“Couldn’t,” said Miss Allyn. “He’s up to his ears in business. You know he only came down from the Prison Hospital yesterday, and to-day he was around looking up an office.”
“I suppose he’ll be up to-morrow, then?” said Marion, dreamily. “I shall be glad to see him, for he will bring all the news from the Island.”
“It is like getting a message from Hades, isn’t it, Marion?” asked Miss Allyn, shivering. “Some way I always had a horror of Blackwell’s Island!”
“Well, vice is quite concentrated up there,” said her companion, smiling, “but there is an advantage in that which we don’t have here in the city.”
“No, that’s so,” said Miss Allyn, promptly; “it is badly scattered here. You dodge it on one corner only to bump into it on another. Oh, the crooks and the criminals are not all on the Island by any means! But don’t you wish to hear any of the doctor’s messages, Marion? There’s one that I’m sure will be very pleasant.”
“What is it?” asked Marion, striving hard not to show her eagerness.
“I have a great notion not to tell you, Miss Indifference,” said Miss Allyn. “But here it is: Dr. Brookes is taking music lessons. He thinks he will study for the operatic stage, and has an amazing taste all of a sudden for comic opera.”
Marion burst out laughing as Miss Allyn finished.
“You are surely joking, Alma,” she exclaimed, her cheeks glowing. “What do you mean by telling such stories?”
“It’s the Gospel truth,” said Miss Allyn, chuckling. “A few months ago he was desperately interested in the sick people on Blackwell’s Island: now he is possessed with an insane desire to go into comic opera. Why, Marion, I’ll bet a quarter that if you started a dressmaking establishment, Dr. Reginald Brookes would learn to do fine sewing.”