still sounding in his ears, until he woke with a loud cry, and found it was broad daylight, and that drops of perspiration were standing on his brow.  It was no use trying to sleep any longer, so, with a weary sigh, he arose and went to his tub, feeling jaded and worn out by worry and want of sleep.  His bath did him some good.  The cold water brightened him up and pulled him together.  Still he could not help giving a start of surprise when he saw his face reflected in the mirror, old and haggard-looking, with dark circles round the eyes.

“A pleasant life I’ll have of it if this sort of thing goes on,” he said, bitterly, “I wish I had never seen, or heard of Whyte.”

He dressed himself carefully.  He was not a man to neglect his toilet, however worried and out of sorts he might happen to feel.  Yet, notwithstanding all his efforts the change in his appearance did not. escape the eye of his landlady.  She was a small, dried-up little woman, with a wrinkled yellowish face.  She seemed parched up and brittle.  Whenever she moved she crackled, and one went in constant dread of seeing a wizen-looking limb break off short like the branch of some dead tree.  When she spoke it was in a voice hard and shrill, not unlike the chirp of a cricket.  When—­as was frequently the case—­she clothed her attenuated form in a faded brown silk gown, her resemblance to that lively insect was remarkable.

And, as on this morning she crackled into Brian’s sitting-room with the Argus and his coffee, a look of dismay at his altered appearance, came over her stony little countenance.

“Dear me, sir,” she chirped out in her shrill voice, as she placed her burden on the table, “are you took bad?”

Brian shook his head.

“Want of sleep, that’s all, Mrs. Sampson,” he answered, unfolding the Argus.

“Ah! that’s because ye ain’t got enough blood in yer ’ead,” said Mrs. Sampson, wisely, for she had her own ideas on the subject of health.  “If you ain’t got blood you ain’t got sleep.”

Brian looked at her as she said this, for there seemed such an obvious want of blood in her veins that he wondered if she had ever slept in all her life.

“There was my father’s brother, which, of course, makes ’im my uncle,” went on the landlady, pouring out a cup of coffee for Brian, “an’ the blood ’e ‘ad was somethin’ astoundin’, which it made ’im sleep that long as they ’ad to draw pints from ’im afore ’e’d wake in the mornin’.”

Brian had the Argus before his face, and under its friendly cover he laughed quietly to himself.

“His blood poured out like a river,” went on the landlady, still drawing from the rich stores of her imagination, “and the doctor was struck dumb with astonishment at seein’ the Nigagerer which burst from ’im—­but I’m not so full-blooded myself.”

Fitzgerald again stifled a laugh, and wondered that Mrs. Sampson was not afraid of being treated as were Ananias and Sapphira.  However, he said nothing, but merely intimated that if she would leave the room he would take his breakfast.