"You must. Have a corona." Mr. Prohack moved to the cigar cabinet which he had recently purchased.
"No. My next patient is awaiting me in Hyde Park Gardens at this moment."
"Let him die!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack ruthlessly. "You've got to have a cigar with me. Look. I'll compromise. I'll make it a half-corona. You can charge me as if for another consultation."
The doctor's foreign eyes twinkled as he sat down and struck a match.
"You thought I was a quack," he said maliciously, and maliciously he seemed to intensify his foreign accent.
"I did," admitted Mr. Prohack with candour.
"So I am," said Dr. Veiga. "But I'm a fully qualified quack, and all really good doctors are quacks. They have to be. They wouldn't be worth anything if they weren't. Medicine owes a great deal to quacks."
"Tell me something about some of your cases," said Mr. Prohack imperatively. "You're one of the most interesting men I've ever met. So now you know. We want some of your blood transfused, into the English character. You've got a soul above medicine as well as clothes."
"All good doctors have," said Dr. Veiga. "My life is a romance."
"And so shall mine be," said Mr. Prohack.