forehead. He could not credit the words. "No doubt
whatever? In what sense?"

"In the bad sense," said the other.

He began to write a prescription, without seeming to notice how George
turned page with terror. "Come," he said, after a silence, "you must
have known the truth pretty well."

"No, no, sir!" exclaimed George.

"Well," said the other, "you have syphilis."

George was utterly stunned. "My God!" he exclaimed.

The doctor, having finished his prescription, looked up and observed his
condition. "Don't trouble yourself, sir. Out of every seven men you meet
upon the street, in society, or at the theater, there is at least one
who has been in your condition. One out of seven--fifteen per cent!"

George was staring before him. He spoke low, as if to himself. "I know
what I am going to do."

"And I know also," said the doctor, with a smile. "There is your
prescription. You are going to take it to the drugstore and have it put
up."

George took the prescription, mechanically, but whispered, "No, sir."

"Yes, sir, you are going to do as everybody else does."

"No, because my situation is not that of everybody else. I know what I
am going to do."

Said the doctor: "Five times out of ten, in the chair where you are
sitting, people talk like that, perfectly sincerely. Each one believes
himself more unhappy than all the others; but after thinking it over,
and listening to me, they understand that this disease is a companion
with whom one can live. Just as in every household, one gets along at
the cost of mutual concessions, that's all. Come, sir, I tell you again,
there is nothing about it that is not perfectly ordinary, perfectly
natural, perfectly common; it is an accident which can happen to any
one. It is a great mistake that people speak if this as the 'French
Disease,' for there is none which is more universal. Under the picture
of this disease, addressing myself to those who follow the oldest
profession in the world, I would write the famous phrase: 'Here is your
master. It is, it was, or it must be.'"

George was putting the prescription into the outside pocket of his
coat, stupidly, as if he did not know what he was doing. "But, sir," he
exclaimed, "I should have been spared!"

"Why?" inquired the other. "Because you are a man of position, because
you are rich? Look around you, sir. See these works of art in my
room. Do you imagine that such things have been presented to me by
chimney-sweeps?"