Show T THE GIFT WIFE 0 0 0 by RUPERT HUGHES 0 0 RUPERT HUGHES SERVICE SYNOPSIS on board the nord express with ostend as his immediate destination dr david jebb la Is bound for america with him Is old cynthia thatcher Thatch cr his temporary aar w ward old d on the train the they y meet big bill gaines former ormer classmate of 0 davids david he tells gaines of his mission which Is the ret return u rn ot of the child to her mother in america Cynt hias lather father Is dead CHAPTER I 1 continued 2 youre a pretty good little carver I 1 suppose im great billy you ought to know 1 I do I 1 am that is im great with extenuating circumstances im a genius but a dam fool I 1 have a curse that ruins avei thing not cocaine no ive somehow escaped drugs our mutual friend barleycorn old john Barley barleycorn com 1 I see it makes your hand unsteady eh no I 1 never play with the fire except at regular intervals then I 1 commit arson im what is popularly known as a periodical with a capital P its a terrible thing to confess even to old goliath ga gaines ines but its all in the catacombs Cata combs I 1 and im not the only person on earth with a flaw in his makeup make up nobody knows how badly assembled human machines are billy except doctors if it for our hippocratic ideals what closet doors we could open in the best simulated families famili esl ive got a skeleton too somewhere I 1 suppose said gaines but I 1 cant find it my skeleton is a tendency to turn into a balloon more or less dirigible ive tried everything ive baited in seven languages diet I 1 eaten a thing for ten years but I 1 you dont know any sure cure for fat do you nobody does billy said jebb with the cynical frankness doctors employ to their friends then with a look at his own lank legs ive got the anti fat serum in my system I 1 suppose but I 1 dont know what it is gaines shook his fat head and all his chins in elephantine despair thanks for your little ray of discouragement coura gement go on with your story ill tell you mine later so youve developed one of those clockwork thirsts eh too bad old boy I 1 had a pal who was like you hes dead now but he found a cure have you tried your friend found the one sure cure dont start anything beginning have you tried ive tried all the have you frieds and then some ive tested all there are in the books and a thousand of my own invention I 1 had a landlady who used to buy those put some in your huab husbands and S coffee and he wont notice it till hes cured things her coffee was so bad anyway I 1 never noticed it but no more did she notice any cure you see billy most of the habit cures depend on the will eventually but when the will itself is diseased what can you do its like making rabbit pie when you cant catch the rabbit the one impo important fact is that everybody has his personal devil and mine otherwise im au all to the good ive got two arms a pair of legs a couple of eyes both ears both lungs one whole stomach no floating kidneys a liver you t derange with an ax and ability to work forty hours at a stretch and a gift for operative surgery that is a marvel if I 1 do say it but ive got an intermittent thirst that amounts to mania and it does its i little best to nullify all my other gifts it if it for that id be famous and rich dont you call ten thousand real iron dollars rich oh im rich enough for or the moment I 1 feel like old king midas but the trouble is ive got his long ears too when im in my cups is the polite expression but its a case of bathtub with me when im that way I 1 think im mr croesus and I 1 spend what I 1 have as if I 1 owned the standard oil and had struck a gusher of gold 1 I dont tipple between sprees I 1 hate the sniff of liquor in my dry seasons but when my time rolls round ive the thirst of a man lost in the mojave desert I 1 see mirages but not of waterfalls billy fire waterfalls waterfall sl my life runs on schedule so many months of humanity then three weeks of humidity im like the tropics all rain or all sun and I 1 can pretty nearly tell you to the hour and the minute just jus t when my freshet begins im a sort of dr jekyll and mr hydrophobia when the rabies bites me the sight of water makes me froth at the mouth for two or three weeks I 1 I 1 go about like an idiot trying to put out a raging fire by pouring on kerosene 4 poor old boy said gaines it must be hell what do you do lock yourself in a room and order drinks through the keyhole if I 1 only dial if I 1 only did but im no stationary dipsomaniac I 1 an the only original wandering jew no connection with a cheap imitator of similar name I 1 hardly show what im carrying they tell me I 1 look a bit feverish and im slightly thick of tongue but I 1 have a gence that keeps me from being run over by the cars my trouble is like certain forms of aphasia with double