Then he sent for the head-nurse.  “I would like to have Miss Gray and Miss Barlow help me,” he told her, in speaking of the proposed operation.

“Miss Gray is on duty to-night,” said the head-nurse.

“Then if you will arrange to have her get a rest, please.  And—­oh, yes, we’ll probably need the oxygen.  And you might tell Dr. Gleason that this is a special case and I’d like to have him administer the anaesthetic.”

Andover strode briskly to the surgical ward and stopped at Pete’s couch.  As he stooped and listened to Pete’s breathing, the packet of crisp bills slipped from his inside pocket, and dropped to the floor.

He was in the lobby, on his way to his car, when Doris came running after him.  “Dr. Andover,” she called.  “I think you dropped this,”—­and she gave him the packet of bills.

“Mighty careless of me,” he said, feeling in his inside pocket.  “Handkerchief—­slipped them in on top of it.  Thank you.”

Doris gazed at him curiously.  His eyes wavered.  “We’re going to do our best to pull him through,” he said with forced sprightliness.

Doris smiled and nodded.  But her expression changed as she again entered the long, dim aisle between the double row of cots.  Only that evening, just before she had talked with Andover about Pete, she had heard the surgeon tell the house-physician jokingly that all that stood between him and absolute destitution was a very thin and exceedingly popular check-book—­and Andover had written his personal check for ten dollars which he had cashed at the office.  Doris wondered who the strange man was that had come in with Andover, an hour ago, and how Dr. Andover had so suddenly become possessed of a thousand dollars.

CHAPTER XXXV

“CAUGHT IT JUST IN TIME”

At exactly ten-thirty the next morning The Spider was at the information desk of the General Hospital, inquiring for Andover.

“He’s in the operating-room,” said the clerk.

“Then I’ll wait.”  The Spider sidled across to the reception-room and sat nervously fingering the arm of his chair.  Nurses passed and repassed the doorway, going quietly through the hall.  From somewhere came the faint animal-like wail of a newly born babe.  The Spider had gripped the arm of his chair.  A well-gowned woman stopped at the information desk and left a great armful of gorgeous roses wrapped in white tissue paper.  Presently a man—­evidently a laborer—­hobbled past on crutches, his foot bandaged; a huge, grotesque white foot that he held stiffly in front of him and which he seemed to be following, rather than guiding.  A nurse walked slowly beside him.  The Spider drummed the chair-arm with nervous fingers.  His little beady eyes were constantly in motion, glancing here and there,—­at the empty chairs in the room, at the table with its neatly piled magazines, at a large picture of the hospital, and a great group of nurses standing on the stone steps, and then toward the doorway.  Presently a nurse came in and told him that Dr. Andover would be unable to see him for some time:  that the patient just operated on was doing as well as could be expected.