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BROKEN RIBS
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to the curbing, but not ours. I waited and, startled, watched two men help a third carefully to the sidewalk. One of the two men at sight of me in the doorway hurried ahead. It was old Doctor Fanning.

"Don't be alarmed, Miss Guthrie," he said. "There has been an accident, but Burr isn't much hurt. Just a collar bone, I think. We simply want to get him inside and laid out on a couch somewhere, and then some one will be back in half an hour or so and fix him up. We didn't know anything was the trouble with him until he keeled over; then I made up my mind we'd better get him home. Get some brandy into him if you can, and I'll have some one here as soon as possible."

Doctor Fanning seemed to be in a great hurry. I didn't suggest that Burr should be carried upstairs, but swept the pillows off the library couch and let them lay him there.

"I'm all right," Burr kept saying. "For heaven's sake, get back to Elsie! I'm all right! Nan will look out for me."

By the time I had come in from the dining-room with some brandy, Doctor Fanning and the other man had gone, and I knelt down by Burr and took his hand.

He pushed the glass aside and sat up. "Don't need it," he said. Then, "It was all my fault.