"I understood that this garden----" began the bewildered MacIan.

"Quite so! Quite so!" said the man on one leg, nodding gravely.
"I said this garden belonged to me and the land outside it. So
they do. So does the country beyond that and the sea beyond that
and all the rest of the earth. So does the moon. So do the sun
and stars." And he added, with a smile of apology: "You see, I'm
God."

Turnbull and MacIan looked at him for one moment with a sort of
notion that perhaps he was not too old to be merely playing the
fool. But after staring steadily for an instant Turnbull saw the
hard and horrible earnestness in the man's eyes behind all his
empty animation. Then Turnbull looked very gravely at the strict
gravel walls and the gay flower-beds and the long rectangular
red-brick building, which the mist had left evident beyond them.
Then he looked at MacIan.

Almost at the same moment another man came walking quickly round
the regal clump of rhododendrons. He had the look of a prosperous
banker, wore a good tall silk hat, was almost stout enough to
burst the buttons of a fine frock-coat; but he was talking to
himself, and one of his elbows had a singular outward jerk as he
went by.



XIV. A MUSEUM OF SOULS