Jane Brown swallowed hard.

"All right," she managed. "They want to operate, Doctor Willie."

"Tut!" he said. "Always in a hurry, these hospitals. We'll wait a
while, I think."

"Is everybody well at home?"

It had come to her, you see, what comes to every nurse once in her
training--the thinness of the veil, the terror of calamity, the fear
of death.

"All well. And----" he glanced around. Only the Senior Surgical
Interne was in sight, and he was out of hearing. "Look here,
Nellie," he said, "I've got a dozen fresh eggs for you in my
satchel. Your mother sent them."

She nearly lost her professional manner again then. But she only
asked him to warn the boys about automobiles and riding on the backs
of wagons.

Had any one said Twenty-two to her, she would not have known what
was meant. Not just then, anyhow.

In the doctors' room that night the Senior Surgical Interne lighted
a cigarette and telephoned to the operating room.

"That trephining's off," he said, briefly.