“It’s all right, Alf.  I’ll be myself again by morning.  I’m where all that is good for me is, and should be well in no time.  She will but pass her hands above my head, and—­there you are!”

And we parted, as carelessly as usual, and as I went home I was speculating on what the revised returns would show the majority to be, not as to the outcome of Grant Harlson’s indisposition.

Jean sent for me the next morning.  I found a look upon her face which troubled me.

“Grant is not well,” she said.  “He came home late and spoke of an odd feeling.  We cared for him, but this morning he was listless and did not want to dress and come to breakfast.  He is in bed still.  Please go up and see him, and then come down to the library and tell me what you think the matter is.”

I went upstairs and found Grant lying in his bed and breathing heavily.  I shook him by the shoulder.

“What’s the matter, old man?”

He turned over with an effort, though laughing.  “I don’t know,” he answered.  “I only know I haven’t been well since last night, and that there is a queer feeling about my throat and chest.  I ought to be up, of course, but I’m listless and careless, somehow.  By the way, what were the totals?”

I gave him the figures, and he smiled, and then with an “Excuse me, old man,” turned his face to the wall.  A moment later, as I sat watching him, alarmed, he roused himself and turned toward me again.  “Won’t you send Jean to me?” he asked.

I saw Jean, and she went upstairs, and when she came down her face was white.  The Ape, rugged young man as he was, had tears in his eyes, and his brothers and sisters were crying quietly.  I left the house, and an hour later a physician, one of the most famous on the continent, was by Grant Harlson’s bedside.  He was a personal friend of both of us.  When he came down his face was grave.

“What is it, Doctor?”

“It’s pneumonia, and a bad case.”

“What can we do?”

“Nothing, but to care for him and aid him with all hopefulness and strength.  He has vitality beyond one man in a thousand.  He may throw off all the incubus of it.  But it has come suddenly and is growing.”  Then he got mad in all his friendship, and blurted out:  “Why didn’t the great blundering brute send for me when first he felt something he couldn’t meet nor understand?” And there were almost tears in his eyes.

The doctors have much to say about pneumonia.  Doubtless they know of what they talk, but pneumonia comes nevertheless, and defeats the strong man and the doctors.  The strong man it strangles.  The doctors it laughs at.

All that medical science could command was brought to the bedside of Grant Harlson.  The doctor, his friend, called in the wisest of associates in consultation, and as for care—­there was Jean!  He was cared for as the angels might care for a wandering soul.  But the big man in the bed tossed and muttered, and looked at Jean appealingly, and grew worse.  The strength seemed going from him at last—­from him, the bulwark of us all.