ve you been all night?"

"Ah-h!" P. Sybarite sighed provokingly: "that's a long and tiresome
story, George."

With much the air of a transient, he sat him down by George's side.

"A very long and very weary story, George. I don't like to tell it to
you, really. We'd be sure to quarrel."

"Why?" George demanded aggressively.

"Because you wouldn't believe me. I don't quite believe it myself, now
that all's over, barring a page or two. Your great trouble, George, is
that you have no imagination."

"The devil I ain't!"

"Perfectly right: you haven't. If you point with pride to that wild
flight of fancy which identified 'Molly Lessing' with Marian
Blessington, George, your position is (as you yourself would say)
untenable. It wasn't imagination: it was fact."

"No!" George ejaculated. "Is that right? What'd I tell you?"

"Word of honour! But it's a secret, as yet--from everybody except you
and Violet; and even you we wouldn't tell had you not earned the right
to know by guessing and making me semi-credulous--enough to start
something--several somethings, in fact."

"G'wan!" George coaxed. "Feed it to me: I'll eat it right outa your
hand. Whatcha been doin' with yourself all night, P.S.?"

"I've been Day of Days-ing myself, George."

"Ah, can the kiddin', P.S. Come through! Whadja do?"

"Broke every Commandment in the Decalogue, George, barring one or two
of the more indelicate ones; kicked the laws of chance and probability
into a cocked hat; fractured most of the Municipal Ordinances--and--let
me see--oh, yes!--dislocated the Long Arm of Coincidence so badly that
all of its subsequent performances are going to seem stiff and lacking
in that air of spontaneity without which--"

"My Gawd!" George despaired--"he's off again on that hardy annual
talkalogue of his!... Lis'n, P.S.--"

"Call me Perceval," P. Sybarite suggested pleasantly.

"_Wh-at!_"

"Let it be Perceval hereafter, George--always. I grant you free
permission."

"But I thought you said--"

"So I did--a few hours ago. Now I--well, I rather like it. It makes
all the difference who calls you that sort of name first, and what her
voice is like."

"One of us," George protested with profound conviction, "is plumb
loony in the head!"

"It's me," said P. Sybarite humbly: "I admit it.... And the worst of
it is--I like it! So would you if you'd been through a Day of Days."

George let that pass; for the moment he was otherwise engaged in vain
s