It's my old friend and chum
of college days, John Leaver, of Baltimore."
"The big surgeon I've heard you and Mrs. Burns speak of? Great heavens,
he'd come in a minute if he knew!"
"I've no doubt he would, but I happen to know he's abroad just now."
King studied his friend's face, saw that Burns was already weary with
the brief visit, and soon went away. But it was to a consultation with
Mrs. Burns as to the possibility of communicating with Doctor Leaver.
"I wrote his wife not long ago of Red's illness," Ellen said, "but I
didn't state all the facts; somehow I couldn't bring myself to do that.
They are in London; they go over every winter. I had a card only
yesterday from Charlotte giving a new address and promising to write
soon."
"Wasn't he the man you told me of who had a bad nervous breakdown a few
years ago? The one Red had stay with you here until he got back his
nerve?"
"Yes; and he has been even a more brilliant operator ever since."
"I remember the whole story; there was a lot of thrill in it as you told
it. How Red made him rest and build up and then fairly forced him to
operate, against his will, to prove to him that he had got his nerve
back? Jove! Do you think that man wouldn't cross the ocean in a hurry if
he thought he could lift his finger to help our poor boy?"
King's speech had taken on such a fatherly tone of late that Ellen was
not surprised to hear him thus allude to his senior.
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