“Well,” said Hetzel, rising, “good-by, Mr. Romer, and I trust that you know how grateful we are to you.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Romer. “Don’t mention it. Good-by.”
In the street Mr. Flint said, “I’ll invite myself to go home with you. I want to see how badly off the poor boy is.”
In Beekman Place they made the ’arrangements, that the doctor had indicated for Arthur’s reception, and then sat down in the drawing-room to await his coming. By and by the ambulance rolled up to the door.
They hurried out upon the stoop. A good many of the neighbors had come to their windows, and there was a small army of inquisitive children bivouacked upon the curbstone. Mrs. Berle ran across from her house, and talked excitedly to Mrs. Hart. Of course, all Beekman Place had read in the newspapers of Judith Peixada’s arrest.
The doctor, assisted by the driver, lifted the sick man out. He lay at full length upon a canvas stretcher. His face had assumed a cadaverous, greenish tinge. His big blue eyes, wide open, were fixed upon the empty air above them. To all appearances, he was still unconscious.
They carried him up the stoop; through the hall, and into the room above-stairs to which Mrs. Hart conducted them. There they laid him on the bed.
“Now,” said the doctor, “first of all, send for your own physician. I must see him and confer with him, before I go away.”
Mrs. Hart left the room, to obey the doctor’s injunction.
“You, Jake,” the doctor went on, addressing the driver, “needn’t wait. Drive back to the hospital, and tell them that I’ll come as soon as I can be spared.”