no consultation hours and made no calls if he could possibly help it.
In spite of Perry's efforts, the cowboy was soon abandoned as a subject for conversation. The Doctor was satisfied that Perry had imagined the likeness and Mrs. Hull couldn't see why a cowboy hadn't as much right in the neighboring building as anyone. Perry's explanations failed to convince her of the incongruity of a cowboy in Clearfield, for she replied mildly that she quite distinctly remembered having seen at least a half-dozen cowboys going along Main Street a year or two before, the time the circus was in town!
"Maybe," chuckled the Doctor, "this cowboy got left behind then!"
Perry refused to accept the explanation, and as soon as supper was over he hurried upstairs again. But the light across the back-yard was out and he returned disappointedly to the sitting-room, convinced that the mystery would never be explained. His father had settled himself in the green rep easy chair, with his feet on a foot-rest, and was smoking his big meerschaum pipe that had a bowl shaped like a skull. The Doctor had had that pipe since his student days, and Perry suspected that, next to his mother and himself, it was the most prized of the
Doctor's possessions. The Sunday papers lay spread
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