‘Well, Ma’am,’ said Pell, as he looked on his watch, ’this rigor, you see, will soon pass away, and you’re doing everything we could wish, and (for he found he had time to scribble a prescription), we’ll just order him a trifle.  Good-day, Sir.  Your most obedient, Ma’am.’

‘Pen and ink in the drawing-room, Doctor Pell,’ said Toole, reverentially.

‘Oh! no, no, Madam, excuse me,’ murmured Doctor Pell, gently pressing back Mrs. Sturk’s fee, the residuum of Dangerfield’s bounty, with his open palm.

‘Oh, but Doctor Pell,’ urged she, in a persuasive aside, half behind him, in the shadow of the doorway.

‘Pray, Madam, no more—­pardon me,’ and Doctor Pell, with a peremptory bow, repelled his fee.

Why do physicians take their honest earnings in this clandestine way—­transacted like favours, secret, sweet, and precious; and pocketed in dark corners, and whispers, like the wages of sin?  Cold Doctor Pell here refused a very considerable fee.  He could on occasion behave handsomely; but I can’t learn that blustering, hilarious Doctor Rogerson ever refused his.

And the doctor descended, not hastily, but very swiftly, and was in the drawing-room, and the door shut.

‘Gone, poor gentleman!’ said Toole, in an under tone—­his phraseology became refined in Pell’s presence; he’d have said ‘poor devil,’ or ’poor dog,’ if he had been with Doctor Rogerson.

Pell held the pen in his thin lips, while he tore off half-a-sheet of paper, and only shook his head funereally.

So, taking the pen in his fingers, he said, ’We’ll give him so and so, if you approve.’

‘Very good, Sir,’ said Toole, deferentially; and Pell, not seeming to hear, dashed off a few spattered lines, with necromantic circles and zigzags at the end of each.

When Sturk afterwards saw that paper in the fingers of the maid, being very weak, he did not care to speak; but he signed with a little motion of his head, and she leaned down to listen.

‘Recipe?’ whispered the doctor; ‘put it—­in—­the fire;’ and he shut his eyes—­tired.

Pell, looking again at his watch, was Doctor Toole’s very obedient servant, and was waylaid by poor little Mrs. Sturk on the lobby.

’Well, Madam, we’ve put our heads together, and ordered a little matter, and that rigor—­that shivering fit—­will subside; and we trust he’ll be easier then; and you’ve a very competent adviser in Doctor a—­a——­’

‘Toole,’ suggested the eager little woman.

’Doctor Toole, Madam, and he’ll direct whatever may be necessary; and should he wish to consult again, you can send for me; but he’s quite competent, Madam, and he’ll tell you all we think.’

He had got to the end of the stairs while talking, and made his adieux, and glided down and out; and before poor little Mrs. Sturk bethought her how little she had got from him, she heard the roll of his coach wheels whirling him back again to Dublin.  I believe few doctors grow so accustomed to the ghastly eclaircissement as not very willingly to shirk it when they may.