Chapter VI: Part 6

“There were no friends to claim the body of the dead outlaw, and it finally found its way to the M---- Medical College. The demonstrator of anatomy, who chanced to be a warm friend of mine, knew the circumstances under which I had become acquainted with the late Mr. McDougall, and reasoning that I would be very glad to receive a souvenir commemorative of the strenuous introduction to that distinguished gentleman which I had received, dissected the head with especial care, and after thorough preparation and skillful bleaching sent the gruesome object to me with his compliments. Since the reception of the skull my lamented friend in material bone and ethereal spirit has been the presiding genius of my den--a friend in whom I have full confidence, because I can trust him, and an enemy whom I no longer dread, because I have him where all of our enemies should be placed--in a collection of curios. Rather a nice skull, isn’t it?”

A WISE CHILD

I was enjoying my after dinner cigar, and thinking, with some amusement, of a remark my little daughter had made. During the afternoon she had been taken by a party of my friends to a museum--a great treat for her, as she is of an inquiring turn of mind. Among the curiosities and freaks on exhibition, was a poor fellow who was afflicted with some nervous affection that impelled him to keep constantly in motion. The child was especially impressed with the fact that the man was unable to sit down. The grown-up folks of the party were greatly puzzled by the curious phenomenon--not so my hopeful. Looking at him carefully and with an expression of most profound pity for a few moments, she exclaimed, “Poor man! What an awful lot of spankings he must have had when he was a little boy!”

“Well,” I thought, “children are keen observers after all. It might be interesting to read the thoughts of some of them. Now, there’s that Smith baby for example--what a wise expression it has, to be sure! Really, that child ought to be called Solomon. I would suggest the name to _pater familias_, only he might get frightened at the mere suggestion of such wisdom on the part of his offspring.”

As a matter of fact, the Smith child is the most remarkable specimen of a young one I have ever seen. He is now some three years of age, yet has never made the slightest attempt to talk. As for walking, I question whether the child will ever be able to use his limbs very successfully. They are malformed and very imperfectly developed. But the child’s head has gone to the other extreme; while by no means symmetrical in outline, it is preternaturally large, with bulging frontal eminences and immense parietal protuberances. The eyes are brilliant, deep set, and reflect an expression of wise gravity that is positively eerie. The brow is wrinkled in strongly marked furrows and the general aspect of the face is somewhat shrivelled and prematurely old. Around the angles of the mouth are converging, plainly accentuated lines that give the face an expression of sternness. There is no color in the skin save about the eyelids, which are habitually red and tumefied. The dead, clayey whiteness of the child’s complexion is occasionally relieved by dark, blotchy eruptions, that make the unhealthy pallor of the skin still more noticeable.

The most striking peculiarity of the Smith baby is its prematurely aged look, suggesting the grotesque combination of the face of a sickly old man with the body of a child. At first sight, the effect is somewhat startling.

And yet, despite its physical defects, the child grows on. Knowing how utterly defenseless the poor little thing was against the circumstances which made it a caricature of healthy babyhood, and realizing its abject helplessness in the battle of life, I sincerely pity it.

Is it not strange that mothers lavish so much affection upon such children as the Smith baby? No matter how many beautiful children she may have, the heart of the mother goes out to the least favored of her offspring in a wealth of love that is the only excuse the unfortunate child has for living. Mothers care naught for the law of the survival of the fittest--not they. Should such a child die, the poor mother mourns it as the one ewe lamb of her little flock.

With the father it is different, somehow--perhaps not in all cases, but I know it is different with the father in this instance.

Smith is a queer sort of fellow--rather reticent in manner it seems to me. However, he is a new patron of mine and perhaps I do not quite understand him. I was first called in to see the baby, and haven’t had very much opportunity to converse with the father. At the present rate of progress, I am not likely to get much better acquainted, for, come to think of it, he seems somewhat inclined to avoid me.

But Smith’s friends say that he is a thoroughly good fellow; indeed, that he is “one of the boys.”

Once in a while, Smith seems to be more than ordinarily anxious about the baby--apparently through pride rather than affection, for the little one really seems to be the bane of his existence. He did unbend once, enough to ask me if there wasn’t some way to cure the child’s snuffles and keep “those d--d blotches” off its face, but I am sure he was thinking more of the comments of his neighbors than of the child’s comfort.

I don’t believe that Smith cares a straw about his young one’s digestion, yet he swore like a pirate when he saw the irregular manner in which its second teeth were coming in. Not that I blame him much for swearing, for those teeth do look more like those of a saw than such as a baby of good breeding is expected to develop. Still, the child is not to blame for his bad teeth. Smith knows that, if he knows anything.

I suppose I ought not to say it, but I honestly believe that Smith would far rather his child would die than live. The poor little thing had a bad attack of cholera infantum a while ago, and narrowly missed going to the land where babies’ stomachs are at rest and pimples are unknown. It is a dreadful thing to say, but I really suspect that Smith was--well, not exactly pleased with the results of my treatment. He made a remark the other day that was suggestive, to say the least. He said there were too many new-fangled ideas in the treatment of children’s diseases to suit him. “Toxins,” said he, “were invented, I suppose, to cover up medical ignorance.”

