ction is a
quite personal one. It is, that if I were asked whether I would belong
to it, I should ask first of all, if I was not permitted, as an
alternative, to be a toad in a ditch. That is all. You cannot argue
with the choice of the soul."

"Of the soul," said Barker, knitting his brows, "I cannot pretend to
say anything, but speaking in the interests of the public--"

Mr. Auberon Quin rose suddenly to his feet.

"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "I will step out for a
moment into the air."

"I'm so sorry, Auberon," said Lambert, good-naturedly; "do you feel
bad?"

"Not bad exactly," said Auberon, with self-restraint; "rather good, if
anything. Strangely and richly good. The fact is, I want to reflect a
little on those beautiful words that have just been uttered.
'Speaking,' yes, that was the phrase, 'speaking in the interests of
the public.' One cannot get the honey from such things without being
alone for a little."

"Is he really off his chump, do you think?" asked Lambert.

The old President looked after him with queerly vigilant eyes.

"He is a man, I think," he said, "who cares for nothing but a joke. He
is a dangerous man."

Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some maccaroni to his mouth.

"Dangerous!" he said. "You don't know little Quin, sir!"

"Every man is dangerous," said the old man without moving, "who cares
only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself."

And with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, bowing
profoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again grown dense and
sombre. Three days afterwards they heard that he had died quietly in
lodgings in Soho.

* * * * *

Drowned somewhere else in the dark sea of fog was a little figure
shaking and quaking, with what might at first sight have seemed terror
or ague: but which was really that strange malady, a lonely laughter.
He was repeating over and over to himself with a rich accent--"But
speaking in the interests of the public...."

CHAPTER III--_The Hill of Humour_

"In a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea," said
Auberon Quin, "there was a Nonconformist minister who had never been
to Wimbledon. His family did not understand his sorrow or the strange
look in his eyes. But one day they repented their neglect, for they
heard that a body had been found on the shore, battered, but wearing
patent leather boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be