Read Ebook: O. Henry Encore by Henry O Harrell Mary Sunlocks Editor

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Ebook has 1258 lines and 65567 words, and 26 pages

"Old man," he says, with solemnly raised eyebrows, "Whazzer mazzer?"

"Sick," says Crip. "I know yer. Yer gimme a quarter for a paper one mornin'."

Old Boy's friend ranges himself in the background. He is a man in a dress suit with a mackintosh and cane, and is not of an obtrusive personality.

He shows an inclination to brace himself against something, but the fragile furniture of the hut not promising much support, he stands uneasily, with a perplexed frown upon his face, awaiting developments.

"You little devil," says Old Boy, smiling down with mock anger at the little scrap of humanity under the covers, "Do you know why I've come to see you?"

"N-n-n-no, sir," says Crip, the fever flush growing deeper on his cheeks. He has never seen anything so wonderful as this grand, tall, handsome man in his black evening suit, with the dark, half-smiling, half-frowning eyes, and the great diamond flashing on his snowy bosom, and the tall, shiny hat on the back of his head.

"Gen'lemen," says Old Boy, with a comprehensive wave of his hand, "I don't know myself, why I have come here, but I couldn't help it. That little devil's eyes have been in my head for a week. I've never sheen him 'n my life till a week ago; but I've sheen his eyes somewhere, long time ago. Sheems to me I knew this little rascal when I was a kid myself 'way back before I left Alabama; but, then, gentlemen, thash impossible. However, as Bobby will tell you, I made him walk all the way down here with me to shee zis little sick fellow, 'n now we mus' do all we can for 'm."

Old Boy runs his hands into his pockets and draws out the contents thereof and lays all, with lordly indiscrimination, on the ragged quilt that covers Crip.

"Little devil," he says solemnly, "you mus' buy medicine and get well and come back and shell me papers again. Where in thunder have I seen you before? Never mind. Come on, Bobby--good boy to wait for me--come on now and le's get a zrink."

The two magnificent gentlemen sway around grandly for a moment, make elaborate but silent adieus in the direction of Crip and the Post Man, and finally dwindle out into the darkness, where they can be heard urging each other forward to the tremendous feat of remounting the steps that lead to the path above.

Presently Crip's mother returns with his medicine and proceeds to make him comfortable. She gives a screech of surprise at what she sees lying upon the bed, and proceeds to take an inventory. There are in currency, .50 in silver, a lady's silver slipper buckle and an elegant pearl-handled knife with four blades.

The Post Man sees Crip take his medicine and his fever go down, and promising him to bring down a paper that tells all about the great fight, he moves away. A thought strikes him, and he stops near the door and says:

"Your husband, now where was he from?"

"Oh, plaze yer honor," says Crip's mother, "from Alabama he was, and a gentleman born, as everyone could tell till the dhrink got away wid him, and thin he married me."

As the Post Man departs he hears Crip say to his mother reverentially:

"Dat man what left de stuff, mammy, he couldn't have been God, for God don't get full; but if it wasn't him, mammy, I bet a dollar he was Dan Stuart."

As the Post Man trudges back along the dark road to the city, he says to himself:

"We have seen tonight good springing up where we would never have looked for it, and something of a mystery all the way from Alabama. Heigho! this is a funny little world."

In Mezzotint

The doctor had long ago ceased his hospital practice, but whenever there was a case of special interest among the wards, his spirited team of bays was sure to be seen standing at the hospital gates. Young, handsome, at the head of his profession, possessing an ample income, and married but six months to a beautiful girl who adored him, his lot was certainly one to be envied.

It must have been nine o'clock when he reached home. The stableman took the team, and he ran up the steps lightly. The door opened, and Doris's arms were flung tightly about his neck, and her wet cheek pressed to his.

"Oh, Ralph," she said, her voice quivering and plaintive, "you are so late. You can't think how I miss you when you don't come at the usual hour. I've kept supper warm for you. I'm so jealous of those patients of yours--they keep you from me so much."

"How fresh and sweet and wholesome you are, after the sights I have to see," he said, smiling down at her girlish face with the airy confidence of a man who knows himself well beloved. "Now, pour my coffee, little one, while I go up and change clothes."

After supper he sat in the library in his favorite arm chair, and she sat in her especial place upon the arm of the chair and held a match for him to light his cigar. She seemed so glad to have him with her; every touch was a caress, and every word she spoke had that lingering, loving drawl that a woman uses to but one man--at a time.

"I lost my case of cerebrospinal meningitis tonight," he said gravely.

"I have you, and I don't have you," she said. "Your thoughts are always with your profession, even when I think you are most mine. Ah, well," with a sigh, "you help the suffering, and I would see all that suffer relieved or else like your cerebro--what is it?--patient, at rest."

