m all the honour which
was his due.

"And now--what about your case?" Charlotte asked, realizing suddenly what
the morning's experience was to have been to Burns himself.

"Died on the table," said Burns, with entire coolness. His face had
sobered at the question, but his expression was by no means crestfallen.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Charlotte began, earnestly.

But her husband interrupted her. "No condolences are due, dear. He gave a
dying man the most merciful sort of euthanasia, and at the same time
demonstrated a new method as daring as it was triumphant. With a case
taken a month earlier it would have saved a life. The demonstration is a
contribution to science. If he received no applause it was because we
don't applaud in the presence of death, but there was not a man there
who didn't realize that in certain lines the country surgeon could give
them a long handicap and still win."

Burns looked out of the window without speaking. His sea-tanned face
showed a deeper shade under Leaver's praise. Leaver himself smiled at the
averted profile of his friend, and went on, while Ellen looked at him as
if he had given her something which money could not buy.

"I wish," said John Leaver, laying a firm-knit hand on Burns's knee,
"you'd come to Baltimore, Red. Between us we'd do some things pretty well
worth doing. Without undue conceit I think I could promise you a backing
to start on that would give you a place in a twelvemonth that couldn't be
taken away from you in a decade. Why not? It's a beautiful city to live
in. Your wife is a Southerner, born and bred; it would be home to her
among our people. My wife and I care more for your friendship than for
that of any other people on earth. What is friendship for, if not to make
the most of?"

Burns turned and looked at him, then at his wife, then back at Leaver.
There was a strange expression in his hazel eyes; they seemed suddenly on
fire beneath the heavy dark eyebrows. He took off his hat and ran his
hand through his coppery thick locks. Then:

"Are you serious, Jack?" he questioned. "Or are you trying the biggest
kind of a bluff?"

"Absolutely serious. How should I be anything else? You taught me certain
values up at your home last summer--you and Mrs. Burns. One was, as I
have said, the worth of a big, true friendship. I've been thinking of
this thing a long time. It's not the result of your performance this
morning. If you had failed entirely in that particular