is fluent explanations. The students leaned over and
looked at the foot. Two or three examined it minutely when Jacobs let it
go.

"When you've quite done," said Philip, with a smile, ironically.

He could have killed them all. He thought how jolly it would be to jab a
chisel (he didn't know why that particular instrument came into his mind)
into their necks. What beasts men were! He wished he could believe in hell
so as to comfort himself with the thought of the horrible tortures which
would be theirs. Mr. Jacobs turned his attention to treatment. He talked
partly to the boy's father and partly to the students. Philip put on his
sock and laced his boot. At last the surgeon finished. But he seemed to
have an afterthought and turned to Philip.

"You know, I think it might be worth your while to have an operation. Of
course I couldn't give you a normal foot, but I think I can do something.
You might think about it, and when you want a holiday you can just come
into the hospital for a bit."

Philip had often asked himself whether anything could be done, but his
distaste for any reference to the subject had prevented him from
consulting any of the surgeons at the hospital. His reading told him that
whatever might have been done when he was a small boy, and then treatment
of talipes was not as skilful as in the present day, there was small
chance now of any great benefit. Still it would be worth while if an
operation made it possible for him to wear a more ordinary boot and to
limp less. He remembered how passionately he had prayed for the miracle
which his uncle had assured him was possible to omnipotence. He smiled
ruefully.

"I was rather a simple soul in those days," he thought.

Towards the end of February it was clear that Cronshaw was growing much
worse. He was no longer able to get up. He lay in bed, insisting that the
window should be closed always, and refused to see a doctor; he would take
little nourishment, but demanded whiskey and cigarettes: Philip knew that
he should have neither, but Cronshaw's argument was unanswerable.

"I daresay they are killing me. I don't care. You've warned me, you've
done all that was necessary: I ignore your warning. Give me something to
drink and be damned to you."

Leonard Upjohn blew in two or three times a week, and there was something
of the dead leaf in his appearance which made the word exactly descriptive
of the manner of his appearance. He was a weedy-looking fell