“Dat’s de real t’ing,” jubilantly acceded Swot.  “Say, oin’t de women doisies for havin’ bases stole off ’em?  Didn’t Ise give youse de warm tip to let de doc git it?”

“You should thank him for saving you from my stupid blunder,” answered the girl, artfully avoiding all possibility of personal obligation.  “Would you like me to read it to you now?”

“Wouldn’t Ise, just!”

Still ignoring Dr. Armstrong, Constance took the seat at the bedside, and opening the book, launched into the wildest sea of blood-letting and crime.  Yet thrillingly as it began, she was not oblivious to the fact that for some minutes the doctor stood watching her, and she was quite conscious of when he finally moved away, noiselessly as he went.  Once he was gone, she was more at her ease; yet clearly her conscience troubled her a little, for in her carriage she again gave expression to some thought by remarking aloud, “It was rude, of course, but if he will behave so, it really isn’t my fault.”

[Illustration:  “Constance took the seat at the bedside”]

The gory tale, in true serial style, was “continued” the next and succeeding mornings, to the enthralment of the listener and the amusement of the reader, the latter finding in her occupation as well a convenient reason for avoiding or putting a limit to the doctor’s undisguised endeavours to share, if not, indeed, to monopolise, her attention.  Even serials, however, have an end, and on the morning of the sixth reading the impossibly shrewd detective successfully put out of existence, or safely incarcerated each one of the numerous scoundrels who had hitherto triumphed over the law, and Constance closed the book.

“Hully gee!” sighed Swot, contentedly.  “Say, dat Old Sleut, he’s up to de limit, oin’t he?  It don’t matter wot dey does, he works it so’s de hull push comes his way, don’t he?”

“He certainly was very far-seeing,” Constance conceded; “but what a pity it is that he—­that he wasn’t in some finer calling.”

“Finer wot?”

“How much nobler it would have been if, instead of taking life, he had been saving it—­like Dr. Armstrong, for instance,” she added, to bring her idea within the comprehension of the boy.

“Ah, dat’s de talk for religious mugs an’ goils,” contemptuously exclaimed the waif, “but it guv’s me de sore ear.  It don’t go wid me, not one little bit.”

“Aren’t you grateful to Dr. Armstrong for all he’s done for you?”

“Bet youse life,” assented Swot; “but Ise oin’t goin’ to be no doctor, nah!  Ise goin’ to git on de force, dat’s de racket Ise outer.  Say, will youse read me anudder of dem stories?’

“Gladly, if I can find the right kind this time.”

The boy raised his head to look about the ward.  “Hey, doc,” called his cracked treble.

“Hush, don’t!” protested the girl.

“W’y not?”

Before she could frame a reason, the doctor was at the bedside.  “What is it?” he asked.