ets you into a corner and fixes you. Not fair,
not at all fair in general society.--Oh! ah!--cottage hospital, yes,"
he added aloud. "Very tiresome, vexatious business about that hospital.
I felt it very much at the time."

"It was a regular job," Mr. Cathcart continued.

"No, not a job, not a job, my dear fellow. Unpleasant word job. Nothing
approaching a job, only an oversight, at most an unfortunate error of
judgment," Lord Fallowfeild protested.--He glanced at his son inviting
support, but that gentleman was engaged in kindly conversation with
bright-eyed, little Godfrey Ormiston. He glanced at Mary--remembered
suddenly that his unfortunate remark regarding that lady had been
connected with her resemblance to her father, and the latter's striking
defect of personal beauty. He glanced at the doctor. But John Knott sat
all hunched together, watching him with an expression rather sardonic
than sympathetic.

"There was culpable negligence somewhere, in any case," his persecutor,
Mr. Cathcart, went on. "It was obvious Image pressed that bit of land
at Waters End on the committee simply because no one would buy it for
building purposes. His affectation of generosity as to price was a
piece of transparent hypocrisy."

"I suppose it was," Lord Fallowfeild agreed mildly.

"A certain anonymous donor had promised a second five hundred pounds,
if the hospital was built on high ground with a subsoil of gravel."

"It is on gravel," put in Lord Fallowfeild anxiously. "Saw it
myself--distinctly remember seeing gravel when the heather had been
pared before digging the foundations--bright yellow gravel."

"Yes, and with a ten-foot bed of blue clay underneath. Most dangerous
soil going,"--this from Dr. Knott, grimly.

"Is it, though?" Lord Fallowfeild inquired, with an amiable effort to
welcome unpalatable, geological information.

"Not a doubt of it. The surface water and generally the sewage--for we
are very far yet from having discovered a drain-pipe which is
impeccable in respect of leakage--soak through the porous cap down to
the clay and lie there--to rise again not at the Last Day by any means,
but on the evening of the very first one that's been hot enough to
cause evaporation."

"Do they, though?" said Lord Fallowfeild. He was greatly
impressed.--"Capable fellow, Knott, wonderful thing science," he
commented inwardly and with praiseworthy humility.

But Mr. Cathcart returned to the charge.

"The hospital was di