“That she won’t flirt with me is no sign that she doesn’t,” said Valentine saucily. "Go to your patients, Camperdown, and leave the girls to me.
“His pills as thick as hand grenades flew,
And where they fell as certainly they slew.”
Camperdown threw a sofa cushion at him, but Valentine dodged it, and placing himself comfortably by the fire watched lazily through the window the energetic manner in which the friend of his family jumped into his sleigh and drove away.
CHAPTER XIV
THE STOLEN POCKET-BOOK
Early one evening Stargarde was sitting sewing in her room when she heard on the veranda the blustering noise that usually accompanied Dr. Camperdown’s arrival. She smiled and glanced apprehensively at Zeb, who had been spending the day with her, and who now lay on the sofa apparently asleep.
Then she dropped her work and turned to greet the newcomer.
“No, thank you, I can’t sit down,” he said. “I came to bring you some money that Mr. Warner handed me for your poor people. Here it is,” and taking out his pocket-book he handed her a check. “You’d better spend some of it on that little mudlark of yours,” with a nod of his head in the direction of the sofa.
Zeb, who was only pretending to be asleep, heard the half-contemptuous half-good-natured epithet, and like a flash she was off the sofa and clinging to his arm, scratching, snarling, and biting at him like an enraged cat.
Stargarde was intensely distressed, and Dr. Camperdown was electrified. Around and around the table he went, trying to shake the child off without hurting her, and yet becoming more and more disturbed as he heard the ripping of cloth.