k," said Turnbull, irritably. "Are you mad?"

The young man sat down on the gravel path and went into ecstasies of
laughter. "No, that's just the fun of it--I'm not mad," he replied.
"They've shut me up in this place, and I'm not mad." And he went off
again into mirth as innocent as wedding-bells.

Turnbull, whose powers of surprise were exhausted, rolled his round grey
eyes and said, "Mr. Wilkinson, I think," because he could not think of
anything else to say.

The tall man sitting on the gravel bowed with urbanity, and said: "Quite
at your service. Not to be confused with the Wilkinsons of Cumberland;
and as I say, old boy, what have you done with my yacht? You see,
they've locked me up here--in this garden--and a yacht would be a sort
of occupation for an unmarried man."

"I am really horribly sorry," began Turnbull, in the last stage of bated
bewilderment and exasperation, "but really----"

"Oh, I can see you can't have it on you at the moment," said Mr.
Wilkinson with much intellectual magnanimity.

"Well, the fact is----" began Turnbull again, and then the phrase was
frozen on his mouth, for round the corner came the goatlike face and
gleaming eye-glasses of Dr. Quayle.

"Ah, my dear Mr. Wilkinson," said the doctor, as if delighted at
a coincidence; "and Mr. Turnbull, too. Why, I want to speak to Mr.
Turnbull."

Mr. Turnbull made some movement rather of surrender than assent, and
the doctor caught it up exquisitely, showing even more of his two front
teeth. "I am sure Mr. Wilkinson will excuse us a moment." And with
flying frock-coat he led Turnbull rapidly round the corner of a path.

"My dear sir," he said, in a quite affectionate manner, "I do not mind
telling you--you are such a very hopeful case--you understand so well
the scientific point of view; and I don't like to see you bothered by
the really hopeless cases. They are monotonous and maddening. The man
you have just been talking to, poor fellow, is one of the strongest
cases of pure _idee fixe_ that we have. It's very sad, and I'm afraid
utterly incurable. He keeps on telling everybody"--and the doctor
lowered his voice confidentially--"he tells everybody that two people
have taken is yacht. His account of how he lost it is quite incoherent."

Turnbull stamped his foot on the gravel path, and called out: "Oh, I
can't stand this. Really----"

"I know, I know," said the psychologist, mournfully; "it is a most
melancholy case, and also fortunate