Swiss Cottage, and took tea with his dark-haired wife and his daughter Edith, a tall, fair girl of about seventeen.
Upon that, my first visit to that artistic, well-appointed house, I detected that Farnell was a faddist—one of those men of middle age who are ever anxious about their health and weight, and ever suspicious that there may be something the matter with their heart.
Such men are constant sources of income to the medical man. The family-practitioner always cultivates their acquaintance, for they mean nice little quarterly accounts. The faddist will not repulse his doctor from looking in "just to see that he's all right," even though he may be passing on his way to another patient. And as "every picture tells a story," so does "every visit mean a fee."
Well, I soon began to know all about Farnell's complaints, both real and imaginary.
He let fall that he had had several bad "goes" of fever in the tropics; therefore I attributed all his ailments to the weakness left by malaria, and advised him to be most careful.
I smiled when he explained to me how his rheumatism had been treated by a man whom I knew to be a charlatan, and though I
