Leerie, Page 3

  Chapter II

  OLD KING COLE

  Hennessy was feeding the swans. Sheila O'Leary leaned over the sill of thediminutive rustic rest-house and watched him with a tired contentment. Shehad just come off a neurasthenic case--a week of twenty-four-hourduty--and she wanted to stretch her cramped sensibilities in the quietpeace of the little house and invite her soul with a glimpse of Hennessyand the swans.

  All about her the grounds of the sanitarium were astir with its customarycrowd of early-summer-afternoon patients. How those first warm days calledthe sick folks out-of-doors and held them there until the last beam ofsunshine had disappeared behind the foremost hill! The tennis-courts werefull; the golf-links were dotted about with spots of color like a cubistpicture; pairs of probationers, arm in arm, were strolling about, enjoyinga comparative leisure; old Madam Courot was at her customary place underthe juniper, watching the sun go down. Three years! Nothing seemed changedin all that time but the patients--and not all of these, as Madame Courotsilently testified. The pines shook themselves above the rest-house in thesame lazy, vagabond fashion, the sun purpled the far hills and spun thesame yellow haze over the links, the wind brought its habitual afternoonaccompaniment of cow-bells from the sanitarium farm, and Hennessy threwthe last crumb of bread to Brian Boru, the gray swan, as he had done forthe fifteen years Sheila could remember.

  She folded her arms across the sill and rested her chin on them. How goodit was to be back at the old San, to settle down to its kindly,comfortable ways and the peace of its setting after the feverishrestlessness of city hospitals! She remembered what Kipling had said, thatthe hill people who came down to the plains were always hungering to getback to the hills again. That was the way she had felt about it--always ahunger to come back. For months and months she had thought that she mightforever have to stay in those hospitals, have to make up her mind to theeternal plains--and then had come her reprieve--she had been called backto the San and the work she loved best.

  Had the place been any other than the sanitarium, and the person any otherthan Sheila O'Leary, this would never have happened. For she had leftunder a cloud, and in similar cases a cloud, once gathered, grows until itenvelops, suffocates, and finally annihilates the person. As a graduatenurse she would have ceased to exist. But in spite of the most blightingcircumstances, those who counted most believed in her and trusted her.They had only waited for time to forget and tongues to stop wagging, andthen they had called her back. Perhaps the strangest thing about it wasthat Sheila did not look like a person who could have had even thesmallest, fleeciest of clouds brushing her most distant horizon. In fact,so vital, warm, and glowing was her personality, so radiant her nature,that she seemed instead a permanent dispeller of clouds.

  From across the pond Hennessy watched her with adoring eyes as he gave hishabitual, final bang to the bread-platter and the hitch to his corduroyspreparatory to leaving. To his way of thinking, there was no nurseenrolled on the books of the old San who could compare with her. In thebeginning he had prophesied great things of her to Flanders, thebus-driver. "Ye mind what I'm tellin' ye," he had said. "Afore she'sfinished her trainin' she'll have more lads a-dandtherin' round her thanif she'd been the King of Ireland's only daughter. Ye can take my word forit, when she leaves here, 'twill be a grand home of her own she'll begoin' to an' no dirty hospital."

  That had been three years ago, and Hennessy sighed now over the utterfutility of his words. "Sure, who could have been seein' that one o' thelads would have turned blackguard? Hennessy knows. Just give the lass timefor that hurt to heal, an' she'll be winnin' a home of her own, afterall." This he muttered to himself as he took the path leading toward therest-house.

  Sheila saw him coming, his lips shirred to the closeness of some emotionalstrain. "Hello, Hennessy! What's troubling?" she called down the path.

  "Faith, it's Mr. Peter Brooks that's troublin'. 'Tis a week, now, thatye've been off that case--an' he's near cured. Another week now--"

  "In another week he'll be going back to his work--and I'll be very glad."

  Hennessy eyed the girl narrowly. "Will ye, then? Why did ye cure him up sofast for, Miss Leerie? Why didn't ye give the poor man a chance?"

  No one but Hennessy would have had sufficient temerity for such aquestion, but had any one dared to ask it, upon their heads would havefallen the combined anger and bitterness of Sheila's tongue. For havinghad occasion once for bitterness, it was not over-hard to waken it whenmen served as topics. But at Hennessy she smiled tolerantly. "Didn't Igive him a chance to get well? That was all he needed or wanted. And, nowhe's well, he'll go about his business."

