diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1743-0.txt | 8216 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1743-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 167913 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1743-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 176084 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1743-h/1743-h.htm | 9607 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1743.txt | 8215 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1743.zip | bin | 0 -> 167271 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12sad10.txt | 8339 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12sad10.zip | bin | 0 -> 169924 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12sad10h.htm | 7096 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12sad10h.zip | bin | 0 -> 170110 bytes |
13 files changed, 41489 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1743-0.txt b/1743-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d24c7b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/1743-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8216 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Twelve Stories and a Dream + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Posting Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #1743] +Release Date: May, 1999 +Last Updated: March 2, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM *** + + + + +Produced by Aaron Cannon, and Stephanie Johnson + + + + + +TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM + +By H. G. Wells + + + +CONTENTS + + 1. Filmer + + 2. The Magic Shop + + 3. The Valley of Spiders + + 4. The Truth About Pyecraft + + 5. Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland + + 6. The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost + + 7. Jimmy Goggles the God + + 8. The New Accelerator + + 9. Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation + + 10. The Stolen Body + + 11. Mr. Brisher's Treasure + + 12. Miss Winchelsea's Heart + + 13. A Dream of Armageddon + + + + +1. FILMER + +In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men--this +man a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only one vigorous +intellectual effort was needed to finish the work. But the inexorable +injustice of the popular mind has decided that of all these thousands, +one man, and that a man who never flew, should be chosen as the +discoverer, just as it has chosen to honour Watt as the discoverer of +steam and Stephenson of the steam-engine. And surely of all honoured +names none is so grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, +the timid, intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the +world had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations, +the man who pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare and +well-nigh every condition of human life and happiness. Never has that +recurring wonder of the littleness of the scientific man in the face of +the greatness of his science found such an amazing exemplification. +Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain, profoundly obscure--Filmers +attract no Boswells--but the essential facts and the concluding scene +are clear enough, and there are letters, and notes, and casual allusions +to piece the whole together. And this is the story one makes, putting +this thing with that, of Filmer's life and death. + +The first authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is a document +in which he applies for admission as a paid student in physics to the +Government laboratories at South Kensington, and therein he describes +himself as the son of a “military bootmaker” (“cobbler” in the vulgar +tongue) of Dover, and lists his various examination proofs of a high +proficiency in chemistry and mathematics. With a certain want of dignity +he seeks to enhance these attainments by a profession of poverty and +disadvantages, and he writes of the laboratory as the “gaol” of his +ambitions, a slip which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself +exclusively to the exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner +that shows Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until +quite recently no traces of his success in the Government institution +could be found. + +It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed zeal +for research, Filmer, before he had held this scholarship a year, was +tempted, by the possibility of a small increase in his immediate income, +to abandon it in order to become one of the nine-pence-an-hour computers +employed by a well-known Professor in his vicarious conduct of those +extensive researches of his in solar physics--researches which are still +a matter of perplexity to astronomers. Afterwards, for the space of +seven years, save for the pass lists of the London University, in which +he is seen to climb slowly to a double first class B.Sc., in mathematics +and chemistry, there is no evidence of how Filmer passed his life. No +one knows how or where he lived, though it seems highly probable that he +continued to support himself by teaching while he prosecuted the studies +necessary for this distinction. And then, oddly enough, one finds him +mentioned in the correspondence of Arthur Hicks, the poet. + +“You remember Filmer,” Hicks writes to his friend Vance; “well, HE +hasn't altered a bit, the same hostile mumble and the nasty chin--how +CAN a man contrive to be always three days from shaving?--and a sort of +furtive air of being engaged in sneaking in front of one; even his +coat and that frayed collar of his show no further signs of the passing +years. He was writing in the library and I sat down beside him in the +name of God's charity, whereupon he deliberately insulted me by covering +up his memoranda. It seems he has some brilliant research on hand that +he suspects me of all people--with a Bodley Booklet a-printing!--of +stealing. He has taken remarkable honours at the University--he went +through them with a sort of hasty slobber, as though he feared I might +interrupt him before he had told me all--and he spoke of taking his +D.Sc. as one might speak of taking a cab. And he asked what I was +doing--with a sort of comparative accent, and his arm was spread +nervously, positively a protecting arm, over the paper that hid the +precious idea--his one hopeful idea. + +“'Poetry,' he said, 'Poetry. And what do you profess to teach in it, +Hicks?' + +“The thing's a Provincial professorling in the very act of budding, and +I thank the Lord devoutly that but for the precious gift of indolence I +also might have gone this way to D.Sc. and destruction...” + +A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer in +or near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in anticipating +a provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse of him is +lecturing on “rubber and rubber substitutes,” to the Society of Arts--he +had become manager to a great plastic-substance manufactory--and at +that time, it is now known, he was a member of the Aeronautical +Society, albeit he contributed nothing to the discussions of that body, +preferring no doubt to mature his great conception without external +assistance. And within two years of that paper before the Society of +Arts he was hastily taking out a number of patents and proclaiming in +various undignified ways the completion of the divergent inquiries which +made his flying machine possible. The first definite statement to that +effect appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man +who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after his long +laborious secret patience seems to have been due to a needless panic, +Bootle, the notorious American scientific quack, having made an +announcement that Filmer interpreted wrongly as an anticipation of his +idea. + +Now what precisely was Filmer's idea? Really a very simple one. Before +his time the pursuit of aeronautics had taken two divergent lines, and +had developed on the one hand balloons--large apparatus lighter than +air, easy in ascent, and comparatively safe in descent, but floating +helplessly before any breeze that took them; and on the other, flying +machines that flew only in theory--vast flat structures heavier than +air, propelled and kept up by heavy engines and for the most part +smashing at the first descent. But, neglecting the fact that the +inevitable final collapse rendered them impossible, the weight of the +flying machines gave them this theoretical advantage, that they could +go through the air against a wind, a necessary condition if aerial +navigation was to have any practical value. It is Filmer's particular +merit that he perceived the way in which the contrasted and hitherto +incompatible merits of balloon and heavy flying machine might be +combined in one apparatus, which should be at choice either heavier or +lighter than air. He took hints from the contractile bladders of fish +and the pneumatic cavities of birds. He devised an arrangement of +contractile and absolutely closed balloons which when expanded could +lift the actual flying apparatus with ease, and when retracted by the +complicated “musculature” he wove about them, were withdrawn almost +completely into the frame; and he built the large framework which these +balloons sustained, of hollow, rigid tubes, the air in which, by an +ingenious contrivance, was automatically pumped out as the apparatus +fell, and which then remained exhausted so long as the aeronaut desired. +There were no wings or propellers to his machine, such as there had been +to all previous aeroplanes, and the only engine required was the compact +and powerful little appliance needed to contract the balloons. He +perceived that such an apparatus as he had devised might rise with frame +exhausted and balloons expanded to a considerable height, might +then contract its balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an +adjustment of its weights slide down the air in any desired direction. +As it fell it would accumulate velocity and at the same time lose +weight, and the momentum accumulated by its down-rush could be utilised +by means of a shifting of its weights to drive it up in the air again +as the balloons expanded. This conception, which is still the structural +conception of all successful flying machines, needed, however, a vast +amount of toil upon its details before it could actually be +realised, and such toil Filmer--as he was accustomed to tell the +numerous interviewers who crowded upon him in the heyday of his +fame--“ungrudgingly and unsparingly gave.” His particular difficulty was +the elastic lining of the contractile balloon. He found he needed a new +substance, and in the discovery and manufacture of that new substance he +had, as he never failed to impress upon the interviewers, “performed +a far more arduous work than even in the actual achievement of my +seemingly greater discovery.” + +But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard upon +Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly five years +elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber factory--he +seems to have been entirely dependent on his small income from this +source--making misdirected attempts to assure a quite indifferent +public that he really HAD invented what he had invented. He occupied +the greater part of his leisure in the composition of letters to the +scientific and daily press, and so forth, stating precisely the net +result of his contrivances, and demanding financial aid. That alone +would have sufficed for the suppression of his letters. He spent such +holidays as he could arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the +door-keepers of leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for +inspiring hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted +to induce the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a +confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs. +“The man's a crank and a bounder to boot,” says the Major-General in +his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese +to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side of +warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain. + +And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his +contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves of a new +oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial model of his +invention. He threw up his rubber factory appointment, desisted from all +further writing, and, with a certain secrecy that seems to have been an +inseparable characteristic of all his proceedings, set to work upon +the apparatus. He seems to have directed the making of its parts and +collected most of it in a room in Shoreditch, but its final putting +together was done at Dymchurch, in Kent. He did not make the affair +large enough to carry a man, but he made an extremely ingenious use of +what were then called the Marconi rays to control its flight. The first +flight of this first practicable flying machine took place over some +fields near Burford Bridge, near Hythe, in Kent, and Filmer followed and +controlled its flight upon a specially constructed motor tricycle. + +The flight was, considering all things, an amazing success. The +apparatus was brought in a cart from Dymchurch to Burford Bridge, +ascended there to a height of nearly three hundred feet, swooped thence +very nearly back to Dymchurch, came about in its sweep, rose again, +circled, and finally sank uninjured in a field behind the Burford +Bridge Inn. At its descent a curious thing happened. Filmer got off his +tricycle, scrambled over the intervening dyke, advanced perhaps +twenty yards towards his triumph, threw out his arms in a strange +gesticulation, and fell down in a dead faint. Every one could then +recall the ghastliness of his features and all the evidences of extreme +excitement they had observed throughout the trial, things they might +otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards in the inn he had an unaccountable +gust of hysterical weeping. + +Altogether there were not twenty witnesses of this affair, and those for +the most part uneducated men. The New Romney doctor saw the ascent but +not the descent, his horse being frightened by the electrical apparatus +on Filmer's tricycle and giving him a nasty spill. Two members of +the Kent constabulary watched the affair from a cart in an unofficial +spirit, and a grocer calling round the Marsh for orders and two lady +cyclists seem almost to complete the list of educated people. There were +two reporters present, one representing a Folkestone paper and the +other being a fourth-class interviewer and “symposium” journalist, whose +expenses down, Filmer, anxious as ever for adequate advertisement--and +now quite realising the way in which adequate advertisement may be +obtained--had paid. The latter was one of those writers who can throw +a convincing air of unreality over the most credible events, and his +half-facetious account of the affair appeared in the magazine page of +a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer, this person's colloquial +methods were more convincing. He went to offer some further screed upon +the subject to Banghurst, the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of +the ablest and most unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst +instantly seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from +the narrative, no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, +Banghurst himself, double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, +gestures and all, appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled +journalistic nose. He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it +was and what it might be. + +At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded +into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns +over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous +recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be. +The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying, state by +a most effective silence that men never would, could or should fly. In +August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes and aerial tactics +and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again flying, shouldered +the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of Upper Greenland off the leading +page. And Banghurst had given ten thousand pounds, and, further, +Banghurst was giving five thousand pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his +well-known, magnificent (but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and +several acres of land near his private residence on the Surrey hills +to the strenuous and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the +life-size practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of +privileged multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town +residence in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties +putting the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost, +but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers with a +beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions. + +Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance comes +to our aid. + +“I saw Filmer in his glory,” he writes, with just the touch of envy +natural to his position as a poet passe. “The man is brushed and shaved, +dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon Lecturer, the +very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes, and altogether +in a state of extraordinary streakiness between an owlish great man and +a scared abashed self-conscious bounder cruelly exposed. He hasn't a +touch of colour in the skin of his face, his head juts forward, and +those queer little dark amber eyes of his watch furtively round him for +his fame. His clothes fit perfectly and yet sit upon him as though he +had bought them ready-made. He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, +you perceive indistinctly, enormous self-assertive things, he backs into +the rear of groups by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, +and when he walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out +of breath and going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched. +His is a state of tension--horrible tension. And he is the Greatest +Discoverer of This or Any Age--the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any +Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't somehow +quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this. Banghurst is +about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great little catch, and +I swear he will have every one down on his lawn there before he has +finished with the engine; he had bagged the prime minister yesterday, +and he, bless his heart! didn't look particularly outsize, on the very +first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer! Our obscure unwashed Filmer, the +Glory of British science! Duchesses crowd upon him, beautiful, bold +peeresses say in their beautiful, clear loud voices--have you noticed +how penetrating the great lady is becoming nowadays?--'Oh, Mr. Filmer, +how DID you do it?' + +“Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer. One +imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly +and unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps a +little special aptitude.'” + +So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in +sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine +swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church appears +below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer sits at his +guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth stand around +him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely in the rear. The +grouping is oddly apposite. Occluding much of Banghurst, and looking +with a pensive, speculative expression at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary +Elkinghorn, still beautiful, in spite of the breath of scandal and her +eight-and-thirty years, the only person whose face does not admit a +perception of the camera that was in the act of snapping them all. + +So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all, they are +very exterior facts. About the real interest of the business one is +necessarily very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling at the time? +How much was a certain unpleasant anticipation present inside that +very new and fashionable frock-coat? He was in the halfpenny, penny, +six-penny, and more expensive papers alike, and acknowledged by the +whole world as “the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age.” He had +invented a practicable flying machine, and every day down among the +Surrey hills the life-sized model was getting ready. And when it was +ready, it followed as a clear inevitable consequence of his having +invented and made it--everybody in the world, indeed, seemed to take +it for granted; there wasn't a gap anywhere in that serried front of +anticipation--that he would proudly and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend +with it, and fly. + +But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness +in such an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private +constitution. It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is. +We can guess with some confidence now that it must have been drifting +about in his mind a great deal during the day, and, from a little +note to his physician complaining of persistent insomnia, we have the +soundest reason for supposing it dominated his nights,--the idea that it +would be after all, in spite of his theoretical security, an abominably +sickening, uncomfortable, and dangerous thing for him to flap about in +nothingness a thousand feet or so in the air. It must have dawned upon +him quite early in the period of being the Greatest Discoverer of This +or Any Age, the vision of doing this and that with an extensive void +below. Perhaps somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height +or fallen down in some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit +of sleeping on the wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling +nightmare one knows, and given him his horror; of the strength of that +horror there remains now not a particle of doubt. + +Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier days +of research; the machine had been his end, but now things were opening +out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl up above there. He +was a Discoverer and he had Discovered. But he was not a Flying Man, and +it was only now that he was beginning to perceive clearly that he was +expected to fly. Yet, however much the thing was present in his mind he +gave no expression to it until the very end, and meanwhile he went to +and fro from Banghurst's magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed +and lionised, and wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in +an elegant flat, enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, +wholesome Fame and Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had +been starved, might be reasonably expected to enjoy. + +After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model had +failed one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance, or he +had been distracted by the compliments of an archbishop. At any rate, +it suddenly dug its nose into the air just a little too steeply as the +archbishop was sailing through a Latin quotation for all the world like +an archbishop in a book, and it came down in the Fulham Road within +three yards of a 'bus horse. It stood for a second perhaps, astonishing +and in its attitude astonished, then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, +and the 'bus horse was incidentally killed. + +Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up and +stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him. His long, +white hands still gripped his useless apparatus. The archbishop followed +his skyward stare with an apprehension unbecoming in an archbishop. + +Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road to relieve +Filmer's tension. “My God!” he whispered, and sat down. + +Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had vanished, +or rushing into the house. + +The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly for this. +Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow and very careful +in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation in his mind. His care +over the strength and soundness of the apparatus was prodigious. The +slightest doubt, and he delayed everything until the doubtful part could +be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior assistant, fumed at some of these +delays, which, he insisted, were for the most part unnecessary. +Banghurst magnified the patient certitude of Filmer in the New +Paper, and reviled it bitterly to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second +assistant, approved Filmer's wisdom. “We're not wanting a fiasco, man,” + said MacAndrew. “He's perfectly well advised.” + +And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson and +MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine was to be +controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be just as capable, +and even more capable, when at last the time came, of guiding it through +the skies. + +Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage to define +just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line in the matter of +his ascent, he might have escaped that painful ordeal quite easily. If +he had had it clearly in his mind he could have done endless things. He +would surely have found no difficulty with a specialist to demonstrate a +weak heart, or something gastric or pulmonary, to stand in his way--that +is the line I am astonished he did not take,--or he might, had he been +man enough, have declared simply and finally that he did not intend to +do the thing. But the fact is, though the dread was hugely present in +his mind, the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy that all +through this period he kept telling himself that when the occasion came +he would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just gripped by a +great illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and expects to +be better presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of the machine, +and let the assumption that he was going to fly it take root and +flourish exceedingly about him. He even accepted anticipatory +compliments on his courage. And, barring this secret squeamishness, +there can be no doubt he found all the praise and distinction and fuss +he got a delightful and even intoxicating draught. + +The Lady Mary Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated for him. + +How THAT began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks. +Probably in the beginning she was just a little “nice” to him with that +impartial partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes, standing +out conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air, he had +a distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow they must +have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great Discoverer a +moment of sufficient courage for something just a little personal to +be mumbled or blurted. However it began, there is no doubt that it did +begin, and presently became quite perceptible to a world accustomed +to find in the proceedings of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a matter of +entertainment. It complicated things, because the state of love in +such a virgin mind as Filmer's would brace his resolution, if not +sufficiently, at any rate considerably towards facing a danger he +feared, and hampered him in such attempts at evasion as would otherwise +be natural and congenial. + +It remains a matter for speculation just how the Lady Mary felt for +Filmer and just what she thought of him. At thirty-eight one may +have gathered much wisdom and still be not altogether wise, and the +imagination still functions actively enough in creating glamours and +effecting the impossible. He came before her eyes as a very central man, +and that always counts, and he had powers, unique powers as it seemed, +at any rate in the air. The performance with the model had just a touch +of the quality of a potent incantation, and women have ever displayed an +unreasonable disposition to imagine that when a man has powers he must +necessarily have Power. Given so much, and what was not good in Filmer's +manner and appearance became an added merit. He was modest, he hated +display, but given an occasion where TRUE qualities are needed, +then--then one would see! + +The late Mrs. Bampton thought it wise to convey to Lady Mary her opinion +that Filmer, all things considered, was rather a “grub.” “He's certainly +not a sort of man I have ever met before,” said the Lady Mary, with a +quite unruffled serenity. And Mrs. Bampton, after a swift, imperceptible +glance at that serenity, decided that so far as saying anything to Lady +Mary went, she had done as much as could be expected of her. But she +said a great deal to other people. + +And at last, without any undue haste or unseemliness, the day dawned, +the great day, when Banghurst had promised his public--the world in +fact--that flying should be finally attained and overcome. Filmer saw it +dawn, watched even in the darkness before it dawned, watched its stars +fade and the grey and pearly pinks give place at last to the clear blue +sky of a sunny, cloudless day. He watched it from the window of his +bedroom in the new-built wing of Banghurst's Tudor house. And as the +stars were overwhelmed and the shapes and substances of things grew +into being out of the amorphous dark, he must have seen more and more +distinctly the festive preparations beyond the beech clumps near the +green pavilion in the outer park, the three stands for the privileged +spectators, the raw, new fencing of the enclosure, the sheds and +workshops, the Venetian masts and fluttering flags that Banghurst had +considered essential, black and limp in the breezeless dawn, and amidst +all these things a great shape covered with tarpauling. A strange and +terrible portent for humanity was that shape, a beginning that must +surely spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men, +but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything but a +narrow and personal light. Several people heard him pacing in the small +hours--for the vast place was packed with guests by a proprietor editor +who, before all understood compression. And about five o'clock, if not +before, Filmer left his room and wandered out of the sleeping house into +the park, alive by that time with sunlight and birds and squirrels and +the fallow deer. MacAndrew, who was also an early riser, met him near +the machine, and they went and had a look at it together. + +It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast, in spite of the urgency +of Banghurst. So soon as the guests began to be about in some number he +seems to have retreated to his room. Thence about ten he went into the +shrubbery, very probably because he had seen the Lady Mary Elkinghorn +there. She was walking up and down, engaged in conversation with her old +school friend, Mrs. Brewis-Craven, and although Filmer had never met the +latter lady before, he joined them and walked beside them for some time. +There were several silences in spite of the Lady Mary's brilliance. The +situation was a difficult one, and Mrs. Brewis-Craven did not master +its difficulty. “He struck me,” she said afterwards with a luminous +self-contradiction, “as a very unhappy person who had something to say, +and wanted before all things to be helped to say it. But how was one to +help him when one didn't know what it was?” + +At half-past eleven the enclosures for the public in the outer park were +crammed, there was an intermittent stream of equipages along the belt +which circles the outer park, and the house party was dotted over the +lawn and shrubbery and the corner of the inner park, in a series of +brilliantly attired knots, all making for the flying machine. Filmer +walked in a group of three with Banghurst, who was supremely and +conspicuously happy, and Sir Theodore Hickle, the president of the +Aeronautical Society. Mrs. Banghurst was close behind with the Lady Mary +Elkinghorn, Georgina Hickle, and the Dean of Stays. Banghurst was large +and copious in speech, and such interstices as he left were filled in by +Hickle with complimentary remarks to Filmer. And Filmer walked between +them saying not a word except by way of unavoidable reply. Behind, Mrs. +Banghurst listened to the admirably suitable and shapely conversation of +the Dean with that fluttered attention to the ampler clergy ten years +of social ascent and ascendency had not cured in her; and the Lady +Mary watched, no doubt with an entire confidence in the world's +disillusionment, the drooping shoulders of the sort of man she had never +met before. + +There was some cheering as the central party came into view of the +enclosures, but it was not very unanimous nor invigorating cheering. +They were within fifty yards of the apparatus when Filmer took a hasty +glance over his shoulder to measure the distance of the ladies behind +them, and decided to make the first remark he had initiated since the +house had been left. His voice was just a little hoarse, and he cut in +on Banghurst in mid-sentence on Progress. + +“I say, Banghurst,” he said, and stopped. + +“Yes,” said Banghurst. + +“I wish--” He moistened his lips. “I'm not feeling well.” + +Banghurst stopped dead. “Eh?” he shouted. + +“A queer feeling.” Filmer made to move on, but Banghurst was immovable. +“I don't know. I may be better in a minute. If not--perhaps... +MacAndrew--” + +“You're not feeling WELL?” said Banghurst, and stared at his white face. + +“My dear!” he said, as Mrs. Banghurst came up with them, “Filmer says he +isn't feeling WELL.” + +“A little queer,” exclaimed Filmer, avoiding the Lady Mary's eyes. “It +may pass off--” + +There was a pause. + +It came to Filmer that he was the most isolated person in the world. + +“In any case,” said Banghurst, “the ascent must be made. Perhaps if you +were to sit down somewhere for a moment--” + +“It's the crowd, I think,” said Filmer. + +There was a second pause. Banghurst's eye rested in scrutiny on Filmer, +and then swept the sample of public in the enclosure. + +“It's unfortunate,” said Sir Theodore Hickle; “but still--I suppose--Your +assistants--Of course, if you feel out of condition and disinclined--” + +“I don't think Mr. Filmer would permit THAT for a moment,” said Lady +Mary. + +“But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run--It might even be dangerous for him to +attempt--” Hickle coughed. + +“It's just because it's dangerous,” began the Lady Mary, and felt she +had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough. + +Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer. + +“I feel I ought to go up,” he said, regarding the ground. He looked up +and met the Lady Mary's eyes. “I want to go up,” he said, and smiled +whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. “If I could just sit down +somewhere for a moment out of the crowd and sun--” + +Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. “Come into my +little room in the green pavilion,” he said. “It's quite cool there.” He +took Filmer by the arm. + +Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. “I shall be +all right in five minutes,” he said. “I'm tremendously sorry--” + +The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. “I couldn't think--” he said to +Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull. + +The rest remained watching the two recede. + +“He is so fragile,” said the Lady Mary. + +“He's certainly a highly nervous type,” said the Dean, whose weakness +it was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with enormous +families, as “neurotic.” + +“Of course,” said Hickle, “it isn't absolutely necessary for him to go +up because he has invented--” + +“How COULD he avoid it?” asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest shadow +of scorn. + +“It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now,” said Mrs. +Banghurst a little severely. + +“He's not going to be ill,” said the Lady Mary, and certainly she had +met Filmer's eye. + +“YOU'LL be all right,” said Banghurst, as they went towards the +pavilion. “All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you +know. You'll be--you'd get it rough, you know, if you let another man--” + +“Oh, I want to go,” said Filmer. “I shall be all right. As a matter of +fact I'm almost inclined NOW--. No! I think I'll have that nip of brandy +first.” + +Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty +decanter. He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps five +minutes. + +The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals +Filmer's face could be seen by the people on the easternmost of the +stands erected for spectators, against the window pane peering out, and +then it would recede and fade. Banghurst vanished shouting behind the +grand stand, and presently the butler appeared going pavilionward with a +tray. + +The apartment in which Filmer came to his last solution was a pleasant +little room very simply furnished with green furniture and an old +bureau--for Banghurst was simple in all his private ways. It was hung +with little engravings after Morland and it had a shelf of books. But as +it happened, Banghurst had left a rook rifle he sometimes played with on +the top of the desk, and on the corner of the mantelshelf was a tin with +three or four cartridges remaining in it. As Filmer went up and down +that room wrestling with his intolerable dilemma he went first towards +the neat little rifle athwart the blotting-pad and then towards the neat +little red label + +“.22 LONG.” + +The thing must have jumped into his mind in a moment. + +Nobody seems to have connected the report with him, though the gun, +being fired in a confined space, must have sounded loud, and there +were several people in the billiard-room, separated from him only by a +lath-and-plaster partition. But directly Banghurst's butler opened the +door and smelt the sour smell of the smoke, he knew, he says, what had +happened. For the servants at least of Banghurst's household had guessed +something of what was going on in Filmer's mind. + +All through that trying afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held a man +should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests +for the most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact--though to +conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible--that Banghurst +had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled by the deceased. The +public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed “like a party that has +been ducking a welsher,” and there wasn't a soul in the train to London, +it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying was a quite impossible +thing for man. “But he might have tried it,” said many, “after carrying +the thing so far.” + +In the evening, when he was comparatively alone, Banghurst broke down +and went on like a man of clay. I have been told he wept, which must +have made an imposing scene, and he certainly said Filmer had ruined +his life, and offered and sold the whole apparatus to MacAndrew for +half-a-crown. “I've been thinking--” said MacAndrew at the conclusion of +the bargain, and stopped. + +The next morning the name of Filmer was, for the first time, less +conspicuous in the New Paper than in any other daily paper in the world. +The rest of the world's instructors, with varying emphasis, according to +their dignity and the degree of competition between themselves and the +New Paper, proclaimed the “Entire Failure of the New Flying Machine,” + and “Suicide of the Impostor.” But in the district of North Surrey the +reception of the news was tempered by a perception of unusual aerial +phenomena. + +Overnight Wilkinson and MacAndrew had fallen into violent argument on +the exact motives of their principal's rash act. + +“The man was certainly a poor, cowardly body, but so far as his science +went he was NO impostor,” said MacAndrew, “and I'm prepared to give that +proposition a very practical demonstration, Mr. Wilkinson, so soon as +we've got the place a little more to ourselves. For I've no faith in all +this publicity for experimental trials.” + +And to that end, while all the world was reading of the certain failure +of the new flying machine, MacAndrew was soaring and curvetting with +great amplitude and dignity over the Epsom and Wimbledon divisions; +and Banghurst, restored once more to hope and energy, and regardless of +public security and the Board of Trade, was pursuing his gyrations and +trying to attract his attention, on a motor car and in his pyjamas--he +had caught sight of the ascent when pulling up the blind of his bedroom +window--equipped, among other things, with a film camera that was +subsequently discovered to be jammed. And Filmer was lying on the +billiard table in the green pavilion with a sheet about his body. + + + + +2. THE MAGIC SHOP + +I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once +or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic +hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the basket +trick, packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all that sort of +thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day, almost without +warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to the window, and so +conducted himself that there was nothing for it but to take him in. I +had not thought the place was there, to tell the truth--a modest-sized +frontage in Regent Street, between the picture shop and the place where +the chicks run about just out of patent incubators, but there it was +sure enough. I had fancied it was down nearer the Circus, or round the +corner in Oxford Street, or even in Holborn; always over the way and +a little inaccessible it had been, with something of the mirage in its +position; but here it was now quite indisputably, and the fat end of +Gip's pointing finger made a noise upon the glass. + +“If I was rich,” said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg, +“I'd buy myself that. And that”--which was The Crying Baby, Very +Human--“and that,” which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card +asserted, “Buy One and Astonish Your Friends.” + +“Anything,” said Gip, “will disappear under one of those cones. I have +read about it in a book. + +“And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--, only they've put it +this way up so's we can't see how it's done.” + +Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose to +enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously +he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear. + +“That,” he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle. + +“If you had that?” I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up with +a sudden radiance. + +“I could show it to Jessie,” he said, thoughtful as ever of others. + +“It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles,” I said, and +laid my hand on the door-handle. + +Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so we came +into the shop. + +It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing +precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting. +He left the burthen of the conversation to me. + +It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell +pinged again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us. For a +moment or so we were alone and could glance about us. There was a tiger +in papier-mache on the glass case that covered the low counter--a grave, +kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head in a methodical manner; there were +several crystal spheres, a china hand holding magic cards, a stock +of magic fish-bowls in various sizes, and an immodest magic hat that +shamelessly displayed its springs. On the floor were magic mirrors; one +to draw you out long and thin, one to swell your head and vanish your +legs, and one to make you short and fat like a draught; and while we +were laughing at these the shopman, as I suppose, came in. + +At any rate, there he was behind the counter--a curious, sallow, dark +man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like the toe-cap of a +boot. + +“What can we have the pleasure?” he said, spreading his long, magic +fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware of him. + +“I want,” I said, “to buy my little boy a few simple tricks.” + +“Legerdemain?” he asked. “Mechanical? Domestic?” + +“Anything amusing?” said I. + +“Um!” said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if +thinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball. +“Something in this way?” he said, and held it out. + +The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainments +endless times before--it's part of the common stock of conjurers--but I +had not expected it here. + +“That's good,” I said, with a laugh. + +“Isn't it?” said the shopman. + +Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found +merely a blank palm. + +“It's in your pocket,” said the shopman, and there it was! + +“How much will that be?” I asked. + +“We make no charge for glass balls,” said the shopman politely. “We get +them,”--he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke--“free.” He produced +another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside its predecessor on +the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely, then directed a look +of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally brought his round-eyed +scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled. + +“You may have those too,” said the shopman, “and, if you DON'T mind, one +from my mouth. SO!” + +Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence +put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved +himself for the next event. + +“We get all our smaller tricks in that way,” the shopman remarked. + +I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. “Instead of +going to the wholesale shop,” I said. “Of course, it's cheaper.” + +“In a way,” the shopman said. “Though we pay in the end. But not +so heavily--as people suppose.... Our larger tricks, and our daily +provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that +hat... And you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there ISN'T a +wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know if +you noticed our inscription--the Genuine Magic shop.” He drew a +business-card from his cheek and handed it to me. “Genuine,” he +said, with his finger on the word, and added, “There is absolutely no +deception, sir.” + +He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought. + +He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. “You, you know, +are the Right Sort of Boy.” + +I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests of +discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip received it +in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him. + +“It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway.” + +And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door, +and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. “Nyar! I WARN 'a go +in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!” and then the accents +of a down-trodden parent, urging consolations and propitiations. “It's +locked, Edward,” he said. + +“But it isn't,” said I. + +“It is, sir,” said the shopman, “always--for that sort of child,” and as +he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little, white face, +pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and distorted by evil +passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing at the enchanted pane. +“It's no good, sir,” said the shopman, as I moved, with my natural +helpfulness, doorward, and presently the spoilt child was carried off +howling. + +“How do you manage that?” I said, breathing a little more freely. + +“Magic!” said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and behold! +sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into the +shadows of the shop. + +“You were saying,” he said, addressing himself to Gip, “before you came +in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish your Friends' +boxes?” + +Gip, after a gallant effort, said “Yes.” + +“It's in your pocket.” + +And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinarily long +body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary +conjurer's manner. “Paper,” he said, and took a sheet out of the empty +hat with the springs; “string,” and behold his mouth was a string-box, +from which he drew an unending thread, which when he had tied