But Judith was not worrying. Her eyes had closed again in a perfectly obvious simulation of sleep. For a moment Roger looked a little hurt by this indifferent reception of his idea. Then he tiptoed quietly out of the room.
Full of his plan, he hastened to the grey room, where the tall stranger lay, all his cheerful smile lost in the twisted grin of pain.
But he managed somehow to smile, after a fashion at least, when Roger came in.
"Hello," he said, with something of his characteristic buoyancy.
"Hello," said Roger, trying to be casual. "How you feeling?"
"Ever see a hog skinned?" grinned the tall man. "That's how."
Roger's sympathies were stirred. He was really a very tender-hearted lad. But he was not to be swerved from his purpose. He had a duty to perform.
"Bad business," he said seriously, seating himself beside the bed. Then he nodded to the maid, who had been detailed to act as nurse, to leave the room. When she had closed the door, he turned confidentially to Good.
"I say, old man," he said with something of embarrassment in his manner, "you're going to be laid up for a good stretch, you know, and you may lose your job and all that—"
"Tweedledee," said the tall man. "You can't lose what you haven't got."