ghts that entered the carriage as they passed the street lamps,
"I don't feel altogether comfortable about this business. If your friend
had not irritated me by the contemptuous manner in which he treated my
doubt of his endurance--a purely physical quality--and by the cool
incivility of his suggestion that the corpse be that of a physician, I
should not have gone on with it. If anything should happen we are
ruined, as I fear we deserve to be."

"What can happen? Even if the matter should be taking a serious turn, of
which I am not at all afraid, Mancher has only to 'resurrect' himself
and explain matters. With a genuine 'subject' from the dissecting-room,
or one of your late patients, it might be different."

Dr. Mancher, then, had been as good as his promise; he was the "corpse."

Dr. Helberson was silent for a long time, as the carriage, at a snail's
pace, crept along the same street it had traveled two or three times
already. Presently he spoke: "Well, let us hope that Mancher, if he has
had to rise from the dead, has been discreet about it. A mistake in that
might make matters worse instead of better."

"Yes," said Harper, "Jarette would kill him. But, Doctor"--looking at
his watch as the carriage passed a gas lamp--"it is nearly four o'clock
at last."

A moment later the two had quitted the vehicle and were walking briskly
toward the long-unoccupied house belonging to the doctor in which they
had immured Mr. Jarette in accordance with the terms of the mad wager.
As they neared it they met a man running. "Can you tell me," he cried,
suddenly checking his speed, "where I can find a doctor?"

"What's the matter?" Helberson asked, non-committal.

"Go and see for yourself," said the man, resuming his running.

They hastened on. Arrived at the house, they saw several persons
entering in haste and excitement. In some of the dwellings near by and
across the way the chamber windows were thrown up, showing a protrusion
of heads. All heads were asking questions, none heeding the questions of
the others. A few of the windows with closed blinds were illuminated;
the inmates of those rooms were dressing to come down. Exactly opposite
the door of the house that they sought a street lamp threw a yellow,
insufficient light upon the scene, seeming to say that it could disclose
a good deal more if it wished. Harper paused at the door and laid a hand
upon his companion's arm. "It is all up with us, Doctor," he said in
extreme