a higher key. "How could I, with my property loaded with
charges, that were no fault of mine, sell at the price you could
afford to take? Look at the price that fellow--what's his damned
name?--Brady, got for his farm, for the tenant-right alone, mind you!
Forty years' purchase! And I'm offered seventeen for the fee simple!"

Dick was standing up on the hearthrug, towering over the Doctor and
Larry in their low chairs. Larry noticed how thin he had become, and
how the well-cut grey clothes, that he always wore, hung loosely on
his shrunken figure. "You're a young fellow now, Larry; wait till
you've been for thirty years doing your best for your property and
your country, and getting no thanks! Thanks!" Dick gave a brief and
furious laugh. "I've kept the hounds for them. I've slaved on the
Bench and on Grand Juries. I've got them roads and railways, and God
knows what else--whatever they wanted--I've sat at the Board of
Guardians, and done my best to keep down the rates, till they kicked
me out to make room for men who would sell their souls for a sixpence,
and made their living out of bribes!"

"Oh, come, come, Major, it's not so bad as all that!" said the Big
Doctor, soothingly, as Dick stopped, panting for breath. "Don't mind
it now!"

"But I _must_ mind it!" shouted Dick. "When I think of how I've
been treated, and plenty more like me, loyal men who run straight and
do their best, I declare to God I feel I don't know which I hate
worst, the English Government, that pitches its friends overboard to
save its own skin, or my own countrymen, that don't know the meaning
of the word gratitude!"

He turned again upon Larry: "And upon my word and honour, Larry, I
didn't think that your father's son would have been tarred with that
brush, anyhow!"

"Now, Major," broke in Dr. Mangan, again, "you know we agreed that
there was no use in attaching too much importance to that transaction.
Barty and Larry here were in a very difficult position, and even
though you and I might not have approved entirely of their action--"

"But, Doctor," interrupted Larry, bewildered, and dismayed, "You--I
thought you had advised Barty--"

The Big Doctor frowned at him, and winked too, while he laid his huge
white hand on his watch-pocket, tapping with his middle finger on the
spot which, as he knew, the average layman dedicated to the heart. He
trusted to Larry's quickness, and did not trust in vain.

"A sort of heart attack," Aunt Freddy