Then Philip held his senior away at arms' length and said, with masculine candor but with a look of sympathy in his eyes, "Don, you poor devil, you've been killing yourself over there. Don't tell me. I've a mind to appoint myself your physician and order you to bed for a month."
"Good Lord, do I look as bad as that?" laughed the other. "If I do, looks are deceitful, for I feel fit as a fiddle. I need only one thing to make a complete new man of me."
"And that is ...?"
"A secret, at present."
The two seated themselves opposite each other, and Philip continued, "I've managed to keep myself pretty well posted on the work that you've been doing, without knowing any of the details of your life—you're a rotten correspondent. Come, did you have any 'hairbreadth' 'scapes or moving accidents by field and flood?"
"Nary one. My life has been one dead, monotonous waste."
"Like ... the deuce it has. Come, I've got just ten minutes to stay; tell me the whole detailed history of your two years and a half. Knowing your natural verbosity, I should say that it would take you just about half that time, which will leave me the balance for my own few remarks."
"Five minutes? I could tell you the whole history of my life in that time. But, before I start, I want to ask you about my little niece, Muriel? I've just been reading a letter from Ethel, which seems to indicate that they are rather worried about her; but, when I called her by long distance, she either couldn't, or wouldn't tell me anything definite."
"I don't think that there is any real occasion for being disturbed," answered Philip, quietly. "Although I'll confess frankly that things haven't been going just right, and I'm not sorry to have you back and in charge of the case. Muriel made the acquaintance of a typhus bug—the Lord knows how—and, although I succeeded in getting the best of the fever fairly quickly, thanks to the able assistance of that nurse whom you swear by ..."