"You see, I can't be quite candid with you. Nothing personal, of course. It just ... Oh, this is frightfully embarrassing," he said, taking a seat before the desk at Dr. Quink's waved invitation. "I just thought that perhaps, even without knowing all the details, you might be able to effect merely a _tempo_rary cure. So that I can get her back home, to our _own_ doctors. Nothing personal, of course. I do hope I don't offend you." "Not at all, I assure you," Dr. Quink assured him. "Just whom did you mean by her?" "Why, my wife." He looked at Quink quizzically for a moment, then with sudden fresh embarrassment. "Oh, of course. You naturally assume that it was _I_ who is ... um, in need of treatment. No, no, you couldn't be more wrong. No, it is my wife. Yes, I've come to see you on her account. You see, of course, she wouldn't come herself. Ah, this is rather awkward, I'm afraid." "Not at all," Quink answered. "If you would just tell me what your wife's trouble is?" "Yes, of course. You have to know that, at least, don't you? I mean, do you? You couldn't possibly just treat her on general principles, so to speak, without being told of the immediate symptoms? You don't, I take it, have any technique that would correspond to penicillin, and just sort of clear things up in her head at random?" Dr. Quink assured him that it was necessary, in psychiatry at least, to determine the disease before curing it. "I suppose so," the gentleman said. "Incidentally, my name is Fairfield. Donald Fairfield. Did I mention that? But of course, you have all that on your little card there, don't you? Yes, I thought so. I do hope your secretary's handwriting is legible, it doesn't seem so from this angle. By the way, did you know that she is prone to staring at the floor? A spot right next to her desk. The right-hand side. I think I never should have come here." Dr. Quink reassured him that he was free to leave at any moment, never to return. By a longish glance at the wall clock, in fact, Dr. Quink gave him to understand that he might do so with no hard feelings left behind. Mr. Fairfield, however, gathered his resources and plunged forward. * * * * * "I think you'll find this a rather interesting case, Doctor. Most unusual. Of course, I have little notion of the variety of situations one comes into contact with in your line of work, still I have every reason to believe this will come as a bit of a shock. I wonder just how dogmatic you are in your convictions?" Dr. Quink raised his eyebrows and made no answer; he was desperately stifling a yawn.