"Who?"
"His name is Dr. Stewart. He delivered Floyd. Two hundred dollars is the cheapest he'll do it. He usually gets five hundred, but Edna says she thinks he'd do it for two hundred for people like us."
"Kind-hearted, ain't he?" Eddie remarked sourly. "Two hundred dollars. What makes him such an expensive guy?"
"Oh, Edna says he's wonderful. He's so smart and so nice. He tells you what to eat and keeps the baby's weight down so the pain won't be so awful."
"That sounds good," said Eddie.
"And he gives you such good care and all that there's very little chance of anything going wrong."
Dot's cheeks had become very pink with her eagerness. She leaned toward Eddie, and her voice took on a coaxing note. "Look, Eddie, you make forty dollars a week, and we've got a lot of time for saving up. You don't have to pay the doctor a cent until after the baby is here. I've figured it all out, how we can manage. It's worth it to have me and the kid safe, ain't it?"
"You don't have to nag me to let you have decent care," Eddie said. "Get this highway robber if you want him, but I'm glad you got it figured out how we can manage, because I don't see it at all."
Dot said no more about it. She could have talked all night, only she thought it best to leave well enough alone; for Eddie, despite a sudden restlessness that had seized him, looked more contented and friendly than he had in weeks. Dot congratulated herself on good generalship. She had convinced him that the kid was just as much of a nuisance to her as to him, and that had made him feel more kindly toward her.
Dr. Stewart made his first call on Dot three days later. He was a medium-sized, brown-haired man with an in-
