Tap! tap! tap! tap!—the wheel chair was backing into sight at the door of the tiny room.
Johnnie began to whisper: "Don't speak 'bout Cis, will y'? It'd make him cry."
Grandpa heard the whispering. He looked round over a shoulder, his pale eyes searching the half-dark kitchen. "Johnnie, what's the matter?" he asked, as if fearful. "What's the matter?"
Johnnie went to him, walking with something of a swagger. "Nothin's the matter!" he declared stoutly. "What y' talkin' 'bout? Ev'rything's fine! Jus' fine!"
The frightened look went out of the peering, old eyes. Grandpa broke into his thin, cackling laugh. "Everything's fine!" he cried. He shook a proud head. "Everything's fine!"
Johnnie pulled the chair over the sill, this with something of a flourish. Then, facing it about, "Here's Mister Perkins come t' see y'," he announced, and sent the chair rolling gayly to the middle of the room, while Grandpa shouted as gleefully as a child, and swayed himself against the strand of rope that held him in place.
"Niaggery! Niaggery!" he begged.
"Sh! sh! Mister Barber's asleep!"
"Sh! sh!" echoed the old man. "Tommie's asleep! Tommie's asleep! Tommie's asleep! That's what I always say to mother. Tommie's asleep!"
Johnnie came to the wheel chair. Then, for the first time in all the years he had spent in the flat, the tender love he felt for Grandpa fairly pulled his young arms about those stooped old shoulders; and he dropped his yellow head till it touched the white one. Tears were in his eyes, but somehow he was not ashamed of them.