Janglingly the Little Crippled Girl knelt right up in her chair and shook her tiny fist right in her father's face. "Now, Lendicott Paber!" she screamed. "Don't you start in--sassing--my darling little Peach!" "_Peach?_" snorted the Senior Surgeon. With almost supernatural calm he put down his knife and fork and eyed his offspring with an expression of absolutely inflexible purpose. "Don't you--ever," he warned her, "ever--ever--let me hear you call--this woman 'Peach' again!" A trifle faint-heartedly the Little Crippled Girl reached up and straightened her absurdly diminutive little white cap, and pursed her little mouth as nearly as possible into an expression of ineffable peace. "Why--Lendicott Faber!" she persisted heroically. "_Lendicott?_" jumped the Senior Surgeon. "What are _you_--'Lendicotting' _me_ for?" Hilariously with her own knife and fork the Little Crippled Girl began to beat upon the table. "Why, you dear Silly!" she cried. "Why, if I'm the new Marma, I've got to call you 'Lendicott'! And Peach has got to call you 'Fat Father'!" Frenziedly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair, and jumped to his feet. The expression on his face was neither smile nor frown, nor war nor peace, nor any other human expression that had ever puckered there before. "God!" he said. "This gives me the _willies_!" and strode tempestuously from the room. Out in his own work-shop fortunately,--whatever the grotesque new pinkness,--whatever the grotesque new perkiness--his great free walking-spaces had not been interfered with. Slamming his door triumphantly behind him, he resumed once more the monotonous pace-pace-pace that had characterized for eighteen years his first night's return to--the obligations of civilization. Sharply around the corner of his old battered desk the little path started,--wanly along the edge of his dingy book-shelves the little path furrowed,--wistfully at the deep bay-window where his favorite lilac bush budded whitely for his departure, and rusted brownly for his return, the little path faltered,--and went on again,--on and on and on,--into the alcove where his instruments glistened,--up to the fireplace where his college trophy-cups tarnished! Listlessly the Senior Surgeon re-commenced his yearly vigil. Up and down,--up and down,--round and round,--on and on and on,--through interminable dusks to unattainable dawns,--a glutted, bacchanalian Soul sweating its own way back to sanctity and leanness! Nerves always were in that vigil,--raw, rattling nerves clamoring vociferously to be repacked in their sedatives. Thirst also was in that vigil,--no mere whimpering tickle of the palate, but a drought of the tissues,--a consuming fire of the bones! Hurt pride was also there, and festering humiliation!