The letter dropped, and the man stood looking out with unseeing eyes, on the shifting street.
A patient came in and sat down, waiting.
He had read as in a dream. Now with a rush 345 came thought,––the past, the present, mingled; and as by a great light he saw clearly the years of comradery, thoughtless on his part, filled as his life had been with work and with thought of the future. It all came home to him now, and the coming was of brightness. The coldness melted from his face; the very squareness of the jaw seemed softer; the knowledge that is joy and that comes but once in a lifetime, swept over him, warm, and his heart beat swift. All things seemed beautiful.
Without a word he took up his hat, and walked rapidly toward the elevator. A smile was in the frank blue eyes, and to all whom he met, whether stranger or friend, he gave greeting.
The patient, waiting for his return, grew tired and left, and leaving, slammed the office door behind him.
UNJUDGED
The source of this manuscript lies in tragedy. My possession of it is purely adventitious. That I have had it long you may know, for it came to me at an inland prairie town, far removed from water or mountain, while for ten years or more my name, above the big-lettered dentist sign, has stood here on my office window in this city by the lake. I have waited, hoping some one would come as claimant; but my hair is turning white and I can wait no longer. As now I write of the past, the time of the manuscript’s coming stands clear amid a host of hazy, half-forgotten things.
It was after regular hours, of the day I write, that a man came hurriedly into my office, complaining of a fiercely aching tooth. Against my advice he insisted on an immediate extraction, and the use of an anæsthetic. I telephoned for a physician, and while awaiting his coming my patient placed in my keeping an expansible leather-covered book of a large pocket size. 348