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THE EARL AT PLAY
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another month with me as the final and supreme physician."

"I must begin my researches again. Time is flying, and I'm eager for the laboratory once more."

"Nonsense; time is standing still, and it's going to stand still for another month, so far as you are concerned. I will take you to Pebblesdale as an after cure. Then, if you wish to return to 'Stinks,' as we used to call chemistry in Oxford, you may do so, but you shall not spend the month of August in any London laboratory."

"Where's Pebblesdale?" asked the man of science.

"Never mind where it is, but it's you for Pebblesdale, as they say out west. I've engaged rooms for you at Mother Simpson's, where from your window there is an outlook on the coolest and bluest portion of the Atlantic Ocean, with plenty of ozone to breathe."

"That would be very nice, Lord Stranleigh, but——"

"Listen to me," cried his lordship. "Don't interrupt. I've engaged two rooms, as I told you. Pebblesdale is a working village—toilers of the sea, as Victor Hugo would call them. There is no fashionable society in the place. It is quite unknown to the tourist world; no trippers, no promenade, no music-hall or pavilion, no pier, except myself, and I'm spelt p, double e, r, and, besides, the inhabitants haven't the least idea I'm