"A queer case, too," said the doctor, patting his wife's hand and gazing into the clouds of cigar smoke. "He should have recovered. I had him cured, and he died on my hands without any warning. Ungrateful, too, for I treated that case beautifully. Confound the fellow. I believe he wanted to die. Some nonsensical romance worried him into a fever."

"A romance? Oh, Ralph, tell it to me. Just think! A romance in a hospital."

"He tried to tell it to me this morning in snatches between paroxysms of pain. He was bending backward till his head almost touched his heels, and his ribs were nearly cracking, yet he managed to convey something of his life story."

"Oh, how horrible," said the doctor's wife, slipping her arm between his neck and the chair.

"It seems," went on the doctor, "as well as I could gather, that some girl had discarded him to marry a more well-to-do man, and he lost hope and interest in life, and went to the dogs. No, he refused to tell her name. There was a great pride in that meningitis case. He lied like an angel about his own name, and he gave his watch to the nurse and spoke to her as he would to a queen. I don't believe I ever will forgive him for dying, for I worked the next thing to a miracle on him. Well, he died this morning, and--let me get a match--oh, yes, here's a little thing in my pocket he gave me to have buried with him. He told me about starting to a concert with this girl one night, and they decided not to go in, but take a moonlight walk instead. She tore the ticket in two pieces, and gave him one-half and kept the other. Here's his half, this little red piece of pasteboard with the word 'Admit--' printed on it. Look out, little one--that old chair arm is so slippery. Hurt you?"

"No, Ralph. I'm not so easy hurt. What do you think love is, Ralph?"

"Love? Little one! Oh, love is undoubtedly a species of mild insanity. An overbalance of the brain that leads to an abnormal state. It is as much a disease as measles, but as yet, sentimentalists refuse to hand it over to us doctors of medicine for treatment."

His wife took the half of the little red ticket and held it up. "Admit--" she said, with a little laugh. "I suppose by this time he's admitted somewhere, isn't he, Ralph?"

"Somewhere," said the doctor, lighting his cigar afresh.

"Finish your cigar, Ralph, and then come up," she said. "I'm a little tired, and I'll wait for you above."

"All right, little one," said the doctor. "Pleasant dreams!" He smoked the cigar out, and then lit another.

It was nearly eleven when he went upstairs.

The light in his wife's room was turned low, and she lay upon her bed undressed. As he stepped to her side and raised her hand, some steel instrument fell and jingled upon the floor, and he saw upon the white countenance a creeping red horror that froze his blood.

He sprang to the lamp and turned up the blaze. As he parted his lips to send forth a shout, he paused for a moment, with his eyes upon his dead patient's half ticket that lay upon the table. The other half had been neatly fitted to it, and it now read:

The Dissipated Jeweler

You will not find the name of Thomas Keeling in the Houston city directory. It might have been there by this time, if Mr. Keeling had not discontinued his business a month or so ago and moved to other parts. Mr. Keeling came to Houston about that time and opened up a small detective bureau. He offered his services to the public as a detective in rather a modest way. He did not aspire to be a rival of the Pinkerton agency, but preferred to work along less risky lines.

If an employer wanted the habits of a clerk looked into, or a lady wanted an eye kept upon a somewhat too gay husband, Mr. Keeling was the man to take the job. He was a quiet, studious man with theories. He read Gaboriau and Conan Doyle and hoped some day to take a higher place in his profession. He had held a subordinate place in a large detective bureau in the East, but as promotion was slow, he decided to come West, where the field was not so well covered.

Mr. Keeling had saved during several years the sum of 0, which he deposited in the safe of a business man in Houston to whom he had letters of introduction from a common friend. He rented a small upstairs office on an obscure street, hung out a sign stating his business, and burying himself in one of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, waited for customers.

Three days after he opened his bureau, which consisted of himself, a client called to see him.

It was a young lady, apparently about 26 years of age. She was slender and rather tall and neatly dressed. She wore a thin veil which she threw back upon her black straw hat after she had taken the chair Mr. Keeling offered her. She had a delicate, refined face, with rather quick gray eyes, and a slightly nervous manner.

The lady handed Mr. Keeling the bill and he took it carelessly as if such things were very, very common in his business.

He assured her that he would carry out her wishes faithfully, and asked her to call again the afternoon after the next at four o'clock, for the first report.

Mr. Keeling's client was at his office promptly at the time agreed upon. She was anxious to know if he had seen anything to corroborate her suspicions. The detective told her what he had seen.

"That is she," said the lady, when he had described the young woman who had entered the store. "The brazen, bold thing! And so Charles is giving her money. To think that things should come to this pass."

The lady pressed her handkerchief to her eyes in an agitated way.

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