bv Victor Rousseau Copyright by W. G. Chapman “HE'S A BEAST® a SYNOPSIS. — Nurses In" the Southern hospital at Avonmouth are angered by the Insolent treatment sccorded them by Dr. John Lancaster, head of the In- stitution, and there is a general feeling of unrest, into which Joan Wentworth, probationary nurse, is drawn. Doctor Lancas- ter is performing a difficult oper- ation, for which he has won fame. Joan. with other nurses, fs In attendance. CHAPTER [—Continued sn “That scalpel—quick!"” he cried. Joan started and stretched out her hands toward the tray, which gleamed afar off; elusively through a black cloud. “The one I handed you. stare at me like a fool.” Joan bent over the tray, putting out one hand to the table to support her- self. She was consclous that every- thing was suspended and that every- one was watching her. In the inter minable Interval she heard the pa- tient's gasping sighs, as if he was breathing the last wisps of life away. She fingered the Instruments in the tray feebly and nervelessly, and Ler hands seemed numbed and useless. Her fingers closed on something and brought It out. Then Lancaster's hand closed over hers, tore it away, and flung it back with a splash. Joan's hand dropped to her side, paralyzed by the painful pressure, The next in stant Lancaster had the scalpel and whirled swiftly back toward the table, upsetting the biehloride, which lupped over the patient's feet. The moments went by like hours. At last Joan became aware, . through the sudden unraveling of the suspense, that the crux of the operation was over. Her head grew clear again. She saw the assistant surgeons unfusten- Ing the artery clamps. The head nurse rose to her feet, not looking at the patient. Joan realized that she was crying, and her’ strong. epicene face looked grotesque in grief. The orderly came up. and together they placed the patient on the stretcher. And suddenly Joan knew that the man was dead. Don't the theater Lancaster turned toward his visitors. “A very successful plece of work” he sald. will never know done for him.” Joan felt the visiting surgeons’ dis. gust at the execrable jest. Lancaster seemed to sense it, too. “Unfortunately,” he continued, “the best of surgeons Is not proof against the stupidity of a nurse.” And he turned upon Joan fiercely. “What Is your name?’ he demanded. “Miss Wentworth, Doctor Lancas- ter.” “Well, you're no use here. You're vasting your time. You've killed a man this morning.” he bellowed. “If I can't have women about me with rational heads on their shoulders I'll get a gang of Chinese chop suey men. Get out and earn your living as a ste- nographer or saleslady. That's all your talents are fit for, Miss Went worth I Joan looked at him In amazement. At his first words, at his tone, she had felt the shock of anger In her heart gather itself and leap to meet his own. But his rage frightened her, her head ached, and she wax sick from the fumes which still penetrated the the- ater. She tried to answer him. but could not utter a word and broke into tears Instead. sobbing In complete nervous abandonment. Lancaster turned from her with a wry face. “Well, gentlemen,” he sald, with .an affectation of jovialness, “bet- ter Inck next time. I'm sorry the operation was not sudécessful, but, after all, the patient's life Is not the principal thing. The method was cor rect, you see, but 1 did not reckon on an incompetent assistant.” “Put the blame: on the anesthetle, Doctor Lancaster,” sald a white. bearded surgeon, with chivalrous In- cent. “With a nephritis history opera- tion's useless. Better let them die peacefully.” “1 did not quite grasp the technical innovation you spoke of, Doctor Lan- caster,” sald another. “To my mind It was the original Leonard operation, except that" “Why did you divide the arterial coats below the site of the aneurism? queried a third. Lancaster led them from the the ater, expostulating and explaining. The dark-halred gir! lingered with the sponges. The assistant surgeons had already gone hurriedly out. Joan pat ber tray away. She still was unable to control her sobs. Suddenly Lancaster reappeared. fu- rious after the cross-examination to which - he had been subjected. He came straight toward Joan with a face of malice. Unconscious of her pitiful aspect. as a child might have been, she raised her streaming face and Yooked at him. “You had no right to speak to me lke that, whatever 1 did,” she sald. “Whatever you did? Whatever you falled to do! What do you think you are here fer?" he stormed. He glared at her, turned away, hes ftated, and then came back, © “That's Just the way with you women,” he cried. “You lost that ease tor me. And now you are thinking how much I about your dignity. You shouldn't have taken up a nurse's vocation. You women don't know what you can do and what you can’t till you find your- selves In a post of responsibility, and then you fall down. What made you take up nursing, anyway Thought our style of caps becoming, | suppose.” “I've done my best to qualify. Pve never been blued before.” “Well, you've made a big mistake.” said Lancaster. “That's all. A—very ~—big—mistake,” he added, emphasiz- ing each word with a nod. “And my work and patients’ lives are too Ilm- portant to allow mistakes to happen. You're too pretty to be a nurse, any- way,” he added in a lower tone, “You don't need to tell me that, Doc tor Lancaster!” cried Joan furiously. He made a gesture of mock despair. “That's right; get on your high horse again!” be sald. “Just remem- ber that I'm at the head of the South- ern hospital, and what [I say goes, that's all.” He swung upon his heel and went out of the room, leaving her gripping the table fiercely. In her humiliation. The dark-haired girl. who had been fussing in a corner, came up to her. “He's a beast!” she exclaimed pas slonately, “He hates women—decent women. My! If he'd dared to speak that way to me I'd have told hiro what I thought of him, right in the middle of the operation. | don't care for any- body when my tempers up. | could tell you a few things I've heard about him if | were minded to. Do you know he went on a five years spree once? “l don’t care what Joan passionately. “Well, I guess you could make it your business to know,” answered the other. “A girl's got to fight her way, the same as a man. He threw up his Job and just went away for five years, drinking and living with tramps, and then had the nerve to come hack as if nothing had happened. | got it from & girl that used to be friendly with him. He's She broke off abruptly as the or derly appeared with his rubber broom and bucket, “What are you going inquired the girl in a he did!” eried to do about 117?" low voice. “1 She Made Her Way Toward the Hos pitai Entrance. reckon you don’t want .to forfeit your diploma any more than the rest of us, Listen! You go and see him.” “Never!” said Joan. “Don’t be a fool, Miss Wentworth! You go and see him at his house. It's what anyone would do {no your place. Fool him by making him think he can do what he likes with you; play with him and hold him off by hook or crook untii you're graduated, and then laugh at him. I'd do it if 1 had to. My! if you heard some of the stories that are going round--" The head nurse beckoned at the door. “The lady superintendent wants to see you at once, Miss Went. worth,” she said. “You're to go right into her office.” She looked at Joan resentfully. Her face was quite composed again. but her eyes were reddened. She knew that Lancaster had been at fault, but she had seen Joan's blunder, too. Miss Symons was one of those women who can acquire the faculty of a man's strength without losing their own sex. She was a tower of strength toward weakness, but she had no pity for a lapse of duty. Joan walked the dreary length of the corridor to the lady superintend- ent's room. The white-haired woman was sented at her desk, pretending to be making up her accounts and com posing herself for the Interview. "Miss Wentworth I" she began, turn ing round in her chair as Joan ap peared at the door. “You have made Doctor Lancaster very angry. He said you are totally Inefficient. What was it that happened this morning?” “The ether made me faint and 1 couldn't see the instru ts for a mo- ment, and Doctor Lancaster happened to want a scalpel quitkly,” answered Joan, > “Well, It's a great pity,” sald the other, “because it was your first day and we had to get somebody to take Miss Martin's plaee and I selected you because 1 relled on you particularly. Anyway, you are suspended,” : Jonni jooked at her stupefied. “you mean—that—1 am to leave the hospls tal and lose my diploma? she asked. o “1 don't know yet” answered the lady superintendent evasively., “I sup- pose Doctor Lancaster will decide that later after he has laid the matter before the board at their next meet- ing and looked over your record, Any- way, Miss Wentworth, you mey me well take a holiday for a week or so until you hear from us.” She turned back to her books while Joan, after looking at her for a mo- ment in silence, turned and went Into the corridor. She made her way toward the hospital entrance. And the great wooden arcli through which she had pussed hundreds of times without noticing It, suddenly became vivid with detail; the hospital, which had been a part of her unconscious life, looked strange and new to her, Joan had a room In a nurses’ hoard Ing house a _few minutes’ walk away, She walked mechanically homeward, hardly even yet realizing the magn} tude of the blow which had befallen her. Avonmouth lay almost deserted io the noontide glare. The shuttered houses, gay with striped awnings, looked down on the white, dusty streets, The little park that contained the Confederate monument was bright with geraniums, but the grass was parched and withered, and the feeble efforts of an agtomatic sprinkler seemed almost instantly absorbed by the thirsty ground. Joan made her way toward an over- hang! ng tree, hrushed away a prickly caterpillar from a seat heneath it, and sat down, the“mngnitude of the catastrophe that had happened to. her, to free herself from the stupefled wonder and slonate resentment that held her, hours before life had seemed ably bright; now its entire course wus changed. For she Gid not doubt that the lady superintendent had been try- ing to soften the news of her missal of all death. before, estute, grown away things for her—her father's That had happened ten yeurs and the mortgage on the ruined . after the war, ike a spreading sore, field nftér eld, until f(t swal- dollars. After the enforred sale. Mma. Wentworth and her daughter had gone to Avonmouth for the sole reason that the mother wealthy slanted, remembered a there, distantly re behalf of her daughter. It was chur acteristic of her that she should have known the woman years previously, Still, Avonmouth was large town In which a the world untrained, might support two people. Joan had before wanted to be a nurse, She de the girl, fienrest flung on hope to but now her mother's slow, mortal iliness kept her nursing her at home, Six months after their arrical Mrs Wentworth died What remained of their nine hundred dollars after the doctor's and funeral expenses hod been pald would suffice for Joan's merest needs until she had graduated from the Southern hospital, physician who astiended Mrs worth in her last the girl a position ax a probationer, expect to he. moved away, and Jean was altogether alone. At home they had Kkpown anyone, for the whole region was in that condition of resettiement that bee ceeding. Their friends had scattered to the north and west: their ieiters had tong since ceased. Prosperity, sinlking through the nation, had left a little ridge of poverty hetween the swaths of Its progress through the foothill of the back country, mouth Mrs. Wentworth's {liness and afterward, the hospital work, had kept the realization of her need of Her whole mind wes set upon that diploma which would an assured Hving., and before from them, obtaining mean such poverty as she had known home among others and had scen ap- proaching her mother. After she graduated, perhaps, life might hegin to unfold before her eves. But even this she realized only vaguely: she lived altogether in the moment, it's plain that Joan is a nice girl, but Dr. Lancaster seems to be no good, either as surgeon or man. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Cuckoo Superstitions There ure numerous superstitions associated with the hearing of ihe cuckoo's first call. da the maritime highlands and Hebrides If the cuckoo is first heard by one who has not broken his fast some misfortune ls ex. pected. Indeed, besides the danger, it i considered 8 reproach to one to have heard the enckoo while hungry, says the Detroit News, In France to hear the cuckoo for the first time fasting 1s to muke he hearer “an idle do-nothing for the rest of the year” or “to numb his fe for the sume period. There is a sini lar belief in certain purts of the west of England. In Northumberland one is told, If walking