With this withering invective, Bedelia looked as if she could annihilate Handy.
The veteran in an amusingly polite manner arose and bowed. "All right, Bedelia, and if it's all the same to you, you may as well waltz the customer up."
"Well, sur," she answered, with what she possibly considered satiric dignity, "I'll sind him up, but I would like yez to understhand that I've plinty to do widout climbing up and down two pair of stairs waitin' on show-actors," and she then hurried out and bang! went the door.
"Fogg, my boy," said Handy, with a smile, "that handmaiden is a passion flower. 'Twould be an injustice to the more modest posy to designate her a daisy."
He was about to indulge in a laugh, when a masculine knock at the door interrupted. Moving quietly across the room, he opened the door. A nod of recognition and the costumer entered.
"Will you kindly take a seat, Mr. Draper?" he said in a subdued voice, as he motioned the visitor to a chair beside the bed.
"It's awfully kind of you, Draper, to call," said Fogg in a feeble tone of voice, at the same time extending his hand. "This is a bad blow. Who would have thought this time yesterday that I would now be——"
"Hush!" interrupted Handy gently. "You must keep still and not grow excited. You know what the doctor said." Then turning to the costumer, Handy explained Fogg's condition, the possible effect excitement would be likely to produce, and the evil consequences that might ensue. "He is not yet quite out of danger, but I guess he'll pull through, provided he will keep still and obey orders. The doctor says——Oh! by the way, Mr. Draper, you didn't meet the doctor on your way up, did you?" inquired Handy meekly, as he placed the invalid's hand back under the coverlet.
"No!" replied Mr. Draper, "I did not. What physician is attending him?"
"Oh! Doctor—ah—Doctor——Some German name. Hold on! That last prescription will tell us." But somehow or other Handy could not lay his hand on it.