s a powder or a draught,--barrin'," said
he, suddenly catching the altered expression of the sick man's face, "a
little mixture of hyoscyamus I' ll compound for you myself. This, and
friction over the region of the heart, with a mild embrocation, is all
my tratement!"

"And you have hopes of my recovery?" asked Sir Horace, faintly.

"My name isn't Billy Traynor if I'd not send you out of this hale and
hearty before two months. I read you like a printed book."

"You really give me great confidence, for I perceive you understand the
tone of my temperament. Let us try this same embrocation at once; I'll
most implicitly obey you in everything."

"My head on a block, then, but I'll cure you," said Billy, who
determined that no scruples on his side should mar the trust reposed in
him by the patient. "But you must give yourself entirely up to me; not
only as to your eatin' and drinkin', but your hours of recreation and
study, exercise, amusement, and all, must be at my biddin'. It is the
principle of harmony between the moral and physical nature constitutes
the whole sacret of my system. To be stimulatin' the nerves, and lavin'
the arteries dormant, is like playing a jig to minuet time,--all must
move in simultaneous action; and the cerebellum, the great flywheel of
the whole, must be made to keep orderly time. D'ye mind?"

"I follow you with great interest," said Sir Horace, to whose subtle
nature there was an intense pleasure in the thought of having discovered
what he deemed a man of original genius under this unpromising exterior.
"There is but one bar to these arrangements: I must leave this at once;
I ought to go to-day. I must be off to-morrow."

"Then I'll not take the helm when I can't pilot you through the shoals,"
said Billy. "To begin my system, and see you go away before I developed
my grand invigoratin' arcanum, would be only to destroy your confidence
in an elegant discovery."

"Were I only as certain as you seem to be----" began

Sir Horace, and then stopped.

"You 'd stay and be cured, you were goin' to say. Well, if you did n't
feel that same trust in me, you 'd be right to go; for it is that very
confidence that turns the balance. Ould Babbington used to say that
between a good physician and a bad one there was just the difference
between a pound and a guinea. But between the one you trust and the one
you don't, there's all the way between Billy Traynor and the Bank of
Ireland!"

"On that score e