on a hard road when the cuckoo first calls, that the ensoing season will be full of calanMy. To be on soft emi a lucky omen, Ther: == 05 diferent kinds of bras 194 varieties of carrois, Collection of Garments Re- calls Dress From Begin- ning of Time. It Is dificult to make a report of malsons read Harper's Bazar, and yet all the ro- mance In the world enters into the making of the new models, just as it hus formed a part of dress from the uwristy beginning of time, since when falr ladies In adorning themselves for their lovers have endeavored by tak- Ing thought—by fair means or foul— to render themselves stil, more falr, Treusures of dress huve come down ™ us from the Orlent—metul-embrold- ered, jewel-incrusted stuffs of lmper- ishuble color, vells bordered with still untarnished gold, stl! redolent of 'anguoro(ls perfumes and welghted the East, Some of these fabrics whis per of twilight in a Persian garden others formed part of the carga of the ships of Tyre or might have figured In the tales of a Thousand and One Nights, and ull are heavy with ro- mance, The moved beatities of the Decameron through those feversd tales clad In sumptuous velvets laces, and the old stuffs still breathe sensuousness of those times, tell- ing the tale to those with eurs to hear, The the the loveliest costumes of favorites of kings, the fair Loulse la Valliere, the pleasure-loving whose beauty clinrm will through the with the costumes of that And what of the gowns once Ninnon de I'Enclos, who even at eighty retained her charm, or by Marion tle Lorme. pleading on vain for the life of Cino-Mars? Marie and grace shine and HALEN, epoch, The dressmakers of today the vanities and passions # century ago he laces, the rich velvets and linens, the metal stuffs, the dainty the little And the Jittle ouvriere, clouds, dreaming the curve of a »eam or the are i the eled embroideries, sundnls, silken shoes head puts her into of a dreams, ying Chic Black Faille Silk Tunic for College Girl \ a RL This winsome black faille silk tunic is designed especially for the college it is trimmed with white faille lished with white pear! buttons. i : i | Comfortable Soft Fur ’ Coat for Wintry Days The graceful and beautiful long coat again takes its place in the fashion taupe broadtail of blus fox. her is SO bowknot all little romance, and frock much the richer for dreaming. It is this subtle qual- ity, In the heritage of the of an old short little French sewing girl, mukes a Paris frock ff from any other We all out, perhaps, sensing the cause, instinctive, and but the her heart, And of Paris—Doucet. with appreciation of the artistic Anyone may fine French cushion negddie, sews it with an a Sew 0 his and with his superb fabrics and of decoration; Paquin, with intricate designe and strange Premet, for whom Mme, Char. wealth colors: Polret, with his extravagance Or such as Jenny, whose creations or Doeulliet with his beans gowns, or Lanvin who still dreams beautiful clothes, or Lon isehoulnnger. whose models are so marvelously interesting, or Drecoll the rest uftract buyers season after who world, season, be found in thelr own coun Silk Lingerie Strap Instead of lingerie clasps of metal, which often make a slight bunch be neath the shoulder of a frock, many women now use a little silk strap with snaps. This strap is fastened to the inside of the gown, at the shoulder. Twenty-five years ago many of the beautifiers came out of the kitchen, notes a writer in the Pletorial Review. For the face and bands, honey, white of egg, lemon jules, bran, corn meal oatmeal, and, very sparingly, face pow der were used. The professional beau. ty treatment at that time cofisisted of cold cream applied with a circular movement followed by hot towels, From this it has developed into a scientific cleansing, nourishing, and stimulating treatment of the skip based on a knowledge of the anatomy of the face, its nerves, lis muscles, and the general health has been given every consideration, With anxious eyes the sky was watched for signs of rain, A supply of rain water must be caught and kept for shampooing the hair. It was ringed with a tea made from camomile flowers and dried in the sun. This simple operation is now considered but a small beginning. The condition of the scalp, the requirements of the hale, the health generally, are studied, and