"Are you all in an infernal nightmare?
Why should Mr Shorter's bald head belong to Captain Fraser?
How could it?
What the deuce has Captain Fraser to do with the affair?
What is the matter with him?
You dined with him, Basil." "No," said Grant, "I didn't." "Didn't you go to Mrs Thornton's dinner-party ?" I asked, staring.

"Why not ?" "Well," said Basil, with a slow and singular smile, "the fact is I was detained by a visitor.

I have him, as a point of fact, in my bedroom." "In your bedroom ?" I repeated; but my imagination had reached that point when he might have said in his coal scuttle or his waistcoat pocket.
Grant stepped to the door of an inner room, flung it open and walked in.
Then he came out again with the last of the bodily wonders of that wild night.

He introduced into the sitting-room, in an apologetic manner, and by the nape of the neck, a limp clergyman with a bald head, white whiskers and a plaid shawl.
"Sit down, gentlemen," cried Grant, striking his hands heartily.

"Sit down all of you and have a glass of wine.