“I’m afraid you can’t have Mullins,” said Thrush, gently. “Want him yourself do you?” “I do; but I’m afraid neither of us can have him just now, Mr. Upton.” “Why not? Where is he.” Thrush leant across as they swam into the lighted terminus. “In prison.” “In prison! Your man Mullins?” “Yes, Mr. Upton, he’s the man they arrested yesterday on suspicion of complicity in this Hyde Park affair!” CHAPTER XVI. MALINGERING Pocket had put the fragments of his poor letter together again, and was still poring over those few detached and mutilated words, which were the very ones his tears had blotted, when there came a warning chink of tea-things on the stairs. He was just able to thrust the pieces back into his pocket, and to fling himself at full length on the bed, before Dr. Baumgartner entered with a tray. “There, my young fellow! This will make a man of you! Then we shall see you yourself again by supper-time.” “I’m not coming down again,” said Pocket. “Don’t force me, please” “Force you?” Baumgartner cocked a keen eye at the open window. “What a tyrant you would make me out! On the contrary, I think you show your wisdom in remaining quiet. Perhaps you would be quieter still with the window shut—so—and fastened to prevent it rattling. I will open it when I come up again. There shall not be a sound in the house to disturb you.” And he took to tiptoes there and then, gliding about with a smiling stealth that set Pocket shivering on the bed; he shivered the more when an admirable doctor’s hand, cool and smooth as steel, was laid upon his forehead. “A little fever, I’m afraid! I should get right into bed, if I were you. It’s nothing to be alarmed about, much less astonished; you have been through so much, my poor young fellow.” “I have indeed!” cried Pocket, with unguarded bitterness. And Baumgartner paused between the foot of the bed and the door. “But there’s one consolation for you,” he said at length, in a sibilant whisper. “They’ve had that letter of yours at home quite a long time now—ever since yesterday morning, haven’t they?” The bed shook under Pocket when the door was shut—he only hoped it was not before. Up to the last minute, he felt quite sure that Dr. Baumgartner, suspicious as he was, had suspected nothing of the discovery downstairs behind his back. If he himself had betrayed anything it was in the last few seconds, when it had been all that he could do to keep from screaming out his knowledge of the other’s trickery. To play such a trick upon a broken-hearted boy! To have the heart to play it! No wonder he felt feverish to that wicked hand; the wonder was that he had actually lain there listening to the smooth impostor gratuitously revelling in his imposition!