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78 feel badly—we all do. Let us get at the practical end of this business without delay. We had better get the patient removed to the hospital, first thing."

"No!" interrupted Ralph quickly, "not that, doctor—that is, anyway not yet."

"He needs skillful attention."

"He's needing some hash just now!" put in Will Cheever, approaching, his face, despite himself, on a grin. "Hear him!"

The stranger was certainly sticking to his point. "Hash with lots of onions in it!" they heard him call out.

"Will it hurt him to eat, doctor?" inquired Ralph.

"Not a bit of it. In fact, except to feed him and watch, I don't see that he needs anything. You can't splinter a brain shock as you can a broken finger, or poultice a skull depression as you would a bruise. There's simply something mental gone out of the boy's life that science cannot put in again. There is this hope, though: that when the physical shock has fully passed, something may develop for the better."

"You mean to-day, to-morrow"

"Oh, no—weeks, maybe months."

Ralph looked disheartened, but the next moment his face took upon it a look of resolution