over the desk of Brake's assistant, and this I
touched. My effort brought no reply. I pressed the button again with
more force and more desperation; I might say, with more personality.

"Obey me!" I cried, setting my teeth, and addressing the electric
influence as a man addresses a menial.

Instantly a thrill passed from the wire to the hand. A distant sound
jarred upon the air. Steps shuffled somewhere beyond the massive
walls. I even thought that I heard voices, as of the watchman and
others in possible consultation. No one approached the broker's door.
I urged the signal again and again. I became quite frantic, for I had
now begun to think with dismay of the effect of all this upon my wife.
I railed upon that signal like a delirious patient at the order of a
physician. A commotion seemed to follow, in some distant part of the
building. But no one came within hearing of my voice; the noise soon
ceased, and my efforts at freedom with it.

It having now become evident that I must spend the night where I was, I
proceeded to make the best of it; and a very bad best it was. I was
exhausted, I was angry, and I was distressed.

The full force of the situation was beginning to fall upon me. The
inspector had put a not unnatural interpretation upon my condition; he
thought so little of a gentleman who had dined too freely; it was a
perfectly normal incident in his experience. He had mistaken the
character of the stupor caused by my accident, and left me in that
office for a drunken man. The fact that he was not accustomed to view
me in such a light in itself probably explained the originality of his
method. We were on pleasant terms. Drayton was a good fellow. Who
knew better than he what would be the professional significance of the
circumstance that Dr. Thorne was seen intoxicated down town at
midnight? The city would ring with it in twelve hours, and it would
not be for me, though I had been the most popular doctor in town, to
undo the deed of that slander, if once it so much as lifted its
invisible hand against the proud and pure reputation in whose shelter I
lived and laboured, and had been suffered to become what we call
"eminent." It was possible, too, that the inspector had some human
regard for my family in this matter, and reasoned that to spare them
the knowledge of my supposed disgrace was the truest kindness wherewith
it was in his power to serve me. He meant to leave me where I was and
as