"Simply what I say. One drop of some of those things you have out there would be—a drop too much."
"Now, look here, you don't think I'm any such a bungler as that, do you?"
"Hum! You ought to know your medical history well enough to know that all the victims haven't been bunglers, by a long sight."
Karl's hand was on the knob. "Well, don't worry about me; I'm not built for a victim. I may be run over by an automobile—anybody is liable to be run over by yours, the way you run that thing—but I'm not liable to be killed by my own sword. That's not the way I work."
"Just the same, you'd better keep your hands out of your eyes!"
"All right," he agreed laughingly. "It does sound like a fool's trick.
It's new to me;—didn't know that I did it."
When he was making some calls late that evening, Dr. Parkman passed the university and for some reason recalled what Karl had said that afternoon about his eyes bothering him. Why hadn't he examined them; or better still, one of the best oculists in the city was right there in the building—why hadn't he made Karl go in to see him? It was criminal for a man like that to neglect his eyes! He was near the Hubers now; he had an impulse to run over and make sure that everything was all right. He slowed up the machine and looked at his watch. No, it was almost eleven; he would not go now. After all he was silly to be attaching any weight to such a thing as a man's rubbing his eyes. He smiled a little as he thought of it that way. Karl wasn't bothering about it; so why should he?
But he had it on his mind, thinking of it frequently until he went to bed. And the thing which worried him most was that he was worrying a great deal more than the facts in the case warranted. He was not given to taking notions, and that was just what this seemed. One would suppose that a man like Hubers would be able to look out for himself,—"but for a fool, give me a great man!" was the thought with which the doctor went to sleep.