ked a drawer, then came
back to Mr. Saffron's side. "Here it is, and I humbly apologize."

"Very good! very good!" said the old man testily, as he took the
implement.

"Ain't anybody going to apologize to me?" asked Hooper, scowling.

"Oh, get out, Sergeant!" said Beaumaroy good-naturedly. "We can't bother
about your finer feelings." He glanced anxiously at Mr. Saffron. "All
right now, aren't you, sir?" he inquired.

Mr. Saffron drank his glass of wine. "I am perhaps too sensitive to
any kind of inattention; but it's not wholly unnatural in my
position, Hector."

"We both desire to be attentive and respectful, sir. Don't we, Hooper?"

"Oh my, yes!" grinned the Sergeant, showing his very ugly teeth. "It's
only owing that we 'aven't quite been brought up in royal palaces."

CHAPTER IV

PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE

Dr. Irechester was a man of considerable attainments and an active,
though not very persevering, intellect. He was widely read both in
professional and general literature, but had shrunk from the arduous path
of specialization. And he shrank even more from the drudgery of his
calling. He had private means, inherited in middle life; his wife had a
respectable portion; there was, then, nothing in his circumstances to
thwart his tastes and tendencies. He had soon come to see in the late Dr.
Evans a means of relief rather than a threat of rivalry; even more easily
he slipped into the same way of regarding Mary Arkroyd, helped thereto by
a lingering feeling that, after all and in spite of all, when it came to
really serious cases, a woman could not, at best, play more than second
fiddle. So, as has been seen, he patronized and encouraged Mary; he told
himself that, when she had thoroughly proved her capacity--within the
limits which he ascribed to it--to take her into partnership would not be
a bad arrangement. True, he could pretty well choose his patients now;
but as senior partner he would be able to do it completely. It was
well-nigh inconceivable that, for example, the Naylors--great
friends--should ever leave him; but he would like to be quite secure of
the pick of new patients, some of whom might, through ignorance or whim,
call in Mary. There was old Saffron, for instance. He was, in
Irechester's private opinion, or, perhaps it should be said in his
private suspicions, an interesting case; yet, just for that reason,
unreliable, and evidently ready to take offense. It was because of cases
of that