"You say that the house is infected, and that we shall all be locked up." "Dolt!" exclaimed the apprentice, "I said no such thing." And he repeated his injunctions, but Blaize was too much terrified to comprehend them.

At last, losing all patience, Leonard cried in a menacing tone, "If you do not attend to me, I will cudgel you within an inch of your life, and you will find the thrashing harder to bear even than the plague itself.

Rouse yourself, fool, and follow me." Accompanied by the porter, he hurried to the yard-gate, saw it bolted within-side, and then returned to the shop, where, having found his cap and cudgel, he directed Blaize to lock the door after him, cautioning him, for the third time, not to admit any one except the doctor.

"If I find, on my return, that you have neglected my injunctions," he concluded, "as sure as I now stand before you, I'll break every bone in your body." Blaize promised obedience, adding in a supplicating tone, "Leonard, if I were you, I would not go to the Examiner of Health.

Poor Stephen may not have the plague, after all.