earth, as Gulliver was tied by the people of Lilliput. We have life and
health,--_if_ we have them,--and it is only veiled prurience to inquire
whence we got them. A man can't help having a father and a mother, I
suppose; but he need not be always reminding himself of the fact: no
other creature on earth does. For myself, I wish I were like that
extraordinary person, Melchizedek, without father and without mother,
without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life."

In a little while the friends parted. Lefevre said he had work to do,
but he did not anticipate such work as he had to turn to that night.
Though the doctor was a bachelor, he had a professional residence apart
from his mother and sister. They lived in a small house in Curzon
Street; he dwelt in Savile Row. Savile Row was a place of consequence
long before Regent Street was thought of, but now they are few who know
of its existence. Fashion ignores it. It is tenanted by small clubs,
learned societies, and doctors. It slumbers in genteel decorum, with its
back to the garish modern thoroughfare. It is always quiet, but by nine
o'clock of a dark evening it is deserted. When Dr Lefevre, therefore,
stepped out of his hired hansom, and prepared to put his latch-key in
his own door, he was arrested by a hoarse-voiced hawker of evening news
bursting in upon the repose of the Row with a continuous roar of
"Special--Mystery--Paper--Railway--Special--Brighton--Paper--Victoria
--Special!" It was with some effort, and only when the man was close
at hand, that he interpreted the sounds into these words.

"Paper, sir," said the man; and he bought it and went in. He entered his
dining-room, and read the following paragraph;--

"A Mysterious Case.