Part 81 (1/2)

”All right,” said the second.

A boy pulled Allbright by the sleeve. ”Say, I'll go for the doc,” he cried, eagerly. He was enjoying the situation keenly.

”Well,” replied Allbright, ”be quick about it. Tell him there's a man badly hurt at my house.”

The boy sped like a rocket, and three more with him. They all yelled as they ran. They were street gamins of the better cla.s.s, and were both sympathetic and entertained. They lived in a tenement-house near Allbright, and knew him quite well by sight.

Meantime the two policemen carried Carroll the short distance to William Allbright's house. He was quite unconscious, and it was an undertaking of considerable difficulty to carry him up the stairs, since the Allbrights lived in the second story.

The clerk in the department store, and his mother, who lived on the first floor, came to their door in undress and offered their hospitality, but Mr. Allbright declined their aid.

”No,” he said. ”I know him. It is Mr. Carroll. He had better be taken up to my rooms.”

When at last they laid the unconscious man on Allbright's bed, which his sister, pale, and yet with a collectedness under such surprising circ.u.mstances which spoke well for her, had opened, the policeman who was not an athlete, and was, in fact, too stout, wiped his forehead and said, ”Gee.”

The other remained looking at the injured man soberly.

”Guess he's hurted pretty bad,” he remarked again.

”You bet,” said the first. ”Gee!”

Allbright's sister came with the camphor-bottle, which she kept in a sort of folk-lore fas.h.i.+on, as her mother had used to do in the country. Allbright brought the whiskey, of which he kept a small supply in the house in case of dire need, and stood over Carroll with that and a teaspoon, with a vague idea of trying to insinuate a few drops into his mouth.

The two policemen clamped heavily down-stairs, agreeing that they would remain until the doctor came, and see if it was to be the hospital after all.

”Guess he's hurted pretty bad,” remarked the handsome policeman for the third time.

The doctor came quickly, almost on a run. He lived within a block, and had not a large practice. He was attended by a large throng of boys, for the three had served as a nucleus for many more. He turned around to them with an imperative gesture as he entered the house door.

”Now you scatter,” said he. He was a fair man, but he had at once an appeal of good-fellows.h.i.+p and a certain force of character. Besides, there were the two policemen hovering near. The boys withdrew and remained watching in the dark shadows cast by an opposite house. In case the injured man was carried to the hospital, and the ambulance should come, they could not afford to miss that. They had not so many pleasures in life.

The doctor mounted the stairs; he had been there before, for Allbright's sister was more or less of an invalid, and he at once abetted Allbright's purpose of the few drops of stimulant on the teaspoon, which the patient swallowed with a pathetic, gulping pa.s.siveness like a baby's.

”He swallows all right,” remarked Allbright's sister, in an agitated voice. She stood aloof, waving the camphor-bottle; her eyes were dilated, and her face had a pale, gaping look.

”You go out in the other room and stay there,” said the doctor to her, with the authority which a hysterical woman defers to and adores.

Allbright's sister was a very good woman, but she had sometimes imagined, then directly driven the imagination from her with a spiritual scourge like a monk of old, what might have happened if the doctor were not already married.

Carroll's forehead was dripping with camphor, and there was danger should he open his eyes. The doctor wiped the pale forehead gently and spoke to him.

”Well, you had quite a hard fall, sir,” he said, in a loud, cheerful voice, and directly Carroll answered, like a somnambulist:

”Yes, quite a fall.”

Then he seemed to lapse again into unconsciousness. The doctor and Allbright remained working over him, but it was within fifteen minutes before the time when the last train for Banbridge was due to leave New York that he made the first absolutely conscious motion.

”He is feeling for his watch,” said Allbright, in an agitated whisper. His wits were sharpened with regard to Carroll's watch.

Carroll's coat and vest had been removed, and were hanging over a chair. Allbright at once got the dollar watch from its pocket and carried it over to the sick man. ”Here is your watch, Mr. Carroll,”