“Have another try,” said Jim,—“I know what love is. I’ve thought about it. Love is the soul’s respiration.”

“Let’s have that down,” said Lilly.

LOVE IS THE SOUL’S RESPIRATION. He printed it on the old mantel–piece.

Jim eyed the letters.

“It’s right,” he said. “Quite right. When you love, your soul breathes in. If you don’t breathe in, you suffocate.”

“What about breathing out?” said Robert. “If you don’t breathe out, you asphyxiate.”

“Right you are, Mock Turtle—” said Jim maliciously.

“Breathing out is a bloody revolution,” said Lilly.

“You’ve hit the nail on the head,” said Jim solemnly.

“Let’s record it then,” said Lilly. And with the blue pencil he printed:

WHEN YOU LOVE, YOUR SOUL BREATHES IN—
WHEN YOUR SOUL BREATHES OUT, IT’S A BLOODY REVOLUTION.

“I say Jim,” he said. “You must be busting yourself, trying to breathe in.”

“Don’t you be too clever. I’ve thought about it,” said Jim. “When I’m in love, I get a great inrush of energy. I actually feel it rush in—here!” He poked his finger on the pit of his stomach. “It’s the soul’s expansion. And if I can’t get these rushes of energy, I’M DYING, AND I KNOW I AM.”

He spoke the last words with sudden ferocity and desperation.

“All I know is,” said Tanny, “you don’t look it.”

“I AM. I am.” Jim protested. “I’m dying. Life’s leaving leaving me.”

“Maybe you’re choking with love,” said Robert. “Perhaps you have breathed in so much, you don’t know how to let it go again. Perhaps your soul’s got a crick in it, with expanding so much.”

“You’re a bloody young sucking pig, you are,” said Jim.

“Even at that age, I’ve learned my manners,” replied Robert.

Jim looked round the party. Then he turned to Aaron Sisson.

“What do you make of ’em, eh?” he said.

Aaron shook his head, and laughed.

“Me?” he said.

But Jim did not wait for an answer.

“I’ve had enough,” said Tanny suddenly rising. “I think you’re all silly. Besides, it’s getting late.”

“She!” said Jim, rising and pointing luridly to Clariss. “She’s Love. And HE’s the Working People. The hope is these two—” He jerked a thumb at Aaron Sisson, after having indicated Mrs. Browning.

“Oh, how awfully interesting. It’s quite a long time since I’ve been a personification.—I suppose you’ve never been one before?” said Clariss, turning to Aaron in conclusion.

“No, I don’t think I have,” he answered.

“I hope personification is right.—Ought to be allegory or something else?” This from Clariss to Robert.

Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my companion’s knees. “For God’s sake, have mercy!” he shrieked. “Think of my father! of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I’ll swear it on a Bible. Oh, don’t bring it into court! For Christ’s sake, don’t!”

“Get back into your chair!” said Holmes sternly. “It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing.”

“I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the charge against him will break down.”

“Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account of the next act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies your only hope of safety.”

Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. “I will tell you it just as it happened, sir,” said he. “When Horner had been arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my room. There was no place about the hotel where it would be safe. I went out, as if on some commission, and I made for my sister’s house. She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective; and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down my face before I came to the Brixton Road. My sister asked me what was the matter, and why I was so pale; but I told her that I had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel. Then I went into the back yard and smoked a pipe and wondered what it would be best to do.

“I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he would be true to me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence. He would show me how to turn the stone into money. But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at any moment be seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head which showed me how I could beat the best detective that ever lived.

“My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she was always as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds — a fine big one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and fluttered off among the others.