The Competitive Nephew Part 41

And if you was Mister and Missus Vanderbilt, they couldn't treat you no better up to the Emergency Hospital."

"But----" Miss Duckman began. Again she attempted to explain that Rudnik was not her husband, and again the conductor forestalled her.

"And if he's able to go home to-night," he said finally, "ye'll be given free transportation, in a parlour car d'ye mind, like ye'd be on your honeymoon."

He patted her gently on the shoulder as he turned to a waiting brakeman.

"Let her go, Bill," he cried, and with a jubilant toot from the engine Miss Duckman's elopement was fairly under way.

When Harris Rudnik opened his eyes in the little white-curtained room of the Emergency Hospital, Miss Duckman sat beside his bed. She smiled encouragingly at him, but for more than five minutes he made no effort to speak.

"Well," he said at length, "what are you kicking about? It's an elegant place, this here Home."

Miss Duckman laid her fingers on her lips.

"You shouldn't speak nothing," she whispered, "on account you are sick, _aber_ not serious sick."

"I know I am sick," Rudnik replied. "I was just figuring it all out. I am getting knocked down by a train and----"

"No bones is broken," Miss Duckman hastened to a.s.sure him. "You would be out in a few days."

"I am satisfied," he said faintly. "You got a fine place here, Missis."

Miss Duckman laid her hand on Rudnik's pillow.

"I ain't a Missis," she murmured. "My name is Miss Blooma Duckman."

"Blooma," Rudnik muttered. "I once used to got a sister by the name Blooma, and it ain't a bad name, neither." He was not entirely softened by his mishap, however. "But, anyhow, that ain't here or there," he said. "Women is just the same--always kicking. What is the matter with this Home, Miss Duckman? It's an elegant place already."

"This ain't the Home," Miss Duckman explained. "This is a hospital, which when you was. .h.i.t by the engine they put you on the train and took you up here."

"_Aber_ what are you doing here?" he asked after a pause.

"I come along," Miss Duckman said; "and now you shouldn't talk no more."

"What d'ye mean, you come along?" he cried. "Didn't you go back to the Home?"

Miss Duckman shook her head, and Rudnik turned on his pillow and looked inquiringly at her.

"How long am I up here, anyhow?" he demanded.

"Four days," Miss Duckman said, and Rudnik closed his eyes again. For ten minutes longer he lay still and then his lips moved.

"What did you say?" Miss Duckman asked.

"I says Blooma is a pretty good name already," he murmured, smiling faintly, and the next moment he sank into a light sleep.

When he awoke Miss Duckman still sat by the side of his bed, her fingers busy over the hem of a sheet, and he glanced nervously at the window through which the late afternoon sun came streaming.

"Ain't it pretty late you should be away from the Home?" he inquired.

"It must be pretty near six, ain't it?"

"I know it," Miss Duckman said; "and the doctor says at six you should take this here powder."

"_Aber_ shouldn't you got to be getting ready to go back to the Home?"

he asked.

Miss Duckman shook her head.

"I ain't going back no more," she answered. "I got enough of them people."

Rudnik looked helplessly at her.

"But what would you do?" he said. "You ain't got no other place to go to, otherwise you wouldn't got to live in a Home."

"Sure, I know," she replied as she prepared to give him his powder; "but _Gott sei dank_ I still got my health, and I am telling the lady superintendent here how they work me at the Home, and she says I could stop here till I am finding something to do. I could cook already and I could sew already, and if the worser comes to the worst I could find a job in an underwear factory. They don't pay much, but a woman like me she don't eat much. All I want is I could get a place to sleep, and I bet yer I could make out fine. So you should please take the powder."

Rudnik swallowed his powder.

"You says you could cook," he remarked after he had again settled himself on his pillow. "_Tzimmus_, for instance, _und Fleisch Kugel_?"

"_Tzimmus und Fleisch Kugel_ is nothing," she declared. "I don't want to say nothing about myself, understand me, because lots of women to hear 'em talk you would think wonder what cooks they are, and they couldn't even boil a potater even; _aber_ if you could eat my _gefullte Rinderbrust_, Mister ----"

"Rudnik," he said as he licked his moist lips, "Harris Rudnik."

"Mister Rudnik," she proceeded, "_oder_ my _Tebeches_, you would got to admit I ain't so helpless as I look."

"You don't look so helpless," Rudnik commented; "I bet yer you could do washing even."

"Could I?" Miss Duckman exclaimed. "Why, sometimes at the Home I am washing from morning till night, _aber_ I ain't kicking none. It really agrees with me, Mr. Rudnik."

Rudnik nodded. Again he closed his eyes, and had it not been that he swallowed convulsively at intervals he would have appeared to be sleeping. Suddenly he raised himself on his pillow.

"Do you make maybe a good cup coffee also?" he inquired.

"A good cup coffee I make in two ways," Miss Duckman answered. "The first is----"

Rudnik waved his hand feebly.

"I'll take your word for it," he said, and again lapsed into quietude.

"D'ye know," he murmured at length, "I ain't drunk a good cup coffee in years already?"

Miss Duckman made no answer. Indeed she dropped her sewing and pa.s.sed noiselessly out of the room, and when she returned ten minutes later she bore on a linen-covered tray a cup of steaming, fragrant coffee.

"How was that?" Miss Duckman asked after he had emptied the cup.