As what is called "a fashionable physician," having for his patients
few outside of the wealthy class, Dr. James Van Horn had occupied a
field of practice entirely different from that of R.P. Burns. Though
Burns numbered on his list many of the city's best known and most
prosperous citizens, he held them by virtue of a manner of address and a
system of treatment differing in no wise from that which he employed
upon the poorest and humblest who came to him. If people liked him it
was for no blandishments of his, only for his sturdy manliness, his
absolute honesty, and a certain not unattractive bluntness of speech
whose humour often atoned for its thrust.
As for his skill, there was no question that it ranked higher than that
of his special rival. As for his success, it had steadily increased.
And, as all who knew him could testify, when it came to that "last
ditch" in which lay a human being fighting for his life, Burns's
reputation for standing by, sleeves rolled up and body stiff with
resistance of the threatening evil, was such that there was no man to
compete with him.
It was inevitable that in a city of the moderate size of that in which
these two men practised there should arise situations which sometimes
brought about a clash between them. The patient of one, having arrived
at serious straits, often called for a consultation with the other. The
very professional bearing and methods of the two were so different,
strive though they might to adapt themselves to each other at least in
the presence of the patient, that trouble usually began at once, veiled
though it might be under the stringencies of professional etiquette.
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