luntary smile of
satisfaction as he recognized the vintage. The head waiter had timed
the exact second to take that bottle out of the ice-pail, had wrapped
the wet napkin about it and almost reverently filled glasses.
Occasionally he came over and felt up inside the hollow on the bottom
of the bottle.

"Delighted," confessed the doctor, and sat down quite comfortably.

"You may smoke if you like, Doctor," offered Mrs. Wallingford,
smiling. "I don't seem to feel that a man is comfortable unless he is
smoking."

"To tell the truth, he isn't," agreed the doctor with a laugh, and
accepting a choice cigar from Wallingford he lit it.

The waiter came with an extra glass and filled for all three of them.

"By the way, Doctor," said Wallingford, watching the pouring of the
wine with a host's anxiety, "I think of going into the patent medicine
business on a large scale, and I believe I shall have to have you on
the board of directors."

"Couldn't think of it!" objected the doctor hastily. "You know,
professional ethics--" and he shrugged his shoulders.

"That's so," admitted Wallingford. "We can't have you on the board,
but we can have you for a silent stock-holder."

"Open to the same objection," declared the doctor, with another
dubious shrug, as he took up his glass.

He tasted the wine; he took another sip, then another--slow, careful
sips, so that no drop of it should hasten by his palate unappreciated.
Wallingford did not disturb him in that operation. He had a large
appreciation himself of the good things of this world, and the proper
way to do them homage.

The doctor took a larger sip, and allowed the delicate liquid to flow
gently over his tongue. Wallingford was really a splendid fellow!

"What sort of patent medicine are you going to manufacture?" asked the
doctor by way of courtesy, but still "listening" to the taste of the
wine.

Wallingford laughed.

"I haven't just decided as yet," he announced. "The medicine is only
an incident. What we're going to invest in is advertising."

"I see," replied the doctor, laughing in turn.

"Advertising is a great speculation," went on Wallingford, with a
reminiscent smile. "Take Hawkins' Bitters, for instance; nine per
cent. cheap whisky flavored with coffee and licorice, and the balance
pure water. Hawkins had closed a fifty-thousand-dollar advertising
contract before he was quite sure whether he was going to sell patent
medicine or shoe polish. The first th