Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some maccaroni to his mouth. "Dangerous!" he said. "You don't know little Quin, sir!" "Every man is dangerous," said the old man without moving, "who cares only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself." And with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, bowing profoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again grown dense and sombre. Three days afterwards they heard that he had died quietly in lodgings in Soho. * * * * * Drowned somewhere else in the dark sea of fog was a little figure shaking and quaking, with what might at first sight have seemed terror or ague: but which was really that strange malady, a lonely laughter. He was repeating over and over to himself with a rich accent--"But speaking in the interests of the public...." CHAPTER III--_The Hill of Humour_ "In a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea," said Auberon Quin, "there was a Nonconformist minister who had never been to Wimbledon. His family did not understand his sorrow or the strange look in his eyes. But one day they repented their neglect, for they heard that a body had been found on the shore, battered, but wearing patent leather boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be the minister at all. But in the dead man's pocket there was a return ticket to Maidstone." There was a short pause as Quin and his friends Barker and Lambert went swinging on through the slushy grass of Kensington Gardens. Then Auberon resumed. "That story," he said reverently, "is the test of humour." They walked on further and faster, wading through higher grass as they began to climb a slope. "I perceive," continued Auberon, "that you have passed the test, and consider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since you say nothing. Only coarse humour is received with pot-house applause. The great anecdote is received in silence, like a benediction. You felt pretty benedicted, didn't you, Barker?" "I saw the point," said Barker, somewhat loftily. "Do you know," said Quin, with a sort of idiot gaiety, "I have lots of stories as good as that. Listen to this one." And he slightly cleared his throat. "Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow bimetallist. 'There,' people of wide experience would say, 'There goes the sallowest bimetallist in Cheshire.' Once this was said so that he overheard it: it was said by an actuary, under a sunset of mauve and grey. Polycarp turned upon him. 'Sallow!' he cried fiercely, 'sallow! _Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes._' It was said that no actuary ever made game of Dr. Polycarp again." Barker nodded with a simple sagacity. Lambert only grunted.