energetic--sure to succeed sooner or later. If they
push you into a corner now, they can get nothing. Make
that clear to them. But if you make a fresh start
elsewhere and succeed, you may pay them all in full. I
see no other possible way out of it."

"I knew that you'd say that, and it's just what I
thought myself. Isn't it, Hetty? Well, then, that
settles it; and I am much obliged to you for your advice,
and that's all we'll say about the matter to-night. I've
made my shot and missed. Next time I shall hit, and it
won't be long either."

His failure did not seem to weigh very heavily on his
mind, for in a few minutes he was shouting away as
lustily as ever. Whiskey and hot water were brought in,
that we might all drink luck to the second venture.

And this whiskey led us to what might have been a
troublesome affair. Cullingworth, who had drunk off a
couple of glasses, waited until his wife had left the
room, and then began to talk of the difficulty of getting
any exercise now that he had to wait in all day in the
hope of patients. This led us round to the ways in which
a man might take his exercise indoors, and that to
boxing. Cullingworth took a couple of pairs of
gloves out of a cupboard, and proposed that we should
fight a round or two then and there.

If I hadn't been a fool, Bertie, I should never have