which my friend's name was written in white letters. "Rather a
forbidding exterior," remarked Thorndyke, as he inserted the latchkey,
"but it is homely enough inside."

The heavy door swung outwards and disclosed a baize-covered inner door,
which Thorndyke pushed open and held for me to pass in.

"You will find my chambers an odd mixture," said Thorndyke, "for they
combine the attractions of an office, a museum, a laboratory and a
workshop."

"And a restaurant," added a small, elderly man, who was decanting a
bottle of claret by means of a glass syphon: "you forgot that, sir."

"Yes, I forgot that, Polton," said Thorndyke, "but I see you have not."
He glanced towards a small table that had been placed near the fire and
set out with the requisites for our meal.

"Tell me," said Thorndyke, as we made the initial onslaught on the
products of Polton's culinary experiments, "what has been happening to
you since you left the hospital six years ago?"

"My story is soon told," I answered, somewhat bitterly. "It is not an
uncommon one. My funds ran out, as you know, rather unexpectedly. When I
had paid my examination and registration fees the coffer was absolutely
empty, and though, no doubt, a medical diploma contains--to use
Johnson's phrase--the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of
avarice, there is a vast difference in practice between the potential
and the actual. I have, in fact, been earning a subsistence, sometimes
as an assistant, sometimes as a _locum tenens_. Just now I've got no