“No,” put in the Doctor, “that’s just what I can’t, while you stand up there spitting like a cat on the tiles between me and the light.  What fly has stung ye I can’t think; unless you want to get off by passing yourself on me for a lunatic; and I can’t certify to that without calling in a magistrate. . . .  Here, man, don’t be a fool, but get down!”

Nicky-Nan laid aside trowel and board on the platform, and lowered himself to the floor, very painfully.

“Sit ye down here!” Doctor Mant jumped up and turned his chair about.  “Wait a moment, though, and let me have a look at you.  No! not that way, man—­with your back to the light!” He caught Nicky-Nan by the two shoulders, faced him about to the window, and took stock of him.  “H’m . . . you look pretty bad.”

Nicky-Nan, in fact, had spent half the previous night in crawling upstairs and downstairs, between parlour and bedroom, or in kneeling by the bedroom cupboard, hiding his wealth.  He had thrown himself at last on his bed, to sleep for a couple of hours, but at daybreak had turned out again to start upon the plastering and work at it doggedly, with no more sustenance than a dry biscuit.  It had all been one long-drawn physical torture; and the grey plaster smeared on his face showed it ghastly even beyond nature.

“Here, sit down; strip your leg, and let me have a look at it.”

The examination took some fifteen minutes, perhaps; the Doctor kneeling and inspecting the growth with the aid of a pocket magnifying-glass.

“Well,” said he, rising and dusting his knees, “it’s a daisy, and I’ll bet it hurts.  But I don’t believe it’s malignant, for all that.  If you were a rich man, now—­but you’re not; so we won’t discuss it.  What you’ll have to do is to lie up, until I get you a ticket for the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital.”

“No hospital for me,” said Nicky-Nan, setting his jaw.

“Don’t be a fool.  I let slip in my haste that I don’t reckon the thing malignant; and I don’t—­as yet.  But it easily may be; and anyhow you’re going to have trouble with it.”

“I’ve had trouble enough with it already.  But, mortal or not, I ben’t goin’ to stir out o’ Polpier nor out o’ this house. . . .  Doctor, don’t you ask it!” he wound up, as with a cry extorted by pain.

“Why, man, what are you afraid of?  An operation for that, what is it?  A whiff of chloroform—­and in a week or so—­”

“But—­,” interrupted Nicky-Nan sharply, and again recollected himself.  “To tell ’ee the truth, Doctor—­that’s to say, if what passes between patient an’ doctor goes no farther—­”

“That’s all right.  I’m secret as houses.”

“To tell ’ee the truth, then, there’s a particular reason why I don’t want to leave Polpier—­not just for the present.”

Dr Mant stared at him.  “You are going to tell me that reason?”

But Nicky-Nan shook his head.  “I’d rather not say,” he confessed lamely.