He returned to the fire, walking ludicrously sideways, as if he were afraid to take his eyes off the cabinet--the wise, resourceful cabinet. It _had_ suggested. He suddenly remembered. He became confused, dizzy, elated with remembrance. He could buy it--if not with coin of the realm, with something equally marketable. Harrowsmith had said it was marketable. He would buy it. Why not? Within his own body he carried the means to buy--his own imperfect, freakish body! “Do you remember,” he asked, in the hurried, jerky tones of a clock that is out of gear, “the offer you once made me?” Harrowsmith looked perplexed, and then his face lighted. “To buy your body--yes.” “Does it still hold good?” The doctor stared. Then he laughed and poked the fire until the hot light ran round the room, and, darting down the panels of the cabinet, made it wink and beckon more than before. “You didn’t like the idea,” he said at last. “Your Uncle Bob hadn’t left you the cabinet then,” Kinsman reminded him pointedly. “That’s ingenious. I see, I see. You propose to sell yourself--for a bit of wood.” “I should be a fool if I didn’t. You want my body after I am dead because it differs in some slight detail from other bodies, because, dead, I shall be to you medical fellows a curio. That’s grim.” “A curio, exactly--to use your own fanciful term,” said Harrowsmith, professional enthusiasm lighting its cold taper in his eye. “And I, as you know, have made a special study of the thorax. Are you really serious?” “Absolutely. I’ll give you my body when I’ve done with it if you’ll give me the cabinet at once.” Harrowsmith looked at his watch and jumped up. “It’s not quite four,” he said. “Kent, the commissioner for oaths, on the ground floor, has probably not gone. He stays late. You must sign a document of some sort. He’ll draw it up. I like to have things in form. In the event of your predeceasing me----” “I’m yours. Yes; that’s all right. If I die first,” assented Kinsman carelessly. He was amused and scornful in his turn at an interest which was to him inexplicable. He thought the doctor a fool. He was also positively grateful to his singular thorax. Men with normal organs could not always afford Tudor furniture. Over his enthusiastic face slid the expression of a personal greeting as he gave a full look at the cabinet and saluted it. “You’ve got a bargain,” Harrowsmith said. “You’ll be able to sell the thing, when you are tired of it, at a profit.” Kinsman winced. The first hint of shadow drew his brows together. “Sell it! Why, I’d sell myself first. No joke intended. By Jove! I _have_ sold myself.” They both laughed--laughter that tripped and tumbled down the old, wide stairs; laughter that was caught up by the rough wind outside and carried--whither? * * * * *