“See!” he cried, brandishing this broken javelin in the air, “the very lances round Beacon Tower leap from their places to defend it. Ah, in such a place and hour it is a fine thing to die alone!” And in a voice like a drum he rolled the noble lines of Ronsard–
“Ou pour l’honneur de Dieu, ou pour le droit de mon prince,
Navre, poitrine ouverte, au bord de mon province.”
“Sakes alive!” said the American gentleman, almost in an awed tone. Then he added, “Are there two maniacs here?”
“No; there are five,” thundered Moon. “Smith and I are the only sane people left.”
“Michael!” cried Rosamund; “Michael, what does it mean?”
“It means bosh!” roared Michael, and slung his painted spear hurtling to the other end of the garden. “It means that doctors are bosh, and criminology is bosh, and Americans are bosh– much more bosh than our Court of Beacon. It means, you fatheads, that Innocent Smith is no more mad or bad than the bird on that tree.”
“But, my dear Moon,” began Inglewood in his modest manner, “these gentlemen–”
“On the word of two doctors,” exploded Moon again, without listening to anybody else, “shut up in a private hell on the word of two doctors! And such doctors! Oh, my hat! Look at ’em!–do just look at ’em! Would you read a book, or buy a dog, or go to a hotel on the advice of twenty such? My people came from Ireland, and were Catholics. What would you say if I called a man wicked on the word of two priests?”
“But it isn’t only their word, Michael,” reasoned Rosamund; “they’ve got evidence too.”