f he had been
capable of speaking connectedly. I only say that I have penetrated
through the obstacle of the disconnected expression, to the thought
which was underlying it connectedly all the time. Judge for yourself."

I turned to the second sheet of paper, which I now knew to be the key to
the first.

Once more, Mr. Candy's wanderings appeared, copied in black ink; the
intervals between the phrases being filled up by Ezra Jennings in
red ink. I reproduce the result here, in one plain form; the original
language and the interpretation of it coming close enough together in
these pages to be easily compared and verified.

"... Mr. Franklin Blake is clever and agreeable, but he wants taking
down a peg when he talks of medicine. He confesses that he has been
suffering from want of sleep at night. I tell him that his nerves are
out of order, and that he ought to take medicine. He tells me that
taking medicine and groping in the dark mean one and the same thing.
This before all the company at the dinner-table. I say to him, you are
groping after sleep, and nothing but medicine can help you to find it.
He says to me, I have heard of the blind leading the blind, and now I
know what it means. Witty--but I can give him a night's rest in spite of
his teeth. He really wants sleep; and Lady Verinder's medicine chest is
at my disposal. Give him five-and-twenty minims of laudanum to-night,
without his knowing it; and then call to-morrow morning. 'Well, Mr.
Blake, will you try a little medicine to-day? You will never sleep
without it.'--'There you are out, Mr. Candy: I have had an excellent
night's rest without it.' Then, come down on him with the truth! 'You
have had something besides an excellent night's rest; you had a dose
of laudanum, sir, before you went to bed. What do you say to the art of
medicine, now?'"

Admiration of the ingenuity which had woven this smooth and finished
texture out of the ravelled skein was naturally the first impression
that I felt, on handing the manuscript back to Ezra Jennings. He
modestly interrupted the first few words in which my sense of surprise
expressed itself, by asking me if the conclusion which he had drawn from
his notes was also the conclusion at which my own mind had arrived.

"Do you believe as I believe," he said, "that you were acting under the
influence of the laudanum in doing all that you did, on the night of
Miss Verinder's birthday, in Lady Verinder's house?"

"I am too ig