"I have had some experience in surgery, and if you will let me examine the wound by a good light—"
"Oh, gentlemen," said Jane-Ellen, "this is absurd. It's nothing but a scratch. Do sit down and finish your dinner, and let me get through my work."
As the injury did not, after a closer observation, seem to be serious, the four men obeyed. But they did so in silence; not even Lefferts and Crane could banter any more. Tucker had never made any pretense of recovering his temper, and Reed seemed to be revolving thoughts of deep import.
As they rose from table, Crane touched the arm of Reed.
"Come into the office, will you? I have something I want to say to you."
"And I to you," said Reed, with feeling.
XII
ONCE in the little office, Crane did not immediately speak. He drew up two chairs, put a log on the fire, turned up the lamp, and in short made it evident that he intended to do that cruel deed sometimes perpetrated by parents, guardians and schoolmasters in interviews of this sort—he was going to leave it to the culprit to make a beginning.
Reed, fidgeting in a nearby chair, did not at once yield to this compulsion, but finally the calm with which Crane was balancing a pen on a pencil broke down his resolution and he said crossly: