Then Bob told of Captain Joe’s quinine. To his regret, Mrs. Balfour immediately ran to her medicine box and repeated the dose. Finally, after submitting to all sorts of tests, including the taking of his temperature, Mrs. Balfour had to concede that Bob “seemed” all right.
“‘Seem’?” repeated the boy. “Why mother, I haven’t felt as fine in six months. And it’s years since I’ve eaten as much as I did to-day. You let me go to camp, if Mac is there to cook, and I’ll go back home stronger than a prize fighter.”
“Mac?” exclaimed Mrs. Balfour, springing up in her bed. “Not Mac Gregory?”
“Yes, I told you,” stammered Bob apprehensively. “It was Mac who had the Escambia there.”
“I didn’t understand,” said his mother, with her lips set.
Then the story of Mac’s regeneration had to come out. It was told most adroitly, and in two chapters. At the end of the first chapter, Mrs. Balfour simply announced that, no matter how manfully the Gregory boy had acted, he and Bob could not belong to the same club. Then came Chapter Number Two—the pathetic appeal. At the end of this one, there was hesitation, doubt, and then a little concession: “I’ll see what Mrs. Allen thinks about it.”
The next day was Sunday. Bob did not awaken until nine o’clock. But, when he turned over in bed at last, his eyes fell on a newspaper, folded and standing against the back of a chair in front of the bed. Then his eyes caught a heavy, black headline. He read:
NARROW ESCAPE
Steamer Elias Ward Helpless Off Alabama Point