“Oh, cut it out!” Bubble’s dignity collapsed with his attitude.  The tilted chair came down with a bang and its occupant settled himself more naturally upon a corner of the desk.  “Don’t bother me!  I can’t come out.  Doctor’s away.  Some one’s got to attend to business.  See those medicines?  Well, don’t you go handling them!  This here is for Lizzie Stephens (measles), and that there is for Mrs. Nixon (twins).  If they got mixed I’d be responsible.  Run away!”

“Where’s the doctor?” asked Ann, ignoring.

“The doctor is out.  You needn’t wait.  He won’t be back all day.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Little girls mustn’t ask questions!”

Ann’s small face wrinkled into an elfish grin.  “I know where he’s gone,” she said slyly.

“Yes, you do!” This sarcastic comment was Bubble’s most emphatic negative.

“Very well, then, I don’t.”

Not to be outdone, Ann volunteered no further information.  She sat down on the step and waited.

Bubble busied himself with tying up the bottles.  Presently he stepped out from behind the desk.

“Think you can mind the office while I run around with these medicines?” he asked sternly.

“Sure!” Ann’s assent was placid.

“What’ll you say if any one comes and asks for the doctor—­or me?”

“You’re out delivering medicines and the doctor’s been called away very sudden.”

“What’ll you tell them if they ask you what he’s been called away to?”

“Oh, I’ll just say they needn’t worry, ’tisn’t anything catching.”

Bubble allowed his face to relax.  He even displayed a grudging admiration for this feminine diplomacy.

“And you wouldn’t be telling lies, either,” he remarked approvingly.  “All the same,” with a return to gloom, “we can’t keep it a secret.  Folks are bound to find out.  You can bet your eyes on that!”

Ann nodded.  “I expect most of them know by now.  Any one that wanted to could see them. He didn’t seem to care.  They drove right down the main street and you could see the picnic basket sticking out at the side!”

“O cricky!  Isn’t that just like him?  You’d think he wanted the whole town to know he’d gone off picnicking with a girl.  But I’d have thought Esther Coombe would have better sense!”

“It wasn’t Esther’s fault.  She couldn’t act as if she was ashamed of him, could she?  When a gentleman asks a lady to go out in his automobile she can’t ask him to drive down the back streets.”

“If he had only taken her at night!” groaned the harassed junior partner.  “But no, he must take a whole day off and him with two patients on his hands.  Look at me!  Have I ever asked off to go on any picnics?  Not on your tintype.  Business is business.  Doctors can’t fool round like other folks.”

Ann nodded agreement.  Things were coming her way very nicely.  She glanced at the wrathy Bubble out of the corners of her eyes.  “I didn’t think he’d be mean like that,” she remarked craftily.