'Do you mean to say you won't?'

'Of course I won't. Why the deuce should I do your beastly dirty work
for you?'

Barrett did not know what to make of this. Curiosity urged him to ask
for explanations. Dignity threw cold water on such a scheme. In the end
dignity had the best of it.

'Oh, very well,' he said, and they went on in silence. In all the three
years of their acquaintance they had never before happened upon such a
crisis.

The silence lasted until they reached the form-room. Then Barrett
determined, in the interests of the common good--he and Reade shared a
study, and icy coolness in a small study is unpleasant--to chain up
Dignity for the moment, and give Curiosity a trial.

'What's up with you today?' he asked.

He could hardly have chosen a worse formula. The question has on most
people precisely the same effect as that which the query, 'Do you know
where you lost it?' has on one who is engaged in looking for mislaid
property.

'Nothing,' said Reade. Probably at the same moment hundreds of other
people were making the same reply, in the same tone of voice, to the
same question.

'Oh,' said Barrett.