WILLIAM R. HICKS
One poor fellow, whom he found chained in a dark cell on a bed of straw as a dangerous lunatic, he nearly cured by kindly treatment. As the fellow showed indications of great shrewdness and wit, Hicks released him and made much of him. A gentleman on a visit to the asylum once said to the lunatic, "I hear, man, that you are Hicks's fool."
"Aw," replied he; "I zee you do your awn business in that line."
He was once asked, "Whither does this path go, my man?" He answered readily, "Zure I cannot tell 'ee. I've knawed un bide here these last twenty year."
He was sitting on the high wall of the asylum that commanded the road for some distance, with a turnpike at the bottom of the hill. The company of a circus passed by, with the various horses. As the manager rode past, the lunatic said to him, "'Ow much might 'ee pay turnpike for they there spekkady hosses?" "Oh," said the manager, "the same as for the others." "Do 'ee now?" said the man on the wall. "Well to be zure; my vather 'ad a spekkady hoss that never paid no turnpike. They there sparky (speckled) hosses don't pay no turnpikes here."
"Bless my life," said the manager; "I am much obliged to you for informing me of the fact. So, sir, I am to understand that piebald horses are exempt from paying at the toll-gate?"
"What I zed I bides by. They there spekkady hosses never pay no turnpikes here in Cornwall. What they may do elsewhere, I can't zay."
The lunatic watched the cavalcade proceed down the hill, and when it reached the turnpike, he enjoyed watching a lively altercation going on between the toll-taker and the manager. Presently the latter came galloping back, very hot and angry.