r for seeing you, Hooper," replied the doctor sternly.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Ned, "what a world we live in, to be sure! It
was `Hail fellow! well met,' when I was well off; now," (he scowled
here) "my old familiars give me the cold shoulder _because I'm poor_."

"You know that you are unjust," said the doctor, leaning back in his
chair, and speaking less sternly though not less firmly; "you know, Ned,
that I have helped you with advice and with money to the utmost extent
of my means, and you know that it was a long, long time before I ceased
to call you one of my friends; but I do not choose to be annoyed by a
man who has deliberately cast himself to the dogs, whose companions are
the lowest wretches in London, and whose appearance is dirty and
disgusting as well as disreputable."

"I can't help it," pleaded Hooper; "I can get no work."

"I don't wonder at that," replied the doctor; every friend you ever had
has got you work of one kind or another during the last few years, and
you have drunk yourself out of it every time. Do you imagine that your
friends will continue to care for a man who cares not for himself?

Ned did not reply, but hung his head in moody silence.

"Now," continued the doctor, "my time is a little more valuable than
yours; state what you have got to say, and then be off. Stay," he
added, in a softened tone, "have you breakfasted?"

"No," answered Ned, with a hungry glance at the table.

"Well, then, as you did not come to beg, you may draw in your chair and
go to work."

Ned at once availed himself of this permission, and his spirits revived
wonderfully as he progressed with the meal, during which he stated the
cause of his visit.

"The fact is," said he, "that I want your assistance, doctor--"

"I told you already," interrupted the other, "that I have assisted you
to the utmost extent of my means."

"My good fellow, not so sharp, pray," said Ned, helping himself to
another roll, the first having vanished like a morning cloud; "I don't
want money--ah: that is to say, I _do_ want money, but I don't want
yours. No; I came here to ask you to help me to get a body."

"A body. What do you mean?"

"Why, what I say; surely you've cut up enough of 'em to know 'em by
name; a dead body, doctor,--a subject."

The doctor smiled.

"That's a strange request, Ned. You're not going to turn to my
profession as a last resort, I hope?"

"No, not exactly; but a friend of mine wants a body--