“I thought so!” she said, removing it; “a hundred and one.  No getting up for you, sir!  That Joe!”

“Mrs. Petty,” said Mr. Lavender rather feebly, for his head pained him excessively, “bring me the morning papers.”

“No, sir.  The thermometer bursts at an an’ ten.  I’ll bring you the doctor.”

Mr. Lavender was about to utter a protest when he reflected that all public men had doctors.

“About the bulletin?” he said faintly.

“What?” ejaculated Mrs. Petty, whose face seemed to Mr. Lavender to have become all cheekbones, eyes, and shadows.  Joe never said a about a bullet.  Where? and however did you get it in?

“I did not say ’bullet in’,” murmured Mr. Lavender closing his eyes!  “I said bulletin.  They have it.”

At this mysterious sentence Mrs. Petty lifted her hands, and muttering the word “Ravin’!” hastened from the room.  No sooner had she gone, however, than Blink, whose memory was perfect, rose, and going to the window placed her forepaws on the sill.  Seeing her bone shining on the lawn below, with that disregard of worldly consequence which she shared with all fine characters, she leaped through.  The rattle of the Venetian blind disturbed Mr. Lavender from the lethargy to which he had reverted.  “Mr. John Lavender passed a good night,” he thought, “but his condition is still critical.”  And in his disordered imagination he seemed to see people outside Tube stations, standing stock-still in the middle of the traffic, reading that bulletin in the evening papers.  “Let me see,” he mused, “how will they run?” To-morrow I shall be better, but not yet able to leave my bed; the day after to-morrow I shall have a slight relapse, and my condition will still give cause for anxiety; on the day following—­What is that noise.  For a sound like the whiffling of a wind through dry sticks combined with the creaking of a saw had, impinged on his senses.  It was succeeded by scratching.  “Blink!” said Mr. Lavender.  A heartrending whine came from outside the door.  Mr. Lavender rose and opened it.  His dog came in carrying her bone, and putting it down by the bed divided her attention between it and her master’s legs, revealed by the nightshirt which, in deference to the great Disraeli, he had never abandoned in favour of pyjamas.  Having achieved so erect a posture Mr. Lavender, whose heated imagination had now carried him to the convalescent stage of his indisposition, felt that a change of air would do him good, and going to the window, leaned out above a lilac-tree.

“Mr. John Lavender,” he murmured, “has gone to his seat to recuperate before resuming his public duties.”

While he stood there his attention was distracted by a tall young lady of fine build and joyous colour, who was watering some sweet-peas in the garden of the adjoining castle:  Naturally delicate, Mr. Lavender at once sought a jacket, and, having put it on, resumed his position at the window.  He had not watched her more than two minutes before he saw that she was cultivating soil, and, filled with admiration, he leaned still further out, and said: