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Show W OFT WIFE...... . I 3 u-RUPERT HUGHES WNU SERVICE By RUPERT HUGHES otl mr SYNOPSIS iv w i?-ord the NordExpress. with Os- "J, Y, i Immediate destination. Dr. ' Ijehb in bound for America. With five-year-old Cynthia Thatcher, his - ary ward. On the train they meet 11 Gaines, former classmate of i He tells Gaines of his mission i is the return of the child to her : in America. Cynthia's father la CHAPTER I Continued 2 u're a pretty good little carv-suppose?" carv-suppose?" n great. Billy." u ought to know." do. I am. That is, I'm great extenuating circumstances, genius, but a damfooL I have that ruins everything." "If I only did! If I only did! But I'm no stationary dipsomaniac. I'm the only original Wandering Jew-no Jew-no connection with a cheap imitator of similar name. I hardly show what I'm carrying they tell me. I look a bit feverish, and I'm slightly thick of tongue, but I have a subintelli-gence subintelli-gence that keeps me from being run over by the cars. My trouble is like certain forms of aphasia with double personality. I lose my sense of orientation, but I am determined to bike. And hike I hike, till I drop or come round sober. Then I'm like the man Bill Nye tells about who was found after the train-wreck, plucking violets in the dell and gently gen-tly murmuring 'Where am I?' " Gaines looked at him more In amazement than in sorrow: died leaving me a leasehold In London. Lon-don. That's one of the things that happens In storybooks. Bui truth sometimes tries to Imitate fiction. I vowed I'd Jump across the Atlantic, At-lantic, clean up what cash I could, and Invest it where I couldn't touch the principal. "Well, just when I was getting my affairs straightened up so that I could start, a beautiful operation came my way. No money in it, but some reputation and a rare opportunity oppor-tunity I couldn't let slide an exquisite ex-quisite 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 husband, hus-band, John Thatcher. "When Mrs. Milburn heard that society was found under the table after dinner. "I'm alone now. There'd be nobody no-body to mourn for me. But here I am with a poor widow's only child in my care, and I'm racing with fate. "And there's another thing, Billy. , In Berlin I found proofs that this poor Thatcher didn't commit suicide. sui-cide. He tried to save the woman's life she was drowning; she dragged him to his death they both died. He didn't even know who he was. Besides, he did leave something for his family. In my handbag, I have his finished drawings for a great invention in-vention that looks to me good for a fortune If It can be got to America and patented and placed. "So you see, Billy, what a load I've got on my chest. The little "You must nave naa some rare old experiences." Gaines loved to travel. "No doubt, Billy, no doubt But I don't know what my experiences are. Once In a while I meet some man who hails me by some strange name and says I borrowed money from him in Pueblo, or lent him money In Skaneateles. I never ask any questions. I take his word for It and say, 'Oh, yes, of course.' "I tell you it's an uncanny sort of thing to wake up In a mysterious room in some unheard of place and ,t cocaine?" ), I've somehow escaped . i j mutual friend, Barleycorn?" i John Barleycorn." ( see, it makes your hand un- :J. eh?" t j. I never play with the fire, :t at regular intervals. Then I nit arson. I'm what Is popular-nown popular-nown as a periodical with a y :al P. It's a terrible thing to !ss, even to old Goliath Gaines, :'s all in the Catacombs, and lot the only person on earth sne must undergo a capital operation, opera-tion, she cabled her daughter to come and hold her hand while she went under the ether. John Thatcher Thatch-er couldn't afford to come and his wife took the first steamer, leaving her little four-year-old girl with her father. I brought Mrs. Milburn through and good work, too there'll 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 money! But I said, 'Don't let that worry you.' We always say that "Just as Mrs. Thatcher was about to sail back to Europe, she got a cablegram ca-blegram saying that her husband had committed suicide scandalously, scandalous-ly, with a woman of bad name. The Dutchman who sent It had to pay a mark a word, and he didn't 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 pros-trated 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 well, since I was going over anyway, I offered to get the child and bring her back with me fool that I was." "Fool nothing," Gaines