personality I 1 lose my sense of orientation but I 1 am determined to hike and hike I 1 hike till I 1 drop or come round sober then im like the man bill nye tells about who was found after the train wreck plucking violets in the dell and gently murmuring where am IV I 1 gaines looked at him more in amazement than in sorrow you must have had some rare old experiences gaines loved to travel no doubt billy no doubt but I 1 dont know what my experiences are once in a while I 1 meet some man who hails me by some strange name and says I 1 borrowed money from him in pueblo or lent him money in skaneateles Skane I 1 never ask any questions I 1 take his word for it and say oh yes of course 1 I tell you its an uncanny sort of thing to wake up in a mysterious room in some unheard of place and A he paused to lean on me and beg my pardon profusely wonder how under the sun you got there and where under the sun you are gaines was reminded 1 I used to walk in my sleep as a boy once I 1 found myself in my nightie in the middle of a ballroom floor I 1 had just meandered in the floor committee meandered me out in double time the other night I 1 got turned round in bed in a hotel in leipzig and when I 1 woke up with my head to the footboard I 1 was so bewildered I 1 came near hollering for the night clerk I 1 thought somebody had put a voodoo on me the feeling exactly 0 said jebb only when I 1 wake up im as weak as a sick eat cat and my head oh my head and my tongue oh oh my tongue I 1 the faintest idea of what I 1 have done or where I 1 have been or where I 1 am I 1 reach for my trousers and the pockets are empty my watch is gone stolen given away to a pol polite te st streetcar street reet car conductor or thrown at a eat cat then I 1 have to recuperate send a telegram collect or draw on my bank no fun among strangers and get home the best way I 1 can im a periodical prodigal billy only I 1 have no father to fall on my neck and offer me veal I 1 sneak back to my own shack and try to regain my disgusted and mystified patients by scattering lies by the bushel it was games gaines amiable nature to try to wring a drop of honey from every gall bag you must be a great little surgeon davey to keep any practice at all 1 I am but I 1 had to give up new york and go out west to a smallish city where they have to have me handicap and all when I 1 feel the madness coming on I 1 arrange my affairs transfer my patients to other hands say that ive been called east about my property and then I 1 hit the trail on the long hike it if I 1 one of the cleverest surgeons that ever lighted an artery id be in the poorhouse today if i I 1 cursed with the bitterest blight that ever ruined a soul id be at the top of my profession poor old jebb sighed gaines but dont you care weve all got our troubles now to look at me you think but that ca can wait you were going to tell me what hat I 1 could do tor for you well now that you know all IU tell you the rest the last time I 1 fell I 1 woke up in new orleans when I 1 got home I 1 found a letter sayin saying g that a distant relative had bad died leaving me a leasehold in london one of the things that happens in storybooks story books but truth sometimes tries to imitate fiction I 1 vowed id jump across the atlantic clean up what cash I 1 could and invest it where I 1 touch the principal well just when I 1 was g getting etting my affairs straightened up so that I 1 could start a beautiful operation came my way no money in it but some reputation and a rare opportunity I 1 let slide an exquisite fibroid tumor intricately and vitally involved the woman mrs milburn was a widow and her only child was a married daughter who had gone to berlin with her hus hui band john thatcher when mrs milburn heard that she must undergo a capital operation she cabled her daughter to come and hold her hand while she went under the ether john thatcher afford to come and his wife took the first steamer leaving her little four year old girl with her father I 1 brought mrs milburn through and good work too therell be an article about it in the medical record her daughter mrs thatcher cried all over me and said she would pay my bill when her husband made his fortune by a great invention he was working on we doctors get a lot of that moneal money but I 1 said dont let that worry you we always say that just as mrs thatcher was about to sail back to europe she got a cablegram saying that her husband had committed suicide scandalously with a woman of bad name the dutchman who sent it had to pay a mark a word and he waste any breaking it gently thatcher left only funds enough to bury him strangers took the child in charge the death and the circumstances and the shock prostrated mrs thatcher completely she was in no condition to go over and bring back the little girl the