y child, was struck
down by the sun while fishing without his hat last July. His mind has
never recovered from the shock, and he has been ever since in a chronic
state of moody sullenness which breaks out every now and then into
violent mania. His father will not allow him to be removed from
Lochtully Castle, and it is his desire that a medical man should stay
there in constant attendance upon his son. Your physical strength would
of course be very useful in restraining those violent attacks of which
I have spoken. The remuneration will be twelve pounds a month, and you
would be required to take over your duties to-morrow."

I walked home, my dear Bertie, with a bounding heart, and the pavement
like cotton wool under my feet. I found just eightpence in my pocket,
and I spent the whole of it on a really good cigar with which to
celebrate the occasion. Old Cullingworth has always had a very high
opinion of lunatics for beginners. "Get a lunatic, my boy! Get a
lunatic!" he used to say. Then it was not only the situation, but the
fine connection that it opened up. I seemed to see exactly what would
happen. There would be illness in the family,--Lord Saltire himself
perhaps, or his wife. There would be no time to send for advice. I would
be consulted. I would gain their confidence and become their family
attendant. They would recommend me to their wealthy friends. It was all
as clear as possible. I was debating before I reached home whether it
would be worth my while to give up a lucrative country practice in order
to take the Professorship which might be offered me.

My father took the news philosophically enough, with some rather
sardonic remark about my patient and me being well qualified to keep
each other company. But to my mother it was a flash of joy, followed by
a thunderclap of consternation. I had only three under-shirts, the
best of my linen had gone to Belfast to be refronted and recuffed, the
night-gowns were not marked yet--there were a dozen of those domestic
difficulties of which the mere male never thinks. A dreadful vision of
Lady Saltire looking over my things and finding the heel out of one of
my socks obsessed my mother. Out we trudged together, and before evening
her soul was at rest, and I had mortgaged in advance my first month's
salary. She was great, as we walked home, upon the grand people into
whose service I was to enter. "As a matter of fact, my dear," said she,
"they are in a sense relations o