Books: The Motormaniacs
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Lloyd Osbourne >> The Motormaniacs
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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 Eleanor had
loved him all these years. But he worried a lot about a Mr. Wise
who had been on the same train, and a certain Colonel Hadow who
had also paid Eleanor attention. Jones was a great fellow for
wanting to be sure. I pooh-poohed them out of the way and gave
him the open track. Then, indeed, the clouds rolled away. He
beamed with joy. In his rich gush of friendship he recurred to
the subject of my insomnia with a new-born enthusiasm. He
subdivided all my symptoms. He dived again into my physical
being. He consulted German authorities. I squirmed and lied and
resisted all I could, but he said he owed me an eternal debt that
could only be liquidated by an absolute cure. He wanted to tie
me up and shoot me with an X-ray. He ordered me to wear white
socks. He had a long, terrifying look at a drop of my blood. He
jerked hairs out of my head to sample my nerve force. He said I
was a baffling subject, but that he meant to make me well if it
took the last shot in the scientific locker. And he wound up at
last by refusing point-blank to be paid a cent!
I waltzed away on air to write an account of the whole affair to
Freddy, and dictate a plan of operations. I was justified in
feeling proud of myself. Most men would have tamely submitted to
their fate instead of chasing up all the Joneses of Jonesville!
Freddy sent me an early answer--a gay, happy, overflowing little
note--telling me to try and engage Doctor Jones for a three-day
house-party at Morristown. I was to telegraph when he could
come, and was promised an official invitation from Mrs.
Matthewman. (She was the aunt, you know, that they lived with
--one of those old porcelain ladies with a lace cap and a rent-roll.)
However, I could not do anything for two days, for we had
reached a crisis in the labor troubles, and matters were
approaching the breaking point. We were threatened with one of
those "sympathetic" strikes that drive business men crazy. There
was no question at issue between ourselves and our employees; but
the thing ramified off somewhere to the sugar vacuum-boiler
riveters' union. Finally the S.Y.B.R.U. came to a settlement
with their bosses, and peace was permitted to descend on Hodge &
Westoby's.
I took immediate advantage of it to descend myself on Doctor
Jones. He received me with open arms and an insomniacal
outburst. He had been reading up; he had been seeing
distinguished confreres; he had been mastering the subject to the
last dot, and was panting to begin. I hated to dampen such
friendship and ardor by telling him that I had completely
recovered. Under the circumstances it seemed brutal--but I did
it. The poor fellow tried to argue with me, but I insisted that
I now slept like a top. It sounded horribly ungrateful. Here I
was spurning the treasures of his mind, and almost insulting him
with my disgusting good health. I swerved off to the house-party;
Eleanor's delight, and so on; Mrs. Matthewman's pending
invitation; the hope that he might have an early date free--
He listened to it all in silence, walking restlessly about the
office, his blue eyes shining with a strange light. He took
up a bronze paper-weight and gazed at it with an intensity of
self-absorption.
"I can't go," he said.
"Oh, but you have to," I exclaimed.
"Mr. Westoby," he resumed, "I was foolish enough to back a
friend's credit at a store here. He has skipped to Minnesota,
and I am left with three hundred and four dollars and
seventy-five cents to pay. To take a three days' holiday would
be a serious matter to me at any time, but at this moment it is
impossible."
I gave him a good long look. He didn't strike me as a borrowing
kind of man. I should probably insult him by volunteering. Was
there ever anything so unfortunate?
"I can't go," he repeated with a little choke.
"You may never have another opportunity," I said. "Eleanor is
doing a thing I should never have expected from one of her proud
and reserved nature. The advances of such a woman--"
He interrupted me with a groan.
"If it wasn't for my mother I'd throw everything to the winds and
fly to her," he burst out. "But I have a mother--a sainted
mother, Mr. Westoby--her welfare must always be my first
consideration!"
"Is there no chance of anything turning up?" I said. "An
appendicitis case--an outbreak of measles? I thought there was a
lot of scarlatina just now."
He shook his head dejectedly.
