'You cannot take care of them all.'
'Therefore—? What is your deduction from that fact?'
'Where are you going to stop?'
'Where ought I to stop? Put yourself, in imagination, in that condition I have described; the chill of a rheumatic fever, and a room without fire, in the depth of winter. What would your sense of justice demand from the well and strong and comfortable and able? Honestly.'
'Why,' said Betty, again surveying Pitt from one side, 'with my notions, I should want a doctor, and an attendant, and a comfortable room.'
'I do not doubt his notions would agree with yours,—if his fancy could get so far.'
'But who ought to furnish those things for him is another question.'
'Another, but not more hard to answer. The Bible rule is, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it—"'
'Will you, ought you, to do all that you find to do?'
But Pitt went on, in a quiet business tone: 'In that same court I found, some time ago, a man who had been injured by an accident. A heavy piece of iron had fallen on his foot; he worked in a machine shop. For months he was obliged to stay at home under the doctor's care. He used up all his earnings; and strength and health were alike gone. The man of fifty looked like seventy. The doctor said he could hardly grow strong again, without change of air.'