and
won. That it should have come to this--to insults and abuse! Suddenly I
was sobbing--sobbing in loud, gulping, uncontrollable sobs which refused
to be concealed. My companions looked at me in surprise. I covered my
face with my hands.

"It's all right," said I. "Only--only it _is_ such a pity!"

"You're ill, young fellah, that's what's amiss with you," said Lord John.
"I thought you were queer from the first."

"Your habits, sir, have not mended in these three years," said Summerlee,
shaking his head. "I also did not fail to observe your strange manner
the moment we met. You need not waste your sympathy, Lord John. These
tears are purely alcoholic. The man has been drinking. By the way, Lord
John, I called you a coxcomb just now, which was perhaps unduly severe.
But the word reminds me of a small accomplishment, trivial but amusing,
which I used to possess. You know me as the austere man of science. Can
you believe that I once had a well-deserved reputation in several
nurseries as a farmyard imitator? Perhaps I can help you to pass the
time in a pleasant way. Would it amuse you to hear me crow like a cock?"

"No, sir," said Lord John, who was still greatly offended, "it would
_not_ amuse me."

"My imitation of the clucking hen who had just laid an egg was also
considered rather above the average. Might I venture?"

"No, sir, no--certainly not."

But in spite of this earnest prohibition, Professor Summerlee laid down
his pipe and for the rest of our journey he entertained--or failed to
entertain--us by a succession of bird and animal cries which seemed so
absurd that my tears were suddenly changed into boisterous laughter,
which must have become quite hysterical as I sat opposite this grave
Professor and saw him--or rather heard him--in the character of the
uproarious rooster or the puppy whose tail had been trodden upon. Once
Lord John passed across his newspaper, upon the margin of which he had
written in pencil, "Poor devil! Mad as a hatter." No doubt it was very
eccentric, and yet the performance struck me as extraordinarily clever
and amusing.

Whilst this was going on, Lord John leaned forward and told me some
interminable story about a buffalo and an Indian rajah which seemed to me
to have neither beginning nor end. Professor Summerlee had just begun to
chirrup like a canary, and Lord John to get to the climax of his story,
when the train drew up at Jarvis Brook, which had been giv