The seven sophisticated men of the world, gathered about the prostrate figure, stood silent, and three of them turned away, lest the others should see the unmanly moisture of their eyes.
"Here, by thunder!" gasped Ricketts, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. "Hanged if I won't buy the whole edition."
"That's all right, Billie," smiled the doctor. "What he needs just now is something less cold than money. We'll take him upstairs, and give him a warm bath, fill his little stomach up with milk, and put him to bed, with a nice fuzzy blanket to thaw out his icy little legs."
"Splendid!" said Ricketts. "But, see here, doctor, I want to be in on this. Isn't there anything I can do to help?"
"Yes," said the doctor. "You might make this proceeding regular by putting him up as your guest on a ten-day card."
The little bundle of rags and humanity was tenderly carried to the regions above, and under the almost womanly ministrations of Doctor Mallerby was completely restored to cleanliness and warmth; what hunger he might have been conscious of was assuaged by a great bumper of milk, and then in the most sumptuous apartment the club was able to provide the thawed-out little gamin was put to bed.
The snowy sheets, the soft, downy pillows, and the soul-warming blankets, were not needed to lure him into the land of dreams, for the bitter experiences of the earlier hours of the night still weighed heavily upon his eyelids, even if his mind and heart were no longer conscious of them. He presented a most appealing picture as he lay there, after settling back with a deep-drawn sigh of content into the kindly embrace of a bed seven or eight sizes too big for him, his little legs scarcely reaching halfway to the middle, and his tousled head of red hair forming a rubricated spot on the milk-white pillow-case as it stuck up out of the bed-clothes, and lay comfortably back in what was probably the first soft nest it had known since it lay on its mother's breast—if, indeed, it had ever known that rare felicity.
"There," said the doctor, as the little foundling, with a suspicion of a smile on his pursed-up lips, wandered more deeply into the land of Nod. "I guess he's fixed for the night, anyhow, and the rest of us can go about our business."
The seven men tiptoed softly out of the room, and adjourned to the spacious chambers below, where for an hour they tried to lose themselves in the chaos of bridge. They were all fairly expert players at that noble social obsession, but nobody would have guessed it that night. No party of beginners ever played quite so atrociously, and yet no partner was found sufficiently outraged to be acrimonious. The fact was that not one of them was able to keep his mind on the cards, the thoughts of every one of them reverting constantly to the wan little figure in that upper room.
Finally Dobbleigh, after having reneged twice, and trumped his partner's trick more than once, threw down his cards, and drew away from the table impatiently.