CHAPTER V.
Once in a while sympathy for a fellow mortal kept the doctor's wife an interested listener at the 'phone. Going, one morning, to speak to a friend about some little matter she heard her husband say:
“What is it, doctor?” A physician in a little town some ten or twelve miles distant, who had called Dr. Blank in consultation a few days before, was calling him.
“I think our patient is doing very well, but her heart keeps getting a little faster.”
“How fast is it now?”
“About 120.”
“But the disease is pretty well advanced now—that doesn't mean as much as it would earlier. But you might push a little on the brandy, or the strychnine—how much brandy have you given her since I saw her?”
“I have given her four ounces.”
“Four ounces!”
“Yes.”