discovered, sure enough, a kind of
skeleton-key in strong wire.

"With that you can open the gate, and get me into the street," said the
crushed man; "but be very careful not to open the door while anyone is
passing."

He only got out these messages very slowly, and after intervals of
silence broken by groans.

"Wait! one thing more," he said, as Barton stooped to take him in his
arms. "I may faint from pain. My address is, Paterson's Kents, hard by;
my name is Winter." Then, after a pause, "I can pay for a private room
at the infirmary, and I must have one. Lift the third plank from the end
in the left-hand corner by the window, and you will find enough. Now!"

Then Barton very carefully picked up the poor man, mere bag of bones
(and broken bones) as he was.

The horrible pain that the man endured Barton could imagine, yet he
dared not hurry, for the ground was strewn with every sort of pitfall.
At last--it seemed hours to Barton, it must have been an eternity to
the sufferer--the hoarding was reached, and, after listening earnestly,
Barton opened the door, peered out, saw that the coast was clear,
deposited his burden on the pavement, and flew to the not distant
police-station.

He was not absent long, and returning with four men and a stretcher, he
found, of course, quite a large crowd grouped round the place where he
had left his charge. The milkman was there, several shabby women, one or
two puzzled policemen, three cabmen (though no wizard could have called
up a cab at that hour and place had he wanted to catch a train;) there
were riverside loafers, workmen going to their labor, and a lucky
penny-a-liner with his "tissue" and pencil.

Pushing his way through these gapers, Barton found, as he expected,
that his patient had fainted. He aided the policemen to place him on the
stretcher, accompanied him to the infirmary (how common a sight is that
motionless body on a stretcher in the streets!), explained as much of
the case as was fitting to the surgeon in attendance, and then, at last,
returned to his rooms and a bath, puzzling over the mystery.

"By Jove!" he said, as he helped himself to a devilled wing of a chicken
at breakfast, "I believe the poor beggar had been experimenting with a
Flying-Machine!"

CHAPTER XII.--A Patient.

A doctor, especially a doctor actively practising among the poor and
laborious, soon learns to take the incidents of his profession rather
calmly. Barton had often bee