“It is all the more pathetic,” continued the Captain, to whose monologue Quoodle seemed to listen with magnetized attention. “It is all the more pathetic because this mental insufficiency is sometimes found in the good; though there are, I should imagine, at least an equal number of opposite examples. The person standing a few feet off us, for example, is both stupid and wicked. But be very careful, Quoodle, to remember that any disadvantage under which we place him should be based on the moral and not his mental defects. Should I say to you at any time, ‘Go for him, Quoodle,’ or ‘Hold him, Quoodle,’ be certain in your own mind, please, that it is solely because he is wicked and not because he is stupid, that I am entitled to do so. The fact that he is stupid would not justify me in saying ‘hold him, Quoodle,’ with the realistic intonation I now employ–”
“Curse you, call him off!” cried Mr. Bullrose, retreating, for Quoodle was coming toward him with the bulldog part of his pedigree very prominently displayed, like a pennon. “Should Mr. Bullrose find it expedient to climb a tree, or even a sign-post,” proceeded Dalroy, for indeed the Agent had already clasped the pole of “The Old Ship,” which was stouter than the slender trees standing just around it, “you will keep an eye on him, Quoodle, and, I doubt not, constantly remind him that it is his wickedness, and not, as he might hastily be inclined to suppose, stupidity that has placed him on so conspicuous an elevation–”
“Some of you’ll wish yourself dead for this,” said the Agent; who was by this time clinging to the wooden sign like a monkey on a stick, while Quoodle watched him from below with an unsated interest. “Some of you’ll see something. Here comes his lordship and the police, I reckon.”
“Good morning, my lord,” said Dalroy, as Ivywood, paler than ever in the strong moonshine, came through the thicket toward them. It seemed to be his fate that his faultless and hueless face should always be contrasted with richer colours; and even now it was thrown up by the gorgeous diplomatic uniform of Dr. Gluck, who walked just behind him.
“I am glad to see you, my lord,” said Dalroy, in a stately manner, “it is always so awkward doing business with an Agent. Especially for the Agent.”
“Captain Dalroy,” said Lord Ivywood, with a more serious dignity, “I am sorry we meet again like this, and such things are not of my seeking. It is only right to tell you that the police will be here in a moment.”
“Quite time, too!” said Dalroy, shaking his head. “I never saw anything so disgraceful in my life. Of course, I am sorry it’s a friend of yours; and I hope the police will keep Ivywood House out of the papers. But I won’t be a party to one law for the rich and another for the poor, and it would be a great shame if a man in that state got off altogether merely because he had got the stuff at your house.”
“I do not understand you,” said Ivywood. “What are you talking of?”
“Why of him,” replied the Captain, with a genial gesture toward a fallen tree trunk that lay a yard or two from the tunnel wall, “the poor chap the police are coming for.”
Lord Ivywood looked at the forest log by the tunnel which he had not glanced at before, and in his pale eyes, perhaps for the first time, stood a simple astonishment.