Costly Courtesy.

He tells it himself, and as he is one of New York's leading physicians and a member of the Amen Corner, it must be true. A patient of his, who is a politican of more than local fame, cane to his office not long ago to consult him. After paying the consultation fee, $5, he asked the physician if he might use his telephone, to which the physician, his fee in his fob, gave a cheerful consent, withdrawing out of delicacy to another room while the conversation over the 'phone was being held. The patient finished after a while.

"I'm very much obliged, doctor," said he.

"Don't mention it, my dear fellow!" said the doctor.

"Don't mention it!"

The patient went his way. A few days afterward the physician received his monthly telephone bill. One of the items on it was "Conversation with Boston, $6.75" The doctor had talked with no one in Boston, but the date was the day on which the patient had borrowed his telephone, after paying his $5 fee. "He talked his fee to Boston, sure enough," says the physician, telling about it, "but seems to me the joke would have been just as good if he had stopped at that."