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coming in to see you this afternoon, just for a moment this first day, and you want to be all—”
    “My wife?”
    “Yes, she’s been here several times asking about you. She drove over and is staying in town, she told me. I guess you don’t live very far from here, do you? You must feel kind of silly, driving all the way down from New York to have an accident almost at your own doorstep.... Honest, I think your wife is the loveliest person, Mr. Wilson, and that’s funny because I don’t go for people with Southern accents as a rule.... No, that’s quite enough talking for now. We’ve got to save our strength for this afternoon, don’t we? Please, Mr. Wilson, if you insist onexciting yourself, I’ll have to give you a sedative!”
    The door closed behind her. Young sank back against the pillow and lay staring helplessly at the white ceiling, trying to think, but nothing came, and he fell asleep.
    When he awoke, somebody was talking about him. He recognized the voice of Dr. Pitt. There had been some evidence of concussion, the doctor said, but the X-rays had shown no signs of skull fracture. Lacerations of face and scalp were healing normally and would probably leave no serious disfigurement; however, there might be a slight thickening of the bridge of the nose, as was usual in these cases. The patient had a badly bruised chest from being hurled against the steering wheel; but apparently no ribs had been broken. It was fortunate that the wheel had held up, the doctor said; he had seen instances of drivers impaled upon the steering column like insects on a pin.... Footsteps moved away from the bed. The low, professional murmur of voices continued for a while; then the door closed softly.
    Young opened his eyes, found himself alone, and lay for a while wondering to whom the doctor had been speaking: apparently, from the tone and terminology used, another doctor. He rang the bell at the head of the bed.
    “Oh, you decided to wake up at last, did you?” the nurse said playfully, coming into the room. Sheadjusted the bed for him and raised the blinds to let sunlight through the windows. Then she went back to the door. “He’s awake now, Dr. Henshaw,” she said, and a large, balding, middle-aged man came in. He was wearing a brown suit, and even without the nurse’s identification there would have been no doubt of his profession. In a hospital you could always tell; the doctors were the only men who seemed to feel really at home. Dr. Henshaw approached the bed briskly.
    “Well, Larry, what do you think you’ve been doing to yourself, anyway?” he demanded. He did not wait for a response, but went on: “I’ve been talking your case over with Dr. Pitt, and he thinks you’re well enough to come home and leave this room for somebody who’s really sick, haha... Nurse, will you have a stretcher brought up, please? And ask Mrs. Wilson to drive the station wagon around to the ambulance entrance....”
    In his weakened, semi-drugged condition, it was difficult for Young to be sure of anything, but the voice stirred a sort of echo — of the Navy, of home... he wasn’t sure.
    He was given little time to think or to protest, and he found himself gripped by a strange indecision. He found that he had no real desire to convince these people of the mistake they were making. A moment later he no longer had a choice. There was a certainruthlessness to which sick people were subjected when a decision had been made as to what should be done with them; in transit they were handled like a sort of perishable but inanimate freight: gently, even tenderly, but with efficiency and dispatch. In a moment, it seemed, he was being lifted into a large, shining station wagon from which all seats except the driver’s had been removed to make room for a low cot, on which he was placed. Someone got in beside him and said in a clear, Southern voice:
    “All right, Dr. Henshaw.”
    Then a girl’s face moved into Young’s field of vision, as