"And in order to find him," he said, "you suggest the admirable expedient of going to the only place on the habitable earth where we know he can't be." The constable and I could not avoid breaking into a kind of assenting laugh, and Rupert, who had family eloquence, was encouraged to go on with a reiterated gesture: "He may be in Buckingham Palace; he may be sitting astride the cross of St Paul's; he may be in jail (which I think most likely); he may be in the Great Wheel; he may be in my pantry; he may be in your store cupboard; but out of all the innumerable points of space, there is only one where he has just been systematically looked for and where we know that he is not to be found--and that, if I understand you rightly, is where you want us to go." "Exactly," said Basil calmly, getting into his great-coat; "I thought you might care to accompany me.

If not, of course, make yourselves jolly here till I come back." It is our nature always to follow vanishing things and value them if they really show a resolution to depart.

We all followed Basil, and I cannot say why, except that he was a vanishing thing, that he vanished decisively with his great-coat and his stick.

Rupert ran after him with a considerable flurry of rationality.
"My dear chap," he cried, "do you really mean that you see any good in going down to this ridiculous scrub, where there is nothing but beaten tracks and a few twisted trees, simply because it was the first place that came into a rowdy lieutenant's head when he wanted to give a lying reference in a scrape ?" "Yes," said Basil, taking out his watch, "and, what's worse, we've lost the train." He paused a moment and then added: "As a matter of fact, I think we may just as well go down later in the day.

I have some writing to do, and I think you told me, Rupert, that you thought of going to the Dulwich Gallery.