Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: m MY FRIENDS "The End of worldly life awaits us all: Let him who may, gain honor ere death." We were just getting up from breakfast the Monday morning after our return to New York when the doorbell rang and our old friend Kenneth Adams came in, pale and agitated. "What's the matter, Ken?" asked Helen. "Did your cook spoil the coffee?" "No," he replied nervously. "We haven't any cook —but that's not my trouble. Lucy's got appendicitis —at least that is what young Hopkins says, and I haven't any reason to doubt his word. He says she ought to be operated on immediately." "What a shame!" said Helen. "Still, she'll be ever so much better without it. Of course the operation isn't pleasant, but once her appendix is out " "Yes, but who's going to take it out?" demanded Kenneth. "What's the matter with McCook?" I inquired, with callous levity. "He's supposed to be our best local excavator, isn't he?" "McCook? He's been in Paris for two years and a half!" "Oh, yes, I remember," I admitted. "So he has. How about Furness?—he's one of the 'Big Four.' " "Furness sailed with the Fordyce Unit last spring. He's on the firing-line." "Well, Jameson then. One is about as good as another." "Jameson's gone, too." "Farley?" "Farley's down in Washington—he's a major, I believe—helping on some advisory medical board." "By George!" I ejaculated with more sympathy. "Some medical exodus—whatf" "I'm at my wits' end!" declared Adams. "All the big operators have gone away. I've called up hospital after hospital, doctor's office after doctor's office, and they all tell me the same thing—Dr. So-and- So has been away since June or July in 1914—or whatever the fact is." "But what's the matter with Freylingheusen?" I queried. "I saw him at the theatre the other ...