CHAPTER VI.

IN WHICH STALTON SEES THE DOCTOR.

Mauney did not enjoy the dinner-party. He kept looking at Freda MacDowell and wishing he had never met her. He knew, without further contemplation, that she was the most attractive woman he had ever met. He could have gone on talking to her all evening long, but he was glad that such had been impossible. Every time he looked at her he felt a warmth gripping his breast. Her eyes—well, he knew that he had never seen eyes like them. They were perfect. They were vastly comforting. They haunted him, all the way back to Freeman’s, and then all the way to 73 Franklyn Street. He remembered Max’s description of her, and knew that it was no idle remark:

“She’s just like nobody else.”

He demanded of life to know just how such a thing could come to pass, namely, that he should be attracted so strongly to a woman, all at once, at first sight, at first talk. Of course he would have to put her clean out of his mind. He felt weak when he thought of her. He knew just how much of her he could stand. He was positive that another hour’s acquaintance would have completed the most enthralling fascination. He sat in his own room smoking furiously, trying to accuse himself of a hyper-vivid imagination and an over-developed susceptibility. He tried to tell himself that he was not infatuated with her. He smoked many cigarettes. It grew late. He pulled down a book and began reading, with the book in his lap. Then he came to himself gradually and discovered that he had not been reading at all, but only inspecting his finger-nails, while his thoughts kept returning constantly to Freda MacDowell.

Max would wonder why he had not dropped in to-night. Somehow he could not face Max. He had no wish to see Max to-night. It would be hard to talk to him—just as if he had wronged him in some way. Then, at length, he gained a better perspective of the situation. He tossed aside his book and walked along the hall to his chum’s door.

“Hello, you!” said Lee, looking up from his desk, which was littered with note-books and texts. “You’ve been dolling up a little, eh? Been at a dance?”

“No, just a kind of dinner party, Max. What are you doing?”

“Can’t you see?”

“Sure. What is it, though?”

“Oto-laryngology, if you insist.”

“Is it?” asked Mauney, absently, as he leaned against the wall by the door.

“Well, of course, you fish. If I say it’s oto-laryngology I don’t mean anything else. What’s the matter with you? Sit down. I’m out of smokes. If you’ve got any, hand ’em over.”

Mauney tossed his package of cigarettes on the desk and stretched himself in a chair near by.

“Well, Max,” he said at length. “You’re the luckiest dog in Merlton!”

“How do you make that out, my son?” Lee asked, as he turned to throw away a burnt match.

“Because you are, that’s all. You’ve got a woman who really loves you, and—”

“Wait, now, you poor fish. Did I tell you she loved me?”

“Well, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Lee cast a puzzled look at Mauney, who sat, as if in reverie, gazing up through blue rings of smoke that emerged in slow clouds from his mouth.

“Are you suddenly overtaken with a bachelor’s remorse?” Max queried, sarcastically. “Is that why you come in here to disturb my faithful studies? Why envy me so much? Why don’t you nab onto somebody yourself? You’ve got more to recommend you than I have.”

Mauney was not listening to him, but continued gazing up at the ceiling. Even there he could not avoid the vision of a woman’s dark, comforting eyes.

“You’ve got better mating points than I have. You’re a better man than I am, _Gunga-din_. Look at that chest of yours—any woman would sigh petulantly to have her head pillowed there. All you got to do is to go out and walk down Tower Street and the girls will be running into lamp-posts as they turn to behold your Apollo-like form.”

Mauney looked into Max’s face, confused.

“What?” he asked.

“Oh I didn’t say anything. I was just humming a snatch from Mendelssohn’s ‘Fatal Step.’ Say, Mauney, what the devil’s the matter with you, anyhow?”

“Nothing.”

“All right: smoke on. I’m going to study. Stay till you get it all straightened out, and, when you’re ready to go, don’t forget the door is on your left. Good-night, dearie.”

Lee turned to his desk and resumed his reading of numerous pages of badly-written notes. From time to time he mumbled sentences, then shifted in his chair, then lit a new cigarette, and mumbled again. During this time Mauney sat quietly back, busy with unpleasant thoughts. He remembered that Lee had explained the hopelessness of his relationship with Freda MacDowell. He had said that, although he loved her, he would never let her know. Mauney had always admired Max. Now he respected him more than ever. He thought it was very noble of him to preserve silence regarding his love.

“I guess we’re both sort of out in the cold, Max,” he said, at length.

“I guess so,” Lee absent-mindedly agreed, as he continued to read. “Out in the cold? How do you mean?”

“With women.”

