Then Mrs. Fogg began to sob; and while she fondled the baby, Mr. Fogg, feeling like a murderer, followed the doctor down stairs.  When they reached the hall, Mr. Fogg drew the doctor aside and said, in a confidential whisper: 

“Doctor, I am going to tell you something, but I want you to promise solemnly that you will keep it a secret.”

“Very well; what is it?”

“You won’t tell Mrs. Fogg?”

“No.”

“Well, doctor, I—­I—­I—­know what is the matter with that baby.”

“You do! you know!  Well, why didn’t you—­What is the matter with it?”

“The fact is, I mesmerized it last night.”

“You did!  Mesmerized it!  And why don’t you rouse it up again?”

“I don’t know how; that’s the mischief of it.  I did it accidentally, you know.  I was sort of fingering around the child’s forehead, and all of a sudden it stopped crying and dropped off.  Can’t you find me a professional mesmerizer to come and undo the baby?”

“I don’t believe I can.  The only one I know of lives in San Francisco, and he couldn’t get here in less than a week even if we should telegraph for him.”

“By that time,” shrieked Mr. Fogg, “the baby’ll be dead and Maria will be insane!  What, under Heaven, are we going to do about it?”

“Let’s hunt up Brown; maybe he knows.”

So they went around to Dr. Brown’s office and revealed the secret to him.  Brown seemed to think that he might perhaps do something to rob the situation of its horrors, and he accompanied Mr. Fogg and Dr. Gill to the house.  When they entered, Mrs. Fogg was rapidly becoming hysterical.  Dr. Brown placed the baby on the bed; he slapped its little hands and rubbed its forehead and dashed cold water in its face.  In a few moments the baby opened its eyes, then it suddenly sat up and began to cry.  Mr. Fogg used to hate that noise, but now it seemed to him sweeter than music.  Mrs. Fogg was wild with joy.  She took the baby in her arms and kissed and hugged it, and then she said,

“What do you think was the matter with him, doctor?”

“Why, your husband says he mesmerized the child,” replied the doctor, incautiously letting the secret drop.

Then Mrs. Fogg looked at the culprit as if she wished to assassinate him; but she merely ejaculated, “Monster!” and flew from the room; and Mr. Fogg, as he went down with the physicians, put on an injured look and said,

“If that baby wants to holloa now, I’m going to let him holloa, if he holloas the top of his head off.”

* * * * *

It was this offence, according to popular rumor, that brought things to a crisis in Mr. Fogg’s family and induced Mrs. Fogg to seek to remove the heavy burden of woe imposed upon her by her husband.  Only a few days later Mr. and Mrs. Fogg knocked at the door of Colonel Coffin’s law office, and then filed in, Mrs. Fogg in advance.  Mr. Fogg, the reader may care to know, was a subdued, weak-eyed and timid person.  He had the air of a victim of perpetual tyranny—­of a man who had been ruthlessly and remorselessly sat upon until his spirit was wholly gone.  And Mrs. Fogg looked as if she might have been his despot.  She opened the conversation by addressing the lawyer: