Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/154

The Club of Queer Trades "Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction," said Basil, placidly. "For fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it."

"Well, your lieutenant's truth is stranger, if it is truth, than anything I ever heard of," said Rupert, relapsing into flippancy. "Do you, on your soul, believe in all that about the shark and the camera?"

"I believe Keith's words," answered the other. "He is an honest man."

"I should like to question a regiment of his landladies," said Rupert, cynically.

"I must say, I think you can hardly regard him as unimpeachable merely in himself," I said, mildly; "his mode of life—"

Before I could complete the sentence the door was flung open and Drummond Keith appeared again on the threshold, his white Panama on his head.

"I say, Grant," he said, knocking off his cigarette ash against the door, "I've got no money in the world till next April. Could you lend me a hundred pounds? There's a good chap." 136