Managerial Accounting Creating

Value in a Dynamic Business

Environment 10th Edition Hilton
Test Bank

Full download at link:

Test Bank: https://testbankpack.com/p/test-bank-for-managerial-

accounting-creating-value-in-a-dynamic-business-environment-10th-
edition-hilton-platt-0078025664-9780078025662/

Solution Manual: https://testbankpack.com/p/solution-manual-for-

managerial-accounting-creating-value-in-a-dynamic-business-
environment-10th-edition-hilton-platt-0078025664-9780078025662/

Chapter 05

Activity-Based Costing and Management

True / False Questions

1. In an activity-based costing system, direct materials used would typically be classified as a

unit-level cost.

True False

5-1
Copyright © 2014 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
2. Activity-based costing systems have a tendency to distort product costs.

True False

3. Consumption ratios are useful in determining the existence of product-line diversity.

True False

4. An example of a customer-value-added activity is final painting and polishing of the product.

True False

5. Generally speaking, companies prefer doing business with customers who order small
quantities rather than large quantities.

True False

Multiple Choice Questions

5-2
Copyright © 2014 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
6. Consider the following statements regarding traditional costing systems:

I. Overhead costs are applied to products on the basis of volume-related measures.

II. All manufacturing costs are easily traceable to the goods produced.
III. Traditional costing systems tend to distort unit manufacturing costs when numerous goods
are made that have widely varying production requirements.

Which of the above statements is (are) true?

A. I only.

B. II only.

C. III only.

D. I and III.

E. II and III.

7. Many traditional costing systems:

A. trace manufacturing overhead to individual activities and require the development of

numerous activity-costing rates.

B. write off manufacturing overhead as an expense of the current period.

C. combine widely varying elements of overhead into a single cost pool.

D. use a host of different cost drivers (e.g., number of production setups, inspection hours,
orders processed) to improve the accuracy of product costing.

E. produce results far superior to those achieved with activity-based costing.

5-3
Copyright © 2014 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
8. The following tasks are associated with an activity-based costing system:

1— Assignment of cost to products

2— Calculation of pool rates
3— Identification of cost drivers
4— Identification of cost pools

Which of the following choices correctly expresses the proper order of the preceding tasks?

A. 1, 2, 3, 4.

B. 2, 4, 1, 3.

C. 3, 4, 2, 1.

D. 4, 2, 1, 3.

E. 4, 3, 2, 1.

9. Which of the following is the proper sequence of events in an activity-based costing system?

A. Identification of cost drivers, identification of cost pools, calculation of pool rates,

assignment of cost to products.

B. Identification of cost pools, identification of cost drivers, calculation of pool rates,

assignment of cost to products.

C. Assignment of cost to products, identification of cost pools, identification of cost drivers,

calculation of pool rates.

D. Calculation of pool rates, identification of cost drivers, identification of cost pools,

assignment of cost to products.

E. None of the other answers is correct.

5-4
Copyright © 2014 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
10. Which of the following tasks is not normally associated with an activity-based costing
system?

A. Calculation of pool rates.

B. Identification of cost pools.

C. Preparation of allocation matrices.

D. Identification of cost drivers.

E. Assignment of cost to products.

11. Which of the following is not a broad, cost classification category typically used in activity-
based costing?

A. Unit-level.

B. Batch-level.

C. Product-sustaining level.

D. Facility-level.

E. Management-level.

12. In an activity-based costing system, direct materials used would typically be classified as a:

A. unit-level cost.

B. batch-level cost.

C. product-sustaining cost.

D. facility-level cost.

E. matrix-level cost.

5-5
Copyright © 2014 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
Another document from Scribd.com that is
random and unrelated content:
 Plain, common-sensible Dr. Joliffe thought the line of argument a
little high-flown, and said so in a tone of scrupulous kindness.
“I don’t overstate,” said Brandon. “Let me explain my meaning. The
Republic is rising to a height of moral grandeur that few would have
dared to prophesy for her. But as always, there is a flaw in her armor.
The enemies of the light are seeking it, and if they should find it there is
absolutely nothing between this world and barbarism.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Dr. Joliffe shook a grave head.
“I can tell you that she is about to treat her most august citizen as
Rome, her great prototype, treated Another.”
Dr. Joliffe continued to shake his head. Not only was he puzzled, he
was rather distressed by such an extravagant statement. “How I wish I
could get your mind off this subject!” he said.
“You must not hope to do that,” said Brandon. “It is decreed that I
should lie supine, a helpless log, while night and day my brain is turned
into a weaver’s shuttle. I can do nothing, yet I somehow feel that the
high gods have called me to do everything. This man has no other friend,
and it is for that reason, Joliffe, that I ask you to stand my proxy in his
defense.”
“But I assure you no defense is possible,” said Joliffe, with a feeling
of growing distress.
“Let us brief counsel.”
“No purpose will be served. As you know, the vicar is a most
stubborn man. And if he doesn’t succeed one way he will another. If we
doctors are obdurate he will turn to the Bench, and if the Bench won’t
oblige he’ll have recourse to the military.”
“It hardly seems credible.”
“I agree. But that’s the man. And the worst of it is that from his own
point of view in a time like the present he may be perfectly right.”
“I refuse to believe that he can be right at any time.”
“But surely, a man who sides openly with the enemy ought not to be
at large.”
“Has he gone beyond what Jesus would have done in such
circumstances?”
 “Hardly a practical analogy, I’m afraid. In any case, John Smith is
not Jesus, even if his half-witted old mother may think so. The law is
bound to regard him as a crack-brained rustic, and in my humble opinion
anyone who tries to persuade it that the poor fellow is anything else, will
be very unwise.”
“In other words you decline your help?”
“Only because,” said Dr. Joliffe, “I now see the hopelessness of the
position. Knowing John Smith as I do, I consider that Mr. Perry-
Hennington has made a mountain out of a molehill. Of course he’s a
fanatic on the subject, but the poor, feckless chap is amenable to the law
as it exists at present, and he has no means of escape. It will be far wiser,
believe me, to accept the inevitable. All that his friends can hope to do is
to make things as comfortable for him as possible.”
“That shall be done at any rate,” said Brandon. “It is Perry-
Hennington’s intention, I presume, to have him sent to the county
asylum.”
“It is the only place for him, I’m afraid. But, of course, even there he
will be extremely well treated.”
“I don’t question that, but assuming it to be his destination, I should
like him to live in comfort and dignity. Wouldn’t it be possible for him to
go to some such place as Wellwood Sanatorium?”
“Well, of course,” said Dr. Joliffe, “that is almost a question of ways
and means. Wellwood is an ideal place for the poor fellow. But of course
it is out of the question.”
“Why?”
“The expense.”
“No matter what it may be,” said Brandon, “I shall be only too happy
to bear it.”
“It will not be less than five hundred a year.”
“If it were twice as much I should count it a high privilege to be
allowed to do that for him.”
Dr. Joliffe shook the head of a prudent man over this piece of
quixotism. “Very generous of you,” he said, “but they look after their
patients so extraordinarily well at Broad Hill, that I am sure this expense
is quite unnecessary.”
 Brandon, however, stuck to his plan.
He had now made up his mind that if the worst happened, Wellwood
should be the home of John Smith.
“Very well.” Dr. Joliffe saw that a purposeless opposition could do
no good. “If the necessity arises it shall be arranged for him to go there.
And now I want you to forget all about this miserable matter. Dismiss it
entirely from your thoughts.”
“Impossible,” said Brandon. “We are deliberately closing the Door.”
“Closing the door?”
“For the human race.”
The doctor looked sadly, uncomprehendingly at his patient. “I don’t
understand,” he said.
“Of course you don’t, my dear friend. It is not to be expected that
you should. And at present I can’t enlighten you.”
Dr. Joliffe shook a rather ominous head. Brandon was a mass of
morbid fancies and illusions; and the doctor was very far indeed from
being satisfied with the state in which he found him. He felt it to be his
duty to give a little serious admonition, and then he withdrew from the
room. The nurse was waiting in the dressing room adjoining, and to her
he confided certain misgivings. The patient must stay in bed, he must not
read, he must avoid all things likely to cause worry or excitement. And
beyond everything else his mind must be kept from the subject of John
Smith.
 XXIV
Iaccompanied
the evening of the same day the vicar dined at Longwood. Edith
him. Mr. Murdwell had the forethought to send a car for
his guests, so that a mile journey on a wet night was made en prince.
Mr. Perry-Hennington was not in a mood for dining out. A certain
matter was still in abeyance, and it seemed to hang over him like a cloud.
He felt it was weak and illogical to allow such an affair, which was one
of simple duty, to disturb him. But somehow he was far more upset by it
than he cared to own.
Fortunately, the evening made no great demand upon the guests.
Indeed, it proved to be an agreeable relaxation. There was nothing in the
nature of a party, a fact of which the vicar had been expressly apprised
beforehand; five people, to wit; Mr. Murdwell, his wife and daughter,
Edith and himself.
Mr. Perry-Hennington was well able to appreciate a good dinner. And
in spite of his present rather disgruntled state, he did not remember ever
to have had a better in the course of many years of dining out. The
perfection of Parisian cooking allied to dry champagne was without a
suspicion of war time economy; and though the lavishness of the menu
did not march with the vicar’s recent pronouncements, it was hardly
possible to rebuke it in the present case. Besides, these people were
American; their wealth was said to be beyond the dreams of avarice; and
to judge by the frame in which they were set, there seemed to be little
need for them to economize in anything.
The vicar confided to Edith afterward that he had found their new
neighbors “most entertaining.” And this was strictly true. Intellectually
he was not quite so ossified as his theological outfit made him appear.
Behind the arrogance, the dogmatism, the closed mind, was a certain
shrewd man-of-the-worldliness, conceived on broad and genial lines,
which is seldom lacking in the English upper class. And of that class Mr.
Perry-Hennington was not an unworthy specimen. He could tell a story
with anyone; he knew, had known, and was connected with many
persons whom the world regards as interesting; he was traveled, sociable,
distinguished in manner, and the impression he made upon his host and
upon his hostess more particularly—which after all was the more
important matter—was decidedly favorable.
Mr. Murdwell was a man of international reputation, though sprung
