“Of their madness! What else is there to cure a madman of?” Pratt rises from his chair and paces around the small room. “Mind you, these were hard cases. Babbling, gibbering maniacs who’d wrap their hands around your throat if you looked at them sideways. Women who cackled like hyenas and tore their hair from the roots. But within a fortnight after the boy arrived, the worst of the lot were lolling about the garden, reading the Times and exchanging pleasantries!” He leans close to Father. “Here’s the meat of it, Luxton: I’m convinced the brat put something in the tea.”

Silence, except for the crackle and sputter of the fire.

“Fascinating,” Father finally says, in a level voice. “What do you suppose it was?”

“Who knows? Who cares? Straightaway I told the witch boy, ‘Whatever tonic you’re brewing in that kettle of yours, I order you to put an end to it now. If England runs out of madmen I’ll soon go out of business, and that means you’ll be out of a home once more; how would you like that, you wretched pup?’ Well, I thought I’d made my point clear as day, and that’d be the end of it—but the lad said nothing, just stared at his feet nodding.”

“And then?”

“That was two weeks ago. My inmates—those that are left—are docile as doves, but half the town has gone mad.” Pratt wipes the sweat from his forehead with his soiled sleeve. “Respectable matrons running unclothed in the streets. Grown men jumping off rooftops, screaming, ‘I can fly, I can fly!’ Now people are starting to look upon my business with suspicion. As if madness were contagious!”

It might only be the play of firelight on his features, but to me it looks almost as if Father is trying not to laugh. “Shocking,” he remarks, not sounding particularly surprised. “And did the boy have anything to say about this development?”

“I asked him, you may be sure,” Pratt says, clenching his fists. “I had to find him first; the guilty wretch had disappeared. I searched high and low, until I found him lying in a hayfield, happy as you please. I lifted him up by the shirtfront and shook him hard, and demanded to know what devilment he’d wrought this time! And hear what he says, in his smug, simpering voice: ‘I know nothing of devils, Master, but I did speak to an angel once.’ The cheek! So I shouted at him, right in his face so there’d be no mistaking my mood, ‘Don’t talk to me of angels! The whole town has gone loony!’ And the imp shrugs his bony shoulders and says, ‘Business will be picking up then.’ You see what I’ve been up against.”

Exhausted, Pratt collapses into his seat at the table again, and props his head in his hands.