The Dawson journal., 1884-01-17

Soou-natured pystander, him
sell carried him there, Jimmy and Bill
and several others following.
IL was something to be inside those
great walls. as Jimmy and Bill and Pet
too, thought, while the latter was being
carried by the porter on stretcher into
the casualty ward and a big bell was
rung for Number One-that is, young
dresser always handy, who sees a case
nrst, and, If it be trifing, attends to it
without sending for the house surgeon.
But of Pet the dresser could make moth
ing at all, and he soon called the house
surgeon, who came running down from
the top of the high building and applied
himself with the rapidity of hard.
worked man to the consideration of the
case before him. He did not look over
thirty, but there was an amount of
dicision, firmness and gentleness in
his touch of Pet, which spoke well for
the use ne had made of his head and of
his heart. The policeman stated what
he knew and was dismissed, while the
surgeon looked for all the most likely
symptoms in Pet, and was able to find
none OF them. The patient was simplv
unconscious. The boys were asked
whether Pet had been i'll before he fell
down suddenly, and they said: 'sNo,
only the coughp .
And fhnV both L
steadily, all the time, the dresser sent
them away, telling them they might
come the next morning to hear what
was the matter with their friend. They,
not sorry to get their dismissal after the
surgeon had arrived on the scene, scam
pered off.
Then the surgeon, systematically and
very patiently indeed, began at Pets
head and examined him down to his
feet to find some cause for this extraor-
dinary unconsciousness, and could find
none. Disease he found indeed. for the
poor little fellows lungs were half gone,
but as he said to the dresser: "Boys
don't drop down unconscious from that p
Being strangely bafled, the surgeon Or
dered Pet to be taken to the children g
ward, undressed and put to bed.
"We'll see what we can make of him
then," he said.
1t was not by any means easy for Pet
to keep up his acting, especially when
strong ammonia was put under his nose
and almost boiling water to his feet, but
he managed it, more now from pride
than from longing after the Christmas
tree, even. Only when he was lifted by
the nurse into soft, clean, warm bed,
such as he had never dreamt of before,
that small closed mouth of his involun-
tarily parted, and something very like
smile, like the ghost of a smile, stole
over his face.
The surgeon, noticing it, was struck
with the idea that the boy might be
shamming
"Fetch the battery here" he said.
Pet did not know what battery
meant, or his smile would certainly have
disappeared as involuntarily as it ha6
come.
The surgeon waited by his side, hold
ing his small hand and thinking to him-
self that, shamming or not shamming,
Pet had the most pathetic face he had
met with in all his experience of sadness
and suffering.
Then the battery was brought and a
slight shock was administered from it
down Pets back.
"Oh! that was horriblep thought
the lad. "What was it? Would it
come again?'
He managed not to vince under it the
first time. A second and harder
shock was given. Pet did not quite
scream, but he pressed his fingers SO
hard into the house surgeons hand that
the latter knew he was right in his con-
lecture. Then third shock was given
"a stronger one, and this time Pet
sprang out of bed with tears starting to
his eyes and exclaimed:
"Oh don't do it again; don't do it
again /"
One or two students round were
laughing, but the surgeon did not see
anything but pathos in the scene, as he
said, gravely:
''Then you are not i'll, and have been
giving us all this trouble for nothing.
Why did You do it?"
He wanted the lad to tell the truth,
and of course to him Pet did.
'Please, sir, he said, not crying now,
but looking straight with his great gray
eyes into the doctors face, "'twas the
tree, the Christmas tree, as I wanted to
see so awful bad Ne and Jimmy and
Bill, we seed it a-carried into here, all
beautiful, and-nnd--I did want to see
it again !"
''And so you pretended to be i'll, that
you might come in here, and"
eyes, sir"
Sand what arr to do with you now,
do you Think"
"Turn me out again." said Pet
promptly.
There was something very like a
culver in the surgeons voice as he said
with infinite tenderness:
"No, my lad, I shan't do that to you,
YOU shall see the Christmas tree in here.
You are not what you pretended to be,
but you are quite i'll enough to stay in
tbe ward uptiI sfter Christmas time, and