In a twinkling, Roger’s despair was changed to something entirely different.  “Oh,” he cried, “I do hope Fido will die.  Do you think there is any chance?” he asked, eagerly, of Allan.

“I should think, from what you tell me,” remarked Allan, judicially, “that Fido was nearly through with his earthly troubles.  A dose of that size might easily keep any of us from worrying any longer about the price of meat and next month’s rent.”

“Mother won’t like it,” said Roger, soberly.  “She may not be willing for me to go.”

“She should be,” returned Allan, “as you’ve saved her life at the expense of Fido’s.  When I go up to see Barbara this afternoon, I’ll stop in and tell her.”

[Sidenote:  Unexpected Call]

Miss Mattie was awake, but yawning, when he knocked at her door.  “There wasn’t no call for you to come,” she said, inhospitably; “the medicine ain’t used up yet.”

“Let me see the box, please.”

She shuffled off to the kitchen cupboard and brought it to him.  There were half a dozen flour-filled capsules in it.  Allan observed that the druggist, in writing the directions on the cover, had failed to add the last two words.

“Idiot,” he said, under his breath.  “I wrote, ’Take two every four hours until relieved.’”

“I was relieved,” explained Miss Mattie, “and I’ve had fine sleep ever since.  It’s wore off considerable in the last three days, though.”

Allan then told her, in vivid and powerful language, how the druggist’s error might have had very serious results, had it not been for Roger’s presence of mind in substituting the flour-filled capsules for the “searching medicine.”  He was surprised to find that Miss Mattie was ungrateful, and that she violently resented the imposition.

[Sidenote:  Notion of Economy]

“Roger’s just like his pa,” she said, with the dull red rising in her cheeks.  “He never had no notion of economy.  When I’m takin’ a dollar and twenty cents’ worth of medicine, to keep it from bein’ wasted, Roger goes and puts flour into the covers of it, and feeds the expensive medicine to Judge Bascom’s Fido.  He thinks more of that dog than he does of his sick mother.”

“My dear Mrs. Austin,” said Allan, solemnly, “have you not heard the news?”

“What news?” she demanded, bristling.

“Little Fido is dying.  He took all the medicine and has been asleep ever since.  By morning, he will be dead.”

Miss Mattie’s jaw dropped.  “Would you mind tellin’ me,” she asked, suspiciously, “why you took it on yourself to give me medicine that would pizen a dog?  I might have took it all at once, to save it.  Once I was minded to.”

“Roger saved your life,” said Allan, endeavouring to make his tone serious.  “And because of it, he is about to lose his position.  The Judge is so disturbed over Fido’s approaching dissolution that he has told Roger never to come back any more.  Unless we can find him a place in town, he has sacrificed his whole future to save his mother’s life.”