studies with singular alacrity, supplied him with
several classics from his own shelves, and
borrowed the rest at the London Library. Nor
did his zeal stop there: he offered to read an
hour a day with him, and owned it would
afford him the keenest gratification to turn out
an Oxford first classman from his asylum. This
remark puzzled Alfred, and set him thinking; it
bore a subtle family resemblance to the obser
vations he heard every day from the patients; it
was so one-eyed.

Soon Alfred became the doctor's pet maniac.
They were often closeted together in high
discourse, and indeed discussed Psychology,
Meta-physics, and Moral Philosophy with indefatigable
zest, long after common sense would have packed
them both off to bed, the donkeys. In fact, they
got so thick that Alfred thought it only fair to
say one day, "Mind, doctor, all these pleasant
fruitful hours we spend together so sweetly will
not prevent my indicting you for a conspiracy as
soon as I get out: it will rob the retribution of
half its relish though."

"Ah, my dear young friend and
fellow-student," said the doctor blandly, "let us not
sacrifice the delights of our profitable occupation
of imbibing the sweets of intellectual intercourse
to vague speculations as to our future destiny.
During the course of a long and not, I trust,
altogether unprofitable, career, it has not
unfrequently been my lot to find myself on the verge of
being indicted, sued, assassinated, hung. Yet here
I sit, as yet unimmolated on the altar of phrenetic
vengeance. This is ascribable to the fact that
my friends and pupils always adopt a more
favourable opinion of me long before I part with
them; and ere many days (and this I divine by
infallible indicia), your cure will commence in
earnest; and, in proportion as you progress to
perfect restoration of the powers of judgment,
you will grow in suspicion of the fact of being
under a delusion—or rather I should say a very
slight perversion and perturbation of the forces
of your admirable intellect—and a proper
subject for temporary seclusion. Indeed this
consciousness of insanity is the one diagnostic of
sanity that never deceives me: and, on the other
hand, an obstinate persistence in the hypothesis
of perfect rationality demonstrates the fact that
insanity yet lingers in the convolutions and
recesses of the brain, and that it would not be
humane as yet to cast the patient on a world, in
which he would inevitably be taken some
ungenerous advantage of."

Alfred ventured to inquire whether this was
not rather paradoxical.

"Certainly," said the ready doctor; "and
paradoxicality is an indicial characteristic of
truth in all matters beyond the comprehension
of the vulgar."

"That sounds rational," said the maniac, very
drily.

One afternoon, grinding hard for his degree,
he was invited down stairs to see two visitors.

At that word he found out how prison tries
the nerves. He trembled with hope, and fear.
It was but for a moment: he bathed his face and
hands to compose himself; made his toilet
carefully, and went into the drawing-room, all on his
guard. There he found Dr. Wycherley and two
gentlemen; one was an ex-physician, the other
an ex-barrister, who had consented to resign
feelessness and brieflessness for a snug £1500 a year
at Whitehall. After a momentary greeting they
continued the conversation with Dr. Wycherley,
and scarcely noticed Alfred. They were there
pro formâ; a plausible lunatic had pestered the
Board, and extorted a visit of ceremony. Alfred's
blood boiled, but he knew it must not boil over.
He contrived to throw a short, pertinent remark
in every now and then. This, being done politely,
told, and at last Dr. Eskell, Commissioner of
Lunacy, smiled and turned to him. "Allow me
to put a few questions to you."

"The more the better, sir," said Alfred.

Dr. Eskell then asked him to describe mi
nutely, and in order, all he had done since
seven o'clock that day. And he did it.
Examined him in the multiplication table. And he
did it. And, while he was applying these
old-fashioned tests, Wycherley's face wore an
expression of pity, that was truly comical. Now this
Dr. Eskell had an itch for the classics: so he went
on to say, "You have been a scholar, I hear."

"I am not old enough to be a scholar, sir,"
said Alfred; "but I am a student."

"Well, well; now can you tell me what follows
this line?
Jusque datum sceleri camus populumque potentem."

"Why, not at the moment."

"Oh, surely you can," said Dr. Eskell, ironically.
" It is in a tolerably well-known passage.
Come, try."

"Well, I'll try" said Alfred, sneering secretly.
"Let me see:

Mum—mum—mum—populumque potentem,
In sua victrici conversum viscera dextrâ."

"Quite right; now go on, if you can."

Alfred, who was playing with his examiner all
this time, pretended to cudgel his brains, then
went on, and warmed involuntarily with the lines:

"Cognatasque acies et rupto fœdere regni
Certatum totis concussi viribus orbis
ln commune nefas; infestis que obvia signis
Signa, pares aquilas, et pila minantia pilis."

"He seems to have a good memory," said the
examiner, rather taken aback.

"Oh, that is nothing for him," observed
Wycherley;

"He has Horace all by heart; you'd wonder:
And mouths out Homer's Greek like thunder."

The great faculty of Memory thus tested,
Dr. Eskell proceeded to a greater; Judgment.
"Spirited lines those, sir."

"Yes, sir; but surely rather tumid. 'The
whole forces of the shaken globe?' But little
poets love big words."

"I see; you agree with Horace, that so great