Finally, the alcohol exhausted and some of the practitioner strength along with it, Pat, the leader, called a halt. They had been rubbing, drying and according to the patient, bouncing Gloria around from pillow to cushion, and between times to the floor, for fully an hour, so delighted were they with the excitement, and determined to make a good job out of it, and the result was now a case of glow.
“Putting the ‘glow’ in Gloria,” chuckled Pat. She was reacting from her frenzy of hysteria and would be at “concert pitch” for days to come.
“Let me up! Help! Don’t smother me! There! Where’s my own duds?” begged the girl surrounded by “her admiring friends.”
“Oh let’s,” lisped Ethel. “Let’s put her in that glorious red robe.”
“Say!” snapped Pat, “if you put any more glory in this bird she’ll flutter off to paradise. I’m so glad my name’s plain Pat.”
Nevertheless, the red robe was being applied. Then, a pair of silly little satin mules, with gold tassels, were put on Gloria’s feet, while an uncertain throne was erected among cushions from many adjacent rooms, and some further off down the hall. Thereon was installed the heroine.
“If I live to be a hundred I’ll never forget it,” declared Pat. “To see her come sailing in with poor Jack’s petticoat at full mast——”
“Is she all right?” broke in Gloria. The surrounding mirth only followed an assurance of Jack’s favorable condition, and even now a scout was kept busy running up and down the hall, reporting snatches of words or indications, surreptitiously gathered from the crack at Jack’s door.
“Sleeping nicely,” announced the outpost, Janet Thornton. “And the doctor’s about due. Mary is still with her.”