“_Seniores priores_,” replied the other rather stiffly. “Her ladyship first, if you please—thank you, I know the house.” He slipped out of the room; James was waiting for him in the hall. “And who is the old gentleman at all, James?” asked Dr O’Flaherty, as they passed down the corridor to Lady Seagrave’s room. “That was General Grampound, doctor,” replied James. “Faith, he looks it,” replied the other, as he tapped at the bedroom door. Lady Seagrave was sitting up in bed, with a lace cap on her head, looking very grim and sombre. “Come in,” said she. “Oh, that’s you—I expected you an hour ago—sit down. There’s no use talking to me,” added she, with a blaze of irritation, “for I’m deaf.” “Faith, you’ve been a long time finding that out,” murmured O’Flaherty. “It seized me yesterday morning,” went on the old woman. “I was quite right when I got up; I could hear what my maid said when she brought me my tea, and then it came on. Why don’t you answer me? You sit there without moving your lips like an image.” “Hum, hum!” said O’Flaherty, whose temper and bluntness were proverbial, “you’ve been deaf in your ears and deaf in your senses all the time _I’ve_ known you. Deaf! Faith, it’s a megaphone, not a trumpet, they’ll want to raise you out of your coffin with when the time comes.” “There you are!” said Lady Seagrave. “I can tell what you say by the movements of your lips. It is not influenza—some doctors seem to have influenza on the brain.” “Faith, and that’s a disease you’ll never have,” said the practitioner, taking a snuff-box from his pocket and a pinch. Lady Seagrave objected to tobacco, but she did not mind a person taking snuff in her presence. She was of that day. “You think because there is influenza in the house I must have it. I haven’t; I expect it’s a little cold. However, I haven’t sent for you to tinker over my ears, but to see a patient. I have a guest who is down with influenza—a Mr Boxall, a Member of Parliament—but he refuses to see a doctor.” “Then,” said O’Flaherty, “he must have more sense in him than the ordinary Members of Parliament.” “I know—it’s very foolish of him, but he is not going to pursue his foolishness under my roof. He must be seen.” O’Flaherty nodded his head. “You had better go and see him now,” said her ladyship, “and not waste any more of your time on me. If he is very bad you can tell James, and he will let me know, and you’d better call again to-morrow. Good-day.” She pulled a big bell-rope beside her bed to summon James, who was lingering in the passage, and the doctor with an old-fashioned bow to his patient and a grin on his lips left the room. “The man’s a fool,” murmured the old lady to herself, as she settled down in her bed, “but he’s respectful—the sort of country doctor I remember when doctors called themselves apothecaries and knew their proper places.” “This room, sir,” said James. He knocked at the door next to Lady Seagrave’s.