After that Old King Cole had his way. The doctors visited him as a matter of form, and Sheila improvised a chart, for he would not stand for having temperatures taken or pulses counted. "Cut it out, boss, cut it all out. We're just going to have a good time, you and me." And he smiled seraphically as he drummed on the spread: "Old King Cole--diddy-dum-diddy-dum, Was a merry old soul--diddy-dum-diddy-dum." On the second day Sheila introduced Peter Brooks into the "Keeping-On-Going Syndicate," as the mammoth man termed their temporary partnership. Sheila had to take some hours off duty, and as the coal magnate absolutely refused to let another nurse cross his threshold, Peter seemed to be the only practical solution. She knew the two men would get on admirably. Peter could be counted on to understand and meet any emergency that might arise, while Old King Cole would be kept content. And Sheila was right. "Say, we hit it off first-rate--ran together as smooth as a parcel o' greased tubs," the magnate confided to Sheila when she returned. "He told me a whole lot about you--what you did for him--and the nickname they'd given you--'Leerie.' I like that, but I like my name for you better. Eh, boss?" Once admitted, Peter often availed himself of his membership in the syndicate. He made a third at their games, turned an attentive ear to the thriller or added his bit to the enlightenment of the conversation. And there wasn't a topic from war to feminine-dress reform that they did not attack and thrash out among them with all the keenness and thoroughness of three alive and original minds. "Puts me thinking of the days when I was switch boss at the Cassie Maguire Mine. Nothing but a shaver then, working up; nothing to do in the God-forsaken hole, after work, but talk. We just about settled the affairs of the world and gave the Lord Almighty advice into the bargain." The mammoth man laughed a mammoth laugh. "And when we'd talked ourselves inside out we'd have some fiddling--always a fiddle among some of the boys. Never hear one of those old tunes that it don't take me back to the Cassie Maguire and the way a fiddle would play the heart back into a lonely, homesick shaver." He turned with a suspicious sniff to Sheila. "Come, boss, the chessboard. Peter'n'me are going to have another Verdun set-to. Only this time he's German. See? And if you don't mind, you might fill up our pipes and bring us our four-forty bowl." At one time of the day only did the merriment flag--that was at dusk. "Don't like it--never did like it," he confessed. "Something about it that gets onto my chest and turns me gloomy. Don't suppose you ever smelled the choke-damp, did you? Well, that's the feeling. Say, boss, wouldn't be a bad plan to shine up that old safety of yours and give us more light in the old pit. Mother quit about this time o' day, and it seems like I can't forget it."