BOOK THE LAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 769, 25 August 1866, Page 8

BOOK THE LAST.

CHaPTEK 111. — THE PUHPLE MASK. The cab was waiting at the gates as Miss G"wilt approached the {sanatorium, Mr Bash wood got out and advanced to meet her. She tock his arm snd led him aside a few steps, out of the cabman's hearing. '* Think what you like ol me,"" she said, keeping her thick black veil down over her face, *' but don't speak to me to-ni^ht. Drive back to your hotel as if nothing had happened. Meet the tidal train to-morrow as usual ; and come to me afterwards at the" Sanatorium. Go, without a word, and I shall believe there is one man in the world who really loves roe. Stay and ask questions. ai:d 1 shall bid jou good-by at once and for ever !"

She pointed to the cab. In a minute more it bad left the Sanatorium and was taking Mr Bashwood back to his hotel. She opened the iron gate and walked slowly up to the house doGi\ A shudder^ran through her as she rang the bell. She laughed bitterly. " Shivering again !" she said to herself. "Who would have thought I had so much feeling left in me ?"

For once in his life the doctor's face told the truth, when the study door opened between ten and eleven at night, and Miss

Gwilt entered the room.

"Mercy on me!" he exclaimed, with a look of the blankest bewilderment, " what does this mean ?"

"It means," she answered, " that I have decided to-night instead of deciding tomorrow. You, who know women so well, ought to know that they act on impulse. I am here on an impulse. Take me or leave me, just as you like." Take you or leave you ?" repeated the doctor, recovering his presence of mind "My dear lady, what a dreadful way of putting it ! Your room shall be got ready instantly ! Where is your luggage ? Will you let me send for it? No? You can do without your luggage to-night ? What admirable fortitude ! You will fetch it yourself to-morrow ? What, extraordinary independence i Do take off your bonnet. Do draw in to the fire ! What can I offer you ?"

" Offer me the strongest sleeping-draught you ever made in your life," she replied. " And leave me alone till the time comes to take it. I shall be your patient in earnest !" she added fiercely, as the doctor attempted to remonstrate. " I shall be the maddest of the mad if you irritate me tonight !"

The Principal of the Sanatorium became gravely and briefly professional in an instant.

" Sit down in that dark corner," he said. " Not a soul shall disturb you. In half an hour you will find your room ready, and your sleeping draught on the table. It's been a harder struggle for her than I anticipated," he thought, as he left the room, and crossed to his Dispensary on the opposite side of the hall. "■ Good heavens, what business has she with a conscience, after Buch a life as hers has been !"

The Dispensary was elaborately fitted up with all the latest improvements in medical furniture. But one of the four walls of the room was unoccupied by shelves, and here the vacant spare was filled bj' a handBorne antique cabinet of carved wood, curiously out of harmony, as an object, with the unornamented utilitarian aspect oi the place generally. On either side of the cabinet two speaking-tubes were inserted in the wall, communicating with the upper regions of the house, and labtlled respectively 1 " Resident Dispenser," and " Head Nurse." Into the second of these tubes the doctor spoke, on entenng the room. An elderly woman appeared, took her orders for preparing Mrs Armadale's bedchamber, curtseyed, and retired.

Left alone again in the Dispensary, the doctor unlocked the centre compartment of the cabinet, and disclosed a collection of bottles inside, containing the various poisons used in medicine. After taking out the laudanum wanted for the sleepingdraught, and placing it on the dispensarytable, he went back to the cabinet — looked into it for a little while — shook his head doubtfully, and crossed to the open shelves on the opposite side of the room. Here, after more consideration, he took down one out of the row of krt>e chemical bottles before him, filled with a yellow liquid : placing the bottle on the table, he returned to the cabinet, and opened a side compartment, containing some specimens of Bohemian glass work. After measuring it with his eye, he took from the specimens a handsome purple flask, high and narrow in form, and closed by a glass stopper. This he filled with the yellow liquid, leaving a small quantity only at the bottom of the bottle, and locking up the fla^k again in the place from which he had. taken it. The bottle was next restored to its place, after having been filled up with water from the cistern in the DLpensary, mixed with certain chemical liquids in small quantities, which restored it (so far as appearances

went) to the condition in which it had been

when it was first removed from the shelf. Having completed these mysterious pro ceedings, the doctor laughed softly, anci went back to his speaking- tubes to summon the Resident dispenser next. The Resident Dispenser made his appearance shrouded in the necessary white apron from his waist to his feet. The doctor solemnly wrote a prescription for n composing draught, and handed it to his assistant.

