“I don’t want anything,” said the other, in a loud, bullying voice. “Nonsense,” answered the doctor. “You must keep up your character. Here, John.” He spoke to a lackey, who was ready on the moment with a decanter. To my amazement, the man filled up the gentleman’s breakfast cup with raw brandy. He shifted, glared, hesitated, and caught up the pungent stuff. “Enough is as good as a feast, but more than enough is less than nothing,” howled he, and swallowed the fire at a draught. He had hardly consumed it, when he cast the cup into splinters on the board, staggered to his feet, and, moaning to himself, left the room. The conversation died down for a moment, and was instantly resumed more recklessly than ever. I felt suddenly sick. “He-he!” sniggered my little companion. “He’s been long taking his hint, the fool, and outstaying his welcome. But Peel’s done it at last, I do believe.” I did not ask him what. My spirit felt engulfed in deep waters of terror. I sat dumb and shivering, till the meal ended, and the company broke up and dispersed itself about the grounds. Many, rude, curious, fantastic, came about me to inquire, mockingly or fulsomely, into my malady. To all their solicitations my little companion, who had appropriated me, turned a rough shoulder and rougher tongue. “The lady has confided her case to me, you pestilent cranks!” he screamed, and succeeded in extricating and convoying me to a remoter part of the grounds. On the way we encountered two men, like gamekeepers, carrying a ghastly sheet-covered burden on a litter. “Ho-ho!” said my friend, stopping. “It was arranged for the tower, was it?” “Now, lookee here, Jimmy,” said one of the carriers, while the two paused for a moment, “you’re too precious fond of poking your nose where you ain’t wanted, you are. You go along to your games, and leave your elders to theirs till you’re growed up.” “Grown up!” screeched my companion, whose chin, indeed, was thick with a grey bristle, “grown up, you puppy, you calf, you insolent lout!” Crazy in a moment, he danced in the path, screaming and shaking his fists. The men resumed their way, laughing. Suddenly he caught himself to a sort of reason, white and shaking. “They want to drive me to it,” he said. “They want me to break a blood-vessel; but I see through them, and I won’t be drawn.” He wiped his forehead, and looked anxiously up in my face. “You see it, don’t you?” he said. “The fools are envious of my inches. But you ain’t, are you, being a woman?” “No, no,” I said, smiling, in a sort of ghastly spasm, in full understanding of his mania. “No, no; or should I select you for my champion in this? Let us go on, _please_. Was that--?” “Yes,” he answered, the question that my fainting spirit shrunk from formulating, “yes, it was the Captain--good riddance to a conceited ass.”