Page:Chesterton--The Napoleon of Notting Hill.djvu/55

 "Not bad exactly," said Auberon, with selfrestraint; "rather good, if anything. Strangely and richly good. The fact is I want to reflect a little on those beautiful words that have just been uttered. 'Speaking', yes, that was the phrase, 'speaking in the interests of the public/ One cannot get the honey from such things without being alone for a little."

"Is he really off his chump, do you think?" asked Lambert.

The old President looked after him with queerly vigilant eyes.

"He is a man, I think," he said, "who cares for nothing but a joke. He is a dangerous man."

Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some maccaroni to his mouth.

"Dangerous!" he said. "You don't know little Quin, sir!"

"Every man is dangerous," said the old man without moving, "who cares only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself."

And with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, bowing profoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again grown dense and sombre. Three days afterwards they heard that he had died quietly in lodgings in Soho.