"What things one comes across!" sighed Tom Courtland.
Grantley had looked grave for a moment, but he smiled again as he said:
"After all, though, you've not told me how to manage Sibylla. I'm not Mumples—I can't thump her. I should be better than Mumples in one way, though. If I did, I should be dead sure to stick to it that I was right."
"You'd stick to it even if you didn't think so," observed Courtland.
For a moment the remark seemed to vex Grantley, and to sober him. He spent a few seconds evidently reflecting on it.
"Well, I hope not," he said at last. "But at any rate I should think so generally."
"Then you could mostly make her think so. But if it wasn't true, you might feel a brute."
"So I might, Jeremy."
"And it mightn't be permanently safe. She sees things uncommonly sharp sometimes. Well, I must be off."
"Going back to Haeckel?"