"Whose father?" asked Nance, sharply.
"The Clarke boy's. It was him that did fer her. I tell you she was a good girl 'til then. But they wouldn't believe it. They give me some money to sign the paper an' not to tell; but before God it's him that's the father of her child, and poor Dan—"
But Mrs. Smelts never finished her sentence; a violent paroxysm of pain seized her, and at dawn the messenger that called for the patient on the third floor, following the usual economy practised in Calvary Alley, made one trip serve two purposes and took her also.
By the end of the month the epidemic was routed, and the alley, cleansed and chastened as it had never been before, was restored to its own. Mr. Snawdor, Fidy Yager, Mrs. Smelts, and a dozen others, being the unfittest to survive, had paid the price of enlightenment.
CHAPTER XXIX
IN TRAINING
One sultry July night four years later Dr. Isaac Lavinski, now an arrogant member of the staff at the Adair Hospital, paused on his last round of the wards and cocked an inquiring ear above the steps that led to the basement. Something that sounded very much like suppressed laughter came up to him, and in order to confirm his suspicions, he tiptoed down to the landing and, making an undignified syphon of himself, peered down into the rear passage. In a circle on the floor, four nurses in their nightgowns softly beat time, while a fifth, arrayed in pink pajamas, with her hair flying, gave a song and dance with an abandon that ignored the fact that the big thermometer in the entry registered ninety-nine.
The giggles that had so disturbed Dr. Lavinski's peace of mind increased in volume, as the dancer executed a particularly daring passeul and, turning a double somersault, landed deftly on her bare toes.
"Go on, do it again!" "Show us how Sheeny Ike dances the tango." "Sing
Barney McKane," came in an enthusiastic chorus.
But before the encore could be responded to, a familiar sound in the court without, sent the girls scampering to their respective rooms.