He spoke with assumed indignation, yet Helmar could detect in his tone a note of satisfaction at being so well cared for; and when he answered him, he aimed to fall in with the old man’s mood.
“Why, I think myself that I’m out here under false pretenses,” he said good-humoredly, “you don’t look at all like an invalid to me; but still the ounce of prevention, you know, it never does any harm. So many things nowadays start with a cold. It’s just as well to step right in and stop them before they get a hold on us. Now, then, we’ll see where we are, at any rate,” and as he spoke, he deftly slipped the little temperature tube under Edward Carleton’s tongue, and closed his fingers lightly on the lean brown wrist. A minute or two passed in silence, the old man’s eyes fixed on Helmar’s face with the scrutinizing interest of the patient who awaits the professional verdict. Then Helmar withdrew the tube, studied it an instant, nodded as if satisfied, asked a few questions, and then hastened to give his opinion.
“Oh, well,” he said reassuringly, “this is all right. We’ll fix you up, Mr. Carleton. Just a little tonic, and a few days’ rest, and you’ll be as good as new; better than new, really, because a day or two off is a benefit to anybody, at any time. You’d better stay in bed, though, to-day, I think; and personally I rather envy you. I see you have good company.”
He pointed as he spoke, to the three stout little volumes that lay by Mr. Carleton’s side. Roderick Random was the first; Tom Jones, the second; Tristram Shandy, the third. Their owner nodded in pleased assent.
“Yes, indeed,” he answered, “they’ll last me through the day, all right. I never get tired of them, Doctor. I was just reading, when you came in, how Tom Bowling came to see the old curmudgeon who was about to die. ‘So, old gentleman,’ he says, ‘you’re bound for the other shore, I see, but in my opinion most damnably ill-provided for the voyage’; and later on, after the old fellow’s dead, he tells some one, that asks after him, that they might look for him ‘somewhere about the latitude of hell.’ There’s good, sound, human nature for you. Smollett knew his sailors, and the rest of his world, too, and enjoyed them both, I imagine. And he wasn’t a hypocrite; that’s what I like most about him. He saw things as they were.”
Helmar smiled. “I agree with you,” he answered, “but the modern school of readers doesn’t care for him, just the same. He’s either too simple for them, or too coarse; I don’t know which.”
Edward Carleton looked his scorn. “Modern school!” he ejaculated. “Let me tell you, sir, I have but very little opinion of your modern school, writers or readers either. But Henry stands up for ’em, and brings ’em all to me to read. Good Lord above, the different kinds! There’s some that tell you whether John Smith had one egg for breakfast, or two, and whether either of ’em was bad, and if it was, what John Smith said to his wife, and what she said to him—and Henry claims those books are modern classics. Then he’s got another lot—romantic school, I believe they are—all dashing cavaliers and lovely ladies and flashing swords and general moonshine—stuff about fit for idiots and invalids; and last of all—” he glared at Helmar as if he were the unfortunate embodiment of all the literary sins of the day day—“he’s got a crowd—Heaven knows what he calls ’em; the pig-sty school’s my name—that seem to be having a regular game; trying to see which can write the dirtiest book, and yet have it stop just enough short of the line so they can manage to get it published without the danger of having it suppressed. And the mean, hypocritical excuses they make—they’re always teaching a moral lesson, you know, or something like that. It makes me sick, sir; it makes me sick; and I don’t hesitate to tell Henry so, either.”
Helmar nodded assentingly, and yet, with a twinkle in his eye, he could not resist the temptation to reach forward and pick up from the bed the volume of Sterne. “I agree with a great deal of what you say, sir,” he answered, “especially the latter part, and yet—it isn’t wholly a modern vice. There was old Rabelais, for instance, and his imitators, and even Tristram here I suppose you could hardly recommend for a Sunday-school.”
Edward Carleton was no casuist. He loved to fight, but he always fought fair. “I grant it,” he answered quickly; “Laurence Sterne did have a little sneaking peep-hole way with him at times—he was modern there—but you can forgive a great deal to the man who gave us Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. And then, he isn’t a fair example; he was a kind of literary exception to all rules; but take Smollett or Henry Fielding. They struck straight out from the shoulder, every time. What they meant, they said. They painted vice, I grant you, but they painted her naked and repulsive, as she should be, and that’s fair enough; you can go back to your Aristotle for that, Doctor. But they didn’t disguise her, sir; they didn’t call her something that she never was and never could be; and these modern swine, they dress out vice in silks and satins, and make you believe she’s the most beautiful thing in the world—so beautiful that no man can be happy unless he may possess her; and there’s no Henry Fielding to come along with his big, scornful laugh, and strip her of all her frippery and finery, and show you the stark, naked sin that lies there underneath it all. Oh, I’m right, Doctor, and I’m always telling Henry so, but I can’t convince him. He says it’s art, whatever that means, and he’s all for the modern school.”
Helmar rose, smiling. “You are right, I believe,” he said heartily, “and if we all read more of the old worthies, and less of this flood of modern trash, we’d do better, beyond a doubt. Well, I must get my train, I suppose. I’m going to leave the medicine with your butler; I’ll give him full directions; and you’ll be all right, without any question. If you should want anything, telephone Doctor Morrison or me at once. I’m very glad to have had the chance of meeting you, sir. Oh, and there was one other thing I meant to tell you: I knew your son Jack very well in college. We used to be the best of friends.”