"You're a physician. Won't you examine me?"
"That's Doctor Wilhelm's business," Frederick answered brusquely.
"Well," she said, "if I am in pain and you as a physician can stop the pain, but don't want to, your friendship cannot amount to much."
Frederick did not turn a deaf ear to this correct reasoning. He had long before realised that her delicate constitution was with difficulty holding the balance between debit and credit. Each instant it was in danger of losing its balance.
"If I were your physician," he said, "I should send you to live for three years with a German country pastor, or an American farmer. I should not let you see anybody but the old pastor or the old farmer and his wife and their daughters. I should not let you go to see a play, let alone appear on the stage yourself. It is those cursed variety shows that have sent you to the dogs, physically and morally."
"I am a ruffian," he thought, "and there's medicine for her."
"Do you want to become a farmer?"
"Why?"
"Because you are already a pastor," she laughed.
The conversation was interrupted by the screeching of a cockatoo on a stand in the back of the cabin. Until then Frederick had not noticed it.