Alfred stood and read this again, and again he searched for some hidden symbolical meaning in the words. High-minded, and deeply impressed with his own wrongs, he could not conceive a respectable man, paid fifteen hundred a year to spy out wrongs, being so heartless hard as to write this single comment during the earnest recital of a wrong so gigantic as his. Poor Alfred learned this to his cost, that to put small men into great places is to create monsters. When he had realised the bitter truth, he put the stony-hearted paper in his pocket, crept into the yard, and sat down, and, for all he could do, scalding tears ran down his cheeks.
“Homunculi quanti sunt!” he sobbed; “homunculi quanti sunt!”
Presently he saw Dr. Terry come wandering towards him alone. The Archbold had not deigned to make him safe; senectitude had done that. Alfred, all heart—sick as he was, went to the old gentleman out of veneration for the outside of his head—which was Shakespearian—and pity for his bodily infirmity; and offered him an arm. The doctor thanked him sweetly, and said, “Pray, young man, have you anything to communicate?”
Then Alfred saw that the ancient man had already forgotten his face, and so looking at him with that rare instrument of official inspection, the naked eye, had seen he was sane; and consequently taken him for a keeper.
How swiftly the mind can roam, and from what a distance gather the materials of a thought! Flashed like lightning through Alfred's mind this line from one of his pets, the Greek philosophers:
[Greek text]
“And this is the greatest stroke of art, to turn an evil into a good.”
Now the feebleness of this aged Inspector was an evil: the thing then was to turn it into a good. Shade of Plato, behold how thy disciple worked thee! “Sir,” said he, sinking his voice mysteriously, “I have: but I am a poor man: you won't say I told you: it's as much as my place is worth.”
“Confidence, strict confidence,” replied Nestor, going over beaten tracks; for he had kept many a queer secret with the loyalty which does his profession so much honour.
“Then, sir, there's a young gentleman confined here, who is no more mad than you and I; and never was mad.”