And when they stopped, hesitating and trembling, the patient in the cot next that of Markus motioned to them to come nearer.
"Come on, you," said the man, a disreputable old fellow with a bandage around his bald head, a crooked nose, and a shaggy beard stained a yellow-brown with tobacco-juice. "He isn't cold yet, but he's snoozin' away's steady's a new-born babe. Isn't that so, Sjaak?"
And Sjaak, the patient on the other side—a drunkard with a broken leg, and a face full of red pimples—cried out: "Hear me! I couldn't sleep better meself—after a couple o' drinks."
"Just make yerselves easy," said the old fellow. "Don't be upset about it. He'd be sorry if you went away again."
"A little less noise, number eight," called the nurse. "Talk quietly."
"Is he your brother?" asked Sjaak, in a whisper this time. Johannes nodded.
"They've given him the very devil," said the old man, "just as they gave it to me. Though I believe they served me about right."
"I'm askin' a great deal," said Sjaak; "but if we've both always got to stay in this here boardin'-house—him and me—why, then, I'd like to ask the good Lord not to let him kick the bucket before I kicks it. Because if I've got to stay here alone with that old red-nose there, and my own damn wicked carcass, then—hi! hi! hi!"
Then came a sudden outburst of maudlin sobs, due, no doubt, to a condition of enforced abstinence.
"Silence!" called the Sister, sternly.