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Rh was still strong in him. The next he was grovelling on the floor. No saurian ever swung a tail so scaly and so curly as his. Clubland was a thousand years away. With horrific pants he emitted smokiest smoke and fiercest fire.

'Now I want a Princess,' cried Edward, clutching Charlotte ecstatically: 'and you can be the Doctor, and heal me from the dragon's deadly wound.'

Of all professions I held the sacred art of healing in worst horror and contempt. Cataclysmal memories of purge and draught crowded in thick on me, and with Charlotte—who courted no barren honours—I made a break for the door. Edward did likewise, and the hostile forces clashed together on the mat, and for a brief space things were mixed and chaotic and Arthurian. The silvery sound of the luncheon-bell restored an instant peace, even in the teeth of clenched antagonisms like ours. The Holy Grail itself, 'sliding athwart a sunbeam,' never so effectually stilled a riot of warring passions into sweet and quiet accord.