“Red!” he shouted. “The patient isn't on the table yet: he won't die if you listen to me one minute. I want you to take this thing in. Mrs. Lessing--” Knocking the sketch to one side and precipitating three books and a mass of papers to the floor, Red stood up. He towered above his shrinking fiend, wrath in his eye. His lips moved. If it had been three months earlier Chester would have expected to hear language of a lurid description. As it was, the first syllable or two did slip out, but no more followed. Only speech--good, vigorous Saxon, not to be misunderstood. “Will you try to get it into your brain that I don't care a hang who goes or where, so long as I figure out a way to do this trick? The other fellows all say it can't be done. Not one of 'em'll do it, not even Van Horn. I say it can, and I'm going to do it to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, if I can work out a tool to do it with and make it. And I can do that if idiots like you will get out and keep out.” He sat down and was instantly lost again in his effort at invention. Chester looked at him in silence for a minute more, then he walked quietly out. Offended? Not he. He had not listened to invective from that Celtic tongue for eight years not to know that high tension over a coming critical operation almost invariably meant brilliant success. But even he had never seen Red Pepper keyed up quite so taut as this. It must be a tremendous risk he meant to take. Success to him--the queer, fine old boy! “He may be over later when he gets that confounded snake of an instrument figured out.” Chester offered this to the group upon his porch as consolation. “And if he doesn't get it figured out before we break up, he won't be over,” prophesied Macauley. “Ten to one he forgets to come and say good-bye before he starts for the hospital in the morning.” “I'm going to be standing beside the driveway when he goes,” vowed Pauline. “And if he doesn't notice me I'll climb on the car.” “Ellen, don't go to-morrow,” whispered Martha Macauley to her sister. “Don't let it end this way. When he comes to, you'll be gone, and that's such a pity just now.” “But I think I would rather be gone, dear.” Ellen Lessing whispered back. “Oh, why? When Red's excited over a big success he's simply off his head--there's no knowing what he won't do.” “I prefer him when he has his head. Don't urge, Martha. I've promised to go in the morning with Pauline, and nothing could make me change.” “It's a shame for him to be so absorbed. Who wants a man who can forget the existence of a woman like that?” “Who wants one who can't? A sorry surgeon he'd be--his hand would shake. Don't talk about it any more, dear. I'm going to enjoy this evening with you all. And I hope--oh, how I hope--that operation will be a success!”