cover replaced, the knives put away with horrible realism, the patient's
pulse felt and a little stimulus administered--the boy taking this
himself--to wit, a little ammonia and water.

Next the table-cover was drawn off, the hearthrug restored to its place;
and, grinning now hugely, Bob went to a drawer, and got out the doctor's
tooth-drawing instruments--for the doctor belonged to the old school,
and in distant times had not been above removing a decayed and aching
molar from a patient's jaw.

The boy flourished the instruments about with evident enjoyment, going
as far as to take a good hold of one of his teeth, but he refrained from
pulling, and rubbed his half-numbed hands.

It suddenly seemed to occur to him that he had not put on his jacket,
and resuming this, and proving its many buttons to be a sham, for it
fastened in a feminine manner by means of a series of hooks and eyes, he
made a bound to the settee, grinning with pleasure as he threw it open,
dived down, and brought out a glistening white human skull, handling it
with a weird kind of delight painted in his face.

He took the ghastly object, and fixed it upon a knob, one of those upon
the back of the old-fashioned chair in the middle of the room, draped it
round with the table-cover; and drew back to admire his handiwork.

"Oh, if our 'Lisbeth would come in now!" he said, with a chuckle, as he
rubbed his hands down his sides before proceeding to the greatest bit of
enjoyment he had in his lonely life at the doctor's.

From the very first the doctor's surgery and consulting-room had had a
strange fascination for him, and whenever he was missing, the
maid-of-all-work, who rarely showed her face out of the dim kitchen,
knew that the boy would not be playing truant from his work or playing
with other lads of his age, but would be found reading, dusting, or
amusing himself in the surgery, smelling bottles, opening drawers, or
standing on a chair, gazing at the ghastly preparations in one or other
of the row of glass jars.

His pranks he managed to keep secret, arranging to enjoy them when the
doctor was asleep, and he was not likely to be disturbed.

The present was his favourite feat from its reality. There was
something to go at, he always said, and for the hundredth time, perhaps,
after performing the operation, and restoring with the help of a little
gum, he took up the doctor's tooth-key, fixed it carefully round a
perfectly sound molar in the f