from quite small beginnings in his native Ohio. And behind the
sophisticated naïveté of Jooly his wife, and Bud his daughter, was a well-
marked tendency to think in dukes and duchesses. They had known them
on the Riviera, had studied them in hotels and country houses in divers
lands, and there was little doubt that sooner or later Bud would burgeon
into a princess.
The famille Murdwell had traveled far in a very short time. Its rise
had been one of the romances of scientific and social America. The
genius of Murdwell père, to which the whole world was now paying
tribute, had, among many other things, raised a palace on Fifth Avenue,
acquired property on Long Island, and a villa in Italy. To these was now
added an English country house “for the duration of the war.”
This was the first appearance of the Murdwell ladies in the United
Kingdom, and they were immensely interested in it. They had only been
three months in the country and everything was new. Hitherto their
knowledge of it had been based on the Englishman abroad, the reports of
travelers, and the national output of fiction. As a consequence, they
frankly owned that they had rather underrated it. So far they had been
agreeably surprised to find it not altogether a one-horse affair. It is true
they had arrived in the island at an exceptional time, but somehow it was
more a going concern than they had been led to expect.
For instance, when they were told that the local parson and his
daughter were coming to dinner, they had good-humoredly resigned
themselves to an evening of acute boredom. But one of the social
peculiarities of England, as far as they had seen it at present, was that
things are always just a bit better than you look for—the evening, when
it came, was really so much more entertaining than a similar function
would have been in Kentucky, which they took as the equivalent for
Sussex.
On sight, the meager, high-shouldered, rather frumpish, rather
myopic Miss Thing, with the double-barreled name and the tortoise-shell
spectacles, which she wore with effect, promised to be all that the
lawless fancy of Bud and Jooly had painted her. But that was a first view.
By the time dinner was over they had found things in common with her,
and before the evening was out they were more inclined to sit at her feet
than she was to sit at theirs. Their wonderful food and wine, their clothes
and their surroundings, Bud’s pearls and Jooly’s diamonds, and their talk
of Prince This and the Marquis So-and-So seemed to have not the
slightest effect upon her. She took everything, Bud and Jooly included,
so very much for granted, that their curiosity was piqued. Her dress was
worth about a shilling a yard, her hair was done anyhow, her features did
not conform to their idea of the beautiful, yet she was not in the least
parochial, and both ladies agreed, that had you searched America from
the east coast to the west it would have been hard to find anything quite
like her.
The vicar puzzled them even more. They were not able to range him
at all. Perhaps the thing which impressed them most was “that he didn’t
show his goods in the window.”
Indeed, this fact may have struck Mr. Murdwell himself. For as soon
as the meal was under way he began to discuss, with a frankness and a
humor to which his guests didn’t in the least object, the English custom
of “not showing their goods in the window.”
“And a very bad one, too,” said Mr. Murdwell, raising his glass. “To
my mind it’s one of the reasons that’s brought this war about.”
The vicar asked for enlightenment.
“If your diplomacy had said: ‘Now look here, Fritz, old friend, if you
don’t try to be a little gentleman and keep that torch away from the
powder keg you’ll find big trouble,’ you wouldn’t have had to send for
me to put the Central Empires out of business.”
“Nothing could have prevented this war,” said the vicar in a deep
tone. “It was inevitable.”
“I am not sure that we shall agree about that,” said Mr. Murdwell
coolly. “If you had let them know the strength of your hand they would
never have dared to raise you.”
The vicar shook his head in strong dissent.
“This trouble goes back some way,” said Mr. Murdwell. “It was in
the sixties that you first took to giving people the impression that they
could make doormats of you. And then came the Alabama arbitration
business in which you curled up at our big talk. We said, ‘England’s a
dud,’ and we’ve been saying it ever since. And why? Because like friend
Fritz and all the rest of the push, in diplomacy we take moderation for
weakness.”
“Would you have our diplomacy always in shining armor?” said the
vicar.
“No I wouldn’t. But there’s the golden mean. Think of the way you
let Bismarck put his thumb to his nose.”
“But that’s an old story.”
“The historian of the future will have to tell it, though. It seems to me
that the world has a pretty strong complaint against you. You’ve
underplayed your hand a bit too much. If you had been the Kingpin of
Europe, as you ought to have been, and kept the other scholars in their
places, things might have been different.”
This airy dogmatism amused the vicar. But in most other people it
would have annoyed him extremely.
“Of course I can’t agree,” he said mildly. “I am glad to say we don’t
regard this war as a material issue. For us it is a conflict between right
and wrong.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Murdwell. “And I’ve already figured that out for
myself and that’s why I am here. If I criticize it’s in the spirit of
friendship. In this war you’ve gone big. The fact is, you are a bigger
proposition than outsiders thought. And the longer I stay here the sharper
it bites me. Nobody knows what your resources are. Take our neighbor at
Hart’s Ghyll. When I went the other day to make friends with him, it
took my breath away to think of a man like that volunteering as a tommy
to be frizzled in Gallipoli.”
“But why shouldn’t he,” said the vicar, “if he felt it to be his duty?”
“As you say, why not? But it’s large—for a man like that.”
“Surely not more so for him than for anyone else.”
“There we shan’t agree. There’s a kind of man who can’t keep out of
a scrap wherever one happens to be going. And in these islands you’ve
got more of that sort to the square mile than anywhere else I’ve visited,
although I’ve not yet seen the Basutos. But Gervase Brandon is not of
that type. War is against every instinct that man’s got. He hates it with
every fiber of his nature.”
 “There are many thousands like him,” said the vicar; “many
thousands who have simply given their lives—and more than their lives
—in a just quarrel.”
“I know. But the quarrel was not his, and he didn’t make it. And it
was not as if, like the Belgians, the French, and the Russians, he had the
Hun on his doorstep. It would have been quite easy for a man like that to
say: ‘Leave it to the British Navy. Sooner or later they are bound to clear
up the mess.’”
“He was too honest to do that,” said the vicar. “He saw that a test
case had arisen between right and wrong, between God and Antichrist,
and he simply went and did his duty.”
“Well, I can only say,” Mr. Murdwell rejoined, “that when I saw him
the other day he seemed to believe in neither.”
“That’s because you don’t really know him. Just now, it is true, he is
in rather a disturbed state mentally. He has always had a skeptical mind,
and there have been times when I’ve been tempted to think that he gave
it too much latitude. And just now he is suffering a bad reaction after the
horrors he’s been through. And of course he has had to give up the hope
of ever walking again. But whatever the opinions of such a man may be,
it is only right and fair to judge him by his actions.”
“Yes, he’s made a big sacrifice. And the tragedy of it is he feels now
that he’s made it in vain.”
“His mental health is not what it might be just now, poor fellow. He
has said things to me about Prussia winning, even if she loses and so on,
which I know he cannot really believe.”
“Why not?”
“Because Gervase Brandon is too true an Englishman ever to doubt
the spirit of the race. He is depressed just now about a very trivial matter.
He has magnified it out of all proportion, whereas had he been fit and
