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“Is —— Do you like your profession?”

“Nothing like it. Keeps you out, and yet you have a chance to loaf in the office for a change.”

“I don't mean that way. I mean — it's such an opportunity for sympathy.”

Dr. Kennicott launched into a heavy, “Oh, these Dutch farmers don't want sympathy. All they need is a bath and a good dose of salts.”

Carol must have flinched, for instantly he was urging, “What I mean is — I don't want you to think I'm one of these old salts-and-quinine peddlers, but I mean: so many of my patients are husky farmers that I suppose I get kind of case-hardened.”

“It seems to me that a doctor could transform a whole community, if he wanted to — if he saw it. He's usually the only man in the neighborhood who has any scientific training, isn't he?”

“Yes, that's so, but I guess most of us get rusty. We land in a rut of obstetrics and typhoid and busted legs. What we need is women like you to jump on us. It'd be you that would transform the town.”

“No, I couldn't. Too flighty. I did used to think about doing just that, curiously enough, but I seem to have drifted away from the idea. Oh, I'm a fine one to be lecturing you!”