money was a big consideration too and I 1 well since I 1 was going over anyway I 1 offered to get the child and bring her back with me fool th that at I 1 was fool nothing gaines blurted it was mighty white of you old boy IV jebb shook his head 1 I meant well but you know where we well intentioned people lay the asphalt 1 I dont follow you davey 11 1 I hoped you would billy it its I 1 S so nauseating to explain but here goes I 1 was so delayed in starting from america and met so much postponement in settling my affairs in poky old london and had so many details to close ur up for poor thatcher before I 1 left berlin with the child that I 1 have exhausted my vacation from hades you dont mean just exactly what I 1 mean ive been so busy in new scenes that I 1 lost count of the days this morning as I 1 boarded the train at berlin a drunken man needless toay to say he was an american lurched into me he paused tolean on me and beg my pardon profusely I 1 dodge his breath I 1 shook him off but I 1 had felt that first clutch of the thirst it comes with a rush billy when it comes and I 1 might as well fight it as try to wrestle with a london fog its got me and im afraid billy horribly afraid I 1 feel like a man who has sold his soul to the devil when the clock strikes and he smells brimstone it matter about my rotten so soul ua or the body it torments and I 1 have no children ive never dared to marry and drag any woman along my path my parents heaven be praised died when I 1 was in college I 1 got my curse by entail from poor old dad his father acquired it in the grand old days when the high society was found under the table after dinner im alone now be nobody to mourn for me but here I 1 am with a poor widows widow s only child in my care and im racing with fate and theres another thing billy in berlin I 1 found proofs that this poor thatcher c commit sui suicide he tried to save sav e t the h e womans comans life she was drowning she dragged him to his death they both died he even know who she was besides he did leave something for his family in my handbag I 1 have his finished drawings for a great invention that looks to rne me good for a fortune if it can be got to america and patented and placed so you see billy what wha t a load ive got on my chest th the e little child her fathers honor her mothers salvation from poverty erty all these with an ocean and a half a CO continent between me and safety its no question of will power I 1 have none your offer of a nip of you know went through me like a knife if you want to spare me agony dont use even the name of of any of those things in my hearing if I 1 get a sniff of liquor ugh ill fight for it and after the fi first drop is is on my tongue its all over but the hike goliath looked at david with eyes of complete compassion he said dont you care dave ill stick to you to the finish if you should be er incapacitated ill get the child to her mother and the documents too so just qualify for the dont worry club and leave the rest to me and I 1 rather think better hand avei over those plans be a little less likely to be lost in any excitement and all that money of yours dave it sound exactly samaritan to say to a man you seen for years give me your ten thou and ill carry it for you but if you want to gamble on my honesty ill play banker for you he was about to break down b but lit he gathered himself together with a brusque effort he slapped his hand hard on the leather and rose to his feet ill get those documents for you billy this instant and ill hand you my money belt as soon aa I 1 c can unbuckle it he looked at gaines girth and gaines looked at his the same thought struck both of them and a a whiff of laughter shook away the gloom your money bag will have to be pieced out about a yard to get round my equator said gaines it will be great sport for me though ill know how it feels to be entirely surrounded by money seeing that jebbs dour face had softened a trifle the fat are eminent consolers console rs G gaines a ines made an effort to keep him diverted and he began to laugh reminiscently say dave do you remember when we were cubs together at yale and one evening we were at at he was about to say itys but that had liquid connotations he stopped short and gulped no that the time his memory switched to another incident but that was Heubl eins or Tra egers it seemed to him a as f he tumbled out the pigeonholes of cf memory in his roll top forehead that he could find nothing recorded but carousals he knew that they had played only y a minute part in the total of college eg life but because he wanted to avoid them he found them everywhere he tried to think of some athletic excitement some classroom joke some incident in the catacombs Cata combs but the memory is not a voluntary muscle TO BK BE CONTINUED |