"You thought something aloud," said Dollar, smiling. "Don't let it worry you; that's not one of the straws that shows an ill wind. What is it of Shelley's, Mr. Edenborough?"
"Only a bit of one of his letters," said the young man. "I just happened to open them at something that rather appealed to me." And the book shot back into its place.
"Not the bit about the prussic acid, I hope?" suggested the doctor, for all the world as if in fun.
"What was that?" said Edenborough, with a face that would not have imposed upon an infant.
"A little commission from Shelley to Trelawny, for a small quantity of the 'essential oil of bitter almonds,' as he called it, so that he might 'hold in his possession that golden key to the chamber of perpetual peace.'"
"That was it," said the youth at length. "I may as well be honest about it. But I don't know how on earth you knew!"
The doctor gave a kindly little laugh.
"Only by knowing the book," he assured the patient. "It's rather a notorious passage—and you had just been clamoring for at least a silver key to some chamber of temporary peace!"
"You said you would give me one, Doctor Dollar."
"And now I think I won't," said the doctor, rising from his aged chair. "No; you shall not go without hearing my reasons, and what I am going to propose to you instead. These keys, Mr. Edenborough"—and he tore the unfinished prescription into little bits—"gold or silver, they are not keys at all, but burglars' jemmies that injure and vitiate the chambers they break into. It certainly is so with the night's rest you want at any price; it may be the same with the perpetual peace that Shelley took for granted. Yet I happen to have a Chamber of Peace of sorts here in this house. It's my latest fad. You've found it a name, and in return I should like to offer it to you for the night."