"Did you ever see the lad before
you picked him up yesterday?" he asked.
"No, never," answered the bishop, who naturally had not recognised in
Tode the boy whom he had taken into church that Sunday, weeks before.
The doctor shook his head as he drove off and muttered to himself,
"Whoever saw such a man! Who but our bishop would ever think of taking
a little street urchin like that right into his home and treating him
as if he were his own flesh and blood! Well, well, he himself gets
taken in often no doubt in another fashion, but all the same the world
would be the better if there were more like him!"
And if the doctor's pronouns were a little mixed he himself understood
what he meant, and nobody else had anything to do with the matter.
The next morning Tode awoke again and this time to a full and lively
consciousness of his surroundings. It was still early and the nurse
was dozing in an easy-chair beside the bed. The boy looked at her
curiously, then he raised himself on his elbow and gazed about him,
but as he did so he became conscious of a dull throbbing pain in one
side of his head and a sick faintness swept over him. It was his first
experience of weakness, and it startled him into a faint groan as his
head fell back on the pillow.
The sound awoke the nurse, who held a spoonful of medicine to his
lips, saying,
"Lie still.
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