at his shabby gray coat was as unmistakably foreign in cut as Dr.
Max's, had the neighborhood so much as known him by sight. But K., so
far, had remained in humble obscurity, and, outside of Mrs. McKee's, was
known only as the Pages' roomer.

Mr. Rosenfeld buttoned up the blue flannel shirt which, with a pair of
Dr. Ed's cast-off trousers, was his only wear; and fished in his pocket.

"How much, Doc?"

"Two dollars," said Dr. Ed briskly.

"Holy cats! For one jab of a knife! My old woman works a day and a half
for two dollars."

"I guess it's worth two dollars to you to be able to sleep on your
back." He was imperturbably straightening his small glass table. He knew
Rosenfeld. "If you don't like my price, I'll lend you the knife the next
time, and you can let your wife attend to you."

Rosenfeld drew out a silver dollar, and followed it reluctantly with a
limp and dejected dollar bill.

"There are times," he said, "when, if you'd put me and the missus and a
knife in the same room, you wouldn't have much left but the knife."

Dr. Ed waited until he had made his stiff-necked exit. Then he took the
two dollars, and, putting the money into an envelope, indorsed it in his
illegible hand. He heard his brother's step on the stairs, and Dr. Ed
made haste to put away the last vestiges of his little operation.

Ed's lapses from surgical cleanliness were a sore trial to the younger
man, fresh from the clinics of Europe. In his downtown office, to which
he would presently make his leisurely progress, he wore a white coat,
and sterilized things of which Dr. Ed did not even know the names.

So, as he came down the stairs, Dr. Ed, who had wiped his tiny
knife with a bit of cotton,--he hated sterilizing it; it spoiled the
edge,--thrust it hastily into his pocket. He had cut boils without
boiling anything for a good many years, and no trouble. But he was wise
with the wisdom of the serpent and the general practitioner, and there
was no use raising a discussion.

Max's morning mood was always a cheerful one. Now and then the way of
the transgressor is disgustingly pleasant. Max, who sat up until all
hours of the night, drinking beer or whiskey-and-soda, and playing
bridge, wakened to a clean tongue and a tendency to have a cigarette
between shoes, so to speak. Ed, whose wildest dissipation had perhaps
been to bring into the world one of the neighborhood's babies, wakened
customarily to the dark hour of his day, when he dubbed