castle-keep. No, Phil, I don't care about watching you work. I want to
talk to you seriously."

"About that fellow upstairs--poor old Tom. He and I were great
cronies, you know, at home. He's in a very bad way,

"Is he? You seem to be turning physician all at once, George. I
shouldn't have thought your grubbing among county histories, and
tattered old pedigrees, and parish registers had given you so deep an
insight into the science of medicine!" said the dentist in a sneering
tone.

"I don't know anything of medicine; but I know enough to be sure that
Tom Halliday is about as bad as he can be. What mystifies me is, that
he doesn't seem to have had anything particular the matter with him.
There he lies, getting worse and worse every day, without any specific
ailment. It's a strange illness, Philip."

"I don't see anything strange in it."

"Don't you? Don't you think the surrounding circumstances are strange?
Here is this man comes to your house hale and hearty; and all of a
sudden he falls ill, and gets lower and lower every day, without
anybody being able to say why or wherefore."

"That's not true, George. Everybody in this house knows the cause of
Tom Halliday's illness. He came home in wet clothes, and insisted on
keeping them on. He caught a cold; which resulted in low fever. There
is the whole history and mystery of the affair."