a thoroughly insulted
one--is the finest advertisement in the world. If it is a woman,
she runs clacking about among her friends until your name becomes a
household word, and they all pretend to sympathise with her, and
agree among themselves that you must be a remarkably discerning man. I
quarrelled with one man about the state of his gall duct, and it ended
by my throwing him down the stairs. What was the result? He talked so
much about it that the whole village from which he came, sick and
well, trooped to see me. The little country practitioner who had been
buttering them up for a quarter of a century found that he might as well
put up his shutters. It's human nature, my boy, and you can't alter it.
Eh, what? You make yourself cheap and you become cheap. You put a high
price on yourself and they rate you at that price. Suppose I set up in
Harley Street to-morrow, and made it all nice and easy, with hours from
ten to three, do you think I should get a patient? I might starve first.
How would I work it? I should let it be known that I only saw patients
from midnight until two in the morning, and that bald-headed people
must pay double. That would set people talking, their curiosity would
be stimulated, and in four months the street would be blocked all night.
Eh, what? laddie, you'd go yourself. That's my principle here. I often
come in of a morning and send them all about their business, tell them
I'm going off to the country for a day. I turn away forty pounds, and
it's worth four hundred as an advertisement!"

"But I understood from the plate that the consultations were gratis."

"So they are, but they have to pay for the medicine. And if a patient
wishes to come out of turn he has to pay half-a-guinea for the
privilege. There are generally about twenty every day who would rather
pay that than wait several hours. But, mind you, Munro, don't you make
any mistake about this! All this would go for nothing if you had not
something, slid behind--I cure them. That's the point. I take cases that
others have despaired of, and I cure them right off. All the rest is
only to bring them here. But once here I keep them on my merits. It
would all be a flash in the pan but for that. Now, come along and see
Hetty's department."

We walked down the passage to the other room. It was elaborately fitted
up as a dispensary, and there with a chic little apron Mrs. Cullingworth
was busy making up pills. With her sleeves turned up and a