"Well, Mary Lee," he agreed good humoredly. "Of course, it will be talking shop for me to take you youngsters through, but if that is what you wish, I will gladly do so."
"Suppose we take our ride later," suggested Bob, who felt more at liberty to suggest than the others because Aunt Madge was his aunt and Dr. Anderson would soon be his uncle. "We could stay out late and you could return to town in the morning."
Aunt Madge laughed. "It's not so easily planned as all that, but even then I think we can manage."
Dr. Anderson telephoned the hospital as soon as they reached the house. He obtained permission almost at once to go through with his party. His business with Mr. Quinn was transacted in half an hour and so it was still quite early in the morning when they reached the hospital. It was a large institution which made a specialty of certain kinds of cases, but it also had an emergency ward.
The doctor explained so thoroughly, yet so simply, to his listeners as they went through the operating rooms, etc., that they could not help having a good conception of the necessary treatment of the sick.
In the midst of an explanation he saw Mary Lee's attention centered on a nurse who was taking the temperature of a patient.
"Yes, Mary Lee, that is what you will be doing some day. You have made a splendid choice of profession. It will take many years—there is much you must learn. I know," he continued, jestingly, "folks will be glad to get sick just so that they can have Dr. Anderson treat them and Nurse Mary Lee take care of them."
"It isn't going to take as many years as you think," loyally replied Bob, taking up the cudgels, "for Mary Lee has already begun." And he told Aunt Madge and the doctor of Tom Marshall. To Bob, because he was a boy, the part that had to do with the silver mine in Mexico was important and so he dwelt upon it.
"Tom Marshall told Mary Lee that he has a partner who is an Indian and who is a whiter and squarer man than many white men," concluded the boy.
For one moment, Dr. Anderson wondered at this last remark the boy had made.