patient--and Coplestone was a magnificent patient's
father. He did not harry the doctors; he treated the elderly Scotch
nurse like a queen; he was not always in and out of the sick-room by
day, and he never set foot in it during the night. In the daytime
Delavoye took him for long walks, and I would sit up with him at night
until he started nodding in his chair.

The first night he said: "You must have some whisky, Gillon. I've got a
new lot in." And when I said I seldom touched it--"I know you don't, in
this house," he rejoined, with his hand for an instant on my shoulder.
"But that's all right, Gillon!--Do you happen to know much about Dr.
Johnson?"

"Hardly anything. You should try Uvo."

"Well, I don't know much myself; but I always remember that when the
poor old boy was dying he refused the drugs which were giving him all
the peace he got, because he said he'd made up his mind to 'render up
his soul to God unclouded.' Now I come to think of it, there's not much
analogy," continued Coplestone with a husky laugh. "But I know I'd
rather do what Dr. Johnson wouldn't than go up clouded to my little lad
if ever he--wanted me!"

And he took about a teaspoonful from a mistaken sense of hospitality,
but no second allowance as the night wore on. The next night I was able
to refuse without offending him; after that the decanter was never
touched. Yet once or twice I saw the stopper taken out in sheer absence
of mind, only to be replaced without flurry or hesitation.

Self-control? I never knew a man with more; it came out every hour that
we spent together, and before long it was needed almost every minute.
One day Delavoye dashed into the office in town clothes and with a
tragic face.

"They want a second nurse! It's come to that already," he said, "and I'm
going up about it now."

"But isn't that the doctor's job?" I asked, liking the looks of him as
little as his news.

"I can't help it if it is, Gilly! I must lend a hand somehow or _I_
shall crack up. It's little enough one can do, besides being day-nurse
to poor old Coplestone, and this afternoon he's asleep for once. What a
great chap he is, Gilly, and will be ever after, if only we can pull the
lad through and then get them both out of this! But it's two lives
hanging on one thread, and that cursed old man of mine trying all he
knows to cut it! I'll euchre him, you'll see. By hook or crook I'll balk
him----"

But white clouds were tumbling behind the red ho