he wished to
refresh his excellent memory; the instruments he used when to the
entreaties of a fatherly friend Williams added the alluring chink of gold
belonged also to that generous patron. There were some old clothes in the
ramshackle deal wardrobe; there was some linen and underclothing in the
knobless chest of drawers. With the exception of a Winchester
repeating-rifle in excellent condition, a bandolier and ammunition-pouch,
a hunting-knife and a Colt's revolver of large calibre, in addition to
the weapon he carried, there was not an article of property of any value
in the room. Old riding-boots with dusty spurs and a pair of veldschoens
stood by the wall; a pair of trodden-down carpet slippers lay beside a big
cheap zinc bath that stood there, full of cold water; some well-used pipes
were on the chest of drawers, with a tin of Virginia; and an old brown
camel's-hair dressing-gown hung over a castorless, shabby,
American-cloth-covered armchair. And an empty whisky-bottle stood upon the
washstand, melancholy witness to the drunkard's passion.

Yet there were a few poor little toilet articles upon the dressing-table
that betokened the dainty personal habits of cleanliness and care that
from lifelong use become instinctive. The hands of the untidy, slovenly,
big man with the drink-swollen features were exquisitely kept; and when
the dark-red colour should go out of the square face, the skin would show
wonderfully unblemished and healthy for a drunkard, and the blue eyes
would be steady and clear. Excess had not injured a splendid constitution
as yet. But Saxham knew that by-and-by ...

What did he care? He pulled off his soiled, untidy garments, and soused
his aching head in the cold, fresh water, and bathed and changed. Six
o'clock struck, and found Dr. Owen Saxham reclothed and in his right mind,
if a little haggard about the eyes and twitchy about the mouth, and
sitting calmly waiting for patients in the respectably-appointed
consulting-room of De Boursy-Williams, M.D., F.R.C.S. Lond.

Usually he sat in the adjoining study, near enough to the
carefully-curtained door to hear the patient describe in the artless
vernacular of the ignorant, or the more cultivated phraseology of the
educated, the symptoms, his or hers.

Because the cultured man of science, the real M.D. of Cambridge University
and owner of those other letters of attainment, was the drunken wastrel
who had sunk low enough to serve as the impostor's