ible for the order of the ward, so that a burly
Trager quarreling over his daily tobacco with the nurse in charge, or
brawling over his soup with another patient, was likely to be hailed in
a thin soprano, and to stand, grinning sheepishly, while Jimmy, in
mixed English and German, restored the decorum of the ward. They were a
quarrelsome lot, the convalescents. Jimmy was so busy some days settling
disputes and awarding decisions that he slept almost all night. This was
as it should be.

The Dozent waited for Peter. His red beard twitched and his white coat,
stained from the laboratory table, looked quite villainous. He held out
a letter.

"This has come for the child," he said in quite good English. He was
obliged to speak English. Day by day he taught in the clinics Americans
who scorned his native tongue, and who brought him the money with
which some day he would marry. He liked the English language; he liked
Americans because they learned quickly. He held out an envelope with a
black border and Peter took it.

"From Paris!" he said. "Who in the world--I suppose I'd better open it."

"So I thought. It appears a letter of--how you say it? Ah, yes,
condolence."

Peter opened the letter and read it. Then without a word he gave it open
to the Dozent. There was silence in the laboratory while the Dozent
read it, silence except for his canary, which was chipping at a lump of
sugar. Peter's face was very sober.

"So. A mother! You knew nothing of a mother?"

"Something from the papers I found. She left when the boy was a
baby--went on the stage, I think. He has no recollection of her, which
is a good thing. She seems to have been a bad lot."

"She comes to take him away. That is impossible."

"Of course it is impossible," said Peter savagely. "She's not going
to see the child if I can help it. She left because--she's the boy's
mother, but that's the best you can say of her. This letter--Well,
you've read it."

"She is as a stranger to him?"

"Absolutely. She will come in mourning--look at that black border--and
tell him his father is dead, and kill him. I know the type."

The canary chipped at his sugar; the red beard of the Dozent twitched,
as does the beard of one who plots. Peter re-read the gushing letter in
his hand and thought fiercely.

"She is on her way here," said the Dozent. "That is bad. Paris to Wien
is two days and a night. She may hourly arrive."

"We might send him away--to another hospital