“’Sh-h!” Tom made a gesture commanding silence, for Jerry had unconsciously raised his voice.  “What ails you?” he inquired, sweetly.

“Nothin’ ails me,” Jerry muttered under his breath.  “That’s the trouble.  You’re allus talkin’ like it did—­like I had one foot in the grave and was gaspin’ my last.  I’m hard as a hickory-nut.  I could throw you down and set on you.”

Mr. Linton opened hia bearded lips, then closed them again; he withdrew behind an air of wounded dignity.  This, he reflected, was his reward for days of kindness, for weeks of uncomplaining sacrifice.  Jerry was the most unreasonable, the most difficult person he had ever met; the more one did for him the crankier he became.  There was no gratitude in the man, his skin wouldn’t hold it.  Take the matter of their tent, for instance:  how would the old fellow have managed if he, Tom, had not, out of pure compassion, taken pity on him and rescued him from the rain back there at Linderman?  Had Jerry remembered that act of kindness?  He had not.  On the contrary, he had assumed, and maintained, an attitude of indulgence that was in itself an offense—­yes, more than an offense.  Tom tried to center his mind upon his partner’s virtues, but it was a difficult task, for honesty compelled him to admit that Jerry assayed mighty low when you analyzed him with care.  Mr. Linton gave up the effort finally with a shake of his head.

“What you wigwaggin’ about?” Jerry inquired, curiously.  Tom made no answer.  After a moment the former speaker whispered, meditatively:  “I’d have give him the lemons if he’d asked me for ’em.  Sick people need lemons.”

“Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t,” Mr. Linton whispered, shortly.

“Lemons is acid, and acid cuts phlegm.”

“Lemons ain’t acid; they’re alkali.”

This statement excited a derisive snort from Mr. Quirk.  “Alkali!  My God!  Ever taste alkali?” Jerry had an irritating way of asserting himself in regard to matters of which he knew less than nothing; his was the scornful certainty of abysmal ignorance.

“Did you ever give lemons to sick folks?” Tom inquired, in his turn.

“Sure!  Thousands.”

Now this was such an outrageous exaggeration that Linton was impelled to exclaim: 

“Rats!  You never saw a thousand sick folks.”

“I didn’t say so.  I said I’d given thousands of lemons—­”

“Oh!” Tom filled his pipe and lit it, whereupon his partner breathed a sibilant warning: 

“Put out that smudge!  D’you aim to strangle the girl?”

With a guilty start the offender quenched the fire with his thumb.

“The idea of lightin’ sheep-dip in a sick-room!” Mr. Quirk went on.  With his cap he fanned violently at the fumes.

“You don’t have to blow her out of bed,” Tom growled.  Clumsily he drew the blankets closer beneath the sick girl’s chin, but in so doing he again excited his companion’s opposition.