u had better stop down here for the present for
both your sakes. I will let you know when you can go up to him."

So Bill crouched before the fire and waited. He heard movements
upstairs and wondered what they were doing and why they didn't keep
quiet, and when he would be allowed to go up. Once or twice the nurse
came down for hot water, but Bill did not speak to her; but in half an
hour Mrs. Andrews herself returned, looking, Bill thought, even paler
than before.

"I have just slipped down to tell you, my boy, that it's all over.
They gave him chloroform, and have taken his foot off."

"And didn't it hurt it awful?" Bill asked in an awed voice.

"Not in the least. He knew nothing about it, and the first thing he
asked when he came to was when they were going to begin. They will be
going away directly, and then you can come up and sit quietly in his
room if you like. The doctors say he will probably drop asleep."

Bill was obliged to go outside again and wrestle with himself before
he felt that he was fit to go up into George's room. It was a long
struggle, and had George caught his muttered remonstrances to himself
he would have felt that Bill had suffered a bad relapse into his
former method of talking. It came out in jerks between his sobs.

"Come, none of that now. Aint yer ashamed of yerself, a-howling and
a-blubbering like a gal! Call yerself a man!--you are a babby, that's
what you are. Now, dry up, and let's have no more of it."

But it was a long time before he again mastered himself; then he went
to the scullery and held his head under the tap till the water took
away his breath, then polished his face till it shone, and then went
and sat quietly down till Mrs. Andrews came in and told him that he
could go upstairs to George. He went up to the bedside and took
George's hand, but he could not trust himself to speak.

"Well, Bill, old boy," George said cheerily, but in a somewhat lower
voice than usual, "this is a sudden go, isn't it?"

Bill nodded. He was still speechless.

"Don't you take it to heart, Bill," George said, feeling that the lad
was shaking from head to foot. "It won't make much odds, you know. I
shall soon be about again all right. I expect they will be able to put
on an artificial foot, and I shall be stumping about as well as ever,
though I shouldn't be much good at a race."

"I wish it had been me," Bill broke out. "I would have jammed my head
in between them wheels cheerful, that