t me to. I'll do
_anything_, if you just make 'em leave Jacky! (Yes, darling Sweety,
maw's coming.) You'll do it? Oh, I knew you'd do it!" She ran out of the
room.

He got up, beside himself with perplexity: but even as he tried to think
what on earth he could do, the doctor came. The ambulance would arrive,
he said, with bored cheerfulness, in twenty minutes. Lily, rushing from
Jacky's bedside, flew at him with set teeth, her trembling hands
gripping the white sleeve of his linen jacket.

"This gentleman's a friend of mine," she said, jerking her head toward
Maurice; "he says you _shan't_ carry Jacky off!"

The doctor's relief at having a man to talk to was obvious. And while
Maurice was trying to get in a word, there came another whimper from the
room where Jacky lay, red and blotched, talking brokenly to himself:
"Maw!" Lily ran to him, leaving the two men alone.

"Thank Heaven!" the doctor said; "I'd about as soon argue with a hornet
as a mother. She's nearly crazy! I'll tell you the situation." He told
it, and Maurice listened, frowning.

"What can be done?" he said; "I--I am only an acquaintance; I hardly
know Mrs. Dale; but she sent for me. She's frantic at the idea of the
boy being taken away from her."

"He'll _have_ to be taken away! Besides, he'll have ten times better
care in the hospital than he could have here."

"Can she go with him?" Maurice said.

"Why, if she can afford to take a private room--"

"Good heavens! money's no object; anything to keep her from doing some
wild thing!"

"You a relation?" the doctor asked.

"Not the slightest. I--knew her husband."

"The thing for you to do," said the doctor, "is to hustle right out to a
telephone; call up the hospital. Get Doctor Nelson, if you can--"

"Nelson!"

"Yes; if not, get Baker; tell him I--" then followed concise directions;
"But try and get Nelson; he's the top man. They're frightfully crowded,
and if you fool with understrappers, you'll get turned down. I'd do it,
but I've got to stay here and see that she doesn't get perfectly crazy."

Almost before the doctor finished his directions, Maurice was rushing
downstairs.... That next half hour was a nightmare. He ran up the
street, slippery with ice; saw over a drug store the blue sign of the
public telephone, and dashed in--to wait interminably outside the booth!
A girl in a silly hat was drawling into the transmitter. Once Maurice,
pacing frantically up and down, heard her flat la