"I want an opinion," said Burns, one night at dinner, "that shall
coincide with mine. Where do you suppose I'm going to find it?"

He had been more or less abstracted during the entire dinner. He now
offered, in a matter-of-fact tone, this explanation of his abstraction
much as he might have observed that he would like a partridge, if it had
happened to be in season.

"What's a ''pinion,' Uncle Red?" inquired his small ward, Bob. Bob's
six-year-old brain seemed to be always at work in the attempt to solve
problems.

"It's what somebody else thinks about a thing when it agrees with what
you think. When it doesn't agree it's a prejudice," replied Burns. He
forestalled further questioning from Bob by refilling his plate with the
things the boy liked best, and by continuing, himself:

"Grayson's idea about a certain case of mine is prejudice--pure
prejudice. Van Horn's is bluster. Field's is non-committal. Buller would
like to back me up--good old Buller--but is honestly convinced that I'm
making an awful mess of it. I want an opinion--a distinguished opinion."

"Why don't you send for it?" his wife asked.

Burns frowned. "That's the trouble. The more distinguished the opinion
I get the more my patient will have to pay for it, and he can't afford
to pay a tin dollar. At the same time--By George! There's Leaver! I
heard the other day that Leaver was at a sanitorium not a hundred miles
away,--there for a rest. I'll wager he's there with a patient for a few