He broke off sharply as Oliver turned from the cage.
"I'm truly sorry, Mr. Furnay," Oliver apologized. "If there's anything I can do ... a dressing for Bivins' leg—"
Mr. Furnay gathered himself with an effort. "It is nothing, a scratch that will heal quickly. But my bear—you will come to see him at once?"
At another time, the thought of absenting himself without due notice to his Aunt Katisha and Glenna would have prompted Oliver to refuse; but the present moment called more for diplomacy than for convention. Better to suffer matriarchal displeasure, he thought, than to risk a damage suit by a millionaire.
"I'll come at once," Oliver said. "I owe you that, I think, after the fright Champ gave you."
And, belatedly, the realization that he might handle a bear—a great, live, lumbering bear!—surged up inside him to titillate his old boyhood yearning. Perhaps it was as well that his aunt and sister were away; this chance to exercise his natural skill at dealing with animals was too precious to decline.
"Of course I won't guarantee a cure," Oliver said, qualifying his promise, "because I've never diagnosed such a case. But I think I can help your bear."
Oddly enough, he was almost sure that he could. Oliver, in his younger days, had read a great deal on the care and treatment of circus animals, and the symptoms in this instance had a familiar sound. Mr. Furnay's bear, he thought, in all probability had worms.
The Furnay town car purred away, leaving Oliver to marvel at his own daring while he collected the instruments and medicines he might need.
