"You never can tell, Horton," he began, holding out a bill; "you can never tell—there's nothing like trying. Here's a five I collected for you, and it was given gladly enough. It's not very much but——"
"You go to the devil," broke in the specialist, trying to look angry; "you think you're infernal smart, don't you?—but you haven't got all the brains in the world."
"You surprise me, Dr. Horton," the other began vigorously, commanding a splendid appearance of injured amazement. "You don't mean to insinuate that I put part of the fee in my pocket, do you?" he demanded, striking a martial attitude, and inwardly very proud of the way he had changed the scent.
"Put that rag back in your left-hand vest pocket where you got it," growled the senior physician as he picked up his hat. "You may work your smart-Alec tricks with the poor natives round here—but you can't come it on me. Take Simmons along and find him some place to lay his head," he added, opening the door and leading the way outward to the street.
The three walked together for perhaps four or five squares, the two physicians still engaged in the genial hostilities that Dr. Wallis's financial genius had provoked. Suddenly the latter came to a standstill at the junction of two streets, his eyes roving along a richly shaded avenue to his left.
"I guess you'd better go along home, Horton," he said—"you'll want to post your ledger anyhow, after a profitable day like this. And I think I'll just take your friend here and go on the still hunt for a little. Don't look much like a boarding-house street, does it?" he added, as he marked the look of surprise on his contemporary's face. "But you never can tell—anyhow, I've got a place along here in my mind's eye, and we may just as well find out now as any other time."
"Wish you luck," the older man flung after them as he went his way; "if you get lodgings at any of those houses you'll have to sleep with the butler."
"It does look a little unlikely, I'll admit," Dr. Wallis said to Harvey as they started down the avenue; "but the whole case is quite unusual. This is a woman of over fifty I'm going to see—nobody knows exactly—and she's almost the only rich patient I've got. She lives a strange, half hermit kind of life—goes out almost none—and mighty few people ever get in. Except her clergyman, of course—she insists on seeing her minister constantly; I think he's just a curate, and I've always had the feeling that he'd consider death great gain—if it came to her. But for a while back she's been talking to me as if she wouldn't mind some one in the house, if they were congenial. It seems one or two attempts have been made to break in at nights—and the butler sleeps like a graven image. Just the other day I suggested she might take in a nurse, a young lady I know, who wants to get a quiet home—but I nearly had to run for shelter; she gave her whole sex the finest decorating I've heard for years. No women for her, thank you."
"Is she a little odd?" Harvey ventured to enquire.
The doctor looked him in the eyes and laughed. "Well, rather! Odd, I should say she is. But she's just as genuine as she can be. And if you get in there you'll be as comfortable as you'd be in Windsor Castle—quiet and secluded as a monastery, the very place for a student. She's been gathering beautiful things for years, all sorts of curios and rarities—and she's passionately fond of animals, keeps a regular menagerie. And she's great on keeping well; pretends to despise all doctors, and has a few formulas for every occasion. Deep breathing is her specialty—she's a regular fiend on deep breathing. But you'll see for yourself," the doctor concluded, as they turned in at an open gate and began to mount the stone steps that led to a rather imposing-looking door.