which I provided necessary medicines and the, to me most essential, resulting accounts.
I was getting very unhappy, however, when one day, much to my gratification, I was called to Scoriton Manor, a fine country residence about five miles distant from our little town, to see the youthful heir to the estate and ten thousand a year.
He was seven years old; his father was dead, and his mother lived at the Manor, which with the whole estate was entailed. His uncle, the next-of-kin, spent most of his time there, and it was through his influence that I was asked to attend the sick boy. He and I had played billiards together at the County Hotel on several occasions, and I might say that he won every time, and, conversely, that I judiciously lost.
Jack Chalmers was a bright, nice little chap, and I did not find much the matter with him, and so I told his mother, at the same time carefully hedging in case anything might develop later. She and I did not hit it off; there are some people, the sort you call really honest and straightforward, don't you know, who have a natural antipathy to those who are not of their way of thinking.
Captain Chalmers, the uncle, asked me into
