"Sir, I protest! This is outrageous!" one of the dowagers exclaimed.
"Madam, I agree with you fully. It is." Kinnison smiled as genuinely as he could under the circumstances. "It is, however, necessary. I will apologize to all you ladies, and to you, doctor—in writing if you like—after we have Virgil Samms aboard the Chicago; but until then I would not trust my own grandmother."
The doctor looked up. "The Chicago? This wound does not appear to be a very serious one, but this man is going to a hospital at once. Ah, the stretcher. So ... please ... easy ... there, that is excellent. Call an ambulance, please, immediately."
"I did. Long ago. But no hospital, doctor. All those windows—open to the public—or the whole place bombed—by no means. I'm taking no chances whatever."
"Except with your own life!" Jill put in sharply, looking up from her place at her father's side. Assured that the First Lensman was in no danger of dying, she had begun to take interest in other things. "You are important, too, you know, and you're standing right out there in the open. Get another stretcher, lie down on it, and we'll guard you, too ... and don't be too stiff-necked to take your own advice!" she flared, as he hesitated.
"I'm not, if it were necessary, but it isn't. If they had killed him, yes. I'd probably be next in line. But since he got only a scratch, there'd be no point at all in killing even a good Number Two."
"A scratch!" Jill fairly seethed. "Do you call that horrible wound a scratch?"
"Huh? Why, certainly—that's all it is—thanks to you," he returned, in honest and complete surprise. "No bones shattered—no main arteries cut—missed the lung—he'll be as good as new in a couple of weeks."
"And now," he went on aloud, "if you ladies will please pick up this stretcher we will move en masse, and slowly, toward the door."
The women, no longer indignant but apparently enjoying the sensation of being the center of interest, complied with the request.