"Is there anything you would like for a change?" she asked. "Well, I can't read, and I can't take up all your time talking, so I wish you'd let me get out of this room into one of the wards in a wheel-chair, nurse," answered Burke. "I'd like to see some of the other folks, if it's permissible." "That's easy. The doctor said you could sit up more each day now. He says you'll be back on duty in another three weeks--or maybe six." Burke groaned. "Oh, these doctors, really, I feel as well now as I ever did, except that my head is just a little wobbly and I don't believe I could beat Longboat in a Marathon. But, you see, I'll be back on duty before any three weeks go by." Burke was wheeled out into the big free ward of the hospital by one of the attendants. He had never realized how much human misery could be concentrated into one room until that perambulatory trip. It was not a visiting day, and many of the sufferers tossed about restless and unhappy. About some of the beds there were screens--to keep the sight of their unhappiness and anguish from their neighbors. Here was a man whose leg had been amputated. His entire life was blighted because he had stuck to his job, coupling freight cars, when the engineer lost his head. There, on that bed, was an old man who had saved a dozen youngsters from a burning Christmas tree, and was now paying the penalty with months of torture. Yonder poor fellow, braving the odds of the city, had left his country town, sought labor vainly, until he was found starving rather than beg. As a policeman, Burke had seen many miseries in his short experience on the force; as an invalid he had been initiated into the second degree in this hospital ward. He wondered if there could be anything more bitter. There was--his third and final degree in the ritual of life: but that comes later on in our story. After chatting here and there with a sufferer, passing a friendly word of encouragement, or spinning some droll old yarn to cheer up another, Bobbie had enough. "Say, it's warm looking outside. Could I get some fresh air on one of the sun-porches?" he asked his steersman. "Sure thing, cap. I'll blanket you up a bit, and put you through your paces on the south porch." Bobbie was rolled out on the glass protected porch into the blessed rays of the sun. He found another traveler using the same mode of conveyance, an elderly man, whose pallid face, seamed with lines of suffering, still showed the jolly, unconquerable spirit which keeps some men young no matter how old they grow. "Well, it's about the finest sunlight I've seen for many a day. How do you like it, young man?" "It's the first I've had for so many weeks that I didn't believe there was any left in the world," responded Burke. "If we could only get out for a walk instead of this Atlantic City boardwalk business it would be better, wouldn't it?" His companion nodded, but his genial smile vanished.