n wrong in hinting that the Doctor had
permitted the Major to have the best of the bargain about the big
brown horse. Old Tom Aherne had made it well worth his while to do so,
so everyone had come comfortably out of the transaction. Nor had Dr.
Mangan, in diagnosing Major Talbot-Lowry, been wrong in his assumption
that Dick, generous, and elated by his success in bargaining, would
wish to indemnify his opponent for having had the worst of it, and
would consider the support of Danny Aherne as a suitable expression of
the wish.

The Big Doctor's intimacy with Dick had progressed of late with
remarkable rapidity. During one of those friendly talks over the Mount
Music library fire, that had latterly been recurring with increasing
frequency, an opportunity had risen for the Doctor--"a warm man," as
has been said--to offer to the Major a tangible proof of his
friendship.

"After all, there's the money lying idle at my bank," the Doctor had
said, breezily.

Dick, in a moment of irritation and perplexity, had expatiated on the
expenses consequent on launching sons into professions, and also on
the pig-headed determination of annuitants to "hang on," regardless of
the inconveniences occasioned to a heavily burdened property by this
want of consideration.

"Three half-sisters of my father's," says Dick, "as old as three men
each of 'em, and not a notion of dying among 'em! They'll see
_me_ out, I'll swear!"

It was then that that idle money had been tactfully referred to.

"I'll knock better interest out of you, Major, than the bank'll give
me!" said the Big Doctor, jovially. "I want no security from
_you_! Your word--"

"Oh, that will never do, my dear fellow," Dick had replied, as he was
meant to reply. "Of course it must be a _pukka_ business deal.
I'll give you--"

In his relief, Dick was ready to give to this kind William of
Deloraine any security that he would suggest. It was, of course, a
purely nominal affair--but still--what about a mortgage on the house
and demesne? How would that do?

The Doctor thought it would do very well.

It should be established, while it was still possible to induce the
reader to accept such a statement, that the Big Doctor was, as he
himself might have said, "not too bad a fellow altogether!" In public
life, a fighter, wily and skilled; compassionate to the poor, yet
exacting, implacably, practical recognition of his compassion. In his
own house, easy-going and autocratic; in hi