een satisfied without."

"Ah, well," said the young man, with a chuckle which resulted in his
wiping his eyes with his highly scented handkerchief, "I never took a
drop."

"I know that too," said the doctor.

"Ah, well; we understand one another now, and I'd better go."

James Poynter, however, seemed to be in no hurry to go, but sipped his
brandy-and-water, smoked his cigar down to the throwing-away length, and
then brought out from his vest-pocket an amber and meerschaum
mouthpiece, tipped with gold, into which he fitted the wet end of the
cigar, and smoked till he could smoke no longer, when he rose,
flush-faced, and with the dew upon his forehead.

"I suppose I must go and get it done, doctor," he said; "but it's rather
a--well, it makes a man feel--I say, doctor, what is there in a pretty
woman that makes a man feel half afraid of her, like?"

"I told you, Mr Poynter, a short time back, that I did not understand
women," said the doctor gravelly. "I cannot tell. Say Nature's
heaven-gift for her defence."

"Humph!" said Poynter, staring. "I say, doctor--cigar, you know. Could
you give a fellow a mouthful of something that would take the taste out
of one's mouth? Going to see a lady."

"Try cold water," said the doctor, in a tone of voice which sounded like
throwing that fluid upon he young man's hopes; but he had so much faith
in himself that the verbal water glanced from his fine feathers, and
after rinsing his mouth, he shook hands clumsily, intending to leave the
doctor's fee within his palm, but managed to drop the more valuable of
the two coins on the edge of the fender, when it flew beneath the grate,
and had to be fished out with the tongs.

"Dodgy stuff, money, doctor," said Poynter, setting down the fire-iron,
and blowing the coin.

"Don't take all that trouble, pray."

"Oh, it's no trouble, doctor. I was never above picking up a sov.
There, don't you come. I know my way;" and he left the consulting-room
to go into the house and learn his fate.

"Brute!" said the doctor, with a look of disgust, as he sank into his
chair. "Why is Fate so unfair with her gold! I thought as much, but
Richmond will say _no_."

"Old lunatic!" said James Poynter, with his fat upper lip curling in
disgust, as his eyes lit on the row of glass jars with their ghastly
contents. "Once I get my lady home, I don't mean to see much of him.
Here, boy," he said, as he reached the hall, and so suddenly that there
w