hen they
saw he had done it, they began to clap. I don't believe there was ever
such a burst of applause in that surgery."

"What did the old fellow do? Tried to look modest, I suppose," laughed
Chester, glowing with pride and pleasure.

"He was white all through the operation--he always is, with the strain.
But he turned red all over when they cheered, and just said: 'Thank you,
gentlemen.' It really was a wonderful thing, Mr. Chester, even in these
days. Only one man has done it, a German, and he has done it only twice.
Doctor Burns will be distinguished after this."

"Good for him! No wonder he looks the way he does--as if he'd like to
turn a few handsprings," Chester reflected as he watched the nurse's
trim figure walk away.

Burns came back. "Jump in," he said. "Work enough to keep me busy till
bedtime. If there hadn't been, I'd have proposed a beefsteak in the
woods by way of a celebration and a let down. I'm beginning to get a bit
of reaction, of course; should have liked an hour or two of jollity. You
and Win, and Mrs. Lessing and I might have--"

"Mrs. Lessing! You old chump, don't you remember she's gone? Why, Mac
started for the train with them all in his car, not ten minutes before
you came. They haven't been gone fifteen. I begged off from going along
because I was dusty and tired. Just got home myself."

R. P. Burns, making the circuit of the driveway behind the houses and
now turning the Imp's nose toward the street again, stared at his friend
in amazement.

"Why, she wasn't going till day after to-morrow!" he exclaimed.

"I came over last night," drawled Chester in a longsuffering tone, "and
explained to you and shouted at you and tried in every way to ram the
idea into your head that Pauline had wheedled Mrs. Lessing to start when
she did, because their routes lay together as far as Washington. You put
me out, calling me names and generally insulting me. It's all right, of
course. She's to spend the winter in South Carolina, but she'll be back
next summer. You can say good-bye to her then. It'll do just as well."

Burns's watch was in his hand. "What time does that train go?" he
demanded.

"Five-thirty. You can't make it." Chester's watch was also out. "What
do you care? Send her a picture postcard explaining that you forgot all
about her until it was too--"

The last word was jerked back into his throat by the jump of the Green
Imp. She shot out of the driveway like a stone out of a catapu