On the heavily carved door of a square house on one of the most stylish avenues of New York City, was a silver plate, bearing the familiar name of "Dr. Belford." There was magnificence on all sides of this, his splendid home, and yet this good man spent all his days, and most of his nights in the squalid and repulsive quarters of the great city. He was a man of untold wealth and cared but little, whether his profession yielded him additional wealth or not, he had understood the great misfortunes of life, and had toiled with an iron will, to benefit those to whom an unfortunate fate had taught the bitter lessons of poverty and destitution.
The mansion which bore his name on its elegant door, was now a blaze of gas-light; the heavy curtains, shaded the grandeur of the spacious drawing-room, but the apartment opposite had its tall windows thrown open to the evening breeze. This was Dr. Belford's office, splendidly furnished, and comfortably situated, countless rows of ponderous volumes lined the walls, and over the rest of the spacious room were scattered heavy pieces of office furniture, that lay around in solemn imposing neatness.
Standing before a succession of bound volumes was a young man, with his hands folded behind his back and his head raised enquiringly to the books above him, he was passing over their titles in a quick review, and had just laid his hand in evident gratification on one of them, when a long shrill, silvery tinkle, made him start: "No use, I suppose," he muttered to himself, "I must be on the 'go.'"
A tall, thin man, like an icicle in livery, appeared in the doorway at this moment, and delivered a note into his expectant hand. The young fellow tore it open and read.
MY DEAR BOY,— The case I have been summoned to attend here is a matter of life or death, I cannot possibly leave the house before morning. Will you, therefore, attend to the "typhoid fever" case, I spoke to you of, in Chapel Alley, for to-night, and oblige,
J. D. BELFORD.
"Humph!" said he, as he finished the last words, "I need to smarten up a little, it is now after ten: something serious must be up," he soliloquized, "or Doctor would never neglect that 'fever' patient, he is so interested in."
Slipping his feet, clad in their red silk hose, from the daintiest of velvet slippers, the young doctor drew on his fine walking-shoes, turned down the gas a little, closed the office window, and taking his hat from the rack behind the door, hurried out.
In a moment, the carriage was around, and stepping in he ordered Barnes to drive him quickly to Mrs. Pratt's humble abode in Chapel Alley.
The dark, close by-ways and lanes impressed the young doctor forcibly, after leaving the broad, paved thoroughfares flooded with electric light, and used, though he was, to those sights, the repetition caused him invariably to shrink within himself and close his eyes upon their repulsiveness.