"Don't go for the doctor, Dick, please. I don't need him. I am all right now."
"I've only your word for that; I may tell you that your face doesn't lend any confirmation! You look as if you'd lost your seven senses and couldn't say Bo! to a goose! Are you better?... Really? Honour bright?"
"Yes, yes, yes. Tell me, Dick, if she is your sister, who is Gracie?"
It looked like a turning of the tables! Was Dick's turn to start and exhibit surprise. His was the wide-open-eyed-and-mouthed type of astonishment; showed plainly in his face; deception was a thing unknown to him. A moment's wondering silence; then he inquired:
"Who's Gracie? How the dickens did you know there was any Gracie? Why, she's her kid, of course; my little niece!"
At that the man in the bunk laughed. Almost his old hearty ringing laugh again. But even yet it retained a tone of wildness; he cried:
"Blind! Blind! Blind! What a crass idiot; what a senseless fool I have been!"
Dick scratched his head; these sudden changes of mood were too much for him; said:
"Well, you certainly are behaving in first-prize-gold-medal idiotic fashion! But the puzzle to me is, how the deuce did you know anything about little Gracie?"
"Know about her? I actually know her! Good heavens! How clear it all seems now."