Part 28

“Decidedly,” confirmed the doctor. “She spent on patent medicines about forty dollars. The cancer quack would have got at least a hundred dollars out of her, not counting her railroad fare. Two hundred dollars would be a fair estimate of her little health-excursion among the quacks. Any good physician would have sent her to an oculist, who would have fitted proper glasses and saved all that expense and drugging. The entire bill for doctor, oculist, and glasses might have been twenty-five dollars. Yet they defend patent medicines on the ground that they’re the ‘poor man’s doctor.”

Mr. Gormley rose. “Poor man’s undertaker, rather,” he amended. “Well, having sufficiently blackguarded my own business, I think I’ll go. Here’s the whole thing summed up, as I see it. It pays to go to the doctor first and the druggist afterward; not to the druggist first and the doctor afterward.”

Dr. Strong walked over to the gate with him. On his return Mrs. Clyde remarked:

“What an interesting, thoughtful man. Are most druggists like that?”

“They’re not all philosophers of the trade, like Gormley,” said Dr. Strong, “but they have to be pretty intelligent before they can pass the Pharmaceutical Board in this state, and put out their colored lights.”

“I’ve often meant to ask what the green and red lights in front of a drug-store stand for,” said Mrs. Clyde. “What is their derivation?”

“Green is the official color of medical science,” explained the doctor. “The green flag, you know, indicates the hospital corps in war-time; and the degree of M.D. is signalized by a green hood in academic functions.”

“And the red globe on the other side of the store: what does that mean?”

“Danger,” replied Dr. Strong grimly.

V. THE MAGIC LENS

“No good fairy had ever bestowed such a gift as this magic lens,” said Dr. Strong, whisking Bettina up from her seat by the window and setting her on his knee. “It was most marvelously and delicately made, and furnished with a lightning-quick intelligence of its own. Everything that went on around it, it reported to its fortunate possessor as swiftly as thought flies through that lively little brain of yours. It earned its owner’s livelihood for him; it gave him three fourths of his enjoyments and amusements; it laid before him the wonderful things done and being done all over the world; it guided all his life. And all that it required was a little reasonable care, and such consideration as a man would show to the horse that worked for him.”

“At the beginning you said it wasn’t a fairytale,” accused Bettina, with the gravity which five years considers befitting such an occasion.

“Wait. Because the owner of the magic lens found that it obeyed all his orders so readily and faithfully, he began to impose on it. He made it work very hard when it was tired. He set tasks for it to perform under very difficult conditions. At times when it should have been resting, he compelled it to minister to his amusements. When it complained, he made light of its trouble.”

“Could it speak?” inquired the little auditor.

“At least it had a way of making known its wants. In everything which concerned itself it was keenly intelligent, and knew what was good and bad for it, as well as what was good and bad for its owner.”

“Couldn’t it stop working for him if he was so bad to it?”

“Only as an extreme measure. But presently, in this case, it threatened to stop. So the owner took it to a cheap and poor repair-shop, where the repairer put a little oil in it to make it go on working. For a time it went on. Then, one morning, the owner woke up and cried out with a terrible fear. For the magic light in the magic lens was gone. So for that foolish man there was no work to do nor play to enjoy. The world was blotted out for him. He could not know what was going on about him, except by hearsay. No more was the sky blue for him, or the trees green, or the flowers bright; and the faces of his friends meant nothing. He had thrown away the most beautiful and wonderful of all gifts. Because it is a gift bestowed on nearly all of us, most of us forgot the wonder and the beauty of it. So, Honorable Miss Twinkles, do you beware how you treat the magic lens which is given to you.”

“To me?” cried the child; and then, with a little squeal of comprehension: “Oh, I know! My eyes. That’s the magic lens. Isn’t it?”

“What’s that about Bettykin’s eyes?” asked Mr. Clyde, who had come in quietly, and had heard the finish of the allegory.

“I’ve been examining them,” explained Dr. Strong, “and the story was reward of merit for her going through with it like a little soldier.”

“Examining her eyes? Any particular reason?” asked the father anxiously.

“Very particular. Mrs. Clyde wishes to send her to kindergarten for a year before she enters the public school. No child ought to begin school without a thorough test of vision.”

“What did the test show in Bettykin’s case?”

“Nothing except the defects of heredity.”

“Heredity? My sight is pretty good; and Mrs. Clyde’s is still better.”

“You two are not the Cherub’s only ancestors, however,” smiled the physician. “And you can hardly expect one or two generations to recast as delicate a bit of mechanism as the eye, which has been built up through millions of years of slow development. However, despite the natural deficiencies, there’s no reason in Betty why she shouldn’t start in at kindergarten next term, provided there isn’t any in the kindergarten itself.”

Mr. Clyde studied the non-committal face of his “Chinese physician,” as he was given to calling Dr. Strong since the latter had undertaken to safeguard the health of his household on the Oriental basis of being paid to keep the family well and sound. “Something is wrong with the school,” he decided.

“Read what it says of itself in that first paragraph,” replied Dr. Strong, handing him a rather pretentious little booklet.