with it,--and now the subtle searching odour of the hated
confection was gradually stealing into the compartment and influencing
its atmosphere.

He looked at Coggs, who sat on the seat opposite to him, and saw his
cheeks and lips moving in slow and appreciative absorption of something.
Coggs was clearly the culprit.

"Do you encourage your boys to make common nuisances of themselves in a
public place, may I ask, Dr. Grimstone?" he inquired, fuming.

"Some scarcely seem to require encouragement, Bultitude," said the
Doctor pointedly: "what is the matter now?"

"If he takes it medicinally," said Paul, "he should choose some other
time and place to treat his complaint. If he has a depraved liking for
the abominable stuff, for Heaven's sake make him refrain from it on
occasions when it is a serious annoyance to others!"

"Will you explain? Who and what are you talking about?"

"That boy opposite," said Paul, pointing the finger of denunciation at
the astonished Coggs; "he's sucking an infernal peppermint lozenge
strong enough to throw the train off the rails!"

"Is what Bultitude tells me true, Coggs?" demanded the Doctor in an
awful voice.

Coggs, after making several attempts to bolt the offending lozenge, and
turning scarlet meanwhile with confusion and coughing, stammered huskily
something to the effect that he had "bought the lozenges at a
chemist's," which he seemed to consider, for some reason, a mitigating
circumstance.

"Have you any more of this pernicious stuff about you?" said the Doctor.

Very slowly and reluctantly Coggs brought out of one pocket after
another three or four neat little white packets, make up with that
lavish expenditure of time, string, and sealing-wax, by which the
struggling chemist seeks to reconcile the public mind to a charge of two
hundred and fifty per cent. on cost price, and handed them to Dr.
Grimstone, who solemnly unfastened them one by one, glanced at their
contents with infinite disgust, and flung them out of window.

Then he turned to Paul with a look of more favour than he had yet shown
him. "Bultitude," he said, "I am obliged to you. A severe cold in the
head has rendered me incapable of detecting this insidious act of
insubordination and self-indulgence, on which I shall have more to say
on another occasion. Your moral courage and promptness in denouncing the
evil thing are much to your credit."

"Not at all," said Paul, "not at all, my dear sir. I mentioned i