"I can quite imagine that he would be inconsolable indeed!" he said gallantly. "Fortunately, I was privileged to prevent such a calamity." "Tell me again exactly _how_ you did it," she said. "I never quite understood." Peter again took refuge in a discreet vagueness. "Oh," he replied, modestly, "there's not much to tell. I saw the--er--danger, and knew there wasn't a moment to lose; and then I sprang forward, and--well, you know the rest as well as I do!" "You only just caught him as he was going up the rigging, didn't you?" she asked. So it was the Judge he had saved--not his daughter! Peter felt a natural disappointment. But he saw the state of the case now: a powerful judicial intellect overstrained, melancholia, suicidal impulses--it was all very sad; but, happily, he had succeeded in saving this man to his country. "I--ventured to detain him," he said, considerately, "seeing that he was--er--rather excited." "But weren't you afraid he would bite you?" "No," said Peter, pained at this revelation of the Judge's condition, "that possibility did _not_ occur to me. In fact, I am sure that--er--though the strongest intellects are occasionally subject to attacks of this sort, he would never so far forget himself as to--er--bite a complete stranger." "Ah!" she said, "you don't know what a savage old creature he can be sometimes. He never ought to be let loose; I'm sure he's dangerous!" "Oh! but think, Miss Tyrrell," remonstrated Peter, unmistakably shocked at this unfilial attitude towards a distinguished parent; "if he was--er--dangerous, he would not be upon the Bench now, surely!" She glanced over her shoulder, with evident apprehension. "How you frightened me!" she said. "I thought he was really there! But I hope they'll shut him up in future, so that he won't be able to do any more mischief. You didn't tell me how you got hold of him. Was it by his chain, or his tail?" Peter did not know; and, besides, it was as difficult for him to picture himself in the act of seizing a hypochondriacal judge by his watch-chain or coat-tail, as it was for him to comprehend the utter want of feeling that could prompt such a question from the sufferer's own daughter. "I hope," he said, with a gravity which he intended as a rebuke--"I hope I treated him with all the respect and consideration possible under the--er--circumstances.... I am sorry that that remark appears to amuse you!" For Miss Tyrrell was actually laughing, with a merriment in which there was nothing forced. "How can I help it?" she said, as soon as she could speak. "It is too funny to hear you talking of being regretful and considerate to a horrid monkey!" "A _monkey!_" he repeated involuntarily.