"Five in the morning," he'd say, "and it might as well be the dead of night for all the movement there is. Indeed, the night has more stir, what with the death-carts and the calling of the ghouls that manage them." At seven o'clock Captain Weir would come in, and nod to Tom. "All's still well with you?" he'd ask. "Still well," Tom would reply. "And you?" "So far--brisk enough." "Pump Court is a healthy place," said Tom. "There have been but twelve carried from it so far. But it may be that I'm too spare of body for the pestilence to bother with." "It may be," said Captain Weir. "But take care." "Just over the way from me," said Tom, "there was a fat man lodging, a great, strong fellow with thews like a bull, and a red face as broad as a bucket. He was a most excellent feeder; I've seen him cutting into joints of beef in eating-places in a most astonishing way." "One can't keep away the yellow-boy by gorging," said Captain Weir. "Of a morning," said Tom Horn, "he'd shave himself at an open window, and bellow songs out into the court. And he'd thump himself on the chest and defy the plague to harm him. 'The cart is not made,' said he, 'that'll carry me away in the night. When the scourge gets me, the city might well sit back on its haunches and take fear. For when I go what chance have the others? Here's solidness for you,' he says, and he thumps away at himself; 'here's guts and brawn! I'd like to see the plague that'll set itself to choking up _my_ vitals. I'll have a surprise waiting for it." "Ah," said Captain Weir. "A surprise." "The surprise came," said Tom Horn. "But it was for the fat man. The plague worked very quietly; but it made an end of him in two days. And when the cart came for him, it was quite an old one; it had been made many years. And I marked, as it rolled with him out of the court in the light of the torches, that the city was very quiet. For all his fatness, his brawn, and his blood, there was nothing unusual. He was but a man, the same as others; if the grave-makers were forced to make the pit a little wider to let him in, that was the only difference." It was the day they talked about the fat man in Pump Court that visitors came to the counting-room, the first in many a day; and the visitors were Rehoboam and Nathaniel Bulfinch. They entered together, and stepped toward Tom together; their gaunt, gangling frames were alike, as were their outstanding ears and the large spaces between their teeth, and the same eager, covetous look was in both their faces. "It is refreshing to see a place of business open in times like these," said Nathaniel. "But I knew Rufus Stevens' Sons would be. Your pushing merchant does not permit an unfortunate state of public mind to step into his path."