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 he descended from his coach at the foot of the scaffold, was still left free, but only to mount to the block.

And presently he was with the Doctor and being 'put through his facings' as the old gentleman called it with a laugh. He, for his part, could see no particular cause for merriment in the remark at which however he did his best to smile; but he was sadly conscious that his nervousness only allowed him to do so after rather a sickly fashion. And then he became absorbed in the task of trying to answer the various questions put to him in such a way as would, he thought, be most likely to please. Yet, anxious though he was to impress his new master with the extent of his attainments, he was even more so to gain his good-will, whose power over him was to be so great, and whom at any rate he would have given much to have made well-disposed towards him, so that he might have had at least one person in that all-strange world of whom he could have thought as a friend; and he was therefore at no little pains to throw into his voice such inflections of humility and deprecation as were, he conceived, best suited to gain this end. But the effort was such a strain that: his examination seemed already to have lasted hours, when the Doctor suddenly came to a stop. If only something would interrupt them and so allow him to get off without further danger to the good impression he flattered himself he had already made!

And even as he wished a bell began to ring. With an obvious movement of satisfaction, the Doctor let his coat-tails drop and, leaving the fire before which he had all this while been standing:

'Ah, tea!' he said, 'come with me!' and he was already moving towards the door, when, stopping and half-turning round:

'You must remember, Tristram, to say "sir," when you speak to me, do you hear?'

'Yes—sir!' he said, and not without some difficulty; for indeed this was an express acknowledgment of those new conditions of life, which since he could not altogether escape, it was