“To-night. It's your turn to sit up.” “Is the Gnome ill?” “Worse.” “Mad?” “Haunted.” “Since when has your practice branched out into the supernatural, doctor?” “Oh, as for that, his trouble is physical too.” “Is it anything that a simple lay mind could grasp?” The Little Red Doctor grunted. “His legs have turned to lamp-wicking. I don't vouch for the diagnosis. It's his own.” “Paralysis?” I hazarded. “Grip,” was the Little Red Doctor's curt rejoinder. “Don't tell me that grip turns a young Hercules's legs to lamp-wicks?” I objected. “Grip does if the young Hercules's legs are fools enough to carry him out and around the city with a temperature of one-naught-four-point-two,” retorted the Little Red Doctor with bitter exactitude. “Under such conditions grip turns to pneumonia. And pneumonia is the favorite ally of my old friend, Death.” “You don't mean that the Gnome is going to die?” “Not of pneumonia: that fight was fought out some weeks ago. But what pneumonia doesn't do to a young Hercules worry may. Another aid of my old friend, Death, worry is. That's a bothersome Gnome, tossing about in the heat with his sick brain full of plots to get away and no legs to carry'em out. His next try will be his last.” “Then he got away once?” “On all fours. As far as the sidewalk. There Cyrus the Gaunt and the Bonnie Lassie found him and brought him back. Cyrus was on duty again last night.” “I began to see. I'm to be watchdog. It's No. 7, isn't it? At what hour?” “No. 7. Top floor. Nine o'clock.” “I'll be there.” Thanks for neighborly services, which are a taken-for-granted part of our close-pressed life, are not deemed good form in Our Square. The Little Red Doctor nodded and prepared to pass on to the rounds of his unending bout with his old friend and antagonist, Death. I detained him. “Just a moment. What is the object of the Gnome's excursions? To get work?” “No. To search.” “For what?” The Little Red Doctor moved toward an approaching horse car, almost the last of that perishing genus in New York City. “Heaven knows!” he called back. “And Mac, the tailor, at least suspects. That's as far as I can get.” He leaped upon the bobtailed vehicle, was immediately held up by a forehanded conductor, and too tardily bethought himself of a forgotten point. “The chair! The chair!” he bellowed. “Look out for the chair!” “What chair?” I shouted back. He made as if he would jump off and return. But he had already paid his nickel, so he only waved despairingly. Nickels count in Our Square.