fruit-lozenges.

"Not what you think at all," he then said. "It was that cursed
bar-le-duc jelly. Always puts me this way, and you quite well know
it."

"Yes, sir, to be sure," I answered gravely, and had the satisfaction
of noting that he looked quite a little foolish. Too well he knew I
could not be deceived, and even now I could surmise that the lobster
had been supported by sherry. How many times have I not explained to
him that sherry has double the tonic vinosity of any other wine and
may not be tampered with by the sensitive. But he chose at present to
make light of it, almost as if he were chaffing above his knowledge of
some calamity.

"Some book Johnny says a chap is either a fool or a physician at
forty," he remarked, drawing the blanket more closely about him.

"I should hardly rank you as a Harley Street consultant, sir," I
swiftly retorted, which was slanging him enormously because he had
turned forty. I mean to say, there was but one thing he could take me
as meaning him to be, since at forty I considered him no physician.
But at least I had not been too blunt, the touch about the Harley
Street consultant being rather neat, I thought, yet not too subtle for
him.

He now demanded a pipe of tobacco, and for a time smoked in silence. I
could see that his mind worked painfully.

"Stiffish lot, those Americans," he said at last.