"You are sure you don't remember walking in the garden before you were ill?" he said. "Come, think again. You must remember that." The old man's eyes wandered restlessly around the room, but he answered by a negative shake of his head. "And you don't remember sitting down on a stone by the road?"
The old man kept his eyes resolutely11 fixed12 on the bedclothes before him. "No!" he said, with a certain sharp decision that was new to him.
The doctor's eye brightened. "All right, old man; then don't."
On his way out he took the eldest13 Miss Slinn aside. "He'll do," he said, grimly: "he's beginning to lie."
"Why, he only said he didn't remember," responded Esther.
"That was because he didn't want to remember," said the doctor, authoritatively14. "The brain is acting15 on some impression that is either painful and unpleasant, or so vague that he can't formulate16 it; he is conscious of it, and won't attempt it yet. It's a heap better than his old self-satisfied incoherency."
A few days later, when the fact of Slinn's identification with the paralytic17 of three years ago by the stage-driver became generally known, the doctor came in quite jubilant.
"It's all plain now," he said, decidedly. "That second stroke was caused by the nervous shock of his coming suddenly upon the very spot where he had the first one. It proved that his brain still retained old impressions, but as this first act of his memory was a painful one, the strain was too great. It was mighty18 unlucky; but it was a good sign."
"And you think, then—" hesitated Harry19 Slinn.
"I think," said Dr. Duchesne, "that this activity still exists, and the proof of it, as I said before, is that he is trying now to forget it, and avoid thinking of it. You will find that he will fight shy of any allusion20 to it, and will be cunning enough to dodge21 it every time."
He certainly did. Whether the doctor's hypothesis was fairly based or not, it was a fact that, when he was first taken out to drive with his watchful22 physician, he apparently took no notice of the boulder—which still remained on the roadside, thanks to the later practical explanation of the stage-driver's vision—and curtly23 refused to talk about it. But, more significant to Duchesne, and perhaps more perplexing, was a certain morose24 abstraction, which took the place of his former vacuity25 of contentment, and an intolerance of his attendants, which supplanted26 his old habitual27 trustfulness to their care, that had been varied28 only by the occasional querulousness of an invalid. His daughters sometimes found him regarding them with an attention little short of suspicion, and even his son detected a half-suppressed aversion in his interviews with him.
Referring this among themselves to his unfortunate malady29, his children, perhaps, justified30 this estrangement31 by paying very little attention to it. They were more pleasantly occupied. The two girls succeeded to the position held by Mamie Mulrady in the society of the neighborhood, and divided the attentions of Rough-and-Ready. The young editor of the "Record" had really achieved, through his supposed intimacy32 with the Mulradys, the good fortune he had jestingly prophesied33. The disappearance34 of Don Caesar was regarded as a virtual abandonment of the field to his rival: and the general opinion was that he was engaged to the millionaire's daughter on a certain probation35 of work and influence in his prospective37 father-in-law's interests. He became successful in one or two speculations38, the magic of the lucky Mulrady's name befriending him. In the superstition39 of the mining community, much of this luck was due to his having secured the old cabin.
"To think," remarked one of the augurs40 of Red Dog, French Pete, a polyglot41 jester, "that while every fool went to taking up claims where the gold had already been found no one thought of stepping into the old man's old choux in the cabbage-garden!" Any doubt, however, of the alliance of the families was dissipated by the intimacy that sprang up between the elder Slinn and the millionaire, after the latter's return from San Francisco.
It began in a strange kind of pity for the physical weakness of the man, which enlisted42 the sympathies of Mulrady, whose great strength had never been deteriorated43 by the luxuries of wealth, and who was still able to set his workmen an example of hard labor44; it was sustained by a singular and superstitious45 reverence46 for his mental condition, which, to the paternal47 Mulrady, seemed to possess that spiritual quality with which popular ignorance invests demented people.
"Then you mean to say that during these three years the vein48 o' your mind, so to speak, was a lost lead, and sorter dropped out o' sight or follerin'?" queried49 Mulrady, with infinite seriousness.
"Yes," returned Slinn, with less impatience50 than he usually showed to questions.
"And durin' that time, when you was dried up and waitin' for rain, I reckon you kinder had visions?"
A cloud passed over Slinn's face.
"Of course, of course!" said Mulrady, a little frightened at his tenacity51 in questioning the oracle52. "Nat'rally, this was private, and not to be talked about. I meant, you had plenty of room for 'em without crowdin'; you kin6 tell me some day when you're better, and kin sorter select what's points and what ain't."
"Perhaps I may some day," said the invalid, gloomily, glancing in the direction of his preoccupied53 daughters; "when we're alone."
When his physical strength had improved, and his left arm and side had regained54 a feeble but slowly gathering55 vitality56, Alvin Mulrady one day surprised the family by bringing the convalescent a pile of letters and accounts, and spreading them on a board before Slinn's invalid chair, with the suggestion that he should look over, arrange, and docket them. The idea seemed preposterous57, until it was found that the old man was actually able to perform this service, and exhibited a degree of intellectual activity and capacity for this kind of work that was unsuspected. Dr. Duchesne was delighted, and divided with admiration58 between his patient's progress and the millionaire's sagacity. "And there are envious59 people," said the enthusiastic doctor, "who believe that a man like him, who could conceive of such a plan for occupying a weak intellect without taxing its memory or judgment60, is merely a lucky fool! Look here. May be it didn't require much brains to stumble on a gold mine, and it is a gift of Providence62. But, in my experience, Providence don't go round buyin' up d—d fools, or investin' in dead beats."
When Mr. Slinn, finally, with the aid of crutches63, was able to hobble every day to the imposing64 counting-house and the office of Mr. Mulrady, which now occupied the lower part of the new house, and contained some of its gorgeous furniture, he was installed at a rosewood desk behind Mr. Mulrady's chair, as his confidential65 clerk and private secretary. The astonishment66 of Red Dog and Rough-and-Ready at this singular innovation knew no bounds; but the boldness and novelty of the idea carried everything before it. Judge Butts67, the oracle of Rough-and-Ready, delivered its decision: "He's got a man who's physically68 incapable69 of running off with his money, and has no memory to run off with his ideas. How could he do better?" Even his own son, Harry, coming upon his father thus installed, was for a moment struck with a certain filial respect, and for a day or two patronized him.
In this capacity Slinn became the confidant not only of Mulrady's business secrets, but of his domestic affairs. He knew that young Mulrady, from a freckle-faced slow country boy, had developed into a freckle-faced fast city man, with coarse habits of drink and gambling70. It was through the old man's hands that extravagant71 bills and shameful72 claims passed on their way to be cashed by Mulrady; it was he that at last laid before the father one day his signature perfectly forged by the son.
"Your eyes are not ez good ez mine, you know, Slinn," said Mulrady, gravely. "It's all right. I sometimes make my Y's like that. I'd clean forgot to cash that check. You must not think you've got the monopoly of disremembering," he added, with a faint laugh.
Equally through Slinn's hands passed the record of the lavish73 expenditure74 of Mrs. Mulrady and the fair Mamie, as well as the chronicle of their movements and fashionable triumphs. As Mulrady had already noticed that Slinn had no confidence with his own family, he did not try to withhold75 from them these domestic details, possibly as an offset76 to the dreary77 catalogue of his son's misdeeds, but more often in the hope of gaining from the taciturn old man some comment that might satisfy his innocent vanity as father and husband, and perhaps dissipate some doubts that were haunting him.
"Twelve hundred dollars looks to be a good figger for a dress, ain't it? But Malviny knows, I reckon, what ought to be worn at the Tooilleries, and she don't want our Mamie to take a back seat before them furrin' princesses and gran' dukes. It's a slap-up affair, I kalkilate. Let's see. I disremember whether it's an emperor or a king that's rulin' over thar now. It must be suthin' first class and A1, for Malviny ain't the woman to throw away twelve hundred dollars on any of them small-potato despots! She says Mamie speaks French already like them French Petes. I don't quite make out what she means here. She met Don Caesar in Paris, and she says, 'I think Mamie is nearly off with Don Caesar, who has followed her here. I don't care about her dropping him TOO suddenly; the reason I'll tell you hereafter. I think the man might be a dangerous enemy.' Now, what do you make of this? I allus thought Mamie rather cottoned to him, and it was the old woman who fought shy, thinkin' Mamie would do better. Now, I am agreeable that my
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