The Miracle Man | Page 8

in a minute.
We'll give you an Irish name by way of charity--it'll help to make your
classical English sound like brogue. We'll call you Coogan--Michael
Coogan--that lets you off with plain Mike in times of stress."
"Swipe me!" said the Flopper, with perfect complacence.

"Glad it pleases you," smiled Doc Madison, "Here's your lay, then.
You've got to remember that you were born crooked and--"
Helena giggled.
"I didn't mean it"--Doc Madison's gray eyes twinkled. "You are waking
up, too, Helena. I mean, Flopper, you've got to remember that you were
born twisted up into the same shape you are in when you hit Needley.
You come from--let's see--we'll have to have a big city where the next
door neighbors pass each other with a vacant stare. Ever been in
Chicago?"
"Naw! Wot fer?" said the Flopper, with withering spontaneity. "Noo
Yoik fer mine."
"Well, all right--New York it is, then," agreed Doc Madison. "You're
poor, but respectable--and that brings us to the other point. Before you
go down there, Helena's going to start a little night-school with a
grammar, and teach you to paddle along the fringe of the great
American language so's you won't fall in and get wet all over every
time you open your mouth."
"My!" exclaimed Helena. "Won't that be nice!"
"I hope so," said Doc Madison drily. "And don't run away with the idea
that I'm joking about this--that goes. I don't expect to make a
silver-tongued orator out of you, Flopper, and perhaps not even a
purist--but I hope to eradicate a few minor touches of Bad Land
vernacular from your vocabulary."
"I've gotcher--swipe me!" grinned the Flopper. "Me at school! Say,
wouldn't that put a smile on de maps of de harness bulls, an' de dips, an'
de lags doin' spaces up de river!"
"Quite so," admitted Doc Madison pleasantly.
"You won't laugh when I get through with you," remarked Helena, her
eyes on the curl of smoke from her cigarette.

"There's just one more thing," went on Doc Madison, "and I'm through
with you, Flopper. Don't come down there looking like a skate--that's
too raw. Get new clothes and a shave--and keep shaved. And from the
minute you buy your ticket, you keep your bones, or whatever a
beneficent nature has given you in place of them, out of joint--see?"
"I'm hip," declared the Flopper--and the dog-like admiration for Doc
Madison burned in his eyes. "Say, Doc, youse are de--"
"Never mind, Flopper," Madison cut in brightly. "It's getting late. Now,
Harry, about you. You've got a name, I believe. Evans, isn't it?
Yes--well, that will do. Now, don't kill yourself at it, but the more you
work your dope needle overtime before you start, and the harder you
cough when you first land there the better. We've got to have variety,
you know. You're a physical wreck with the folks back home sending
the casket and trimmings after you on the next train in care of the
station agent."
"I guess," coughed Pale Face Harry, with a sickly smile, "I look the
part."
"You certainly do," said Helena cheerfully, beating a tattoo with her
heels on the end of the couch.
Pale Face Harry scowled.
"I ain't no artist with the paint," he sniffed.
"I don't paint," said Helena sweetly. "It's rouge."
"Are you through?" inquired Doc Madison patiently. "Because, if you
are, I'll go on. When the train whistles for Needley, Harry, you put the
soft pedal on the dope--that ought to help some. And then you begin to
taper that cough off and become a cure--that's all."
"I ain't like the Flopper," said Pale Face Harry ruefully. "I told you
once I can't stop the hack, and I ask you again how'm I going to?"

"Have faith in the Patriarch," suggested Helena innocently.
"You close your trap!" exclaimed Pale Face Harry savagely; then, to
Madison: "Go on, Doc--it's up to you."
"No," said Doc Madison coolly, "it's up to you. You've got to try, and if
you can't stop altogether you can make yourself scarce when you feel
the fit coming on--you won't have to climb up on the grandstand and
cough in people's faces, will you?"
"He might carry a screen around with him and cough behind that,"
volunteered Helena. "That's enough about the Flopper and Pale
Face--what about muh? Where do I get off?"
"You?" said Doc Madison calmly. "Oh, you're a moral neurasthenic."
"And what's that when it's at home?" demanded Helena sharply.
Doc Madison threw out his hands in a comically helpless, impotent
gesture.
"It's what we need to keep up the standard of variety," he said. "We're
playing to the masses. Don't you like the rôle, Helena--it's the leading
woman's."
"What do I do?" countered Helena non-committingly.
"Do?" echoed Doc Madison. "Why, you go down