ur master,' I said, 'there's
two gentlemen have called, and will have his blood yet in a bottle,'
I said; 'but any time will do between this and to-morrow.' And with
that I came away. But Mr. Finucane here suggested that, whilst we
were at it, we might save time and engage the surgeon. So on our way
back we rang up Dr. Frampton. No luck again; the doctor was out.
Faix! early walkin' seems the fashion at this health resort.
But we've brought along his assistant, if that's any use to you, and
he's downstairs at this moment on the door-mat."

The captain put his head outside and whistled. Mr. Finucane assisted
with a lifelike imitation of a coach-horn, and Mr. MacRea, thus
summoned, appeared upon the threshold.

I cannot accurately describe what followed, for the jeweller, by
casting himself into my arms, engaged a disproportionate share of my
attention. I believe the Major caught up a loo table and held it
before him as a shield.

"You see," said Mr. MacRea, that afternoon, as I escorted him to the
office of the Bath Coaching Company, to book his seat for that city,
"on arriving at the Hotwells last evening, I naturally wished,
Dr. Frampton, to assure myself that your position as a medical man
answered to the glowing descriptions of it in your correspondence.
I could think of no better method to arrive at this than by mingling
with the gay throng in the Assembly Rooms; and I deemed that to take
a hand at cards at the public tables would be the surest way to
overhear the chit-chat of the fashionable world, and maybe elicit its
opinion of you. But alas, sir! a man cannot play at the cards
without exposing himself to the risk of losing. At the first table I
lost--not heavily indeed, yet considerably. I rose and changed to
another table; again I lost--this time the last sixpence in my
pocket. Now, it is an idiosyncrasy of mine, maybe, but I cannot lose
at the cards without losing also my temper; and the form it takes
with me, Dr. Frampton, is too often an incontrollable impulse to pull
the winner's nose. I have argued with myself against this tendency a
score of times, but it will not be denied. So, sir, last night,
penniless and in a foreign land, I paced to and fro beneath the trees
in front of the Assembly Rooms, and when this Mr. Jenkinson emerged,
I accosted him and pulled his nose. To my astonishment he gave me a
ticket and assured me that I should hear from him. Sir, we have no
such practice at Larg