“Oh, get out of the way!” cried Warner, almost good-humouredly.  “You can lean on the gate any time.”

“No,” said Moon reflectively.  “Seldom the time and the place and the blue gate altogether; and it all depends whether you come of an old country family.  My ancestors leaned on gates before any one had discovered how to open them.”

“Michael!” cried Arthur Inglewood in a kind of agony, “are you going to get out of the way?”

“Why, no; I think not,” said Michael, after some meditation, and swung himself slowly round, so that he confronted the company, while still, in a lounging attitude, occupying the path.

“Hullo!” he called out suddenly; “what are you doing to Mr. Smith?”

“Taking him away,” answered Warner shortly, “to be examined.”

“Matriculation?” asked Moon brightly.

“By a magistrate,” said the other curtly.

“And what other magistrate,” cried Michael, raising his voice, “dares to try what befell on this free soil, save only the ancient and independent Dukes of Beacon?  What other court dares to try one of our company, save only the High Court of Beacon?  Have you forgotten that only this afternoon we flew the flag of independence and severed ourselves from all the nations of the earth?”

“Michael,” cried Rosamund, wringing her hands, “how can you stand there talking nonsense?  Why, you saw the dreadful thing yourself.  You were there when he went mad.  It was you that helped the doctor up when he fell over the flower-pot.”

“And the High Court of Beacon,” replied Moon with hauteur, “has special powers in all cases concerning lunatics, flower-pots, and doctors who fall down in gardens.  It’s in our very first charter from Edward I:  `Si medicus quisquam in horto prostratus—­’”

“Out of the way!” cried Warner with sudden fury, “or we will force you out of it.”

“What!” cried Michael Moon, with a cry of hilarious fierceness.  “Shall I die in defence of this sacred pale?  Will you paint these blue railings red with my gore?” and he laid hold of one of the blue spikes behind him.  As Inglewood had noticed earlier in the evening, the railing was loose and crooked at this place, and the painted iron staff and spearhead came away in Michael’s hand as he shook it.

“See!” he cried, brandishing this broken javelin in the air, “the very lances round Beacon Tower leap from their places to defend it.  Ah, in such a place and hour it is a fine thing to die alone!” And in a voice like a drum he rolled the noble lines of Ronsard—­

“Ou pour l’honneur de Dieu, ou pour le droit de mon prince, Navre, poitrine ouverte, au bord de mon province.”

“Sakes alive!” said the American gentleman, almost in an awed tone.  Then he added, “Are there two maniacs here?”

“No; there are five,” thundered Moon.  “Smith and I are the only sane people left.”

“Michael!” cried Rosamund; “Michael, what does it mean?”