be castin' up at him, an' sayin'
he's beat him."

"There'll be no Club meeting for Tyrer, either, to-morrow," Doctor
Craddock said; "he's laid up with a bad attack of bronchitis."

"Eh, is he?" exclaimed Mrs. Wainwright, with such visible satisfaction
that the Doctor smiled now as he recalled it; she had barely patience
to escort him to the door, and before he mounted his horse, he heard
her joyfully informing her Gaffer that owd Martin Tyrer had getten th'
'titus, and she hoped that now he'd be satisfied and give ower
frettin' hissel'.

"I shall have an equally warm reception here, I suppose," said the
Doctor to himself, as he dismounted before Tyrer's door, "but,
whatever happens, the old man must not think of going out to-morrow.
It would be serious if he caught fresh cold."

Martin Tyrer was sitting, almost upright, in his bed, supported by
many pillows, for when he lay down, as his wife explained to the
Doctor, he fair choked. He was an immensely tall and stout man, with a
large red face, and a stolid lack-lustre eye, which he brought
solemnly to bear upon the Doctor as he entered the room.

"Well," said Craddock, "how are you to-day, Tyrer? Better, I hope."

Tyrer rolled his eyes in the direction of his wife, apparently as an
intimation that she was to answer for him.

"Noan so well," said Mrs. Tyrer lugubriously, proceeding thereupon to
give accurate, not to say harrowing, particulars of her master's
symptoms; Tyrer, meanwhile, suffering his glance to wander from one to
the other, and occasionally nodding or shaking his head. It was not
until she paused from want of breath that he put in his word.

"I mun get up to-morrow," he remarked, apparently addressing no one in
particular.

"If you do you'll make an end of yourself, my friend," returned the
Doctor decidedly. "You stay where you are, and go on with your gruel
and poultices--by-the-bye you needn't make those poultices quite so
thick, Mrs. Tyrer--and I'll come and see you on Wednesday. You mustn't
think of getting up. If you go out in this east wind, it will be the
death of you. Really you people are mad about your Club Day--you
should have seen old Robert Wainwright, when I told him just now that
it would be quite impossible for him to go out."

"He's not goin' to walk!" cried husband and wife together, their faces
lighting up much as Mrs. Wainwright's had done.

"He'd be very much astonished if he were to try," said Doctor
Craddock; "he can't