nison think. It may be a chance to squash them
altogether."

"Lambert has been trying to persuade me to help," I said. "I told him
I would have nothing to do with his blessed rag."

"The best of the whole thing is that I don't believe Thornton is a
lunatic. Collier says he isn't, and both Learoyd and Murray say he's
not mad, but awfully clever or a humorist."

"Murray!" I exclaimed, but Jack was losing the power to astonish me
very much.

"He's all right, I met him in Learoyd's room," Jack said, and began to
laugh.

"So Thornton isn't mad after all, and you needn't talk about freaks," I
told Fred.

"Do you mind hearing about this?" Jack asked him; "it will be splendid
if it only comes off. It's like this: Lambert and Dennison are always
looking out for freaks"--I wished he would not give Fred such chances
to grin at me--"and Thornton's hair sticks up on end, and he never
seems to know what he is going to do next. Murray told me that he is
like a very good pianist he met once, except that he can't play the
piano. At any rate he's odd, and that was the reason why Dennison
asked him to lunch. And Lambert, do you know him?"

Fred shook his head.

"He is the kind of man who is built for processions and platforms and
Lord Mayors' Shows," Jack explained; "he's gorgeous altogether."

"I saw him at your smoker," Fred said.

"He's one of the sights of the place, and he began to talk to Thornton
about champagne."

"He always talks about clothes or wine," I put in.

"Thornton pretended--at least, I'll bet he pretended--to know nothing
about champagne. So Lambert told him the best brand was Omar Khayyam
of '78, and that by a stroke of luck it could still be got at a place
in the High. They thought Thornton swallowed that all right, so
Dennison told him that if he couldn't get Omar Khayyam he must get some
Rosbach of '82. After that they asked what sort of fly he used for
quail; of course the man must have been simply too sick of them to say
anything."

"Lambert never told me anything about the champagne," I said.

"I expect that was because he and Dennison nearly had a row about it;
he swore that he thought about Omar Khayyam, and Dennison swore that he
did--a rotten sort of thing to quarrel about, anyway. I never heard of
the man until yesterday. I've often heard of Rosbach," he added.

"What's going to happen now?" Fred asked, and from some cause or other
he was shaking with laughter.

Jack told h