"Um!" The judge had drawn me aside. "The alienation is unusual--what do you think, Lightnut?"--he looked grave--"it doesn't seem the ordinary hiatus--the passing alcoholic dementia, you know--there seems in it something hydrophobic--eh?"
"Oh, dash it, yes--_that's_ all!" I said offhand--just took a chance, don't you know!
"Um!" He blinked at me; then faced square about. "I guess I'd better go up; perhaps when he sees me--"
He halted, leveling a stern glance at Wilkes.
"What the dev--what are you grinning about?" he rasped.
"I'm not, sir!" And the butler's hand came down, revealing a sobered countenance. "I was just a-wondering if he would try to get you to put on the pajamas--he did all the rest of us, even--" His eye angled cautiously at the housekeeper, then batted at us significantly as her red head wriggled deeper. "Fact is, I think he's kinder gone off about pajamas--just as I told you, sir." His glance appealed to me. "Yes, sir, when I took you his message--you know--and brought back yours, it was even more so then."
I felt myself get devilish red, then pale, for the judge's eyes were on me.
"Yes," he muttered, still looking at me, "he _was_ telling me something the other day about some silk pajamas."
"Yes, sir," continued Wilkes, "when I got back with _your_ message, Mr. Lightnut, he seemed to get more excited about them--about pajamas, I mean. He talked to me and Perkins through the door crack and wanted one of us to put 'em on--'in the interests of science,' _he_ called it--and offered to pass 'em out."
"Poor fellow--_poor_ fellow!"--and the judge looked pitiful--"well, why didn't you humor him?"
"I--I don't know, sir!" The butler looked embarrassed. "And, anyhow, it was just then Mrs. Warfield came, and he tried to get--"
"And then--" Wilkes hesitated, looking uneasy.
The butler coughed faintly. "Well, sir, when she--h'm--refused--it was then he asked for Flora. 'All right, then you bring me my Flora,' was what he said, and he sounded irritated like. 'Beg pardon, sir?' says Perkins, putting his head to the crack kinder inquiringly. 'My Flora, man!' he comes back sharp; 'just find and bring my Flora--and some _pins_;'--he seemed particular about the pins--'if I've got to stay alone, I want something to divert me--I want my Flora!'" And the butler mopped his forehead.