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54 clear the house and shut the sick man up at M. Auvray's. "After all," he said to himself, "my nephew will get better care there, and I shall be more at ease. Science has recognized that it is well to give the insane change of scene to divert them: I'm doing my duty."

With such thoughts as these he went to sleep, when François took it into his head to tie his hands: what an awakening!

doctor came in with apologies for keeping them waiting. François got up, put his hat on the table, and explained matters with great volubility, while striding up and down the room.

"Monsieur," said he, "this is my maternal uncle, whom I am about to confide to your care. You see in him a man of from forty-five to fifty, hardened to manual labor and the privations of a life of hard work; as to the rest, born of healthy parents, in a family where no case of mental aberration has ever been known. You will not, then, have to contend against an hereditary disorder. His trouble is one of the most curious monomanias which you ever had occasion to examine. He passes with inconceivable rapidity from extreme gayety to extreme depression; it is a singular compound of monomania proper and melancholy."