“Will you undertake the treatment of my case, Doctor Volney?” I asked.
“Old friend,” said he, “I’ll do everything in my power, and will have done everything that science can do to cure you.”
“Very well,” said I. “Then you will consider that I am your patient. Everything is in confidence now—professional confidence.”
“Of course,” said Doctor Volney.
I got up from the couch. Some one had set a vase of white roses on the centre table—a cluster of white roses, freshly sprinkled and fragrant. I threw them far out of the window, and then I laid myself upon the couch again.
“It will be best, Bobby,” I said, “to have this cure happen suddenly. I’m rather tired of it all, anyway. You may go now and bring Marian in. But, oh, Doc,” I said, with a sigh, as I kicked him on the shin—“good old Doc—it was glorious!”
XIII
A MUNICIPAL REPORT
The cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each—
This from her mountainside,
That from her burthened beach.
R. KIPLING.
Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are “story cities”—New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco.—FRANK NORRIS.