Page:Avon Fantasy Reader 17.djvu/54

RV 52 (THE NOTICEABLE CONDUCT OF PROFESSOR CHADD) it would not do to have the curator of the Asiatic manuscripts—er—dancing about."

"I have a suggestion to make," said Basil, and sat down abruptly in his chair, drawing it up to the table.

"I am delighted, of course," said the gentleman from the British Museum, coughing and drawing up his chair also.

The clock on the mantel-piece ticked for just the moments required for Basil to clear his throat -and collect his words, and then he said:

"My proposal is this. I do not know that in the strict use of words you could altogether call it a compromise. Still, it has something of that character. My proposal is that the government (acting, as I presume, through your museum) should pay Professor Chadd £800 a year until he stops dancing."

"Eight hundred a year," said Mr. Bingham, and for the first time lifted his mild blue eyes to those of his interlocutor—and he raised them with a mild blue stare. "I think I have not quite understood you. Did I understand you to say that Professor Chadd ought to be employed in his present state, in the Asiatic manuscript department at eight hundred a year?"

Grant shook his head resolutely.

"No," he said, firmly. "No. Chadd is a friend of mine, and I would say anything for him I could. But I do not say, I cannot say, that he ought to take on the Asiatic manuscripts. I do not go so far as that. I merely say that until he stops dancing you ought to pay him £800. Surely you have some general fund for the endowment of research."

Mr. Bingham looked bewildered.

"I really don't know," he said, blinking his eyes, "what you are talking about. Do you ask us to give this obvious lunatic nearly a thousand a year for life?"

"Not at all," cried Basil, keenly and triumphantly. "I never said for life. Not at all."

"What for, then?" asked the meek Mr. Bingham, suppressing an instinct meekly to tear his hair. "How long is this endowment to run? Not till his death? Till the judgement-day?"

"No," said Basil, beaming, "but just what I said. Till he has stopped dancing." And he lay back with satisfaction and his hands in his pockets.

Bingham had by this time fastened his eyes keenly on Basil Grant and kept them there.

"Come, Mr. Grant," he said. "Do I seriously understand you to suggest that the government pay Professor Chadd an extraordinarily high salary simply on the ground that he is flinging his boots about the backyard?"

"Precisely," said Grant, composedly.

"That this absurd payment is not only to run on with the absurd dancing, but actually to stop with the absurd dancing?"

"One must stop somewhere," said Grant. "Of course."

Bingham rose and took up his perfect stick and gloves.

"There is really nothing more to be said, Mr. Grant," he said coldly.