The doctor, after scolding his patient for disobeying orders, gave the said patient a pretty thorough examination.

“You are in better shape than you deserve to be,” he said, “but you are not out of the woods yet.  What you need is to gain strength, and that means a few days’ rest and quiet and good food.  If your friends, the Halls, were at their cottage at the Centre I’d take you there, Mr. Bangs, but they’re not.  I would take you over to my house, but my wife’s sister and her children are with us and I haven’t any place to put you.”

Galusha, who had been fidgeting in his chair, interrupted.  “Now, Doctor Powers,” he begged, “please don’t think of such a thing.  I am quite well enough to travel.”

“Excuse me, but you are not.”

“But you said yourself you would take me to Wellmouth if the Halls were there.”

“I did, but they’re not there.”

“I know, but there is a hotel there, Mr.—­ah—­Pulcifer said so.”

The doctor and Miss Phipps looked at each other.

“He said there was a hotel there,” went on Galusha.  “Now if you would be so kind as to—­ah—­take me to that hotel—­”

Dr. Powers rubbed his chin.

“I should like to have you under my eye for a day or two,” he said.

“Yes—­yes, of course.  Well, couldn’t you motor over and see me occasionally?  It is not so very far, is it? . . .  As to the additional expense, of course I should expect to reimburse you for that.”

Still the physician looked doubtful.

“It isn’t the expense, exactly, Mr. Bangs,” he said.

“I promise you I will not attempt to travel until you give your permission.  I realize that I am still—­ah—­a trifle weak—­weak in the knees,” he added, with his slight smile.  “I know you must consider me to have been weak in the head to begin with, otherwise I shouldn’t have gotten into this scrape.”

The doctor laughed, but he still looked doubtful.

“The fact is, Mr. Bangs,” he began—­and stopped.  “The fact is—­the fact—­”

Martha Phipps finished the sentence for him.

“The fact is,” she said, briskly, “that Doctor Powers knows, just as I or any other sane person in Ostable County knows, that Elmer Rogers’ hotel at the Centre isn’t fit to furnish board and lodgin’ for a healthy pig, to say nothin’ of a half sick man.  You think he hadn’t ought to go there, don’t you, doctor?”

“Well, Martha, to be honest with you—­yes.  Although I shouldn’t want Elmer to know I said it.”

“Well, you needn’t worry; he shan’t know as far as I am concerned.  Now of course there’s just one sensible thing for Mr. Bangs here to do, and you know what that is, doctor, as well as I do.  Now don’t you?”

Powers smiled.  “Perhaps,” he admitted, “but I’d rather you said it, Martha.”

“All right, I’m goin’ to say it.  Mr. Bangs,” turning to the nervous Galusha, “the thing for you to do is to stay right here in this house, stay right here till you’re well enough to go somewhere else.”