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 the colonel's big chest, and began a delicate percussion with his white fingers. When he had done tapping, he laid his ear over the colonel's heart, and listened silently a long time to the cardiac murmurs, he rolled under his fingers the superficial vessels of the temples, the forearms, the wrists, the knees, he counted the pulse; and he looked long at the old man's finger-nails. When he paused, the colonel said:

"Well?"

Doctor Foerder had retreated from the bedside and was writing his directions precisely, logically, as an official draws up a report, beginning each paragraph with a Roman numeral. He did not answer the colonel.

Foerder briefly consulted with Lambert, that is, repeated the directions he had already written out, and began to buckle his big valise.

"And as to a nurse?" asked Doctor Lambert.

"I'll send one of my own," said Foerder, hastily lighting a Russian cigarette. He could not remain long in one place. He had patients to see and a lecture to deliver over at Rush Medical College and his man was waiting with his high-hooded phaeton down in Jackson Boulevard.