The laundress, nearly as much agitated as her master, instantly started off as she had been directed. Gammon, finding no signs of returning consciousness, with a great effort managed to get his Lordship into the bedroom; and had just laid him down on the bed when the footman burst into the chamber in a terrible fright. He almost jumped off the floor on catching sight of the prostrate and inanimate figure of his master--and was for a few moments so stupefied that he could not hear Gammon ordering him to start off in quest of a doctor, which at length, however, he did,--leaving Gammon alone with his victim. For a few frightful moments, he felt as if he had murdered Lord Dreddlington, and must fly for it. He pressed his hands to his forehead, as if to recall his scattered faculties. "What is to be done?" thought he. "Is this apoplexy? paralysis? epilepsy? or what? Will he recover? Will it affect his reason?--_Will he recover?_ If so--how deal with the damning discovery he has made? Will he have sense enough to keep his own counsel? If he survive, and preserve his reason--all is right--everything succeeds. I am his master to the end of his days!--What a horrid while they are!--Curse those doctors! The wretches! never to be found when they are wanted. He's dying before my very eyes!--How shall I say this happened? A fit, brought on by agitation occasioned--(ay, that will do)--by the failure of the Company. Ah! there's the newspaper he brought with him, and put into my hands," he thought, as his eye glanced at the newspaper lying on the table in the adjoining room--"This will give color to my version of the affair!" With this, he hastily seized the paper in question, and thrust it into one of the coat-pockets of Lord Dreddlington; and the moment after, in came the laundress, followed by the medical man whom she had gone in quest of; the door hardly having been closed before a thundering knock announced the arrival of the footman with another doctor; to both of whom Gammon with haste and agitation gave the account of his Lordship's seizure which he had previously determined upon giving to all inquiries.--"A decided case of apoplexy," said the fat bald-headed old gentleman brought in by the laundress, and who had been forty years in practice; and he proceeded hastily to raise the earl into a nearly sitting posture, directing the windows to be thrown open as widely as possible. "Clearly paralysis," said the spectacled young gentleman who had been fetched by the footman, and who had been established in practice only a fortnight; was hot from the hospitals; and had opened a little surgery nearly opposite to that of the old gentleman. "It _isn't_, sir--it's apoplexy." "Sir, it's nearer epilepsy"---- "Listen to his _breathing_, sir," said the old gentleman, scornfully. "For God's sake, gentlemen, DO something!" interposed Gammon, furiously--"Good God! would you have his Lordship die before your eyes?"