“But first,” added Dr. Strong, “there will be a rehearsal in the playroom, to-morrow morning.”
“What do we need a rehearsal for to see Charley?” inquired Julia.
“To guard yourselves, Miss Junkum,” returned the doctor. “Possibly you don’t know everything about scarlet fever that you should know. Do you, Cherubic Miss Toots,” he added, turning upon Bettina, “know what a contagious disease is?”
“I know,” said the diminutive maiden gravely, “that if you leave Charley’s door open the jerrums will fly out and bite people.”
“Which fairly typifies the popular opinion concerning disease bacilli,” observed Dr. Strong.
“I saw a jerrum once,” continued the infant of the family. “It was under a stone in a creek. It had horns and a wiggly tail. Just like the Devil,” she added with an engaging smile.
“Betty’s been looking at the pictures in the comic supplements,” explained her elder sister.
“Popular education by the press!” commented Dr. Strong. “Well, I haven’t time for an exposition of the germ theory now. The point is this: Can you children stay an hour in Charley’s room without putting a lot of things in your mouths?”
“Why, I never put anything in my mouth. You taught us better than that,” said Julia reproachfully.
The doctor was little impressed by the reproach. “Humph!” he grunted. “Well, suppose you stop nibbling at your hair”—Julia’s braid flew back over her shoulder—“and consider that, when you put your fingers in your mouth, you may be putting in, also, a particle of everything that your fingers have touched. And in Charley’s room there might be jerrums, as Twinkles calls them, from his mouth which would be dangerous. Rehearsal at noon tomorrow.”