and the haggard blue ones met, and there was the faint
semblance of a smile on the grim mouth of the Dop Doctor. Keeping the door
open, the visitor went on:

"I have some notes here--entries copied from the Railway freight-books.
Three weeks ago twenty carboys of carbolic acid, with a considerable
consignment of other antiseptics, surgical necessaries, drugs, and so
forth were delivered to Dr. Williams' order at this address. Frankly, as
the officer commanding Her Majesty's troops on this border, I am here to
make a sequestration of the things I have mentioned, with all other
medical and surgical requisites stored upon the premises, that are likely
to be of use to us at the Hospital. In the name of the Imperial
Government."

The smile died out on the grim mouth. A sombre anger burned in the blue
eyes of the haggard man in shabby tweeds.

"Damn the Imperial Government!" said the Dop Doctor.

The stranger nodded in serious assent. "Certainly, damn it! It is your
privilege and mine, shared in common with all other Britons, to damn our
Government, as long as we remain loyal to our Queen and country."

The other man quivered with a sudden uncontrollable spasm of hate, rage,
and loathing. He clenched his hand and shook it in the air as he cried:

"You employ the stock phrases of your profession. They have long ceased to
mean anything to me. I have been the victim and the sacrifice of British
laws. I have been formally pardoned by the State for a crime I never
committed. I have been robbed, plundered, ruined, betrayed, by the
monstrous thing that bears the name of British Justice. And as I loathe
and hate it, so do I cast off and repudiate the name of Englishman. You
speak of the imminent prospect of a siege. What other causes have operated
to bring it about but British greed, and the British lust for paramountcy
and suzerainty and possession? Liberal, or Conservative, or Radical, or
Unionist, the diplomats and lawyers and financiers who urge on your
political machinery by bombast and bribes and catchwords and lying
promises, are swayed by one motive--governed by one desire--lands and
diamonds and gold. Wealth that is the property of other men, soil that has
been fertilised by the sweat of a nation of agriculturists, whom Great
Britain despised until she learned that gold lay under their orchards and
cornfields." He broke into a jarring laugh. "And it is for these, the
robbers and desperadoes, that the British Army is to