I did not reply, for, as I have already remarked, Smith and I have not become very friendly as yet.

But the Smith baby is a very interesting study, and I can tolerate its father’s peculiar ways for the child’s sake, and for the interest the case affords me.

I lolled back in my favorite chair puffing the fragrant smoke in fantastic rings, carelessly aimed at the chandelier overhead, and revolving the case of the Smith baby in my mind. I do not know how long I sat there musing, but I finally fell into that half dreamy state which, with me, is a positive sign of an impending nap. Even my cigar was becoming sleepy and had begun to smolder. Being in no mood to tolerate interruption, I fear it was with some irritation that I shouted, in response to a timid rap at the door:

“Come in!”

The door opened, and in walked--Smith’s baby!

To say that I was astonished would be quite conventional, but measurably untrue, for--I was paralyzed. I think my visitor must have noticed the effect his unexpected entrance had upon me, for, after a deferential bow and a polite “Good evening,” he calmly awaited my pleasure. There was a quizzical expression in his eyes, and a pitying smile animated his curiously wrinkled face as I finally stammered:

“W--why, g--good evening, sir. This is quite--quite, ah--unexpected, you know.”

“And also unconventional, I presume,” said my caller. “It is not _en regle_, I believe, for people who are helpless to call upon the doctor. He is supposed to do all the calling himself. Patients who have sound legs and strength enough to walk are the only sort who are expected to visit their medical adviser. We will not consider those ‘has beens,’ who are sometimes so grateful to the doctor for helping them out of the world that they call upon him afterward o’ nights,” and the baby smiled sarcastically.

I do not believe in ghosts, yet I must confess that I blushed hotly at the implied unfair criticism of my noble profession.

My young friend noticed my confusion and said:

“Pardon me, I did not mean to be personal. There are doctors and doctors you know--and also spooks and things.”

“Great Hippocrates!” I exclaimed, springing to my feet in sudden, amazed recollection. “I thought you could neither walk nor talk, and you have not only come to see me but are talking as fluently as any one could.”

“Oh, well,” replied my visitor, “things are not always what they seem--even to doctors. I have not walked much as yet, it is true, but I thought it best not to do so. My limbs have never looked very promising, and consequently nothing has ever been expected of them. It is much easier to ride or be carried about than to walk--even with good legs--so I let the sympathy of the people about me have full sway.

“As for speaking, pray tell me what inducement there is to conversation in my case. I am not fond of hearing myself talk--not at all, and there’s no use talking to the people around me. They could not understand me and there are no subjects of mutual interest. Besides, if I should display my linguistic skill, my folks would be a little shy of me. They are very confidential, you know, and on account of my apparent inability to repeat what I hear, I get in on many a nice bit of grown-up gossip.”

“Well,” I said, “there does seem to be some advantage in concealing your power of speech, but I don’t quite comprehend your statement that the people about you would not understand you. Your language certainly seems clear enough for ordinary understanding.”

“Oh, well, you see I have thus far been talking in a quite commonplace fashion. We have exchanged hardly more than mere conversational greetings. With most persons the conversation would of necessity begin and end with mere perfunctory remarks, and that wouldn’t be worth while. You, however, being a doctor, and consequently a man of learning, are capable of appreciating me at my true value. I have long experienced a desire to converse with you, and to-night I resolved to call upon you here at your own home, where we can have a little chat without danger of interruption.”

“Yes,” I said, smiling at his assurance, “but how on earth have you acquired the information necessary to carry on an intelligent conversation with a scientific physician? You are only about three years of age, and if you are as intellectual as you claim to be, your precocity is certainly marvelous.”

My little friend smiled blandly, and replied: “That word, precocity, is a very offensive one, but I excuse you for using it, because it is evident that you do not know the true explanation of the advanced intellect of the so-called precocious child. Do you know anything of Buddhism, doctor?”

“Well, yes, something.”

“Then you will understand me when I say that ‘precocity’ is merely the development in the child of a portion of the wisdom acquired during its previous terrestrial existences. As you are aware, the modern school of theosophists has appropriated this theory of the Buddhists.”

“Very true,” I replied, with some amusement, “but that does not add to the validity of the theory.”

“It is evident that you are not a theosophist, doctor. I assure you, however, that the Buddhists are right. I know they are right, for I have myself been on earth twice before. You have doubtless often noted that I am not as other children.”

“True, you have always seemed much older than your years,” I replied.

“Then you are prepared to believe me when I assert that what you have regarded as an appearance of premature age, is merely a reflection of my past lives showing through the childlike envelopment of the present.”

“Ah!” I exclaimed, “there is certainly food for reflection in what you say. I confess, however, that the idea had never suggested itself to me. I shall certainly make a note of it.”

My visitor seemed gratified at having imparted such interesting and valuable information.

“And now, doctor, I am sure you will not consider me egotistic if I claim to be, what my appearance would indicate--a ‘wise child’.”

“Oh, ho! Are you the original ‘wise child’ who knew his own father?” I asked, jocularly.

My young friend seemed to take me seriously, and replied, “Pshaw! doctor; I am surprised that you even remember that absurd theory. There’s nothing in it, and besides, it’s a very crude test of intellectuality. Why shouldn’t any child who is not an idiot, know its own father? Why, I was introduced to mine immediately on my arrival in your inhospitable clime. I remember the introduction more particularly, because, not knowing what sort of people I was to fall in with, I was quite afraid I might be asked to step over and sit with the girls--a fate too horrible to think of!

“Now, doctor, I suppose you are wondering what I am going to find to talk about. I have already informed you that platitudes and conventional commonplaces are very fatiguing to me. I assure you, however, that it is not my intention to go to the other extreme and talk abstract science.”

“Great Scott!” I exclaimed, “Do you mean to say that you have had a scientific training?”

“Oh, my, yes!” replied young Smith, drawing himself up--rather proudly it seemed to me. “But,” he continued, “I am not going to enter into the scientific heavies. I shall deal largely in generalities, and such science as may appear in my remarks will be of a rather superficial sort.

“Since knowing you, doctor, I have become quite reconciled to the death of your predecessor in our family--dear old Dr. Whittemore. He was a kind, considerate old man, and as tender-hearted as a woman, despite his rough ways. But I didn’t like him at first. You see I didn’t understand him very well. He had such a habit of swearing to himself whenever he looked at these crooked legs of mine. But he was my friend, nevertheless, and several times when old Smith was--”

“I beg pardon,” I said, “but did you say, old Smith?”

“Why, yes,” replied my visitor, raising his eyebrows as though surprised at the interruption, “old Smith--the governor, you know.”

“Oh, I see, you mean your father,” I replied.

“Of course I meant my father!” exclaimed the youngster impatiently.

“Well, as I was saying, continued the child, several times when old Smith was especially cross with me and the doctor happened to be present, the old fellow took my part and told the governor he ought to be ashamed of himself.

“Smith once pointed at me and said, ‘Great God! man, look at that head and those legs! How can you blame me for being disgusted because the little beast lived?’

“‘Now, see here, Smith,’ exclaimed the doctor, ‘that young-one, so far as I am aware, is in no wise responsible for the contour of his legs or the bulginess of his cranium. You and I have a theory regarding the cause of the baby’s peculiarities, which lays the responsibility at the door of one--’

“‘Sh!--’ said pa, ‘there is no necessity of your being personal, and besides, my mother-in-law is in the next room, and it is really foolish to call her in counsel. She is troublesome enough now. She looks suspiciously wise at times.’

“‘Well, then,’ said the doctor, ‘don’t talk so like a d--d fool!’

“‘Oh, there’s no use roasting me, doctor, I am patient enough under the circumstances. I sometimes think that if the medical profession did its full duty, such children would not--’

“‘Would not live to a ripe old age, eh, Smith?’ interrupted the doctor, angrily. ‘Well, sir, the profession of medicine is sometimes compelled to save people from the consequences of their crimes--it does not, however, feel in duty bound to commit crimes for them. I trust the ethical distinction between the duty of the profession and the dirty work some persons would have it do for them, is clear to your somewhat biased intellect, my good sir!’

“My! but old Smith was mad--madder than a hornet! But the doctor seemed to have the better of the argument, and the governor soon cleared out, grumbling to himself and swearing at the cat that got in his way and had his tail stepped on.”

“The old doctor certainly was your friend, and I am not very favorably impressed by your description of your father. I might say in passing, however, that your lack of filial respect is a by no means commendable trait in your character. No matter what his peculiarities may be, you must remember that Smith is your father and as such demands respect. Have you forgotten what the Bible says, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother?’”

My young friend looked extremely disgusted, and replied:

“Dear me, doctor!--can’t you get along without quoting such old, wormy, out-of-date authorities as the Bible? That advice was all well enough in its day, but honoring one’s parents in the collective sense is played out in these modern times. Mothers are just as much deserving of honor as ever--and that’s a great deal, but fathers--humph! The fellow who wrote that particular portion of the scriptures didn’t know Smith, you can just bet your bottom dollar on that. If I was as big a fool as he thinks I am, I might honor and respect him, but I know a thing or two.

“Honor Smith? Ye gods! Look at the protuberances of my cranium! Gaze upon these misshapen legs of mine! You told my mother I had ‘rickets,’ didn’t you?”

“Ye--yes, I believe I did.”

“Well, I don’t blame you for your ignorance, doctor. You have not been in practice long enough to lose faith in human nature. Now, old Dr. Whittemore knew better, and so does Smith.”

“But, my dear boy,” I interposed, “I think I know rachitis when I see it.”

“So, rachitis is the scientific appellation, eh? Well, in the language of the street, ‘rachitis nothing!’ Can’t you see through a millstone with a hole in it? Doctor, my so-called rickets is nothing more nor less than--”

“Hush! for the Lord’s sake, hush!” I cried, putting my hand over young Smith’s mouth, as a horrible suspicion suddenly flashed upon me. “Be careful, my young friend, even the walls of a doctor’s study may have ears. Can it be possible that I have been mistaken and that--”

“Precisely so, sir,” interrupted my visitor sarcastically. “You are really growing quite intelligent. If you keep on, doctor, you will be as good an intuitive diagnostician as we have in Chicago, and that’s saying much.”

“Yes,” I replied with some confusion, “but you can’t expect a fellow to carry a divining rod about with him, and besides, your family is one of the highest respectability.”

My young visitor sneered perceptibly and retorted:

“Of course, you are like the rest of humanity, looking for respectability in high places and overlooking the pearls that lie imbedded in the mud of poverty and social mediocrity. I really feel inclined to lecture you, doctor, you seem so woefully stupid in some directions. Here you are, with abundant opportunities for study and observation of human nature, maundering of ‘respectability’ as a factor in diagnosis! Not but that it is a factor sometimes, but you don’t weigh the evidence just right. You are inclined to misconstrue social prominence as a factor in your diagnoses. Your interpretation of it is only too often precisely opposite to the truth.

“Look at the childlessness of the average high-toned family--look at the character of the progeny of those who do have children, and then babble of ‘respectability!’ Faugh! doctor, you make me sick. For a scientific physician, you are the most innocent man I ever knew.”

“Oh, come now,” I said, “I don’t pretend to know it all, but I am not quite so big a fool as you might suppose.”

“Well, perhaps not--quite. There may be bigger chumps, but I dare say they are all practicing medicine.”

“By the way,” he continued, “speaking of honoring one’s father, I can’t for the life of me see why a fellow should be expected to do that. Fathers are mere accidents in the scheme of nature. You see, anybody will answer for a father, but with your mother--well, that’s different. No other could fill her place. Most people think the male human is the important element in our social system, but that’s all rot. He is a secondary consideration, a mere incident, and should be given to understand it.”

“Um-m ah!” I answered slowly, “I believe the truth is gradually dawning upon him. The new woman is--”

“Great guns, doctor! Do you mean those things with breeches on, that ride bicycles, and play foot ball?”

“Well, in a measure, yes,” I replied.

“Come, come, doctor! I was talking about natural phenomena as involved in the perpetuation of the species; I had no thought of what biologists term sports in nature.”

“Ah, that’s different, my boy,” I said, “unless you use the term ‘sport’ as a _double entendre_.”

“I don’t think I quite understand you, doctor.”

“Oh well, I suppose my play upon words was a little too commonplace for you,” I replied, meanwhile thinking that the Smith baby, was something of a chump himself. Not wishing to hurt his feelings, however, I held my peace, and he continued:

“Do you know, doctor, I think that if a child is expected to honor its father, it should have some voice in his selection. Now, for example,” and the poor little chap felt of his bumps and gazed mournfully at his crippled limbs, “I should not have been as I am, had I been permitted to select my father. Of course I might have made a mistake, anyway, but you can be assured that I should never have selected Smith.”

“Well, Smith might not have been such a bad father if--”

“Oh, I know what you are going to say, doctor, but no amount of preparatory treatment would ever have made Smith anything but a mean old cuss, anyhow.”

“Perhaps you are right,” I answered, “and, come to think of it, as your family is a comparatively new one to me, I believe I’ll insist on monthly settlements of my bills.”

“Well, you know your own business better than I do, but I know Smith pretty well, and I don’t think it will do any harm,--unless he gets mad and changes doctors. I hope he won’t do that, for I am beginning to like you pretty well, and I dread a change. There’s no telling what these highly ‘respectable’ people will do, you know, and now that you are beginning to understand my case a little, a change of doctors might be disastrous. You see, I can’t talk to everybody as freely as I feel that I can to you.”

“Then I guess I won’t send in any bill, it would be too bad to neglect you, just because your father is--”

“A brute, eh, doctor?”

“N-no, I shouldn’t like to say that,” I replied.

“Because of his eminent respectability, I presume,” said my visitor, grinning sarcastically.

I was discreetly silent.

“Well,” continued the young wiseacre, “I don’t suppose that you and I alone could settle a certain phase of the social problem, even if we were foolish enough to try, but there are some very interesting points that might be discussed upon the question of that veneering of ‘respectability’ for which you seem to have such great reverence. I should like to discuss them with you, did time permit. I assure you that I have given the subject much conscientious study and deep thought.

“There is one point, doctor, in which you physicians are very remiss, and which, for the sake of suffering childhood, I cannot allow to pass unnoticed. I refer to the indiscriminate fashion in which people are allowed to marry, and rear children. Why, when I look about me and see the number of infantile wrecks, who, like myself, are victims of your pernicious social system, I am disgusted. If the principals in matrimonial mistakes were the only ones to suffer, it would be different, but it’s the babies that get the worst of it. And you medical blockheads look on and say nothing. You are too stupid to see anything, perhaps, and therefore have nothing to say.”

“Well, my boy, you have the making of a social reformer in you. I don’t know that I ever gave the subject much thought. I have been too busy with--”

“Too busy trying to cure results to inquire into causes, eh, doctor?”

“Why, I--that is, not exactly,” I stammered, “you know, my boy, that--”

“Oh, yes, I understand, old fellow, you are not quite blind to such things, but you don’t propose either to pose as a Hercules cleaning out the Augean stables, or expose yourself to the same sort of ridicule as did Don Quixote when he challenged the wind-mills. Shame on you, doctor! Be a good Philistine and snap your fingers at conventionalities!”

“See here, my young friend, I am practicing medicine for a livelihood, and I can’t afford to be radical in my views. It’s all well enough to scarify society, if you don’t depend upon it for bread and butter--but in my case it’s different, and I must be careful.”

