in the weird?"

"I'd be a fool if I wasn't," said Duckford, selecting a cigar from his
case. "What's your story about--I see you have one to tell. I am not
inquisitive as a rule; but, somehow your manner has warned me that you
have something singularly interesting to tell."

Crabbe remained silent a short time. Then, looking at Duckford very
earnestly, he answered:

"Well, perhaps I may tell you my story, though I would not tell it to
all these heretics around me. Indeed, only two or three other people
have ever heard it. I hate--ah! more than I can convey to any living
soul--even to think about it. But to you it may be of special interest."

"You know that I look upon all such things from the point of a simple,
unbiassed inquirer," returned Duckford. "Come along, Crabbe."

"A good cigar in front of the card room fire, and your story, eh?"
Duckford led the way up to the snug card room where a cheerful fire was
blazing. "Sit down. Where is that dashed waiter? Oh, you there, Griggs.
Come along with some whisky and soda."

Crabbe sat down in a deep chair by the fire, and stretched his feet to
the flame. Duckford said nothing; only pulled at his cigar and
patiently waited for what he knew was soon coming.

"Do you know--but, no, of course you don't," he began presently. "But
can you imagine how it can be that a man could pass all his force into a
bronze statue and make it live.... You've heard these literary men and
artists talk about putting their souls into their work, Duckford?"
Duckford pursed his lips. "Everything lives--even a bronze statue," he
said seriously. "If it was not so it would atrophy, it would crumble and
disappear. Look at the case of----"

"That's just what old Ombos said. And if he didn't understand all about
those things, I should jolly well like to be led to the man who did.
Ombos told me hundreds of times that a man walked about this earth
throwing his force into everything he came in contact with--scattering
some kind of power; and of course that power is picked up by stones and
houses and ... statues, or anything. Ombos misused it; that was
disastrous. It seems to me that it is safe to use this god-energy only
in its own proper sphere. You have very likely heard of men who have
tried to pass themselves into inanimate objects? Well, what would you
say if I tell you that _I_ even _I_--who sit now so soberly before you,
whom before the war you knew to be ordinarily, a quiet,
peaceably-dispose