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"I can’t thank you enough," said Heinz passionately.

Dr. Powers licked his lips, and fought to keep his eyes open. "Uh huh. ’S O.K.," he said thickly. " ’Night. Luck." He shambled out into the corridor.

The nurse stuck her head into the waiting room. "You can see your baby, Mr. Netman."

"Doctor—" said Heinz, hurrying out into the corridor, wanting to shake Powers’ hand again so that Powers would know what a magnificent thing he’d done. "It’s the most wonderful thing that ever happened." The elevator doors slithered shut between them before Dr. Powers could show a glimmer of response.

"This way," said the nurse. "Turn left at the end of the hall, and you’ll find the nursery window there. Write your name on a piece of paper and hold it against the glass."

Heinz made the trip by himself, without seeing another human being until he reached the end. There, on the other side of a large glass panel, he saw a hundred of them cupped in shallow canvas buckets and arranged in a square block of straight ranks and files.

Heinz wrote his name on the back of a laundry slip and pressed it to the window. A fat and placid nurse looked at the paper, not at Heinz’s face, and missed seeing his wide smile, missed an urgent invitation to share for a moment his ecstasy.

She grasped one of the buckets and wheeled it before the window. She turned away again, once more missing the smile.

"Hello, hello, hello, little Knechtmann," said Heinz to the red prune on the other side of the glass. His voice echoed down the hard, bare corridor, and came back to him with embarrassing loudness. He blushed and lowered his voice. "Little Peter, little Kroll," he said softly, "little Friederich—and there’s Helga in you, too. Little spark of Knechtmann, you little treasure house. Everything is saved in you."

"I’m afraid you’ll have to be more quiet," said a nurse, sticking her head out from one of the rooms.

"Sorry," said Heinz. "I’m very sorry." He fell silent, and contented himself with tapping lightly on the window with a fingernail, trying to get the child to look at him. Young Knechtmann would not look, wouldn’t share the moment, and after a few minutes the nurse took him away again.

Heinz beamed as he rode on the elevator and as he crossed the hospital lobby, but no one gave him more than a cursory glance. He passed a row of telephone booths and there, in one of the booths with the door open, he saw a soldier with whom he’d shared the waiting room an hour before.

"Yeah, Ma—seven pounds six ounces. Got hair like Buffalo Bill. No, we haven’t had time to make up a name for her yet... That you, Pa? Yup, mother and daughter doin’ fine, just fine. Seven pounds six ounces. Nope, no name.... That you, Sis? Pretty late for you to be up, ain’t it? Doesn’t look like anybody yet. Let me talk to Ma again.... That you, Ma? Well, I guess that’s all the news from Chicago. Now, Mom, Mom, take it easy—don’t worry. It’s a swell-looking baby, Mom. Just the hair looks like Buffalo Bill, and I said it as a joke, Mom. That’s right, seven pounds six ounces...."

There were five other booths, all empty, all open for calls to anyplace on earth. Heinz longed to hurry into one of them breathlessly, and tell the marvelous news. But there was no one to call, no one waiting for the news.

But Heinz still beamed, and he strode across the street and into a quiet tavern there. In the dank twilight there were only two men, tête-à-tête, the bartender and Mr. Sousa.

"Yes sir, what’ll it be?"

"I’d like to buy you and Mr. Sousa a drink," said Heinz with a heartiness strange to him. "I’d like the best brandy you’ve got. My wife just had a baby!"

"That so?" said the bartender with polite interest.

"Five pounds nine ounces," said Heinz.

"Huh," said the bartender. "What do you know."

"Netman," said Sousa, "wha’dja get?"

"Boy," said Heinz proudly.

"Never knew it to fail," said Sousa bitterly. "It’s the little guys, all the time the little guys."

"Boy, girl," said Heinz, "it’s all the same, just as long as