CHAPTER LI
BUSINESS CHANGES
We have now recorded some of the events which characterized the fivemonths during which Doctor Keene had been vainly seeking to recover hishealth in the West Indies.
"Is Mr. Frowenfeld in?" he asked, walking very slowly, and with a cane,into the new drug-store on the morning of his return to the city.
"If Professo' Frowenfel' 's in?" replied a young man in shirt-sleeves,speaking rapidly, slapping a paper package which he had just tied, andsliding it smartly down the counter. "No, seh."
A quick step behind the doctor caused him to turn; Raoul was justentering, with a bright look of business on his face, taking his coatoff as he came.
"Docta Keene! _Teck_ a chair. 'Ow you like de noo sto'? See? Fo'counters! T'ree clerk'! De whole interieure paint undre mie h-owndirection! If dat is not a beautiful! eh? Look at dat sign."
He pointed to some lettering in harmonious colors near the ceiling atthe farther end of the house. The doctor looked and read:
MANDARIN, AG'T, APOTHECARY.
"Why not Frowenfeld?" he asked.
Raoul shrugged.
"'Tis better dis way."
That was his explanation.
"Not the De Brahmin Mandarin who was Honore's manager?"
"Yes. Honore was n' able to kip 'im no long-er. Honore is n' so rich lakbefo'."
"And Mandarin is really in charge here?"
"Oh, yes. Profess-or Frowenfel' all de time at de ole corner, w'ere 'e_con_tinue to keep 'is private room and h-use de ole shop fo' ware'ouse.'E h-only come yeh w'en Mandarin cann' git 'long widout 'im."
"What does he do there? _He's_ not rich."
Raoul bent down toward the doctor's chair and whispered the dark secret:
"Studyin'!"
Doctor Keene went out.
Everything seemed changed to the returned wanderer. Poor man! Thechanges were very slight save in their altered relation to him. To onebroken in health, and still more to one with a broken heart, old scenesfall upon the sight in broken rays. A sort of vague alienation seemed tothe little doctor to come like a film over the long-familiar vistas ofthe town where he had once walked in the vigor and complacency ofstrength and distinction. This was not the same New Orleans. The peoplehe met on the street were more or less familiar to his memory, but manythat should have recognized him failed to do so, and others were made tonotice him rather by his cough than by his face. Some did not know hehad been away. It made him cross.
He had walked slowly down beyond the old Frowenfeld corner and had justcrossed the street to avoid the dust of a building which was being torndown to make place for a new one, when he saw coming toward him,unconscious of his proximity, Joseph Frowenfeld.
"Doctor Keene!" said Frowenfeld, with almost the enthusiasm of Raoul.
The doctor was very much quieter.
"Hello, Joe."
They went back to the new drug-store, sat down in a pleasant little rearcorner enclosed by a railing and curtains, and talked.
"And did the trip prove of no advantage to you?"
"You see. But never mind me; tell me about Honore; how does that rowwith his family progress?"
"It still continues; the most of his people hold ideas of justice andprerogative that run parallel with family and party lines, lines ofcaste, of custom and the like they have imparted their bad feelingagainst him to the community at large; very easy to do just now, for theelection for President of the States comes on in the fall, and though wein Louisiana have little or nothing to do with it, the people arefeverish."
"The country's chill-day," said Doctor Keene; "dumb chill, hot fever."
"The excitement is intense," said Frowenfeld. "It seems we are not tobe granted suffrage yet; but the Creoles have a way of casting votes intheir mind. For example, they have voted Honore Grandissime a traitor;they have voted me an encumbrance; I hear one of them casting thatvote now."
Some one near the front of the store was talking excitedly with Raoul:
"An'--an'--an' w'at are the consequence? The consequence are that wesmash his shop for him an' 'e 'ave to make a noo-start with a Creolepartner's money an' put 'is sto' in charge of Creole'! If I know he isyo' frien'? Yesseh! Valuable citizen? An' w'at we care for valuablecitizen? Let him be valuable if he want; it keep' him from gettin' theneck broke; but--he mus'-tek-kyeh--'ow--he--talk'! He-mus'-tek-kyeh 'owhe stir the 'ot blood of Louisyanna!"
"He is perfectly right," said the little doctor, in his husky undertone;"neither you nor Honore is a bit sound, and I shouldn't wonder if theywould hang you both, yet; and as for that darkey who has had theimpudence to try to make a commercial white gentleman of himself--it maynot be I that ought to say it, but--he will get his deserts--sure!"
"There are a great many Americans that think as you do," saidFrowenfeld, quietly.
"But," said the little doctor, "what did that fellow mean by your Creolepartner? Mandarin is in charge of your store, but he is not yourpartner, is he? Have you one?"
"A silent one," said the apothecary
"So silent as to be none of my business?"
"No."
"Well, who is it, then?"
"It is Mademoiselle Nancanou."
"Your partner in business?"
"Yes."
"Well, Joseph Frowenfeld,--"
The insinuation conveyed in the doctor's manner was very trying, butJoseph merely reddened.
"Purely business, I suppose," presently said the doctor, with a ghastlyironical smile. "Does the arrangem'--" his utterance failed him--"doesit end there?"
"It ends there."
"And you don't see that it ought either not to have begun, or else oughtnot to have ended there?"
Frowenfeld blushed angrily. The doctor asked:
"And who takes care of Aurora's money?"
"Herself."
"Exclusively?"
They both smiled more good-naturedly.
"Exclusively."
"She's a coon;" and the little doctor rose up and crawled away,ostensibly to see another friend, but really to drag himself into hisbedchamber and lock himself in. The next day--the yellow fever was badagain--he resumed the practice of his profession.
"'Twill be a sort of decent suicide without the element ofpusillanimity," he thought to himself.
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