"It isn't the expense, exactly, Mr. Bangs," he said.

"I promise you I will not attempt to travel until you give your
permission. I realize that I am still--ah--a trifle weak--weak in the
knees," he added, with his slight smile. "I know you must consider me
to have been weak in the head to begin with, otherwise I shouldn't have
gotten into this scrape."

The doctor laughed, but he still looked doubtful.

"The fact is, Mr. Bangs," he began--and stopped. "The fact is--the
fact--"

Martha Phipps finished the sentence for him.

"The fact is," she said, briskly, "that Doctor Powers knows, just as
I or any other sane person in Ostable County knows, that Elmer Rogers'
hotel at the Centre isn't fit to furnish board and lodgin' for a healthy
pig, to say nothin' of a half sick man. You think he hadn't ought to go
there, don't you, doctor?"

"Well, Martha, to be honest with you--yes. Although I shouldn't want
Elmer to know I said it."

"Well, you needn't worry; he shan't know as far as I am concerned. Now
of course there's just one sensible thing for Mr. Bangs here to do, and
you know what that is, doctor, as well as I do. Now don't you?"

Powers smiled. "Perhaps," he admitted, "but I'd rather you said it,