Max took the envelope absently.
"You'll go on here to the end of your days, working for a pittance," he
objected. "Inside of ten years there'll be no general practitioners; then
where will you be?"
"I'll manage somehow," said his brother placidly. "I guess there will
always be a few that can pay my prices better than what you specialists
ask."
Max laughed with genuine amusement.
"I dare say, if this is the way you let them pay your prices."
He held out the envelope, and the older man colored.
Very proud of Dr. Max was his brother, unselfishly proud, of his skill, of
his handsome person, of his easy good manners; very humble, too, of his own
knowledge and experience. If he ever suspected any lack of finer fiber in
Max, he put the thought away. Probably he was too rigid himself. Max was
young, a hard worker. He had a right to play hard.
He prepared his black bag for the day's calls--stethoscope, thermometer,
eye-cup, bandages, case of small vials, a lump of absorbent cotton in a not
over-fresh towel; in the bottom, a heterogeneous collection of instruments,
a roll of adhesive plaster, a bottle or two of sugar-milk tablets for the
children, a dog collar that had belonged to a dead collie, and had put in
the bag in some curious fashion and there remained.
He prepared the bag a little nervously, while Max ate. He felt that modern
methods and the best usage might not have approved of the bag. On his way
out he paused at the dining-room door.
"Are you going to the hospital?"
"Operating at four--wish you could come in."
"I'm afraid not, Max. I've promised Sidney Page to speak about her to you.
She wants to enter the training-school."
"Too young," said Max briefly. "Why, she can't be over sixteen."
"She's eighteen."
"Well, even eighteen. Do you think any girl of that age is responsible
enough to have life and death put in her hands? Besides, although I haven't
noticed her lately, she used to be a pretty little thing. There is no use
filling up the wards with a lot of ornaments; it keeps the internes all
stewed up."
"Since when," asked Dr. Ed mildly, "have you found good looks in a girl a
handicap?"
In the end they compromised. Max would see Sidney at his office. It would
be better than having her run across the Street--would put things on the
right footing. For, if he did have her admitted, she would have to learn
at once that he was no longer "Dr. Max"; that, as a matter of fact, he was
now staff, and entitled to much dignity, to speech without contradiction or
argument, to clean towels, and a deferential interne at his elbow.