When I had
finished I added a chapter to my novel, and waited until
he and his wife were ready for the daily bag-carrying
homewards.
It was half-past three before he had done. I heard
him stamp out into the passage, and a moment later he
came banging into my room. I saw in an instant that some
sort of a crisis had come.
"Munro," he cried, "this practice is going to the
devil!"
"Ah!" said I. "How's that?
"It's going to little pieces, Munro. I've been
taking figures, and I know what I am talking about. A
month ago I was seeing six hundred a week. Then I
dropped to five hundred and eighty; then to five-
seventy-five; and now to five-sixty. What do you think
of that?"
"To be honest, I don't think much of it," I answered.
"The summer is coming on. You are losing all your coughs
and colds and sore throats. Every practice must dwindle
at this time of year."
"That's all very well," said he, pacing up and down
the room, with his hands thrust into his pockets, and his
great shaggy eyebrows knotted together. "You may put it
down to that, but I think quite differently about it."
"What do you put it down to, then?"
"To you."
"How's that?" I asked.
"Well," said he, "you must allow that it is a very
queer coincidence--if it is a coincidence--that from the
day when your plate was put up my practice has taken a
turn for the worse."
"I should be very sorry to think it was cause and
effect," I answered.
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