"is not a thing
to be treated lightly. Just now you are in a critical condition inasmuch
as we are not sure what turn your trouble may take. You are likely to be
seized suddenly with the usual symptoms: then an operation will be an
immediate necessity. I have the needed instruments right here in my
valise, and I can give you relief at once. If, however, I should leave
you, I might not be within reach until serious complications had time to
arise; for that reason I shall be obliged to watch you through to-day.
Afterwards it may not be necessary."

This speech fairly paralyzed the man in bed. Had he done this artistic
bit of acting for the purpose of spending his Christmas on the flat of
his back talking to a prosy old doctor? He lay still, trying to think
what answer could be made to this physician who told him seriously that
he had appendicitis. He put out a feeler.

"That medicine of yours is the real thing. The pain is very much less
now."

Dr. Mead looked at him over his glasses.

"Is it entirely gone?"

"Yes," answered Van, cheerily, "it certainly is."

"That is a dangerous symptom. The plaster should have drawn the pain to
the surface, but not stopped it. That numbness is exactly what I wished
to avoid."

He rose and poured out medicine from another bottle. Van nearly choked
in swallowing this. It was eleven o'clock. Sounds of Christmas revelry
floated even into his secluded upper room. The bells were telling to the
people of the City of the Angels their message of peace on earth, good
will toward men; they were dinning into the ears of the victim of a
modern disease the fact that he ought at that moment to be waiting for
Dolores on her pious way to Mission Los Angeles. He pictured her with
some ancient missal in her slender hands, and flanked on one side by her
sympathetic duenna of a mother. The certainty that her American father
would be safe at home did not detract from the charm of the situation.

"The drinks seem to be on me!" thought he after his next dose. The sun
of southern California was shining brightly out of doors; it must be a
glorious day at Westlake Park. The bedclothes were warm and irksome, and
that confounded plaster had begun to itch. If he was ever to see Dolores
again he should have to make a clean breast of the whole thing.

He sat up.

"Say, Doctor, I haven't appendicitis at all; I am as well as I ever was.
I just put this up as a joke on the fellows because I wanted to stay in