“I should like to have you under my eye for a day or two,” he said.
“Yes—yes, of course. Well, couldn't you motor over and see me occasionally? It is not so very far, is it?... As to the additional expense, of course I should expect to reimburse you for that.”
Still the physician looked doubtful.
“It isn't the expense, exactly, Mr. Bangs,” he said.
“I promise you I will not attempt to travel until you give your permission. I realize that I am still—ah—a trifle weak—weak in the knees,” he added, with his slight smile. “I know you must consider me to have been weak in the head to begin with, otherwise I shouldn't have gotten into this scrape.”
The doctor laughed, but he still looked doubtful.
“The fact is, Mr. Bangs,” he began—and stopped. “The fact is—the fact—”
Martha Phipps finished the sentence for him.
“The fact is,” she said, briskly, “that Doctor Powers knows, just as I or any other sane person in Ostable County knows, that Elmer Rogers' hotel at the Centre isn't fit to furnish board and lodgin' for a healthy pig, to say nothin' of a half sick man. You think he hadn't ought to go there, don't you, doctor?”
“Well, Martha, to be honest with you—yes. Although I shouldn't want Elmer to know I said it.”