his friends. He had a sense of responsibility to them, and very
little faith in the new modern methods. He thought there was a
great deal of tomfoolery about them, and he viewed the gradual loss
of faith in drugs with alarm. When Dick wore rubber gloves during
their first obstetric case together he snorted.

"I've delivered about half the population of this town," he said,
"and slapped 'em to make 'em breathe with my own bare hands. And
I'm still here and so are they."

For by that time Dick had made his decision. He could not abandon
David. For him then and hereafter the routine of a general practice
in a suburban town, the long hours, the varied responsibilities, the
feeling he had sometimes that by doing many things passably he was
doing none of them well. But for compensation he had old David's
content and greater leisure, and Lucy Crosby's gratitude and love.

Now and then he chafed a little when he read some article in a
medical journal by one of his fellow enthusiasts, or when, in France,
he saw men younger than himself obtaining an experience in their
several specialties that would enable them to reach wide fields at
home. But mostly he was content, or at least resigned. He was
building up the Livingstone practice, and his one anxiety was lest
the time should come when more patients asked for Doctor Dick than
for Doctor David. He did not want David hurt.

After ten years the strangeness of his situation had ceased to be
strange. Always he meant some time to go back to Norada, and there
to clear up certain things, but it was a long journey, and he had
very little time. And, as the years went on, the past seemed