nourishing preparations are mas saged into the scalp. Electricity, too, is Important as a stimulant. By the use of colored lights the eireulation in the tissues of the senlp that are worn and tired Is inereazed. Olly hair, dry hair, dandruff, hair that Is losing its life and color can be re stored to a normal state of health and beauty, Simplicity Is fashionable now, It is youthful, too, in its effects. Bobbed iy can be. If th: hair Is not bobbed it is dressed very simply. How. much cleaner, prettier, less troublesome—everything—is the per manent wave than the curious rats and wire frames that once were a neces gary part of every woman's coiffure! From time to time we hear people who are pessimistic about everything mutter darkly that women are slaves to fashion and that if they do not wear the sume atrocities they once wore they will wear something else equally bad; perhaps worse, they say hopefully. But while wonien have heca slow in finding out that comfort is a precious thing, they have learned that and something more: that it also can be beautiful, Trimmings Perch High The high front and high back trim. mings on hate have stimulated the use of another high effect, a trimming placed on top of the crown. Ostrich often perches here, and ribbon ends are clustered on top. Another high crown trimming extends from side to side over the crown in a ridge that ends at the ears of thereabouts. This fringe, fabrie In a roll, and various other means, Blistered Materials Blistered materials in heavy wenves suitable for coats and wraps are new and attractive, 4 # | Pa i580 With or without "the camisale top the plaited skirt is much in vogue, ‘Motherhood! Roanoke, Va—"Several children had been born to us before | heard of Dr. Pierce's Favorite Pre- scription. | have, therefore, had the experi- ence of passing thru expectancy with, and with- es out, the .aid of "7D ‘Favorite Pre- 3% \ \ scription.” Had hy SS I been told that anythin could have made the difference experi- enced | would never have believed it. w hile taking the ‘Favorite Prescrip- tion’ I was able to attend to my housework, rest at night, and my appetite was good all the time and | had comparatively no suffering.” — Mrs. Lillian Duke, 920 Shenandoah Ave All medicine dealers. DISTEMPER COMPOUND Dot t take chances of og ald up with Influenza, Pink Eye, ngitis, Heaves, Coughs or Colds. Give “BPOHN'S" to both the sick and the well ones. The standard remedy Give “SPOHN'S" for Dog Dis 60 cents and $1.30 at drag stores, BPOHXN MEDICAL CO. GOSHEN, IND. BEST for the Complexion The beauty np s is the beauty it brings to the complexion — soft, smooth, clear white skin, free of pim- ples, bi or other blemishes. Glenn’s ws sm Sulphur Soap Contsine 3337, Pure Sulphur. At Draggion. pou or mules Jans hares HeadNoisesand Deafness Proqusstly © together. ay from Sead mon Se Dansie LEONARD EAR OIL relieves both Deafress and Head Noises. Just rub it beck of the ears. in seri in Bestel and follow directions of Dr, J. Bergeson “Care of Hearing,” 3 Dav in each package. Leonard Bar Oi] is for dale everywhere Interesting descriptive folder 40, sent upon request to Cray oe, ard glibat hy v Wk - . INDERCORNS Removes Corns, Osi- ensures comfort to the Rakes Sh enry. ha by mail or at —_— fh aki eh i er rr Camden Man's Amazing Message to R to Rheumatics After Suffering Intense Agony for Many Years—He Wants to Tell Others. Dr. Brigadell: | simply had to write and tell you what your wonderful Camphorole has done for me. For many years | suffered the tortures of Rheumatism as only those who have It know The sharp pains were #0 severe, | could not sleep. Had to get up and rub. It almost drove me crazy. 1 tried doctor after doctor and all kinds of med! cine I was told to takes which only left me I conld not bend my knees. | am a give up my work Seeing your advertisment in a pa per. 1 thought I would take apother chance and told my daughter to get me a package of Camphorole., You can imagine my sur prise after using Camphorsie, | started get better right away. After malng twe jars of Camphorole I am well and happy and have gone back to work. 1 shall never for. get the day 1 took a chance on Camphorole After all the years 1 suffered it feels good to be well again Robart WW. "Teesale, 2017 High St, Camden, N. J
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