“I guess I shall,” Doodles smiled. “The doctor thinks so. It is going to cost a good deal, five dollars a time; but mother says she doesn’t begrudge the money, if he can do me a bit of good. Oh, I’ve wondered and wondered what it would feel like to jump right up and run across the room, as Blue does—and to think I shall know!” His voice dropped almost to a whisper, as if the thought were too precious to speak.
The officer pulled out his watch with a hand that trembled.
“I must be going, little man,” he said. “I had an hour off duty, so I thought I’d just drop in and say, ‘How d’ ye do?’ and, ‘Good-bye!’”
He held the small hand in a tight squeeze, and then, for Thomas Fitzpatrick, he did a most remarkable thing, he bent over and kissed the uplifted face.
“Good-bye!” called Doodles, as the tall man strode towards the door.
And from out the depths of a husky throat came the answering, “Good-bye!”
Once more the policeman’s watch told him that it still lacked fifteen minutes of school-closing. The intervening time was spent in street chats with acquaintances, and some of them appeared to be absorbing; but promptly on the appointed moment Fitzpatrick was in front of the Franklin School, his keen eye on the lookout for Blue.
In the center of a troupe of jostling, shouting boys the officer spied him, and presently the lad was caught on the run by a strong arm.
“Oh!” he laughed, “it’s you! I was goin’ to give it to whoever was grabbin’ me that style!”
“Come over here! I’ve got something to tell you.”