do a bit of thinking."

"Maybe you're right, Jimmy," said I as we lit our cigarettes.
"And if so, it's pretty ghastly. . . . He's had enough to put him
off his hinge. But somehow I can't bring myself--No, hang it!
I've always looked on Jack as the sanest man I've ever known. If he
has a failing it's for working everything out by cold reason."

"Just what he's doing at this moment," answered Jimmy dryly. "If you
don't like the word 'mad' I'll take it back and substitute 'balmy,'
or anything you like. Madness is a relative term; and I should have
thought that what you call working-everything-out-by-cold-reason was
a form of it. I know jolly well that if I felt myself taken that way
I should go to a doctor about it. And if _you're_ going to practise
it on the subject just now before the committee, I shall leave the
chair and this meeting breaks up in disorder."

"The point is," said I, "that the letter has gone."

"What address?" he asked pouring out the coffee.

"Biarritz, Grand Hotel--Why surely you read it?"--I stared at him,
but he was looking down on the cups. Then of a sudden I understood.
"Jimmy," I said humbly, "I've been an ass."

"Ah," said he, "I'm glad you see it in that light. . . . The
afternoon mail has gone: but there's the night boat. You can't
telegraph, unfortunately. In his state of mind you mustn't warn him.
You must catch him sitting."

"Look here," I proposed. "It will be a nuisance for you, Jimmy--it
will probably bore you stiff. But if you'll only come along with
me . . ."

"The implied compliment is noted and accepted," said Jimmy gravely.
"The invitation must be declined, with thanks, though. Your mind is
working better already. A few hours holiday off the L.C.C., and
you'll find yourself the man you were. But the gear wants oiling.
. . . Do you remember your betting me ten to one this morning, in a
lucid interval, that Farrell would break for home? Well, I didn't
take you up. I don't mind owning that, after you'd left, and after
some thought, I told Jephson to pack _both_ suit-cases. But that
lawyer, with his infernal notion of dispatch in business, will have
put money in the Professor's pocket some hours before you reach
Biarritz. Money's his means of pursuit: and it's well on the cards
that you'll find both your birds flown. You are going to Biarritz,
Otty, for your sins--like Napoleon III. and other eminent persons
before you: and you'll have, unlike the histo