Young Smith shrugged his shoulders somewhat contemptuously, and replied:

“What a queer world! You fellows work like a dog in a treadmill all your lives, trying to make enough hay while the sun is shining, to enable you to take some comfort by and by. When the ‘by and by’ comes, you have lost the capacity for enjoyment. You slave from morning till night, to acquire a competency--and the brains--that will enable you to be independent in thought and action. Then, when the wished-for time does come, you--well, you roll over like a fish and die. Always going to have a good time--some day; always going to be a Philistine--some day; always looking ahead into that undiscovered country where lies--the grave. Your ambition ends in six feet of earth. Pshaw! how you people irritate me! Why not learn to labor and to loaf?”

My visitor’s words impressed me more than I would have been willing to acknowledge.

“Heigho!” I exclaimed, “I don’t know but you are right, my boy, and yet, I don’t exactly see how I can help matters much.”

“There’s one thing you can do, doctor, you can at least make the effort to impress upon the public the necessity of treating human beings with the same degree of intelligence and consideration that you bestow upon animals. Get rid of that idiotic, sentimental moonshine about ‘joining two souls in wedlock’ and come down to the common-sense basis of a union for a specific, organic purpose between two bipeds, that are or should be, subject to the same laws as other animals. Do this and there will be fewer hideous heads and miserable legs like mine.”

My little friend wept silently.

“Come, come, my lad, cheer up,” I said, “You must remember that the ranks of the immortal geniuses of the world have been largely recruited from such material as yourself.”

“You doubtless mean to be consoling, my dear sir,” replied the child, “but you forget the chief consolation contained in your argument.”

“Pray, what is that?” I asked.

“Why those degenerate geniuses die young, and leave no posterity to perpetuate their misery.”

“You are right,” I said, musingly. “I did not think of that.”

“Do you know, doctor, that the most philosophic _bon mot_ ever perpetrated, and the one which seems most appropriate to my case, is that facetious description which somebody gave of the mule. He said, if I remember correctly, that the mule was an animal which had no ‘pride of paternity and no hope of posterity’.”

“And yet,” I replied, “the mule is not the happiest and most placid animal in the world. The clam is his superior in many respects.”

“Yes, and there are many human clams. I fancy, however, that you do not envy them, doctor.”

“Well, I am not so sure about that, my dear young friend. The higher emotions and more refined sensibilities are the foundation of most of the sorrows of life.”

“But what of the pleasures, doctor?”

“True, I had forgotten them,” I replied.

* * * * *

We sat for some time, young Smith and I, silently gazing into the fireplace. My cigar having gone out, I relighted it and began puffing vigorously, with the result of blowing some dense clouds of smoke in the direction of my visitor. A sharp cough, followed by a decided sputter, reminded me of my unintentional discourtesy.

“Pardon me, my boy, but I forgot that you are not used to tobacco.”

The wise child smiled, and with a humorous twinkle in his bright eyes replied:

“Well, doctor, you haven’t given me much opportunity to become inured to it this evening--save by proxy, and there are some things that cannot be done by proxy with any degree of satisfaction.”

“Good heavens, boy! You don’t mean to say that you smoke?”

“Don’t I, though? Just try me and see.”

Amazed though I was, I politely extended my cigar case. With the air of a _connoisseur_, my visitor selected one, bit off the end, and, taking my proffered match, lighted the weed and began smoking, with all the _sang froid_ of an old timer.

“By Jove! doctor, you don’t smoke drugstore cigars, I see.”

“N--no,” I said, “I get the best there is in the market,” meanwhile mentally apologizing to my friend K----, the pharmacist who had given me the box from which that very cigar was taken.

“Do you know, doctor, I haven’t enjoyed a smoke for ages. I used to ‘hit the pipe,’ as you now express it, when I was on earth before. But then,” he sighed, “opium was opium in those days.”

“And pray, what is it nowadays?” I asked.

“Soothing syrup, b’gosh! And I don’t like it a little bit, though I’ve swallowed a barrel of it.

“Which reminds me that you doctors don’t know much about colicky babies,” said my visitor.

“N--no--I don’t suppose we do know a great deal about infantile colic--save by its works--drat it!”

“And its music,” said young Smith, chuckling audibly, as a prolonged, painful, quavering wail was wafted in at the window from a house across the street.

“Come, come, my boy, you mustn’t be too hard on us doctors. Besides, that confounded young one over yonder isn’t under my care. If he was it might be different. One of my brethren from Dearborn Avenue has charge of him. He doesn’t seem to be succeeding very well, either, for the little fiend is yelling night and day. He has kept me awake nights for about three weeks. If I shut down the windows, I smother, and if I open them that vicious little animal disturbs my rest--and there you are!”

“Well, why don’t you do something for the poor little chap?”

“Oh, as I told you, he’s not my patient. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to chip in,” I replied. “And besides, I don’t think his mother would give him the medicine, even if I should send it over.”

“Ah, then you think you could relieve him, eh? I am glad to know there is one doctor who knows how to treat colic. Really, I’m almost sorry I haven’t had it since I have been under your care. Tell me, pray, what would you give the child?”

“Four ounces of chloroform,” I replied, vindictively.

“The trouble with you doctors nowadays,” said the Smith baby, “is that you talk too much about microbes. Do you remember that attack of cholera-infantum I had?”

“Yes--I should rather think I did.”

“Well, you talked about toxins, and microbes, until you made me sicker than ever. There I was, drinking hog-wash baby-food out of a dirty old bottle through a nasty rubber tube, and poisoning myself every time I did it, and you talking about germs and such things! Germs be blowed! I was suffering from an overdose of dirt--just plain ordinary dirt. Mother was too busy with her receptions and parties, to attend to me, and that fool nurse neglected me. You told her to scald my bottle, but she never did it. Why, the day before I fell sick, the cat was playing with that infernal tube for a straight two hours.”

My visitor was becoming excited. He fairly shrieked--“Microbes, germs, toxins! Dirt, sir, just plain, common, everyday dirt!”

“Well,” I said, “some of us doctors are beginning to believe that while there may be a distinction between dirt and microbes, there’s precious little practical difference after all.”

* * * * *

“I wonder if the Lord ever intended man to smoke,” said the wise child. “He would have made the tobacco plant the tree of knowledge, if he had known as much about nicotine as we do.”

“Possibly,” I replied, “but there are different opinions on that subject. A radical old minister once said that if the Lord had intended man to smoke, he would have put a chimney in the back of his head.”

“Humph! that old fool didn’t know much. If he had ever smoked--a--cigar like this--he--would--”

My young friend paused, and put his hand to the pit of his stomach.

“Why, my dear boy, you seem distressed. Really, you are quite pale. Pray, let me get you some--”

“Oh, it’s nothing, doctor, I--well, you see, I am not used to--to late hours,” said the poor little chap, with a painful effort to smile.

“Perhaps some fresh air might make you feel better,” I suggested, “I will raise another window.”

“N--no, never mind. I believe I’ll just step to the door for a moment, if you don’t object. I feel a little--”

I grasped the situation, and hastily escorted my visitor to the veranda.

Appreciating the delicacy of my guest’s position, I then discreetly returned to my sanctum and resumed my cigar. Certain peculiar sounds that came through the open door, confirmed my hasty diagnosis.

I waited until the tumultuous heavings of my young friend’s diaphragm had ceased, and then went out to ask him to return to the library, but he was nowhere to be seen. The “wise child” had gone!

As I stood there musing, and thinking that nicotine levels all intellectual distinctions between children, a firm hand was laid on my shoulder and a voice said in my ear:

“Doctor, you have been sleeping in your chair about long enough. Go to bed, you silly fellow!”

I was about to follow my wife’s advice, when--

“Ting-aling-a-ling!” came a ring at the telephone.

I fear I was not very suave as I answered--

“Hello, hello! What’s wanted?”

“Why, the baby’s got the colic to beat the very devil, and I wish you’d come down right away.”

“Get out!” I howled. “You’ll have to get some other doctor. I don’t call on strangers at night,” adding, _sotto voce_, “nor anybody else, if I can help it.”

“Why, doctor, don’t you know who this is?”

“No, I’ll be hanged if I do. Who the deuce are you, anyhow?”

“Who? Me? Why, doctor, I’m Smith!”

LEAVES FROM A SUICIDE’S DIARY

I was very young when the idea of suicide first suggested itself to me;--my life had its troubles as far back as my memory extends. I have a vivid recollection of taking a certain degree of interest in the subject when I was a mere lad,--long before I first thought of keeping a record of my impressions. My father had whipped me for some trivial matter; so trivial was it, and so severe my punishment, that I was overwhelmed with a sense of the cruel injustice of it all. Father was a stern, cold man, and a man of moods. He could be affectionate at times, and I presume that deep down in his heart he loved me, but, as I have said, he was a man of moods--and they were not always pleasant ones for those around him. It is a curious psychic fact that some men are subject to storms of passion which, concealed through politic motives from all but those most entitled to consideration, seemingly must be vented upon those whom affection should protect. My father was such a man, and I, his eldest child, was the member of the family who most often suffered from his horrible nerve storms. As I grew older he became more and more inconsiderate in his treatment of me, and more and more severe in his punishments.

I believe that all boys of good breeding and average physical stamina, are conscious at times that paternal punishment is frequently dictated by love and sincere interest in the welfare of the victim. It is this sort of punishment that is followed by a healthy moral and physical reaction. But with punishment undeserved, and out of all proportion to the offense which it is intended to reprove, it is quite different. Once let a boy experience such punishment, and there arises in him a sense of rebellion against parental authority, and his respect and affection for the parent becomes tinctured with bitterness that even Time cannot efface.

Once let the iron of vindictive resentment against oppression and injustice enter his soul, and your loving and lovable boy becomes transformed--he ages perceptibly, and his fair young life, his innocent childhood is gone--to return no more. “When I am a man!” he cries, and that part of the river of life which flows between childhood and manhood,--his youth,--is spanned by a bridge of sighs over which he who crosses can not return. “WHEN I AM A MAN!” Alas! the bitter words are hardly spoken ere the boy is a man--and such a man! A man without memory of happy and tranquil youth--is he not a flower that has bloomed to a semblance of maturity, yet has never been pervaded by that subtle fragrance which only the warm, tender affection of budding youth imparts?

