tie's sake and yours. I realize I have made you a lot
of--ah--trouble."
"Oh, that's all right, that's all right. Hang it all, I feel like a
beast to chuck you out this way, but I have partners, you know. What
will you do now?"
"I don't know."
Cousin Gussie reflected. "I think perhaps you'd better go back to Aunt
Clarissa," he said. "Possibly she will tell you what to do. Don't you
think she will?"
"Yes."
"Humph! You seem to be mighty sure of it. How do you know she will?"
For the first time a gleam, a very slight and almost pathetic gleam, of
humor shone behind Galusha's spectacles.
"Because she always does," he said. And thus ended his connection with
the banking profession.
Aunt Clarissa was disgusted and disappointed, of course. She expressed
her feelings without reservation. However, she laid most of the blame
upon heredity.
"You got it from that impractical librarian," she declared. "Why did
Dorothy marry him? She might have known what the result would be."
Galusha was more downcast even than his relative.
"I'm awfully sorry, Aunt Clarissa," he said. "I realize I am a dreadful
disappointment to you. I tried, I honestly did, but--"
And here he coughed, coughed lengthily and in a manner which caused his
aunt to look alarmed and anxious. She had heard John Capen Bangs cough
like that. That very afternoon the Bute family physician saw, questioned
and examined Galusha. The following day an eminent specialist did the
same things. And both doctors looked gravely at each other and at their
patient.
Within a week Galusha was on his way to an Arizona ranch, a place where
he was to find sunshine and dry climate. He was to be out of doors as
much as possible, he was to ride and walk much, he was to do all sorts
of distasteful things, but he promised faithfully to do them, for his
aunt's sake. As a matter of fact, he took little interest in the matter
for his own. His was a sensitive spirit, although a quiet, shy and
"queer" one, and to find that he was "no good" at any particular
employment, even though he had felt fairly certain of that fact
beforehand, hurt more than he acknowledged to others. Galusha went to
Arizona because his aunt, to whose kindness and generosity he owed so
much, wished him to do so. For himself he did not care where he went or
what became of him.
But his feelings changed a few months later, when health began to return
and the cough to diminish in frequency and violence.
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