of the small boat:  but Ferrier was too eager for other people’s good; he had so utterly forgotten himself that he hardly recognized Mr. Cassall’s allusions.  On the first evening at dinner Mr. Cassall said:  “Now, Marion, you and Miss Lena must stay with us.  She’s not an orator like you; she was meant for a mouse, but you can do all the talk you like.  And now, gentlemen, let me lay a few statements before you.  I shall talk shorthand style if I can.  First, I want Mr. Ferrier to be our first medical director, and I wish him to take the steamer on her first cruise.  After that, if he likes to be a sort of inspector-general, we can arrange it.  Next, I want to draw some more people into Mr. Fullerton’s net.  Excuse the poaching term.  Mr. Ferrier and Mr. Fullerton can teach us, and I wish to begin with a big party here as soon as possible.  After that, our young friend must go crusading.  I’ll provide every kind of expense, and we’ll regard his engagement as beginning to-day if he likes.  Next, I may tell you that I have already arranged for men to work night and day in relays on both my vessels—­or rather your vessels.  Mr. Director-General must see his hospital wards fitted out to the last locker, and I’ve taken another liberty in that direction.  There’s your cheque-book, and you are to draw at Yarmouth or London for any amount that you may think necessary.  And now I fancy that is about all I need say.”

Then Mr. Cassall smiled on his dumb-foundered hearers.

Ferrier said, “I must eventually stay on shore, I fear.  I have resigned the professorship which I had hoped to keep; but I do not need to practise, and I am ready to see your venture well started.”

Then the host finally insisted on hearing all about the cruise; he could understand every local allusion now, and the narrative touched him far more than any romance could have done.  The girls dropped in a word here and there, for they claimed to be among the initiated, and thus an evening was spent in piling fresh fuel on the old gentleman’s newborn fire of enthusiasm.

There never was such an elderly tornado of a man.  After church on Sunday he packed the girls off in the pony-carriage, and then took his guests for a most vehement walk, during which he asked questions in a voice as vehement as his gait, and set forth projects with all the fine breadth of conception and heedlessness of cost which might be expected from an inspired man with a practically inexhaustible fund at his disposal.

The good Henry Fullerton had long walked in darkness; doubts had been presented to him; jibes and sneers had hailed upon him; all sorts of mean detractors had tried to label him as visionary, or crackbrain, or humbug, or even as money-grub:  and now the clouds that obscured the wild path along which he had fared with such forlorn courage were all lifted away, and he saw the fulfilment of the visions which had tantalized him on doleful nights, when effort