Page:Van Loan--Taking the Count.djvu/28

 made in Arthur Phelps was that he ceased to be "Sport" and became "Doc."

Absence from office during office hours is not good for a budding practice, nor does it help a practice which shows no signs of flowering. Unfortunately for Phelps, he had an assured income—not as large a one as he would have liked, perhaps, but still enough to keep the wolf at a respectful distance. Lacking the spur of necessity, he fell into careless habits of life and of mind. He did not worry over the fact that his date book was a blank, and that the steady plodders who stayed in their offices were building up paying practices.

Doc Phelps was a drifter, in danger of becoming a moral derelict and a victim of fatty degeneration of the ambition. He was idle, and the worst thing about an idle man is that he is seldom fit to choose his amusements. Anything which involved physical exercise was out of the question, for he had the short breath of the cigarette smoker, and every muscle and tissue in his body was overlaid with soft, unwholesome fat. A brisk run up a single flight of stairs was enough to set his heart to drumming, so he chose sedentary amusements and took as much of his pleasure as possible sitting down.

The city in which he was located was the logical center of the boxing world, and Phelps, interested in all forms of sport, fell into the habit of driving his runabout out to the different training camps to watch the men at work. It was a pleasant way to pass an afternoon, and