of course a gentleman of your experience can test the mind on any subject, however trivial." He added piteously, "Still, if you would but leave the poets, who are all half crazy themselves, and examine me in the philosophers of Antiquity. Surely it would be a higher criterion."Dr. Wycherley explained in a patronising whisper, "He labours under an abnormal contempt for poetry, dating from his attack. Previously to that he actually obtained a prize poem himself.""Well, doctor, and after that am I wrong to despise poetry?"They might have comprehended this on paper, but spoken it was too keen for them all three. The visitors stared. Dr. Wycherley came to their aid "You might examine my young friend for hours and not detect the one crevice in the brilliancy of his intellectual armour."The maniac made a face as one that drinketh verjuice suddenly. "For pity's sake, doctor, don't be so inaccurate. Say a spot on the brilliancy, or a crevice in the armour; but not a crevice in the brilliancy. My good friend here, gentlemen, deals in conjectural certificates and broken metaphors. He dislocates more tropes, to my sorrow, than even his friend Shakespeare, whom he thinks a greater philosopher than Aristotle, and who calls the murder of an individual sleeper the murder of sleep, confounding the concrete with the abstract, and then talks of taking arms against a sea of troubles; query, a cork jacket and a flask of brandy?""Well, Mr. Hardie," said Dr. Eskell, rather feebly, "let me tell you those passages, which so shock your _peculiar_ notions, are among the most applauded.""Very likely, sir," retorted the maniac, whose logic was up; "but applauded only in a nation where the _floods_ clap their hands every Sunday morning, and we all pray for peace, giving as our exquisite reason that we have got the God of hosts on our side in war."Mr. Abbott, the other commissioner, had endured all this chat with an air of weary indifference. He now said to Dr. Wycherley, "I wish to put to you a question or two in private."Alfred was horribly frightened: this was the very dodge that had ruined him at Silverton House. "Oh no, gentlemen," he cried imploringly. "Let me have fair play. You have given me no secret audience; then why give my accuser one? I am charged with a single delusion; for mercy's sake, go to the point at once, and examine me on that head.""Now you talk sense," said Mr. Abbott; as if the previous topics had been chosen by Alfred.
"But that will excite him," objected Dr. Eskell? "it always does excite them.""It excites the insane, but not the sane," said Alfred. "So there is another test; you will observe whether it excites me." Then, before they could interrupt him, he glided on. "The supposed hallucination is this: Istrongly suspect my father, a bankrupt--and therefore dishonest--banker, of having somehow misappropriated a sum of fourteen thousand pounds, which sum is known to have been brought from India by one Captain Dodd, and has disappeared.""Stop a minute," said Mr. Abbott. "Who knows it besides you?""The whole family of the Dodds. They will show you his letter from India, announcing his return with the money.""Where do they live?""Albion Villa, Barkington."
Mr. Abbott noted the address in his book, and Alfred, mightily cheered and encouraged by this sensible act, went on to describe the various indications, which, insufficient singly, had by their united force driven him to his conclusion. When he described David's appearance and words on his father's lawn at night, Wycherley interrupted him quietly: "Are you quite sure this was not a vision, a phantom of the mind heated by your agitation, and your suspicions?"Dr. Eskell nodded assent, knowing nothing about the matter.
"Pray, doctor, was I the only person who saw this vision?" inquired Alfred slily.
"I conclude so," said Wycherley, with an admirable smile.
"But why do you conclude so? Because you are one of those who reason in a circle of assumptions. Now it happens that Captain Dodd was seen and felt on that occasion by three persons besides myself.""Name them," said Mr. Abbott sharply.
"A policeman called Reynolds, another policeman, whose name I don't know, and Miss Julia Dodd. The policemen helped me lift Captain Dodd off the grass, sir; Julia met us chose by, and we four carried Dr. Wycherhey's phantom home together to Albion Villa."Mr. Abbott noted down all the names, and then turned to Dr. Wycherley.
"What do you say to that?"
"I say it is a very important statement," said the doctor blandly; "and that I am sure my young friend would not advance it unless he was firmly persuaded of its reality.""Much obliged, doctor; and you would not contradict me so rashly in a matter I know all about and you know nothing about, if it was not your fixed habit to found facts on theories instead of theories on facts.""There, that is enough," said Mr. Abbott. "I have brought you both to an issue at last. I shall send to Barkington, and examine the policemen and the Dodds.""Oh, thank you, sir," cried Alfred with emotion. "If you once apply genuine tests like that to my case, I shall not be long in prison.""Prison?" said Wycherley reproachfully.
"Have you any complaint, then, to make of your treatment here?" inquired Dr. Eskell.
"No, no, sir," said Alfred warmly. "Dr. Wycherley is the very soul of humanity. Here are no tortures, no handcuffs nor leg-locks, no brutality, no insects that murder Sleep--without offence to Logic. In my last asylum the attendants inflicted violence, here they are only allowed to endure it. And, gentlemen, I must tell you a noble trait in my enemy there:
