Just as swiftly flashed through his brain two thoughts:  the first, the axiom, whenever and wherever you find a leper, look for the other leper; the second, the desired Irish terrier, who was owned by Daughtry, with whom Kwaque had been long associated.  And here all swiftness of eye-flashing ceased on the part of Walter Merritt Emory.  He did not know how much, if anything, the steward knew about leprosy, and he did not care to arouse any suspicions.  Casually drawing his watch to see the time, he turned and addressed Daughtry.

“I should say his blood is out of order.  He’s run down.  He’s not used to the recent life he’s been living, nor to the food.  To make certain, I shall examine for cancer and tumour, although there’s little chance of anything like that.”

And as he talked, with just a waver for a moment, his gaze lifted above Daughtry’s eyes to the area of forehead just above and between the eyes.  It was sufficient.  His “leper-eye” had seen the “lion” mark of the leper.

“You’re run down yourself,” he continued smoothly.  “You’re not up to snuff, I’ll wager.  Eh?”

“Can’t say that I am,” Daughtry agreed.  “I guess I got to get back to the sea an’ the tropics and warm the rheumatics outa me.”

“Where?” queried Doctor Emory, almost absently, so well did he feign it, as if apparently on the verge of returning to a closer examination, of Kwaque’s swelling.

Daughtry extended his left hand, with a little wiggle of the little finger advertising the seat of the affliction.  Walter Merritt Emory saw, with seeming careless look out from under careless-drooping eyelids, the little finger slightly swollen, slightly twisted, with a smooth, almost shiny, silkiness of skin-texture.  Again, in the course of turning to look at Kwaque, his eyes rested an instant on the lion-lines of Daughtry’s brow.

“Rheumatism is still the great mystery,” Doctor Emory said, returning to Daughtry as if deflected by the thought.  “It’s almost individual, there are so many varieties of it.  Each man has a kind of his own.  Any numbness?”

Daughtry laboriously wiggled his little finger.

“Yes, sir,” he answered.  “It ain’t as lively as it used to was.”

“Ah,” Walter Merritt Emory murmured, with a vastitude of confidence and assurance.  “Please sit down in that chair there.  Maybe I won’t be able to cure you, but I promise you I can direct you to the best place to live for what’s the matter with you.—­Miss Judson!”

And while the trained-nurse-apparelled young woman seated Dag Daughtry in the enamelled surgeon’s chair and leaned him back under direction, and while Doctor Emory dipped his finger-tips into the strongest antiseptic his office possessed, behind Doctor Emory’s eyes, in the midst of his brain, burned the image of a desired Irish terrier who did turns in sailor-town cabarets, was rough-coated, and answered to the full name of Killeny Boy.