ed Eustace straight in the face.

For a moment Eustace was amused; then he was suddenly afraid. "I
think it's time I----" he began slowly, and then he was silent, his
whole will intent on fighting the eyes of the coffin merchant. The
song of the gas-jet waned to a point in his ears, and then rose
steadily till it was like the beating of the world's heart. The eyes
of the coffin merchant grew larger and larger, till they blended in
one great circle of fire. Then Eustace picked a pen off the counter
and filled in the form.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Reynolds," said the coffin merchant,
shaking hands with him politely. "I can promise you every civility
and despatch. Good-day, sir."

Outside on the pavement Eustace stood for a while trying to recall
exactly what had happened. There was a slight scratch on his hand,
and when he automatically touched it with his lips, it made them
burn. The lit lamps in the Gray's Inn Road seemed to him a little
unsteady, and the passers-by showed a disposition to blunder into
him.

"Queer business," he said to himself dimly; "I'd better have a cab."

He reached home in a dream.

It was nearly ten o'clock before the doctor remembered his promise,
and went upstairs to Eustace's flat. The outer door was half-open so
that he thought he was expected, and he switched on the light in the
little hall, and shut the door behind him with the simplicity of
habit. But when he swung round from the door he gave a cry of
astonishment. Eustace was lying asleep in a chair before him with
his face flushed and drooping on his shoulder, and his breath
hissing noisily through his parted lips. The doctor looked at him
quizzically, "If I did not know you, my young friend," he remarked,
"I should say that you were as drunk as a lord."

And he went up to Eustace and shook him by the shoulder; but Eustace
did not wake.

"Queer!" the doctor muttered, sniffing at Eustace's lips; "he hasn't
been drinking."

The Soul Of A Policeman

I

Outside, above the uneasy din of the traffic, the sky was glorious
with the far peace of a fine summer evening. Through the upper pane
of the station window Police-constable Bennett, who felt that his
senses at the moment were abnormally keen, recognised with a sinking
heart such reds and yellows as bedecked the best patchwork quilt at
home. By contrast the lights of the superintendent's office were
subdued, so that within the walls of