owled for ten whole minutes. I
itched to throw a bootjack at him, but compromised on doing a little
growling myself. Afterward we got into our clothes in silence, and as he
went out first he slammed the door.

It was a disheartening evening. We played progressive uchre for a silly
prize, and we all got shuffled up wrong and had to stay so. Then the
major did amateur conjuring till we nearly died. I was thankful to sneak
out-of-doors and smoke a cigar under the starlight. I walked up and
down, consigning Jones to--well, where I thought he belonged. I thought
of the time I had wasted over the fellow--the good money--the hopes--I
was savage with disappointment, and when I heard Freddy softly calling
me from the veranda I zigzagged away through the trees toward the lodge
gate. There are moments when a man is better left alone. Besides, I was
in one of those self-tormenting humors when it is a positive pleasure to
pile on the agony. When you're eighty-eight per cent. miserable it's
hell not to reach par. I was sore all over, and I wanted the balm--the
consolation--to be found in the company of those cold old stars, who had
looked down in their time on such countless generations of human asses.
It gave me a wonderful sense of fellowship with the past and future.

I was reflecting on what an infinitesimal speck I was in the general
scheme of things, when I heard the footfall of another human speck,
stumbling through the dark and carrying a dress-suit case. It was Jones
himself, outward bound, and doing five knots an hour. I was after him in
a second, doing six.

"Jones!" I cried.

He never even turned round.

I grabbed him by the arm. He wasn't going to walk away from me like
that.

"Where are you going?" I demanded.

"Home!"

"But say, stop; you can't do that. It's too darned rude. We don't break
up till to-morrow."

"I'm breaking up now," he said.

"But--"

"Let go my arm--!"

"Oh, but, my dear chap--" I began.

"Don't you dear chap me!"

We strode on in silence. Even his back looked sullen, and his face under
the gaslights--

"Westoby," he broke out suddenly, "if there's one thing I'm sensitive
about it is my name. Slap me in the face, turn the hose on me, rip the
coat off my back--and you'd be astounded by my mildness. But when it
comes to my name I--I'm a tiger!"

"A tiger," I repeated encouragingly.

"It all went swimmingly," he continued in a tone of angry confidence.
"For five seconds I was the