“Call the doctor, quick,” he said, placing the child on the chair in front of the telephone. “What room are they in?”
“End of the hall, upstairs,” responded the child, with the receiver already off the hook.
In three bounds the burglar was up the steps. He made for the light which shone through a half-open door down the hall, striving to formulate some explanation to offer the mother for his presence in the house. When he gently pushed open the door he saw that none was needed—the woman before him was oblivious to all the world. Dishevelled and distracted, she sat rocking to and fro, clutching to her breast the twitching body of a wee boy. Piteously she begged him not to die—not to leave his poor mummy.
Quietly the burglar came to her side and gently loosened her clasp.
“Give me the baby,” he said in a low voice. “He will be better on the bed.”
Dumbly, with unseeing eyes, she looked at him, and surrendered the child.
“He is dying,” she moaned—“dying—oh, my little, little man!”
“No, he’s not,” said the burglar. But as he looked at the wide-open, glassy eyes and blue, pinched face of the child he had little faith in his own words.
He placed the baby upon the bed, and turning to the mother, said in an authoritative voice:
“You must brace up now and save your child—do you understand? I can save him, but you must help me, and we must be quick—quick, do you understand?”