the poor doctor if you cannot
afford a fee?"

She fumbled in her pocket, craning awkwardly to keep her grip upon the
baby.

"Here's sevenpence," she said at last, holding out a little pile of
copper coins. "I'll give you that and a wicker footstool."

"But my fee is half-a-crown." The doctor's views of the glory of his
profession cried out against this wretched haggling, and yet what was
he to do? "Where am I to get 'arf-a-crown? It is well for gentlefolk
like you who sit in your grand houses, and can eat and drink what you
like, an' charge 'arf-a-crown for just saying as much as, ''Ow d'ye
do?' We can't pick up' arf-crowns like that. What we gets we earns
'ard. This sevenpence is just all I've got. You told me to feed the
child light. She must feed light, for what she's to have is more than
I know."

Whilst the woman had been speaking, Dr. Horace Wilkinson's eyes had
wandered to the tiny heap of money upon the table, which represented
all that separated him from absolute starvation, and he chuckled to
himself at the grim joke that he should appear to this poor woman to be
a being living in the lap of luxury. Then he picked up the odd
coppers, leaving only the two half-crowns upon the table.

"Here you are," he said brusquely. "Never mind the fee, and take these
coppers. They may be of some use to you. Good-bye!" He bowed her
out, and closed the door behind her. After all she was the thin edge
of the wedge. These wandering people have great powers of
recommendation. All large practices have been built up from such
foundations. The hangers-on to the kitchen recommend to the kitchen,
they to the drawing-room, and so it spreads. At least he could say now
that he had had a patient.

He went into the back room and lit the spirit-kettle to boil the water
for his tea, laughing the while at the recollection of his recent
interview. If all patients were like this one it could easily be
reckoned how many it would take to ruin him completely. Putting aside
the dirt upon his carpet and the loss of time, there were twopence gone
upon the bandage, fourpence or more upon the medicine, to say nothing
of phial, cork, label, and paper. Then he had given her fivepence, so
that his first patient had absorbed altogether not less than one sixth
of his available capital. If five more were to come he would be a
broken man. He sat down upon the portmanteau and shook with laughter
at the thought, while he measure