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 "I'm rather glad to hear of it," Hall said, speaking quite honestly, more honestly than he could have spoken, perhaps, if there had been any element of competition involved.

"Yes, I believe I am, too, to tell the truth about it," Cottrell confessed, laughing over it. "When the heat of vexation with the old scoundrel passes I always feel kind of sorry for him, for it's as these people say here: there's a spark of something good in the old scamp, either a native shrewdness or a professional competency, that leads him right eight times out of ten."

"I saw him as I came up," Hall said, "sober as a lark, shaved and clipped and dressed up respectably. I had to look twice to convince my eyes."

"He lifts his heels like he's skatin' when he's sober and got on a clean white shirt," Major Cottrell said.

"He's a disgusting old villain!" Mrs. Cottrell fired from the flank. "It's a disgrace to the state that he's allowed to practice."

"Now you hear it," Major Cottrell said, nodding to Hall gravely, but with a laugh in his eyes.

"I'm surprised to hear you half-way condoning his disgusting vices," she fired again.

Major Cottrell winked at Hall, with sly understanding, as if to say most of his excusing of Old Doc Ross had been done to provoke her, just to show the visitor what kind of metal was in that family.

"I look for him to take fire one of these nights when he goes to blow out his lamp," he said cheerfully. "Then we'll get some nice portly old gentleman to take his place."

"Portly old gentlemen are out of fashion as physicians,"