A look of amused toleration spread over the rubicund face. "Bless your heart, sonny, you're not allowing me to shorten it one minute. The boss and I are prolonging it first-rate. Shouldn't wonder if it would get to be so pleasant having her around I'd be working over union hours and forgetting to quit at all. I'm old enough to be your granddaddy, so take a bit of advice from me. When you can't cure a patient, let 'em die their own way. Now run along, sonny. Good morning, ma'am." And then to Sheila: "Get back to that locked door, the three bullet-holes, and the blood patch on the floor. I've got to know what's on the other side before I touch one mouthful of that finnan haddie you promised me for breakfast."
After that Old King Cole had his way. The doctors visited him as a matter of form, and Sheila improvised a chart, for he would not stand for having temperatures taken or pulses counted. "Cut it out, boss, cut it all out. We're just going to have a good time, you and me." And he smiled seraphically as he drummed on the spread:
"Old King Cole--diddy-dum-diddy-dum, Was a merry old soul--diddy-dum-diddy-dum."
On the second day Sheila introduced Peter Brooks into the "Keeping-On-Going Syndicate," as the mammoth man termed their temporary partnership. Sheila had to take some hours off duty, and as the coal magnate absolutely refused to let another nurse cross his threshold, Peter seemed to be the only practical solution. She knew the two men would get on admirably. Peter could be counted on to understand and meet any emergency that might arise, while Old King Cole would be kept content. And Sheila was right.
"Say, we hit it off first-rate--ran together as smooth as a parcel o' greased tubs," the magnate confided to Sheila when she returned. "He told me a whole lot about you--what you did for him--and the nickname they'd given you--'Leerie.' I like that, but I like my name for you better. Eh, boss?"
Once admitted, Peter often availed himself of his membership in the syndicate. He made a third at their games, turned an attentive ear to the thriller or added his bit to the enlightenment of the conversation. And there wasn't a topic from war to feminine-dress reform that they did not attack and thrash out among them with all the keenness and thoroughness of three alive and original minds.