Peterson turned away towards the mantelpiece for another spill. He appeared to have a difficulty with his pipe.
"Well, I don't exactly know," he said at last, when the problem was solved; "it just came about somehow. You know how these things happen."
"They generally happen in our profession by the patient sending for the physician," I remarked, drily. "I hope you have not been poaching on anyone else's preserves, Peterson. Did Bulliston send for you?"
Peterson stooped for a coal to light his pipe. It had gone out again. Perhaps it was the exertion that reddened his handsome face.
"No," he said, slowly, "he did not send for me. I went of my own accord."
I started from my seat.
"Why, man," I cried, "you'll get me struck off the register, not to speak of yourself. You don't mean to say that you went to the house touting for custom?"
"Now don't get excited," he said, smoking calmly, "and I'll tell you all about it."
I became at once violently calm. Nevertheless, in spite of this, it took some time to get him under way.
"Well," he said at last, "Bulliston has got a daughter."