Had Josephine Harris not been familiar with the place and its occupant, as it was quite evident that she _was_, she would have looked twice at the one and several times at the other. That little basement-room was not only the office in which Doctor LaTurque received professional calls, but it was also the sanctum in which were prepared most of the oddly-trenchant articles in the _Scimetar_, a quarterly medical and critical publication with a habit cutting as its name and a reputation dangerous enough to suit the most sensational fancy. Few persons connected with the practice of medicine in or about the great city, who had not first or last suffered some incision from the trenchant blade of the _Scimetar_, wielded by the wiry arm of the Doctor; and few humbugs but he had pricked and exposed, by the same means or in personal conversation, while he was himself the greatest humbug of all. Others habitually humbugged others: he humbugged himself, or tried to do so, insisting to himself that he was a hard man, an iron man, a brute, a skeptic, and everything that was ugly and detestable; while in fact he had the warm heart of an unspoiled child, and a faith in everything good, that was really part of his being--all combined with the vigor of the experienced surgeon and the close study of the untiring student. He used hard words--rough ones, sometimes, and tried to make himself believe that they were the emanations of a hard disposition; while every rough word was really made under protest from his nature, and few men on the whole earth were more ready to do an act of genuine kindness. It is not for us to say that there was not some intentional affectation of singularity underlying his manner; for he evidently loved notice if not notoriety; and other means than the white coat and disarranged trowsers of the Tribune Philosopher have sometimes been adopted to secure the same end.