"Doctor," I began again, "I am pretty well fixed myself. I'm
blessed with an income that runs to five figures. If all goes
the way it should we shall be brothers-in-law in six months. We
are almost relations. Give me the privilege of taking over this
small obligation--"
I never saw a man so overcome. My proposal seemed to tear the
poor devil to pieces. When he spoke his voice was trembling.
"You don't know what it means to me to refuse," he said. "My
self-respect my--my . . . " And then he positively began to
weep!
"You said three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents,
I believe?"
He waved it from him with a long, lean hand.
"I can not do it," he said; "and, for God's sake, don't ask me
to!"
I argued with him for twenty minutes; I laid the question before
him in a million lights; I racked him with a picture of Eleanor,
so deeply hurt, so mortified, that in her recklessness and
despair she would probably throw herself away on the first man
that offered! This was his chance, I told him; the one chance of
his life; he was letting a piece of idiotic pride wreck the
probable happiness of years. He agreed with me with moans and
weeps. He had the candor of a child and the torrential sentiment
of a German musician. Three hundred and four dollars and
seventy-five cents stood between him and eternal bliss, and yet
he waved my pocketbook from him! And all the while I saw myself
losing Freddy.
I went away with his "No, no, no!" still ringing in my ears.
At the club I found a note from Freddy. She pressed me to lose
no time. Mrs. Matthewman was talking of going to Europe, and of
course she and Eleanor would have to accompany her. Eleanor, she
said, had ordered two new gowns and had brightened up
wonderfully. "Only yesterday she told me she wished that silly
doctor would hurry up and come--and that, you know, from Eleanor
is almost a declaration!"
Some of my best friends happened to be in the club. It occurred
to me that poor Nevill was diabetic, and that Charley Crossman
had been boring everybody about his gout. I buttonholed them
both, and laid my unfortunate predicament before them. I said
I'd pay all the expenses. In fact, the more they could make it
cost the better I'd be pleased.
"What," roared Nevill, "put myself in the hands of a young fool
so that he may fill his empty pockets with your money! Where do
I come in? Good heavens, Westoby, you're crazy! Think what
would happen to me if it came to Doctor Saltworthy's ears? He'd
never have anything more to do with me!"
Charley Crossman was equally rebellious and unreasonable.
"I guess you've never had the gout," he said grimly.
"But Charley, old man," I pleaded, "all that you'd have to do
would be to let him talk to you. I don't ask you to suffer for
it. Just pay--that's all--pay my money!"
"I'm awfully easily talked into things," said Charley. (There
was never such a mule on the Produce Exchange.) "He'd be saying,
'Take this'--and I'm the kind of blankety-blank fool that would
take it!"
Then I did a mean thing. I reminded Crossman of having backed
some bills of his--big bills, too--at a time when it was touch
and go whether he'd manage to keep his head above water.
"Westoby," he replied, "don't think that time has lessened my
sense of that obligation. I'd cut off my right hand to do you a
good turn. But for heaven's sake, don't ask me to monkey with my
gout!"
The best I could get out of him was the promise of an anemic
servant-girl. Nevill generously threw in a groom with varicose
veins. Small contributions, but thankfully received.
"Now, what you do," said Nevill, "is to go round right off and
interview Bishop Jordan. He has sick people to burn!"
But I said Jones would get on to it if I deluged him with the
misery of the slums.
"That's just where the bishop comes in," said Nevill. "There
isn't a man more in touch with the saddest kind of poverty in New
York--the decent, clean, shrinking poverty that hides away from
all the deadhead coffee and doughnuts. If I was in your fix I'd
fall over myself to reach Jordan!"
"Yes, you try Jordan," said Charley, who, I'm sure, had never
heard of him before.
"Then it's me for Jordan," said I.
I went down stairs and told one of the bell-boys to look up the
address in the telephone-book. It seemed to me he looked pale,
that boy.
"Aren't you well, Dan?" I said.
"I don't know what's the matter with me, sir. I guess it must be
the night work."
I gave him a five-dollar bill and made him write down 1892 Eighth
Avenue on a piece of paper.
