The clinic was interrupted by the crisp voice of Nora: "Dinner is served!"
Everybody rose and moved to the door with quiet determination. Pop alone failed to rise. Mère glowered at him. He pleaded: "I don't feel very good. I guess I'd better leave my stummick rest."
The children protested politely, but he refused to be moved and Mère decided to humor him.
"Let him alone, children. It won't hurt him to skip a meal."
They said: "Too bad, Pop!"—"You'll be all right soon," and went out and forgot him.
Pop heard them chattering briskly. It was polite talk. If slang were used it was the very newest. He gleaned that Pen and Gerald were opposing Julie's mission to San Francisco on the ground of the expense. He smiled bitterly to hear that word from them. He heard Julie's retort:
"I suppose you boys want the money yourselves! Well, I've got first havers at Pop. I saw him first!"
At about this point the conversation lost its coherence in Pop's ears. It was mingled with a curious buzzing and a dizziness that made him grip his chair lest it pitch him to the floor. Chills, in which his bones were a mere rattlebox, alternated with little rushes of prairie fire across his skin. Throes of pain wrung him.
Also, he was a little afraid—he was afraid he might not be able to get to the store in the morning. And important people were coming! He had to make the first payment on the invoice of that bankrupt stock. A semiannual premium was overdue on his life insurance. The month of grace had nearly expired, and if he failed to pay the policy would lapse—now of all times! He had kept it up all these years; it must not lapse now, for he was going to be right sick. He wanted somebody to nurse him: his mother—or that long-lost girl he had married in the far past.
His shoes irked him; his vest—what they wanted called his waistcoat—was as tight as a corset. He felt that he would be safer in bed. He'd better go up to his own room and stretch out. He rose with extraordinary difficulty and negotiated a swimming floor on swaying legs.