gentleman! I'm quite glad he is
going to live with us. It's so lucky to have a Silly Billy."

"How is it, you young rascal, you didn't tell me all this before?
What do you mean by it?

"Why, it isn't no business of your'n. Let us go, will you?"

"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."

"Take care what you are about, boy," said Doctor Mayhew sternly.
"I tell you that I suspect you." Turning to the idiot, he proceeded.
"And where do you come from?"

The lip