ss was to go on for ever.'
I supposed, Roddy, that the two had been in love, as such
creatures feel the emotion. 'Well then,' thought I, 'here are
we two, the one hating and hiding his hate, thrown together in
constant companionship. How long will it take the other, who
has never cut an inch of the ice encasing that hatred, before he
finds my society intolerable?'

"That was the question; and I had the answer to-day.

"From Genoa we actually harked back to Cahors, for an aimless two
weeks among the upper waters of the Lot and the Tarn. I led him
over the roof of France, as they call it. I sweated him down
valleys to Ambialet, to Roc-Amadour, I threaded him through
limestone caverns wherein I could have cut his throat and left
him, never to be missed. We struck up for the provincial
gaieties of Toulouse. We attended the Opera there--
_Il Trovatore_--and Farrell wept in his seat. I can see the
tears now--oozing out between the finger-stalls of a pair of
white-kid gloves he had been inspired to buy at the
_Bon Marche_. We also went to the theatre, where the company
performed _Les Vivacites du Capitaine Tic_.

"At the conclusion of this harmless comedy, Farrell said a really
good thing. He said it was funny enough and even instructive if
you looked at it from the right point of view; but for his part
(and I might call him advanced if I chose) he liked the sort of
musical comedy in which you spice a chicken to make 'em all fall
in love when they've eaten it; or at least, if it's to be
legitimate comedy, one in which they take off their clothes and
go to bed by mistake.

"So we came on to Paris, and here we are at the Grand Hotel.
Farrell's notion of Paris, was of course, the Moulin Rouge, and
the kind of place on Montmartre where they sing some kind of
blasphemy while a squint-eyed waiter serves you cocktails on a
coffin.

"We were solemnly giving way to this libidinous humbug last night
when he leaned back and said to me, 'This is all very well,
Doctor; and I'm glad to have had the experience. But do you
know what I want at this moment?'

"'Say on,' said I, looking up to return the nod of an
acquaintance--a young American, Caffyn by name--who had risen
from a table not far from ours and was making his way out.
On a