“You can learn a lot of useful things about general practice here,” said Dr. Harris. “It should be extremely useful to you. You see, I’ve been at this game for thirty years. It’s a great chance for you.” He took up a handful of silver from the open drawer and started to jingle it. “Look here, you’re wasting time.” Edwin agreed. “Well, suppose I take you on, I might be able to give you three . . . better say two pounds a month. You can feed up at my place and sleep here. If you sleep here, you’ll be able to take night-messages and telephone them up to me. There’s a bedroom fitted up. One of my assistants used to sleep here. How will that suit you?” With a feeling of intense relief Edwin accepted. “Very well, then, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t begin at once, just to get into the way of things.” He paused, and added as an after-thought: “We’ll count that you start from to-morrow.” He led Edwin behind the green baize curtain at the back of his desk, disclosing a set of shelves and a counter stained with the rings of bottles and measuring glasses. At the end of the counter was a sink into which a tap with a tapered nozzle dripped dismally. One drawer held labels, another corks, a third a selection of eight-ounce, four-ounce, and two-ounce bottles. At the back of the counter stood a row of Winchester Quarts, of indefinite contents, labelled with the Roman numerals from one to nine. Dr. Harris swabbed the swimming counter with a rag that was already saturated with medicines. “You can learn all you want in five minutes,” he said. “There’s no time for refinements in this sort of practice. These big bottles are all stock mixtures, and whatever they teach you in your universities, I can tell you that these nine mixtures will carry you through life. There you are . . . Number One: White Mixture. Number Two: Soda and Rhubarb. Number Three: Bismuth. You have to go easy with Number Three: Bismuth’s expensive. Number Four: Febrifuge . . . Liquor Ammond Acet: and that. Number Five: Iron and Mag:Sulph. And so on. . . . Number Nine: Mercury and Pot:Iod . . . you know what that’s for,” with a laugh, “we use a lot of that here. Now you’ve one ounce of each stock mixture to an eight-ounce bottle, and a two-tablespoonful dose. I used to put them up in six-ounce bottles; but if you give them eight ounces they think they’re getting more for the money: they don’t realise they’re getting eight doses instead of twelve, and that’s their lookout, isn’t it? Same proportions for children and infants, only you use the four and two-ounce bottles instead, with dessert-spoon and teaspoonful doses. Simple, isn’t it? But you want to simplify if you’re going to make money in these days. Now, is that quite clear?” “Quite clear.”