As I drove, I kept turning the matter over in my head and
trying to make a guess as to what sort of employment it could be
which needed such curious qualifications. A strong physique, a
resolute nature, a medical training, and a knowledge of beetles--
what connection could there be between these various requisites?
And then there was the disheartening fact that the situation was
not a permanent one, but terminable from day to day, according to
the terms of the advertisement. The more I pondered over it the
more unintelligible did it become; but at the end of my meditations
I always came back to the ground fact that, come what might, I had
nothing to lose, that I was completely at the end of my resources,
and that I was ready for any adventure, however desperate, which
would put a few honest sovereigns into my pocket. The man fears to
fail who has to pay for his failure, but there was no penalty which
Fortune could exact from me. I was like the gambler with empty
pockets, who is still allowed to try his luck with the others.
No. 77B, Brook Street, was one of those dingy and yet imposing
houses, dun-coloured and flat-faced, with the intensely respectable
and solid air which marks the Georgian builder.
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