"Cold-water bug, you know," I explained, but Billings shrugged his shoulders.
"That's all right. Bug or not, he's the goods, all the same. Greatest ever." He spoke with quiet conviction.
He deliberated a moment and turned to me.
"Tell you what, Dicky: I'm going up and ask him down. He's the one to give us the right dope on these crazy letters--Eh, what you say, Jenkins?"
"Beg pardon, sir; I was saying that the perfesser don't visit nobody; and he never sees nobody but the big lit'ry and scientific sharps."
"Oh, he don't eh?" Billings snorted contemptuously. "Well, Jenkins, I haven't been a prize fisherman in my time for nothing; I guess I know how to select my 'fly.' I know what will fetch him: 'Mr. Lightnut's compliments, and will he be pleased to honor him by passing upon an Oriental curio of rare scientific interest?'--that sort of merry rot! Why, you couldn't hold him back with a block and tackle. Oh, you needn't worry; I'll do the proper curves all right." He turned toward the door. "And, Jenkins, you come along and work me into the lodge."
"Oh, but dash it," I protested nervously, "he won't come--he'll be insulted. Why, he'll know as soon as he sees you that you couldn't--"
I checked myself, recalling that the best thing after his recent exhibition was to avoid every contradiction. And then, by Jove, I knew that if he became ill and had to go to a hospital or somewhere, it would be all off with his taking me up to Wolhurst next day.
Billings grinned confidently. "Watch me bring him down here," he said.
Billings ushered in the professor with a flourishing introduction.
The great man never spoke, but gave me the end of one finger, and devilish grudgingly at that. He just came to anchor and stood there very straight and stiff, ignoring the chairs thrust toward him from every point. One hand was stuck in his stiff broadcloth bosom, with elbow pointing outward, and his great topheavy head reared above us impressively.
Billings rubbed his hands and bowed and smirked.
"Lovely weather we are having for summer, don't you think, Professor? Jenkins, a chair for the professor."
He was already hedged in by chairs, but he remained standing. Dash it, he was staring hard at me, his beady eyes boring like gimlets, don't you know, and his little shriveled face all puckered up. By Jove, but he looked sour! Looked like he would bite, or, as Billings said afterward, would like to, if the human race wasn't poisonous.