with something of satisfaction. "Take it all," was its attitude; "avoid nothing; it is your due; for it is merely reaping what you sowed long ago. Face it to the very dregs. Only in this way shall you pay a just debt and exhaust it." So vital was this attitude in all that followed that it must be honestly mentioned.
A stabbing in the side had been bothering me for some days, making walking difficult and painful. A blow received while diving from our island--I hit a rock--began to ache and throb. I came home in the evenings, weary to the bone. There were headaches, and a touch of fever. The pain increased. There was a swelling. I went to bed. Boyde took down a letter to McCloy, asking for a day off, which was granted. The next day I turned up at 8.30, but had to come back to bed after the midday coffee and sinkers. "See a doctor," snapped McCloy, in his best maxim-firing manner, "and come back when you're fixed up again."
But there wasn't enough money for a doctor's fee of from two to five dollars. I lay up for three days, hoping for improvement which did not come. The pain and fever grew. Mrs. Bernstein, upset and even disagreeable, sent me bread and soup in the evening as well as the morning coffee. Boyde brought a few extras late at night. He was chasing a new post just then--organist to a church in Patterson, N.J.--and rarely got home before eleven, sometimes later. He brought long rolls of Vienna bread, a few white Spanish grapes, a tin of condensed milk. He slept peaceably beside me. His manner, once or twice, seemed different. I smelt liquor. "Someone stood me a drink," he explained, "and by God, I needed it. I'm fagged out." He was kind and sympathetic, doing all he could, all that his position allowed. He was very much in love at the moment with the daughter of the pastor of the Second Avenue Baptist Church, where he sang in the choir, and he confided his hopes and troubles about the affair to me.... It all gave me a queer feeling of unreality somewhere. In my feverish
state I knew an occasional unaccustomed shiver. The
