with sweat "Have you such a
thing as a drop of anything to drink in the house?"

"I have not," said Dr. O'Grady, "how could I? Do you think I've lost all
my self-respect? Is it likely I'd order another bottle of whisky out of
your shop when you're dunning me every day of my life for the price of
the last I got? Tell me what happened about the letter?"

Doyle passed a parched tongue across his lips. The inside of his mouth
was quite dry. Extreme nervous excitement often produces this effect.

"If it was even a cup of tea," he said, "it would be better than
nothing. I've a terrible thirst on me."

"Sorry," said Dr. O'Grady, "but I've no tea either. Not a grain in the
house since last Friday. I hope this will be a lesson to you, Doyle,
and will teach you not to ballyrag your customers in future. But I don't
want to rub it in. Get on with your story."

"It could be," said Doyle, "that there'd be water in your pump. I'm not
sure will I be able to speak much without I drink something."

"The pump's all right," said Dr. O'Grady. "Just sit where you are for
a moment and I'll fetch you some water. It may give you typhoid. I
wouldn't drink it myself without boiling it, but that's your look out."

He left the moor and returned a few minutes later with a large tumbler
of cold water. Doyle looked at it mournfully. He knew perfectly well
that the doctor had both whisky and tea in the house, but he recognised
the impossibility of getting either the one or the other. He raised the
glass to his mouth.

"Glory be to God," he said, "but it's the first time I've wetted my lips
with the same this twenty years!"

"It will do you a lot of good if it doesn't give you typhoid," said Dr.
O'Grady. "How did you get so frightfully thirsty?"

The question was natural. Doyle drank the whole tumbler of water at a
draught. There was no doubt that he had been very thirsty.

"Will you tell me now," he said, "what had that one in the temper she
was in?"

"Mrs. Ford," said Dr. O'Grady, "was annoyed because she thought she
wasn't going to be given a chance of making herself agreeable to the
Lord-Lieutenant."

"If she speaks to the Lord-Lieutenant," said Doyle, "after the fashion
she was speaking to me, it's likely that she'll not get the chance of
making herself agreeable to him a second time. Devil such a temper I
ever saw any woman in, and I've seen some in my day."

"I know she'd be a bit savage. I hoped you wouldn't have met her."

"I