t his apartment, commodious when reckoned as
a bachelor's abode, was entirely inadequate when it came to accommodating
a company of persons who were not and never could be bachelors. Lutie
refused to leave George; and Anne, after a day or two, came to keep her
company. It was then that Simmy began to reveal signs of rare strategical
ability. He invaded the small apartment of his neighbour beyond the
elevator and struck a bargain with him. The neighbour and his wife rented
the apartment to him furnished for an indefinite period and went to Europe
on the bonus that Simmy paid. Here Anne and her maid were housed, and here
also Mrs. Tresslyn spent a few nights out of each week.

He studied the nurses' charts with an avid interest. He knew all there was
to know about temperature, respiration and nourishment; and developing a
sudden sort of lordly understanding therefrom, he harangued the engineer
about the steam heat, he cautioned the superintendent about noises, and he
held many futile arguments with God about the weather. Something told him
a dozen times a day, however, that he was in the way, that he was "a
regular Marceline," and that if Brady Thorpe had any sense at all he would
order him out of the house!

He began to resent the speed with which George's convalescence was marked.
He was enjoying himself so immensely in his new environment that he hated
to think of going back to the old and hitherto perfect order of existence.
When Braden Thorpe and Dr. Bates declared one day that George would be
able to go home in a week or ten days, he experienced a surprising and
absolutely inexplicable sinking of the heart. He tried to persuade them
that it would be a mistake to send the poor fellow out inside of a month
or six weeks. That was the trouble with doctors, he said: they haven't any
sense. Suppose, he argued, that George were to catch a cold--why, the damp,
spring weather would raise the dickens--Anne's house was a drafty old barn
of a place, improperly heated,--and any fool could see that if George _did_
have a relapse it would go mighty hard with him. Subsequently he sounded
the nurses, severally, on the advisability of abandoning the poor, weak
young fellow before he was safely out of the woods, and the nurses, who
were tired of the case, informed him that the way George was eating he
soon would be as robust as a dock hand. An appeal to Mrs. Tresslyn brought
a certain degree of hope. That lady declared, quite bitterly,