The attending physicians arrived at nine. The "shop," as they called it, opened at ten; Lindsay was due at eleven and departed at three. Thereafter the hive gradually emptied, and by four the stenographers and clerks were left alone to attend to purely business matters. Sommers came late the day after his return from New York. The general door being opened to admit a patient, he walked in and handed his coat and hat to the boy in buttons at the door. The patient who had entered with him was being questioned by the neat young woman whose business it was to stand guard at the outer door. "What is your name, please?" Her tones were finely adjusted to the caste of the patient. Judging from the icy sharpness on this occasion, the patient was not high in the scale. "Caroline Ducharme," the woman replied. "Write it out, please." The patient did so with some difficulty, scrawling half over the neat pad the clerk pushed toward her. "You wish to consult Dr. Lindsay?" "The big doctor,--yes, mum." "Did he make an appointment with you?" "What's that?" "Have you been here before?" "No, mum." "You will have to pay the fee in advance." "What's that, please?" "Ten dollars." "Ten?" The clerk tapped irritably on her desk with her pencil. "Yes, _ten_ dollars for the first visit; five after that; operations from fifty to five hundred." The woman clutched tightly a small reticule. "I hain't the money!" she exclaimed at last. "I thought it would be two dollars." "You'll have to go to the hospital, then." The clerk turned to a pile of letters. "Don't he see nobody here without he pays ten?" the woman asked. "No." "Where is the hospital?" "St. Isidore's--the clinic is every other Saturday at nine." "But my head hurts awful bad. The doctor up our way don't know anything about it." The clerk no longer answered; she had turned half around in her swivel-chair. Sommers leaned over her desk, and said,-- "Show her into my room, No. 3, Miss Clark." "Dr. Lindsay is _very_ particular," the clerk protested. "I will be responsible," Sommers answered sharply, in the tone he had learned to use with hospital clerks when they opposed his will. He turned to get his mail. The clerk shrugged her shoulders with a motion that said, 'Take her there yourself.' Sommers beckoned to the woman to follow him. He took her to one of the little compartments on the inner corridor, which was lined with strange devices: electrical machines, compressed air valves, steam sprays--all the enginery of the latest invention. "Now what is it?" he asked gruffly. He was vexed that the matter should occur at this time, when he was on rather cool terms with Lindsay. The case proved to be an interesting one, however. There were nervous complications; it could not be diagnosed at a glance. After spending half an hour in making a careful examination, he gave the woman a preliminary treatment, and dismissed her with directions to call the next day.