“And continue to be a menace to the public health wherever you are,” Doctor Masters broke in, already visioning a column in the evening papers, with scare-heads, in which he would appear the hero, the St. George of San Francisco standing with poised lance between the people and the dragon of leprosy.

“Take them away,” said Waiter Merritt Emory, avoiding looking Daughtry in the eyes.

“Ready!  March!” commanded the sergeant.

The two policemen advanced on Daughtry and Kwaque with extended clubs.

“Keep away, an’ keep movin’,” one of the policemen growled fiercely.  “An’ do what we say, or get your head cracked.  Out you go, now.  Out the door with you.  Better tell that coon to stick right alongside you.”

“Doc., won’t you let me talk a moment?” Daughtry begged of Emory.

“The time for talking is past,” was the reply.  “This is the time for segregation.—­Doctor Masters, don’t forget that ambulance when you’re quit of the load.”

So the procession, led by the board-of-heath doctor and the sergeant, and brought up in the rear by the policemen with their protectively extended clubs, started through the doorway.

Whirling about on the threshold, at the imminent risk of having his skull cracked, Dag Daughtry called back: 

“Doc!  My dog!  You know ’m.”

“I’ll get him for you,” Doctor Emory consented quickly.  “What’s the address?”

“Room eight-seven, Clay street, the Bowhead Lodging House, you know the place, entrance just around the corner from the Bowhead Saloon.  Have ’m sent out to me wherever they put me—­will you?”

“Certainly I will,” said Doctor Emory, “and you’ve got a cockatoo, too?”

“You bet, Cocky!  Send ’m both along, please, sir.”

* * * * *

“My!” said Miss Judson, that evening, at dinner with a certain young interne of St. Joseph’s Hospital.  “That Doctor Emory is a wizard.  No wonder he’s successful.  Think of it!  Two filthy lepers in our office to-day!  One was a coon.  And he knew what was the matter the moment he laid eyes on them.  He’s a caution.  When I tell you what he did to them with his cigar!  And he was cute about it!  He gave me the wink first.  And they never dreamed what he was doing.  He took his cigar and . . . "

CHAPTER XX

The dog, like the horse, abases the base.  Being base, Waiter Merritt Emory was abased by his desire for the possession of Michael.  Had there been no Michael, his conduct would have been quite different.  He would have dealt with Daughtry as Daughtry had described, as between white men.  He would have warned Daughtry of his disease and enabled him to take ship to the South Seas or to Japan, or to other countries where lepers are not segregated.  This would have worked no hardship on those countries, since such was their law and procedure, while it would have enabled Daughtry and Kwaque to escape the hell of the San Francisco pest-house, to which, because of his baseness, he condemned them for the rest of their lives.