“As well as I could tell, the precautions had not been relaxed. I was doing from four to six cases a day. After the second one I almost went crazy. I made up my mind, if there was ever another, I'd give up and go away.” “There was another?” “Not for several months. When the last case died, a free case again, I performed my own autopsy. I allowed only my first assistant in the room. He was almost as frenzied as I was. It was the same thing again. When I told him I was going away, he offered to take the blame himself, to say he had closed the incision. He tried to make me think he was responsible. I knew--better.” “It's incredible.” “Exactly; but it's true. The last patient was a laborer. He left a family. I've sent them money from time to time. I used to sit and think about the children he left, and what would become of them. The ironic part of it was that, for all that had happened, I was busier all the time. Men were sending me cases from all over the country. It was either stay and keep on working, with that chance, or--quit. I quit.” “But if you had stayed, and taken extra precautions--” “We'd taken every precaution we knew.” Neither of the men spoke for a time. K. stood, his tall figure outlined against the window. Far off, in the children's ward, children were laughing; from near by a very young baby wailed a thin cry of protest against life; a bell rang constantly. K.'s mind was busy with the past--with the day he decided to give up and go away, with the months of wandering and homelessness, with the night he had come upon the Street and had seen Sidney on the doorstep of the little house. “That's the worst, is it?” Max Wilson demanded at last. “That's enough.” “It's extremely significant. You had an enemy somewhere--on your staff, probably. This profession of ours is a big one, but you know its jealousies. Let a man get his shoulders above the crowd, and the pack is after him.” He laughed a little. “Mixed figure, but you know what I mean.” K. shook his head. He had had that gift of the big man everywhere, in every profession, of securing the loyalty of his followers. He would have trusted every one of them with his life. “You're going to do it, of course.” “Take up your work?” “Yes.” He stirred restlessly. To stay on, to be near Sidney, perhaps to stand by as Wilson's best man when he was married--it turned him cold. But he did not give a decided negative. The sick man was flushed and growing fretful; it would not do to irritate him. “Give me another day on it,” he said at last. And so the matter stood.