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“I used to be on the Green Plan, but I let it lapse,” the artist said defensively.

“And look what happened!”

“Stop nagging him!” the girl said. “I’ll pay you your fee.”

“It’s supposed to come through a Plan,” the doctor fretted.

“We won’t tell anybody,” the girl promised. “Here’s five dollars. Just stop nagging him.”

“Malnutrition,” said the doctor. “Normally I’d send him to a hospital, but I don’t see how I could manage it. He isn’t on any Plan at all. Look, I’ll take the money and leave some vitamins. That’s what he needs—vitamins. And food.”

“I’ll see that he eats,” the girl said, and the doctor left.

“How long since you’ve had anything?” she asked Halvorsen.

“I had some coffee today,” he answered, thinking back. “I’d been working on detail drawings for a commission and it fell through. I told you that. It was a shock.”

“I’m Lucretia Grumman,” she said, and went out.

He dozed until she came back with an armful of groceries.

“It’s hard to get around down here,” she complained.

“It was Labuerre’s studio,” he told her defiantly. “He left it to me when he died. Things weren’t so rundown in his time. I studied under him; he was one of the last. He had a joke—’They don’t really want my stuff, but they’re ashamed to let me starve.’ He warned me that they wouldn’t be ashamed to let me starve, but I insisted and he took me in.”