Title: John's Other Practice
Author: Marks, Winston K. (Winston Kinney)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "John's Other Practice" ***


                         John's Other Practice

                           By Winston Marks

               Slot machines usually give you a big pain
            in the wallet. But Cunningham's Symptometer was
           more considerate--it also diagnosed the pain....

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
                               July 1954
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


I knew that John Cunningham had been warned on graduation day that no
man with a romantic nature should specialize in gynecology. John was
not only a romanticist; he was also the best looking intern north of
the equator.

The laws of probability functioned. Within three years, John Cunningham
was married, divorced, disgraced and flat broke. And so it was that the
winsome, six-foot, blonde-headed nurse's idol of the flashing smile and
brilliant mind, approached life with three strangely related goals,
namely: (1) To practice medicine successfully without (2) coming in
contact with his patients, and yet (3) make back the family fortune he
had squandered mixing potions with poetry.

In a much less interesting way, I, too, was diverted from an otherwise
promising career in the practice of conventional 21st Century
medicine. My final exam before the board revealed an aptitude that
landed me a fat offer from the International Medical Association. The
job was Special Investigator on the Malpractice Board of Control.
My apparent immunity to emotional disturbances from the other sex,
ironically, was the deciding factor of my appointment.

My first intimation of John Cunningham's vicarious practice came in
the form of an order to check on a complaint from the Hotel Celt in
New York. I bussed over to the 48-story hostelry and questioned the
manager, a fat, bald man of some forty-two years and no arches.

"A lady doctor," he mourned, "has served warning she will sue unless I
take out the slot machines from our mezzanine powder rooms."

"I know," I said. "She filed the complaint that brought me here. What
I want to know is what does a slot machine violate by being in the
ladies' room?" I meant, what violation beyond the usual federal, state
and county restrictions whose ineffectual enforcement rendered them
anachronisms in this age of device-gambling.

"Why does this remotely concern the medical profession?"

Mr. Dennithy, the manager plucked an imperfect petal from his
buttonhole carnation and reluctantly pointed out. "These machines
are vending, not gambling devices. They issue medical advice--on a
limited scale," he added hurriedly.

"What!" I yelled in his face. "Let's go see this."

The tastefully decorated lounge was jammed with females, many of whom
were bunched in little chirping bevies along the west wall. Stubby
queues of women gave the place the look of a pari-mutuel stand, but the
cheerful, tinkly chatter had nothing of the grim spirit of betting.

The three women attendants threw up their hands in despair when I told
them to clear the room. "We can hardly get them to leave at night so we
can clean up the place," one complained.

Impatiently I barged in, flashed my gold and platinum serpent-and-staff
badge, and shouted. "These machines are illegal. This is a raid! Stand
where you are, every last one of you!"

       *       *       *       *       *

That did it. I almost got trampled in the stampede of high heels. Score
one for my specialty in applied psychology and semantics. I learned
later that, compared to one John Cunningham, I was a babe in the
maternity ward.

Of this I got my first inkling when I examined one of the ten machines
along the wall. It had a slot for a quarter. It was only two feet
across by seven feet high and one foot thick. A circular mirror at eye
level drew the female attention, and alongside was the slogan in large
orange print:

"_DO YOU REALLY FEEL WELL? Have you pains in your abdomen? Answer
correctly the following questions and learn the truth from the
Appendicitis Symptometer._"

The next machine was named a "Kidney Stone Symptometer." The next
advised about allergies, the next, pulmonary tuberculosis, and so on
down to the one on the far end. Before this somewhat larger machine
was the densest litter of carmine-tipped cigarette butts, some still
smoldering on the carpet. This evident number-one favorite on the
Symptometer Hit Parade asked disturbingly:

"COULD IT BE YOU ARE PREGNANT?"

Each machine had a bank of detailed questions to answer, each so
couched that it could be satisfied by pressing one of three buttons.
The instruction read: "Push the Red Button to answer YES, the White
Button for NO, and the Yellow Button for SORT OF." This machine
required a dollar.

To say that I was intrigued would only be searching for words. Having
no change I demanded a silver dollar from Dennithy. He shifted from one
foot to the other, and never before have I seen a genuine hotel man
blush.

"Really, Mr. Klinghammer--"

"Doctor Klinghammer," I reminded him.

