Lovell and the afflicted entered. The outer office had half a dozen chairs, and a table, on which were some medical magazines. Lovell scrutinized the ten applicants keenly, and finally beckoned to a tall, well-built chap with a blond mustache, whose unfortunate ailment was not so extreme as the others, to follow him into the inner office. The man did so. There were a desk, three chairs, a table, and a dozen polished-oak boxes that looked as though they might contain vibrators. Lovell closed the door, sat down at the desk, motioned to the blond man to approach, and whispered:
"We pay sixty dollars a week, all traveling and living expenses. Will you go to London, England?"
"Nothing!" again whispered the manager, very earnestly. He seemed anxious to convince Mr. Wright of his good intentions. "Nothing at all! Sixty a week and expenses!"
"I don't understand," said Mr. Lewis J. Wright, with an uneasy smile. His excitement aggravated the malady and his neck jerked and twitched almost constantly.
"That's me," said L. J. Wright, and proved it.
"And with an introspective turn of mind. Understand?"
"Not quite," confessed the cabinet-maker.
"A man who likes to think about himself."
"I guess I can fill the bill all right," asserted L. J. Wright, confidently. Sixty a week, all expenses, and a trip to London began to look very attractive.
"Then you're engaged." The manager nodded.
"I don't know yet what I'm to do," ventured Wright.
"Well, I'll do it, then!" And L. J. Wright smiled tentatively; but the manager of the Acme Vibrator Company looked at him seriously--almost reprovingly--and whispered so hoarsely that Wright felt like going after cough-lozenges for him:
"Listen, Wright. You will go to London with a letter to Dr. Cephas W. Atterbury, 23, Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, N. W. Every day you will sit down in a comfortable chair in the doctor's anteroom, where the patients wait, from nine to eleven a.m. and five to seven p.m. You will think of your St. Vitus's dance. For doing this you will get sixty dollars a week from us and your hotel bill will be paid by the doctor. You may not have to sail for a month, but your salary begins on Monday. Come here every Saturday and get twenty-five dollars on account. When you sail you will get all that's owing to you besides four weeks' salary in advance, and a round-trip ticket, first-class."