I knew that palace of the water-cure well. I had known pleasant days there in happier times, when I thought I would go thither and bathe for no special reason, and had amused myself much with the whims and oddities of the place; all the people 'going to Gravesend by water,' as Sir George Rose used to say. It had been the property of a kindly Scotchman since gone, who has left me pleasant memories of his home-circle and his private stock of 'whusky,' which he administered to me freely at night, when the water-washers were gone to bed, after instructing me in the theoretic virtues of abstinence in his council-chamber in the morning. Now, like other places of the kind, it had lost its home-shape, and passed into the impersonal hands of a company. The presiding medical authority was now a different man. I wonder if he dreams of me sometimes? The first night after my reaching the place a crash came. I could bear this espial no longer; and the dreams of dead dear ones had become so vividly mixed with the nightmare horrors inherited from (what shall I call the asylum?) Pecksniff Hall, that I never knew half I was doing. The professional name for dreams, as I said before, is 'visions.' Dreaming that a warder was upon me, and that a ghost was telling me to run, I jumped up in my sleep and rolled over the nearest banisters. The fall was not severe, and the 'desperate attempt' failed; for I only broke a rib and stove in my breastbone, which proved afterwards handy for the warders to work upon. I was put to bed for a time and taken some care of; and before long was able to drive and stroll about again, and join in lawn-tennis. But the dream-fears and the daily terrors haunted me still; and I still shrank from everybody. At last came the realisation of my constant fear; and I fell into a fit of light-headed wandering, and began calling out at intervals various silly things. What should have been done was to nurse me and pour wine down my throat, and apply the common means of homely restoration. What was done was this: the stout bathmen and servants of the place were sent to hold me down; and I was gagged, and left gagged, till the blood ran down from my mouth. Then came two strange doctors as before, of whose names and faces I am ignorant, and were instructed by my 'friends,' I suppose, to sign a certificate. I was then given a strong dose of opium, and a summons was sent to the Master of Pecksniff Hall, who despatched two stout warders northward by the train, for the impounding of my Herculean frame. One was the good-natured colonial; the other a man whom I held in especial aversion, a fat ex-footman, who afterwards reported his work as 'very good fun,' and had a particular aptitude, when I was lying helpless in bed, for jumping on my breastbone and half throttling me. A fancied resemblance in his moony countenance to an historical face made me, when I was one day dreamily contemplating him