"Thank you, Harry, but I fear I am not sufficiently gifted to deserve your self-denial. Besides, I have been discovered also." "What? You have a patient?" "Yes, a morbid lady with nerves. She saw my name in connection with the discovery of that poor devil's body, and came to see me about her own trouble." "Nerves and murder. I don't see the connection." "She did, however," said Ellis, with a shrug, "and asked me to save her life. It is in no danger, as you may guess. She is nothing but an excitable female with too much money and no employment. I wrote her a prescription, humoured her hypochondria, and so pleased her that she departed, pronouncing me to be a charming young man who thoroughly understood her 'system.' She intends to send all her friends to me." "That's capital," cried Cass, shaking hands with his friend. "Once you get the start you will soon roll on to fame and fortune. I'll meet you on Tom Tiddler's ground, Bob, and we'll pick up the gold and silver in company. Dr. Robert Ellis, of Harley Street, specialist in eye diseases, and Henry Cass, the great, the only novelist! But I say, Bob," added the journalist, "don't degenerate into a humbug, old man." "My dear fellow, in dealing with women, one must be a humbug more or less. They like it." "That is true in every case. Women always prefer the graceful humbugs of this world to the genuine, honest creatures. That is why I have not been snapped up by a rich heiress." Ellis laughed absently, being more taken up with his own thoughts than with the humour of his friend. "Yes, I believe this patient will send me others, and that, sooner or later, I shall scrape together a practice in Dukesfield. In years to come I may even be able to set up as an eye specialist." "In Harley Street, Bob, in Harley Street." "In any street so long as I can make a good income. When I become known as an authority on diseases of the eye----" "You are known, Bob," interrupted Cass, vigorously. "That book on the eye you wrote is well known." "Stuff! My book fell still-born from the Press. Besides, if it is known, only my medical brethren have the knowledge. I wish to be popular with the masses, Harry, to have a name with them, for it is the public who pay." "Well, well, that will come. I believe in your future, Bob. You will have all you wish for--an income, a name, and a wife." "A wife!" Ellis turned restlessly in the comfortable old arm-chair, and laughed in a somewhat embarrassed fashion. "A wife!" he repeated doubtfully. "Of course; you don't intend to remain single all your days, do you? You must marry, Bob, for a doctor without a wife, a tactful wife, mind you, is like a coach without wheels. I hope, however," and here Harry's tone became serious, "that you will not marry a widow." "A widow! I don't quite understand." "Or," continued Cass, inattentive to the interpolation, "or the wife of a man who has met with a violent death."