She nodded. "If he don't have it--a good frame one--his leg will be the kind that flops all round.... I've seen beggars with 'em sometimes, selling pencils and so on. I can't hardly bear to see 'em that way!" "I should think not! Horrible!" "Then, there's Mrs. Pelton----" "I don't seem to remember--Mrs. Pelton?" he said politely. "Why she's the one you're--" Aunt Jane stopped suddenly. "Yes?" "She's a woman that came the same day you did," she said safely. "Oh!" His mind seemed to be looking back--to the day when he came to the House of Mercy, perhaps. Aunt Jane did not disturb him. Presently he took up his pencil with a little sigh. "What were you saying about a Mrs. Pelton?" he asked. "She came the day you did and _she's_ sitting up! And her case was a good deal worse than yours." She was looking at him almost severely. "But-- She had her operation sooner--than I did! _I_ had to wait--almost a week--You know I had to wait!" He was like a sick boy--with his excuses and his injured look. "Yes--she was operated on--a day or two sooner--maybe. But she's acted better than you have, every way." She looked at him over her spectacles. "And she's a little mite of a thing. Don't come up to your shoulder hardly." He smiled ruefully and took up the pencil. "I am going to try---- What about this Mrs. Pelton? What would you do for her if you were as badly off--as I am?" She gave him a quick smile, out of her cap. "Why--I'd--I'd--I declare I don't know just what you could _do_ for her! She's got so much pluck, it 'most seems as if you couldn't do much.... But I can kind of see her--" She was looking at it. "I can see that if she had, maybe a hundred dollars, say--of her own, unexpected like--when she left the hospital--I can just see the things she would do with it! There's four of the children and a kind of fiddling husband--_good_, you know-- But the way men are----" "Yes, I know." His pencil was making absent notes. "What's his business?" "She told me--he's a puddler. I don't know just what puddling is.... He works in a shop. You know, maybe, how they 'puddle'?" "I've heard of puddling, yes." "It's a respectable business, I guess. It sounds something the way he looks." "The way he looks!" She nodded. "'Puddler' makes me feel the way he does. It's a kind o' queer word." He glanced at his paper. "Is there anything else you happen to think of for me to do?" The tone was dry, but a little amused. "Well, there's folks--plenty of folks. You don't have to be in a hospital very long before you begin to know about folks--and begin to wish you was made of money." "It's a good place for me, then.... I may get cured all through!" He laughed a little harshly. "I hope you will," said Aunt Jane. She was looking at him with a deep, big kindness that suddenly broke through the little crust of cynicism in his face. He leaned forward and held out his hand. "Thank you," he said. XXI