Doctor Toole met Mr. Lowe on the lobby; he was doing the honours of the ghastly eclaircissement, and bowed him up to the room, with many an intervening whisper, and a sort of apology for Dillon, whom he treated as quite unpresentable, and resolved to keep as much as practicable in the background.

But that gentleman, who exulted in a good stroke of surgery, and had no sort of professional delicacy, calling his absent fathers and brethren of the scalpel and forceps by confounded hard names when he detected a blunder or hit a blot of theirs, met Mr. Lowe on the upper lobby.

‘Your servant, Sir,’ said he, rubbing his great red hands with a moist grin; ’you see what I’ve done.  Pell’s no surgeon, no more than that—­(Toole, he was going to say, but modified the comparison in time)—­that candlestick! to think of him never looking at the occiput; and he found lying on his back—­’twas well Mr. Dangerfield pitched on me—­though I say it—­why shouldn’t I say it—­a depression, the size of a shilling in the back of the head—­a bit of depressed bone, you see, over the cerebellum—­the trepan has relieved him.’

‘And was it Mr. Dangerfield?’ enquired Lowe, who was growing to admire that prompt, cynical hero more and more every hour.

’By gannies, it just was.  He promised me five hundred guineas to make him speak.  What all them solemn asses could not compass, that’s sweeping in their thousands every quarter, thanks to a discerning public.  Baugh!  He had heard of a rake-helly dog, with some stuff in his brain-pan, and he came to me—­and I done it—­Black Dillon done it—­ha, ha! that’s for the pack of them.  Baugh!’

Doctor Dillon knew that the profession slighted him; and every man’s hand against him, his was against every man.

Sturk was propped up and knew Lowe, and was, in a ghastly sort of way, glad to see him.  He looked strangely pale and haggard, and spoke faintly.

‘Take pen and ink,’ said he.

There were both and paper ready.

‘He would not speak till you came,’ whispered Toole, who looked hotter than usual, and felt rather small, and was glad to edge in a word.

‘An’ don’t let him talk too long; five minutes or so, and no more,’ said Doctor Dillon; ’and give him another spoonful now—­and where’s Mr. Dangerfield?’

’And do you really mean to say, Sir, he promised you a fee of five—­eh?’ said Toole, who could not restrain his somewhat angry curiosity.

’Five hundred guineas—­ha, ha, ha! be gannies, Sir, there’s a power of divarsion in that.’

’’Tis a munificent fee, and prompted by a fine public spirit.  We are all his debtors for it! and to you, Sir, too.  He’s an early man, Sir, I’m told.  You’ll not see him to-night.  But, whatever he has promised is already performed; you may rely on his honour.’