and double-chinned in time."

The young doctor laughed his own big, hearty laugh, the laugh which
his devoted patients said did them more good than his medicine.

"I like that," he said, "a man with a forty-two waist measure, wearing
an eighteen inch collar, finding fault with a woman's double chin. You
are not such a raving beauty yourself."

The old man interrupted him:

"I do not need to be. I am a doctor, a prescriber of pills, a mender
of bones, a plumber of pipes ... my work does not call for beauty.
Beauty is an embarrassment to a doctor. You would be happier, young
fellow, without that wavy brown hair and those big eyes of yours, with
their long lashes. A man is built for work, like a truck. Gold and
leather upholstering do not belong there. Women are different; it is
their place in life to be beautiful, and when they fail in that, they
fail entirely. They have no license to be fat, flabby double-chinned,
flat-footed. It is not seemly, and of course you cannot tell how any
of them may turn out. They are all pretty at sixteen. That is what
makes marriage such a lottery."

"I don't agree with you at all," said his companion, "it is absurd to
expect a woman of fifty to have the slim grace of a girl of eighteen.
My mother was a big woman, and I always thought her very beautiful.
I think you have a pagan way of looking at marriage. Marriage is a
mutual agreement, for mutual benefit and comfort, for sympathy and
companionship. Family life develops the better side of human nature,
and casts out selfishness. Many a man has found himself when he gets a