"Hum, ha; let's have a look at it."
The surgeon, whose hands were large, white and soft, and as gentle as his voice was gruff, unfastened the straps of iron and felt of Toots' poor, crippled leg, saying "hum, ha," a great many times as he did so. At length he replaced the irons, looked the boy sharply in the face, and asked:
"How would you like to wear it like the other one, for a change?"
"Oh, would that be possible, sir?" asked Toots, turning pale.
"Easy as"—the gruff man looked around to see if he could find anything so easy as making Toots' leg an inch and a half longer, and noticed Mahmoud—"easy as growing new skin on an elephant's trunk. Hum, ha, easier."
"Would it hurt?"
"Not a bit. Do it while you're asleep. Then you lie on your back a couple of weeks, after which you go out on my farm with my little daughter and stay till you can jump up and crack your heels together twice. Hum, ha. Tell your mother to bring you to the hospital at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon."
"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" was all Toots could say.
"Hum, ha, any friend of Mahmoud is a friend of mine," said the Princess' father.
It all happened exactly according to the promise of the gruff man with the gentle hands—a little dream of pain in his leg, then two weeks on his back in the hospital bed, where the Princess visited him daily with all sorts of dainties, and then, when he could walk about a bit, a long journey into the country.