t of the case and
put it on the table for Jack to see. Then I sat down and waited for
results, but I had to make no end of signs before he would take any
notice of the book, for he was in such a state of despondency that I
believe he thought I was trying to talk on my fingers. At last his eye
fell on the book, and after I had nodded furiously at him, he jumped
off the table and stood in front of Thornton.

"You read _Omar Khayyam_?" he said, holding the book in his hand.

Thornton stopped staring at the ceiling and sat forward with his elbows
resting on his knees. "Yes," he answered; "at least, I used to until I
knew it by heart."

"He's a good brand of champagne," Jack went on.

"Are you a friend of Dennison's?" Thornton asked, and there was a kind
of hunted look in his eyes.

"I'm not," I hastened to tell him, and at that moment I looked at my
watch and discovered that I had already kept The Bradder waiting for
ten minutes, so I had to go just as things were becoming interesting.

Jack assured me afterwards that Thornton was not mad. "But," he added,
"he's very odd, and I believe he's in a mortal terror that, unless he
goes on pretending to be a fool, these men will do something much worse
to him than make him president of a society which doesn't exist. So
I've put Murray to speak to him; this will be the talk of the 'Varsity,
and I don't see what good there is in keeping prize idiots. I have
told him to go on playing up to Dennison for a bit, and then we would
help him."

I did not think, however, that it would be very easy to save Thornton,
and when Collier and I went to the meeting of the Hedonists on the
following evening we agreed that whether he was mad or only very
simple, he was sure to be in for a bad time. Although Dennison had
moved into some of the biggest rooms in college, they were crowded when
we got to them, and it was very difficult to get Collier inside the
door. Dennison and a few other men were sitting at a table at the far
end of the room, and just as we arrived a fourth-year man got up to
speak.

I suppose that his business was to explain why the Hedonists existed.
At any rate, he said that it was his duty before he, as the out-going
President, broke his wand of office to remind the Society that it
existed for two definite objects--the pursuit of pleasure, and the
suppression of vulgarity. He then went on to state that Mr. Wilkins,
formerly of St. Cuthbert's, had kindly consent