It was no longer necessary for Dr. Redfield Pepper Burns to employ a secretary or an office nurse. After fifteen rushing years of work in his profession he had quite suddenly gone to pieces-"shot," as he himself put it. The literal truth was that he had worn himself out at an early age. A machine can't be run overtime, year after year, with very little attention to oiling and cleaning and rest, without getting itself ultimately to scrap-heap. Not that Burns was on any scrap-heap-or, if he was, that must be a place of much greater activity than is commonly supposed. But when an over-tired heart refuses to function without giving its owner frequent warning that it is liable to strike permanently, it becomes necessary for the owner to humour it.