In my case the effect was very peculiar; I was made to feel not only the injustice of my punishment, but a profound sense of humiliation. My pride was wounded more than my physical body--and, God knows, that was wounded severely enough. Ah, thou hadst a heavy hand, oh father mine! Would that I had experienced more of resentment and less of mortification. The former would have been bad enough, but the latter made life a hell on earth for me. I was fragile, nervous, sensitive, and of a physique that ill bore abuse. Sensitive though my physical body was, I had a mental make-up that was even more so. How I brooded over that terrible whipping--the last my father ever gave me, for he died soon after. The world seemed so dark and gloomy to me. There was no rift in those sombre clouds that gave forth the bitter rain which tinctured my young life with gall and wormwood. There was no happiness anywhere.

My mother, angel that she was, and is,--if there be aught of justice or compassion in the hereafter,--tried to stem the torrent of grief that was overwhelming my young life, tried to dispel the poisonous miasm that had disseminated itself throughout every element of my moral and intellectual being, by such love and consolation as only a tender, sympathetic mother can give, but in vain. A constant, oppressive, deeply rooted melancholy took possession of me. I lost my animation and became as near a misanthrope as one of my years and limited experience could possibly be. And the shadow of that storm cloud of emotion has never been quite dissipated in the wearing of the passing years of life’s battle. Woe to him the memory of whose youth is enwrapped in a funereal pall and in whose mouth there remains the bitter taste of humiliation, of outraged pride and self-respect.

It was during the period immediately following the castigation I have mentioned, that the notion of self-destruction first crystallized in my mind. I do not remember just how I reasoned upon the matter; I recall clearly enough, however, that I was profoundly impressed with the idea that my woes were bearing me down to the depths of misery and despair. There rested upon me a dreadful incubus from which there seemed to be but one means of escape.

I had seen persons lying dead, and I remember that in my despairing, hopeless state of mind the thought of the peaceful, quiet expression upon their faces was positively fascinating to me. I found myself dwelling upon it with much interest, and a feeling akin to envy.

Well, as I have said, I do not remember precisely how I formulated my conclusions, but I finally resolved to make away with myself. Unfortunately, however, one of the traits with which I was endowed by nature, was a fear of physical suffering, and when the resolution to take my own life had been formed, I still had to deal with my physical cowardice.

It has been said that only cowards and lunatics commit suicide. There was never a greater lie than this. Lunatics may suicide--cowards, never. It requires true heroism to face an unknown hereafter--to fly from those ills we have to those we know not of. And the hapless one to whom life is a burden must have courage _par excellence_, to enable him to face that dread future which, if he be scripturally credulous, must needs be more fearful than the terrestrial unhappiness that he fain would escape. No, suicide requires bravery, and I was not brave--I had hardly gotten beyond that dread of darkness and solitude which is the bane of childish existence. What wonder that I dreaded to take so radical a road out of my slough of despond?

The physical penalty of self-destruction was the most important obstacle to be overcome if I would escape from my mental slavery. So great was my dread of it, that--well, I lived, and, more’s the pity, am still living, a miserable misanthrope, in whom the misery of the present is exceeded only by his dread of the unknown country, and his physical fears of the means necessary to take him hence.

* * * * *

I wonder if there are many who are entrusted with the care of youth, who ever think of their influence in moulding its future destinies. I have long since forgiven my father for his harshness--but the memory of my youthful sorrows can never be effaced. Does science recognize such a thing as a mental scar? It should. And mental scars, though unseen, are not only permanent, but ever painful. Death finally claimed my father through his one infirmity. He died of apoplexy, superinduced by one of his attacks of blind, unreasoning passion. I know not where he is, but I trust he is unconscious of the results of his mismanagement of his unfortunate son. I say I know not where he is, advisedly. My views of the hereafter--if I may call the chaotic ideas I have hitherto entertained, views--have undergone considerable modification of late. I am losing my egotism, and gradually coming to believe that death is but another name for oblivion. How prosaic it is, to be sure. By no means so satisfying to the ignorant, and those of the faith--which is sometimes another way of putting the same proposition--as that halo of glory for the good, or that blaze of everlasting fire for the wicked, which theology from time immemorial has prescribed for the dying. And if oblivion be the finality, what more could the All Father do for his tired children?

* * * * *

What would my life have been had I possessed a different temperament? Possibly if I had been born of other blood, and under more propitious skies, I would have seen the world through different eyes. There might have been more _coleur de rose_ and less of sombre tints and neutrals. To be born in the shadows--ah, me! The sun of morning has never gilded my mountain tops, nor even at mid-day penetrated the fog and gloom of the valleys of my soul. Golden sunsets and glorious afterglows are not for me. Twilight alone is, and ever has been mine. Perhaps if I could have loved--’Tis said that love illumines one’s soul. But I have never loved. There was once a woman, whom men called beautiful, but I do not remember much of her. She had a skin of blood and milk, golden hair, and pale blue eyes that never looked straight at you. Her voice, as I recall it, was sweet enough, but it did not ring true, and when she laughed--but why do I speak of her? She did not understand, and she is but a dream figure now.

