Why, all the drinking I've done since I was born wouldn't satisfy you for half a year."

Harvey blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling and winked knowingly.

"Rats!" he responded. "I only drink just enough to lubricate my mucous membrane. If you had drunk oftener and done some other things less, you would be in as fit shape as I am. It was plain to me for a long time that you would bring up where you did. No fellow can live on the edge of his nerves month after month without paying the piper, sooner or later."

"Well," I said, "I'm through with it now, at all events. Lovely woman has got to get along without me, in the old way, for a long time to come. Dr. Chambers has given me a scare, and I'm going to profit by it."

"Good!" exclaimed Harvey, with warmth.

"Yes," I continued, smiling inwardly at the scheme I was about to divulge, "the sort of female creature with which I have spent my time and cash is to be banished from my waking and my sleeping dreams. I am going to take ship for some foreign port, and remain away till I am sure of my resolutions."

Hume leaned over and took my hand in his own. My esteem for him rose with the action, which spoke more than words, but I went on with my story.

"The doctor will not hear of my going alone, however," I pursued, "and--"

"And he's quite right," he interpolated.

"So I have advertised for a companion to make the trip. You don't seem to have conceived any plan for me, so I've invented one of my own."

My friend interrupted again to compliment me on the common sense of the move.

"You see, the genealogy of the Camran family that my Uncle has set his heart on gives me an excuse to secure the services of a companion in the guise of a typewriter. It takes off the feeling that I require a nurse, while practically providing the very same thing, in the event that one is needed."

Hume nodded frequently, in approval. I was evidently rising rapidly in his estimation as a young man whose common sense had returned after a long vacation.

"I hope you'll find the right sort of fellow," he said. "You ought to, if you've worded the advertis.e.m.e.nt right. The last time I put in such a notice, the time I got the man I now have--there was half a peck of answers."

Taking up a pen, and putting my feet nearer the floor, I wrote a copy of the announcement I had left at the Herald office, and pa.s.sed it to my friend.

"How do you think that will do?" I inquired, gravely.

He read it, sniffed once or twice and then threw it on the floor.

"You are a good deal of a fool, but not such a d----d one as that!" he said.

"It's exactly what I have done," was my reply. "When the answers come in I shall expect you to help me pick out the prizes."

He laughed, refusing at first to be drawn into what he thoroughly believed a trap to catch him. Then he studied my face and grew doubtful.

"Anybody but you, Don, might get some fun out of this. If you really have put such an ad. in the paper, the best thing you can do is to turn the entire lot of replies over to me, for investigation after you have left the country. But," he grew very sober, "to prance around among that sort of stuff yourself--at this time--would almost certainly put you back where you were last winter, with less chance than ever of recovery."

It was a much rougher way of putting it than I had expected, and, to tell the truth, there was something creepy in the suggestion.

"Your generosity is fully appreciated," I replied, with some dignity, "but I cannot think of exposing you to such terrible dangers. On reflection I do not think it best to trouble you in this matter. It would be a source of never-ending regret were I to return from abroad, and learn that you had taken my old place in the Sanitarium."

Hume threw the b.u.t.t of his finished cigar into a cuspidor and lit another one nonchalantly.

"Don't you really see the difference?" he asked, when he found the weed drawing satisfactorily. "To me the adventures that might grow out of meeting a dozen or a hundred pretty women would result in nothing worse than pa.s.sing some agreeable evenings. I never lost my head over one of the s.e.x, and I never shall. If Mr. Donald Camran could say as much, I would tell him to carry out his intention. But, I leave it to you, my dear boy, to prophesy the result, if you go into this thing."

I told him, with some mental misgivings, to be sure, that I had learned my lesson during the year that was past. No woman could make me lose my head again. At the same time I had not gotten over my admiration for the s.e.x, and I saw no reason to do so.

"I'm beginning to believe you're not fooling," said Hume, after studying my countenance again. "Now, tell me precisely what your game is. Let us have the scheme, just as it lies in your mind and, if there's a redeeming feature about it, trust me as a true friend to say so."

We had at last reached the point I had hoped for, and I complied without hesitation.

"I am acting primarily on the advice--almost on the orders--of Dr.

