The thermometer continued to go up.

"Clara J., on several occasions you have expressed a desire to
leave this torn-up city and retire to the woodlands, haven't you?"
I asked.

She nodded and the weather grew warmer.

"Once you said to me, 'Oh, John, if they'd only take New York off
the operating table and give the poor city a chance to get well,
how nice it would be!'--didn't you?"

Another nod.

"Well," I said, backing Munchausen in a corner and dragging his
medals away from him, "that's the answer, You for the Burbs! You
for the chateau up the track! Henceforth, you for the cage in the
country where the daffydowndillys sing in the treetops and
buttercups chirp from bough to bough!"

"Oh, John!" she exclaimed, faint with delight; "do you really mean
you've bought a home in the country? How perfectly lovely! You,
dear, dear, old John! And that's what you've been doing with all
your money, just to surprise me! Bless your dear good heart! Oh!
I'm so glad, and so delighted. Won't it be simply grand?"

I could feel the cold, spectral form of Sapphira leaning over my
left shoulder, urging me on.