shin. "Might have been a very nasty accident, your Grace,"
he said. "It was," said the Duke. Mr. Druce concurred.

Nevertheless, Mr. Druce's remark sank deep. The Duke thought it quite
likely that the gods had intended the accident to be fatal, and that
only by his own skill and lightness in falling had he escaped the
ignominy of dying in full flight from a lady's-maid. He had not, you
see, lost all sense of free-will. While Mr. Druce put the finishing
touches to his shin, "I am utterly purposed," he said to himself, "that
for this death of mine I will choose my own manner and my own--well, not
'time' exactly, but whatever moment within my brief span of life shall
seem aptest to me. Unberufen," he added, lightly tapping Mr. Druce's
counter.

The sight of some bottles of Cold Mixture on that hospitable board
reminded him of a painful fact. In the clash of the morning's
excitements, he had hardly felt the gross ailment that was on him.
He became fully conscious of it now, and there leapt in him a hideous
doubt: had he escaped a violent death only to succumb to "natural
causes"? He had never hitherto had anything the matter with him, and
thus he belonged to the worst, the most apprehensive, class of patients.
He knew that a cold, were it neglected, might turn malignant; and he
had a vision of himself gripped suddenly in the street by internal
agonies--a sympathetic crowd, an ambulance, his darkened bedroom; local
doctor making hopelessly wrong diagnosis; eminent specialists served up
hot by special train, commending local doctor's treatment, but shaking
their heads and refusing to say more than "He has youth on his side"; a
slight rally at sunset; the end. All this flashed through his mind. He
quailed. There was not a moment to lose. He frankly confessed to Mr.
Druce that he had a cold.

Mr. Druce, trying to insinuate by his manner that this fact had not been
obvious, suggested the Mixture--a teaspoonful every two hours. "Give me
some now, please, at once," said the Duke.

He felt magically better for the draught. He handled the little glass
lovingly, and eyed the bottle. "Why not two teaspoonfuls every hour?"
he suggested, with an eagerness almost dipsomaniacal. But Mr. Druce was
respectfully firm against that. The Duke yielded. He fancied, indeed,
that the gods had meant him to die of an overdose.

Still, he had a craving for more. Few though his hours were, he hoped
the next two would pass quickly. And, though he