" Wanted immediately, Benjamin," he said, in a soft and melancholy voice. " A lady-patient — Mrs Armadale, Room Num-ber-one, Second-floor. Ah, dear, dear!" groaned the doctor absently ; "an anxiou« case, Berjjamin — an anxious case " He opened the bran-new ledger of the establishment, and entered the case at full length, with a brief abstract of the prescription " Have you done with the laudanum ? Put it back, and lock the cabinet, and give me the key Is the draught ready ? Label it 'to be tken at bed-time,' and give it to the nurse, Benjamin — give it to the nurse."

While the doctor's lips were issuing these direction?, the doctor's hands were occupied in opening a drawer under the dtsk on which the ledger was placed. He took out some gaily printed cards' of admission "to view the Sanatorium, between the hours of two and four p.m.," and filled them up with the date of the next day, December 10th. W T hen a dozen of the cards had been wrapped up in a dozen lithographed letters of invitation, and enclosed in a dozen envelopes, he next consulted a list of the families resident in the neighborhood, and directed the envelopes from the list. Ringing a bell this time, instead ol speaking through a tube, he summoned the manservant, and gave him the letters, to be delivered by Hand the first thing the next morning. "I think it will do." said the doctor, taking a turn in the Dispensary when the servant had gone out ; " I think it will do." While he was still absorbed in his own reflections, the nurse re- appeared to announce that the lady's room was ready ; and the doctor thereupon formally returned to the study to commuiiicate the information to Mis^ G a ilt.

She had not moved since he left her. She rose from her dark corner when he made his announcement, and without speaking or raising her veil, glided out of the room like a ghost.

After a brief interval, the nurse came downstairs again, with a word for her mas er's private ear.

'• The lady has ordered me to call her to morrow at sever* o'clock, sir," she said. '' She means to fetch her luggage heiself, and she wants to have a cab at the door as soon as she is dressed. What am Ito do?"

"Do what the lady tells you," said the doctor. '• She may be safely trusted to return to the Sanatorium."

The breakfast hour at the Sanatorium was half-past eight o'clock. By that time Mi«s Gwilt had settled eveiything at her lodgings, and had returned with her luggage in her own possession. The doctor was quite amazed at the promptitude of his patient.

" Why waste so much energy ?" he asked, when they met at the bre-ikfast-table. " Why be in such a hurry, my dear lady, when you had all the morning before you ?"

"Here restlessness!" she said, briefly. " The longer I live, the more impatient I get."

The doctor, who had noticed before she spoke that her face looked strangely pale and old that morning, observed when she answered him that her expression — naturally mobile in no ordinary decree—remained quite unalter«.d by the effort of speaking. There was none of the usual animation on her lips, none of the usual temper in her eyes. He had never seen her so impenetrably and coldly composed as he saw her now. " She has made up her mind at last," he thought. **"I may say to her this morning, what I couldn't say to her la<t night." He prefaced the coming remarks by a warning look at her widow's dress.

" Now you have got your luggage," he began gravely, " permit me to suggest piitting that cap away, and wearing another gown."

"Why?" "Do you rememher what you told me a day or two since ?'" asked the doctor. " You said there was a chance of Mr Armadale's dying in my Sanatorium." " I will say it again if you like." "A more unlikely chance," pursued the doctor, deaf as ever to all awkward interruptions, " it is hardly possible to imagine. But as long as it is a chance at all, it is worth considering. Say then that he dies, — dies suddenly and unexpectedly, and makes a coroner's inquest necessary in the house. What is our course in that case ? Our course is to preserve the characters to which we have committed ourselves — you as his widow, and I as the witness of your marriage— and, in those characters, to court the fullest inquiry. In the entirely improbable event of his dying just when we want him to die, my idea — I might even say, my resolution — is, to admit that