his parcel +he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed the ball of string. And then +he lit a candle at the nose of one of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck +one of his fingers (which had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, +and so sealed the parcel. “Then there was the Disappearing Egg,” he +remarked, and produced one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and +also The Crying Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was +ready, and he clasped them to his chest. + +He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of his arms +was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. These, +you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered something +moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped it off, and +a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out and ran on the +counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box behind the papier-mache +tiger. + +“Tut, tut!” said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress; +“careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!” + +He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three eggs, +a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable glass +balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more, +talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush their +hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with a certain +personal application. “All sorts of things accumulate, sir.... Not YOU, +of course, in particular.... Nearly every customer.... Astonishing what +they carry about with them....” The crumpled paper rose and billowed on +the counter more and more and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, +until he was altogether hidden, and still his voice went on and on. “We +none of us know what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, +sir. Are we all then no better than brushed exteriors, whited +sepulchres--” + +His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone +with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle of the +paper stopped, and everything was still.... + +“Have you done with my hat?” I said, after an interval. + +There was no answer. + +I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions in +the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet.... + +“I think we'll go now,” I said. “Will you tell me how much all this +comes to?.... + +“I say,” I said, on a rather louder note, “I want the bill; and my hat, +please.” + +It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile.... + +“Let's look behind the counter, Gip,” I said. “He's making fun of us.” + +I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think there +was behind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor, and a +common conjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation, and looking +as stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit can do. I resumed my +hat, and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so out of my way. + +“Dadda!” said Gip, in a guilty whisper. + +“What is it, Gip?” said I. + +“I DO like this shop, dadda.” + +“So should I,” I said to myself, “if the counter wouldn't suddenly +extend itself to shut one off from the door.” But I didn't call Gip's +attention to that. “Pussy!” he said, with a hand out to the rabbit as it +came lolloping past us; “Pussy, do Gip a magic!” and his eyes followed +it as it squeezed through a door I had certainly not remarked a moment +before. Then this door opened wider, and the man with one ear larger +than the other appeared again. He was smiling still, but his eye met +mine with something between amusement and defiance. “You'd like to see +our show-room, sir,” he said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged +my finger forward. I glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye +again. I was beginning to think the magic just a little too genuine. +“We haven't VERY much time,” I said. But somehow we were inside the +show-room before I could finish that. + +“All goods of the same quality,” said the shopman, rubbing his flexible +hands together, “and that is the Best. Nothing in the place that isn't +genuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!” + +I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then +I saw he held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail--the little +creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand--and in a moment +he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was only an +image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment--! And his gesture was +exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit of vermin. I +glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-horse. I was +glad he hadn't seen the thing. “I say,” I said, in an undertone, and +indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes, “you haven't many things +like THAT about, have you?” + +“None of ours! Probably brought it with you,” said the shopman--also +in an undertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever. “Astonishing +what people WILL carry about with them unawares!” And then to Gip, “Do +you see anything you fancy here?” + +There were many things that Gip fancied there. + +He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence and +respect. “Is that a Magic Sword?” he said. + +“A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers. It +renders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under eighteen. +Half-a-crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These panoplies +on cards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful--shield of +safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility.” + +“Oh, daddy!” gasped Gip. + +I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me. +He had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had embarked +upon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing was going +to stop him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust and something very +like jealousy that Gip had hold of this person's finger as usually he +has hold of mine. No doubt the fellow was interesting, I thought, +and had an interestingly faked lot of stuff, really GOOD faked stuff, +still-- + +I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye on this +prestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it. And no doubt when +the time came to go we should be able to go quite easily. + +It was a long, rambling place, that show-room, a gallery broken up +by stands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to other +departments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and stared +at one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing, indeed, +were these that I was presently unable to make out the door by which we +had come. + +The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork, +just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes of +soldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid and said--. I +myself haven't a very quick ear and it was a tongue-twisting sound, +but Gip--he has his mother's ear--got it in no time. “Bravo!” said the +shopman, putting the men back into the box unceremoniously and handing +it to Gip. “Now,” said the shopman, and in a moment Gip had made them +all alive again. + +“You'll take that box?” asked the shopman. + +“We'll take that box,” said I, “unless you charge its full value. In +which case it would need a Trust Magnate--” + +“Dear heart! NO!” and the shopman swept the little men back again, shut +the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown paper, +tied up and--WITH GIP'S FULL NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE PAPER! + +The shopman laughed at my amazement. + +“This is the genuine magic,” he said. “The real thing.” + +“It's a little too genuine for my taste,” I said again. + +After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still odder +the way they were done. He explained them, he turned them inside out, +and there was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit of a head in the +sagest manner. + +I did not attend as well as I might. “Hey, presto!” said the Magic +Shopman, and then would come the clear, small “Hey, presto!” of the boy. +But I was distracted by other things. It was being borne in upon me just +how tremendously rum this place was; it was, so to speak, inundated by +a sense of rumness. There was something a little rum about the fixtures +even, about the ceiling, about the floor, about the casually distributed +chairs. I had a queer feeling that whenever I wasn't looking at them +straight they went askew, and moved about, and played a noiseless +puss-in-the-corner behind my back. And the cornice had a serpentine +design with masks--masks altogether too expressive for proper plaster. + +Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking +assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence--I +saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys and +through an arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar in an +idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features! The +particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it just as +though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all it was a +short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out like a telescope, +and then out it flew and became thinner and thinner until it was like +a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in a nightmare it was! He +flourished it about and flung it forth as a fly-fisher flings his line. + +My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about, and +there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking no evil. +They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was standing on +a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of big drum in his +hand. + +“Hide and seek, dadda!” cried Gip. “You're He!” + +And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped +the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. “Take that off,” I +cried, “this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!” + +The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held the +big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little stool was +vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared?... + +You know, perhaps, that sinister something that comes like a hand out +of the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes your common +self away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither slow nor hasty, +neither angry nor afraid. So it was with me. + +I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside. + +“Stop this folly!” I said. “Where is my boy?” + +“You see,” he said, still displaying the drum's interior, “there is no +deception---” + +I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous movement. +I snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open a door to +escape. “Stop!” I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt after +him--into utter darkness. + +THUD! + +“Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!” + +I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking working +man; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little perplexed with +himself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology, and then Gip had +turned and come to me with a bright little smile, as though for a moment +he had missed me. + +And he was carrying four parcels in his arm! + +He secured immediate possession of my finger. + +For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see the door +of the magic shop, and, behold, it was not there! There was no door, no +shop, nothing, only the common pilaster between the shop where they sell +pictures and the window with the chicks!... + +I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight +to the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab. + +“'Ansoms,” said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation. + +I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also. +Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and I felt +and discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression I flung it into +the street. + +Gip said nothing. + +For a space neither of us spoke. + +“Dada!” said Gip, at last, “that WAS a proper shop!” + +I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing had +seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good; he was +neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously satisfied with +the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms were the four +parcels. + +Confound it! what could be in them? + +“Um!” I said. “Little boys can't go to shops like that every day.” + +He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry I +was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there, coram +publico, in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought, the thing wasn't +so very bad. + +But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be +reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary +lead soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether forget +that originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only genuine +sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living white kitten, +in excellent health and appetite and temper. + +I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about in +the nursery for quite an unconscionable time.... + +That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe it is +all right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens, and +the soldiers seem as steady a company as any colonel could desire. And +Gip--? + +The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously with +Gip. + +But I went so far as this one day. I said, “How would you like your +soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?” + +“Mine do,” said Gip. “I just have to say a word I know before I open the +lid.” + +“Then they march about alone?” + +“Oh, QUITE, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that.” + +I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken occasion +to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when the soldiers were +about, but so far I have never discovered them performing in anything +like a magical manner. + +It's so difficult to tell. + +There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of paying +bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times, looking for +that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that matter honour is +satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address are known to them, I +may very well leave it to these people, whoever they may be, to send in +their bill in their own time. + + + + +3. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS + +Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the +torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The +difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked +the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope, and with a common +impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set +with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, +a little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle. + +For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. +It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn +bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless +ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances +melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills--hills it +might be of a greener kind--and above them invisibly supported, and +seeming indeed to hang in the blue, were the snowclad summits of +mountains that grew larger and bolder to the north-westward as the sides +of the valley drew together. And westward the valley opened until a +distant darkness under the sky told where the forests began. But the +three men looked neither east nor west, but only steadfastly across the +valley. + +The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. “Nowhere,” he +said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. “But after all, they +had a full day's start.” + +“They don't know we are after them,” said the little man on the white +horse. + +“SHE would know,” said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to himself. + +“Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule, and +all to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding---” + +The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage on him. +“Do you think I haven't seen that?” he snarled. + +“It helps, anyhow,” whispered the little man to himself. + +The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. “They can't be +over the valley,” he said. “If we ride hard--” + +He glanced at the white horse and paused. + +“Curse all white horses!” said the man with the silver bridle, and +turned to scan the beast his curse included. + +The little man looked down between the melancholy ears of his steed. + +“I did my best,” he said. + +The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt man +passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip. + +“Come up!” said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. The +little man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs of the three +made a multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered grass as they +turned back towards the trail.... + +They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came +through a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes of +horny branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below. +And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only +herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. Still, by +hard scanning, by leaning beside the horses' necks and pausing ever and +again, even these white men could contrive to follow after their prey. + +There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse grass, +and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once +the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have +trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for a fool. + +The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man on the +white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode one after +another, the man with the silver bridle led the way, and they spoke +never a word. After a time it came to the little man on the white horse +that the world was very still. He started out of his dream. Besides the +little noises of their horses and equipment, the whole great valley kept +the brooding quiet of a painted scene. + +Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forward +to the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; their +shadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; and +nearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was +it had gone? Then he remembered the reverberation from the banks of the +gorge and the perpetual accompaniment of shifting, jostling pebbles. +And, moreover--? There was no breeze. That was it! What a vast, still +place it was, a monotonous afternoon slumber. And the sky open and +blank, except for a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the upper +valley. + +He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips +to whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, and +stared at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they had come. +Blank! Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign of a decent beast +or tree--much less a man. What a land it was! What a wilderness! He +dropped again into his former pose. + +It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple +black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. +After all, the infernal valley WAS alive. And then, to rejoice him still +more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that came and +went, the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered bush upon a +little crest, the first intimations of a possible breeze. Idly he wetted +his finger, and held it up. + +He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who had +stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment he caught +his master's eye looking towards him. + +For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode on +again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder, appearing +and disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours. They had ridden +four days out of the very limits of the world into this desolate place, +short of water, with nothing but a strip of dried meat under their +saddles, over rocks and mountains, where surely none but these fugitives +had ever been before--for THAT! + +And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man had whole +cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women! Why in the +name of passionate folly THIS one in particular? asked the little man, +and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips with a blackened +tongue. It was the way of the master, and that was all he knew. Just +because she sought to evade him.... + +His eye caught a whole row of high plumed canes bending in unison, and +then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. The +breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness out of +things--and that was well. + +“Hullo!” said the gaunt man. + +All three stopped abruptly. + +“What?” asked the master. “What?” + +“Over there,” said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley. + +“What?” + +“Something coming towards us.” + +And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing down +upon them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, tongue out, at +a steady pace, and running with such an intensity of purpose that he +did not seem to see the horsemen he approached. He ran with his nose up, +following, it was plain, neither scent nor quarry. As he drew nearer the +little man felt for his sword. “He's mad,” said the gaunt rider. + +“Shout!” said the little man, and shouted. + +The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, it +swerved aside and went panting by them and past. The eyes of the little +man followed its flight. “There was no foam,” he said. For a space the +man with the silver-studded bridle stared up the valley. “Oh, come +on!” he cried at last. “What does it matter?” and jerked his horse into +movement again. + +The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from +nothing but the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human +character. “Come on!” he whispered to himself. “Why should it be given +to one man to say 'Come on!' with that stupendous violence of effect. +Always, all his life, the man with the silver bridle has been saying +that. If _I_ said it--!” thought the little man. But people marvelled +when the master was disobeyed even in the wildest things. This +half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one, mad--blasphemous +almost. The little man, by way of comparison, reflected on the gaunt +rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart as his master, as brave and, +indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there was obedience, nothing but +to give obedience duly and stoutly... + +Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back to +more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up beside +his gaunt fellow. “Do you notice the horses?” he said in an undertone. + +The gaunt face looked interrogation. + +“They don't like this wind,” said the little man, and dropped behind as +the man with the silver bridle turned upon him. + +“It's all right,” said the gaunt-faced man. + +They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode +downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept +down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the +wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a +line of dark bulks--wild hog perhaps, galloping down the valley, but of +that he said nothing, nor did he remark again upon the uneasiness of the +horses. + +And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball, a great +shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistle-down, that drove +before the wind athwart the path. These balls soared high in the air, +and dropped and rose again and caught for a moment, and hurried on +and passed, but at the sight of them the restlessness of the horses +increased. + +Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then soon +very many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley. + +They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed, +turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then hurling +on down the valley again. And at that, all three stopped and sat in +their saddles, staring into the thickening haze that was coming upon +them. + +“If it were not for this thistle-down--” began the leader. + +But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards of them. +It was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft, ragged, filmy +thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial jelly-fish, as it +were, but rolling over and over as it advanced, and trailing long, +cobwebby threads and streamers that floated in its wake. + +“It isn't thistle-down,” said the little man. + +“I don't like the stuff,” said the gaunt man. + +And they looked at one another. + +“Curse it!” cried the leader. “The air's full of it up there. If it +keeps on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether.” + +An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the approach +of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses to the wind, +ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing multitude +of floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort of smooth +swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth, rebounding +high, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still, deliberate +assurance. + +Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army passed. +At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly and trailing +out reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands, all three horses +began to shy and dance. The master was seized with a sudden unreasonable +impatience. He cursed the drifting globes roundly. “Get on!” he cried; +“get on! What do these things matter? How CAN they matter? Back to +the trail!” He fell swearing at his horse and sawed the bit across its +mouth. + +He shouted aloud with rage. “I will follow that trail, I tell you!” he +cried. “Where is the trail?” + +He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst the +grass. A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey streamer +dropped about his bridle-arm, some big, active thing with many legs ran +down the back of his head. He looked up to discover one of those grey +masses anchored as it were above him by these things and flapping out +ends as a sail flaps when a boat comes, about--but noiselessly. + +He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies, of +long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring the +thing down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his prancing +horse with the instinct born of years of horsemanship. Then the flat +of a sword smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead and cut the +drifting balloon of spider-web free, and the whole mass lifted softly +and drove clear and away. + +“Spiders!” cried the voice of the gaunt man. “The things are full of big +spiders! Look, my lord!” + +The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away. + +“Look, my lord!” + +The master found himself staring down at a red, smashed thing on the +ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle +unavailing legs. Then when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that +bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was +like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the situation. + +“Ride for it!” the little man was shouting. “Ride for it down the +valley.” + +What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man with +the silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing furiously at +imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse of the gaunt man and +hurl it and its rider to earth. His own horse went a dozen paces before +he could rein it in. Then he looked up to avoid imaginary dangers, and +then back again to see a horse rolling on the ground, the gaunt man +standing and slashing over it at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that +streamed and wrapped about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down +on waste land on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on. + +The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse. He +was endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength of +one arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles of a +second grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle, and this +second grey mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank. + +The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head, and +spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over, there +were blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man, +suddenly leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces. +His legs were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual +movements with his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was +a thin veil of grey across his face. With his left hand he beat at +something on his body, and suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled +to rise, and fell again, and suddenly, horribly, began to howl, +“Oh--ohoo, ohooh!” + +The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon the +ground. + +As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaming +grey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, +and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his belly +athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. And again +a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept across the master's face. +All about him, and over him, it seemed this drifting, noiseless cobweb +circled and drew nearer him.... + +To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment +happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its own +accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another second +he was galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword whirling +furiously overhead. And all about him on the quickening breeze, the +spiders' airships, their air bundles and air sheets, seemed to him to +hurry in a conscious pursuit. + +Clatter, clatter, thud, thud--the man with the silver bridle rode, +heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, +now left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards +ahead of him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode the +little man on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle. +The reeds bent before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his +shoulder the master could see the webs hurrying to overtake.... + +He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse +gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then +he realised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning +forward on his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late. + +But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had not +forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air. He came off +clear with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse rolled, +kicking spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword drove its +point into the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as though Chance +refused him any longer as her Knight, and the splintered end missed his +face by an inch or so. + +He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the onrushing +spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought of the +ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting terror, +and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides, and out +of the touch of the gale. + +There under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might crouch, +and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the +wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time +he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their +streamers across his narrowed sky. + +Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full foot +it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand--and +after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape for a +little while, and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted up his +iron-heeled boot and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did so, and +for a time sought up and down for another. + +Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not drop +into the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down, and sat and +fell into deep thought and began after his manner to gnaw his knuckles +and bite his nails. And from this he was moved by the coming of the man +with the white horse. + +He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumbling +footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a +rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. +They approached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The +little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, +and came to a stop at last, face to face with his seated master. The +latter winced a little under his dependant's eye. “Well?” he said at +last, with no pretence of authority. + +“You left him?” + +“My horse bolted.” + +“I know. So did mine.” + +He laughed at his master mirthlessly. + +“I say my horse bolted,” said the man who once had a silver-studded +bridle. + +“Cowards both,” said the little man. + +The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments, with his +eye on his inferior. + +“Don't call me a coward,” he said at length. + +“You are a coward like myself.” + +“A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear. +That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where the +difference comes in.” + +“I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved your life +two minutes before.... Why are you our lord?” + +The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark. + +“No man calls me a coward,” he said. “No. A broken sword is better than +none.... One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry two men +a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time it cannot be +helped. You begin to understand me?... I perceive that you are minded, +on the strength of what you have seen and fancy, to taint my reputation. +It is men of your sort who unmake kings. Besides which--I never liked +you.” + +“My lord!” said the little man. + +“No,” said the master. “NO!” + +He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps they +faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. There was a +quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, a cry of despair, a +gasp and a blow.... + +Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity, and +the man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last very +cautiously and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now he led +the white horse that once belonged to the little man. He would have gone +back to his horse to get his silver-mounted bridle again, but he feared +night and a quickening breeze might still find him in the valley, and +besides he disliked greatly to think he might discover his horse all +swathed in cobwebs and perhaps unpleasantly eaten. + +And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he had been +through, and the manner in which he had been preserved that day, his +hand sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck, and he clasped +it for a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so his eyes went +across the valley. + +“I was hot with passion,” he said, “and now she has met her reward. They +also, no doubt--” + +And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, but in +the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable, he saw a little +spire of smoke. + +At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed anger. +Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and hesitated. And +as he did so a little rustle of air went through the grass about him. +Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of grey. He looked at +the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke. + +“Perhaps, after all, it is not them,” he said at last. + +But he knew better. + +After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white +horse. + +As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some +reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that lived +feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs +they fled. + +Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry +them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, could +do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came +too near. Once, where a number ran together over a bare place, he was +minded to dismount and trample them with his boots, but this impulse he +overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle, and looked back at the +smoke. + +“Spiders,” he muttered over and over again. “Spiders! Well, well.... The +next time I must spin a web.” + + + + +4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT + +He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see +him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--it meets me +with an expression. + +It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it. + +Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told +long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his +ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who +would believe me if I did tell? + +Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubman +in London. + +He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, +stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him biting +at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me. Confound +him!--with his eyes on me! + +That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL +behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your +embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft. +The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me by making +my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his liquid appeal, +with the perpetual “don't tell” of his looks. + +And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating? + +Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the +truth! + +Pyecraft--. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very +smoking-room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was +sitting all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly +he came, a great rolling front of chins and abdomina, towards me, and +grunted and sat down in a chair close by me and wheezed for a space, and +scraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and then addressed +me. I forget what he said--something about the matches not lighting +properly, and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping the waiters one +by one as they went by, and telling them about the matches in that thin, +fluty voice he has. But, anyhow, it was in some such way we began our +talking. + +He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence to +my figure and complexion. “YOU ought to be a good cricketer,” he said. I +suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would call lean, and +I suppose I am rather dark, still--I am not ashamed of having a Hindu +great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want casual strangers to +see through me at a glance to HER. So that I was set against Pyecraft +from the beginning. + +But he only talked about me in order to get to himself. + +“I expect,” he said, “you take no more exercise than I do, and probably +you eat no less.” (Like all excessively obese people he fancied he ate +nothing.) “Yet,”--and he smiled an oblique smile--“we differ.” + +And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness; all he did +for his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness; what people +had advised him to do for his fatness and what he had heard of people +doing for fatness similar to his. “A priori,” he said, “one would think +a question of nutrition could be answered by dietary and a question of +assimilation by drugs.” It was stifling. It was dumpling talk. It made +me feel swelled to hear him. + +One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time came +when I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether too +conspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but he would come +wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and gormandised round and +about me while I had my lunch. He seemed at times almost to be clinging +to me. He was a bore, but not so fearful a bore as to be limited to me; +and from the first there was something in his manner--almost as though +he knew, almost as though he penetrated to the fact that I MIGHT--that +there was a remote, exceptional chance in me that no one else presented. + +“I'd give anything to get it down,” he would say--“anything,” and peer +at me over his vast cheeks and pant. + +Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged, no doubt to order another +buttered tea-cake! + +He came to the actual thing one day. “Our Pharmacopoeia,” he said, “our +Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical science. +In the East, I've been told--” + +He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium. + +I was quite suddenly angry with him. “Look here,” I said, “who told you +about my great-grandmother's recipes?” + +“Well,” he fenced. + +“Every time we've met for a week,” I said, “and we've met pretty +often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret of +mine.” + +“Well,” he said, “now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, yes, it is +so. I had it--” + +“From Pattison?” + +“Indirectly,” he said, which I believe was lying, “yes.” + +“Pattison,” I said, “took that stuff at his own risk.” + +He pursed his mouth and bowed. + +“My great-grandmother's recipes,” I said, “are queer things to handle. +My father was near making me promise--” + +“He didn't?” + +“No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once.” + +“Ah!... But do you think--? Suppose--suppose there did happen to be +one--” + +“The things are curious documents,” I said. + +“Even the smell of 'em.... No!” + +But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. I was +always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would fall +on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was also annoyed +with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling for him that disposed +me to say, “Well, TAKE the risk!” The little affair of Pattison to which +I have alluded was a different matter altogether. What it was doesn't +concern us now, but I knew, anyhow, that the particular recipe I used +then was safe. The rest I didn't know so much about, and, on the whole, +I was inclined to doubt their safety pretty completely. + +Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned-- + +I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense +undertaking. + +That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of my +safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote the +recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins of +a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last +degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family, +with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge of +Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely plain +sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough, and sat +on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it. + +“Look here,” said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away +from his eager grasp. + +“So far as I--can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight. +(“Ah!” said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that. +And if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know--I +blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on that side +were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?” + +“Let me try it,” said Pyecraft. + +I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort and +fell flat within me. “What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft,” I asked, “do you +think you'll look like when you get thin?” + +He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word to +me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never, and then +I handed him that little piece of skin. + +“It's nasty stuff,” I said. + +“No matter,” he said, and took it. + +He goggled at it. “But--but--” he said. + +He had just discovered that it wasn't English. + +“To the best of my ability,” I said, “I will do you a translation.” + +I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever +he approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected our +compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever. And then +he got a word in. + +“I must speak,” he said. “It isn't fair. There's something wrong. It's +done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice.” + +“Where's the recipe?” + +He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book. + +I ran my eye over the items. “Was the egg addled?” I asked. + +“No. Ought it to have been?” + +“That,” I said, “goes without saying in all my poor dear +great-grandmother's recipes. When condition or quality is not specified +you must get the worst. She was drastic or nothing.... And there's one +or two possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got +FRESH rattlesnake venom.” + +“I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost--” + +“That's your affair, anyhow. This last item--” + +“I know a man who--” + +“Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know +the language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious. +By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog.” + +For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and as +fat and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke +the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day in the +cloakroom he said, “Your great-grandmother--” + +“Not a word against her,” I said; and he held his peace. + +I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking to +three new members about his fatness as though he was in search of other +recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came. + +“Mr. Formalyn!” bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram +and opened it at once. + +“For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft.” + +“H'm,” said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the +rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently +promised that I made a most excellent lunch. + +I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the +upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I had +done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar. + +“Mr. Pyecraft?” said I, at the front door. + +They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days. + +“He expects me,” said I, and they sent me up. + +I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing. + +“He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow,” I said to myself. “A man who eats +like a pig ought to look like a pig.” + +An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly placed +cap, came and surveyed me through the lattice. + +I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion. + +“Well?” said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of the +landing. + +“'E said you was to come in if you came,” she said, and regarded me, +making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially, “'E's +locked in, sir.” + +“Locked in?” + +“Locked himself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since, +sir. And ever and again SWEARING. Oh, my!” + +I stared at the door she indicated by her glances. + +“In there?” I said. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“What's up?” + +She shook her head sadly, “'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir. 