"Pick me up—pick me up!" cried the patient. "I'm all in atoms. You would not believe me once that I was made in these parts of glass. Ah, you see now the melancholy evidence of the fact!"
We held him steady, and he rolled his eyes from side to side, surveying the broken fragments of his vitrified substance with symptoms of horror. I noticed the hair on his head rise and stand as stiff as porcupine quills, and all his body was shaken by tremors that seemed to reach his heart. After allowing the conviction that the appendage was absolutely broken to take proper root in his mind—
"You are cured," said I. "The glass lies about you, and your body is entire. I was right in my diagnosis. It is proved; the glass was a mere covering—a species of fourth skin over the epidermis; and, being gone, the natural body is freed from the encumbrance. Rise and judge for yourself."
These words, with the slow progress of his own mental workings, and, above all, the sound and sight of the glass, wrought wonders. He rose deliberately from his seat—examined himself—looked around him—turned and re-turned—looked at me and my assistants—at his wife, who had come in wondering at the noise and strange appearance of the glass—and at the broken evidence, at once of his disorder and his cure.
"This is most wonderful!" he at last ejaculated. "Margaret, woman, look at that! Where is your scepticism now, your laughs, and your jeers, and your vain efforts to shake my belief? This may teach you sobriety of thought, and inspire you with confidence in my opinions. I was never deceived in my life. Man never found me wrong: and here is my last victory over the foolish prejudices of all my neighbours."
Saying this, he took a part of the glass, and turned it round in his hand.
"Perfect, pure, brittle glass," he continued. "A pier-glass might have been made of it."
"I would rather say a convex mirror, Mr G——," said I, laughing, contrary to my professional gravity.
"But, doctor," said he, "why were you so hard of belief? It was long ere you would believe me. I have conquered you too; but, I must confess, you have conquered my disease."
"Yes; I have mastered it at last," said I; "it will never trouble you again. Would you have the goodness to allow me to take a part of the fragments home with me, to put in my museum."