"A—what?" roared the younger man.
"Oh, shut up, you damned fool! Of course I'll come!" said the Senior
Surgeon.
There was no "boy" left in the Senior Surgeon when he reached home that night.
Gray with road-travel, haggard with strain and fatigue, it was long, long after the rosy sunset time,—long, long after the yellow supper light, that he came dragging up through the sweet-scented dusk of the garden and threw himself down without greeting of any sort on the top step of the piazza where the White Linen Nurse's skirts glowed palely through the gloom.
"Well, I put a canary bird back into its cage for you!" he confided laconically. "It was a little chap's soul. It sure would have gotten away before morning."
"Who was the man that tried to turn it loose—this time?" asked the
White Linen Nurse.
"I didn't say that anybody did!" growled the Senior Surgeon.
"Oh," said the White Linen Nurse. "Oh." Quite palpably a little shiver of flesh and starch went rustling through her. "I've had a wonderful day, too!" she confided softly. "I've cleaned the attic and darned nine pairs of your stockings and bought a sewing-machine—and started to make you a white silk negligee shirt for a surprise!"
"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon.
The jerk seemed to liberate suddenly the faint vibration of dishes and the sound of ice knocking lusciously against a glass.