'EAVY +vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's 'ad, sooit puddin', +sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside, if you please, +and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink AWFUL.” + +There came a piping bawl from inside the door: “That Formalyn?” + +“That you, Pyecraft?” I shouted, and went and banged the door. + +“Tell her to go away.” + +I did. + +Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like some +one feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar grunts. + +“It's all right,” I said, “she's gone.” + +But for a long time the door didn't open. + +I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, “Come in.” + +I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see +Pyecraft. + +Well, you know, he wasn't there! + +I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room in a +state of untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books and writing +things, and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft-- + +“It's all right, o' man; shut the door,” he said, and then I discovered +him. + +There he was right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door, as +though some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious and +angry. He panted and gesticulated. “Shut the door,” he said. “If that +woman gets hold of it--” + +I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared. + +“If anything gives way and you tumble down,” I said, “you'll break your +neck, Pyecraft.” + +“I wish I could,” he wheezed. + +“A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics--” + +“Don't,” he said, and looked agonised. + +“I'll tell you,” he said, and gesticulated. + +“How the deuce,” said I, “are you holding on up there?” + +And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all, that he +was floating up there--just as a gas-filled bladder might have floated +in the same position. He began a struggle to thrust himself away +from the ceiling and to clamber down the wall to me. “It's that +prescription,” he panted, as he did so. “Your great-gran--” + +He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke and +it gave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while the picture +smashed onto the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling, and I knew then +why he was all over white on the more salient curves and angles of his +person. He tried again more carefully, coming down by way of the mantel. + +It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat, +apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceiling to +the floor. “That prescription,” he said. “Too successful.” + +“How?” + +“Loss of weight--almost complete.” + +And then, of course, I understood. + +“By Jove, Pyecraft,” said I, “what you wanted was a cure for fatness! +But you always called it weight. You would call it weight.” + +Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time. +“Let me help you!” I said, and took his hand and pulled him down. He +kicked about, trying to get a foothold somewhere. It was very like +holding a flag on a windy day. + +“That table,” he said, pointing, “is solid mahogany and very heavy. If +you can put me under that---” + +I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while I stood +on his hearthrug and talked to him. + +I lit a cigar. “Tell me,” I said, “what happened?” + +“I took it,” he said. + +“How did it taste?” + +“Oh, BEASTLY!” + +I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients or +the probable compound or the possible results, almost all of my +great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be extraordinarily +uninviting. For my own part-- + +“I took a little sip first.” + +“Yes?” + +“And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take the +draught.” + +“My dear Pyecraft!” + +“I held my nose,” he explained. “And then I kept on getting lighter and +lighter--and helpless, you know.” + +He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. “What the goodness am I to +DO?” he said. + +“There's one thing pretty evident,” I said, “that you mustn't do. If you +go out of doors, you'll go up and up.” I waved an arm upward. “They'd +have to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again.” + +“I suppose it will wear off?” + +I shook my head. “I don't think you can count on that,” I said. + +And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out at +adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should +have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying +circumstances--that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and my +great-grandmother with an utter want of discretion. + +“I never asked you to take the stuff,” I said. + +And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me, I sat +down in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober, friendly +fashion. + +I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon +himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had eaten +too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point. + +He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect of his +lesson. “And then,” said I, “you committed the sin of euphuism. You +called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You--” + +He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO? + +I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we came to +the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that it would +not be difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling with his +hands-- + +“I can't sleep,” he said. + +But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out, +to make a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things on +with tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button at the +side. He would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said; and after +some squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was quite delightful +to see the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which the good lady took +all these amazing inversions.) He could have a library ladder in his +room, and all his meals could be laid on the top of his bookcase. We +also hit on an ingenious device by which he could get to the floor +whenever he wanted, which was simply to put the British Encyclopaedia +(tenth edition) on the top of his open shelves. He just pulled out a +couple of volumes and held on, and down he came. And we agreed there +must be iron staples along the skirting, so that he could cling to those +whenever he wanted to get about the room on the lower level. + +As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested. It +was I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her, and it was +I chiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent two whole days +at his flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man with a screw-driver, +and I made all sorts of ingenious adaptations for him--ran a wire to +bring his bells within reach, turned all his electric lights up +instead of down, and so on. The whole affair was extremely curious and +interesting to me, and it was delightful to think of Pyecraft like some +great, fat blow-fly, crawling about on his ceiling and clambering round +the lintels of his doors from one room to another, and never, never, +never coming to the club any more.... + +Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was sitting +by his fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his favourite corner +by the cornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the ceiling, when the +idea struck me. “By Jove, Pyecraft!” I said, “all this is totally +unnecessary.” + +And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion I +blurted it out. “Lead underclothing,” said I, and the mischief was done. + +Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. “To be right ways up +again--” he said. I gave him the whole secret before I saw where it +would take me. “Buy sheet lead,” I said, “stamp it into discs. Sew 'em +all over your underclothes until you have enough. Have lead-soled boots, +carry a bag of solid lead, and the thing is done! Instead of being a +prisoner here you may go abroad again, Pyecraft; you may travel--” + +A still happier idea came to me. “You need never fear a shipwreck. +All you need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the +necessary amount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air--” + +In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head. “By +Jove!” he said, “I shall be able to come back to the club again.” + +The thing pulled me up short. “By Jove!” I said faintly. “Yes. Of +course--you will.” + +He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing--as I +live!--a third go of buttered tea-cake. And no one in the whole world +knows--except his housekeeper and me--that he weighs practically +nothing; that he is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere +clouds in clothing, niente, nefas, the most inconsiderable of men. There +he sits watching until I have done this writing. Then, if he can, he +will waylay me. He will come billowing up to me.... + +He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it doesn't +feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little. And always +somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say, “The secret's +keeping, eh? If any one knew of it--I should be so ashamed.... Makes a +fellow look such a fool, you know. Crawling about on a ceiling and all +that....” + +And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable strategic +position between me and the door. + + + + +5. MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND + +“There's a man in that shop,” said the Doctor, “who has been in +Fairyland.” + +“Nonsense!” I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual +village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and +brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window. “Tell +me about it,” I said, after a pause. + +“_I_ don't know,” said the Doctor. “He's an ordinary sort of +lout--Skelmersdale is his name. But everybody about here believes it +like Bible truth.” + +I reverted presently to the topic. + +“I know nothing about it,” said the Doctor, “and I don't WANT to know. I +attended him for a broken finger--Married and Single cricket match--and +that's when I struck the nonsense. That's all. But it shows you the sort +of stuff I have to deal with, anyhow, eh? Nice to get modern sanitary +ideas into a people like this!” + +“Very,” I said in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell me +about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind, I observe, +are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health. I was as +sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham people “asses,” + I said they were “thundering asses,” but even that did not allay him. + +Afterwards, later in the summer, an urgent desire to seclude myself, +while finishing my chapter on Spiritual Pathology--it was really, I +believe, stiffer to write than it is to read--took me to Bignor. I +lodged at a farmhouse, and presently found myself outside that little +general shop again, in search of tobacco. “Skelmersdale,” said I to +myself at the sight of it, and went in. + +I was served by a short, but shapely, young man, with a fair downy +complexion, good, small teeth, blue eyes, and a languid manner. I +scrutinised him curiously. Except for a touch of melancholy in +his expression, he was nothing out of the common. He was in the +shirt-sleeves and tucked-up apron of his trade, and a pencil was thrust +behind his inoffensive ear. Athwart his black waistcoat was a gold +chain, from which dangled a bent guinea. + +“Nothing more to-day, sir?” he inquired. He leant forward over my bill +as he spoke. + +“Are you Mr. Skelmersdale?” said I. + +“I am, sir,” he said, without looking up. + +“Is it true that you have been in Fairyland?” + +He looked up at me for a moment with wrinkled brows, with an aggrieved, +exasperated face. “O SHUT it!” he said, and, after a moment of +hostility, eye to eye, he went on adding up my bill. “Four, six and a +half,” he said, after a pause. “Thank you, Sir.” + +So, unpropitiously, my acquaintance with Mr. Skelmersdale began. + +Well, I got from that to confidence--through a series of toilsome +efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night +I went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme +seclusion from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day. I +contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found the +one subject to avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was open +and amiable in a commonplace sort of way, but on that he had been +worried--it was a manifest taboo. Only once in the room did I hear the +slightest allusion to his experience in his presence, and that was by +a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him. Skelmersdale had run +a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor standards, was +uncommonly good play. “Steady on!” said his adversary. “None of your +fairy flukes!” + +Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung it down +and walked out of the room. + +“Why can't you leave 'im alone?” said a respectable elder who had been +enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval the grin of +satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face. + +I scented my opportunity. “What's this joke,” said I, “about Fairyland?” + +“'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale,” said the +respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was more +communicative. “They DO say, sir,” he said, “that they took him into +Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks.” + +And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep had +started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time I +had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair. Formerly, +before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar little shop +at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen had taken +place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late one night on +the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight of men, and had +returned with “his cuffs as clean as when he started,” and his pockets +full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of moody wretchedness +that only slowly passed away, and for many days he would give no account +of where it was he had been. The girl he was engaged to at Clapton +Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him over partly because he +refused, and partly because, as she said, he fairly gave her the “'ump.” + And then when, some time after, he let out to some one carelessly that +he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go back, and when the thing +spread and the simple badinage of the countryside came into play, he +threw up his situation abruptly, and came to Bignor to get out of the +fuss. But as to what had happened in Fairyland none of these people +knew. There the gathering in the Village Room went to pieces like a pack +at fault. One said this, and another said that. + +Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and +sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing +through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent +interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story. + +“If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll,” I said, “why don't you dig it +out?” + +“That's what I says,” said the young ploughboy. + +“There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll,” said the +respectable elder, solemnly, “one time and another. But there's none as +goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging.” + +The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive; +I felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction, +and the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts of the +case was distinctly whetted. If these real facts were to be got from any +one, they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself; and I set myself, +therefore, still more assiduously to efface the first bad impression +I had made and win his confidence to the pitch of voluntary speech. In +that endeavour I had a social advantage. Being a person of affability +and no apparent employment, and wearing tweeds and knickerbockers, I was +naturally classed as an artist in Bignor, and in the remarkable code +of social precedence prevalent in Bignor an artist ranks considerably +higher than a grocer's assistant. Skelmersdale, like too many of his +class, is something of a snob; he had told me to “shut it,” only under +sudden, excessive provocation, and with, I am certain, a subsequent +repentance; he was, I knew, quite glad to be seen walking about the +village with me. In due course, he accepted the proposal of a pipe and +whisky in my rooms readily enough, and there, scenting by some happy +instinct that there was trouble of the heart in this, and knowing that +confidences beget confidences, I plied him with much of interest and +suggestion from my real and fictitious past. And it was after the third +whisky of the third visit of that sort, if I remember rightly, that a +propos of some artless expansion of a little affair that had touched +and left me in my teens, that he did at last, of his own free will and +motion, break the ice. “It was like that with me,” he said, “over there +at Aldington. It's just that that's so rum. First I didn't care a bit +and it was all her, and afterwards, when it was too late, it was, in a +manner of speaking, all me.” + +I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out +another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight +that the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland +adventure he had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done the +trick with him, and from being just another half-incredulous, would-be +facetious stranger, I had, by all my wealth of shameless self-exposure, +become the possible confidant. He had been bitten by the desire to show +that he, too, had lived and felt many things, and the fever was upon +him. + +He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness +to clear him up with a few precise questions was only equalled and +controlled by my anxiety not to get to this sort of thing too soon. But +in another meeting or so the basis of confidence was complete; and from +first to last I think I got most of the items and aspects--indeed, I got +quite a number of times over almost everything that Mr. Skelmersdale, +with his very limited powers of narration, will ever be able to tell. +And so I come to the story of his adventure, and I piece it all together +again. Whether it really happened, whether he imagined it or dreamt it, +or fell upon it in some strange hallucinatory trance, I do not profess +to say. But that he invented it I will not for one moment entertain. +The man simply and honestly believes the thing happened as he says it +happened; he is transparently incapable of any lie so elaborate +and sustained, and in the belief of the simple, yet often keenly +penetrating, rustic minds about him I find a very strong confirmation of +his sincerity. He believes--and nobody can produce any positive fact to +falsify his belief. As for me, with this much of endorsement, I transmit +his story--I am a little old now to justify or explain. + +He says he went to sleep on Aldington Knoll about ten o'clock one +night--it was quite possibly Midsummer night, though he has never +thought of the date, and he cannot be sure within a week or so--and it +was a fine night and windless, with a rising moon. I have been at +the pains to visit this Knoll thrice since his story grew up under my +persuasions, and once I went there in the twilight summer moonrise on +what was, perhaps, a similar night to that of his adventure. Jupiter was +great and splendid above the moon, and in the north and northwest the +sky was green and vividly bright over the sunken sun. The Knoll stands +out bare and bleak under the sky, but surrounded at a little distance by +dark thickets, and as I went up towards it there was a mighty starting +and scampering of ghostly or quite invisible rabbits. Just over +the crown of the Knoll, but nowhere else, was a multitudinous thin +trumpeting of midges. The Knoll is, I believe, an artificial mound, +the tumulus of some great prehistoric chieftain, and surely no man ever +chose a more spacious prospect for a sepulchre. Eastward one sees along +the hills to Hythe, and thence across the Channel to where, thirty miles +and more perhaps, away, the great white lights by Gris Nez and Boulogne +wink and pass and shine. Westward lies the whole tumbled valley of the +Weald, visible as far as Hindhead and Leith Hill, and the valley of the +Stour opens the Downs in the north to interminable hills beyond Wye. +All Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch and Romney and +Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and the hills +multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up to Beachy Head. + +And out upon all this it was that Skelmersdale wandered, being troubled +in his earlier love affair, and as he says, “not caring WHERE he went.” + And there he sat down to think it over, and so, sulking and grieving, +was overtaken by sleep. And so he fell into the fairies' power. + +The quarrel that had upset him was some trivial matter enough between +himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged. She was +a farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and “very respectable,” and +no doubt an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover were very +young and with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly keen edge of +criticism, that irrational hunger for a beautiful perfection, that +life and wisdom do presently and most mercifully dull. What the precise +matter of quarrel was I have no idea. She may have said she liked men in +gaiters when he hadn't any gaiters on, or he may have said he liked her +better in a different sort of hat, but however it began, it got by +a series of clumsy stages to bitterness and tears. She no doubt got +tearful and smeary, and he grew dusty and drooping, and she parted with +invidious comparisons, grave doubts whether she ever had REALLY cared +for him, and a clear certainty she would never care again. And with this +sort of thing upon his mind he came out upon Aldington Knoll grieving, +and presently, after a long interval, perhaps, quite inexplicably, fell +asleep. + +He woke to find himself on a softer turf than ever he had slept on +before, and under the shade of very dark trees that completely hid the +sky. Always, indeed, in Fairyland the sky is hidden, it seems. Except +for one night when the fairies were dancing, Mr. Skelmersdale, during +all his time with them, never saw a star. And of that night I am in +doubt whether he was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings and +rushes are, in those low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth. + +But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves and +amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright and fine. +Mr. Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL, and the next +that quite a number of people still smaller were standing all about him. +For some reason, he says, he was neither surprised nor frightened, but +sat up quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. And +there all about him stood the smiling elves who had caught him sleeping +under their privileges and had brought him into Fairyland. + +What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague and +imperfect is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor detail +does he seem to have been. They were clothed in something very light and +beautiful, that was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves, nor the petals +of flowers. They stood all about him as he sat and waked, and down the +glade towards him, down a glow-worm avenue and fronted by a star, came +at once that Fairy Lady who is the chief personage of his memory and +tale. Of her I gathered more. She was clothed in filmy green, and about +her little waist was a broad silver girdle. Her hair waved back from +her forehead on either side; there were curls not too wayward and yet +astray, and on her brow was a little tiara, set with a single star. Her +sleeves were some sort of open sleeves that gave little glimpses of her +arms; her throat, I think, was a little displayed, because he speaks of +the beauty of her neck and chin. There was a necklace of coral about +her white throat, and in her breast a coral-coloured flower. She had the +soft lines of a little child in her chin and cheeks and throat. And +her eyes, I gather, were of a kindled brown, very soft and straight and +sweet under her level brows. You see by these particulars how greatly +this lady must have loomed in Mr. Skelmersdale's picture. Certain things +he tried to express and could not express; “the way she moved,” he said +several times; and I fancy a sort of demure joyousness radiated from +this Lady. + +And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest and +chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale set +out to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed him +gladly and a little warmly--I suspect a pressure of his hand in both of +hers and a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago young Skelmersdale +may have been a very comely youth. And once she took his arm, and once, +I think, she led him by the hand adown the glade that the glow-worms +lit. + +Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from Mr. +Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives little +unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places where +there were many fairies together, of “toadstool things that shone pink,” + of fairy food, of which he could only say “you should have tasted +it!” and of fairy music, “like a little musical box,” that came out of +nodding flowers. There was a great open place where fairies rode and +raced on “things,” but what Mr. Skelmersdale meant by “these here things +they rode,” there is no telling. Larvae, perhaps, or crickets, or the +little beetles that elude us so abundantly. There was a place where +water splashed and gigantic king-cups grew, and there in the hotter +times the fairies bathed together. There were games being played and +dancing and much elvish love-making, too, I think, among the moss-branch +thickets. There can be no doubt that the Fairy Lady made love to Mr. +Skelmersdale, and no doubt either that this young man set himself to +resist her. A time came, indeed, when she sat on a bank beside him, in +a quiet, secluded place “all smelling of vi'lets,” and talked to him of +love. + +“When her voice went low and she whispered,” said Mr. Skelmersdale, “and +laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft, warm +friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my 'ead.” + +It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent. He +saw “'ow the wind was blowing,” he says, and so, sitting there in a +place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely Fairy Lady +about him, Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently--that he was engaged! + +She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad for +her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have--even his heart's +desire. + +And Mr. Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking at her +little lips as they just dropped apart and came together, led up to the +more intimate question by saying he would like enough capital to start a +little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said, he had money enough to do +that. I imagine a little surprise in those brown eyes he talked +about, but she seemed sympathetic for all that, and she asked him many +questions about the little shop, “laughing like” all the time. So he got +to the complete statement of his affianced position, and told her all +about Millie. + +“All?” said I. + +“Everything,” said Mr. Skelmersdale, “just who she was, and where she +lived, and everything about her. I sort of felt I 'ad to all the time, I +did.” + +“'Whatever you want you shall have,' said the Fairy Lady. 'That's as +good as done. You SHALL feel you have the money just as you wish. And +now, you know--YOU MUST KISS ME.'” + +And Mr. Skelmersdale pretended not to hear the latter part of her +remark, and said she was very kind. That he really didn't deserve she +should be so kind. And-- + +The Fairy Lady suddenly came quite close to him and whispered, “Kiss +me!” + +“And,” said Mr. Skelmersdale, “like a fool, I did.” + +There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite +the other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard. There was +something magic in that kiss; assuredly it marked a turning point. +At any rate, this is one of the passages that he thought sufficiently +important to describe most at length. I have tried to get it right, I +have tried to disentangle it from the hints and gestures through which +it came to me, but I have no doubt that it was all different from my +telling and far finer and sweeter, in the soft filtered light and the +subtly stirring silences of the fairy glades. The Fairy Lady asked him +more about Millie, and was she very lovely, and so on--a great many +times. As to Millie's loveliness, I conceive him answering that she was +“all right.” And then, or on some such occasion, the Fairy Lady told him +she had fallen in love with him as he slept in the moonlight, and so +he had been brought into Fairyland, and she had thought, not knowing of +Millie, that perhaps he might chance to love her. “But now you know you +can't,” she said, “so you must stop with me just a little while, and +then you must go back to Millie.” She told him that, and you know +Skelmersdale was already in love with her, but the pure inertia of his +mind kept him in the way he was going. I imagine him sitting in a sort +of stupefaction amidst all these glowing beautiful things, answering +about his Millie and the little shop he projected and the need of a +horse and cart.... And that absurd state of affairs must have gone on +for days and days. I see this little lady, hovering about him and trying +to amuse him, too dainty to understand his complexity and too tender +to let him go. And he, you know, hypnotised as it were by his earthly +position, went his way with her hither and thither, blind to everything +in Fairyland but this wonderful intimacy that had come to him. It is +hard, it is impossible, to give in print the effect of her radiant +sweetness shining through the jungle of poor Skelmersdale's rough and +broken sentences. To me, at least, she shone clear amidst the muddle of +his story like a glow-worm in a tangle of weeds. + +There must have been many days of things while all this was +happening--and once, I say, they danced under the moonlight in the fairy +rings that stud the meadows near Smeeth--but at last it all came to an +end. She led him into a great cavernous place, lit by a red nightlight +sort of thing, where there were coffers piled on coffers, and cups +and golden boxes, and a great heap of what certainly seemed to all Mr. +Skelmersdale's senses--coined gold. There were little gnomes amidst this +wealth, who saluted her at her coming, and stood aside. And suddenly she +turned on him there with brightly shining eyes. + +“And now,” she said, “you have been kind to stay with me so long, and it +is time I let you go. You must go back to your Millie. You must go back +to your Millie, and here--just as I promised you--they will give you +gold.” + +“She choked like,” said Mr. Skelmersdale. “At that, I had a sort of +feeling--” (he touched his breastbone) “as though I was fainting here. +I felt pale, you know, and shivering, and even then--I 'adn't a thing to +say.” + +He paused. “Yes,” I said. + +The scene was beyond his describing. But I know that she kissed him +good-bye. + +“And you said nothing?” + +“Nothing,” he said. “I stood like a stuffed calf. She just looked back +once, you know, and stood smiling like and crying--I could see the +shine of her eyes--and then she was gone, and there was all these little +fellows bustling about me, stuffing my 'ands and my pockets and the back +of my collar and everywhere with gold.” + +And then it was, when the Fairy Lady had vanished, that Mr. Skelmersdale +really understood and knew. He suddenly began plucking out the gold +they were thrusting upon him, and shouting out at them to prevent their +giving him more. “'I don't WANT yer gold,' I said. 'I 'aven't done yet. +I'm not going. I want to speak to that Fairy Lady again.' I started off +to go after her and they held me back. Yes, stuck their little 'ands +against my middle and shoved me back. They kept giving me more and more +gold until it was running all down my trouser legs and dropping out of +my 'ands. 'I don't WANT yer gold,' I says to them, 'I want just to speak +to the Fairy Lady again.'” + +“And did you?” + +“It came to a tussle.” + +“Before you saw her?” + +“I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere to be +seen.” + +So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long grotto, +seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate place +athwart which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro. And +about him elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes came out +of the cave after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting it after +him, shouting, “Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and fairy gold!” + +And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over, +and he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly +set himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern, through +a place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly and often. +The elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him and pricking him, and +the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him and dashed into his face, and +the gnomes pursued him shouting and pelting him with fairy gold. As he +ran with all this strange rout about him and distracting him, suddenly +he was knee-deep in a swamp, and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted +roots, and he caught his foot in one and stumbled and fell.... + +He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself +sprawling upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars. + +He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff and +cold, and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor of dawn and +a chilly wind were coming up together. He could have believed the whole +thing a strangely vivid dream until he thrust his hand into his side +pocket and found it stuffed with ashes. Then he knew for certain it +was fairy gold they had given him. He could feel all their pinches and +pricks still, though there was never a bruise upon him. And in that +manner, and so suddenly, Mr. Skelmersdale came out of Fairyland back +into this world of men. Even then he fancied the thing was but the +matter of a night until he returned to the shop at Aldington Corner and +discovered amidst their astonishment that he had been away three weeks. + +“Lor'! the trouble I 'ad!” said Mr. Skelmersdale. + +“How?” + +“Explaining. I suppose you've never had anything like that to explain.” + +“Never,” I said, and he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of this +person and that. One name he avoided for a space. + +“And Millie?” said I at last. + +“I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie,” he said. + +“I expect she seemed changed?” + +“Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big, you +know, and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun, when it +rose in the morning, fair hit me in the eye!” + +“And Millie?” + +“I didn't want to see Millie.” + +“And when you did?” + +“I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?' +she said, and I saw there was a row. _I_ didn't care if there was. I +seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking to me. She +was just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen in 'er ever, +or what there could 'ave been. Sometimes when she wasn't about, I did +get back a little, but never when she was there. Then it was always the +other came up and blotted her out.... Anyow, it didn't break her heart.” + +“Married?” I asked. + +“Married 'er cousin,” said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the +pattern of the tablecloth for a space. + +When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean +vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy +Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting out +the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to repeat. I +think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole affair, to hear +that neat little grocer man after his story was done, with a glass of +whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers, witnessing, with +sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted anguish, of +the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently came upon him. “I +couldn't eat,” he said, “I couldn't sleep. I made mistakes in orders +and got mixed with change. There she was day and night, drawing me and +drawing me. Oh, I wanted her. Lord! how I wanted her! I was up there, +most evenings I was up there on the Knoll, often even when it rained. I +used to walk over the Knoll and round it and round it, calling for them +to let me in. Shouting. Near blubbering I was at times. Daft I was +and miserable. I kept on saying it was all a mistake. And every Sunday +afternoon I went up there, wet and fine, though I knew as well as you do +it wasn't no good by day. And I've tried to go to sleep there.” + +He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky. + +“I've tried to go to sleep there,” he said, and I could swear his lips +trembled. “I've tried to go to sleep there, often and often. And, you +know, I couldn't, sir--never. I've thought if I could go to sleep there, +there might be something. But I've sat up there and laid up there, and +I couldn't--not for thinking and longing. It's the longing.... I've +tried--” + +He blew, drank up the rest of his whisky spasmodically, stood up +suddenly and buttoned his jacket, staring closely and critically at the +cheap oleographs beside the mantel meanwhile. The little black notebook +in which he recorded the orders of his daily round projected stiffly +from his breast pocket. When all the buttons were quite done, he patted +his chest and turned on me suddenly. “Well,” he said, “I must be going.” + +There was something in his eyes and manner that was too difficult for +him to express in words. “One gets talking,” he said at last at the +door, and smiled wanly, and so vanished from my eyes. And that is the +tale of Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland just as he told it to me. + + + + +6. THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST + +The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very +vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, +in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and +Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. +There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a +modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday +morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which indeed +gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was +invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness +when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we +naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was lying--of +that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, +it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but that we thought +was only the incurable artifice of the man. + +“I say!” he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward rain of +sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, “you know I was alone +here last night?” + +“Except for the domestics,” said Wish. + +“Who sleep in the other wing,” said Clayton. “Yes. Well--” He pulled at +his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about his +confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, “I caught a ghost!” + +“Caught a ghost, did you?” said Sanderson. “Where is it?” + +And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks in +America, shouted, “CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad of it! +Tell us all about it right now.” + +Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door. + +He looked apologetically at me. “There's no eavesdropping of course, but +we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours of +ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling to trifle +with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost. I don't think it +will come again--ever.” + +“You mean to say you didn't keep it?” said Sanderson. + +“I hadn't the heart to,” said Clayton. + +And Sanderson said he was surprised. + +We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. “I know,” he said, with the +flicker of a smile, “but the fact is it really WAS a ghost, and I'm as +sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not joking. I mean +what I say.” + +Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton, and +then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words. + +Clayton ignored the comment. “It is the strangest thing that has ever +happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts or anything of +the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag one in a corner; and +the whole business is in my hands.” + +He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce a +second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected. + +“You talked to it?” asked Wish. + +“For the space, probably, of an hour.” + +“Chatty?” I said, joining the party of the sceptics. + +“The poor devil was in trouble,” said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end +and with the very faintest note of reproof. + +“Sobbing?” some one asked. + +Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. “Good Lord!” he said; +“yes.” And then, “Poor fellow! yes.” + +“Where did you strike it?” asked Evans, in his best American accent. + +“I never realised,” said Clayton, ignoring him, “the poor sort of thing +a ghost might be,” and he hung us up again for a time, while he sought +for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar. + +“I took an advantage,” he reflected at last. + +We were none of us in a hurry. “A character,” he said, “remains just the +same character for all that it's been disembodied. That's a thing we too +often forget. People with a certain strength or fixity of purpose may +have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity of purpose--most haunting +ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea'd as monomaniacs and as obstinate +as mules to come back again and again. This poor creature wasn't.” He +suddenly looked up rather queerly, and his eye went round the room. “I +say it,” he said, “in all kindliness, but that is the plain truth of the +case. Even at the first glance he struck me as weak.” + +He punctuated with the help of his cigar. + +“I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards +me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was +transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer +of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but his +attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though he +didn't know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand was on +the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like--SO!” + +“What sort of physique?” said Sanderson. + +“Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great +flutings down the back, here and here--so! And a little, meanish head +with scrubby hair--And rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower than the +hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers baggy and a +little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me. I came very quietly +up the staircase. I did not carry a light, you know--the candles are on +the landing table and there is that lamp--and I was in my list slippers, +and I saw him as I came up. I stopped dead at that--taking him in. I +wasn't a bit afraid. I think that in most of these affairs one is +never nearly so afraid or excited as one imagines one would be. I was +surprised and interested. I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at +last! And I haven't believed for a moment in ghosts during the last +five-and-twenty years.'” + +“Um,” said Wish. + +“I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I was +there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature young +man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin. So for an +instant we stood--he looking over his shoulder at me and regarded one +another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling. He turned round, +drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms, spread his hands +in approved ghost fashion--came towards me. As he did so his little jaw +dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out 'Boo.' No, it wasn't--not a +bit dreadful. I'd dined. I'd had a bottle of champagne, and being all +alone, perhaps two or three--perhaps even four or five--whiskies, so I +was as solid as rocks and no more frightened than if I'd been assailed +by a frog. 'Boo!' I said. 'Nonsense. You don't belong to THIS place. +What are you doing here?' + +“I could see him wince. 'Boo-oo,' he said. + +“'Boo--be hanged! Are you a member?' I said; and just to show I didn't +care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and made to light +my candle. 'Are you a member?' I repeated, looking at him sideways. + +“He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing became +crestfallen. 'No,' he said, in answer to the persistent interrogation of +my eye; 'I'm not a member--I'm a ghost.' + +“'Well, that doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there any +one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as steadily +as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness of whisky +for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight. I turned on him, +holding it. 'What are you doing here?' I said. + +“He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, +abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. 'I'm +haunting,' he said. + +“'You haven't any business to,' I said in a quiet voice. + +“'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence. + +“'That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is a +respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids and +children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor little +mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits. I suppose +you didn't think of that?' + +“'No, sir,' he said, 'I didn't.' + +“'You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you? +Weren't murdered here, or anything of that sort?' + +“'None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled--' + +“'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is a +mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned to see +if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly. 'If I were you I +wouldn't wait for cock-crow--I'd vanish right away.' + +“He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir--' he began. + +“'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home. + +“'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.' + +“'You CAN'T?' + +“'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging about +here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards of the empty +bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never come haunting +before, and it seems to put me out.' + +“'Put you out?' + +“'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off. +There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.' + +“That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such an +abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite the high, +hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said, and as I spoke I +fancied I heard some one moving about down below. 'Come into my room and +tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't, of course, understand this,' +and I tried to take him by the arm. But, of course, you might as well +have tried to take hold of a puff of smoke! I had forgotten my number, +I think; anyhow, I remember going into several bedrooms--it was lucky I +was the only soul in that wing--until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I +said, and sat down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. +It seems to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old +chap.' + +“Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down the +room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little +while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently, you know, +something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me, and I began +to realise just a little what a thundering rum and weird business it was +that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent--the proper conventional +phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost of a voice--flitting to +and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung old bedroom. You could see +the gleam of the copper candlesticks through him, and the lights on the +brass fender, and the corners of the framed engravings on the wall,--and +there he was telling me all about this wretched little life of his that +had recently ended on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you +know, but being transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the +truth.” + +“Eh?” said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair. + +“What?” said Clayton. + +“Being transparent--couldn't avoid telling the truth--I don't see it,” + said Wish. + +“_I_ don't see it,” said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. “But it IS +so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once a nail's +breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been killed--he +went down into a London basement with a candle to look for a leakage +of gas--and described himself as a senior English master in a London +private school when that release occurred.” + +“Poor wretch!” said I. + +“That's what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it. +There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked +of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever been +anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive, too +nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood him, he +said. He had never had a real friend in the world, I think; he had never +had a success. He had shirked games and failed examinations. 'It's +like that with some people,' he said; 'whenever I got into the +examination-room or anywhere everything seemed to go.' Engaged to be +married of course--to another over-sensitive person, I suppose--when the +indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs. 'And where are you +now?' I asked. 'Not in--?' + +“He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was +of a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls too +non-existent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue. _I_ don't +know. He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me any clear +idea of the kind of place, kind of country, there is on the Other Side +of Things. Wherever he was, he seems to have fallen in with a set of +kindred spirits: ghosts of weak Cockney young men, who were on a footing +of Christian names, and among these there was certainly a lot of talk +about 'going haunting' and things like that. Yes--going haunting! They +seemed to think 'haunting' a tremendous adventure, and most of them +funked it all the time. And so primed, you know, he had come.” + +“But really!” said Wish to the fire. + +“These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow,” said Clayton, modestly. +“I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that was +the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and down, +with his thin voice going talking, talking about his wretched self, and +never a word of clear, firm statement from first to last. He was thinner +and sillier and more pointless than if he had been real and alive. Only +then, you know, he would not have been in my bedroom here--if he HAD +been alive. I should have kicked him out.” + +“Of course,” said Evans, “there ARE poor mortals like that.” + +“And there's just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest of +us,” I admitted. + +“What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that he did +seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had made of +haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told it would be +a 'lark'; he had come expecting it to be a 'lark,' and here it was, +nothing but another failure added to his record! He proclaimed himself +an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and I can quite believe it, that +he had never tried to do anything all his life that he hadn't made a +perfect mess of--and through all the wastes of eternity he never +would. If he had had sympathy, perhaps--. He paused at that, and stood +regarding me. He remarked that, strange as it might seem to me, nobody, +not any one, ever, had given him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. +I could see what he wanted straight away, and I determined to head him +off at once. I may be a brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, +the recipient of the confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, +ghost or body, is beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't +you brood on these things too much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do +is to get out of this get out of this--sharp. You pull yourself together +and TRY.' 'I can't,' he said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did.” + +“Try!” said Sanderson. “HOW?” + +“Passes,” said Clayton. + +“Passes?” + +“Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's how +he had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord! what a +business I had!” + +“But how could ANY series of passes--?” I began. + +“My dear man,” said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great emphasis +on certain words, “you want EVERYTHING clear. _I_ don't know HOW. All +I know is that you DO--that HE did, anyhow, at least. After a fearful +time, you know, he got his passes right and suddenly disappeared.” + +“Did you,” said Sanderson, slowly, “observe the passes?” + +“Yes,” said Clayton, and seemed to think. “It was tremendously queer,” + he said. “There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent +room, in this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night +town. Not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when +he swung. There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the +dressing-table alight, that was all--sometimes one or other would flare +up into a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things +happened. 'I can't,' he said; 'I shall never--!' And suddenly he sat +down on a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob. +Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed! + +“'You pull yourself together,' I said, and tried to pat him on the back, +and... my confounded hand went through him! By that time, you know, +I wasn't nearly so--massive as I had been on the landing. I got the +queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out of him, as +it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the dressing-table. +'You pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and try.' And in order to +encourage and help him I began to try as well.” + +“What!” said Sanderson, “the passes?” + +“Yes, the passes.” + +“But--” I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space. + +“This is interesting,” said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-bowl. +“You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away--” + +“Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES.” + +“He didn't,” said Wish; “he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there too.” + +“That's precisely it,” I said, finding my elusive idea put into words +for me. + +“That IS precisely it,” said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the +fire. + +For just a little while there was silence. + +“And at last he did it?” said Sanderson. + +“At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at +last--rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up +abruptly and asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so +that he might see. 'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE I should spot +what was wrong at once.' And he did. '_I_ know,' he said. 'What do you +know?' said I. '_I_ know,' he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, 'I +CAN'T do it if you look at me--I really CAN'T; it's been that, partly, +all along. I'm such a nervous fellow that you put me out.' Well, we had +a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate +as a mule, and suddenly I had come over as tired as a dog--he tired me +out. 'All right,' I said, '_I_ won't look at you,' and turned towards +the mirror, on the wardrobe, by the bed. + +“He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in the +looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went his arms +and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush came to the last +gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your arms--and so, don't +you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't! He wasn't! I wheeled +round from the looking-glass to him. There was nothing, I was alone, +with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. What had happened? Had +anything happened? Had I been dreaming?... And then, with an absurd note +of finality about it, the clock upon the landing discovered the moment +was ripe for striking ONE. So!--Ping! And I was as grave and sober as +a judge, with all my champagne and whisky gone into the vast serene. +Feeling queer, you know--confoundedly QUEER! Queer! Good Lord!” + +He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. “That's all that happened,” he +said. + +“And then you went to bed?” asked Evans. + +“What else was there to do?” + +I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, +something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our +desire. + +“And about these passes?” said Sanderson. + +“I believe I could do them now.” + +“Oh!” said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub +the dottel out of the bowl of his clay. + +“Why don't you do them now?” said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife with +a click. + +“That's what I'm going to do,” said Clayton. + +“They won't work,” said Evans. + +“If they do--” I suggested. + +“You know, I'd rather you didn't,” said Wish, stretching out his legs. + +“Why?” asked Evans. + +“I'd rather he didn't,” said Wish. + +“But he hasn't got 'em right,” said Sanderson, plugging too much tobacco +in his pipe. + +“All the same, I'd rather he didn't,” said Wish. + +We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those +gestures was like mocking a serious matter. “But you don't believe--?” + I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing +something in his mind. “I do--more than half, anyhow, I do,” said Wish. + +“Clayton,” said I, “you're too good a liar for us. Most of it was all +right. But that disappearance... happened to be convincing. Tell us, +it's a tale of cock and bull.” + +He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug, and +faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and then for +all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall, with an +intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level of his +eyes and so began.... + +Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings, +which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the +mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this +lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions +with a singular interest in his reddish eye. “That's not bad,” he +said, when it was done. “You really do, you know, put things together, +Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out.” + +“I know,” said Clayton. “I believe I could tell you which.” + +“Well?” + +“This,” said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing and +thrust of the hands. + +“Yes.” + +“That, you know, was what HE couldn't get right,” said Clayton. “But how +do YOU--?” + +“Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't +understand at all,” said Sanderson, “but just that phase--I do.” He +reflected. “These happen to be a series of gestures--connected with a +certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know. Or else--HOW?” He +reflected still further. “I do not see I can do any harm in telling you +just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know; if you don't, +you don't.” + +“I know nothing,” said Clayton, “except what the poor devil let out last +night.” + +“Well, anyhow,” said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very +carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he +gesticulated with his hands. + +“So?” said Clayton, repeating. + +“So,” said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again. + +“Ah, NOW,” said Clayton, “I can do the whole thing--right.” + +He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think +there was just a little hesitation in his smile. “If I begin--” he said. + +“I wouldn't begin,” said Wish. + +“It's all right!” said Evans. “Matter is indestructible. You don't think +any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton into the +world of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as I'm concerned, +until your arms drop off at the wrists.” + +“I don't believe that,” said Wish, and stood up and put his arm on +Clayton's shoulder. “You've made me half believe in that story somehow, +and I don't want to see the thing done!” + +“Goodness!” said I, “here's Wish frightened!” + +“I am,” said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. “I believe +that if he goes through these motions right he'll GO.” + +“He'll not do anything of the sort,” I cried. “There's only one way out +of this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that. Besides... +And such a ghost! Do you think--?” + +Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs and +stopped beside the tole and stood there. “Clayton,” he said, “you're a +fool.” + +Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him. “Wish,” + he said, “is right and all you others are wrong. I shall go. I shall get +to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles through the +air, Presto!--this hearthrug will be vacant, the room will be blank +amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of fifteen stone will +plump into the world of shades. I'm certain. So will you be. I decline +to argue further. Let the thing be tried.” + +“NO,” said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised his +hands once more to repeat the spirit's passing. + +By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension--largely +because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on +Clayton--I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me as +though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my body had +been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was imperturbably +serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands and arms before us. +As he drew towards the end one piled up, one tingled in one's teeth. The +last gesture, I have said, was to swing the arms out wide open, with the +face held up. And when at last he swung out to this closing gesture I +ceased even to breathe. It was ridiculous, of course, but you know that +ghost-story feeling. It was after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. +Would he, after all--? + +There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his +upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp. We +hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from all +of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a +reassuring “NO!” For visibly--he wasn't going. It was all nonsense. He +had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that was +all!... And then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed. + +It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are +suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed, his +smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood there, +very gently swaying. + +That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping, +things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give, +and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms.... + +It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent thing. +We believed it, yet could not believe it.... I came out of a muddled +stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him, and his vest and shirt +were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay on his heart.... + +Well--the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience; +there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour; it +lies athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day. Clayton +had, indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to and so far from +our own, and he had gone thither by the only road that mortal man +may take. But whether he did indeed pass there by that poor ghost's +incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly by apoplexy in the +midst of an idle tale--as the coroner's jury would have us believe--is +no matter for my judging; it is just one of those inexplicable riddles +that must remain unsolved until the final solution of all things shall +come. All I certainly know is that, in the very moment, in the very +instant, of concluding those passes, he changed, and staggered, and fell +down before us--dead! + + + + +7. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD + +“It isn't every one who's been a god,” said the sunburnt man. “But it's +happened to me. Among other things.” + +I intimated my sense of his condescension. + +“It don't leave much for ambition, does it?” said the sunburnt man. + +“I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer. Gummy! +how time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll remember +anything of the Ocean Pioneer?” + +The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had read +it. The Ocean Pioneer? “Something about gold dust,” I said vaguely, “but +the precise--” + +“That's it,” he said. “In a beastly little channel she hadn't no +business in--dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh on +that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks +was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair have to follow +the rocks about to see where they're going next. Down she went in twenty +fathoms before you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand +pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said, in one form or another.” + +“Survivors?” + +“Three.” + +“I remember the case now,” I said. “There was something about salvage--” + +But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so +extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more +ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. “Excuse me,” he said, +“but--salvage!” + +He leant over towards me. “I was in that job,” he said. “Tried to make +myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings-- + +“It ain't all jam being a god,” said the sunburnt man, and for some time +conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms. At last he +took up his tale again. + +“There was me,” said the sunburnt man, “and a seaman named Jacobs, and +Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set the +whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the jolly-boat, +suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence. He was a wonderful +hand at suggesting things. 'There was forty thousand pounds,' he said, +'on that ship, and it's for me to say just where she went down.' It +didn't need much brains to tumble to that. And he was the leader from +the first to the last. He got hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they +were brothers, and the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought +the diving-dress--a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus +instead of pumping. He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him +sick going down. And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart +he'd cooked up, as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and +twenty miles away. + +“I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink +and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean and +straightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert.' And we used to +speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers, who'd started +two days before us, were getting on, until our sides fairly ached. We +all messed together in the Sanderses' cabin--it was a curious crew, all +officers and no men--and there stood the diving-dress waiting its turn. +Young Sanders was a humorous sort of chap, and there certainly was +something funny in the confounded thing's great fat head and its stare, +and he made us see it too. 'Jimmie Goggles,' he used to call it, and +talk to it like a Christian. Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. +Goggles was, and all the little Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And +every blessed day all of us used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in +rum, and unscrew his eye and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead +of that nasty mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as +a cask of rum. It was jolly times we had in those days, I can tell +you--little suspecting, poor chaps! what was a-coming. + +“We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry, you +know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where the Ocean +Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy grey rock--lava +rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had to lay off about half a +mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was a thundering row who should +stop on board. And there she lay just as she had gone down, so that +you could see the top of the masts that was still standing perfectly +distinctly. The row ending in all coming in the boat. I went down in the +diving-dress on Friday morning directly it was light. + +“What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly. It was +a queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People over here +think every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore and palm trees +and surf, bless 'em! This place, for instance, wasn't a bit that way. +Not common rocks they were, undermined by waves; but great curved banks +like ironwork cinder heaps, with green slime below, and thorny shrubs +and things just waving upon them here and there, and the water glassy +calm and clear, and showing you a kind of dirty grey-black shine, with +huge flaring red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and +darting things going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and +pools and the heaps was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again +after the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption. And the other +way forest, too, and a kind of broken--what is it?--ambytheatre of black +and rusty cinders rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay in +the middle. + +“The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour about +things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight up or down +the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond a lump of rocks +towards the line of the sea. + +“Not a human being in sight,” he repeated, and paused. + +“I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling so +safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing. I was +in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always, 'there's +her mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale, I caught +up the bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought the boat +round. When the windows were screwed and everything was all right, I +shut the valve from the air belt in order to help my sinking, and +jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't a ladder. I left the boat +pitching, and all of them staring down into the water after me, as my +head sank down into the weeds and blackness that lay about the mast. +I suppose nobody, not the most cautious chap in the world, would have +bothered about a lookout at such a desolate place. It stunk of solitude. + +“Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving. None of +us were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get the way of +it, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels damnable. Your +ears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt yourself yawning or +sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten times worse. And a pain +over the eyebrows here--splitting--and a feeling like influenza in the +head. And it isn't all heaven in your lungs and things. And going down +feels like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on. And you can't turn +your head to see what's above you, and you can't get a fair squint at +what's happening to your feet without bending down something painful. +And being deep it was dark, let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud +that formed the bottom. It was like going down out of the dawn back into +the night, so to speak. + +“The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of +fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came +with a kind of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the +fishes that had been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of +flies from road stuff in summer time. I turned on the compressed air +again--for the suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in +spite of the rum--and stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down +there, and that helped take off the stuffiness a bit. + +“When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was +an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind of +reddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed that +floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just a moony, +deep green-blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight list to +starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between the weeds, clear +except where the masts had snapped when she rolled, and vanishing into +black night towards the forecastle. There wasn't any dead on the decks, +most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose; but afterwards I found two +skeletons lying in the passengers' cabins, where death had come to them. +It was curious to stand on that deck and recognise it all, bit by bit; a +place against the rail where I'd been fond of smoking by starlight, and +the corner where an old chap from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we +had aboard. A comfortable couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now +you couldn't have got a meal for a baby crab off either of them. + +“I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I spent +the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went below +to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work hunting, +feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing blue +gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about, a dab at +my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. I kicked a +lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and picked up something +all knobs and spikes. What do you think? Backbone! But I never had +any particular feeling for bones. We had talked the affair over pretty +thoroughly, and Always knew just where the stuff was stowed. I found it +that trip. I lifted a box one end an inch or more.” + +He broke off in his story. “I've lifted it,” he said, “as near as that! +Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted inside my +helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting confounded +stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down twenty-five minutes +or more--and I thought this was good enough. I went up the companion +again, and as my eyes came up flush with the deck, a thundering great +crab gave a kind of hysterical jump and went scuttling off sideways. +Quite a start it gave me. I stood up clear on deck and shut the valve +behind the helmet to let the air accumulate to carry me up again--I +noticed a kind of whacking from above, as though they were hitting the +water with an oar, but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling +me to come up. + +“And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood a-quiver +in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd seen young +Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was still calling him +this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt me serious--when I +began to lift and drive up towards the daylight. Just about the level +of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack! I came against something +sinking down, and a boot knocked in front of my helmet. Then something +else, struggling frightful. It was a big weight atop of me, whatever it +was, and moving and twisting about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, +or some such thing, if it hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't +wear boots. It was all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking +down again, and I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot +rolled free of me and shot down as I went up--” + +He paused. + +“I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear +driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what looked +like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went clutching +one another, and turning over, and both too far gone to leave go. And +in another second my helmet came a whack, fit to split, against the +niggers' canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full. + +“It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three +spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps kicking +about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw the game was up at +a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist, and went bubbling down again +after poor Always, in as awful a state of scare and astonishment as you +can well imagine. I passed young Sanders and the nigger going up again +and struggling still a bit, and in another moment I was standing in the +dim again on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer. + +“'Gummy,' thinks I, 'here's a fix!' Niggers? At first I couldn't see +anything for it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly +understand how much air there was to last me, but I didn't feel like +standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully +heady--quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd never repined with +these beastly natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good, coming +up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur of the moment, I +clambered over the side of the brig and landed among the weeds, and set +off through the darkness as fast as I could. I just stopped once and +knelt, and twisted back my head in the helmet and had a look up. It was +a most extraordinary bright green-blue above, and the two canoes and the +boat floating there very small and distant like a kind of twisted H. And +it made me feel sick to squint up at it, and think what the pitching and +swaying of the three meant. + +“It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering +about in that darkness, pressure something awful, like being buried in +sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing as it +seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit, I found +myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another squint to see +if anything was visible of the canoes and boats, and then kept on. I +stopped with my head a foot from the surface, and tried to see where I +was going, but, of course, nothing was to be seen but the reflection of +the bottom. Then out I dashed like knocking my head through a mirror. +Directly I got my eyes out of the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of +beach near the forest. I had a look round, but the natives and the brig +were both hidden by a big, hummucky heap of twisted lava, the born fool +in me suggested a run for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but +eased open one of the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out +of the water. You'd hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted. + +“Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your head +in a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five minutes +under water, you don't break any records running. I ran like a ploughboy +going to work. And half way to the trees I saw a dozen niggers or more, +coming out in a gaping, astonished sort of way to meet me. + +“I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of London. +I had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as a turned +turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands free, and +waited for them. There wasn't anything else for me to do. + +“But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'Jimmy +Goggles,' I says, 'it's your beauty does it.' I was inclined to be +a little light-headed, I think, with all these dangers about and the +change in the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' +I said, as if the savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm +hanged if I don't give you something to stare at,' I said, and with that +I screwed up the escape valve and turned on the compressed air from the +belt, until I was swelled out like a blown frog. Regular imposing it +must have been. I'm blessed if they'd come on a step; and presently one +and then another went down on their hands and knees. They didn't know +what to make of me, and they was doing the extra polite, which was very +wise and reasonable of them. I had half a mind to edge back seaward and +cut and run, but it seemed too hopeless. A step back and they'd have +been after me. And out of sheer desperation I began to march towards +them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps, and waving my blown-out arms +about, in a dignified manner. And inside of me I was singing as small as +a tomtit. + +“But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a +difficulty,--I've found that before and since. People like ourselves, +who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely +imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two of these +niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry trying to knock +their brains out on the ground. And on I went as slow and solemn and +silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber. It was evident they took +me for something immense. + +“Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures +to me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention +between me and something out at sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said. I +turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming round +a point, the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes. The +sight fairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some recognition, +so I waved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal manner. And then +I turned and stalked on towards the trees again. At that time I was +praying like mad, I remember, over and over again: 'Lord help me through +with it! Lord help me through with it!' It's only fools who know nothing +of dangers can afford to laugh at praying. + +“But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away like +that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of pressed +me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was clear to me they +didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever else they thought of +me, and for my own part I was never less anxious to own up to the old +country. + +“You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with savages, +but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me straight to their +kind of joss place to present me to the blessed old black stone there. +By this time I was beginning to sort of realise the depth of their +ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity I took my cue. I +started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long on one note, and began +waving my arms about a lot, and then very slowly and ceremoniously +turned their image over on its side and sat down on it. I wanted to sit +down badly, for diving-dresses ain't much wear in the tropics. Or, to +put it different like, they're a sight too much. It took away their +breath, I could see, my sitting on their joss, but in less time than a +minute they made up their minds and were hard at work worshipping me. +And I can tell you I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so +well, in spite of the weight on my shoulders and feet. + +“But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might think +when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before I went down, +and without the helmet on--for they might have been spying and hiding +since over night--they would very likely take a different view from the +others. I was in a deuce of a stew about that for hours, as it seemed, +until the shindy of the arrival began. + +“But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down. At the +cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting Egyptian +images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve hours, I +should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd hardly think what +it meant in that heat and stink. I don't think any of them dreamt of the +man inside. I was just a wonderful leathery great joss that had come +up with luck out of the water. But the fatigue! the heat! the beastly +closeness! the mackintosheriness and the rum! and the fuss! They lit a +stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there was before me, and brought +in a lot of gory muck--the worst parts of what they were feasting on +outside, the Beasts--and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting a bit +hungry, but I understand now how gods manage to do without eating, what +with the smell of burnt offerings about them. And they brought in a lot +of the stuff they'd got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was +a bit relieved to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the +compressed air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and +danced about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different +ways different people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet +handy I'd have gone for the lot of them--they made me feel that wild. +All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better to +do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house place +got a bit too shadowy for their taste--all these here savages are afraid +of the dark, you know--and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise, they built +big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in the darkness of my +hut, free to unscrew my windows a bit and think things over, and feel +just as bad as I liked. And, Lord! I was sick. + +“I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle on a +pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it. Come round +just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other chaps, +beastly drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate, and young +Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn't go out of my mind. +There was the treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer, and how one +might get it and hide it somewhere safer, and get away and come back for +it. And there was the puzzle where to get anything to eat. I tell you +I was fair rambling. I was afraid to ask by signs for food, for fear of +behaving too human, and so there I sat and hungered until very near +the dawn. Then the village got a bit quiet, and I couldn't stand it any +longer, and I went out and got some stuff like artichokes in a bowl +and some sour milk. What was left of these I put away among the other +offerings, just to give them a hint of my tastes. And in the morning +they came to worship, and found me sitting up stiff and respectable on +their previous god, just as they'd left me overnight. I'd got my back +against the central pillar of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. +And that's how I became a god among the heathen--a false god no doubt, +and blasphemous, but one can't always pick and choose. + +“Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits, but I +must confess that while I was god to these people they was extraordinary +successful. I don't say there's anything in it, mind you. They won +a battle with another tribe--I got a lot of offerings I didn't want +through it--they had wonderful fishing, and their crop of pourra was +exceptional fine. And they counted the capture of the brig among the +benefits I brought 'em. I must say I don't think that was a poor record +for a perfectly new hand. And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, +I was the tribal god of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four +months.... + +“What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress all the +time. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and a deuce of a +time I had too, making them understand what it was I wanted them to do. +That indeed was the great difficulty--making them understand my wishes. +I couldn't let myself down by talking their lingo badly--even if I'd +been able to speak at all--and I couldn't go flapping a lot of gestures +at them. So I drew pictures in sand and sat down beside them and hooted +like one o'clock. Sometimes they did the things I wanted all right, +and sometimes they did them all wrong. They was always very willing, +certainly. All the while I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded +business settled. Every night before the dawn I used to march out in +full rig and go off to a place where I could see the channel in which +the Ocean Pioneer lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried +to walk out to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I +didn't get back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers +out on the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that +vexed and tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going +down again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they +started rejoicing. I'm hanged if I like so much ceremony. + +“And then came the missionary. That missionary! It was in the afternoon, +and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on that old +black stone of theirs when he came. I heard a row outside and jabbering, +and then his voice speaking to an interpreter. 'They worship stocks and +stones,' he said, and I knew what was up, in a flash. I had one of my +windows out for comfort, and I sang out straight away on the spur of +the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says. 