velled cue lay upon his shoulders. With his straight surgical
scissors Black Dillon snipped off this sacred appendage before the good
lady knew what he was about, and cropped the back of his head down to
the closest stubble.

'Will you send, if you please, Ma'am, for Doctor--Doctor--Thingumee?'

'Doctor Toole?' enquired Mrs. Sturk.

'Doctor Toole, Ma'am; yes,' answered the surgeon.

He himself went down to the coach at the hall-door, and in a few minutes
returned with a case, and something in a cloth. From the cloth he took
an apparatus, like the cushioned back of a chair, with straps and
buckles attached to it, and a sort of socket, the back of which was
open, being intended to receive the head in.

'Now, Ma'am, we'll prop him up comfortable with this, if you please.'

And having got it into place, and lowered by a screw, the cushions
intended to receive his head, and got the lethargic trunk and skull of
the Artillery doctor well-placed for his purpose, he took out a roll of
sticking-plaster and a great piece of lint, and laid them on the table,
and unlocked his box, which was a large one, and took out several
instruments, silver-mounted, straight and crooked, with awful
adaptations to unknown butcheries and tortures, and then out came
another--the veritable trepan--resembling the homely bit-and-brace, but
slender, sinister, and quaint, with a murderous sort of elegance.

'You may as well order in half-a-dozen clean towels, if you please,
Ma'am.'

'Oh! Doctor, you're not going to have an operation to-night, gasped Mrs.
Sturk, her face quite white and damp, and her clasped hands trembling.

'Twenty to one, Ma'am,' he replied with a slight hiccup, 'we'll have
nothing of the kind; but have them here, Ma'am, and some warm water for
fear of accidents--though maybe 'tis only for a dhrop of punch we'll be
wanting it,' and his huge, thirsty mouth grinned facetiously; and just
then Dr. Toole entered the room. He was confoundedly surprised when he
found Black Dillon there. Though bent on meeting him with hauteur and
proper reserve, on account of his damnable character, he was yet cowed
by his superior knowledge, so that Tom Toole's address was strangely
chequered with pomposity and alarm.

Dillon's credentials there was, indeed, no disputing, so they sent for
Moore, the barber; and, while he was coming, they put the women out of
the room, and sat in consultation.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

IN WHICH MR. MOORE THE BAR