She ran. Returning in a few minutes, she brought with her the family physician. She ushered him into the room where the sufferer was and waited at the door, wringing her hands and dreading the worst. Almost immediately the physician emerged. He had his face in his hands and his shoulders heaved and shook as though under the stress of an uncontrollable emotion. “Oh, doctor,” cried the agonized Mrs. Jones, “is there any hope for him?” “Well, madam,” he said, “it’ll help a good deal if he’ll unhitch the third buttonhole of his vest from the top button of his trousers.” § 286 Better than Believing in Santa Claus Two typical wayfarers of the Bowery, penniless and tattered and with their feet half out of their wrecked shoes, were limping through the crooked streets of Chinatown. One of them found a small vial containing cocaine which, presumably, had been dropped by a dope fiend. The tramps had heard many times of the stimulating and invigorating effects of this drug. Also, from association with habitués they knew the common method of taking it. They decided to experiment. The finder uncorked the vial, poured a quantity of the white crystals into the palm of his hand and sniffed the stuff up his nostrils. His companion finished the bottle. The effect was magical. They straightened their bent figures, drew their rags about them and stepped out briskly. Presently one of them spoke. There was a bloom in his cheeks and his eyes glistened: “I’ve about decided,” he said, “to make a few investments. I’m going to buy all the diamond mines in South Africa and after I’ve done that I’m going to buy all the gold mines in Australia.” His transformed partner made answer: “Hold on,” he said, “I don’t know that I’m prepared to sell ’em!” § 287 The Curse of an Active Mind My father, for the greater part of his life, was in the steamboat business. He was an official of a company operating packets on the lower Ohio River. The headquarters of the line was the gathering place of pilots, captains, mates, clerks and engineers—a collection of quaint types and homely philosophers. I was a small boy but I still remember it as though it were yesterday, when on a summer afternoon the talk drifted to the subject of mules. Somebody ventured the opinion that the mule was a stupid animal. Instantly our champion romancer spoke up: “Don’t you believe it,” he said. “The average mule has got more sense than the average horse has got. What’s more, every mule has got something that no horse ever had—and that’s imagination. Why, I know of an instance when a mule was killed by the power of his own imagination. “It happened forty years ago when I was a young shaver, on my uncle’s farm up the Tennessee River. My uncle owned an old gray mule. He had the mule on pasture in a ten-acre lot. In the middle of the lot was a log crib full of popcorn.