"Good nerve!" Coburn laughed admiringly. "See, Mrs. Hart, I've got two converts now. Don't you want to make a third?" Then bursting into his loud laugh, which seemed to be directed at himself, Coburn walked to the rear of the room, raised a trap-door, and whistled for Pete. He thrust his hand down, caught the dog by the neck, and placed him on the laboratory table for exhibition. "Nothing worse than a good aristocratic limp, Peter," the doctor pronounced with complacency. "Just come here and look at that ear, Venetia! What do you think of that? It isn't quite the right shade, but I couldn't lay my hands on a terrier that was as dark as Pete." "What have you done to his ear?" the girl demanded. "He hadn't much of an ear left, when I came to look him over. So I grafted a new piece on. And I cropped it, too, so it would look like its mate. Pretty neat job?" "That's why you wouldn't let me see his head when you were changing the bandages!" "Sure! This ear was to be a real Christmas surprise for a good little girl." "Poor old Pete!" "What's the matter with Pete? Don't drop your tears that way. He's forgotten by this time he ever had another leg. Say!" he added abruptly, "what do you think the job's worth?" "I don't know," Venetia replied a little haughtily. "Please send your bill to mamma." "And suppose I make it half what Dr. Cutem would charge for doing the same job on you, what would mamma say? Pete's worth half, ain't he, Mrs. Hart?" "Not to me," Helen answered lightly. "Well, you'd have thought he was the way she went on about him that afternoon I found them out in the street. But that's the luck of a poor doctor. You do your best, and, the patient cured, the bill seems large!" The doctor's joke evidently distressed Venetia, who had been taught that it was low to discuss bills. The silent man still smiling to himself over the girl, rose and spoke to the doctor in a low tone. Coburn nodded. "The same thing? Yes, I'll be over pretty soon." Then Hussey left the laboratory with a slight nod of his head in the direction of the women. When he had gone and the outer door had banged behind him, the doctor remarked thoughtfully:-- "I guess it isn't just pure interest in science that makes him ready to try the pump." "Tell me about him," Helen asked quickly.