we knew of bis resurrection from the sea ; and to acknowledge that we instructed Mr Bashwood to entrap him into this house, by means of a false statement about Miss Milroy. When the inevitable questions follow, I propose to assert that he exhibited symptoms of mental alienation shortly after your marriage — that his delusion consisted in denying that you were his wife, and in declaring that he was engaged to be married to Miss Milroy — that you were in such terror of him on this account, when you heard he was alive and coming back, as to be in a state of nervous agitation that required my care — that at your request, and to calm that nervous agitation, I saw him pr< fessionally, and got him quietly into the hou c c by a humoring of hia delusion perfectly justifiable in such a case — and lastly, that I can certify his brain to have been affected by one of those mysterious disorders, eminently incurable, eminently fatal, in relation to which medical science is still in the dark. Such a course as this (in the remotely possible event which we are now supposing) would be, in your interests and mine, unquestionably the right course to take, and such a dress as that is, just as certainly, under existing circumstances, the wrong dress to wear."

" Shall I take it off at once ?" she asked, rising from the breakfast- table, without a word of remark on what had just been said to her.

"Any time before two o'clock to-day will do," said the doctor.

She looked at him, with a languid curiosity, nothing more. " Why before two ?" she inquired. " Because this is one of my ' Visitors' Days.' And the visitors' time is from two to four."

" What have I to do with your visitors?"

" Simply this. I think it important that perfectly respectable and perfectly disinterested witnesses should see you, in my house, in the character of a lady who has come to consult me."

" Your motive seems rather far-fetched. Is it the only motive you have in the matter ?"

"My dear, dear lady !" remonstrated the doctor, " have I any concealments from you ? Surely, you ought to know me better than that ?"

'• Yes," she said, with a weary contempt. " It's dull enough of me not to understand you by this time. Send word upstairs when lam wanted." She left him, and went back to her room.

Two o'clock came ; and in a quarter of an hour afterwards the visitors had arrived. Short as the notice had been, cheerless as the Sanatorium looked to spectators from without, the doctor's invitations had been largely accepted nevertheless by the female members of the families whom he had addressed. In the miserable monotony of I the lives led by a large section of the middle classes of England, anything is welcome to the women which offers them any sort of harmless refuge from the established tyranny of the principle that all human happiness begins and ends at home. While the imperious needs of a commercial country limited the representatives of the male sex among the doctor's visitors, to one feebie old man and one sit epy little boy, the women, poor souls, to the number of no less than sixteen — old and young, married and single — had seized the goldrn opportunity of a plunge into public life. Harmoniously united by the two common objects which they all had in view — in the first place, to look at each other, and in the second place, to look at the Sanatorium — they streamed in neatly dressed procession through the doctor's dreary iron gates, with a thin varnish ovpr them of assumed superiority to all unladylike excitement, most significant and most pitiable to see.

The proprietor of the Sanatorium received his visitors in the hall with Miss Gwilt on his arm. The hungry eyes of every woman in the company overlooked the doctor as if no such person had existed; and fixing on the strange lad}% devoured her from head to foot in an instant.

"My First Inmate," said the doctor, presenting Mi«s Gwilt. " This lady only arrived late last night ; and she takes the present opportunity (the only one my morning's engagements have allowed me to give her) of going over the Sanatorium. Allow me, ma'am," he went on, releasing Miss Gwilt, and giving his arm to the eldest lady among the visitors. " Shattered nerves— domestic anxiety," he whispered confidentially. " Sweet woman ! sad case!" He sighed softly, and led the old lady across the hall.

The flock of visitors followed; Miss Gwilt accompanying them in silence, and walking alone — among them, but not of them— the last of all.

"The grounds, ladies and gentlemen," said the doctor, wheeling round and addressing his audience, from the foot of the stairs, u are, a 8 you have seen, in a partially unfinished condition. Under any circumstances, I should lay little stress on the grounds, having Hampstead Heath so near at hand, and carriage-exercise and horseexercise being parts of my System. In a lesser degree it is also necessary for me to

ask your indulgence for the basement floor, on which we now stand. The waitingroom and study on that side, and the dispensary on the other (to which I shall

presently ask your attention), are com-

pleted. But the large drawing-room is still in the decorator's bauds. In that room (when the walls are dry — not a mo-

ment before) my inmates will assemble, for cheerful society. Nothing will be spared that can improve, elevate, and adorn life, at these little gatherings. Every evening, for example, there will be music for those who like it."

