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“The old gentleman sleeps over there,” said the skipper with his head just above the floor level. He indicated the screened corner, and then bobbed down and disappeared, being far too courteous a man to intrude.

The old lady took no notice whatever as I approached. No head was visible among the rude collection of bedclothes which, with a mattress on the boards, served for the bed.

“Uncle Solomon, it’s the Doctor,” I called.

The mass of clothes moved, and a trembling old hand came out to meet mine.

“Not so well, Uncle Solomon? No pain, I hope?”

“No pain, Doctor, thank t’ good Lord–and Skipper John,” he added. “He took us in, Doctor, when t’ old lady and I were starving.”

The terrible cancer in spite of which his iron constitution still kept him alive had so extended its fearful ravages that the reason for the veiled corner was at once apparent, and also the effective measures for ventilation.

The old lady had now caught the meaning of my presence. “He suffers a lot, Doctor, though he won’t say it. If it wasn’t for me singing to him, I don’t know how he would bear up.” And, strangely enough, even I had noticed the apparent descent from an odd, dreamy state to crude realities, as the old lady abandoned her droning, and talked of symptoms.

“But, Aunt Anne,” I said, “you can’t keep it up all night as well as all day?”

“No, not exactly, Doctor, but I mostly sleeps very little.” And to my no small astonishment she now shut up like an umbrella, and at once recommenced her mesmeric monotone.

When the interview was over, and all my notes made and lines of action decided, I still did not feel like moving. I was standing in a brown study when I heard the skipper’s voice calling me.

“Be you through, Doctor? There be two or three as wants to see you,” it said; but it meant, “Is there anything wrong?” The long silence might mean that the sight had been too much for me.

“There’s no hurry, Doctor,” it hastened to add, for his quick ear had caught the noise of my start as I came to earth again.

“What can be the meaning of it all?” I was pondering. Is there any more explanation to the riddle of life than to Alice in Wonderland? Are we not all a lot of “slithy toves, that gyre and gimble in the wabe”–or worse? Must we who love living only regard it as one long tragedy?

The clinic of Skipper John’s lower room included one or two pathetic tales, and evidently my face showed discouragement, but I confess I was surprised when the last poor creature had left, to find my host’s hand on my shoulder.

“You’ll be wanting a good hot cup o’ tea, I knows, Doctor. And t’ wife’s made you a bit o’ toast, and a taste o’ hot berry jam. We are so grateful you comed, Doctor. T’ poor old creatures won’t last long. But thanks aren’t dollars.”

At that minute his happy, optimistic eyes chanced to meet mine. They seemed like good, deep water, and just for a second the thought crossed my mind that perhaps he knew more of the real troubles of life than his intellectual opportunities might suggest.

“No, Skipper,” was all I said. “We doctors, anyhow, find them quite as scarce.”

“Well, Doctor,” he added, “please God if I gets a skin t’ winter I’ll try and pay you for your visit, anyhow. But I hasn’t a cent in the world just now. The old couple has taken the little us had put by.”

“Skipper John, what relation are those people to you?”

“Well, Doctor, no relation ‘zactly.”

“Do they pay nothing at all?”

“Them has nothing,” he replied.

“Why did you take them in?”

“They was homeless, Doctor, and the old lady was already blind.”

“How long have they been with you?”

“Just twelve months come Saturday.”

“Thanks, Skipper,” was all I could say, but I found myself standing with my hat off in the presence of this man. I thought then, and still think, I had received one of my largest fees.