, and I shan't want
any dinner.'

The door shut and was locked.

'What can you do with a man like that?' said the Nilghai.

'Leave him alone. He's as mad as a hatter.'

At eleven there was a kicking on the studio door. 'Is the Nilghai with
you still?' said a voice from within. 'Then tell him he might have
condensed the whole of his lumbering nonsense into an epigram: "Only
the free are bond, and only the bond are free." Tell him he's an idiot,
Torp, and tell him I'm another.'

'All right. Come out and have supper. You're smoking on an empty
stomach.'

There was no answer.

CHAPTER V

'I have a thousand men,' said he,
'To wait upon my will,
And towers nine upon the Tyne,
And three upon the Till.'

'And what care I for you men,' said she,
'Or towers from Tyne to Till,
Sith you must go with me,' she said,
'To wait upon my will?'

Sir Hoggie and the Fairies

NEXT morning Torpenhow found Dick sunk in deepest repose of tobacco.

'Well, madman, how d'you feel?'

'I don't know. I'm trying to find out.'

'You had much better do some work.'

'Maybe; but I'm in no hurry. I've made a discovery. Torp, there's too
much Ego in my Cosmos.'

'Not really! Is this revelation due to my lectures, or the Nilghai's?'

'It came to me suddenly, all on my own account. Much too much Ego; and
now I'm going to work.'

He turned over a few half-finished sketches, drummed on a new canvas,
cleaned three brushes, set Binkie to bite the toes of the lay figure,
rattled through his collection of arms and accoutrements, and then went
out abruptly, declaring that he had done enough for the day.

'This is positively indecent,' said Torpenhow, 'and the first time that
Dick has ever broken up a light morning. Perhaps he has found out
that he has a soul, or an artistic temperament, or something equally
valuable.

That comes of leaving him alone for a month. Perhaps he has been going
out of evenings. I must look to this.' He rang for the bald-headed old
housekeeper, whom nothing could astonish or annoy.

'Beeton, did Mr. Heldar dine out at all while I was out of town?'

'Never laid 'is dress-clothes out once, sir, all the time. Mostly 'e
dined in; but 'e brought some most remarkable young gentlemen up 'ere
after theatres once or twice. Remarkable fancy they was. You gentlemen
on the top floor does very much as you likes, but it do seem to me, sir,
droppin' a walkin'-stick down five