“Just copy this history, please, Miss Jones, and let me know if——” he glanced at the record she was preparing. “Are you putting him in Eighteen?” he asked sharply.
“Yes. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”
His long fingers sought his beard perplexedly.
“This affair is so recent——” he said doubtfully. “But, if there is no other room?”
“He especially asked for a downstairs room.”
“Very well, then,” he agreed after a moment during which his thoughtful, rather kind eyes studied the record. He spoke wearily. “Put him in Eighteen. We will have to use the room sooner or later, in any case. Oh—Miss Keate. Better warn the nurses to say nothing of Eighteen’s—er—history. The patient will be here at least two or three weeks, perhaps longer.”
“Yes, Doctor,” I said as meekly as if I shouldn’t have known that I must do that, anyway. And I must say I did not relish the idea of a patient in Eighteen, knowing, as I did, that if it proved to be a surgical case with no private nurse, much of the care would fall on my shoulders, which meant many errands into Room 18.
“Very good,” he said and turned toward the door.
“Oh, Dr. Balman,” Miss Jones called him back hastily. “Did you not want me to copy that history?”
Dr. Balman wheeled, glanced at the typed paper still in his hand.