e latter did
not turn round but danced away with his eyes on the horizon.

The doctor put on his glasses again, looked severely at the two for
some seconds, with his head on one side like a bird's, and then saying,
shortly, "All right," strutted away into the house, where the three
Misses Chadd were all looking out from the parlour window on to the
garden. They looked out on it with hungry eyes for a full hour without
moving, and they saw a sight which was more extraordinary than madness
itself.

Basil Grant addressed a few questions to the madman, without succeeding
in making him do anything but continue to caper, and when he had done
this slowly took a red note-book out of one pocket and a large pencil
out of another.

He began hurriedly to scribble notes. When the lunatic skipped away from
him he would walk a few yards in pursuit, stop, and make notes again.
Thus they followed each other round and round the foolish circle of
turf, the one writing in pencil with the face of a man working out a
problem, the other leaping and playing like a child.

After about three-quarters of an hour of this imbecile scene, Grant put
the pencil in his pocket, but kept the note-book open in his hand, and
walking round the mad professor, planted himself directly in front of
him.

Then occurred something that even those already used to that wild
morning had not anticipated or dreamed. The professor, on finding Basil
in front of him, stared with a blank benignity for a few seconds, and
then drew up his left leg and hung it bent in the attitude that his
sister had described as being the first of all his antics. And the
moment he had done it Basil Grant lifted his own leg and held it out
rigid before him, confronting Chadd with the flat sole of his boot. The
professor dropped his bent leg, and swinging his weight on to it kicked
out the other behind, like a man swimming. Basil crossed his feet like
a saltire cross, and then flung them apart again, giving a leap into
the air. Then before any of the spectators could say a word or even
entertain a thought about the matter, both of them were dancing a sort
of jig or hornpipe opposite each other; and the sun shone down on two
madmen instead of one.

They were so stricken with the deafness and blindness of monomania that
they did not see the eldest Miss Chadd come out feverishly into the
garden with gestures of entreaty, a gentleman following her. Professor
Chadd was in the wildest postur