e the papers called him, which means I
suppose that at least he was well-to-do. You remember about him, I am
sure? A commission declared him of unsound mind. He got away to another
state where the legal processes of this state could not reach him. The
courts of that other state declared him mentally competent and capable
of managing his own affairs--and for a period of years he did manage
them. Here the other month, under a pledge of safe conduct, he returned
to New York on legal business and while he was here he carried his cause
to a higher court and that court ruled him to be sane and entitled to
his complete freedom of body and action. But for years he had been a
pseudofugitive in enforced exile and for years he had carried the stigma
of having been adjudged insane. This thing happened, incredible as it
sounds. It might happen again to-day or to-morrow. It--"

"Excuse me for interrupting your flow of eloquence," he said with a
labored politeness, "but I thought you came here to discuss the case of
a girl named Vinsolving, not the case of a man I never heard of before.
Now, at least I'm not going to discuss generalities with you and I'm not
going to sit here and join with you in questioning the workings of the
law either. The laws are good enough for me as they stand. I'm a
law-abiding citizen, not one of these red-eyed socialistic Bolsheviks
that are forever trying to tear down things. I believe in taking the
laws as I find them. Let well enough alone--that's my motto, young
woman. And there are a whole lot more like me in this country."

"Pardon me for breaking in on you, sir," she said, fighting hard to keep
her temper, "but neither am I a socialist or a Bolshevik."

"Then I reckon probably you're one of these rampant suffragists. Anyhow,
what's the use of discussing abstracts? If you don't like the law why
don't you have it changed?"

"That's one of the very things I hope before long to try to do," she
replied.

"It'll keep you pretty busy," he responded with a sniff of profound
disapproval. "But then you seem to have a lot of spare time on your
hands to spend in crusading round. Well, I haven't. I've got my patients
to see to. One of 'em is waiting for me now--if you'll kindly excuse
me?"

She rose.

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely, "if either my mission or my language
has irritated you. I seem somehow to have defeated the purpose that
brought me--I mean a faint hope that perhaps somehow I might help tha