THE RECONCILIATION.
It is thought that the following story may have been intended for the "Organ of Organs" (R.A.M.C.).
Charles, the young Army Medical, went down on one patella. His heart (a hollow muscular pump) was driving blood from its ventricles as it had never yet driven it in all its twenty-five years of incessant labour. Further, by flattening the arch of his diaphragm and elevating his ribs and sternum, Charles was increasing the cavity of his thorax and taking in air. Immediately the diaphragm and the sternum and costal cartilages relaxed again the air escaped. The lungs of Charles were doing their work. Fast and yet faster became his breathing.
"Mabel," he murmured, "Mabel!"
The girl made no movement. Her respiration continued, but no impulse to action reached her nerve-centres. Yet, without an effort on her part, her tissues in one minute produced enough heat to boil one twenty-fourth of a pint of water.
"Wonderful!" he whispered hoarsely, probably thinking of this, "you are wonderful."
You will not marvel that his voice was gruff when I tell you that the membrane of the larynx was inflamed. Greater men than Charles have become hoarse in such circumstances.
Immediately the blood rushed to the capillaries of Mabel's cheeks and her colour deepened. She trembled slightly.
"There, that's it!" he cried, gazing rapturously.
"What?" she gasped, startled by his passion.
"Again that artery below your ear is throbbing, throbbing, and"—his voice rose in despair—"I can never remember the name! Can you?"
"Alas," she moaned, "I do not know it! Oh, Charles, there is something I must tell you at once."
"What is it?" he cried with sudden fear. "What is it?"
"Why, I—I——Oh, I do not know how to say it. Charles, you will never forgive me!"
"What is it, dearest? Tell me—you can trust me. The medical profession——"
"Well, then, I tried to bandage little Johnny's foot yesterday, and—and——"
"Calm yourself, dear. And——?"
"I tied a 'granny' knot. Oh, Charles, don't be angry. I know it ought to have been a 'reef'!"
He looked about him dully, like a man stunned.
"Charles," she moaned, "listen! After all, I put it on the wrong foot."
He started violently.
"Mabel," he cried, "you are sure? Then I will not let you go. Had you tied that 'granny' knot on the right foot, I—we—as an R.A.M.C. man, I——"
She clung to him sobbingly.
"Charles, oh Charles," she panted, "you have proved it to me. You love me! (Is my heart throbbing now?) You love me and it will break for joy!"
The phalanges and the metacarpal bones of her left hand clicked together as if in sympathy as she flung it to her side.
Again her cerebrum flashed its joyful message, so that she repeated, "My heart!"
At the word Charles, the R.A.M.C. man, rose from his patella and placed his hands firmly on his femur bones.
His whole bearing had changed.
"This," he said slowly and ringingly, "is the end. When I entered this room I loved you—I admit it. But—you have deceived me! Look at that hand! It is covering—what? The floating costae! Your heart is not where you would have me believe. It is fully three inches higher and more to the right. That is not a small matter, or one with which you should trifle as you do. But you have deceived me in a greater than that."
"Oh, what is it? What have I done?" sobbed Mabel hysterically.
"The greater matter," continued Charles in trumpet tones, "is that the heart is not the seat of the emotions at all. I can only conclude that your agitation was feigned. I wish you good-day, Madam."
He had reached the door when she cried aloud.
"Charles!"
An urgent message from Charles's cerebellum, delivered to certain motor nerves by way of the spinal cord, disposed him to turn on his heel.
He waited in silence.
"Charles dearest, if it was the wrong place, and I didn't cover my heart after all, why, Charles, remember Johnny's foot and be logical!"
She was there before him, glorious, and Charles stood dazzled.
"You are right!" he cried. "Mabel! If you had covered your heart!!"
"Charles!!!"
Householder (with the Zeppelin obsession).
"Ah, I Like the Snow. It Reduces The Menace From Above."
!!!!!!
"Yesterday between Forges and Bethincourt, west of the Meuse, the enemy made use of suffocating gas, but did not attack with infancy."—Timaru Herald (N.Z.).
We are glad to have this evidence that the Huns have given up using children to screen their advances.
"Plagues of rates have appeared at Pinsk, and in the British trenches."
Buenos Ayres Herald.
Even at home we have not entirely escaped the epidemic.
"Floating Baby Found Unarmed."
Provincial Paper.
Had the Huns known of its defenceless condition they would never have allowed it to escape.
"'Like a poet, a geographer is born, not mad,' once wrote Sir Clements Markham."
Times of India.
Some poets will be greatly relieved by this doctrine.
Oldest Inhabitant (finally). "I tell 'ee I bain't goin' outside the door. Why, what'd folks think of me with no badge, nor harmlet, nor nothin'?"