"Really! Since when?"
"Since ten o'clock this morning. I have just come from a Harley Street specialist in heart disease. My own physician made an appointment with him for me at half-past nine. He is a man with more patients than he can rightly look after, and grants consultations at odd hours as if he were conferring a favour."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear you are feeling seedy! What did the specialist say?"
"He said I must instantly cease work, and this command comes at a most inconvenient time. It seems I need to undergo a complete rest for an indefinite period, so I wondered whether you would take charge of my business, pro tem."
"Certainly," said Stranleigh, the half-bantering, humorous expression disappearing from his face, giving way to a look of deep concern. "What did the doctor say was the trouble?"
"My heart has gone all wrong."
"Ah! the heart is a most important organ, which must be taken care of. It slumbers not, nor sleeps."
"The specialist tells me," replied the matter-of-fact Mackeller, "that the heart sleeps in that fraction of a second which occurs between beats."
"Really! I am profoundly ignorant about these things, but I keep a walking cyclopædia in the person of my friend Ponderby. What course of treatment does the doctor recommend?"
"We did not get that far. Probably I shall retire to my place in the country, where I can secure rest and quiet. He suggested that I should bring you with me a week from to-day, at nine-thirty."
"Why does he wish you to take me at that unearthly hour?"
"Oh, I suppose," replied Mackeller, with impatience, "that everyone wishes to see the great Lord Stranleigh."
"Ah, yes; I had forgotten! Quite natural, quite natural. Did the doctor counsel your country place as a sanatorium?"
"No; that was my own idea."
"I believe your country house is connected with the city office by telephone?"
"Yes; it has that advantage."
"Pardon me, Peter: you mean disadvantage, and a very vital disadvantage, too. However, let us summon authority to our aid, for, as I tell you I am profoundly ignorant."
He touched the bell, whereupon the grave and dignified Ponderby appeared silently as a genie responding to the rubbing of a lamp.
"Ponderby, when a man is afflicted with an affection of the heart—I refer to a physical affection—what should he do?"
"It depends, my lord, upon whether he prefers to reside in France, Belgium, or Germany."
"He prefers, Ponderby, to live in England, but that is not the point. His chief desire is to live."
"The strongest waters for the purpose, my lord, are those at Bad-Nauheim, in Germany, a pretty little village to the east of the Taunus Mountains, twenty-three miles north of Frankfort-on-the-Main. The next strongest are those of Royat, in the centre of France, although the wells of Spa, in Belgium, are about equal in strength to the French waters."
"What do you mean by strength, Ponderby? Salt, sulphur, or what?"
"There is a very large proportion of salt in the waters at each place, but the strength I referred to, which has proved so beneficial in cardiac troubles, is carbonic acid gas, held in solution by the waters of each district."
"Thank you, Ponderby."
Ponderby bowed, and vanished as silently as he had appeared.
"Well, Peter, there you are, with a choice of three nationalities, and of three charming health resorts. Which do you prefer?"
"I should say Nauheim. As it possesses the strongest waters, the cure would probably take the shortest time," replied the practical Mackeller.
"That appears reasonable; still, we'd better make sure."
He touched the bell once more.
"Ponderby, I forgot to ask you, does one drink the waters at these places, or merely bathe in them?"
"In each locality, my lord, there are waters to drink, but the sprudel, or carbonic acid waters, are bathed in."
"Mackeller suggests that the waters at Nauheim being the strongest, a cure may be more quickly accomplished there."
"Not necessarily, my lord, for sprudel baths in their full strength are rarely administered at Nauheim. At each place treatment lasts from twenty-one days to six weeks, and it begins not with the carbonic acid waters, but with salt baths in ever-increasing strength. All but the most serious cases yield to treatment in any of the three towns."
"That being so, Ponderby, it doesn't seem to matter much which an invalid chooses."
"I would not go so far as to say that, my lord," replied Ponderby in a tone of profound deference. "His most gracious Majesty King Edward visited Royat once or twice while Prince of Wales."
"Thank you, Ponderby, that is an unanswerable argument. Royat for Royalty, as one may say."
For the second time the loyal Ponderby disappeared. When he had gone, Stranleigh laughed a little.
"Have you made your choice, Peter?" he asked, and Peter, apparently resenting the laugh when his case was so serious, replied with sullen Scotch stubbornness, "I shall go to Nauheim."
"Right you are," cried his lordship, "and I'll go with you!"
Mackeller glanced up at him in astonishment.
"You promised to look after my business while I was absent."
"Of course."
"But you can't do it if you are absent with me."
"Didn't you hear Ponderby say that Nauheim was only twenty-three miles away from Frankfort?"
"What has that to do with the matter?"
"Don't you know that Frankfort is the greatest financial city in Germany, if not in Europe? It is the town from which we draw, if not our Stranleighs, at least our Rothschilds, who have been reasonably successful commercially."
"I still don't see what connection that has with the affair in hand."
"Peter, if I am to take charge of your business, I must do it my own way. As I believe in going to the best spot for the cure of heart disease, I have made it my habit to select the best man I can find to transact each of the various concerns with which I deal. As you know, I employ twelve of the shrewdest business men I can secure. To the chief of these I shall turn over the general direction of your interests, and he will distribute the different sections among the eleven others."
This by-proxy proposal did not commend itself to Mackeller, who sat glum and depressed while the scheme was explained to him. Stranleigh, however, continued unperturbed—
"Of course, Peter, if you'd like to have the business conducted as you would do it yourself——"
"That's exactly what I wanted, if possible," interrupted Mackeller, "but I suppose such a condition of things is not to be hoped for."
"Oh, bless you, yes, it is! Anything may be accomplished if a man really makes up his mind to it. Instead of employing twelve competent men, I'll substitute for two or three of them an equal number of ordinary, fussy individuals who will muddle whatever is put in their charge, and thus reduce the average of excellence to your liking."
Peter scowled darkly at him.
"What we wish to attain," Stranleigh went on, ignoring his displeasure, "is, first of all, the restoration of your health. Quite a secondary consideration is the carrying on of your business. A doctor will tell you that during your cure you must not worry about temporal matters. Such advice is quite futile, because his patient