d. He then
suddenly grabbed at his side-pocket, opened his mouth in alarm, and beat
his forehead with his hand.

"'My God!' he cried, 'where did you find it? How?' I explained in as few
words as I could, and as drily as possible, how I had seen it and picked
it up; how I had run after him, and called out to him, and how I had
followed him upstairs and groped my way to his door.

"'Gracious Heaven!' he cried, 'all our papers are in it! My dear
sir, you little know what you have done for us. I should have been
lost--lost!'

"I had taken hold of the door-handle meanwhile, intending to leave
the room without reply; but I was panting with my run upstairs, and my
exhaustion came to a climax in a violent fit of coughing, so bad that I
could hardly stand.

"I saw how the man dashed about the room to find me an empty chair, how
he kicked the rags off a chair which was covered up by them, brought it
to me, and helped me to sit down; but my cough went on for another three
minutes or so. When I came to myself he was sitting by me on another
chair, which he had also cleared of the rubbish by throwing it all over
the floor, and was watching me intently.

"'I'm afraid you are ill?' he remarked, in the tone which doctors use
when they address a patient. 'I am myself a medical man' (he did not say
'doctor'), with which words he waved his hands towards the room and
its contents as though in protest at his present condition. 'I see that
you--'

"'I'm in consumption,' I said laconically, rising from my seat.

"He jumped up, too.

"'Perhaps you are exaggerating--if you were to take proper measures
perhaps--"

"He was terribly confused and did not seem able to collect his scattered
senses; the pocket-book was still in his left hand.

"'Oh, don't mind me,' I said. 'Dr. B---- saw me last week' (I lugged him
in again), 'and my hash is quite settled; pardon me-' I took hold of the
door-handle again. I was on the point of opening the door and leaving my
grateful but confused medical friend to himself and his shame, when my
damnable cough got hold of me again.

"My doctor insisted on my sitting down again to get my breath. He now
said something to his wife who, without leaving her place, addressed a
few words of gratitude and courtesy to me. She seemed very shy over it,
and her sickly face flushed up with confusion. I remained, but with the
air of a man who knows he is intruding and is anxious to get away. The
doctor's remorse at la