restaurateurs preparing for the dinner. Sir William went out early in the morning, and he was absent all day, but he returned in time for me to dress him, and he appeared to be pleased with our arrangements. The table indeed looked magnificent, for I had taken care to deck it with flowers, and my taste in such matters is excellent. I did not see the guests until dinner was served, and they were all seated at the table. I wore an evening suit of my master's, which on Butts' advice I had borrowed beforehand without the formality of asking permission, having none of my own. Sir William was not an observant man, grace au Dieu! I entered the room noiselessly, and slipped behind my master's chair. The table had been previously spread with oysters. No one spoke, until the shells were emptied; meanwhile I studied the six attentively. They were intelligent, but cold-faced men. Sir Charles Venner had an enormous nose, and very small grey eyes. Dr. Fulton possessed a hare-lip. Mr. Humphreys rejoiced in a squint. George Cavanagh might have stepped from a portrait by Van Dyck, but he had a trick of screwing up the tip of his nose under the influence of excitement, at intervals, as a rabbit does. Mr. Husband put out his tongue, to meet his fork as he ate, he possessed a prodigious chin; and Mr. Nevil Pardoe had watchful heavy lidded eyes. These traits were their key-notes so to speak—their individual and predominant peculiarities, which distinguished them from each other and from other distinguished men. From the rest of the world, they were one and all distinguished by a common pallor of complexion, and a curious cough, which stamped them as consumptives.

As I removed their plates, Sir Charles Venner broke a silence that I at least was beginning to find oppressive. "I believe you will be the first to go after all, Dagmar!" he remarked in French, casting a keen glance at my master. "Pardoe seems picking up. He doesn't cough so much to-night." It was evident that no one suspected me of an acquaintanceship with French.

Sir William shrugged his shoulders. "I am ready," he returned. "But I don't think so. Will you bet, or any one?"

"I'll lay you even money that Pardoe turns up his toes before you, Dagmar!" cut in Mr. Husband.

"Very good," said Sir William. "How much?"

"A hundred!"

"It is a wager!" Sir William took out his pencil and scrawled some figures on his shirt cuff.

"I'll take you too, Husband," cried Mr. Cavanagh.

"And I," chorused Dr. Fulton and Sir Charles.

"No thanks," retorted Mr. Husband drily. "My book is full. How are you feeling yourself, Venner?"

"Nice and poorly, thanks, but with care I'll out-last the lot of you!" He broke out into a fit of coughing as he finished speaking, and the others bending forward, watched him eagerly. Their expressions reminded me of a lot of hungry carnivora eyeing a bone held just beyond their reach.

They drank their soup in silence, but while I served to them the entrée, they conversed again.

"I'm in the hands of a quack," began Nevil Pardoe. "The enterprising devil has agreed to cure me for the sake of an advertisement."

"Oh! How long?"

"Ten days now. Upon honour I feel a little better already."

"Where is he to be found?" demanded my master suddenly.

A roar of laughter drowned the reply. But Sir William looked annoyed. "It's not that I want to live," he explained in tones of anger. "I know I'm doomed, but Cavanagh stands to lose two thousand pounds—if I predecease Pardoe, and as he is only a poor devil of an artist—I'd like to improve his chances!"

"Quite so," sneered Sir Charles. "We all know your affection for Cavanagh. But my dear Dagmar, fair play is a jewel you know. You must kill or cure yourself off your own bat, unless you choose to pair with Pardoe and adopt his treatment altogether. Those are the rules."

"You need not remind me," said my master drily. "By the way, Husband, what was the result of your last examination?"

"Two pounds short of my former weight, but the hole in my remaining lung has not sensibly increased. Jackson gives me solid assurance of at least twelve months."

"Lucky devil!" sighed Mr. Cavanagh. "I'm booked in half the time, though I might drag on for a year or two if I were to try Egypt!"

"Has your limit been changed since our last meeting, Fulton," asked Mr. Pardoe.

"Only by effluxion of the intervening time. I'll feed the worms in just under ten months, unless a cab runs over me, or some other accident occurs."

Sir William raised his wineglass. "Gentlemen," said he, "I drink to the Tubercle Bacillus!"

"Our master!" chorused the others, and every glass was drained.

I quickly refilled all but Sir William's, wondering the while whether I had fallen among an assembly of ghouls, or if I was not the victim of some ghastly joke. The pièce de résistance of the dinner was a dressed calf's head, which Sir William Dagmar carved. Not one of his guests began to eat until all were helped. But when that was done, my master suddenly ordered me to leave the room. Butts regarded me enquiringly as I came out. "Spoke some foreign lingo, didn't they?" he asked.

I nodded.

"They allers do," he went on. "Why, I don't know, for the life o' me. A lot of death's heads I call them."

"They look like consumptives," I suggested.

"Like as not they hare!" he returned. "Look at this muss, Brown! What do you make of it?"

He held up a huge bowl of cream into which a hundred different species of nuts had been grated. "This is what they take for sweets," he said with a shiver. "It tastes 'orrible!"

"Perhaps it is medicine."

"May be. I spose you didn't make out hanything they said, Brown?"

"They spoke in French, Butts," I replied.

He shrugged his shoulders, and we waited for the bell. When it rang I took in the bowl of nut cream.

"Do you understand French, Brown?" demanded my master as soon as the door closed behind me.

"Not a word, sir."

"Very good. Serve the sweets, please."

A murmur of approval went round the table. The gentlemen ate their cream in silence, and washed it down with champagne. I refilled their glasses with the dexterity of an expert waiter, and I was about to resume my old place behind my master's chair, when he fixed me with his eyes, and addressed me suddenly in French. "Brown!" cried he, "leave the room this instant!"

I halted and looked at him with a stupid air. "Beg pardon, sir. Did you speak to me, sir?"

He smiled and answered in English. "Yes, Brown, fill my glass please. I forgot that you do not understand French!"

"You should have tested the fellow beforehand," said Sir Charles Venner in French. "The closer you approach your tomb, Dagmar, the more careless you become!"

"What does it matter," said my master wearily. "Pardoe, kindly present your report!"

Mr. Pardoe got slowly to his feet, and I marvelled to see for the first time, his lean ungainly frame. A bag of skin and bone it was, no more. A frightful fit of coughing preluded his speech. When he had recovered, he put his right foot on a chair, and leaning on his bony knee, began as follows:—

"Gentlemen, this is our seventeenth monthly gathering since the initiation of our order, and we are all, seven of us, still above ground, although we were all condemned as incurable before we first foregathered. During the period I have indicated not one of us has flinched from his bargain, and as your latest secretary, gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that I have duly and regularly received from each member the weekly contribution fixed by our rules. The amount at present standing to my credit in trust for the order is £7,000." He took a small pass-book from his pocket, and handed it to his nearest neighbour, who glanced at its contents and passed it up the table to Sir William. "You will find in that book, gentlemen, a cheque for the amount named marked 'good' by the Bank. I have the honor now to tender you my