find the man I wanted. He was the third in line,
I think--a respectable fellow--far above the position, I should have
said, but he told me he wasn't, that he had a family to support, and all
that sort of thing, so I engaged him and sent him out with a note to the
superintendent. As he left the room I hastily tore open a letter which
looked as though it needed an immediate answer. At the same moment my
door opened again.

"Confound that ass Junkin, why the devil didn't he give me time to ring
the bell and tell him I'd engaged a man!--Why the devil doesn't he----"

It was just as I expected. That letter was important to a degree, and
during the next ten minutes I was so deeply absorbed that when I looked
up from my reading and saw a man standing beside me, I started with a
nervous exclamation which turned to a surprised greeting as I recognised
Sandy McWhiffle. He had changed somewhat since I'd seen him last--six
months before--and not for the better. His gaunt face was even more
sallow than before, giving to the features a harder caste, chiselling
the nose into more of a hook, and deepening the lines under the eyes.
He looked ravenous, but not with the hunger of appetite, and I
thought--yes, I was quite sure--he smelt rather strongly of liquor.

"Well, Sandy," I began, "where did you come from?"

"From the hospital," he answered.

"Ah," I observed, "bad places--those--er--hospitals, Sandy. They breed a
great deal of sickness. There are seventy-two in my district."

"You think I've been in a saloon, drinking?"

"No, I don't think so," I answered, with a mental reservation favouring
knowledge.

"Well, I haven't been, anyway. You smell whisky on me. They gave it to
me at the hospital so's I could get down here. I ain't discharged yet,
but I was bound to come when I saw your name in the papers and knew I'd
get the job if I could only see you. I've been here since six this
morning. Will you give me a try at it?"

"Well, no, I can't, McWhiffle," I said, with a good deal more ease than
I could have felt if I hadn't smelt the liquor and heard that hospital
story. "The fact is, I've taken a man on, and so the job's gone."

Sandy gazed at me with a bewildered, frightened look, but his answer was
only a mumble about his being sure of a steady job this time, seeing how
he knew me and all.

Mechanically I made a memorandum of the hospital at which he was
allegedly a patient, but my mail was awaiting me, and he must have