‘I can’t stand it, and I won’t,’ Frank said to his wife in the first flush of his bitter disappointment.  ’Ever since he came home he has raised Cain generally, with his carpenters, and masons, and painters, and stewing about water-pipes, and sewer-gas, and smells.  He’s mad as a March hare, and if I can’t get rid of him by going to Washington, I’ll do it in some other way.  You know he is crazy, and so do I, and I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles as high as the house.’

And Frank did swear to it, not on a stack of Bibles, but before two or three physicians and Mr. St. Claire, who, at his solicitation, came to Tracy Park, and were closeted with him for an hour or more, while he related his grievances, asserting finally that he considered his brother dangerous, and did not think his family safe with him, citing as proof that he had on one occasion threatened to kill his son Tom for accusing Harold Hastings of theft.

How the matter would have terminated is doubtful, if Arthur himself had not appeared upon the scene, calm, dignified, and courtly in his manner, which insensibly won upon his hearers, as in a few well-chosen and eloquent words, he proceeded to prove that though he might be peculiar in some respects, he was not mad, and that a man might repair his own house, and cut off his own water-pipes, and take up his sewer, and detect a bad smell, and still not be a subject for a lunatic asylum.

‘And,’ he continued, addressing his brother, ’it ill becomes you to take this course against me—­you, who have enriched yourself at my expense, while I have held my peace.  Suppose I require you to give an account of all the money which you have considered necessary for your support and salary—­would you like to do it?  Would the world consider you strictly honorable, or would they call you a lunatic on the subject of money and not responsible for your acts?  But I have no wish to harm you.  I have money enough, and cannot forget that you are my brother.  But molest me, and I shall molest you.  If I go to the asylum you will leave Tracy Park.  If I am allowed to stay here in peace, you can do so, too—­at least, until Gretchen comes, when it will, perhaps, be better for us to separate.  Two masters may manage to scramble along in the same house, but two mistresses never can, and Dora and Gretchen would not be congenial.  Good morning, gentlemen!’ and he bowed himself from the room, leaving Frank covered with confusion and shame as he felt that he was beaten.

The physicians did not think it a case in which they were warranted to interfere.  Neither could conscientiously sign a certificate which should declare Arthur a lunatic, and their advice to Frank was that he should suffer his brother to have his own way in his own house, and when he felt that he could not bear with his idiosyncracies he could go elsewhere.  But it was this going elsewhere which Frank did not fancy; and, after a consultation with his wife, he decided to let matters take their course for a time at least, or until Gretchen came, if she ever did.