"All cases of employment are parallel," Lindsay replied with emphasis. "Every man is entitled to what he can get, from the roustabout on the wharf to our friend Porter, and no more."
"I have often thought," Sommers protested rather vaguely, "that clergymen and doctors should be employed by the state to do what they can; it isn't much!"
"There are the hospitals." Lindsay got up from his chair at the sound of an electric bell. "And our very best professional men practise there, give their time and money and strength. You will have to excuse me, as Mr. Carson has an appointment, and I have already kept him waiting. Will you see Mrs. Winter and young Long at eleven thirty and eleven forty-five?"
As Sommers was leaving, Lindsay called out over his shoulder, "And can you take the clinic, Saturday? I must go to St. Louis in consultation. General R. P. Atkinson, president of the Omaha and Gulf, an old friend—"
"Shall be delighted," the young doctor replied with a smile.
As he stepped into the corridor, one of the young women clerks was filling in an appointment slip on the long roll that hung on a metal cylinder. This was an improved device, something like a cash-register machine, that printed off the name opposite a certain hour that was permanently printed on the slip. The hours of the office day were divided into five-minute periods, but, as two assisting physicians were constantly in attendance beside Sommers, the allotted time for each patient was about fifteen minutes.
"Mrs. Winter is in No. 3," the clerk told him. "Long in No. 1, and Mr.
Harrison and a Miss Frost in the reception room."
So the machine ground on. Even the prescriptions were formularized to such an extent that most of them were stencilled and went by numbers. The clerk at the end of the corridor handed the patient a little card, on which was printed No. 3033, No. 3127, etc., as he circled by in the last turn of the office. There was an apothecary store on the floor below, where the patient could sit in an easy-chair and read the papers while the prescription called for by his number was being fetched by an elegant young woman.
Sommers hurried through with Mrs. Winter, who was a fussy, nervous little woman from the West Side; she resented having "a young feller" thrust on her.
"I knew Dr. Lindsay when he was filling prescriptions on Madison Street," she said spitefully.