“Not well?” Quixtus laughed, somewhat harshly. “Why I feel ten times younger than I did this time yesterday. I’ve never been so well in my life. Why, I could——” he stopped short and regarded Wonnacott suspiciously—“No. I won’t tell you what I could do.” He drank the remainder of his glass of white wine, and threw his napkin on the table. “Let us go and smoke,” said he. In the smoking-room, Wonnacott, still observing him narrowly, asked him why he was so interested in the depravity of the turf. Quixtus met his eyes with the same suspicious glance. “I told you I was going to take up the study of criminology. It’s a useful and fascinating science. But as the subject does not seem to interest you,” he added with a quick return to his courteous manner, “let us drop it. You mustn’t suppose I’ve lost all interest in the Society. What especially have you to complain of about Griffiths?” Wonnacott explained, and for the comfortable half-hour of coffee and cigarettes after lunch they discussed the ineffectuality of Griffiths and, as all good men will, exchanged views on the little foibles of their colleagues on the Council of the Anthropological Society. Quixtus discoursed so humanly, that Wonnacott, on his way office-wards, having lit a cigar at the spirit-lamp in the club-vestibule, looked at the burning end meditatively and said to himself: “I must have been mistaken after all.” But Quixtus remained for some time in the club deep in thought, scanning a newspaper with unseeing eyes. He had been injudicious in his conversation with Wonnacott. He had almost betrayed his secret. It behoved him to walk warily. In these days the successful serpent has to assume not only the voice, but the outer semblance and innocent manners of the dove. If he went crawling and hissing about the world, proclaiming his venomousness aloud like a rattle-snake, humanity would either avoid him altogether, or hit him over the head out of self-protection. He must ingratiate himself once more with mankind, and only strike when opportunity offered. For that reason he would simulate a continued interest in Prehistoric Man. On the other hand, the newly born idea of the study of criminology hovered agreeably and comfortingly over his mind. So much so, that he presently left the club, and, walking to a foreign library, ordered the works of Cesare Lombroso, Ottolenghi, Ferri, Topinard, Corre and as many other authorities on criminology as he could think of, and then, having ransacked the second-hand bookshops in Charing Cross Road, drove home exultant with an excellent set of “The Newgate Calendar.”