"Oh, yes. But--actually, I hadn't realized the exact nature of these
devices. The, er, diseases which they purport to diagnose, I mean. My
engineer, Mr. Shiftin merely said--"

"We do not prosecute innocently victimized business-men," I told him.
"Now, that dollar, please."

"But wouldn't one of the quarter machines--" he trailed off under my
best scowl and produced a silver disc from his fawn-colored vest.

I sent him out for more coins and set about inserting negative
symptomatic answers. Upon examination the questions appeared to be
remarkably phrased. Several of them seemed unrelated to the condition
of pregnancy, but it turned out that Cunningham knew what he was doing.

When the last button was depressed a soft, melodic chime disguised the
click of the mechanism which ejected the cardboard tab. It read:

"IF YOU HAVE ANSWERED THESE QUESTIONS HONESTLY THE SYMPTOMETER OBSERVES
THAT IT IS EXTREMELY UNLIKELY THAT YOU ARE PREGNANT. YOU ARE URGED TO
CONSULT A COMPETENT OBSTETRICIAN. VERIFY THIS OPINION."

Next, I set into the machine the proper answers to describe an
ambiguous condition with contradictory symptoms. Dennithy came back
with more change, and this time the tab read:

"THERE IS A POSSIBILITY OF PREGNANCY INDICATED. A COMPETENT PHYSICIAN
CAN DETERMINE AT ONCE. THERE IS ALSO AN INDICATION THAT YOUR ANSWERS
MIGHT BE EITHER INSINCERE OR FACETIOUS. THE INVENTOR OF THE SYMPTOMETER
WISHES TO POINT OUT THAT IT'S YOUR DOLLAR YOU JUST SPENT, LADY."

I could imagine the chuckle this would get from the old dowager,
wise in the ways of such matters and smugly secure from any such
contingency; the woman who would be most likely to feed in such
confusing data.

I snatched another coin from Dennithy and pushed in the buttons which
should give symptoms of pregnancy in the last week of the last month.
The card read:

"MADAME CALL AN AMBULANCE. YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS DOWN TOWN!"

At first I was plain furious. The inventor was selling not only medical
diagnoses, but providing penny arcade entertainment as well. Then the
impossibility of reporting the results of my investigation to the
board struck me. In what conceivable manner could I phrase my findings
and still maintain the dignity of our profession? And, worse yet,
when you got right down to it, on what grounds could we outlaw and
confiscate these machines?

       *       *       *       *       *

Twenty-four quarters later I confirmed this suspicion. All ten
machines were paragons of discretion. Each urged the patient to visit
her doctor, or bore some other innocuous medical platitude. They
were designed to painlessly accommodate the confirmed hypochondriac
without wasting a busy doctor's time. And yet when a truly sick person
indicated genuine symptoms, the diagnosis was general but accurate. The
instruction to see a physician at once was urgently definite.

I was back before the dollar machine musing at my ugly expression in
the mirror, when a light female voice behind me said, "I believe you
have the wrong room, gentlemen."

She had short, bronzed, curly hair. She wore trim flannel slacks of
dead white. Across her immaculate blouse was slung a pair of straps,
one supporting a small tool kit, the other a stout leather pouch which
rested on one shapely hip. She looked, to my first embarrassed glance,
cute, feminine, intelligent and quite amused.

"We, ah, we were not intruding, Miss," Dennithy spluttered. "I cleared
the room so I could show this equipment to--" I kicked him in the shin
"--to _Mister_ Klinghammer. He--has a hotel on the west coast. He is
interested."

The reason for this evasion was the fact that emblazoned in red over
her left breast was the legend:

                     "JAYSEE SYMPTOMETER SERVICE"

"Clever machines," I flattered. "Well based in feminine psychology," I
added, entirely overlooking that she might reasonably be expected to
have the same psychology.

"I only service them," she said shortly. "Please step aside so I can
operate." She gave me a long, searching look before she swung open
the first top panel. Apparently satisfied I was merely a prospective
customer, she let me look on.

A swift look inside gave me a virulent case of the quim-quim. Here was
no simple coin-snatcher. The answer buttons were switches. From each
one ran leads to a panel which bristled with tiny vacuum tubes. It was
uncomfortably remindful of the latest in electronic calculators which
were rapidly gaining the reputation of being, "man's other brain."

"Tell me, Miss--"

"_Doctor_ Calicoo," she prompted me pleasantly, as she slipped the tiny
test prods of a miniature meter into the machine's mercenary heart.

