“This afternoon, probably.  As there is no one here very ill—­”

But at that they almost fell on him and tore him to pieces.  I had to step in front of him myself and say we’d have somebody there by two o’clock if we had to rob a hospital to get him.  And Mr. Sam cried, “Three cheers for Minnie, the beautiful spring-house girl!” and led off.

There’s no doubt about it—­a man ought to be born to the sanatorium business.  A real strong and healthy man has no business trying to run a health resort, and I saw Mr. Pierce wasn’t making the hit that I’d expected him to.

He was too healthy.  You only needed to look at him to know that he took a cold plunge every morning, and liked to walk ten miles a day, and could digest anything and go to sleep the minute his head touched the pillow.  And he had no tact.  When Mrs. Biggs went to him and explained that the vacuum cleaner must not be used in her room—­that it exhausted the air or something, and she could hardly breathe after it—­he only looked bewildered and then drew a diagram to show her it was impossible that it could exhaust the air.  The old doctor knew how:  he’d have ordered an oxygen tank opened in the room after the cleaner was used and she’d have gone away happy.

Of course Mr. Pierce was most polite.  He’d listen to their complaints—­and they were always complaining, that’s part of the regime—­with a puzzled face, trying to understand, but he couldn’t.  He hadn’t a nerve in his body.  Once, when one of the dining-room girls dropped a tray of dishes and half the women went to bed with headache from the nervous shock, he never even looked up, but went on with his dinner, and the only comment he made afterward was to tell the head waitress to see that Annie didn’t have to pay breakage—­that the trays were too heavy for a woman, anyhow.  As Miss Cobb said, he was impossible.

Well, as if I didn’t have my hands full with getting meals to the shelter-house, and trying to find a house doctor, and wondering how long it would be before “Julia” came face to face with Dick Carter somewhere or other, and trying to keep one eye on Thoburn while I kept Mr. Pierce straight with the other—­that day, during luncheon, Mike the bath man came out to the spring-house and made a howl about his wages.  He’d been looking surly for two days.

“What about your wages?” I snapped.  “Aren’t you getting what you’ve always had?”

“No tips!” he said sulkily.  “Only a few taking baths—­only one daily, and that’s that man Jennings.  There’s no use talking, Miss Minnie, I’ve got to have a double percentage on that man or you’ll have to muzzle him.  He—­he’s dangerous.”

“If I give you the double percentage, will you stay?”

“I don’t know but that I’d rather have the muzzle, Miss Minnie,” he answered slowly, “but—­I’ll stay.  It won’t be for long.”

Which left me thinking.  I’d seen Thoburn talking to Mike more than once lately, and he’d been going around with an air of assurance that didn’t make me any too cheerful.  Evenings, when I’d relieved Amanda King at the news stand, I’d seen Thoburn examining the woodwork of the windows, and only the night before, happening on the veranda unexpectedly, I found Mike and him measuring it with a tape line.  As I say, Mike’s visit left me thinking.