"Is this—Bill?" he asked.
The boy nodded.
"Your grandfather, he's ill?"
"Hm-hm," returned Bill, looking suspiciously at the visitor's careful attire.
"Ah, yes." The young man put up an eye-glass and peered around the dingy rooms, Bill meantime eying him, as much as to say, what business is it of yours how we look?
"Could I see him?" queried the young man.
"I dunno. See here. What d'yer want? I'll pay yer rent. Yer needn't go badgerin' gran'pop about it."
The young man stared. "Bless me, my son. I don't want any rent. I'm," he smiled, and whimsically took out his card case. "Pardon me for not properly introducing myself. I am Dr. Hooper, and I have been asked to call professionally on your grandfather by a friend of his."
"Whew!" Bill gave voice to a low whistle, and glanced at Gerty, who had taken the card with a funny little air of polite acceptance, and, at a word from her brother, led the way into a hole of a room, hardly more than a closet, where an old man lay.
The doctor remained about fifteen or twenty minutes, and when he again came into the presence of the boy and his sister, he said: