ass place where she can have special treatment and special care
instead of letting her be put away in one of the state asylums. And so
I'm taking her there--me and the matron yonder. That's about all, I
guess."

"I don't believe it."

"You don't believe what?"

He was beginning to bristle anew.

"Don't believe she is insane at all, much less dangerously so. Why, I've
just been talking with her. We exchanged only a few words, but in all
that she said she was so perfectly rational, so perfectly sensible.
Besides, one has only to look at her to feel sure some terrible mistake
or some terrible injustice is being done. Surely there is nothing
eccentric, nothing erratic about her; now is there? You must have been
studying her. Don't you yourself feel that there might have been
something wrong about her commitment?"

He shook his head.

"Not a chancet. Everything's been positively regular and aboveboard. You
can't railroad folks into Doctor Shorter's place; he's got too high a
standing. Shorter takes no chances with anybody."

"But she seemed so absolutely normal in speech, manner--everything. I've
seen insane persons before now and--"

"Excuse me, but about how many have you seen?"

"Not many, I admit, but--"

"Well, excuse me again, lady, but I thought as much. Well, I
have--plenty of 'em I've seen in my time. See 'em every day for the
matter of that. Listen to me! For instance, now, we've got a case up
there with us now. He's been there going on fifteen years; used to be a
preacher, highly educated and all that. Look at him and you wouldn't see
a thing out of the way with him except that he'd be wearing a
strait-jacket. Talk to him for maybe a week and you wouldn't notice a
single thing wrong about him. He'd just strike you all along as being
one of the nicest, mildest, old Christian gents you ever met up with in
your whole life. But get him on a certain subject; just mention a
certain word to him and he'd tear your throat out with his bare hands if
he could get at you."

"But this poor girl, surely her case is different? Was it really
necessary to bind her hands as you've done?"

"Lady, about these here violent ones you can't never tell. Me, I never
saw her in my life before I went down after her this morning, and up to
now she hasn't made me a mite of trouble. But I had my warning from them
that turned her over to me. Anyhow, all I needed was the story of her
own mother, as fine a lady as you'd care to see