Little Beverley found him actually sick, and
ran to the Robin. The ex-prizefighter brought
him a thimbleful of brandy: but he would not
take it. "Ah no, my friends," he said, "that
cannot cure me; it is not my stomach; it is my
heart. Broken! broken!"

The Robin retired muttering. Little Beverley
kneeled down beside him, and kissed his hand
with a devotion that savoured of the canine.
Yet it was tender, and the sinking heart clung
to it. "Oh, Frank!" he cried, "my Julia believes
me mad, or thinks me false, or something, and
she will marry another before I can get out to
tell her all I have endured was for loving her.
What shall I do? God protect my reason!
What will become of me?"

He moaned, and young Frank sorrowed over
him, till the harsh voice of Rooke summoned
him to some menial duty. This discharged, he
came running back; and sat on the bench beside
his crushed benefactor without saying a word.
At last he delivered this sapient speech: "I see.
You want to get out of this place."

Alfred only sighed hopelessly.

"Then I must try and get you out," said
Frank. Alfred shook his head.

"Just let me think," said Frank, solemnly;
and he sat silent looking like a young owl: for
thinking soon puzzled him, and elicited his
intellectual weakness; whereas in a groove of duties
he could go as smoothly as half the world, and
but for his official, officious, Protector, might
just as well have been Boots at the Swan, as
Boots and Chambermaid at the Wolf.

So now force and cunning had declared war
on Alfred, and feebleness in person enlisted in
his defence. His adversary lost no time; that
afternoon Rooke told him he was henceforth to
occupy a double-bedded room with another
patient.

"If he should be violent in the middle of the
night, sing out, and we will come, if we hear
you," said the keeper with a malicious smile.

The patient turned out to be the able seaman.
Here Mrs. Archbold aimed a double stroke; to
shake Alfred's nerves, and show him how very
mad his proposed father-in-law was. She thought
that, if he could once be forced to realise this, it
might reconcile him to not marrying the daughter.

The first night David did get up and paraded
an imaginary deck for four mortal hours.
Alfred's sleep was broken; but he said nothing;
and David turned in again, his watch completed.

Not a day passed now but a blow was struck.
Nor was the victim passive; debarred writing
materials, he cut the rims off several copies of
the Times, and secreted them: then catching
sight of some ink-blots on the back of Frank's
clothes-brush, scraped them carefully off, melted
them in a very little water, and with a toothpick
scrawled his wrongs to the Commissioners; he
rolled the slips round a half-crown, and wrote
outside, "Good Christian, keep this half-crown,
and take the writing to the Lunacy Commissioners
at Whitehall, for pity's sake." This
done, he watched, and when nobody was looking
flung his letter, so weighted, over the gates: he
heard it fall on the public road.

Another day he secreted a spoonful of black
currant preserve, diluted it with a little water,
and wrote a letter, and threw it into the road as
before: another day, hearing the Robin express
disgust at the usage to which he was now
subjected, he drew him apart, and offered him a
hundred pounds to get him out. Now the ex-
prizefighter was rather a tender-hearted fellow,
and a great detester of foul play. What he saw
made him now side heartily with Alfred; and all
he wanted was to be indemnified for his risk.

He looked down and said, "You see, sir, I
have a wife and child to think of."

Alfred offered him a hundred pounds.

"That is more than enough, sir," said the
Robin; "but you see I can't do it alone. I must
have a pal in it. Could you afford as much to
Garrett? He is the likeliest; I've heard him say
as much as that he was sick of the business."

Alfred jumped at the proposal: he would give
them a hundred apiece.

"I'll sound him," said the Robin; "don't you
speak to him, whatever. He might blow the gaff.
I must begin by making him drunk: then he'll
tell me his real mind."

One fine morning the house was made much
cleaner than usual; the rotatory chair, in which
they used to spin a maniac like a teetotum, the
restraint chairs, and all the paraphernalia, were
sent into the stable, and so disposed that, even
if found, they would look like things scorned
and dismissed from service: for Wolfe, mind you,
professed the non-restraint system.

Alfred asked what was up, and found all this
was in preparation for the quarterly visit of
the Commissioners; a visit intended to be a
surprise; but Drayton House always knew when
they were coming, and the very names of the
two thunderbolts that thought to surprise them.

Mrs. Archbold communicated her knowledge
in off-hand terms. "It is only two old women;
Bartlett and Terry."

The gentlemen thus flatteringly heralded
arrived next day. One an aged, infirm man, with
a grand benevolent head, bald front and silver
hair, and the gold-headed cane of his youth,
now a dignified crutch; the other an ordinary
looking little chap enough: with this merit; he
was what he looked. They had a long interview
with Mrs. Archbold first, for fear they should
carry a naked eye into the asylum; Mr. Bartlett,
acting on instructions, very soon inquired about
Alfred; Mrs. Archbold's face put on friendly
concern directly. "I am sorry to say he is not
so well as he was a fortnight ago; not nearly so
well. We have given him walks in the country,
too; but I regret to say they did him no real
good: he came back much excited, and now he
shuns the other patients, which he used not to
do." In short she gave them the impression that
Alfred was a moping melancholiac.