functus officio_, was now sitting in the hall, with
his razors in his pocket, expecting his fee, and smelling pleasantly of
the glass of whiskey which he had just drunk to the health and long life
of the master--God bless him--and all the family.

Doctor Toole met Mr. Lowe on the lobby; he was doing the honours of the
ghastly eclaircissement, and bowed him up to the room, with many an
intervening whisper, and a sort of apology for Dillon, whom he treated
as quite unpresentable, and resolved to keep as much as practicable in
the background.

But that gentleman, who exulted in a good stroke of surgery, and had no
sort of professional delicacy, calling his absent fathers and brethren
of the scalpel and forceps by confounded hard names when he detected a
blunder or hit a blot of theirs, met Mr. Lowe on the upper lobby.

'Your servant, Sir,' said he, rubbing his great red hands with a moist
grin; 'you see what I've done. Pell's no surgeon, no more than
that--(Toole, he was going to say, but modified the comparison in
time)--that candlestick! to think of him never looking at the occiput;
and _he_ found lying on his back--'twas well Mr. Dangerfield pitched on
me--though I say it--why _shouldn't_ I say it--a depression, the size of
a shilling in the back of the head--a bit of depressed bone, you see,
over the cerebellum--the trepan has relieved him.'

'And was it Mr. Dangerfield?' enquired Lowe, who was growing to admire
that prompt, cynical hero more and more every hour.

'By gannies, it just was. He promised me five hundred guineas to make
him speak. What all them solemn asses could not compass, that's sweeping
in their thousands every quarter, thanks to a discerning public. Baugh!
He had heard of a rake-helly dog, with some stuff in his brain-pan, and
he came to me--and I done it--Black Dillon done it--ha, ha! that's for
the pack of them. Baugh!'

Doctor Dillon knew that the profession slighted him; and every man's
hand against him, his was against every man.

Sturk was propped up and knew Lowe, and was, in a ghastly sort of way,
glad to see him. He looked strangely pale and haggard, and spoke
faintly.

'Take pen and ink,' said he.

There were both and paper ready.

'He would not speak till you came,' whispered Toole, who looked hotter
than usual, and felt rather small, and was glad to edge in a word.

'An' don't let him talk too long; five minutes or so, and no more,' said
Doctor Dillon; 'and give him another s