“I was at my wits’ end what to say or do,” he told me subsequently. “I was afraid that Karl might crack up at any moment. Brain fever was the best thing I could hope for him; but, somehow, though doctoring is a science I know less of than conchology, I felt that relief would not come in that way. Once or twice I managed to touch his hand as if by accident. He was cool and firm as a block of ice. He knew what I was up to, and smiled at me in such despair! Guess I had a cold chill down my spine enough to give a rhinoceros influenza!” Strange, was it not, that Hooper should use such a simile after what Karl had said? But I must guard against digression. There is a fitting place for analysis, but a man may not stand up in a canoe and make a speech on the laws of bodies in motion when his frail craft is hurtling through rock-strewn rapids. “It was a heavy risk I took,” went on my fellow-conspirator, “but I was sure that Karl was more taxed by his mother’s close observation than by the manifold demands on his stamina entailed by other considerations. So I bluffed. Oxford was a natural goal. I suggested that he and I should visit our old ’Varsity next day, and Mrs. Grier approved of the idea. That is how I managed to install him in our sitting-room at the hotel early on the following morning. There he was at peace.” Karl showed a great desire, at that time, to discuss his sixth sense fully and freely with one who might be trusted to listen without scepticism. He acquainted Hooper with many marvels which reached my ears in due course. And, happily, the freedom from restraint had the good effect of inducing a slight drowsiness. He would not admit it, but Hooper was quite convinced that he had not slept during the preceding four days at least. That afternoon he yielded sufficiently to the demands of outraged nature to sink into a heavy sleep, though we found, on inquiry--not from him but from those whose well-being he was protecting at his own irreparable loss--that his control over them never slackened for an instant. Thinking that the best thing possible had happened, Hooper calmly locked him in, and told the floor attendant to ask Mr. Grier to await his (Hooper’s) return if he woke up and rang. Then, fast as a hansom could carry him, he hurried to Sandilands House, there to learn that the Honorable Nora Cazenove had driven to the Griers’, with laudable intent to take Mrs. Grier and Karl to Hurlingham. The pen almost refuses to write these colorless annals of ordinary life in town when they are contrasted with the extraordinary incidents to which they directly contributed. Yet they are essential to my story as plain brick and mortar to some noble edifice which inspires the muse of many generations of poets.