and patient vanished before the onslaught
of the physician himself.

"My word! Gardner Coolidge! Well, well--if this isn't the greatest thing
on earth. My dear fellow!"

The stranger, no longer a stranger, with his hand being wrung like
that, with his eyes being looked into by a pair of glowing hazel eyes
beneath a heavy thatch of well-remembered coppery hair, returned this
demonstration of affection with equal fervour.

"I've been sitting in your stuffy waiting room, Red, till the entire
population of this town should tell you its aches, just for the pleasure
of seeing you with the professional manner off."

Burns threw back his head and laughed, with a gesture as of flinging
something aside. "It's off then, Cooly--if I have one. I didn't know I
had. How are you? Man, but it's good to see you! Come along out of this
into a place that's not stuffy. Where's your bag? You didn't leave it
anywhere?"

"I can't stay, Red--really I can't. Not this time. I must go to-night.
And I came to consult you professionally--so let's get that over first."

"Of course. Just let me speak a word to the authorities. You'll at least
be here for dinner? Step into the next room, Cooly. On your way let me
present you to my assistant, Miss Mathewson, whom I couldn't do without.
Mr. Coolidge, Miss Mathewson."

Gardner Coolidge bowed to the office nurse, whom he had already
classified as a very attractively superior person and well worth a good
salary; then went on into the consulting room, where an open window had
freshened the small place beyond any possibility of its being called
stuffy. As he closed the window with a shiver and looked about him,
glancing into the white-tiled surgery beyond; he recognized the fact
that, though he might be in the workshop of a village practitioner, it
was a workshop which did not lack the tools of the workman thoroughly
abreast of the times.

Burns came back, his face bright with pleasure in the unexpected
appearance of his friend. He stood looking across the small room at
Coolidge, as if he could get a better view of the whole man at a little
distance. The two men were a decided contrast to each other. Redfield
Pepper Burns, known to all his intimates, and to many more who would not
have ventured to call him by that title, as "Red Pepper Burns," on
account of the combination of red head, quick temper, and wit which were
his most distinguishing characteristics of body and mind, was a stalwart
fellow wh