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The Portal of Dreams
The Portal of Dreams
CHAPTER I
A VISION UPON A WARNING
The doctor was so small and frail that his narrow face was rescued from inconsequence only by a trimly cropped Van-Dyck with a dignified sprinkling of gray. I always felt that, should I ever see him in a bathing suit, I would have to seek a new physician. I could never again think of him as sufficiently grown-up to practise an adult vocation. Yet when the doctor spoke his mentality issued out of its small habitation of flesh and expanded to commanding proportion.
The little doctor was in fine a very great doctor, and on this occasion he was bullying me with the large authority of a Bonaparte.
"But, Doctor – " I began protestingly.
He raised a small hand which suggested the claw of a delicate bird and fixed me with quizzical eyes that had the faculty of biting sharply through a man's unspoken thoughts.
"Don't assume to say 'but' to me," he sternly enjoined; and since we had long known each other, not only as physician and patient, but also as men who breakfasted at the same hour and the same club table, I momentarily heeded.
"Once upon a time," he continued, "the German Kaiser presumed to question a pilot on his imperial yacht. Do you recall the result?"
"No," said I, "I don't, but – "
Again the doctor eyed me, basilisk fashion, across the bacon and eggs of our belated morning meal, as he continued:
"He very properly reminded the Emperor that upon a vessel in the high seas, a pilot acknowledges no superior this side of Eternity. In matters of health I take the bridge. You obey."
"But – " I weakly insisted.