"You're SURE Penrod is well now?" she repeated, after Mr. Schofield had seated himself at her side in a vehicle known to its driver as a "deepoe hack".
"'Well NOW?'" he said. "He's been well all the time. I've told you twice that he's all right."
"Men can't always see." She shook her head impatiently. "I haven't been a bit sure he was well lately. I don't think he's been really well for two or three months. How has he seemed to-day?"
"In fair health," Mr. Schofield replied thoughtfully. "Della called me up at the office to tell me that one of the telephone-men had come into the house to say that if that durn boy didn't quit climbing their poles they'd have him arrested.
They said he--"
"That's it!" Mrs. Schofield interrupted quickly. "He's nervous.
It's some nervous trouble makes him act like that. He's not like himself at all."
"Sometimes," Mr. Schofield said, "I wish he weren't."
"When he's himself," Mrs. Schofield went on anxiously, "he's very quiet and good; he doesn't go climbing telegraph-poles and reckless things like that. And I noticed before I went away that he was growing twitchy, and seemed to be getting the habit of making unpleasant little noises in his throat."