"I guess I was like General Quesada's parrot, I talked too much," confessed Walter. "I shall be lucky if I can take care of myself."
Devlin was silent for a moment. Then he bade the patient farewell with words of rough and hearty encouragement and departed from the ward, a big, masterful man with a hard fist and a soft heart. As he walked across the hospital grounds he repeated under his breath:
"He aimed to give his father a lift. The pluck of him! 'Tis a pity that more men on the Isthmus are not thinking about the old folks at home. 'Tis a safe bet that his father needs a lift. The lad looked very solemn about it."
He turned into the hospital superintendent's office and asked a clerk for Walter Goodwin's home address, which the rules required to be recorded. Then he made a détour to the Ancon post-office, smiled craftily, and demanded a money-order application blank. Separating several bills from a wad crumpled in his trousers pocket, he reflected:
"He would fly off the handle if I suggested anything like this, being a most independent young rooster. But I used to have a daddy of my own. I'll say nothing about it till the lad gets a job. Then he can square it."
Thereupon he wrote to Mr. Horatio Goodwin as follows:
Dear Sir:
Your son will be unable to attend to his affairs for a few days, so I am sending the enclosed amount which had been advanced against his salary account.
Yours truly,
John Devlin.P. S.—He is in the Ancon Hospital, a bit mussed up but nothing serious. He will write soon.
"There! I may be guilty of committing something or other under false pretences, but I feel a whole lot easier in my mind," quoth the steam-shovel man.
Next morning that bland dynamite expert, Naughton, came to the hospital to show Walter that his friends in Cristobal had not forgotten him.
"What about the base-ball practice?" demanded the patient. "Have you found another pitcher?"