He was a bald, pink-faced little man, wearing great round gold spectacles that seemed to be fitted on to his smiles. Kindliness and the gladness of life emanated from him, as perfume does from a jar of attar of roses. His name was Wonnacott, and he was a member of the council of the Anthropological Society. Quixtus, who had known him for years, scanned his glad cherubic face, and set him down as a false-hearted scoundrel. With this mental reservation he greeted him cordially enough. “We want you badly,” said Wonnacott. “Things aren’t all they should be at the Society.” “The monkey’s tail peeping out between their coat tails?” Quixtus asked eagerly. “No. No. It’s only Griffiths.” Griffiths was the Vice-President. “He knows his subject as well as anybody, but he’s a perfect fool in the chair. We want you back.” “Very good of you to say so,” replied Quixtus, “but I’m thinking of resigning from the Society altogether, giving up the study of anthropology and presenting my collection to a criminal lunatic asylum.” Wonnacott, laughing, drew a chair from the vacant table next to Quixtus’s and sat down. “Why—— What?” “We know how Primitive Man in most of the epochs slew his enemies, cooked his food, and adorned or disfigured his person; but of the subtle workings of his malignant mind we are hopelessly ignorant.” “I don’t suppose his mind was more essentially malignant than yours or mine,” said Wonnacott. “Quite so,” Quixtus agreed. “But we can study the malignancy, the brutality and bestiality of the minds of us living people. We are books open for each other to read. Historic man too we can study—from documents—Nero, Alexander the Sixth, Titus, Oates, Sweeny Tod the Barber——” “But, my dear man,” smiled Wonnacott, “you are getting into the province of criminology.” “It’s the only science worth studying,” said Quixtus. Then, after a pause, during which the waiter put the Stilton in front of him and handed him the basket of biscuits, “Do you ever go to race meetings?” “Sometimes—yes,” laughed the other, startled at the unexpectedness of the question. “I have my little weaknesses like other people.” “There must be a great deal of wickedness to be found on race-courses.” “Possibly,” replied Wonnacott, apologetically, “but I’ve never seen any myself.” Quixtus musingly buttered a piece of biscuit. “That’s a pity. A great pity. I was thinking of going on the turf. I was told that nowhere else could such depravity be found.” One or two of Wonnacott’s smiles dropped, as it were, from his face and he looked keenly at Quixtus. He saw a hard glitter in the once mild, china-blue eyes, and an unnatural hardness in the setting of the once kindly lips. There was a curious new eagerness on a face that had always been distinguished by a gentle repose. The hands, too, that manipulated the knife and biscuits, shook feverishly. “I’m afraid you’re not very well, my dear fellow,” said he.