And so it was that Braden, worn and disspirited, gave up in despair and prepared for his return to London. He went before an examining board in New York first and obtained his licence to become a practising physician and surgeon, and, with a set expression in his disillusioned eyes, peered out into the future in quest of the fame that was to take the place of a young girl's love. He met his first patient in the Knickerbocker Café. Lunching alone there one day, a week before the date selected for sailing, he was accosted by an extremely gay and pretty young woman who came over from a table of four in a distant corner of the room. "Is this Dr. Braden Thorpe?" she inquired, placing her hands on the back of the chair opposite and leaning forward with a most agreeable, even inviting smile. Her face was familiar. "Since day before yesterday," he replied, rising with a self-conscious flush. "May I sit down? I want to talk to you about myself." She sat down in the chair that an alert waiter pulled out for her. "I am afraid you are labouring under a misapprehension," he said. "I—I am not what you would call a practising physician as yet." "Aren't you looking for patients?" she inquired. "Sit down, please." "I haven't even an office, so why should I feel that I am entitled to a patient?" he said. "You see, I've just got my licence to practice. As things go, I shouldn't have a client for at least two years. Are you looking for a doctor?" "I saw by the papers this morning that the grandson of Mr. Templeton Thorpe was a regular doctor. One of my friends over there pointed you out to me. What is your fee for an appendicitis operation, Dr. Thorpe?" "Good—ahem! I beg your pardon. You really startled me. I—" "Oh, that's all right. I quite understand. Hard to grasp at first, isn't it? Well, I've got to have my appendix out sooner or later. It's been bothering me for a year, off and on. Everybody tells me I ought to have it out sometime when it isn't bothering me and—" "But, my dear young lady, I'm not the man you want. You ought to go to some—" "You'll do just as well as any one, I'm sure. It's no trick to take out an appendix in these days. The fewer a doctor has snipped off, the less he charges, don't you know. So why shouldn't I, being quite poor, take advantage of your ignorance? The most intelligent surgeon in New York couldn't do any more than to snip it off, now could he? And he wouldn't be one-tenth as ignorant as you are about prices." She was so gay and naïve about it that he curbed his amazement, and, to some extent, his embarrassment. "I suppose that it is also ignorance on my part that supplies me with office hours in a public restaurant from one to three o'clock," he said, with a very unprofessional grin. "What hospital do you work in?" she demanded, in a business-like tone. Humouring her, he mentioned one of the big hospitals in which he had served as an interne. "That suits me," she said. "Can you do it to-morrow?"