No More Learning

"Is it possible that a man can come back across the years to his
calf-love? "

said the Keneu. "Is it possible? "

"I give the facts. He says nothing about it now, but he sits fumbling
three letters from her when he thinks I'm not looking. What am I to do? "

"Speak to him," said the Nilghai.

"Oh yes! Write to her,--I don't know her full name, remember,--and ask
her to accept him out of pity. I believe you once told Dick you were
sorry for him, Nilghai. You remember what happened, eh? Go into the
bedroom and suggest full confession and an appeal to this Maisie
girl, whoever she is. I honestly believe he'd try to kill you; and the
blindness has made him rather muscular. "

"Torpenhow's course is perfectly clear," said the Keneu. "He will go to
Vitry-sur-Marne, which is on the Bezieres-Landes Railway,--single track
from Tourgas.
The Prussians shelled it out in '70 because there was
a poplar on the top of a hill eighteen hundred yards from the church
spire. There's a squadron of cavalry quartered there,--or ought to be.
Where this studio Torp spoke about may be I cannot tell. That is Torp's
business. I have given him his route. He will dispassionately explain
the situation to the girl, and she will come back to Dick,--the more
especially because, to use Dick's words, 'there is nothing but her
damned obstinacy to keep them apart. '"

"And they have four hundred and twenty pounds a year between 'em. "

Dick never lost his head for figures, even in his delirium. "You haven't
the shadow of an excuse for not going," said the Nilghai.

Torpenhow looked very uncomfortable. "But it's absurd and impossible. I
can't drag her back by the hair. "

"Our business--the business for which we draw our money--is to do absurd
and impossible things,--generally with no reason whatever except to
amuse the public. Here we have a reason. The rest doesn't matter. I
shall share these rooms with the Nilghai till Torpenhow returns.