to prove himself right before the Judge.

They picked him up and laid him reverently on the bed, and then Guy
went for the doctor.

"I could," said the attendant of Death, when he had heard the whole
story--"I could give you a certificate. I could reconcile it, I
mean, with my professional conscience and my--other conscience. He
could not have lived thirty hours--there was an abscess on his
brain. But I should advise you to face the inquest. It might be"--
he paused, looking keenly into the young fellow's face--"it might be
that at some future date, when you are quite an old man, you may
feel inclined to tell this story."

Again the doctor paused, glancing with a vague smile towards the
woman who stood beside them. "Or even nurse--" he added, not
troubling to finish his sentence. "We all have our moments of
expansiveness. And it is a story that might easily be--
discredited."

So the "eccentric Oscard" finished his earthly career in the
intellectual atmosphere of a coroner's jury. And the world rather
liked it than otherwise. The world, one finds, does like novelty,
even in death. Some day an American will invent a new funeral, and
if he can only get the patent, will make a fortune.

The world was, moreover, pleased to pity Guy Oscard with that pure
and simple sympathy which is ever accorded to the wealthy in
affliction. Every one knew that Thomas Oscard had enjoyed affluence
during his lifetime, and there was no reason to suppose that Guy