At this point there was a faint stir among the visitors, A mother of a family interrupted the doctor. She begged to know whether music " every evening" included Sunday evening; and if so, what music was performed ?

" Sacred music, of course, ma'am," said the doctor. " Handel ou Sunday evening — and Haydn occasionally, when not too cheerful. But, as I was about to say, music is not the only entertainment offered to my nervous inmate?. Amusing readingis provided for those who prefer books.*' There was another stir among the visitors. Another mother of a family wished to know whether amusing reading meant novels.

" Only such novels as I have selected and perused myself, in the first instance," said the doctor. " Nothing painful, ma'am ! There may be plenty that is painful in real life, but, for that very reason, we don't want it iv books. The English novelist who enters my house (no foreign novelist will be admitted) must understand his art as the healthy-minded English reader understands it in our time. He must know that our purer modern taste, our higher modern moralit) , limits him to doing exactly two things for us, when he writes us a book. All we want of him is occasionally to make us laujfh ; and invariably to make us comfortable."

There waa a third stir among the visitors, caused plainly this time by approval of the sentiments which they had just heard. The doctor, wisely cautious of disturbing the favorable impression that he had produced, dropped the subject of the drawing-room, and led the way upstairs. As beiore, the company followed ; and. as before, Miss Gwilt walked silently behind them, last of all. One after another the ladies looked at her with the idea of speaking, and saw something in her face, utterly unintelligible to them, which checked the well -meant words on their lips. The prevalent impression was, that the Principal of the Sanatorium had been delicately concealing the truth, and that his first inmate was mad.

The doctor led the way — with intervals of breathing-time accorded to the old lady on his arm — straight to the top of the house. Having collected his visitors in the corridor, and having waved his hand indicatively at the numbered doors opening out of it ou either side, he invited the company to look into any or all of the rooms at their own pleasure.

" Numbers one to four, ladies and gentlemen," saul the doctor, "include the dormitories of the attendants. Numbers four to tight are rooms intended for the accommodation of the poorer class of patients whom I receive on terms which simply cover my expenditure — nothing more. la the cases of these poorer persons among my suffering fellow- creatures, personal piety and the recommendation of two clergymr-n are indispensable to admission. Those are the only conditions I make ; but those I ins-ist on. Pray observe that the rooms are all ventilated, and the bedsteads all iron ; and kindly notice a 9 we descend again to the second fLor, that there is a door shutting -off all communication between the second story and the top story, when necessary. The rooms on the second floor, which we have now reached, are (with the exception of my own room) entirely devoted to the reception of ladyinmates, experience having convinced me that the greater sensitiveness of the female constitution necessitates the higher position of the sleeping apartment, with a view to the greater purity and freer circulation of the air. Here the ladies are established immediately under my care, while my assistant-physician (whom 1 expect to arrive ia a week's time) looks after the gentlemen on the floor beneath. Observe, again, as we descend to this lower, or first floor, a second door, closing all communication afe night between the two stories to every one but the assistant- phjsician and myself. I And now that we have reached the gentlemen's part of the house, and that you have observed for yourselves the regulations of the establishment, permit me to introduce you to a specimen of my system of treatment next. I can exemplify it practically by introducing you to a room fitted up, under my own direction, for the accommodation of the most complicated cases of nervous suffering and nervous delusion that can come under my care." He threw open (he door oi a room at one extremity of the corridor, numbered Four. " Look in, ladies and gentlemen,'* he said ; and if you see anything remarkable pray mention it." The room was not very large, but it was

•well lit by one broad window. Comfortably furnished as a "bedroom, it was only remarkable among; other rooms of the same aort in one way. It had no fireplace. The visitors having noticed this, were informed that the room was warmed in winter by m ar sof hot water ; and were then invited bark a-:ain into the corridor, to make the discoveries, under piMfe<=s ; onal i^i'OctToti, which they were unable to make for themsah'ts.

