Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/273

 the gaudy ribbons, eyed them an instant covetously, and then bent above the Bee Master and dropped a feathery kiss on his forehead, ran a hand over his hair, and said:

“You be a good boy and take your medicine and sleep when you’re told and come home quick, just as quick as you possibly can!”

With that the Scout Master whirled and marched brusquely from the room.

Jamie waited for a few words and then followed. Once outside of the hospital and on the street again, the Scout Master lifted an enigmatical face.

“You’ve seen a good deal of hospitals yourself, haven’t you?”

Jamie assented.

“Yes,” said the Scout Master, “you seem to kind of fit a hospital right now, but not so much as you did the first time I saw you. The first time I saw you, you looked like you were a hospital all by yourself. But now you don’t look much more than half a hospital. You seem as if you might belong to the garden just about as well as to the hospital. I suppose they are necessary, but oh, boy! ain’t they fierce? Everything so slippery and so quiet and so clean, and everybody on tiptoe and whisperin’. If I had a mint of money, if I had gobs and stacks of money, I’d build a hospital where all the windows opened on to a race track and you could see a horse race and an automobile race twice a day, and I’d have bands and radios and moving pictures. Gee! the hospitals they have these days make me sick when there’s nothing the matter with me!”