“So our friend, the gray wolf, is going to prowl in Bairdstown for the next three days!” Thomas Clyde began to rub his chin softly; then not so softly; and presently quite hard. His wife watched him with troubled eyes. When his hand came down to rest upon his knee, it was doubled into a very competent-looking fist. His face set in the expression which the newspapers of his own city had dubbed, after the tenement campaign of the year before, “Clyde’s fighting smile.” “Oh, Tom!” broke out his wife, “what kind of trouble are you going to get into now?” “Trouble?” repeated the head of the family, in well-simulated surprise. “Why, dear, I wasn’t even thinking of trouble—for myself. But I believe it is time for a little action. Let’s call this a household meeting” (this was one of the established methods of the Clyde clan) “and find out. As it isn’t a family affair, we won’t call in the children this time. Strong, what, if anything, are we going to do about this stranger in our midst? Are we going to let him take us in?” “The question is,” said Dr. Strong quickly, “whether the Clyde family is willing to loan its subsidized physician temporarily to the city of Bairdstown.” “On the Chinese plan,” supplemented Clyde. “Certainly. On the Chinese plan of trying to save the community from a visitation instead of waiting to cure them of the incurable results of it.” “By visitation I suppose you mean Professor Gray?” said Mrs. Sharpless. “Exactly. I should rank him rather higher than an epidemic of scarlet fever, as an ally of damage and death.” “I’ll vote ‘Yes,’” said Mrs. Clyde rather plaintively. “Only, I wish you two men didn’t have so much Irish in your temperament.” “I scorn your insinuation,” replied her husband. “I’m the original dove of peace, but this Gray person ruffles my plumage. What do you say, Grandma?” “Bairdstown is my own place, partly. I know the people and they know me and I won’t sit quiet and see ‘em put upon. I vote ‘Yes.’” “Make it unanimous!” said Clyde. “What’s the first move of the army of relief? I’m in on this somewhere, Strong.” “Contribute your car for a couple of days, then, and we’ll go out on a still hunt for the elusive clue and the shy and retiring evidence. In other words, we’ll scour the county, and look up some of these local testimonials which the Great Gray One gathered in last year, and now prints in the ‘Bugle.’” “And I’ll stop in town and see Mr. Huddleston to-morrow,” said Mrs. Sharpless. “You won’t get any results,” prophesied the Health Master. “But, anyway, get him to come to the Gray lecture on Tuesday evening. We’ll need him.” During the ensuing two and a half days and two nights Mrs. Clyde had speech of her husband but once; and that was at 2 a.m. when he woke her up to tell her that he was having the time of his life, and she replied by asking him whether he had let the cat in, and returned to her dreams.