CALLED on you this morning," said Dr. Whitty, "about a purely personal matter. But perhaps you're busy?"
"I'm thankful to say," said Colonel Beresford, "that I'm past the age at which men think they can preserve their self-respect only by being busy."
"It has occurred to me," said Dr. Whitty, "since I got engaged to be married to Miss Mulhall, that, though my income is all right for the quiet kind of life we intend to lead, I haven't got the amount of capital ready to hand that I ought to have, if we are to go on a proper honeymoon."
"Some men," said the colonel, "would have thought of that before they got engaged."
Dr. Whitty ignored this remark.
"It seems to me, therefore," he went on, "that it's my duty to get a hold of some ready money. I'm sure I can count on your help."
"If you expect me to become a chronic invalid or poison my servants"
"Not at all. The idea in my mind"
"I once offered you a present of twenty pounds," said the colonel, "and you practically threw the cheque back in my face."
"I'm not begging," said Dr. Whitty; "all I want of you is your name as a reference."
"What for?"
"I'm thinking of starting a sanatorium. Hold on a minute—here's the advertisement: 'Nervous Patients'—that, of course, means habitual drunkards; it's put in that way to save unpleasantness for their relatives—'received in a doctor's house. Bracing neighbourhood. Gravel soil. Personal supervision. References kindly permitted to' Then comes your name, and, after it, Father Henaghan's and Mr, Jackson's. I have them both, so as to show that the religion of the patient will be properly attended to, whatever sort it is."
"And what do you expect to make out of that?"
"I shall ask £10 a week," said the doctor, "and, if I light on the right kind of drunkard, I dare say I shall get it."
"Is there much choice? I should have thought they were all rather disgusting."
"There is a choice, of course. The best kind is a young man whose father has made a large fortune honestly, and so clings to the idea of respectability. The son, having been educated expensively, gets into what is supposed to be good society. There, he acquires habits which Well, the father, after doing his best for a time, determines to put the young man under control in some rather distant place. That's the really strong point about my advertisement. If you live in the English Midlands, as the man I have in mind almost certainly does, nowhere seems farther off than Western Connacht. I shall get my £10 a week to a certainty if I have the luck to light on a man of that sort."
"I dare say you will," said Colonel Beresford. "I'm told that advertising is the one sure means of making money; and your effort is no more immoral than the rest."
"I'm not quite sure," said Dr. Whitty, "that I understand what you mean. Where does the immorality come in?"
"Well, advertisements, as a rule, lie like Ananias and Sapphira. Yours, for instance, says 'Bracing neighbourhood.'"
"That's not a lie. It's simply a formula, like 'Dear Sir' at the beginning of a letter."
"'Gravel soil,' then, is like 'very sincerely yours'?"
"Precisely, and the rest of the advertisement is true."
"Considering," said the colonel, "that every shop in Ballintra except one is a public-house, it seems to me it would have been wiser to have aimed at some other kind of patient."
"I might have done that, of course; but a drunkard is much the most likely sort to get."
"He'll need a good deal of 'personal supervision,'" said the colonel.
"I don't mean to be the person who supervises. I couldn't spare the time."
"Ah! You mean to engage a sort of keeper."
"Certainly not. In the first place, those fellows are frightfully expensive and I'm trying to make money. In the next place, men of that sort irritate the patient. What I mean to do is to hire Michael Geraghty's little girl, the eldest one, Molly, who is about fourteen. I can get her for five shillings a week, and she'll find the greatest pleasure in walking round with the drunkard."
"But she won't be able to stop him drinking."
"Oh yes, she will. You may not have observed it, colonel, but men who drink are invariably kind-hearted and fond of children. Molly will appeal to his better nature. That's part of my system. No man would touch more than he ought while a nice little girl was holding him by the hand."
Ten days later. Colonel Beresford received a letter marked "Private and Confidential."