tto which said, "Nicht Rauchen," "No Smoking,"--and which
looked suspiciously as if it had once adorned a compartment of a
railroad train.

Peter Byrne was early in the dining-room. He had made, for him, a
careful toilet, which consisted of a shave and clean linen. But he had
gone further: He had discovered, for the first time in the three months
of its defection, a button missing from his coat, and had set about to
replace it. He had cut a button from another coat, by the easy method
of amputating it with a surgical bistoury, and had sewed it in its new
position with a curved surgical needle and a few inches of sterilized
catgut. The operation was slow and painful, and accomplished only with
the aid of two cigarettes and an artery clip. When it was over he tied
the ends in a surgeon's knot underneath and stood back to consider the
result. It seemed neat enough, but conspicuous. After a moment or two of
troubled thought he blacked the white catgut with a dot of ink and went
on his way rejoicing.

Peter Byrne was entirely untroubled as to the wisdom of the course he
had laid out for himself. He followed no consecutive line of thought as
he dressed. When he was not smoking he was whistling, and when he was
doing neither, and the needle proved refractory in his cold fingers,
he was swearing to himself. For there was no fire in the room. The
materials for a fire were there, and a white tile stove, as cozy as an
obelisk in a cemetery, stood in the corner. But fires are expensive,
and hardly necessary when one sleeps with all one's windows open--one
window, to be exact, the room being very small--and spends most of the
day in a warm and comfortable shambles called a hospital.

To tell the truth he was not thinking of Harmony at all, except
subconsciously, as instance the button. He was going over, step by
step, the technic of an operation he had seen that afternoon, weighing,
considering, even criticizing. His conclusion, reached as he brushed
back his hair and put away his sewing implements, was somewhat to the
effect that he could have done a better piece of work with his eyes
shut and his hands tied behind his back; and that if it were not for the
wealth of material to work on he'd pack up and go home. Which brought
him back to Harmony and his new responsibility. He took off the necktie
he had absently put on and hunted out a better one.

He was late at supper--an offense that brought a scowl from the head
of the table