"New England and the Southwest."
"That makes an all-round man. Not that gunner Sanford?"
"Yes."
"Peter Smithers—but this is a little world."
All the while his mind was on that wound: his talk an incidental byplay of his intense concentration. He began making quick, nervous little movements with his hands as if he were illustrating a mechanical process in pantomime. When he had first appeared at the hospital this habit was considered gallery play; but most of the doctors had learned to believe in him, though some were still sceptical, as was Smythe in a measure. Here was a test. When Bricktop looked up he met professional inquiry in Smythe's eye.
"Can you?"
"Now, if I said that I could," Bricktop replied, "and I didn't, all the stick-in-the-muds would say there was one on me. I'm going to try. It's amazing how bad it is and yet what there is to work with. But there's one thing—I don't know. Never had anything like it before. I can make him as good as he was—or it's a complete failure. I want him brought over to my place immediately. And you, picture girl, you are going to stand by and write cheerful messages on his arm?"
"Yes, always!" said Helen.
"As for his ears, eyes, and vocal chords—that is up to other sharps," said Bricktop.
Phil was lifted up again and placed on something not so soft as the bed and by the motion he comprehended that he was making another journey. It was to an entrance with the sign "Oral Surgery." As Bricktop said, "This means Yours Truly!" Here he was autocrat, this stranger from Kansas by way of New York. On the door of a room fitted out with dentist's accessories and many little drawers was painted "William Smith, D.D.S." He was always glad to tell people about himself, because, as he said, this saved them from wasting time in guessing and allowed him the start in the kind of information which was being passed around about him.