Never once before in all his life had George so much as hinted that anything his elder and superior did, came to him the least little bit amiss; never before had the disciple ventured to criticise the master. At school where there were three years between them (and three years at school is an eternity) the small but beefy George, a stolid boy in those days, had worshipped, humbly adoring, at the shrine of Guy, the Head of his House. When Guy, who had only just scraped his second fifteen cap, came down as an old boy to find George captain of the school fifteen and runner-up for the captaincy of the cricket eleven, George had all but wept for joy to hear himself addressed almost on equal terms. At Oxford, where Guy was a fourth-year man, the time of George’s fresherhood had been brightened and sanctified by the presence in the same town of his divinity. Had not George been permitted to be the humble instrument for bringing about Guy’s marriage with the only woman in this world remotely approaching worthiness, and had he not been rewarded beyond rubies by being allowed to be the great one’s best man—an honour he valued far more than the note from his captain announcing that he had been awarded a blue for rugger? Yet, after all that, here he was, red in the face and not unconscious of his epoch-making action, saying gruffly that he was getting fed up with all that chat about murder! Murder has turned people into revolutionaries before George. The two ghouls paused in their banquet and turned glazed eyes upon George. Had they heard aright? “_Fed up?_” demanded Doyle incredulously. “Yes,” replied the mutinous George. “Too much of a good thing.” “_Too much?_” repeated Mr. Doyle. He exchanged pitying glances with Guy. “My dear chap,” that gentleman took up the tale, rather in the tones of one addressing a small and particularly foolish infant (thus do all criminologists address on this particular subject those who are not of their own persuasion, which accounts largely for their unpopularity.) “My dear chap, you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It isn’t the mere _act_ of murder which interests us, it’s the state of mind of the murderer. The particular psychology, in fact, which finds its culmination in murder. The motives, the amount of premeditation, the lack of premeditation even more, the psychology of the victim, the network of circumstance, and a hundred other things—_those_ are what makes murder the most absorbing of all psychological studies.” “Oh!” said George. But he was impressed. George had never realised that murder had a psychology at all. George was learning things. Guy saw that the faithful hound was beginning to think of coming once more to heel, and carried on with the good work. He leaned back in his chair, joined his finger-tips and regarded his now uneasy disciple over his glasses with some severity.