From the Housetops

by George Barr McCutcheon

"Lord love you, madam, I haven't the faintest doubt as to his sincerity," cried the old doctor. "He is voicing the sentiment of every honest man in my profession, but he overlooks the fact that sentiment has a very small place among the people we serve,—in other words, the people who love life and employ us to preserve it for them, even against the will of God."

"They say that soldiers on the field of battle sometimes mercifully put an end to the lives of their mutilated comrades," she mused aloud.

"And they make it their business to put an end to the lives of the perfectly sound and healthy men who confront them on that same field of battle," he was quick to return. "There is a wide distinction between a weapon and an instrument, Mrs. Thorpe, and there is just as much difference between the inspired soldier and the uninspired doctor, or between impulse and decision."

"I believe that Mr. Thorpe would welcome death," said she.

Dr. Bates shook his head. "My dear, if that were true he could obtain relief from his suffering to-day,—this very hour."

"What do you mean?" she cried, with a swift shudder, as one suddenly assailed by foreboding.

"There is a very sharp razor blade on his dressing-table," said Dr. Bates with curious deliberation. "Besides that, there is sufficient poison in four of those little—But there, I must say no more. You are alarmed,—and needlessly. He will not take his own life, you may be sure of that. By reaching out his hand he can grasp death, and he knows it. A month ago I said this to him: 'Mr. Thorpe, I must ask you to be very careful. If you do not sleep well to-night, take one of these tablets. If one does not give you relief, you may take another, but no more. Four of them would mean certain, almost instant death.' For more than a month that little box of tablets has lain at his elbow, so to speak. Death has been within reach all this time. Those tablets are still there, Mrs. Thorpe, so now you understand."

"Yes," she said, staring at him as if fascinated; "they are still there. I understand."

The thick envelope that Mr. Hollenback handed to Anne on the day of her wedding contained a properly executed assignment of securities amounting to two million dollars, together with an order to the executors under his will to pay in gold to her immediately after his death an amount sufficient to cover any shrinkage that may have occurred in the value of the bonds by reason of market fluctuations. In plain words, she was to have her full two millions. There was also an instrument authorising a certain Trust Company to act as depository for these securities, all of which were carefully enumerated and classified, with instructions to collect and pay to her during his lifetime the interest on said bonds. At his death the securities were to be delivered to her without recourse to the courts, and were to be free of the death tax, which was to be paid from the residue of the estate. There was a provision, however, that she was to pay the state, city and county taxes on the full assessed value of these bonds during his lifetime, and doubtless by premeditation on his part all of them were subject to taxation. This unsuspected "joker" in the arrangements was frequently alluded to by Anne's mother as a "direct slap in the face," for, said she, it was evidently intended as a reflection upon the Tresslyns who, as a family, it appears, were very skilful in avoiding the payment of taxes of any description. (It was a notorious fact that the richest of the Tresslyns was little more than a mendicant when the time came to take his solemn oath concerning taxable possessions.)

Anne took a most amazing stand in respect to the interest on these bonds. Her income from them amounted to something over ninety thousand dollars a year, for Mr. Thorpe's investments were invariably sound and sure. He preferred a safe four or four and a half per cent, bond to an "attractive six." With the coming of each month in the year, Anne was notified by the Trust Company that anywhere from seven to eight thousand dollars had been credited to her account in the bank. She kept her own private account in another bank, and it was against this that she drew her checks. She did not withdraw a dollar of the interest arising from her matrimonial investment!