“It is astonishing how much time can be lost in a crisis,” the man observes.  He must carry his Davy into another room, couch and all, for he will not suffer the little body to be chilled any further.  “If this cup may be kept from my lips,” he prays, “I will be a better man.”

The sun is high before the child is swathed with hot flaxseed.  The man sprays the stramonium.  The child has periods of extreme difficulty.  He is nauseated in every fiber.

“God forgive me!” prays Lockwin.

“Mamma, will I have to play with the swear boys?”

“No, my darling.”

“And will my curls be cut off before you get a picture?”

The man remembers that Davy has been sick much of late.  They have no likeness of him since he grew beautiful.

“And may I go to Sunday-school if I don’t play with the swear boys?  For the teacher said—­”

The canal tightens in the throat.  The old battle begins.

The man sprays furiously.  The child lisps:  “Please don’t, papa.”

The man is hurt to think he has mistaken the child’s needs.

The air gets dry again.  The child signals with its hand.

“More spray, Davy?  Ah! that helps you!”

The man is eased.

“Esther, where is that doctor?”

They had forgotten him.  The case is chronic.  All the household are doctors.  So now by his coming there is only to be one more to the lot of vomiters and poulticers.

Yet it dismays all hands to think they have forgotten the famous savior of Davy.  They telephoned for him hours ago.  “Ah me!” each says.

The child’s feet grow cold.  “Hot bottles!  Hot bottles!” is the cry.  The first lot without corks.  And at last Lockwin goes to the closet and gets the rubber bags made for such uses.

At one o’clock the doctor arrives.  Lockwin has gone to the drug store to get more flaxseed If he get it himself it will be done.  If he order it some fatal hour might pass.  The cold air revives him.  He sees a crowd of men down the street.  It is a polling-booth.

He strives to gather the fact that it is election day.  Corkey is running as an independent democrat, because the democratic convention did not indorse him after he bolted from the Lockwin convention.

But for that strange fillip of politics Lockwin must have been beaten before he began the campaign.  Well, what is the election now?  Davy dying all the week, and not a soul suspecting it!

“Girls wanted!” The sign is on the basement windows.  Yes, that accounts for the strange disorganization of the household.  That, in some way, explains the cold furnaces and lack of the most needful things.

Never mind the girls.  Plenty of them to be had.  That doctor—­what can he say for himself?

The man starts as he enters the house.  What was it Davy said last night?  That “the doctor’s both horses were sick!” It is a disagreeable recollection, therefore banish it, David Lockwin.  Go up and see the doctor.