'You come inside,' I says, 'and +I'll punch your blooming head.' There was a kind of silence and more +jabbering, and in he came, Bible in hand, after the manner of them--a +little sandy chap in specks and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me +sitting there in the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, +struck him a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in +calico?' for I don't hold with missionaries. + +“I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite +outclassed with a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told him +to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. Down he goes +to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious as any of +them, took it as an act of worship and plumped down like a shot. All my +people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn't any more business to be +done in my village after that journey, not by the likes of him. + +“But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had any +sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure and taken him +into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child, with a few hours +to think it over, could have seen the connection between my diving-dress +and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week after he left I went out +one morning and saw the Motherhood, the salver's ship from Starr Race, +towing up the channel and sounding. The whole blessed game was up, and +all my trouble thrown away. Gummy! How wild I felt! And guying it in +that stinking silly dress! Four months!” + +The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. “Think of it,” he said, when +he emerged to linguistic purity once more. “Forty thousand pounds worth +of gold.” + +“Did the little missionary come back?” I asked. + +“Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man +inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous ceremony. +But there wasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate scenes and +explanations, and long before he came I was out of it all--going home to +Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day, and thieving food from +the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear. No clothes, no money. +Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying is. And just a squeak +of eight thousand pounds of gold--fifth share. But the natives cut up +rusty, thank goodness, because they thought it was him had driven their +luck away.” + + + + +8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR + +Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin +it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of +investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that +he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of +exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise human life. +And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to +bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful days. I have +tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do better than describe +the effect the thing had on me. That there are astonishing experiences +in store for all in search of new sensations will become apparent +enough. + +Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone. +Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages has +already appeared in The Strand Magazine--I think late in 1899; but I am +unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to some one who has +never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps, recall the high forehead +and the singularly long black eyebrows that give such a Mephistophelian +touch to his face. He occupies one of those pleasant little detached +houses in the mixed style that make the western end of the Upper +Sandgate Road so interesting. His is the one with the Flemish gables and +the Moorish portico, and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay +window that he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening +we have so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but, +besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those men +who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been able to +follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from a very early +stage. Of course, the greater portion of his experimental work is not +done in Folkestone, but in Gower Street, in the fine new laboratory next +to the hospital that he has been the first to use. + +As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, the +special department in which Gibberne has gained so great and deserved a +reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs upon the nervous +system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics he is, I am told, +unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable eminence, and I suppose +in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles that centres about the +ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are little cleared places of +his making, little glades of illumination, that, until he sees fit to +publish his results, are still inaccessible to every other living man. +And in the last few years he has been particularly assiduous upon this +question of nervous stimulants, and already, before the discovery of the +New Accelerator, very successful with them. Medical science has to thank +him for at least three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators +of unrivalled value to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the +preparation known as Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives +already than any lifeboat round the coast. + +“But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet,” he told me +nearly a year ago. “Either they increase the central energy without +affecting the nerves or they simply increase the available energy by +lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are unequal and local +in their operation. One wakes up the heart and viscera and leaves +the brain stupefied, one gets at the brain champagne fashion and does +nothing good for the solar plexus, and what I want--and what, if it's an +earthly possibility, I mean to have--is a stimulant that stimulates all +round, that wakes you up for a time from the crown of your head to the +tip of your great toe, and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody +else's one. Eh? That's the thing I'm after.” + +“It would tire a man,” I said. + +“Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that. But +just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with a little +phial like this”--he held up a little bottle of green glass and marked +his points with it--“and in this precious phial is the power to think +twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice as much work in a given +time as you could otherwise do.” + +“But is such a thing possible?” + +“I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These +various preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem to show +that something of the sort... Even if it was only one and a half times +as fast it would do.” + +“It WOULD do,” I said. + +“If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up +against you, something urgent to be done, eh?” + +“He could dose his private secretary,” I said. + +“And gain--double time. And think if YOU, for example, wanted to finish +a book.” + +“Usually,” I said, “I wish I'd never begun 'em.” + +“Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out a case. +Or a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination.” + +“Worth a guinea a drop,” said I, “and more to men like that.” + +“And in a duel, again,” said Gibberne, “where it all depends on your +quickness in pulling the trigger.” + +“Or in fencing,” I echoed. + +“You see,” said Gibberne, “if I get it as an all-round thing it will +really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal degree +it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice to other +people's once--” + +“I suppose,” I meditated, “in a duel--it would be fair?” + +“That's a question for the seconds,” said Gibberne. + +I harked back further. “And you really think such a thing IS possible?” + I said. + +“As possible,” said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went +throbbing by the window, “as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--” + +He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge of his +desk with the green phial. “I think I know the stuff.... Already I've +got something coming.” The nervous smile upon his face betrayed the +gravity of his revelation. He rarely talked of his actual experimental +work unless things were very near the end. “And it may be, it may be--I +shouldn't be surprised--it may even do the thing at a greater rate than +twice.” + +“It will be rather a big thing,” I hazarded. + +“It will be, I think, rather a big thing.” + +But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for all +that. + +I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. “The New +Accelerator” he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident on +each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiological +results its use might have, and then he would get a little unhappy; at +others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long and anxiously how +the preparation might be turned to commercial account. “It's a good +thing,” said Gibberne, “a tremendous thing. I know I'm giving the world +something, and I think it only reasonable we should expect the world to +pay. The dignity of science is all very well, but I think somehow I must +have the monopoly of the stuff for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL +the fun in life should go to the dealers in ham.” + +My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. +I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. I +have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed +to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less than the absolute +acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with such a +preparation: he would live an active and record life indeed, but he +would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at twenty-five, and by thirty +well on the road to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far Gibberne +was only going to do for any one who took his drug exactly what Nature +has done for the Jews and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged +by fifty, and quicker in thought and act than we are all the time. The +marvel of drugs has always been great to my mind; you can madden a man, +calm a man, make him incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, +quicken this passion and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was +a new miracle to be added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors +use! But Gibberne was far too eager upon his technical points to enter +very keenly into my aspect of the question. + +It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation that +would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward as we +talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was done and +the New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met him as I was +going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think I was going to +get my hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet me--I suppose he was +coming to my house to tell me at once of his success. I remember that +his eyes were unusually bright and his face flushed, and I noted even +then the swift alacrity of his step. + +“It's done,” he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast; “it's +more than done. Come up to my house and see.” + +“Really?” + +“Really!” he shouted. “Incredibly! Come up and see.” + +“And it does--twice? + +“It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff. Taste +it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth.” He gripped my arm +and, walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot, went shouting +with me up the hill. A whole char-a-banc-ful of people turned and stared +at us in unison after the manner of people in chars-a-banc. It was one +of those hot, clear days that Folkestone sees so much of, every colour +incredibly bright and every outline hard. There was a breeze, of course, +but not so much breeze as sufficed under these conditions to keep me +cool and dry. I panted for mercy. + +“I'm not walking fast, am I?” cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace to +a quick march. + +“You've been taking some of this stuff,” I puffed. + +“No,” he said. “At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker +from which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took some +last night, you know. But that is ancient history, now.” + +“And it goes twice?” I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful +perspiration. + +“It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!” cried Gibberne, with a +dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate. + +“Phew!” said I, and followed him to the door. + +“I don't know how many times it goes,” he said, with his latch-key in +his hand. + +“And you--” + +“It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory +of vision into a perfectly new shape!... Heaven knows how many thousand +times. We'll try all that after--The thing is to try the stuff now.” + +“Try the stuff?” I said, as we went along the passage. + +“Rather,” said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. “There it is in +that little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?” + +I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous. I WAS +afraid. But on the other hand there is pride. + +“Well,” I haggled. “You say you've tried it?” + +“I've tried it,” he said, “and I don't look hurt by it, do I? I don't +even look livery and I FEEL--” + +I sat down. “Give me the potion,” I said. “If the worst comes to the +worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one of the +most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the mixture?” + +“With water,” said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe. + +He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair; his +manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street specialist. +“It's rum stuff, you know,” he said. + +I made a gesture with my hand. + +“I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down to +shut your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's +time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length of +vibration, and not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind of shock +to the retina, a nasty giddy confusion just at the time, if the eyes are +open. Keep 'em shut.” + +“Shut,” I said. “Good!” + +“And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about. You +may fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will be going +several thousand times faster than you ever did before, heart, lungs, +muscles, brain--everything--and you will hit hard without knowing +it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just as you do now. Only +everything in the world will seem to be going ever so many thousand +times slower than it ever went before. That's what makes it so deuced +queer.” + +“Lor',” I said. “And you mean--” + +“You'll see,” said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced at the +material on his desk. “Glasses,” he said, “water. All here. Mustn't take +too much for the first attempt.” + +The little phial glucked out its precious contents. + +“Don't forget what I told you,” he said, turning the contents of the +measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring +whisky. “Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness for +two minutes,” he said. “Then you will hear me speak.” + +He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass. + +“By-the-by,” he said, “don't put your glass down. Keep it in your hand +and rest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now--” + +He raised his glass. + +“The New Accelerator,” I said. + +“The New Accelerator,” he answered, and we touched glasses and drank, +and instantly I closed my eyes. + +You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one has +taken “gas.” For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then I heard +Gibberne telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened my eyes. There +he stood as he had been standing, glass still in hand. It was empty, +that was all the difference. + +“Well?” said I. + +“Nothing out of the way?” + +“Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more.” + +“Sounds?” + +“Things are still,” I said. “By Jove! yes! They ARE still. Except the +sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things. What +is it?” + +“Analysed sounds,” I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced at the +window. “Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed in that way +before?” + +I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen, as it +were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze. + +“No,” said I; “that's odd.” + +“And here,” he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally +I winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing it did +not even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless. + +“Roughly speaking,” said Gibberne, “an object in these latitudes falls +16 feet in the first second. This glass is falling 16 feet in a second +now. Only, you see, it hasn't been falling yet for the hundredth part of +a second. That gives you some idea of the pace of my Accelerator.” And +he waved his hand round and round, over and under the slowly sinking +glass. Finally, he took it by the bottom, pulled it down, and placed it +very carefully on the table. “Eh?” he said to me, and laughed. + +“That seems all right,” I said, and began very gingerly to raise myself +from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and comfortable, and +quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all over. My heart, for +example, was beating a thousand times a second, but that caused me no +discomfort at all. I looked out of the window. An immovable cyclist, +head down and with a frozen puff of dust behind his driving-wheel, +scorched to overtake a galloping char-a-banc that did not stir. I gaped +in amazement at this incredible spectacle. “Gibberne,” I cried, “how +long will this confounded stuff last?” + +“Heaven knows!” he answered. “Last time I took it I went to bed and +slept it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted some +minutes, I think--it seemed like hours. But after a bit it slows down +rather suddenly, I believe.” + +I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened--I suppose because +there were two of us. “Why shouldn't we go out?” I asked. + +“Why not?” + +“They'll see us.” + +“Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times faster +than the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come along! Which +way shall we go? Window, or door?” + +And out by the window we went. + +Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had, or +imagined, or read of other people having or imagining, that little raid +I made with Gibberne on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence of the +New Accelerator, was the strangest and maddest of all. We went out by +his gate into the road, and there we made a minute examination of the +statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the wheels and some of the legs +of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end of the whip-lash and the +lower jaw of the conductor--who was just beginning to yawn--were +perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance +seemed still. And quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came +from one man's throat! And as parts of this frozen edifice there were a +driver, you know, and a conductor, and eleven people! The effect as we +walked about the thing began by being madly queer, and ended by being +disagreeable. There they were, people like ourselves and yet not like +ourselves, frozen in careless attitudes, caught in mid-gesture. A girl +and a man smiled at one another, a leering smile that threatened to last +for evermore; a woman in a floppy capelline rested her arm on the rail +and stared at Gibberne's house with the unwinking stare of eternity; a +man stroked his moustache like a figure of wax, and another stretched a +tiresome stiff hand with extended fingers towards his loosened hat. We +stared at them, we laughed at them, we made faces at them, and then +a sort of disgust of them came upon us, and we turned away and walked +round in front of the cyclist towards the Leas. + +“Goodness!” cried Gibberne, suddenly; “look there!” + +He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the air +with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally languid +snail--was a bee. + +And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder than +ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all the sound it +made for us was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of prolonged last +sigh that passed at times into a sound like the slow, muffled ticking +of some monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect, strange, silent, +self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in mid-stride, promenading +upon the grass. I passed close to a little poodle dog suspended in the +act of leaping, and watched the slow movement of his legs as he sank +to earth. “Lord, look here!” cried Gibberne, and we halted for a moment +before a magnificent person in white faint-striped flannels, white +shoes, and a Panama hat, who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed +ladies he had passed. A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation +as we could afford, is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of +alert gaiety, and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely +close, that under its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball +and a little line of white. “Heaven give me memory,” said I, “and I will +never wink again.” + +“Or smile,” said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth. + +“It's infernally hot, somehow,” said I. “Let's go slower.” + +“Oh, come along!” said Gibberne. + +We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of the people +sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their passive poses, but +the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not a restful thing to see. +A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen in the midst of a violent +struggle to refold his newspaper against the wind; there were many +evidences that all these people in their sluggish way were exposed to +a considerable breeze, a breeze that had no existence so far as our +sensations went. We came out and walked a little way from the crowd, and +turned and regarded it. To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, +smitten rigid, as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was +impossibly wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an +irrational, an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder +of it! All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had +begun to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so +far as the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. “The New +Accelerator--” I began, but Gibberne interrupted me. + +“There's that infernal old woman!” he said. + +“What old woman?” + +“Lives next door to me,” said Gibberne. “Has a lapdog that yaps. Gods! +The temptation is strong!” + +There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times. +Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched the +unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running violently +with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most extraordinary. The +little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or make the slightest +sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an attitude of somnolent +repose, and Gibberne held it by the neck. It was like running about with +a dog of wood. “Gibberne,” I cried, “put it down!” Then I said something +else. “If you run like that, Gibberne,” I cried, “you'll set your +clothes on fire. Your linen trousers are going brown as it is!” + +He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge. +“Gibberne,” I cried, coming up, “put it down. This heat is too much! +It's our running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!” + +“What?” he said, glancing at the dog. + +“Friction of the air,” I shouted. “Friction of the air. Going too fast. +Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne! I'm all +over pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people stirring +slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog down.” + +“Eh?” he said. + +“It's working off,” I repeated. “We're too hot and the stuff's working +off! I'm wet through.” + +He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose +performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep +of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning upward, +still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols of a knot of +chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow. “By Jove!” he cried. +“I believe--it is! A sort of hot pricking and--yes. That man's moving +his pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly. We must get out of this sharp.” + +But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps! For we +might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe, have burst into +flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into flames! You know we +had neither of us thought of that.... But before we could even begin to +run the action of the drug had ceased. It was the business of a minute +fraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like +the drawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heard +Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. “Sit down,” he said, and flop, down +upon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There +is a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole +stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration +of the band rushed together into a blast of music, the promenaders +put their feet down and walked their ways, the papers and flags began +flapping, smiles passed into words, the winker finished his wink and +went on his way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke. + +The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were, or +rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was like +slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything seemed +to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient feeling of +nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had seemed to hang +for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was expended fell with a +swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol! + +That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old gentleman +in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of us and +afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious eye, and, +finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us, I doubt if a +solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among them. Plop! We must +have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder almost at once, though +the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The attention of every +one--including even the Amusements' Association band, which on this +occasion, for the only time in its history, got out of tune--was +arrested by the amazing fact, and the still more amazing yapping and +uproar caused by the fact that a respectable, over-fed lap-dog sleeping +quietly to the east of the bandstand should suddenly fall through the +parasol of a lady on the west--in a slightly singed condition due to the +extreme velocity of its movements through the air. In these absurd +days, too, when we are all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and +superstitious as possible! People got up and trod on other people, +chairs were overturned, the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled +itself I do not know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves +from the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman in +the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were sufficiently +cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness and nausea and +confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting the crowd, directed +our steps back along the road below the Metropole towards Gibberne's +house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly the gentleman who +had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured sunshade using quite +unjustifiable threats and language to one of those chair-attendants who +have “Inspector” written on their caps. “If you didn't throw the dog,” + he said, “who DID?” + +The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural +anxiety about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot, and +the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were scorched a +drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations I should have liked +to make on all these things. Indeed, I really made no observations of +any scientific value on that return. The bee, of course, had gone. I +looked for that cyclist, but he was already out of sight as we came into +the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, +however, with its people now all alive and stirring, was clattering +along at a spanking pace almost abreast of the nearer church. + +We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped in +getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the impressions +of our feet on the gravel of the path were unusually deep. + +So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically +we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things in +the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour while the +band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it had upon us +was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient inspection. +Considering all things, and particularly considering our rashness in +venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly have been +much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne +has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable +convenience, but its practicability it certainly demonstrated beyond all +cavil. + +Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under +control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad result, +taken measured doses under his direction; though I must confess I have +not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence. I may mention, +for example, that this story has been written at one sitting and without +interruption, except for the nibbling of some chocolate, by its means. +I began at 6.25, and my watch is now very nearly at the minute past the +half-hour. The convenience of securing a long, uninterrupted spell of +work in the midst of a day full of engagements cannot be exaggerated. +Gibberne is now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation, +with especial reference to its distinctive effects upon different types +of constitution. He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute +its present rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have +the reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable the +patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary time,--and +so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like absence of +alacrity, amidst the most animated or irritating surroundings. The two +things together must necessarily work an entire revolution in civilised +existence. It is the beginning of our escape from that Time Garment +of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator will enable us to +concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact upon any moment or occasion +that demands our utmost sense and vigour, the Retarder will enable us +to pass in passive tranquillity through infinite hardship and tedium. +Perhaps I am a little optimistic about the Retarder, which has indeed +still to be discovered, but about the Accelerator there is no possible +sort of doubt whatever. Its appearance upon the market in a convenient, +controllable, and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months. +It will be obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green +bottles, at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no +means excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called, +and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200, one +in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and white labels +respectively. + +No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things +possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even +criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging, as +it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations it +will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of +the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a +matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province. +We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and, as for the +consequences--we shall see. + + + + +9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION + +My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural +mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam +through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates +irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has come +with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an elaborate +clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination to be firm +and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant alike. He is a +sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many of the secret +practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather than interesting +things. His conversation is copious and given much to needless detail. +By many, indeed, his intercourse is condemned, to put it plainly, as +“boring,” and such have even done me the compliment to wonder why I +countenance him. But, on the other hand, there is a large faction +who marvel at his countenancing such a dishevelled, discreditable +acquaintance as myself. Few appear to regard our friendship with +equanimity. But that is because they do not know of the link that binds +us, of my amiable connection via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past. + +About that past he displays an anxious modesty. “I do not KNOW what I +should do if it became known,” he says; and repeats, impressively, “I do +not know WHAT I should do.” As a matter of fact, I doubt if he would do +anything except get very red about the ears. But that will appear +later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter, since, as a general +rule--though I am prone to break it--the end of a story should come +after, rather than before, the beginning. And the beginning of the story +goes a long way back; indeed, it is now nearly twenty years since +Fate, by a series of complicated and startling manoeuvres, brought Mr. +Ledbetter, so to speak, into my hands. + +In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a +schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably the +same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage, the same or +similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise in his resting +expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when I saw him, and his +collar less of a collar than a wet bandage, and that may have helped to +bridge the natural gulf between us--but of that, as I say, later. + +The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with Mr. +Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly needed rest, +with a bright brown portmanteau marked “F. W. L.”, a new white-and-black +straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel trousers. He was naturally +exhilarated at his release from school--for he was not very fond of the +boys he taught. After dinner he fell into a discussion with a talkative +person established in the boarding-house to which, acting on the advice +of his aunt, he had resorted. This talkative person was the only +other man in the house. Their discussion concerned the melancholy +disappearance of wonder and adventure in these latter days, the +prevalence of globe-trotting, the abolition of distance by steam and +electricity, the vulgarity of advertisement, the degradation of men +by civilisation, and many such things. Particularly was the talkative +person eloquent on the decay of human courage through security, a +security Mr. Ledbetter rather thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr. +Ledbetter, in the first delight of emancipation from “duty,” and being +anxious, perhaps, to establish a reputation for manly conviviality, +partook, rather more freely than was advisable, of the excellent whisky +the talkative person produced. But he did not become intoxicated, he +insists. + +He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer edge +gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave old days +that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate--alone and +up the cliff road where the villas cluster together. + +He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still +bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life as +a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant, so +colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was there +for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval days, so +near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri and many a risky +blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt, a strange doubt, +springing out of some chance thought of tortures, and destructive +altogether of the position he had assumed that evening. + +Was he--Mr. Ledbetter--really, after all, so brave as he assumed? Would +he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and security vanish +suddenly from the earth? + +The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. “The burglar,” he said, +“is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his single-handed +fight against the whole civilised world!” And Mr. Ledbetter had echoed +his envy. “They DO have some fun out of life,” Mr. Ledbetter had said. +“And about the only people who do. Just think how it must feel to wire +a lawn!” And he had laughed wickedly. Now, in this franker intimacy of +self-communion he found himself instituting a comparison between his +own brand of courage and that of the habitual criminal. He tried to +meet these insidious questionings with blank assertion. “I could do all +that,” said Mr. Ledbetter. “I long to do all that. Only I do not give +way to my criminal impulses. My moral courage restrains me.” But he +doubted even while he told himself these things. + +Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently +situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping black, +wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture of it came +with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself climbing up that +balcony, crouching--plunging into that dark, mysterious interior. “Bah! +You would not dare,” said the Spirit of Doubt. “My duty to my fellow-men +forbids,” said Mr. Ledbetter's self-respect. + +It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very +still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one warm +oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life. He turned +and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window. He stood for +a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives. “Let us put things +to the test,” said Doubt. “For the satisfaction of these intolerable +doubts, show that you dare go into that house. Commit a burglary in +blank. That, at any rate, is no crime.” Very softly he opened and +shut the gate and slipped into the shadow of the shrubbery. “This is +foolish,” said Mr. Ledbetter's caution. “I expected that,” said Doubt. +His heart was beating fast, but he was certainly not afraid. He was NOT +afraid. He remained in that shadow for some considerable time. + +The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done in a +rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from the gate into +the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious climbing roses +made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that black shadow by the +stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and take a closer view of this +gaping breach in the domestic defences, the open window. For a while +Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night, and then that insidious whisky +tipped the balance. He dashed forward. He went up the trellis with +quick, convulsive movements, swung his legs over the parapet of the +balcony, and dropped panting in the shadow even as he had designed. He +was trembling violently, short of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, +but his mood was exultation. He could have shouted to find he was so +little afraid. + +A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's “Mephistopheles” came into +his mind as he crouched there. “I feel like a cat on the tiles,” he +whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected--this +adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom burglary +was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And he was acting in +the bravest manner! + +And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare +do that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or +passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about +it, or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility +of a sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then raised +his eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on a pedestal, +and a little startling at first, was a nearly life-size gesticulating +bronze. He ducked, and after some time he peered again. Beyond was a +broad landing, faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric of bead curtain, very +black and sharp, against a further window; a broad staircase, plunging +into a gulf of darkness below; and another ascending to the second +floor. He glanced behind him, but the stillness of the night was +unbroken. “Crime,” he whispered, “crime,” and scrambled softly and +swiftly over the sill into the house. His feet fell noiselessly on a mat +of skin. He was a burglar indeed! + +He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was a +scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his enterprise. +A short “miaow,” a spitting, and a rush into silence, spoke reassuringly +of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every one was abed, it seemed. +So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one is so minded. He was glad he +had put it to the test. He determined to take some petty trophy, just to +prove his freedom from any abject fear of the law, and depart the way he +had come. + +He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again. +Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this: they +went into rooms, they forced safes. Well--he was not afraid. He could +not force safes, because that would be a stupid want of consideration +for his hosts. But he would go into rooms--he would go upstairs. More: +he told himself that he was perfectly secure; an empty house could not +be more reassuringly still. He had to clench his hands, nevertheless, +and summon all his resolution before he began very softly to ascend the +dim staircase, pausing for several seconds between each step. Above was +a square landing with one open and several closed doors; and all the +house was still. For a moment he stood wondering what would happen if +some sleeper woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit +bedroom, the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in +three interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder--his +trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had ascended. It +was as easy as-- + +Hist!... + +Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house--and then the noise of a +latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match in +the hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden discovery +of the folly upon which he had come. “How on earth am I to get out of +this?” said Mr. Ledbetter. + +The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped +against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In a +flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood for +a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. “My goodness! What +a FOOL I have been!” he whispered, and then darted swiftly across the +shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he had just come. +He stood listening--quivering. The footsteps reached the first-floor +landing. + +Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment +was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven for +a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds too soon. +He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing candle-light +appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the shadows ran +wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down. + +“Lord, what a day!” said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed he +deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging by the feet, +decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went to the door and +locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows carefully and pulled +down the blinds, and returning sat down upon the bed with startling +ponderosity. + +“WHAT a day!” he said. “Good Lord!” and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter +inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots were +good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance suggested +a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed some upper +garments--a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred--and casting +them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less noisily, and as it +seemed cooling from a considerable temperature. At intervals he muttered +to himself, and once he laughed softly. And Mr. Ledbetter muttered to +himself, but he did not laugh. “Of all the foolish things,” said Mr. +Ledbetter. “What on earth am I to do now?” + +His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between the +stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount of +light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain, save +for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled +confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the +edge of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously +depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened until +the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was a luxurious +one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors and so forth of the +furniture, well equipped. + +What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until this +person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping, to +creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony seemed +the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump from the +balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances against him, +Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting forth his +head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary to attract his +attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining his unfortunate +intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he found these sentences +hard to choose. “No doubt, sir, my appearance is peculiar,” or, “I +trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous appearance from +beneath you,” was about as much as he could get. + +Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose they did +not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his unblemished +high character count for nothing? Technically he was a burglar, beyond +dispute. Following out this train of thought, he was composing a lucid +apology for “this technical crime I have committed,” to be delivered +before sentence in the dock, when the stout gentleman got up and +began walking about the room. He locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. +Ledbetter had a transient hope that he might be undressing. But, no! He +seated himself at the writing-table, and began to write and then tear up +documents. Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with +the odour of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils. + +“The position I had assumed,” said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me of +these things, “was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse bar +beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a disproportionate +share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I experienced what is +called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The pressure of my hands on the +coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became painful. My knees, too, were +painful, my trousers being drawn tightly over them. At that time I wore +rather higher collars than I do now--two and a half inches, in fact--and +I discovered what I had not remarked before, that the edge of the one +I wore was frayed slightly under the chin. But much worse than these +things was an itching of my face, which I could only relieve by violent +grimacing--I tried to raise my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve +alarmed me. After a time I had to desist from this relief also, +because--happily in time--I discovered that my facial contortions were +shifting my glasses down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have +exposed me, and as it was they came to rest in an oblique position of +by no means stable equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an +intermittent desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In +fact, quite apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical +discomfort became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to +stay there motionless, nevertheless.” + +After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This deepened +into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink--twenty-five chinks--a rap on the +writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout legs. It dawned +upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking of gold. He +became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity grew. Already, +if that was the case, this extraordinary man must have counted some +hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could resist it no longer, +and he began very cautiously to fold his arms and lower his head to the +level of the floor, in the hope of peeping under the valance. He moved +his feet, and one made a slight scraping on the floor. Suddenly the +chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became rigid. After a while the chinking +was resumed. Then it ceased again, and everything was still, except Mr. +Ledbetter's heart--that organ seemed to him to be beating like a drum. + +The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor, and +he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were quite still. +The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back, as it seemed, under +the chair of the owner. Everything was quite still, everything continued +still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter that the unknown was in a fit +or suddenly dead, with his head upon the writing-table.... + +The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep became +irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand forward, +projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance immediately +next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now the stranger's +knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then--he was staring at +the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over the writing-table at his +head. + +“Come out of that, you scoundrel!” said the voice of the stout gentleman +in a tone of quiet concentration. “Come out. This side, and now. None of +your hanky-panky--come right out, now.” + +Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but without +any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told. + +“Kneel,” said the stout gentleman, “and hold up your hands.” + +The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from +all-fours and held up his hands. “Dressed like a parson,” said the stout +gentleman. “I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too! You SCOUNDREL! +What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night? What the deuce +possessed you to get under my bed?” + +He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to several +very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal appearance. He +was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr. Ledbetter: he was as +stout as his legs had promised, he had rather delicately-chiselled small +features distributed over a considerable area of whitish face, and quite +a number of chins. And the note of his voice had a sort of whispering +undertone. + +“What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?” + +Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He +coughed. “I can quite understand--” he said. + +“Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!