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1892.]

AN OLD FRIEND.

51

habit of breaking my bones, and up to that time the record stood one arm, and two knees, or rather one knee, twice; there was also a miscellaneous and unimportant list of semi-drownings, falls, and other hair-breadth escapes.

The secretary set the confession down to an attempt to be humorous, issued the policy, and I thought no more about it, except on such occasions as it became necessary for me to pay the too frequently recurring premium.

On Monday - to return to the main narrative after this divergence-the insurance company was notified, and that evening its surgeon called to see the extent of the accident, and to give them some idea as to what it was to cost them before they had done with it. When he came into the room, I saw a tall, handsome young man, with features of classical regularity, fair complexion, fair hair, and a pair of remarkable eyebrows, in that they were not only perfectly arched, but jet black. It was a singular combination, and one that I remembered to have seen but once before in my life. He came to the bedside, and sat down.

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'What is your name?" I asked rather abruptly. It was familiarity that could be ventured without undue rashness in the case of a young examining surgeon of an accident insurance company, and I meanly took advantage of the opportunity.

"Dr. H," he replied.

I looked at him again, and the identity of the familiar face was identified.

"Ernest H-?" I asked again.

"Yes," he replied.

Years before he had been a pupil of mine, and I recalled him standing by my side, a white-haired urchin, eagerly receiving instruction in common fractions. I remembered him as a manly, honest, industrious, persevering lad; but I had not thought of him for years. His career had been one which

the freedom and opportunity of the great Republic makes possible to those who are disposed to take advantage of them.

His father had been a plasterer a poor man. The lad was taken from school to help support the family. He became a potter, and went west-to Kansas, to Colorado, to California. In his ramblings he lodged in a house with a young medical student, and became interested in medicine from hearing his friend read his text-books. He began to study himself, saved his money, entered a Chicago medical college, took his degree, and had just received his appointment while waiting to build up a city practice. We of course talked over the old days, and the strange chance that had brought him to my bedside after years of wandering and the thousand changes and dangers that had come to both.

At the time he was under my instruction I was enjoying one of my recurrent lamenesses; and I

1893.]

SHATTERED HOPES.

53

reminded him of this, and of the entire recovery that followed.

He remembered me as his teacher a dim and shadowy figure that had risen suddenly out of a dim and shadowy past; I was venerable, not to say archaic, in the estimate of his keen and merciless youth. The hideous foot was unrolled, displayed, examined. I waited desperately for his verdict. He looked at it critically, handled it gingerly and professionally.

"How long will it be before I can use it?" I at last managed to inquire. "You know I recovered from that second dislocation without much trouble."

He continued to prod and peer in silence. Then he looked up, and said, with the cruelty of the scientific devotee who under certain circumstances ceases to be human: "Yes, but you were younger then. you."

Now" (a pause), "now your age is against

In my bruised and broken state revolt was useless. I bore it as I had borne all the untoward events, the deadly disappointment, the nerve-racking anguish of the preceding forty-eight hours, and I lay back on my pillow with a moan. In the weeks of tedious and painful convalescence that followed my one dread was that the revolution would come and I not be there to see. I had tormented the long-suffering managing editor to distraction, and wrested a promise, reluctantly and hesitatingly given - for he had had

that I should

I opened the

more time in which to think about it go as soon as I was able to travel. morning paper every day with precisely the same emotion of dread and relief.

The crutches which had served me so faithfully in the two preceding engagements were sent for, and in due time the injured limb was encased in a silicate cast from the knee to the toes. The latter were exposed, and could be covered only by a man's sock, which was all that would go over the cast. Over this, to prevent the sock from becoming soiled and ragged, was worn a man's No. 10 india-rubber overshoe. A leather shoe of that size, with the weight of the cast, would have been a burden to carry, and a slipper would have been difficult to keep on. The only possible compensation that this structure offered was that it made the other foot look fairy-like by comparison.

The latter part of January the surgeon gave me permission to visit a friend in the West Side. My health by this time was seriously affected, and it was thought that the change of scene would be beneficial. A fortnight passed delightfully, with no evil tidings from the prospective seat of war. On Saturday evening, February 4th, when Mr. P——, the husband of my friend, returned from his office, his wife met him in the hall, carefully closing the door behind her. All this time, during the entire fortnight, I had talked of nothing but Hawaii, boring

1893.] THE EXPECTED REVOLUTION.

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them incredibly, no doubt, of where I should go, what the country would be like, the adventures I was destined to have, breaking another bone or two being anticipated as a matter of course. The conference in the hall was lengthy, and it was carried on in whispers; but as I was reading by the fire, I did not notice it - I recalled it the next morning. Through the evening there was an unnatural gaiety in Mrs. P————'s manner, and a marked absent-mindedness and nervousness in that of her husband.

She related an unusual number of amusing anecdotes, and he laughed mechanically, and started out of a brown study once or twice when I addressed him suddenly. With the prospect of the scene in which they were destined to participate, I have reason to believe that their dreams that night were troubled and their slumbers much disturbed. In the five weeks that had elapsed since the accident the injury had not improved in the least; I could not walk a step without crutches, even with the apparent prop of a silicate cast weighing twenty pounds.

I came hobbling into the drawing-room on Sunday morning before breakfast in smiling unconsciousness of the last vindictive slap that Fate had delivered. There had been a terrible sleet-storm, which had prevailed all day on Saturday and throughout the night. The city was a solid glare of ice. The storm had ceased at dawn, the sun had come out, the sky

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