“I want to get my check,” he said.

“Yes, where is it?” Wilfred asked him.

“It’s in the post office; some months it’s late but not usually. I got to go to Kingston for examination on the twenty-fifth.”

“Oh, you mean your pension?” Wilfred asked.

“You know Doctor Garrison there?”

“No, I don’t know anybody in Kingston,” Wilfred said.

“He’s the one I’ll have.”

“Yes, what for?”

“Pension raise. I put in an application; if I’m bad enough off I’ll get it. It’ll be raised from fifty to eighty. I can’t see none out of this yere eye, this left one. I got a claim on total disable; can’t work no more.”

Wilfred was about to say that he hoped his charge might be “bad enough off.” But he thought it would not sound well to say that.