_Doctor Rowel argues very learnedly, in order to prove that not only his wife and himself, but the reader also, and all the world besides, may, for aught they know to the contrary, be stark mad._ As Dr. Rowel stepped briskly from the scene of his disaster on the way to his diningroom, he slackened his neckcloth considerably, and with his most critical finger felt very carefully on each side of his gullet, in order to ascertain whether those parts had sustained any material injury; and though he soon convinced himself that no organic disarrangement had resulted, he yet reflected, in the true spirit of an observant practitioner, that a fierce gripe by the throat is but an indifferent stomachic. Whatever other injury was or was not clone, his appetite, at least, felt considerably reduced. Disasters like this, however, being common to every individual who has the care of insane persons, he determined to pass it by unnoticed, and to shake the very recollection of it from off his own mind as soon as possible. Shortly afterwards the doctor sat down to a well-furnished table, in the place usually appropriated to that second-rate character, the _vice_, and directly opposite his wife, who, in the absence of other company than themselves, invariably took the chair. As he helped himself to the breast of a young turkey, which a week previously had stalked and gobbled with pride about his own yard, he remarked,--for his mind reverted to the trick he had put upon Fanny with great complacency,--that never, during the whole course of his experience, had he so cleverly handled a difficult affair as he had that day. The lady to whom he addressed himself might have considered, in the way of the profession, that he alluded to some case of amputation at the hip-joint, or other similar operation equally delicate, as she replied by begging him not to inform her of it that night, as she was already almost overcome with the nervous excitement consequent on the events of the afternoon. “Indeed!” the doctor exclaimed, raising his eyes. “What has occurred? No patient dead, I hope?” “Nothing of the kind,” returned the lady; “only that James Woodruff has been talking again in such an extraordinary manner, that I feel quite faint even now with it. Do reach me that bottle, dear. Really, Rowel, I tell you again, that if he cannot be set at liberty very soon, I shall be compelled to keep out of the way altogether. I will confine myself to this end of the house, and never go within reach of him any more. What a horrible creature he is!” “He has not injured you, has he?” the doctor again inquired, as he involuntarily run his fore-finger round the inner front of his neckerchief.