will send his police patrol wagon after us in a jiffy. He went to bed
dead full last night, so his humour won't be any too sweet when he hears
that several of his boarders have vanished. He'll miss you more than me;
I'm not at the first table with you swells."

Quell ended his speech with so disagreeable an inflection that Arved was
astonished. He looked around and spat at a beetle.

"What's wrong with you, my hearty? I believe you miss your soft iron
couch. Or did you leave it this morning left foot foremost? Anyhow,
Quell, don't get on your ear. We'll push to town as soon as it's
twilight, and I know a little crib near the river where we can have all
we want to eat and drink. Do you hear--drink!" Quell made no answer. The
other continued:--

"Besides, I don't see why you've turned sulky simply because your family
sent you up to the Hermitage. It's no disgrace. In fact, it steadies the
nerves, and you can get plenty of booze."

"If you have the price," snapped his friend.

"Money or no money, McKracken's asylum--no, it's bad taste to call it
that; his retreat, ah, there's the word!--is not so awful. I've a theory
that our keepers are crazy as loons; though you can't blame them,
watching us, as they must, from six o'clock in the morning until
midnight. Say, why were you put away?"

"Crazy, like yourself, I suppose." Quell grinned.

"And now we're cured. We cured ourselves by flight. How can they call us