Part 4

“For falsifying its vital statistics. Your low mortality figures are a joke. Worthington has been more jeered at, criticized, and roasted by various medical conventions than any other city in the United States.”

“Why, I’ve never seen anything of that sort in the papers.”

Dr. Strong laughed. “Your newspapers print what you want to read; not what you don’t want to read. They follow the old adage, ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you.’ It’s a poor principle in matters of hygiene.”

“So one might suppose,” returned the host dryly. “Still you can scarcely expect a newspaper to run down its own city. I’ve known business to suffer for a year from sensational reports of an epidemic.”

The other grunted. “If a pest of poisonous spiders suddenly bred and spread in Worthington, the newspapers would be full of it, and everybody would commend the printing of the facts as a necessary warning and safeguard. But when a pest of poisonous germs breeds and spreads, Business sets its finger to its lips and says, ‘Hush!’ and the newspapers obey. You’re a business man, I assume, Mr. Clyde? Frankly, I haven’t very much sympathy with the business point of view.”

He rose and pushed his chair back.

“Wait a moment,” said the other. “Sit down. I have something that may be of importance to suggest to you. It occurs to me that Worthington would be the better for having a man with your ideas as a citizen. Now, supposing the Public Health League should offer you—”

“I am not at present in medical practice,” broke in the other.

“Even at that, I was thinking that you would be of use as an advisory physician and scientific lookout.”

For a moment, the other’s face brightened, an indication which Mr. Clyde was quick to note. But instantly the expression of eagerness died out.

“Ten hours a day?” said Dr. Strong. “It couldn’t be done properly in less time. And I’m a mere nervous wreck, bound for the scrap-heap.”

“Would you mind,” said Mr. Clyde very gently, “telling me what’s wrong? I’m not asking without a purpose.”

Dr. Strong held out his long arms before him. “I’m a surgeon without a right hand, and a bacteriologist without a left.” The sinewy and pale hands shook a little. “Neuritis,” he continued. “One of the diseases of which we doctors have the most fear and the least knowledge.”

“And with the loss of your occupation, general nervous collapse?” asked Mr. Clyde. Being himself a worker who put his heart into his work, he could guess the sterile hopelessness of spirit of the man banned from a chosen activity.

Dr. Strong nodded. “I may still be fit for the lecture platform as a dispenser of other men’s knowledge. Or perhaps I’ll end up as medical watchdog to some rich man who can afford that kind of pet. Pleasing prospect, isn’t it, for a man who once thought himself of use in the world?”

“Good idea,” said Mr. Clyde quietly. “Will you try the position with my family?”

The other stared in silence at his questioner.

“Just consider my situation for a moment. As you know, I’m a layman, interested in, but rather ignorant of, medical subjects. As wealth goes in a city of one hundred and fifty thousand population, I’m a rich man. At any rate, I can afford a considerable outlay to guard against sickness. In the last five years I suppose disease has cost my household ten thousand dollars in money, and has cost me, in worry and consequent incapacity for work, ten times that amount. Even at a large salary you would doubtless prove an economy. Come, what do you say?”

“You know absolutely nothing of me,” suggested the other.

“I know that you are a man of quick and correct judgment, for I saw you in action.” The other smiled. “You are, for reasons which are your own, not very expansive, as to your past professional career. I’m content with that attitude of yours, and I’m quite satisfied to base my offer on what I have been able to judge from your manner and talk. Without boasting, I may say that I have built up a great manufacturing plant largely on my judgment of men. I think I need you in my business of raising a family.”

“How much of a family?”

“Five children, their mother and their grandmother. I may warn you at once that you’ll have a jealous rival in Grandma. She’s the household guardian, and pretty ‘sot’ in her ideas. But the principal thing is for you to judge me as I’ve judged you, and determine whether we could work out the plan together.”

Dr. Strong set his chin in one thin, cupped hand and gazed consideringly upon the profferer of this strange suggestion. He saw a strong-built, clear-skinned man, whose physical aspect did not suggest the forty-five years to which he had owned. Mr. Clyde recommended himself at first sight by a smooth-voiced ease of manner, and that unostentatious but careful fitness of apparel which is, despite wise apothegms to the contrary, so often an index of character. Under the easy charm of address, there was unobtrusively evident a quick intelligence, a stalwart self-respect, and a powerful will.

Yet, the doctor noted, this man had been both ready and fair in yielding his judgment, under the suggestion of a new point of view. Evidently he could take orders as well as give them.

“Well,” said Mr. Clyde, “have you appraised me?”

The weary eyes of the other twinkled a little. “Physically you disclose some matters plainly enough, if one wishes to show off in the Sherlock Holmes manner. For instance, you’ve recently been in the tropics; your eyesight is better than your hearing, you drink lightly if at all, and don’t use tobacco in any form; you’ve taken up athletics—handball principally—in recent years, as the result of a bad scare you got from a threatened paralytic attack; and your only serious illness since then has been typhoid fever.”

Mr. Clyde laughed outright. “If you had started our acquaintance that way,” he said, “I’d have thought you a fortune-teller. Part of it I can follow. You noticed that I kept my left ear turned, of course; and the fact that my nose shows no eyeglass marks would vouch for my eyesight. Did you judge me a non-smoker because I forgot to offer you a cigar—which deficiency I’ll gladly make up now, if it isn’t too late.”

“Partly that—no, thank you. I’m not allowed to smoke—but principally because I noticed you disliked the odor of my hot milk. It is offensive, but so faint that no man without a very keen sense of smell would perceive it across a table; no tobacco-user preserves his sense of smell to any such degree of delicacy. As for the drink, I judged that from your eyes and general fitness.”