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The Works of A. Conan Doyle (12); The Stark-Munro Letters and Round the Red Lamp
The Works of A Conan Doyle The Stark-Munro Letters and Round the Red Lamp - 12 Author:Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Volume: 12 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1902 Original Publisher: D. Appleton and company Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Boo... more »ks.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Every practice must dwindle at this time of year." " That's all very well,' said he, pacing up and down the room, with his hands thrust into his pockets, and his great shaggy eyebrows knotted together. " You may put it down to that, but I think quite differently about it." " What do you put it down to, then?" " To you." " How's that ? " I asked. " Well," said he, " you must allow that it is a very queer coincidence -- if it is a coincidence -- that from the day when your plate was put up my practice has taken a turn for the worse." " I should be very sorry to think it was cause and effect," I answered. " How do you think that my presence could have hurt you?" " I'll tell you frankly, old chap," said he, putting on suddenly that sort of forced smile which always seems to me to have a touch of a sneer in it. " You see, many of my patients are simple country folk, half imbecile for the most part, but then the half-crown of an imbecile is as good as any other half-crown. They come to my door, and they see two names, and their silly jaws begin to drop, and they say to each other, ' There's twp of 'em here. It's Dr. Cullingworth we want to see, but if we go in we'll be shown as likely as not to Dr. Munro.' So it ends in some cases in their not coming in at all. Then there are the women. Women don't care a toss whether you are a Solomon, or whether you are hot from an asylum. It's all personal with them. You fetch them, or you don't fetch them. I know how to work them, but they won't come if they think they are going to beturned over to anybody els...« less