Zurito was speaking to Retana. One of the men in white smiled and handed Retana a pair of scissors. Retana gave them to Zurito. Zurito said something to Manuel. He could not hear it. To hell with this operating-table! He’d been on plenty of operating-tables before. He was not going to die. There would be a priest if he was going to die. Zurito was saying something to him. Holding up the scissors. That was it. They were going to cut off his coleta. They were going to cut off his pigtail. Manuel sat up on the operating-table. The doctor stepped back, angry. Some one grabbed him and held him. “You couldn’t do a thing like that, Manos,” he said. He heard suddenly, clearly, Zurito’s voice. “That’s all right,” Zurito said. “I won’t do it. I was joking.” “I was going good,” Manuel said. “I didn’t have any luck. That was all.” Manuel lay back. They had put something over his face. It was all familiar. He inhaled deeply. He felt very tired. He was very, very tired. They took the thing away from his face. “I was going good,” Manuel said weakly. “I was going great.” Retana looked at Zurito and started for the door. “I’ll stay here with him,” Zurito said. Retana shrugged his shoulders. Manuel opened his eyes and looked at Zurito. “Wasn’t I going good, Manos?” he asked, for confirmation. “Sure,” said Zurito. “You were going great.” The doctor’s assistant put the cone over Manuel’s face and he inhaled deeply. Zurito stood awkwardly, watching. IN ANOTHER COUNTRY IN the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains. We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the hospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting from the courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was the matter, and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.