“Are you sure?” he asked eagerly. “I thought I’d killed him.”
The surgeon looked at Winthrop coldly.
“When they’re like that,” he explained with authority, “you can’t hurt ’em if you throw them off The Times Building.”
He condescended to recognize the crowd. “You know where this man lives?”
Voices answered that Mr. Gaylor lived at the corner, over the saloon. The voices showed a lack of sympathy. Old man Gaylor dead was a novelty; old man Gaylor drunk was not.
The doctor’s prescription was simple and direct.
“Put him to bed till he sleeps it off,” he ordered; he swung himself to the step of the ambulance. “Let him out, Steve,” he called. There was the clang of a gong and the rattle of galloping hoofs.
The police officer approached Winthrop. “They tell me Jerry stepped in front of your car; that you wasn’t to blame. I’ll get their names and where they live. Jerry might try to hold you up for damages.”
“Thank you very much,” said Winthrop.
With several of Jerry’s friends, and the soiled person, who now seemed dissatisfied that Jerry was alive, Winthrop helped to carry him up one flight of stairs and drop him upon a bed.