Thorpe looked up suddenly. His jaw was set hard and firm once more. "Don't you know what people would say about me if I were to operate and the patient died?—as some of them do, you know. They would say that I did it deliberately. I couldn't afford to lose in a single instance, Simmy. I couldn't take the chance that other surgeons are compelled to take in a great many cases. One failure would be sufficient. One—" "See here, you've just got to look at things squarely, Braden. You owe something to your grandfather if not to yourself. He left all that money for a certain, definite purpose. You can't chuck it. You've got to come to taw. You say that he took this means of leaving the money to you, that the trust thing is all piffle, and all that sort of thing. Well, suppose that it is true, what kind of a fool would you be to turn up your nose at six million dollars? There are all kinds of ways of looking at it. In the first place, he didn't leave it to you outright. It _is_ a trust, or a foundation, and it has a definite end in view. You are the sole trustee, that's the point on which you elect to stick. You are to be allowed to handle this vast fortune as your judgment dictates, _as a trustee_, mind you. You forget that he fixed your real position rather clearly when he stipulated that you were to have a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, and fees as a trustee. That doesn't look as though he left it to you without strings, does it?" For an hour they argued the great question. Simmy did not pretend that he accepted Braden's theories; in fact, he pronounced them shocking. Still, he contended, that was neither here nor there. Braden believed in them, and it wasn't any affair of his, after all. "I don't believe it is right for man to try to do God's work," said he, in explaining his objections. "But it doesn't matter what I think about it, old chap, so don't mind me." "Can't you understand, Simmy, that I advocate a simple, direct means of relieving the—" "Sure, I understand," broke in Simmy agreeably.