and, as for Mr. Jennings, he might depend on it
that Mr. Bruff would be forthcoming when
called upon." With that apology, the lawyer
had gone back to his own room, and had
immersed himself obstinately in his black bag.

I thought of Mrs. Merridew and her
embroidery, and of Betteredge and his conscience.
There is a wonderful sameness in the solid side
of the English character—just as there is a
wonderful sameness in the solid expression of
the English face.

"When are you going to give me the
laudanum?" asked Mr. Blake impatiently.

"You must wait a little longer," I said. "I
will stay and keep you company till the time
comes."

It was then not ten o'clock. Inquiries which
I had made, at various times, of Betteredge and
Mr. Blake, had led me to the conclusion that
the dose of laudanum given by Mr. Candy could
not possibly have been administered before
eleven. I had accordingly determined not to
try the second dose until that time.

We talked a little; but both our minds were
preoccupied by the coming ordeal. The
conversation soon flagged—then dropped
altogether. Mr. Blake idly turned over the books
on his bedroom table. I had taken the precaution
of looking at them, when we first entered
the room. The Guardian; The Tatler;
Richardson's Pamela, Mackenzie's Man of Feeling;
Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, and Robertson's
Charles the Fifth—all classical works; all (of
course) immeasurably superior to anything
produced in later times; and all (from my present
point of view) possessing the one great merit
of enchaining nobody's interest, and exciting
nobody's brain. I left Mr. Blake to the
composing influence of Standard Literature, and
occupied myself in making this entry in my
journal.

My watch informs me that it is close on
eleven o'clock. I must shut up these leaves
once more.

*****

Two o'clock A.M.—The experiment has been
tried. With what result, I am now to describe.

At eleven o'clock, I rang the bell for Betteredge,
and told Mr. Blake that he might at last
prepare himself for bed.

I looked out of window at the night. It was
mild and rainy, resembling, in this respect, the
night of the birthday—the twenty-first of June,
last year. Without professing to believe in
omens, it was at least encouraging to find no
direct nervous influences—no stormy or electric
perturbations—in the atmosphere. Betteredge
joined me at the window, and mysteriously put
a little slip of paper into my hand. It
contained these lines:

"Mrs. Merridew has gone to bed, on the
distinct understanding that the explosion is to
take place at nine to-morrow morning, and that
I am not to stir out of this part of the house
until she comes and sets me free. She has no
idea that the chief scene of the experiment is
my sitting-room—or she would have remained
in it for the whole night! I am alone, and very
anxious. Pray let me see you measure out
the laudanum; I want to have something to do
with it, even in the unimportant character of a
mere looker-on.—R. V."

I followed Betteredge out of the room, and
told him to remove the medicine-chest into
Miss Verinder's sitting-room.

The order appeared to take him completely
by surprise. He looked as if lie suspected me
of some occult medical design on Miss Verinder!
"Might I presume to ask," he said, "what my
young lady and the medicine chest have got to
do with each other?"

"Stay in the sitting-room, and you will see."

Betteredge appeared to doubt his own
unaided capacity to superintend me effectually, on
an occasion when a medicine-chest was included
in the proceedings.

"Is there any objection, sir," he asked, "to
taking Mr. Bruff into this part of the business?"

"Quite the contrary! I am now going to
ask Mr. Bruff to accompany me down-stairs."

Betteredge withdrew to fetch the medicine-chest,
without another word. I went back into
Mr. Blake's room, and knocked at the door of
communication. Mr. Bruff opened it, with his
papers in his hand—immersed in Law;
impenetrable to Medicine.

"I am sorry to disturb you," I said. "But
I am going to prepare the laudanum for Mr.
Blake; and I must request you to be present,
and to see what I do."

"Yes?" said Mr. Bruff, with nine-tenths of
his attention rivetted on his papers, and with
one-tenth unwillingly accorded to me.
"Anything else?"

"I must trouble you to return here with me,
and to see me administer the dose."

"Anything else?"

"One thing more. I must put you to the
inconvenience of remaining in Mr. Blake's room,
and of waiting to see what happens."

"Oh, very good!" said Mr. Bruff. "My
room, or Mr. Blake's room—it doesn't matter
which; I can go on with my papers anywhere.
Unless you object, Mr. Jennings, to my importing
that amount of common sense into the proceedings?"

Before I could answer, Mr. Blake addressed
himself to the lawyer, speaking from his bed.

"Do you really mean to say that you don't
feel any interest in what we are going to do?"
he asked. "Mr. Bruff, you have no more
imagination than a cow!"

"A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake,"
said the lawyer. With that reply, he followed
me out of the room, still keeping his papers in
his hand.

We found Miss Verinder, pale and agitated,
restlessly pacing her sitting-room from end to
end. At a table in a corner, stood Betteredge,
on guard over the medicine chest. Mr. Bruff
sat down on the first chair that he could find,
and (emulating the usefulness of the cow)
plunged back again into his papers on the spot.