Country Doctor

The country doctor lives a life seldom sensational. One night lately, however, Dr. Albert Patrick of Marceline, Mo., awoke from a deep dream of peace to play a role seldom cast outside the cinema. So, at least, said last week's news from Los Angeles.

What sent Dr. Patrick hurrying out of his house, into his flivver and into the night, was a telegram asking him to meet a train at the railroad station. Not many trains stop at Marceline, Mo., least of all the ponderous flier that groaned to a halt this night, dropping off brakemen with lanterns and a worried conductor.

Dr. Patrick left his flivver running, for the emergency, and hurried forward with his small black grip at the ready.

"I'm Dr. Patrick, did you want me?"

"You bet, hop on," said the conductor.

Hopping, Dr. Patrick followed his leader into a Pullman filled with hushed excitement. He was led to a man violently ill in a drawing-room. As Dr. Patrick bent forward to begin an examination, the long train trembled and jolted. It was moving forward.

"Stop the train," cried Dr. Patrick, alarmed. "I can't leave home."

"Sure you can," said a stout gentleman. "Be calm. Just go ahead and 'tend to Mr. Flinn."

"But my Ford's still running out there by the platform," pleaded Dr. Patrick.

"That's all right. We'll pay for the gas."

"And anyway I haven't a nightshirt with me."

A bald, intense man answered: "If you get Mr. Flinn to the point where you dare go to bed, I'll lend you my pajamas."

Dr. Patrick surrendered his whole attention to the sick man. The train tore westward. The bald, intense man wrote out a telegram to Mrs. Albert Patrick of Marceline, Mo.:

Dr. Patrick is accompanying us to Los Angeles to care for a patient. He'll be home soon.

(Signed) CECIL B. DEMILLE

What Mrs. Patrick said to herself about this telegram, she alone knows. What was the matter with John C. Flinn, head of the Producers & Distributors Corp., is a professional secret. But some of the sights and sensations Dr. Patrick experienced in the next few days are now part of the history of Marceline, Mo.

For Dr. Patrick's abduction was by a whole trainload of cinema folk hurrying to a coast convention. Mr. Flinn's recovery was rapid and happy. And to reward virtue in true cinema style, Mr. DeMille and friends took Dr. Patrick for a thorough inspection of filmland, including even a Mack Sennett bathing beauty scene. And they gave him, together with his ticket back to Marceline, Mo., a fee whose proportions will not be approached until Marceline, Mo., breaks out with simultaneous epidemics of mumps, colic, babies and pink eye.