“Didn’t you hear him ask me for one in the motor? Now, I say he was clever, with only one arm and one eye, and laid low in bed, to manage to get cigarettes.”
Grimshaw stared. “It must have been Dr. Morton,” he said after a pause; “but the point is that, when I told him you detested them, he didn’t stop.”
“He smiled, perhaps?” Miss Frink did, herself.
“I don’t remember; but I wasn’t going to stand for that, you may be sure, and I told him we couldn’t have the atmosphere of this house—your house, vitiated.”
“Vitiated,” repeated Miss Frink musingly, “Fine word, Vitiated.”
“Growing childish, upon my soul,” thought the secretary. “The first break!”
“The point is,” he declared with dignity, “the significant point is, that he did not stop smoking. He asked the nurse to close the transom.”
“Poor boy, he needn’t have done that,” said Miss Frink; “and, by the way, Dr. Morton didn’t give him the cigarettes.”
“I suppose he got around the nurse, then.”
“No. She isn’t guilty either; and, Grim”—Miss Frink paused and put back her eyeglasses through which she regarded the faithful one steadily—“I am entirely prepared to go around wearing a gas-mask if necessary. I might be needing one now for brimstone if it wasn’t for that boy, and he is going to have any plaything it occurs to him to want. Now, let’s get at these letters.”