"Um! Will you open your shirt? Just unbutton it here"--touching the front--"and your flannel waistcoat, if you wear one." Mr. Halliburton bared his chest in obedience and the doctor sounded it, and then put down his ear. Apparently his ear did not serve him sufficiently, for he took a small instrument out of a drawer, placed it on the chest, and then put his ear to that, changing the position of the instrument three or four times. "That will do," he said at length. He turned to put up his stethoscope again, and Mr. Halliburton drew the edges of his shirt together and buttoned them. "Why don't you wear flannel waistcoats?" asked the doctor, with quite a sharp accent, his head down in the drawer. "I do wear them in winter; but in warm weather I leave them off. It was only last week that I discarded them." "Was ever such folly known!" ejaculated Dr. Carrington. "One would think people were born without common sense. Half the patients who come to me say they leave off their flannels in summer! Why, it is in summer they are most needed! And this warm weather won't last either. Go home, sir, and put one on at once." "Certainly, if you think it right," said Mr. Halliburton with a smile. "I thank you for telling me." He took up his hat and waited. The doctor appeared to wait _for him to go_. "I understood at the office that you would give me a paper testifying that you had examined me," explained Mr. Halliburton. "Ah--but I can't give it," said the doctor. "Why not, sir?" "Because I am not satisfied with you. I cannot recommend you as a healthy life." Mr. Halliburton's pulses quickened a little. "Sir!" he repeated. "Not a healthy life?" "Not sufficiently healthy for insurance." "Why! what is the matter with me?" he rejoined. Dr. Carrington looked him full in the face for the space of a minute before replying. "I have had that question asked me before by parties whom I have felt obliged to decline as I am now declining you," he said, "and my answer has not always been palatable to them." "It will be palatable to me, sir; in so far as that I desire to be made acquainted with the truth. What do you find amiss with me?" "The lungs are diseased." A chill fell over Mr. Halliburton. "Not extensively, I trust? Not beyond hope of recovery?" "Were I to say not extensively, I should be deceiving you; and you tell me that you wish for the truth. They are extensively diseased----" A mortal pallor overspread Mr. Halliburton's face, and he sank into a chair. "Not for myself," he gasped, as Dr. Carrington drew nearer to him. "I have a wife and children. If I die, they will want bread to eat." "But you did not hear me out," returned the doctor, proceeding with equanimity, as if he had not been interrupted. "They are extensively diseased, but not beyond a hope of recovery. I do not say it is a strong hope; but a hope there is, as I judge, provided you use the right means and take care of yourself." "What am I to do? What are the means?"