* * * * * As soon as the three newly constituted Evil Genii were out of earshot of the house, they stopped on the pavement with one accord and burst into unseemly laughter. “Did you ever hear anything like it?” cried Billiter. “He’s as mad as Bedlam,” said Vandermeer. “A sort of inverted Knight of the Round Table,” said Huckaby. “He yearns to ride abroad committing human wrongs.” “Are we to call for orders every day like the butcher, the baker, and the greengrocer?” said Vandermeer. “He was so sane at first,” said Vandermeer, “that I really thought he had some definite scoop in view. But it all turns out to be utter moonshine.” “If he doesn’t want to thieve or murder or paint the town red,” said Billiter, “what the blazes in the way of wickedness is left for him to do?” “It’s moonshine,” repeated Vandermeer. “If it wasn’t,” said Huckaby, “none of us would touch it. We can’t take the matter seriously. We’re just lending ourselves to a farce, that’s all.” “Naturally,” Billiter agreed. “We must humour him.” They walked on slowly, discussing the unprecedented situation. They were unanimous in the opinion that the poor gentleman had gone distraught. They had all noticed signs of his affliction on the last occasion of their dining at his table. If he had been in his right senses then, he would surely not have behaved with such discourtesy. They agreed to forgive him for turning them out of doors. “It’s lucky for him,” said Huckaby, “that he has three old friends like ourselves. He might have got into other hands, and then—God help him. My only reason for falling in with his mood was in order to protect him from himself—and from sharks and blood-suckers.” Billiter and Vandermeer declared that they, too, had acted only out of a sense of loyalty to their old and distracted friend. They protested so hard that their tongues clave to the roofs of their mouths, and each acknowledged his thirst. They turned into the bar-parlour of the first public-house, where they called for whisky, and, each man having found a hat as good a substitute for the sacks of Joseph’s brethren as an overcoat, they continued to call for whisky, and to drink it until the tavern closed for the night. By that time they glowed with conscious virtue. Huckaby swore that he would permit no ruddy lobsters to dig their claws into Quixtus’s sacred person. “Here’s poor dear old chap’s health, drunk in very last drop,” cried Billiter, enthusiastically draining his last glass. The tragedy of Quixtus’s loss of reason reduced Vandermeer to tears. He was sorrowful in his cups. He, Vandermeer, had no one to love him; but Quixtus should never find himself in that desolate predicament, as he, Vandermeer, would love him like a friend, a brother, like a silver-haired maiden aunt. “I’ve had a silver-haired maiden aunt myself,” he wailed.