Page:The Death-Doctor.djvu/251

Rh I remember how that night you described to me the merry "carryings-on" of some members of a musical comedy company you had met at Zermatt, and you invited me to tea at the "Carlton" with two of your lady-friends.

True, I took absinthe that night. Three hours before—in the Café de l'Europe next door—I had taught the boy how to drink it—with a motive.

Well, I suppose I may as well tell you the story now that I have laid bare to you the secrets of my eventful life. Patients repose confidence in me, men of my own profession like yourself consult me, and women call me their "dear doctor." I wear a mask—as impenetrable as the Sphinx, I believe. And yet, Brown, I daily curse myself as a brute—and worse.

But a man must hve in these hard times. The profession is over-crowded. You fellows, who lead a merry easy-going life at sea, away from letters and duns, with an ever-changing crowd of passengers and an "old man" who winks at your flirtations, can never fully realize the dreary drudgery of the unfortunate devil who practises medicine.

Nobody dreams that I practise a special—a very special—branch of it, namely toxicology.