  "Faith," and Hennessy closed a suggestive eye, "that depends on what hetakes to be his business. In my young days the choosin' an' courtin' of awife was the big part of a man's business. Now if he comes round askin' myopinion--"

  "Tell him, Hennessy"--and Sheila fixed him firmly with a glance--"thatthe sanitarium does not encourage its cured patients to hang aboutbothering its nurses. It is apt to make trouble for the nurses.Understand?"

  Again Hennessy closed one eye; then he laughed. "When ye talk of devilsye're sure to smell brimstone. There comes Mr. Brooks now, an' he has hishead back like a dog trailin' the wind."

  The girl turned and followed Hennessy's jerking thumb with her eyes.Across the pine grove, coming toward them, was a young man above mediumheight, square-shouldered and erect. There was nothing startlinglyhandsome nor remarkable about his appearance; he was just nice, strong,clean-looking. He waved to the two by the rest-house.

  "And do ye mind his looks when he came!" Hennessy's tone denoted wonderand admiration.

  "A human wreck--haunted at that." There was a good deal more than mereprofessional interest in Sheila's tone; there was pride and somethingelse. It was past Hennessy's perceptive powers to define what, but henoticed it, nevertheless, and looked sharply up at the girl.

  "For the love o' Mike, Miss Leerie! Why can't ye stop ticketin' each manas a case an' begin thinkin' about them human-like? Ye might beginpractisin' wi' Mr. Brooks."

  The line of Sheila's lips became fixed; the chin that could look sodemure, the eyes that could look so soft and gentle, both backed up thelips in an expression of inscrutable hardness.

  "In the name of your patron saint, Hennessy, what have you said to MissLeerie to turn her into that sphinx again?" The voice of Peter Brooks wasas nice as his appearance.

  Hennessy looked foolish. "I was tellin' her, then," he moistened his lipsto allow a safer emigration of words--"I was tellin' her--that the grayswan had the rheumatism in his left leg, an' I was askin' her, did shethink Doctor Willum would prescribe a thermo bath for him. I'd best beaskin' him meself, maybe," and with a sudden pull at his forelock Hennessybacked away down the path.

  Peter Brooks watched him depart with an admiration equal to that withwhich Hennessy had welcomed him. "That man has a wonderful insight intohuman nature. Now I was just wishing I could have you all alone forabout--"

  Sheila interrupted him. "I hope you weren't counting on too many minutes.I can see Miss Maxwell coming down the San steps, and I have a substantialfeeling that she's looking for me to put me on another case."

  "Couldn't we escape? Couldn't we skip round by the farm to the garage andget my car? You look fagged out. A couple of hours' ride would do wondersfor you, and--Good Lord! The San can run that long without your services.What do you say? Shall we beat it?"

  With a telltale, pent-up eagerness he noticed the girl's indecision andflung himself with all his persuasive powers to turn the balance in hisfavor. "Do come. You can work better and harder for a little time off nowand then. All the other nurses take it. Why under the heavens can't a manever persuade you to have a little pleasure?" Something in Sheila's facestopped him and prompted the one argument that could have persuaded her."If you'll only come, Leerie, I'll promise to keep dumb--absolutely dumb.I'll promise not to spoil the ride for you."

  Sheila flung him a radiant smile; it almost unbalanced him and
murderedhis resolve. "Then I'll come. You're the first man I ever knew who couldkeep his word--that way. Hurry! we'll have to run for it." And taking thelead, she ducked through the little door of the rest-house and ran,straight as the crow flies, to the hiding shelter of the farm.

  But her premonition was correct. When she returned two hours later in thecool of a summer's twilight, with eyes that sparkled like iridescent poolsand lips that smiled generously her gratitude to the man who could keephis word, she found the superintendent of nurses watching from the Sansteps for their car.

  "All right, Miss Maxwell," she nodded in response to the question that wasplainly stamped on the superintendent's face. "We've had supper--don'teven have to change my uniform." Then to Peter, "Thank you."

  The words were meager enough, but Peter Brooks had already received hiscompensation in the girl's glowing face. "It's 'off again, on again, goneagain,' in your profession, too. Well, here's looking forward to the nextescape." His laugh rang with health and good spirits.

  Sheila stopped on her way up the steps, turned and looked back at him. Thewonder of his recovery often surprised even herself. It seemed incrediblethat this pulsing, vitalized portion of humanity could have once been averitable husk, hounded by a haunting fear into a state of hopelessnessand loathing of existence. Life certainly tingled in Peter now, and everytime Sheila felt it, man or no man, she could not help rejoice with allher heart at the thing she had helped to do.

