vagrants, with a baby, were waiting outside. He had
learned by experience that it was better not even to
parley with such people.

"I have nothing for you," said he, loosing the
latch by an inch. "Go away!"

He closed the door, but the bell clanged once
more. "Get away! Get away!" he cried impatiently,
and walked back into his consulting-room. He had
hardly seated himself when the bell went for the
third time. In a towering passion he rushed back,
flung open the door.

"What the----?"

"If you please, sir, we need a doctor."

In an instant he was rubbing his hands again with
his blandest professional smile. These were
patients, then, whom he had tried to hunt from
his doorstep--the very first patients, whom he
had waited for so impatiently. They did not look
very promising. The man, a tall, lank-haired gypsy,
had gone back to the horse's head. There remained a
small, hard-faced woman with a great bruise all round
her eye. She wore a yellow silk handkerchief round
her head, and a baby, tucked in a red shawl, was
pressed to her bosom.