Percy was, indeed, in manifestly bad shape. He seemed quite unable to drag his limbs across the room. There was a curious arch in his back, and, as his mistress touched him, he cried out plaintively,
'Percy! Oh, what IS the matter with him? His nose is burning!'
Now was the time, with both sections of the enemy's forces occupied, for Archie to have departed softly from the room. But never, since the day when at the age of eleven he had carried a large, damp, and muddy terrier with a sore foot three miles and deposited him on the best sofa in his mother's drawing-room, had he been able to ignore the spectacle of a dog in trouble.
'He does look bad, what!'
'He's dying! Oh, he's dying! Is it distemper? He's never had distemper.'
Archie regarded the sufferer with the grave eye of the expert. He shook his head.
'It's not that,' he said. 'Dogs with distemper make a sort of snifting noise.'
'But he IS making a snifting noise!'
'No, he's making a snuffling noise. Great difference between snuffling and snifting. Not the same thing at all. I mean to say, when they snift they snift, and when they snuffle they--as it were-- snuffle. That's how you can tell. If you ask ME'--he passed his hand over the dog's back. Percy uttered another cry. 'I know what's the matter with him.'
'A brute of a man kicked him at rehearsal. Do you think he's injured internally?'
'It's rheumatism,' said Archie. 'Jolly old rheumatism. That's all that's the trouble.'
'Are you sure?'
'Absolutely!'
'But what can I do?'
'Give him a good hot bath, and mind and dry him well. He'll have a good sleep then, and won't have any pain. Then, first thing to- morrow, you want to give him salicylate of soda.'
'I'll never remember that.'-'I'll write it down for you. You ought to give him from ten to twenty grains three times a day in an ounce of water. And rub him with any good embrocation.'
'And he won't die?'
'Die! He'll live to be as old as you are!-I mean to say--'
'I could kiss you!' said Miss Silverton, emotionally.
Archie backed hastily.
'No, no, absolutely not! Nothing like that required, really!'
'You're a darling!'
'Yes. I mean no. No, no, really!'
'I don't know what to say. What can I say?'
'Good night,' said Archie.
'I wish there was something I could do! If you hadn't been here, I should have gone off my head!'
A great idea flashed across Archie's brain.
'Do you really want to do something?'
'Anything!'
'Then I do wish, like a dear sweet soul, you would pop straight back to New York to-morrow and go on with those rehearsals.'
Miss Silverton shook her head.
'I can't do that!'
'Oh, right-o! But it isn't much to ask, what!'
'Not much to ask! I'll never forgive that man for kicking Percy!'
'Now listen, dear old soul. You've got the story all wrong. As a matter of fact, jolly old Benham told me himself that he has the greatest esteem and respect for Percy, and wouldn't have kicked him for the world. And, you know it was more a sort of push than a kick. You might almost call it a light shove. The fact is, it was beastly dark in the theatre, and he was legging it sideways for some reason or other, no doubt with the best motives, and unfortunately he happened to stub his toe on the poor old bean.'
'Then why didn't he say so?'
'As far as I could make out, you didn't give him a chance.'
Miss Silverton wavered.
'I always hate going back after I've walked out on a show,' she said. 'It seems so weak!'
'Not a bit of it! They'll give three hearty cheers and think you a topper. Besides, you've got to go to New York in any case. To take Percy to a vet., you know, what!'
'Of course. How right you always are!' Miss Silverton hesitated again. 'Would you really be glad if I went back to the show?'
'I'd go singing about the hotel! Great pal of mine, Benham. A thoroughly cheery old bean, and very cut up
