"Then you are in for a big success," said Beresford faintly. "Who are you?"
"Look here, you must let me talk. I'm James Tallis, practising at Print as a first step to Wimpole or Harley Streets. The girl went away, so don't worry about her. Such eyes ought to be gouged out by Act of Parliament. They were intolerable. Now I'm off. Don't fidget, don't worry, don't ask the nurse questions, and I'll try and tell you everything in time. I'll run in again to-morrow, and we'll have a longer talk. 'Bye."
Beresford stretched out his hand, which Tallis took, at the same time feeling his pulse.
"Don't give me drugs, just talk when you can," he said weakly. "Of course you're only a dream-doctor. If not you're mad." With that he lay back, tired with the effort of talking, and the doctor with another laugh left the room, whispered a few words to the nurse in the corridor, and whisked out of the hotel.
Was there ever such a crazy, topsy-turvy world? Beresford's mind was a chaos of absurdities. He had flown from the commonplace, and landed in a veritable Gehenna of interest. Within thirty hours of setting out, a modern Don Quixote, plus a temperament, he had encountered more incidents, pleasant and unpleasant, than most men have any right to expect in a decade. It was absurd, ridiculous, insane to overload a man's stomach with adventure in this way. It was like giving beef-steak pudding to some poor devil with gastritis. Perhaps
