“Oh, he’ll come round all right. I didn’t even hit him on the jaw. I don’t see how he was knocked out so easy.”
“It was the bump he got against the mantel,” said Osgood, his dripping hand in Hooker’s hair. “Here’s the spot on his head. It’s swollen almost as big as a hen’s egg.”
“Perhaps—perhaps his skull is fractured,” muttered Piper.
“He brought it on himself,” asserted Shultz in self-defense. “I don’t know where that extra ace came from. I got all of mine honestly and squarely. He had no right to call me a cheat.”
“I sus-saw his eyelids move,” stammered Springer, still fanning. “He’s coming round! He’s breathing!”
“Yes, he’s coming round, thank fortune!” said Osgood in great relief. “He ought to be all right in a few minutes.”
Although these signs of reviving probably gave Shultz the most satisfaction, he now attempted to hide his feelings behind an air of sullen defiance and self-justification. Apparently, with the exception of Osgood, he was the calmest person in the room.
Presently Hooker’s breast heaved and he gave a heavy sigh. Then his eyes opened.
“You’re all right, old man,” said Osgood. “You got a fierce old bump when you fell, but you’ll be on your pins in a minute or two now.”
Hooker looked at him strangely without speaking. After a little time they lifted Roy and placed him on the big leather-covered Morris chair, following which they stood around and tried to get him to say that he was feeling better. He continued to stare at them, one after another, in that same puzzled, bewildered way, and all their efforts to draw a word from him were fruitless. Once his eyes rested on Shultz, but in their depths there was no gleam of light in the slightest way different from that aroused by sight of the others.