well he would not have given it a second thought. No, Gervase Brandon
is not the man to despair of the Republic. He is part and parcel of
England herself, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone.”
“I see he’s all that. In fact he belongs to one of your first families,
with the most beautiful place on the countryside, and the manes of his
ancestors, who went to the Crusades, all around him. No, I suppose he
couldn’t help doing as he did, if you come to figure it out.”
 “He was without a choice in the matter as he freely admits.”
“And yet that man’s a highbrow of highbrows. His knowledge
amazed me—not on his own subject, of which he didn’t speak, and I
didn’t either, because I know nothing about it, but on my own—on which
I claim to know just a little more than anyone else.”
“On the subject of Murdwell’s Law?” said the vicar with an air of
keen interest.
But dinner was now at an end, and as the inexhaustible subject of
Murdwell’s Law was at all times a little too much for the ladies of the
house, they made good their escape before its discoverer could hoist
himself upon a theme which promised to revolutionize the world of
physical science.
 XXV
“Phad fled,
apart,” said Mr. Murdwell, as soon as Bud, Edith and Jooly
“or whatever our neighbor’s secret vice may be, he’s got
the strongest brain I’ve come up against lately.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” said the vicar. “Of course he’s
by way of being a scholar, a poet, an independent thinker, and all that
sort of thing, but since he’s been knocked out I’m afraid he can never be
the man he was.”
Mr. Murdwell confessed to surprise also. “I don’t know what he may
have been,” he said, “before he went to Gallipoli; I can only say that
when I made his acquaintance the other day, it seemed a great privilege
to talk to him.”
“Very interesting to know that,” said the vicar.
“He’s the only layman I’ve met who could grasp, on sight, the
principle on which Murdwell’s Law depends. And more than that. When
by his request I explained to him as briefly as I could the theory of the
whole thing, he laid his finger at once on the weak link in the chain. I
could hardly believe that he hadn’t a regular scientific training, and that
he hadn’t made researches of his own into radioactivity.”
“He probably has.”
“He says not. And he knew nothing of my theory, but he said at once
that I had only to restate my formula to alter the nature of war
altogether.”
“And is that true?”
“Not a doubt of it. That’s why I’m here, and incidentally that’s why I
have such a queer-looking butler. You noticed him, no doubt?”
The vicar had.
“I’ll tell you a little secret. That man is one of New York’s smartest
detectives, and he never lets me out of his sight.”
“Really!” said the vicar, drawing warily at a very large cigar.
 “You see, at present it’s a nice question whether certain people can
hand Gazelee Payne Murdwell his medicine before he hands them theirs.
That’s what it all boils down to, you know.”
“Really!” said the vicar.
“If Mr. Murdwell with the help of his committee of Allied scientists
can solve the problem of restating his formula in terms of atomic energy,
the near future will be full of perplexity for this planet.”
“Do I understand,” said the vicar, drawing at his cigar, “that you are
trying some terrible experiment?”
“You may take it that it is so. And we are already causing sleepless
nights in certain quarters. The next few years may see warfare of a very
different kind.”
“But surely,” said the vicar, “every law, human and divine, forbids
further diabolism?”
“Nothing is forbidden to science. It works miracles. And it is merely
at the threshold of its power.”
“Yet, assuming, Mr. Murdwell,” said the vicar solemnly, “that your
theory is correct and that you are able to do all this, what do you suppose
will be the future of the human race?”
Mr. Murdwell did not answer the question at once. When answer he
did, it was in a voice of much gravity. “There we come up against
something that won’t bear looking at. Strictly speaking, the human race
has no future. Unless another spirit comes into the world the human race
is doomed.”
“Undoubtedly,” said the vicar.
“Science can destroy organic life quicker than nature can replace it.
And what it does now is very little compared to what it may do a few
years hence.”
“Quite so,” said the vicar.
“The vistas opened up by Murdwell’s Law in the way of self-
immolation don’t bear thinking about. A time is coming when it may be
possible to sweep a whole continent bare of life from end to end.”
“And that, my friend, is a logical outcome of materialism, the
negation of God.”
 “Not a doubt of it,” said Mr. Murdwell, in his dry way. “It seems to
me that some of you gentlemen in broadcloth will soon have to think
about putting in a bit of overtime.”
 XXVI
Gdepressed.
home with Edith in his host’s car, the vicar was thoughtful and
He had enjoyed his evening, he had been entertained, even
exhilarated by it, yet in a curious, subtle way it had shown him the
writing on the wall. His host was a portent. Regard as one would this
lean-faced, church-going American, he was a very sinister phenomenon.
The vicar had little or no imagination, but he saw that Mr. Murdwell’s
conclusions were inescapable.
For the next few days, however, Mr. Perry-Hennington was not able
to give much attention to the doom of mankind. There were matters
nearer at hand. He led a busy life in his parish, and in the larger parish of
his local world. A mighty sitter on committees, a born bureaucrat, it was
hardly his fault that he was less a spiritual force than a man of business.
He was an extremely conscientious worker, never sparing himself in the
service of others, yet that service connoted the common weal rather than
the personal life.
In the course of a week a very trying matter came to a head. While it
was maturing the vicar kept his own counsel very strictly. He did not go
near Hart’s Ghyll, nor did he mention the subject to Edith. But one
evening he dined three quarters of an hour earlier than usual, and then as
the shadows were deepening upon Ashdown he took his hat and made
his way to the common along the familiar path. As he came to Parson’s
Corner, the village name for the lane’s debouch to the green, he stopped
and looked furtively about. By the priest’s stone, still clearly visible in
the evening half-light, a slight, frail, bareheaded figure was kneeling as if
in prayer. The vicar took out his watch and consulted it anxiously, and
then he scanned all points of the compass with an air of painful
expectancy. Careful arrangements had been made with the proper
authorities and disagreeable, even repugnant as was the whole matter, he
felt it to be his duty to see them carried out.
The shadows grew deeper upon Ashdown. At last there came a
distant crunch of gravel, and the vicar perceived a closed motor car
creeping up stealthily from the village and past the widow’s cottage. As
it came slowly toward him round the bend in the road he hailed it with a
wave of the hand. It stopped within a few yards and two burly, sinister-
looking men got out.
“Good evening, sir,” said the foremost of these.
Involuntarily the vicar held up a finger.
“He’s there,” he whispered. And he pointed to the figure kneeling by
the stone. He then added in a voice of deepening emotion, “I trust you
will not use any kind of violence.”
There was no need to do so, for it proved an extremely simple matter.
Yet one witness of it was never to forget the scene that followed. Very
cautiously the two men crept across the grass, while the vicar, unwilling
to be seen by the victim, concealed himself in a thicket near by. From his
ambush he saw the man rise to his feet at the approach of his captors, he
saw his calm, fixed look, and he heard the singular words proceed from
his lips, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
A feeling of indignant horror swept through Mr. Perry-Hennington.
He could only interpret the speech as one more atrocious blasphemy, for
he had caught the strange upward look, as if to the God in the sky, which
had accompanied the words. Somehow the gesture had revolted him, yet
in another in such circumstances it would have been sublime. And the
