"Another one of the independent kind," said Parkman, "is on Bilroth. He was summoned to appear at a certain hour before the Emperor of Austria. Bilroth was with a very sick patient until the eleventh hour and arrived a little late in business clothes. The scandalised chamberlain protested, telling him he could not go in like that. Whereupon Bilroth blustered out: 'I have no time to spare. Tell His Majesty if he wishes to see me, I am here. If he wants my dress suit, I will have a boy bring it around.'"
"Did he get in?" asked Mrs. McCormick, anxiously.
"I think he did, although undoubtedly Miss McCormick will be too modern to say so."
"There was a story I always liked about a Vienna doctor," he continued; he was anxious to guide the stories, for Karl had seemed suddenly to sink within himself. He understood why—he might have foreseen where this would lead. For there were other stories of medical men, stories which fitted a little too closely just now; he was especially sorry he had mentioned Bilroth. "This shows another side of the doctor," he went on, after a minute, "and as you are going to give good as well as bad, this may help out on the good side—there's where you will be short. A woman came to see this doctor regarding her consumptive son. He told her there was nothing he could do for him, adding: 'If you want him to live, you must take him to Italy.' The woman broke down and told him she could not do that, that she had no money. The doctor sat there thinking a moment, and then sent over to the bank and got her a letter of credit covering the amount involved. Another doctor, who happened to be near, asked why he did that. 'You can't possibly support all your needy patients,' he said; 'why did you choose this particular case? Of course,' he added, 'it was very good of you.' 'No,' said the doctor, 'it was not good of me. There was nothing good about it. But I was guilty of proposing to her something I knew she could not do. After opening up that possibility it was my obligation to see that she could fulfill it. I suggested what I knew to be the impossible; after I suggested it, it was my business to make it possible.' Don't you think that a pretty good sense of justice?" he asked of Ernestine.
"What might be called an inner squareness," said Georgia, as Ernestine responded only with the fine lights the story had brought to her eyes.
Karl did not seem to have heard the story. Ernestine looked toward him anxiously.
"Now I'm going to tell a story," she said, with a gaiety thrown out for rousing him, "a very fine story;—every one must listen." He looked over at her and smiled at that, listening for her story.
"This man's name can't be printed, because he lives in Chicago and it might embarrass him,"—Karl and Dr. Parkman exchanged glances with a smile. "This is a characteristic story, as it shows a doctor's tyranny. There was a boy taken ill at a little town near Chicago. The country doctor telephoned up to the boy's father, and the father telephoned the family physician who, from the meagre facts, scented appendicitis. I don't know how he knew it was bad, but I believe a good doctor is a pretty good guesser. At any rate he suspected this was serious, and told the father they would have to go down there at once. The father said there was no Sunday train. 'Then get a special,' said the doctor. 'We'll probably have to bring him up to the hospital to operate, and can't do it in the automobile.' The father protested against the special, saying it would be very expensive and that he did not think it necessary. The doctor said he did think it necessary or he would not have suggested it. The father demurred still more and the doctor rang off. Then you called up the railroad office, yourself—wasn't that it?" turning to Dr. Parkman, who grew red and looked genuinely embarrassed. "Oh dear,"—in mock dismay—"now I've mixed it up, haven't I? Well, this doctor—I'm not saying anything about who he is—called up the railroad office and calmly ordered the special. I must not forget to say that the man who did not want to spend the money had an abundance of money to spend. Then he called the boy's father and said, 'Be at the station in twenty minutes. The special will be waiting. You will have nothing to do but sign the check.'"
"Well," said Mrs. McCormick, when Ernestine stopped as though through, "would the father pay for it, and did the boy have to have an operation, and did he get well?"
"Mother doesn't like this new way of telling a story," said Georgia; "she likes to hear the got-married-and-lived-happily-ever-after part."