“Confound it, Basil,” said Rupert, stamping. “If you don't want me to go mad and blow your metaphysical brains out, tell me what all this means.” Northover rose. “Permit me, sir, to explain,” he said. “And, first of all, permit me to apologize to you, Major Brown, for a most abominable and unpardonable blunder, which has caused you menace and inconvenience, in which, if you will allow me to say so, you have behaved with astonishing courage and dignity. Of course you need not trouble about the bill. We will stand the loss.” And, tearing the paper across, he flung the halves into the waste-paper basket and bowed. Poor Brown's face was still a picture of distraction. “But I don't even begin to understand,” he cried. “What bill? what blunder? what loss?” Mr P. G. Northover advanced in the centre of the room, thoughtfully, and with a great deal of unconscious dignity. On closer consideration, there were apparent about him other things beside a screwed moustache, especially a lean, sallow face, hawk-like, and not without a careworn intelligence. Then he looked up abruptly. “Do you know where you are, Major?” he said. “God knows I don't,” said the warrior, with fervour. “You are standing,” replied Northover, “in the office of the Adventure and Romance Agency, Limited.” “And what's that?” blankly inquired Brown. The man of business leaned over the back of the chair, and fixed his dark eyes on the other's face. “Major,” said he, “did you ever, as you walked along the empty street upon some idle afternoon, feel the utter hunger for something to happen--something, in the splendid words of Walt Whitman: 'Something pernicious and dread; something far removed from a puny and pious life; something unproved; something in a trance; something loosed from its anchorage, and driving free.' Did you ever feel that?” “Certainly not,” said the Major shortly.