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"'I trust that I have my share,' I said.

"'Any bad habits? Not drawn towards drink, eh?'

"'Really, sir!' I cried.

"'Quite right! That's all right! But I was bound to ask. With all these qualities, why are you not in practice?'

"I shrugged my shoulders.

"'Come, come!' said he, in his bustling way. 'It's the old story. More in your brains than in your pocket, eh? What would you say if I were to start you in Brook Street?'

"I stared at him in astonishment.

"'Oh, it's for my sake, not for yours,' he cried. 'I'll be perfectly frank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me very well. I have a few thousands to invest, d'ye see, and I think I'll sink them in you.'

"'But why?' I gasped.

"'Well, it's just like any other speculation, and safer than most.'

"'What am I to do, then?'

"'I'll tell you.

I'll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and run the whole place.

All you have to do is just to wear out your chair in the consulting-room.

I'll let you have pocket-money and everything.

Then you hand over to me three quarters of what you earn, and you keep the other quarter for yourself.'

"This was the strange proposal, Mr. Holmes, with which the man Blessington approached me.

I won't weary you with the account of how we bargained and negotiated.

It ended in my moving into the house next Lady-day, and starting in practice on very much the same conditions as he had suggested.

He came himself to live with me in the character of a resident patient.

His heart was weak, it appears, and he needed constant medical supervision.

He turned the two best rooms of the first floor into a sitting-room and bedroom for himself.

He was a man of singular habits, shunning company and very seldom going out.

His life was irregular, but in one respect he was regularity itself.

Every evening, at the same hour, he walked into the consulting-room, examined the books, put down five and three-pence for every guinea that I had earned, and carried the rest off to the strong-box in his own room.

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