it. Well, I'm here for
instruction; thirsting for it."

"All the better; we'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart."

"All right: but not of your favorite Acetate of Morphia; because that
is the draught that takes the reason prisoner."

"It's no favorite of mine. Indeed, experience has taught me that all
sedatives excite; if they soothe at first, they excite next day. My
antidotes to mental excitement are packing in lukewarm water, and, best
of all, hard bodily exercise and the perspiration that follows it. To
put it shortly--prolonged bodily excitement antidotes mental
excitement."

"I'll take a note of that. It is the wisest thing I ever heard from any
learned physician."

"Yet many a learned physician knows it. But you are a little prejudiced
against the faculty."

"Only in their business. They are delightful out of that. But, come
now, nobody hears us--confess, the system which prescribes drugs,
drugs, drugs at every visit and in every case, and does not give a
severe selection of esculents the first place, but only the second or
third, must be rotten at the core. Don't you despise a layman's eye.
All the professions want it."

"Well, you are a writer; publish a book, call it Medicina laici, and
send me a copy."

"To slash in the _Lancet?_ Well, I will: when novels cease to pay and
truth begins to."

In the course of the evening Mr. Rolfe drew Dr. Suaby apart, and said,
"I must tell you frankly, I mean to relieve you of one of your
inmates."

"Only one? I was in hopes you would relieve me of all the sane people.
They say you are ingenious at it. All I know is, I can't get rid of an
inmate if the person who signed the order resists. Now, for instance,
here's a Mrs. Hallam came here unsound: religious delusion. Has been
cured two months. I have reported her so to her son-in-law, who signed
the order; but he will not discharge her. He is vicious, she
scriptural; bores him about eternity. Then I wrote to the Commissioners
in Lunacy; but they don't like to strain their powers, so they wrote to
the affectionate son-in-law, and he politely declines to act. Sir
Charles Bassett the same: three weeks ago I reported him cured, and the
detaining relative has not even replied to me."

"Got a copy of your letter?"

"Of course. But what if I tell you there is a gentleman here who never
had any business to come, yet he is as much a fixture as the grates. I
took him blindfold along with the house. I signed a dee