sure of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you please.' And I showed him an example, and sat down myself in my customary seat and with as fair an imitation of my ordinary manner to a patient, as the lateness of the hour, the nature of my preoccupations, and the horror I had of my visitor, would suffer me to muster.
'I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon,' he replied civilly enough. 'What you say is very well founded; and my impatience has shown its heels to my politeness. I come here at the instance of your colleague. Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a piece of business of some moment; and I understood . . .' he paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria—'I understood, a drawer . . .'
But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense, and some perhaps on my own growing curiosity.
'There it is, sir,' said I, pointing to the drawer, where it lay on the floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.
He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his
