e
right side _per se._ Shall we rely on these two, and ignore the medical
attendants? No; why throw a chance away? What is the key to these
medical attendants? Hum! Try flunkyism. I have great faith in British
flunkyism. Pay your next visit with four horses, two outriders, and
blazing liveries. Don't dress in perfect taste like _that;_ go in finer
clothes than you ever wore in the morning, or ought to wear, except at
a wedding; go not as a petitioner, but as a queen; and dazzle snobs;
the which being dazzled, then tickle their vanity: don't speak of Sir
Charles as an injured man, nor as a man unsound in mind, but a
gentleman who is rather ill; 'but _now,_ gentlemen, I feel your
remarkable skill will soon set him right.' Your husband runs that one
risk; make him safe: a few smiles and a little flattery will do it; and
if not, why, fight with all a woman's weapons. Don't be too nice: we
must all hold a candle to the devil once in our lives. A wife's love
sanctifies a woman's arts in fighting with a villain and disarming
donkeys."

"Oh, I wish I was there now!"

"You are excited, madam," said he, severely. "That is out of place--in
a deliberative assembly."

"No, no; only I want to be there, doing all this for my dear husband."

"You are very excited; and it is my fault. You must be hungry too: you
have come a journey. There will be a reaction, and then you will be
hysterical. Your temperament is of that kind."

He rang a bell and ordered his maid-servant to bring some beef-wafers
and a pint of dry Champagne.

Lady Bassett remonstrated, but he told her to be quiet; "for," said he,
"I have a smattering of medicine, as well as of law and of human
nature. Sir Charles must correspond with you. Probably he has already
written you six letters complaining of this monstrous act--a sane man
incarcerated. Well, that class of letter goes into a letter-box in the
hall of an asylum, but it never reaches its address. Please take a pen
and write a formula." He dictated as follows:

"MY DEAR LOVE--The trifling illness I had when I came here is beginning
to give way to the skill and attention of the medical gentlemen here.
They are all most kind and attentive: the place, as it is conducted, is
a credit to the country."

Lady Bassett's eyes sparkled. "Oh, Mr. Rolfe, is not this rather
artful?"

"And is it not artful to put up a letter-box, encourage the writing of
letters, and then open them, and suppress whatever is dis