  Peter's smile met hers half-way in the dusk. "It may be another weekbefore I see you again. In case--I'd like to tell you that I'm staying onindefinitely. The chief has pushed me out of my Sunday section and hassent me a lot of special articles to do up here. He thinks I had betternot come back until I'm all fit."

  "You're perfectly fit now." There was a brutal frankness in the girl'swords.

  Peter had grown used to these moments. They no longer troubled or hurthim. He had begun to understand. "Maybe I am; I feel so, but you can nevertell. Then there's always the danger of one's heart going back on one.That's why I've decided to stay on and coddle mine. Rather good plan?"

  Sheila O'Leary vouchsafed no answer. She disappeared through the entranceof the sanitarium, leaving Peter Brooks still smiling. Neither hisexpression nor position had changed a few seconds later when Miss Jacobstouched him on the arm.

  "Oh, Mr. Brooks! Were you the guilty party--running away with Leerie? Forthe last two hours we've been combing the San grounds for her." The greeneyes of the flirtatious nurse gleamed peculiarly catlike in the dusk. "Ofcourse I don't suppose my opinion counts so very much with you," there wasa honeyed, self-deprecatory quality in the girl's tone, "but if I wereyou, I wouldn't go about so awfully much with Leerie. She's a dear girl--Idon't suppose it's really her fault--but she had such a record. And youknow it's my creed that girls of that kind can compromise poor men faroftener than men compromise girls. Oh, I do hope you understand what Imean!"

  Peter still wore a smile, but it was a different smile. It was as muchlike the old one as a search-light is like sunshine. He focused it full onMiss Jacobs's face. "I'm a shark at understanding. And don't worry aboutme. I'm more of a shark in deep water with--with sirens." He chuckledinwardly at the look of blank incomprehension on the nurse's face. "By theway, just what did you want Miss Leary for? Not another accident?"

  The girl gave her head a disgusted toss. "Oh, they want her to help an oldman die. He came up here a week ago. I saw him then, and he looked readyto burst. Doctor MacByrn said he weighed over three hundred and had ablood pressure of two hundred and ten. They can't bring it down, and hisheart is about done for. Leerie always gets those dying cases. Ugh!" Thegirl shuddered. "Guess they wouldn't put me on any of those sure-deadcases; it's bad enough when you happen on them."

  Peter shot her a pitying glance and walked back to his car. He was justclimbing in when the girl's voice chirped back to him. "Just the nightfor a ride, isn't it? I couldn't think of letting you go all alone and belonesome. Isn't it lucky I'm off duty till ten!"

  "Lucky for the patient!" Peter mumbled under his breath; then aloud:"Sorry, but I'm unlucky. Only enough gasoline to get her back to thegarage. Good night." He swung the car free of the curb, leaving littlered-headed, green-eyed Miss Jacobs in the process of gathering up herskirts and mounting into thin air.

  Meanwhile Sheila had followed the superintendent to her office. "It's acase of cerebral hemorrhages. The man is no fool; he knows his condition,and he's been getting increasingly hard to take care of every minute sincehe found out. Maybe you've heard of him. He's Brandle, the coal magnate.Quite alone in the world; no children, and his wife died some few yearsago. He's very peculiar, and no one seems to know what to say to him or dofor him. I'm a little afraid--" and the superintendent paused to considerher words before committing herself. "I think perhaps there have been toomany offers of prayers and scriptural readings for his taste."

  "Probably he'd prefer the last _Town Topics_ or the latest detectivestory." Sheila shook her head violently. "Why can't a man be allowed todie the way he chooses--instead of your way, or my way, or the ReverendMr. Grumble's way?"

  "Miss Barry is on the case now, and I'm afraid he's shocked her into--"

  "Perpetual devotion." Sheila grinned sympathetically as she completed thesentence. They had called her Prayer-Book Barry her probation year becauseof her unswerving religious point of view, and her years of training hadonly served to increase it. The picture of anything as sensitively piousas Prayer-Book Barry helping a coal magnate to depart this temporal worldin his own chosen fashion was too much for Sheila's sense of thegrotesque. She threw back her head and laughed. Peal after peal rang outand over the transom of the superintendent's office just as Miss Jacobspassed.

