Publisher's Synopsis
I had walked down that day from Dr. Archer's house on Madison Avenue, where I had been as amere formality. Ever since that fall from my horse, four years before, I had been troubled at timeswith pains in the back of my head and neck, but now for months they had been absent, and thedoctor sent me away that day saying there was nothing more to be cured in me. It was hardly worthhis fee to be told that; I knew it myself. Still I did not grudge him the money. What I minded wasthe mistake which he made at first. When they picked me up from the pavement where I layunconscious, and somebody had mercifully sent a bullet through my horse's head, I was carried toDr. Archer, and he, pronouncing my brain affected, placed me in his private asylum where I wasobliged to endure treatment for insanity. At last he decided that I was well, and I, knowing that mymind had always been as sound as his, if not sounder, "paid my tuition" as he jokingly called it, andleft. I told him, smiling, that I would get even with him for his mistake, and he laughed heartily, andasked me to call once in a while. I did so, hoping for a chance to even up accounts, but he gave menone, and I told him I would wait.The fall from my horse had fortunately left no evil results; on the contrary it had changed mywhole character for the better. From a lazy young man about town, I had become active, energetic, temperate, and above all-oh, above all else-ambitious. There was only one thing which troubledme, I laughed at my own uneasiness, and yet it troubled me
