"
Mr. Hardie was puzzled by this sentence, in which the speaker's usual
method was reversed, and the thought was bigger than the words.
"Oh," said he at last, "I see. We ought to incarcerate our children to
keep them from being incarcerated."
"That is one way of putting it with a vengence," said Mr. Osmond staring.
"No; what my good friend means----"
"Is this; where the patient is possessor of an income of such a character
as to enable his friends to show a sincere affection by anticipating the
consequences of neglected morbid phenomena of the brain, there a
lamentable want of humanity is exhibited by the persistent refusal to the
patient, on the part of his relatives, of the incalculable advantage of
the authoritative advice of a competent physician accompanied with the
safeguards and preventives of----"
But ere the mellifluous pleonast had done oiling his paradox with fresh
polysyllables, to make it slip into the banker's narrow understanding, he
met with a curious interruption. Jane Hardie fluttered in to say a man
was at the door accusing himself of being deranged.
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