  It took no great powers of penetration to identify the laugh; a look ofsatisfaction crept into the green eyes. "Quite dramatic and brutallyunfeeling I call it," she murmured. "But it will make an entertainingstory to tell Mr. Brooks. He thinks Leerie is such a little tinseledsaint."

  Ten minutes later Sheila O'Leary followed Miss Maxwell into the largetower room of the sanitarium to relieve Miss Barry from duty. As she tookher first look from the doorway she almost forgot herself and laughedagain. The room might have been a scene set for a farce or a comic opera.

  Propped up in bed, with multitudinous pillows about him, was a verymammoth of a man in heliotrope-silk pajamas. His face was as round andfull and bucolic as a poster advertising some specific brew of beer.Surmounting the face was a sparse fringe of white hair standing erect,while an isolated lock mounted guard over a receding forehead. It wasevident that the natural expression of the face was good-natured,indulgent, easygoing, but at the moment of Sheila's entrance it wascontorted into something that might have served for a cartoon of acholeric full moon. The eyes were rolling frantically in every directionbut that from which the presumable infliction came, for seated at thebedside, with a booklet of evening prayer open on her lap, was Miss Barry,reading aloud in a sweet, gentle voice.

  Miss Barry did not stop until she had finished her paragraph. Thecessation of her voice brought the roving eyes to a standstill; then theyflew straight to Miss Maxwell in abject appeal. "Take it away, ma'am.Don't hurt it--but take it away!" The articulation was thick, but it didnot mask the wail in the voice, and a gigantic thumb jerked indicativelytoward the patient, asserting figure of Miss Barry.

  "All right, Mr. Brandle." Miss Maxwell's tone showed neither conciliationnor pity; it was plainly matter-of-fact. "As it happens, I've brought youa new nurse. Suppose you try Miss O'Leary for the next day or two."

  The wail broke out afresh: "How can I tell if I can stand her? They alllook alike--all of 'em. You're the fourth, ain't you?" He turned to thenurse at his bedside for corroboration.

  "Then I'm the fifth," announced Sheila, "and there's luck in odd numbers."

  "Five's my number." The mammoth man looked a fraction less distracted ashe stated this important fact. "Born fifth day of the fifth month, struckit rich when I was twenty
-five, married in 'seventy-five, formed theAmerican Coal Trust December fifth, eighteen ninety-five. How's that for anumber?"

  "And I'm twenty-five, and this is June fifth." Sheila smiled.

  "Say, honest?" A glimmer of cheerfulness filtered through. The manbeckoned the superintendent of nurses closer and whispered in a perfectlyaudible voice: "Can't you take it away now? I'd like to ask the other somequestions before you leave her for keeps."

  Miss Maxwell nodded a dismissal to the nurse who had been, and calledSheila to the bedside. "Look her over well, Mr. Brandle. Miss O'Learyisn't a bit sensitive."

  "O'Leary? That's not a bad name. Had a shaft boss up at my firstanthracite-mine by that name--got on with him first-class. Say"--thisdirect to Sheila--"can you pray?"

  "Not unless I have to."

  "Not a bad answer. Now what--er--form of--literatoore do you prefer?"

  "Things with pep--punch--go!"

  "Say, shake." The mammoth man smiled as he held out a giant fist. Sheilahad the feeling she was shaking hands with some prehistoric animal. It wasalmost repellent, and she had to summon all her sympathy and control to beable to return the shake with any degree of cordiality.

  "All right, ma'am. You can leave us now to thrash it out man to man. You'dbetter get back to managing your little white angels," and he swept adismissing hand toward Miss Maxwell and the door.

  Oddly enough, there was nothing rude nor affronting in the man's words.There was too much of underlying good nature to permit it. With theclosing of the door behind the superintendent he turned to Sheila. "Now,boss, we might as well understand each other--it'll save strikes or hurtfeelings. Eh?"

  Sheila nodded.

  "All right. I'm dying, and I know it. May burst like a paper bag or go uplike a penny balloon any minute. Now praying won't keep me from bursting asecond sooner, or send me up a foot higher, so cut it out."

  Again Sheila nodded.

  "That isn't all. Had two nurses who agreed, kept their word, but theyhadn't the nerve to keep the parson from praying, and when he was off dutythey just sat--twiddled their thumbs and waited for me to quit. Couldn'tstand that--got on my nerves something fearful."

