“Oh, well, it might be arranged,” murmured Macauley, but not quite low enough. In a flash he was laid flat on his back on the lawn, a menacing figure standing over him.
“None of that!” growled the man with the temper. “Not now or any other time.” Then he laughed and let his victim up. “Alcohol will take out grass stains, Jim,” he advised. “Tell Martha that.”
CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH HE MAKES A CONCESSION
Red Pepper Burns opened his eyes. What on earth was that? A small voice piping at him from within close range? But how could that be?
Something bumped against him. He turned his head on his pillow. A small figure at his side had raised itself upon its elbow; big black eyes in a pale little face were staring at him in affright. Burns roused himself, suddenly very wide awake indeed.
“It's all right, little man,” said he, pulling the child gently into the warmth of his encircling arm. “You came home with me last night. Don't you remember? You're going to make me a visit. And this morning after breakfast we're going to drive to town and buy a train of cars—red, shiny cars and an engine with a bell on it. What do you think of that?”
It did not take long to change Bob's fright into the happiest anticipations. Red Pepper Burns was at his best with children; he had what their mothers called “a way with them.”
A knock at the door and Cynthia's voice calling, “Here's some things for the little boy, Doctor,” put an end to a full half-hour of delightful comradeship, during which the sheets of the bed had became a tent and the two were soldiers resting after a day's march. Burns rose and took in the parcel. Martha Macauley had sent it. Her boy Harold was the nearest in size to Bob of any of the children of his neighbours, and the parcel held everything needed from undershirt to scarlet Windsor scarf to tie under the rolling collar of the blue blouse.
“A bath first, Bob,” and his new guardian initiated him into the exciting experience of a splash in a big white tub, in water decidedly warmer than it would be a week hence when he should have become used to the invigorating cool plunge. Then Burns, glowing from contact with water as cold as it could be got from the tap, clad in bathrobe and slippers, attempted to solve the mysteries of Bob's toilet. Roars of laughter interspersed with high pipings of glee presently brought Cynthia to the door.