the
victorious, however objectionable that proceeding. He hoped to question
his master some day except that his master would very naturally have a
tendency to sum-up in favour of wine--good wine, in moderation; just as
Miss Graves for the cup of tea--not so thoughtfully stipulating that it
should be good and not too copious. Statistics are according to their
conjurors; they are not independent bodies, with native colours; they
needs must be painted by the different hands they pass through, and they
may be multiplied; a nought or so counts for nothing with the teller.
Skepsey saw that. Yet they can overcome: even as fictitious battalions,
they can overcome. He shrank from the results of a ciphering match having
him for object, and was ashamed of feeling to Statistics as women to
giants; nevertheless he acknowledged that the badge was upon him, if Miss
Graves should beat her master in her array of figures, to insist on his
wearing it, as she would, she certainly would. And against his internal
conviction perhaps; with the knowledge that the figures were an
unfortified display, and his oath of bondage an unmanly servility, the
silliest of ceremonies! He was shockingly feminine to Statistics.

Mr. Durance despised them: he called them, arguing against Mr. Radnor,
'those emotional things,' not comprehensibly to Skepsey. But Mr. Durance,
a very clever gentleman, could not be right in everything. He made
strange remarks upon his country. Dr. Yatt attributed them to the state
of 'his digestion.

And Mr. Fenellan had said of Mr. Durance that, as 'a barrister wanting
briefs, the speech in him had been bottled too long and was an overripe
wine dripping sour drops through the rotten cork.' Mr. Fenellan said it
laughing, he meant no harm. Skepsey was sure he had the words. He heard
no more than other people hear; he remembered whole sentences, and many:
on one of his runs, this active little machine, quickened by motion to
fire, revived the audible of years back; whatever suited his turn of mind
at the moment rushed to the rapid wheels within him. His master's
business and friends, his country's welfare and advancement, these, with
records, items, anticipations, of the manlier sports to decorate, were
his current themes; all being chopped and tossed and mixed in salad
accordance by his fervour of velocity. And if you would like a further
definition of Genius, think of it as a form of swiftness. It is the
lively young great-grandson