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"I pulled de stunt," said the Flopper in a croaking voice, "but de kid Doc did youse see de kid? I got de shakes it's like de whole of hell an' de other place was loose, an' Helena's gone batty, an' pipe her, dere she is." Into the room came Helena, her face like chalk all color gone from even her lips. She clutched at the window beside the Flopper for support. "I'm frightened," she whispered.
Not that they were denied a sight of the Patriarch's venerable and saintly form they were permitted to catch glimpses of him on the beach, on the lawn, walking with bowed head in meditation, a figure whose simple majesty inspired words and columns of glowing tribute but from personal contact, Helena and the Flopper, always in attendance, warded them off; retreating always to the privacy of the cottage, to the inner rooms.
I've an idea that if the Patriarch's got all this inside his gray matter, it's just as well for the Flopper, for Pale Face Harry, for Helena and yours truly that he's deaf and dumb and will be blind." Madison came back to the Patriarch with beaming face, and picked up the slate. "I read a great deal myself," he wrote. "It is a pleasure to find real books here.
I saw a piece about dis Patriarch in one of de Noo Yoik papers, so I writes to de postmaster of de town to find out if he was on de level see?" "Yes," said Mrs. Thornton. "And what did the postmaster say?" The Flopper took Hiram Higgins' letter from his pocket and handed it to Mrs. Thornton.
Still nearer to the Patriarch drew the Flopper. More heart-rending was his every movement, for with his quickened pace he sought to move without the aid of the only member that was as other men's, his left hand and arm that, in pleading, yearning supplication, was stretched out before him to the Patriarch.
The passengers, flocking from the other cars, filled the aisle and seriously interfered with the lordly movements of the train crew, challenging the conductor's authority with passive indifference until that functionary, exasperated beyond endurance, threatened to curtail the ride the Flopper had paid for and put him off at the next station whereat the passive attitude of the passengers vanished.
He looked first at the money, then at the Flopper and a tinge of red dyed his cheek. He coughed before he spoke. "Y'ain't going to stall on me, Flopper, are you?" he demanded, in an ominous monotone. "Stall!" the word came away in a roar too genuine to leave any doubt of the Flopper's sincerity, or the turbulent state of the Flopper's soul.
Onward they went following the lurching, wriggling, reeling, broken thing before them following the Flopper, his right hand and arm curved piteously inward to his chin, his neck thrown sideways, his sagging leg seeming to hold only to his body by spasmodic jerks to catch up with the body itself, like the steel when detached from the magnet that bounds forward to re-attach itself again, his eyes starting from his head, his face bloodless with exertion and twisted as fearfully as were his limbs, but upon his lips a smile of resolution, of indomitable assurance.
"I can shut my eyes," said Madison softly, "and see the Flopper being cured right now and the Flopper couldn't help it if he wanted to!" It was Hiram Higgins who introduced Helena Vail to Madison, two days later. Madison had led the Patriarch outside the door of the cottage as the sound of wheels announced the expected arrival, and was waiting for her as Mr. Higgins drove up in the democrat.
Madison broke in a little sharply; then, tactfully, his voice full of unbounded admiration: "You're an artist, Flopper a wonder. You pulled the greatest act that was ever on the boards, and you pulled it as no other man on earth could have pulled it. Flopper, you make me feel humble when I look at you." "Swipe me!" said the Flopper, brightening. "D'ye mean it, Doc honest?"
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