“Greedy pig!” said the voice scornfully.

It sounded like the fresh young voice of the knife-and-shoe boy, but Baxter was too broken to investigate.  He continued his retreat without pausing.

“Stuffin’ of ’isself at all hours!” said the voice.

There was a murmur of approval from the unseen throng of domestics.

CHAPTER IX

As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people.  One must assume that the Efficient Baxter had not reached the age when this comes home to a man, for the fact that he had given genuine pleasure to some dozens of his fellow-men brought him no balm.

There was no doubt about the pleasure he had given.  Once they had got over their disappointment at finding that he was not a dead burglar, the house party rejoiced whole-heartedly at the break in the monotony of life at Blandings Castle.  Relations who had not been on speaking terms for years forgot their quarrels and strolled about the grounds in perfect harmony, abusing Baxter.  The general verdict was that he was insane.

“Don’t tell me that young fellow’s all there,” said Colonel Horace Mant; “because I know better.  Have you noticed his eye?  Furtive!  Shifty!  Nasty gleam in it.  Besides—­dash it!—­did you happen to take a look at the hall last night after he had been there?  It was in ruins, my dear sir—­absolute dashed ruins.  It was positively littered with broken china and tables that had been bowled over.  Don’t tell me that was just an accidental collision in the dark.

“My dear sir, the man must have been thrashing about—­absolutely thrashing about, like a dashed salmon on a dashed hook.  He must have had a paroxysm of some kind—­some kind of a dashed fit.  A doctor could give you the name for it.  It’s a well-known form of insanity.  Paranoia—­isn’t that what they call it?  Rush of blood to the head, followed by a general running amuck.

“I’ve heard fellows who have been in India talk of it.  Natives get it.  Don’t know what they’re doing, and charge through the streets taking cracks at people with dashed whacking great knives.  Same with this young man, probably in a modified form at present.  He ought to be in a home.  One of these nights, if this grows on him, he will be massacring Emsworth in his bed.”

“My dear Horace!” The Bishop of Godalming’s voice was properly horror-stricken; but there was a certain unctuous relish in it.

“Take my word for it!  Though, mind you, I don’t say they aren’t well suited.  Everyone knows that Emsworth has been, to all practical intents and purposes, a dashed lunatic for years.  What was it that young fellow Emerson, Freddie’s American friend, was saying, the other day about some acquaintance of his who is not quite right in the head?  Nobody in the house—­is that it?  Something to that effect, at any rate.  I felt at the time it was a perfect description of Emsworth.”