erly to the Colonel; and he, lending ear, scarcely heard
the reiterated, stereotyped parrot-phrases, so taken up was his attention
with the man in shabby white drill clothes, who leaned over the foot of
the bed, his square face set into an expressionless mask, his
gentian-blue, oddly vivid eyes fixed upon the wasted, waxy-yellow face of
the sick man, his head bent, as he listened with profound, absorbed
attention to the husky, rattling, laboured breaths.

Suddenly he straightened himself and spoke, addressing himself to the
Resident Surgeon.

"The patient has told us, sir, that he is suffering from tuberculous
disease of the lungs. May I ask, was that the conclusion arrived at by a
London consulting physician, and whether your own diagnosis has confirmed
the assertion?"

The Resident Surgeon nodded with patronising indifference. He was not
going to waste civilities upon this rowdy, drunken remittance-man, whom he
had seen reeling through the streets of the stad as he went upon his own
respectable way.

"_Phthisis pulmonalis._" He addressed his reply to the Chief. "And the
process of lung-destruction is, as you will observe, sir, nearly
complete."

He encountered from the Chief a look of cool displeasure that flushed him
to the top of his knobby forehead, and set him blinking nervously behind
his big round spectacles.

"Dr. Saxham asked you, sir, unless I mistake, whether you had ascertained
by your own diagnosis, the ..." Lady Hannah's words came back to him. He
recalled the "bit of information wormed out of the nurse," and ended with
"the presence of the bacillus?"

Saxham's blue eyes thrust their rapier-points at him, and then plunged
into the oyster-like orbs behind the spectacles of the Resident Surgeon,
who rapidly grew from scarlet to purple, and from purple to pale green.
Major Taggart and the Irishman exchanged a look of intelligence.

"Koch's bacillus, sir, were this a case of tuberculosis proper, would be
present in the expectoration of the patient, and easy of demonstration
under the microscope." Saxham's voice was cold as ice and cutting as
tempered steel. "May we take it that you can personally testify to its
presence here?" He pointed to the bed.

"And varra possibly," put in Taggart, "ye could submit a culture for
present inspection? It would be gratifeeying to me and Captain McFadyen
here, as weel as to our friend an' colleague Dr. Saxham, late of St.
Stephen's-in-the-West, London, to varrafy