"You're a New Yorker, and yet you stay down here all the year round," Elizabeth said. "I don't see how you can, if you really liked New York."
"I liked New York," he said, "but you can't be a country doctor on Broadway. I'd rather take care of these people than those."
"Oh, why?"
"They need it more," he said, simply. "In a big city you don't get the same chance to find out what people do need. It isn't always sick bodies a doctor is called in to look out for, you know. A doctor down here has to be a kind of a lawyer and a justice of the peace and a plumber, into the bargain. In New York he doesn't get that kind of an opportunity."
"That seems a funny kind of thing to call an opportunity, I think."
"It is one, though," the doctor said. "Where is these children's father?"
"He's on a coal barge. He only gets home once in a while."
"He must make pretty good money."
"He does, only she—" Elizabeth, who had walked to the door with him, and was standing just outside it as they talked, indicated the woman in the room beyond—"spends it on candy and novels and things, and then he gets discouraged, and doesn't send it to her, or drinks."
"Well, call me again if you need me. No, I won't send you the bill. There isn't any bill. I'm paid already."