Where a sick or pregnant mother was too poor to carry out his advice, he followed her into her tenement home, sent one of his nurses to visit her, and even gave money when it was needed to ease the strain of her poverty until she should be well and strong.

Soon scores of the mothers of Deborah's children were singing the praises of Doctor Baird.
Then he began coming to the house.
"I was right," thought Roger complacently.
He laid in a stock of fine cigars and some good port and claret, too; and on evenings when Baird came to dine, Roger by a genial glow and occasional jocular ironies would endeavor to drag the talk away from clinics, adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the new education.

But no joke was so good that Deborah could not promptly match it with some amusing little thing which one of her children had said or done.

For she had a mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood.

It was deep, it was uncanny, this queer community motherhood.
"This poor devil," Roger thought, with a pitying glance at Baird, "might just as well be marrying a widow with three thousand brats." But Baird did not seem in the least dismayed.