almost beautiful humility of the man walking passively between his
captors through the summer twilight to his doom, with such words on his
lips, such thoughts in his heart, filled the vicar with an odd conflict of
sensations.
The man entered the car with the same curious air of submission.
From his ambush the vicar watched it turn and go swiftly away, past the
widow’s cottage; and then faint of soul, but sustained by a sense of duty,
he walked slowly down the road as far as Mrs. Bent’s. To that simple
dame, who opened the door to his knock, he said: “Kindly tell your
neighbor, Mrs. Smith, that John may be late for his supper, and that if he
is not home by ten o’clock he may not return tonight.”
Anxiously pondering whether he had taken the wisest and gentlest
means of breaking the news to an invalid woman, Mr. Perry-Hennington
returned to the vicarage. He passed a wakeful and unhappy night, in
which he was troubled by many things; and at luncheon next day, in the
course of a scene with Edith they gained intensity.
 “Did you know, father,” she said in a tone of acute distress, “that
John Smith was removed last evening without the slightest warning?”
The vicar admitted that he was aware of the fact.
“And do you know,” said Edith, in a voice of growing emotion, “that
the shock killed his mother?”
“Killed his mother!” Mr. Perry-Hennington heard that news for the
first time. “The old lady is dead!”
“She died last night.”
The vicar was much upset. He did not speak for some time, but at last
he said: “Someone has blundered. I warned her neighbor, Mrs. Bent, to
be particularly careful how she broke the news to her. I was at pains to
choose Mrs. Bent, a sensible woman whom I thought I could trust. I felt
the shock would be less if the news came from a neighbor instead of
from me. But I see”—bitterness mingled now with the concern in the
vicar’s tone—“that it would have been far wiser had I taken the whole
responsibility upon myself.”
“I’m not sure that it would,” said Edith. “Mrs. Bent says the poor
thing knew what had happened without being told.”
“She couldn’t have known anything of the kind. That’s quite
impossible. Every precaution was taken to spare her a shock. I saw to it
myself that all the arrangements were properly carried out. Last evening
at dusk a car with two attendants from Wellwood Sanatorium drove up to
the common, popped the poor fellow inside and took him away without a
soul in the village being the wiser. I was there and saw the thing done. It
went without a hitch. No one was by, that I will swear to. And then I
went to Mrs. Bent and I said: ‘Kindly tell Mrs. Smith that John may be
late for his supper, and that if he is not home by ten o’clock he may not
return tonight.’ Not another word was said. Ever since I got the
magistrates’ order I have given the matter anxious consideration. The
details of the plan were most carefully thought out in order to spare the
poor old woman as much as possible, and to defeat public curiosity.
Moreover, I am quite sure that unless Mrs. Bent exceeded her
instructions, which is hardly likely to have been the case, the poor old
thing could not have died from shock.”
“Mrs. Bent’s own version,” said Edith, “is that as soon as she entered
the cottage and before she spoke a word, Mrs. Smith said to her:
‘Neighbor, you’ve come to tell me that they’ve taken my son. I shall
never see him again this side the Resurrection. But I am not afraid. The
God of Righteousness has promised to take care of me.’ Mrs. Bent was
quite astonished. She didn’t know what was meant.”
“How could Mrs. Smith have known? Who could have told her?”
“She said to Mrs. Bent that God Himself had appeared to her. Mrs.
Bent saw that she was sinking even then. Dr. Joliffe was sent for at once,
but before he could get there Mrs. Smith was dead.”
The vicar was deeply moved by the tragic story. It was a sequel
which he had not been able to foresee. The swiftness of the stroke in a
measure softened the terrible sense of direct responsibility; none the less
he was much upset.
As for Edith, the sequence of events had filled her with an emotion
little short of horror. It was in her voice and her eyes as she now
discussed them. A feeling of intolerable pain came upon her as she
realized what a very important part in the tragedy she had played. It was
her complaint against John Smith which lay at the root of all.
Father and daughter were very unhappy. Edith was inclined to blame
herself more than she blamed the vicar. Her loyal nature was capable of
great generosity, and it showed itself now in taking the chief share of the
catastrophe upon herself. She was bound to believe that her father had
taken a greatly exaggerated view of John Smith’s heresies, but his
sincerity was beyond question. The vicar’s zeal had wrought irreparable
harm, but knowing him for the man he was, it was impossible to blame
him.
As soon as luncheon was over the vicar set out for Dr. Joliffe’s. He
was a man of strong, imperious will, and in this sudden flux of events he
felt called to exercise it to the full. Had he done right? In spite of a
limited horizon, in spite of a fixed determination not to allow himself a
doubt in the matter, he was unable to prevent a sinister little demon
leaping into his brain as he crossed the village green, and saw on the one
hand a deserted pile of stone, on the other the lowered blinds of the
widow’s cottage.
It was futile to ask the question now. He could not call the dead to
life. Nor could he revoke the processes of the law. John Smith was under
lock and key at Wellwood Asylum for the good of the state. Armed with
the opinion of Dr. Parker and Dr. Murfin, a Welbeck Street specialist, it
had not been a difficult matter to convince the county bench that the
realm would be the safer for a measure so drastic. But was it? All the
vicar’s power of will was needed to allay the horrid demon voice. In fact
he had not quite succeeded by the time he entered Dr. Joliffe’s gate.
As was to be expected, Joliffe had scant consolation to offer. “Tu l’as
voulu, Georges Dandin,” was his attitude. The vicar had shown himself
an obstinate, narrow man, and even if absolute sincerity and transparent
honesty formed his excuse, somehow it was not an easy one to accept.
“Pity you didn’t take advice,” Joliffe ventured to remark.
“I don’t reproach myself,” said the vicar stiffly. “It had to be done.
The public interest called for it. But I wish that old woman could have
been spared the shock. Every precaution was taken, the removal was
most carefully planned, the whole thing went without a hitch. I can’t
think how the news got out.”
Dr. Joliffe confessed that he was equally at a loss. He had questioned
Mrs. Bent closely upon the matter, and she had declared that John’s
mother had said that God had told her something terrible was going to
happen to her son. He had told her also that they were about to be parted,
and that she would never see him again in her present life.
“An amazing prepossession,” said the vicar.
Dr. Joliffe was inclined to consider it a remarkable piece of
clairvoyance.
“I was not aware that she laid claim to powers of that kind,” said the
vicar.
“Nor I,” said the doctor. “Of course she was always an unusual sort
of woman, and deeply religious.”
“Evidently there was a great bond of sympathy between her and her
son.”
Dr. Joliffe agreed. There was reason, also, to believe that the son was
a man of unusual powers.
“Why do you think that?” said the vicar sharply.
“It is Brandon’s opinion.”
The vicar shook a grave head. “I’m sorry to say that Brandon’s
opinion is not conclusive, poor fellow. He is very far from being the man
he was. Between ourselves I fear his mind is going.”
The doctor was loth to admit so much. He greatly feared for
Brandon, it was true; moreover John Smith had gained such an
intellectual ascendancy over him that it seemed to point to the vicar’s
conclusion; at the same time Joliffe was unwilling to believe that
Brandon’s estimate of the man’s genius was wholly the fruit of
aberration.
“But,” rejoined the vicar, “Brandon is a very highly educated man.
And a highly educated man has no right to such an opinion.”
“Well, you know, when I was in Brombridge the other day I met old
