“You can fancy anything in the tasting way,” returned his shorter companion. “Mr. Jack, who was always up to his tricks, did serve plain water in those little glasses they drink liqueurs out of, and everyone swore it was a delicious liqueur, and wanted to know where they could get it—all except old Admiral Guffin, who said it tasted too strong of olives. But water’s much the best for our game, certainly.”
Patrick nodded, and then said:
“I doubt if I could do it, if it weren’t for the comfort of looking at that,” and he kicked the rum-keg, “and feeling we shall have a good swig at it some day. It feels like a fairy-tale, carrying that about—as if rum were a pirate’s treasure, as if it were molten gold. Besides, we can have such fun with it with other people—what was that joke I thought of this morning? Oh, I remember! Where’s that milk-can of mine?”
For the next twenty minutes he was industriously occupied with his milk-can and the cask; Pump watching him with an interest amounting to anxiety. Lifting his head, however, at the end of that time, he knotted his red brows and said, “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” asked the other traveller.
“That!” said Captain Patrick Dalroy, and pointed to a figure approaching on the road parallel to the river, “I mean, what’s it for?”
The figure had a longish beard and very long hair falling far below its shoulders. It had a serious and steadfast expression. It was dressed in what the inexperienced Mr. Pump at first took to be its night-gown; but afterward learned to be its complete goats’ hair tunic, unmixed even with a thread of the destructive and deadly wool of the sheep. It had no boots on its feet. It walked very swiftly to a particular turn of the stream and then turned very sharply (since it had accomplished its constitutional), and walked back toward the perfect town of Peaceways.
“I suppose it’s somebody from that milk place,” said Humphrey Pump, indulgently. “They seem to be pretty mad.”
“I don’t mind that so much,” said Dalroy, “I’m mad myself sometimes. But a madman has only one merit and last link with God. A madman is always logical. Now what is the logical connection between living on milk and wearing your hair long? Most of us lived on milk when we had no hair at all. How do they connect it up? Are there any heads even for a synopsis? Is it, say, ‘milk—water—shaving-water—shaving—hair?’ Is it ‘milk—kindness—unkindness—convicts—hair?’ What is the logical connection between having too much hair and having far too few boots? What can it be? Is it ‘hair—hair-trunk—leather-trunk—leather-boots?’ Is it ‘hair—beard—oysters—seaside—paddling—no boots?’ Man is liable to err—especially when every mistake he makes is called a movement—but why should all the lunacies live together?”
“Because all the lunatics should live together,” said Humphrey, “and if you’d seen what happened up at Crampton, with the farming-out idea, you’d know. It’s all very well, Captain; but if people can prevent a guest of great importance being buried up to the neck in farm manure, they will. They will, really.” He coughed almost apologetically. He was about to attempt a resumption of the conversation, when he saw his companion slap the milk-can and keg back into the car, and get into it himself. “You drive,” he said, “drive me where those things live; you know, Hump.”