On the male side of the ward a large man, so wide he seemed to fill the bed to overflowing, lay propped up by three pillows and watched them guardedly as they approached him.

“Mr. Stratton here is a truck driver for a soft drink bottling concern,” Silverstone said, eyes on the chart. “A couple of weeks ago a wooden case fell off his truck and struck him below the right knee.” He pulled down the sheet and revealed the man’s leg, stocky but white and unhealthy-looking, with an ugly ulcerated sore about four inches in diameter.

“Does your leg feel cold, Mr. Stratton?”

“All the time.”

“Soaks and antibiotics have been tried, but this isn’t healing properly, and the leg has lost color,” Silverstone said. He turned to the resident he had lacerated for tardiness. “Dr. Potter, what do you think?”

Potter smiled again, looking wretched, but said nothing.

“Dr. Robinson?”

“An arteriogram.”

“Head of the class. Where would you inject the dye?”

“Femoral artery,” Spurgeon said.

“What, I need an operation?”

“We’re not talking about an operation, at least not yet,” Silverstone said. “Your leg feels cold because the blood isn’t circulating in it as well as it should. We’ve got to find out why. We’re going to inject some dye into an artery in your groin and then take some pictures.”

Mr. Stratton’s face reddened. “I can’t take that kind of business,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you just keep on soaking it like Dr. Perlman’s been doing?”

“Because Dr. Perlman tried that and it didn’t do you any good.”

“Try it some more.”

There was a long moment’s silence.

“Where’s Dr. Perlman?” the man said. “I want to speak to Dr. Perlman.”

“Dr. Perlman is no longer Chief Resident here,” Silverstone said. “I’m told he’s now Captain Perlman and on his way to Vietnam. I’m Dr. Silverstone, the new Chief Resident.”

“I couldn’t even take the shots when I was in the Merchant Marine,” the man said. Someone snickered on the fringe of the group circling his bed, and Silverstone turned and stared coldly.

“It’s supposed to be funny, a guy my size afraid of you bastards,” Stratton said. “But it isn’t funny, believe you me. First guy puts his hand on me, I’ll beat the crap out of him.”

Silverstone placed a hand lightly, almost absentmindedly, on the patient’s chest. They looked at one another. Incredibly, moisture glittered in Mr. Stratton’s eyes.

Nobody snickered. His face, Spurgeon thought wonderingly, was shaped by the same sharp fear that had etched the face of the aging prostitute across the hall, expressions so similar she might have been his sister.

This time Silverstone did not reach for tissues. “Now, you listen,” he said, a man talking to an errant child. “You pay attention. You can’t afford to waste time. If you give us trouble—any trouble—about examining you, we won’t ever have to worry about your beating the crap out of us. You won’t be able to beat the crap out of Little Orphan Annie, pal. You’ll either have one leg or you’ll be dead.