A STORY AT THE CLUB
“DO you believe that?” said Dr. Dutton, passing a newspaper across the table to Will Brady and taking needless pains to point out “that” with his thumb. Brady read the discredited paragraph. It was as follows:
Mr. John Doane, of Peequeegan, Maine, has received seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the estate of an old man whom he protected from the abuse of a rowdy fifteen years ago, and whom he never afterward saw nor heard from. In the will the old man apologized for the smallness of the bequest, explaining that it was all that he had.
“Believe it?” said Brady; “I know it to be true. I was myself the—”
He paused to think.
“Now, how the devil,” said Dutton, “can you ring yourself into that story? You are not John Doane, and you certainly are not the late old man.”
“I was about to say,” resumed Brady, composedly, “that I was myself the legatee in a somewhat similar case. In the year—”
“Waiter,” said Dutton, “bring me twelve cigars, three bottles of champagne and, at daylight, a cup of powerful coffee. When the fellows come in from the theater ask them not to come into this room—say there’s a man in here who is engaged in being murdered.”
“In the year 1892,” Mr. Brady went on to say, “I was living in Peoria, Illinois. One night while walking along the railroad track just outside of town I saw a man making the most violent exertions to release himself from the 'frog’ of a switch, into which he had incautiously wedged the heel of his shoe. He was steaming with perspiration and the look of agony on his face was worth a long walk to see. You have probably seen such a look on the countenance of many a patient undergoing the operation of receiving your bill. The express train was due in two minutes, and we had not so much as a match to signal it with—the night was tar-dark.”
“The look of agony, I suppose, shone by its own inherent light.”
“The man was facing away from the approaching train—the thunder of which was now audible between his groans and cries. Just in the nick of time I stepped up to him and introducing myself begged pardon for the intrusion and suggested that he unlace his shoe and remove his foot from it, which he did. When the train had passed he thanked me and handed me his card. I have carried it with me ever since—here it is.”
Taking out a bit of pasteboard he handed it across the table without looking at it. It read:
Oopsie.Dearie,—I could not come: I was watched. To-morrow—same time, at the other place.
The Doctor read the card and quietly handed it back. The story proceeded:
“A moment later the man had disappeared, but in a week or two I received a letter from him, dated at Chicago. He said he owed his life to me and should devote it to my service. Being childless, friendless and heretofore without an aim or ambition, he should pass the rest of his days in acquiring wealth, in order to testify his gratitude. It would be a labor of love to trace me wherever I might wander—I need not apprise him of my address, nor in any way bother myself about him. If I survived him I would be a very rich man.
“Well, sir, you may believe it or not, but if there is any name which deserves to be held by me in high honor for truth and simple good faith it is the name of—”
“Oopsie.”
Mr. Brady was visibly affected. For a moment he was fitly comparable to nothing warmer and livelier than a snow bank under the bleak stars of a polar midnight. The Doctor toyed absently with the ash-holder. It was a supreme crisis. It passed.
“That man died in 1901 and left me, by will, an estate valued at more than nine hundred thousand dollars. The will was properly probated and never contested.”
“But, my dear fellow,” said Dutton, taking at last a genuine interest in the narrative, “you never told us—nobody has ever heard of this, and you certainly do not pass for a very rich man. Did you really get the property?”
“Alas, no,” said Brady, with a solemn shake of the head, as he rose from the table and glanced at his watch. “It is true, just as I have told you—on my honor: the man left me that property and all was square, regular and legal, but I did not get a cent. The fact is, I died first.”