"Yes, I did. I waited until Doc McKracken left his office, and then I
sneaked _this_." The severe lines in Quell's face began to swim
together. He reached out his hand, took the flask, and then threw back
his head. Arved watched him with patient resignation.

"Hold on there! Leave a dozen drops for a poor maker of rhymes," he
chuckled, and soon was himself gurgling the liquor.

They arose, and after despairing glances at their bespattered garments,
trudged on. In an hour, the pair had reached the edge of the forest,
and, as the sun sat high and warm, a rest was agreed upon. But this time
they did not easily find a hiding-place. Fearing to venture nearer the
turnpike, hearing human sounds, they finally retired from the clearing,
and behind a moss-etched rock discovered a cool resting-place on the
leafy floor.

At full length, hands under heads, brains mellowed by brandy, the men
summed up the situation. Arved was the first to speak. He was tall,
blond, heavy of figure, and his beard hung upon his chest. His
dissatisfied eyes were cynical when he rallied his companion. A man of
brains this, but careless as the grass.

"Quell, let us think this thing out carefully. It is nearly six o'clock.
At six o'clock the cells will be unlocked, and then,--well, McKracken
will damn our bones, for he gets a fat board fee from my people, and the
table is not so cursed good at the Hermitage that he misses a margin of
profit! What will he do? Set the dogs after us? No, he daren't; we're
not convicts--we're only mad folk." He smiled good-humouredly, though
his white brow was dented as if by harsh thoughts.

Quell's little bloodshot eyes stared up into a narrow channel of
foliage, at the end of which was a splash of blue sky. He was
mean-appearing, with a horselike head, his mustache twisted into a
savage curl. His forehead was abnormal in breadth and the irritable
flashes of fire in his eyes told the story of a restless soul. The
nostrils expanded as he spoke:--

"We're only mad folk, as you say; nevertheless, the Lord High Keeper
will send his police patrol wagon after us in a jiffy. He went to bed
dead full last night, so his humour won't be any too sweet when he hears
that several of his boarders have vanished. He'll miss you more than me;
I'm not at the first table with you swells."

Quell ended his speech with so disagreeable an inflection that Arved was
astonished. He looked around and spat at a beetle.

"What's wrong with