"He hadn't much of an ear left, when I came to look him over. So I grafted a new piece on. And I cropped it, too, so it would look like its mate. Pretty neat job?"
"That's why you wouldn't let me see his head when you were changing the bandages!"
"Sure! This ear was to be a real Christmas surprise for a good little girl."
"Poor old Pete!"
"What's the matter with Pete? Don't drop your tears that way. He's forgotten by this time he ever had another leg. Say!" he added abruptly, "what do you think the job's worth?"
"I don't know," Venetia replied a little haughtily. "Please send your bill to mamma."
"And suppose I make it half what Dr. Cutem would charge for doing the same job on you, what would mamma say? Pete's worth half, ain't he, Mrs. Hart?"
"Not to me," Helen answered lightly.
"Well, you'd have thought he was the way she went on about him that afternoon I found them out in the street. But that's the luck of a poor doctor. You do your best, and, the patient cured, the bill seems large!"
The doctor's joke evidently distressed Venetia, who had been taught that it was low to discuss bills. The silent man still smiling to himself over the girl, rose and spoke to the doctor in a low tone. Coburn nodded.