The patient fell to whimpering suddenly like a hurt child. He drew up the
blanket to cover his face. Paul, interpreting this as a signal for more
nourishment, brought the sad decoction,--rinds of dried beef cooked with
rice in snow water.

"Guess that'll do, thank ye. My tongue feels like an old buckskin glove."

"When I was a little fellow," said the nurse, beguiling the patient while
he tucked the spoonfuls down, "I was like you: I wouldn't take what the
doctor ordered, and they used to pretend I must take it for the others of
the family,--a kind of vicarious milk diet, or gruel, or whatever it was.
'Here's a spoonful for mother, poor mother,' they would say; and of course
it couldn't be refused when mother needed it so much. 'And now one for
Chrissy'"--

"Who?"

"My sister, Christine. And then I'd take one for 'uncle' and one for each
of the servants; and the cupful would go down to the health of the
household, and I the dupe of my sympathies! Now you are taking this for
me, because it's nicer to be shut up here with a live man than a dead one;
and we haven't the conveniences for a first-class funeral."

"You never took a spoonful for 'father,'--eh?"

Paul answered the question with gravity. "No. We never used that name in
common."

"Dead was he?"