However, you shall hear." "I'm all attention, Doctor." "A week before last Christmas, Signor Ferruci called to see me, and explained that he was interested in a gentleman called Michael Clear, whom he had met some years before in Italy.

Clear, he said, had been most intimate with him, but later on had indulged so much in the morphia habit that their friendship had terminated with high words.

Afterwards, Clear had returned to England, and Ferruci lost sight of him for some months.

Then he visited England, and one day found Clear in the street, looking ill and wretched.

The man had become a confirmed morphiamaniac, and the habit had weakened his brain.