"You may," answered Isaac, with a confirmatory nod at Partry. Partry remained in the doorway, watching over Arlanc’s shoulder, while keeping a loose grip on the scruff of the other’s neck. It seemed then to Daniel that this pair looked like a ventriloquist at a country fair, and his marionette. Arlanc began to speak. "I’ve been a student, you might say, of Jack for some years now—as Mr. Halley watches the movements of comets, and understands their nature without being able to alter their courses, why, so it is with me and Jack Shaftoe. And I say that if you think Jack is a slave of Le Roi, and dreams only of doing the bidding of Louis, why, you are underestimating the man. That hypothesis—if I may borrow a Royal Society word—does not do the man sufficient credit, and does not explain his actions."