are."

The driver, seeing a possible fare, stopped, and Archy, still adhering,
dragged Mr. Dainopoulos in after him.

"Stivan," said Mr. Dainopoulos to the driver, whom he knew, "go to the
White Tower and when this gentleman has got out, drive me home quick,
understand? Leave him behind. And go back to him if he wants you. Now!"

The driver at once set off up the road again and Mr. Bates, who, like
Shakespeare, had small Latin and less Greek, sat smiling in the
darkness, trying to formulate in his mind and articulate with his tongue
something that just eluded him. To meet his old fren' like this--it was
a--'strornery thing how he couldn't shay just how he felt. He smiled.

Mr. Dainopoulos sat without smiling. He was not a drinking man at any
time, and the professional soak was a mystery to him. Mr. Bates was as
much a mystery as the major. His actions had the disconcerting lack of
rational sequence that one discerns in pampered carnivora. Absent-minded
sensuality is a baffling phenomenon. Mr. Dainopoulos had something of
the clear sharp logic of the Latin, and the vinous benevolence of Mr.
Bates aroused in him a species of alert incredulity. He sat in silence,
listening to the gurgle of his companion's incoherence. This was a phase
of his daily existence which he never mentioned to his wife; his
dealings with the more dissipated of her countrymen. To his relief the
carriage stopped at the entrance of the Tower Gardens. He took Mr.
Bates's arm to assist him to alight, but Mr. Bates had forgotten the
White Tower. He was trying to sing and not succeeding very well. He sat
erect, his hat pushed back until the brim formed a dark halo about his
smile, beating time with one hand.

"Here you are, Mister Bates," said Mr. Dainopoulos, trying to move him.
Mr. Bates resisted gently, drew back his chin a little more and attacked
a lower G:

"_Mo-na, Mona, my own love!
Art--thou not mine
Through the long years to--be-e-e!_"

The sound of that small and strangely clear voice, after the odorous
gibbering speech, almost appalled Mr. Dainopoulos. He spoke rapidly to
the driver, instructing him to wait and he would be paid in due time,
and started off into the darkness.

Mr. Bates finished his song to his own satisfaction and having smiled
into the darkness for a while, began to wonder where he was. "'Strornery
thing, but he was almost shertain ol' fren' of his had been there. Mush
'ave been a mishtake.