said, 'but I'll do just as well. I suppose
he's certified, and all that.'

" 'Oh, it's all right,' said the man, rather as though he expected me to
say that it wasn't. He looked a little doubtful what to do, and then I
heard some one inside the cab call him. He stuck his head in the window
and they confabbed for a minute, and then he turned to me and said, with
the most magnificent air you ever saw, like a chap buying a set of diamond
studs, 'My friend here is a great personal friend of Dr Congleton, and
it's a damned---- I mean it's an uncommonly delicate matter. We must see
him.'

" 'Well, if you insist, I'll see if I can get him,' I said; 'but you'd
better come in and wait.'

"So the Johnnie opened the door of the cab, and there was a great hauling
and pushing, my friend pulling an arm from the outside, and the doctor
shoving from within, and at last they fetched out their patient. He was a
tall man, in a very smart-looking, long, light top-coat, and a cap with a
large peak shoved over his eyes, and he seemed very unsteady on his pins.

" 'Drunk, by George!' I said to myself at first.

"The doctor--another young-looking man--hopped out after him, and they each
took an arm, lugged their patient into the waiting-room, and popped him
into an armchair. There he collapsed, and sat with his head hanging down
as limp as a sucked orange.

"I asked them if anything was the matter with him.

" 'Only tired,--just a little sleepy,' said the cousin.

"And do you know, Escott, what I'd stake my best boots was the matter with
him?"

"What?"

"The man was drugged!"

Escott looked at the fire thoughtfully.

"Well," he said, "it's quite possible; he might have been too violent to
manage."

"Why couldn't they have said so, then?"

"H'm. Not knowing, can't say. What happened next?"

"Next thing was, I asked the doctor what name I should give. He answered
in a kind of nervous way, 'No name; you needn't give any name. I know Dr
Congleton personally. Ask him to come, please.' So off I tooled, and found
old Congers just thinking of turning in.

" 'My clients are sometimes unnecessarily discreet', he remarked in his
pompous way when I told him about the arrival, and of course he added his
usual platitude about our reputation for discretion.

"I went back with him to the waiting-room, and just stood at the door long
enough to see him hail the doctor chap very cordially and be introduced to
the patient's cousin, and then