"Held accidents?" asked Hildegarde, innocently. "What do you mean, laddie?"
"People hurt in accidents!" replied the boy. "While he set the bones, you know. There were some very fine ones!" and he kindled with professional enthusiasm. "There was one man who had fallen from a staging sixty feet high, and was all—"
"Don't! don't!" cried both girls, in horror, putting their fingers in their ears.
"We don't want to hear about it, you dreadful boy!" said Hildegarde. "We are not going to be surgeons, be good enough to remember."
"Oh, it's all right!" said Bubble, laughing. "He got well, and is about on crutches now. Then there was a case of trepanning. Oh, that was so beautiful! You must let me tell you about that. You see, this man was a sailor, and he fell from the top-gallantmast, and struck—" But here Rose's hand was laid resolutely over his mouth, and he was told that if he could not refrain from surgical anecdotes, he would be sent back to New York forthwith.
"All right!" said the embryo surgeon, with a sigh; "only they're about all I have to tell that is really interesting. Well, it grew hotter and hotter. Dr. Flower didn't seem to mind the heat much; but Jock and I—well, we did."
"Oh, my dear little Jock!" cried Hildegarde, remorsefully. "To think of my never having asked for him. How is the dear doggie?"
"He's all right now," replied Bubble, "But there was one hot spell last month, that we thought would finish the pup. Hot? Well, I should—I mean, I should think it was! You had to put your boots down cellar every night, or else they'd be warped so you couldn't put 'em on in the morning."
"Bubble!" said Hildegarde, holding up a warning finger. But Bubble would not be repressed again.
"Oh, Miss Hilda, you don't know anything about it!" he said; "excuse me, but really you don't. The sidewalks were so hot, the bakers just put their dough out on them, and it was baked in a few minutes. All the Fifth Avenue folks had fountain attachments put on to their carriages, and sprinkled themselves with iced lavender water and odycolone as they drove along; and the bronze statue in Union Square melted and ran all over the lot."