With a puzzled expression on his hideous countenance, the being began slowly and with obvious reluctance to disappear. He seemed to be doubting the evidence of his ears. "'Ere, I say," called out Alf suddenly, as an idea struck him. "Arf a mo'!" The being, who was still just visible as a faint murkiness in the atmosphere, took shape again with alacrity. "What wouldst thou have?" he began once more. "I am ready to obey thee as thy slave and the slave...." "Yes," interrupted Alf, who was in terror of the possible advent of the doctor. "You said all that before. What I want to know is, was it you that turned me this ruddy color?" "Verily, O Master, the color is not the color of blood; and indeed, with thine own lips thou didst command me to strike thee pink!" "Lumme!" said Alf, light breaking in upon him at last. "Well, if that's your idea of a joke, it ain't mine, that's all. You can just blinkin' well think again, if you want to make _me_ laugh. See?" "Thy wish," said the Spirit, to whom Alf's idiomatic speech was just so much gibberish, "is my command. What wouldst thou have? I am ready to obey...." "Stop it," said Alf in acute apprehension, his eye on the door. "Didn't you 'ear what I said? Put me right, for the Lord's sake, and then 'op it, quick. I can 'ear the doc. comin'." Captain Browne entered. He was in a very despondent frame of mind. He was a keen and ambitious young man, and his failure to make any impression on Higgins' condition had been a great blow to his pride. Sorely against his will he was now about to own himself defeated. He closed the door behind him. There was an instant's pause. Then the officer, without a change of countenance, spoke quietly. "Ah!" he said. "Then my last treatment _has_ had the effect I hoped for. It's a cure. You needn't go to the Base, after all." The cure of Higgins' malady brought to Captain Browne much honor and renown. He became the first and sole authority on what came to be known as "Browne's Disease"; several thoughtful essays from his pen appeared in the foremost medical journals, detailing the course of the disease, the method of its cure, and the mental processes which had led to the evolution of that cure. He was asked to contribute an article on the same subject to a medical encyclopædia. Finally, he was mentioned in dispatches. An order from the distant heights of the surgeon-general's staff was circulated to all medical officers, ordering them to forward weekly a return of the number of men under their care suffering from Browne's Disease. But neither they nor the distinguished inventor himself could find any. This was the more unfortunate because, if only he had been able to find another authentic case of the malady, he might have looked forward to Harley Street and a fashionable practice after the war. But in any case, his name, if not his fortune, was made.