when he drove up. Buffum took the Doctor aside, and told him of Jim's
desire to make the rounds with him. Nothing could have delighted the
little man more than a proposition of this kind, because it gave him an
opportunity to talk. Jim had measured his man when he heard him speak
the previous day, and as they crossed the road together, he said:
"Doctor, they didn't treat ye very well down there yesterday. I said to
myself; 'Jim Fenton, what would ye done if ye had knowed as much as that
doctor, an' had worked as hard as he had, and then be'n jest as good as
stomped on by a set o' fellows that didn't know a hole in the ground
when they seen it?' and, says I, answerin' myself, 'ye'd 'a' made the
fur fly, and spilt blood.'"

"Ah," responded the Doctor, "Violence resteth in the bosom of fools."

"Well, it wouldn't 'a' rested in my bosom long. I'd 'a' made a young
'arthquake there in two minutes."

The Doctor smiled, and said with a sigh:

"The vulgar mind does not comprehend science."

"Now, jest tell me what science is," said Jim. "I hearn a great deal
about science, but I live up in the woods, and I can't read very much,
and ye see I ain't edicated, and I made up my mind if I ever found a man
as knowed what science was, I'd ask him."

"Science, sir, is the sum of organized and systematized knowledge,"
replied the Doctor.

"Now, that seems reasomble," said Jim, "but what is it like? What do
they do with it? Can a feller get a livin' by it?"

"Not in Sevenoaks," replied the Doctor, with a bitter smile.

"Then, what's the use of it?"

"Pardon me, Mr. Fenton," replied the Doctor. "You'll excuse me, when I
veil you that you have not arrived at that mental altitude--that
intellectual plane--"

"No," said Jim, "I live on a sort of a medder."

The case being hopeless, the Doctor went on and opened the door into
what he was pleased to call "the insane ward." As Jim put his head into
the door, he uttered a "phew!" and then said:

"This is worser nor the town meetin'."

The moment Jim's eyes beheld the misery that groaned out its days and
nights within the stingy cells, his great heart melted with pity. For
the first moments, his disposition to jest passed away, and all his soul
rose up in indignation. If profane words came to his lips, they came
from genuine commiseration, and a sense of the outrage that had been
committed upon those who had been stamped with the image of the
Almighty.

"This is a case of Shaksp