Good by, and God bless you!" wringing his hand
hard,--"and now, hurrah for home!"
"Hurrah it is!" cried the little surgeon after him, as, happy and proud,
he limped down the ward, and turned his face towards home.
CHAPTER XXI
"_Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm._"
Gray
Jim scarcely felt the jolting of the ambulance over the city stones, and
his impatience and eagerness to get across the intervening space made
dust, and heat, and weariness of travel seem but as feather weights, not
to be cared for, nor indeed considered at all; though, in fact, his arm
complained, and his leg ached distressingly, and he was faint and weak
without confessing it long before the tiresome journey reached its end.
"No matter," he said to himself; "it'll be all well, or forgotten, at
least, when I see Sallie once more; and so, what odds?"
The end was gained at last, and he would have gone to her fast as
certain Rosinantes, yclept hackhorses, could carry him, but, stopping
for a moment to consider, he thought, "No, that will never do! Go to
her looking like such a guy? Nary time. I'll get scrubbed, and put on a
clean shirt, and make myself decent, before she sees me. She always used
to look nice as a new pin, and she liked me to look so too; so I'd
better put my best foot foremost when she hasn't laid eyes on me for
such an age. I'm fright enough, anyway, goodness knows, with my
thinness, and my old lame leg; so--" sticking his head out of the
window, and using his lungs with astonishing vigor--"Driver! streak like
lightning, will you, to the 'Merchants'? and you shall have extra fare.
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