"We must go on to Ernst, Paul, and see how much there is in it."
Paul was listening now:
"Ye-es," he drawled. "But I must dress myself first. You see, the curious thing about this world is that, whatever happens, we have first to dress ourselves . . ."
"I was dressed," laughed Gerrit.
"Oh, really!" said Paul, amiably. "Well, that was lucky."
There was a note of sarcasm in his tone which escaped Gerrit, in his dull condition.
Paul, stretching himself, decided to get up. And for a moment he remained standing in front of Gerrit, in his pink pyjamas:
"Do you think Ernst is really mad?" he asked.
"Perhaps it's not so bad as that," Gerrit ventured.
"Everybody is a little mad," said Paul.
"Oh, I say!" said Gerrit, in an offended voice.
"No, not you," said Paul, genially. "Not you or I. But everybody else has a tile loose. I'm going to have my bath."
"Don't be long."
"All right."
Paul disappeared in his little bathroom; and Gerrit, who was suffocating, flung open the windows, so that the bedroom suddenly became filled with