  "Wanted to murder them, didn't you?" Sheila laughed. "Well, Mr. Brandle,suppose we begin with supper and the baseball news. After that we'll huntup a thriller--biggest thriller they've got in the book-store."

  "You're boss," was the answer, but a look of relief--almost ofcontentment--spread over the rubicund face.

  As Sheila was leaving for the supper-tray she paused. "How would you likecompany for supper?"

  "Company? Good Lord, not the parson!"

  "No, me. If you are willing to sign for two, I could bring my supper upwith yours."

  "And not eat alone! By Jehoshaphat! Give me that slip quick."

  They had not only a good supper, they had a noisy one. The coal magnateroared over Sheila's descriptions of some of the bath treatments and theirvictims. In the midst of one particularly noisy explosion he suddenlystopped and looked accusingly at her. "Why don't you stop me? Don't youknow doctor's orders? Had 'em dinged into my head until I could say 'embackwards: no exertion, no excitement, avoid all undue movement, keepquiet. Darn it all! As if I won't have to keep quiet long enough!Well--why don't you repeat those fool orders and keep me quiet?"

  Sheila looked at him with a pair of steady gray eyes. "Do you know, Mr.Brandle, it isn't a half-bad way to go out of this world--to go laughing."

  The mammoth man beamed. He looked for all the world like the full moonsuddenly grown beatific. "And I'd just about made up my mind that I'dnever find a blamed soul who would feel that way about it. Shake again,boss."

  After the baseball news and a fair start in the thriller, he indulgedfurther in past grievances. "Hadn't any more'n settled it for sure I wasdone for than the parson came and the nurse took to looking mournful. LordAlmighty! ain't it bad enough to be carted off in a hearse once withoutfolks putting you in beforehand? That's not my notion of dying. I livedpleasant and cheerful, and by the Lord Harry, I don't see why I can't diethat way! And look-a-here, boss, I don't want any of that repenting stuff.I don't need no puling parson to tell me I'm a sinner. Any idiot couldn'tlook at me without guessing that much. Say!" He leaned forward with suddenearnestness. "Take a good look at me yourself. See any halo or angeltrappings about me?"

  Sheila laughed. "I'm afraid not. What you really ought to have--what Imiss about you--is the pipe, and the bowl, and the fiddlers three."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Don't you remember? It's an old nursery rhyme; probably you heard ithundreds of times when you were a little boy:

  "Old King Cole was a merry old soul And a merry old soul was he. He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl, And he called for his fiddlers three."

  The coal magnate threw back his head on the pillows and laughed long andloud. He laughed until he grew purple and gasped for breath, and helaughed while he choked, and Sheila flew about for stimulants. For a fewbreathless moments Sheila thought she had whipped up the hearse--to usethe mammoth man's own metaphor--but after a panting half-hour the heartsubsided and the breath came easier.

  "You nearly did for me that time, boss. But it fits; Jehoshaphat, it fitsme like a B. V. D.! The only difference you might put down to simplifiedspelling. Eh?" And he cautiously chuckled at his joke.

  While Sheila was making ready for the night he chuckled and lapsed intoflorid, heliotrope studies by turns. "It's straight, what I told you aboutbeing a sinner," he gave verbal expression to his thoughts at last."That's why I don't leave a cent to charity--not a cent. Ain't going tohave any peaked-faced, oily-tongued jackasses saying over my coffin that Itried to buy my entrance ticket into the Lord Almighty's kingdom. No,sirree! I know I've lived high, eaten well, and drunk some. I've made thebest of every good bargain that came within eyeshot. I treated my ownhandsome--and I let the rest of the world go hang. Went to church EasterSunday every year and put a bill in the plate; you can figure for yourselfabout how much I've given to charity. Never had any time to think of it,anyway--probably wouldn't have given if I had. Always thought Mother'dlive longer'n me and she'd take care of that end of it. But she didn't."

  For a moment Sheila thought the man was going to cry; his lower lipquivered like a baby's, and his eyes grew red and watery. There was nodenying it, the man was a caricature; even his grief was ludicrous. Hewiped his eyes with the back of his heliotrope sleeve and finished what hehad to say. "Don't it beat all how the pious vultures croak over you theminute you're done for--reminding you you can't take your money away withyou? Didn't the parson--first time he came--sit in that chair and open upand begin about the rich man's squeezing through a needle's eye and a lotabout putting away temporal stuff? I don't aim to do any squeezing intoheaven, I can tell you. And I fixed him all right. Ha, ha! I told him aslong as the money wouldn't do me and Mother any more good I'd settle itso's it couldn't benefit any one else. And that's exactly what I've done.Left it all for a monument for us, fancy marble, carved statues, and thewhole outfit. It'll beat that toadstool-looking tomb of that princesomewhere in Asia all hollow. Ha, ha!"

  He leaned back to enjoy to the full this humorous legacy to himself, butthe expression of Sheila's face checked it. "Say, boss, you don't likewhat I've done, do you? Run it out and dump it; I can stand for straighttalk from you."

  Sheila felt repelled even more than she had at first. To have a man at thepoint of death throw his money into a heap of marble just to keep it fromdoing good to any one seemed horrible. And yet the man spoke soconsistently for himself. He had lived in the flesh and for the flesh allhis days; it was not strange that there was no spirit to interpret now forhim or to give him the courage to be generous in the face of what theworld would think.

  "It's yours to spend as you like--only--I hate monuments. Rather have theplain green grass over me. And don't you think it's queer yourself that aman who had the grit to make himself and a pile of money hasn't the gritto leave it invested
after he goes, instead of burying it? Supposing youcan't live and use it yourself! That's no reason for not letting yourmoney live after you. I'd want to keep my money alive."

  "Alive? Say, what do you mean?"

  "Just what I say--alive. Charity isn't the only way to dispose of it.Leave it to science to discover something new with; give it to thelaboratories to study up typhoid or cancer. Ever think how little we knowabout them?"

  "Why should I? I don't owe anything to science."

  "Yes, you do. What developed the need of coal--what gave you thefacilities for removing it from your mines? Don't tell me you or anybodyelse doesn't owe something to science."

  "Bosh!" And the argument ended there.

  The old man had a good night. He dozed as peacefully as if he had notrequired propping up and occasional hypodermics to keep his lungs andheart going properly, and when the house doctor made his early rounds thissad and shocking spectacle met his eye: the dying coal magnate, arrayedin a fresh and more vivid suit of heliotrope pajamas, smoking a brierwoodand keeping a violent emotional pace with the hero in the thrillingestpart of the thriller. Even Sheila's cheeks were tinged with excitement.

  "Miss O'Leary!" All the outraged sensibilities of an orthodox,conscientious young house physician were plainly manifested in those twowords.

  Out shot the brierwood like a projectile, and a giant finger wagged at theintruder. "Look-a-here, young man, the boss and I are runningthis--er--quitting game to suit ourselves, and we don't need nosuggestions from the walking delegate, or the board of directors, or thegang. See? Now if you can't say something pleasant and cheerful, get out!"

  "Good morning!" It was the best compromise the house physician could make.But ten minutes after his speedy exit Doctor Greer, the specialist, andMiss Maxwell were on the threshold, both looking unmistakably troubled.

  The coal magnate winked at Sheila. "Here comes the peace delegates--ormaybe it's from the labor union. Well, sir?" This was shot straight atthe doctor.

  "Mr. Brandle, you're mad. I refuse to take any responsibility."

  "Don't have to. That's what's been the matter--too much responsibility. Itgot on my nerves. Now we want to be as--as noisy and as happy as we can,the boss and me. And if we can't do it in this little old medicatedbrick-pile of yours, why, we'll move. See? Or I'll buy it with a few tonsof my coal and give it to the boss to run."

  "When it's yours." The specialist was finding it hard to keep his temper.The man had worn him out in the week he had been at the sanitarium. It hadbeen harder to manage him than a spoiled child or a lunatic. He had had tohumor him, cajole him, entreat him, in a way that galled his professionaldignity, and now to have the man deliberately and publicly kill himself inthis fashion was almost beyond endurance. He tried hard to make his voicesound agreeable as well as determined when he launched his ultimatum. "Butin the mean time Miss O'Leary will have to be removed from the case."

  "No, you don't!" With a sweep of the giant hand the bedclothes were jerkedfrom their roots, and a pair of heliotrope legs projected floorward. Ittook the strength of all the three present to hold him back and replacethe covering. The magnate sputtered and fumed. "First nurse you put onhere after the boss goes--I'll die on her hands in ten minutes just to geteven with you. That's what I'll do. And what's more--I'll come back tohaunt the both of you. Take away my boss--just after we get things goingpleasantly. Spoil a poor man's prospects of dying cheerful! Haven't youany heart, man? And you, ma'am?" this to the superintendent of nurses. "Bythe Lord Harry! you're a woman--you ought to have a little sympathy!" Theaggressiveness died out of the voice, and it took on the old wail Sheilahad first heard.

