Hal gripped at his hand.  “I don’t know how to thank you—­” he began.

“Don’t try, then,” was the gruff retort.  “Where’s Mac?”

He turned to McGuire Ellis’s desk to bid that sturdy toiler good-night.  There, dimly seen through the flickering candlelight, the undisputed Short-Distance Slumber Champion of the World sat, his head on his arms, in his familiar and favorite attitude of snatching a few moments’ respite from a laborious existence.

“Will you look at that!” cried the physician in utmost amazement.

At the sight a wild surge of mirth overwhelmed Hal’s hair-trigger nerves.  He began to laugh, with strange, quick catchings of the breath:  to laugh tumultuously, rackingly, unendurably.

“Stop it!” shouted Dr. Elliot, and smote him a sledge-blow between the shoulders.

For the moment the hysteria was jarred out of Hal.  He gasped, gurgled, and took a step toward his assistant.

“Hey, Mac!  Wake up!  You’ve spilled your ink.”

[Illustration:  “DON’T GO NEAR HIM.  DON’T LOOK”]

Before he could speak or move further, Esme Elliot’s arms were about him.  Her face was close to his.  He could feel the strong pressure of her breast against him as she forced him back.

“No, no!” she was pleading, in a swift half-whisper.  “Don’t go near him.  Don’t look. Please don’t.  Come away.”

He set her aside.  A candlelight flared high.  From Ellis’s desk trickled a little stream.  Dr. Elliot was already bending over the slackened form.

“So it wasn’t ink,” said Hal slowly.  “Is he dead, Dr. Elliot?”

“No,” snapped the other.  “Esme, bandages!  Quick!  Your petticoat!  That’ll do.  Get another candle.  Dr. Surtaine, help me lift him.  There!  Surtaine, bring water. Do you hear? Hurry!”

When Hal returned, uncle and niece were working with silent deftness over Ellis, who lay on the floor.  The wounded man opened his eyes upon his employer’s agonized face.

“Did he get the press?” he gasped.

“Keep quiet,” ordered the Doctor.  “Don’t speak.”

“Did he get the press?” insisted Ellis obstinately.

“Mac!  Mac!” half sobbed Hal, bending over him.  “I thought you were dead.”  And his tears fell on the blood-streaked face.

“Don’t be young,” growled Ellis faintly.  “Did—­he—­get—­the—­press?”

“No.”

The wounded man’s eyes closed.  “All right,” he murmured.

Up to the time that the ambulance surgeons came to carry Ellis away, Dr. Elliot was too busy with him even to be questioned.  Only after the still burden had passed through the door did he turn to Hal.

“A piece of metal carried away half the back of his neck,” he said.  “And we let him sit there, bleeding his life away!”

“Is there any chance?” demanded Hal.

“I doubt if they’ll get him to the hospital alive.”