“He has swallowed the little piece off the end of the handle,” she cried, turning pale with fear, “and it has lodged in his throat.  Telephone Dr. Price to come immediately, Philip, before my baby chokes to death!  Oh, my baby, my precious baby!”

An anxious half hour passed, during which the child lay quiet, except for its labored breathing.  The suspense was relieved by the arrival of Dr. Price, who examined the child carefully.

“It’s a curious accident,” he announced at the close of his inspection.  “So far as I can discover, the piece of ivory has been drawn into the trachea, or windpipe, and has lodged in the mouth of the right bronchus.  I’ll try to get it out without an operation, but I can’t guarantee the result.”

At the end of another half hour Dr. Price announced his inability to remove the obstruction without resorting to more serious measures.

“I do not see,” he declared, “how an operation can be avoided.”

“Will it be dangerous?” inquired the major anxiously, while Mrs. Carteret shivered at the thought.

“It will be necessary to cut into his throat from the outside.  All such operations are more or less dangerous, especially on small children.  If this were some other child, I might undertake the operation unassisted; but I know how you value this one, major, and I should prefer to share the responsibility with a specialist.”

“Is there one in town?” asked the major.

“No, but we can get one from out of town.”

“Send for the best one in the country,” said the major, “who can be got here in time.  Spare no expense, Dr. Price.  We value this child above any earthly thing.”

“The best is the safest,” replied Dr. Price.  “I will send for Dr. Burns, of Philadelphia, the best surgeon in that line in America.  If he can start at once, he can reach here in sixteen or eighteen hours, and the case can wait even longer, if inflammation does not set in.”

The message was dispatched forthwith.  By rare good fortune the eminent specialist was able to start within an hour or two after the receipt of Dr. Price’s telegram.  Meanwhile the baby remained restless and uneasy, the doctor spending most of his time by its side.  Mrs. Carteret, who had never been quite strong since the child’s birth, was a prey to the most agonizing apprehensions.

Mammy Jane, while not presuming to question the opinion of Dr. Price, and not wishing to add to her mistress’s distress, was secretly oppressed by forebodings which she was unable to shake off.  The child was born for bad luck.  The mole under its ear, just at the point where the hangman’s knot would strike, had foreshadowed dire misfortune.  She had already observed several little things which had rendered her vaguely anxious.

For instance, upon one occasion, on entering the room where the baby had been left alone, asleep in his crib, she had met a strange cat hurrying from the nursery, and, upon examining closely the pillow upon which the child lay, had found a depression which had undoubtedly been due to the weight of the cat’s body.  The child was restless and uneasy, and Jane had ever since believed that the cat had been sucking little Dodie’s breath, with what might have been fatal results had she not appeared just in the nick of time.