“But I cannot and will not,” said the surgeon, smiling. “You could not help wincing and showing your suffering. That would trouble, perhaps unnerve me, and I could not work so well.”
“What are you going to do?—give me chloroform?”
“No; I am going to inject a fluid that will dull the sensitive nerves of the part, and place you in such a condition that you will lose all sense of suffering.”
“And if I don’t come to?”
“You will not for some time. Now, old friend, show me your confidence. Are you ready?”
There was a long, deep-drawn breath, a look at the young girl’s patient, trust-giving face and then Ezekiel Masters, one of the wealthiest men in Boston, said calmly—
“Yes.”
A few minutes later he was lying perfectly insensible, and breathing as gently as an infant. “Can you repeat that from time to time, as I tell you?” said the surgeon.
“Yes, dear.”
“Without flinching?”