“Look here, Martin,” responded Joe sternly. “You’d better pull yourself together, old man. It won’t do to let this--this hallucination go too far. Better get into bed and try to forget about onions. Maybe a good night’s rest is what you need. In the morning I’d have a talk with the doctor. Of course your trouble may not be serious, Mart. I dare say if you take it in time you can be cured. But I’d feel a whole lot easier if you saw a doctor, old man.” Martin’s expression of glowering distaste changed slightly. He stared in growing fascination at Bob. “It might be,” continued the latter kindly, “that you’ve been bitten by the Diptera onionensis, otherwise known as the onion-fly. Of course, it isn’t probable, but you never can tell, Mart. There’s the tse-tse fly, now. You wouldn’t expect to find that around here, but I’ve been told that it is quite common. Then why not the onion-fly?” Martin’s gaze was fixed on Bob and Martin’s mouth was slowly dropping open. He was like one who is seeing a Great Light and who is still too dazed by its refulgence for speech. Bob smiled gently and continued, keeping, however, perhaps unintentionally, the table between him and Martin. “You’ve been so awfully sympathetic about my sleeping sickness, Mart, that I just can’t bear to see you troubled like this. It would certainly be a load off my mind if you’d just talk things over with the doctor--” “You did it!” hissed Martin. “You--you played a trick on me!” “Why, Mart,” protested Bob in hurt tones. “How can you sit there and say them cruel words?” Martin glared wildly about him. Joe was so entirely overcome by some emotion that he had his head in his hands and Willard was gasping, perhaps with pain, his countenance hidden behind a propped-up book. Martin swallowed hard once, drew his feet beneath him and then was out of his chair with a roar. “I’ll onion you!” he shouted. “I’ll--I’ll--” Around the table they plunged, hurdling Joe’s legs, since that youth was too helpless to draw them back, twirling Willard around in his chair like a chip in a maelstrom as they passed, Bob a half circuit to the good at the end of each lap. Noise and confusion reigned supreme, but through it came Bob’s voice, made faint by laughter: “For the love of Mike, Mart, use discretion!” Martin’s invariable reply was a savage howl of wrath.