It was not until a year or two later that I was again brought, in a medical way, into association with the Doctor. It happened to be at the beginning of summer and at a time when I was waiting for a hospital position in the fall, that I received word from him offering me a position in his office in New York to take the place of his regular laboratory assistant who was to be away for several months. No offer before or since ever sounded so good to me. The morning of the appointed day saw me there bright and early. This was to be a rare opportunity. I felt it then; I know it now. Some of the secrets of his greatness were to be unfolded to me, and I was eager for the work which would teach me something of his ways.

I was shown to the laboratory which was to be my special province. This was equipped for carrying out by microscopical and chemical analysis, all the practical tests which were necessary, as well as some bacterial breeding. Absolute accuracy of results was the single aim and the simple motto of this workshop. It was a room built on at the back of the house, where light and quiet were assured. To the front of this were the waiting-rooms for the patients, and at the front of the house, the Doctor's office. Simple and sound and always of the best quality, would serve as a description of the furnishings; there was a striking similarity between these and the advice that a patient was sure to receive.

Several days went by without seeing much of the Doctor beyond saying "good-morning," but no time went by without feeling that force in the farther office. It seemed to shape itself into one's work, into one's results. One was not told to do his best—it would not have been necessary; somehow, one did it.

One day about noon, word came from the Doctor asking me to lunch with him upstairs after the morning's work was finished, which was usually half-past one. We sat down to table together, his family being away for the summer, and luncheon was served. I waited quietly to hear what the Doctor wished to speak with me about, but as he said nothing, we ate on in silence until the end of the meal. When we rose to leave the table, the Doctor turned to me and in his blunt way said: "Better have your lunch here every day." As he hurried off to keep an appointment, the suspicion fell across my mind that perhaps he had surmised that my pocketbook would be better for this little noonday rest he was suggesting; but quite apart from that, I was more than glad to have this extra opportunity of being with him and of learning from him.

For some little time we met daily at lunch without the conversation getting much above the level of the small civilities incident to eating, when one day it suddenly came over me that I was not making the best of my opportunities. But Dr. Janeway was a man of very few words. Through doing, not talking, had he risen to his reputation—to his results. How was I to begin? How was I to gain his interest? Surely not by airing that new and conventional structure of scanty knowledge the medical school had so recently assisted me in setting up in my mind, its storerooms so empty of experience, its machinery still rigid for want of real use. No, I did not mean to burden him by trying to open the ball of intercourse in that direction. And yet, if somehow we could only get on some common ground, and I could commence to learn something from his rich experience; if, somehow, I could get by my diffidence of nature in the presence of his depth of knowledge!

I do not know how it came about, as he sat there opposite me, so serious, so silent, but something seemed suddenly to plunge my mind into a perfectly irrelevant region of thought, and drag therefrom to the surface some droll tale I had happened to hear only a few days since. Before I knew it, I was telling the Doctor that story. Fools rush in; but there is a Providence that cares for them, for the Doctor enjoyed it—he laughed, and from then on interchange of thought was less restrained.

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