.

"Two table-spoonfuls every half hour!" she exclaimed; "why, I never heard
of taking a cough-mixture in such doses. Besides, your cough doesn't seem
so very bad, Baron."

"Ze doctor told me to take it so," replied the Baron.

The Countess turned towards Mr Bunker and said, with a touch of suspicion
in her voice, "I thought, Mr Bunker, the doctor had given no opinion."

The Baron threw a glance of intense ferocity at his friend.

"In the Baron's desire to spare your feelings," replied Mr Bunker,
gravely, "he has been a little inaccurate; that is not precisely an
ordinary cough-mixture."

"Oh," said the Countess.

Lady Alicia's attention had been strongly attracted by the bath, and
suddenly she exclaimed, "Why, there are goldfish in it!"

The Baron's nerve was fast deserting him.

"Ze doctor ordered zem," he began--"I mean, I am fond of fishes."

The Countess looked hard at the unhappy young man, and then turned
severely to his friend.

"_What_ is the matter with the Baron?" she demanded.

Mr Bunker saw there was nothing for it but heroic measures.

"The dog was destroyed at once," he replied, with intense gravity. "It is
therefore impossible to say exactly what is the matter."

"_The dog!_" cried the two ladies together.

"By this evening," he continued, "we shall know the worst--or the best."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed the Countess, withdrawing a step from the
bed.

"I mean," replied Mr Bunker, with a happy inspiration, "that this bath is
a delicate test. No victim of the dread disease of hydrophobia can bear to
look----"

But the Countess gave him no time to finish. Even as he was speaking the
Baron's face had passed through a series of the most extraordinary
expressions, which she not unnaturally put down to premonitory symptoms.

"It's beginning already!" she shrieked. "Alicia, my love, come quickly.
How dare you expose us, sir?"

"Calm yourselves. I assure you----" pleaded Mr Bunker, coming hastily after
them, but they were at the door before him.

The hapless Baron could stand it no longer. Crying, "No, no, it is false!"
he sprang out of bed, arrayed in a tweed suit only half concealed by his
night-shirt, and, forgetting all about the bath, descended with a great
splash among the startled goldfish.

The Countess paused in the half-opened door and looked at him with horror
that rapidly passed into intense indignation.

"I am not ill!" he cried. "It vos zat rascal Bonker's plot. He m