"I quite understand. One of your really respectable old family practitioners."
"Not a bit of it! He would never be able to keep up with us; we should leave him on the road. He must not be more than forty or forty-five years of age."
"We shall never find one of that sort," interrupted M. Périères. "At that age a doctor is in the zenith of his practice, if he is worth anything, and if he is not, it would not be prudent in us to take him, because, instead of being put to death by the Aborigines, we should perish at his hands. There would be no poetry about that."
"I have hit upon a plan to meet every difficulty," suddenly exclaimed M. de Morin, who, for the last few moments, had evidently been following out some idea of his own. "I have him—just the man for us, not yet forty, a perfect gentleman, and a clever fellow who would have had a splendid practice if—"
"If what?" was the exclamation.
"If he did not gamble as if all the gambling in the world was concentrated in his own proper person. Does that alarm you. Baroness?"
"It would alarm me for you, if you are to be bound to lose your money to this gentleman."
"I am quite easy on that score, because I always win from him. I have put him under a spell."
"Well, then, in that case he will only be dangerous to the tribes of
Africa. But how can you possibly hope to induce him to accompany us?"
"That is my secret, and, with all due deference, I must decline to disclose it just yet. In the mean time, I can only say that everything leads me to believe that by to-morrow we shall have replaced M. Desrioux."