"Their work is—er, staying—ill," said the Doctor. "Stop asking questions or I'll never get this story started."
"Wait a minute," said Gub-Gub. "My foot's gone to sleep."
"Oh, bother your feet!" cried Dab-Dab. "Let the Doctor get on with his story."
"Is it a good story?" asked Gub-Gub.
"Well," said the Doctor, "I'll tell it, and then you can decide for yourself. Stop fidgeting, now, and let me begin. It's getting late."
[CHAPTER II]
THE DOCTOR'S STORY
As soon as the Doctor had lit his pipe and got it well going he began:
"Many years ago, at the time I bought this thermometer, I was a very young doctor, full of hope, just starting out in business. I fancied myself a very good doctor, but I found that the rest of the world did not seem to think so. And for many months after I began I did not get a single patient. I had no one to try my new thermometer on. I tried it on myself quite often. But I was always so frightfully healthy I never had any temperature anyway. I tried to catch a cold. I didn't really want a cold, you understand, but I did want to make sure that my new thermometer worked. But I couldn't even catch a cold. I was very sad—healthy but sad.
"Well, about this time I met another young doctor who was in the same fix as myself—having no patients. Said he to me: 'I'll tell you what we'll do, let's start a sanitarium.'"