"No, because I never ask for anything." "I think we had better be going," said Lilly, leaning forward to tilt Zoe's hat farther down over her face. "I don't want you to miss the first act." There was to be a box for "Who Did It?" and a visit behind scenes between acts. "I want to get a look-in on what goes on behind there," specified Mrs. Becker through a sniff. "Fine mess!" From where he sat with crossed knees and his nicely polished shoes far out so that passers-by were forced to a small detour, Albert looked suddenly across at his mother-in-law, rather scaredly white. "Mother," he said, "I've got a pain in my chest." On the instant her rosiness blanched. "Albert, one of your colds coming on? They never start on your chest. It's influenza; the papers are full of it. They say next winter we're going to have it in a terrible epidemic. Albert, what hurts?" He inserted two fingers into the front pleat of his shirt. "It hurts here," he said. "Albert," cried Mrs. Becker, instantly taken with panic, "let me feel if you have any fever!" "Now, now, Carrie, don't create a scene here in the lobby. You've nursed him through enough colds not to be alarmed." "But, Ben, in his chest! It's a symptom, I tell you; the papers are full of it!" "Nonsense, Carrie! It's probably a little indigestion. You will insist upon those table d'hotes. On the way to the theater we'll stop in at a drug store." "Theater! Don't even mention the word. Come upstairs, Albert. Luckily I put a pair of your flannelette pajamas in the trunk. Ben, you rush over to the drug store for some camphorated oil. Albert, do you feel achy?" Lilly laid out a quietly firm hand on his arm. "Mamma, please let Albert get a word in." "I know that boy like a book. He looks feverish." "Albert," said Lilly, holding to the sedative quality in her voice, "do you feel ill?" "I've a pain in my chest," he persisted, doggedly and with the drawn look about his mouth whitening. They put him to bed. By nine o'clock a slight flush lay on Albert's cheek and he kept feeling of his brow. "I think I have fever," he said once, always in scared white manner. "Look in the paper and see if dry lips is one of the symptoms." Then Zoe was dispatched home and the house physician called in, Mrs. Becker, as usual, tempestuous with instantaneous hysteria and conjuring to Lilly another sick room from out the hinterland of her childhood. "Doctor, is it the Spanish influenza? Has he fever? He's always subject to colds, Doctor. He's not as strong as he looks. I've sat up many a night with his quincy sore throats. Many is the time, before we got the auto, that I rode down for him in the street car with his rubbers, if a rain came up. Doctor, do you think it could be that Spanish influenza? O God! if he should take sick away from home! Our doctor at home understands his system. My boy--my son--"