The Miracle Man | Page 6

all?" he demanded sarcastically. "You look as though your faces pained you! What's the matter with you? You're bright enough ordinarily, Helena, and, Harry, you're no dub--what's the matter with you? Can't you see it--can't you see it! Why, it's sticking out a mile--it's waiting for us! The whole plant's there and all we've got to do is get steam under the boilers. We'll have 'em coming for the cure from every State in the Union, and begging us to let them throw their diamond tiaras at us for a look-in at the shrine. Don't you see it--can't you get it--can't you get it!"
Helena bent suddenly over Doc Madison's shoulder, her eyes opening wide with dawning comprehension.
"The cure?" she breathed.
"Sure--the cure," said Doc Madison earnestly. "The new cult--that's us. Get the people talking, show 'em something, and you'll have to put up fences and 'keep off the grass' signs to stop the lame and the halt and the blind and the neurasthenics from crowding and suffocating to death for want of air. We'll start a shrine down there that'll be a winner, and the railroads will be running excursion-rate pilgrimages inside of two months."
Pale Face Harry's chair creaked, as, like the Flopper, he now crowded it in toward the table.
"I get you!" said he feverishly. "I get you! I've read about them shrines--only you gotter have churches, and a carload of crutches, and that sort of thing laying around."
Doc Madison smiled pleasantly.
"Yes; you've got me, Harry--only we'll do the stage setting a little differently. Mostly what is required is--faith. Get them going on that, and everybody that's sick or near-sick in this great United States, that's got the swellest collection of boobs and millionaires on earth, will swarm thitherward like bees--there won't be any one left in the sanatoriums throughout the length of this broad land of freedom but the bell boys and the elevator men. Get them going, and all we've got to do is look out we don't let anything get by us in the crush--a snowball rolling down hill will size up like a plugged nickel alongside of a twenty-dollar gold piece when it gets to the bottom, compared with what we start rolling."
"I've got you, too," said Helena. "But I don't see where the faith is coming from, or how you're going to get them coming. You've got to show them--you said so yourself--even the boobs. How are you going to do that?"
"Well," said Doc Madison placidly, "we'll start the show with--a miracle. I haven't thought of anything more effective than that so far."
"A what?" inquired Pale Face Harry, with a grin.
"A miracle," repeated Doc Madison imperturbably. "A miracle--with the Flopper here in the star r?le. The Flopper goes down there all tied up in knots, the high priest, alias the deaf and dumb healer, alias the Patriarch, lays his soothing hands upon him, the Flopper uncoils into something that looks like a human being--and the trumpets blow, the band plays, and the box office opens for receipts."
Helena slid from her seat, and, with hands on the edge of the table, advanced her piquant little face close to Doc Madison's, staring at him, breathing hard.
"Say that again," she gasped. "Say that again--say it just once more."
Pale Face Harry's hand, trembling visibly with emotion, was thrust out across the table.
"Put it there, Doc," he whispered hoarsely.
The Flopper, practical, earnestly so, lifted his right arm, wriggled it a little and began to twist it around, as though it were on a pivot at the elbow, preparatory to drawing it in, a crippled thing, toward his chin.
Doc Madison reached out hurriedly and stopped him.
"Here, that'll do, Flopper," he said quietly. "You don't need any rehearsal to hold your job--you're down for the number and your check's written out."
"Swipe me!" said the Flopper to the universe. "I can smell de pine woods of Maine in me nostrils now. When does I beat it, Doc--to-morrer?"
Doc Madison laughed.
"No, Flopper, not to-morrow--nor for several to-morrows--not till the bill-posters get through, and the stage is dark, and you can hear a pin drop in the house. I don't want you camping out and catching cold and missing any of the luxuries you're accustomed to, so I'll start along ahead in a day or so myself and see what kind of accommodations I can secure."
"Swipe me!" said the Flopper again. "An' to think of me wastin' me talent on rubber-neck fleets!"
A puzzled little frown puckered Helena's forehead.
"I was thinking about the deaf and dumb man," she said slowly. "How about him, when we pull this off--will he stand for it--and what'll he do?"
"Aw!" said Pale Face Harry impatiently. "He don't count! He'll have bats in his belfry anyway, and if he ain't he'll go off his chump for fair getting stuck on himself when he