"Hullo, doc!" greeted Judge Colver, as the new-comer halted and glared around as though expecting some hostile move. "The small-pox didn't spread, did it?"
"Who said it would spread?" snapped Doctor Kale.
"It has a trick o' doin' it, I believe!" retorted the judge.
"Not if it's taken in time, and handled right. You can't kill a damned pauper!"
"You didn't try 'im!" grinned old Tim Mellowby, "or maybe you'd had better luck than the new man!"
Doctor Kale wheeled, but when he saw from whence this remark originated he turned his back in silent contempt.
"I've come from Tom Dudley's, and it's a good day with them," he observed, abruptly, his harsh crust melting before some powerful inner force.
"I presume one of them is ill, to require the presence of a physician," piped the voice from the wall again. "Then how can you say it is a good day with them?"
For a wonder Doctor Kale did not retort. He heard Colonel Whitley plainly, and his ears detected the note of irony in the question, but his asperity seemed suddenly to have melted; to have merged with and become engulfed in the warm feeling of joy which surged in his heart.
"You know they've been in bad lines," he said, looking on the ground, a rather pathetic figure in his ill-fitting, haphazard agglomeration of garments, none harmonizing with its neighbour. "They'd come almost to a crust, gentlemen, and such of you as are business men know upon what they depend. That was cut off something over a week ago. I was passing this morning, and was called in hurriedly. This is good news of one of our best citizens, therefore I give it to you. Major had had an attack with his heart, brought on by excitement caused by the morning's mail. I straightened him out, then Julia told me all about it. Most of you will remember Arthur Dudley, Major's brother. He's been away for a score of years, and they lost him, totally. Thought him dead. This morning Tom got a letter from a lawyer in St. Louis, with a check in it for two thousand dollars. Major's brother was on his way back here. He took sick in St. Louis, sent for this lawyer, died, and the money came on."