Chapter V: Dr. Diggs’s Statement

My name is David Diggs. I am a surgeon, living at No. 9 Tottenham Court. On the 15th of June, 1854, I was called to see an elderly gentleman lodging on the Kent Road. Found him highly excited, with strong febrile symptoms, pulse 120, increasing. Repeated incoherently what I judged to be the popular form of a conundrum. On closer examination found acute hydrocephalus, and both lobes of the brain rapidly filling with water. In consultation with an eminent phrenologist, it was further discovered that all the organs were more or less obliterated, except that of Comparison. Hence the patient was enabled to only distinguish the most common points of resemblance between objects, without drawing upon other faculties, such as Ideality or Language, for assistance. Later in the day found him sinking,—being evidently unable to carry the most ordinary conundrum to a successful issue. Exhibited Tinct. Val., Ext. Opii, and Camphor, and prescribed quiet and emollients. On the 17th the patient was missing.

CHAPTER LAST

STATEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER

On the 18th of June, Mr. Wilkie Collins left a roll of manuscript with us for publication, without title or direction, since which time he has not been heard from. In spite of the care of the proof-readers, and valuable literary assistance, it is feared that the continuity of the story has been destroyed by some accidental misplacing of chapters during its progress. How and what chapters are so misplaced, the publisher leaves to an indulgent public to discover.

HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES

BY CH-S R-DE

CHAPTER I

The Dodds were dead. For twenty years they had slept under the green graves of Kittery churchyard. The townfolk still spoke of them kindly. The keeper of the alehouse, where David had smoked his pipe, regretted him regularly, and Mistress Kitty, Mrs. Dodd’s maid, whose trim figure always looked well in her mistress’s gowns, was inconsolable. The Hardins were in America. Raby was aristocratically gouty; Mrs. Raby, religious. Briefly, then, we have disposed of—

1. Mr. and Mrs. Dodd (dead).

2. Mr. and Mrs. Hardin (translated).

3. Raby, baron et femme. (Yet I don’t know about the former; he came of a long-lived family, and the gout is an uncertain-disease.)

We have active at the present writing (place aux dames)—

1. Lady Caroline Coventry, niece of Sir Frederick.

2. Faraday Huxley Little, son of Henry and Graco Little deceased.

_Sequitur_ to the above, A HERO AND HEROINE.

CHAPTER II

On the death of his parents, Faraday Little was taken to Raby Hall. In accepting his guardianship, Mr. Raby struggled stoutly against two prejudices: Faraday was plain-looking and skeptical.

“Handsome is as handsome does, sweetheart,” pleaded Jael, interceding for the orphan with arms that were still beautiful. “Dear knows, it is not his fault if he does not look like—his father,” she added with a great gulp. Jael was a woman, and vindicated her womanhood by never entirely forgiving a former rival.

“It’s not that alone, madam,” screamed Raby, “but, d—m it, the little rascal’s a scientist,—an atheist, a radical, a scoffer! Disbelieves in the Bible, ma’am; is full of this Darwinian stuff about natural selection and descent. Descent, forsooth! In my day, madam, gentlemen were content to trace their ancestors back to gentlemen, and not to—monkeys!”

“Dear heart, the boy is clever,” urged Jael.

“Clever!” roared Raby; “what does a gentleman want with cleverness?”