cularly. General effect, you
know. Ears drooping down with no life or motion in them. I went up to
him and asked him what brought him down to Brighton.

"'Go away,' he said. 'I'm a leper. I'm an outcast. I'm a pariah dog.
Go before I bring misery on you.'

"I told him I'd chance it, and asked him again what he was doing at
Brighton.

"'I've eloped,' he said.

"'With whom?' I asked.

"'Nobody. She never turned up. That's not my fault. In the sight of
Heaven we are all equal, and I'm an eloper. I'm a faithless hound.
That's not all, Jingle. They've thrown me out of the business. And
that's not all. I bought four packets of oxalic acid. I've put them
down where Mabel is bound to see them. There's one on her pillow, one
on the clock, one on the piano, and one on the mantelpiece. You see?
I'm a murderer. Mabel will take the hint, and will commit suicide.
That will upset Dot and Dash, and they will commit suicide too. I
only hope the man who spilt whitewash over my bookcase will commit
suicide as well. Don't come and see me in the condemned cell. I don't
want to see anybody any more. That's why I'm sitting on Brighton pier
on a warm Sunday morning.'

"'You've got this wrong, Sharper,' I said. 'I know your wife. She
won't commit suicide because you've gone. She possibly might have done
it if you had stopped. So your maids won't be upset, and they won't
commit suicide either. And the painter's man who spilt the whitewash
over your books will be enjoying the joke over his Sunday dinner.
You're no good at the leper-and-pariah business. Come over and be
introduced to my missus.'

"'What you say might be true if I were a real man, but I have horrible
doubts. I don't feel like a real man.'

"'Come off it,' I said. 'What do you feel like, then?'

"'I feel like a lot of tripe out of some damn-silly book.'

"Well, I took him over to the missus, and she got on the buzz. She's
an energetic talkist. He never got time to say he was a leper once.
Then some pals of hers came up to talk to her, and he and I escaped. I
asked him what he was going to do. He said he was going back to
Halfpenny Hole directly, in order to save the coroner's officer the
trouble of fetching him. Then he asked me to have a drink. We had
three each. He rushed off to the station, and left me to pay. A man in
that state is not fit to be alone. And it's not too safe for anybody
who happens to be with him. I let him go."

3

It was half-past five when L