riously by romantic girls who believe that to marry a doctor
is to attain social status and distinction.

Heigho! When I think of all my own little love episodes, and of the
ingenious diplomacy to which I have been compelled to resort in order
to avoid tumbling into pitfalls set by certain designing Daughters of
Eve, I cannot but sympathise with every other medical man who is on
the right side of forty and sound of wind and limb. There is not a
doctor in all the long list in the medical register who could not
relate strange stories of his own love episodes--romances which have
sometimes narrowly escaped developing into tragedies, and plots
concocted by women to inveigle and to allure. It is so easy for a
woman to feign illness and call in the doctor to chat to her and amuse
her. Lots of women in London do that regularly. They will play with a
doctor's heart as a sort of pastime, while the unfortunate medico
often cannot afford to hold aloof for fear of offending. If he does,
then evil gossip will spread among his patients and his practice may
suffer considerably; for in no profession does a man rely so entirely
upon his good name and a reputation for care and integrity as in that
of medicine.

I do not wish it for a moment to be taken that I am antagonistic to
women, or that I would ever speak ill of them. I merely refer to the
mean method of some of the idling class, who deliberately call in the
doctor for the purpose of flirtation and then boast of it to their
intimates. To such, a man's heart or a man's future are of no
consequence. The doctor is easily visible, and is therefore the
easiest prey to all and sundry.

In my own practice I had had a good deal of experience of it. And I am
not alone. Every other medical man, if not a grey-headed fossil or a
wizened woman-hater, has had similar episodes; many strange--some even
startling.

Reader, in this narrative of curious events and remarkable happenings,
I am taking you entirely and completely into my confidence. I seek to
conceal nothing, nor to exaggerate in any particular, but to present
the truth as a plain matter-of-fact statement of what actually
occurred. I was a unit among a hundred thousand others engaged in the
practice of medicine, not more skilled than the majority, even though
Sir Bernard's influence and friendship had placed me in a position of
prominence. But in this brief life of ours it is woman who makes us
dance as puppets on our miniature stag