Smalley rose unusually early,
and did five minutes of dumb bells, breathing very deep before his
window, having started the cold water in the tub first. At the end of
that time he padded in his bare feet to the top of the stairs and called
in a huge, deep-breathing voice:

"Ten minutes."

These two cryptic words seeming to be perfectly understood below,
followed the sound of a body plunging into water, a prolonged "Wow!"
from the bathroom, and noisy hurried splashing. Dressing was a rapid
process, due to a method learned during college days, which consists
of wearing as little as possible, and arranging it at night so that two
thrusts (trousers and under-drawers), one enveloping gesture (shirt and
under-shirt), and a gymnastic effort of standing first on one leg and
then on the other (socks and shoes), made a fairly completed toilet.

While putting on his collar and tie the doctor stood again by the
window, and lustily called the garage across the narrow street.

"Jim!" he yelled. "Annabelle breakfasted yet?"

Annabelle was his shabby little car.

Annabelle had breakfasted, on gasoline, oil and water. The doctor
finished tying his tie, singing lustily, and went to the door. At the
door he stopped singing, put on a carefully professional air, restrained
an impulse to slide down the stair-rail, and descended with the
dignity of a man with a growing practice and a possible patient in the
waiting-room.

At half-past seven he was on his way to the hospital. He stopped at the
market and bought three dozen oranges out of a ten-dollar bill he had
won on the election, and almost bought a live rabbit because it looked
so dreary in its slatted box. He restrained himself, because his
housekeeper had a weakness for stewed rabbit, and turned into Cardew
Way. He passed the Doyle house slowly, inspecting it as he went, because
he had a patient there, and because he had felt that there was something
mysterious about the household, quite aside from the saturnine Doyle
himself. He knew all about Doyle, of course; all, that is, that there
was to know, but he was a newcomer to the city, and he did not know that
Doyle's wife was a Cardew. Sometimes he had felt that he was under
a sort of espionage all the time he was in the house. But that was
ridiculous, wasn't it? Because they could not know that he was on the
Vigilance Committee.

There was something curious about one of the windows. He slowed
Annabelle and gazed at it. That was