ictate everything nowadays, anyhow." He laughed
jovially. "Did anybody tell you how it happened?"

"I heard you hurt your hand, but no--not just how."

"It was this way," he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down
again. "You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the
youngest o' my boys--the one that used to come to see you sometimes,
after Jim--that is, I mean Bibbs. He's the one I spoke of as my partner;
and the truth is that's what it's just about goin' to amount to, one o'
these days--if his health holds out. Well, you remember, I expect, I
had him on a machine over at a plant o' mine; and sometimes I'd kind o'
sneak in there and see how he was gettin' along. Take a doctor with me
sometimes, because Bibbs never WAS so robust, you might say. Ole Doc
Gurney--I guess maybe you know him? Tall, thin man; acts sleepy--"

"Yes."

"Well, one day I an' ole Doc Gurney, we were in there, and I undertook
to show Bibbs how to run his machine. He told me to look out, but I
wouldn't listen, and I didn't look out--and that's how I got my hand
hurt, tryin' to show Bibbs how to do something he knew how to do and
I didn't. Made me so mad I just wouldn't even admit to myself it WAS
hurt--and so, by and by, ole Doc Gurney had to take kind o' radical
measures with me. He's a right good doctor, too. Don't you think so,
Miss Vertrees?"

"Yes."

"Yes, he is so!" Sheridan now had the air of a rambling talker and
gossip with all day on his hands. "Take him on Bibbs's case. I was
talkin' about Bibbs's case with him this morning. Well, you'd laugh to
hear the way ole Gurney talks about THAT! 'Course he IS just as much a
friend as he is doctor--and he takes as much interest in Bibbs as if
he was in the family. He says Bibbs isn't anyways bad off YET; and
he thinks he could stand the pace and get fat on it if--well, this is
what'd made YOU laugh if you'd been there, Miss Vertrees--honest it
would!" He paused to chuckle, and stole a glance at her. She was gazing
straight before her at the wall; her lips were parted, and--visibly--she
was breathing heavily and quickly. He feared that she was growing
furiously angry; but he had led to what he wanted to say, and he went
on, determined now to say it all. He leaned forward and altered his
voice to one of confidential friendliness, though in it he still
maintained a tone which indicated that ole Doc Gurney's opinion was only
a joke he shared with her. "Yes, sir, you certai