" A word, Indus and gentlemen," said the doctor; "literally h word on nervous derangement first. What is the process of treatment when, let us sny, mental anxiety has broken you down, and you apply to your doctor ? He sees you, hears you, and gives you two prescriptions. One is written on paper, and made up at the chemist's. The other is administered by word of mouth, at the propitious moment when the fee is ready ; and consists in a general recommendation to you to keep your mind easy. That excellent advice given, your doctor, leaves you to spare yourself all earthly annoyances by your own unaided efforts, until he calls again. Here, my system steps iD, and helps you. When I see the necessity of keeping your mind easy, I take the bull by the horns and do it for you. I place you in a Bphere of action in which the "ten thousand trifles which must, and do, irritate nervous people at home, are expressly considered and provided against. I throw up impregnable moral entrenchments between Worry and Ton. Find a door banging in this house, if you can ! Catch a servnnt in this house rattling the tea-things when he take? away the tray ! Discover barking doge, crowing cocks, hammering workmen, screeching children, here— and I engage to close my Sanatorium to-morrow! Are these nuisances laughing matters to nervous people? Ask them ! Can they escape these nuisances at home ? Ask them ! Will ten minutes' irritation from a barking dog or a screeching child, undo every atom of good done to a nervous sufferer by a mouth's medical treatment? There isn't a competent doctor in Erjgltnd who will venture to deny it ! On those plain grounds my system is based. I assert the medical treatment of nervous suffering to be entirely subsidiary to the moral treatment of it. That moral treatment of it, you find here. That moral treatment, sedulously pursued turon shout the day, follows the mfferer into his room at night ; and soothes, helps, and cures him, without his own knowledge — you shall see how."

The doctor paused to take breath ; and looked, for the first time since the visitors had entered the house, at Miss Gwilt. For the first time, on her side, she stepped forward among the audience, and looked at him in return. After a momentary obstruction in the shape of a cough, the doctor went on.

"Say, ladies and gentlemen," he proceeded, " that my patient has just come in. His mind is one mass of nervous fancies and caprices, which hi 9 friends (with the best possible intentions) have been ignorantly irritating at house. They have been afraid of him, ior instance, at night. They have forced him to have somebody to sleep in the room with him : or they have forbidden him, in case of accidents, to lock his door. He comes to me the first night, and sa}s, ' Mind, I vvon't have anybody in my room !' — ' Certainly not.' ' I insist on locking my door.' — 'By all means.' In he goes, and locks his door ; and there he is, soothed and quieted, p r cuispo ; ed to confidence, predisposed to sleep, by having his own way. ' This is all very v. ell,* you may say ; ' but suppose something happens, suppose he has a fit in the night-, what then?' You shall see ! Hullo, my young friend !" cried the doctor, suddenly addressing the sleepy little boy. " Let's have a game. You shall be the poor sick man, and I shall be the good doctor. Go into that room, and lock the door. There's a brave boy ! Have you Jocked it ? Very geoa. Do you think I can't get at you if I like ? I wait till you're asleep — I press this little white button, hidden here in the stencilled pattern of the outer wall, the mortice of the lock inside falls back silently against the door- post — and I walk into the room whenever I like. The fame plan is pursued with the window. My capricious patient won't open it night, when he ought. I humor him again. ' Shut it, dear sir, by all means !' As soon as he is asleep I pull the black handle hidden here, in the corner of the wall. The window of the room inside noiselessly open?, as you see. Say the patient's caprice is the other way — he persists in opening the window when he ought to shut it. Let him! by all means let him ! I pull a second handle, when he is snug in bed, and the window noiselessly closes in a moment. Nothing to irritate him, ladies and gentlemen — absolutely nothing to irritate him! But I havn't done with him yet. Epidemic disease, in spite of all my precautions, may enter this Sanatorium, and may render the purifying of the sick-room necessary. Or the patient's case may be complicated by other than nervous malady — say, for instance, asthmatic difficulty of breathing. In the one case fumigation is; necessary ; in the other, additional oxygen in the air will give

relief. The epidemic nervous patient says, ' I won't be smoked tinder my own nose !' .The asthmatic nervous patient gasps with terror at the idea of a chemical explosion in his room. I noiselessly fumigate one of them ; I noiselessly oxygenize the other, by mcnns of a simple apparatus fixed outside in the corner here. It is protected hy this wooden essirur ; ir i* locked with my own key; and it communicates by means of a tni.e with the interior of the room. Look at it!"

With a preliminnv glance at Miss Gwilt, the doctor unlockid the lid of the wooden casing, and dNclos^i inside nothing more remarkable than a large stone jar, having a glass funnel, and a pipe communicating with the wall, inserted in the cork which closed the mouth of it. With another look at Miss Gwilt, the doctor locked the lid 3gain, and asked in the blandest manner, whether his system was intelligible now.

" I might introduce you to all serfs of other contrivances of the same kind," he resumed, leading the way downstairs, " but it would be only the same thing over and over again. A nervous patient who always has his own way, is a nervous patient who is never •worried — and a nervous patient who is never worried, is a nervous patient cured. There it is in a nutshell ! — Come and see the dispensary, ladies ; the dispensary and the kitchen next."

Once more Mies Gwilt dropped behind the visitors, and waited alone, looking steadfastly at the room which the doctor had opened, and at the apparatus which the doctor had unlocked. Again, without a word passing between them, she had understood him. She knew as well aa if he had confessed it, that he wa9 craftily putting the necessary temptation in her way, ;before witnesses who could speak to the 'superficially innocent acts which they had seen, if anything serious happened. The apparatus, originally constructed to serve the purpose of the doctor's medical crochets, was evidently to be put to some other use, of which the doctor himself had probably never dreamed till now. And the chances were that before the day wa9 over, that other use would be privately revealed to her at the right moment, in the presence of the right witness. "Aiinadale will die this time," she said to herself, as she went slowly down the stairs. " The doctor will I kill him, by my hands."

The visitors were in the dispensary when she joined them. All the ladies were admiring the beauty of the antique cabinet : and, as a necessary consequence, all the ladies were desirous of seeing what was inside. The doctor— after a preliminary look at Miss Gwilt — good-humoredly shook his head. " There is nothing to interest you inside," he said. " Nothing but rows of little shabby bottles containing the poisons used in medicine, which I keep under lock and key. Come to the kitchen, ladies, and honor me with your advice on domestic matters below stairs " He glanced again at Miss Gwilt as the company crossed the hall, with a look which said plainly, " Wait here."

In another quarter of an hour the doctor had expounded his views on cookery and diet, and the visitors (duly furnished with prospectuses) were taking leave of him at the door. "Quite an intellectual tieati" they said to each other, as they streamed out again in neatly-dressed procession through the iron gates. " And what a very superior man !"

The doctor turned back to the dispensary, humminpr absently to himself, and failing entirely to wbserve the corner of the hall in which Miss Gwilt stood retired. After an instant's hesitation, she followed him. The assistant was in the room when she entered it — summoned by his employer the moment before.

"Doctor," she said, coldly and mechanically, as if she was repeating a lesson, " I am as curious as the other ladies about that pretty cabinet of yours. Now they are all gone, won't you show the inside of it to me . ? " T,he doctor laughed in hi 3 pleasantest manner.

" The old story," he said. " Blue-Beard's locked chamber, and female curiosity ! (Don't go, Benjamin, don't go.) My dear lady, what interest cau you possibly have in looking at a medical bottle, simply because it happens to be a bottle of poison ?" She repeated her lesson for the second time.

41 1 have the interest of looking at it," she said, "and of thinking if it got into some people's hands, of the terrible things it might do." The doctor glanced at his assistant with a compassionate smile. " Curious, Benjamin," he said. " the romantic view taken of these drugs of ours by the unscientific mind. My dear lady," he added, turning again to Miss Gwilt, " if that is the interest you attach to looking at poisons, you needn't ask me to unlock my cabinet — you need only look about you round the shelves of this room. There are all sorts of medical liquids and substances in those bottles — most innocent, most useful in themselves — which, in combination with other substances and other liquids, become poisons as terrible and as deadly as any that I have in my cabinet under lock and key."

She looked at him for a moment, and crossed to the opposite side of the room. " Show me one," she said. Still smilinjy as gnod-bumoredly as ever, the doctor humored his nervous patient. He pointed to . the bottle from which he had privately removed the yellow liquid on the previous day, and which he had filled up again with a carefully- colored imitation, in the shape of a mixture of his own.

"Do you see that bottle?" he sairl ; " that plump, round, comfortable-looking bottle ? Never mind the name of what is inside it; let us stick to the bottle, and distinguish it, if you like, by giving it a name of our own. Suppose we call it 'our Stout Friend?' Very good. Our Stout Friend, by himself, is a most harmless and useful medicine. He is freely dispensed every day to tens of thousands of patients all over the civilized world. He has m*ide no romantic appearances in courts of law ; he has excited no breathless interest in novels ; he has played no terrifying part on the stage. There he is, an innocent, inoffensive creature, who troubles nobody with the responsibility of locking him up ! But bring him into contact with something else — introduce him to the acquaintance of a certain common mineral substance, of a universally accessible kiad, broken into fragments; provide yourseif ■with, say, six doses of our Stout Friend, and pour those doses consecutively on the fragments I have mentioned, at intervals of not less than five minutes. Quantities of little bubbles will rise at every pouring ; collect the gas in these bubbles, and convey it into a closed chamber — and let Samson himself be in that closed chamber, our Stout Friend will kill him in half an hour ! Will kill him slowly, without his seeing anything, without his smelling anything, without his feeling anything but sleepiness. Will kill him, and tell the whole College of Surgeons nothing, if they examine him after death, but that he died of apoplexy or congestion of the lungs ! What do you think of that, my dear lady, in the way of mystery and romance ? Is our harmless Stout Friend as interesting now as if he rejoiced in'the terrible popular fame of the Arsenic and the Strychnine which I keep locked up there ? Don't suppose I am exaggerating ! Don't suppose I'm inventing a. story to put you off with, as the children say. Ask Benjamin, there," said the doctor, appealing to his assistant, with his eyes fixed on Miss G-wilt. "Ask Benjamin," he repeated, with the steadiest emphasis on the next words, "if six doses from that bottle, at intervals of five minuti's each, would not, under the conditions I have sta'ed, produce the results I have described ?"

The Resident Dispenser, modestly admiring Miss Gwilt at a distance, started and colored up. He was plainly gratified by the little attention which had included him in the conversation.

"The doctor is quite right, ma'am," he said, addressing Miss Gwilt, with his best bow; "the production of the gas, extended over half an hour, would be quite gradual enough. And," added the Dispenser, silently appealing to his employer, to let him exhioit a little chemical knowledge on his own account, " the volume of the gas would be sufficient at the end of the time — if lam not mistaken, sir? — to be fatal to any person entering the room in less than five minute 5 ."

" Unquestionably, Benjamin," rejoined the doctor. " But I think we have had enough of chemistry for the present," he added, turning to Miss Gwilt. " With every desire, my dear lady, to gratify every passing wish you may form, I venture to propose trying a more cheerful subject. Suppose we leave the dispensary, before it suggests any more inquiries to that active mind of yours? No? You want to see an experiment ? You want to see how the little bubbles are made ? Well, well ! there is no harm in that, We will let Mrs Armadale sac the bubble?," continued the doctor, in the tone of a parent humoring a spoilt child, " Try if you can find a few of these fragments that we want, Benjamin. I dare say the workmen (slovenly fellows !) have left something of the sort about the house or the grounds."

The Resident Dispenser left the room. 1 ! §

As soon as his back was turned, the doctor began opening and shutting drawers in various parts of the dispensary, with the air of a man who wants something in a hurry, and doesn't know where to find it. " Bless mj soul !" he exclaimed, suddenly stopping at the drawer from which he had taken his cards of invitation on the previous day, " what's this ! A key ? A duplicate key, as I'm alive, of my fumigating apparatus upstairs ! Oh dear, dear, how careless I get," said the doctor, turning round briskly to Miss Gwilt. "I hadn't the least idea that I possessed this second key. I should never have missed it. Ido assure you I should never have missed it, if anybody had taken it out of the drawer !" He bustled away to the other end of the room— without closing the drawer, and without taking away the duplicate key. In silence, Miss Gwilt listened till he had done. Ia silence, ehe glided to the drawer*

