shyness to society--light
wild eye--irregular step--starting when met suddenly by a stranger, and
turning abruptly and angrily away--Pray, Mr. Winterblossom, let me have
an order to look over the file of newspapers--it's very troublesome that
restriction about consulting them."

"You know it is a necessary one, Doctor," said the president; "because
so few of the good company read any thing else, that the old newspapers
would have been worn to pieces long since."

"Well, well, let me have the order," said the Doctor; "I remember
something of a gentleman run away from his friends--I must look at the
description.--I believe I have a strait-jacket somewhere about the
Dispensary."

While this suggestion appalled the male part of the company, who did not
much relish the approaching dinner in company with a gentleman whose
situation seemed so precarious, some of the younger Misses whispered to
each other--"Ah, poor fellow!--and if it be as the Doctor supposes, my
lady, who knows what the cause of his illness may have been?--His
_spirits_ he complains of--ah, poor man!"

And thus, by the ingenious commentaries of the company at the Well, on
as plain a note as ever covered the eighth part of a sheet of foolscap,
the writer was deprived of his property, his reason, and his heart, "all
or either, or one or other of them," as is briefly and distinctly
expressed in the law phrase.

In short, so much was said _pro_ and _con_, so many ideas started and
theories maintained, concerning the disposition and character of the
Misanthrope, that, when the company assembled at the usual time, before
proceeding to dinner, they doubted, as it seemed, whether the expected
addition to their society was to enter the room on his hands or his
feet; and when "Mr. Tyrrel" was announced by Toby, at the top of his
voice, the gentleman who entered the room had so very little to
distinguish him from others, that there was a momentary disappointment.
The ladies, in particular, began to doubt whether the compound of
talent, misanthropy, madness, and mental sensibility, which they had
pictured to themselves, actually was the same with the genteel, and even
fashionable-looking man whom they saw before them; who, though in a
morning-dress, which the distance of his residence, and the freedom of
the place, made excusable, had, even in the minute points of his
exterior, none of the negligence, or wildness, which might be supposed
to attach to the vestments