"I haven't even an office, so why should I feel that I am entitled to a patient?" he said. "You see, I've just got my licence to practice. As things go, I shouldn't have a client for at least two years. Are you looking for a doctor?"
"I saw by the papers this morning that the grandson of Mr. Templeton Thorpe was a regular doctor. One of my friends over there pointed you out to me. What is your fee for an appendicitis operation, Dr. Thorpe?"
"Good—ahem! I beg your pardon. You really startled me. I—"
"Oh, that's all right. I quite understand. Hard to grasp at first, isn't it? Well, I've got to have my appendix out sooner or later. It's been bothering me for a year, off and on. Everybody tells me I ought to have it out sometime when it isn't bothering me and—"
"But, my dear young lady, I'm not the man you want. You ought to go to some—"
"You'll do just as well as any one, I'm sure. It's no trick to take out an appendix in these days. The fewer a doctor has snipped off, the less he charges, don't you know. So why shouldn't I, being quite poor, take advantage of your ignorance? The most intelligent surgeon in New York couldn't do any more than to snip it off, now could he? And he wouldn't be one-tenth as ignorant as you are about prices."
She was so gay and naïve about it that he curbed his amazement, and, to some extent, his embarrassment.
"I suppose that it is also ignorance on my part that supplies me with office hours in a public restaurant from one to three o'clock," he said, with a very unprofessional grin.
"What hospital do you work in?" she demanded, in a business-like tone.
Humouring her, he mentioned one of the big hospitals in which he had served as an interne.