Dr. Lavendar's People Part 9

Algy hesitated. "I suppose he thinks I'd never pay it back?"

"If he takes your note, it looks as if he expected to be repaid."

"It's treating me white, I'll say that," Algernon said. And again his face reddened slowly to his forehead and he would not meet Dr.

Lavendar's eye. "But I don't want their favors," he cried, threateningly.

"It's business, if you give your note," Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Come, Algernon, let her father do something for her sake. And as for you--it's a chance to play the man; don't you see that?"

Algy caught his breath. "d.a.m.n!--if I borrowed his money I'd pay it--I'd pay it, if it took the blood out of me."

"I will make your feeling clear to him," Dr. Lavendar said. "Let's make out the note now, Algy."

The old man got up and hunted about for pen and paper. "Here's a prescription blank," he said; "that will do." An ink-bottle stood on the narrow mantel-shelf, a rusty pen corroding in its thickening depths; but Dr. Lavendar, in a very small, shaky old hand, managed to scrawl that "Algernon Keen, for value received, promised to pay to John Gordon--"

--"in a year," Algy broke in; "I ain't going to have it run but a year--and put in the interest, sir. I'll have no favors from 'em.

I'll pay interest; I'll pay six per cent.--like anybody else would."

--"and interest on same," Dr. Lavendar added. "Now, you sign here, Algy. There! that will please Mary."

"Oh, my!" said Algernon, his poor, red-rimmed eyes filling--"oh, my!

my! what will I do without her?"

V

The next day Dr. Lavendar carried the note back to old John Gordon, who took it, his mouth tightening, and glanced at it in silence. Then he shuffled over to a safe in the corner of his library and pulled out a j.a.panned tin box. Dr. Lavendar watched him fumble with the combination lock, holding the box up to catch the light, and shaking it a little until the lid clicked open. "He'll never pay it," John Gordon said.

"He'll try to," Dr. Lavendar said; "but it's doubtful, of course. He's a sickly fellow, and he hasn't much gumption. But if there's any good in him, your trusting him will bring it out."

"There isn't any good in him," the other said, violently.

And that was the last they said about it; for the time Algernon Keen dropped out of their lives.

He set up his little store in Mercer, and struggled along, advertising his samples of perfumery and pomade upon his own person; trying to drink a little less, for Mary's sake; whimpering with loneliness and sick-headache in his grimy room in the hotel where Mary had died; and never forgetting for a day that promise to pay on the back of the prescription paper in John Gordon's possession. But when the year came round, on the 2d of December, he had not a cent in hand to meet his obligation. And that was why Dr. Lavendar heard of him again. Would the doctor--this on perfumed paper, ruled, and with gilt edges--would the doctor "ask him if he would extend?" Algernon could pay the interest now; but that was all he could do. He wasn't in very good shape, he said. He'd been in the hospital for a month, and had had to hire a salesman. "I guess he cheated me; he was a kind of fancy talker, and got me to let him buy some stock; he got off his slice, I bet." That was the reason, Algy said, that he could not make any payment on the princ.i.p.al. But he was going to introduce a new article for the lips (no harmful drugs in it), called Rosebloom--first-cla.s.s thing; and he expected he'd do first rate with it. And in another year he'd surely pay that note. It hung over him, he said, like a ton. "I guess he don't want it paid any more than I want to pay it," Algy ended, simply.

Of course Dr. Lavendar asked for an extension, and got it, though John Gordon's lip curled. "I never expected to hear from him or his note again," he said. "Probably his honesty won't last over another year."

Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to see Algy, and they talked things over in the store between the calls of two customers. Algy's hair was sleek and curly as before, for business is business; but he looked draggled and forlorn; his color had gone and he was thinner, and there were lines on his forehead, and his bright, hazel eyes, kind and shallow as those of some friendly animal, had come into their human birthright of worry. "It's this note that takes the s.p.u.n.k out of me," he said. "If I could only get it paid! Then I'd hire a house and have the shop in front. I've thought some I'd get married, too. It's hard on your digestion living in one of these here cheap hotels. But I can't get over thinking of Mary. I don't seem to relish other ladies. I suppose they're all right; but Mary was so pleasant." And his eyes reddened.

