“Dear old Trevor--fancy having kept you waiting all this time! Here you are, man, here you are.” And from somewhere inside his cloak he jerked a pocket-book into my hand and crushed it against my palm. “You can keep the change, old boy, as you’re younger than I am and look as though you need it. Always take vegetables with your meat, Trevor.” “I hate to take money from an impoverished baronet,” I got in, just to goad him. “Impoverished nothing!” he boomed, and swung on Tarlyon, who backed a step. “D’you remember, George, that Roger always said I had a _flair_ for making money----” “But he added,” Tarlyon said, “that you hadn’t got the brain of a louse to back that _flair_ up with.” Boomed Antony: “I have studied the ways of lice for five years on end and must inform you, George, that my brain, though moth-eaten, is certainly superior. I have made mints of money. I am fat with money. I roll in money....” He was working himself up into that state of chronic excitement in which he might twist the lamp-post. Breakable or twistable things had always a fascination for Red Antony. “There, there!” I soothed him. “And we thought the little man was dead!” “There, there!” said George. “Did he make money, now! And we thought he was lying in some forgotten foreign field with a German bullet in his heart.” Bother the man! He simply had to make a noise each time he opened his mouth. The policeman who had talked Vine Street to us approached. “Dead! Me dead!” And the sweep of his arm flung wide his cloak, and indeed he looked a mighty man of wrath. “As though a Prooshian bullet could kill me!” “You are no doubt reserved for a more terrible end,” said Tarlyon. Blessed if the man didn’t wilt! That roaring red giant--he wilted. “Don’t say that, George,” he begged hoarsely. “It’s a fool remark to make, that. You didn’t mean it, did you?” And he put the question seriously! We gaped at him. “He was only being funny,” I explained. “He tries his best....” “I wish you well, Antony,” said Tarlyon, out of his surprise. “God, I need it!” Antony growled surprisingly. And then I laughed--remembering Red Antony’s old way of acting cussed, just to surprise and annoy. He’d do anything to make a fool of some one, that man, even if he had to make a fool of himself in doing it. But as I laughed, Antony looked at me with furious, haggard eyes, and I stopped laughing.