“Sir!” he exclaimed, “you are not serious?”
“I certainly am not joking,” replied Mr. Lupton.
“Then am I to believe it possible,” rejoined the Doctor, “that you, sir, can have descended, I may say, so far as to listen to the idle tales and ridiculous nonsense which such a boy as this may have picked up amongst the gossips and old women of a village, about matters of which they cannot possibly know anything? It surely, sir, cannot be needful for me to disabuse your mind of prejudices of this kind,—to inform you how the suspicions and conjectures of the ignorant and vulgar are apt to attach to any professional man, associated so peculiarly as I am with a very unfortunate class of patients.”
“I anticipate all you would say,” observed the Squire, “and sufficiently appreciate the force of your remarks. At the same time I should be glad to know whether you have or have not a patient named Woodruff confined on your premises?”
“Emphatically, then, sir,” replied the Doctor, “I HAVE NOT.”
“And never had?”
“That I will not say.”
“You have removed him?”
“There is no such individual in my care.”
“Is he at liberty?”