violent agitation. "Give me a minute or two first," she said; "I want to
compose myself before I see him."

She sat down on a stone bench outside the door. "Tell me what you know
about this poor man?" she said. "I don't ask out of idle curiosity--I
have a better motive than that. Is he young or old?"

"Judging by his teeth," the superintendent answered, as if he had been
speaking of a horse, "he is certainly young. But his complexion is
completely gone, and his hair has turned gray. So far as we have been
able to make out (when he is willing to speak of himself), these
peculiarities in his personal appearance are due to a narrow escape from
poisoning by accident. But how the accident occurred, and where it
occurred, he either cannot or will not tell us. We know nothing about
him, except that he is absolutely friendless. He speaks English--but it
is with an odd kind of accent--and we don't know whether he is a
foreigner or not. You are to understand, madam, that he is here on
sufferance. This is a royal institution, and, as a rule, we only receive
lunatics of the educated class. But Jack Straw has had wonderful luck.
Being too mad, I suppose, to take care of himself, he was run over in one
of the streets in our neighborhood by the carriage of an exalted
personage, whom it would be an indiscretion on my part even to name. The
personage (an illustrious lady, I may inform you) was so distressed by
the accident--without the slightest need, for the man was not seriously
hurt--that she actually had him brought here in her carriage, and laid
her commands on us to receive him. Ah, Mrs. Wagner, her highness's heart
is worthy of her highness's rank. She occasionally sends to inquire after
the lucky lunatic who rolled under her horse's feet. We don't tell her
what a trouble and expense he is to us. We have had irons specially
invented to control him; and, if I am not mistaken," said the