"You go and see Doctor Jones first thing," I said. "And don't
mention my name, nor spend the money on Her Mad Marriage."
I jumped into a hansom with a pleasant sense that I was beginning
to make the fur fly.
"That's a horrible cold of yours, Cabby," I said as we stopped at
the bishop's door and I handed him up a dollar bill. "That's
just the kind of a cold that makes graveyards hum!"
"I can't shake it off, sir," he said despondently. "Try what I
can, and it's never no use!"
"There's one doctor in the world who can cure anything," I said;
"Doctor Henry Jones, 1892 Eighth Avenue. I was worse than you
two weeks ago, and now look at me! Take this five dollars, and
for heaven's sake, man, put yourself in his hands quick."
Bishop Jordan was a fine type of modern clergyman. He was
broad-shouldered mentally as well as physically, and he brought
to philanthropic work the thoroughness, care, enthusiasm and
capacity that would have earned him a fortune in business.
"Bishop," I said, "I've come to see if I can't make a trade with
you!"
He raised his grizzled eyebrows and gave me a very searching
look.
"A trade," he repeated in a holding-back kind of tone, as though
wondering what the trap was.
"Here's a check for one thousand dollars drawn to your order," I
went on. "And here's the address of Doctor Henry Jones, 1892
Eighth Avenue. I want this money to reach him via your sick
people, and that without my name being known or at all
suspected."
"May I not ask the meaning of so peculiar a request?"
"He's hard up," I said, "and I want to help him. It occurred to
me that I might make you--er--a confederate in my little game,
you know."
His eyes twinkled as he slowly folded up my check and put it in
his pocket.
"I don't want any economy about it, Bishop," I went on. "I don't
want you to make the best use of it, or anything of that kind. I
want to slap it into Doctor Jones' till, and slap it in quick"
"Would you consider two weeks--?"
"Oh, one, please!"
"It is understood, of course, that this young man is a duly
qualified and capable physician, and that in the event of my
finding it otherwise I shall be at liberty to direct your check
to other uses?"
"Oh, I can answer for his being all right, Bishop. He's
thoroughly up-to-date, you know; does the X-ray act; and keeps
the pace of modern science."
"You say you can answer for him," said the bishop genially.
"Might I inquire who you are."
"I'm named Westoby--Ezra Westoby--managing partner of Hodge &
Westoby, boxers."
"I like boxers," said the bishop in the tone of a benediction,
rising to dismiss me. "I like one thousand dollar checks, too.
When you have any more to spare just give them a fair wind in
this direction!"
I went out feeling that the Episcopal Church had risen fifty per
cent in my esteem. Bishops like that would make a success of any
denomination. I like to see a fellow who's on to his job.
I gave Jones a week to grapple with the new developments, and
then happened along. The anteroom was full, and there was a
queue down the street like a line of music-loving citizens
waiting to hear Patti. Nice, decent-looking people, with money
in their hands. (I always like to see a cash business, don't
you?) I guess it took me an hour to crowd my way up stairs, and
even then I had to buy a man out of the line.
Jones was carrying off the boom more quietly than I cared about.
He wore a curt, snappy air. I don't know why, but I felt
misgivings as I shook hands with him.
Of course I commented on the rush.
"The Lord only knows what's happened to my practice," he said.
"The blamed thing has gone up like a rocket. It seems to me
there must be a great wave of sickness passing over New York just
now."
"Everybody's complaining," I said.
This reminded him of my insomnia till I cut him short.
"What's the matter with our going down to the Van Coorts' from
Saturday to Tuesday," I said. "They haven't given up the hope of
seeing you there, Doctor, and the thing's still open."
Then I waited for him to jump with joy.
He didn't jump a bit. He shook his head. He distinctly said
"No."
"I told you it was the money side of it that bothered me," he
explained. "So it was at the time, for, of course, I couldn't
foresee that my practice was going to fill the street and call
for policemen to keep order. But, my dear Westoby, after giving
the subject a great deal of consideration I have come to the
conclusion that it would be too painful for me to revive those
--those--unhappy emotions I was just beginning to recover from!"
"I thought you loved her!" I exclaimed.
"That's why I've determined not to go," he said. "I have outlived
one refusal. How do I know I have the strength, the
determination, the hardihood to undergo the agonies of another?"
It seemed a feeble remark to say that faint heart never won fair
lady. I growled it out more like a swear than anything else. I
was disgusted with the chump.
"She's the star above me," he said; "and I am crushed by my own
presumption. Is there any such fool as the man that breaks his
heart twice for the impossible?"
"But it isn't impossible," I cried.
"Hasn't she--as far as a woman can--hasn't she called you back to
her? What more do you expect her to do? A woman's delicacy
forbids her screaming for a man! I think Eleanor has already
gone a tremendous way in just hinting--"
"You may be right," he said pathetically; "but then you may also
be wrong. The risk is too terrible for me to run. It will
comfort me all my life to think that perhaps; she does love me in
secret!"
"Do you mean to say you're going to give it all up?" I roared.
"You needn't get so warm about it," he returned. "After all, I
have some justification in thinking she doesn't care."
"What on earth do you suppose she invited you for, then?"
"Well, it would be different," he said, "if I had a note from her
--a flower--some little tender reminder of those dear old dead
days in the Pullman!"
"She's saving up all that for Morristown," I said.
For the first time in our acquaintance Doctor Jones looked at me
with suspicion. His blue eyes clouded. He was growing a little
restive under my handling.
"You seem to make the matter a very personal one," he observed.
"Well, I love Freddy," I explained. "It naturally brings your
own case very close to me. And then I am so positive that you
love Eleanor and that Eleanor loves you. Put yourself in my
place, Doctor! Do you mean that you'd do nothing to bring two
such noble hearts together?"
He seized my hand and wrung it effusively. He really did love
Eleanor, you know. The only fault with him was his being so
darned humble about it. He was eaten up with a sense of his own
inferiority. And yet I could see he was just tingling to go to
Morristown. Of course, I crowded him all I could, but the best I
could accomplish was his promise to "think it over." I hated to
leave him wabbling, but patients were scuffling at the door and
fighting on the stairs.
The next thing I did was to get Freddy on the long-distance
'phone.
"Freddy," I said, after explaining the situation, "you must get
Eleanor to telegraph to him direct!"
"What's the good of asking what she won't do?" bubbled the sweet
little voice.
"Can't you persuade her?"
"I know she won't do it!"
"Then you must forge it," I said desperately. "It needn't be
anything red-hot, you know. But something tender and sincere:
'Shall be awfully disappointed if you don't come,' or, 'There was
a time when you would not have failed me!"'
"It's impossible."
"Then he won't budge a single inch!" I replied.
"Ezra?"
"Darling!"
"Suppose I just signed the telegram Van Coon?"
"The very thing!"
"If he misunderstood it--I mean if he thought it really came from
Eleanor--there couldn't be any fuss about it afterward, could
there?"
"And, of course, you'll send the official invitation from Mrs.
Matthewman besides?"
"For Saturday?"
"Yes, Saturday!"
"And you'll come?"
"Just watch me!"
"Ezra, are you happy?"
"That depends on Jones."
"Oh, isn't it exciting?"
"I have the ring in my pocket--"
"But touch wood, won't you?"
"Freddy?"
"Yes--"
"What's the matter with getting some for-get-me-nots and mailing
them to Jones in an envelope?"
"All right, I'll attend to it. Eighteen ninety-two Eighth
Avenue, isn't it?"
"Be sure it is forget-me-nots, you know. Don't mix up the
language of flowers, and send him one that says: 'I'm off with a
handsomer man,' or,' You needn't come round any more!'"
"Oh, Ezra, Eleanor is really getting quite worked up!"
"So am I!"
"Wouldn't it be perfectly splendid if--Switch off quick, here's
aunt coming!"
"Mayn't I even say I love you?"
"I daren't say it back, Ezra--she's calling."
"But do you?"
"Yes, unfortunately--"
"Why unfortun--?"
