The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THANKS TO THE B. R. T. : ae red brick ahead was enough to rouse the outcast’s envy, too. ' Dr. Jim Bowen, gazing at it, grunted suddenly, and, for the second time that afternoon, stopped short before a doc- tor’s shingle. But where the first had borne the name of a dead man, these chaste brass letters displayed the name of one who seemed to be alive and whose title was ornamental: “ Dr. Poldhane Whinnys.” “Well, what,’ Dr. Jim Bowen mut- tered vulgarly, “do you know about that?” — CHAPTER III. THE ABSENT PHYSICIAN. [ all the world there might conceivably be several people named Poldhane Whinnys; certainly, however, no two of them had ever studied medicine and set- tled in or near New York. This, beyond any question, was the home of Polly Whinnys, the class joke in medical school—Polly, more familiarly known as “ Fathead,” who had regarded all medicine as a vague puzzle into which he had been thrust by a misguided family —Polly, who had owned more-real luck and less real sense than any other living human! With a rush the details of a forgotten personality came back to Dr. Jim Bowen. He saw the round red cheeks and the childlike blue eyes, which gazed with much wonder and little understanding into each new anatomical mystery; he heard the loud, cheery, irresponsible voice and sensed the care-free, happy assur- ‘ance that always seemed to travel with Polly. : Why, it had been his habit to write hair-raising adventure and throbbing ro- mance, just for the fun of the thing, while Jim Bowen labored over theses! It had been Polly’s wont to rave about the wait- ress’s blond hair or the unfathomable black eyes of the dean’s daughter, while Jim Bowen packed his mind with details of the minor nerves and tricky diagnostic distinctions. And now Polly was ministering to the ailing from a forty-thousand-dollar house, while Jim Bowen stood outside with four dollars in his pocket! Well, luck had always been with Polly. When it had comé to the last finals, he had sailed through with all fiags flying, a beautiful mystery to himself, his friends, and his instructors. In their brief intern days together, too, there had been the night when the hideous accident case came in and the house-surgeon pronounced the man quite dead—whereupon Polly, after scratching his head thoughtfully over the remains for a while, had gone to work in his — cheery, experimental way, and some five weeks later had discharged the victim, alive, well, and in one piece. And there had been other manifesta- tions of the luck that knows no breaking; but Dr. Jim Bowen, sour to the core for the moment, declined to think of them. The house spoke for itself, and he moved on—and stopped. . It was a distinctly small thought for a man naturally rather big; but if he hap- pened in on Polly now it was dollars to doughnuts that Dr. Poldhane Whinnys would ask him to stop for dinner; and while he might enjoy the talk and meet- ing Polly’s family, and reviving old mem- ories, and all that sort of thing, Dr. Jim Bowen knew in his innermost heart that if he rang that bell it would be mainly for the chance of saving fifty cents! Brick red came to his cheek, for self- deception was his weakest point. He tried to turn away and failed. He groaned, in spirit and aloud, and stepped up the white sandstone flight to Dr. Whinny’s red-tiled veranda. After all, it was rather good to feel that he had one acquaintance on earth— a friend, for that matter, because Polly was really that. He would have to be frank and tell his troubles; not burst into them, of course, but lead up to them gently and keep his dire poverty a secret. EOMICLOOOKS (E)