r ways, Dr. Frampton--I must e'en study to live
up to you."

Having piloted my eccentric upstairs and left him to his toilet,
I lost no time in dressing and presenting myself at the Grand Pump
Hotel, where I found my West Indian friend in a truly deplorable
state of agitation. His face, ordinarily rubicund, bore traces of a
sleepless night; indeed, it was plain that he had not changed his
clothes since leaving the Assembly Rooms, where he invariably spent
his evenings at a game of _faro_ for modest stakes. He grasped my
hand, springing up to do so from a writing-table whereon lay several
sheets of foolscap paper.

"Ah! my dear friend, you are late!" was his greeting.

"I thought I had been moderately expeditious," said I.

"Yes, yes--perhaps so." He consulted his watch. "But with an affair
of this sort hanging over one, the minutes drag. And yet, Heaven
knows, mine may be few enough."

"Pardon me," I said, "but to what sort of affair are you alluding?"

"An affair of honour," he answered tragically.

"Eh?" I said. "A duel! You have engaged yourself to fight a duel?"
He nodded. "Then I will have nothing to do with it," I announced
with decision.

"Aye," said he with marked irony, "it is at such a pinch that one
discovers his true friends! But fortunately I had no sooner
dispatched Gumbo in search of you than I foresaw some chance of this
pusillanimity of which you give me proof."

"Pusillanimity?" I interjected. "It is nothing of the kind. But you
seem to forget my position here as honorary physician to the
Hotwells."

"We'll call it lukewarmness, then," he went on in yet more biting
tones. "At the risk of seeming intrusive, I at once knocked up two
Irish gentlemen on the landing above who had been audibly making a
night of it while I sat here endeavouring to compose my thoughts to
the calmness proper for framing a testamentary disposition.
Although perfect strangers to me, they cheerfully granted what you
have denied me; consented with alacrity--nay, with enthusiasm--to act
as my seconds in this affair; and started to carry my cartel--which,
having gone to bed in their boots, they were able to do with the
smallest possible delay."

"You have not yet told me the nature of the quarrel," I suggested.

His face at once resumed its wonted colour--nay, took on an extra
tinge inclining to purple. "And I don't intend to!" he snapped.

"Then you no longer need my services?"

"Fortunately no, sinc