an extreme disinclination for food, all which symptoms Mr. Sheldon said
were the commonest and simplest features of a very mild attack of
bilious fever, which would leave Tom a better man than it had found
him.

There had been several pleasant little card-parties during the earlier
stages of Mr. Halliday's illness; but within the last week the patient
had been too low and weak for cards--too weak to read the newspaper, or
even to bear having it read to him. When George came to look at his old
friend--"to cheer you up a little, old fellow, you know," and so on--he
found Tom, for the time being, past all capability of being cheered,
even by the genial society of his favourite jolly good fellow, or by
tidings of a steeplechase in Yorkshire, in which a neighbour had gone
to grief over a double fence.

"That chap upstairs seems rather queerish," George had said to his
brother, after finding Tom lower and weaker than usual. "He's in a bad
way, isn't he, Phil?"

"No; there's nothing serious the matter with him. He's rather low
to-night, that's all."

"Rather low!" echoed George Sheldon. "He seems to me so very low, that
he can't sink much lower without going to the bottom of his grave. I'd
call some one in, if I were you."

The dentist shrugged his shoulders, and made a little contemptuous
noise with his lips.

"If you knew as much of doctors as I do, you wouldn't be in any hurry