“Oh, damn women. I’m busy with oto-laryngology. Exam’s coming on to-morrow.”

Mauney rose and stretched himself.

“I’m going to bed,” he announced, tossing his package of cigarettes again on the table. “Keep ’em; you’ll need a few fags before morning.”

Mauney resumed his accustomed life next day with a feeling of gratitude that he had at least his work to occupy his mind. He put Freda MacDowell out of his consciousness—she was the property of Maxwell Lee, and nothing would ever permit him to encroach on his good friend’s property. She grew smaller as she receded in the vista of his thoughts, and he considered it fortunate that he saw nothing more of her during the term.

At the spring examinations Lorna Freeman gained top place, defeating Mauney by many marks and winning the Hennigar scholarship for proficiency in history. He congratulated her cordially, and inwardly admitted her superior ability. She deserved the distinction. He was not jealous, for even at the end of his first year his eye was looking at something different from marks and scholarships. He had passed his exams—that was all he cared. There were other rewards—quiet, inner compensations, from the reading of history. These he had not missed. The story of humanity was growing real to him, something he could touch with his hands and cherish. There came thoughts that pleased his fancy, and he wrote them in a big, empty ledger—wonderful thoughts about history, that he wanted no one but himself to read. He prized his ledger. Many a night during the long summer vacation he took it from the locked drawer of his desk and added more paragraphs to it. It was nothing—just his fancies.

Maxwell Lee, having successfully graduated, and having acquired the degree of M.D., gained an appointment in the department of biochemistry, as a research fellow, at a salary of seven hundred dollars a year, and began work immediately. Mauney was introduced to his laboratory, a big upstairs room in the Medical Building, with two bald, great windows that flooded the place with a brilliant light. It was a busy room, filled with long tables of intricate apparatus, retorts, gas burners, and complicated arrangements of glass tubes, resembling a child’s conception of a factory. He often dropped in to talk with Lee, who was always absorbed in his new work, bent over steaming dishes of fluid, or seated before a delicate scales, contained in a glass case. He spoke seldom of Freda MacDowell, now, but much of a certain disease upon which he was working, in an attempt to discover its cause. Mauney disliked the laboratory, pungent with fumes of acid, but was glad to see Max so happy in his work.

Lee still remained at Mrs. Manton’s boarding-house and in the evenings, when he was not busy at the Medical Building, was to be found, sitting in his shirt sleeves, in an alcove of the upstairs hallway, reading technical treatises on biochemistry.

Fred Stalton gradually formed his own original opinion about the intense occupation of Lee.

“Since he got that M.D. tacked on to his name,” Stalton remarked to Mauney one night in the dining-room, “he’s sort of waded out into biochemistry a little too deep. Max has changed, Mauney. He’s changed a lot. When he first came here to stay, he was the life of the party, a real midnight serenader, believe me. Of course, I suppose somebody’s got to do the tall studying, but I hate to see him so much at it. His health won’t stand it. He’s not very strong. He ought to rig up an office down on College Street, hang out his shingle and practise. Why, if he just had the lucre I’ve spent on doctors he could take a holiday in Honolulu. People would be bound to come to him. Doctors don’t do any good except to ease your mind a little, and that’s why people go to them. You get a pain in your almanack, and you hike right over to the nearest medico. He just lays on the hands, tells you it’s a very minor trouble; you pay him a couple of bones for a piece of paper and go home tickled all over. It’s a game, but Max ought to play it. He’s getting too serious.”

“Maybe,” admitted Mauney. “But he’s all taken up with the idea of striking the cause of pernicious anæmia—”

“Anæmia?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that like?”

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you. Max did describe it to me. People with it are sort of pale and yellow and lose their pep.”

Stalton’s brow puckered up thoughtfully.

“I wonder if there’s any chance of me having that lot,” he said slowly. “I certainly haven’t got any more pep than a Ford car leaking in oil in three cylinders. Here I am, Mauney, only forty-two years old; I shouldn’t be like this. I can’t do much more work than a sundial on a rainy day, without getting all in, down and out. I’ve been to about a hundred doctors and only two ever agreed on what ails me.”

“What seems to be the trouble, Fred?”

“All I know is how I feel,” replied Stalton. “Some say it’s hyperacidity. Some call it auto-intoxication. One bird claimed I had an ulcer of the stomach. About ten of ’em laid all the blame on my teeth. Others said I had weakness of the nerve centres. I don’t believe any of them ever really hit it yet. As soon as I collect enough dust I’m going to call and see Adamson.”

“Is he good?” asked Mauney, but casually interested in Stalton’s recital of his bodily woes.

