else. I want to
get rid of that grit, and I can't take it out myself, someone else must
do it. One person would be enough, just one person to believe in what I
say and I would be myself again. That's why I want you to send to
Philadelphia. The mind is a curious thing, gentlemen, the freedom of the
body is nothing if the mind is not free, and my mind can never be free
till another person who knows my whole story believes in what I say. I
could not have imagined anyone being trapped like this--I've heard of an
actor guy once playing a part so often he went loony and fancied himself
the character. I'm not like that, I'm as sane as you, it's just this
uneasy, uncomfortable feeling--this want to get absolutely clean out of
this business, that's the trouble."

"Never mind!" said Simms cheerfully, "we will get you out only you must
_not_ worry yourself. I admit that your story is strange, but we will
send to Philadelphia and make all enquiries--come in."

The servant had knocked at the door. He entered with the medicine. Simms
sent him for a wine glass and when it arrived he poured out a dose.

"Now take a dose of your medicine like a man," said the kindly
physician, jocularly, "and another in four hours' time, it will re-make
your nerves."

Jones tossed the stuff off impatiently.

"Say," said he, "there's another point I've forgot. You might go to the
Savoy and get the clerk there, he'd recognize me, the bar tender in the
American bar, he'd maybe be able to recognise me too, he saw us
together--I say I feel a bit drowsy, you haven't doped me, have you?"

Simms and Cavendish, leaving the house together five minutes later, had
a moment's conversation on the steps.

"What do you think of him?" said Simms.

"Bad," said Cavendish. "He reasons on his own case, that's always bad,
and did you notice how cleverly he worked that in about wanting someone
to believe in him."

They walked down the street together.

"That smash has been coming for a long time," said Simms--"it's an
heirloom. It's a good thing it has come, he was getting to be a
bye-word--I wonder what it is that introduces the humorous element into
insanity; that address, for instance, one thousand one hundred and
ninety one Walnut Street, could never have strayed into a sane person's
head."

"Nor a luncheon on bills of exchange," said Cavendish. "Well, he will be
all right at Hoover's. What was the dose you gave him?"

"Heroin, mostly," replied the other. "