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he ice-cream was served with the tissue paper still wrapped about the cake--to prove that no hands had been in contact with the dessert before serving it. But the highly colored stripes of the soapy cream that refused to melt, even when he dropped a spoonful into his oily coffee, cured him of further martyrdom to the cause of love. He hastily got up from the table, paid his ticket and ran out. By this time, he felt so sick and chilled that he gloated in the assurance that soon he would be in a raging fever. He pictured Polly's regrets when she should return home at midnight and hear that he had been taken to a hospital, with a fatal case of double pneumonia. He had decided on having it double, after he left the restaurant, as that would kill him sooner. In this state of mind he had to dodge a taxi and slipped to fall into a mud puddle. But Tom could not resist the desire to see his mother once more, before he died; and after fighting off this inclination for another hour or two, he was feeling so perfectly awful, that he knew his last call had come for him. He had been sneezing every few minutes for the past hour, and his eyes were running like twin rivers. His nose was so stuffy that he could hardly enunciate the words, when he told a cabby to "Ta-ge me to sig siggy-sig West End Avenoo." During the short time he was in the cab, he could not breathe, and he had to keep his mouth open to be able to inhale any air at all. He paid off the taxi, and went to his mother's apartment. Before he could change his mind about calling, he had pushed the bell-button. He heard someone coming down the hall, and at the same time a door in front opened and the laughter and noise of many merry voices reached him as he stood waiting on the doormat. "Good evening, Mr. Tom--a merry Christmas," said the maid, smilingly. "Goo' ebeneeg, Kadrina," mumbled Tom, scowling as he looked towards the front room whence came the merry-making. "Don' dell anyone I'm here, but dell Modder I'm sig and wand do see her ride away," explained Tom, snuffingly. "You got a bad cold in your nose, ain't chew?" said Katrina, sympathetically. "No!" shouted Tom, furiously. "I god'da case ob double pneumonia!" Katrina jumped at the unexpected shout, and hurried to the front room to call her mistress. Instead of remembering to keep Tom's presence a secret, she whispered loud enough for Polly to hear: "Mr. Tom jus' come in an' his nose is red as a
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