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218 for your sake we'll take the best doctor we can. Thus we'll make up a bridge table, and that will please Jack, in spite of his resolve to lead the simple life. How does my proposal strike you?"

"It strikes me most favourably, my lord, and I cannot express to you my gratitude, but somehow your enthusiasm has shunted me off the line of rails on which I was travelling."

"Then let's get back on the main line again."

"It's about my health. Of course this invention is of no use to me if I am called upon to attend my own funeral."

"Certainly, certainly. I beg your pardon, Professor. I'm an unfeeling beast. I had forgotten for the moment that you are not as stalwart as I'd like to see you. I shan't interrupt again. Go on."

"What I was going to ask you to do, my lord, was to guarantee me the sum of five hundred pounds annually, taking my invention for security, until I learn whether I can cure myself or not."

"I don't ask any security but your own word. Here I am interrupting again. Not five hundred pounds a year, but a thousand, at least. I'll place in the bank this afternoon, to your order, five thousand pounds. That tides us over five years. Now, what is your malady, and what is the cause of it?"

"I don't know what my malady is, but the cause of it is this. In my eagerness to complete the invention, I lived in a room that was filled with ether