Be a sport, Cooly."
"Very well," replied the other man, suppressing his irritation. He was
almost, but not quite, wishing he had not yielded to the unexplainable
impulse which had brought him here to see a man who, as he should have
known from past experience in college days, was as sure to be eccentric
in his methods of practising his profession as he had been in the
conduct of his life as a student.
The two went out into the winter night together, Coolidge remarking that
the call must be a brief one, for his train would leave in a little more
than an hour.
"It'll be brief," Burns promised. "It's practically a friendly call
only, for there's nothing more I can do for the patient--except to see
him on his way."
Coolidge looked more than ever reluctant. "I hope he's not just leaving
the world?"
"What if he were--would that frighten you? Don't be worried; he'll not
go to-night."
Something in Burns's tone closed his companion's lips. Coolidge resented
it, and at the same time he felt constrained to let the other have his
way. And after all there proved to be nothing in the sight he presently
found himself witnessing to shock the most delicate sensibilities.
It was a little house to which Burns conducted his friend and latest
patient; it was a low-ceiled, homely room, warm with lamplight and
comfortable with the accumulations of a lifetime carefully preserved. In
the worn, old, red-cushioned armchair by a glowing stove sat an aged
figure of a certain dignity and attractiveness in spite of the lines and
hues plainly showing serious illness.
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