Neither of us saw him for two days. The noises kept going on. Mrs. Burroughs was alarmed because he did not answer her knock at mealtimes, and one morning she charged upstairs and hollered at him through the door.
"You stop your nonsense this minute and come down to breakfast!"
"I'm not hungry," he called back.
"You open this door!" she ordered and, by George, he did. "Your whiskaboom or whatever it is will keep till after breakfast."
He sat at the table, but he was a tired boy. He had a cold, his eyelids kept batting, and I don't believe he could have lifted his coffee cup. He tried to look awake, and then over he went with his face in the oatmeal.
Mrs. Burroughs ran for the ammonia, but he was out cold, so we wiped the oatmeal off his face and carried him upstairs.
My wife rubbed Jack's wrists with garlic and put wet towels on his face, and presently he came to. He looked wildly about the room at his machinery. It was all there, and strange-looking stuff, too.
"Please go away," he begged. "I've got work to do."
Mrs. Burroughs helped him blow his nose. "There'll be no work for you, sonny. Not until you're well. We'll take care of you." He didn't seem to mind being called sonny.
He was sick for a week and we tended him like one of our own. We got to know him pretty well. And we also got to know you.