nearer and looked at her hard. For he disliked the sound of that cough.
He suspected that his old friend and opponent, Death, with whom he
fought an interminable campaign, was mocking him from ambush. It wasn't
quite fair play, either, for the foe to use the particular weapon
indicated by the cough on a mere child. With her lustrous hair loose and
floating, and her small, eager, flushed face, she looked far short of
the mature and self-reliant seventeen which was the tally of her
experienced years.

"Hello," greeted the Little Red Doctor, speaking with the brusque
informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. "I don't
know you, do I?"

Mayme lifted her eyes. "If you don't," she drawled, "it ain't for lack
of tryin'. Is your hat glued on?"

"Good Lord!" exclaimed the Little Red Doctor indignantly. "Do you think
I'm trying to flirt with you? Why, you're only a kid."

"Get up to date," advised Mayme. "I'm old enough to be your steady.
Only, I'm too lucky."

"That's a bad cough you've got," said the Little Red Doctor hastily.

"I've got a better one at home. Like to hear it some day?"

"Bring it over to my office and let's look at the thing," suggested the
Little Red Doctor, smiling.

As Mayme McCartney observed that smile with the shrewd judgment of men