'I see that I shall have to bail you out, one of these days.

'Homicide?

'No; criminal libel.

'Do you need bail for that? I thought it was one of those nice gentlemanly things that you are just summonsed for.

Grant thought how independable Malta's ignorances were.

'It might still be homicide, though, Marta said, in the cooing, considering voice that was her trade-mark on the stage. 'I could just stand the thyme and the bullets, but now that he has taken a ninety-nine years' lease of the spring corn, and the woodpeckers, and things, he amounts to a public menace.

'Why do you listen to him?

'Well, there's a dreadful fascination about it, you know. One thinks: Well, that's the absolute sky-limit of awfulness, than which nothing could be worse. And so next week you listen to see if it really can be worse. It's a snare. It's so awful that you can't even switch off. You wait fascinated for the next piece of awfulness, and the next. And you are still there when he signs off.

'It couldn't be, could it, Marta, that this is mere professional jealousy?

'Are you suggesting that the creature is a professional? asked Marta, dropping her voice a perfect fifth, so that it quivered with the reflection of repertory years, and provincial digs, and Sunday trains, and dreary auditions in cold dark theatres.

'No, I'm suggesting that he is an actor. A quite natural and unconscious actor, who has made himself a household word in a few years without doing any noticeable work to that end. I could forgive you for not liking that. What did Marguerite find so wonderful about him?

'I can tell you that. His devotion. Marguerite liked picking the wings off flies. Walter would let her take him to pieces and then come back for more.