The Carleton Case. Ellery H. Clark
is a benefit to anybody, at any time. You’d better stay in bed, though, to-day, I think; and personally I rather envy you. I see you have good company.”
He pointed as he spoke, to the three stout little volumes that lay by Mr. Carleton’s side. Roderick Random was the first; Tom Jones, the second; Tristram Shandy, the third. Their owner nodded in pleased assent.
“Yes, indeed,” he answered, “they’ll last me through the day, all right. I never get tired of them, Doctor. I was just reading, when you came in, how Tom Bowling came to see the old curmudgeon who was about to die. ‘So, old gentleman,’ he says, ‘you’re bound for the other shore, I see, but in my opinion most damnably ill-provided for the voyage’; and later on, after the old fellow’s dead, he tells some one, that asks after him, that they might look for him ‘somewhere about the latitude of hell.’ There’s good, sound, human nature for you. Smollett knew his sailors, and the rest of his world, too, and enjoyed them both, I imagine. And he wasn’t a hypocrite; that’s what I like most about him. He saw things as they were.”
Helmar smiled. “I agree with you,” he answered, “but the modern school of readers doesn’t care for him, just the same. He’s either too simple for them, or too coarse; I don’t know which.”
Edward Carleton looked his scorn. “Modern school!” he ejaculated. “Let me tell you, sir, I have but very little opinion of your modern school, writers or readers either. But Henry stands up for ’em, and brings ’em all to me to read. Good Lord above, the different kinds! There’s some that tell you whether John Smith had one egg for breakfast, or two, and whether either of ’em was bad, and if it was, what John Smith said to his wife, and what she said to him—and Henry claims those books are modern classics. Then he’s got another lot—romantic school, I believe they are—all dashing cavaliers and lovely ladies and flashing swords and general moonshine—stuff about fit for idiots and invalids; and last of all—” he glared at Helmar as if he were the unfortunate embodiment of all the literary sins of the day day—“he’s got a crowd—Heaven knows what he calls ’em; the pig-sty school’s my name—that seem to be having a regular game; trying to see which can write the dirtiest book, and yet have it stop just enough short of the line so they can manage to get it published without the danger of having it suppressed. And the mean, hypocritical excuses they make—they’re always teaching a moral lesson, you know, or something like that. It makes me sick, sir; it makes me sick; and I don’t hesitate to tell Henry so, either.”
Helmar nodded assentingly, and yet, with a twinkle in his eye, he could not resist the temptation to reach forward and pick up from the bed the volume of Sterne. “I agree with a great deal of what you say, sir,” he answered, “especially the latter part, and yet—it isn’t wholly a modern vice. There was old Rabelais, for instance, and his imitators, and even Tristram here I suppose you could hardly recommend for a Sunday-school.”
Edward Carleton was no casuist. He loved to fight, but he always fought fair. “I grant it,” he answered quickly; “Laurence Sterne did have a little sneaking peep-hole way with him at times—he was modern there—but you can forgive a great deal to the man who gave us Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. And then, he isn’t a fair example; he was a kind of literary exception to all rules; but take Smollett or Henry Fielding. They struck straight out from the shoulder, every time. What they meant, they said. They painted vice, I grant you, but they painted her naked and repulsive, as she should be, and that’s fair enough; you can go back to your Aristotle for that, Doctor. But they didn’t disguise her, sir; they didn’t call her something that she never was and never could be; and these modern swine, they dress out vice in silks and satins, and make you believe she’s the most beautiful thing in the world—so beautiful that no man can be happy unless he may possess her; and there’s no Henry Fielding to come along with his big, scornful laugh, and strip her of all her frippery and finery, and show you the stark, naked sin that lies there underneath it all. Oh, I’m right, Doctor, and I’m always telling Henry so, but I can’t convince him. He says it’s art, whatever that means, and he’s all for the modern school.”
Helmar rose, smiling. “You are right, I believe,” he said heartily, “and if we all read more of the old worthies, and less of this flood of modern trash, we’d do better, beyond a doubt. Well, I must get my train, I suppose. I’m going to leave the medicine with your butler; I’ll give him full directions; and you’ll be all right, without any question. If you should want anything, telephone Doctor Morrison or me at once. I’m very glad to have had the chance of meeting you, sir. Oh, and there was one other thing I meant to tell you: I knew your son Jack very well in college. We used to be the best of friends.”
Edward Carleton looked up quickly, but without speaking, and when at last he did so, there was a new note of cordiality in his tone. “You knew Jack,” he repeated, “why, I’m glad to hear that, I’m sure. I’m very fond of my boy, Doctor. Boy? He’s a man now, though I can never seem to realize it. He’s only a little boy to me still, for all his six feet and his forty inches around the chest. Do you ever see him nowadays, Doctor?”
Helmar nodded. “Yes, indeed,” he answered readily, “not very often, of course. We’re in different lines of work, and both busy, I guess. But I run across him every once in a while. And this week we’re going to dine together. Jack and I and another fellow who was in our class—a sort of small reunion, to celebrate being five years out of college. He’ll be interested to know I’ve been out here.”
The old man nodded, gazing straight before him. “Doctor,” he asked suddenly, with apparent irrelevance, “you took my pulse to-day. What did you think of my heart?”
Helmar, surprised, parried with the clumsiness of a man not fond of deception. “Why,” he evaded, “I wouldn’t worry about that. All you have is a cold. You’ve got a pretty good heart, I think. We none of us grow any younger, though. That’s sure.”
Edward Carleton smiled a little grimly. “Thanks,” he said, “sometimes a patient knows more about himself than a doctor thinks he does. And I suppose I could guess pretty well what certain things mean. Never mind, though. As you say, we don’t grow any younger, more’s the pity.”
Both were silent, Helmar pausing a moment, uncertainly, with one hand on the knob of the door. Then the old man glanced up at him, with a smile genial and friendly, if a trifle wistful. “Good-by, Doctor,” he said courteously, “thank you for your interest. And tell Jack he’s always welcome, whenever he finds time to run out. The Birches is always his home, and his room stands ready for him—always.”
Five minutes later Helmar again passed down the broad steps of the piazza into the cheerful, dazzling sunlight. The little girl and her nurse were still seated under the shade of the big elm, and at once the spaniel, breaking away from his new friends, came tearing across the lawn to his master, ruthlessly scattering buttercups at every bound. With a laugh Helmar picked him up in his arms, and took him back to make his proper farewells. For the little girl the final moment of parting was a hard one, and she gazed longingly at her playmate, as though unwilling to have him go. Her nurse, observing her, shook her head in reproof. “Don’t be so foolish, Miss Rose,” she chided, “he’s only a little dog; you mustn’t be silly;” then, suddenly, she looked squarely at Helmar. “Will you excuse me, please,” she said softly, “but I know that you’re a friend of Mr. Jack’s. Would you tell me where a letter would reach him?”
Helmar eyed her keenly, and before his gaze the blue eyes dropped, and this time were not raised again. A faint flush stole into her cheeks. Helmar, in his turn, looked away. “Yes,” he answered shortly, “Mayflower Club, City, is his present address.”
He had his reward. At once the girl’s eyes were raised again, and her look sought his with the same smile that he had seen before. It was not a smile of the lips alone, but of the eyes as well, and a certain nameless something that flashed from still deeper within, a piquant frankness, a dangerous friendliness. Again he started to turn away, then stopped; his eyes, though half against his will, still seeking hers.
On the silence broke in the voice of the little girl. “Is