m. Everybody among my
patients knew that except for his colour he'd have been my regular
office assistant long ago. As it was, he knew more medicine than many
a lad with his gilt shingle up, and his English was perfect--he'd been
in school till he was eighteen and was a great reader. He'd come to me
as a coachman, but I soon saw his value and promoted him to the office,
where he took all the telephoning, received the patients, got out the
bills and kept all my accounts, personal and professional. He'd helped
me more than once in operations, and had a perfect genius for
administering anaesthetics. Nobody but our two selves knew what his
salary was, but I never grudged a penny of it. Why, the fellow read
French and German almost as well as I did, and tact--Lord, I wished
every day of my life I had George's tact and resource! My wife was
tremendously fond of him, and lent him all her books, and they used to
have great discussions on political economy and theosophy and prison
reform--oh, everything!

"He had lots of white blood, of course, and his wife you'd never guess
to be anything but pure American, she was so white. One of the
children, though, was black as my hat. The other had almost golden
hair and deep blue eyes--a beautiful little girl, brought up like a
duchess, too. They lived in a nice little house on the extreme edge of
the negro district, and we all understood that when the little girl was
fifteen or sixteen, she and her mother were going to move to Paris and
train her voice; then if everything went well, George and the boy would
join them and never come back--he was specialising in dentistry, mind
you, in his spare time. It's different, of course, abroad.

"I'm telling you all this, so you can see how I felt; I'd had George
nine years, and we'd always had darky servants, and--oh, well, to find
him with that yellow streak in him after all, nearly floored me. I
could have sworn he wasn't that sort of pup, and when he came in for
his orders I talked to him like a Dutch uncle.

"'You've got to stop this, George,' I said directly, 'I can't have any
such performances here. To tell you the truth, I never thought it of
you! The idea--a quiet little thing like Mynie! She's as timid as a
kitten and as innocent. Now I want your word of honour before you
leave this office and I want it quick!'

"He opened his mouth once or twice in a confused sort of way, looked at
me curiously, and then gave his wor