The door opened and Sergeant O'Hara entered the room, half dragging and half carrying a water-soaked individual who dropped feebly into a chair.
"Prebbles!" exclaimed the king of the motor boys, starting back in amazement.
[CHAPTER III.]
BRINGING THE SKELETON OUT.
The old clerk was so wrought up over the business he had in hand that he had given scant consideration to himself. All his life—ever since he had been cast adrift to make his own way in the world—he had been a clerk. The only outdoor exercise he had ever taken consisted in walking from his sleeping quarters to his boarding place, and thence to the office, back to the boarding place for lunch, then back once more for supper and to his lodgings for sleep. During the last few months, since joining the "army," he had had evening exercise of a strenuous nature, but it came at a time of life when it merely ran down the physical organism instead of building it up.
It was a bedraggled and shattered Prebbles that completed the trip by wagon from Minnewaukon to the post. This lap of the journey was through a driving rain, the old man being insufficiently protected by a thin horse blanket. His whole body was shaking, as he sat dripping in the chair, and his teeth clattered and rattled.
Several times Prebbles tried to speak to Motor Matt, but the chill splintered his words into indistinguishable sounds.
O'Hara peered into the clerk's gray face, and then turned a significant look at his superior officer.
"Sor," said he, "th' ould chap ain't built t' shtand a couple av hours in th' rain."