"Doctor Saniel."

"I have not sent for a doctor."

"It is not as doctor that I am here, but as client."

"This is not the hour when I receive clients."

"But you are at home."

"That is a fact!"

And Caffie, concluding to open the door, asked Saniel to enter, and then
closed it.

"Come into my office."

They were in a small room filled with papers that had only an old desk
and three chairs for furniture; it communicated with the office of the
business man, which was larger, but furnished with the same simplicity
and strewn with scraps of paper that had a mouldy smell.

"My clerk is ill just now," Caffie said, "and when I am alone I do not
like to open the door."

After giving this excuse he offered Saniel a chair, and, seating himself
before his desk, lighted by a lamp from which he had taken the shade, he
said: