ton Corned Beef;
how 'r' you, Pilky? Old Mrs. Cabbage feelin' well, too? Well, well,
still discussing the movies, Herby? Got any new opinions about Mary
Pickford? Well, well. Say, I met another guy that's as nutty as you,
Herby; he thinks that Wilhelm Jenkins Bryan is a great statesman. Let's
hear some more about the Sage of Free Silver, Herby."

The little man was never content till he had drawn them into so bitter
an argument that some one would rise, throw down a napkin, growl, "Well,
if that's all you know about it--if you're all as ignorant as that, you
simply ain't worth arguing with," and stalk out. When general topics
failed, the disturber would catechize the library-woman about Louisa M.
Alcott, or the failure about his desultory inquiries into Christian
Science, or Mrs. Gray about the pictures plastering the dining-room--a
dozen spiritual revelations of apples and oranges, which she had bought
at a department-store sale.

The maverick's name was Fillmore J. Benson. Strangers called him Benny,
but his more intimate acquaintances, those to whom he had talked for at
least an hour, were requested to call him Phil. He made a number of
pretty puns about his first name. He was, surprisingly, a doctor--not
the sort that studies science, but the sort that studies the gullibility
of human nature--a "Doctor of Manipulative Osteology." He had earned a
diploma by a correspondence course, and had scrabbled together a small
practice among retired shopkeepers. He was one of the strange, impudent
race of fakers who prey upon the clever city. He didn't expect any one
at the Grays' to call him a "doctor."

He drank whisky and gambled for pennies, was immoral in his relations
with women and as thick-skinned as he was blatant. He had been a
newsboy, a contractor's clerk, and climbed up by the application of his
wits. He read enormously--newspapers, cheap magazines, medical books; he
had an opinion about everything, and usually worsted every one at the
Grays' in arguments. And he did his patients good by giving them
sympathy and massage. He would have been an excellent citizen had the
city not preferred to train him, as a child in its reeling streets, to a
sharp unscrupulousness.

Una was at first disgusted by Phil Benson, then perplexed. He would
address her in stately Shakespearean phrases which, as a boy, he had
heard from the gallery of the Academy of Music. He would quote poetry at
her. She was impressed when he almost sil