Leslie ran toward him with a cry.
"Father! Oh, father, what has happened?"
[CHAPTER III]
THE HIGHWAYMAN'S MASK IS FOUND
Burton had jumped to his feet. "Let me help you to a couch," he said, offering his arm as a support. "Not into this room," Dr. Underwood sputtered, wincing with pain as he spoke. "Good land, man, do you suppose a man with a sprained ankle who isn't going to be able to walk for the rest of his natural life, and then will have to go on crutches for a while, wants to sit down on one of those spindle-legged chairs that break if you look at them? Get me into the surgery. And Leslie, if you have an atom of filial feeling, you might show him the way instead of standing there like a classical figure of despair on a monument smiling at a bloody temple. I'm ashamed of you. Where's your equanimity? Ouch! Jerusalem! Sante Fe! You don't need to try to carry me, man. I can walk. Leslie, if you haven't any religious scruples against really opening the door while you are about it, perhaps this procession could get through without scraping the skin off its elbows,--"
Burton had slipped his shoulder under the doctor's arm, and, guided by Leslie, he got him through a hall which seemed interminably long, and into the room which he had called the surgery. Burton helped him to the leathern couch.
"Get me some hot water," he said in a hasty aside to Leslie, and she quickly left the room.
He stripped off Dr. Underwood's shoe, and began to manipulate the swollen ankle.
"This isn't going to be serious," he said soothingly. "It's merely a strain, not a dislocation. It will be painful for a while,--"
"Will be! Jerusalem, what do you think it is now? You are a doctor."