Years ago, when he was an intern in the lower-Manhattan section of New York, a doctor was summoned on a blustery and cold winter evening to give assistance. A little girl had come to his apartment, banging on the door, asking his help. He threw on a jacket and followed the child to a stinking one-room tenement apartment, where a little boy, the girl’s brother, lay terribly sick. His parents were hovering over him. Despite the doctor’s best efforts the boy died moments after the doctor’s arrival. The doctor was shivering, not only because of the death of the child, but because there was no heat in the apartment. The boy’s father took off his coat and gave it to him, saying, “Here, you are cold. Thank you for trying to save my boy.” The doctor realized immediately that this was the only means the family had to say thank you, and thus he did not refuse the gift.
     Now that he is a prominent physician and quite wealthy, the doctor has other, finer coats. But on two special days he still wears the coat the boy’s father gave him; he wears it on the anniversary of the boy’s death and the anniversary of the day he graduated from medical school. He wears the coat to remind himself what life is all about.
     On another wintry day, a middle-aged woman heard a knock on her door. She peered through the window and saw two children, a little boy and a little girl, huddled inside the storm door in ragged coats. “Any old papers, lady?” they inquired. The woman was about to say

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