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“But she seemed so absolutely normal in speech, manner–everything. I’ve seen insane persons before now and–“

“Excuse me, but about how many have you seen?”

“Not many, I admit, but–“

“Well, excuse me again, lady, but I thought as much. Well, I have–plenty of ’em I’ve seen in my time. See ’em every day for the matter of that. Listen to me! For instance, now, we’ve got a case up there with us now. He’s been there going on fifteen years; used to be a preacher, highly educated and all that. Look at him and you wouldn’t see a thing out of the way with him except that he’d be wearing a strait-jacket. Talk to him for maybe a week and you wouldn’t notice a single thing wrong about him. He’d just strike you all along as being one of the nicest, mildest, old Christian gents you ever met up with in your whole life. But get him on a certain subject; just mention a certain word to him and he’d tear your throat out with his bare hands if he could get at you.”

“But this poor girl, surely her case is different? Was it really necessary to bind her hands as you’ve done?”

“Lady, about these here violent ones you can’t never tell. Me, I never saw her in my life before I went down after her this morning, and up to now she hasn’t made me a mite of trouble. But I had my warning from them that turned her over to me. Anyhow, all I needed was the story of her own mother, as fine a lady as you’d care to see and just about broken-hearted over all this. You’d think from the way she carried on she was the one that was being put away and not the daughter. And yet, what did the mother swear to on her sacred oath? She swore to the daughter’s having tried, not once but half a dozen separate times to kill her, till she was afraid for her own life–positively!

“Besides, lady, it’s been my experience, and I’ve had a heap of it, that it’s the quiet-acting ones that are apt to strike the quickest and do the most damage when the fit comes on ’em. So taking everything into consideration, I felt like as if I oughter be purty careful handling her on this trip. But she’s all right. Probably nobody on this train, outside of you, knows there’s anything wrong with her and it was accidental-like, so you tell me, the way you come to find out–you taking that seat alongside her and getting into talk with her whilst I was in yonder smoking. It’s better she should be under control thataway than that she should maybe get a spell on her right here in this car or somewheres and me be forced to hold her down by main strength and possibly have to handle her pretty rough. I put it to you now, ain’t it? The way she’s fixed she can’t harm herself nor no one else. You take it from me, lady, that while I’ve been in this business for so long I don’t always get my private feelings harrowed up over the case of a nice-looking young girl like this one is, like an outsider might, still at that I ain’t hard-hearted and I ain’t aiming to be severe just because I can. But what else is there for me to do except what I’m doing? I ask you. Say, it’s funny she talked to you. She ain’t said hardly a word to us since she started. Didn’t even say nothing when I put the hobbles on her.”

“I’m not questioning your judgment,” said Miss Smith, “but she is so pitiable! She seemed to me like some dumb, frightened, wild creature caught in a trap. And despite what you say I’m sure she can’t be mad. Please, may I speak with her again–if she herself doesn’t mind?”