  "But you forget my professional responsibility in the matter--myprinciples as an honorable member of my profession. I cannot allow apatient of mine wilfully to endanger his life--even shorten it. You mustunderstand that, Mr. Brandle."

  A look of amused toleration spread over the rubicund face. "Bless yourheart, sonny, you're not allowing me to shorten it one minute. The bossand I are prolonging it first-rate. Shouldn't wonder if it would get to beso pleasant having her around I'd be working over union hours andforgetting to quit at all. I'm old enough to be your granddaddy, so take abit of advice from me. When you can't cure a patient, let 'em die theirown way. Now run along, sonny. Good morning, ma'am." And then to Sheila:"Get back to that locked door, the three bullet-holes, and the blood patchon the floor. I've got to know what's on the other side before I touch onemouthful of that finnan haddie you promised me for breakfast."

  After that Old King Cole had his way. The doctors visited him as a matterof form, and Sheila improvised a chart, for he would not stand for havingtemperatures taken or pulses counted. "Cut it out, boss, cut it all out.We're just going to have a good time, you and me." And he smiledseraphically as he drummed on the spread:

  "Old King Cole--diddy-dum-diddy-dum, Was a merry old soul--diddy-dum-diddy-dum."

  On the second day Sheila introduced Peter Brooks into the"Keeping-On-Going Syndicate," as the mammoth man termed their temporarypartnership. Sheila had to take some hours off duty, and as the coalmagnate absolutely refused to let another nurse cross his threshold, Peterseemed to be the only practical solution. She knew the two men would geton admirably. Peter could be counted on to understand and meet anyemergency that might arise, while Old King Cole would be kept content. AndSheila was right.

  "Say, we hit it off first-rate--ran together as smooth as a parcel o'greased tubs," the magnate confided to Sheila when she returned. "He toldme a whole lot about you--what you did for him--and the nickname they'dgiven you--'Leerie.' I like that, but I like my name for you better. Eh,boss?"

  Once admitted, Peter often availed himself of his membership in thesyndicate. He made a third at their games, turned an attentive ear to thethriller or added his bit to the enlightenment of the conversation. Andthere wasn't a topic from war to feminine-dress reform that they did notattack and thrash out among them with all the keenness and thoroughnessof three alive and original minds.

  "Puts me thinking of the days when I was switch boss at the Cassie MaguireMine. Nothing but a shaver then, working up; nothing to do in theGod-forsaken hole, after work, but talk. We just about settled the affairsof the world and gave the Lord Almighty advice into the bargain." Themammoth man laughed a mammoth laugh. "And when we'd talked ourselvesinside out we'd have some fiddling--always a fiddle among some of theboys. Never hear one of those old tunes that it don't take me back to theCassie Maguire and the way a fiddle would play the heart back into alonely, homesick shaver." He turned with a suspicious sniff to Sheila."Come, boss, the chessboard. Peter'n'me are going to have another Verdunset-to. Only this time he's German. See? And if you don't mind, you mightfill up our pipes and bring us our four-forty bowl."

  At one time of the day only did the merriment flag--that was at dusk."Don't like it--never did like it," he confessed. "Something about it thatgets onto my chest and turns me gloomy. Don't suppose you ever smelledthe choke-damp, did you? Well, that's the feeling. Say, boss, wouldn't bea bad plan to shine up that old safety of yours and give us more light inthe old pit. Mother quit about this time o' day, and it seems like I can'tforget it."

  The next day the coal magnate took a turn for the worse. The heartspecialist and the house doctor glowered ominously at Sheila as they cameto make their unwelcome rounds, and Sheila hurried them out of the room asspeedily as she could. Then it was that she thought of the fiddlers three.An out-of-town orchestra played biweekly at the sanitarium. They wereyoung men, most of them, still apprentices at their art, and she knew theywould be glad enough for extra earnings. They were due that evening, andshe would engage the services of three violins for the dusk hour the oldman dreaded. She did not accomplish this without a protest from thebusiness office, warnings from the two physicians, and shocked commentsfrom the habitual gossips of the sanitarium. But Sheila held her groundand fought for her way against their combined attacks. "Of course I knowhe's dying. Don't care if the whole San faints wit
h mortification. I'mgoing to see he dies the way he wants to--keep it merry till the end."

