them, it was directed
at those who wish to limit the Almighty's favour to their own little
clique, or who wish to build a Chinese wall round religion, with no
assimilation of fresh truths, and no hope of expansion in the future. It
is with these that the pioneers of progress can hold no truce. As for my
wife, I would as soon think of breaking in upon her innocent prayers, as
she would of carrying off the works of philosophy from my study table.
She is not narrow in her views; but if one could stand upon the very
topmost pinnacle of broad-mindedness, one would doubtless see from it
that even the narrow have their mission.

About a year ago I had news of Cullingworth from Smeaton, who was in the
same football team at college, and who had called when he was passing
through Bradfield. His report was not a very favourable one. The
practice had declined considerably. People had no doubt accustomed
themselves to his eccentricities, and these had ceased to impress them.
Again, there had been one or two coroner's inquests, which had spread
the impression that he had been rash in the use of powerful drugs. If
the coroner could have seen the hundreds of cures which Cullingworth had
effected by that same rashness he would have been less confident with
his censures. But, as you can understand, C.'s rival medical men
were not disposed to cover him in any way. He had never had much
consideration for them.

Besides this decline in his practice, I was sorry to hear that
Cullingworth had shown renewed signs of that curious vein of suspicion
which had always seemed to me to be the most insane of all his traits.
His whole frame of mind towards me had been an example of it, but as far
back as I can remember it had been a characteristic. Even in those
early days when they lived in four little rooms above a grocer's shop,
I recollect that he insisted upon gumming up every chink of one bedroom
for fear of some imaginary infection. He was haunted, too, with a
perpetual dread of eavesdroppers, which used to make him fly at the door
and fling it open in the middle of his conversation, pouncing out into
the passage with the idea of catching somebody in the act. Once it was
the maid with the tea tray that he caught, I remember; and I can see her
astonished face now, with an aureole of flying cups and lumps of sugar.

Smeaton tells me that this has now taken the form of imagining that some
one is conspiring to poison him with copper, against whic