arx presently brought in coffee. A glass of the old whisky and
a good cigar helped to restore equilibrium. For some minutes the men sat
in silence staring into the fire. Then, without looking up, Garvey said
in a quiet voice--

"I suppose it was a shock to you to see me eat raw meat like that. I
must apologise if it was unpleasant to you. But it's all I can eat and
it's the only meal I take in the twenty-four hours."

"Best nourishment in the world, no doubt; though I should think it might
be a trifle strong for some stomachs."

He tried to lead the conversation away from so unpleasant a subject, and
went on to talk rapidly of the values of different foods, of
vegetarianism and vegetarians, and of men who had gone for long periods
without any food at all. Garvey listened apparently without interest and
had nothing to say. At the first pause he jumped in eagerly.

"When the hunger is really great on me," he said, still gazing into the
fire, "I simply cannot control myself. I must have raw meat--the first I
can get--" Here he raised his shining eyes and Shorthouse felt his hair
beginning to rise.

"It comes upon me so suddenly too. I never can tell when to expect it. A
year ago the passion rose in me like a whirlwind and Marx was out and I
couldn't get meat. I had to get something or I should have bitten
myself. Just when it was getting unbearable my dog ran out from beneath
the sofa. It was a spaniel."

Shorthouse responded with an effort. He hardly knew what he was saying
and his skin crawled as if a million ants were moving over it.

There was a pause of several minutes.

"I've bitten Marx all over," Garvey went on presently in his strange
quiet voice, and as if he were speaking of apples; "but he's bitter. I
doubt if the hunger could ever make me do it again. Probably that's what
first drove him to take shelter in a vacuum." He chuckled hideously as
he thought of this solution of his attendant's disappearances.

Shorthouse seized the poker and poked the fire as if his life depended
on it. But when the banging and clattering was over Garvey continued his
remarks with the same calmness. The next sentence, however, was never
finished. The secretary had got upon his feet suddenly.

"I shall ask your permission to retire," he said in a determined voice;
"I'm tired to-night; will you be good enough to show me to my room?"

Garvey looked up at him with a curious cringing expression behind which
there shone the gl