"It's about time," I said grimly. "I've been in a bad way without him. Indeed I'm very glad to hear you say so." Her eyes twinkled approval upon me, I thought. "You've behaved excellently, Major. Really, I am glad that we left you that other arm." This was almost in her old manner, though her eyes seemed a little dimmed by her excitement. Then, with a sudden return to the patient:-- "I wonder if you would be good enough to go in and swear at Clem. He's perfectly rational now, and it will hearten him wonderfully. He's dreadfully mortified because he's been sick so long. And it needs a man, you know, really. I'll close the door for you. Do it hard! Call him a damned black hound, if you please, and ask him what he means by it!" I hurried in, for Miss Caroline's eyes were threatening to betray her. CHAPTER XX IN WHICH SOMETHING MUST BE DONE Clem's prolonged convalescence was a trial to his militant spirit. The month or more of curious weakness in his body, always before so stout, left him with a fear that he had been "pah'lyzed in th' frame." Moreover, there were troubles less intimately personal to him, but not less harassing to the household. There was Little Miss, who was making a fight like Clem's own in a Baltimore hospital. Each day I bore to Miss Caroline a telegram detailing the progress of her daughter, though it had cost me time and trouble to convince my correspondent that he was not to skimp such encouragement as might be his to offer, merely to comprise it within ten words. There were three days, it is true, when ten words were more than enough in which to be non-committal. And there was a day that came upon the heels of these when the profits of the telegraph company must have been unusual, for only two words came instead of ten--"Recovery doubtful." This might as well have been left unsent, for I tore it up and assured the waiting pair that no news was good news. They tried eagerly to believe this aphorism, which has the authority of age, but which I suspect was coined originally from despair. The next day's bulletin read "Temperature still up, but making a strong fight." Stupid it was, when these were but eight words, not to have added two more, such as, "Very hopeful." I induced our telegraph operator to rectify this oversight, and felt repaid for my trouble when I showed the message. That last touch seemed to have been needed. Of course Little Miss would make a strong fight. Miss Caroline and Clem both knew that. But they had known other strong fights to be none the less hopeless, and they were grateful for those last two words of qualification.