The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-01-03
A CATALEPTIC PATIENT.
AN ExPERTENCE OF DESOLATION
 AND HOW TT ENDED.
A Very Pretty Dramatic Climax is
 Spoiled.

The logs were DurhlnS SndpplShiy
 Conc had piled them in the big fireplace
 so cunningly that the flames wrapped
 them in a riotous arabesque, and they
 threw fickerng roseate glow on the
 doctors white hair. He sat in a big
 rocker, the picture reminiscent comfort,
 and Palfrey, who had just lit his pipe
 dexterously with a coal as if to show
 us that he had not forgotten his out
 door experience leaned against the big
 jamb of the chimney in listening at
 titude.
 The doctor stirred his tumbler of hot
 toddy-for must tell you that he was
 of the old, heroic school, and we had
 most. pusiIlanimously agreed that when
 they were all abed we would honor the
 past by shutting the dlning-room door,
 so that the penetrative odor of lemon
 and Scotch could not get up stairs, and
 then give ourselves with the serene
 recklessness of maturity to old times.
 At last the doctor said, as he stirred
 his glass, 1T doubt if anybody who has
 not had my experience knows what
 desolation is."
 Were you ever in all army post in
 an Indian country, 500 miles from sup
 plies, with a weeks blizzard raging, and the wolves trying to jump the pail
 sades?" asked Palfrey.
 No" said the doctor; that is some thing like effeminate luxury beside my
 experience. You never dropped off the stern of a vessel in the middle of the Atlantic, without anybodys knowing of it, did you?'
 ''No," deplied Palfrey, with smile. "Did you?"
 "I did" said the doctor, with that conscious superiority which man shows only when he has been worse off than anybody else. 'I did, indeed; and. by love, the curious part of it, come to think, is, that it's Christmas story"
 The doctor stopped for moment as if trying to recall something; then he said to me, Why, you must have known of the Pearsolls-"they came from Westbury."
 'Do you mean the school Pearsolls'? Why, of course, knew them. We used to call them the school Pearsolls' be- cause old Job had four daughters who were all school teachers
 Yes; but he had a son."
 sI never knew anything about him. He was a black sheep, wasn't he?"
 Well that depends on how you look at 1t. I am inclined to regard him as an angel of light" and the doctor smil- ed in his own benignant way and pres ently resumed: T couldn't tell this story tonight if it hadn't been for him. He ran away and went to sea, to the disgust of his sisters, who would never tolerate him afterward. When I came home from school in Germany in '54 on a sailing packet, he was the mate of that vessel He had changed his name, and was known on board as Dick Pearce. When we had been out for two days, word came to the cabin that Dick was dead. The captain an old Gloster man cursed at his luck, and asked rfre to make out some kind of certificate | before they shot the fellow overheard. We'll, I was pretty fresh young stu dent, and had all the recklessness of my | kind. I went forward and sat down in | front of a bunk with official cOmplacen- ! cy to frame some kind of authoritative | excuse for his dying without any of the | usual preliminaries. He was rolled up | in dirty blanket, which I tore off, and, | pulling the body over so that I could | see the face, I was astonished at the delicacy of it, which death had appar- ently enhanced. All the superficial roughness of the seaman had left it. I |. sat there with a pad in my hand, trying to think of the easiest way out of it. and was just about to write heart dis ease on my pad as the safest conclusion, when I looked up and saw two men behind me holding a large canvas sack.
 "'Is it all right, doctor?' he asked. You see, there's a squall comin up, and we've got to get him over at one.
 "As he Said this I was looking at the plIsG7 -sul ABS I luSnoq1 puB 9sdIoo twitch. You are very apt to have such an illGsion when you stare at an object in tke dim light; but I said to the men, Wait minute" and I damned my ear flown on the cold breast. Not the faint est murnur, and yet it was not as cold is I expected. Bring me candle I said. One of them brought light, and I held it close to the dead eye At first 1t was no use; the pupil did not stir. But something made me push the ex- pertinent a point further. I made the room as dark as l could and then struck the light suddenly, and I thought there was a slight contraction of the pupil. That decided me. I sent the men away, took off my coat and put the flame of candle close against the flesh of the mans arm. The smoke bla ckened it so that I could not plainly discover anything, but I persisted and after wiping away the soot saw some thing like little blister. The man was not dead. It was one of those cases of animation, which so often de- ceive the superficial observer. Then I got a lancet and opened a vein. You have no idea what an intense moment that is to doctor, who is reaching down into profound mystery. At first the incision showed no blood. l stared at it with so much suspense that I could hear my own heart beat and then I : saw little red bead form and grow, to break away like a tiny bubble and drop upon the floor It was followed by an- other and another. While I was watch ng it, the captain came in, cursing and swearing, and wanted to know by all he fiends what the devil I was monkey ng with that corpse for. Then it flash l ed into my mind that perhaps the man himself was conscious and could hear our conversation, and I said with con- siderable energy, Captain, he is not I 1ead.' "No+ 1ce1o' shouted tho ola sailor (