“Oh I should like,” he cried, “to make this place ring and ting with our triumph over that damned Romer!”
“Quis est iste Rex gloriæ?” muttered the Theologian. “Dominus fortis et potens; Dominus potens in prœlio.”
“I shall never dare,” went on the stone-carver, “to get my brother away into a home. The least thought of such a thing would drive him absolutely out of his mind. He’ll have to be left to drift about like this, talking madly to everyone he meets, till something terrible happens to him. God! I could howl with rage, to think how it all might be saved if only that ass Quincunx had a little gall!”
Mr. Taxater tapped the young man’s wrist with his white fingers. “I think we can put gall into him between us,” he said. “I think so, Andersen.”
“You’ve got some idea, sir!” cried Luke, looking at the theologian. “For Heaven’s sake, let’s have it! I am completely at the end of my tether.”
“This American who is engaged to Gladys is immensely rich, isn’t he?” enquired Mr. Taxater.
“Rich?” answered Luke. “That’s not the word for it! The fellow could buy the whole of Leo’s Hill and not know the difference.”
Mr. Taxater was silent, fingering the gold cross upon his watch-chain.
“It remains with yourself then,” he remarked at last.