"Yes, that's just it, sir," beamed the White Linen Nurse. "A dog, of course, will chase anything that runs,—that's just dog,—but when a dog really begins to care for what he's chasing he—wags! That's hunting! Father doesn't calculate, he says, on training a dog on anything he doesn't wag on!"
"Yes, but what's that got to do with you?" asked the Senior Surgeon a bit impatiently.
With ill-concealed dismay the White Linen Nurse stood staring blankly at the Senior Surgeon's gross stupidity.
"Why, don't you see?" she faltered. "I've been chasing this nursing job three whole years now—and there's no wag to it!"
"Oh Hell!" said the Senior Surgeon. If he hadn't said "Oh Hell!" he would have grinned. And it hadn't been a grinning day, and he certainly didn't intend to begin grinning at any such late hour as that in the afternoon. With his dignity once reassured he relaxed then a trifle. "For Heaven's sake, what do you want to be?" he asked not unkindly.
With an abrupt effort at self-control Rae Malgregor jerked her head into at least the outer semblance of a person lost in almost fathomless thought.
"Why I'm sure I don't know, sir," she acknowledged worriedly. "But it would be a great pity, I suppose, to waste all the grand training that's gone into my hands." With sudden conviction her limp shoulders stiffened a trifle. "My oldest sister," she stammered, "bosses the laundry in one of the big hotels in Halifax, and my youngest sister teaches school in Moncton. But I'm so strong, you know, and I like to move things round so,—and everything,—maybe—I could get a position somewhere as general housework girl."
With a roar of amusement as astonishing to himself as to his listeners, the Senior Surgeon's chin jerked suddenly upward.
"You're crazy as a loon!" he confided cordially. "Great Scott! If you can work up a condition like this on coffee,—what would you do on," he hesitated grimly, "malted milk?" As unheralded as his amusement, gross irritability overtook him again. "Will—you—stop—rattling that brown paper?" he thundered at her.
Innocently as a child she rebuffed the accusation and ignored the temper.