I made a sound of annoyance. Evidently I had not finished with Pete yet. "He's a born idiot!" I said. "I'm not so sure," Lessing returned. "He has a very practical regard for his own skin. I appreciate that." "You ought to." He gave me one of those habitual quick looks, his head on one side. "Thanks! Do you find the mosquitoes bad around here? I got all bitten up coming past Dutchman's Hollow." I took the hint. "We'll sit indoors," I said. "It's pretty cool in the surgery." He followed me into the room, glancing curiously about him. "So this is where old Lennox hung out ... the place has a look of him. What's that, butterflies? He always had a weakness for things he could stick a pin into and label nicely!" "Have you never been here before?" "Never. He used to come to my place. I have an idea you know, that Lennox still thinks I'm not right in the head." I lit the student lamp on the table and set out whisky and a couple of glasses. Lessing settled himself in the shabby armchair opposite me, and for a little while we smoked in silence. In the half-shadow beyond the ring of lamplight I could see his face, fine and clear cut against the shabby morocco of the chair back, the dark hair tumbled over his forehead. He was staring up at the smoke wreaths in a curious intensity of abstraction. "I suppose," he began at last, "that I owe you some sort of an explanation, as things go." I made a little gesture of indifference. I was beginning to know my man. If it pleased him to work upon my curiosity I was prepared to give him the least possible satisfaction. "You offered me one," I corrected him. "I believe we decided to let it go at that." He turned his gaze upon me, with a rather charming impertinence. "That was when I took you for a fool. As I admit the error you ought to forgive my expression of it. The truth is..." He paused so long that I reached for a fresh cigarette to break the interval. "I'll be damned if I know what the truth is myself!" He finished almost violently. "I can give you facts--all you want. When it comes to putting things together.... Do you know how maddening it is to have your hand on a thing--actually on it--and feel it all the while slipping through your fingers?" He threw his cigarette away. "Let's drop all this nonsense, anyway. I came over here tonight to have a talk with you. I tell you frankly, because you're about the only sane man I'm likely to cross down here. I tried Lennox once, and Lennox thought I was batty, and there the matter ended. But I've got to a point now where it's absolutely necessary, for the sake of my own mental balance, that I should have someone else's opinion about things. I'm going to put certain facts before you, and you'll say what you think about them." I nodded.