III
About ten o’clock one night in early summer I was wandering somewhat aimlessly through the South End to see what I might see when I encountered Sheener. He was running, and his dark face was twisted with anxiety. When he saw me he stopped with an exclamation of relief, and I asked him what the matter was.
“You remember old Bum Evans?” he asked, and added: “He’s sick. I’m looking for a doctor. The old guy is just about all in.”
“You mean to say you’re still looking out for that old tramp?” I demanded.
“Sure, I am,” he said hotly; “that old boy is there. He’s got the stuff. Him and me are pals.” He was hurrying me along the street toward the office of the doctor he sought. I asked where Evans was. “In my room,” he told me. “I found him on the street. Last night. He was crazy. The D. T.’s. I ain’t been able to get away from him till now. He’s asleep. Wait. Here’s where the doc hangs out.”
Five minutes later the doctor and Sheener and I were retracing our steps toward Sheener’s lodging, and presently we crowded into the small room where Evans lay on Sheener’s bed. The man’s muddy garments were on the floor; he himself tossed and twisted feverishly under Sheener’s blankets. Sheener and the doctor bent over him, while I stood by. Evans waked, under the touch of their hands, and waked to sanity. He was cold sober and desperately sick.
When the doctor had done what could be done and gone on his way, Sheener sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed the old man’s head with a tenderness of which I could not have believed the newsboy capable. Evans’s eyes were open; he watched the other, and at last he said huskily:
“I say, you know, I’m a bit knocked up.”
Sheener reassured him. “That’s all right, bo,” he said. “You hit the hay. Sleep’s the dose for you. I ain’t going away.”
Evans moved his head on the pillow, as though he were nodding. “A bit tight, wasn’t it, what?” he asked.
“Say,” Sheener agreed. “You said something, Bum. I thought you’d kick off, sure.”
The old man considered for a little, his lips twitching and shaking. “I say, you know,” he murmured at last. “Can’t have that. Potter’s Field, and all that sort of business. Won’t do. Sheener, when I do take the jump, you write home for me. Pass the good word. You’ll hear from them.”
Sheener said: “Sure I will. Who’ll I write to, Bum?”
Evans, I think, was unconscious of my presence. He gave Sheener a name; his name. Also, he told him the name of the family lawyer, in one of the Midland cities of England, and added certain instructions....
When he had drifted into uneasy sleep Sheener came out into the hall to see me off. I asked him what he meant to do.
“What am I going to do?” he repeated. “I’m going to write to this guy’s lawyer. Let them send for him. This ain’t no place for him.”
“You’ll have your trouble for your pains,” I told him. “The old soak is plain liar; that’s all.”
Sheener laughed at me. “That’s all right, bo,” he told me. “I know. This guy’s the real cheese. You’ll see.”
I asked him to let me know if he heard anything, and he said he would. But within a day or two I forgot the matter, and would hardly have remembered it if Sheener had not telephoned me a month later.
“Say, you’re a wise guy, ain’t you?” he derided when I answered the phone. I admitted it. “I got a letter from that lawyer in England,” he told me. “This Evans is the stuff, just like I said. His wife run away with another man, and he went to the devil fifteen years ago. They’ve been looking for him ever since his son grew up.”
“Son?” I asked.
“Son. Sure! Raising wheat out in Canada somewhere. They give me his address. He’s made a pile. I’m going to write to him.”
“What does Bum say?”
“Him? I ain’t told him. I won’t till I’m sure the kid’s coming after him.” He said again that I was a wise guy; and I apologized for my wisdom and asked for a share in what was to come. He promised to keep me posted.