fist on the
desk. "Where's Leerie?"

"You can't have her--not this time." Miss Maxwell's lips became a fraction
more firm, while her eyes sharpened into what her training girls had come
to call her "forceps expression."

"Why not?"

"The girl's just off that case for Doctor Fritz; she's tired out. Remember
she's been through three unbroken years of hospitals, and we've worked her
on every hard case we've had since she came back. I'm going to see that
she gets forty-eight hours of rest now."

"Let her have them next time." Doctor Fuller put all his persuasive charm
into the words. "I need Leerie--some one who can roll up her sleeves and
pitch in. Let me have her just this once."

But Miss Maxwell was obdurate. "She's asleep now, and she's going to sleep
as long as she needs to. I'll give you Miss Grant--she's had a month at
the Maternity at Rochester."

"A month!" Scorn curled up the ends of the doctor's mustache. The next
instant they were almost touching in a broad grin. "Leerie likes cases
like this--just eats them up. I'm going after her." And before the
superintendent of nurses could hold him he was down the corridor on his
way to the nurses' dormitory.

Ten minutes later he was back, grinning harder than ever. He had only time
to thrust his head in the door and wave a triumphant arm. "She's
dressing--as big a fool about babies as I am! Said she'd slept a whole
hour and felt fresh as a daisy. How's that for spunk?"

"I call it nerve." Miss Maxwell smiled a hopeless smile. "What am I going
to do with you doctors? You wear out all my best nurses and you won't
take--" But Doctor Fuller had fled.

In spite of his boast of her, the baby specialist saw Sheila O'Leary
visibly cringe when she took her first look at Pancho. He lay sprawling on
his mother's bed in a room littered with hastily opened bags and trunks
out of which had been pulled clothing of all kinds and hues. He had been
relieved of the lace and pink ribbons and was swathed only in shirt and
roundabout, his arms and legs projected like licorice sticks; being of the
same color and very nearly the same thickness. He was dozing, tired out
with the combination of much travel, screaming, shaking, and loss of
breath. So wasted was he that the skin seemed drawn tight over temple and
cheek-bones; the eyes were pitifully sunken, and colorless lips fell back
over toothless gums.

"How old is--it?" Sheila whispered at last.

"About nine months."

Sheila