the thing before me--in fact, gave
me _carte blanche_ to choose for him. He requires the services of a
medical man--an Englishman if possible----"

"But I'm an American," said Adams.

"It is the same thing," replied Thenard, with a little laugh. "You are all
big and strong and fond of guns and danger."

He had taken Adams by the arm and was leading him down the passage toward
the entrance hall of the hospital.

"The primitive man is strong in you all, and that is why you are so vital
and important, you Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Celts, and Anglo-Teutons. Come in
here."

He opened the door of one of the house-surgeon's rooms.

A youngish looking man, with a straw-coloured beard, was seated before the
fire, with a cigarette between his lips.

He rose to greet Thenard, was introduced to Adams, and, drawing an old
couch a bit from the wall, he bade his guests be seated.

The armchair he retained himself. One of the legs was loose, and he was
the only man in the Beaujon who had the art of sitting on it without
smashing it. This he explained whilst offering cigarettes.

Thenard, like many another French professor, unofficially was quite one
with the students. He would snatch a moment from his work to smoke a
cigarette with them; he would sometimes look in at their little parties. I
have seen him at a birthday party where the cakes and ale, to say nothing
of the cigarettes and the unpawned banjo, were the direct products of a
pawned microscope. I have seen him, I say, at a party like this, drinking
a health to the microscope as the giver of all the good things on the
table--he, the great Thenard, with an income of fifteen to twenty thousand
pounds a year, and a reputation solid as the four massive text-books that
stood to his name.

"Duthil," said Thenard, "I have secured, I believe, a man for our friend
Berselius." He indicated Adams with a half laugh, and Dr. Duthil, turning
in his chair, regarded anew the colossus from the States. The great,
large-hewn, cast-iron visaged Adams, beside whom Thenard looked like a
shrivelled monkey and Duthil like a big baby with a beard.

"Good," said Duthil.

"A better man than Bauchardy," said Thenard.

"Much," replied Duthil.

"Who, then, was Bauchardy?" asked Adams, amused rather by the way in which
the two others were discussing him.

"Bauchardy?" said Duthil. "Why, he was the last man Berselius killed."

"Silence," said Thenard, then turning to Adams, "Berselius is a perfec