Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 4 (1926-10).djvu/38

 English word 'panic' comes, my friend?"

"What?" I demanded in disgust. "Did you wake me up to discuss etymology—after a day's hiking? Good Lord, man"

"Be still!" he ordered sharply; then, inconsistently, "Answer me, if you please; whence comes that word?"

"Hanged if I know," I replied, "and I'm hanged if I care a whoop, either. It can come from the Cannibal Islands, for all I"

"Quiet!" he commanded, then hurried on: "In the old days when such things were, my friend, Pan, the god of Nature, was very real to the people. They believed, firmly, that whoso saw Pan after nightfall, that one died instantly. Therefore, when a person is seized with a blind, unreasoning fear, even to this day, we say he has a panic. Of what consequence is this? Remember, my friend, the young lady whom we did meet as we approached this house told us she had seen Pan's face grinning at her from out the bushes as she bathed. Is it not so?"

"I guess so," I answered, putting my head back on my improvised pillow and preparing to sleep while he talked.

But he shook my shoulder with a sharp, imperative gesture. "Listen, my friend," he besought, "when I did go out of doors to smoke my cigarette, I met one of those beautiful young women who frequent this temple of the new heathenism, and engaged her in conversation. From her I learned much, and some of it sounds not good to my ears. For instance, I learn that this Professor Herman Judson is a much misunderstood man. Oh, but yes. The lawyers, they have misunderstood him many times. Once they misunderstood him so that he was placed in the state's prison for deceiving gullible women with fortune-telling tricks. Again he was misunderstood so that he went to the bastille for attempting to secure some money which a certain deceased lady's heirs believed should have gone to them—which did go to them eventually."

"Well, what of it?" I growled. "That's no affair of ours. We're not a committee on the morals of dancing masters, are we?"

"Eh, are we not so?" he replied. "I am not entirely sure of that, my friend. I fear we, too, are about to misunderstand this Professor Judson. Some other things I find out from that young lady with the Irish nose and the Greek costume. This professor, he has founded this school of dancing and paganism, taking for his pupils only young women who have no parents or other near relations, but much money. He is not minded to be misunderstood by heirs-at-law again. What think you of that, hein?"

"I think he's got more sense than we gave him credit for," I replied.

"Undoubtlessly," he agreed, "very much more; for also I discovered that Monsieur le Professeur has had his school regularly incorporated, and has secured from each of his pupils a last will and testament in which she does leave the bulk of her estate to the corporation."

"Well," I challenged, giving up hope of getting any sleep till he had talked himself out, "what of it? The man may be sincere in his attempt to found some sort of esthetic cult, and he'll need money far the project."

"True, quite true," he conceded, nodding his head like a china mandarin, "but attend me, Friend Trowbridge; while we walked beneath the stars I did make an occasion to take that young lady’s hand in mine, and"

"You old rake!" I cut in, grinning, but he shut me off with a snort of impatience.