e shook hands on parting. "You get a good house in a central
position, put up your plate and hold on by your toe-nails. Charge little
or nothing until you get a connection, and none of your professional
haw-dammy or you are a broken man. I'll see that you don't stop steaming
for want of coal."

So with that comforting assurance I left them on the platform of the
Bradfield station. The words seem kind, do they not? and yet taking this
money jars every nerve in my body. When I find that I can live on bread
and water without it, I will have no more of it. But to do without it
now would be for the man who cannot swim to throw off his life-belt.

I had plenty of time on my way to Birchespool to reflect upon my
prospects and present situation. My baggage consisted of a large
brassplate, a small leather trunk, and a hat-box. The plate with my name
engraved upon it was balanced upon the rack above my head. In my box
were a stethoscope, several medical books, a second pair of boots, two
suits of clothes, my linen and my toilet things. With this, and the five
pounds eighteen shillings which remain in my purse, I was sallying out
to clear standing-room, and win the right to live from my fellow-men.
But at least there was some chance of permanency about this; and if
there was the promise of poverty and hardship, there was also that of
freedom. I should have no Lady Saltire to toss up her chin because I had
my own view of things, no Cullingworth to fly out at me about nothing. I
would be my own--my very own. I capered up and down the carriage at the
thought. After all, I had everything to gain and nothing in the whole
wide world to lose. And I had youth and strength and energy, and the
whole science of medicine packed in between my two ears. I felt as
exultant as though I were going to take over some practice which lay
ready for me.

It was about four in the afternoon when I reached Birchespool, which
is fifty-three miles by rail from Bradfield. It may be merely a name to
you, and, indeed, until I set foot in it I knew nothing of it myself;
but I can tell you now that it has a population of a hundred and
thirty thousand souls (about the same as Bradfield), that it is mildly
manufacturing, that it is within an hour's journey of the sea, that it
has an aristocratic western suburb with a mineral well, and that the
country round is exceedingly beautiful. It is small enough to have a
character of its own, and large enough for solitude,