Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-05-05

to rack his body
with pain. Yet he fought sturdily against
the approach Of death. To the silent at
tendants at his bedside it seemed as if he
was trying to gather strength to say soma
thing ere his lips should be sealed forever.
He tried to speak, but the words were not
audible. Again he strove and this time the
nurse, bending over the bed, heard him
say:
'Has the doctor GENE yetl'
The nurse was about to reply when a
light, quick step was heard and the doctor
came in. The vacant stare left the face of
the dying man. By a supreme effort he
raised himself up, reached under the
pillow, drew forth neatly-folded manu-
script, placed it in the Doctors hands, and
Tell back exhausted. He did not speak
again and in few minutes he was dead.
1t was strange affair, the eccentric
young Doctor Mechlin thought, as be assist
ed in performing the last Offices for the
dead man, very strange affair. His
thoughts reverted TO the past, TO the time
when he had first met him whose silent
form lay stretched on the rickety bed In the
small, plainly. furnished room. He had re-
turned from visit TO country patient
neday about SIX months previous and up
chair in his office pouring over medical
work. His visitor apologized for his in
trusion and went away without an explana-
ton, and DR.. Mechlin soon forgot the Incl
dent The next day upon going to his
Office (the outer door was never locked the
old man was to be seen as before, studying
medical book and apparently obivious to
his surroundings. DR.. Mechlin demanded
an explanation. The old man was very
non-committal at first. Finally, when he
was told he must leave the office and keep
away under penalty Of arrest, he looked ap-
pealingly at the other and gave the fol
lowing meager and hardly satisfactory &C
count of his peculiar actions.
He said that he was physician by pro-
fession; that he had practiced in the large
cities both in this country and in Europe. In
his old age he had been reduced almost to
want by unfortunate investments, and was
finally forced to retire He had come to
Ostin because he could live cheaply and
quietly.
=" This IS all can tell you," the old man
said, In an appealing Tone ''and ask that
you viii place faith in my words All de-
sire is that may be permitted to spend a
few hours occasionally III your Office where
l can be near the profession that in nv
old age l have been forced to reinquish"
The young doctor looked sharply at the
aged stranger and pondered upon the
strange request. The visitor had apparent
~ relapsed into Inconsistencies of his
surroundings, and DR.. Mechlin had an OPP
portunity to carefully scrutinize him. The
stranger was attired in conventional, but
weI-worn garments. He had that indefin-
able air that marks the physician, that was
evident. There was nothing in his appear
ance to indicate insanity even to the prac-
ticed eye of his observer.
"Pshawr' muttered DR.. Mechlin to him
self, she is nothing but an eccentric Il
can certainly do no harm to accede to his
request"
And so the young and the old doctor
reached an understanding, and every day
the old man came TO his young friends Of
fee and remained hours at a time. At first
he only sat and read and pondered. But
one day the young doctor came in greatly
A change for the worse had
taken place in one of his patients who had
been i'll for some time with complicated
and occult disease. The old man noticed