heard it
all quite intelligently; yet, once more, all he could say afterwards was
that it was about religion ... about religion....

So he stood, till he suddenly perceived that the doctor was looking at
him with a frown and contorted features of eloquence. He understood that
he was to go. He closed the door noiselessly; and, after another pause,
sped upstairs without a sound in his red cloth slippers.

(IV)

When Frank awoke to normal consciousness again, he lay still, wondering
what it was all about. He saw a table at the foot of his bed and noticed
on it a small leather case, two green bottles stoppered with
india-rubber, and a small covered bowl looking as if it contained
beef-tea. He extended his explorations still further, and discovered an
Hanoverian wardrobe against the left wall, a glare of light (which he
presently discerned to be a window), a dingy wall-paper, and finally a
door. As he reached this point the door opened and an old man with a
velvet skull-cap, spectacles, and a kind, furrowed face, came in and
stood over him.

"Well?" said the old man.

"I am a bit stiff," said Frank.

"Are you hungry?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, you're doing very well, if that's any satisfaction to you,"
observed the doctor, frowning on him doubtfully.

Frank said nothing.

The doctor sat down on a chair by the bed that Frank suddenly noticed
for the first time.

"Well," said the doctor, "I suppose you want to know the facts. Here
they are. My name is Whitty; I'm a doctor; you're in my house. This is
Wednesday afternoon; your friends brought you here yesterday morning.
I've given them some work in the garden. You were ill yesterday, but
you're all right now."

"What was the matter?"

"We won't bother about names," said the doctor with a kind sharpness.
"You had a blister; it broke and became a sore; then you wore one of
those nasty cheap socks and it poisoned it. That's all."

"That's in those bottles?" asked Frank languidly. (He felt amazingly
weak and stupid.)

"Well, it's an anti-toxin," said the doctor. "That doesn't tell you
much, does it?"

"No," said Frank.... "By the way, who's going to pay you, doctor? I
can't."

The doctor's face rumpled up into wrinkles. (Frank wished he wouldn't
sit with his back to the window.)

"Don't you bother about that, my boy. You're a case--that's what you
are."

Frank attempted a smile out of politeness.

"Now, how about some more beef-tea, and then goin