"The best of the whole thing is that I don't believe Thornton is a lunatic. Collier says he isn't, and both Learoyd and Murray say he's not mad, but awfully clever or a humorist." "Murray!" I exclaimed, but Jack was losing the power to astonish me very much. "He's all right, I met him in Learoyd's room," Jack said, and began to laugh. "So Thornton isn't mad after all, and you needn't talk about freaks," I told Fred. "Do you mind hearing about this?" Jack asked him; "it will be splendid if it only comes off. It's like this: Lambert and Dennison are always looking out for freaks"--I wished he would not give Fred such chances to grin at me--"and Thornton's hair sticks up on end, and he never seems to know what he is going to do next. Murray told me that he is like a very good pianist he met once, except that he can't play the piano. At any rate he's odd, and that was the reason why Dennison asked him to lunch. And Lambert, do you know him?" Fred shook his head. "He is the kind of man who is built for processions and platforms and Lord Mayors' Shows," Jack explained; "he's gorgeous altogether." "I saw him at your smoker," Fred said. "He's one of the sights of the place, and he began to talk to Thornton about champagne." "He always talks about clothes or wine," I put in. "Thornton pretended--at least, I'll bet he pretended--to know nothing about champagne. So Lambert told him the best brand was Omar Khayyam of '78, and that by a stroke of luck it could still be got at a place in the High. They thought Thornton swallowed that all right, so Dennison told him that if he couldn't get Omar Khayyam he must get some Rosbach of '82. After that they asked what sort of fly he used for quail; of course the man must have been simply too sick of them to say anything." "Lambert never told me anything about the champagne," I said. "I expect that was because he and Dennison nearly had a row about it; he swore that he thought about Omar Khayyam, and Dennison swore that he did--a rotten sort of thing to quarrel about, anyway. I never heard of the man until yesterday. I've often heard of Rosbach," he added. "What's going to happen now?" Fred asked, and from some cause or other he was shaking with laughter. Jack told him about the Hedonists, and finished up by saying that he must go to see Thornton. "What's the good of that?" I asked. "I want to see if he isn't having a huge joke all to himself; if he is we may as well help him with it." As soon as Fred had gone away Jack persuaded me to go with him and call on Thornton. He had got hold of a scheme which Murray and Learoyd had started, and as its object seemed to be to score off Dennison I was not going to be out of it. We found Thornton sitting in an arm-chair with his feet on the mantelpiece, and Jack seeing that he was alone sported the oak so that we could not be interrupted.