It was a familiar thing for the men in the court to see stretchers wheeled into the operating-room. After this they watched for that red-headed man with the smiling mouth to walk across from his office, as another part of the regular routine of their existence, and their sympathy went out to the fellow on the stretcher as no one else's could.
The picture girl walking beside the stretcher this afternoon did not even look up at them, let alone send them a smile as usual. When Bricktop came across from the office she was waiting at the door of the operating-room, and they noted the appeal in her eyes as she spoke to him. Very observing those maimed men who could not speak, but still had their eyesight. Whoever was on that stretcher must mean a great deal to the picture girl. Afterward, while the operation was on, she came over to them and talked, but they felt that her mind was inside the operating-room and that she was suffering. That was the thing about her: she could feel how others suffered. It did them more good than her drawings.
After he was through with the preliminary probing and splicing and wiring, which he foresaw must be followed by many other sessions, Bricktop had what he called one of his "blow-outs."
"Fine business, war; so sensible, so logical, so considerate of everybody's feelings!" he stormed. "A man who had a robber baron for an ancestor and who likes to see his picture in the papers and wear a uniform and thinks that everything is his by divine right, when what he needs is a swift kick, wants some more glory! So he puts on his war-bonnet and starts the glorious old game, with improvements—sidewipes with jagged bits of steel that make a mess like this! Enough money fired away in one day to give everybody good teeth. Think of that—if everybody had decent teeth and well-shaped mouths! But they can't afford it. It's the killing season. The good old sport must be kept up!"
The nurses were familiar with the "blow-outs," which usually came with the reaction after a trying operation, when those skilful fingers had been so certain in their touch under an eye which was like the steel of the instruments that he used.
Phil had awakened to find that they had taken away the thing over his nose that had put him to sleep. And they had put back the sponge-like thing in his mouth; but he could breathe better than before. Then they were taking him on another journey and propping him up in bed again, in his world of silent night. He knew, instantly her hand touched his, that it was she again. She was writing:
"It went all right. The miracle man is pleased."
"Brave little liar!" thought Bricktop, whose pessimism with the first results had made his "blow-out" particularly bitter.
"I am writing to your father for you and telling him that you will be as good as ever," she continued. "The miracle man says that the pain will be bad, and if it is too bad, clap your hands and they will stop it. But he would rather not, if you can endure it."
Phil gave her hand two pressures to signify that he understood, and had a pressure in response before she withdrew her hand with a fluttering, nervous quickness. This return pressure helped. It was like comradeship in battle. He was not making the fight alone.