"I say, you're not going to let rip among them with a shot gun, are you, in order to found a practice for me?" "No, not exactly. But how would this read in tomorrow's _Chronicle_?--'Painful occurrence in George Street.--As the congregation were leaving George Street Cathedral after the morning service, they were horrified to see a handsome, fashionably dressed gentleman stagger and fall senseless upon the pavement. He was taken up and carried writhing in terrible convulsions into the surgery of the well-known practitioner Doctor Crabbe, who had been promptly upon the spot. We are happy to state that the fit rapidly passed off, and that, owing to the skilful attention which he received, the gentleman, who is a distinguished visitor in our city, was able to regain his hotel and is now rapidly becoming convalescent.' How would that do, eh?" "Splendid, Jack--splendid!" "Well, my boy, I'm your fashionably dressed stranger, and I promise you they won't carry me into Markham's." "My dear fellow, you are a treasure--you won't mind my bleeding you?" "Bleeding me, confound you! Yes, I do very much mind." "Just opening a little vein," pleaded Tom. "Not a capillary," said I. "Now, look here; I'll throw up the whole business unless you give me your word to behave yourself. I don't draw the line at brandy." "Very well, brandy be it," grumbled Tom. "Well, I'm off," said I. "I'll go into the fit against your garden gate." "All right, old man." "By the way, what sort of a fit would you like? I could give you either an epileptic or an apoplectic easily, but perhaps you'd like something more ornate--a catalepsy or a trade spasm, maybe--with miner's nystagmus or something of that kind?" "Wait a bit till I think," said Tom, and he sat puffing at his pipe for five minutes. "Sit down again, Jack," he continued. "I think we could do something better than this. You see, a fit isn't a very deadly thing, and if I did bring you through one there would be no credit in it. If we are going to work this thing, we may as well work it well. We can only do it once. It wouldn't do for the same fashionably dressed stranger to be turning up a second time. People would begin to smell a rat." "So they would," said I; "but hang it, you can't expect me to tumble off the cathedral spire, in order that you may hold an inquest on my remains! I You may command me in anything reasonable, however. What shall it be?" Tom seemed lost in thought. "Can you swim?" he said presently. "Fairly well." "You could keep yourself afloat for five minutes?" "Yes, I could do that." "You're not afraid of water?" "I'm not much afraid of anything." "Then come out," said Tom, "and we'll go over the ground."