The doctor offered many apologies. "I believe," he said reflectively, "that you are Mrs. Bannister to _her_?" "That’s right," assented his patient. "Ah!" murmured Doctor Brink, "I will write to her and acknowledge her kind message. Be gad I will. Yes. Ah! I—I—begad, yes. Ha! H’m! ... And now, Mrs. Ban——Mrs. Wilson, what is this about the certificate for the insurance company?" "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Wilson. "Will you oblige me, Doctor, be makin’ it out in the name of Banks?" *XLII* *THE LAST* "It’s true then?" I inquired. "Oh, yes," responded James—"quite true. Fatty’s got a person coming to see him this afternoon about buying the practice." "I suppose it’s no use asking, ’Why all this?’" "Well," admitted James, "you know it’s against our principles in this household to give reasons. But seeing that it’s you—the truth is that Fatty isn’t going to stick it any longer, because he says he’ll be damned if he does stick it any longer. He says he’s going to start a pottery and kill them quicker." "_You_ don’t seem so tremendously jubilant as I was led to expect." "No-o," replied James. "The idea was rather exciting at first. But I’ve been walking about to-day telling everybody the news; and, really, people have been so awfully kind. Mrs. Bernstein—where they make the old furniture, you know—actually cried and gave me a salted cucumber; and her brother, who is our fish man, says he’s sending round a hat—why, I don’t know—besides a small plaice which came this morning. And dear old Mr. Grimsdick, the grocer, got very excited indeed, and he says it isn’t to be heard of, and he’s coming round to stop it. And Mrs. Bolt, where we buy our coal, she said, ’Lord-love-a-duck,’ she said, ’what next? You tell your father to stop where he is. You tell him he suits us very well. We don’t want none of your educated gentlemen in Bovingdon Street.’ "Besides," continued James, "there’s Baffin. What are we to do about Baffin? We can’t sell Baffin with the practice. And what’s to become of him? _We_ all know that he’s a genius, but nobody else has found it out yet, and so he hasn’t got much money. Think of all his pictures stuck to the washhouse wall! Fatty says they’ll be worth thousands one day; but they won’t come off the walls, and if we leave them there somebody else will steal the money. And there are all his clothes. Baffin has been collecting clothes for years, and these are all in the washhouse—_somewhere_. I really don’t——" James’s reflections were interrupted by the sudden opening of the door, which admitted a strange young gentleman into our presence. He was followed by Doctor Brink himself. "This," said the latter gentleman, "is Mr. Reginald Cavendish, who has come to inquire about the practice. He is charmed with the situation of the house, my dear."