  To the Reverend Mr. Grumble, who requested--nay, demanded--admittance, sheturned a deaf ear while she held the door firmly closed behind her. "Can'tcome in. Sorry, he doesn't want you. If you must say a last prayer tocomfort yourself, say it in some other room. It will do Old King Cole justas much good and keep him much happier. Now, please go!"

  So it happened that only Peter was present when the musicians arrived.Sheila ushered them in with a flourish. "Old King Cole, your fiddlersthree. Now what shall they play?"

  Lucky for the indwellers of the sanitarium that the magnate's room was inthe tower and therefore little sound escaped. It is improbable if thefinal ending would ever have been known to any but those present, whosediscretion could have been relied upon, but for the fact that Miss Jacobsstood with her ear to the keyhole for fully ten minutes. It was surprisinghow quickly everybody knew about it after that. It created almost as muchscandal as Sheila's own exodus had three years before. Many had thetemerity to take the lift to the third floor and pace with attentive earsthe corridor that led to the tower. These came back to fan the flame ofshocked excitement below. The doctors and Mr. Grumble came to Miss Maxwellto interfere and put an end to this ungodly and unprofessional humoring ofone departing soul. But the superintendent of nurses refused. She had putthe case in Sheila's hands, and she had absolute faith in her. So all thatwas left to the busybodies and the scandalmongers was to hear what theycould and give free rein to their tongues.

  There was, however, one mitigating fact: they could listen, and they couldtalk, but they could not look beyond the closed door of the tower room.That vivid, appalling picture was mercifully denied them. With a heapingbowl of egg-nog beside him, and his brierwood between his lips, the coalmagnate beat time on the bedspread with a fast-failing strength, while hegrinned happily at Sheila. Beside him Peter lounged in a wheel-chair,smoking for company, while grouped about the foot of the bed in theattitude of a small celestial choir stood the fiddlers three.

  All the good old tunes, reminiscent of younger days of mining-camps anddance-halls, they played as fast as fingers could fly and bows couldscrape. "Dan Tucker," "Money Musk," "The Irish Washerwoman," and "Pop Goesthe Weasel" sifted in melodic molecules through the keyhole into thecurious and receptive ears outside. And after them came "Captain Jinks"and "The Blue Danube," "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie."

  "Some boss!" muttered the magnate, thickly, the brierwood dropping on thefloor. "Just one solid streak of anthracite--clear through. Now give ussomething else--I don't care--you choose it, boss."

  So Leerie chose "The Star-spangled Banner" and "Marching Through Georgia,"and as dusk crept closer about them, "Suwanee River" and "The Old KentuckyHome."

  "Nice, sleepy old tunes," mumbled the coal magnate. "Guess I've nappedover-time." He opened one eye and looked at Sheila, half amused, halfpuzzled. "Say, boss, light up that little old lamp o' yours and take medown; the shaft's growing pretty black."

  The fiddlers played a hymn as their own final contribution. Sheila smiledwistfully across the dusk to Peter. She knew it wouldn't matter now, forOld King Cole was passing beyond the reach of hymns, prayers, orbenedictions.

  "It's over as far as you or I or he are concerned," she whispered,whimsically. "When I come down, by and by, would you very much mind takingme on one of those rides you promised? I want to forget that white-marblemonument."

  It was not until a week later that Sheila O'Leary met with one of the bigsurprises of her rather eventful existence. A lawyer came down from NewYork and asked for her. It seemed that the coal magnate had left her aconsiderable number of thousands to spend for him and ease her feelingsabout the monument. The codicil was quaintly worded and stated thatinasmuch as "Mother" had gone first, he guessed she would do the next bestby him.

  Sheila took Peter Brooks into her immediate confidence. "Half of it goesfor typhoid research and half for a nurses' home here. We've needed onedreadfully. What staggers me is when did he do it?"

  Peter grinned. "When I happened to be on duty. We fixed it up, and I wasto keep the secret. He had lots of fun over it--poor old soul!"

  "Merry old soul," corrected Sheila.

  And when the nurses' home was built Sheila flatly ignored all thesuggestions of a memorial tablet with appropriate scriptural verses tograce the cornerstone or hang in the entrance-hall.

  "Won't have it--never do in the world! Just going to have his picture overthe living-room fireplace."

  And there it hangs--a gigantic reproduction of Old King Cole, done by thegreatest poster artist of America.