You can't scare me!
dressing, with those great hammy paws of yours, I'll gnaw them off clear up to the elbows!"

In the face of such heated self-righteousness, the young man could hardly doubt her statement. Obviously, he was being tormented by the picture of himself, continuing, armless, through the remainder of his life. "I'm sorry," he said contritely, apparently forgetting that, in view of the excellent nurse's quarters just upstairs, the indignant girl had chosen a rather singular place to dress.

"You should be," Toffee replied icily. "If it happens again, I'll report you." And without waiting for an answer, she started regally from the room.

"Button that dress!" Marc yelled inadvertently.

"Button your lip," Toffee replied composedly, disappearing around the edge of the door.

Marc wished desperately that he could go after her. There was no telling what she might do. He only knew that, having Toffee back, was merely a matter of traveling the shortest road to utter confusion at the highest rate of speed. He shivered at the thought of what doubtlessly lay ahead.

As Marc swung out of the hospital door, the last brilliant rays of a dying sun almost blinded him for a moment, and he didn't see Toffee, at first, sitting there on the steps, chin in hand, and looking very much like a completely thoughtless rendition of "The Thinker."

"What kept you so long?" she asked irritably.

"I had to sign some papers," Marc explained. "It's too bad that no one got the license number on the car that hit me. It would have...." Suddenly, he stopped, and stared at Toffee, mouth agape. The white uniform that he had last seen her in had miraculously been replaced, in part, by a black evening gown, that had obviously seen hell at the ruthless hand of its cutter. It had hardly a back to call its own, and as for the front, instead of covering Toffee's amazing figure, it seemed merely to draw a heavy black line around it for emphasis.

A look of pain came into Marc's eyes. "Where did you get that?" he asked weakly.

Toffee motioned vaguely across the street. "At that store over there," she answered serenely. "I charged it to you."

Marc groaned. "What was the matter with the uniform? I thought it was very neat."

"Wasn't it, though?" 
 Prev. P 9/38 next 
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