"No, no. He could do no more than is being done. I merely get to thinking of him and wishing I could see him. It's my old friend and chum of college days, John Leaver, of Baltimore."
"The big surgeon I've heard you and Mrs. Burns speak of? Great heavens, he'd come in a minute if he knew!"
"I've no doubt he would, but I happen to know he's abroad just now."
King studied his friend's face, saw that Burns was already weary with the brief visit, and soon went away. But it was to a consultation with Mrs. Burns as to the possibility of communicating with Doctor Leaver.
"I wrote his wife not long ago of Red's illness," Ellen said, "but I didn't state all the facts; somehow I couldn't bring myself to do that. They are in London; they go over every winter. I had a card only yesterday from Charlotte giving a new address and promising to write soon."
"Wasn't he the man you told me of who had a bad nervous breakdown a few years ago? The one Red had stay with you here until he got back his nerve?"
"Yes; and he has been even a more brilliant operator ever since."
"I remember the whole story; there was a lot of thrill in it as you told it. How Red made him rest and build up and then fairly forced him to operate, against his will, to prove to him that he had got his nerve back? Jove! Do you think that man wouldn't cross the ocean in a hurry if he thought he could lift his finger to help our poor boy?"
King's speech had taken on such a fatherly tone of late that Ellen was not surprised to hear him thus allude to his senior.
"Yes, Jack Leaver would do anything for Red, but I know Red would never let us summon him from so far."