"I'm afraid not. I have a name for this sort of
thing now, and they have come to expect it.
But an offended patient--I mean a thoroughly
insulted one--is the finest advertisement in the world.
If it is a woman, she runs clacking about among her
friends until your name becomes a household word, and
they all pretend to sympathise with her, and agree among
themselves that you must be a remarkably discerning man.
I quarrelled with one man about the state of his gall
duct, and it ended by my throwing him down the stairs.
What was the result? He talked so much about it that the
whole village from which he came, sick and well, trooped
to see me. The little country practitioner who had been
buttering them up for a quarter of a century found that
he might as well put up his shutters. It's human nature,
my boy, and you can't alter it. Eh, what? You make
yourself cheap and you become cheap. You put a high
price on yourself and they rate you at that price.
Suppose I set up in Harley Street to-morrow, and made it
all nice and easy, with hours from ten to three, do you
think I should get a patient? I might starve first. How
would I work it? I should let it be known that I only
saw patients from midnight until two in the morning,
and that bald-headed people must pay double. That would
set people talking, their curiosity would be stimulated,
and in four months the street would be blocked all night.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131