“Wish I was rich as Crœsus. We’d get him out of there and cure him up, wouldn’t we?”
“Ah, my boy, if we had the wealth of twenty Crœsuses it’s too late to help him now. The best we can do is to make him as comfortable as possible where he is. Come round to the office with me, and I’ll give you something to ease the cough a little.”
When the medicine is ready Ned rises to go, but hesitates.
“There wasn’t any fire there, Doctor. I’ve used up all my last allowance, and father’s away from home. What’s to be done?”
The Doctor writes down some names and addresses on a slip of paper.
“There. You go to these gentlemen, state the case, and we’ll see what they’ll do for you.... I might give you a recommend.... But no. We’ll try without, first. I fancy that honest face of yours will open the pocket-books quicker than any note from me.”
And Ned sets out on his first begging expedition, which proves so successful that in a few hours the tumble-down stove retires ignominiously to make place for a shining new one, in which the fire need not go out while cold weather lasts; and the evening shadows, creeping back to their favorite haunt, the attic, are amazed and panic-stricken to find it occupied by a rosy troop of hilarious elfs, dancing up and down the wall, with whom they must battle for possession.
Moreover, Ned has enlisted the sympathies of another of his particular friends, Bridget, the cook, who fails not to prepare, daily, delicacies for him to carry to the sick boy—glad of an errand thither, for this new acquaintance is extremely interesting, not in the least like any one Ned has ever met before, so young and yet so accomplished. Why, he can give a hundred hints about playing on that precious violin, he can show sheets of music of his own composing, a portfolio full of sketches, his own work, in pencil and crayon and oil; and, oh! to hear him talk of wonderful Paris, and of famous people whom he has seen and whom his father has known.
Perhaps a month has passed, when, upon an afternoon, Ned, bounding in all aglow from the frosty air without, stops short, seeing the pallid face is not lifted in eager greeting from among the cushions.