"The specimens are, perhaps, disposed of privately to avoid the publicity of the auction-room."
The girl burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which drew attention to us.
"Glad you are enjoying yourself," called out Mr. Dove to me; "a glass of wine with you."
The middle-aged lady in red velvet on my left hand uttered some unpleasant observations about the forwardness of young ladies in general, and of Miss Bertram in particular, and the colonel on the other side of the table looked daggers at me; as if I could help it.
"Tell me the joke, and I will laugh, too," I whispered to my fair friend.
"Is this your first visit?" she asked, as if an idea had just occurred to her.
"The first."
"What are the symptoms? Are you an admirer of the classic, and is it blonde or brunette?"
This was beyond me, and I looked at the young girl in astonishment, which only redoubled her laughter. The horrible thought just then entered my head that I was in a private lunatic asylum; everything tended to confirm me in that opinion, and the marvel was that the truth had not dawned on my obtuse mind before. I had often been told that all mad doctors are, more or less, eccentric—that their attendance on insane people has, through course of time, an injurious effect on their own minds; and here was an example in the case of Mr. Dove!
The guests were no doubt his patients, and the stalwart men in waiting the keepers, ready to control any obstreperous individual, with their straight jackets, and bands of leather and iron in some convenient cupboard close at hand.