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ible hand nor spell correctly. For two or three days Doctor
South watched Philip closely, ready to fall on him with acid
sarcasm if he gave him the opportunity; and Philip, aware
of this, went about his work with a quiet sense of amuse-
ment. He was pleased with the change of occupation. He
liked the feeling of independence and of responsibility. All
sorts of people came to the consulting-room. He was grat-
ified because he seemed able to inspire his patients with
confidence; and it was entertaining to watch the process of
cure which at a hospital necessarily could be watched only
at distant intervals. His rounds took him into low-roofed
cottages in which were fishing tackle and sails and here and
there mementoes of deep-sea travelling, a lacquer box from
Japan, spears and oars from Melanesia, or daggers from the
bazaars of Stamboul; there was an air of romance in the
stuffy little rooms, and the salt of the sea gave them a bitter
freshness. Philip liked to talk to the sailor-men, and when
they found that he was not supercilious they told him long
yarns of the distant journeys of their youth.
Once or twice he made a mistake in diagnosis: (he had
never seen a case of measles before, and when he was con-
fronted with the rash took it for an obscure disease of the
skin;) and once or twice his ideas of treatment differed from
Doctor South’s. The first time this happened Doctor South
attacked him with savage irony; but Philip took it with good
humour; he had some gift for repartee, and he made one or
two answers which caused Doctor South to stop and look
at him curiously. Philip’s face was grave, but his eyes were
twinkling. The old gentleman could not avoid the impres-