tside the stable door, where they had found they could get
quite a decent bath without much trouble; and Sylvia bent her energies
to waking Rumple, who, being a genius, was always so unwilling to get up
in the mornings.

"Perhaps we shall get some news to-day," said Rupert, who, because he
was feeling stronger, was very much more hopeful than he had been.

"I don't know what will happen to the doctor's patients if he doesn't
soon come back," Sylvia went on in a dissatisfied tone. "You see, they
are all getting better without medicine; and it is so very bad for the
practice, for if once people get the idea in their heads that they can
do without doctors it is so hard to get them back to thinking they must
call one in every time their little fingers ache."

"A fresh crop of patients will turn up when the doctor comes home, I
expect. Anyhow, I should not worry about it, for perhaps these people
would not have paid the bills, and so in reality it is money saved,"
Rupert said drowsily; and then he stretched his limbs in a luxurious
fashion, and dropped into another doze, while Sylvia went back to the
other room to start breakfast preparations. She and Ducky slept in the
sitting-room now, while the four boys had the bedroom. They had taken
complete possession of the doctor's house, and felt so much at home in
it that it was a little difficult to imagine how he would find room for
himself when he came back.

Rumple, indeed, had suggested that the doctor might occupy the wagon;
but as Rupert had pointed out that the wagon would have to be yielded up
to the agent when Rockefeller came back from Mostyn, the only thing was
to get the stable ready for use in an emergency.

On this morning, when breakfast was over, the three younger boys and
Ducky went off to finish their task of turning the stable inside out.
This, was the third day they had been at work on it, and the place was
looking quite clean and respectable, thanks to their very hard work.
They had even ejected the carpet snake that lived there and killed the
mice which levied toll on the doctor's cornbin; but the snake, like
other ejected persons, was continually harking back to its old quarters,
and so this morning, when Ducky rushed into the stable, the first thing
which met her gaze was Slippy, the snake, curled up in a heap just
inside the door, and of course there was promptly a fuss, for not all
the arguments of the others about the absolute harmlessness of Slippy