"Sara! 'Smatter, Sara? 'Smat-ter?" Hattie's tired hand crept toward her friend; but her volition would not carry it across and it fell inert across the coverlet. "'Smatter, dearie?" "N-nothin'." "'Smat-ter, dear-ie?" "N-nothin'." * * * * * In the watches of the night a towel flung across the bedpost becomes a gorilla crouching to spring; a tree branch tapping at the window an armless hand, beckoning. In the watches of the night fear is a panther across the chest sucking the breath; but his eyes cannot bear the light of day, and by dawn he has shrunk to cat size. The ghastly dreams of Orestes perished with the light; phosphorus is yellowish and waxlike by day. So Sara Juke found new courage with the day, and in the subbasement of the Titanic store the morning following her laughter was ready enough. But when the midday hour arrived she slipped into her jacket, past the importunities of Hattie Krakow, and out into the sun-lashed noonday swarm of Sixth Avenue. Down one block--two, three; then a sudden pause before a narrow store front liberally placarded with invitatory signs to the public, and with a red cross blazoning above the doorway. And Sara Juke, whose heart was full of fear, faltered, entered. The same thin file passed round the room, halting, sauntering, like grim visitors in a grim gallery. At a front desk a sleek young interne, tiptilted in a swivel chair, read a pink sheet through horn-rimmed glasses. Toward the rear the young man whose skin was the wind-lashed pink sorted pamphlets and circulars in tall, even piles on his desk. Round and round the gallery walked Sara Juke; twice she read over the list of symptoms printed in inch-high type; her heart lay within her as though icy dead, and her eyes would blur over with tears. Once, when she passed the rear desk, the young man paused in his stacking and regarded her with a warming glance of recognition. "Hello!" he said. "You back?" "Yes." Her voice was the thin cry of a quail. "You must like our little picture gallery, eh?" "Oh! Oh!" She caught at the edge of his desk and tears lay heavy in her eyes. "Eh?" "Yes; I--I like it. I wanna buy it for my yacht." Her ghastly simulacrum of a jest died in her throat; and he said quickly, a big blush suffusing his face: "I was only fooling, missy. You ain't got the scare, have you?" "The scare?" "Yes; the bug? You ain't afraid you've ate the germ, are you?" "I--I dunno." "Pshaw! There's a lot of 'em comes in here more scared than hurt, missy. Never throw a scare till you've had a examination. For all you know you got hay fever, eh! Hay fever!" And he laughed as though to salve his words. "I--got all them things on the red-printed list, I tell you. I--I got 'em all, night sweats and all. I--I got 'em." "Sure you got 'em, missy; but that don't need to mean nothin' much." "I got 'em, I tell you." "Losin' weight?" "Feel." He inserted two fingers in her waistband. "Huh!" "You a doctor?"