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‘That was foolish—the trip to Spain was futile also—‘ He
struggled against an upsurging hilarity—that any reputable
medical man should have lent himself to such an amateur-
ish experiment! ‘—Señor, I must tell you that in these cases
we can promise nothing. In the case of the drinking we can
often accomplish something—with proper co-operation.
The first thing is to see the boy and get enough of his confi-
dence to find whether he has any insight into the matter.’
—The boy, with whom he sat on the terrace, was about
twenty, handsome and alert.
‘I’d like to know your attitude,’ Dick said. ‘Do you feel
that the situation is getting worse? And do you want to do
anything about it?’
‘I suppose I do,’ said Francisco, ‘I am very unhappy.’
‘Do you think it’s from the drinking or from the abnor-
mality?’
‘I think the drinking is caused by the other.’ He was
serious for a while—suddenly an irrepressible facetious-
ness broke through and he laughed, saying, ‘It’s hopeless.
At King’s I was known as the Queen of Chili. That trip to
Spain—all it did was to make me nauseated by the sight of
a woman.’
Dick caught him up sharply.
‘If you’re happy in this mess, then I can’t help you and
I’m wasting my time.’
‘No, let’s talk—I despise most of the others so.’ There was
some manliness in the boy, perverted now into an active
resistance to his father. But he had that typically roguish
look in his eyes that homosexuals assume in discussing the

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