Part 91 (1/2)

”No, sir,” said Alfred. ”I think that rather an arbitrary and peevish canon of friend Horace. The AEneid, you know, begins just as he says an epic ought not to begin; and the AEneid is the greatest Latin Epic. In the next place the use of Modesty is to keep a man from writing an epic poem at all but, if he will have that impudence, why then he had better have the courage to plunge into the Castalian stream, like Virgil and Lucan, not crawl in funking and holding on by the Muse's ap.r.o.n-string.

But--excuse me--quorsum haec tam putida tendunt? What have the Latin poets to do with this modern's sanity or insanity?”

Mr. Abbott snorted contemptuously in support of the query. But Dr.

Eskell smiled, and said: ”Continue to answer me as intelligently, and you may find it has a great deal to do with it.”

Alfred took this hint, and said artfully, ”Mine was a thoughtless remark: of course a gentleman of your experience can test the mind on any subject, however trivial.” He added piteously, ”Still, if you would but leave the poets, who are all half crazy themselves, and examine me in the philosophers of Antiquity. Surely it would be a higher criterion.”

Dr. Wycherley explained in a patronising whisper, ”He labours under an abnormal contempt for poetry, dating from his attack. Previously to that he actually obtained a prize poem himself.”

”Well, doctor, and after that am I wrong to despise poetry?”

They might have comprehended this on paper, but spoken it was too keen for them all three. The visitors stared. Dr. Wycherley came to their aid ”You might examine my young friend for hours and not detect the one crevice in the brilliancy of his intellectual armour.”

The maniac made a face as one that drinketh verjuice suddenly.

”For pity's sake, doctor, don't be so inaccurate. Say a spot on the brilliancy, or a crevice in the armour; but not a crevice in the brilliancy. My good friend here, gentlemen, deals in conjectural certificates and broken metaphors. He dislocates more tropes, to my sorrow, than even his friend Shakespeare, whom he thinks a greater philosopher than Aristotle, and who calls the murder of an individual sleeper the murder of sleep, confounding the concrete with the abstract, and then talks of taking arms against a sea of troubles; query, a cork jacket and a flask of brandy?”

”Well, Mr. Hardie,” said Dr. Eskell, rather feebly, ”let me tell you those pa.s.sages, which so shock your _peculiar_ notions, are among the most applauded.”

”Very likely, sir,” retorted the maniac, whose logic was up; ”but applauded only in a nation where the _floods_ clap their hands every Sunday morning, and we all pray for peace, giving as our exquisite reason that we have got the G.o.d of hosts on our side in war.”

Mr. Abbott, the other commissioner, had endured all this chat with an air of weary indifference. He now said to Dr. Wycherley, ”I wish to put to you a question or two in private.”

Alfred was horribly frightened: this was the very dodge that had ruined him at Silverton House. ”Oh no, gentlemen,” he cried imploringly. ”Let me have fair play. You have given me no secret audience; then why give my accuser one? I am charged with a single delusion; for mercy's sake, go to the point at once, and examine me on that head.”

”Now you talk sense,” said Mr. Abbott; as if the previous topics had been chosen by Alfred.

”But that will excite him,” objected Dr. Eskell? ”it always does excite them.”

”It excites the insane, but not the sane,” said Alfred. ”So there is another test; you will observe whether it excites me.” Then, before they could interrupt him, he glided on. ”The supposed hallucination is this: I strongly suspect my father, a bankrupt--and therefore dishonest--banker, of having somehow misappropriated a sum of fourteen thousand pounds, which sum is known to have been brought from India by one Captain Dodd, and has disappeared.”

”Stop a minute,” said Mr. Abbott. ”Who knows it besides you?”

”The whole family of the Dodds. They will show you his letter from India, announcing his return with the money.”

”Where do they live?”

”Albion Villa, Barkington.”

Mr. Abbott noted the address in his book, and Alfred, mightily cheered and encouraged by this sensible act, went on to describe the various indications, which, insufficient singly, had by their united force driven him to his conclusion. When he described David's appearance and words on his father's lawn at night, Wycherley interrupted him quietly: ”Are you quite sure this was not a vision, a phantom of the mind heated by your agitation, and your suspicions?”

Dr. Eskell nodded a.s.sent, knowing nothing about the matter.

”Pray, doctor, was I the only person who saw this vision?” inquired Alfred slily.

”I conclude so,” said Wycherley, with an admirable smile.

”But why do you conclude so? Because you are one of those who reason in a circle of a.s.sumptions. Now it happens that Captain Dodd was seen and felt on that occasion by three persons besides myself.”

”Name them,” said Mr. Abbott sharply.