Belturbet anxiously skimmed over a further item of news printed immediately below the Parliamentary report: “Wild cat found in an exhausted condition in Palace Yard.”

“Now I wonder which of them⁠—” he mused, and then an appalling idea came to him. “Supposing he’s put them both into the same beast!” He hurriedly ordered another prairie oyster.

Belturbet was known in his club as a strictly moderate drinker; his consumption of alcoholic stimulants that day gave rise to considerable comment.