Chambers. He wants me to take a sea voyage. He advises me strongly not to go alone. Then Uncle Dugald hints every time I see him that I ought to recommence the genealogy as soon as I feel able. A good stenographer would make that task an easy one. The reason I purpose taking a lady instead of a man--but you will certainly laugh if I tell you."

My friend responded gravely that he would promise to do nothing of the sort.

"Well," I continued, "it is this: and you may laugh at me if you like. I have led a life as regards women that I now think worse than idiotic. I have followed one after another of them, from pillar to post, falling madly in love, troubling my mind, worrying over the inevitable separations, getting the blues, losing heart, all that sort of thing; then, beginning over again with a new charmer, and pursuing the inevitable round. I have never been intimately acquainted with a pure, honest girl of the better cla.s.ses, except one, who, this morning, refused my offer of marriage. I have no feminine relations except a couple of old aunts. I need sadly to be educated by a woman who will not hold out temptation. I believe a few months in the society of such a woman, away from old a.s.sociations, will make another man of me."

When I think of it now I wonder that Harvey, with his keen sense of the ludicrous, did not burst into a laugh, in spite of his promise. But he took my serious story with equal seriousness and bowed gravely.

"What is to keep you from falling in love with your secretary, when you and she are practically alone, miles and miles from all the people you both know?"

"I intend to secure a promise from her, before we start, that she will repel, absolutely, the slightest familiarity on my part. I shall fix a salary that will be an object. If she allows me to forget the position toward her that I have chosen, she is to be sent home on the next steamer, with a month's advance wages."

Harvey bowed again, with the same gravity as before. He pulled at his cigar, but it had gone out and he did not relight it.

"I have never talked so freely with you before," I went on to say, "and there is no other person on earth with whom I would do so. A year ago, as you are aware, I was stricken suddenly with that d.a.m.nable thing called neurasthenia. For two months I had insomnia in the worst form that a man can have it and live. Sleepy from noon to noon, I only secured thirty minutes of unconsciousness in each twenty-four hours.

Figure the situation to yourself. At nine o'clock every night I fell asleep; at half past nine I awoke, and there was not a wink again until nine the next night. I gave up all expectation of recovery, and the most disheartening things I heard were the predictions of Dr. Chambers, that I would ultimately get well.

"Finally they sent me to the Sanitarium, where with treanol and bromides I was lulled to unconsciousness for several hours at a time. I would not consent to take opium in any form, even if the refusal killed me. A month pa.s.sed. The artificial sleep induced brought me little strength, but it helped in a way. Then I went to the Hot Springs of North Carolina, with a valet. My sleeping capacity had returned, and I ceased to use the incentives previously found necessary; but my appet.i.te, poor enough before, deserted me there. For breakfast I actually had to force down the single cup of coffee that formed the repast. At lunch I did not go to the table. For dinner my menu never varied--a few spoonfuls of soup and a small dish of iced cream.

"The days dragged horribly. Somehow in the absence of real courage I developed a dogged determination that I would live. When I reached New York on my return North, I had too little strength to write a letter or to sit upright for more than a few moments. But the worst was over, and I knew it. It had become only a question of time. Step by step I have advanced until you see me as I am to-day."

My friend listened intently.

"And you don't want to fall into the old slough again," he remarked.

"No, and I never will," I said, with earnestness. "Now, listen: I realize that I was a year ago a slave to certain vices. Yes, let us give them the unconventional name. If I go off alone to some distant part of the world, what is to prevent my beginning again on the old road and ending where I did before? I could take a male companion, but do you imagine he would have any influence with me if I started to go wrong? At best he would be but a servant. If he tried to stand in the way of anything I wanted, the result is certain; he would get his walking papers _de suite_. I have no mother, no sister. The only woman I ever thought of marrying has coldly declined my offer. Let me go in the company of a woman that is what she should be, and I will return a different man altogether."

Still Hume did not laugh. I was more grateful for this consideration than I can describe, for I was really very much in earnest. I was like the drowning man, clutching at what seemed to me a life-preserver.

"How old are you?" asked Hume. "Twenty-five?"

"Twenty-four."

"What age would you prefer your secretary to be?"

"About the same. I could not endure an old maid, and I do not wish to undertake the care of a child."

"Won't it be hard to find a woman of twenty-four years with the skill and judgment that your situation seems to require?"

"We shall see. Some of these girls who are obliged to earn their living develop wonderful self-possession."

He nodded, as if he could not dispute this.