John Marvel, Assistant Part 27

He refused to be satisfied with my explanation and insisted strongly on my getting off and going with him to see a doctor. I laughed at the idea.

"Why, I haven't any money to pay a doctor," I said.

"It won't cost you a cent. He is a friend of mine and as good a surgeon as any in the city. He's straight--knows his business. You come along."

So, finding that my sleeve was quite soaked with blood, I yielded and went with him to the office of his friend, a young doctor named Traumer, who lived in a part of the town bordering on the working people's section, which, fortunately, was not far from where we got off the car.

Also, fortunately, we found him at home. He was a slim young fellow with a quiet, self-a.s.sured manner and a clean-cut face, lighted by a pair of frank, blue eyes.

"Doc," said my conductor, "here's a friend of mine who wants a little patching up."

"That's the way with most friends of yours, Bill," said the doctor, who had given me a single keen look. "What's the matter with him? Shot? Or have the pickets been after him?"

"No, he's got his arm smashed saving a man's life."

"What! Well, let's have a look at it. He doesn't look very bad." He helped me off with my coat and, as he glanced at the sleeve, gave a little exclamation.

"h.e.l.lo!"

"Whose life did he save?" he asked, as he was binding up the arm.

"That's partly a mash."

"Mine."

"Oh! I see." He went to work and soon had me bandaged up. "Well, he's all right now. What were you doing?" he asked as he put on the last touches.

"Jumping on a car."

"Ah!" The doctor was manifestly amused. "You observe that our friend is laconic?" he said to me.

"What's that?" asked the other. "Don't prejudice him against me. He don't know anything against me yet--and that's more than some folks can say."

"Who was on that car that you were following?" asked the doctor, with a side glance at my friend. The latter did not change his expression a particle.

"Doc, did you ever hear what the parrot said to herself after she had sicked the dog on, and the dog not seeing anything but her, jumped on her?"

"No--what?"

"'Polly, you talk too d----d much.'"

The doctor chuckled and changed the subject. "What's your labor-friend, Wringman, doing now? What did he come back here for?"

"Same old thing--dodging work."

"He seems to me to work other people pretty well."

The other nodded acquiescingly.

"He's on a new line now. McSheen's got him. Yes, he has," as the doctor looked incredulous.

"What's he after? Who's he working for?"

"Same person--Coll McSheen. Pretty busy, too. Mr. Glave there knows him already."

"Glave!--Glave!" repeated the doctor. "Where did I hear your name? Oh, yes! Do you know a preacher named John Marvel!"

"John Marvel! Why, yes. I went to college with him. I knew him well."

"You knew a good man then."

"He is that," said the other promptly. "If there were more like him I'd be out of a job."

"You know Miss Leigh, too?"

"What Miss Leigh?" My heart warmed at the name and I forgot all about Marvel. How did he know that I knew her?

"'The Angel of the Lost Children.'"

"'The Angel--'? Miss Eleanor Leigh?" Then as he nodded--"Slightly." My heart was now quite warm. "Who called her so?"

"She said she knew you. I look after some of her friends for her."

"Who called her the 'Angel of the Lost Children'?"

"A friend of mine--Leo Wolffert, who works in the slums--a writer. She's always finding and helping some one who is lost, body or soul."

"Leo Wolffert! Do you know him?"

"I guess we all know him, don't we, Doc?" put in the other man. "And so do some of the big ones."

"Rather."

"And the lady, too--she's a good one, too," he added.

I was so much interested in this part of the conversation that I forgot at the moment to ask the doctor where he had known John Marvel and Wolffert.

I, however, asked him what I owed him, and he replied,

"Not a cent. Any of Langton's friends here or John Marvel's friends, or (after a pause) Miss Leigh's friends may command me. I am only too glad to be able to serve them. It's the only way I can help."

"That's what I told him," said my friend, whose name I heard for the first time. "I told him you weren't one of these Jew doctors that appraise a man as soon as he puts his nose in the door and skin him clean."

"I am a Jew, but I hope I am not one of that kind."

"No; but there are plenty of 'em."

I came away feeling that I had made two friends well worth making. They were real men.

When I parted from my friend he took out of his pocket-book a card. "For my friends," he said, as he handed it to me. When I got to the light I read: