A COMPLETE DISGUISE

David Lockwin has undertaken that Robert Chalmers shall have no trouble.  It was David Lockwin, in theory, who suffered all the ills of life.  In this theory David Lockwin has seriously erred.  Robert Chalmers must bear burdens.

The first burden is a broken nose and a facial appearance strangely inferior to the look of David Lockwin, the orator.  Robert Chalmers need not disguise himself.  He will never be identified.  That broken nose is a distortion that no detective could fathom.  Those scarlet fimbrications under the skin proclaim the toper.  Those missing teeth complete a picture which men do not admire.

David Lockwin was courted.  Robert Chalmers is shunned.  It wounds a personal vanity that in David Lockwin’s philosophy had not existed.  It is the ideal of disguises, but it does not make Robert Chambers happy.

Why, too, should Robert Chalmers desire so many appurtenances of life that were in David Lockwin’s quarters?  If we find Chalmers housed in comfortable apartments at Gramercy Square, is it not inconsistent that he should gradually supply himself with cough medicine, turpentine, alcohol, ammonia, niter, mentholine, camphor spirits, cholagogue, cholera mixture, whisky, oil, acid, salves and all the aids to health and cleanliness by which David Lockwin flourished?  How slight an annoyance is the lack of that old-time prescription of Dr. Tarpion, which alone will relieve the melancholia!

For Robert Chalmers finds that the weather still gives him a turn.  If the lost prescription will alone lift the oppression, is not the annoyance considerable, providing Dr. Tarpion cannot be seen?

Robert Chalmers had planned a life at Florence.  But now he is a man without a body.  It is enough.  He will not also be a man without a country.  He will stay in New York.

In fact, a fortune of $75,000 is not so much!  It will be well to husband it.  The books must be bought.  Day after day the search must go forward for copies like those in Chicago.  Josephus!  What other copy will satisfy Robert Chalmers?  Here is a handsome Josephus—­as fine as the one in Chicago.  But did Davy’s head ever lie on it?

Well, bear up then, Robert Chalmers.  You are free at least.  You need not lie and cheat at elections.  You need not live with a woman whose heart is as cold as ice and whose pride is like the pride of an Egyptian Pharaoh.  You sunk that yawl well in the sands of Georgian Bay!  You filled it with stones!

You thought you were the sole survivor, yet how admirably the rescue of Corkey and the boy abetted your escape, Robert Chalmers.  They saw David Lockwin die.  They took his dying wishes.  Fortunate that he could not mention the deposit at New York!

But why is David Lockwin so dear?  Why not forget him?

Did he play a part that credits him?  Why stop at Washington and take the mail that awaited in that long-advertised list?  Truly, Robert Chalmers was strong enough to lay those letters aside without reading.  That, at least, was prudent.