The Professor sped over the miles to Framley Lodge. He took little thought about meals or sleep. The excitement was marking him deeply; but he paid no heed to, or was unaware of, that. Arrived at the Lodge a campaign of bribery and corruption began. Servant after servant had to be suborned. Nothing but the well-known fame and name of Augustus Vanlief enabled him, even with his desperate expenditures of tips, to avert the suspicion that he had some deadly, some covertly inimical end in view. One does not, at this age of the world, burst into another man's house and order that man's servants about, without coming under suspicion, to put it mildly. Fortunately Vanlief encountered, just as his plot seemed shattering against the rigor of the household arrangements, the doctor who was in attendance on Wantage. The man happened to be on the staff of the University where Vanlief held a chair. He held the older man in the greatest respect; he listened to his rapid talk with all the patience in the world. He looked astonished, even uncomprehending, but he shook his shoulders up and down a few times with complaisance. "There seems no possible harm," he assented. "Don't ask me to believe in the curative possibilities, Professor; but--there can be no harm, that I see. He is not to be unduly excited. A mirror, you say? You don't think vanity can send a man from illness to health, do you? Not even an actor can be as vain as that, surely. However, I shall tell the attendants to see that the thing is done as quietly as possible. I trust you, you see, to let nothing detrimental happen. I have to get over to the Port of Pines. I shall give the orders. Goodbye. I wish I could see the result of your little--h'm, notion--but I dare say to-morrow will be soon enough." And he smiled the somewhat condescending smile of the successful practitioner who fancies he is addressing a campaigner whose usefulness is passing. The setting up of the professor's mirror, so as to face Wantage's sickbed, took no little time, no little care, no little exertion. When it was in place, the professor tiptoed to the actor's side. "Well," queried Wantage, "what is it? Medicine? Lord, I thought I'd taken all there was in the world. Where is it?" "No," said the professor, "not medicine. I am going to ask you to look quite hard at that curtain by the foot of the bed for a moment. I have something I think may interest you and--" As the actor's eyes, in mere physical obedience to the other's suggestion, took the desired direction, Vanlief tugged at a cord that rolled the curtain aside, revealing the mirror, which gave Wantage back the somewhat haggard apparition of himself. A few seconds went by in silence. Then Wantage frowned sharply. "Gad," he exclaimed, vigorously and petulantly, "what a beastly bad bit of make-up!" The voice was the voice of the man whom the town had a thousand times applauded as "The King of the Dandies."