Then the bandages were quickly replaced, the bed-clothing drawn up, and, when the attendant had removed the screen, Bruce saw the physicians gathered around Skinny the Swiper. The boy set his teeth hard, but uttered no sound, as the bandages were taken from his arm and shoulder and fresh liniment applied to the wounded parts. Bruce could see him watching the faces of the doctors with sharp, eager eyes, very much as a squirrel might regard any object in which it had some special interest; but nevertheless he did not ask a single question or utter the slightest moan, although once his face turned white with pain and the doctor, knowing that the boy was suffering, remarked in his gentle, professional voice, “one moment more, my boy, and it will be all over. There, now, we’ll put the bandages on again and the pain will soon go.” Then the doctors continued their tour of the ward, and, as soon as they were out of hearing, Skinny turned to Bruce and said, “maybe dat didn’t hurt when der bloke pulled dem rags off.” “Look here!” returned the other, “if you don’t think I’m the fireman that carried you out of that building, you’d better ask that tall gentleman with the white whiskers; he knew who I was, the minute he saw me and didn’t wait to be introduced either.” “Say boss, is dat on de level?” asked the boy as he raised his head slightly from his pillow and fixed his eyes with the same sharp, searching, squirrel look on Bruce’s face. “It is,” said the other. For a few moments, the boy who had grown up in the streets continued to regard the one who had saved his life with a fixed, eager look, but he said nothing. There were undoubtedly things in his mind that he wanted to say, but for the utterance of which his vocabulary was totally inadequate. So he said nothing but “hully gee!” which might have been taken to mean almost anything, but which Skinny the Swiper intended as an expression of gratitude, admiration, and esteem combined with a solemn oath of loyalty, all condensed into two words, neither one of which can be found in Webster’s dictionary. But Bruce had had experience enough with the boys who swarmed about the door of the quarters to know what Skinny meant, and to him the slangy phrase passed for part at least of what the younger lad had wished to express. He said nothing more, but closed his eyes, which were still red and sore, and when he opened them again a few minutes later, the doctors had departed, half a dozen visitors were in the ward, and John Trask was standing beside his bed and calling him by name. CHAPTER XX.