Page:Betty Gordon at Boarding School.djvu/80

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BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL

perceptibly. "I doubt if there is a doctor on the train, but I'll see."

"Tell him to hurry," said the woman commandingly. "I think I'm paralyzed."

"Paralyzed!" Tommy Tucker gave a loud snort and fell over backward into the arms of his twin.

The conductor shot a suspicious glance toward him. He had traveled on school trains before.

"You seem to be all right, Madam," he said to the stricken one courteously. "There's a doctor at the Junction, I'm sure. What makes you think you're paralyzed?"

"My good man," said the woman majestically, "when a person in good health and accustomed to normal activity suddenly loses the power to use her—er—feet, isn't that an indication of some physical trouble?"

Her unfortunate and un-American phrase, "my good man," had nettled the conductor, and besides his train was losing time.

"We'll miss connections at the Junction if we fool away much more time," he said testily. "I wonder—— Why look here! No wonder you can't use your feet!"

To the elderly woman's horror he had swooped down and laid a not ungentle hand on her ankle in its neat and smart-looking shoe. Now he took