d enough to put me out of
my misery at once with prussic acid. Instead of doing what I, asked or
making any kind of sane excuse for refusing, he said he would telegraph
to Dublin for a nurse. She could not, he seemed to think, arrive until
the next day, so he said he would take a bed in the hotel and look after
me himself during the night. This was more than I, or any one else,
could stand. I saw the necessity for making a determined effort.

"I am," I said, "perfectly well. Except for a slight cold in the head
which makes me a bit stupid there's nothing the matter with me. I intend
to get up at once and go out canvassing. Would you mind ringing the bell
and asking for some hot water?"

McMeekin rang the bell, muttering as he did so something about a
temperature of 104 degrees. A redheaded maid with a freckled face
answered the summons. Before I could say anything to her McMeekin gave
orders that a second bed should be brought into my room and that she,
the red-haired, freckled girl, should sit beside me and not take her
eyes off me for a moment while he went home to get his bag. I forgot all
about Titherington then and concentrated my remaining strength on a hope
that McMeekin would get the influenza. It is one of the few diseases
which doctors do get. I planned that when he got it I would search
Ireland for red-headed girls with freckled faces, and pay hundreds of
them, all I could collect in the four provinces, to sit beside him and
not take their eyes off him while I went to get a bag. My bag, as I
arranged, would be fetched by long sea from Tasmania.

That evening McMeekin and Titherington both settled down in my bedroom.
I was so angry with them that I could not take in what they said to
each other, though I was dimly conscious that they were discussing the
election. I learned afterward that McMeekin promised to be present at
my meeting on the 21st in order to hear Lalage speak. I suppose that
the amount of torture he inflicted on me induced a mood of joyous
intoxication in which he would have promised anything. I lay in bed and
did my best, by breathing hard, to shoot germs from my lungs across the
room at Titherington and McMeekin. Their talk, which must have lasted
about eighteen hours, was interrupted at last by a tap at the door.
The red-haired girl with a freckled face came in, carrying a loathsome
looking bowl and a spoon which I felt certain was filthy dirty. McMeekin
took them from her hands and approac