Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/141

132 and look at me now. There isn't a man, woman or child over the age of fourteen standing round who couldn't do the same at this moment if his or her heart was properly nourished."

"If you went up to the platform then, he'd tell you what was the matter with you for nothing, charging only for the medicine; but during the day he had a room at Whittle's, the barber, where it was a shilling for consultations. That was how Lukie Marsh came to see him."

We hardly seemed to have reached the point of the story yet, but the station-master gave me the distinct impression of trying to make me believe that this was all.

"The fact is," he apologised as he met my inquiring eye, "I have only just remembered that Lukie was dead set against it getting about. I suppose the only two people who knew all the ins and outs of it besides Lukie were her sister Jane and myself. I'm a sort of half-cousin of theirs. Then I send paragraphs of anything of interest that happens here up to the local paper, and as a police case came out of this, Lukie was anxious to know what was going to be printed about it and told me everything."

"Nothing of discredit to the lady, I am sure," I remarked encouragingly.

"You're right," he agreed warmly. "It was an experience that many people would boast of, and now that it's a year ago and Lukie’s banns are up, I don't suppose that she'd mind a stranger knowing."

"Perhaps you'll have a bottle of ginger-beer with me?" I suggested.

"Thanks, I don't mind if I do," said the station-master. "It's middling dry talking in this weather."

He produced the various articles from the booking