"Talk? _That's_ nothing!"--he uttered a snort. "Why, hang it, madam, he's _drunk_! Can't you have a little Christian charity and put yourself in his place? The poor boy doesn't know what he's saying!"

She looked up with a head jerk. "That's _it_--that's just what makes it so awful," she sniveled; "the revelations, you know!"

"Revelations, fiddlesticks!" champed the judge, and he jerked his head to the butler. "Go on, Wilkes! What has Mr. Billings said that's queerer than--er--usual?"

Wilkes rubbed his neck. "Well, sir, to _my_ thinking, it ain't so much what he's said that's queer--leastwise, it wasn't at first--as what he _did_. First off, there was his stalling about taking his bath, which was _on_-usual, for Perkins says, generally speaking, he's right keen for it--more 'specially when he's rather well soused--" Wilkes coughed.

"H'm! I beg your pardon, sir! Anyhow, this time he wouldn't have it at all; _no_, sir! He was very excited about it--kinder out of his head, I may say--and b.u.t.tonholed me and Perkins and went on a whole lot about only the under man being--no, let me see, _lower_ man was what he said--the lower man being an--an"--Wilkes' brows contracted as he strained for it--"an am--h'm--funny I can't remember that word--a am_fibby_ something--Well, anyhow, he said he never used water _ex_-ternally."

A penetrating moan from the handkerchief startled us.

"Then--then he never uses it at--_at all_!" came in a m.u.f.fled wail.

The judge's teeth glittered at her in one united row; then he jerked a nod to Wilkes. "Go on!" he commanded shortly.

But the butler was glooming sullenly at the fiery head that topped the bundle of black.

"He does, too!" he protested. "'Cause Perkins asked him if he wouldn't like some ice-water and he said he would if he might drink it his own way."

"His own way--um--well?"

"And when Perkins brought it, he poured it down his neck--yes, sir, every drop--"

The master cut in irritably: "His neck--confound it, man, tell your story without slang--or leave off! You know I detest--"

"_Not_ slang, sir"--hastily--"his neck--outside, I mean--"

"Oh, stuff!"--incredulously--"mean to tell me--"

"He _did_, sir--I'll swear it!" The butler was respectful, but firm as the rock of what's-its-name. "Perkins tried to stop him and says: 'Wait a minute, Mr. Jack--you're making a mistake--it ain't 'round there; it's in _front_, you know!' And he turned on Perkins with a scowl something awful, and his langwige--well, it wasn't langwige at _all_! Perkins thought--" He paused.

"Um!" The judge had drawn me aside. "The alienation is unusual--what do you think, Lightnut?"--he looked grave--"it doesn't seem the ordinary hiatus--the pa.s.sing alcoholic dementia, you know--there seems in it something hydrophobic--eh?"

"Oh, dash it, yes--_that's_ all!" I said offhand--just took a chance, don't you know!

"Um!" He blinked at me; then faced square about. "I guess I'd better go up; perhaps when he sees me--"

He halted, leveling a stern glance at Wilkes.

"What the dev--what are you grinning about?" he rasped.

"I'm not, sir!" And the butler's hand came down, revealing a sobered countenance. "I was just a-wondering if he would try to get you to put on the pajamas--he did all the rest of us, even--" His eye angled cautiously at the housekeeper, then batted at us significantly as her red head wriggled deeper. "Fact is, I think he's kinder gone off about pajamas--just as I told you, sir." His glance appealed to me. "Yes, sir, when I took you his message--you know--and brought back yours, it was even more so then."

I felt myself get devilish red, then pale, for the judge's eyes were on me.

"Yes," he muttered, still looking at me, "he _was_ telling me something the other day about some silk pajamas."

And then I knew he _knew_!

"Yes, sir," continued Wilkes, "when I got back with _your_ message, Mr.

Lightnut, he seemed to get more excited about them--about pajamas, I mean. He talked to me and Perkins through the door crack and wanted one of us to put 'em on--'in the interests of science,' _he_ called it--and offered to pa.s.s 'em out."

