t use of Pableine.

_Lucas._ Oh, thanks, it's quite well----

_Prof._ Try Pableine. It's a wonderful restorative. I'm intruding----

[_Looking round._

_Pilcher._ Not at all. We were just about to settle the question Mr.
Barron raised last New Year's day----

_Prof._ Oh, yes; I remember! Curiously enough I have only this morning
received the proofs of my new volume, "Free Will, the Illusion."

[_Showing the proofs to_ PILCHER.

_Pilcher._ Very interesting. I should like to discuss the matter with
you, but [_taking out watch_] I have so many New Year's calls to make.
[_Looking at_ MATT.] Perhaps we ought to get on with the--a----

_Matt._ Inquest.

_Pilcher._ Vindication.

_Matt._ [_Accepting the correction._] Vindication.

_Prof._ I may perhaps be allowed to point out that Mr. Barron's novel
and humorous experiment can in no sense be said to settle, or even to
touch, the question of Free Will, which as I have proved here depends
upon---- [_Again offering the proof._

_Pilcher._ I should like to look through those sheets, but----

[_Glancing at_ MATT.

_Prof._ You shall! I have put the whole argument into the concrete case
of Sarah Mumford----

_Pilcher._ Sarah Mumford?

_Prof._ The baby farmer----

_Matt._ Sarah's gray matter gone watery?

_Prof._ Not watery, but she had a yellow effusion----

_Matt._ I suppose that's just as bad?

_Prof._ Quite.

_Matt._ What did they do with her?

_Prof._ They hanged her. They then discovered extensive lesions and this
yellow effusion----

_Matt._ Pity they didn't discover that before they hanged her.

_Prof._ My exact point! Where is the justice of punishing a woman whose
gray matter functions perversely? It is nothing short of a crime.

_Dolly._ But she had suffocated five dear little babies?

_Matt._ How could she avoid suffocating babies if she had a yellow
effusion in her brain?

_Prof._ Precisely my argument----

[_Puts his proofs into_ MATT'S _hands. Points out a passage_. MATT, _a
little embarrassed, takes them, looks through them._]

_Prof._ The point I wish to establish is this. While we all allow that
extensive or recognizable diseases of, or injuries to, the brain, free a
man from responsibility and punishment, how can we logically mete out
blame or praise, punishment or reward to our ordinary acts, thoughts,
and impulses, seeing that all our acts, thoughts, and impulses, good or
bad, virtuous or criminal, a