“Good? I guess he is! That chap, they say, never makes a mistake. He’s a professor in the Medical School. You have to make an appointment four weeks in advance to see him at all. He charges about a hundred a minute, but, from what I hear, he’s worth it. I’d never begrudge it to him. I haven’t been able to hold down a steady job for five years.”

Mauney had observed Stalton’s manner of life. Gertrude allowed him to play on an easy financial margin. He made what money he got by speculating on theatre tickets, playing the horses at Riverton Park, and from his rare, but always successful, indulgence in big poker games down-town. When he was in pocket he paid his board cheerfully and bought new clothes and quantities of cigarettes. When he was financially embarrassed he helped Gertrude with the housework and made his own cigarettes. He was the soul of good-heartedness. He would lend money to any of his friends if he had it. If not, he would thank the intending borrower for the compliment of being asked. His popularity at 73 Franklyn Street always remained at flood-tide—he was so cheerful about his own infirmities and so eager to listen to the troubles of others. Mauney found him as restful as other men who lived purposeless lives.

Late one night Mauney was awakened by the sound of his bedroom door opening. In the light which entered from the hall he beheld Stalton standing in his bathrobe, smoking a cigarette. He was unusually pale.

“I didn’t want to disturb, Max,” he said, “but I’m suffering the tortures of the damned with this stomach of mine. I wonder if you would mind going downstairs and calling up Dr. Adamson. I’ve got to see that bird, sooner or later, and I’d like to have him see me when this real attack is on.”

Mauney agreed, sprang out of bed, and feeling that Stalton was actually in great pain, persuaded him to take his own bed. After helping him to get into it, he covered him quickly with the sheets and descended to the telephone. After giving the number he waited for fully a minute before receiving a reply.

“Yes,” said a tired, business-like voice at length.

“Doctor Adamson?”

“Yes.”

“Could you come to seventy-three Franklin Street?”

“What appears wrong?” he asked pleasantly.

“Mr. Stalton has a severe pain in his stomach.”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” he replied. “It might be a surgical case, you know. Anyway I never go out at night, except under very exceptional circumstances. I think you had better call my assistant, Dr. Turner.”

“Well, listen, doctor,” persisted Mauney, “Mr. Stalton is a fine chap and he thinks the sun rises and sets on you.”

The physician laughed.

“Indeed? Well, that’s very nice of him,” he said. “Tell him I’ll break a custom. Seventy-three Franklin? I’ll be up soon.”

Within half an hour the distinguished physician arrived. He was a cheerful, clean-shaven, well-dressed man of perhaps forty-five, and looked extremely awake, considering the hour. Mauney showed him upstairs to his room and introduced him to the patient.

“How do you do?” said Dr. Adamson, pleasantly, as he took Stalton’s proffered hand. “Are you in trouble?”

“I feel as if there was a mud-turtle inside my stomach, doctor, trying to land on the edge of my liver,” confessed Stalton.

Adamson laughed as he drew up a chair, and sat down leisurely beside the bed.

“Well,” he said, in his cheerful way, “your description lacks nothing in vividness. Do you think he will manage to land?”

Stalton put his palm over the pit of his stomach.

“Right there,” he said.

“Pain?” queried Adamson.

“It isn’t exactly pain, doctor. It’s an all-gone feeling. If it would only pain I’d know where I stood. But it really doesn’t pain—it’s just sort of churning.”

Adamson’s grey eyes became keen, as he inspected his patient.

“When did you first notice it?” he asked.

“I’ve had it for ten years; only it’s got unbearable to-night.”

“Exactly,” nodded the physician, as he lapsed into a silence, and felt his patient’s pulse.

“Are you a student?” he asked, glancing about the room.

“No. This is Mr. Bard’s room. I haven’t followed any regular occupation for a few years back.”

“Why?”

“I don’t seem to have the pep, doctor.”

“Exactly. Do you have headaches?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Right in the dome,” explained Stalton, placing his hand on the top of his head.

“Exactly. Any backache?”

“You’re right.”

“Where?”

“All the way from my neck to my heels. My legs ache most of the time, too.”

After the physician had very carefully examined him he dropped his stethescope into his bag, which he closed with a snap.

“What horse is going to get the Lofton Plate to-morrow?” he asked, as he sat down and lit a cigarette and proffered the case to his patient.

“I’d bet on the Grundy stables to-morrow, doctor.”

“You think so?”

“Sure. I don’t pose as an expert, but if I had the money I’d play Grundy to win for a thousand dollars.”

