ll right. I wouldn't bother
much about a respectable medical practitioner from the city. I'd get a
medical wreck who had a brilliant career before him once in England and
got into disgrace, and cleared out to the colonies--a man who knows what
the d.t.'s is--a man who's been through it all and knows it all."

"Then you'd want a manager, or a clerk or secretary," I suggested.

"I suppose I would," said Mitchell. "I've got no head for figures. I
suppose I'd have to advertise for him. If an applicant came with the
highest testimonials of character, and especially if one was signed by
a parson, I'd tell him to call again next week; and if a young man
could prove that he came of a good Christian family, and went to church
regularly, and sang in the choir, and taught Sunday-school, I'd tell him
that he needn't come again, that the vacancy was filled, for I
couldn't trust, him. The man who's been extra religious and honest and
hard-working in his young days is most likely to go wrong afterwards.
I'd sooner trust some poor old devil of a clerk who'd got into the hands
of a woman or racing men when he was young, and went wrong, and served
his time for embezzlement; anyway, I'd take him out and give him another
chance."

"And what about woman's influence?" I asked.

"Oh, I suppose there'd have to be a woman, if only to keep the doctor on
the line. I'd get a woman with a past, one that hadn't been any better
than she should have been, they're generally the most kind-hearted
in the end. Say an actress who'd come down in the world, or an old
opera-singer who'd lost her voice but could still sing a little. A woman
who knows what trouble is. And I'd get a girl to keep her company, a
sort of housemaid, with a couple of black gins or half-castes to help
her. I'd get hold of some poor girl who'd been deceived and deserted:
and a baby or two wouldn't be an objection--the kids would amuse the
chaps and help humanize the place."

"And what if the manageress fell in love with the doctor?" I asked.

"Well, I couldn't provide against love," said Mitchell. "I fell in love
myself more than once--and I don't suppose I'd have been any worse off
if I'd have stayed in love. Ah, well! But suppose she did fall in love
with the doctor and marry him, or suppose she fell in love with him and
didn't marry him, for that matter--and suppose the girl fell in love
with the secretary? There wouldn't be any harm done; it would only make
them more contente