Dunn, the high master of the grammar school where John Smith got his
education. I asked him if he remembered him.”
“Well?”
“Not only did he remember him, but he said that John Smith was by
far the most remarkable boy who had ever passed through his hands.”
“Then why didn’t Dunn make something of him?”
“Because the lad’s health forbade hard regular study. Otherwise he
must have gone far.”
“That is more than one can believe.”
“I can only say that Dunn is reckoned a first-rate judge of a boy’s
possibilities.”
“Unduly partial to his own pupils I believe. It was on his advice and
due to his interference that my gardener’s eldest boy took his law final
and became a solicitor, and I felt obliged to part with a good servant in
consequence.”
“This poor fellow is hardly a pupil to be proud of. Dunn says he
looks upon it as the tragedy of his own scholastic life that such powers as
John Smith’s have borne no fruit. He had the most original mind of any
boy he has known.”
“In other words the most cranky mind,” said the vicar impatiently. “I
believe he has suffered all his life from hallucinations.”
“Dunn didn’t say that.”
“Had he heard of the course we were taking?”
 “He didn’t mention the matter and I was careful not to refer to it. But
I won’t answer for Parker.”
“Parker promised not to speak of it to anyone. It is known to
Whymper and Jekyll and one other magistrate, and I believe was
mentioned to General Clarke at the Depot, but in the public interest it
was thought advisable not to let it go farther. Not that it really matters.
The man is of no importance anyway, and he is far better off where he
now is. One will always regret the old mother, but the man himself will
be extremely well cared for at a place like Wellwood.”
“No doubt,” said Dr. Joliffe rather drily.
“There again Brandon has behaved quixotically. After all, this man
belongs to the working class. He would have been quite well looked after
at the county asylum at Broad Hill, where such people are taken care of
at the public charge. Still, that was done on your authority, Joliffe.”
“Brandon insisted that it should be done.”
“Well, it all goes to show that the dear fellow is not the man he was.
Of course he’s rich, but it will cost him at least five hundred a year for an
indefinite period to keep this man at Wellwood.”
“I pointed that out to him. But he had fully made up his mind. And
he was so upset by the whole affair that it seemed wise not to raise
difficulties.”
“All very well. But I think my niece should have been consulted.
However—there it is! But it’s pure quixotism to say the least. By the
way, does Brandon know what happened yesterday?”
“He knew nothing when I saw him this morning.”
“How is he?”
“Still confined to his room with lingering traces of a temperature.”
“Had he heard that Murfin’s report was unfavorable?”
“He takes it for granted.”
“Takes it for granted! Pray why should he? I hope he doesn’t think
that Murfin is not entirely impartial and dependable.”
“He has nothing against Murfin personally.” There was a gleam of
malice in Joliffe’s eye. “But he says it is too much to hope for fair play
for John Smith in such a world as the present.”
 “There speaks a disordered mind.” Heat was in the vicar’s tone. “We
have taken every possible precaution. Brandon must realize that. Every
consideration has been shown, and I am bound to say, speaking from
first-hand knowledge, that our local bench has behaved in a most
humane and enlightened manner.”
“Brandon will not agree with you there, I fancy.”
“Would he have had us send the man to jail?” Mr. Perry-
Hennington’s temperature was still going up steadily.
“He says John Smith has been condemned without a trial.” For a
reason Joliffe could not explain he was beginning to dislike the vicar
intensely. “And he says that if the evidence is to be believed even Jesus
had a trial.”
“Monstrous!” said the vicar. “A perfectly monstrous parallel!”
 XXVII
TBrandon’s
interview with Dr. Joliffe ruffled the vicar. The repetition of
words was ill-timed, nor was it easy to forgive Brandon for
uttering them. Action had been taken in the public interest and Mr. Perry-
Hennington could not endure a breath of criticism. One way and another
it had cost him a good deal. It was only the inspiration of a high and pure
motive and the fact that he had no personal ax to grind which had
enabled him to carry out the most difficult, the most delicate, and quite
the most thankless task in which he had ever been involved.
In the vicar’s opinion he had reason to be satisfied with the finesse he
had used; moreover, he had not the slightest doubt that the body politic,
of which Brandon and Joliffe were members, had been laid under a deep
obligation. Certainly he had no need to reproach himself in the matter.
Without exciting remark of any kind, a very undesirable person, capable
of doing infinite mischief, had been placed out of harm’s way. Officious
villagers had been referred to the police; and the vicar hoped to soften
any stab his conscience might sustain in regard to the widow by
defraying the expenses of her funeral out of his own pocket.
In the meantime Brandon had a severe relapse. Any hope of mental
serenity had for a time been destroyed. The cause of his friend weighed
upon him so heavily that at first it seemed he might not recover from the
blow. He mourned him constantly and presently arose the fear that he
was about to die.
In this perilous phase only one thing stood between the sufferer and
the death which in many ways would have been welcome. The will to
live was not evoked in him by wife or children or a sense of duty to
society; in the last resort it was simply that he felt a sacred task had been
laid upon him. His poor friend had been put out of life by the kind of
stupidity against which the world has always been defenseless, and from
which history is the only court of appeal. But the sense of a great wrong,
which henceforward it must be his life’s business to redress, somehow
gave Brandon the motive power to continue an existence which had
become almost unendurable.
 He must find the means to vindicate his friend. Lying in extremis,
with the life of the senses slipping out of his grasp, the idea produced a
miraculous rebirth. It contained a germ of the central energy, faint and
discreet, yet with the power to imbue a shattered existence with the will
to be.
As soon as the new purpose took shape in his mind, he grew visibly
stronger, in outward mental life at least. By now he had small hope or
none that he would ever recover the use of his legs, but the sense of utter,
futile weariness which had fastened upon him began to pass. And the
new power came from a source deep down in the soul, of which for the
first time he gained apperception.
For several weeks after the mischief had been wrought, Brandon
declined to see the vicar. He did not impugn his sincerity. Too well he
knew the nature of the man to believe that he had acted from a trivial or
unworthy motive. But it seemed impossible for one of Brandon’s liberal
mind to forgive crass wrongheadedness raised to the nth power.
Now that the will to live had been evoked, Brandon clung with
pathetic tenacity to any frail straw of hope of physical recovery. He felt
within himself how slight they were, but as the weeks of slow torment
passed he never quite gave up. All the resources of modern science were
at his service and they were used to the full. No known means was
neglected of restoring the vital current to the outraged organism.
Massage and radiant heat were applied, electricity was shot through his
skin, he submitted to the newest serums, the latest treatments, but the
unhappy weeks went by and the sufferer remained dead from the waist
down.
Indeed, the sole effect was that at last he was tempted to ask himself
whether he had been wise in the first instance to drive the will to its
almost superhuman effort to retain physical life. Time and again in these
weeks of darkness that doubt recurred to him. The act of despotism of
which he had been the witness, against which he had struggled with all
the power he still possessed, weighed upon him increasingly. Somehow
the whole miserable affair seemed to involve all the sources of his faith.
What was that faith? He had gone to the wars of his country in the
