"Give her some whiskey at once; then a teaspoonful of mustard in hot water. I'll be right down," and turning he went swiftly out. When he came back an hour or two later he said: "The mother got the wrong bottle. A very few minutes would have done the work. The telephone saved the child's life. This is a glorious age in which we are living, Mary." "And to think that some little children playing with tin cans with a string stretched between them, gave to the world its first telephone message." "Yes, I've heard that. It may or may not be true. Now let's have supper." "Supper awaits Mr. Non-Committal-Here-As-Ever," said Mary as she laid her arm in her husband's and they went toward the dining-room together. * * * * * One evening the doctor and Mary sat chatting with a neighbor who had dropped in. "I want to use your 'phone a minute, please," said a voice. "Very well," said Mary, and Mrs. X. stepped in, nodded to the trio, walked to the telephone as one quite accustomed, and rang. "I want Dr. Brown's office," she said. In a minute came the hello. "Is this Dr. Brown? My little boy is sick. I want you to come out to see him this evening. This is Mrs. X. Will you be right out?" "All right. Good-bye." And she departed. The eyes of the visitor twinkled. "Our neighbor hath need of two great blessings," she said, "a telephone and a sense of humor." Mary laughed merrily, "O, we're so used to it we paid no attention," she said, "but I suppose it did strike you as rather funny." "It's a heap better than it used to be when we didn't have telephones," said the doctor, with the hearty laugh that had helped many a downcast man and woman to look on the bright side. "When I was a young fellow and first hung up my shingle it was a surprising thing--the number of people who could get along without me. I used to long for some poor fellow to put his head in at the door and say he needed me. At last one dark, rainy night came the quick, importunate knock of someone after a doctor. No mistaking that knock. I opened the door and an elderly woman who lived near me, asked breathlessly, 'Mr. Blank, will you do me a great favor?' 'Certainly,' I answered promptly. 'My husband is very sick and I came to see if you would go down and ask Dr. Smithson to come and see him.' I swallowed my astonishment and wrath, put on my rubber coat and went for the doctor." "But she had the grace to come in next day," said Mary, "and tell me in much confusion that she was greatly embarrassed and ashamed. It had not entered her head until that morning that my husband was a physician." "You see," put in the doctor, "she had not taken me seriously; in fact had not taken me at all." "Tell us about the old man who had you come in to see if he needed a doctor," said Mary. The doctor smiled, "_That_ was when I didn't count, too," he said.