"Harry," said he abruptly, jerking his free hand toward the hypodermic, "could you give up that dope-needle?"

"Sure, I could--if I wanted to!" a.s.serted Pale Face Harry defiantly.

"That's good," said Madison cheerfully. "Because you'll have to."

"Eh?"--Pale Face Harry stared at Doc Madison in amazement.

"Because you'll have to--by and by," said Madison coolly. "And how about that cough--can you quit coughing?"

"When I'm dead--which won't be long," sniffed Pale Face Harry. "D'ye think I cough because I like it? How'm I going to quit coughing?"

"I don't know," admitted Doc Madison, frowning seriously. "I only know you'll have to."

Pale Face Harry, with jaw dropped, accentuating the gaunt leanness of his hollow-cheeked, emaciated face, gazed at Doc Madison with a curious mingling of incredulity and affront--and coughed.

"Say," he inquired grimly, "what's the answer?"

Doc Madison took his arm from Helena's waist, pulled a newspaper from his pocket, spread it out on the table--and his manner changed suddenly--enthusiasm was in his eyes, his voice, his face.

"I've steered you three through a few deals," said he impressively, "that have sized up big enough to keep you out of the raw vaudeville turn you, Harry, and you, Flopper, are so fond of, and that would have put Helena here on easy street, if you hadn't blown in all you got about ten minutes after you got your hands on it--but I've got one here that sizes up so big you wouldn't be able to spend the money fast enough to close out your bank account if you did your d.a.m.nedest! Get that? It's the greatest cinch that ever came down from the gateway of heaven--and that's where it came from--heaven. It couldn't have come from anywhere else--it's too good. And it's new, bran new--it's never had the string cut or the wrapper taken off. It's got anything that was ever run beaten by more laps than there are in the track, and it's got a purse tied on to the end of it that's the biggest ever offered since Adam. But you've got to work for it, and that's what I brought you here for to-night--to learn your little pieces so's you can say 'em nice and cute when you get up on the platform before the audience."

The Flopper's tongue made a greedy circuit of his upper and under lips, and he hitched his chair closer to the table.

A flush spread over Pale Face Harry's cheeks, and his eyes, abnormally bright, grew brighter.

"You're all right, Doc," he a.s.sured Doc Madison anxiously. "You're all right."

"U-uu-mm!" cooed Helena excitedly. "Go on, Doc--go on!"

"Listen," said Doc Madison, his voice lowered a little. "I found this tucked away as a filler in a corner of the newspaper this evening. It's headed, 'A New Cult,' with an interrogation mark after it. Now listen, while I read it:"

A NEW CULT?

Needley, Maine, offers no attraction for aspiring young medical men. One who tried it recently, and who pulled down his shingle in disgust after a week, says compet.i.tion is too strong, as the village is obsessed with the belief that they have a sort of faith-healer in their midst to whom is attributed cures of all descriptions stretching back for a generation or more. The healer, he adds, who rejoices in the name of the Patriarch and lives in solitude a mile or so from the village, is something of an anomaly in himself, being both deaf and dumb. We--

"But that's all that interests us," said Doc Madison, as he stopped reading abruptly and lifted his head to scrutinize his companions quizzically.

Pale Face Harry's eyes had lost their gleam and dulled--he gaped reproachfully at Doc Madison. Helena's small mouth drooped downward in a disappointed _moue_. Only the Flopper evidenced enthusiastic response.

"Sure!" he chortled. "Sure t'ing! I see. De old geezer'll have a pile of shekels hid away, an' he lives by his lonesome a mile from de town. We sneaks down dere, croaks de guy wid de queer monaker, an' beats it wid de shekels--sure!"

Doc Madison turned a sad gray eye on the Flopper.

"Flopper," said he pathetically, "your soul, like your bones, runs to rank realism. No; we don't 'croak de guy'--we cherish him, we nurse him, we fondle him. He's our one best bet, and we fold him to our b.r.e.a.s.t.s tenderly, and we protect him from all harm and danger and sudden death."

The Flopper blinked a little helplessly.

"Mabbe," said the Flopper, "I got de wrong dope. Some of dem words you read I ain't hip to. Wot's anymaly mean?"

"Anomaly?"--Doc Madison reached for his gla.s.s, tossed off the contents and set it down. "It means, Flopper, in this particular instance," he said gravely, "that there shouldn't be any interrogation point after the heading."

Again the Flopper blinked helplessly--and his fingers picked uncertainly at the stubble on his chin. The other two gazed disconsolately--and Helena a little pityingly as well--at Doc Madison.

Doc Madison flung out his arms suddenly.

"What's the matter with you 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 gra.s.s' 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 b.o.o.bs 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 s...o...b..ll 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 b.o.o.bs. 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 role. 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 hoa.r.s.ely.

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."