“Altogether too young,” said Mr. Deeling to himself as he closed the door behind him.
He passed down the corridor to his own office, a little room on the ground floor of one of the four round towers which stood at each corner of the castle. It was fitted up as a laboratory, and contained, besides a number of locked glass cabinets which held the drugs used by Doctor Edwardes, two sinks, a number of glass retorts, pipettes and other apparatus, and a small pine- wood desk and a single swivel chair in front.
Mr. Deeling crossed the room, sat down, opened a drawer of the desk and extracted his ledger. It was his daily custom to balance the amount of drugs which he had used in the dispensary, much as a merchant balances his accounts. He opened the ledger, at the same time taking a pile of litt
