"If I went to London, I could see Ronnie Fish and explain all the circumstances about my not being able to go into that Hot Spot thing with him." "You can do that by letter." "It's so hard to put things properly in a letter." "Then put them improperly," said Mr. Carmody. "Once and for all, you are not going to London." He had started to turn away as the only means possible of concluding this interview, when he stopped, spellbound. For Hugo, as was his habit when matters had become difficult and required careful thought, was pulling out of his pocket a cigarette case. "Goosh!" said Mr. Carmody, or something that sounded like that. He made an involuntary motion with his hand, as a starving man will make toward bread: and Hugo, with a strong rush of emotion, realized that the happy ending had been achieved and that at the eleventh hour matters could at last be put on a satisfactory business basis. "Turkish this side, Virginian that," he said. "You can have the lot for ten quid." "Say, I think you'd best be getting along and taking your shower, Mr. Carmody," said the voice of Doctor Twist, who had come up unobserved and was standing at his elbow. The proprietor of Healthward Ho had a rather unpleasant voice, but never had it seemed so unpleasant to Mr. Carmody as it did at that moment. Parsimonious though he was, he would have given much for the privilege of heaving a brick at Doctor Twist. For at the very instant of this interruption he had conceived the Machiavellian idea of knocking the cigarette case out of Hugo's hand and grabbing what he could from the débris: and now this scheme must be abandoned. With a snort which came from the very depths of an overwrought soul, Lester Carmody turned and shuffled off toward the house. "Say, you shouldn't have done that," said Doctor Twist, waggling a reproachful head at Hugo. "No, sir, you shouldn't have done that. Not right to tantalize the poor fellow." Hugo's mind seldom ran on parallel lines with that of his uncle, but it was animated now by the identical thought which only a short while back Mr. Carmody had so wistfully entertained. He, too, was feeling that what Doctor Twist needed was a brick thrown at him. When he was able to speak, however, he did not mention this, but kept the conversation on a pacific and businesslike note. "I say," he said, "you couldn't lend me a tenner, could you?" "I could not," agreed Doctor Twist. In Hugo's mind the inscrutable problem of why an all-wise Creator should have inflicted a man like this on the world deepened. "Well, I'll be pushing along, then," he said moodily. "Going already?" "Yes, I am." "I hope," said Doctor Twist, as he escorted his young guest to his car, "you aren't sore at me for calling you down about those student's lamps. You see, maybe your uncle was hoping you would slip him one, and the disappointment will have made him kind of mad. And part of the system here is to have the patients think tranquil thoughts." "Think what?"