Having congratulated Betteredge on the
progress that he had made (he persisted in taking
notes, every time I opened my lips; declining,
at the same time, to pay the slightest attention
to anything said by Mr. Blake); and having
promised to return for a second visit of inspection
in a day or two, we prepared to leave the
house, going out by the back way. Before we
were clear of the passages down-stairs, I was
stopped by Betteredge, just as I was passing the
door which led into his own room.

"Could I say two words to you in private?"
he asked, in a mysterious whisper.

I consented of course. Mr. Blake walked
on to wait for me in the garden, while I
accompanied Betteredge into his room. I fully
anticipated a demand for certain new concessions,
following the precedent already established in
the cases of the stuffed buzzard, and the Cupid's
wing. To my great surprise, Betteredge laid
his hand confidentially on my arm, and put this
extraordinary question to me:

"Mr. Jennings, do you happen to be
acquainted with Robinson Crusoe?"

I answered that I had read Robinson Crusoe
when I was a child.

"Not since then?" inquired Betteredge.

"Not since then."

He fell back a few steps, and looked at me
with an expression of compassionate curiosity,
tempered by superstitious awe.

"He has not read Robinson Crusoe since he
was a child," said Betteredge, speaking to
himself—not to me. "Let's try how Robinson
Crusoe strikes him now!"

He unlocked a cupboard in a corner, and
produced a dirty and dog's-eared book, which
exhaled a strong odour of stale tobacco as he
turned over the leaves. Having found a
passage of which he was apparently in search, he
requested me to join him in the corner; still
mysteriously confidential, and still speaking
under his breath.

"In respect to this hocus-pocus of yours,
sir, with the laudanum and Mr. Franklin
Blake," he began. " While the workpeople
are in the house, my duty as a servant gets the
better of my feelings as a man. When the
workpeople are gone, my feelings as a man get
the better of my duty as a servant. Very
good. Last night, Mr. Jennings, it was borne
in powerfully on my mind that this new
medical enterprise of yours would end badly.
If I had yielded to that secret Dictate, I
should have put all the furniture away again
with my own hands, and have warned the
workmen off the premises when they came the
next morning."

"I am glad to find, from what I have
seen up-stairs," I said, " that you resisted the
secret Dictate."

"Resisted isn't the word," answered Betteredge
" Wrestled is the word. I wrestled,
sir, between the silent orders in my bosom
pulling me one way, and the written orders in
my pocket-book pushing me the other, until
(saving your presence) I was in a cold sweat.
In that dreadful perturbation of mind and
laxity of body, to what remedy did I apply?
To the remedy, sir, which has never failed me
yet for the last thirty years and more—to This
Book!"

He hit the book a sounding blow with his
open hand, and struck out of it a stronger
smell of stale tobacco than ever.

"What did I find here," pursued Betteredge,
"at the first page I opened? This awful
bit, sir, page one hundred and seventy-eight, as
follows:—'Upon these, and many like Reflections,
I afterwards made it a certain rule with
me, That whenever I found those secret Hints
or Pressings of my Mind, to doing, or not doing
any Thing that presented; or to going, this Way,
or that Way, I never failed to obey the secret
Dictate.'—As I live by bread, Mr. Jennings, those
were the first words that met my eye, exactly
at the time when I myself was setting the
secret Dictate at defiance! You don't see
anything at all out of the common in that,
do you, sir?"

"I see a coincidence nothing more."

"You don't feel at all shaken, Mr. Jennings,
in respect to this medical enterprise of
yours?"

"Not the least in the world."

Betteredge stared hard at me, in dead silence.
He closed the book with great deliberation; he
locked it up again in the cupboard with
extraordinary care; he wheeled round, a'nd stared
hard at me once more. Then he spoke.

"Sir," he said gravely, " there are great
allowances to be made for a man who has not
read Robinson Crusoe, since he was a child. I
wish you good morning.

He opened his door with a low bow, and left
me at liberty to find my own way into the
garden. I met Mr. Blake returning to the
house.

"You needn't tell me what has happened,"
he said. " Betteredge has played his last card:
he has made another prophetic discovery in
Robinson Crusoe. Have you humoured his
favourite delusion? No? You have let him
see that you don't believe in Robinson Crusoe?
Mr. Jennings! you have fallen to the lowest
possible place in Betteredge's estimation. Say
what you like, and do what you like, for the
future. You will find that he won't waste
another word on you now."

June 21st.—A short entry must suffice in my
journal to-day.

Mr. Blake has had the worst night that he
has passed yet. I have been obliged, greatly
against my will, to prescribe for him. Men of
his sensitive organisation are fortunately quick
in feeling the effect of remedial measures.
Otherwise, I should be inclined to fear that he
will be totally unfit for the experiment, when
the time comes to try it.

As for myself, after some little remission of
my pains for the last two days, I had an attack
this morning, of which I shall say nothing but
that it has decided me to return to the opium.