“Come in!” cried Philip, and in the same breath it flashed upon him that it could not be the breed, and that it must be a mighty particular and unusual personage to knock at all.
The door opened and a man came in. He was a little man, and was bundled in a great beaver overcoat and a huge beaver cap that concealed all of his face but his eyes, the tip of his nose, and the frozen end of a beard which stuck out between the laps of his turned-up collar like a horn. For all the world he looked like a diminutive drum-major, and Philip rose speechless, his pipe still in his mouth, as his strange visitor closed the door behind him and approached.
“Beg pardon,” said the stranger in a smothered voice, walking as though he were ice to the marrow and afraid of breaking himself. “It's so beastly cold that I have taken the liberty of dropping in to get warm.”
“It is cold—beastly cold,” replied Philip, emphasizing the word. “It was down to sixty last night. Take off your things.”
“Devil of a country—this,” shivered the man, unbuttoning his coat. “I'd rather roast of the fever than freeze to death.” Philip limped forward to assist him, and the stranger eyed him sharply for a moment.
“Limp not natural,” he said quickly, his voice freeing itself at last from the depths of his coat collar. “Bandage a little red, eyes feverish, lips too pale. Sick, or hurt?”
Philip laughed as the little man hopped to the stove and began rubbing his hands.
“Hurt,” he said. “If you weren't four hundred miles from nowhere I'd say that you were a doctor.”
“So I am,” said the other. “Edward Wallace Boffin, M.D., 900 North Wabash Avenue, Chicago.”