y attention from it, "I don't take any
stock at all in such matters. 'Rats and mice and such small deer,' as
Shakespeare has it, 'chicken feed of the larder' they might be called.
I'm past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to
eat molecules with a pair of chopsticks, as to try to interest me
about the less carnivora, when I know of what is before me."

"I see," I said. "You want big things that you can make your teeth
meet in? How would you like to breakfast on an elephant?"

"What ridiculous nonsense you are talking?" He was getting too wide
awake, so I thought I would press him hard.

"I wonder," I said reflectively, "what an elephant's soul is like!"

The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his
high-horse and became a child again.

"I don't want an elephant's soul, or any soul at all!" he said. For a
few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with
his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement.
"To hell with you and your souls!" he shouted. "Why do you plague me
about souls? Haven't I got enough to worry, and pain, to distract me
already, without thinking of souls?"

He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for another homicidal
fit, so I blew my whistle.

The instant, however, that I did so he became calm, and said
apologetically, "Forgive me, Doctor. I forgot myself. You do not
need any help. I am so worried in my mind that I am apt to be
irritable. If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am
working out, you would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not
put me in a strait waistcoat. I want to think and I cannot think
freely when my body is confined. I am sure you will understand!"

He had evidently self-control, so when the attendants came I told them
not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield watched them go. When the
door was closed he said with considerable dignity and sweetness, "Dr.
Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that I
am very, very grateful to you!"

I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I came away.
There is certainly something to ponder over in this man's state.
Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls "a
story," if one could only get them in proper order. Here they are:

Will not mention "drinking."

Fears the thought of being burdened with the "soul" of anything.

Has no dread of wanting