moonbeams," indeed!

In the hall he saw Mr. Scogan; the man seemed to be lying in wait. Denis
tried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Scogan's eye glittered like the eye of
the Ancient Mariner.

"Not so fast," he said, stretching out a small saurian hand with pointed
nails--"not so fast. I was just going down to the flower garden to take
the sun. We'll go together."

Denis abandoned himself; Mr. Scogan put on his hat and they went out arm
in arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace Henry Wimbush and Mary were
playing a solemn game of bowls. They descended by the yew-tree walk.
It was here, thought Denis, here that Anne had fallen, here that he
had kissed her, here--and he blushed with retrospective shame at the
memory--here that he had tried to carry her and failed. Life was awful!

"Sanity!" said Mr. Scogan, suddenly breaking a long silence.
"Sanity--that's what's wrong with me and that's what will be wrong with
you, my dear Denis, when you're old enough to be sane or insane. In
a sane world I should be a great man; as things are, in this curious
establishment, I am nothing at all; to all intents and purposes I don't
exist. I am just Vox et praeterea nihil."

Denis made no response; he was thinking of other things. "After all,"
he said to himself--"after all, Gombauld is better looking than I, more
entertaining, more confident; and, besides, he's already somebody and
I'm still only potential..."

"Everything that ever gets done in this world is done by madmen," Mr.
Scogan went on. Denis tried not to listen, but the tireless insistence
of Mr. Scogan's discourse gradually compelled his attention. "Men such
as I am, such as you may possibly become, have never achieved anything.
We're too sane; we're merely reasonable. We lack the human touch, the
compelling enthusiastic mania. People are quite ready to listen to the
philosophers for a little amusement, just as they would listen to a
fiddler or a mountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men of
reason--never. Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of
reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman.
For the madman appeals to what is fundamental, to passion and
the instincts; the philosophers to what is superficial and
supererogatory--reason."

They entered the garden; at the head of one of the alleys stood a green
wooden bench, embayed in the midst of a fragrant continent of lavender
bushes. It was here, though the place was s