The great surgeon lolled back in his chair, and, raising a glass of champagne in those delicately formed, yet steel-strong fingers that had resolved the intricacies of life and death for many a sufferer, he gazed thoughtfully at the whirling torrent of tiny bubbles and then touched it lightly to his lips. It was one of those rare times when the wheel of Fate had brought together a group of men united by the strongest bond that friendship can tie, the bond of the college life and love of auld lang syne. It was heart to heart here, even as it had been with us a quarter century before, ere we had parted to go our several ways in the broad fields of life.
Of us all, Harrington had become the one pre-eminently famous, and his remark came in reply to a bit of the congratulatory flattery that only the intimacy of the college chum dare venture with impunity.
“What do you mean, Harrington?” asked Dalbey, the banker. “Perplexities of diagnosis, the nervous strain of responsibility, and the like?”
“I think I can say without conceit,” replied the surgeon, “that diagnosis has become with me almost p. 194an intuition. In that field I have absolute confidence in myself. As for nerves, I haven’t any. I can cut within the fiftieth of an inch of certain death as coolly as you pare your nail. No; I mean deliberate wickedness, malice, blackmail. We are never free from this danger. Let me give you an instance, if it won’t bore you.”
There was a chorus of calls, “Go on, go on,” and Jenkins cried, “Never heard it!” for which he was promptly squelched.
It was just two years ago (Harrington began), and my five gray hairs date from that night. I was sitting in my office just after my evening office hour had ended, and I was pretty well tired out. The bell rang furiously, and I heard the attendant saying that my hour was over and that I could see no one. There was some very vigorous insistence, and I caught the words “urgent,” “imperative,” and a few more equally significant, so I called to the man that I would see the belated visitor. He entered quickly. He was evidently a man of wealth and breeding, and as evidently laboring under great excitement.
“Is this Dr. Harrington?” he asked as he seated himself close by my desk.
“It is,” I answered.
“Dr. James Y. Harrington?”
“Yes.”
In the next second I found myself looking into the muzzle of a revolver. They say that when a man is in imminent danger, the mental strain is relieved automatically by trivialities of thought; and, do you know, the first thing that flamed p. 195through my head was, “How many turns does the rifling take in a barrel of that length?”
“I have come to kill you,” said my visitor in a tone as cold as camphor ice, yet with a dignified courtesy I could not but admire. Was I face to face with a crank? This question I decided in the negative, and the situation became so much the more—piquant, shall I say? Well, I can say it now, at least. Perspective adds piquancy, very often.
“Sir,” I said as quietly-as most men could when a very earnest gentleman has the drop on them, “sir, there is certainly some mistake here.”
It may have been an inane remark; but at least he didn’t pull the trigger, and that gained time.
“There is none, I am equally certain,” he replied.
“You have me at a decided disadvantage,” I continued, “and as any movement of attack or alarm on my part would precipitate fatalities, may I request that before you kill me, you at least tell me why you propose to do so. I make this request because, as a physician, I can see that you are perfectly sane and not the crank I at first thought you.”
I was regaining my nerve, you see; if there is one thing in this world to give a man nerve and coolness, it’s to put it right up to him to avoid the next one. At any rate, the fairness of my request must have appealed to my visitor, for he said, “Certainly I will tell you, doctor. That is only just. I kill you because you performed a critical operation on my wife, and she is dying.”
“This is all a fearful error,” I exclaimed eagerly. “I do not even know you, have never seen you p. 196nor your wife, much less operated upon her. Surgeons of my standing in the profession—I say this advisedly, sir—usually know whom they treat.”
“Usually they do, I grant you,” he assented, but he emphasized the wrong word quite unpleasantly. “This has been an exception,” he added.
“Why do you believe it was I who operated?” I urged.
“My wife said so; that is sufficient for me.”
“She must surely have made the charge in delirium,” I said.
“She is not delirious, nor has she been.”
“Where was the operation performed?”
“She refuses to tell me.”
I thought very bard for a minute. What kind of a predicament was this? I then said to him, “This is a serious and vital matter, sir, for both of us. Any mistake could not fail to have momentous consequences. Suppose you take me to confront your wife. It is probably a case of mistaken identity, and when she sees me, she will most certainly be able readily to rectify this awful blunder. And so sure am I of the result that I pledge you my word to accompany you without violence or outcry.”
After a moment’s reflection he said, “I accept your proposition.”
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