Red Pepper's Patients / With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular

his office where he had been seeing a late patient, and joined his wife, who was wandering about her garden in t

gh which gleamed her neck and arms, her hands full of pink and white snapdragon, she was worth consideration. He

t man on earth to do me the honour o

nonette, while he watched her, a smile on his lips. She looked up

o use a time-honoured phrase, wouldn't let me operate on a sick cat. And he's the man who is going to put his life

rse. Bu

man who has fought me by politely sneering at me, and circumventing me when he c

w wide. "Red! Not

en

an a compliment. But I should never have t

badly, too, before they will submit to it. Van Horn's in dreadful shape, and has been keeping it dark-until it's got the

e come to

took it like a soldier without wincing. But when he said he wanted me to do the trick you could have knocked me down with a lead pe

he injustice," Ellen said wi

is apparent toadying to the rich and influential. But there's another side to that and I see it now. Some people have to be coddled, and though it goes against my grain to do it, I don't know why a man who can be diplomatic and winni

ow his pulses were thrilling, as do those of the b

triumph of faith over jealousy, and I don't wonder you are pr

imes I think it must be the good Lord who works a man's brain for him at such crises, and makes it pretty nearly superhuman. It's hard to account any other way, sometimes, for the success of the quick decisions you make under necessity that would take a lot of time to work out

e city and he's going to keep it. And I'm going to spend the rest of this evening making a bit of a tool I've had in mind for some time-that there's a re

cceed, Red; you al

. You can't expect it to come to the rescue when you might have foreseen. 'Trust the Lor

customed to do much of the work which showed only in its final results. Through the rest of the hot August evening, his attire stripped to the lowest terms compa

on the sill outside of the lighted window, clad in summer vestments of white and looking as co

Jord King has just driven up and stopped for a minute. He's got Aleck with him and he's pleased as Punch b

ute, during which he tested a steel edge with a

hen he's got to have another man besi

"Expect anyt

long over. Ellen said you were here, and Win sent

ks-I

ther-or w

ot

hen you get in this hole of a workshop? A bull pup w

keep awa

t's a hint-a b

r two of something from a small vial inflammatorily labelled, and started an electric motor in a corner. Chester could see the shine of perspiratio

ent. "It's only eighty-four on our porch, and growing cooler every minute. The things we have

't mind having a pint or two of s

I lik

I, I

antly frothing home-made amber brew in which ice tinkled. With him came Jordan King. Chester shoved asid

his arm across his mouth and grinned through the wi

hen your hands are black, e

m a good deal alike at time

geon is an anomaly. I hear Aleck came out u

s like a boiling kettle full of st

, though, for a while. Don't let him stay

the way I've fixed it. You see t

lion on that back of yours yet. See? Or do I

-for you," observed Chester to King as the two

an audacious wink. "I thought I'd

s caught up a piece of steel and began narrowly to examine it. Over it he looked a

said with a sudden flas

n the afternoon," King return

Do yo

h a look of prid

told

mse

knew him well e

they're old friends. She s

ell, wish

l at its highest power,"

mile on the face which he lifted again for an instant from above the

d slowly away. There was a touch of unconscious jealousy in his tone. He had known R.P. Burns a long while b

t and see the rigging we've put on the car so Alec

I should say," Ch

coming task. In spite of all that Ellen knew of the past antagonism between the two men she was in possession of but comparatively few of the facts. E

on his list many of the city's best known and most prosperous citizens, he held them by virtue of a manner of address and a system of treatment differing in no wise from that which he employed upon the poorest and humbl

nd, as all who knew him could testify, when it came to that "last ditch" in which lay a human being fighting for his life, Burns's reputation

resence of the patient, that trouble usually began at once, veiled though it might be under the stringencies of professional etiquette. Later, when it came to matters of life and death, these men were sure to disagree radically. Van Horn, dignified of presence, polished of speech, was apt to impress the patient's family with his wisdom, his restraint, his modestly assured sense of the fitness of his own methods to the needs

s nearly always able to get away from such scenes without open outbreak. But more than once a situation had developed which could be handled only by the

ife called for Burns's honest and ungrudging admiration. With that same cool and unflurried bearing with which Van Horn was accustomed to hold his own in