bed leaving him all
alone, as he supposed, with his unequalled virtue. And yet he was not
alone, for when the rest had gone there arose a member out of a deep
arm-chair at the dark end of the room and walked across to him, a man
whose occupation he did not know and only now suspects.

"You have," said the stranger, "a surpassing virtue."

"I have no possible use for it," my poor friend replied.

"Then doubtless you would sell it cheap," said the stranger.

Something in the man's manner or appearance made the desolate teller
of this mournful tale feel his own inferiority, which probably made
him feel acutely shy, so that his mind abased itself as an Oriental
does his body in the presence of a superior, or perhaps he was sleepy,
or merely a little drunk. Whatever it was he only mumbled, "O yes,"
instead of contradicting so mad a remark. And the stranger led the way
to the room where the telephone was.

"I think you will find my firm will give a good price for it," he
said: and without more ado he began with a pair of pincers to cut the
wire of the telephone and the receiver. The old waiter who looked
after the club they had left shuffling round the other room putting
things away for the night.

"Whatever are you doing of?" said my friend.

"This way," said the stranger. Along a passage they went and away to
the back of the club and there the stranger leaned out of a window and
fastened the severed wires to the lightning conductor. My friend has
no doubt of that, a broad ribbon of copper, half an inch wide, perhaps
wider, running down from the roof to the earth.

"Hell," said the stranger with his mouth to the telephone; then
silence for a while with his ear to the receiver, leaning out of the
window. And then my friend heard his poor virtue being several times
repeated, and then words like Yes and No.

"They offer you three jokes," said the stranger, "which shall make all
who hear them simply die of laughter."

I think my friend was reluctant then to have anything more to do with
it, he wanted to go home; he said he didn't want jokes.

"They think very highly of your virtue," I said the stranger. And at
that, odd as it seems, my friend wavered, for logically if they
thought highly of the goods they should have paid a higher price.

"O all right," he said. The extraordinary document that the agent drew
from his pocket ran something like this:

"I . . . . . in consideration of three new jokes received from M