The Wreckers

Big

e sun was shining brightly through some filmy kind of curtain stuff in a big window that looked out toward t

er to the bed, somebody opened a door and tip-toed in ahead of nursey. I had to blink hard two or three times before I could really make up my mind that the tip-toer was Maisie Ann. She looked as

girl, with a laugh so near the surface that it never took much of anything to make it come rippling up thr

grandmother used to when I was a little kid and had the mumps or

ering around in a forest of Douglas fir and having to jump and

" I said, sort of feebly

railroad hospital that night, but when they telephoned up here to try to find Mr. No

oted. "It was last night that t

l burnt and crippled, lying at the foot of your office stairs, was three

d? What happened t

been hoping that some day you'd be able t

best I could. When she saw how hard it was for me to talk, I could hav

ently dead and ready to be buried. The ambulance surgeon had insisted, and was still insisting, that I had been handling a live wire;

s for three days? What has been going on in all that

ritt has been up every day, and sometimes twice a da

?" I queried. "Ha

king straight out of the window at the setting sun when she

made out to answer her question, telling her how Mr. Norcross had left the office maybe half an hour o

ritt found a letter from Mr. Norcross on his desk the next morning. It was just a little typewritten note, on a Hotel Bullard letter sheet, saying tha

e had to do it if both arms had been b

I don't believe that for a single

in, still without turning he

went away; one from Mr. Chadwick and the other from Mr. Dunton. I heard Mr. Van Britt telling Cousi

use I had them in my pocket and was on my way to deliver them when I got shot; but I didn't

t was, and you know what it was," and at that she turn

that I was going to hear a confirmation of my own

u remember-down in the hall when you brought the flowers fo

ve a chance-not

hy he wants to talk to you about it. But you know, and I know, Jimmie, dear; and for Cousin Sheila's sake and Mr. Norcross's, we must never lisp it to a human soul. A new general manager has been ap

ent off the hooks again, with Maisie Ann's frightened little shriek rin