Fulton's ambition was to discover some great destructive to the bacillus of bubonic plague, yet otherwise harmless to the human system. Mr. Humphreys was engaged upon a propagandist mission to teach the masses the blessings of what he called "Purer Socialism." Mr. Cavanagh painted riddles of pictures for the Academy, which his brother Academicians wished, without daring, to reject. Mr. Nevil Pardoe wrote problem plays, and Mr. Husband was a naval expert. Like my master, all were confirmed bachelors who had acquired a reputation for misogyny because they remorselessly eschewed society. Earnest workers and infernal idiots! So I came to regard them the more I heard of them. Indeed, who but a fool would prefer to waste his life in barren study, when he might squire instead such exquisitely beautiful dames as I saw and coveted every time I wandered down Piccadilly or the Row? The secret of my master's monthly entertainments cost me many an unquiet night of puzzled thought and anxious contemplation. I tried to believe that he and his six fellow students had simply agreed to assemble periodically at Sir William Dagmar's house in order to enjoy a quiet gamble as a recreation from their ordinary and persistent labours, and also to gratify a morbid desire of marking the ravages which their common disease had made in each other since their last meeting. Some instinct, however, forbade me to rest satisfied with an explanation so simple. Why, I asked myself, should they always converse in French, if they had nothing better worthy of concealing? Why, again, should they subscribe weekly to a common fund, the combined fruits of which evidently passed into one man's keeping at the dictation of the dice? That seemed a curious thing, and it was a circumstance all the more puzzling to account for, since they gambled at cards for high stakes as well. Was it just possible that the winner of the cheque was bound, by rule, to apply the money to some esoteric purpose? I felt inclined to suspect it was! But what then? I watched Sir William, the last winner of the cheque, as a cat might a mouse for three weeks--but I discovered nothing. I censored his correspondence with a like result. Every Monday morning he gave me a letter to post to Mr. Cavanagh. I opened those over a bowl of steam, but each only contained a crossed and unnegotiable cheque for £250, with never a line of explanation. As for the rest of his post budget, he received many letters, but he answered none, and his correspondents seemed to be for the most part beggars. The mystery irritated me so much that it began to trouble my sleep. Butts also annoyed me. He developed such a fancy for my company that I was obliged to lock my door whenever I wished to be alone; and I frequently wished to be alone, for my great plan required that I should be able to imitate at will Sir William Dagmar's every look and gesture, his every tone and trick of speech. I foresaw that I should have to get rid of Butts.