"Tell me, Dr. Calicoo, how may I get in touch with the supplier of this
equipment?"

She handed me a card and with it a slightly interested look that
dropped my stability quotient at least three points.

The card was less interesting than the expression in her provocative
blue eyes. I broke down and asked, "Doctor of what?"

"Philosophy. Electronics and Mathematics. You don't run a hotel," she
said shrewdly.

"Make a liar out of Mr. Dennithy if you choose," I told her, "but would
you be kind enough to take me to," I glanced at the card, "to Dr. John
Cunningham?"

"I'll take you," she nodded, then her voice hardened a little, "but if
you are just a snooper or a patent-jumper it will be no favor."

She invited candor, so she got it. I showed her my badge. Her mouth
pulled into a startled little "o," like an oversized, pitted cherry.

We left Dennithy clinking quarters, trying to determine how he might
figure into a possible scandal. In the elevator to the basement garage
I commented acidly, "You must have known this was inevitable, of
course?"

"To the contrary," she parried, "I had a notion that a genuine M.P.
sleuth would be ninety-two years old and wear a white coat with a
stethoscope in his side pocket. You seem to have youth and a rather
charming virility, Doctor."

"Cut the flattery," I said. "Let's find your car."

       *       *       *       *       *

The address was over in New Brooklyn. She slipped the light blue sedan
into the proper cross-town tunnel entrance, adjusted the automatics
and turned upon me suddenly. The dim reflection of the headlights from
the dull-painted walls of the one-way tunnel gave her face a ghostly
loveliness. I had just become sharply aware of this phenomenon, when
she brushed a light, experimental kiss across my lips.

Volume II, of Dr. Bankawaya's "Twenty-First Century Emotional
Reactions to the Love Stimulus" notwithstanding, my socially-adjusted,
medically-trained and professionally-restrained instincts played a
rotten trick on me. Instead of staring at her with a cool eye and
calming her with a proper, chilling remark, I responded like a frog's
leg to an electric shock.

My chin jerked out to follow the sweetest sensation I could remember.
It didn't have far to go. She had retreated only three inches.

The tunnel curved right there, and the car lurched. I made a bad
connection with only half her mouth, but a slight correction on her
part squared us off to what is outrageously described in the texts as a
basic, or primary, wooing gesture.

After the first, delirious second I knew it was a frame. After the
second moment, I didn't care. But it wasn't until several minutes had
elapsed that Doctor Calicoo's cool resolve collapsed, and I learned
what a kiss could really mean from a woman who meant it, herself.

She tore out of my arms with a little cry. "Look out!" Then I became
aware that the warning light had been flashing unnoticed. We were
coming to the tunnel's exit where manual vehicle control became
necessary. With trembling hands she gripped the controls until her
knuckles were white knobs.

As we flashed past the patrol station and two alert faces checked the
interior of our car, I said, "I think I know what you had in mind.
You had me hooked on but good. Why didn't you go through with it?" I
referred to the easy possibility of our shooting from the tube in each
other's arms and thereby violating the safety code for tube passage.
Such a simple frame would have put M.P. Investigator Klinghammer on
the tabloid front page, if his feminine companion had chosen to file
a complaint--with police witnesses to the act. Exit Klinghammer to a
hobby of his own, probably less lucrative than building phantom symptom
machines.

"I guess I overdid it," she said simply. She began to cry. Her white
blouse quivered.

       *       *       *       *       *

All I did was pat her gently on the shoulder, and the tears ran like
mercury from a retort. "Let us not assume that we are enemies," I said,
regaining a portion of my composure and all of my stuffiness. "So you
_are_ the frustrated Mata Hari; perhaps I'm on your side. Were you
acting on orders? Was this a set up?"

She shook her head. "When we went into the tunnel I was in love with
John Cunningham. I kissed you to frame you, all right, but it was my
own idea. I'm impulsive, I guess." The only part I caught was the past
tense of her first sentence.

"You mean you can change loves in the middle of a tunnel?" I blurted.
Whereupon I learned one more "don't" that was never mentioned in
lecture. The car slewed to the curb. She jabbed the emergency stop
switch, leaned across me and slapped open my door.

"Walk!" she commanded. The remaining tears were fairly steaming from
her red cheeks. I was smart enough not to fumble for an apology. I
walked.

