“Asthma,” wheezed Pocket, clinging to the palings in dire distress. “So I thought. Yet you spend your night on the wet grass!” “I had nowhere else to go.” “Have you come up from the country?” “To see a doctor about it!” cried Pocket bitterly, and told the whole truth about himself in a series of stertorous exclamations. It scarcely lessened the austerity of the eyes that still ran him through and through; but the hard mouth did relax a little; the lined face looked less deeply slashed and furrowed, and it was a less inhuman voice that uttered the next words. “Well, we must get you out of this, my young fellow! Come to these chairs.” Pocket crept along the palings towards the chairs by which he had climbed them. His breathing was pitiful now. The stranger accompanied him on the other side. “If I lift one over, and lend you a hand, do you think you can manage it?” “I did last night.” “Here, then. Wait a bit! Can you tell me where you slept?” Pocket looked round and pointed. “Behind that bush.” “Have you left nothing there?” “Yes; my bag and hat!” In his state it took him some time to go and fetch them; he was nearly suffocating when he came creeping back, his shoulders up to his ears. “Stop! I see something else. Is that medicine-bottle yours? There—catching the sun.” “It was.” “Bring it.” “It’s empty.” “Bring it!” Pocket obeyed. The strange man was standing on a chair behind the palings, waiting to help him over, with a wary eye upon the path. But no third creature was in sight except the insensate sprawler in the dew. Pocket surmounted the obstacle, he knew not how; he was almost beside himself in the throes of his attack. Later, he feared he must have been lifted down like a child; but this was when he was getting his breath upon a seat. They had come some little distance very slowly, and Pocket had received such support from so muscular an arm as to lend colour to his humiliating suspicion. His grim companion spoke first. “Well, I’m sorry for you. But I feel for your doctor too. I am one myself.” Pocket ignored the somewhat pointed statement. “I’ll never forgive the brute!” he panted. “Come, come! He didn’t send you to sleep in the Park.” “But he took away the only thing that does me any good.” “What’s that?” “Cigarettes d’Auvergne.” “I never heard of them.” “They’re the only thing to stop it, and he took away every one I had.”