VERY HARD CASH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

ALFRED thus encouraged told his story with
forced calmness, and without a word too much.
Indeed, so clear and telling was the narrative,
and the logic so close, that incoherent patients
one or two stole up and listened with wonder and
a certain dreamy complacency; the bulk, however,
held aloof apathetic; being inextricably
wrapped in fictitious Autobiography.

His story told, Alfred offered the Dodds in
evidence that the fourteen thousand pounds was
no illusion; and referred to his sister and several
friends as witnesses to his sanity, and said the
letters he wrote were all stopped in the asylum;
and why? That no honest man or woman might
know where he was.

He ended by convincing Mr. Vane he was a
sane and injured man, and his father a dark
designing person.

Mr. Vane asked him whether he had any other
revelations to make. Alfred replied, "Not on
my own account, but for the sake of those afflicted
persons who are here for life. Well, the beds
want repaving; the vermin thinning; the instruments
of torture want abolishing, instead of hiding
for an hour or two when you happen to come:
what do the patients gain by that? The madmen
dare not complain to you, sir; because the
last time one did complain to the justices (it was
Mr. Petworth), they had no sooner passed through
the iron gate, than Cooper made an example of
him; felled him with his fist, and walked up and
down him on his knees, crying, ' I'll teach you to
complain to the justices.' But one or two gentlemanly
madmen, who soon found out that I am
not one of them, have complained to me that the
attendants wash them too much like Hansom
cabs, strip them naked, and mop them on the
flagstones, then fling on their clothes without
drying them. They say, too, that the meat is
tough and often putrid, the bread stale, the
butter rancid, the vegetables stinted, since they
can't be adulterated; and as for sleep it is hardly
known; for the beds are so short your feet stick
out; insects, without a name to ears polite, but
highly odoriferous and profoundly carnivorous,
bite you all night; and dogs howl eternally outside;
and, when exhausted nature defies even
these enemies of rest, then the doctor, who seems
to be in the pay of Insanity, claps you on a
blister by brute force, and so drives away sleep,
Insanity's cure, or hocuses you by brute force
as he did me, and so steals your sleep, and tries
to steal your reason, with his opium, henbane,
morphia, and other tremendous brain-stealers.
With such a potion, sir, administered by violence,
he gave me in one night a burning fever, headache,
loss of sight, and bleeding at the nose; as
Mrs. Archbold will tell you. Oh, look into these
things, sir, in pity to those whom God has
afflicted: to me they are but strokes with a
feather; I am a sane man torn from love and
happiness, and confined among the mad;
discomfort is nothing to me; comfort is nothing; you
can do nothing for me, but restore me to my
dignity as a man, my liberty as a Briton, and the
rights as a citizen I have been swindled out of
by a fraudulent bankrupt and his tools two
venal doctors, who never saw me but for one
five minutes, but came to me ready bribed at a
guinea apiece, and so signed away my wits
behind my back."

"Now, Mr. Baker," said Vane, "what do you
say to all this?"

Baker smiled with admirable composure, and
replied with crafty moderation, " He is a gentleman,
and believes every word he says; but it is
all his delusions. Why, to begin, sir, his father
has nothing to do with putting him in here;
nothing on earth. (Alfred started; then smiled
incredulous.) And, in the next place, there are
no instruments of restraint here, but two pair
of handcuffs and two strait-jackets, and these
never hardly used; we trust to the padded rooms,
you know. And, sir," said he, getting warm,
which instantly affected his pronunciation, "if
there's a hinsect in the ouse, I'll heat im."

Delusion is a big word, especially in a madhouse;
it overpowers a visitor's understanding.
Mr. Vane was staggered. Alfred, whose eager
eyes were never off his face, saw this with dismay,
and feeling that, if he failed in the simpler matter,
he should be sure to fail in establishing his sanity,
he said with inward anxiety, though with outward
calmness, "Suppose we test these delusions?"

"With all my heart," said Vane.

Baker's countenance fell.

"Begin with the instruments of restraint.
Find me them."