Common report declared that Dr. Bolling was a miser. The popular mind reasoned in this wise: that no man who was not a miser would live in one corner of a dirty old house, wear clothes too shabby for a Jew pedlar to chaffer for, and trot to and fro on his own feet from morning till night, when he could have afforded to make his house spick and span from basement to garret, clothe himself like a gentleman, and drive about in a handsome carriage and pair. But the actual fact was that Dr. Bolling did not care about fine furniture or good broadcloth, and that he liked to use his own legs better than to sit behind a pair of horses. He was a creature of habit. His mind was in his professional work. He lived only for science. In the Middle Ages he would have shut himself up in a laboratory and made all manner of uncanny experiments, with retorts and crucibles, and alembics, and much waste of quicksilver. In our enlightened age he confined his experiments to other people’s bodies. He was a marvel of cleverness, experience, enthusiasm; but in Bridford he did not stand nearly so high as Dr. Simper, who wore unexceptionable black, drove a smart brougham in winter, and a smarter curricle in summer, and had his shirts starched by a French laundress. Lights were shining through the round holes in Dr. Bolling’s shutters when Mr. Saunders got to his door. ‘That’s lucky,’ thought the parish doctor. ‘The old man is in his surgery.’ He rang, and the door was opened by Dr. Bolling himself, a shrivelled little man, with a black velvet skull-cap on the top of his bald head. ‘Ah, Saunders, come in. Anything wrong?’ ‘A poor fellow dying of cholera, that’s all.’ ‘That’s bad. I’ve tried everything--but though I’ve pulled a good many of my patients through, I’m not satisfied that I know much about the disease. There must be a cure. Every poison has its antidote.’ ‘Have you ever tried transfusion?’ ‘In cholera? No. I’ve done it in cases of severe hæmorrhage--and successfully.’ ‘I want you to do it to-night.’ And then the parish doctor told Dr. Bolling about Emmanuel Joyce and the curate’s offer. ‘Is your curate a strong man?’ ‘I should take him to be a healthy man. He has been wasting his strength a good deal lately in attendance upon the sick. But I should judge him to be a fair subject for the experiment.’ ‘We’ll try it,’ said the old man, his wizened face bright with energy and mind. ‘I’ve known of its being tried in cholera cases. It was done largely in Russia. Yes, I should like to see the effect. Cholera is a deterioration of the blood--and a supply of fresh healthy blood----Yes, I’ll do it.’ There was no more time lost in discussion. Dr. Bolling went to one of the roomy old closets in his surgery, and fished out a particular form of syringe: armed with this and his instrument case he was ready.