The doctor delicately pushed down the edge of the ice-wet napkin until he could see the label, and he gave an involuntary smile of satisfaction as he recognized the vintage. The head waiter had timed the exact second to take that bottle out of the ice-pail, had wrapped the wet napkin about it and almost reverently filled glasses. Occasionally he came over and felt up inside the hollow on the bottom of the bottle. "Delighted," confessed the doctor, and sat down quite comfortably. "You may smoke if you like, Doctor," offered Mrs. Wallingford, smiling. "I don't seem to feel that a man is comfortable unless he is smoking." "To tell the truth, he isn't," agreed the doctor with a laugh, and accepting a choice cigar from Wallingford he lit it. The waiter came with an extra glass and filled for all three of them. "By the way, Doctor," said Wallingford, watching the pouring of the wine with a host's anxiety, "I think of going into the patent medicine business on a large scale, and I believe I shall have to have you on the board of directors." "Couldn't think of it!" objected the doctor hastily. "You know, professional ethics--" and he shrugged his shoulders. "That's so," admitted Wallingford. "We can't have you on the board, but we can have you for a silent stock-holder." "Open to the same objection," declared the doctor, with another dubious shrug, as he took up his glass. He tasted the wine; he took another sip, then another--slow, careful sips, so that no drop of it should hasten by his palate unappreciated. Wallingford did not disturb him in that operation. He had a large appreciation himself of the good things of this world, and the proper way to do them homage. The doctor took a larger sip, and allowed the delicate liquid to flow gently over his tongue. Wallingford was really a splendid fellow! "What sort of patent medicine are you going to manufacture?" asked the doctor by way of courtesy, but still "listening" to the taste of the wine. Wallingford laughed. "I haven't just decided as yet," he announced. "The medicine is only an incident. What we're going to invest in is advertising." "I see," replied the doctor, laughing in turn. "Advertising is a great speculation," went on Wallingford, with a reminiscent smile. "Take Hawkins' Bitters, for instance; nine per cent. cheap whisky flavored with coffee and licorice, and the balance pure water. Hawkins had closed a fifty-thousand-dollar advertising contract before he was quite sure whether he was going to sell patent medicine or shoe polish. The first thing he decided on was the name, and he had to do that in a hurry to get his advertising placed. Hawkins' Bitters was familiar to ten million people before a bottle of it had been made. It was only last summer that Hawkins sold out his business for a cool two million and went to Europe." "His decoction is terrible stuff," commented the doctor, more in sorrow than in anger; "but it certainly has a remarkable sale."