spirit of a modern Crusader, of one not expecting too much from the
world or his fellow men, of one who was inclined to regard almost the
whole of the Bible as a legend, but yet a staunch believer in the essential
decency of his own nation, his own people, and imbued with the idea
that somewhere in the universe there was a God of Righteousness who
was striving to create Himself.
But now a wound had been dealt him in the house of his friends.
 XXVIII
Fwriteseveral months Brandon heard nothing of John Smith. Not able to
himself, he had not the courage to dictate a letter. In such
circumstances there was nothing to be said which did not seem an
impertinence, yet many times he was possessed by an intense desire to
communicate. Day by day the man himself remained at the root of
Brandon’s thoughts.
In their last interview John had said that he had a great work to do.
Although his fate had even then been foreshadowed, he had made that
declaration; moreover, he had expressed a serene confidence that grace
would be given for his task.
From the first Brandon had had a great curiosity as to what that task
could be. Believing implicitly in the full mental and moral responsibility
of his friend, he would not permit a doubt of his capacity. And yet it was
only too likely that the conditions in which his life was now passed
would paralyze a wonderful mind. Brandon had done all that lay in his
power to lighten its lot; he had not spared money to provide reasonable
comfort, reasonable amenity of surroundings; books and papers had gone
to Wellwood from time to time; all that could be done by a friend’s
devotion had been done to sustain John Smith and keep his soul alive.
At last the silence was broken. Brandon received a letter from
Wellwood, expressing deep gratitude for this solicitude. But it also
expressed far more. It disclosed a penetration of thought, a power of
vision, above all a real nobility of temper whose only parallel in the mind
of Brandon was that of Socrates in similar but less degrading
circumstances.
Somehow Brandon was comforted. The transcendent qualities he had
long perceived in this man were here in their fullness. Amid the Stygian
glooms of a world ever groping in darkness, a great light shone. In
Brandon’s opinion it was better to be immured with John Smith in
Wellwood Sanatorium than to enjoy the sanctions of human freedom.
In the course of a full letter, which Brandon read again and again,
John Smith referred to a work upon which he was engaged. He was
going forward with his task, and with the help of others it was nearing
fulfillment. He did not disclose what the task was, nor did he refer to
“the others” specifically.
Weeks passed. Visibly helped by John Smith’s letter, Brandon, to the
joy of his friends, regained much of his mental poise. The dark clouds of
a few months back were slowly dispersed, but in body he remained inert,
and now without hope of cure. And then one morning at the beginning of
December there came a second letter from Wellwood.
It merely contained these words: “Come soon. I need you.”
Such authoritative brevity was for Brandon a command which he felt
he must obey. But he was at once aware that he could only get to
Wellwood in the teeth of a junta. Wife, doctor, nurse, all had very strong
reasons to urge against a journey of nearly twenty miles in the middle of
winter to such a place on such a pretext. To them the summons itself was
the caprice of an unsound mind, the wish to obey it the whim of a sick
man.
But in this, as they were to learn, they underrated the forces now at
work. Fully set on obeying the summons, Brandon would brook no
refusal. In vain Millicent dissuaded, in vain Joliffe and the nurse issued a
ukase. Come what might he must see John Smith; if the heavens fell he
must go to Wellwood.
Opposition raised Brandon’s will to such a pitch that at last his
guardians had to consider the question very seriously. And they
reluctantly saw that beyond the amount of trouble involved there was no
real reason why he should not have his way. Prejudice, it was true, also
entered into the matter; doctor and nurse agreed that it could not be good
for a sick man to visit such a place as Wellwood. But the sick man
declared he alone must be judge of that; and as a growing excitement
threatened a return of fever, consent was reluctantly given for a letter to
be written to the chief medical officer at Wellwood for permission to see
John Smith.
Millicent Brandon wrote the letter at the invalid’s dictation, devoutly
hoping the while that its purpose would fail. Alas for the frailty of human
hopes in the scale of official perversity! By return of post came full
permission to visit the patient at any time. In the presence of this
bombshell nothing was left but to submit with a good grace to the
inevitable.
 Accordingly, in the gray of a December afternoon, Brandon made the
journey to Wellwood by motor. It hardly took an hour. Little of the
landscape was visible in the winter half-light, and the place itself was
unable to reveal the beauties of its setting. Run on modern lines with
accommodation for a hundred patients, it had the comforts of a home to
offer and a very great deal in the way of human kindness. To one in John
Smith’s rank of life it was a place of luxury; to those whose lot had been
cast on more liberal lines there was little to complain of in regard to
food, housing, reasonable recreation. Yet to each and all of its inmates,
from the most open and amenable to the most sullen and defiant, it had
one truly dreadful drawback. They were not there of their own free will,
but were held by the order of the State.
That simple but terrible fact galled one and all like a chain. And few
cherished any real hope of ever getting free. “Abandon hope all ye who
enter here,” might have been engraved above the pleasant portals of this
polite prison. Once behind those doors, the young and the old alike felt
themselves caught in the meshes of a deep-laid conspiracy, of a darkness
and a subtlety beyond belief. Every attempt at freedom was a struggle
against fate, every effort to break the fetters of the law riveted them more
securely. From time to time the patients were visited by doctors,
magistrates, clergymen, commissioners in lunacy, but these came as a
concession to the wisdom and humanity of an abstract conception.
Insight, hope, healing, came not in their train.
Brandon felt a sudden chill of soul as he was lifted by his chauffeur
and his valet from the car and carried into the light and the suffocating
warmth beyond those ornate, nail-studded doors. The place was
overheated, yet to Brandon it had an effect of sudden immersion in icy
water. There was something in its atmosphere which struck right down to
the roots of his being. It was so subtle yet so deadly that a nausea came
upon him. And yet, as he was soon to realize, this emotion had its source
in his own weakness, in his own state of extreme mental tension.
Brandon was carried into a private room and was there received by
the chief medical officer, Dr. Thorp, to whom he was known by hearsay.
And it was his privilege to have a conversation with a humane and
enlightened man, which interested him profoundly.
Dr. Thorp stood very high in his profession, and his many years’
experience of mental cases was wide and deep. For him the subject with
which he dealt, terrible as it was, had an all-absorbing interest. It offered
to the researches of science a boundless field; moreover, this expert had a
power over himself, and was therefore able to keep a sane, cool,
balanced judgment in the midst of perils which too often overthrew his
fellow workers. In a word, he could detach the part from the whole and
so prevent the mind from being subdued to that in which it worked.
In Dr. Thorp’s cozy room, under the bust of Æsculapius, Brandon
had a talk in which he learned many things. The chief medical officer
spoke with a frankness, a fair-minded desire to be impartial, which
Brandon somehow had not looked for. To begin with he did not hesitate
to describe the case of John Smith as quite the most remarkable that had
ever come into his ken. And the fact that Brandon had known him
intimately for many years, that he had always been his friend and
