"I certainly am not," I replied bluntly, wondering what species of madman I had on my hands.
"It's a fact, confided to me by a prominent engineer of New York, who has studied those spires daily since they were put up. He told me that when he had surrounded five high-balls the north spire was higher; but that the sixth tumblerful always raised the south spire about eleven feet above it. Now, wouldn't that doddle you?"
"It would, Mr. Gillespie; but may I ask you to cut out this rot—"
"My dear Mr. Donovan, it's indelicate of you to speak of cutting anything—and me with my legs. But I'm at your service. You have tended my grievous wounds like a gentleman and now do you wish me to unfold my past, present and future?"
"I want you to get out of this and be quick about it. Your biography doesn't amuse me; I caught you prowling disgracefully about St. Agatha's. Two ladies are domiciled there who came here to escape your annoying attentions. Those ladies were put in my charge by an old friend, and I don't propose to stand any nonsense from you, Mr. Gillespie. You seem to be at least half sane—"
Reginald Gillespie raised himself on the couch and grinned joyously.
"Thank you—thank you for that word! That's just twice as high as anybody ever rated me before."
"I was trying to be generous," I said. "There's a point at which I begin to be bored, and when that's reached I'm likely to grow quarrelsome. Are there any moments of the day or night when you are less a fool than others?"
"Well, Donovan, I've often speculated about that, and my conclusion is that my mind is at its best when I'm asleep and enjoying a nightmare. I find the Welsh rabbit most stimulating to my thought voltage. Then I am, you may say, detached from myself; another mind not my own is building towers and palaces, and spiders as large as the far-famed though extinct ichthyosaurus are waltzing on the moon. Then, I have sometimes thought, my intellectual parts are most intelligently employed."
"I may well believe you," I declared with asperity. "Now I hope I can pound it into you in some way that your presence in this neighborhood is offensive—to me—personally."