" countered Helena non-committingly.
"Do?" echoed Doc Madison. "Why, you go down there like a whole parade and a gorgeous pageant rolled into one, in feathers and paint and diamond boulders in your ears—and you come out of it in a gingham apron and coy sunbonnet as sweet sixteen."
"Oh!" said Helena—and her eyes were on the curl of smoke from her cigarette again.
"Say," said Pale Face Harry suddenly, evidently still worried about his cough, "we ain't going to have no easy cinch of this."
"No," said Doc Madison, with a grim smile; "you're not! It's going to be the hardest work any of you have ever done—you've got to lead decent lives for awhile."
"Sure—dat's right," said the loyal Flopper; "but we stands fer anyt'ing dat de Doc says—an' dat goes!"
"It'll come hard on some of us," remarked Pale Face Harry, with a sly glance at Helena, which met with contemptuous silence.
Doc Madison leaned back, felt carefully at his carefully adjusted tie—and smiled engagingly.
"Well?" he asked. "Can you see them coming?"
Pale Face Harry stared at him with a far-away expression in his eyes.
"When we get through with this, if I ain't handed in my checks before," he said dreamily, "it's mine for a brownstone on the Avenue, and one of them life-size landscapes with a shack on it for the season down to Pa'm Beach that they call country cottages. I'll dress the ginks that scrub the horses down in solid gold braid, and put the corpse of chamber ladies in Irish lace—I bust into society, marry a duke's one and only, and swipe her coronet for my manly brow. Did you ask me anything, Doc?"
"Swipe me!" said the Flopper. "Me in me private Pullman in a plush seat an' anudder to put me feet in, an' me thumbs in de armholes of me vest. I wears a high polished lid an' a red tie, an' scatters simoleans outer de window in me travels to the gazaboes on de platforms as I pass—an' den I joins Tammany Hall so's I can stick me fingers to me nose every time I sees a cop."
"Flopper," said Doc Madison in an awed voice, "the honor is all mine."
Helena went off into a peal of rippling, silvery, contagious laughter, and her little heels again beat an exuberant tattoo on the end of the couch.
"Yes?" invited Doc Madison, smiling at her.
"I'm seeing them coming," said Helena—and one heel went through the cretonne upholstery of the couch.
"Good!" said Doc Madison—and from the inside pocket of his coat he pulled out a package of crisp, new, yellow-backed bills. "You understand that down there none of you ever heard of each other or of me before, and you drop the 'doc'—bury it! My name is John G. Madison—G. for Garfield." His fingers passed deftly over the edges of the bills. He pushed a little pile toward the Hopper, another toward Pale Face Harry, and tucked the remainder into his coat pocket again. "That'll do for expenses," he said. "And now, if you understand everything, principally that you're to go to church Sundays till you hear from me, and you're quite satisfied with the lay, we'll adjourn, sine die, to Needley."
Helena was holding out a very dainty hand, with pink, wiggling fingers.
"I'll need, oh, ever so much more than they will," she declared, with a bewitching pout. "And, please, I'm waiting very patiently."
Doc Madison laughed.
"By and by, Helena," he said, patting her hand. "Well, Flopper, well, Harry—what do you say?"
The Flopper pushed back his chair and stood up hesitantly like a man unexpectedly called upon for an after-dinner speech. He stood there awkwardly a moment gazing at Doc Madison, his tongue slowly circling his lips; then, with a gulp, as though words to express his feelings were utterly beyond him, he turned and started for the door.
Pale Face Harry, as he rose, shoved out his hand.
"I don't deserve my luck to be in on this," he said modestly. "Only, Doc, push it along on the high gear, will you—I ain't going to be able to sleep thinking about it." He looked at Helena a little undecidedly—and compromised on brevity. "'Night, Helena," he flung out.
"Oh, good-night, Harry," she smiled.
The Flopper turned at the door and came back a few steps into the room.
"Say, Doc," he said, blinking furiously, "youse can wipe yer feet on me any time youse like—dat's wot!"
"All right, Flopper," said Doc Madison gravely. "When you've joined Tammany Hall—good-night." He followed across the room, and from the doorway watched the two descend the stairs. "Good-night," he said again, then closed the door and came back into the room. "Well, Helena?" he remarked tentatively.
"Well—Garfield?"—Helena clasped her hands around one knee and rocked gently.
"Don't be familiar, Helena," Doc Madison chuckled. "Is that all you've got to say?"
"I'm busy thinking about The Great American Play," she said pertly. "There's one thing you forgot."
"What's that?" he asked, still smiling.
"The curtain on the last act," she said. "The getaway."
Doc Madison shook his head.
"Nothing doing!" he returned. "There's no getaway. It's safe—so safe that there's nothing to it. We don't guarantee anything, and there's no entrance fee to the pavilion—all contributions are strictly voluntary."
"That's all right," said Helena. "But of course we can't really cure them. We can get them going hard enough to make them think they are for awhile, but after they've thrown away their crutches and got back home—what then?"
"Well, what then?" inquired Doc Madison easily.
"They'll yell 'fake!' and swear out warrants," said Helena, her dark eyes studying Doc Madison.
"Not according to statistics," replied Doc Madison, and his lips twitched quizzically at the corners. "According to statistics they'll buy another crutch and come back to buck the tiger again. Say, Helena, to-morrow, you go up to the public library and read up on shrines—they've been running since the ark—and they're running still. You never heard any howl about them, did you? What's the answer to those cures?"
"That's different," said Helena. "That's religion, and they've got relics and things."
"It's faith," said Doc Madison, "and it doesn't matter what the basis of it is. Faith, Helena, faith—get that? And we're going to imbue them with a faith that'll set them crazy and send them into hysterics. And talk about relics! Haven't we got one? Look at the Patriarch! Can't you see the whole town yelling 'I told you so!' and swopping testimonials hard enough to crowd the print down so fine, if you tried to get it all into the papers, that you'd have to use a magnifying glass to read it, once we've pulled off the miracle? Don't you worry about the getaway. If there's any sign of anything like that, you and I, Helena, will be taking moonlight rides in the gondolas of Venice long before it breaks."
Helena choked—and began to laugh deliciously.
Doc Madison stared at her for a moment whimsically—then he, too, burst into a laugh.
"Oh,