The Web of Life Part 23

"None of your rot," he shouted. "I bet _you_ have had something more than coffee, you--" he glared at his wife, his limbs trembling and twitching as the nervous irritation gained on him. Sommers sprang forward.

"Go upstairs," he commanded sternly. "You are not fit to be here."

"Who are you to give me orders in my own house before _my_ wife?" The man balanced himself against the table. "You get out of this and never come back. I am a gentleman, I want you to know, and I may be a drunkard and all that, but I am not going to have any man hanging--"

Sommers seized Preston by the collar of his s.h.i.+rt and dragged him to the stairs. The man fought and bit and cursed. A black slime of words fell from his lips, covering them all with its defilement. Finally the struggles subsided, and with one mighty effort the doctor threw him into the upper chamber and closed the door behind them. In a few moments he came downstairs, bolting the door carefully. When he entered the room, he saw Mrs. Preston staring at the door as if entranced, her face marble with horror.

"I gave him a hypodermic injection. He will sleep a few hours," Sommers muttered, throwing himself into a chair.

Mrs. Preston sat down at the table and folded her arms about her face. Her figure shook with her silent sobs.

CHAPTER XX

"When the men confront bayonets, you know, they'll give in quick enough. I have reason to believe that the President has already ordered United States troops to protect lives and property in Chicago. The general managers will get an injunction restraining Debs and his crew. When the courts take a hand--"

"So it's to be made into a civil war, is it?" Sommers interposed sarcastically. "I saw that the bankrupt roads had appealed to the government for protection. Like spendthrift sons, they run to their guardian in time of trouble."

"Oh! you know this thing can't go on. It's a disgrace. I was called to go to Detroit on an important case; it would mean two thousand dollars to me,--but I can't get out of the city."

Dr. Lindsay was in an ill humor, having spent three early morning hours in driving into town from Lake Forest. Sommers listened to his growling, patiently if not respectfully, and when the eminent physician had finished, he spoke to him about a certain operation that was on the office docket for the following week.

"You haven't asked my opinion, doctor," he said, in conclusion; "but I have been thinking over the case. I was present at General Horr's examination, and have seen a good deal of the case these last days while you were out of town." Lindsay stared, but the young man plunged on. "So I have ventured to remonstrate. It would do no good, and it might be serious."

The day was so hot that any feeling sent beads of perspiration to the face.

Sommers paused when Lindsay began to mop his head.

"I may say to start with," Lindsay answered, with an irascible air, as if he intended to take this time to finish the young man's case, "that I am in the habit of consulting my attending physicians, and not having them dictate to me--"

"Who is dictating?" Sommers asked bluntly. "That old man can't possibly get any good from an operation--"

"It will do him no harm?" Lindsay retorted, with an interrogation in his tone that made the younger surgeon stare. What he might have said when he realized the full meaning of Lindsay's remark was not clear in his own mind. At that moment, however, one of the women employed in the office knocked at the door. She had a telephone message.

"Somebody, I think it was Mrs. Prestess or Preton, or something--"

"Preston," suggested Sommers.

"That's it. The message was she was in trouble and wanted you as soon as possible. But some one is at the wire now."

Sommers hastened out without making excuses. When he returned, Dr. Lindsay had dried his face and was calmer. But his aspect was sufficiently ominous; he was both pompous and severe.

"Sit down, doctor, will you. I have a few words--some things I have been meditating to say to you a long time, ever since our connection began, in fact."

Sommers did not sit down. He stood impatiently, twirling a stethoscope in his hand. He had pa.s.sed the schoolboy age and was a bit overbearing himself.

"As a young man of good promise, well introduced, and vouched for by some of our best people, I have naturally looked for great things from you."

