dential tone:

"There's another point. An idle man who really knows his business will
visit his tailor's, his hosier's, his bootmaker's, his barber's much
oftener and much more conscientiously than you do. You've got a mind
above clothes--of course. So have I. I take a wicked pleasure in being
picturesquely untidy. But I'm not a patient. My life is a great lark.
Yours isn't. Yours is serious. You have now a serious profession,
idleness. Bring your mind down to clothes. I say this, partly because to
be consistently well-dressed means much daily expenditure of time, and
partly because really good clothes have a distinctly curative effect on
the patient who wears them. Then again--"

Mr. Prohack was conscious of a sudden joyous uplifting of the spirit.

"Here!" said he, interrupting Dr. Veiga with a grand gesture. "Have a
cigar."

"I cannot, my friend." Dr. Veiga looked at his watch.

"You must. Have a corona." Mr. Prohack moved to the cigar cabinet which
he had recently purchased.

"No. My next patient is awaiting me in Hyde Park Gardens at this
moment."

"Let him die!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack ruthlessly. "You've got to have a
cigar with me. Look. I'll compromise. I'll make it a half-corona. You
can charge me as if for another consultation."

The doctor's foreign eyes twinkled as he sat down and struck a match.

"You thought I was a quack," he said maliciously, and maliciously he
seemed to intensify his foreign accent.

"I did," admitted Mr. Prohack with candour.

"So I am," said Dr. Veiga. "But I'm a fully qualified quack, and all
really good doctors are quacks. They have to be. They wouldn't be worth
anything if they weren't. Medicine owes a great deal to quacks."

"Tell me something about some of your cases," said Mr. Prohack
imperatively. "You're one of the most interesting men I've ever met. So
now you know. We want some of your blood transfused, into the English
character. You've got a soul above medicine as well as clothes."

"All good doctors have," said Dr. Veiga. "My life is a romance."

"And so shall mine be," said Mr. Prohack.

* * * * *

III

When at length Mr. Prohack escorted Dr. Veiga out into the hall he saw
Sissie kissing Eliza Brating with much affection on the front-door step.
They made an elegant group for a moment and then Eliza Brating departed
hurriedly, disappearing across the street behind Dr. Veiga's attendant
car.

"Now I'll just repeat once