"I'm feeling so much like a fighting cock this morning," he said, "I think I'll tackle that paper on surgical diseases of the pancreas that I have to read at Baltimore next month!" A little startlingly the gray lines furrowed into his cheeks again. "For Heaven's sake--see that I'm not disturbed by anything!" he admonished her warningly. It must have been almost eight o'clock when the ear-splitting scream from upstairs sent the White Linen Nurse plunging out panic-stricken into the hall. "Oh, Peach! Peach!" yelled the Little Girl's frenzied voice. "Come quick and see--what Fat Father's doing _now_--out on the piazza!" Jerkily the White Linen Nurse swerved off through the French door that opened directly on the piazza. Had the Senior Surgeon hung himself, she tortured, in some wild, temporary aberration of the "morning after"? But staunchly and reassuringly from the further end of the _piazza_ the Senior Surgeon's broad back belied her horrid terror. Quite prosily and in apparently perfect health he was standing close to the railing of the piazza. On a table directly beside him rested four empty bird cages. Just at that particular moment he was inordinately busy releasing the last canary from the fifth cage. Both hands were smouched with ink and behind his left ear a fountain pen dallied daringly. At the very first sound of the White Linen Nurse's step the Senior Surgeon turned and faced her with a sheepish sort of defiance. "Well, now, I imagine," he said, "well, now, I imagine I've really made you--mad!" "No, not mad, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse. "No, not mad, sir,--but very far from well." Coaxingly with a perfectly futile hand she tried to lure one astonished yellow songster back from a swaying yellow bush. "Why, they'll die, sir!" she protested. "Savage cats will get them!" "It's a choice of their lives--or mine!" said the Senior Surgeon tersely. "Yes, sir," droned the White Linen Nurse. Quite snappishly the Senior Surgeon turned upon her. "For Heaven's sake--do you think--canary birds are more valuable than I am?" he demanded stentoriously. Most disconcertingly before his glowering eyes a great, sad, round tear rolled suddenly down the White Linen Nurse's flushed cheek. "N--o,--not more valuable," conceded the White Linen Nurse. "But more--c-cunning." Up to the roots of the Senior Surgeon's hair a flush of real contrition spread hotly. "Why--Rae!" he stammered. "Why, what a beast I am! Why--! Why!" In sincere perplexity he began to rack his brains for some adequate excuse,--some adequate explanation. "Why, I'm sure I didn't mean to make you feel badly," he persisted. "Only I've lived alone so long that I suppose I've just naturally drifted into the way of having a thing if I wanted it and--throwing it away if I didn't! And canary birds, now? Well--really--" he began to glower all over again. "Oh, thunder!" he finished abruptly, "I guess I'll go on down to the hospital where I belong!"