“I’m not going to war.” Bale stood up, lifted his boots, and threw them down again. “Doc,” he said, “I’ve got to put on some other clothes. That suit was my best, but it’s suffered sadly in travel. Maybe I can wear some of the things that are put away here. Will you ask Mrs. Wurke to come upstairs?”

“And you naked as a six-weeks foetus? I will not.”

Dan cried, “Doc. It’s good to see you.” He reached up his hand, and Duffey patted it with his bandaged paw.

“How long will those burned hands incapacitate you?”

“I’ll have these bandages off in four more days, or take down my sign. Now, I’ll go back downstairs and find that poor woman—I’ve a good tonic I want her to take in no small doses. This was a hard pull of the poor soul, Dan my boy. You should give her a bit of a present.”

Bale nodded. “I thought of that last night. Probably Grandfather remembered her in his will—you know how meticulous he was about such things. And she was here for the past three years. But if he didn’t, I’ll see that she gets a tidy sum.”

Duffey stood there, swallowing awkwardly. “Dan,” he whispered, “it is defilement to mention such a thing in a house of death. But—I wonder if you—it was a long time, and folks are paying in greenbacks—”

Dan said, “You old—” He bent down, hunting among his things, so that the doctor could not see his face. “What’s the bill, Doctor Duffey?”

“To you it would not be one penny. But Pentland Bale was a rich man.”

“Middling so.”

“I say he was rich. My bill is—is fifty dollars, gold.” He gulped like an embarrassed child. “Praise Peter,” he whispered. “Money. It’s the curse of all. It caused this war, Dan—it caused sorrow and desolation and the mourning of widows.”

Bale found his money belt and unbuttoned it. In one of the pockets there was a thick wad of paper money, and from others came the metallic thud of coin. He counted: “Sixty—eighty—ninety—a hundred. There’s a hundred in greenbacks, Doc. Count it.”

“It’s too much entirely. And I’ll be taking all your money.”

Dan told him hastily, “I read the New York papers yesterday, on the cars. Greenbacks are fifty-eight cents this week. That’s fifty-eight dollars, and I’ve got a lot left. You know that I owned a half-interest in Lucas Mite’s flouring mill, as I wrote to you. I sold out before I left.”

Duffey regarded him with sagging jaw. “Sold out! Then—you’re not going back to the west?”