SUSQUEHANNA

Red Pepper Burns drove into the vine-covered old red barn behind his house which served as his garage, and stopped his engine with an air of finality.

“Johnny,” said he, addressing the young man who was accustomed to drive with him—­and for him when for any reason he preferred not to drive himself, which was seldom—­and who kept the car in the most careful trim, “not for man or beast, angel or devil will I go out again to-night.”

Johnny Carruthers grinned.  “No, sir,” he replied.  “Not unless they happen to want you,” he added.

“Not if they offer me a thousand dollars for the trip,” growled his master.

“You would for a dead beat, though,” suggested the devoted servant, who by virtue of five years of service knew whereof he spoke, “if he’d smashed his good-for-nothin’ head.”

“Not if he’d smashed his whole blamed body—­so long as there was another surgeon in the county who could do the job.”

“That’s just the trouble,” argued Johnny.  “You’d think there wasn’t.”

Red Pepper looked at him.  “Johnny, you’re an idiot!” he informed him.  Then he strode away toward the house.

As he went into his office the telephone rang.  The office was empty, for it was dinner-time, and Miss Mathewson was having a day off duty on account of her mother’s illness.  So, unhappily for the person at the other end of the wire, the Doctor himself answered the ring.  It had been a hard day, following other hard days, and he was feeling intense fatigue, devastating depression, and that unreasoning irritability which is born of physical weariness and mental unrest.

“Hello,” shouted the victim of these disorders into the transmitter.  “What?...  No, I can’t....  What?...  No.  Get somebody else....  What?...  I can’t, I say....  Yes, you can.  Plenty of ’em....  What?...  Absolutely no!  Good-bye!”

“I ought to feel better after that,” muttered Burns, slamming the receiver on the hook.  “But somehow I don’t.”

In two minutes he was splashing in a hot bath, as always at the end of a busy day.  From the tub he was summoned to the telephone, the upstairs extension, in his own dressing room.  With every red hair erect upon his head after violent towelling, he answered the message which reached his unwilling ears.

“What’s that?  Worse?  She isn’t—­it’s all in her mind.  Tell her she’s all right.  I saw her an hour ago.  What?...  Well, that’s all imagination, as I’ve told her ten thousand times.  There’s absolutely nothing the matter with her heart....  No, I’m not coming—­she’s not to be babied like that....  No, I won’t.  Good-bye!”

The door of the room softly opened.  A knock had preceded the entrance of Ellen, but Burns hadn’t heard it.  He eyed her defiantly.

“Do you feel much, much happier now?” she asked with a merry look.

“If I don’t it’s not the fault of the escape valve.  I pulled it wide open.”