“It’s better’n the bumpers, Corp.”

At the Penitentiary next day there was consternation and dismay when instead of the desperate criminal, who two days before had scaled the walls and dropped to freedom, an innocent little Irishman was presented, whose only offense apparently was in having donned, temporarily, the garb of crime.

As the investigation proceeded, Phelan found it expedient, to become excessively indignant.  That an American citizen, strolling harmlessly through the fields of a summer evening, and being caught in a shower, should attempt to dry his clothes in an unused shed, and find himself attacked and bound, and hurried away without his belongings to a distant city, was an inconceivable outrage.  If a shadow of doubt remained as to his identity, a score of prominent gentlemen in the city would be able to identify him.  He named them, and added that he was totally unable to hazard a guess as to what form their resentment of his treatment would assume.

The authorities looked grave.  Could Mr. Harrihan remember just what articles he had left behind?  Mr. Harrihan could.  A suit of clothes, a pair of shoes, a hat, a toilet set, and a small sum of money; “the loss of which,” added Phelan with a fine air of indifference, “are as nothing compared to the indignity offered to my person.”

Would the gentleman be satisfied if the cost of these articles, together with the railroad fare back to Lebanon Junction be paid him?  The gentleman, after an injured pause, announced that he would.

And thus it was that Mr. Phelan Harrihan, in immaculate raiment, presented himself at the Sixth Annual Reunion of the Alpha Delta fraternity and, with a complacent smile encircling a ten-cent cigar, won fresh laurels by recounting, with many adornments, the adventures of the previous night.

“Pop”

The gloomy corridor in the big Baltimore hospital was still and deserted save for a nurse who sat at a flat-topped desk under a green lamp mechanically transferring figures from one chart to another.  It was the period of quiet that usually precedes the first restless stirring of the sick at the breaking of dawn.  The silence was intense as only a silence can be that waits momentarily for an interrupting sound.

Suddenly it came in a prolonged, imperative ring of the telephone bell.  So insistent was the call that the nurse’s hand closed over the transmitter long before the burr ceased.  The office was notifying Ward B that an emergency case had been brought in and an immediate operation was necessary.

With prompt efficiency the well-ordered machinery for saving human life was put in motion.  Soft-footed nurses emerged from the shadows and moved quickly about, making necessary arrangements.  A trim, comely woman, straight of feature and clear of eye, gave directions in low decisive tones.  When the telephone rang the second time she answered it.

“Yes, Office,” she said, “this is Miss Fletcher.  They are not going to operate?  Too late?  I see.  Very well.  Send the patient up to No. 16.  Everything is ready.”