CHAPTER III

Braden Thorpe had spent two years in the New York hospitals, after
graduation from Johns Hopkins, and had been sent to Germany and Austria by
his grandfather when he was twenty-seven, to work under the advanced
scientists of Vienna and Berlin. At twenty-nine he came back to New York,
a serious-minded, purposeful man, wrapped up in his profession and
heterodoxically humane, to use the words of his grandfather. The first day
after his return he confided to his grim old relative the somewhat
unprofessional opinion that hopelessly afflicted members of the human race
should be put out of their misery by attending physicians, operating under
the direction of a commission appointed to consider such cases, and that
the act should be authorised by law!

His grandfather, being seventy-six and apparently as healthy as any one
could hope to be at that age, said that he thought it would be just as
well to kill 'em legally as any other way, having no good opinion of
doctors, and admitted that his grandson had an exceptionally soft heart in
him even though his head was a trifle harder and thicker than was
necessary in one so young.

"It's worth thinking about, anyhow, isn't it, granddaddy?" Braden had
said, with great earnestness.

"It is, my boy," said Templeton Thorpe; "especially when you haven't got
anything serious the matter with you."

"But if you were hopelessly ill and suffering beyond all endurance you'd
welcome death, wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't," said Mr. Thorpe promptly. "The only time I ever wanted
to shuffle off was when your grandmother first refused to marry me. The
second time she refused me I decided to do something almost but not quite
so terrible, so I went West. The third time I proposed, she accepted me,
and out of sheer joy I very stupidly got drunk. So, you see, there is
always something to live for," he concluded, with his driest smile.

"I am quite serious about it, grandfather," said Braden stiffly.

"So I perceive. Well, you are planning to hang out your sign here in New
York pretty soon, and you are going to become a licensed physician, the
confrere and companion of a lot of distinguished gentlemen who believe
just as you do about putting sufferers out of their misery but who
wouldn't think of doing it, so I'd advise you to keep your opinions to
yourself. What do you suppose I sent you abroad for, and gave you an
education that few young men have received? Just to see you