e of fluctuating light was passed over the whole of
his body. Then the doctor ran to a telephone and called a colleague....

We spent the morning there, with dozens of doctors coming and going. Then
we left. All the way home in the cab Benlian chuckled to himself.

"That scared 'em, Pudgie!" he chuckled. "A man they can't X-ray--that
scared 'em! We must put that down in the diary--"

"Wasn't it ripping!" I chuckled back.

He kept a sort of diary or record. He gave it to me afterwards, but
they've borrowed it. It was as big as a ledger, and immensely valuable,
I'm sure; they oughtn't to borrow valuable things like that and not
return them. The laughing that Benlian and I have had over that diary!
It fooled them all--the clever X-ray men, the artists of the academies,
everybody! Written on the fly-leaf was "_To My Pudgie_." I shall publish
it when I get it back again.

Benlian had now got frightfully weak; it's awfully hard work, passing
yourself. And he had to take a little milk now and then or he'd have
died before he had quite finished. I didn't bother with miniatures any
longer, and when angry letters came from my employers we just put them
into the fire, Benlian and I, and we laughed--that is to say, I laughed,
but Benlian only smiled, being too weak to laugh really. He'd lots of
money, so that was all right; and I slept in his studio, to be there for
the passing.

And that wouldn't be very long now, I thought; and I was always looking
at the statue. Things like that (in case you don't know) have to be done
gradually, and I supposed he was busy filling up the inside of it and
hadn't got to the outside yet--for the statue was much the same to look
at. But, reckoning off his sips of milk and snatches of sleep, he was
making splendid progress, and the figure must be getting very full now.
I was awfully excited, it was getting so near....

And then somebody came bothering and nearly spoiling all. It's odd, but I
really forget exactly what it was. I only know there was a funeral, and
people were sobbing and looking at me, and somebody said I was callous,
but somebody else said, "No, look at him," and that it was just the other
way about. And I think I remember, now, that it wasn't in London, for I
was in a train; but after the funeral I dodged them, and found myself
back at Euston again. They followed me, but I shook them off. I locked my
own studio up, and lay as quiet as a mouse in Benlian's place when they
came