When I found a cab, I had no chance to think clearly. The cabby bored
me the whole way with the excited news of the opening of the Brooklyn
Centennial Celebration. Brooklyn in the spring meant baseball, and the
Bums were celebrating their one-hundredth year in the league.

"Only we're changing the name from 'de Bums' to 'de Boids.' 'De
Blueboids' woulda been prettier, but a hockey team got to that name
foist."

Brooklyn in the spring. Baseball. Love out of the blue. Blueboids.
Platitudinous slot-machines.

When I stood before the gray, translucent door of Dr. John Cunningham's
penthouse apartment, I was something less than the eager, efficient,
young Dr. Klinghammer of the remarkable stability. From bed-rock to
quicksand in one easy tunnel.

       *       *       *       *       *

A man answered. He was at least one cut above the most adored idol of
video and movie screen, his slacks even more unpressed and his beach
shirt even gaudier. He looked me in the eye for a moment and said, "Dr.
Sledgehammer, I presume?"

"Klinghammer," I corrected.

"Sorry. Sue seemed a little confused on several details. Come in,
please."

Sue. Sue Calicoo. Out of the blue. Blueboids. John Cunningham. This was
a disrupting thought. So this is the guy she's really in love with.
Malpractice? Without a doubt.

I followed him into a spacious, skylighted room, a corner of which
instantly caught my eye, first, because it contained Sue, and second,
because it was the only orderly spot in the whole littered place.
Sue sat in the tiny office-space at a small desk, furiously filing a
fingernail over a blue wastebasket. She didn't look up.

The look of tidiness ended there. The balance of the chamber gave a
fair impression of a wholesale video-repair shop on moving day. Benches
and racks were spaced at random, and each was loaded with electronic
gear, meters, cable and tools. Unassembled units squatted in a
semicircle before a large framework at the far end of the laboratory.

"May we be alone?" I asked.

"Alone?"

"Your girl friend, there," I said bitterly.

Cunningham tossed his blond head back and laughed. "Girl friend? That
little fiend who calls herself my partner? Huh-uh! My girl friends are
in there. Let's go introduce you." He started through a side door, and
the unmistakable revelry of a cocktail party burst into the room.

Cunningham, himself, was not sober. I looked at Dr. Sue Calicoo. She
hissed, "If you mention anything about the tunnel I'll brain you!
Anything! Do you understand?"

I chased after Cunningham, hauled back with one hand and clipped him
carefully with the other. I slammed the door and told Sue, "Help me
sober him up."

She whistled softly. "He's not that drunk. Bring him to and you'll find
out."

I worked on his heavy neck for a moment until his eyes flickered. I was
in no mood to make him comfortable, so I just propped his back against
a packing-case and took off on him. "What kind of a travesty on the
practice of medicine do you call this?" I began.

Sue yawned and went to join the party. "Call me when the patty-cake is
baked," she said as she closed the door.

The glare of hostility gradually vanished from Cunningham's handsome
face. Without it he looked better. He lit a cigarette, thought for a
moment and smiled at me. "Have you been kissing my partner?"

I blurbled in my throat.

He went on, "You are acting as strangely as Sue did. I have often
conjectured that if you could bottle Sue's kisses adrenalin would be
obsolete."

"You--kiss her--often?" I asked against my will.

"Only twice. The day she came to work, and two weeks later when they
took the stitches out of my head. The second one was just to show there
were no hard feelings."

"She loves you," I said with inane persistence.

He shrugged, "Could be. But she means matrimony. I flunked that once.
Won't take the test again. But now, Doctor, you didn't come here to
make a match, surely. Sue reports that the M.P. board takes a dim view
of my Symptometers. Have you filed a report yet?" he asked warily.

"Not quite yet," I admitted. Blueboids. Sue Calicoo. Brooklyn in the
Spring.

"And when your respiration becomes normal again," Cunningham assured
me, "I think you will realize that such a report will be difficult to
file. Am I right?" He hoisted himself from the carpet. "You know," he
went on, "this investigation was sure to come. I knew it. And I guess
it threw me a little more than I thought it would. Now that it's here
I'm relieved. I think they sent the right man, Doctor Klinghammer."

