"I fear medical men may feel some little prejudice about this," he remarked, easily--not in the least as though dealing in heavy ammunition. "Hubers commands the medical men, you know. They care more for him than for all the rest of the fellows out here put together. About that medical school of yours," he said, meditatively, "that you're pushing so hard just now,--to whom shall I tender my resignation as chairman of the committee I'm on? And, at the same time, I'll just be released from the lectures I was to give in the winter quarter. I'm entirely too busy to spend my time on a place that doesn't care for anything but dead men's bones. Lewis and Richmond will probably want to pull out too. Of course," he went on, seemingly to himself, "a thing like this will unfortunately be noised about, and all doctors will be a little sore about your not caring to stand by Hubers. But I suppose I had better see the president about all that. He gets home next week? And, come to think of it, I'm pretty close to a couple of members of the board. I operated on both Lessing and Tyler. Both of those fellows have a notion they owe their lives to me. That makes people feel rather close to one, you know. But then, of course, you don't know--why should you? And, dear me--there's that rich old patient of mine, Burley. Now isn't it strange,"--turning genially to Lane, as if merely interesting him in a philosophical proposition--"how one thing leads to another? I fear Burley may not be so interested in making that gift to the new medical building, if he knows I've cut loose from the place. The president will feel rather sore about that, too,--you know how the president is about such things. But then,"--shrugging his shoulders indifferently--"he needn't feel sore at me." Dr. George Lane was swallowing very hard. Though learned, he was not dull. Word by word he had drunk in the bitter truth that this big, dark, gruff, ill-mannered man was not to be put down with impunity. Call it bullying--any hard name you would, there was no evading the fact that it was power in sledge hammer strokes. "The professor" was just wise enough to see that there lay before him the unpleasant task of retraction. "Ah--of course, doctor," he began, striving for nonchalance, "do not take this as too final. You see anything so unusual as this will have to come before the committee. You did not present it to me--ah--very fully, but the more I consider it, the more I am disposed to think it is a thing we--may care to undertake. I--will present it." "Oh, don't bother about that," said the doctor pleasantly. "I wouldn't worry the committee about it, if I were you. I can get a down-town laboratory all right. I simply thought I would give the university a chance at the thing. It doesn't matter," he concluded, opening the door.