It was a happy-looking little picture, but it brought a curious feeling of uneasiness to my mind.
"Ann Lisbeth," I called, loud enough to cause her to look up from the magazine she was reading, yet not so loud as to be heard by Alfred, who was in the next room making a blood count. "Do you suppose they let anybody as young as Alfred do this?" I held up the picture.
"Oh, my goodness," she laughed, looking not so much at the picture as at my horrified face. "Young! Why, he has two pairs of twins named for him, besides a little girl whose happy parents are so fond of him that they made him name her. Her name is Ann Morgan."
"The Ann is for you," I cried, my face flushing.
"Nay, for you," she insisted, still laughing so that Alfred heard her and came in to see what it was that was so funny.
"Some of Ann's nonsense," she explained, and I slapped the blotter into my purse before he turned and looked at me.
After that I naturally began to treat Alfred with a good deal more respect, which he never seemed to notice.
It was about this time that he began finding a "good class" of patients who were trusting enough or reckless enough to let him operate on them; patients who remembered his work at the hospital, or who were willing to take Doctor Gordon's word for it when he assured them that Morgan could do the job as well as he himself. Of course this last happened only when there was an emergency case that Doctor Gordon could not attend to, or an out-of-town call that promised to have so little compensation that the elder doctor felt that he would not be justified in leaving the city for it.
And then it was that perhaps some old six-cylinder surgeon who happened to see the operation would go away and remark that he always knew Morgan was going to make good, for, by George! the fellow handled the knife like a veteran!
These stories never failed to bring a thrill of satisfaction to my breast, for Alfred is my old chum, and I have already mentioned in here my reverence for power.