Then the whole tragic comedy of errors was made plain to me. In turn I made it clear to my lodger.
“Who's loony now?” he demanded triumphantly. “You chase out an' find the wop an' let's square this.”
All very simple, but there was the matter of Orpheus's mental condition to be considered. What would be the outcome of so violent a confirmation of his delusion? Or was it a delusion, since it was a fact? Neither the Rat nor I could lay any claim to be metaphysicians. Obviously this was a case for the Little Red Doctor, together with such consultants as he might care to call in.
At the summons of its official physician Our Square mustered its intellectual forces in the Bonnie Lassie's Studio and sat in solemn conclave upon the problem. First of all we sent for the Rat's Miss Tony, and what the Bonnie Lassie said to her in the little back room and what she said to the Bonnie Lassie is a secret of womankind. Not even Cyrus the Gaunt was told. All that we heard of it was a cry and a sound of happy sobbing and another sound of broken laughter; and then the little, quick, brown, lovely face was turned to us from the steps outside, and MacLachan observed that two Bonnie Lassies in one house was a strain on human credulity as well as on human eyesight, and the Bonnie Lassie returned to us with her eyesight looking a trifle strained.
“Somebody at the Greek consulate,” said she, “told her that Mister Phil-il-op—Mr. Orpheopoulos had gone back to Greece, and she's been breaking her poor dear little heart over it. Men are all imbeciles.”
“Thanking you in behalf of one and all,” returned Cyrus the Gaunt, “will the volcano of wisdom whom I have the felicity of calling wife tell us who is to break it to Orpheus?”
“Pinney the Rat.”
Several protests were promptly entered. “That roughneck?” said MacLachan, whose urgency in the cause of abstinence had not been well received. “Take thought of the effect on the poor, stray-witted Greek lad.”
“I'm not thinking of the effect upon him at all,” said the Bonnie Lassie. “I'm thinking of the effect upon Pinney.”
“Think aloud,” invited the Little Red Doctor. “What beneficial effect will the reunion of two loving hearts have upon an incised stab wound in a third party's abdomen?”