"Worried," she told him flatly. "The way you used to look, last winter."
"No reason that I should," he reassured her. "Things are going swimmingly. Now that my new assistant has rallied from the shock of his surroundings and come to a realizing sense that I prefer technical journals to tracts, he is proving a grand success. He is going to be of immense help; and I needed him, now that work is piling in. I'm hoping, though, your father can plan some way of giving me a little better use of my arms. There's a loose screw in there that he ought to tighten."
"Reed," Olive spoke thoughtfully; "you are rather unusual."
With some effort, he kept all edge of bitterness out of his voice, as he replied,—
"I certainly trust so, Olive. It wouldn't be an advantage to humanity at large to have this a normal state of things. Still, it might be worse, lots worse. I'm not nearly so soggy as I was. Which reminds me: do you mind going to the bottom of that heap of letters and taking out the square gray one. Yes. That's it. Now read it. I've saved it up for your delight."
There came a silence, broken only by the noise of unfolded paper. Then Olive looked up.
"Reed! The—"
"Don't swear, Olive," he admonished her, and now his eyes were wholly mirthful.
"I wasn't going to. I was only hunting for a suitable epithet. How does she dare?"
"Dare take unto herself the glory of what she calls my incipient cure? I wish I thought it was that; but vertebrae are vertebrae, in spite of all the Christian Scientists in all creation. As for her claim, though, she's got us there, Olive. One can't well prove an alibi, when it's a case of absent treatment. Still, I must say I like her nerve."