"It is only a case of insufficient nutrition," he said."In other words, the result of poverty, pride, and starvation.Mrs.Caswell has many devoted friends who would be glad to aid her, but she will accept nothing except from that old Negro, Uncle Caesar, who was once owned by her family.""Mrs.Caswell!" said I, in surprise.And then I looked at the contract and saw that she had signed it "Azalea Adair Caswell.""I thought she was Miss Adair," I said.
"Married to a drunken, worthless loafer, sir," said the doctor.
"It is said that he robs her even of the small sums that her old servant contributes toward her support."When the milk and wine had been brought the doctor soon revived Azalea Adair.She sat up and talked of the beauty of the autumn leaves that were then in season, and their height of color.She referred lightly to her fainting seizure as the outcome of an old palpitation of the heart.Impy fanned her as she lay on the sofa.
The doctor was due elsewhere, and I followed him to the door.Itold him that it was within my power and intentions to make a reasonable advance of money to Azalea Adair on future contributions to the magazine, and he seemed pleased.
"By the way," he said, "perhaps you would like to know that you have had royalty for a coachman.Old Caesar's grandfather was a king in Congo.Caesar himself has royal ways, as you may have observed."As the doctor was moving off I heard Uncle Caesar's voice inside:
"Did he get bofe of dem two dollars from you, Mis' Zalea?""Yes, Caesar," I heard Azalea Adair answer weakly.And then Iwent in and concluded business negotiations with our contributor.
I assumed the responsibility of advancing fifty dollars, putting it as a necessary formality in binding our bargain.And then Uncle Caesar drove me back to the hotel.
Here ends all of the story as far as I can testify as a witness.The rest must be only bare statements of facts.
At about six o'clock I went out for a stroll.Uncle Caesar was at his corner.He threw open the door of his carriage, flourished his duster and began his depressing formula: "Step right in, suh.
Fifty cents to anywhere in the city--hack's puffickly clean, suh----jus' got back from a funeral--"
And then he recognized me.I think his eyesight was getting bad.
His coat had taken on a few more faded shades of color, the twine strings were more frayed and ragged, the last remaining button--the button of yellow horn--was gone.A motley descendant of kings was Uncle Caesar!
About two hours later I saw an excited crowd besieging the front of a drug store.In a desert where nothing happens this was manna; so I edged my way inside.On an extemporized couch of empty boxes and chairs was stretched the mortal corporeality of Major Wentworth Caswell.A doctor was testing him for the immortal ingredient.His decision was that it was conspicuous by its absence.
The erstwhile Major had been found dead on a dark street and brought by curious and ennuied citizens to the drug store.The late human being had been engaged in terrific battle--the details showed that.Loafer and reprobate though he had been, he had been also a warrior.But he had lost.His hands were yet clinched so tightly that his fingers would not be opened.The gentle citizens who had know him stood about and searched their vocabularies to find some good words, if it were possible, to speak of him.
One kind-looking man said, after much thought: "When 'Cas' was about fo'teen he was one of the best spellers in school."While I stood there the fingers of the right hand of "the man that was" which hung down the side of a white pine box, relaxed, and dropped something at my feet.I covered it with one foot quietly, and a little later on I picked it up and pocketed it.I reasoned that in his last struggle his hand must have seized that object unwittingly and held it in a death grip.
At the hotel that night the main topic of conversation, with the possible exceptions of politics and prohibition, was the demise of Major Caswell.I heard one man say to a group of listeners:
"In my opinion, gentlemen, Caswell was murdered by somme of these no-account niggers for his money.He had fifty dollars this afternoon which he showed to several gentlemen in the hotel.When he was found the money was not on his person."I left the city the next morning at nine, and as the train was crossing the bridge over the Cumberland River I took out of my pocket a yellow horn overcoat button the size of a fifty-cent piece, with frayed ends of coarse twine hanging from it, and cast it out of the window into the slow, muddy waters below.
_I wonder what's doing in Buffalo!_
