"Then I went to Dr. Barlow, who said, after a long examination, 'I do not know what is the matter with your son nor what to prescribe for him.' Then I felt I had found a doctor whom I could trust."
So I went to Dr. Barlow, without an introduction. At the end of a rather long consultation and a definite opinion and a settled prescription, I asked what his fee was.
"Nothing."
I thought he had misunderstood my question, and repeated it.
"Nothing. I can take no money from a man who has done as much as you have to keep the peace between the two countries."
When I next saw the manager of The Times I told him of this incident, which he seemed to think interesting. He said:
"Such evidences of good feeling from a man so distinguished as Barlow and so far removed from politics do indeed make for good feeling on both sides. I hope you will tell all your own people."
It is difficult, for I cannot tell it without more or less directly paying a compliment to myself. But many years have since ebbed away. Modesty is at best but an inconvenient handmaiden, from whom I would part company if I could. Let her keep to her proper place. An obligation of honour is peremptory; and this, perhaps, is one. I did tell a certain number of friends at the time, and now I repeat the anecdote to a larger number. I set it against Mr. Price Collier's mischievous dictum that English and Americans do not like each other. The dictum already seems to belong to a distant and misty and mythical past.
Since that year of 1896 Dr. Barlow has become (in 1902) Sir Thomas Barlow, Bart., and Physician to the King's Household; about as high as anybody can go in the medical profession. A Lancashire lad to begin, with, he has had a vast hospital experience, and still keeps up his hospital work; he has a vast private practice; Harvard and two Canadian universities have given him their LL.D.; he is an F.R.S., a K.C.V.O., and other parts of the alphabet pay him tribute. All these and many other titles and distinctions have their value, though the late Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who had more than most men, did say: "They give me every kind of letter to my name except L.S.D." But the essential thing in Sir Thomas Barlow's case is that he has the confidence of the public and of his profession.
One thing, it seems to me, the great surgeons and physicians I have known had in common. They were great men, first of all. They had great qualities outside of their profession. Two years ago last September, a time when the big men are mostly away, I wanted a surgeon and knew not where to find one. A chemist finally gave me a name, Mr. Henry Morris, and an address; name wholly unknown to me, though the address, Cavendish Square, implied at least professional prosperity. I had had a fall at the Playhouse, as Mr. Maude calls his little theatre, the night before, leaving a box by what I supposed to be steps and in the absence of steps coming down on the floor, bruised, and I knew not what else. My surgeon made his examination. What struck me was that he wasted never a word nor a gesture. The touch of his hands, of his fingers, had a mathematical or instrumental precision. So had his questions. In five minutes or less he had covered the ground and delivered his opinion. Anything might have happened, but nothing had, bar the bruised muscles. "We'll attend to those for you." He asked if I was leaving town and when I said I was sailing for New York on Saturday he remarked: