"You bet!" said the man with eight trunks full of daintiness in the baggage car ahead. "It's Needley for ours--you're on!"

The Flopper was an artist--and he was in his glory. Where his position was indubitably weak, he side-stepped with the frank admission that he knew no more than they. He knew only one thing, and that was the only thing he cared about, the rest made no odds to him, he was going down to Needley to be cured--and he let them see Mr. Higgins' letter.

A porter from the rear car squirmed and wriggled his way down to the seat occupied by the Flopper.

"Mistah Tho'nton, sah," he announced importantly, "would like to see you in his private car, if you could done make it convenient, sah."

"Sure!" said the Flopper.

The pa.s.sengers crowded up, standing on the seats and arm-rests, to make room for the Flopper to crawl down the aisle, while the porter preceded him to open the doors.

Through the car in the rear of the one he had occupied, the regular parlor car, the Flopper, a piteous spectacle, made his way--chairs turned, the occupants craned their necks after the deformed and broken creature, while smothered exclamations and little cries of sympathy from the women followed him along. The Flopper's eyes never lifted from the strip of carpet before him, but his lips moved.

"Gee!" he muttered. "Dis has de gape-wagon skun a mile. Wish I could pa.s.s de hat--I'd make de killin' of me young life. Pipe de hydrogen hair on de gran'mother wid de sparkler on her thumb an' weeps in her eyes, an' look at de guy wid de yellow gloves rolled back on his wrists to heighten de intelligint look on his face, dat she's kiddin'--I could play dem to a fare-thee-well if I only had de chanst. Oh, gee!"--the Flopper sighed--"an' I got to let it go!"

With regret still poignantly affecting him, the Flopper pa.s.sed on into the private car, and the porter ushered him into a sort of combination observation and sitting-room compartment. The Flopper's eyes lifted and made a quick, comprehensive tour of his surroundings. The young woman who had spoken to him on the platform was reclining on a couch; the nurse sat on the foot of the couch; and the man was tilted back in an armchair against the window.

The young woman raised herself to a sitting posture and held out her hand.

"I am Mrs. Thornton," she said, with a smile. "This is my husband, and this is Miss Harvey, my nurse. It was very good of you to come, Mr.--?"

she paused invitingly.

"Coogan," supplied the Flopper. "Michael Coogan."

"Let me offer you a chair, Mr. Coogan," said Thornton, a little ironically, pushing one toward the Flopper. "Or would you be more comfortable on the floor?"

The Flopper's eyelids fell--covering a quick, ugly glint.

"T'anks!" he said--and swung himself, by his arms, into the chair.

"I want you to tell me all about this strange man in Needley, and how you came to hear of him and believe in him," said Mrs. Thornton. "I was only able to get just the barest outline of it out there on the platform with the crowd around."

"Dat's easy," said the Flopper earnestly. "Sure, I'll tell you. I saw a piece about dis Patriarch in one of de Noo Yoik papers, so I writes to de postmaster of de town to find out if he was on de level--see?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Thornton. "And what did the postmaster say?"

The Flopper took Hiram Higgins' letter from his pocket and handed it to Mrs. Thornton.

"Youse can read it fer yerself, mum," he said, with an air of one delivering a final and irrefutable argument.

Mrs. Thornton read the letter carefully, almost anxiously.

"If only a part of this is true," she said wistfully, pa.s.sing it to her husband, "it is perfectly wonderful."

Mr. Thornton read it--with a grin.

"I don't know, I am sure," he observed caustically, handing the letter to Miss Harvey, "how the medical profession would stand on this--would your school endorse it, nurse?"

Miss Harvey read it with her back to the others--then she glanced at Mrs. Thornton--and checked herself as she was about to speak. She folded the letter slowly and returned it to the Flopper without comment.

Robert Thornton, master of millions, hard-headed and practical for all his youth, leaned forward in his chair toward the Flopper.

"Look here," he said bluntly, "you don't mean to say that you believe this seriously, do you?"

"Oh, no!" said the Flopper softly. "Nothin' like dat! Of course I don't believe it! I'm only guyin' myself--see? I'm just goin' dere fer fun--an' spendin' me last red to get dere. Say"--his voice snapped--"wot do youse t'ink I am, anyway?"

"Surely, Robert," said Mrs. Thornton gently, "it is evident enough that he believes it."

Thornton did not look at her--he was still gazing at the Flopper, his brows knitted.

"How long have you been like this?" he demanded sharply.

"All me life," said the Flopper. "I was born dat way."

"And you expect to go down here and by some means, which I must confess is quite beyond my ability to grasp, be cured in a miraculous manner!"--Thornton smiled tolerantly.

"Sure, I do!" a.s.serted the Flopper doggedly. "If he's done it fer de crowd dere, why can't he do it fer me? Didn't de postmaster say all yer gotter have is faith? Well, I got de faith--an' I got it hard enough to stake all I got on it. Dis time to-morrow--say, dis time to-morrow I wouldn't change places wid any man in de United States."

Thornton's tolerant smile deepened.

"I guess you're sincere enough," he said; "and I'm not trying to cut the ground of hope out from under your feet, as you put it out on the platform--but it seems to me that it is only the kindly thing to do to warn you that the more faith you put in a thing like this the worse you are making it for yourself--you are laying up a bitter disappointment in store that can only make your present misfortune the more unbearable."

The Flopper shook his head.

"If he's done it fer others, he can do it fer me," he repeated, with unshaken conviction. "An' dat goes--I can't lose."

Thornton tilted his chair back again, and stared at the Flopper with pitying incredulity.

There was silence for a moment; then Mrs. Thornton spoke.

"Robert," she said slowly, "I want to stop at Needley."

The front legs of Thornton's chair came down on the heavy carpet with a dull thud, and he whirled around in his seat to stare at his wife.

"You don't mean to say, Naida," he gasped, "that you've got faith in this thing, too!"

"No; not faith," she answered pathetically. "I hardly dare to _hope_. I have hoped so much in the last year, and--"

"But this is sheer nonsense!" Thornton broke in with irritable impatience. "I can understand this man here, in a way--he has the superst.i.tion, if you like to call it that, due to lack of education, if he'll pardon my saying so in his presence; but you, Naida, surely you can't take any stock in it!"

She smiled at him a little wanly.

"I have told you that I didn't even dare to hope," she said. "But I want to see--I want to see. I have tried sanatoriums and consulted specialists until it has all become a nightmare to me and I am no better--I sometimes think I never shall be any better."

"But," exploded Thornton, rising from his chair, "that's nothing to do with this--this is rank foolishness! Nurse, you--"

Miss Harvey, too, had risen, and was regarding Mrs. Thornton anxiously.

"It is better to humor her than to excite her," she said in a low voice.