rrow squeak."

"Exhaustion?" Rawlinson asked.

"Starvation," the doctor answered grimly. "The man has been sober all
his life, and a careful liver, or he would be dead now. What are you
going to do with him? It'll take him a day or two to pull round."

"Whatever you advise," Rawlinson answered.

"Has he any money?"

"You can treat him as though he were a millionaire," Rawlinson answered.
"Give him every chance. The _Daily Courier_ pays cheerfully."

* * * * *

They moved him into the private ward of a great hospital, where patients
with complicated disorders and bottomless purses were sometimes treated,
but where never before a man had come suffering from starvation.
Everything that science and careful nursing could do, was done for him,
and in a few days be astonished them all by sitting up in bed suddenly
and demanding to know what had happened. He listened without emotion,
he heard the generous message from the _Daily Courier_ which, a month ago,
would have set every pulse in his body tingling with excitement, without
comment. He grew rapidly stronger, but side by side with his physical
improvement came a curious mental lassitude, a weariness of mind which
made him content to lie and watch the housetops and the clouds, with
never a desire to move nor to step back once more into life. The old
enthusiasms seemed chilled out of him. They showed him his work in
print, told him that he had stirred millions of his fellow-creatures as
nothing of the sort had ever done before, that everywhere people were
talking of him and his wonderful work. He only smiled faintly and
looked once more at the clouds. They left paper and pens upon his
table. He looked at them without interest, and they remained untouched,
Rawlinson himself called daily to inquire, and one day the doctor sent
for him.

"Your _protege_ is physically all right now," he said. "He is suffering
simply from shock. I should say that he had a fearful time struggling
before he went down, and it will be a matter of time before he's himself
again.

"All right," Rawlinson said. "Do all you can for him."

"I was going to suggest," the doctor said, "that one of us puts it
delicately to him that he's a considerable expense to you. It needs
something like that to stir him up. He could put on his hat and walk
out of the place to-morrow if he liked."

"Not for the world," Rawlinson answered promptly. "If he was costing us
fifty guinea