Doctor Foerder returned at four o’clock. He had not been expected before evening, but he was interested in the case. He had mentioned it in his lecture that day. He had commented on the wonderful display of vitality on the patient’s part, and spoken of the value in such cases of moral treatment, of encouraging words and a confident manner. He read the nurse’s chart, counted the colonel’s pulse for fifteen seconds and calculated the rate by multiplication, drew down the old man’s eyelids, noting the senile arc that was whitening the periphery of the cornea, and he examined the finger-nails; then the percussion and the auscultation. When he raised his black head, the colonel said: “Any news?” “You’re doing well.” “Aw!” said the colonel impatiently, “I don’t mean that--any news from the conventions?” Foerder hesitated, as if half reluctant to display interest in anything so human, but said: “Yes.” “What?” said the colonel eagerly, his eyes brightening with a light that alarmed the doctor. “They say you’ve carried some districts on the North Side.” “Which ones?” asked the colonel. “Don’t remember.” “Anything else?” “Well, they say Warner has carried some North Side districts, too--and some West Side districts.” “Warner?” “Well, whatever his name is.” Then Foerder was silent, and the colonel lay a long time thinking. “Did you learn how it’s going in the Ninth, or the Second, or the Seventeenth?” “They say it’s about an even break everywhere.” “And how’s the First?” The colonel put this question in a whisper, as if he feared the answer. The doctor did not know. Then the silence again, and the colonel’s labored breathing, and the ticking of the nurse’s little gold watch. “What district do you live in, Doctor?” the colonel asked later. “I?” replied the medical man in some surprise. “Yes.” “I--why, I don’t know,” he said. The colonel faintly smiled. “Where do you live, then?” “In Drexel Boulevard.” “That’s the Fifth,” the colonel said. “Warren carried that.” “Did he?” The doctor looked as if he were ashamed. “We mustn’t talk any more just now.”