"There are a number of patients waiting for me. I will drop in again about midnight. I still have several urgent visits to make." Thus had Dr. Jodon spoken to Mademoiselle Marguerite; and yet, when he left the Hotel de Chalusse, after assuring himself that Casimir would have some straw spread over the street, the doctor quietly walked home. The visits he had spoken of merely existed in his imagination; but it was a part of his role to appear to be overrun with patients. To tell the truth, the only patient he had had to attend to that week was a superannuated porter, living in the Rue de la Pepiniere, and whom he visited twice a day, for want of something better to do. The remainder of his time was spent in waiting for patients who never came, and in cursing the profession of medicine, which was ruined, he declared, by excessive competition, combined with certain rules of decorum which hampered young practitioners beyond endurance.

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