"All except you were drowned, sir," said the doctor, who was known in Cardyllion as a serious-minded man, a little severely. "Like so many rats in a trap, poor devils," acquiesced the stranger. "They were hatched down. I was the only passenger on deck. I must have been drowned if I had been among them." "All those poor fellow-passengers of yours," said Doctor Mervyn, in disgust, "had souls, sir, to be saved." "I suppose so; but I never saw such an assemblage of snobs in my life. I really think that, except poor Haworth--he insisted it would be ever so much pleasanter than the railway; I did not find it so; he's drowned of course--I assure you, except ourselves, there was not a gentleman among them. And Sparks, he's drowned too, and I've lost the best servant I ever had in my life. But I beg your pardon, I'm wasting your time. Do you think I'm ill?" He extended his wrist, languidly, to enable the doctor to feel his pulse. The physician suppressed his rising answer with an effort, and made his examination. "Well, sir, you have had a shock." "By Jove! I should not wonder," acquiesced the young man, with a sneer. "And you are a good deal upset, and your contusions are more serious than you seem to fancy. I'll make up a liniment here, and I'll send you down something else that will prevent any tendency to fever; and I suppose you would like to be supplied from the 'Verney Arms.' You must not take any wine stronger than claret for the present, and a light dinner, and if you give me a line, or tell me what name----" "Oh, they know me there, thanks. I got these boxes from there this morning, and they are to send me everything I require." The doctor wanted his name. The town of Cardyllion, which was in a ferment, wanted it. Of course he must have the name; a medical practitioner who kept a ledger and sent out accounts, it was part of his business to know his patients' names. How could he stand before the wags of the news-room, if he did not know the name of his own patients--of this one, of all others. "Oh! put me down as R. M. simply," said the young man. "But wouldn't it be more--more usual, if you had no objections--a little more at length?" insinuated the doctor. "Well, yes; put it down a little more at length--say R. R. M. Three letters instead of two." The doctor, with his head inclined, laughed patiently, and the stranger, seeing him about to return to the attack, said a little petulantly: "You see, doctor, I'm not going to give my very insignificant name here to any one. If your book-keeper had it, every one in the town would know it; and Cardyllion is a place at which idle people turn up, and I have no wish to have my stray friends come up to this place to bother me for the two or three days I must stay here. You may suppose me an escaped convict, or anything else you please that will amuse the good people; but I'm hanged if I give my name, thank you!"