When Tom went out to the granary he found Arthur dressing, but flushed and looking rather unsteady.
"What's gone wrong with you, old man?" he asked kindly.
"I feel a bit queer," Arthur replied, "that's all. I shall be well directly. Got a bit of a cold, I think."
"Slept in a field with the gate open like as not," Tom laughed.
Arthur looked at him inquiringly.
"You'll feel better when you get your breakfast," Tom went on. "I don't wonder you're sick—you haven't been eatin' enough to keep a canary bird alive. Go on right into the house now. I'll feed your team."
"It beats all what happens to our help," Mrs. Motherwell complained to Pearl, as they washed the breakfast dishes. "It looks very much as if Arthur is goin' to be laid up, too, and the busy time just on us."
Pearl was troubled. Why should Arthur be sick? He had plenty of fresh air; he tubbed himself regularly. He never drank "alcoholic beverages that act directly on the liver and stomach, drying up the blood, and rendering every organ unfit for work." Pearl remembered the Band of Hope manual. No, and it was not a cold. Colds do not make people groan in the night—it was something else. Pearl wished her friend, Dr. Clay, would come along. He would soon spot the trouble.
After dinner, of which Arthur ate scarcely a mouthful, as Pearl was cleaning the knives, Mrs. Motherwell came into the kitchen with a hard look on her face. She had just missed a two-dollar bill from her satchel.
"Pearl," she said in a strained voice, "did you see a two-dollar bill any place?"