The progress of Mr. Molloy across the threshold of Chimp Twist's study bore a striking resemblance to that of some spent runner breasting the tape at the conclusion of a more than usually gruelling Marathon race. His hair was disordered, his face streaked with dust and heat, and his legs acted so independently of his body that they gave him an odd appearance of moving in several directions at once. An unbiassed observer, seeing him, could not but have felt a pang of pity for this wreck of what had once, apparently, been a fine, upstanding man. Chimp was not an unbiassed observer. He did not pity his old business partner. Judging from a first glance, Soapy Molloy seemed to him to have been caught in some sort of machinery, and subsequently run over by several motor lorries, and Chimp was glad of it. He would have liked to seek out the man in charge of that machinery and the drivers of those lorries, and reward them handsomely. "So here you are!" he said. Mr. Molloy, navigating cautiously, backed and filled in the direction of the armchair. Reaching it after considerable difficulty, he gripped its sides and lowered himself with infinite weariness. A sharp exclamation escaped him as he touched the cushions. Then, sinking back, he closed his eyes and immediately went to sleep. Chimp gazed down at him, seething with resentment that made his head ache worse than ever. That Soapy should have had the cold, callous crust to come to Healthward Ho at all after what had happened was sufficiently infuriating. That, having come, he should proceed without a word of explanation or apology to treat the study as a bedroom was more than Chimp could endure. Stooping down, he gripped his old friend by his luxuriant hair and waggled his head smartly from side to side several times. The treatment proved effective. Soapy sat up. "Eh?" he said, blinking. "What do you mean, eh?" "Which...? Why...? Where am I?" "I'll tell you where you are." "Oh!" said Mr. Molloy, intelligence returning. He sank back among the cushions again. Now that the first agony of contact was over he was finding their softness delightful. In the matter of seats, a man who has ridden twenty miles on an elderly push-bicycle becomes an exacting critic. "Gee! I feel bad!" he murmured. It was a natural remark, perhaps, for a man in his condition to make, but it had the effect of adding several degrees Fahrenheit to his companion's already impressive warmth. For some moments Chimp Twist, wrestling with his emotion, could find no form of self-expression beyond a curious spluttering noise. "Yes, sir," proceeded Mr. Molloy, "I feel bad. All the way over here on a bicycle, Chimpie, that's where I've been. It's in the calf of the leg that it gets me principally. There and around the instep. And I wish I had a dollar for every bruise those darned pedals have made on me." "And what about me?" demanded Chimp, at last ceasing to splutter.