He lifted the exalted, eager boy lightly from the floor, and swung him to a perch on his shoulder.
"Uncle Rat has come to town!" sang Willem, too rapturously happy to keep still.
"Ha-H'M!" he and Peter Grimm chorused as they moved toward the door.
"'Uncle Rat has come to town,
To buy——'"
McPherson came in.
"Here's the water, Willem," he announced, going over to the couch. "I got it at last, after barking my shins over——"
He glanced at the sofa and its occupant. Then the glass fell from his nerveless hand. He knelt in horror beside the still, white little body that lay there.
"Dead!" gasped McPherson.
"No!" exulted Peter Grimm from the doorway. "Not dead, Andrew, old friend. There never was so fair a prospect for life!"
"Oh," sighed Willem blissfully, his arm about Peter Grimm's neck, "I'm so happy! I didn't know any one could be so happy as this—or so well."