“I used to imagine I could pick the winners,” laughed Adamson. “I think every man passes through that stage.”

“Yes, and the sooner he passes it the better,” smiled Stalton.

“Exactly.”

For a few seconds the physician smoked in silence.

“What’s the matter with me, doctor?” asked Stalton, at length.

“Are you prepared for my verdict?” replied Adamson, somewhat seriously.

“Well—yes—that’s why I sent for you. I know you will tell me.”

“No matter how serious, I presume you would rather know the truth?”

“You bet I would,” said Stalton, perching himself up on his elbow, and gazing with fearful apprehension at the renowned physician. “Some doctors said there wasn’t anything wrong with me.”

“But there is,” said Adamson, emphatically.

“Well, I knew it, I—”

“You have a really serious complaint, Mr. Stalton.”

“Is there any hope of curing it?”

“That all depends on you, Mr. Stalton. But first let me explain. And in doing so I want you to believe every word I say. I don’t want you to be hurt by anything I say, either. I have given you a careful examination and have located your trouble, but it’s not the kind of trouble you think it is.”

“No?”

“No. Your stomach is anatomically normal, although it is not working in perfect physiological harmony. It is influenced by your mind very considerably. Your head contains a real ache, and your back contains a real ache, and your legs get really tired. You feel weak most of the time. You find it hard to stick at one occupation. These are real troubles, not imaginary. Your body is—well, rather rebellious against work. Is that not true?”

“It certainly is, doctor. I—”

“Exactly. It doesn’t want to be put to a test, where it knows it will be unsuccessful.”

“You’ve sure expressed it, doctor.”

“And now, Mr. Stalton,” said Adamson, leaning back in his chair and fixing his patient with his keen, grey eyes, “would you believe me if I told you that your body is merely working in harmony with a wrong idea in your mind?”

“Well, I’d believe anything you say, doctor,” said Stalton, slowly, but with evident surprise.

“Good. I appreciate your confidence very much. You have a wrong thought complex. In some way or other you have acquired a wrong mental attitude toward work. It’s not your fault. I do not blame you in the least. But I want to remove that thought complex, because in so doing I will remove your disease, and if you will but believe me now, you will be immediately cured. You have for the past few years actually feared work.”

“I know it, doctor, but I—”

“This fear of work has been a real disease, Mr. Stalton. You feared work. You mentally rebelled against work. Your body took its cue from your mind and rebelled also. Your body rebelled so much that it instituted pains and aches, so as to avoid the thing your brain feared. In other words, your whole trouble has been a mental and physical rebellion against work. Do you believe me or not?”

“Well, doctor, I’ve got to believe you,” said Stalton slowly. “But what am I to do?”

“First, you are going to remind yourself that work is really a blessing—nothing to be feared—but rather something to be desired. It will not hurt you. I give my word. You need not have this old timidity any longer. In the second place, you are going to get a job somewhere at once and begin to work steadily at it. Have you any trade?”

“I learned electric wiring years ago.”

“Fine. Go to-morrow, confidently, and get a job, wiring. If you do, you will find all your pains and aches gradually disappearing. If I am wrong, I will charge you nothing for this call. I know I’m right.”

“How much do I owe you, doctor?” asked Stalton, getting out of bed, as the physician started toward the door.

“It will be twenty-five dollars,” he replied. “But I would like it to be the next twenty-five you earn. Good-night.”

He extended his hand.

“Good-night, sir,” said Stalton, taking it. “I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head.”

When Mauney returned to his room, after accompanying Adamson to the door, he found Fred Stalton walking up and down.

“What do you know about that, Mauney?” he asked. “That bird certainly put his finger on the tender spot that time. In one way I feel like a damned slacker now. Don’t mention this to anybody, Mauney. But Adamson is right. Why, that pain is gone already. I’m a liar if it isn’t. No drugs about that bird. I’m going out to-morrow to buck the old world for a living again.”

A few weeks saw a great change in Stalton. He embraced work with a good will and never once faltered. He obtained a good position with a down-town electrical company, and came home each night hungry and happy. Gertrude was puzzled completely.

“Why, Freddie!” she said one night, “you’re all better. What on earth did it? You look ten years younger, and I haven’t heard a word about teeth for a long time.”

“Do you remember that last bottle of Burton’s Bitter Tonic I punished?” he asked with a broad smile. “Well, it’s the greatest stuff on record. I’m going to pose for a portrait and give ’em a red-hot personal letter of recommendation to put in the newspaper. ‘It has cured me—why not others? Eventually—why not now? At all druggists, the same wonderful, world-beating, little tonic!’”