"Strange," said Doctor Mayhew, turning to his butler—"Strange, that they should leave that ring upon his finger—valuable as it looks."
"Oh, you try it on, that's all! Catch mother leaving that there, if she could get it off. She tried hard enough, I can tell you and I thought he'd just have bitten her hand off. Wasn't he savage neither, oh cry! She won't try at it again in a hurry. She says it serves her right, for no luck comes of robbing a Silly Billy."
The servants, who betrayed a few minutes before great anxiety and apprehension, were perfectly overcome by this humorous sally, and burst, with on accord, into the loudest laughter. The generally jocose doctor, however, looked particularly serious, and kept his eye upon the poor idiot with an expression of deep pity. "Will he not speak?" he asked, still marking his unhappy countenance bereft of every sign of sensibility.
"He won't say not nuffin," said the boy, in a tone which he hoped would settle the business; "You have no right to keep us. Let us go."
"Leave me with these persons," said the Doctor, turning to the servants. "We will see if the tongue of this wretched be really tied. Go, all of you."
In an instant the room was left to Doctor Mayhew and myself—the idiot and his keeper.
"What is your name, my man?" enquired the physician in a soothing tone. "Do not be frightened. Nobody will hurt you here. We are all your very good friends. Tell me now, what is your name?"
The questioner took the poor fellow at the same time by the hand, and pressed it kindly. The latter then looked round the room with a vacant stare, and sighed profoundly.
"Tell me your name," continued the Doctor, encouraged by the movement. The lips of the afflicted man unclosed. His brick-red tongue attempted to moisten them. Fixing his expressionless eyes upon the doctor, he answered, in a hollow voice, "Belton."
"Well, I never!" exclaimed the boy. "Them Silly Billies is the deceitfulest chaps as is. He made out to mother that he couldn't speak a word."