would not have played Charlotte Corday's part had occasion arisen. In
low, full tones she asked, "Did no one ever work among the fishers
before Mr. Fullerton found them out?" "No one, except the fellows who
sold vile spirits, my dear," said Blair.

"Not a single surgeon?"

"Not one. That's why we decided to kidnap Ferrier. We want to give him a
proper school of surgery to practise in--genuine raw material, and
plenty of it, and you must help us to keep him in order. Fancy his
trying to convert us; he'll try to convert you next, if you don't mind!"

The girl paid no heed to the banter. She went on as if in a reverie.

"It is enough to bring a judgment on a nation, all the idle women and
idle men. Mamma told me that a brewer's wife paid two thousand pounds
for flowers in one month. Why cannot you speak to women?"

"We mustn't blame the poor ladies," said Fullerton: "how could they
know? Plenty of people told them about Timbuctoo, and Jerusalem, and
Madagascar, and North and South America, but this region's just a trifle
out of the way. A lady may easily sign a cheque or pack a missionary's
medicine-chest, but she could not come out here among dangers and filth
and discomfort, and the men ashore are not much pluckier. No; in my
experience of English people I've always found them lavish with their
help, only you must let them know what to help. There's the point."

"And you've begun, dear Mr. Fullerton, have you not?"

"Yes; but the end is far off. We were so late--so late in beginning, and