Soon after this a second patient called.  This one was a deputy patient—­Collett, a retired butler—­kept a lodging-house, and waited at parties; he lived close by, but had a married daughter in Chelsea.  Would the doctor visit her, and he would be responsible?

Staines paid the woman a visit or two, and treated her so effectually, that soon her visits were paid to him.  She was cured, and Staines, who by this time wanted to see money, sent to Collett.

Collett did not answer.

Staines wrote warmly.

Collett dead silent.

Staines employed a solicitor.

Collett said he had recommended the patient, that was all.  He had never said he would pay her debts.  That was her husband’s business.

Now her husband was the mate of a ship; would not be in England for eighteen months.

The woman, visited by lawyer’s clerk, cried bitterly, and said she and her children had scarcely enough to eat.

Lawyer advised Staines to abandon the case, and pay him two pounds fifteen shillings expenses.  He did so.

“This is damnable,” said he.  “I must get it out of Pettigrew; by-the-by, he has not been here this two days.”

He waited another day for Pettigrew, and then wrote to him.  No answer.  Called.  Pettigrew gone abroad.  House in Manchester Square to let.

Staines went to the house-agent with his tale.  Agent was impenetrable at first; but, at last, won by the doctor’s manner and his unhappiness, referred him to Pettigrew’s solicitor; the solicitor was a respectable man, and said he would forward the claim to Pettigrew in Paris.

But by this time Pettigrew was chattering and guzzling in Berlin; and thence he got to St. Petersburg.  In that stronghold of gluttony, he gormandized more than ever, and, being unable to talk it off his stomach, as in other cities, had apoplexy, and died.

But long before this Staines saw his money was as irrecoverable as his sherry; and he said to Rosa, “I wonder whether I shall ever live to curse the human race?”

“Heaven forbid!” said Rosa.  “Oh, they use you cruelly, my poor, poor Christie!”

Thus for months the young doctor’s patients bled him, and that was all.

And Rosa got more and more moped at being in the house so much, and pestered Christopher to take her out, and he declined:  and, being a man hard to beat, took to writing on medical subjects, in hopes of getting some money from the various medical and scientific publications; but he found it as hard to get the wedge in there as to get patients.

At last Rosa’s remonstrances began to rise into something that sounded like reproaches.  One Sunday she came to him in her bonnet, and interrupted his studies, to say he might as well lay down the pen, and talk.  Nobody would publish anything he wrote.

Christopher frowned, but contained himself, and laid down the pen.