She gave him a quick smile, out of her cap. "Why—I'd—I'd—I declare I don't know just what you could do for her! She's got so much pluck, it 'most seems as if you couldn't do much.... But I can kind of see her—" She was looking at it. "I can see that if she had, maybe a hundred dollars, say—of her own, unexpected like—when she left the hospital—I can just see the things she would do with it! There's four of the children and a kind of fiddling husband—good, you know— But the way men are——"
"Yes, I know." His pencil was making absent notes. "What's his business?"
"She told me—he's a puddler. I don't know just what puddling is.... He works in a shop. You know, maybe, how they 'puddle'?"
"I've heard of puddling, yes."
"It's a respectable business, I guess. It sounds something the way he looks."
"The way he looks!"
She nodded. "'Puddler' makes me feel the way he does. It's a kind o' queer word."
He glanced at his paper. "Is there anything else you happen to think of for me to do?" The tone was dry, but a little amused.
"Well, there's folks—plenty of folks. You don't have to be in a hospital very long before you begin to know about folks—and begin to wish you was made of money."
"It's a good place for me, then.... I may get cured all through!" He laughed a little harshly.