"I am going to turn on the hose."

"Wha-a-t?"

"I am going to put this tube down into your stomach. You haven't thrown up much of that laudanum yet."

She opened her mouth to speak and the doctor inserted one end of the tube and began ramming it down. "Unfasten a b.u.t.ton or two here," he said to her husband and rammed some more. She gagged and gurgled and tried to push his hands away.

"Hold on, we're not down yet--we're only about to the third b.u.t.ton." He began ramming the tube again when she looked up at her husband so imploringly that he said, "Hold on a minute, Doctor, she wants to say something." The doctor withdrew the tube and waited.

"I'm sure I threw it all up."

"Oh no," he said beginning to lift it again.

"I--only--took--two--or three drops."

"Why the devil didn't you say so at the start?"

"I wish I had. I just told _Jim_ that."

"To get even with him for something," announced the doctor quietly.

"How can he know so much," mused Jim's wife.

"Now I advise you not to try this game again," said the doctor as he wound up the stomach tube and put it into his pocket. "You can't fool Jim all the time, and you can't fool me any of the time. Good night."

And he rode home and found Mary asleep in her chair.

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.

"Is this you, Dr. Blank?"

"Yes."

"I wanted to ask you about an electric vibrator."

"About what?"

"An electric vibrator."

"An electric something--I didn't get the last word."

A little laugh, then "v-i-b-r-a-t-o-r."

"Oh! vibrator."

"Yes. Do you think it would help my aunt?"

"Not a durned bit."

Another little laugh, "You don't think it would?"

"No!"

"I had a letter today from my cousin and she said she knew a lady who had had a stroke and this vibrator helped her more than anything."

"It didn't. She imagined it."

"Well, I didn't know anything about it and I knew you would, so I thought I'd 'phone you before going any further. Much obliged, Doctor."

It would save much time and money and disappointment if all those who don't know would pause to put a question or two to those who do. But so it is _not_, and the maker of worthless devices and the concocter of nostrums galore cometh oft to fortune by leaps and bounds, while the poor, conscientious physician who sticks to the truth of things, arriveth betimes at starvation's gate.

(I was startled a few days ago to learn that the average income of physicians in the United States does not exceed six hundred dollars.)

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.

"Tell papa he's wanted at the 'phone," said Mary.

"Where is he?"

"Isn't he there in the dining room?"

"No, he isn't here."

"He must be in the kitchen then; go to the door and call him."

The small boy obeyed. "He's not out here either," he announced from the door-way.

"Why, where can he be!" cried Mary, springing up and going swiftly to the 'phone. "h.e.l.lo."

"Is the doctor there?"

"Yes. Wait just a minute and I will call him."

She hurried through the dining room, then through the kitchen and out into the yard. No doctor to be seen. "He pa.s.sed through the house not three minutes ago," she said to herself.

"John!"

"Doctor!"

"Doc-_tor_!"

"O, dear! I don't see how he could disappear from the face of the earth in three minutes' time!"

She hurried around a projecting corner through a little gate and called again.

"What is it?" asked a placid voice as its owner emerged from his new auto garage.