But there had been a casualty. Bobby had suffered a severe nip on the forearm, and was surveying it with rather dazed eyes.
“Gee, it’s bleeding!” he said.
Nikky looked worried, but old Adelbert, who had seen many wounds, recommended tying it up with garlic, and then forgetting it. “It is the first quarter of the moon,” he said. “No dog’s bite is injurious at that time.”
Nikky, who had had a sniff of the bone of contention, was not so easy in his mind. First quarter of the moon it might be, but the bone was not in its first quarter. “I could walk home with the boy,” he suggested, “and get something at a chemist’s on the way.”
“Will it hurt?” demanded Bobby.
“We will ask for something that will not hurt.”
So it happened that Bobby and Tucker, the two pirates, returned that day to their home under the escort of a tall young man who carried a bottle wrapped in pink paper in his hand, and looked serious. Old Pepy was at home. She ran about getting basins, and because Nikky had had his first-aid training, in a very short time everything was shipshape, and no one the worse.
“Do you suppose it will leave a scar?” Bobby demanded.
“Well, a little one, probably.”
“I’ve got two pretty good ones already,” Bobby boasted, “not counting my vaccination. Gee! I bet mother’ll be surprised.”