"Indeed, doctor," said Mrs. Schofield, with agitation and profound conviction, just after eight o'clock that evening, "I shall ALWAYS believe in mustard plasters--mustard plasters and hot--water bags. If it hadn't been for them I don't believed he'd have LIVED till you got here--I do NOT!"
"Margaret," called Mr. Schofield from the open door of a bedroom, "Margaret, where did you put that aromatic ammonia?
Where's Margaret?"
But he had to find the aromatic spirits of ammonia himself, for Margaret was not in the house. She stood in the shadow beneath a maple tree near the street corner, a guitar-case in her hand; and she scanned with anxiety a briskly approaching figure. The arc light, swinging above, revealed this figure as that of him she awaited. He was passing toward the gate without seeing her, when she arrested him with a fateful whisper.
"BOB!"
Mr. Robert Williams swung about hastily. "Why, Margaret!"
"Here, take your guitar," she whispered hurriedly. "I was afraid if father happened to find it he'd break it all to pieces!"
"What for?" asked the startled Robert.
"Because I'm sure he knows it's yours." "But what----"
"Oh, Bob," she moaned, "I was waiting here to tell you. I was so afraid you'd try to come in----"
"TRY!" exclaimed the unfortunate young man, quite dumfounded. "TRY to come----"
"Yes, before I warned you. I've been waiting here to tell you, Bob, you mustn't come near the house if I were you I'd stay away from even this neighbourhood--far away! For a while I don't think it would be actually SAFE for----"
"Margaret, will you please----"
"It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this morning," she walled. "First, he bought that horrible concertina that made papa so furious "But Penrod didn't tell that I----"
"Oh, wait!" she cried lamentably. "Listen! He didn't tell at lunch, but he got home about dinner-time in the most--well!
I've seen pale people before, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody could IMAGINE it--not unless they'd seen him! And he looked, so STRANGE, and kept making such unnatural faces, and at first all he would say was that he'd eaten a little piece of apple and thought it must have some microbes on it. But he got sicker and sicker, and we put him to bed--and then we all thought he was going to die--and, of COURSE, no little piece of apple would have--well, and he kept getting worse and then he said he'd had a dollar. He said he'd spent it for the concertina, and watermelon, and chocolate-creams, and licorice sticks, and lemon-drops, and peanuts, and jaw-breakers, and sardines, and raspberry lemonade, and pickles, and popcorn, and ice-cream, and cider, and sausage--there was sausage in his pocket, and mamma says his jacket is ruined--and cinnamon drops--and waffles--and he ate four or five lobster croquettes at lunch--and papa said, `Who gave you that dollar?' Only he didn't say `WHO'--he said something horrible, Bob! And Penrod thought he was going to die, and he said you gave it to him, and oh! it was just pitiful to hear the poor child, Bob, because he thought he was dying, you see, and he blamed you for the whole thing. He said if you'd only let him alone and not given it to him, he'd have grown up to be a good man--and now he couldn't! I never heard anything so heart-rending--he was so weak he could hardly whisper, but he kept trying to talk, telling us over and over it was all your fault."
In the darkness Mr. Williams' facial expression could not be seen, but his voice sounded hopeful.
"Is he--is he still in a great deal of pain?"
"They say the crisis is past," said Margaret, "but the doctor's still up there. He said it was the acutest case of indigestion he had ever treated in the whole course of his professional practice."
"Of course _I_ didn't know what he'd do with the dollar," said Robert.
She did not reply.
He began plaintively, "Margaret, you don't----"
"I've never seen papa and mamma so upset about anything," she said, rather primly.
"You mean they're upset about ME?"
