scented a patient, and it would be his first. His
scanty resources had begun to run somewhat low, and,
although he had his first quarter's rent safely
locked away in the right-hand drawer of his desk, it
was becoming a question with him how he should meet
the current expenses of his very simple housekeeping.
He bowed, therefore, waved his visitor in, closed the
hall door in a careless fashion, as though his own
presence thereat had been a purely accidental
circumstance, and finally led the burly stranger
into his scantily furnished front room, where he
motioned him to a seat. Dr. Wilkinson planted
himself behind his desk, and, placing his finger-tips
together, he gazed with some apprehension at his
companion. What was the matter with the man? He
seemed very red in the face. Some of his old
professors would have diagnosed his case by now, and
would have electrified the patient by describing his
own symptoms before he had said a word about them.
Dr. Horace Wilkinson racked his brains for some clue,
but Nature had fashioned him as a plodder--a very
reliable plodder and nothing more. He could think of
nothing save that the visitor's watch-chain had a
very brassy appearance, with a corollary to the
effect that he would be lucky if he got half-a-crown
out of him. Still, even half-a-crown was something
in those early days of struggle.

Whilst the doctor had been running his eyes over
the stranger, the latter had been plunging his hands