Show T VT W 1 FI 6 0 RUPERT HUGHES SERVICE by RUPERT S SYNOPSIS on board the nord earr ess with ostend as aa his I 1 immediate destination dr david jebb ebb Is bound for or america with him Is old cynthia thatcher his temporary ward on the train they meet davids S dig i P gaines former r ot of Y lle lie tells alecs gaines 0 of his mission which Is the return of 0 the child to her mother dead in america cynthia Cynt hias father ather lj is CHAPTER I 1 2 youre a pretty good little carver I 1 suppose tin im great billy you ought to know 0 O 1 I do I 1 am that Is join im great with extenuating circumstances im a genius but a dam fool I 1 have a curse that ruins everything not cocaine no ive somehow escaped drugs drug our mutual friend barleycorn old john Barley barleycorn com 11 1 I see it makes your hand unsteady eh no I 1 never play with the tire 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 gaines but its oil all in the catacombs Cata combs and im not tho 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 wo we could open in the best simulated famil families iest ive got a skeleton too somewhere I 1 suppose said gaines but I 1 cant find it my skeleton Is a tendency to turn tum into a balloon more or less dirigible ive tried everything ive baited in seven languages diet I 1 eaten a thing tor for ten years but I 1 you dont know any sure cure for fat do you nobody does billy said jebb with the cynical franI frankness mess 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 balnes shook his fat head and all his chins in elephantine despair thanks for your little roy ray ot 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 yo hes dead now but he found a cure curc have you tried your friend found the one sure cure dont start anything beginning have you tried ive tried all the have you some ive tested all there ore 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 husbands coffee and he wont notice it tal hes hels 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 ol of the habit 1 cures depend anthe 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 important fact is that everybody has his personal devit devil and mine otherwise im oil all to the good ive got two arms a pair of legs a couple of eyes both ears loth lungs one whole stomach no floating kidneys a liver you 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 arn amounts to mania and it does its little best to nullify au all my other gifts if it for that id be famous and rich dont you call ten thousand re real al iron dollars rich oh im rich enough for the moment I 1 feel like old king midas but the trouble is ive got his long ears cars too when I 1 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 III 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 bally alre 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 nearly tell you to and I 1 can pretty the hour and the minute just when my freshet begins I 1 im a sort of dr jekyll and mr hydrophobia when the rabies bit bites es me the sight of water makes m me e froth at the mouth for two or three weeks I 1 go about like an idiot adlo t trying to put out a raging fire by pou pouring ring on kero sene sold said Cal cagnes nes it poor 0 old id boy must be hell what do you yon do lock yourself in a room and order orde r drinka the keyhole if f I 1 only didi if I 1 only dudl but im m no stationary dipsomaniac im the only original wandering jew no connection with a cheap imitator of similar name I 1 hardly show what im carrying they tell mo me I 1 look a bit feverish and im slightly thick of tongue but I 1 have a gence that keeps me from being atun 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 dill bill nyo nye tells about who was found after the train wreck plucking violets in the dell and gen uy murmuring where am I 1 IV 11 gaines looked at him more in amazement than in sorrow you must have had some gome 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 halls balls 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 hla his word tor for I 1 it t and say oh yes of course III 1 I tell you its an uncanny sort of thing to wake up in a mysterious room in some unheard of place and owl lie paused to lean on an 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 ma 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 sald said jebb only when I 1 wake up im as weak as a sick cat and my head oh my head and my tongue oh oh my jonguel 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 polite streetcar street car conductor or thrown at a cat then chave I 1 have to recuperate send a telegram collect or draw on my bank no tun fun among strangers and get home the best way I 1 can im a 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 gaines amiable nature to try to wring a drop ot 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 1 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 trall trail on the long hike if I 1 one of the cleverest our geons that ever lighted an artery id be I 1 in n the poorhouse today rf f 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 can wait you were going to tell me what I 1 could do tor for you well now that you know all ill 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 saying that