Another attempt was made to carry him to the same Retreat, which from mismanagement utterly failed. The insane man was victorious, and he felt himself to be so, over his friends, who he supposed were bent upon cheating and oppressing him. All this not only made him more crazy, but it gave a new shape to his insane ideas. In a conversation which I chanced to have with him, he said to me, ‘It is perfectly evident, doctor, that these Insane Retreats are joint-stock institutions, and the stockholders are chiefly lawyers and doctors and ministers. And it’s good stock too. Just see how much they charge for board—full double at least of the actual expenses. I need not tell you anything about it, however, for you own some of this stock, and you know how profitable it is to you.’ ‘Oh no,’ said I, ‘this is all new to me.’ He looked at me as if he would look me through. He had been deceived so much, that he believed, he trusted no one. Although I gave him the most positive assurance that I owned no such stock, still, in spite of the confidence which he ordinarily reposed in me, he showed that he did after all suspect me on this point, so firmly was this notion about Retreats fastened in his mind. He went on to give his reasons for his opinion. ‘I can look back,’ said he, ‘to my very childhood, and see that from that time to the present, there has been a series of efforts on the part of these stockholders to make me a crazy man; and they at length succeeded, and then contrived the mean plan of tricking me into one of their Retreats. The minister that I lived with when I was ten years old began this scheme, and all the ministers and lawyers and doctors, that I have had anything to do with since that time, have had a hand in it—have exerted their influence on me, all in relation to this one object. It’s a regular money-making business. Of course the stockholders all want to see these Retreats well filled up. Just see how they have treated me lately. They have combined to cross my purposes, break up my plans, defeat my projects, ruin my business, and all this to irritate and disappoint me, and thus craze me. And then, to cap the whole, they lied to me and betrayed me into their prison to die a slow death, paying them all the time about twelve dollars a week. Good stock, doctor, but a cruel business,’ said he, with a most unearthly grin, and a shudder that shook his whole frame. ‘But thank heaven,’ cried he, ‘I’ve escaped their clutches. Though they have ruined me, they shall not have their twelve dollars a week out of me. No, I’ll die first. Such systematic, cheating, lying oppression, I’ll resist to the death.’