In silence, she took the key and hid it in her apron pocket. The Dispenser came back, with the fragments required of him", collected in ft basin. " Thank you, Benjamin," said the doctor. " Kindly cover them with water, while I get the bottle down." As accidents sometimes happen in the mo-t perfectly regulated families so clumsiness sometimes p!)S«esses itself of the most iperfcedy-(H-ciplined hands. In the process of its transfer l^om the shelf to the doctor, the bottle slioped, and fell smashed to pieces on the floor. " Oh, my fingers and thumbs !" cried the doctor, with an air of comic vexation, "what in the "vorld do you mean by playing me such a wicked trick as that ? Well, well, well — it can't be helped. Have we got any more of it, Benjamin ?"

" Not a drop, sir." '• Not a drop !" echoed the doctor. "My dear madam, what excuses can I offer you? My clumsiness has made our little experiment impossible for to-day. Remind me to order some more to-morrow, Benjamin. — and dont think of troubling yourself to put that mess to Tights. I'll send the man here to mop it all up. Our Stout Friend ia harmless enough now, my dear lady — in combination with a boarded floor and a coming mop ! I'm so sorry ; I really am so sorry to have disappointed you." With those soothing words, he offered his arm, and led Miss Gwiit out of the dispensary.

" Have you done with me for the present ?" she asked, when they were in the hall.

" Oh dear, dear, what a way of putting it!" exclaimed the doctor. ''Dinner at six," he added, with his politest emphasis, as she turned from him in disdainful silence, and slowly mounted the stairs to her own room.

(To he continued.}

The " Times" ox the Suspension' op the Bank Charter Act. — Perhaps it may be assumed that n ,t more than one per centof the total invested property of the country changes hands each day, and if that he the case, and every man could feel certain as in normal times, that he could have as much a3 he want 3, it would be found that the actual call upon credit would be limited to 10 millions. Yet this, it seem», cannot be put lortb, and it consequently remain* to be seen to what straits the commerce of the United Kingdom will have to be reduced and how far the evil will proceed in interfering with the employment of large masses of the people. la the great crisis of 1826 the measure that restored confidence as if by magic was simply the authority to advance; three millions " upon the deposit of goods, merchandise, and other securities," and according to the record of th \t time it was found that the number of applications was altogether diff:reut from what bad been expected from the loudaess anil unanimity of the cries for relief. "In truth," it was observed, " where the reigning misfortune is want of confidence, such aa expedient destroys in a great measure a3 soon as it is taken tha reasons which made it necessary to take it at all." The recent suspension of the Charter Act was felt by everyone at the time not to be the true remedy. To is3iie notes representing •j;old, and which were liable to be affected by the foreign demand for gold, was simply to render the pullic k a prey to fresh alarm from any Conti'>entii drain, and thus togive a chronic character to the previous anxiety, and this is precisely what is bsing witnessed. An issue of interest- bearing credit, n rtes at three or six months could, on the contrary, have been made with boldness, and the confidence thus restored would not hive been impaired by the distrust created by the nervous anxiety with which all persons throughout the country now watch the weekly Bank return, and torment themselves with conjectures as to how far, and at what extraordinary terms, the directors .vill dare even to dole out the relief that is still scrupulously limited to unexceptionable trade bills. — Times> 25th May.

A series of experiments has been conducted for some time past by the municipality of Paris, in order to test the comparative merits of the Lemoiae and Billaison steam locomotives employed in crushing and consolidating the broken granite laid on t lie streets of that city. It has at last been decided that the Ballaison locomotive is the better of the two. It has two rollers, the engine being between them, and the boiler on oue of them. The motion is communicated by a fuel chain. With and water, the weignt of the Ballaison steam roller is 13£ tons, with springs ; and an iron frame work, 15^ tons. Its force is ten horse-power, and its consumption of coal about 161b per horse. It does its work in half the time and at half the cost that would be required were the work done by rollers drawn by horses ; and the work is done more rapidly and completely. It may now be seen at all hours of the day crushing smooth the granite of the new boulevards of Paria ; ia the more crowded thoroughfares it works only at night.-— Pall-matt Gazette.