An attendant took me in charge and convoyed me to the infirmary--a cleanly bare room, with a row of bedsteads headed against a distempered wall, and nailed to the latter over each patient’s pillow, a diagnosis of his disease and its treatment, like a descriptive label in a museum. Some of the beds were occupied; a convalescent pallid figure or two lingered about the sunny windows at the end of the room, and seated solitary before the fire was the foundering wreck of George White. The attendant briefly said, “That’s him,” and, retiring a short distance away, leaned against a bedstead rail. I fetched a chair from the wall and sat myself down by the poor shattered ruin. A hopeless vacuity reigned in his expression at first, and presently he began to maunder and dribble forth a liquid patter of words all unintelligible. By and by some connectedness was apparent in his wanderings. I stooped my head to listen. “He’s alone and asleep--the only one. Time to try--sarftly, now--a fut i’ the toe-hole wi’ caution--and I’m up and out. Curse the crumbling clay. Ah! a bit’s fell on him! My God, what a grin! One eye’s open! If I cud sweat to moisten it, now! I’m dry wi’ fire and dust! I’m farlin’ back--I’m----” He half-rose to his feet; I put out a hand to control him, but he sunk down again and into apathy in a moment. A few minutes and the stream of words was flowing once more. “Not so deep--not so deep, arter all. The tails o’ the warms wriggles on the coffin, while their heads be stuck out i’ the blessed air. Two fut, I make it. I cud putt my harnd through, so be as this cruel lid would heist up. It’s breaking--the soil’s coming through the cracks. It’s pouring in and choking me--it’s choking me, I say. Isn’t there none to hear? Why, I’m sinking! The subsoil’s dropped in! I shall be ten fut down and no chance if----” Again the struggle; again the collapse; and by and by, the monotonous murmur gathering volume as it proceeded. “Sing, says you--and the devil drums i’ the pit if I so much as whisper. Look’ee ther--at the white square o’ the sky. Thart’s what keeps me going. If you was to blot thart out, he’d have me by the hip wi’ a pinch like a bloodhound’s jaw. There’s summut darkens! Who’s thart a-looking down? Why, you bloody murderer, I knows you! I found you out, I did, you ugly cutthroat devil. Already dead, says you? Who kills dead men? There bain’t a thing i’ the warld I’d hold my tongue for but drink--you gie it me, then. What’s this? The bottle’s swarming wi’ maggots--arnts, black arnts. You’re a rare villain! Not a doctor, I say. A doctor don’t cut the weasands o’ dead men and let out the worms--millions of them--and there’s some wi’ faces and shining rings and gewgaws. The ungodly shall go down into the pit--help me out o’ it--they’re burying me alive!” He leaped to his feet, with drawn, ashy face. The watchful attendant was at his side in a moment and had put a restraining hand on him.