Some one has said that ambition is the main-spring of life. I do not know, yet I have had ambition--of a certain kind. Mine has been to learn, to know, to acquire wisdom that should raise me out of the dead level of mediocrity. But Ambition is the twin sister of Discontent, and Discontent is the mother of Melancholy and Despair. Work as I might--and I have never been a drone--there has always been some one just ahead of me whose results were so much more commendable than my own that,--well, one might as well work on, even though he never accomplishes anything worth while. Certain it is that the world has been no better for anything I ever did. And still I work. I often wonder if the fellow ahead of me in life’s battle does not feel the same way;--there’s always another just ahead of him. There can be no satisfaction in work well done when another goal is looming up just beyond the one we have reached. I saw a herd of cattle the other day, lying beneath a spreading oak, placidly chewing their cuds, and as I looked at them I fancied they gazed at me somewhat pityingly. “Ah,” I thought, “here is contentment indeed.” I really envied them--until I noticed the flies that tormented their glossy hides. One might as well be tormented by ambitions as by flies and gnats. Possibly Nature is jealous of her children, and will permit none of them to experience the joy of mere living unannoyed.

* * * * *

A friend of mine once said to me, “How very odd, that you should have taken up the science of chemistry and made a recluse of yourself, delving and diving into secrets of nature which, as you have never made any practical use of them, might as well have remained mysteries.” Here was another who did not understand--another who, like all the rest of those who called themselves and whom I called my friends, could not sympathize with me in my devotion to study, because there were no flesh pots in sight to serve as a motive for the work. To such sordid ones I could not well lay bare the bitter humiliations with which my all too evident failure to attain practical results have afflicted me. I could not lay bare the secret aspirations that impelled me to seek for things which would have given me a place as a benefactor of my kind and enrolled me among the immortals. And suppose I had ever confessed that the mystery of ancient alchemy so impressed me that I must needs grasp at its only modern representative, chemistry--would not my friends have laughed at me?

* * * * *

What an atmosphere the chemical laboratory is for one of my temperament! What a fascination there is in the thought that the door of escape for the world weary,--which, as dear old Epictetus said, is always open,--is so near--so near that one must needs be careful lest he pass the portals ere he is ready. How many times have I wondered if what the text books say of arseniureted hydrogen, and of anhydrous hydrocyanic acid is really true. And how many times have I been tempted to--well, to put them to a test on a fellow worker. Not upon myself, for I am not yet ready, and I do not court death by accident. My own death must be philosophic when it comes, not sudden and devoid of impressions. Then, too, the slower things are more to my taste--morphine for example. When I am ready--when life becomes insupportable boredom, or an intolerable ache, I shall know just where and how to seek surcease of world tire. And what a record I will write of my impressions. How deliberate and scientific it will all be. And how sure I will make it. These amateurs, with their crude methods and cowardly shrinkings back from the brink--faugh! how I detest them. The idiots! what a mess some of them make of it, and how some of them suffer. As for the fools who do such bungling work that any cheap doctor called in a hurry can undo the thing--no words of mine can express my contempt for them. That doctor who swallowed six grains of morphine and then when the mist began to rise, sent for another fool of his own profession to succor him, was a coward and a bungler. But, I have said that a suicide is never a coward. Yes, and I meant it, too; that doctor was a pretender, and not born in the purple.

These love lorn servant girls and heart sick youths who drink to Death libations of carbolic acid are most amusing folk. They have courage, it is true, and doubtless mean well, but they lack the brains to be original and clever. They are faddists gone mad.

I have studied all of the methods of suicide in vogue and the more I see of them, the wiser I think I was in selecting chemistry as my life work. I have haunted the morgue; I have followed to that horrid, dripping, smelly slab, every case of suicide that has happened in this city. And such sights as I have seen! Bloated, festering masses of flesh that required great imagination to fashion into human semblance, fresh dragged from summer waters; distorted, blackened faces on agony twisted forms freshly cut down from self-made gibbets; heads blown open, brain-bespattered and powder-marked by the pistol; limbs crushed and torn into disgusting masses and shreds of ghastly flesh, the bones staring through in besplintered protest against the savagery of men who seek rest beneath the crunching wheels of locomotives; sickening, fresh made gashes in throats that were once fair to look upon--all these have I seen and marveled at.

Only yesterday I saw lying upon that familiar slab, an old, old man--found dead in bed with his throat cut from ear to ear, a letter in his hand saying only this: “I am tired, so tired.” “What a pity it is,” I thought, as I looked at the fearful gash through which swollen tongue and severed larynx protruded, at the blood bathed clod which perchance had once been loved, “that this man should have lived so long without learning a way.”

Then there was that dead man I saw taken from the river the other day. His friends knew of his business troubles and feared he had suicided. They sought for him for days and days, poor fools. They found him at last, and he went the way of all the others--to that vile slab. I was there when his sweetheart came to see his remains. They tried to keep her out, but she entered the room in spite of them. I was not surprised at what happened. The transition from her ideal, the lover of her memory, to that slimy, oozy, bloated thing with the maggots swarming from its nose and eyes and ears, was enough to shock a stronger heart than hers. She died in a mad house, screaming against the maggots that she fancied were devouring her.