e," objected John.

"Did you never hear of venal doctors?" inquired Morris. "They're as
common as blackberries: you can pick 'em up for three-pound-ten a head."

"I wouldn't do it under fifty if I were a sawbones," ejaculated John.

"And then Michael," continued Morris, "is in the very thick of it. All
his clients have come to grief; his whole business is rotten eggs. If
any man could arrange it, he could; and depend upon it, he has his plan
all straight; and depend upon it, it's a good one, for he's clever, and
be damned to him! But I'm clever too; and I'm desperate. I lost seven
thousand eight hundred pounds when I was an orphan at school."

"O, don't be tedious," interrupted John. "You've lost far more already
trying to get it back."

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION

Some days later, accordingly, the three males of this depressing family
might have been observed (by a reader of G. P. R. James) taking their
departure from the East Station of Bournemouth. The weather was raw and
changeable, and Joseph was arrayed in consequence according to the
principles of Sir Faraday Bond, a man no less strict (as is well known)
on costume than on diet. There are few polite invalids who have not
lived, or tried to live, by that punctilious physician's orders. "Avoid
tea, madam," the reader has doubtless heard him say, "avoid tea, fried
liver, antimonial wine, and bakers' bread. Retire nightly at 10.45; and
clothe yourself (if you please) throughout in hygienic flannel.
Externally, the fur of the marten is indicated. Do not forget to procure
a pair of health boots at Messrs. Dall and Crumbie's." And he has
probably called you back, even after you have paid your fee, to add with
stentorian emphasis: "I had forgotten one caution: avoid kippered
sturgeon as you would the very devil!" The unfortunate Joseph was cut to
the pattern of Sir Faraday in every button; he was shod with the health
boot; his suit was of genuine ventilating cloth; his shirt of hygienic
flannel, a somewhat dingy fabric; and he was draped to the knees in the
inevitable greatcoat of marten's fur. The very railway porters at
Bournemouth (which was a favourite station of the doctor's) marked the
old gentleman for a creature of Sir Faraday. There was but one evidence
of personal taste, a vizarded forage-cap; from this form of headpiece,
since he had fled from a dying jackal on the plains of Ephesus, and
weathered a bora in the Adriatic, nothing co