So, as he came down the stairs, Dr. Ed, who had wiped his tiny knife with a bit of cotton,--he hated sterilizing it; it spoiled the edge,--thrust it hastily into his pocket. He had cut boils without boiling anything for a good many years, and no trouble. But he was wise with the wisdom of the serpent and the general practitioner, and there was no use raising a discussion. Max's morning mood was always a cheerful one. Now and then the way of the transgressor is disgustingly pleasant. Max, who sat up until all hours of the night, drinking beer or whiskey-and-soda, and playing bridge, wakened to a clean tongue and a tendency to have a cigarette between shoes, so to speak. Ed, whose wildest dissipation had perhaps been to bring into the world one of the neighborhood's babies, wakened customarily to the dark hour of his day, when he dubbed himself failure and loathed the Street with a deadly loathing. So now Max brought his handsome self down the staircase and paused at the office door. “At it, already,” he said. “Or have you been to bed?” “It's after nine,” protested Ed mildly. “If I don't start early, I never get through.” Max yawned. “Better come with me,” he said. “If things go on as they've been doing, I'll have to have an assistant. I'd rather have you than anybody, of course.” He put his lithe surgeon's hand on his brother's shoulder. “Where would I be if it hadn't been for you? All the fellows know what you've done.” In spite of himself, Ed winced. It was one thing to work hard that there might be one success instead of two half successes. It was a different thing to advertise one's mediocrity to the world. His sphere of the Street and the neighborhood was his own. To give it all up and become his younger brother's assistant--even if it meant, as it would, better hours and more money--would be to submerge his identity. He could not bring himself to it. “I guess I'll stay where I am,” he said. “They know me around here, and I know them. By the way, will you leave this envelope at Mrs. McKee's? Maggie Rosenfeld is ironing there to-day. It's for her.” 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.