Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/269

The Seclusion of the Old Lady I heard the voice of Basil come with a loud, incongruous cheerfulness.

"Now this," he said, "is what I call enjoying one's self."

I caught a glimpse of his face, flushed and forced against the bookcase, from between the swaying limbs of my captors and his. To my astonishment his eyes were really brilliant with pleasure, like those of a child heated by a favorite game.

I made several apoplectic efforts to rise, but the servant was on top of me so heavily that Greenwood could afford to leave me to him. He turned quickly to come to reinforce the two who were mastering Basil. The latter's head was already sinking lower and lower, like a leaning ship, as his enemies pressed him down. He flung up one hand, just as I thought him falling, and hung on to a huge tome in the bookcase, a volume, I afterwards discovered, of St. Chrysostom's theology. Just as Greenwood bounded across the room towards the group, Basil plucked the ponderous tome bodily out of the shelf, swung it, and sent it spinning 245