But not to go to bed, or to sleep. While he was at work in the moonlight and making his friend laugh, I did not know, but he did, what was in store for him. Having no spare bed, he began his night downstairs and dozed for a while in an easy-chair; then roused and went out into the moonlight to smoke a pipe; and so he got through the night. Tobacco was his solace. He smoked, he told me, a full ounce in the ensuing twenty-four hours. At seven in the morning--his usual hour--he was here beginning work: at nine he left off, to go into the town and present his order at the doctor's. That journey on the Wednesday morning proved the beginning of a period of intenser wretchedness for the old man. He set out in apparent equanimity; but the fatigue of the night was upon him, the glow of yesterday's contentment had died out, and his nerves must have been all on edge to take as he did a remark of the doctor's--"What do you want of an order? You're in constant work, aren't you?" It seemed to him that he was being insulted for coming as a pauper, and it was all he could do to refrain from a rejoinder that would have resulted in his being summarily ejected from the doctor's presence. And was he as submissive as he fancied? It is more likely that the ungraciousness of his manner was to blame for what he regarded as pure heartlessness in the other. That he must be at home to meet the doctor was self-evident; but it was important to him not to lose a whole day from his work, and he desired to know whether the visit would be made before his dinner-time or after it? I hazard a guess that he stated the case in tones of defiant bargaining; at any rate, he could get no answer but that the doctor would call during the day. With that he returned here--a quivering mass of resentment; and in that temper, to which nothing is so repugnant as waiting, by my persuasion rather than by his goodwill he left his work and went home to wait.