Meetings!
Peddlers of nostrums have a certain look about them, and so I did not expect Doctor Rypmaw to embody his name. I anticipated seeing a thin man, either too tall or too short, with no chin worth speaking of and a twitch to his limbs. At least, that would be if he was the sort of naturist who believed his own patter. If not? Then the doctor would be a slippery fellow, smooth-haired and smooth-voiced, with a trim goatee and cold, calculating eyes. I honestly expected the latter, rather than the former: Rypmaw was moving far too easily in Society to be an honest health fanatic. Our upper crust responds far better to the well-oiled charlatans.
I was mistaken.
My first impression of Doctor Rypmaw was ‘vigor.’ He was full of the stuff — perhaps a little too full. He was easily six feet, and had the build of an outdoorsman. Or, given his European background, he was a hussar or grenadier of some kind. Certainly he walked like a man who had once marched.