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For Olaf & Marianne

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL**TOP-SECRET


"THE SECRET LIFE OF DR. C-------"

It was difficult to guess the nature of the "personal difficulties" which caused Dr. C, to telegraph the architects to cease work on his house. The phrase itself must have been purposefully chosen, for this was a man too precise and deliberate--too much the scientist, in short--to indulge in careless phrasing.

It eliminated, for instance, the possibilities of illness. For if his wife, many moons pregnant with their fifth child, had been stricken in any way or if an accident had befallen either himself or his children, surely he would have said "because of ill-health."

[[strikethrough]] Could the phrase have [[/strikethrough]] The possibility of a malpractice suit was unthinkable. No patient would sue one of the most famous eye-surgeons in America--and if by some remote chance anyone were foolishly audacious to do so, the well-knit brotherhood of the medical profession would protect its illustrious member.

"Personal difficulties." The only reason so exact a man might choose this ambiguous phrase would be his reluctance to convey any specific information to the Western Union operator of the small, typically gossipy Southern city. In that case, the architects decided, the phrase might conceivably be a euphuemism for "financial difficulties." Perhaps that was it. They weighed the merits of this solution.

Against it, of course, were many obvious facts. Dr. C. made no pretense of charging any but the most astronomic fees-- rationalizing this, like any of his colleagues, by his conscientious work in the clinic for which, incidentally, he was proudly