y.

She turned half way around, seized the balustrade and stared at me
vacantly.

"Allow me to help you back to your room," I suggested shakily. "Then
I'll run downstairs and get Mrs. Milliken."

She went with me, haltingly, and threw herself upon the decrepit
horsehair sofa, as I abandoned her and ran downstairs, nearly breaking
my neck on account of my slovenly old slippers. At the landlady's door
I pounded till I chanced to remember she had informed me that she
expected to spend the night at her married daughter's, in Fort Lee. In
despond I bethought myself of the young women who sold candy. No! Such
problems were not of their solving. Of course there was the negro cook,
hidden in some ancillary cavern of the basement, but cowardice prevented
me from penetrating such darkness, and I ran out of the house, coatless.
Half way down the block were two doctors' signs. One shining in the
freshness of new nickelling; the other an old thing of battered tin,
with faded gold letters.

"This," I decided, "is a case requiring the mature experience of age,"
and I rang furiously, awaiting the appearance of the venerable owner of
the ancient sign. A shock-headed and red-haired youth opened the door,
clad in pajamas and rubbing his eyes.

"Yes," he said pleasantly.

"I need the doctor's services at once," I informed him. "Hustle him up
immediately, my good fellow. Please be quick, it may be a matter of life
and death."

"Oh! I'm the doctor," he said, "and I'll be with you in a few seconds.
Sit right down."

He left me in the darkness of the hallway and I sank down on a wooden
seat, upon a palm leaf fan that crackled dismally beneath my slender
weight. Faintly, in the back, I discerned a ghostly folding bed and
heard the swishing of garments flying across the room. In spite of my
feverish impatience the doctor came out again as fast as if he had been
clothed by some magic art.

"What kind of a case?" he asked.

"I believe you are wanted to help increase and multiply," I answered.

"Should have told me at once. Got the wrong bag!" he reproved me,
disappearing. At once he returned. I went out first, and he followed me,
slamming the door with a sound that reverberated through the quiet
street, and we sprinted off. I used the key with a shaking hand.

"Top floor," I informed him.

"All my patients seem to live on top floors," he replied.

At the woman's door I knocked.

"I--I have brought you assistance," I told her. "