forget that it was my purpose to effect
such entry first or last. That was the casting consideration. I
decided to take my dilemma by the horns.

There had been a scraping of matches in the room over the
conservatory; the open window had shown for a moment, like an empty
picture-frame, a gigantic shadow wavering on the ceiling; and in the
next half-minute I remembered to tie my shoes. But the light was slow
to reappear through the leaded glasses of an outer door farther along
the path. And when the door opened, it was a figure of woe that stood
within and held an unsteady candle between our faces.

I have seen old men look half their age, and young men look double
theirs; but never before or since have I seen a beardless boy bent
into a man of eighty, gasping for every breath, shaken by every gasp,
swaying, tottering, and choking, as if about to die upon his feet. Yet
with it all, young Medlicott overhauled me shrewdly, and it was
several moments before he would let me take the candle from him.

"I shouldn't have come down--made me worse," he began whispering in
spurts. "Worse still going up again. You must give me an arm. You will
come up? That's right! Not as bad as I look, you know. Got some good
whiskey, too. Presents are all right; but if they aren't you'll hear
of it in-doors sooner than out. Now I'm ready--thanks! Mustn't make
more noise than we can help--wake my mother."

It must have taken us minutes to climb that single flight of stairs.
There was just room for me to keep his arm in mine; with the other he
hauled on the banisters; and so we mounted, step by step, a panting
pause on each, and a pitched battle for breath on the half-landing. In
the end we gained a cosey library, with an open door leading to a
bedroom beyond. But the effort had deprived my poor companion of all
power of speech; his laboring lungs shrieked like the wind; he could
just point to the door by which we had entered, and which I shut in
obedience to his gestures, and then to the decanter and its
accessories on the table where he had left them overnight. I gave him
nearly half a glassful, and his paroxysm subsided a little as he sat
hunched up in a chair.

"I was a fool ... to turn in," he blurted in more whispers between
longer pauses. "Lying down is the devil ... when you're in for a real
bad night. You might get me the brown cigarettes ... on the table in
there. That's right ... thanks awfully ... and now a match!"

The asthmat