ablett. "Feels as if it was a-opening
and a-shutting, a-opening and a-shutting, and when I sit down I feel as
if I should _bust_."

This picturesque description of her sensations--not wholly inconsistent
with her figure--gave the clue to Mrs. Jablett's sufferings. Resisting a
frivolous impulse to reassure her as to the elasticity of the human
integument, I considered her case in exhaustive detail, coasting
delicately round the subject of "unsweetened," and finally sent her
away, revived in spirits and grasping a bottle of Mist. Sodae cum
Bismutho from Barnard's big stock-jar. Then I went back to investigate
the Horrible Discovery; but before I could open the paper, another
patient arrived (_Impetigo contagiosa_, this time, affecting the "wide
and arched-front sublime" of a juvenile Fetter Laner), and then yet
another, and so on through the evening until, at last, I forgot the
watercress-beds altogether. It was only when I had purified myself from
the evening consultations with hot water and a nail-brush and was about
to sit down to a frugal supper, that I remembered the newspaper and
fetched it from the drawer of the consulting-room table, where it had
been hastily thrust out of sight. I folded it into a convenient form,
and, standing it upright against the water-jug, read the report at my
ease as I supped.

There was plenty of it. Evidently the reporter had regarded it as a
"scoop," and the editor had backed him up with ample space and
hair-raising head-lines.

"HORRIBLE DISCOVERY IN A WATERCRESS-BED AT SIDCUP!

"A startling discovery was made yesterday afternoon in the course of
clearing out a watercress-bed near the erstwhile rural village of Sidcup
in Kent; a discovery that will occasion many a disagreeable qualm to
those persons who have been in the habit of regaling themselves with
this refreshing esculent. But before proceeding to a description of the
circumstances of the actual discovery or of the objects found--which,
however, it may be stated at once, are nothing more or less than the
fragments of a dismembered human body--it will be interesting to trace
the remarkable chain of coincidences by virtue of which the discovery
was made.

"The beds in question have been laid out in a small artificial lake fed
by a tiny streamlet which forms one of the numerous tributaries of the
River Cray. Its depth is greater than is usual in watercress-beds,
otherwise the gruesome relics could never have been concealed ben