"Thanks very much," he said weakly. "Let's just go over it again, shall I? Just to be sure I've got it cold. First, I swarm up that pillar. Good. I may say I never have swarmed. I never knew anybody did swarm, except bees or people coming out of a football match. Never mind. Then I get hold of the gutter and draw myself up with my hands, while continuing to swarm with my legs. If--if the gutter will stand my weight.... Of course, that's easily ascertained. I just try it. If it will, it does. If it won't, I should like a penny-in-the-slot machine erected in my memory outside the English Club. Yes, I've got that. Well, if it will, I work--I think you said 'work'--round until I can reach the down-pipe. The drain--down-pipe will enable me to get my feet into the gutter. Sounds all right, doesn't it? 'The drain-pipe will enable.' A cryptic phrase. Quite the Brigade-Office touch. Where were we? Oh, yes. The drain-pipe having enabled me, etc., I just fall forward on to the tiles, when my hands will encounter and grasp the balustrade. Then I climb over and pat Nobby. Yes, except for the cesspool--I mean the drain-pipe--interlude, it's too easy." We helped him off with his coat.... We watched his reduction of the pillar with trembling lips; we heard his commentary upon gutters and those who make them with shaking shoulders; but it was when, with one foot in the air and the other wedged behind the down-pipe, the English Rose spoke of the uncertainty of life and inquired if we believed in Hell--when, after an exhausting and finally successful effort to get his left knee into the gutter, he first knelt upon a spare tile to his wounding and then found that his right foot was inextricably wedged between the down-pipe and the wall--when, as a result of his struggles, a section of the down-pipe came away in his hand, so that he was left clinging to the gutter with one foot in the air and twelve feet of piping swaying in his arms--then our control gave way and we let ourselves run before a tempest of Homeric laughter. We clasped one another; we leaned against walls; we stamped upon the ground; we fought for breath; tears streamed from our eyes. All the time, in a loud militant voice, Berry spoke of building and architects and mountain goats, of France and of the French, of incitement to suicide, of inquests and the law, of skunks and leprosy, and finally of his descent.... When we told him tearfully to drop, he let out the laugh of a maniac.