champion, and that grievously stricken as he was, he had come to see
him now, appeared in the eyes of Dr. Thorp to give this visitor an
importance altogether unusual.
“I welcome you here, Mr. Brandon, for several reasons,” he said.
“Apart from the fact that you pay John’s bills every quarter, and that he
always speaks of you in the most affectionate terms, I am hoping that
you will be able to add to our knowledge of the dear fellow himself.”
Somehow Brandon was a little startled by the epithet. It had an odd
sound on official lips. He would have expected it to fall almost as soon
from the governor of a jail. The doctor met Brandon’s look of surprise
with a smile. “It’s the only way to describe him,” he said. “But he is a
great puzzle to us all. And if in any way you can help us to solve him we
shall be much in your debt.”
“There is little I can tell you,” said Brandon, “that you don’t already
know. And that little I’ll preface with a simple statement which I hope
will not annoy you too much. It’s my unshakable belief that John Smith
ought not to be here.”
A perceptible shadow crossed the alert face of Dr. Thorp. “It is my
province to disagree with you,” he said very gravely. “Not for a moment
could I allow myself to hold anyone here against his will if I thought him
entirely sane, normal, rational.”
“I readily understand that,” said Brandon with his air of charming
courtesy. “But may I ask what means are open to you in an institution of
this kind of forming an impartial judgment?”
 Dr. Thorp answered the question with a frankness which greatly
prepossessed Brandon in his favor. “I readily admit that for us here an
impartial judgment is hardly possible. John Smith has been certified
insane in the particular way that the law requires, and we are only able to
approach his case in the light of that knowledge.”
“Yes, that I quite understand. But may I ask this question? Had John
Smith not been certified as a lunatic when he came here, had he, let us
assume, come here on probation, could you conscientiously certify him
by the light of your present knowledge?”
“You have asked a most difficult question, but I will answer it as well
as I can. As a private individual, although he shows certain symptoms
which sooner or later are bound, in my judgment, to lead to serious
mental derangement, he is not likely at present to do actual harm; in fact
he is capable of doing positive good; but of course, in a time like this he
has to be considered as a political entity, and it is on these grounds I
understand that he is here to be taken care of until the war is over.”
“Prima facie, that is true,” said Brandon. “In other words, a man of
pure and noble genius is the victim of a shallow, sectarian ignorance
which deserves to be the laughing-stock of the universe.”
The words were extravagant, and a certain violence of gesture
accompanied them, but the reaction of Dr. Thorp was serious, even
troubled. “You are bent on involving me in the most difficult problem of
my experience,” he said, after a pause.
“I am. And perhaps—who knows?—in the most difficult problem the
civilized world has yet had to face.”
“As you say, who knows?” said Dr. Thorp, a cloud growing on his
sensitive face.
“In other words,” said Brandon, “you are ready to admit that a man
of very profound and beautiful genius is being held here.”
“Those are big words,” was the reply of professional caution. “And
genius is of many kinds. But speaking of John Smith as I have found
him, I will make an admission which you are entitled to use as you think
fit. We all bless the day he came here.”
A look of startled pleasure came into Brandon’s face. “One somehow
expected to hear that,” he said.
 “Whatever his mentality may be, and of its range I am not competent
to judge, the man has what I can only call a largeness of soul which has
an effect upon others. One of our old men, one of our deranged fine
intellects, of whom we have several, and very pathetic they are, has
christened him the Light-Bringer, and somehow we feel it is a title that
he thoroughly deserves.”
“That is to say, he is a good influence among your patients?”
“Yes; in fact a moral force. The staff tell me that since he came here
their work is less by one-half. As an instance of what I mean, let me give
you a little anecdote which our head attendant told me only this morning.
We have an old German professor, who has been here some time. He is
apt to be very cantankerous and now and again gives a great deal of
trouble. On his bad days no one can do anything with him. But it seems
that John is now an established exception to the rule and that he can
simply make him do anything. This morning it appears the Herr
Professor had decided that he would no longer wear a tie. ‘Put it on at
once,’ said Boswell, our head attendant. ‘I shall not,’ said the Herr
Professor, ‘except by the command of God and the Emperor.’ ‘Very
well,’ said the head attendant, ‘then I shall ask the Master to come to
you.’ Well, the Master came—that, by the way, is the name the patients
have given him. The head attendant stated his case and the Master said to
the Herr Professor, ‘Put on your tie, my dear friend. It is the rule here in
Elysium and you are bound to obey it. Otherwise the gods will turn you
out and you may find yourself wandering in outer darkness for another
hundred years or so.’”
“And did the Herr Professor put on his tie?” asked Brandon.
“He put it on at once,” said Dr. Thorp with a laugh. “Of course it’s a
very trivial anecdote. But to me the whole thing is a remarkable piece of
make-believe.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”
“Well, you see, our friend John has persuaded the old fellow that he
is Goethe, talks to him in German and treats him with a deference which
raises a smile. And the odd side of the affair is that the poor old chap
now firmly believes himself to be Goethe and does his best to act up to
his part.”
“I see,” said Brandon.
 “And John Smith has taught us already that in the administration of a
place of this kind, there is practically no limit to the power of suggestion.
We have a hundred patients here, and his power over them is astonishing.
There seems to be nothing he can’t make some of them do; and as he is a
great upholder of law and order we bless the day he came among us.”
“As I understand your theory, this moral ascendancy has been gained
over your patients by the power of suggestion?”
“Yes; to put it crudely the effect he has upon them is a kind of
hypnotism of the imagination. For instance, a truly remarkable case is
that of a man who might once have done great things in music. Another
German by the way. But for years he has been mentally deranged. Yet in
his case John Smith seems to have performed a miracle. By his power of
sympathy he has hypnotized the man into composing some quite
wonderful music. From time to time he plays it to us. The other day I got
a friend of mine who really understands the subject to come and hear it.
He says it had such a quality that he can only compare it to Beethoven.”
“Indeed!” said Brandon.
Dr. Thorp laughed. “And the oddest part of the whole matter is that
the music only came to be written because John Smith was able to
persuade our poor friend that he really was Beethoven.”
“Again the power of suggestion?”
“Undoubtedly. And one that deserves to become a classical instance
of the power of sympathetic imagination rightly applied. I am not sure
that John Smith is not a great thinker who has discovered a profound
truth.”
“I am inclined to believe that he has discovered more than one.” A
glow of excitement had begun to course in Brandon’s veins.
“At any rate,” said the doctor, “I defy anyone to see him here in the
midst of our patients—very obscure and baffling mental cases, some of
them are—without a feeling that he wields a quite remarkable power
over certain types of his fellow creatures.”
“One is immensely interested to know that.”
“It is hardly too much to say that the atmosphere of the whole place
has changed. Six months ago we could hope for nothing better than the
sullen bickerings of Bedlam; today certain of our best cases are rising to
a kind of high intellectuality which, I frankly confess, is amazing.”