cloth and grasped the edges of the plate, and
then clutched the cloth again.

"This is _my_ course coming now," said Garvey, in a deep guttural voice.
He was shivering. His upper lip was partly lifted and showed the teeth,
white and gleaming.

A moment later the door opened and Marx hurried into the room and set a
dish in front of his master. Garvey half rose to meet him, stretching
out his hands and grinning horribly. With his mouth he made a sound like
the snarl of an animal. The dish before him was steaming, but the slight
vapour rising from it betrayed by its odour that it was not born of a
fire of coals. It was the natural heat of flesh warmed by the fires of
life only just expelled. The moment the dish rested on the table Garvey
pushed away his own plate and drew the other up close under his mouth.
Then he seized the food in both hands and commenced to tear it with his
teeth, grunting as he did so. Shorthouse closed his eyes, with a feeling
of nausea. When he looked up again the lips and jaw of the man opposite
were stained with crimson. The whole man was transformed. A feasting
tiger, starved and ravenous, but without a tiger's grace--this was what
he watched for several minutes, transfixed with horror and disgust.

Marx had already taken his departure, knowing evidently what was not
good for the eyes to look upon, and Shorthouse knew at last that he was
sitting face to face with a madman.

The ghastly meal was finished in an incredibly short time and nothing
was left but a tiny pool of red liquid rapidly hardening. Garvey leaned
back heavily in his chair and sighed. His smeared face, withdrawn now
from the glare of the lamp, began to resume its normal appearance.
Presently he looked up at his guest and said in his natural voice--

"I hope you've had enough to eat. You wouldn't care for this, you know,"
with a downward glance.

Shorthouse met his eyes with an inward loathing, and it was impossible
not to show some of the repugnance he felt. In the other's face,
however, he thought he saw a subdued, cowed expression. But he found
nothing to say.

"Marx will be in presently," Garvey went on. "He's either listening, or
in a vacuum."

"Does he choose any particular time for his visits?" the secretary
managed to ask.

"He generally goes after dinner; just about this time, in fact. But he's
not gone yet," he added, shrugging his shoulders, "for I think I hear
him coming."

Shorthouse wondered whether vacuu