s and sat up.

"Feeling better?" said the doctor, with the pail still in his hand;
"have another dose?"

Susan began to gather herself together with the evident intention of
expressing her feelings; but before she could find the first word, he
had pushed the three of us outside and slammed the door behind us.

From the top of the stairs we could hear Susan's thick, rancorous voice
raging fiercer and fiercer, drowned every now and then by the man's
savage roar of laughter. And, when for want of breath she would flag for
a moment, he would yell out encouragement to her, shouting: "Bravo!
Go it, my beauty, give it tongue! Bark, bark! I love to hear you,"
applauding her, clapping his hands and stamping his feet.

"What a beast of a man," said my mother.

"He is really a most interesting man when you come to know him,"
explained my father.

Replied my mother, stiffly: "I don't ever mean to know him." But it is
only concerning the past that we possess knowledge.

The riot from below ceased at length, and was followed by a new voice,
speaking quietly and emphatically, and then we heard the doctor's step
again upon the stairs.

My mother held her purse open in her hand, and as the man entered the
room she went forward to meet him.

"How much do we owe you, Doctor?" said my mother. She spoke in a voice
trembling with severity.

He closed the purse and gently pushed it back towards her.

"A glass of beer and a chop, Mrs. Kelver," he answered, "which I am
coming back in an hour to cook for myself. And as you will be without
any servant," he continued, while my mother stood staring at him
incapable of utterance, "you had better let me cook some for you at the
same time. I am an expert at grilling chops."

"But, really, Doctor--" my mother began. He laid his huge hand upon her
shoulder, and my mother sat down upon the nearest chair.

"My dear lady," he said, "she's a person you never ought to have had
inside your house. She's promised me to be gone in half an hour, and
I'm coming back to see she keeps her word. Give her a month's wages, and
have a clear fire ready for me." And before my mother could reply, he
had slammed the front door.

"What a very odd sort of a man," said my mother, recovering herself.

"He's a character," said my father; "you might not think it, but he's
worshipped about here."

"I hardly know what to make of him," said my mother; "I suppose I had
better go out and get some chops;" which she