it mean?"

Grant pointed to the portly old gentleman on the ground.

"That is what it means," he said.

Drummond, on observing a fat gentleman lying so calmly about the
place, jumped back, as from a mouse.

"What?" he said weakly, ". . . what?"

Basil bent suddenly down and tore a paper out of Sir Walter's
breastpocket, a paper which the baronet, even in his hampered
state, seemed to make some effort to retain.

It was a large loose piece of white wrapping paper, which Mr Jasper
Drummond read with a vacant eye and undisguised astonishment. As
far as he could make out, it consisted of a series of questions and
answers, or at least of remarks and replies, arranged in the manner
of a catechism. The greater part of the document had been torn and
obliterated in the struggle, but the termination remained. It ran
as follows:

C. Says . . . Keep countenance.

W. Keep . . . British Museum.

C. Know whom talk . . . absurdities.

W. Never talk absurdities without