"I got soaked to the skin yesterday and to-day, but I don't feel as if I had a cold at all." But sitting foolishly with the thermometer in his mouth, he admitted to pains in his head and back. "Does your chest hurt you?" demanded Mrs. Jackson. He said it did not. "Well, into bed you go. I am going to rub you with Vick's Salve and give you a hot lemonade and some aspirin. And don't you stir till they burn the roof over our heads. Mr. Jackson had pneumonia two years ago at Shasi," she explained, "and it all came from not doing as I said." "But, dear, I must stay up till Doctor Strike comes, or at any rate till I have some word from him. He may need me." "When he comes I'll send him right up to you. But there won't be a thing you can do, Will. The Doctor is never going to get a permit from that man." "No, I'm afraid not," Mr. Jackson admitted sadly, and he suffered himself to be led up to bed. Megan and Mrs. Jackson sat up a while. Several times the telephone rang and Megan always ran to answer it herself. But it always proved to be a Chinese who had got the wrong number. Even the exchange was worse than usual that night. Doctor Strike did not come. Finally they went to bed. Megan lay in bed knowing she would never be able to sleep. The rain had stopped but moisture dripped off the eaves of the house and it grew gradually colder so that she pulled a blanket over her. Suddenly she heard what she knew to be firing. It came from somewhere the other side of the International Settlement and it sounded like a stick drawn rapidly along a picket fence. Megan got up and ran to the window, but aside from the red glow in the direction of Chapei there was nothing to be seen. The firing went on but came no nearer. Then it stopped. Megan went back to bed. She began to count sheep as her father had made her do as a child. Sometimes when she had been sick or frightened he would sit by her bed and count them for her. She made herself think of her father. Then of Bob. Bob was as near to China as she would let herself think. It was easier to picture Bob's fulfillment than her own. She saw Bob's life as one long integrity in the midst of grossly multiplied odds. She saw too, with some confusion of feeling, his blue eyes. Dear Bob. And she did not know she had gone to sleep until a bell jangled immoderately somewhere in the midst of her unconsciousness. Before she knew what she was doing she had jumped up and turned on the light. Her traveling clock said three-thirty. The bell rang again and she heard one of the boys scuffling to the door. As she dressed she heard the door open and Doctor Strike's voice in the hall. Then she heard the voices of the Jacksons. But while she listened there were no sounds that might be Miss Reed and her orphans.