"Poor fellow--_poor_ fellow!"--and the judge looked pitiful--"well, why didn't you humor him?"

"I--I don't know, sir!" The butler looked embarra.s.sed. "And, anyhow, it was just then Mrs. Warfield came, and he tried to get--"

"Oo-o-o-o!" from the black bundle.

"And then--" Wilkes hesitated, looking uneasy.

"_Go_ on, man!"

The butler coughed faintly. "Well, sir, when she--h'm--refused--it was then he asked for Flora. 'All right, then you bring me my Flora,' was what he said, and he sounded irritated like. 'Beg pardon, sir?' says Perkins, putting his head to the crack kinder inquiringly. 'My Flora, man!' he comes back sharp; 'just find and bring my Flora--and some _pins_;'--he seemed particular about the pins--'if I've got to stay alone, I want something to divert me--I want my Flora!'" And the butler mopped his forehead.

The bundle erected itself. "His '_wild_ Flora,' was what he said," Miss Warfield corrected sharply; "he said he wanted to embrace--"

"Press," Wilkes corrected in turn.

She inflated with one drive of the piston. "If there's any difference, _I_ don't know it!" came in a blow-out. And, dash me, if I believe she _did_. She looked it, by Jove!

She faced the judge, who was leaning back against the table, looking kind of punctured, don't you know. By Jove, it seemed to me he had grown five years older in as many minutes!

This seemed to brighten her. "Wanted to _press_ his 'wild Flora'--his very words!" her voice rasped.

My, but that woman looked vicious! She blew her nose, crossed her hands, and propped herself on one foot with an air of ladylike resignation.

"I was so shocked you might have knocked me over with a feather, but I managed to speak to him--I don't know how I ever did it!--and I said: 'You don't mean Flora, sir--_you_ can't treat Flora that way!' And if you could have seen the way he flew to pieces! 'Why can't I?' he yelled at me. 'Do you think I haven't done it before?' Exactly what he said and I could hardly believe my ears; and then"--here she began to wabble and the handkerchief came up--"then he--he called me a wo-woman!"

And, by Jove, she was off the road!

But it seemed to give the judge new interest in life! He just needed some jolly thing, you know; and now he flared up sudden and went up in the air like a freshly touched-off what's-its-name:

"A woman?" His cheeks blew out like little red balloons. "Well, dammit, madam, what are you--_aren't_ you a woman?"--hands on hips he just howled it at her--"what do you _think_ you are?"

For an instant she quailed before him like the stricken what-you-call-it--but _only_ for an instant! Then her long neck coiled back and her eyes glittered beady and snake-like; I heard a sort of rattle in her throat, and then, of course, I knew she was going to strike--and she did!

"Very good, Judge!" She sniffed it. "Still it's my duty to tell you--or any one that asks me, for that matter--exactly what Mr. Jack said!" She moistened her lips with the end of a red tongue, and clucked in a sad, pitying sort of way. "Your son looked straight at me through the door-crack and laughed in the most contemptuous way, and he said: 'You just leave my Flora to me, woman! This time you're talking of something you know nothing about and never did know--why, I've pressed Flora a thousand times!'--yes, sir, just what he said!"--she whirled on Wilkes--"you heard him say it, too!"

The butler's sullen eye-droop admitted it.

"Huh!" And she tossed her head back with a nasty smile.

By Jove, she had got the judge full and square--you could see it as he stood there looking down, his face jolly gray and drawn and his under-lip kind of dragging through his teeth. He was a gamey old boy, but he had had a devilish hard knock where he lived you know--Jack!

"George!"--just a deep breath, you know--then he faced me. "You will excuse me, Lightnut? I must see to this." And he walked out, followed by Wilkes.

Somehow, dash it, it just bowled me over to see his gray hairs humbled in this way to the what-you-call-it--he had such a devilish few of 'em left, too, you know! So, before I knew it, I had walked right up to the old mountain cat and took a hand myself.