ealth
to-morrow, and at no other. I can do nothing for you.'

"And sooner or later I blurt it out." He laughed his great roar. "Lord!
you should see the real face coming out of the simpering mask.

"Pompous old fools, strutting into me like turkey-cocks! By Jove, it was
worth it! They would dribble out, looking half their proper size after I
had done telling them what was the matter with them.

"'Do you want to know what you are really suffering from?' I would shout
at them, when I could contain myself no longer. 'Gluttony, my dear sir;
gluttony and drunkenness, and over-indulgence in other vices that shall
be nameless. Live like a man; get a little self-respect from somewhere;
give up being an ape. Treat your body properly and it will treat you
properly. That's the only prescription that will do you any good.'"

He laughed again. "'Tell the truth, you shame the Devil.' But the Devil
replies by starving you. It's a fairly effective retort. I am not the
stuff successful family physicians are made of. In the City I may manage
to rub along. One doesn't see so much of one's patients; they come and
go. Clerks and warehousemen my practice will be among chiefly. The poor
man does not so much mind being told the truth about himself; it is a
blessing to which he is accustomed."

We spoke but once of Barbara. A photograph of her in her bride's
dress stood upon my desk. Occasionally, first fitting the room for
the ceremony, sweeping away all impurity even from under the mats, and
dressing myself with care, I would centre it amid flowers, and kneeling,
kiss her hand where it rested on the back of the top-heavy looking chair
without which no photographic studio is complete.

One day he took it up, and looked at it long and hard.

"The forehead denotes intellectuality; the eyes tenderness and courage.
The lower part of the face, on the other hand, suggests a good deal
of animalism: the finely cut nostrils show egotism--another word for
selfishness; the nose itself, vanity; the lips, sensuousness and love
of luxury. I wonder what sort of woman she really is." He laid the
photograph back upon the desk.

"I did not know you were so firm a believer in Lavater," I said.

"Only when he agrees with what I know," he answered. "Have I not
described her rightly?"

"I do not care to discuss her in that vein," I replied, feeling the
blood mounting to my cheeks.

"Too sacred a subject?" he laughed. "It is the one ingredient of manhood