employer. “If you ever thought of yourself, Miss Frink, you would see Dr. Morton on your own account. After the shock you have endured, and the heroism with which you returned to the excitement of the banquet, it stands to reason that your nerves should have a tonic.” “Fiddlesticks, Grim. I’m all right. All the tonic I need is to know that I haven’t killed that boy upstairs.” “Don’t worry about him,” said the secretary,[44] looking severely through his dark-rimmed spectacles. “Other husky men have survived a broken arm and a bumped head, and I dare say he will. I feel that I ought to warn you that he is a person of no delicacy.” [44] Miss Frink regarded the speaker with narrowed eyes. “I rather suspected that,” she said slowly, “by the way he grabbed my horses’ heads.” The secretary flushed, but continued indomitably: “Physical bravery is often allied with a thick-skinned mentality. I think for your own protection you should know what I found when I went to the White Room to get his suit.” He paused dramatically. Miss Frink winked off her glasses again and returned the spectacled gaze with deep interest. “He was kissing the nurse, perhaps,” she said. “She is a sweet thing.” “Miss Frink!” The exclamation was scandalized as her secretary regarded his lady of the old school with real amazement. “No. He was not kissing the nurse, but he was doing what would affect your comfort far more. He was smoking cigarettes.” Miss Frink surprised her companion still further by laughing. “Didn’t you hear him ask me for one in the[45] motor? Now, I say he was clever, with only one arm and one eye, and laid low in bed, to manage to get cigarettes.” [45] Grimshaw stared. “It must have been Dr. Morton,” he said after a pause; “but the point is that, when I told him you detested them, he didn’t stop.” “He smiled, perhaps?” Miss Frink did, herself. “I don’t remember; but I wasn’t going to stand for that, you may be sure, and I told him we couldn’t have the atmosphere of this house—your house, vitiated.”
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