Sugar had been asked to let the men into the room one at a time. All appeared apprehensive, a few frightened, some crafty and amused. The procedure was that the man came into the room, and Roscoe read from his ledger an account of the debt, date and amount, payment made if any balance due. After he had read out his charge, Leon or Floyd put a question or more to the man, after which he was dismissed, and the next man was sent in by Sugar. The full session went on nearly three hours. When the last man had been seen and no serious challenge had been made to Roscoe’s accounting, Leon sat down at the desk and drafted a payment note on his bank for eleven hundred and sixty-eight dollars, payable to Roscoe Elk.

20

Penelope arrived at her house on Broughton Street, having traveled without stopping since leaving Highboro. Ricey whined complaints the whole way, until Penelope was so vexed she felt like turning her out of the coach and telling her to walk.

She found Uncle Joshua very low. He had been unable to take nourishment and retain it, and for the last twenty-four hours he had refused it altogether, allowing himself to be given only a spoonful of water now and then. In addition to vomiting, he had fever; his forehead was dry and hot when she put her hand to it. Dr. Lowell Stone, whom she sent Ichabod for immediately, and who had taken it upon himself to call twice a day anyhow, knowing Joshua’s importance to his mistress, told her that Joshua had not responded to any of his remedies for fever and vomiting. Only that morning he had been there and confirmed the fear he had entertained last night that the old man’s affliction, whatever it was, was now compounded by pneumonia. Considering the patient’s age, recovery was too much to hope.

Penelope questioned the doctor anxiously on what could be done, begging to be told something to do, but he said there was nothing she could do other than keep the patient as comfortable as possible, to watch him and to wait. She sent Clarice to bed. She had been up and down for nearly a week, on her feet more hours of the night than on her bed. Ricey, who might have been some use to her mistress, had already crept off to bed after complaining that she just knew she was coming down with something too.