housemaid, I stood aghast. The morning's entries looked already like a
sample page of the Post Office directory. The new calls alone were more
than equal to an ordinary day's work, and the routine visits remained to
be added. Gloomily wondering whether the Black Death had made a sudden
reappearance in England, I hurried to the dining-room and made a hasty
breakfast, interrupted at intervals by the apparition of the bottle-boy
to announce new messages.

The first two or three visits solved the mystery. An epidemic of
influenza had descended on the neighbourhood, and I was getting not only
our own normal work but a certain amount of overflow from other
practices. Further, it appeared that a strike in the building trade had
been followed immediately by a widespread failure of health among the
bricklayers who were members of a certain benefit club; which accounted
for the remarkable suddenness of the outbreak.

Of course, my contemplated visit to Thorndyke was out of the question. I
should have to act on my own responsibility. But in the hurry and rush
and anxiety of the work--for some of the cases were severe and even
critical--I had no opportunity to consider any course of action, nor
time to carry it out. Even with the aid of a hansom which I chartered,
as Stillbury kept no carriage, I had not finished my last visit until
near on midnight, and was then so spent with fatigue that I fell asleep
over my postponed supper.

As the next day opened with a further increase of work, I sent a
telegram to Dr. Stillbury at Hastings, whither he had gone, like a wise
man, to recruit after a slight illness. I asked for authority to engage
an assistant, but the reply informed me that Stillbury himself was on
his way to town; and to my relief, when I dropped in at the surgery for