cut half a dozen of them out without leaving him any the worse,
except for the illness and the guineas it costs him. I knew the
Walpoles well fifteen years ago. The father used to snip off the
ends of people's uvulas for fifty guineas, and paint throats with
caustic every day for a year at two guineas a time. His brother-
in-law extirpated tonsils for two hundred guineas until he took
up women's cases at double the fees. Cutler himself worked hard
at anatomy to find something fresh to operate on; and at last he
got hold of something he calls the nuciform sac, which he's made
quite the fashion. People pay him five hundred guineas to cut it
out. They might as well get their hair cut for all the difference
it makes; but I suppose they feel important after it. You cant go
out to dinner now without your neighbor bragging to you of some
useless operation or other.

EMMY [announcing] Mr Cutler Walpole. [She goes out].

Cutler Walpole is an energetic, unhesitating man of forty, with a
cleanly modelled face, very decisive and symmetrical about the
shortish, salient, rather pretty nose, and the three trimly
turned corners made by his chin and jaws. In comparison with
Ridgeon's delicate broken lines, and Sir Patrick's softly rugged
aged ones, his face looks machine-made and beeswaxed; but his
scrutinizing, daring eyes give it life and force. He seems never
at a loss, never in doubt: one feels that if he made a mistake he
would make it thoroughly and firmly. He has neat, well-nourished
hands, short arms, and is built for strength and compactness
rather than for height. He is smartly dressed with a fancy
waistcoat, a richly colored scarf secured by a handsome ring,
ornaments on his watch chain, spats on his shoes, and a general