friends could take the little green car that goes by the grounds and see
you on Sunday afternoons if weather permits."

His accent seemed deliberately insulting to Arved, who, however, let it
pass because of their mutual plight. If they fell to fighting, detection
would ensue. So he answered in placatory phrases:--

"Yes, my friend, we both belong to the same establishment, for we are
men of genius. As the cat said to Alice, 'We must be mad or else we
shouldn't be here.' I started to tell you why my people thought I had
better take the cure. I loved the moon too much and loathed sunlight. If
I had never tried to write lunar poetry--the tone quality of music
combined with the pictorial evocation of painting--I might be in the
bosom of my family now instead of--"

"Drinking with a crazy painter, eh?" Quell was very angry. He shouted
for drinks so rapidly that he alarmed the more prudent Arved; and as
they were now the last guests, the head waiter approached and curtly
bade them leave. In an instant he was dripping with beer thrown at
him--glass and all--by the irate Quell. A whistle sounded, two other
waiters rushed out, and the battle began. Arved, aroused by the sight of
his friend on the ground with three men hammering his head, gave a roar
like the trumpeting of an elephant. A chair was smashed over a table,
and, swinging one-half of it, he made a formidable onslaught. Two of the
waiters were knocked senseless and the leader's nose and teeth crushed
in by the rude cudgel. The morose moon started up, a tragic hieroglyph
in the passionless sky. Quell, seeing its hated disk, howled, his face
aflame with exaltation. Then he leaped like a hoarsely panting animal
upon the poet; a moment and they were in the grass clawing each other.
And the moon foamed down upon them its magnetic beams until darkness,