. Like all potent preparations, it will be
liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of the question
very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a matter of
medical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province. We shall
manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and as for the consequences--we
shall see.

XXVIII.

THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT.

He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see
him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--it meets me with
an expression----

It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it.

Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told long
ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his ease. As
if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who would believe
me if I did tell?

Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubman
in London.

He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire,
stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously, and catch him biting
at a round of hot buttered teacake, with his eyes on me. Confound him!
--with his eyes on me!

That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you _will_ be abject, since you
_will_ behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under
your embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about
Pyecraft. The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me by
making my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his liquid
appeal, with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks.

And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating?

Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

Pyecraft----. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very
smoking-room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was
sitting all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly he
came, a great rolling front of chins and abdomina, towards me, and
grunted and sat down in a chair close by me and wheezed for a space, and
scraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and then addressed me.
I forget what he said--something about the matches not lighting properly,
and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping the waiters one by one as
they went by, and telling them about the matches in that thin, fluty
voice he has. But, anyhow, it was in some such way we began our talking.

He talked about various things and came r