While this colloquy was taking place on the veranda, another was going on in Joe’s room, where he and Jim had gone directly from the table in compliance with Dougherty’s command that Joe should go to bed early and get a good night’s sleep.
On the way Joe had stopped at the clerk’s desk and sent a long night letter to Mabel and another to his mother, reassuring them against any lurid accounts that they might see of the affair in the next day’s papers.
“Pretty well all in, old boy,” remarked Jim solicitously, as Joe dropped into a chair after reaching the room occupied by him and his chum.
“I am, for a fact,” admitted Joe. “The reaction, I suppose. Tired physically and worried a little mentally.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jim in quick alarm. “You don’t really think that you’ve seriously injured your arm, do you?”
“I try not to,” returned Joe, with a forced smile. “But naturally I can’t help feeling anxious about it. That arm brings me in my livelihood. I suppose I feel somewhat as a violinist might who had hurt his fingers and didn’t know whether they were going to be permanently crippled or not.”
“But you worked your arm without any apparent pain when Dougherty asked you to!” exclaimed Jim.
“‘Apparent’ is right,” rejoined Joe. “But I don’t mind admitting to you, old boy, on the dead quiet, that it hurt me like the mischief all the same. But good old Mac was so worried that I didn’t have the heart to add to his burdens. So I just grit my teeth and stalled through.”
“Of course, though, that may not have meant anything,” said Jim comfortingly, though his own heart had sunk down into his boots with apprehension. “The arm was naturally inflamed from the burn and any motion would have hurt it. But that doesn’t say that it won’t be all right as soon as the inflammation subsides.”