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fool with his mumps?’
‘It’s very kind of you, but I hope to get an appointment at
the hospital in the autumn. It’ll help me so much in getting
other work later.’
‘I’m offering you a partnership,’ said Doctor South
grumpily.
‘Why?’ asked Philip, with surprise.
‘They seem to like you down here.’
‘I didn’t think that was a fact which altogether met with
your approval,’ Philip said drily.
‘D’you suppose that after forty years’ practice I care a
twopenny damn whether people prefer my assistant to me?
No, my friend. There’s no sentiment between my patients
and me. I don’t expect gratitude from them, I expect them
to pay my fees. Well, what d’you say to it?’
Philip made no reply, not because he was thinking over
the proposal, but because he was astonished. It was evi-
dently very unusual for someone to offer a partnership to a
newly qualified man; and he realised with wonder that, al-
though nothing would induce him to say so, Doctor South
had taken a fancy to him. He thought how amused the sec-
retary at St. Luke’s would be when he told him.
‘The practice brings in about seven hundred a year. We
can reckon out how much your share would be worth, and
you can pay me off by degrees. And when I die you can suc-
ceed me. I think that’s better than knocking about hospitals
for two or three years, and then taking assistantships until
you can afford to set up for yourself.’
Philip knew it was a chance that most people in his pro-