"I did," said I. "I delight in doing so. It is from envy. By all the
standards that you know he is the most egregious and grandiloquent
and gorgeous fool in all the world. That's why you want to kill him."

"Would you mind telling me who or what you think I am?" asked the old
man.

I laughed boisterously and then stopped suddenly, for I remembered
that it would not do to be seen so hilarious in the company of
nothing but a brick wall.

"You are Jesse Holmes, the Fool-Killer," I said, solemnly, "and you
are going to kill my friend Kerner. I don't know who rang you up, but
if you do kill him I'll see that you get pinched for it. That is," I
added, despairingly, "if I can get a cop to see you. They have a poor
eye for mortals, and I think it would take the whole force to round
up a myth murderer."

"Well," said the Fool-Killer, briskly, "I must be going. You had
better go home and sleep it off. Good-night."

At this I was moved by a sudden fear for Kerner to a softer and more
pleading mood. I leaned against the gray man's sleeve and besought
him:

"Good Mr. Fool-Killer, please don't kill little Kerner. Why can't you
go back South and kill Congressmen and clay-eaters and let us alone?
Why don't you go up on Fifth Avenue and kill millionaires that keep
their money locked up and won't let young fools marry because one of
'em lives on the wrong street? Come and have a drink, Jesse. Will you
never get on to your job?"

"Do you know this girl that your friend has made himself a fool
about?" asked the Fool-Killer.

"I have the honor," said I, "and that's why I called Kerner a fool.
He is a fool because he has waited so long before marrying her. He
is a fool because he has been waiting in the hopes of getting the
consent of some absurd two-million-dollar-fool parent or something of
the sort."

"Maybe," said the Fool-Killer--"maybe I--I might have looked at it
differently. Would you mind going back to the restaurant and bringing
your friend Kerner here?"

"Oh, what's the use, Jesse," I yawned. "He can't see you. He didn't
know you were talking to him at the table, You are a fictitious
character, you know."

"Maybe he can this time. Will you go fetch him?"

"All right," said I, "but I've a suspicion that you're not strictly
sober, Jesse. You seem to be wavering and losing your outlines. Don't
vanish before I get back."

I went back to Kerner and said:

"There's a man with an invisible homicidal mania waiting to s