The Prodigal Father Part 14

But his father seemed not to have heard.

"Sit down, sit down," he said; and then in an earnest manner and with the gravest face began, "I've something to tell you, Andrew, that I think you ought to know."

Andrew's visage relaxed. This gravity promised better than anything his father's behavior had led him to expect of late.

"Something most extraordinary has happened. You've noticed a little kind of difference in me of late, possibly?"

"I have," said Andrew, with an intonation that made his acquiescence particularly thorough.

"A sort of cheerfulness and healthiness, and so on?"

"And so on," a.s.sented Andrew.

"Well, I've accounted for it at last!"

"Oh?" said Andrew.

This did not strike him as quite so interesting. He thought of the papers he had left, and glanced at his watch.

"You mind my telling you about Cyrus's theory of the cells of the body--that all they needed was the proper kind of stimulation, and they'd be as good as new? Well, he went one better than that sometimes.

I never told you what his idea was--it sounded kind of daft-like when you didn't hear him laying it down himself--but I'll tell you now."

His voice sank impressively, and his junior partner grew vaguely uneasy.

This was a most unsuitable place and hour to be discussing quack medical theories. He didn't approve of it at all.

"His idea was that every cell of the body--mine and yours, Andrew,"--(Andrew grew exceedingly uncomfortable: this verged on the indecent),--"every single cell of them is just a kind of wee vessel in which chemical and electrical changes are going on. While they keep brisk we keep young, and when they get off the boil, so to speak, we grow old. Well now, what's to hinder one stirring them up to boil faster and faster, instead of slower and slower? And if they once did that, of course you'd begin to grow young instead of going on getting old.

Andrew, it's happened to me."

Andrew started.

"What has?"

"I'm growing young again!"

His junior partner looked at him for half a minute in dead silence. Then he decided that this statement had better be answered humorously.

"Is this story a sample?" he inquired.

"You don't believe me?"

Andrew's cheeks bulged in a faint smile.

"Am I expected to?"

"Look at my waistcoat--when did you ever see it as loose as that, and me healthier than I've been for years, and eating more? Look at my face--where are the wrinkles gone? Look at my head--how long is it since you've seen a patch of brown hair there?"

To complete this overwhelming series of proofs, he leapt up, and with an agile jump on one foot whirled the other leg clean over the back of his chair.

"It's twenty years and more since I last did that!"

Andrew was fairly startled out of his skepticism now. He had the eyes of a goldfish, and his upper lip and swelling cheeks twitched nervously.

"What an awful thing to happen!" he murmured.

"It has happened, though," said his father.

"But surely--oh, it must just be temporary. You don't think it will last, do you?"

"I think nothing," replied Mr. Walkingshaw, with conviction. "I have no settled opinions left. I am a ma.s.s of cells in active eruption."

He began to chuckle.

"I'm like a dashed volcano, Andrew!"

His son looked at him piteously. To suffer this sea change was bad enough, but to laugh about it was diabolical. Mr. Walkingshaw could not but sober down under such an eye. He gathered his countenance into an aspect as portentously solemn as his dwindled wrinkles could achieve.

His son grieved afresh to see how their pa.s.sing diminished the once overpowering respectability of his parent.

"It's an awful predicament," said Mr. Walkingshaw, shaking his bronzing head.

"Awful--just awful! What will people say?"

"That's just what I've been wondering. How am I going to break it to them?"

"You're not going to tell people!"

"But they'll notice for themselves."

Andrew gazed at him gloomily.

"It may pa.s.s off,"--his face cleared a little,--"in fact, it's certain to."

"It doesn't feel much like it at present: I'm fairly bursting with spirits," smiled Mr. Walkingshaw, and then recollected himself and grew grave again. "What's to be done supposing people do notice?" he asked.

"We'll just have to stretch a point," said Andrew somberly, "and give some other explanation."

"We might give some decent, respectable doctor the credit for it," his father suggested.

"They'd all be afraid to take it, if it went on any further. Imagine a respectable doctor admitting he'd made a man grow younger! I dare say they might be proud of such a performance in London, but they've more decency here!"

It seemed characteristic of Mr. Walkingshaw's calamity that he should bounce up like a tennis ball after each well-meant effort to depress him.

"In that case," said he cheerfully, "we'll just have to say I am trying to make myself more of a companion for you."

Andrew started violently.

"We'll say no such thing! Do you suppose _I'm_ going to have my name mixed up with it?"

His father remained serene.