       *       *       *       *       *

He fished a bottle from the debris on one of the benches and offered it
to me. He did it in such a neighborly manner that in my preoccupation
I accepted and tilted down at least a deciliter before coming to my
senses. Then it was too late. A remarkable thing happened when that
liquefied plutonium hit bottom. I twanged like a sixty-pound bow, and
I began laughing. I felt sorry for this poor, misguided Romeo. The
solution to his whole problem spread before me like an atlas.

Slowly his smile vanished. "Before we discuss this further, I'd like
to impress a point or two. Those coin machines are only a means to an
end." He pulled heavily at the bottle, took me by the arm and led me
over to the huge, half-created machine at the end of the lab.

"This is my life's work," he said solemnly. "Between my exwife and
this mechanical monster, I ran through a rather substantial family
fortune. I had to have funds. So I excised a few of the simple circuits
from this contraption, threw on some window dressing and turned them
loose in a few key locations where women congregate. Yesterday, after
three weeks of operation, sixty of those gadgets coughed up $82,000.
Unfortunately, I had to borrow almost a hundred thousand dollars to
build them. In another week I'll show a profit."

"In another week," I told him, "you'll be held for malpractice and
indicted for fraud--unless--"

"Unless I cut you in, I suppose," he sneered.

"Unless you give me another drink," I said after a suitable dramatic
pause.

Cunningham pulled one eyebrow down, nonplussed, but he handed over the
liquor. I choked on a swallow as Sue's voice cut over my shoulder, "I
left you to play patty-cake, and now it's spin-the-bottle. Are you down
to business, or shall I leave again?"

John said, "Stay here, kid, Doctor Hammerhead has an idea."

She came over and deliberately leaned up against him. He put his arm
around her waist in what I tried to believe was a fraternal gesture.

"The name is Klinghammer," I said. "Don't antagonize me. I'm trying to
help you."

Doctor Calicoo had recovered any selfcomposure she may have mislaid in
the tunnel. She said sarcastically, "It couldn't be that you are trying
to figure a way out of this for yourself, could it?"

"Quit patronizing, both of you," I snapped. "You both know this will
be embarrassing to the Board. But all I face is a big blush and an
international horse-laugh. I'll grant you, we probably can't confiscate
the machines. But my testimony could easily damn you for unethical
practices if nothing else. With luck I might get you for fraud, too."

A look of synthetic concern passed between them. I took another
drink. "I would like to know what possible justification you have for
retaining the right to call yourself a medical man, Cunningham."

"What's wrong with research?" he demanded.

"In your case," I cracked, "nothing that a few scruples wouldn't
improve."

Dr. Calicoo stamped her small foot at me. "Don't you make fun of us.
John has a wonderful idea. His big general diagnosing correlator has
some of the finest memory and calculating control circuits in it that
exist anywhere." She nodded to herself. "I built them myself."

Cunningham explained earnestly, "It will assimilate and coordinate
over a thousand separate symptoms, including every known particle of
clinical data on a patient. Why it will reduce physician error to
practically zero."

"If it works," I said sourly.

"It will, it will!" he assured me. "Of course I have probably a year or
more to spend in quantitative calibration of the input circuits, and
maybe a couple or three years on the qualitative differentiations of
the output."

"I see," I said. "And you want to calibrate and differentiate without
the necessity of practicing on the side to provide funds. So you
invented the one-armed bandit with the Johns Hopkins accent to tide you
over. Right?"

"Right!"

"You have made one mistake in the means to your end," I told him. "Now
I have a plan." They both leaned forward, a little too far, I realize
now.

       *       *       *       *       *

My report caused quite a sensation. The ten-man board read it and
called me almost at once to clarify verbally what I had hinted to be
a likely solution to our dilemma, namely: A desirable alternative to
facing a mortifying legal action in restraining the present use of the
Symptometer.

When I entered the rich, old mahogany chambers, the chairman pointed to
the lecture stand. He was goateed and morbidly curious. Before I could
clear my throat he urged impatiently, "Get at it, boy. What's this
business of skinning a cat you mentioned?"

"Honorable Doctors," I began self-consciously, "you all realize the
legal difficulties with which we are faced. Before we face them, I give
you the suggestion that we prevail upon the inventor of the Symptometer
to license its manufacture for use only in medical clinics. Having
operated the machines I can testify that the results of the questioning
of these devices can be definitely informational and could assist a
physician in more rapid diagnosis and treatment."

