"So stock-improving," continued Dr. Cyrus Pym, "so fraught
with real high hopes of the future. Science therefore
regards thieves, in the abstract, just as it regards murderers.
It regards them not as sinners to be punished for an arbitrary period,
but as patients to be detained and cared for," (his first two digits
closed again as he hesitated)--"in short, for the required period.
But there is something special in the case we investigate here.
Kleptomania commonly con-joins itself--"
"I beg pardon," said Michael; "I did not ask just now because,
to tell the truth, I really thought Dr. Pym, though seemingly vertical,
was enjoying well-earned slumber, with a pinch in his fingers
of scentless and delicate dust. But now that things are moving
a little more, there is something I should really like to know.
I have hung on Dr. Pym's lips, of course, with an interest that it
were weak to call rapture, but I have so far been unable to form
any conjecture about what the accused, in the present instance,
is supposed to have been and gone and done."
"If Mr. Moon will have patience," said Pym with dignity, "he will find
that this was the very point to which my exposition was di-rected.
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