The Health Master

I. the Chinese Plan Physician

THE eleven-o’clock car was just leaving Monument Square when Mr. Thomas Clyde swung aboard with an ease and agility worthy of a younger and less portly man. Fortune favored him with an unoccupied seat, into which he dropped gratefully. Just in front of him sprawled a heavy-shouldered young man, apparently asleep. Mr. Clyde was unfavorably impressed both by his appearance and by the manner of his breathing, which was as excessive as it was unusual. As the car swung sharply around a curve the young man’s body sagged at the waist, and lopped over toward the aisle. Before Mr. Clyde’s restraining hand could close upon his shoulder, he had tumbled outward to the floor, and lay quiet, with upturned face. There was a stir through the car.

“The horrid drunken creature!” exclaimed a black-clad woman opposite Mr. Clyde. “Why do they allow such people on the cars?”

The conductor hurried forward, only to find his way blocked by a very tall, slender man who had quietly stepped, from a seat next the window, over an intervening messenger boy and the box he was carrying. The new arrival on the scene of action stooped over the prostrate figure. One glance apparently satisfied him. With a swift, sharp motion he slapped the inert man forcefully across the cheek. The sound of the impact was startlingly loud. The senseless head rolled over upon the left shoulder, only to be straightened out by another quick blow. A murmur of indignation and disgust hummed and passed, and the woman in black called upon the conductor to stop the assault. But Mr. Thomas Clyde, being a person of decision and action, was before the official. He caught the assailant’s arm as it swung back again.

“Let him alone! What do you mean by beating a helpless man that way!”

“Do you know more about this affair than I do?” The crisp query was accompanied by a backward thrust of the tall man’s elbow which broke Mr. Clyde’s hold, and—smack! smack!—the swift double blow rocked the victim’s head again. This time the man groaned. The car was in an uproar. Mr. Clyde instantly and effectively pinned the tall man’s elbows from behind. Some one pulled the bell, and the brakes ground, throwing those forward who had pressed into the aisle. Against this pressure, Mr. Clyde, aided by the conductor, began dragging his man backward. The stranger was helpless to resist this grip; but as he was forced away he perpetrated a final atrocity. Shooting out one long leg, he caught the toe of his boot under the outstretched man’s jawbone and jerked the chin back. This time, the object of the violence not only groaned, but opened his eyes.

“I’ll have you in jail for that!” panted Mr. Clyde, his usually placid temper surging up.

Other passengers began to lift the victim.

“Drop him!” snapped the tall man, with such imperative decisiveness, that the helping hands involuntarily retracted. “Let him lie, you fools! Do you want to kill him?”

Misgivings beset and cooled Mr. Thomas Clyde. He had now reached the rear platform, still holding in his powerful and disabling grasp the unknown man, when he heard a voice from an automobile which had been halted by the abrupt stop of the car.

“Can I be of any help?”

“Dr. Magruder!” exclaimed Mr. Clyde, “come in here, will you, and look at a sick man?”

As the doctor stepped aboard, the captive with a violent wrench freed himself from Mr. Clyde’s relaxing hold and dropped from the platform into the darkness. Dr. Magruder forced his way through the crowd, took one look at the patient, and, right and left, struck him powerfully across the cheeks time and again, until the leaden-lidded eyes opened again. There was a quick recourse to the physician’s little satchel; then—

“All right,” said the doctor cheerfully. “He’ll do now. But, my friend, with that heart of yours, you want to sign the pledge or make your will. It was touch and go with you that time.”

Waiting to hear no more, Mr. Thomas Clyde jumped from the rear step and set off at a rapid pace, looking about him as he ran. He had not gone a block when he saw, by the radiance of an electric light, a tall figure leaning against a tree in an attitude of nerveless dejection. The figure straightened up.

“Don’t try to man-handle me again,” advised the man, “or you may meet with a disappointment.”

“I’ve come to apologize.”

“Very well,” returned the other coolly; “I appreciate it. Many a fool wouldn’t go even so far.” Mr. Clyde smiled. “I own to the soft impeachment. From what Dr. Magruder said I judge you saved that fellow from the hospital.”

“I judge I did—no thanks to you! You’ve a grip like a vise.”

“Yes; I keep in good training,” said the other pleasantly. “A man of my age has to, if he is to hold up his work.” He looked concernedly at the stranger who had involuntarily lapsed against the tree again. “See here,” he added, “I don’t believe you’re well.”

“No; I don’t believe I am,” answered the tall man in uncompromising tones; “but I do believe that it is peculiarly my own affair whether I am or not.”

“Nonsense! Man, your nerves are on the jump. You used yourself up on that chap in the street car. Come across to my club and take something to brace you up.”

People usually found it hard to resist Mr. Clyde’s quiet persuasiveness. The stranger, after a moment of consideration, smiled.

“Begin with a fight and end with a drink?” he asked. “That’s a reversal of the usual process. If your cuisine runs to a cup of hot milk as late as this, I’d be glad to have it.”

As they entered the club, Mr. Clyde turned to his guest.

“What name shall I register?”

The stranger hesitated. “Strong,” he said finally.

“Dr. Strong?”

“Well—yes—Dr. Strong if you will.”

“Of what place?”

“Any place—Calcutta, Paris, Mexico City, Philadelphia, Rio. I’ve tried ‘em all. I’m a man without a country, as I am without a profession.” He spoke with the unguarded bitterness of shaken nerves.

“Without a profession! But you said ‘Doctor.’”

“A title isn’t a profession,” returned the guest shortly.

Turning that over in his mind, Mr. Clyde led the way to a quiet table in the corner of the diningroom, where he gave his order. Observing that his new acquaintance was distrait, he swung into the easy conversational flow of a cultured man of the world, at the same time setting his keen judgment of men to work upon the other. There was much there to interest a close observer. The face indicated not much over thirty years; but there were harsh lines in the broad and thoughtful forehead, and the hair that waved away from it was irregularly blotched with gray. The eyes, very clear and liquid, were marred by an expression of restlessness and stress. The mouth was clear-cut, with an expression of rather sardonic humor. Altogether it was a face to remark and remember; keen, intellectual, humorous, and worn. Mr. Thomas Clyde decided that he liked the man.

“You’ve been a traveler, Doctor?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ve seen life in many countries—and death.”

“And traced the relations between them, I suppose?”

“Oh, I’ve flashed my little pin-point lantern at the Great Darkness in the fond hope of discovering something,” returned the other cynically.