"How do you know?" "Because--to carry out your sheep-dog metaphor which, in reality, doesn't fit the case at all, Opdyke--he put his paw in mine, and then growled at me when I shook it." "I'm not so much surprised. Brenton has been on his nerves lately. I can't just see why, though." "Has he talked to you, Opdyke?" "Good Lord, yes! A man on his nerves is bound to talk to something, whether it's a responsible person like yourself, or a mere bedpost like me. It's the talking that's the main thing, the sense of exhilaration that comes with the discussion of depressing personalities. We're all alike, every man of us, Whittenden. Didn't I take my turn, last night?" "That's different." "Not a bit. Spine or conscience, it's all one, once it begins to raise a ruction. But about Brenton: how do you diagnose his disease?" Whittenden's reply came on the instant. "Trying to believe too many things too hard." "Hm!" Opdyke appeared to be considering. "Well, I think perhaps you've hit it. However, there are some extenuating circumstances. Give a man a dozen years or so of the mental starvation of a New England wilderness, and then all at once fill him chock full of new ideas, and he gets a pain within him, just as painful a pain as if it were in his tummy, not his mind. In time, it leads to chronic indigestion. That's what Brenton's got." "Yes; but that is cause, not extenuating circumstance," Whittenden objected. "It's extenuating, just the same. And then the wife! She is--" "Well?" "A pill," Reed said briefly. "What sort?" "Born common and dense. Grown self-centred and conceited. Lately turned from ultra-ritualistic to incipient Eddyism." "That's bad." "Isn't it? No wonder Brenton's down and out, for the time being. The question is how we are to prevent its becoming chronic. Of course, this is the bare outline; you can fill in the details out of your own experience." "Praise heaven, I haven't any!" Whittenden responded piously. "So much the better for you, and so very much the worse for Brenton. I had counted on your being here to haul him out of his present mental Turkish bath, and hang him out on the line in the fresh air and sun. I can't." Reed made an expressive grimace at the couch. "Besides, I'm a little bit like old Knut on the seashore; my own toes are getting very wet. The worst of that matter is that Brenton knows it." Whittenden spoke tranquilly, his eyes on Opdyke's face, sure that he could rely upon the sense of humour in his friend. "Yes, Brenton does know it. Do you realize, Opdyke, that you're the fellow who heated up his Turkish bath, in the first place?" "What!" The word exploded with a violence that brought Ramsdell's head in at the open doorway. "Yes, you." Opdyke smiled at Ramsdell, in token of dismissal. Then,-- "Not guilty!" he protested.