"And, anyway, it would cost more to keep a wife, and I don't propose to spend money that way. _He's_ treated me white, I'll say that for him; and I propose to show him--Dr. Lavendar, I haven't drunk too much only three times in the last year--honest, I haven't. I thought you'd think that would please Mary?"

"I'm sure it does," said Dr. Lavendar.

"I suppose you think," the drummer said, sheepishly, "that it was pretty darned foolish to drop three times?"

"I think pretty soon it won't be even three times," Dr. Lavendar declared; "but it's hard work; I know it is."

Algernon looked at him eagerly. "You know how it is yourself, maybe?"

"Well, I never happened to want to take too much," Dr. Lavendar said, gently; "if I had, it would have been hard, I'm sure."

"Well, you bet," Algy told him, knowingly. Then they talked the business over, and Dr. Lavendar clapped Algy on the shoulder and said he believed he'd have that house and shop yet. "Rosebloom may be a gold-mine," said Dr. Lavendar. Then he gave Algy some advice about the window display, and suggested a little gas-jet on the counter where gentlemen might light their cigars; and he told Algy what brand he smoked himself, and recommended it, in spite of its price. Algy smacked his thigh at that, and said Dr. Lavendar had the making of a smart business man in him. Indeed, Algy felt so cheered that he opened his show-case and displayed a box of his new cosmetic.

"Look here, doctor," he said, earnestly; "I'll give you a box.

Yes--yes! I will. I'd just as lief as not. You maybe wouldn't want to use it yourself; gentlemen don't, often. But give it to one of your lady friends. Do, now, doctor. It don't cost me much of anything--and I'm sure you've been kind to me."

And Dr. Lavendar accepted the lip-salve, and thanked Algy warmly; then he said that the picture on the lid of the tight-waisted lady was very striking.

"That's so!" cried Algy. "She's a beauty. She makes me think of Mary."

Algernon had presented Dr. Lavendar with a cigar, and the old minister was smoking it in great comfort, his feet on the base of a rusty, melon-shaped iron stove; Algy was leaning back against the counter, his elbows on the show-case behind him. "Dr. Lavendar," he said, looking at the toe of his boot, "I--got something on my mind."

"Well, off with it, quick as you can."

"I've been thinking about the Day of Judgment."

"Ho!" said Dr. Lavendar.

"Well, sir, I get to thinking: if everybody's sins are to be read out loud before all the world--standing up, rows and rows and rows of 'em.

Can't see the end of 'em--so many. I kind a' hate to think that Mary might hear--things about me."

"Well, Keen," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "I don't believe it will be that way." He hesitated a little. After all, it is a risk to take away even a false belief, unless you can put a true one in its place.

Algy stopped looking at the toe of his boot. "_What!_" said he.

"Now just look at it," said Dr. Lavendar. "Who would be the better for that kind of publicity? Good people wouldn't like it; it would pain them. You say yourself that Mary wouldn't like to hear that you did wrong three times."

"No; she wouldn't," Algernon said.

"Wicked people might enjoy it," Dr. Lavendar ruminated, "but--"

--"but G.o.d don't cater to the wicked?" Algy finished, quickly.

"That's just it," said Dr. Lavendar. "He doesn't. But I tell you what it is, Algy, it is painful enough to just have your Saviour tell you your sins when you're sitting all alone--or, maybe, lying awake in the dark; that's a dreadful time to hear them. It's worse than having rows of people listening."

Algernon nodded. "Maybe you're right," he said, sighing.

The birth of a soul is a painful process. But when he went away Dr.

Lavendar's eyes were full of hope.

And he grew more hopeful when, as the next year came round and Algernon again asked for extension, he was able to carry back, not only the note and the interest to John Gordon, but a payment of $24. What that $24 meant of self-denial and perseverance Dr. Lavendar knew almost as well as Algy himself.

"I don't know whether you meant it, John," he said, as the old man took the note and locked it up in the j.a.panned box--"I don't know that it was your intention, but I believe the responsibility of debt is going to make a man of Mary's husband."

"Debt doesn't generally work that way," Mr. Gordon said.

"No; it doesn't. But He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, once in a while, Johnny."