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224 accentuating the tip-tilted nose a little more. 'Oh, Mr. Porter, it ain't good enough!'

'No, pounds, my dear madam,' Charles responded. 'Pounds sterling, you know. In United States currency, seven thousand five hundred.'

'I guess Elihu would just jump at it,' Mrs. Quackenboss replied, looking at him quizzically.

The doctor laughed. 'You make a good bid, sir,' he said, in his slow American way, emphasising all the most unimportant words: 'but you overlook one element. I am a man of science, not a speculator. I have trained myself for medical work, at considerable cost, in the best schools of Europe, and I do not propose to fling away the results of much arduous labour by throwing myself out elastically into a new line of work for which my faculties may not perhaps equally adapt me.'

('How thoroughly American!' I murmured, in the background.)

Charles insisted; all in vain. Mrs. Quackenboss was impressed; but the doctor smiled always a sphinx-like smile, and reiterated his belief in the unfitness of mid-stream as an ideal place for swopping horses. The more he declined, and the better he talked, the more eager Charles became each day to secure him. And, as if on purpose to draw him on, the doctor each day gave more and more surprising proofs of his practical abilities. 'I am not a specialist,' he said. 'I just ketch the drift, appropriate the kernel, and let the rest slide.'