- vous with laughing German girls, who seemed to learn
English by magic.
"Disgraceful!" said young Harding, who was a married man with a pretty wife in England for whom he yearned with a home-sickness which he revealed to me boyishly when we became closer friends in this German city.
"Not disgraceful," said the little American doctor, who had joined us in Cologne, "but only the fulfilment of nature's law, which makes man desire woman. Allah is great!. . . But juxtaposition is greater."
Dr. Small was friends with all of us, and there was not one among our crowd who had not an affection and admiration for this little man whose honesty was transparent, and whose vital nervous energy was like a fresh wind to any company in which he found himself. It was Wickham Brand, however, who had captured the doctor's heart, most of all, and I think I was his "second best." Anyhow, it was to me that he revealed his opinion of Brand, and some of his most intimate thoughts.
"Wickham has the quality of greatness," he said. "I don't mean to say he's great now. Not at all. I think he's fumbling and groping, not sure of himself, afraid of his best instincts, thinking his worst may be right. But one day he will straighten all that out and have a call as loud as a trumpet. What I like is his moodiness and bad-temper."
"Queer taste, doctor!" I remarked. "When old Brand is in the sulks there's nothing doing with him. He's like a bear with a sore ear."
"Sure!" said Dr. Small. "That's exactly it. He is biting his own sore ear. I guess with him, though, it's a sore heart. He keeps moping and fretting, and won't let his wounds heal. That's what makes him different from most others, especially you English. You go
