The room had filled with the neighbors, and in the crowd the small boy who had brought them there made his escape.
“Can any one tell me who this is?” the surgeon asked.
“I knew that weren’t Mr. McEcchran as soon as I see him,” said another boy. “That’s Mr. Carroll.”
“And where does—did Mr. Carroll live?” the doctor pursued, repenting already of his zeal as he foresaw a repetition of the same painful scene in some other tenement-house.
“It’s only two blocks off—on the Boulevard,” explained the second boy. “It’s over a saloon on the corner. I’ll show you if I can ride on the wagon.”
“Very well,” agreed the doctor; and the body was carried down and placed again in the ambulance.
As the ambulance started he overheard one little girl say to another: “He was killed in a blast! My! ain’t it awful? It blew his legs off!”
To which the other little girl answered, “But I saw both his boots as they carried him out.”
And the first little girl then explained: “Oh, I guess they put his legs back in place so as not to hurt his wife’s feelings. Turrible, ain’t it?”
