And with this the _Journal_ man and others had to be content. Huddesley himself would doubtless have been more expansive, but the honest fellow went to bed with a serious sore throat and cold the day after the attempted robbery, and could not leave his room for a week. Mrs. Maginnis held sway in the doctor's kitchen, dispensing unlimited tea and gossip to the grocers' men, milkmen, postmen, even the baffled reporters and "plain-clothes," or uniformed detectives that called in shoals for days. "The docthor won't see yez," she told the latter, "so it's no use askin'. An' as for Misther Huddesley, he's on th' flat of his back, an' can't raise his voice above a whisper. Annyway, he says he couldn't swear to th' man, if it was to save his immorrtal sowl. It was too dark, an' he only saw 'twas a man gallivantin' around where he'd no business. It's a foine-spurted bye he was to go afther that thievin', murderin' divil with th' poker, an' I'm glad th' docthor's got him instid of that drunken spalpeen he had befure; him that got on a tear, I mane, an' wint up to th' big house with a knife yellin' an' swearin' he'd cut th' hearrt out of iverybody--bad scran to him! It's turrible lot of men th' docthor's had intoirely." She was right; it _was_ a terrible lot of men the doctor had had. The picturesque ruffian of whom she spoke had been dismissed by the old gentleman a fortnight before at the close of a spree in which he had taken it into his drunken head to invade the Pallinder kitchen, menacing the panic-struck maids with a cleaver and demanding more liquor. To him succeeded Huddesley; I never saw the latter except on one occasion, but he became a familiar figure to most of us, and Doctor Vardaman was rather fond of telling how he acquired the only good servant he ever had. The doctor (according to his own narrative) after having at great expense of time and trouble and some personal risk, got rid of the highly emotional person with the cleaver who was haled off screeching and shackled in a patrol-wagon; and after having gone downtown and seen the wretch cared for in Saint Francis' Hospital, inserted his usual advertisement in the _State Journal_, "Wanted--by a physician (retired) living in the suburbs, an unmarried man to take entire charge of his house and garden. Must be experienced in cooking and indoor-work. References required. Dr. John Vardaman, 201 Richmond Avenue. Take Lexington and Amherst Street cars." The clerk in the _Journal_ office who took it in grinned at sight of him. "Guess we'll have to give you a rebate on your subscription, Doctor," he said cheerfully. "This is the third time this has gone in since last July. So long! Happy New Year!" A day or so later the doctor was sitting in the homely disorder of his library, reading a new book, when the washerwoman who came in by the day during these periods of storm and stress, stuck her towelled head around the door. "Doc'thor, yer honour!"