Cullingworth’s eyes shot round to me to see what I thought of such a query. Between ourselves I have not the slightest doubt that he had instructed the man to ask it. He always had a fine eye for effect, but he usually erred by underrating the intelligence of those around him. “Ah!” said he, rubbing his chin like a man in doubt. “Well, I daresay dinner will be nearly ready. Drive to the town residential.” “Good gracious, Cullingworth!” said I as we started. “How many houses do you inhabit? It sounds as if you had bought the town.” “Well, well,” said he, laughing, “we are driving to the house where I usually live. It suits us very well, though I have not been able to get all the rooms furnished yet. Then I have a little farm of a few hundred acres just outside the city. It is a pleasant place for the week ends, and we send the nurse and the child----” “My dear chap, I did not know that you had started a family!” “Yes, it’s an infernal nuisance; but still the fact remains. We get our butter and things from the farm. Then, of course, I have my house of business in the heart of the city.” “Consulting and waiting room, I suppose?” He looked at me with a sort of half vexed, half amused expression. “You cannot rise to a situation, Munro,” said he. “I never met a fellow with such a stodgy imagination. I’d trust you to describe a thing when you have seen it, but never to build up an idea of it beforehand.” “What’s the trouble now?” I asked. “Well, I have written to you about my practice, and I’ve wired to you about it, and here you sit asking me if I work it in two rooms. I’ll have to hire the market square before I’ve finished, and then I won’t have space to wag my elbows. Can your imagination rise to a great house with people waiting in every room, jammed in as tight as they’ll fit, and two layers of them squatting in the cellar? Well, that’s my house of business on an average day. The folk come in from the county fifty miles off, and eat bread and treacle on the doorstep, so as to be first in when the housekeeper comes down. The medical officer of health made an official complaint of the over-crowding of my waiting-rooms. They wait in the stables, and sit along the racks and under the horses’ bellies. I’ll turn some of ‘em on to you, my boy, and then you’ll know a little more about it.” Well, all this puzzled me a good deal, as you can imagine, Bertie; for, making every allowance for Cullingworth’s inflated way of talking, there must be something at the back of it. I was thinking to myself that I must keep my head cool, and have a look at everything with my own eyes, when the carriage pulled up and we got out. “This is my little place,” said Cullingworth.