And I think the man who rejoiced most over Gilhooly's returned sanity was Quinn. The professor's beady little eyes were fairly glowing as he caught and clung to Gilhooly's hand after the others had expressed their pleasure and tendered congratulations.
"This is a glad day for me, Mr. Gilhooly!" exclaimed the professor. "I had taken myself very much to task on account of your clouded mind."
"Your reproach of yourself was well merited," spoke up Meigs, who always had a venomous shaft in his quiver for Quinn. "Small thanks to you that our friend is himself again."
"Gently, Mr. Meigs, gently," came from Gilhooly. "I do not find Professor Quinn in the wrong in any particular."
Popham, Meigs, and Markham regarded Gilhooly with open-mouthed amaze. I think the professor also was startled; I know at least that I was.
"Do you mean to say, Mr. Gilhooly," cried Meigs, "that you can overlook Quinn's criminal folly in casting us adrift in the unknown?"
"I cannot only overlook it," was the quiet response, "but I can forgive it. Almost I am of the opinion that it was justifiable."
"Faugh!" rasped Meigs. "You have not recovered your reason after all or you would not talk that way."
"Let us not engage in useless disputes, gentlemen," put in the professor. "There is another affair to engage us. It was thought," Quinn went on, with an expressive look at me, "that Mr. Gilhooly had fled the realm and taken the imperial exchequer with him."
"It was I who took the exchequer," said I, "and it is I who hope to return it to the king."