"You're joking, aren't you?"

"Yes. But it would make a darned good story."




V

When he finished medical college Dick Livingstone had found, like
other men, that the two paths of ambition and duty were parallel
and did not meet. Along one lay his desire to focus all his energy
in one direction, to follow disease into the laboratory instead of
the sick room, and there to fight its unsung battles. And win.
He felt that he would win.

Along the other lay David.

It was not until he had completed his course and had come home that
he had realized that David was growing old. Even then he might have
felt that, by the time David was compelled to relinquish his hold on
his practice, he himself would be sufficiently established in his
specialty to take over the support of the household. But here there
was interposed a new element, one he had not counted on. David
was fiercely jealous of his practice; the thought that it might
pass into new and alien hands was bitter to him. To hand it down
to his adopted son was one thing; to pass it over to "some young
whipper-snapper" was another.

Nor were David's motives selfish or unworthy. His patients were