a distant relative had bad died leaving me a leasehold in lon don one of the things that happens in storybooks story books bu but truth sometimes tries to imitate notion 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 getting rily 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 nn an exquisite tumor intricately and vitally involved tho the woman mrs milburn Ml lburn was a widow and her only child was a married daughter who had gono gone to berlin with her hus band jonn john when mrs milburn heard board that she must undergo n capital opera tion she cabled her daughter to come and hold her hand while sho she went under the ether john thatcher afford to come and hla 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 bo be tin an article about it in the medical record her daughter mrs thatcher cried nil all over me and said she would pay my bill when her husband made hla his fortune by a great invention he was working on we doctors get a lot of that moneal but I 1 said dont let that worry you wo we always any aay that just as mrs thatcher Thatch cr was about to sail back to europe she got a cablegram saying that thai 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 ho 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 pros grated 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 matool fool chati was fool nothing go balnes nes blurted it was wa mighty white of you old boy jebb shook his head 1 I meant well but you know where we well intentioned people lay the asphalt 1 I dont follow you dave davey 1 I hoped you would billy its ita 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 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 a as 3 I 1 boarded the train at berlin a drunken man needless to say ho he was an american lurched into me he paused to lean 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 tog fog its ita got me and im afraid bluy billy horribly afraid I 1 feel like a man who has haa sold his soul to the devil when the clock strikes and he smells brimstone it matter about my rotten soul 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 friy curse by entail from poor old dad ills his father acquired it in the grand old daya when the high society was found under tho the table after dinner im alone now bo be nobody to mourn for me but here I 1 am with a poor widows only child in my care and im racing with fate and theres another thing billy in berlin derlin I 1 fo found und proofs that this poor thatcher Thatch cr commit sul but clde ile ho tried to save tho the woman comans 8 life she was drowning she dragged him to his death they both died ile ho even know who she was besides ho he did leave something tor for his family in my handbag I 1 have his finished drawings for a great in bention that looks to me go good od for a fortuno fortune it if it can be got to america and patented and placed so you see sec billy who what t a load I 1 ive got get on my chest the little child her fat fathers tiers honor her moth e cra salvation from poverty all these with an ocean and a halt half a 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 it if you want to spare me agony dont use even tho the name of ofaf of any of those things in my hearing it if I 1 got get a sniff ot of liquor uehl ril ill fight tor for it and after tho the first drop Is on onrey my tongue its it s all over but tho the hike goliath looked at david with eyes of complete compassion lie he said dont you caro care dave ill stick to you to the finish if you should be er incapacitated ill get the i 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 over those plans th cyd he be a little less likely to be lost in any of yours dave it sound exactly samaritan to say to a man you soen seen tor for years give me your ten thou end and ill carry it for you but if you want to gamble on my honesty ill play banker tor for 0 o you he was about to break down but he gathered himself together with a brusque effort lie he slapped his hand hard on the leather and rose to his feet TU ru got get those documents for you billy this instant and ill hand you my money belt as soon as I 1 can unbuckle it lie he looked at gaines girth and gaines looked nt 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 ya yard r d to get round my equator said gaines it will be great sport tor for me though ill know how it teel feel sto be entirely surrounded by money seeing that jebbs dour face had softened a trifle the fat are eminent consolers balnes 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 nd one evening wo we were jit nt at he was about to say but that had liquid connotations ile he stopped short and gulped no that tha t the time his memory switched to another incident but that was Heubl eins or Tra egers rif it seemed to him as he tumbled out the pigeonholes of memory in his roll top f forehead ore head that he could find nothing recorded but c carousals arousals arous als lie he knew that they had played only a minute part in the total of col lege life but because he wanted to avoid them he found them everywhere he tried to think of some athletic excitement some gome classroom J joke oke some incident in the catacombs Cata combs but the memory Is not a voluntary muscle TO BE CONTINUED |