I held up my hand to silence the horrified grunts of disapproval. "Let
me continue, please. A few minor changes in the recording mechanism
would enable the equipment to produce a coded card. This, without a
physician's attention, would direct the clinical staff to perform the
necessary laboratory functions to verify or disprove the indicated
symptoms. With this card and the results of the clinical examination
in his possession, the physician then meets the patient for the first
time. He has been spared the preliminary examination, the redundant,
lengthy interview in which madame hypochondriac recapitulates the
history of her hives or biliousness.

"Naturally, the coin operation of the machine would be eliminated. But
there is no need for a doctor to adjust his fees downward because
he performs his work more efficiently, now is there? And with the
Symptometer at his disposal, a physician should be able to easily
double the number of office calls per hour.

"What does this do for the doctor? It frees him from so much of the
annoying drudgery of patient interviewing. It eliminates the wait from
first interview to final consultation. It keeps the laboratory details
in their proper place. In short, it makes a true executive of the
physician."

My eloquence was beginning to tell. All these men had long practices
behind them. The practical advantages were undeniable. The important
point, however, was that my radical suggestion did offer a less
distressing alternative to bringing this into court.

The gray-fringed bald heads bobbled before me, and I knew from the
higher pitch of their grunts and mutters that I was making my point. I
was sweating, but then so were they.

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening I phoned Cunningham. "You're in like Flynn," I told him.
"Whether you like it or not, get those machines back and the changes
made within a week. If we give them too much time to think about it
they might change their minds."

I thought I caught laughter in the background, but I hadn't made a
video connection. I did so at once, and there was Cunningham with a
suspiciously smug smirk on his face. "Thanks, old man," he said softly.

"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "I thought you were reluctant about
this idea?"

A babble of feminine voices and a background blur on the visor
distracted him from my words. He turned away, then back to the screen.
"Sue is on her way over to your suite to pick you up. Tonight we
celebrate. My girl friends are here. Gotta go now."

The idea of a party just then was repugnant, but the thought of another
cross-town ride with Sue was not. As I dressed I achieved an almost
gala mood.

It persisted until I was beside Sue again, same car, same tunnel, same
Spring in Brooklyn, but the Blueboids went fluttering when I identified
the same smug smirk on her face that John Cunningham had betrayed a
half hour ago.

"What," I demanded, "have you invented now?" She looked long into my
eyes, and the amused look slowly left her. She leaned over to me.

With a perversity I was growing to hate I refused to accept this
perfectly good answer. "I sold your Symptometer to the Board, but I
want you to know," I told her loftily, "that I'm not subscribing to
your fantastic general diagnoser."

"Nooooo?" she said softly. She kept looking up into my eyes in a way, I
am told, that women have of concentrating while pretending to listen.

"It's absurd," I pointed out. "Why, he needs five years just to
calibrate the thing. It has no possibilities of mass-production. And
even if it did, the cost would be so outrageous that the average
hospital could hire a whole staff of physicians for the price of one
machine. And figure one thing more: What medical man would welcome into
his heart a gadget that would leave him nothing to do but stand around
with a voltmeter and an oilcan?"

"Good point," Sue nodded with an exaggerated flounce of her auburn halo.

"Of course," I conceded, "if John wants to fiddle around with that pile
of junk as a hobby, that's his business."

"Darrrrrrrling, you've been had," she said lazily. "That pile of junk
we told you was a super-gadget was nothing more than an assembly jig
and test rack for the Symptometer units."

"You misled me!" I exploded.

"That is the understatement of the week," she smiled sweetly. "But we
couldn't have chosen a better Symptometer salesman if we'd had our pick
when I phoned in that complaint to the Board and the Hotel Celt."

"You--you?" I stammered, my pulse loud in my ears.

"Yes, darling. And you were so sweet to get the solution so quickly.
We didn't even have to suggest it to you." Somehow her arm had crept
up behind me, and her fingers got inside the back of my over-heated
collar. "Don't you understand? With John's trouble, what chance do
you suppose he would have had peddling those gadgets directly to any
clinic? Anyway, what product ever started out in life with a better
endorsement than that of the International Medical Association? Now
SHEDDUP!"

I could have resisted the pressure of her arm, being a strong man. But
a bega-volt thought hit me. She had everything out of me she had come
for, so why did she want to kiss me unless--anyhow, we hit the tunnel
curve just then.

Once again I didn't notice the warning signal light. And this time we
got a ticket.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "John's Other Practice" ***

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