ever saved lives--and lost them. You've had a long tether, and you've
swung on it--swung wide. But you've had a lot of luck that you haven't
swung high, too."

He paused and flicked away the ash from his cheroot, while the figure
before him swayed animal-like from side to side, muttering.

"You've got brains, a great lot of brains of a kind--however you came by
them," Rawley continued; "and you've kept a lot of people in the West
from passing in their cheques before their time. You've rooked 'em,
chiselled 'em out of a lot of cash, too. There was old Lamson--fifteen
hundred for the goitre on his neck; and Mrs. Gilligan for the cancer--two
thousand, wasn't it? Tincture of Lebanon leaves you called the medicine,
didn't you? You must have made fifty thousand or so in the last ten
years."

"What I've made I'll keep," was the guttural answer, and the talon-like
fingers clawed the table.

"You've made people pay high for curing them, saving them sometimes; but
you haven't paid me high for saving you in the courts; and there's one
case that you haven't paid me for at all. That was when the patient
died--and you didn't."

The face of the old man became mottled with a sudden fear, but he jerked
it forwards once or twice with an effort at self-control. Presently he
steadied to the ordeal of suspense, while he kept saying to himself,
"What does he know--what--which?"

"Malpractice resulting in death--that was poor Jimmy Tearle; and