"Is that your last word?" I asked, trying to subdue the eagerness of my
voice.

"If you don't really care to go...."

I rose and sought my hat and overcoat, while Dora wandered about my
unpretentious office.

"Your landlady could take lessons from Paddy's pig in cleanliness," she
declared, running a finger over my bookcase and contemplating it with
horror. "I wonder that you, a surgeon, should be an accomplice to such a
mess."

"It's pretty bad," I admitted, "but the poor thing has weak eyes, and she
has seen better days."

"She deserves the bad ones, then," Dora exclaimed.

"As in the case of many other maladies, we have as yet been unable to
discover the microbe of woman's inhumanity to woman," I observed.

"When doggies meet they commonly growl," said Dora, "and when pussies
meet they usually spit and scratch. Each according to his or her nature.
And it seems to me that you could afford a new overcoat. That one is
positively becoming green."

"I do believe I have another one, somewhere," I admitted.

"Then go and find it," she commanded. "You need some one to look after
you."