At last he seized his coat and hat, and escaped. The noiseless cage dropped down, down, past numerous suites of doctors' offices similar to Lindsay's, with their ground-glass windows emblazoned by dozens of names. This building was a kind of modern Chicago Lourdes. All but two or three of the suites were rented to some form of the medical fraternity. Down, down: here a druggist's clerk hailing the descending car; there an upward car stopping to deliver its load of human freight bound for the rooms of another great specialist,--Thornton, the skin doctor. At last he reached the ground floor and the gusty street. Across the way stood a line of carriages waiting for women who were shopping at the huge dry-goods emporium, and through the barbaric displays of the great windows Sommers could see the clerks moving hither and thither behind the counters. It did not differ materially from his emporium: it was less select, larger, but not more profitable, considering the amount of capital employed, than his shop. Marshall Field decked out the body; Lindsay, Thornton, and Co. repaired the body as best they could. It was all one trade. On State Street the sandwich men were sauntering dejectedly through the crowd of shoppers: "_Professor Herman Sorter, Chiropodist._" "_Go to Manassas for Spectacles_";--it was the same thing. Across the street, on the less reputable western side, flared the celluloid signs of the quacks: "_The parlors of famous old Dr. Green_." "_The original and only Dr. Potter. Visit Dr. Potter. No cure, no charge. Examination free._" The same business! Lindsay would advertise as "old Dr. Lindsay," if it paid to advertise,--paid socially and commercially. Dr. Lindsay's offices probably "took in" more in a month than "old Dr. Green" made in a year, without the expense of advertising. Lindsay would lose much more by adopting the methods of quackery than he could ever make: he would lose hospital connections, standing in the professional journals, and social prestige. Lindsay was quite shrewd in sticking to the conventions of the profession. CHAPTER XIV When Sommers reached his rooms that evening, he found Mrs. Ducharme waiting for him. She held in her hand his card. "I thought you'd give me the go-by," she exclaimed, as he entered. "Your kind is smooth enough, but they don't want to be bothered. But I came all the same--on the chance." "What have you been doing?" the doctor inquired, without noticing her surliness. "Walking about in the streets all day and making your inflammation worse?" "Well, you see I must find _him_, and I don't know where to look for him." "Well, you won't find your husband walking about the streets, especially if he's gone off with another woman; but you will get blind and have to go to the hospital!" "Well, I'll kill _her first_." "You will do nothing of the sort," said the doctor, wearily. "You'll make a fuss, and your husband will hit you again, and go away."