Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/116

 spectacular man. They were the caste-marks of his rank; he clung to them as one treasures the endearments of a day that cannot be lived again, unconscious of any incongruity in a smirking, short-haired age. He was a Merovingian prince among barber-shop slaves.

When Dr. Hall told him he could not see any need of coming again, Major Cottrell agreed that it was so. He made a dignified request for the physician's bill, to bristle up in affronted dignity when told there was no bill.

"You must not conclude from my poor sorroundings, sir, that I'm not able to pay you, and pay you sufficiently," Major Cottrell said, injury giving place to his stern dignity.

Dr. Hall was standing beside the major, Mrs. Cottrell facing him, a tinge of shame in her cheeks. Dr. Hall smiled all her question and confusion away, rising to his tiptoes in his elastic, overtowering habit, as if he lifted himself above the perplexities of people for the satisfaction of smiling down on their petty troubles.

"I am the railroad doctor, you know, Major Cottrell," Hall explained, "on salary by the year. I have no right, really, to take any case outside railroad employes, and certainly no right to charge anybody for such casual service. It's all square; it was nothing but one neighbor giving another a hand."

"You mean, then, if I owe anybody I owe the railroad company?"

"When you come right down to cases, as these folks say, that would be the way to consider it. But—"

"Then I'll take this first chance in a lifetime to beat a railroad company out of something," Major Cottrell said, looking up at the towering tall doctor, crinkles of