stepping-stone to the great world, which would lie open to you once
you were delivered from this bondage."

Dr. Whacker ceased. He was pale and a little out of breath. But
his hard eyes continued to study his impassive companion.

"Well?" he said alter a pause. "What do you say to that?"

Yet Blood did not immediately answer. His mind was heaving in
tumult, and he was striving to calm it that he might take a proper
survey of this thing flung into it to create so monstrous a
disturbance. He began where another might have ended.

"I have no money. And for that a handsome sum would be necessary."

"Did I not say that I desired to be your friend?"

"Why?" asked Peter Blood at point-blank range.

But he never heeded the answer. Whilst Dr. Whacker was professing
that his heart bled for a brother doctor languishing in slavery,
denied the opportunity which his gifts entitled him to make for
himself, Peter Blood pounced like a hawk upon the obvious truth.
Whacker and his colleague desired to be rid of one who threatened
to ruin them. Sluggishness of decision was never a fault of Blood's.
He leapt where another crawled. And so this thought of evasion
never entertained until planted there now by Dr. Whacker sprouted
into instant growth.

"I see, I see," he said, whilst his companion was still talking,