“Good idea,” said Mr. Clyde quietly. “Will you try the position with my family?”
The other stared in silence at his questioner.
“Just consider my situation for a moment. As you know, I’m a layman, interested in, but rather ignorant of, medical subjects. As wealth goes in a city of one hundred and fifty thousand population, I’m a rich man. At any rate, I can afford a considerable outlay to guard against sickness. In the last five years I suppose disease has cost my household ten thousand dollars in money, and has cost me, in worry and consequent incapacity for work, ten times that amount. Even at a large salary you would doubtless prove an economy. Come, what do you say?”
“You know absolutely nothing of me,” suggested the other.
“I know that you are a man of quick and correct judgment, for I saw you in action.” The other smiled. “You are, for reasons which are your own, not very expansive, as to your past professional career. I’m content with that attitude of yours, and I’m quite satisfied to base my offer on what I have been able to judge from your manner and talk. Without boasting, I may say that I have built up a great manufacturing plant largely on my judgment of men. I think I need you in my business of raising a family.”
“How much of a family?”
“Five children, their mother and their grandmother. I may warn you at once that you’ll have a jealous rival in Grandma. She’s the household guardian, and pretty ‘sot’ in her ideas. But the principal thing is for you to judge me as I’ve judged you, and determine whether we could work out the plan together.”
Dr. Strong set his chin in one thin, cupped hand and gazed consideringly upon the profferer of this strange suggestion. He saw a strong-built, clear-skinned man, whose physical aspect did not suggest the forty-five years to which he had owned. Mr. Clyde recommended himself at first sight by a smooth-voiced ease of manner, and that unostentatious but careful fitness of apparel which is, despite wise apothegms to the contrary, so often an index of character. Under the easy charm of address, there was unobtrusively evident a quick intelligence, a stalwart self-respect, and a powerful will.
Yet, the doctor noted, this man had been both ready and fair in yielding his judgment, under the suggestion of a new point of view. Evidently he could take orders as well as give them.
“Well,” said Mr. Clyde, “have you appraised me?”