"Then, what's the use of it?"
"Pardon me, Mr. Fenton," replied the Doctor. "You'll excuse me, when I veil you that you have not arrived at that mental altitude—that intellectual plane—"
"No," said Jim, "I live on a sort of a medder."
The case being hopeless, the Doctor went on and opened the door into what he was pleased to call "the insane ward." As Jim put his head into the door, he uttered a "phew!" and then said:
"This is worser nor the town meetin'."
The moment Jim's eyes beheld the misery that groaned out its days and nights within the stingy cells, his great heart melted with pity. For the first moments, his disposition to jest passed away, and all his soul rose up in indignation. If profane words came to his lips, they came from genuine commiseration, and a sense of the outrage that had been committed upon those who had been stamped with the image of the Almighty.
"This is a case of Shakspearean madness," said Dr. Radcliffe, pausing before the barred and grated cell that held a half-nude woman. It was a little box of a place, with a rude bedstead in one corner, filthy beyond the power of water to cleanse. The occupant sat on a little bench in another corner, with her eyes rolled up to Jim's in a tragic expression, which would make the fortune of an actress. He felt of his hair, impulsively.
"How are ye now? How do ye feel?" inquired Jim, tenderly.
She gave him no answer, but glared at him as if she would search the very depths of his heart.
"If ye'll look t'other way, ye'll obleege me," said Jim.