ining for his profession a respect
nearly akin to enthusiasm. Indeed, according to his views, the faculty
possessed almost infallible qualities. In confidence he had more than
once admitted to me that certain of his colleagues practising in
Harley Street were amazing donkeys; but he would never have allowed
anyone else to say so. From the moment a man acquired that diploma
which gave him the right over life and death, that man became, in his
eyes, an august personage for the world at large. It was a crime, he
thought, for a patient not to submit to his decision, and certainly it
must be admitted that his success in the treatment of nervous
disorders had been most remarkable.

"You were at that lecture by Deboutin, of Paris, the other day!" he
exclaimed to me suddenly, while I was seated at his bedside describing
the work I had been doing for him in London. "Why didn't you tell me
you were going there?"

"I went quite unexpectedly--with a friend."

"With whom?"

"Ambler Jevons."

"Oh, that detective fellow!" laughed the old physician. "Well," he
added, "it was all very interesting, wasn't it?"

"Very--especially your own demonstrations. I had no idea that you were
in correspondence with Deboutin."

He laughed; then, with a knowing look, said:

"Ah, my dear fellow, nowadays it doesn't do to tell anyone of your own
researches. The only way is to spring it upon the profession as a
great triumph: just as Koch did his cure for tuberculosis. One must
create an impression, if only with a quack remedy. The day of the
steady plodder is past; it's all hustle, even in medicine."

"Well, you certainly did make an impression," I said, smiling. "Your
experiments were a revelation to the profession. They were talking of
them at the hospital only yesterday."

"H'm. They thought me an old fogey, eh? But, you see, I've been
keeping pace with the times, Boyd. A man to succeed nowadays must make
a boom with something, it matters not what. For years I've been
experimenting in secret, and some day I will show them further results
of my researches--and they will come upon the profession like a
thunderclap, staggering belief."

The old man chuckled to himself as he thought of his scientific
triumph, and how one day he would give forth to the world a truth
hitherto unsuspected.

We chatted for a long time, mostly upon technicalities which cannot
interest the reader, until suddenly he said:

"I'm getting old, Boyd. These constan