there's nothing like that for clearing away
prejudice. B. and C. have a scrimmage: B. begins
it, C. gets the worst of it; in comes A. and turns
away— C. Is that justice? It is me you ought
to turn away; and I wish to Heaven you would:
dear Mrs. Archbold, do pray turn me away, and
keep the other blackguard."

At this extraordinary and, if I may be allowed
the expression, Alfredian speech, the men first
stared, and then laughed; the women smiled,
and then were nearer crying than laughing.

And so it was, that justice handcuffed, strait-
jacketed, blistered, and impartial, sent from its
bed of torture a beam through Cooper's tough
hide to his inner heart. He hung his head and
stepped towards Alfred: "You're what I call a
man," he said. "I don't care a curse whether I
stay or go, after what she has said to me. But,
come what may, you're a gentleman, and one as
can put hisself in a poor man's place. Why, sir, I
wasn't always so rough; but I have been twenty
years at it; and mad folk they'd wear the patience
out of Jove, and the milk of human kindness out
of saints and opossums. However, if I was to
stay here all my life, instead of going to-morrow,
I'd never lift hand to trouble you again, for you
taking my part again yourself like that."

"I'll put that to the test," said Mrs. Archbold
sharply. " Stay—on your probation. Hannah!"

And Baby-face biceps at a look took off his
handcuffs; which she had been prominent in
putting on.

This extraordinary scene ended in the men
being dismissed, and the women remaining and
going to work after their kind.

"The bed is too short for one thing," said
Hannah. "Look at his poor feet sticking out,
and cold as a stone: just feel of them, Jane."

"No, no; murder!" cried Alfred; "that
tickles."

Hannah ran for a chair, Jane for another
pillow. Mrs. Archbold took off his handcuffs,
and, passing her hand softly and caressingly over
his head, lamented the loss of his poor hair.
Amongst them they relieved him of his strait-
jacket, set up his head, covered his feet, and he
slept like a top for want of drastics and opiates,
and in spite of some brilliant charges by the
Lilliputian cavalry.

After this the attendants never molested
Alfred again; nor did the doctor; for Mrs.
Archbold got his boluses, and sent them up to a
famous analysing chemist in London, and told
him she had; and said, "I'll thank you not to
prescribe at random for that patient any more."
He took the lady's prescription, coming as it did
in a voice quietly grim, and with a momentary but
wicked glance shot from under her black brows.

Alfred was all the more miserable at his
confinement: his melancholy deepened now there
was no fighting to excite him. A handsome
bright young face clouded with sadness is very
pitiable, and I need not say that both the women
who had fallen in love with him had their eyes,
or at least the tails of their eyes, forever on his
face. The result varied with the characters of
the watchers. That young face, ever sad, made
Mrs. Archbold sigh, and long to make him happy
under her wing. How it wrought on the purer
and more womanly Hannah will be revealed by
the incident I have to relate. Alfred was sitting
on a bench in the corridor, bowed down by grief,
and the Archbold lurking in a room hard by,
feasting her eyes on him through an aperture in
the door caused by the inspection plate being
under repair—when an erotic maniac was driven
past. She had obtained access—with marvellous
cunning—to the men's side; but was now coming
back with a flea in her ear, and faster than she
went; being handcuffed and propelled by
Baby-face biceps. On passing the disconsolate Alfred
the latter eyed him coyly, gave her stray sheep a
coarse push—as one pushes a thing—and laid a
timid hand, gentle as falling down, upon the
rougher sex. Contrast sudden and funny.

"Don't be so sad, sir," she murmured, cooing
like the gentlest of doves. "I can't bear to see
you look like that."

Alfred looked up, and met her full with his
mournful honest eyes. "Ah, Hannah, how can
I be anything but sad, imprisoned here, sane
amongst the mad?"

"Well, and so am I, sir: so is Mrs. Archbold
herself."

"Ay, but you have not been entrapped,
imprisoned, on your wedding-day. I cannot even
get a word sent to my Julia, my wife that ought
to be. Only think of the affront they have made
me put on her I love better, ten times better,
than myself. Why, she must have been waiting
for me; humiliated perhaps by my absence.
What will she think of me? The rogues will
tell her a thousand lies: she is very high spirited,
Hannah, impetuous like myself, only so gentle
and so good; oh, my angel; my angel; I shall
lose you for ever."

Hannah clasped her hands, with tears in her
eyes: "No, no," she cried; "it is a burning shame
to part true lovers like you and her. Hush! speak
low. Brown told me you are as well as he is."

"God bless him for it, then."

"You have got money, they say: try it on
with Brown."

"I will. Oh you darling. What is the
matter?"

For Baby-face was beginning to whimper.

"Oh, nothing, sir; only you are so glad to go;
and we shall be sorry to part with you: but you
won't care for that—oh! oh! oh!"

''What, do you think I shall forget you and
your kindness? Never: I'll square accounts with
friends and foes; not one shall be forgotten."

''Don't offer me any of your money," sobbed
Hannah, "for I wouldn't touch it. Good-by,"
said she: "I shan't have as much as a kiss for
it, I'll be bound: good-by," said she again, and
never moved.

"Oh, won't you, though," cried Alfred gaily.
"What is that? and that? and that? Now,
what on earth are you crying about? Dry your