“I?--of course I know nothing about it. I'd as soon have taken a porcupine for a pillow as I 'd have adventured on the confounded mixture. But, as I was saying, that blessed letter, written by some Princess or other, as I understand, fell into the King's hands, and the consequence was that he sent off immediately to Glencore an order to go down to him at Brighton. Naturally enough, I thought he 'd not go; he had the good and sufficient pretext of his bad health to excuse him. Nobody had seen him abroad in the world for years back, and it was easy enough to say that he could not bear the journey. Nothing of the kind; he received the command as willingly as he might have done an invitation to dinner fifteen years ago, and talked of nothing else for the whole evening after but of his old days and nights in Carlton House; how gracious the Prince used to be to him formerly; how constantly he was a guest at his table; what a brilliant society it was; how full of wit and the rest of it; till, by Jove, what between drinking more wine than he was accustomed to take, and the excitement of his own talking, he became quite wild and unmanageable. He was not drunk, nor anything like it, it was rather the state of a man whose mind had got some sudden shock; for in the midst of perfectly rational conversation, he would fall into paroxysms of violent passion, inveighing against every one, and declaring that he never had possessed one true-hearted, honest friend in his life. “It was not without great difficulty that I got him back to my lodgings, for we had gone to dine at Richmond. Then we put him to bed, and I sent for Hunter, who came on the instant. Though by this time Glencore was much more calm and composed, Hunter called the case brain fever; had his hair cut quite close, and ice applied to the head. Without any knowledge of his history or even of his name, Hunter pronounced him to be a man whose intellect had received some terrible shock, and that the present was simply an acute attack of a long-existent malady.” “Did he use any irritants?” asked Upton, anxiously. “No; he advised nothing but the cold during the night.” “Ah! what a mistake,” sighed Upton, heavily. “It was precisely the case for the cervical lotion I was speaking of. Of course he was much worse next morning?”