imitating the Doctor's gesture; "I am
sometimes anxious about him."

And Jacques sighed and touched his forehead.

"Here, you know, Doctor."

"Ah?" asked the Doctor, wiping his face with a silk handkerchief, and
leaning on his stick.

"Yes, sir; he has betrayed unmistakable evidences of lunacy of late."

The closet door creaked.

"It's astonishing how many rats there are in this place," said
Jacques; "that closet seems to be their head-quarters."

"Indeed?" said the Doctor; "but you surprise me by saying that Thomas
has a tendency to insanity. I thought his one of the justest and most
brilliant minds in college. Idle, yes, very idle, and procrastinating;
but still he is no common young man."

The closet murmured: there was no ground for charging the rats with
this; so Jacques observed that "the winds here were astonishing--they
were stirring when all else was still."

"I did not remark it," said the Doctor, "but this----"

"Affair of Tom's lunacy, sir?"

The Doctor nodded with a benevolent smile, and restored his
handkerchief to the pocket of his long, heavy, flapped coat.

"Why, sir," said Jacques, "there is a very beautiful young lady in the
immediate vicinity of town, who has smiled on Tom perhaps as many as
three times; and would you believe it, sir, the infatuated youth
thinks she is in love with him."

"Ah! ah!" smiled the Doctor; "a mere youthful folly."

"She cares not one pinch of snuff for him," said Jacques, "and he
believes that she is dying for him."

The Doctor smiled again.

"Oh," he said, shaking his head, "I fear your charge of lunacy will
not stand upon such ground as that. 'Tis a trifle."

"I do not charge him with it," said Jacques generously; "Heaven
forbid! I always endeavor to conceal it, and never allude to it in his
presence. But I thought it my duty. You know, sir, there are a number
of things which may be told to one's friends which should not be
alluded to in their presence."

"Yes, yes--of this description: it would be cruel; but you are
certainly mistaken."

"I hope so, sir; but I consider it my duty further to inform you that
I fear Tom is following evil courses."

"Evil courses?"

"Yes, sir!"

The door creaked terribly.

"You pain me," said the Doctor; "to what do you allude?"

"Ah, sir, it is terrible!"

"How? But observe, I do not ask you to speak, sir. If it be your
pleasure, very well, and I trust what I shall do will be for Thomas's
good. But I do n