"I am," he went on, "at heart of your profession. I have attended all the classes and earned the encomiums of my professors in the hospitals. I stood fairly well in the earlier written examinations, but at my first oral I broke down completely—a kind of aphasia came over me. My brain reeled, a dreadful shuddering took hold of my soul, and I fell into a dead faint. For months they feared for my reason, and though ultimately I recovered and completed my course of study, I was never able to sit down at an examination-table again. After my father's death my mother settled here, and gradually it has come about that in any emergency I have been asked to visit and prescribe for a patient. I believe the poor people call me 'doctor' among themselves, but I have never either countenanced the title, or on any occasion failed to rebuke the user. Neither have I ever accepted fee or reward, whether for advice or medicine!"
I held out my hand.
"I care not a brass farthing about professional etiquette," said I; "it is my opinion that you are doing a noble work. And I know of one case, at least, where your diagnosis was better than mine!"
More I could not say. He flushed redly and took my hand, shaking it warmly. Then all at once he dropped the somewhat strained elevation of manner in which he had told his story, and began to speak with the innocent confidence and unreserve of a child. He was obviously much pleased at my inferred compliment.
"Ah!" he said, "I know what you mean. But then, you see, you did not know James MacLandsborough's life history. He was my father's gardener. I knew his record and the record of his father before him. It was nothing but an old complaint, for which I had treated him over and over again—working, that is, on the basis of a recent chill. In your place and with your data I should have done what you did. In fact, I admired your treatment greatly."
We talked a long while, so long, indeed, that I forgot all about Dr. Campbell, and it was dusk before I found myself at Mr. Roger's door saying "Good-night."
"If I might venture to say so," he stammered, holding my hand a moment in his quick nervous grasp, "I would advise you not to mention your visit here to your friend, Dr. Campbell."
"I am afraid I must," I replied; "I had an appointment with him which I have unfortunately forgotten in the interest of our talk!"
"Then I much fear that it is not 'Good-night' but 'Good-bye' between us!" he murmured sadly, and went within.
And even as he had prophesied so it was.