Sommers stopped the rotation of the stethoscope and squared about. His face was no longer flushed with irritation. Some swift purpose seemed to steady him. As Sommers made no reply to this exordium, Lindsay began again, in his diagnostic manner:

"But I have been disappointed. Not that you haven't done your work well enough, so far as I know. But you have more than a young man's self-a.s.surance and self-a.s.sertion. I have noticed also a note of condescension, of criticism in your bearing to those about you. The critical att.i.tude to society and individuals is a bad one for a successful pract.i.tioner of medicine to fall into. It is more than that--it is illiberal; it comes from a continued residence in a highly exotic society, in a narrow intellectual circle. Breadth of mind--"

Sommers made an impatient gesture. Every sentence led the florid pract.i.tioner farther and farther into the infinite. Another time the young surgeon would have derived a wicked satisfaction from driving the doctor around the field in his argument. To-day the world, life, was amove, and more important matters waited in the surcharged city. He must be gone. He said nothing, however, for another five minutes, waiting for some good opportunity to end the talk. But Lindsay had once lectured in a college; he did not easily finish his exposition. He vaguely sketched a social philosophy, and he preached the young specialist successful as he preached him on graduating days of the medical school. He was shrewd, eloquent, kind, and boresome. At last came the clause:

"If you are to continue your connection with this office--"

"I should like to talk that over with you some other day," Sommers interposed positively, "when I have more time. I am sorry that I shall have to leave at once." After a moment, he added, "And if you have any one in mind for my place, don't bother--"

Lindsay waved his hand.

"We never have to 'bother' about any member of our force."

"Oh! very well. I didn't want to leave you in a hole. Perhaps I was presumptuous to suppose I was of any importance in the office."

Sommers stepped briskly to the door, while Lindsay wheeled to his desk.

Before he opened the door, he paused and called back pleasantly:

"But really I shouldn't operate on the General. Poor old man! And he hasn't much money--'the usual fee' would come hard on him."

Lindsay paid no attention to the remark. Sommers had pa.s.sed from his world altogether; there would be a long, hard road for this young man in the practice of his profession in Chicago, if Dr. Lindsay, consulting surgeon at St. Isidore's, St. Martha's, the Home for Incurables, the Inst.i.tute for Pulmonary Diseases, etc., could bring it about.

Sommers hastily rifled certain pigeonholes of his desk, tossing the letters into his little black bag, and seizing his hat hurried out. He stopped at the clerk's desk to leave a direction for forwarding his mail.

"Going away for a vacation?" Miss Clark queried.

"Yes, for a good long one," the young surgeon answered. As the door slammed behind him, the black-haired Miss Clark turned to the a.s.sistant stenographer with a yawn.

"He's got his travelling papers. I knew there was a fuss when I called him to the 'phone. I guess he wasn't tony enough for this office."

Sommers was now sinking down to the heated street, unmindful whether he was "tony" enough for the Athenian Building or not. Mrs. Ducharme had whispered over the telephone: "He's gone. Come quick. Mrs. Preston wants you bad."

For an instant he asked himself if he had made a mistake when he had given Preston the injection of morphine two days before. A glance at the little instrument rea.s.sured him. Perhaps the woman meant merely that he had got away again from the cottage. Why, then, such agitation over the creature's disappearance? But _she_ wanted him "bad." He hurried into the torrid street out of the cool, marble-lined hall, like a factory hand dismissed from his job. It was the first break with the order of things he had grown into. But he had no time for regrets.

He crossed the deserted streets where the women usually shop, and turned into the strip of park bordered by the Illinois Central tracks. Possibly a train might be going out, under a heavy guard of deputy sheriffs, and in that case he would save much time in reaching Ninety-first Street.

Exhilarated by his new freedom, he walked briskly, threading his way among the groups of idle workmen who had gathered in the park. As he skirted a large group, he recognized Dresser, who was shouting a declamatory speech.

The men received it apathetically, and Dresser got off the bench on which he had stood and pushed his way through the crowd.

"Well," Sommers said, as Dresser came by him. "How does the good work move?

You've got the courts down on you, and pretty soon there'll be the troops to settle with. There's only one finish when the workingmen are led by a man like Debs, and the capitalists have an a.s.sociation of general managers as staff. Besides, your people have put the issue badly before the public.

The public understands now that it is a question of whether it, every one of them, shall do what he wants to or not. And the general public says it won't be held up in this pistol-in-your-face fas.h.i.+on. So Pullman and the others get in behind the great public opinion, and there you are!"

"All that newspaper talk about riot and destruction of property is a ma.s.s of lies," Dresser exclaimed bitterly. "Which, way are you going? I will walk along with you."

As the two men proceeded in the direction of the big station, Dresser continued:

"I _know_ there isn't any violence from the strikers. It's the tough element and the railroads. They're burning cars themselves so as to rouse public opinion."