s house.

I found Ezra Jennings ready and waiting for me.

He was sitting alone in a bare little room, which communicated by a
glazed door with a surgery. Hideous coloured diagrams of the ravages of
hideous diseases decorated the barren buff-coloured walls. A book-case
filled with dingy medical works, and ornamented at the top with a skull,
in place of the customary bust; a large deal table copiously splashed
with ink; wooden chairs of the sort that are seen in kitchens and
cottages; a threadbare drugget in the middle of the floor; a sink of
water, with a basin and waste-pipe roughly let into the wall, horribly
suggestive of its connection with surgical operations--comprised the
entire furniture of the room. The bees were humming among a few flowers
placed in pots outside the window; the birds were singing in the
garden, and the faint intermittent jingle of a tuneless piano in some
neighbouring house forced itself now and again on the ear. In any
other place, these everyday sounds might have spoken pleasantly of the
everyday world outside. Here, they came in as intruders on a silence
which nothing but human suffering had the privilege to disturb. I looked
at the mahogany instrument case, and at the huge roll of lint, occupying
places of their own on the book-shelves, and shuddered inwardly as I
thought of the sounds, familiar and appropriate to the everyday use of
Ezra Jennings' room.

"I make no apology, Mr. Blake, for the place in which I am receiving
you," he said. "It is the only room in the house, at this hour of the
day, in which we can feel quite sure of being left undisturbed. Here
are my papers ready for you; and here are two books to which we may have
occasion to refer, before we have done. Bring your chair to the table,
and we shall be able to consult them together."

I drew up to the table; and Ezra Jennings handed me his manuscript
notes. They consisted of two large folio leaves of paper. One leaf
contained writing which only covered the surface at intervals. The other
presented writing, in red and black ink, which completely filled the
page from top to bottom. In the irritated state of my curiosity, at that
moment, I laid aside the second sheet of paper in despair.

"Have some mercy on me!" I said. "Tell me what I am to expect, before I
attempt to read this."

"Willingly, Mr. Blake! Do you mind my asking you one or two more
questions?"

"Ask me anything you like!"

He looked at me with the sad sm