"Well, I had better see him," said Mr. Bartlett,
"just to satisfy the Board."

Alfred was accordingly sent for, and asked
with an indifferent air how he was.

He said he was very well in health, but in
sore distress of mind at his letters to the
Commissioners being intercepted by Mrs. Archbold
or Dr. Wolf.

Mrs. Archbold smiled pityingly. Mr. Bartlett
caught her glance, and concluded this was one
of the patient's delusions. (Formula.)

Alfred surprised the glances, and said, "You
can hardly believe this, because the act is illegal.
But a great many illegal acts, that you never
detect, are done in asylums. However, it is not
a question of surmise; I sent four letters in the
regular way since I came. Here are their several
dates. Pray make a note to inquire whether they
have reached Whitehall or not."

"Oh, certainly, to oblige you," said Mr.
Bartlett, and made the note.

Mrs. Archbold looked rather discomposed at
that.

"And now, gentlemen," said Alfred, "since
Mrs. Archbold has had a private interview,
which I see she has abused to poison your mind
against me, I claim as simple justice a private
interview to disabuse you."

"You are the first patient ever told me to
walk out of my own drawing-room," said Mrs.
Archbold, rising white with ire and apprehension,
and sweeping out of the room.

By this piece of female petulance she gave
the enemy a point in the game; for, if she had
insisted on staying, Mr. Bartlett was far too
weak to have dismissed her. As it was, he felt
shocked at Alfred's rudeness: and so small a
thing as justice did not in his idea counterbalance
so great a thing as discourtesy; so he
listened to Alfred's tale with the deadly apathy
of an unwilling hearer. "Pour on: I will
endure," as poor Lear says.

As for Dr. Terry, he was pictorial, but null;
effete; emptied of brains by all-scooping Time.
If he had been detained that day at Drayton
House, and Frank Beverley sent back in his
place to Whitehall, it would have mattered little
to him, less to the nation, and nothing to mankind.

At last Mr. Bartlett gave Alfred some hopes
he was taking in the truth; for he tore a leaf
out of his memorandum-book, wrote on it, and
passed it to Dr. Terry. The ancient took it
with a smile, and seemed to make an effort to
master it, but failed; it dropped simultaneously
from his finger and his mind.

Not a question was put to Alfred; so he was
fain to come to an end; he withdrew suddenly,
and caught Mrs. Archbold at the keyhole.
"Noble adversary!" said he, and stalked away,
and hid himself hard by: and no sooner did the
inspectors come out, and leave the coast clear,
than he darted in and looked for the paper Mr.
Bartlett had passed to Dr. Terry.

He found it on the floor: and took it eagerly
up; and full of hope, and expectation, read these
words:

WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE STUFF THE
MATRON'S GOWN IS MADE OF? I SHOULD LIKE
TO BUY MRS. BARTLETT ONE LIKE IT.

Alfred stood and read this again, and again:
he searched for some hidden symbolical meaning
in the words. High-minded, and deeply
impressed with his own wrongs, he could not
conceive a respectable man, paid fifteen hundred
a year to spy out wrongs, being so heartless hard
as to write this single comment during the
earnest recital of a wrong so gigantic as his.
Poor Alfred learned this to his cost, that to put
small men into great places is to create monsters.
When he had realised the bitter truth, he put the
stony-hearted paper in his pocket, crept into the
yard, and sat down, and, for all he could do,
scalding tears ran down his cheeks.

"Homunculi quanti sunt!" he sobbed;
"homunculi quanti sunt!"

Presently he saw Dr. Terry come wandering
towards him alone. The Archbold had not
deigned to make him safe; senectude had done
that. Alfred, all heart-sick as he was, went to the
old gentleman out of veneration for the outside
of his head—which was Shakespearian—and pity
for his bodily infirmity; and offered him an arm.
The doctor thanked him sweetly, and said,
"Pray young man have you anything to
communicate?"

Then Alfred saw that the ancient man had
already forgotten his face, and so looking at
him with that rare instrument of official inspection,
the naked eye, had seen he was sane; and
consequently taken him for a keeper.

How swiftly the mind can roam, and from
what a distance gather the materials of a
thought! Flashed like lightning through
Alfred's mind this line from one of his pets, the
Greek philosophers:
??? ????? ???????? ???? ?????? ????? ?????? ??
????.
"And this is the greatest stroke of art, to turn
an evil into a good."

Now the feebleness of this aged Inspector was
an evil: the thing then was to turn it into a
good. Shade of Plato behold how thy disciple
worked thee! "Sir," said he, sinking his voice
mysteriously, "I have: but I am a poor man;
you won't say I told you: it's as much as my
place is worth."

"Confidence, strict confidence," replied Nestor,
going over beaten tracks; for he had kept many
a queer secret with the loyalty which does his
profession so much honour.

"Then, sir, there's a young gentleman confined
here, who is no more mad than you and I; and
never was mad."

"You don't say so."

"That I do, sir: and they know they are doing
wrong, sir: for they stop all his letters to the
Commissioners; and that is unlawful, you know.
Would you like to take a note of it all, sir?"

The old fogie said he thought he should, and