Buzz-buzz-swizzleum-bux-bux!--Aunt had cut us off. However,
short as my little talk with Freddy had been, it brightened my
whole day.
Late the same afternoon, I went back to Doctor Jones. I was
prepared to find him uplifted, but I hadn't counted on his being
maudlin. The fellow was drunk, positively drunk--with happiness.
His tongue ran on like a mill-stream. I had to sit down and have
the whole Pullman-car episode inflicted on me a second time. I
was shown the receipt-slip. I was shown the telegram from Eleanor.
I was shown with a whoop the forget-me-nots! Then he was going on
Saturday? I asked. He said he guessed it would take an earthquake
to keep him away, and a pretty big earthquake, too! . . . Oh, it
was a great moment, and all the greater because I was tremendously
worked up, too. I saw Freddy floating before me, my sweet, girlish,
darling Freddy, holding out her arms while Jones gassed and gassed
and gassed.
I left him taking phenacetin for his headache.
III
The house-party had grown a little larger than was originally
intended. On Saturday night we sat down twelve to dinner.
Doctor Jones and I shared a room together, and I must say
whatever misgivings I might have had about him wore away very
quickly on closer acquaintance. In the first place he looked
well in evening dress, carrying himself with a sort of shy, kind
air that became him immensely. At table he developed the
greatest of conversational gifts--that of the appreciative and
intelligent listener. I heard one of the guests asking Eleanor
who was that charming young man. Freddy and I hugged each other
(I mean metaphorically, of course) and gloried in his success.
In the presence of an admirer (such is the mystery of women)
Eleanor instantly got fifteen points better looking, and you
wouldn't have known her for the same girl. Freddy thought it was
the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar gown she wore, but I could see
it was deeper than that. She was thawing in the sunshine of
love, and I'll do Doctor Jones the justice to say that he didn't
hide his affection under a bushel. It was generous enough for
everybody to bask in, and in his pell-mell ardor he took us all
to his bosom. The women loved him for it, and entered into a
tacit conspiracy to gain him the right-of-way to wherever Eleanor
was to be found. In fact, he followed her about like a dog, and
she could scarcely move without stepping on him.
Sunday was even better. One of the housemaids drank some wood
alcohol by mistake for vichy water, and the resulting uproar
redounded to Jones' coolness, skill and despatch. He dominated
the situation and--well, I won't describe it, this not being a
medical work, and the reader probably being a good guesser. Mrs.
Matthewman remarked significantly that it must be nice to be the
wife of a medical man--one would always have the safe feeling of
a doctor at hand in case anything happened at night! Eleanor
said it was a beautiful profession that had for its object the
alleviation of human pain. Freddy. jealously tried to get in a
good word for boxers, but nobody would listen to her except me.
It was all Jones, Jones, Jones, and the triumphs of modern
medicine. Altogether he sailed through that whole day with
flying colors, first with the housemaid, and then afterward at
church, where he was the only one that knew what Sunday after
Epiphany it was. He made it plainer than ever that he was a
model young man and a pattern. Mrs. Matthewman compared him to
her departed husband, and talked about old-fashioned courtesy and
the splendid men of her youth. Everybody fell over everybody
else to praise him. It was a regular Jones boom. People began
to write down his address, and ask him if he'd be free Thursday,
or what about Friday, and started to book seats in advance.
That evening, as I was washing my hands before dinner and
cheerfully whistling Hiawatha, I became conscious that Jones was
lolling back on a sofa at the dark end of the room. What
particularly arrested my attention was a groan--a hollow,
reverberatory groan--preceded by a pack of heartrending sighs.
It worried me--when everything seemed to be going so well. He
had every right to be whistling Hiawatha, too.
"What's the matter, Jones?" said I.
He keeled over on the sofa, and groaned louder than ever.
"It isn't possible--that she's refused you?" I exclaimed. He
muttered something about his mother.
"Well, what about your mother?" I said.
"Westoby," he returned, "I guess I was the worst kind of fool ever
to put my foot into this house."
That was nice news, wasn't it? Just as I was settling in my head
to buy that Seventy-second Street place, and alter the basement
into a garage!
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