now!

"It's a lie. It's not so," the father says.

"Mr. Lockwin, I don't want to say it, but it is so." It is the kind
voice of Richard Tarbelle.

"Very well, then. It is diphtheria." It is the one goblin that for
years has appalled Lockwin. Well it might, when it steals on a man
like this. "To think I never gave him a drop of whisky. Oh! God! Get
us a surgeon."

A medical college is not far away. The surgeon comes quickly, although
Lockwin has gone half-way to meet him. The two men arrive. Dr.
Floddin continues to throw his hands up and down. He loved Davy.
Perhaps Dr. Floddin is a brave man to stay now. Perhaps he would be
brave to go.

"Well, Mr. Surgeon, look at that child."

"Your boy is dying," says the surgeon, as the men retire to a back room.

"What is to be done?" asks the father, resolutely.

"We can insert a tube in his throat."

"Will that save his life?"

"It will prolong his life if the shock do not result fatally."