“He’s passed the danger point,” he exulted, and he took hold of the two long plaits and wound them about her head.  Then he sat up and began deliberately to unbraid her hair, while she submitted laughing.

“At two this morning he had a bad turn,” said he, his fingers having their way with the dusky locks.  “The nurse gave him Van Horn’s drugs,—­he grew worse.  I rose up and took charge.”  He laughed at the thought.  “We had things doing there that would have made Van’s hair curl.  Everybody’s hair curled but mine.  Mine stood up straight.  I waved my arms like a semaphore.  I said ’Do this!’ and they did it.  I sent every one of Van’s emergency orders to thunder and tried my own.  They were radical—­but they worked.  The patient pulled out,—­he’ll live now,—­I’ll warrant him.  They got Van there just as the thing was over.  He and I looked each other in the eye—­and I won. Ah—­h!—­it was worth it!”

He drew her hair all over her face, like a veil; then he gently parted it and kissed her happy lips.

“Oh, but I’m the hungry boy,” said he.  “Can’t we have breakfast—­now?”

CHAPTER V

MORE THAN ONE OPINION

“I want an opinion,” said Burns, one night at dinner, “that shall coincide with mine.  Where do you suppose I’m going to find it?”

He had been more or less abstracted during the entire dinner.  He now offered, in a matter-of-fact tone, this explanation of his abstraction much as he might have observed that he would like a partridge, if it had happened to be in season.

“What’s a ‘’pinion,’ Uncle Red?” inquired his small ward, Bob.  Bob’s six-year-old brain seemed to be always at work in the attempt to solve problems.

“It’s what somebody else thinks about a thing when it agrees with what you think.  When it doesn’t agree it’s a prejudice,” replied Burns.  He forestalled further questioning from Bob by refilling his plate with the things the boy liked best, and by continuing, himself: 

“Grayson’s idea about a certain case of mine is prejudice—­pure prejudice.  Van Horn’s is bluster.  Field’s is non-committal.  Buller would like to back me up—­good old Buller—­but is honestly convinced that I’m making an awful mess of it.  I want an opinion—­a distinguished opinion.”

“Why don’t you send for it?” his wife asked.

Burns frowned.  “That’s the trouble.  The more distinguished the opinion I get the more my patient will have to pay for it, and he can’t afford to pay a tin dollar.  At the same time—­By George!  There’s Leaver!  I heard the other day that Leaver was at a sanitorium not a hundred miles away,—­there for a rest.  I’ll wager he’s there with a patient for a few days—­at a good big price a day.  Leaver never rests.  He’s made of steel wires.  I believe I’ll have him up on the long-distance and see if I can’t get him to run over.”