e?" Again he eyed the ceiling.

"I--I beg your pardon, Doctor," answered Nicky-Nan, recollecting
himself. "But I live pretty lonely here, and the children--"

"So _that's_ why you put a padlock on the door? . . . Well, I'm not a
child. And though you didn't send for me, somebody else did.
Mr Johns, the Custom House Officer at Troy. He wants to know why you
didn't go with the rest of the Reserve last Sunday."

Nicky-Nan blazed up again. "Then you can tell 'en I can't nor I
won't--not if he cuts me in little pieces, I won't! Curse this War,
an' Johns 'pon the top of it! Can't you _see_--"

"No," put in the Doctor, "that's just what I can't, while you stand
up there spitting like a cat on the tiles between me and the light.
What fly has stung ye I can't think; unless you want to get off by
passing yourself on me for a lunatic; and I can't certify to that
without calling in a magistrate. . . . Here, man, don't be a fool,
but get down!"

Nicky-Nan laid aside trowel and board on the platform, and lowered
himself to the floor, very painfully.

"Sit ye down here!" Doctor Mant jumped up and turned his chair about.
"Wait a moment, though, and let me have a look at you. No! not that
way, man--with your back to the light!" He caught Nicky-Nan by the
two shoulders, faced him about to the window, and took stock of him.
"H'm . . . you look pretty bad."

Nicky-Nan, in fact, had spent half the previous night in crawling
upstairs and downstairs, between parlour and bedroom, or in kneeling
by the bedroom cupboard, hiding his wealth. He had thrown himself at
last on his bed, to sleep for a couple of hours, but at daybreak had
turned out again to start upon the plastering and work at it
doggedly, with no more sustenance than a dry biscuit. It had all
been one long-drawn physical torture; and the grey plaster smeared on
his face showed it ghastly even beyond nature.

"Here, sit down; strip your leg, and let me have a look at it."

The examination took some fifteen minutes, perhaps; the Doctor
kneeling and inspecting the growth with the aid of a pocket
magnifying-glass.

"Well," said he, rising and dusting his knees, "it's a daisy, and
I'll bet it hurts. But I don't believe it's malignant, for all that.
If you were a rich man, now--but you're not; so we won't discuss it.
What you'll have to do is to lie up, until I get you a ticket for the
South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital."

"No hospital for me," said Nicky-N