had something of the dreamer in it, but the bold set of the jaw
indicated determination of an uncommon kind. Three times President of
the Plumbers' Association, Henry Thornton had enjoyed the highest
honours of his chosen profession. His book on _Nut Coal_ was recognized
as the last word on the subject, and had been crowned by the French
Academy of Nuts.

I suppose that one of the principal reasons for his success was his
singular coolness and resource. I have seen Thornton enter a kitchen,
with that quiet reassuring step of his, and lay out his instruments on
the table, while a kitchen tap with a broken washer was sprizzling
within a few feet of him, as calmly and as quietly as if he were in his
lecture-room of the Plumbers' College.

"You never go into a cellar?" asked Fortescue. "But hang it, man, I
don't see how one can avoid it!"

"Well, I do avoid it," answered Thornton, "at least as far as I possibly
can. I send down my solderist, of course, but personally, unless it is
absolutely necessary, I never go down."

"That's all very well, my dear fellow," Fortescue cut in, "but you know
as well as I do that you get case after case where the cellar diagnosis
is simply vital. I had a case last week, a most interesting thing--" he
turned to the group of us as he spoke--"a double lesion of a gas-pipe
under a cement floor--half a dozen of my colleagues had been absolutely
baffled. They had made an entirely false diagnosis, operated on the
dining-room floor, which they removed and carried home, and when I was
called in they had just obtained permission from the Stone Mason's
Protective Association to knock down one side of the house."

"Excuse me interrupting just a minute," interjected a member of the
group who hailed from a distant city, "have you much trouble about
that? I mean about knocking the sides out of houses?"

"No trouble now," said Fortescue. "We did have. But the public is
getting educated up to it. Our law now allows us to knock the side out
of a house when we feel that we would really like to see what is in it.
We are not allowed, of course, to build it up again."

"No, of course not," said the other speaker. "But I suppose you can
throw the bricks out on the lawn."

"Yes," said Fortescue, "and sit on them to eat lunch. We had a big fight
in the legislature over that, but we got it through."

"Thank you, but I feel I am interrupting."

"Well, I was only saying that, as soon as I had made up my min