Coming over to America, he made friends with some “natives,” and liked them—nice simple fellows, “they open their hearts to you, like a grab bag at a fair; everything in it is yours.”
“Medicine is a paying profession among Americans; they go about with boxes of pills in every pocket.”
“Doctor, my wife’s just been through an operation. She’s nervous, give her something to quiet her, will you?”
The doctor objected to sedatives when not absolutely necessary, but he found the frail American woman had her own chest of quieting drugs. She talked of her operation in professional terms, like a doctor. He wondered if she knew she could have no children. He wouldn’t tell her; it would break her heart, poor thing. He soon found out she did know, and didn’t break her heart about it.
With the help of his new friends, who went to unbelievable trouble and sacrifice of valuable time to show him “the ropes,” he was established in the spacious home in Thirty-fourth Street, which he eventually bought; it was the only permanent thing in his life. His simple Americans became complicated millionaires. The sands of humanity shifted from decade to decade. A great city in the making left him many a time bare of patients, but the winds of immigration blew them in again. The tidal wave of Europe’s overflow became a national industry—a weird wonderful gigantic machine; they put in a crazy combination of human beings, and it vomited—Americans.
The assistant put his head in the door.
“Mr. Garrison seems agitated. He would like you to come at once.”
The doctor threw down his napkin and jumped into his car; the Garrisons were one of the few old families left. He was very fond of young Garrison; he had brought him into the world; nothing like that baby had even been seen before; there was a controversy about the name; Mr. Garrison wanted James, according to tradition when it had ceased to be Jan, but she wouldn’t hear of anything so vulgar; she named the child Floyd, after the hero of Mrs. Holmes’ last novel.
“But,” said the doctor, “suppose he should develop into a strong individuality; that name would be too weak for him.”
“He won’t,” said Prudence. “He’ll be like all the men of the family, a perfect gentleman.”