Sir
Charles Bassett the same: three weeks ago I reported him cured, and the
detaining relative has not even replied to me."
"Got a copy of your letter?"
"Of course. But what if I tell you there is a gentleman here who never
had any business to come, yet he is as much a fixture as the grates. I
took him blindfold along with the house. I signed a deed, and it is so
stringent I can't evade one of my predecessor's engagements. This old
rogue committed himself to my predecessor's care, under medical
certificates; the order he signed himself."
"Illegal, you know."
"Of course; but where's the remedy? The person who signed the order
must rescind it. But this sham lunatic won't rescind it. Altogether the
tenacity of an asylum is prodigious. The statutes are written with
bird-lime. Twenty years ago that old Skinflint found the rates and
taxes intolerable; and doesn't everybody find them intolerable? To
avoid these rates and taxes he shut up his house, captured himself, and
took himself here; and here he will end his days, excluding some
genuine patient, unless _you_ sweep him into the street for me."
"Sindbad, I will try," said Rolfe, solemnly; "but I must begin with Sir
Charles Bassett. By-the-by, about his crotchet?"
"Oh, he has still an extravagant desire for children.
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