Flint: His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes. Maud Wilder Goodwin
he asked, as if unable to believe the testimony of his eyes.
"It is," Flint answered with unconcern.
"Why did you get up?"
"Because I formed the habit in my youth."
"Didn't I tell you to lie in bed till I came?"
"I don't remember."
The Doctor quivered with rage.
"I am an old man, sir," he said, "and I've walked a mile in the heat of this devilish sun, and all for a patient who is determined to kill himself, and such a fool that it doesn't matter much whether he does or not."
Flint smiled.
"Every man, you know, must be either a fool or a physician when he reaches maturity. Some [Pg 45] may be both. However, since you were kind enough to come to my assistance last night, I cannot be induced to quarrel with you this morning, and you ought to be the last man to find fault with me for feeling the benefit of your medicine sooner than you expected."
Dr. Cricket was as easy to be placated as to be stirred to anger; and when Flint urged him to come into the stuffy little office and partake of a lemonade with the addition of a stronger fluid from a bottle in Flint's room, he forgot his wrath or drowned it in the cooling drink, and at length parted in kindliness, only bidding his patient wear cabbage-leaves in his hat, and be sure to take wraps in case of a change in the weather, not forgetting to put on his "gums" if he walked on the wet beach.
When he had gone, Flint found the Doctor's gold-bowed spectacles in a chair. "Brady and I will walk up with them this evening," he said to himself. "Perhaps I was not as civil to the old gentleman as I might have been."
When Marsden learned that Flint was planning an expedition to South East, he suggested that he would "take it kindly" if Flint could make it convenient to bring down a few packages of groceries, as some of the store supplies had run out, and the relays were not expected until the next day.
[Pg 46]
Flint reproached himself for weakness in complying, and growled still further when he saw the length of the list which Marsden handed to him as he took his seat in the carryall.
"What a cursed fool I am," he muttered as he drove off, "to hire this man's beast for the privilege of doing his errands!"
The three-o'clock train puffed into the station at South East nearly an hour behind time. The period of waiting in the intense mid-day heat had not improved Flint's temper. For all his hearty greeting to Brady, he could not shake off a sense of irritation, intensified by the fact that he had no one on whom to wreak it.
Brady's trunk was strapped onto the carryall, the various bottles, jugs, and packages which Flint, with such unusual urbanity, had consented to bring down to the Beach for Marsden, were stowed away under the seat, and nothing remained but the mail. To get this Flint drew up at the post-office. The postmaster was a grouty old store-keeper who, through political influence, retained his position in spite of the efforts of the town's-folk to oust him. This afternoon a line of wagons stood at the door, and a line of men stood at the little window within. Seeing his own name in the list of those for whom there were letters, Flint waited for the window to open, and took his place in the line. [Pg 47] When he reached the window, he asked for his letter.
"No letter for you," growled the postmaster.
Flint stepped out of line and consulted the list. There was no mistake. Again he presented himself before the window.
"What cher want?"
"My letter."
"Ain't no letter, I told cher."
"Perhaps you will be kind enough to look at the list."
The postman, in the worst of humors, went to a drawer of his desk, and, after much hunting about and turning over of parcels, he found a letter which he threw out at Flint without a remark. Flint took it also in silence, turned away and resumed his place at the end of the line. Again he returned to his old post before the little window. This time the postman grew purple with rage.
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