ld student
days in Paris, and they had renewed the acquaintance for a week-end; but
apart from Flambeau's more responsible developments of late, he did not
get on well with the poet now. Choking oneself with opium and writing
little erotic verses on vellum was not his notion of how a gentleman
should go to the devil. As the two paused on the door-step, before
taking a turn in the garden, the front garden gate was thrown open with
violence, and a young man with a billycock hat on the back of his head
tumbled up the steps in his eagerness. He was a dissipated-looking youth
with a gorgeous red necktie all awry, as if he had slept in it, and he
kept fidgeting and lashing about with one of those little jointed canes.

"I say," he said breathlessly, "I want to see old Quinton. I must see
him. Has he gone?"

"Mr. Quinton is in, I believe," said Father Brown, cleaning his pipe,
"but I do not know if you can see him. The doctor is with him at
present."

The young man, who seemed not to be perfectly sober, stumbled into the
hall; and at the same moment the doctor came out of Quinton's study,
shutting the door and beginning to put on his gloves.

"See Mr. Quinton?" said the doctor coolly. "No, I'm afraid you can't. In
fact, you mustn't on any account. Nobody must see him; I've just given
him his sleeping draught."

"No, but look here, old chap," said the youth in the red tie, trying
affectionately to capture the doctor by the lapels of his coat. "Look
here. I'm simply sewn up, I tell you. I--"

"It's no good, Mr. Atkinson," said the doctor, forcing him to fall back;
"when you can alter the effects of a drug I'll alter my decision," and,
settling on his hat, he stepped out into the sunlight with the other
two. He was a bull-necked, good-tempered little man with a small
moustache, inexpressibly ordinary, yet giving an impression of capacity.

The young man in the billycock, who did not seem to be gifted with any
tact in dealing with people beyond the general idea of clutching hold of
their coats, stood outside the door, as dazed as if he had been thrown
out bodily, and silently watched the other three walk away together
through the garden.

"That was a sound, spanking lie I told just now," remarked the medical
man, laughing. "In point of fact, poor Quinton doesn't have his sleeping
draught for nearly half an hour. But I'm not going to have him bothered
with that little beast, who only wants to borrow money that he wouldn't