f Toole; for though it is believed he owned a watch, it
was sometimes not about him; and while Lowe scribbled a note, Toole
asked in a dignified way--

'Have you seen our patient, Sir?'

'Not I. Didn't I see him last night? The man's dead. He's in the last
stage of exhaustion with an inflammatory pulse. If you feed him up he'll
die of inflammation; and if you don't he'll die of wakeness. So he lies
on the fatal horns of a dilemma, you see; an' not all the men in
Derry'll take him off them alive. He's gone, Sir. Pell's coming, I hear.
I'd wait if I could; but I must look afther business; and there's no
good to be done here. I thank you, Mr. Lowe--Sir--your most obedient
servant, Doctor Toole.' And with Lowe's note in his breeches' pocket, he
strode out to the steps, and whistled for his coachman, who drove his
respectable employer tipsily to his destination.

I dare say the interview was characteristic; but I can find no account
of it. I am pretty sure, however, that he did not get a shilling. So at
least he stated in his declaration, in the action against Lowe, in which
he, or rather his attorney, was nonsuited, with grievous loss of costs.
And judging by the sort of esteem in which Mr. Dangerfield held Black
Dillon, I fancy that few things would have pleased him better in his
unfortunate situation than hitting that able practitioner as hard as
might be.

Just as he drove away, poor little Mrs. Sturk looked in.

'Is there anything, Ma'am?' asked Toole, a little uneasily.

'Only--only, I think he's just a little frightened--he's so nervous you
know--by that Dublin doctor's loud talking--and he's got a kind of
trembling--a shivering.'

'Eh--a shivering, Ma'am?' said Toole. 'Like a man that's taken a cold,
eh?'

'Oh, he hasn't got cold--I'm sure--there's no danger of that. It's only
nervous; so I covered him up with another pair of blankets, and gave him
a hot drink.'

'Very good, Ma'am; I'll follow you up in a minute.'

'And even if it was, you know he shakes off cold in no time, he has such
a fine constitution.'

'Yes, Ma'am--that's true--very good, Ma'am. I'll be after you.'

So up stairs went Mrs. Sturk in a fuss.

'That's it,' said Toole so soon as they were alone, nodding two or three
times dejectedly, and looking very glum. 'It's set in--the
inflammation--it's set in, Sir. He's gone. That's the rigor.'

'Poor gentleman,' said Lowe, after a short pause, 'I'm much concerned
for him, and for his famil