"Yes, indeed, wire them at once. Tell them there is no danger, and we are sure the eyes will be infinitely better--certainly there will be no more headaches and pain. And cheer up." After the telegram was safely on its way it seemed quite natural for the four of them to sit at a small table in the nurses' dining-room, sipping the hot coffee, realizing that after all they were alive, and father was nearly all right, and things were going on just the same as before he had kissed them good-by and gone into the grim white room that held so many terrors for them. After their coffee the doctor took them around the hospital with him, introducing them to ministers here and there. They smiled at a few whom the doctor frankly pronounced cases of chronic grouch, and were smiled at by other, very sick ones, who, the doctor declared, were endowed with an abundant and all-pervading Christianity that kept their dispositions riotously pleasant in spite of physical pain. And then he invited them to come with him in his car to call on another patient of his down the road a way--"one of the greatest living testimonies to the efficacy of the Christian religion, because he has the most pronounced absence of it of any one I have ever seen." The girls hesitated, wanting to get back to their father, but he would brook no opposition. "He will not know you are there. He will be laughing or crying or making love to the nurse, maybe using a little strong language on the side, and it will be no pleasure to him to have a witness, and no pleasure to you--and you will be a pleasure to me, so that settles it. Come along, while you have the chance, for I shall not have time to bother with you after to-day." And he crowded them into his small car and carried them off to inspect the "awfully un-Christian patient," who looked at them sharply when the doctor presented them. "If he told you I am an infidel, he is a liar," said the old man, looking suspiciously at the doctor's placid face. "I was the treasurer of a church--" "Yes, he was," said the doctor, sniffing. "He was treasurer of a church for three years, and now he is a millionaire. Draw your own conclusions." "I have been a church-member all my life." "Yes, he has," snorted the doctor. "To the everlasting disgrace of the church, I must admit it." "I have contributed--" "You have contributed to the unhappiness of more poor people than anybody else in Chicago, and you know it," said the doctor curtly. "If you weren't the best doctor in town I would discharge you." "If I did not intend to bleed you out of half your fortune before you die I would not 'tend to you another day," snapped the doctor.