What's your hurry? A deck full of jokers

What's your hurry? A deck full of jokers
George Niblo

George Niblo

What's your hurry? A deck full of jokers

Sit down! Sit down! Stop right where you are! The game isn't over by a long way.

I've got a few aces up my sleeve yet, and don't you forget it!

No wonder I'm feeling tiptop! Fact is, I fancy I am feeling to-night a little like the colored brother who got religion, and filled with enthusiasm, or something more of a liquid character, expressed to the doubting parson his desire to imitate Elijah, and go to glory in a chariot of fire.

"Yes," said the parson, "I reckon, my friend, you'se just want to get acclimated-like before reachin' de end ob your journey."

Now how did that reverend gentleman know?

Why, only through circumstantial evidence, for you see he had unfortunately once been the proud owner of a flock of fowls that did not have sense enough to roost high.

However, I'm not sighing just yet to go to glory.

This gay metropolis pleases me some.

But, talking of circumstantial evidence, I know one man who would never consent to hang a suspected murderer on the strength of it.

You won't blame him, either, when you hear what his experience in that line has I been.

He's a doctor by profession.

His learning has always been in the direction of mind troubles, and consequently I wasn't surprised when I met him the other day to learn that he is now in full charge of one of the biggest institutions in the State, for the care of the insane.

Now, it happened that recently in making a tour of inspection the doctor had occasion to enter an unoccupied cell in the ward reserved for incurables.

As he did so the iron door clicked shut, making him a prisoner in his own asylum.

While he was standing there, rattling the grating and calling for an attendant, a party of visitors came strolling his way.

"I beg your pardon," said the doctor suavely to the first man, "but I'm locked in."

"Poor fellow," replied the visitor, "so I perceive."

"I wish you would be good enough to have some one let me out," the doctor continued.

By this time a second visitor appeared.

"See," said the first, "this fellow looks quite intelligent, and asks to be released, as though he really expected it."

"Gentlemen, I see your error. I am not crazy, I assure you. I locked myself in here by accident. Really – I – why – " and the doctor felt himself smiling in the most blankly imbecile manner.

"Look at him now!" cried the second visitor. "Did you ever see a more hopelessly idiotic expression on the face of man?"

This was really too much for human nature to endure.

"See here, you scoundrels," cried the doctor, excitedly, "call an attendant or I'll have you both in here for life. I'm the superintendent."

"Come away," said one of the strangers, quickly, "we musn't get the poor devil worked up. He may do himself harm," and they passed on down the corridor.

The doctor spent a morning in that cell, and now he says he has more sympathy for his patients.

He assured me that if I ever took a notion to drop in and see him, he would do all he could to make my stay comfortable.

I wonder what he meant, and if that was a mere formula used to calm each new guest at his hotel.

Long experience has made the doctor quite an artist in that line.

Speaking of artists, there's Craigie, who has a studio on Fifth Avenue. Craigie is a friend of mine.

He paints atrocious pictures, but somehow seems to make a living out of the business.

Sometimes I go to see him, when business is bad, and I'm wondering where the money's coming from to pay the month's bill.

Between you and myself, the sight of all those daubs on the walls of his studio, which he considers masterpieces, always makes me feel better.

Misery likes company, and they certainly do look tough.

Recently, while I was lounging there in his Oriental corner, old Dr. Gregg dropped in.

I expected some fun, because the doctor has quite a caustic tongue, you know, and don't mind giving a fellow a rap.

Craigie understood why I winked at him, and I saw blood in his eye while he continued to paint.

The doctor walked around, grunting and making an occasional slurring remark that in another man might have been looked on as an insult.

But we all knew Gregg.

Finally he turned to the artist.

"I say, Craigie, these things which you exhibit on your walls, seeking a purchaser in vain, I suppose may be called failures?"

"Well," remarked the artist, "perhaps you hit the nail on the head in a commercial sense, doctor. You see, men in your profession have the advantage over us poor devils of painters, for while we are compelled to exhibit our failures on the wall, yours are safely planted underground out of sight."

When I met Craigie, after he had spent a summer abroad, he delighted me with his sketches of the many interesting things he had seen.

Among other subjects he had a picture of Monte Carlo.

It is certainly a lovely heaven on earth and I said as much. Craigie grinned at me.

"All the same," said he, "it has appeared to be a regular hades for many a poor devil."

"That's so – when a fellow has lost all his money," I admitted.