We tiptoed inside, and he went out and carried in our bags and the bathroom scale. But he had not been quite prepared for the weight of the scale, and just inside the door it slipped and fell with a terrible crash on the floor. It caught his foot, too, and there was nothing subdued either about the racket or the way he swore.
Tish said she took heart from that minute. It showed that he was not entirely crushed. But there was a yelp from upstairs, and the next minute a nurse in uniform dashed down the stairs.
“You’ve got the aromatic ammonia in your pocket,” she said to him. “She’s fainted again.”
Well, he let go of his foot and gave her the bottle, and Tish watched her rush up the stairs with a queer look on her face.
“Do you mean to say that that noise made Emmie faint?” she inquired.
“Her nerves are about gone,” he whispered, all subdued again. “Any unexpected sound almost kills her. I’ve had to put a piece of felt on the back porch, so the milkman can put down his bottles quietly.”
He limped into the living room and while Tish took the car to the garage in the village we followed him. Just one look around was enough for me, and the dust started Aggie to sneezing again at once. He closed the door with a pained expression and said he was glad to see us once more, and asked Aggie if she still made cream puffs with whipped-cream filling. Then he groaned, and said that he was a criminal to be thinking of the flesh when Emmie, as like as not, was near the end of the road.
And at that moment the dog scratched at the door and he let it in. It was a tiny thing and as thin as a rail, and when Tish came back from leaving her car at the garage she took one look at it and said:
“Why don’t you feed that poor little beast?”
“Feed it!” he said. “It has worms, or something. It eats enough for two men. Last night it ate Emmie’s sweetbread entire, and then came down and tried to take my pork chop from me.”