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Rh the same boat and experiencing the same bad financial weather, eh? I suppose if you were to come into the estate you would be glad to lend a helping hand?"

"I should just think so, old chappie; not a paltry hundred, but ten times the amount."

"Or perhaps even more?"

"Yes, perhaps twenty times."

"Is that a promise?"

"Yes, in the very unlikely event of anything happening."

"More unlikely things have happened, Chalmers," I answered with a grin. "Well, good-bye, I shall be up again to-morrow to see how the boy is going on."

I thought furiously as I drove home, and by the time the carriage drew up at my door my plan was decided.

At this particular time I was attending a child who was in the last stage of scarlet fever, the desquamating stage we call it; really a peeling off of innumerable small flaky bits of skin, each of which is capable of giving scarlet fever to someone else.

What was easier than to convey this infection to the boy up at the Manor?

Next day I visited the infectious case first, and whilst examining him, I managed to