blurted; "it was mighty white of you, old boy." child, her father's honor, her mother's moth-er's salvation from poverty all these, with an ocean and a half a continent between me and safety. ! It's no question of will-power. I have none. Your offer of a nip of you know, went through me like a knife. If you want to spare me agony ago-ny don't use even the name of of any of those things in my hearing. If I get a sniff of liquor ugh! I'll fight for it. And after the first d-op is on my tongue, it's all over but the hike." Goliath looked at David with eyes of complete compassion. He said: "Don't you care, Dave. I'll stick to you to the finish. If you should be er, Incapacitated, I'll get the child to her mother, and the documents, docu-ments, too. So Just qualify for the Don't Worry Club, and leave the rest to me. And I rather think you'd better hand over those plans. They'd be a little less likely to be lost In any excitement. And all that money of yours, Dave it doesn't sound exactly ex-actly Samaritan to say to a man you haven't seen for years. 'Give me your ten thou, and I'll carry it for you," but if you want to gamble on my honesty I'll play banker for you." He was about to break down, but he gathered himself together with a brusque effort. He slapped his hand hard on the leather and rose to his feet: "I'll get those documents for you, Billy, this Instant, and I'll hand you my money-belt as soon as I can a flaw in his make-up. No-knows No-knows how badly assembled m machines are, Billy, except ni. If it weren't for our Hippo-c Hippo-c Ideals, what closet doors we ! open in the best simulated :ies!" ve got a skeleton too some- e, I suppose," said Gaines, : I can't find it My skeleton is idency to turn Into a balloon or less dirigible. I've tried ything. I've banted in seven jages. Diet? I haven't eaten a 3 for ten years, but I you don't v any sure cure for fat, do I . i'obody does, Billy," said Jebb 7 the cynical frankness doctors 'jloy to their friends; then with a at his own lank legs, "I've got anti-fat serum in my system, I $ose. but I don't know what it H Raines shook his fat head and all Jebb shook his head. "I meant well, but you know where we well-intentioned well-intentioned people lay the asphalt" "I don't follow you, Davey." "I hoped you would, Billy. It's so nauseating to explain. But here goes: I 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 up for poor Thatcher before I left Berlin with the child, that I have exhausted my vacation from Hades." "You don't mean" "That's just exactly what I mean. I've been so busy in new scenes that I lost count of the days. This morning morn-ing as I boarded the train at Berlin, Ber-lin, a drunken man needless to say, unbuckle it." He looked at Gaines girth, and Gaines looked at his. The same thought struck both of them, and 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. I'll know how it feels io be entirely surrounded by money." Seeing that Jebb's dour face had softened a trifle the fat are eminent emi-nent consolers Gaines made an effort ef-fort 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-" 2 chins in elephantine despair, anks for your little ray of dis-tagement. dis-tagement. Go on with your sto-i sto-i I'll tell you mine later. So ?ve developed one of those clock-s clock-s thirsts, eh? Too bad, old boy. cl a pal who was like you he's now but he found a cure. l'e you tried " VI j'four friend found the one sure Don't start anything begin-i begin-i 'Have you tried?' I've tried all Have-you-trieds and then some. " tested all there are In the books ia thousand of my own Invention, ad a landlady who used to buy ie 'put-some-in-your-husband's things. Her coffee was so i anyway I never noticed it But more did she notice any cure. Si see, Billy, most of the habit-to habit-to depend on the will eventually; Jwhen the will itself is diseased, sat can you do? It's like making tbit-pie when you can't catch the :lt. The one Important fact is it everybody has his personal dev-ind dev-ind that's mine. Otherwise I'm all to the good. b got two arms, a pair of legs, temple of eyes, both ears, both t?s, one whole stomach, no float- kidneys, a liver you couldn't nge with an ax, and ability to ik forty hours at a stretch, and a for operative surgery that is varvel, If I do say it. But I've 4 an intermittent thirst that shunts to mania, and it does its .i best to nullify all my other ! If it weren't for that I'd be 1 : Y- ff 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: "I used to walk In my sleep as a boy. Once I found myself in my nightie in the middle of a ballroom floor. I had just meandered in. The floor committee meandered me out in double time. The other night I got turned round in bed in a hotel In Leipzig, and when I woke up with my head to the footboard I was so bewildered I came near hollering for the night clerk. I thought somebody some-body had put a voodoo on me." "That's the feeling exactly," said Jebb, "only when I wake up I'm as weak as a sick cat, and my head oh, my head! And my tongue oh, oh, my tongue! I haven't the faintest idea of what I have done, or where I have been, or where I am. I reach for my trousers and the pockets are empty my watch is gone, stolen, given away to a polite street-car conductor or thrown at a cat. Then I have to .recuperate, send a telegram, collect, or draw on my bank that's no fun among strangers and get home the best way I can. "I'm a periodical prodigal, Billy; he was an American lurched into me. He paused to lean on me and beg my pardon profusely. I couldn't dodge his breath. I shook him off, but I had felt that first clutch of the thirst. It comes with a rush, Billy, when it comes. And I might as well fight it as try to wrestle with a London fog. It's got me. And I'm afraid, Billy, horribly afraid. I feel Uke a man who has sold his soul to the devil when the clock strikes and he smells brimstone. It doesn't matter about my rotten soul or the body it torments. And I have no children I've never dared to marry and drag any woman along my path. My parents, heaven be praised, died when I was in college. I got my curse by entail from poor old dad. His father acquired it in the grand old days when the high He was about to say "Moriarity s but that had liquid connotations. He stopped short and gulped. "No, that wasn't the time."( His memory switched to another incident but that was Heublein's or Traeger's. It seemed to him, as he tumbled out the pigeonholes of memory in his roll-top forehead, that he could find nothing recorded but carousals. He knew that they had played only a minute part in the total of college col-lege life, but because he wanted to avoid them, he found them everywhere. every-where. He tried to think of some athietic excitement some classroom Joke, some incident in the Catacombs, but the memory is not a voluntary muscle. (TO BE CONTINUED) jus ana ncu. "Don't you call ten thousand real -a dollars rich?" Oh, I'm rich enough for the mo- 'it. I feel like old King Midas, ? the trouble is I've got his long J, too. When I'm in my cups, polite expression. But It's a of bathtub with me. When I'm ' way, I think I'm Mr. Croesus, I spend what I have as if I ed the Standard Oil and had fck a gusher of gold. .I don't tipple between sprees. I 4 e the sniff of liquor in my dry sons But when my time rolls . 'ffld, I've the thirst of a man lost ie Mojave desert I see mirages, not of waterfalls, Billy fire- erfalls! My life runs on schedule. So iy months of humanity, then te weeks of humidity. I'm like ' tropics all rain or all sun. 4 I can pretty nearly tell you V Jhour and the minute. Just when J freshet begins. I'm a sort of 1 JekyU and Mr. Hydrophobia, -'en the rabies "bites me, the sight J water makes me froth at the 'Jth. For two or three weeks I about like an idiot trying to put i! a raging fire by pouring On kero-:." kero-:." d Poor old boy," said Gaines, 'H j4t be hell. What do you do? j tlt yourself In a room and order s through tht keyhole?" 5 3 only I have no father to laU on my neck and offer me veal. I sneak back to my own shack and try to regain my disgusted and mystified patients by scattering lies by the bushel." It was Gaines' amiable nature to try to wring a drop of honey from every gall-bag. "You must be a great little surgeon, sur-geon, Davey. to keep any practice at alL" "I am, but I 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 feel the madness coming on, I arrange my affairs, transfer my patients to other oth-er hands, say that I've been called East about my property and then I hit the trail on the long hike. If I weren't one of the cleverest surgeons sur-geons that ever ligated an artery, I'd be In the poorhouse today. If I weren't cursed with the bitterest blight that ever ruined a soul. I'd be at the top of my profession." "Poor old Jebb," sighed Gaines, "but don't you care, we've all got our troubles. Now to look at me, you wouldn't think but that can wait You were going to tell me what I could do for you." "Well, now that you know all. I'll tell you the rest The last time I fell, I woke up in New Orleans. When I got home I found a letter laying that a distant relative had |