"And now," said Mr. Cavendish, rising from his chair, "I shall have to clear out. Got to dine with a couple of chaps at some beastly club. I think this will suit me very well, Doctor; just the thing I’ve been looking for—a quiet, steady practice to keep a chap goin’ while he’s reading for these rotten law exams. You’ll hear from my pater, I expect. Of course, your price is pretty stiff, but I’ll tell my father what I think about the show, and no doubt he’ll consider it. So long, Doctor." "So long," said Doctor Brink, and James, and I. "And now," said Doctor Brink, as he reached for a long glass, "supposing _we_ consider it?" "I _have_ considered it," said James. "We are going to stop." "Why?" exclaimed the doctor. "Because," replied James, "it is too awful to think of a person like that being let loose on everybody." "A person!" echoed the doctor. "My dear girl, that was an awfully educated young man. He’s an M.B.! and he’s going to run the practice on dignified lines. What more can the beggars ask for their sixpences than real drugs and dignity?" "Fatty," said his daughter, in a voice of cold resolve, "if you take me away from here, do you know what I shall do? I shall live with Aunt Isobel and go to school, and grow up to be a little lady." "Ha!" cried the doctor, starting up.... "I’d forgotten you. Bring out the Burgundy.... We’ll consider it." THE END * * * * * * * * _*BY THE SAME AUTHOR*_ *KITCHENER CHAPS* _Crown 8vo. 2s. net_ "These little sketches are humorous, loving, and manifestly genuine."—_Spectator_. "Mr. Neil Lyons writes as the friend and observer of the New Army; ... is a master of cockney humour.... There are other soldiers in his book, but those who talk cockney are the most delightful.... As to nearly everything that Mr. Lyons’ cockneys say, we have an instinctive feeling that it is exactly right."—_Times_. "There is no writer of our day who is so free from prejudice as Mr. Neil Lyons, or puts down on paper so fearlessly the actual dialogue of our streets.... Here, you will say, is the very man to take down the talk of the humbler members of Lord Kitchener’s Armies. And you will be right. You will laugh heartily over ’Kitchener Chaps.’"—_Sunday Times_. "Mr. Neil Lyons’ sketches of the recruits in the new army are splendid, humorous and human pen-pictures, almost the first genuine literature that the war has produced. "One of the sketches, ’Old Nitch,’ is a superb little masterpiece, but they are all very, very good."—_Daily Express_. *ARTHUR’S* *THE ROMANCE OF A COFFEE STALL* _Crown 8vo. 7s. net_