say. With a heavy dropping at the corners of
his mouth, with a stolid indifference staring dull in his eyes, there
he sat, a man forearmed, in his own obstinate neutrality, against all
temptation to engage in the conflict of opinions that was to come.

Sir Patrick took up the newspaper which he had brought in from the
garden, and looked once more to see if the surgeon was attending to him.

No! The surgeon's attention was absorbed in his own subject. There he
was in the same position, with his mind still hard at work on something
in Geoffrey which at once interested and puzzled it! "That man," he was
thinking to himself, "has come here this morning after traveling from
London all night. Does any ordinary fatigue explain what I see in his
face? No!"

"Our little discussion in the garden," resumed Sir Patrick, answering
Blanche's inquiring look as she bent over him, "began, my dear, in a
paragraph here announcing Mr. Delamayn's forthcoming appearance in a
foot-race in the neighborhood of London. I hold very unpopular opinions
as to the athletic displays which are so much in vogue in England just
now. And it is possible that I may have expressed those opinions a
little too strongly, in the heat of discussion, with gentlemen who
are opposed to me--I don't doubt, conscientiously opposed--on this
question."

A low groan of protest rose from One, Two, and Three, in return for the
little compliment which Sir Patrick had paid to them. "How about rowing
and running ending in the Old Bailey and the gallows? You said that,
Sir--you know you did!"

The two choral gentlemen looked at each other, and agreed with the
prevalent sentiment. "It came to that, I think, Smith." "Yes, Jones, it
certainly came to that."

The only two men who still cared nothing about it were Geoffrey and the
surgeon. There sat the first, stolidly neutral--indifferent alike to
the attack and the defense. There stood the second, pursuing his
investigation--with the growing interest in it of a man who was
beginning to see his way to the end.

"Hear my defense, gentlemen," continued Sir Patrick, as courteously
as ever. "You belong, remember, to a nation which especially claims to
practice the rules of fair play. I must beg to remind you of what I said
in the garden. I started with a concession. I admitted--as every person
of the smallest sense must admit--that a man will, in the great majority
of cases, be all the fitter for mental exercise if he wisely c