He liked the Captain, who had taken him out fishing several times on his previous excursions to East Harniss, and he remembered Dusenberry as a happy little sea urchin, but he simply couldn't interrupt his pleasure trip to visit a sick baby. Besides, the child was Dr. Parker's patient, and professional ethics forbade interference.
"Captain Hiram," he said, "I am sorry to disappoint you, but it will be impossible for me to do what you ask. Mr. Williams expected me this morning, and I am late already. Dr. Parker will, no doubt, return soon. The baby cannot be dangerously ill or he would not have left him."
The Captain slowly turned away.
"Thank you, Doctor," he said huskily. "I knew I hadn't no right to ask."
He walked across the platform, abstractedly striking his right hand into his left. When he reached the ticket window he put one hand against the frame as if to steady himself, and stood there listlessly.
The enterprising Mr. Blount had been hanging about the Doctor like a cat about the cream pitcher; now he rushed up, grasped the suit case, and officiously led the way toward the depot wagon. Dr.
Morgan followed more slowly. As he passed the Captain he glanced up into the latter's face, lighted, as it was, by the lamp inside the window.
The Doctor stopped and looked again. Then he took another step forward, hesitated, turned on his heel, and said:
"Wait a moment, Blount. Captain Hiram, do you live far from here?"
The Captain started. "No, sir, only a little ways."
"All right. I'll go down and look at this boy of yours. Mind you, I'll not take the case, simply give my opinion on it, that's all.
Blount, take my grip to Mr. Williams's. I'm going to walk down with the Captain."
"Haul on ee bowline, ee bowline, haul!" muttered the first mate, as they came into the room. The lamp that Sophronia was holding shook, and the Captain hurriedly brushed his eyes with the back of his hand.
Dr. Morgan started perceptibly as he bent forward to look at the little fevered face of Dusenberry. Graver and graver he became as he felt the pulse and peered into the swollen throat. At length he rose and led the way back into the sitting room.
"Captain Baker," he said simply, "I must ask you and your wife to be brave. The child has diphtheria and--"
"Diphthery!" gasped Sophronia, as white as her best tablecloth.
"Good Lord above!" cried the Captain.
"Diphtheria," repeated the Doctor; "and, although I dislike extremely to criticize a member of my own profession, I must say that any physician should have recognized it."
Sophronia groaned and covered her face with her apron.
"Ain't there--ain't there no chance, Doctor?" gasped the Captain.
"Certainly, there's a chance. If I could administer antitoxin by to-morrow noon the patient might recover. What time does the morning train from Boston arrive here?"
"Ha'f-past ten or thereabouts."
Dr. Morgan took his notebook from his pocket and wrote a few lines in pencil on one of the pages. Then he tore out the leaf and handed it to the Captain.
"Send that telegram immediately to my assistant in Boston," he said. "It directs him to send the antitoxin by the early train.
If nothing interferes it should be here in time."
Captain Hiram took the slip of paper and ran out at the door bareheaded.
Dr. Morgan stood in the middle of the floor absent-mindedly looking at his watch. Sophronia was gazing at him appealingly. At length he put his watch in his pocket and said quietly:
"Mrs. Baker, I must ask you to give me a room. I will take the case." Then he added mentally: "And that settles my vacation."
Dr. Morgan's assistant was a young man whom nature had supplied with a prematurely bald head, a flourishing beard, and a way of appearing ten years older than he really was. To these gifts, priceless to a young medical man, might be added boundless ambition and considerable common sense.
The yellow envelope which contained the few lines meaning life or death to little Hiram Joash Baker was delivered at Dr. Morgan's Back Bay office at ten minutes past ten. Dr. Payson--that was the assistant's name--was out, but Jackson, the colored butler, took the telegram into his employer's office, laid it on the desk among the papers, and returned to the hall to finish his nap in the armchair. When Dr. Payson came in, at 11:30, the sleepy Jackson forgot to mention the dispatch.
The next morning as Jackson was cleaning the professional boots in the kitchen and chatting with the cook, the thought of the yellow envelope came back to his brain. He went up the stairs with such precipitation that the cook screamed, thinking he had a fit.
"Doctah! Doctah!" he exclaimed, opening the door of the assistant's chamber, "did you git dat telegraft I lef' on your desk las' night?"
"What telegraph?" asked the assistant sleepily. By way of answer Jackson hurried out and returned with the yellow envelope. The assistant opened it and read as follows:
Send 1,500 units Diphtheritic Serum to me by morning train. Don't fail. Utmost importance.
J. S. MORGAN.
Dr. Payson sprang out of bed, and running to the table took up the Railway Guide, turned to the pages devoted to the O. C. and C. C.