--you scoundrel. Don't you move that +hand.” + +“It's soap,” said Mr. Ledbetter. “From your washstand. No doubt it--” + +“Don't talk,” said the stout man. “I see it's soap. Of all incredible +things.” + +“If I might explain--” + +“Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for +explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?” + +“In a few minutes, if you--” + +“Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver I'll +shoot. Have you any mates?” + +“No,” said Mr. Ledbetter. + +“I suppose it's a lie,” said the stout man. “But you'll pay for it if +it is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs? You won't +get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed! I reckon it's +a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned.” + +“I don't see how I could prove an alibi,” remarked Mr. Ledbetter, trying +to show by his conversation that he was an educated man. There was a +pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside his captor was a +large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers, and that there were torn +and burnt papers on the table. And in front of these, and arranged +methodically along the edge were rows and rows of little yellow +rouleaux--a hundred times more gold than Mr. Ledbetter had seen in all +his life before. The light of two candles, in silver candlesticks, fell +upon these. The pause continued. “It is rather fatiguing holding up my +hands like this,” said Mr. Ledbetter, with a deprecatory smile. + +“That's all right,” said the fat man. “But what to do with you I don't +exactly know.” + +“I know my position is ambiguous.” + +“Lord!” said the fat man, “ambiguous! And goes about with his own +soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming +burglar, you are--if ever there was one!” + +“To be strictly accurate,” said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his glasses +slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons. + +The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution crossed +his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put his other hand +to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter, and his eye went +down to the dropped pince-nez. + +“Full-cock now, anyhow,” said the fat man, after a pause, and his breath +seemed to catch. “But I'll tell you, you've never been so near death +before. Lord! I'M almost glad. If it hadn't been that the revolver +wasn't cocked you'd be lying dead there now.” + +Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying. + +“A miss is as good as a mile. It's lucky for both of us it wasn't. +Lord!” He blew noisily. “There's no need for you to go pale-green for a +little thing like that.” + +“If I can assure you, sir--” said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort. + +“There's only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I'm bust--a +little game I've got on is bust. That won't do. If I tie you up and +leave you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow's Sunday, and +Monday's Bank Holiday--I've counted on three clear days. Shooting +you's murder--and hanging; and besides, it will bust the whole blooming +kernooze. I'm hanged if I can think what to do--I'm hanged if I can.” + +“Will you permit me--” + +“You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I'm blessed if you don't. +Of all the burglars you are the--Well! No!--I WON'T permit you. There +isn't time. If you start off jawing again, I'll shoot right in your +stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're going to do first, +my man, is an examination for concealed arms--an examination for +concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you to do a thing, don't +start off at a gabble--do it brisk.” + +And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol at +Mr. Ledbetter's head, the stout man stood him up and searched him for +weapons. “Why, you ARE a burglar!” he said “You're a perfect amateur. +You haven't even a pistol-pocket in the back of your breeches. No, you +don't! Shut up, now.” + +So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter take +off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver at +one ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted. From +the stout man's point of view that was evidently the only possible +arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had to put down +the revolver. So that even the gold on the table was handled by Mr. +Ledbetter. This nocturnal packing was peculiar. The stout man's idea was +evidently to distribute the weight of the gold as unostentatiously +as possible through his luggage. It was by no means an inconsiderable +weight. There was, Mr. Ledbetter says, altogether nearly L18,000 in gold +in the black bag and on the table. There were also many little rolls +of L5 bank-notes. Each rouleau of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter +in paper. These rouleaux were then put neatly in cigar boxes and +distributed between a travelling trunk, a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. +About L600 went in a tobacco tin in a dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a +number of L5 notes the stout man pocketed. Occasionally he objurgated +Mr. Ledbetter's clumsiness, and urged him to hurry, and several times he +appealed to Mr. Ledbetter's watch for information. + +Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man +the keys. It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of +midnight the stout man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he sat +at a reasonably safe distance on the trunk and held the revolver handy +and waited. He appeared to be now in a less aggressive mood, and having +watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered a few remarks. + +“From your accent I judge you are a man of some education,” he said, +lighting a cigar. “No--DON'T begin that explanation of yours. I know it +will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar to be +interested in other men's lying. You are, I say, a person of education. +You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated people you might +pass as a curate.” + +“I AM a curate,” said Mr. Ledbetter, “or, at least--” + +“You are trying to be. I know. But you didn't ought to burgle. You are +not the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it--the thing will have +been pointed out to you before--a coward.” + +“Do you know,” said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening, “it +was that very question--” + +The stout man waved him into silence. + +“You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two things. +Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my own part, I +embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man could be doing with +all this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight!... Ten. Eleven. Twelve. +There is something very impressive to me in that slow beating of the +hours. Time--space; what mysteries they are! What mysteries.... It's +time for us to be moving. Stand up!” + +And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the +dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder the +trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone bag in +his disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled perilously +downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat, the hatbox, +and the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr. Ledbetter's +strength, and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs. + +“The back door,” he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through a +conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him. “Never +mind the crockery,” said the stout man; “it's good for trade. We wait +here until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You have!” + +Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. “Last night,” he gasped, +“I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt--” + +“There's no need for you to incriminate yourself,” said the stout +gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum. Mr. +Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it. + +There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was taken to +the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man in yachting +costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started violently and +clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout man. “Bingham!” he +cried, “who's this?” + +“Only a little philanthropic do of mine--burglar I'm trying to reform. +Caught him under my bed just now. He's all right. He's a frightful ass. +He'll be useful to carry some of our things.” + +The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter's presence at +first, but the stout man reassured him. + +“He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him. +No!--don't start talking, for goodness' sake.” + +They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still +bowing Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume walked +in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came Mr. Ledbetter +like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box, coat, and revolver as +before. The house was one of those that have their gardens right up to +the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden stairway, descending to a +bathing tent dimly visible on the beach. Below was a boat pulled up, and +a silent little man with a black face stood beside it. “A few moments' +explanation,” said Mr. Ledbetter; “I can assure you--” Somebody kicked +him, and he said no more. + +They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled him +aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better name than +“scoundrel” and “burglar” all that night. But they spoke in undertones +so that the general public was happily unaware of his ignominy. They +hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange, unsympathetic Orientals, +and partly they thrust him and partly he fell down a gangway into a +noisome, dark place, where he was to remain many days--how many he does +not know, because he lost count among other things when he was seasick. +They fed him on biscuits and incomprehensible words; they gave him water +to drink mixed with unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches +where they put him, night and day there were cockroaches, and in the +night-time there were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took +his watch--but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. +And five or six times the five Lascars--if they were Lascars--and the +Chinaman and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and +took him aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and +three-anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an +interested manner. + +Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who have +lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit, though they +made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest burglar they +had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again. The fair man +was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play; but Mr. Bingham, +now that the evident anxiety of his departure from England was assuaged, +displayed a vein of genial philosophy. He enlarged upon the mystery of +space and time, and quoted Kant and Hegel--or, at least, he said he did. +Several times Mr. Ledbetter got as far as: “My position under your bed, +you know--,” but then he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do +some such intervening thing. After his third failure, the fair man got +quite to look for this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after +that, he would roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. +“Same old start, same old story; good old burglar!” the fair-haired man +would say. + +So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one evening +he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over the side and +put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring. Mr. Bingham came in +the boat with him, giving him good advice all the way, and waving his +last attempts at an explanation aside. + +“I am really NOT a burglar,” said Mr. Ledbetter. + +“You never will be,” said Mr. Bingham. “You'll never make a burglar. I'm +glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession a man must +study his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later you will fail. +Compare myself, for example. All my life I have been in banks--I have +got on in banks. I have even been a bank manager. But was I happy? No. +Why wasn't I happy? Because it did not suit my temperament. I am too +adventurous--too versatile. Practically I have thrown it over. I do not +suppose I shall ever manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, +no doubt; but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament--at last.... +No! I shall never manage a bank again. + +“Now, your temperament unfits you for crime--just as mine unfits me +for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do not even +recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man. YOUR lay +is the philanthropic lay--that is your lay. With that voice--the +Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young--something +in that line. You think it over. + +“The island we are approaching has no name apparently--at least, there +is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while you are +there--while you are thinking about all these things. It has quite +drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines--one of the +Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of the Grenadines. +There are quantities of Grenadines, but the majority are out of sight. +I have often wondered what these islands are for--now, you see, I am +wiser. This one at least is for you. Sooner or later some simple native +will come along and take you off. Say what you like about us then--abuse +us, if you like--we shan't care a solitary Grenadine! And here--here +is half a sovereign's worth of silver. Do not waste that in foolish +dissipation when you return to civilisation. Properly used, it may give +you a fresh start in life. And do not--Don't beach her, you beggars, +he can wade!--Do not waste the precious solitude before you in foolish +thoughts. Properly used, it may be a turning-point in your career. Waste +neither money nor time. You will die rich. I'm sorry, but I must ask you +to carry your tucker to land in your arms. No; it's not deep. Curse +that explanation of yours! There's not time. No, no, no! I won't listen. +Overboard you go!” + +And the falling night found Mr. Ledbetter--the Mr. Ledbetter who had +complained that adventure was dead--sitting beside his cans of food, +his chin resting upon his drawn-up knees, staring through his glasses in +dismal mildness over the shining, vacant sea. + +He was picked up in the course of three days by a negro fisherman +and taken to St. Vincent's, and from St. Vincent's he got, by the +expenditure of his last coins, to Kingston, in Jamaica. And there he +might have foundered. Even nowadays he is not a man of affairs, and then +he was a singularly helpless person. He had not the remotest idea what +he ought to do. The only thing he seems to have done was to visit all +the ministers of religion he could find in the place to borrow a passage +home. But he was much too dirty and incoherent--and his story far +too incredible for them. I met him quite by chance. It was close upon +sunset, and I was walking out after my siesta on the road to Dunn's +Battery, when I met him--I was rather bored, and with a whole evening +on my hands--luckily for him. He was trudging dismally towards the +town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical cut of his dust-stained, +filthy costume caught my humour. Our eyes met. He hesitated. “Sir,” he +said, with a catching of the breath, “could you spare a few minutes for +what I fear will seem an incredible story?” + +“Incredible!” I said. + +“Quite,” he answered eagerly. “No one will believe it, alter it though I +may. Yet I can assure you, sir--” + +He stopped hopelessly. The man's tone tickled me. He seemed an odd +character. “I am,” he said, “one of the most unfortunate beings alive.” + +“Among other things, you haven't dined?” I said, struck with an idea. + +“I have not,” he said solemnly, “for many days.” + +“You'll tell it better after that,” I said; and without more ado led the +way to a low place I knew, where such a costume as his was unlikely to +give offence. And there--with certain omissions which he subsequently +supplied--I got his story. At first I was incredulous, but as the wine +warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing which his misfortunes +had added to his manner disappeared, I began to believe. At last, I was +so far convinced of his sincerity that I got him a bed for the night, +and next day verified the banker's reference he gave me through my +Jamaica banker. And that done, I took him shopping for underwear +and such like equipments of a gentleman at large. Presently came the +verified reference. His astonishing story was true. I will not amplify +our subsequent proceedings. He started for England in three days' time. + +“I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough,” began the letter he +wrote me from England, “for all your kindness to a total stranger,” and +proceeded for some time in a similar strain. “Had it not been for your +generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned in time for +the resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few minutes of reckless +folly would, perhaps, have proved my ruin. As it is, I am entangled in +a tissue of lies and evasions, of the most complicated sort, to account +for my sunburnt appearance and my whereabouts. I have rather carelessly +told two or three different stories, not realising the trouble this +would mean for me in the end. The truth I dare not tell. I have +consulted a number of law-books in the British Museum, and there is +not the slightest doubt that I have connived at and abetted and aided a +felony. That scoundrel Bingham was the Hithergate bank manager, I find, +and guilty of the most flagrant embezzlement. Please, please burn this +letter when read--I trust you implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my +aunt nor her friend who kept the boarding-house at which I was staying +seem altogether to believe a guarded statement I have made them +practically of what actually happened. They suspect me of some +discreditable adventure, but what sort of discreditable adventure they +suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says she would forgive me if I +told her everything. I have--I have told her MORE than everything, and +still she is not satisfied. It would never do to let them know the truth +of the case, of course, and so I represent myself as having been waylaid +and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to know WHY they waylaid and +gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht. I do not know. Can +you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing. If, when you wrote, you +could write on TWO sheets so that I could show her one, and on that one +if you could show clearly that I really WAS in Jamaica this summer, +and had come there by being removed from a ship, it would be of great +service to me. It would certainly add to the load of my obligation +to you--a load that I fear I can never fully repay. Although if +gratitude...” And so forth. At the end he repeated his request for me to +burn the letter. + +So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach +with his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him +before she died. + + + + +10. THE STOLEN BODY + +Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, and +Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was well known +among those interested in psychical research as a liberal-minded and +conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried man, and instead of +living in the suburbs, after the fashion of his class, he occupied rooms +in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in the +questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living, and +in November, 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in conjunction +with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility +of projecting an apparition of one's self by force of will through +space. + +Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a +pre-arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the +Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then +fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel +had acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could, he +attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself as a +“phantom of the living” across the intervening space of nearly two miles +into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried without +any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth occasion Mr. Vincey +did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition of Mr. Bessel standing +in his room. He states that the appearance, although brief, was very +vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's face was white and his +expression anxious, and, moreover, that his hair was disordered. For +a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation, was too +surprised to speak or move, and in that moment it seemed to him as +though the figure glanced over its shoulder and incontinently vanished. + +It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any +phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence of mind to +snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when he +did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partial +success, he made a note of the exact time, and at once took a cab to the +Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result. + +He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open to the +night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary disorder. +An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor; its neck had +been broken off against the inkpot on the bureau and lay beside it. +An octagonal occasional table, which carried a bronze statuette and +a number of choice books, had been rudely overturned, and down the +primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed for +the mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chintz curtains had +been violently torn from its rings and thrust upon the fire, so that +the smell of its smouldering filled the room. Indeed the whole place was +disarranged in the strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who +had entered sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, +could scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these +unanticipated things. + +Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the +entrance lodge. “Where is Mr. Bessel?” he asked. “Do you know that all +the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?” The porter said nothing, +but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's apartment to see +the state of affairs. “This settles it,” he said, surveying the lunatic +confusion. “I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's gone off. He's mad!” + +He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour previously, +that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's apparition in Mr. +Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates of +the Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with disordered hair, and had +vanished into the direction of Bond Street. “And as he went past me,” + said the porter, “he laughed--a sort of gasping laugh, with his mouth +open and his eyes glaring--I tell you, sir, he fair scared me!--like +this.” + +According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh. “He +waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing--like that. +And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that one word, +'LIFE!'” + +“Dear me,” said Mr. Vincey. “Tut, tut,” and “Dear me!” He could think +of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised. He turned +from the room to the porter and from the porter to the room in the +gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably Mr. Bessel would +come back presently and explain what had happened, their conversation +was unable to proceed. “It might be a sudden toothache,” said +the porter, “a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping on him +suddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken things myself before now +in such a case...” He thought. “If it was, why should he say 'LIFE' to +me as he went past?” + +Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last Mr. +Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having addressed +a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous position on the +bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind to his own premises +in Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock. He was at a loss to +account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis. He tried to +read, but he could not do so; he went for a short walk, and was so +preoccupied that he narrowly escaped a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; +and at last--a full hour before his usual time--he went to bed. For a +considerable time he could not sleep because of his memory of the silent +confusion of Mr. Bessel's apartment, and when at length he did attain an +uneasy slumber it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing +dream of Mr. Bessel. + +He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and +contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested +perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He +even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling +distressfully to him, though at the time he considered this to be an +illusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. Vincey awoke. For a +space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed with that +vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out of +dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself, and +turned over and went to sleep again, only for the dream to return with +enhanced vividness. + +He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in +overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer +possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire +calamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but at +last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas, and +dressed, and set out through the deserted streets--deserted, save for a +noiseless policeman or so and the early news carts--towards Vigo Street +to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned. + +But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some +unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards Covent +Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw the +market in front of him--a queer effect of glowing yellow lights and busy +black figures. He became aware of a shouting, and perceived a figure +turn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards him. He knew at +once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel transfigured. He +was hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open, he grasped a +bone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his mouth was pulled +awry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly. Their encounter was +the affair of an instant. “Bessel!” cried Vincey. + +The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey or of +his own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with the stick, +hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye. Mr. Vincey, stunned +and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing, and fell heavily on +the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel leapt over him as he +fell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had vanished, and a policeman and +a number of garden porters and salesmen were rushing past towards Long +Acre in hot pursuit. + +With the assistance of several passers-by--for the whole street was +speedily alive with running people--Mr. Vincey struggled to his feet. +He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see his injury. A +multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his safety, and then to +tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as they regarded Mr. Bessel. +He had suddenly appeared in the middle of the market screaming “LIFE! +LIFE!” striking left and right with a blood-stained walking-stick, and +dancing and shouting with laughter at each successful blow. A lad and +two women had broken heads, and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little +child had been knocked insensible, and for a time he had driven every +one before him, so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he +made a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through +the window of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the +foremost of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him. + +Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit of +his friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence of the +indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had half stunned +him, and while this was still no more than a resolution came the news, +shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded his pursuers. At +first Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but the universality of +the report, and presently the dignified return of two futile policemen, +convinced him. After some aimless inquiries he returned towards Staple +Inn, padding a handkerchief to a now very painful nose. + +He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him +indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst +of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make him +appear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed a problem +beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain this. It seemed +to him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but the order of things +must be insane. But he could think of nothing to do. He shut himself +carefully into his room, lit his fire--it was a gas fire with asbestos +bricks--and, fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained bathing +his injured face, or holding up books in a vain attempt to read, until +dawn. Throughout that vigil he had a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel +was endeavouring to speak to him, but he would not let himself attend to +any such belief. + +About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed and +slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested and anxious, +and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news of +Mr. Bessel's aberration--it had come too late for them. Mr. Vincey's +perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added fresh irritation, +became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless visit to the Albany, +he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart, Mr. Bessel's partner, +and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest friend. + +He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing of the +outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very vision that Mr. +Vincey had seen--Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled, pleading earnestly +by his gestures for help. That was his impression of the import of his +signs. “I was just going to look him up in the Albany when you arrived,” + said Mr. Hart. “I was so sure of something being wrong with him.” + +As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided to +inquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. “He is bound +to be laid by the heels,” said Mr. Hart. “He can't go on at that pace +for long.” But the police authorities had not laid Mr. Bessel by the +heels. They confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight experiences and added fresh +circumstances, some of an even graver character than those he knew--a +list of smashed glass along the upper half of Tottenham Court Road, an +attack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road, and an atrocious assault upon +a woman. All these outrages were committed between half-past twelve and +a quarter to two in the morning, and between those hours--and, indeed, +from the very moment of Mr. Bessel's first rush from his rooms at +half-past nine in the evening--they could trace the deepening violence +of his fantastic career. For the last hour, at least from before one, +that is, until a quarter to two, he had run amuck through London, +eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him. + +But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses +were multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or +pursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to +two he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street, +flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame +therefrom at the windows of the houses he passed. But none of the +policemen on Euston Road beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor any of +those in the side streets down which he must have passed had he left the +Euston Road, had seen anything of him. Abruptly he disappeared. Nothing +of his subsequent doings came to light in spite of the keenest inquiry. + +Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerable +comfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: “He is bound to be laid by the heels +before long,” and in that assurance he had been able to suspend his +mental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined to add +new impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers of his +acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory might not have +played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any of these things +could possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he hunted up Mr. Hart +again to share the intolerable weight on his mind. He found Mr. Hart +engaged with a well-known private detective, but as that gentleman +accomplished nothing in this case, we need not enlarge upon his +proceedings. + +All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active +inquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion in +the back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention, and all +through the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face of anguish pursued +him through his dreams. And whenever he saw Mr. Bessel in his dreams he +also saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that seemed to be +pursuing Mr. Bessel. + +It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certain +remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting +attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her. +She was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. Wilson +Paget, and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before, +repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help. +But scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Paget +interrupted him. “Last night--just at the end,” he said, “we had a +communication.” + +He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain words +written in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably the handwriting +of Mr. Bessel! + +“How did you get this?” said Mr. Vincey. “Do you mean--?” + +“We got it last night,” said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptions +from Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had been +obtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into a +condition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under her +eyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk very +rapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time one +or both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils are +provided they will then write messages simultaneously with and quite +independently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many she is +considered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated Mrs. +Piper. It was one of these messages, the one written by her left hand, +that Mr. Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight words written +disconnectedly: “George Bessel... trial excavn.... Baker Street... +help... starvation.” Curiously enough, neither Doctor Paget nor the two +other inquirers who were present had heard of the disappearance of +Mr. Bessel--the news of it appeared only in the evening papers of +Saturday--and they had put the message aside with many others of a vague +and enigmatical sort that Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered. + +When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once with +great energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of Mr. Bessel. +It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the inquiries of Mr. +Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a genuine one, and that +Mr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid. + +He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk and +abandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric railway +near Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were broken. +The shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and over this, +incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged gentleman, +must have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft. He was saturated in +colza oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him, but luckily the flame +had been extinguished by his fall. And his madness had passed from him +altogether. But he was, of course, terribly enfeebled, and at the sight +of his rescuers he gave way to hysterical weeping. + +In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the house +of Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a sedative +treatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis through +which he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second day he +volunteered a statement. + +Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated this +statement--to myself among other people--varying the details as the +narrator of real experiences always does, but never by any chance +contradicting himself in any particular. And the statement he makes is +in substance as follows. + +In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to his +experiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's +first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey, +were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all of +them he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting out of the +body--“willing it with all my might,” he says. At last, almost against +expectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that he, being alive, +did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body and pass into some +place or state outside this world. + +The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. “At one moment I was seated +in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping the arms of +the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind on Vincey, and then +I perceived myself outside my body--saw my body near me, but certainly +not containing me, with the hands relaxing and the head drooping forward +on the breast.” + +Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes in a +quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced. He felt he +had become impalpable--so much he had expected, but he had not expected +to find himself enormously large. So, however, it would seem he became. +“I was a great cloud--if I may express it that way--anchored to my body. +It appeared to me, at first, as if I had discovered a greater self of +which the conscious being in my brain was only a little part. I saw the +Albany and Piccadilly and Regent Street and all the rooms and places in +the houses, very minute and very bright and distinct, spread out below +me like a little city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague +shapes like drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little +indistinct, but at first I paid little heed to them. The thing that +astonished me most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite +distinctly the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw little +people dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining, +playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several +places of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching the +affairs of a glass hive.” + +Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told +me the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space +observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped down, +and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of, attempted to +touch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could not do so, though +his finger seemed to pass through the man. Something prevented his doing +this, but what it was he finds it hard to describe. He compares the +obstacle to a sheet of glass. + +“I felt as a kitten may feel,” he said, “when it goes for the first time +to pat its reflection in a mirror.” Again and again, on the occasion +when I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that comparison +of the sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise comparison, +because, as the reader will speedily see, there were interruptions of +this generally impermeable resistance, means of getting through the +barrier to the material world again. But, naturally, there is a very +great difficulty in expressing these unprecedented impressions in the +language of everyday experience. + +A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon him +throughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place--he was +in a world without sound. + +At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder. His +thought chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was out of +the body--out of his material body, at any rate--but that was not all. +He believes, and I for one believe also, that he was somewhere out of +space, as we understand it, altogether. By a strenuous effort of will +he had passed out of his body into a world beyond this world, a world +undreamt of, yet lying so close to it and so strangely situated with +regard to it that all things on this earth are clearly visible both from +without and from within in this other world about us. For a long time, +as it seemed to him, this realisation occupied his mind to the exclusion +of all other matters, and then he recalled the engagement with Mr. +Vincey, to which this astonishing experience was, after all, but a +prelude. + +He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found +himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment +to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body of +his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed with his +efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link that bound +him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by what appeared to be +whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then through a momentary gap he saw +his drooping body collapse limply, saw his lifeless head drop sideways, +and found he was driving along like a huge cloud in a strange place of +shadowy clouds that had the luminous intricacy of London spread like a +model below. + +But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was something +more than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first essay +was shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly, and then +suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES! that each roll +and coil of the seeming cloud-stuff was a face. And such faces! Faces of +thin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity. Faces like those faces that glare +with intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his +dreams. Evil, greedy eyes that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces +with knit brows and snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched +at Mr. Bessel as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an +elusive streak of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never a +sound from the mouths that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressed +in that dreamy silence, passing freely through the dim mistiness that +was his body, gathering ever more numerously about him. And the shadowy +Mr. Bessel, now suddenly fear-stricken, drove through the silent, active +multitude of eyes and clutching hands. + +So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes, and +shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel to +attempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms, they +seemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden the boon of +being, whose only expressions and gestures told of the envy and craving +for life that was their one link with existence. + +It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud of these +noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey. He made +a violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how, stooping +towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert in his +arm-chair by the fire. + +And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all that +lives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless +shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life. + +For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's +attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects in +his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected, ignorant of +the being that was so close to his own. The strange something that Mr. +Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated them impermeably. + +And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that in +some strange way he could see not only the outside of a man as we see +him, but within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust his vague black +fingers, as it seemed, through the heedless brain. + +Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention +from wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a little +dark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled and +glowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown anatomical +figures of the brain, and he knows now that this is that useless +structure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For, strange as it will +seem to many, we have, deep in our brains--where it cannot possibly +see any earthly light--an eye! At the time this, with the rest of the +internal anatomy of the brain, was quite new to him. At the sight of +its changed appearance, however, he thrust forth his finger, and, +rather fearful still of the consequences, touched this little spot. And +instantly Mr. Vincey started, and Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen. + +And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened to his +body, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world of shadows +and tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that he thought no more +of Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all the countless faces +drove back with him like leaves before a gale. But he returned too +late. In an instant he saw the body that he had left inert and +collapsed--lying, indeed, like the body of a man just dead--had arisen, +had arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond his own. It stood +with staring eyes, stretching its limbs in dubious fashion. + +For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped towards +it. But the pane of glass had closed against him again, and he was +foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and all about him the +spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked. He gave way to furious +anger. He compares himself to a bird that has fluttered heedlessly +into a room and is beating at the window-pane that holds it back from +freedom. + +And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing with +delight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts; he saw +the violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling his cherished +furniture about in the mad delight of existence, rend his books apart, +smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged fragments, leap and +smite in a passionate acceptance of living. He watched these actions +in paralysed astonishment. Then once more he hurled himself against the +impassable barrier, and then with all that crew of mocking ghosts about +him, hurried back in dire confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outrage +that had come upon him. + +But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and the +disembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out into +Holborn to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel swept back +again, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious frenzy down +the Burlington Arcade.... + +And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's +interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being whose +frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury and disaster +had indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel. It was an evil +spirit out of that strange world beyond existence, into which Mr. Bessel +had so rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held possession of him, and +for all those twenty hours the dispossessed spirit-body of Mr. Bessel +was going to and fro in that unheard-of middle world of shadows seeking +help in vain. He spent many hours beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey and +of his friend Mr. Hart. Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. But +the language that might convey his situation to these helpers across the +gulf he did not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly +in their brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able to +turn Mr. Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolen +body in its career, but he could not make him understand the thing that +had happened: he was unable to draw any help from that encounter.... + +All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel's +mind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant, and +he would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore. So that those +long hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever as he hurried to and +fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable spirits of that world +about him mobbed him and confused his mind. And ever an envious +applauding multitude poured after their successful fellow as he went +upon his glorious career. + +For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things of +this world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch, coveting +a way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend, as furies and +frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses, rejoicing in the +body they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only human soul in that +place. Witness the fact that he met first one, and afterwards several +shadows of men, men like himself, it seemed, who had lost their bodies +even it may be as he had lost his, and wandered, despairingly, in that +lost world that is neither life nor death. They could not speak because +that world is silent, yet he knew them for men because of their dim +human bodies, and because of the sadness of their faces. + +But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where the +bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about the earth, +or whether they were closed forever in death against return. That they +were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I believe. But Doctor Wilson +Paget thinks they are the rational souls of men who are lost in madness +on the earth. + +At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of such +disembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through them +he saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen and a +woman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting awkwardly +in a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from her portraits to +be Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived that tracts and structures +in her brain glowed and stirred as he had seen the pineal eye in the +brain of Mr. Vincey glow. The light was very fitful; sometimes it was a +broad illumination, and sometimes merely a faint twilight spot, and it +shifted slowly about her brain. She kept on talking and writing with one +hand. And Mr. Bessel saw that the crowding shadows of men about him, +and a great multitude of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all +striving and thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As one +gained her brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writing +of her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused +for the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now a +fragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies of the +spirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she spoke +for the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle very +furiously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd and at +that time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious, he went +away to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a long time +he went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it must have been +killed, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft in Baker Street, +writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and an arm and two +ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover, the evil spirit was angry +because his time had been so short and because of the painmaking violent +movements and casting his body about. + +And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the room +where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust himself +within sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood about the +medium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance should +presently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had been +striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the thought that the +seance was almost over only made Mr. Bessel the more earnest, and he +struggled so stoutly with his will against the others that presently he +gained the woman's brain. It chanced that just at that moment it glowed +very brightly, and in that instant she wrote the message that Doctor +Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other shadows and the cloud of evil +spirits about him had thrust Mr. Bessel away from her, and for all the +rest of the seance he could regain her no more. + +So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom of +the shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had maimed, +writhing and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning the lesson +of pain. And towards dawn the thing he had waited for happened, the +brain glowed brightly and the evil spirit came out, and Mr. Bessel +entered the body he had feared he should never enter again. As he did +so, the silence--the brooding silence--ended; he heard the tumult of +traffic and the voices of people overhead, and that strange world that +is the shadow of our world--the dark and silent shadows of ineffectual +desire and the shadows of lost men--vanished clean away. + +He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found. And +in spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim damp +place in which he lay; in spite of the tears--wrung from him by his +physical distress--his heart was full of gladness to know that he was +nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men. + + + + +11. MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE + +“You can't be TOO careful WHO you marry,” said Mr. Brisher, and pulled +thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache that hides +his want of chin. + +“That's why--” I ventured. + +“Yes,” said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey +eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol INTIMATELY at +me. “There's lots as 'ave 'ad a try at me--many as I could name in this +town--but none 'ave done it--none.” + +I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion, the +masterly carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think that +by reason of the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last of his +race. + +“I was a smart young chap when I was younger,” said Mr. Brisher. “I 'ad +my work cut out. But I was very careful--very. And I got through...” + +He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject of my +trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence. + +“I was engaged once,” he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on the +shuv-a'penny board. + +“So near as that?” + +He looked at me. “So near as that. Fact is--” He looked about him, +brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an +unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. “If she ain't dead or married to +some one else or anything--I'm engaged still. Now.” He confirmed this +statement with nods and facial contortions. “STILL,” he said, ending the +pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise. “ME!” + +“Run away,” he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows. “Come 'ome. + +“That ain't all. + +“You'd 'ardly believe it,” he said, “but I found a treasure. Found a +regular treasure.” + +I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper +surprise. “Yes,” he said, “I found a treasure. And come 'ome. I tell you +I could surprise you with things that has happened to me.” And for some +time he was content to repeat that he had found a treasure--and left it. + +I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr. +Brisher's bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted +lady. + +“She was a nice girl,” he said--a little sadly, I thought. “AND +respectable.” + +He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme +respectability--beyond the likes of us elderly men. + +“It was a long way from 'ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester. It was +when I was up in London--in the buildin' trade. I was a smart young +chap then, I can tell you. Slim. 'Ad best clo'es 's good as anybody. +'At--SILK 'at, mind you.” Mr. Brisher's hand shot above his head towards +the infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest. “Umbrella--nice +umbrella with a 'orn 'andle. Savin's. Very careful I was....” + +He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come to +think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth. But he +refrained, as one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral. + +“I got to know 'er through a chap what was engaged to 'er sister. She +was stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that 'ad a 'am an' beef +shop. This aunt was very particular--they was all very particular +people, all 'er people was--and wouldn't let 'er sister go out with this +feller except 'er other sister, MY girl that is, went with them. So 'e +brought me into it, sort of to ease the crowding. We used to go walks in +Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. Me in my topper, and 'im in 'is; +and the girl's--well--stylish. There wasn't many in Battersea Park 'ad +the larf of us. She wasn't what you'd call pretty, but a nicer girl I +never met. _I_ liked 'er from the start, and, well--though I say it who +shouldn't--she liked me. You know 'ow it is, I dessay?” + +I pretended I did. + +“And when this chap married 'er sister--'im and me was great +friends--what must 'e do but arst me down to Colchester, close by where +She lived. Naturally I was introjuced to 'er people, and well, very +soon, her and me was engaged.” + +He repeated “engaged.” + +“She lived at 'ome with 'er father and mother, quite the lady, in a very +nice little 'ouse with a garden--and remarkable respectable people they +was. Rich you might call 'em a'most. They owned their own 'ouse--got +it out of the Building Society, and cheap because the chap who had it +before was a burglar and in prison--and they 'ad a bit of free'old land, +and some cottages and money 'nvested--all nice and tight: they was what +you'd call snug and warm. I tell you, I was On. Furniture too. Why! They +'ad a pianner. Jane--'er name was Jane--used to play it Sundays, and +very nice she played too. There wasn't 'ardly a 'im toon in the book she +COULDN'T play... + +“Many's the evenin' we've met and sung 'ims there, me and 'er and the +family. + +“'Er father was quite a leadin' man in chapel. You should ha' seen him +Sundays, interruptin' the minister and givin' out 'ims. He had gold +spectacles, I remember, and used to look over 'em at you while he sang +hearty--he was always great on singing 'earty to the Lord--and when HE +got out o' toon 'arf the people went after 'im--always. 'E was that sort +of man. And to walk be'ind 'im in 'is nice black clo'es--'is 'at was a +brimmer--made one regular proud to be engaged to such a father-in-law. +And when the summer came I went down there and stopped a fortnight. + +“Now, you know there was a sort of Itch,” said Mr. Brisher. “We wanted +to marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad +to get a proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch. +Consequently, when I went down there, I was anxious to show that I was a +good useful sort of chap like. Show I could do pretty nearly everything +like. See?” + +I made a sympathetic noise. + +“And down at the bottom of their garden was a bit of wild part like. So +I says to 'im, 'Why don't you 'ave a rockery 'ere?' I says. 'It 'ud look +nice.' + +“'Too much expense,' he says. + +“'Not a penny,' says I. 'I'm a dab at rockeries. Lemme make you one.' +You see, I'd 'elped my brother make a rockery in the beer garden be'ind +'is tap, so I knew 'ow to do it to rights. 'Lemme make you one,' I says. +'It's 'olidays, but I'm that sort of chap, I 'ate doing nothing,' I +says. 'I'll make you one to rights.' And the long and the short of it +was, he said I might. + +“And that's 'ow I come on the treasure.” + +“What treasure?” I asked. + +“Why!” said Mr. Brisher, “the treasure I'm telling you about, what's the +reason why I never married.” + +“What!--a treasure--dug up?” + +“Yes--buried wealth--treasure trove. Come out of the ground. What I +kept on saying--regular treasure....” He looked at me with unusual +disrespect. + +“It wasn't more than a foot deep, not the top of it,” he said. “I'd +'ardly got thirsty like, before I come on the corner.” + +“Go on,” I said. “I didn't understand.” + +“Why! Directly I 'it the box I knew it was treasure. A sort of instinct +told me. Something seemed to shout inside of me--'Now's your chance--lie +low.' It's lucky I knew the laws of treasure trove or I'd 'ave been +shoutin' there and then. I daresay you know--” + +“Crown bags it,” I said, “all but one per cent. Go on. It's a shame. +What did you do?” + +“Uncovered the top of the box. There wasn't anybody in the garden or +about like. Jane was 'elping 'er mother do the 'ouse. I WAS excited--I +tell you. I tried the lock and then gave a whack at the hinges. Open it +came. Silver coins--full! Shining. It made me tremble to see 'em. And +jest then--I'm blessed if the dustman didn't come round the back of the +'ouse. It pretty nearly gave me 'eart disease to think what a fool I +was to 'ave that money showing. And directly after I 'eard the chap next +door--'e was 'olidaying, too--I 'eard him watering 'is beans. If only +'e'd looked over the fence!” + +“What did you do?” + +“Kicked the lid on again and covered it up like a shot, and went on +digging about a yard away from it--like mad. And my face, so to speak, +was laughing on its own account till I had it hid. I tell you I was +regular scared like at my luck. I jest thought that it 'ad to be +kep' close and that was all. 'Treasure,' I kep' whisperin' to myself, +'Treasure' and ''undreds of pounds, 'undreds, 'undreds of pounds.' +Whispering to myself like, and digging like blazes. It seemed to me the +box was regular sticking out and showing, like your legs do under the +sheets in bed, and I went and put all the earth I'd got out of my 'ole +for the rockery slap on top of it. I WAS in a sweat. And in the midst of +it all out toddles 'er father. He didn't say anything to me, jest stood +behind me and stared, but Jane tole me afterwards when he went indoors, +'e says, 'That there jackanapes of yours, Jane'--he always called me +a jackanapes some'ow--'knows 'ow to put 'is back into it after all.' +Seemed quite impressed by it, 'e did.” + +“How long was the box?” I asked, suddenly. + +“'Ow long?” said Mr. Brisher. + +“Yes--in length?” + +“Oh! 'bout so-by-so.” Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk. + +“FULL?” said I. + +“Full up of silver coins--'arf-crowns, I believe.” + +“Why!” I cried, “that would mean--hundreds of pounds.” + +“Thousands,” said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. “I calc'lated it +out.” + +“But how did they get there?” + +“All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this. The +chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular slap-up +burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive 'is +trap--like Peace did.” Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties of +narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. “I don't know if I +told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's father's, +and I knew 'e'd robbed a mail train once, I did know that. It seemed to +me--” + +“That's very likely,” I said. “But what did you do?” + +“Sweated,” said Mr. Brisher. “Regular run orf me. All that morning,” + said Mr. Brisher, “I was at it, pretending to make that rockery and +wondering what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps, only I was +doubtful of 'is honesty--I was afraid he might rob me of it like, and +give it up to the authorities--and besides, considering I was marrying +into the family, I thought it would be nicer like if it came through me. +Put me on a better footing, so to speak. Well, I 'ad three days before +me left of my 'olidays, so there wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and +went on digging, and tried to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. +Only I couldn't. + +“I thought,” said Mr. Brisher, “AND I thought. Once I got regular +doubtful whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it +uncovered again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin' +she'd done. Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave another +go at it, when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready. 'You'll want it,' +she said, 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.' + +“I was in a regular daze all dinner, wondering whether that chap next +door wasn't over the fence and filling 'is pockets. But in the afternoon +I got easier in my mind--it seemed to me it must 'ave been there so long +it was pretty sure to stop a bit longer--and I tried to get up a bit of +a discussion to dror out the old man and see what 'E thought of treasure +trove.” + +Mr. Brisher paused, and affected amusement at the memory. + +“The old man was a scorcher,” he said; “a regular scorcher.” + +“What!” said I; “did he--?” + +“It was like this,” explained Mr. Brisher, laying a friendly hand on my +arm and breathing into my face to calm me. “Just to dror 'im out, I told +a story of a chap I said I knew--pretendin', you know--who'd found a +sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said 'e stuck to it, but I said +I wasn't sure whether that was right or not. And then the old man +began. Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!” Mr. Brisher affected an insincere +amusement. “'E was, well--what you might call a rare 'and at Snacks. +Said that was the sort of friend 'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said +'e'd naturally expect that from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who +took up with daughters who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell +you 'ARF 'e said. 'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about +it, just to dror 'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you +found it in the street?' I says. 'Certainly not,' 'e says; 'certainly +I wouldn't.' 'What! not if you found it as a sort of treasure?' +'Young man,' 'e says, 'there's 'i'er 'thority than mine--Render unto +Caesar'--what is it? Yes. Well, he fetched up that. A rare 'and at +'itting you over the 'ed with the Bible, was the old man. And so he +went on. 'E got to such Snacks about me at last I couldn't stand it. I'd +promised Jane not to answer 'im back, but it got a bit TOO thick. I--I +give it 'im...” + +Mr. Brisher, by means of enigmatical facework, tried to make me think he +had had the best of that argument, but I knew better. + +“I went out in a 'uff at last. But not before I was pretty sure I 'ad +to lift that treasure by myself. The only thing that kep' me up was +thinking 'ow I'd take it out of 'im when I 'ad the cash.” + +There was a lengthy pause. + +“Now, you'd 'ardly believe it, but all them three days I never 'ad a +chance at the blessed treasure, never got out not even a 'arf-crown. +There was always a Somethink--always. + +“'Stonishing thing it isn't thought of more,” said Mr. Brisher. “Finding +treasure's no great shakes. It's gettin' it. I don't suppose I slep' a +wink any of those nights, thinking where I was to take it, what I was to +do with it, 'ow I was to explain it. It made me regular ill. And days I +was that dull, it made Jane regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you +was in London,' she says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father +and 'is Snacks, but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but +that I'd got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had a +bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem to mind +a bit Anything she said. + +“Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at +planning, though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it +all out and settled on a plan. First, I was going to take all my pockets +full of these 'ere 'arf-crowns--see?--and afterwards as I shall tell. + +“Well, I got to that state I couldn't think of getting at the Treasure +again in the daytime, so I waited until the night before I had to go, +and then, when everything was still, up I gets and slips down to +the back door, meaning to get my pockets full. What must I do in the +scullery but fall over a pail! Up gets 'er father with a gun--'e was a +light sleeper was 'er father, and very suspicious and there was me: 'ad +to explain I'd come down to the pump for a drink because my water-bottle +was bad. 'E didn't let me off a Snack or two over that bit, you lay a +bob.” + +“And you mean to say--” I began. + +“Wait a bit,” said Mr. Brisher. “I say, I'd made my plan. That put the +kybosh on one bit, but it didn't 'urt the general scheme not a bit. +I went and I finished that rockery next day, as though there wasn't a +Snack in the world; cemented over the stones, I did, dabbed it green and +everythink. I put a dab of green just to show where the box was. They +all came and looked at it, and sai 'ow nice it was--even 'e was a bit +softer like to see it, and all he said was, 'It's a pity you can't +always work like that, then you might get something definite to do,' he +says. + +“'Yes,' I says--I couldn't 'elp it--'I put a lot in that rockery,' I +says, like that. See? 'I put a lot in that rockery'--meaning--” + +“I see,” said I--for Mr. Brisher is apt to overelaborate his jokes. + +“_'E_ didn't,” said Mr. Brisher. “Not then, anyhow. + +“Ar'ever--after all that was over, off I set for London.... Orf I set +for London.” + +Pause. + +“On'y I wasn't going to no London,” said Mr. Brisher, with sudden +animation, and thrusting his face into mine. “No fear! What do YOU +think? + +“I didn't go no further than Colchester--not a yard. + +“I'd left the spade just where I could find it. I'd got everything +planned and right. I 'ired a little trap in Colchester, and pretended I +wanted to go to Ipswich and stop the night, and come back next day, and +the chap I 'ired it from made me leave two sovrings on it right away, +and off I set. + +“I didn't go to no Ipswich neither. + +“Midnight the 'orse and trap was 'itched by the little road that ran by +the cottage where 'e lived--not sixty yards off, it wasn't--and I was at +it like a good 'un. It was jest the night for such games--overcast--but +a trifle too 'ot, and all round the sky there was summer lightning and +presently a thunderstorm. Down it came. First big drops in a sort of +fizzle, then 'ail. I kep'on. I whacked at it--I didn't dream the old man +would 'ear. I didn't even trouble to go quiet with the spade, and the +thunder and lightning and 'ail seemed to excite me like. I shouldn't +wonder if I was singing. I got so 'ard at it I clean forgot the thunder +and the 'orse and trap. I precious soon got the box showing, and started +to lift it....” + +“Heavy?” I said. + +“I couldn't no more lift it than fly. I WAS sick. I'd never thought of +that I got regular wild--I tell you, I cursed. I got sort of outrageous. +I didn't think of dividing it like for the minute, and even then I +couldn't 'ave took money about loose in a trap. I hoisted one end sort +of wild like, and over the whole show went with a tremenjous noise. +Perfeck smash of silver. And then right on the heels of that, Flash! +Lightning like the day! and there was the back door open and the old +man coming down the garden with 'is blooming old gun. He wasn't not a +'undred yards away! + +“I tell you I was that upset--I didn't think what I was doing. I never +stopped-not even to fill my pockets. I went over the fence like a shot, +and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and swearing as I went. I +WAS in a state.... + +“And will you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left the +'orse and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't a cuss left +for it. I jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced enough I started +off to London.... I was done.” + +Mr. Brisher was pensive for an interval. “I was done,” he repeated, very +bitterly. + +“Well?” I said. + +“That's all,” said Mr. Brisher. + +“You didn't go back?” + +“No fear. I'd 'ad enough of THAT blooming treasure, any'ow for a bit. +Besides, I didn't know what was done to chaps who tried to collar a +treasure trove. I started off for London there and then....” + +“And you never went back?” + +“Never.” + +“But about Jane? Did you write?” + +“Three times, fishing like. And no answer. We'd parted in a bit of a +'uff on account of 'er being jealous. So that I couldn't make out for +certain what it meant. + +“I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know whether the old man knew +it was me. I sort of kep' an eye open on papers to see when he'd give +up that treasure to the Crown, as I hadn't a doubt 'e would, considering +'ow respectable he'd always been.” + +“And did he?” + +Mr. Brisher pursed his mouth and moved his head slowly from side to +side. “Not 'IM,” he said. + +“Jane was a nice girl,” he said, “a thorough nice girl mind you, if +jealous, and there's no knowing I mightn't 'ave gone back to 'er after a +bit. I thought if he didn't give up the treasure I might 'ave a sort +of 'old on 'im.... Well, one day I looks as usual under Colchester--and +there I saw 'is name. What for, d'yer think?” + +I could not guess. + +Mr. Brisher's voice sank to a whisper, and once more he spoke behind +his hand. His manner was suddenly suffused with a positive joy. “Issuing +counterfeit coins,” he said. “Counterfeit coins!” + +“You don't mean to say--?” + +“Yes-It. Bad. Quite a long case they made of it. But they got 'im, +though he dodged tremenjous. Traced 'is 'aving passed, oh!--nearly a +dozen bad 'arf-crowns.” + +“And you didn't--?” + +“No fear. And it didn't do 'IM much good to say it was treasure trove.” + + + + +12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART + +Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind for +a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her conversation +that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome, and who were +not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal grievance against her. +Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly to convince her that Rome +was not nearly such a desirable place as it was reported to be, and +others had gone so far as to suggest behind her back that she was +dreadfully “stuck up” about “that Rome of hers.” And little Lily +Hardhurst had told her friend Mr. Binns that so far as she was concerned +Miss Winchelsea might “go to her old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily +Hardhurst) wouldn't grieve.” And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put +herself upon terms of personal tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto +Cellini and Raphael and Shelley and Keats--if she had been Shelley's +widow she could not have professed a keener interest in his grave--was +a matter of universal astonishment. Her dress was a triumph of tactful +discretion, sensible, but not too “touristy”--Miss Winchelsea, had a +great dread of being “touristy”--and her Baedeker was carried in a cover +of grey to hide its glaring red. She made a prim and pleasant little +figure on the Charing Cross platform, in spite of her swelling pride, +when at last the great day dawned, and she could start for Rome. The +day was bright, the Channel passage would be pleasant, and all the +omens promised well. There was the gayest sense of adventure in this +unprecedented departure. + +She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her +at the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good at +history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up to her +immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she anticipated +some pleasant times to be spent in “stirring them up” to her own pitch +of aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had secured seats already, +and welcomed her effusively at the carriage door. In the instant +criticism of the encounter she noted that Fanny had a slightly +“touristy” leather strap, and that Helen had succumbed to a serge jacket +with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust. But they were much +too happy with themselves and the expedition for their friend to +attempt any hint at the moment about these things. As soon as the first +ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was a little noisy and crude, +and consisted mainly in emphatic repetitions of “Just FANCY! we're +going to Rome, my dear!--Rome!”--they gave their attention to their +fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to secure a compartment to +themselves, and, in order to discourage intruders, got out and planted +herself firmly on the step. Miss Winchelsea peeped out over her +shoulder, and made sly little remarks about the accumulating people on +the platform, at which Fanny laughed gleefully. + +They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen +days in Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personally +conducted party of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but they +travelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement. The +people were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing. There was a +vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in a pepper-and-salt +suit, very long in the arms and legs and very active. He shouted +proclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he stretched out an arm +and held them until his purpose was accomplished. One hand was full of +papers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists. The people of the personally +conducted party were, it seemed, of two sorts; people the conductor +wanted and could not find, and people he did not want and who followed +him in a steadily growing tail up and down the platform. These people +seemed, indeed, to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay +in keeping close to him. Three little old ladies were particularly +energetic in his pursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of +clapping them into a carriage and daring them to emerge again. For the +rest of the time, one, two, or three of their heads protruded from the +window wailing enquiries about “a little wickerwork box” whenever he +drew near. There was a very stout man with a very stout wife in shiny +black; there was a little old man like an aged hostler. + +“What CAN such people want in Rome?” asked Miss Winchelsea. “What can it +mean to them?” There was a very tall curate in a very small straw hat, +and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera stand. The contrast +amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some one calling for “Snooks.” + “I always thought that name was invented by novelists,” said Miss +Winchelsea. “Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which IS Mr. Snooks.” Finally they +picked out a very stout and resolute little man in a large check suit. +“If he isn't Snooks, he ought to be,” said Miss Winchelsea. + +Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner in +carriages. “Room for five,” he bawled with a parallel translation on +his fingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two +daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. “It's all right, Ma, you +let me,” said one of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet with +a handbag she struggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea detested +people who banged about and called their mother “Ma.” A young man +travelling alone followed. He was not at all “touristy” in his costume, +Miss Winchelsea observed; his Gladstone bag was of good pleasant leather +with labels reminiscent of Luxembourg and Ostend, and his boots, though +brown, were not vulgar. He carried an overcoat on his arm. Before these +people had properly settled in their places, came an inspection of +tickets and a slamming of doors, and behold! they were gliding out of +Charing Cross station on their way to Rome. + +“Fancy!” cried Fanny, “we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! I don't seem +to believe it, even now.” + +Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile, and +the lady who was called “Ma” explained to people in general why they +had “cut it so close” at the station. The two daughters called her “Ma” + several times, toned her down in a tactless effective way, and drove her +at last to the muttered inventory of a basket of travelling requisites. +Presently she looked up. “Lor'!” she said, “I didn't bring THEM!” + Both the daughters said “Oh, Ma!” but what “them” was did not appear. +Presently Fanny produced Hare's Walks in Rome, a sort of mitigated +guide-book very popular among Roman visitors; and the father of the two +daughters began to examine his books of tickets minutely, apparently in +a search after English words. When he had looked at the tickets for a +long time right way up, he turned them upside down. Then he produced +a fountain pen and dated them with considerable care. The young man, +having completed an unostentatious survey of his fellow travellers, +produced a book and fell to reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking +out of the window at Chiselhurst--the place interested Fanny because the +poor dear Empress of the French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took +the opportunity to observe the book the young man held. It was not a +guide-book, but a little thin volume of poetry--BOUND. She glanced at +his face--it seemed a refined pleasant face to her hasty glance. He wore +a little gilt pince-nez. “Do you think she lives there now?” said Fanny, +and Miss Winchelsea's inspection came to an end. + +For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what she +said was as pleasant and as stamped with refinement as she could make +it. Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant, and she took care +that on this occasion it was particularly low and clear and pleasant. +As they came under the white cliffs the young man put his book of poetry +away, and when at last the train stopped beside the boat, he displayed +a graceful alacrity with the impedimenta of Miss Winchelsea and her +friends. Miss Winchelsea hated nonsense, but she was pleased to see +the young man perceived at once that they were ladies, and helped +them without any violent geniality; and how nicely he showed that his +civilities were to be no excuse for further intrusions. None of her +little party had been out of England before, and they were all excited +and a little nervous at the Channel passage. They stood in a little +group in a good place near the middle of the boat--the young man had +taken Miss Winchelsea's carry-all there and had told her it was a good +place--and they watched the white shores of Albion recede and quoted +Shakespeare and made quiet fun of their fellow travellers in the English +way. + +They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized people +had taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks prevailed, one +lady lay full-length in a deck chair with a handkerchief over her face, +and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown “touristy” suit walked +all the way from England to France along the deck, with his legs +as widely apart as Providence permitted. These were all excellent +precautions, and, nobody was ill. The personally conducted party pursued +the conductor about the deck with enquiries in a manner that suggested +to Helen's mind the rather vulgar image of hens with a piece of bacon +peel, until at last he went into hiding below. And the young man with +the thin volume of poetry stood at the stern watching England receding, +looking rather lonely and sad to Miss Winchelsea's eye. + +And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man had not +forgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little things. All +three girls, though they had passed government examinations in French +to any extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their accents, and +the young man was very useful. And he did not intrude. He put them in a +comfortable carriage and raised his hat and went away. Miss Winchelsea +thanked him in her best manner--a pleasing, cultivated manner--and Fanny +said he was “nice” almost before he was out of earshot. “I wonder what +he can be,” said Helen. “He's going to Italy, because I noticed green +tickets in his book.” Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, +and decided not to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold +upon them and the young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they +were doing an educated sort of thing to travel through a country whose +commonest advertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea +made unpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-board +advertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that +deface the landscape in our land. But the north of France is really +uninteresting country, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's Walks +and Helen initiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy reverie; +she had been trying to realise, she said, that she was actually going to +Rome, but she perceived at Helen's suggestion that she was hungry, and +they lunched out of their baskets very cheerfully. In the afternoon they +were tired and silent until Helen made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have +dozed, only she knew Fanny slept with her mouth open; and as their +fellow passengers were two rather nice critical-looking ladies of +uncertain age--who knew French well enough to talk it--she employed +herself in keeping Fanny awake. The rhythm of the train became +insistent, and the streaming landscape outside became at last quite +painful to the eye. They were already dreadfully tired of travelling +before their night's stoppage came. + +The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of the young +man, and his manners were all that could be desired and his French quite +serviceable. His coupons availed for the same hotel as theirs, and by +chance as it seemed he sat next Miss Winchelsea at the table d'hote. +In spite of her enthusiasm for Rome, she had thought out some such +possibility very thoroughly, and when he ventured to make a remark upon +the tediousness of travelling--he let the soup and fish go by before he +did this--she did not simply assent to his proposition, but responded +with another. They were soon comparing their journeys, and Helen and +Fanny were cruelly overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the same +journey, they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--“from what I +hear,” said the young man, “it is barely enough,”--and the rest at Rome. +He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite well read, and +he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had “done” that book of +Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted to cap his quotation. It +gave a sort of tone to things, this incident--a touch of refinement to +mere chatting. Fanny expressed a few emotions, and Helen interpolated +a few sensible remarks, but the bulk of the talk on the girls' side +naturally fell to Miss Winchelsea. + +Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party. They +did not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught, and Miss +Winchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer. At any rate +he was something of that sort, something gentlemanly and refined without +being opulent and impossible. She tried once or twice to ascertain +whether he came from Oxford or Cambridge, but he missed her timid +importunities. She tried to get him to make remarks about those places +to see if he would say “come up” to them instead of “go down”--she knew +that was how you told a 'Varsity man. He used the word “'Varsity”--not +university--in quite the proper way. + +They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted; +he met them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting +brightly, and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew a +great deal about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely. It was +fine to go round recognising old favourites and finding new beauties, +especially while so many people fumbled helplessly with Baedeker. Nor +was he a bit of a prig, Miss Winchelsea said, and indeed she detested +prigs. He had a distinct undertone of humour, and was funny, for +example, without being vulgar, at the expense of the quaint work of +Beato Angelico. He had a grave seriousness beneath it all, and was quick +to seize the moral lessons of the pictures. Fanny went softly among +these masterpieces; she admitted “she knew so little about them,” and +she confessed that to her they were “all beautiful.” Fanny's “beautiful” + inclined to be a little monotonous, Miss Winchelsea thought. She had +been quite glad when the last sunny Alp had vanished, because of the +staccato of Fanny's admiration. Helen said little, but Miss Winchelsea +had found her a little wanting on the aesthetic side in the old days and +was not surprised; sometimes she laughed at the young man's hesitating +delicate little jests and sometimes she didn't, and sometimes she seemed +quite lost to the art about them in the contemplation of the dresses of +the other visitors. + +At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather “touristy” + friend of his took him away at times. He complained comically to Miss +Winchelsea. “I have only two short weeks in Rome,” he said, “and my +friend Leonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli, looking at a +waterfall.” + +“What is your friend Leonard?” asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly. + +“He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met,” the young man +replied, amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelsea +thought. They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think what +they would have done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest and +Fanny's enormous capacity for admiration were insatiable. They never +flagged--through pictures and sculpture galleries, immense crowded +churches, ruins and museums, Judas trees and prickly pears, wine carts +and palaces, they admired their way unflinchingly. They never saw a +stone pine or a eucalyptus but they named and admired it; they never +glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. Their common ways were made +wonderful by imaginative play. “Here Caesar may have walked,” they would +say. “Raphael may have seen Soracte from this very point.” They happened +on the tomb of Bibulus. “Old Bibulus,” said the young man. “The oldest +monument of Republican Rome!” said Miss Winchelsea. + +“I'm dreadfully stupid,” said Fanny, “but who WAS Bibulus?” + +There was a curious little pause. + +“Wasn't he the person who built the wall?” said Helen. + +The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. “That was Balbus,” he +said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw any light +upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus. + +Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was always +taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets and things like +that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took them, and told him +where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times they had, these +young people, in that pale brown cleanly city of memories that was once +the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness of the time. They said +indeed that the electric trams and the '70 buildings, and that criminal +advertisement that glares upon the Forum, outraged their aesthetic +feelings unspeakably; but that was only part of the fun. And indeed Rome +is such a wonderful place that it made Miss Winchelsea forget some +of her most carefully prepared enthusiasms at times, and Helen, taken +unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty of unexpected things. Yet +Fanny and Helen would have liked a shop window or so in the English +quarter if Miss Winchelsea's uncompromising hostility to all other +English visitors had not rendered that district impossible. + +The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and the +scholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling. +The exuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite +admiration by playing her “beautiful,” with vigour, and saying “Oh! +LET'S go,” with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest was +mentioned. But Helen developed a certain want of sympathy towards the +end, that disappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She refused to “see +anything” in the face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's Beatrice Cenci!--in +the Barberini gallery; and one day, when they were deploring the +electric trams, she said rather snappishly that “people must get about +somehow, and it's better than torturing horses up these horrid little +hills.” She spoke of the Seven Hills of Rome as “horrid little hills!” + +And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea did not +know of this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, “Don't hurry like that, +my dear; THEY don't want us to overtake them. And we don't say the right +things for them when we DO get near.” + +“I wasn't trying to overtake them,” said Fanny, slackening her excessive +pace; “I wasn't indeed.” And for a minute she was short of breath. + +But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she came +to look back across an intervening tragedy that she quite realised +how happy she had been, pacing among the cypress-shadowed ruins, and +exchanging the very highest class of information the human mind +can possess, the most refined impressions it is possible to convey. +Insensibly emotion crept into their intercourse, sunning itself +openly and pleasantly at last when Helen's modernity was not too near. +Insensibly their interest drifted from the wonderful associations about +them to their more intimate and personal feelings. In a tentative way +information was supplied; she spoke allusively of her school, of her +examination successes, of her gladness that the days of “Cram” were +over. He made it quite clear that he also was a teacher. They spoke of +the greatness of their calling, of the necessity of sympathy to face its +irksome details, of a certain loneliness they sometimes felt. + +That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day, +because Helen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper +galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and +concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured +that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying way to his +students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual mate and +helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus, with white +shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti +and Burne-Jones, with Morris's wall papers and flowers in pots of beaten +copper. Indeed she figured many things. On the Pincio the two had a few +precious moments together, while Helen marched Fanny off to see the muro +Torto, and he spoke at once plainly. He said he hoped their friendship +was only beginning, that he already found her company very precious to +him, that indeed it was more than that. + +He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers as +though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. “I should of course,” + he said, “tell you things about myself. I know it is rather unusual my +speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has been so accidental--or +providential--and I am snatching at things. I came to Rome expecting +a lonely tour... and I have been so very happy, so very happy. Quite +recently I found myself in a position--I have dared to think--. And--” + +He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said “Damn!” quite +distinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse into +profanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drew +nearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was almost +a grin. “I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks,” he said. “You +promised to be on the Piazza steps half an hour ago.” + +Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face. She +did not hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard must have +considered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day she is not sure +whether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor what she said to +him. A sort of mental paralysis was upon her. Of all offensive +surnames--Snooks! + +Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young +men were receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face the +enquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived the life +of a heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name, chatting, +observing, with “Snooks” gnawing at her heart. From the moment that it +first rang upon her ears, the dream of her happiness was prostrate in +the dust. All the refinement she had figured was ruined and defaced by +that cognomen's unavoidable vulgarity. + +What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes, Morris +papers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an incredible +inscription: “Mrs. Snooks.” That may seem a little thing to the reader, +but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's mind. Be as +refined as you can and then think of writing yourself down:--“Snooks.” + She conceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks by all the people +she liked least, conceived the patronymic touched with a vague quality +of insult. She figured a card of grey and silver bearing “Winchelsea,” + triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow, in favour of “Snooks.” + Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She imagined the terrible +rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain grocer cousins from whom +her growing refinement had long since estranged her. How they would +make it sprawl across the envelope that would bring their sarcastic +congratulations. Would even his pleasant company compensate her for +that? “It is impossible,” she muttered; “impossible! SNOOKS!” + +She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself. For him +she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined, while all the +time he was “Snooks,” to hide under a pretentious gentility of demeanour +the badge sinister of his surname seemed a sort of treachery. To put it +in the language of sentimental science she felt he had “led her on.” + +There were of course moments of terrible vacillation, a period even when +something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to the winds. And +there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige of vulgarity, that +made a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks was not so very bad a +name after all. Any hovering hesitation flew before Fanny's manner, when +Fanny came with an air of catastrophe to tell that she also knew the +horror. Fanny's voice fell to a whisper when she said SNOOKS. Miss +Winchelsea would not give him any answer when at last, in the Borghese, +she could have a minute with him; but she promised him a note. + +She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent her, +the little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal was +ambiguous, allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected +him than she could have told a cripple of his hump. He too must feel +something of the unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he had avoided +a dozen chances of telling it, she now perceived. So she spoke of +“obstacles she could not reveal”--“reasons why the thing he spoke of was +impossible.” She addressed the note with a shiver, “E. K. Snooks.” + +Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain. How +COULD she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful. She was +haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she had given him +intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine her mind thoroughly +for the extent of her encouragement. She knew he must think her the most +changeable of beings. Now that she was in full retreat, she would not +even perceive his hints of a possible correspondence. But in that matter +he did a thing that seemed to her at once delicate and romantic. He made +a go-between of Fanny. Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and +told her that night under a transparent pretext of needed advice. “Mr. +Snooks,” said Fanny, “wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But +should I let him?” They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss +Winchelsea was careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was +already repenting his disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of +him sometimes--painful though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea +decided it might be permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with +unusual emotion. After she had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time +at the window of her little room. It was moonlight, and down the street +a man sang “Santa Lucia” with almost heart-dissolving tenderness.... She +sat very still. + +She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was “SNOOKS.” Then +she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning he +said to her meaningly, “I shall hear of you through your friend.” + +Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative +perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen he +would have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand as a sort of +encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England Miss Winchelsea on +six separate occasions made Fanny promise to write to her the longest of +long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new +school--she was always going to new schools--would be only five miles +from Steely Bank, and it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or +two first-class schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even +see her at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always +spoke of “him,” never of Mr. Snooks,--because Helen was apt to say +unsympathetic things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much, +Miss Winchelsea perceived, since the old Training College days; she +had become hard and cynical. She thought he had a weak face, mistaking +refinement for weakness as people of her stamp are apt to do, and when +she heard his name was Snooks, she said she had expected something of +the sort. Miss Winchelsea was careful to spare her own feelings after +that, but Fanny was less circumspect. + +The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a new +interest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been +an increasingly valuable assistant for the last three years. Her new +interest in life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her a lead +she wrote her a lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight of her +return. Fanny answered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed had no +literary gift, but it was new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself +deploring the want of gifts in a friend. That letter was even criticised +aloud in the safe solitude of Miss Winchelsea's study, and her +criticism, spoken with great bitterness, was “Twaddle!” It was full of +just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter had been full of, particulars +of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only this much: “I have had a +letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over to see me on two Saturday +afternoons running. He talked about Rome and you; we both talked about +you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear....” + +Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information, +and wrote the sweetest long letter again. “Tell me all about yourself, +dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship, and I do +so want to keep in touch with you.” About Mr. Snooks she simply wrote +on the fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen him, and that if +he SHOULD ask after her, she was to be remembered to him VERY KINDLY +(underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely in the key of that +“ancient friendship,” reminding Miss Winchelsea of a dozen foolish +things of those old schoolgirl days at the training college, and saying +not a word about Mr. Snooks! + +For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure of Fanny +as a go-between that she could not write to her. And then she wrote less +effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank, “Have you seen Mr. +Snooks?” Fanny's letter was unexpectedly satisfactory. “I HAVE seen Mr. +Snooks,” she wrote, and having once named him she kept on about him; +it was all Snooks--Snooks this and Snooks that. He was to give a public +lecture, said Fanny, among other things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after +the first glow of gratification, still found this letter a little +unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report Mr. Snooks as saying anything about +Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking a little white and worn, as he ought +to have been doing. And behold! before she had replied, came a second +letter from Fanny on the same theme, quite a gushing letter, and +covering six sheets with her loose feminine hand. + +And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that Miss +Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time. Fanny's +natural femininity had prevailed even against the round and clear +traditions of the training college; she was one of those she-creatures +born to make all her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's alike, and to +leave her o's and a's open and her i's undotted. So that it was only +after an elaborate comparison of word with word that Miss Winchelsea +felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really “Mr. Snooks” at all! In Fanny's +first letter of gush he was Mr. “Snooks,” in her second the spelling was +changed to Mr. “Senoks.” Miss Winchelsea's hand positively trembled as +she turned the sheet over--it meant so much to her. For it had already +begun to seem to her that even the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided +at too great a price, and suddenly--this possibility! She turned over +the six sheets, all dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the +first letter had the form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a +hand pressed upon her heart. + +She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter of +inquiry that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing too what +action she should take after the answer came. She was resolved that if +this altered spelling was anything more than a quaint fancy of Fanny's, +she would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks. She had now reached a stage +when the minor refinements of behaviour disappear. Her excuse remained +uninvented, but she had the subject of her letter clear in her mind, +even to the hint that “circumstances in my life have changed very +greatly since we talked together.” But she never gave that hint. There +came a third letter from that fitful correspondent Fanny. The first line +proclaimed her “the happiest girl alive.” + +Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and +sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before +morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were +well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of +great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading the third +without discovering the error:--“told him frankly I did not like +his name,” the third sheet began. “He told me he did not like it +himself--you know that sort of sudden frank way he has”--Miss Winchelsea +did know. “So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it at +first. Well, you know, dear, he had told me what it really meant; it +means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks--both Snooks and Noaks, +dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really worn forms of +Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas at times--'if it +got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it back from Snooks +to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, he couldn't +refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoks for the +bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, we shall +put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind +that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it is +just like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew +as well as I did that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been +ten times Snooks. But he did it all the same.” + +The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, and +looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with some very +small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they +stared at her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more +familiar one. “Has any one finished number three?” she asked in an even +tone. She remained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day. +And she spent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts +to Fanny, before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason +struggled hopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an +exceedingly treacherous manner. + +One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart. +Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods of sexual +hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about mankind. “He +forgot himself with me,” she said. “But Fanny is pink and pretty and +soft and a fool--a very excellent match for a Man.” And by way of a +wedding present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound volume of poetry by +George Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly happy letter to say that +it was “ALL beautiful.” Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks +might take up that slim book and think for a moment of the donor. Fanny +wrote several times before and about her marriage, pursuing that fond +legend of their “ancient friendship,” and giving her happiness in the +fullest detail. And Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first +time after the Roman journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but +expressing very cordial feelings. + +They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the August +vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, describing +her home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements of their “teeny weeny” + little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning to assume a refinement in +Miss Winchelsea's memory out of all proportion to the facts of the case, +and she tried in vain to imagine his cultured greatness in a “teeny +weeny” little house. “Am busy enamelling a cosey corner,” said Fanny, +sprawling to the end of her third sheet, “so excuse more.” Miss +Winchelsea answered in her best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's +arrangements and hoping intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter. +Only this hope enabled her to write at all, answering not only that +letter but one in November and one at Christmas. + +The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her to +come to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays. She tried +to think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was too much like +Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe that he must be +sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that he +would presently write her a letter beginning “Dear Friend.” Something +subtly tragic in the separation was a great support to her, a sad +misunderstanding. To have been jilted would have been intolerable. But +he never wrote that letter beginning “Dear Friend.” + +For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, in +spite of the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became full +Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter rest she felt +lonely and without a soul to understand her in the world, and her mind +ran once more on what is called Platonic friendship. Fanny was clearly +happy and busy in her new sphere of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his +lonely hours. Did he ever think of those days in Rome--gone now beyond +recalling? No one had understood her as he had done; no one in all the +world. It would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, +and what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night she +wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave--which would +not come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note to tell +Fanny she was coming down. + +And so she saw him again. + +Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed +stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his conversation +had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even seemed a +justification for Helen's description of weakness in his face--in +certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied about his +affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea had +come for the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny in an +intelligent way. They only had one good long talk together, and that +came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some time abusing a +man who had stolen an idea he had had for a text-book. It did not seem a +very wonderful idea to Miss Winchelsea. She discovered he had forgotten +the names of more than half the painters whose work they had rejoiced +over in Florence. + +It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad when it +came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting them again. +After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their two little boys, +and Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of her letters had long +since faded away. + + + + +13. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON + +The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved +slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was +still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the +corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to +arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes +staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, +looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then +he glanced again in my direction. + +I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him, and in a +moment I was surprised to find him speaking. + +“I beg your pardon?” said I. + +“That book,” he repeated, pointing a lean finger, “is about dreams.” + +“Obviously,” I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States, and +the title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if he sought +words. “Yes,” he said at last, “but they tell you nothing.” I did not +catch his meaning for a second. + +“They don't know,” he added. + +I looked a little more attentively at his face. + +“There are dreams,” he said, “and dreams.” + +That sort of proposition I never dispute. + +“I suppose--” he hesitated. “Do you ever dream? I mean vividly.” + +“I dream very little,” I answered. “I doubt if I have three vivid dreams +in a year.” + +“Ah!” he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts. + +“Your dreams don't mix with your memories?” he asked abruptly. “You +don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?” + +“Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I +suppose few people do.” + +“Does HE say--” he indicated the book. + +“Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about +intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as +a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--” + +“Very little--except that they are wrong.” + +His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I +prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next +remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me. + +“Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night +after night?” + +“I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental +trouble.” + +“Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place for +them. But what I mean--” He looked at his bony knuckles. “Is that sort +of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it something else? +Mightn't it be something else?” + +I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn +anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the +lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look. + +“I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion,” he said. “The thing's +killing me.” + +“Dreams?” + +“If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid... this--” + (he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) “seems +unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I +am on....” + +He paused. “Even now--” + +“The dream is always the same--do you mean?” I asked. + +“It's over.” + +“You mean?” + +“I died.” + +“Died?” + +“Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, is +dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a +different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night +after night. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes +and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--” + +“When you died?” + +“When I died.” + +“And since then--” + +“No,” he said. “Thank God! That was the end of the dream....” + +It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour +before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary +way with him. “Living in a different time,” I said: “do you mean in some +different age?” + +“Yes.” + +“Past?” + +“No, to come--to come.” + +“The year three thousand, for example?” + +“I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was +dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's a lot +of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams, though I +knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming. They called +the year differently from our way of calling the year.... What DID they +call it?” He put his hand to his forehead. “No,” said he, “I forget.” + +He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell +me his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but this +struck me differently. I proffered assistance even. “It began--” I +suggested. + +“It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. And +it's curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never remembered +this life I am living now. It seemed as if the dream life was enough +while it lasted. Perhaps--But I will tell you how I find myself when I +do my best to recall it all. I don't remember anything dearly until I +found myself sitting in a sort of loggia looking out over the sea. I +had been dozing, and suddenly I woke up--fresh and vivid--not a bit +dream-like--because the girl had stopped fanning me.” + +“The girl?” + +“Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out.” + +He stopped abruptly. “You won't think I'm mad?” he said. + +“No,” I answered; “you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream.” + +“I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was not +surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you understand. +I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply took it up at +that point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life, this nineteenth-century +life, faded as I woke, vanished like a dream. I knew all about myself, +knew that my name was no longer Cooper but Hedon, and all about my +position in the world. I've forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want +of connection--but it was all quite clear and matter of fact then.” + +He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face forward +and looking up at me appealingly. + +“This seems bosh to you?” + +“No, no!” I cried. “Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like.” + +“It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced +south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle above +the balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where the +girl stood. I was on a couch--it was a metal couch with light striped +cushions-and the girl was leaning over the balcony with her back to me. +The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek. Her pretty white +neck and the little curls that nestled there, and her white shoulder +were in the sun, and all the grace of her body was in the cool blue +shadow. She was dressed--how can I describe it? It was easy and flowing. +And altogether there she stood, so that it came to me how beautiful and +desirable she was, as though I had never seen her before. And when at +last I sighed and raised myself upon my arm she turned her face to me--” + +He stopped. + +“I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother, +sisters, friends, wife, and daughters--all their faces, the play of +their faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more real to +me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it again--I could draw +it or paint it. And after all--” + +He stopped--but I said nothing. + +“The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not that +beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of +a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of +radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey eyes. +And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant and +gracious things--” + +He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up +at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute +belief in the reality of his story. + +“You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had +ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master man away +there in the north, with influence and property and a great reputation, +but none of it had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the +place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things +to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant at least of my life. While I +had been in love with her before I knew that she had any care for me, +before I had imagined that she would dare--that we should dare, all my +life had seemed vain and hollow, dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes. +Night after night and through the long days I had longed and desired--my +soul had beaten against the thing forbidden! + +“But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. +It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's +there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left +them in their Crisis to do what they could.” + +“Left whom?” I asked, puzzled. + +“The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--I +had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group +themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to +do things and risk things because of their confidence in me. I had +been playing that game for years, that big laborious game, that vague, +monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and +agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last I had a sort of +leadership against the Gang--you know it was called the Gang--a sort of +compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast public +emotional stupidities and catchwords--the Gang that kept the world noisy +and blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting +towards infinite disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the +shades and complications of the year--the year something or other ahead. +I had it all down to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had +been dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer +new development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes. +It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I +sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and +rejoicing--rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and +folly and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is +life--love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth all those +dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for +having ever sought to be a leader when I might have given my days to +love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent my early days sternly and +austerely, I might have wasted myself upon vain and worthless women, and +at the thought all my being went out in love and tenderness to my dear +mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me--compelled +me by her invincible charm for me--to lay that life aside. + +“'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear; +'you are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all +things. Love! to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at the murmur +of my voice she turned about. + +“'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see the +sunrise upon Monte Solaro.' + +“I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She +put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great masses of +limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted +the sunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How +can I describe to you the scene we had before us? We were at Capri--” + +“I have been there,” I said. “I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk +vero Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit.” + +“Ah!” said the man with the white face; “then perhaps you can tell +me--you will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have +never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a +vast multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed out of the +limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. The whole island, +you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the +other side there were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages +to which the flying machines came. They called it a pleasure city. Of +course, there was none of that in your time rather, I should say, IS +none of that NOW. Of course. Now!--yes. + +“Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that one +could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand feet +high perhaps--coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, and beyond +it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and passed +into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to the west, distinct and near +was a little bay, a little beach still in shadow. And out of that shadow +rose Solaro straight and tall, flushed and golden crested, like a beauty +throned, and the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And +before us from east to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted +with little sailing boats. + +“To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very +minute and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of +gold--shining gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was a +rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and +foam all round the rock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch.” + +“I know that rock,” I said. “I was nearly drowned there. It is called +the Faraglioni.” + +“I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that,” answered the man with the white +face. “There was some story--but that--” + +He put his hand to his forehead again. “No,” he said, “I forget that +story.” + +“Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that +little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of +mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat +and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers not +because there was any one to hear, but because there was still such a +freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened, +I think, to find themselves at last in words. And so they went softly. + +“Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going by +a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great +breakfast room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful +place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of plucked +strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would not +heed a man who was watching me from a table near by. + +“And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describe +that hall. The place was enormous--larger than any building you have +ever seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into +the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads +of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora +across the roof and interlaced, like--like conjuring tricks. All about +the great circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange +dragons, and intricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The +place was inundated with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. +And as we went through the throng the people turned about and looked at +us, for all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had +suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And they +looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how at last +she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were +there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and +dishonour that had come upon my name. + +“The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the +rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about +the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were +dressed in splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced +about the great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and +glorious processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, +not the dreary monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but +dances that were beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady +dancing--dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; +she danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and +caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes. + +“The music was different,” he murmured. “It went--I cannot describe it; +but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has +ever come to me awake. + +“And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to +me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and +already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and +afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, +as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure of all the people +who went to and fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me, +and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen. And he asked that he +might speak to me for a little time apart. + +“'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to +tell me?' + +“He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady +to hear. + +“'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I. + +“He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he +asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration +that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man next +to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a +forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and +soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that +the others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about +what he had done reawakened my old interest in the life I had put aside +just for a moment. + +“'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What has +Evesham been saying?' + +“And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess even I +was struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words +he had used. And this messenger they had sent to me not only told me of +Evesham's speech, but went on to ask counsel and to point out what +need they had of me. While he talked, my lady sat a little forward and +watched his face and mine. + +“My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves. I could +even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all the dramatic +effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to the disorder of the +party indeed, but not to its damage. I should go back stronger than I +had come. And then I thought of my lady. You see--how can I tell you? +There were certain peculiarities of our relationship--as things are I +need not tell you about that--which would render her presence with me +impossible. I should have had to leave her; indeed, I should have had to +renounce her clearly and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in +the north. And the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew +it as well as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, +then abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return +was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his +eloquence was gaining ground with me. + +“'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done with +them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming here?' + +“'No,' he said; 'but--' + +“'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. I have +ceased to be anything but a private man.' + +“'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war, these +reckless challenges, these wild aggressions--' + +“I stood up. + +“'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, I +weighed them--and I have come away.' + +“He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked from me +to where the lady sat regarding us. + +“'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned +slowly from me and walked away. I stood, caught in the whirl of thoughts +his appeal had set going. + +“I heard my lady's voice. + +“'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--' + +“She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to her +sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled. + +“'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I +said. 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.' + +“She looked at me doubtfully. + +“'But war--' she said. + +“I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself +and me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and +completely, must drive us apart for ever. + +“Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this belief +or that. + +“'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. There +will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past. +Trust me to know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me, +dearest, and no one has a right upon me. I have been free to choose my +life, and I have chosen this.' + +“'But WAR--' she said. + +“I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand in +mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill her +mind with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying to her I +lied also to myself. And she was only too ready to believe me, only too +ready to forget. + +“Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our +bathing-place in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom to +bathe every day. We swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyant +water I seemed to become something lighter and stronger than a man. And +at last we came out dripping and rejoicing and raced among the rocks. +And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, and we sat to bask in the sun, +and presently I nodded, resting my head against her knee, and she put +her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. And behold! as +it were with the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening, +and I was in my own bed in Liverpool, in the life of to-day. + +“Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments had +been no more than the substance of a dream. + +“In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering reality +of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, and as I +shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman I loved to go +back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous north. Even if +Evesham did force the world back to war, what was that to me? I was a +man, with the heart of a man, and why should I feel the responsibility +of a deity for the way the world might go? + +“You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about my real +affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view. + +“The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike a dream +that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details; even the +ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine in the +breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt line that ran +about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with the messenger from +my deserted party. Have you ever heard of a dream that had a quality +like that?” + +“Like--?” + +“So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten.” + +I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right. + +“Never,” I said. “That is what you never seem to do with dreams.” + +“No,” he answered. “But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor, you +must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering what the +clients and business people I found myself talking to in my office would +think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a girl who would +be born a couple of hundred years or so hence, and worried about the +politics of my great-great-great-grandchildren. I was chiefly busy that +day negotiating a ninety-nine-year building lease. It was a private +builder in a hurry, and we wanted to tie him in every possible way. I +had an interview with him, and he showed a certain want of temper that +sent me to bed still irritated. That night I had no dream. Nor did I +dream the next night, at least, to remember. + +“Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began to +feel sure it WAS a dream. And then it came again. + +“When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very +different. I think it certain that four days had also elapsed in the +dream. Many things had happened in the north, and the shadow of them was +back again between us, and this time it was not so easily dispelled. +I began, I know, with moody musings. Why, in spite of all, should I go +back, go back for all the rest of my days to toil and stress, insults +and perpetual dissatisfaction, simply to save hundreds of millions of +common people, whom I did not love, whom too often I could do no other +than despise, from the stress and anguish of war and infinite misrule? +And after all I might fail. THEY all sought their own narrow ends, and +why should not I--why should not I also live as a man? And out of such +thoughts her voice summoned me, and I lifted my eyes. + +“I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure +City, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the +bay. It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left +Ischia hung in a golden haze between sea and sky, and Naples was coldly +white against the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a tall and +slender streamer feathering at last towards the south, and the ruins of +Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellamare glittering and near.” + +I interrupted suddenly: “You have been to Capri, of course?” + +“Only in this dream,” he said, “only in this dream. All across the bay +beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City moored +and chained. And northward were the broad floating stages that received +the aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every afternoon, each +bringing its thousands of pleasure-seekers from the uttermost parts of +the earth to Capri and its delights. All these things, I say, stretched +below. + +“But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight that +evening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered useless +in the distant arsenals of the Rhinemouth were manoeuvring now in the +eastward sky. Evesham had astonished the world by producing them and +others, and sending them to circle here and there. It was the threat +material in the great game of bluff he was playing, and it had taken +even me by surprise. He was one of those incredibly stupid energetic +people who seem sent by Heaven to create disasters. His energy to +the first glance seemed so wonderfully like capacity! But he had no +imagination, no invention, only a stupid, vast, driving force of will, +and a mad faith in his stupid idiot 'luck' to pull him through. I +remember how we stood out upon the headland watching the squadron +circling far away, and how I weighed the full meaning of the sight, +seeing clearly the way things must go. And then even it was not too +late. I might have gone back, I think, and saved the world. The people +of the north would follow me, I knew, granted only that in one thing I +respected their moral standards. The east and south would trust me as +they would trust no other northern man. And I knew I had only to put it +to her and she would have let me go.... Not because she did not love me! + +“Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about. I had +so newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still so fresh +a renegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what I OUGHT to do +had no power at all to touch my will. My will was to live, to gather +pleasures and make my dear lady happy. But though this sense of vast +neglected duties had no power to draw me, it could make me silent and +preoccupied, it robbed the days I had spent of half their brightness and +roused me into dark meditations in the silence of the night. And as I +stood and watched Evesham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds +of infinite ill omen--she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the +trouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my +face, her expression shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because +the sunset was fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she +held me. She had asked me to go from her, and again in the night time +and with tears she had asked me to go. + +“At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I turned +upon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain slopes. +'No,' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was resolved to +end that gravity, and made her run--no one can be very grey and sad who +is out of breath--and when she stumbled I ran with my hand beneath +her arm. We ran down past a couple of men, who turned back staring in +astonishment at my behaviour--they must have recognised my face. +And halfway down the slope came a tumult in the air, clang-clank, +clang-clank, and we stopped, and presently over the hill-crest those war +things came flying one behind the other.” + +The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description. + +“What were they like?” I asked. + +“They had never fought,” he said. “They were just like our ironclads are +nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might do, with +excited men inside them; few even cared to speculate. They were great +driving things shaped like spearheads without a shaft, with a propeller +in the place of the shaft.” + +“Steel?” + +“Not steel.” + +“Aluminium?” + +“No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as common +as brass, for example. It was called--let me see--.” He squeezed his +forehead with the fingers of one hand. “I am forgetting everything,” he +said. + +“And they carried guns?” + +“Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns +backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the +beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No +one could tell exactly what was going to happen. And meanwhile I suppose +it was very fine to go whirling through the air like a flight of young +swallows, swift and easy. I guess the captains tried not to think +too clearly what the real thing would be like. And these flying war +machines, you know, were only one sort of the endless war contrivances +that had been invented and had fallen into abeyance during the long +peace. There were all sorts of these things that people were routing out +and furbishing up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never +been tried; big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the +silly way of these ingenious sort of men who make these things; they +turn 'em out as beavers build dams, and with no more sense of the rivers +they're going to divert and the lands they're going to flood! + +“As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the +twilight, I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things +were driving for war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some +inkling of what war was bound to be under these new conditions. And even +then, though I knew it was drawing near the limit of my opportunity, I +could find no will to go back.” + +He sighed. + +“That was my last chance. + +“We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we +walked out upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counselled me to +go back. + +“'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me, 'this is +Death. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them, go back to your +duty--.' + +“She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm as +she said it, 'Go back--Go back.' + +“Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read in +an instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those moments +when one SEES. + +“'No!' I said. + +“'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at the +answer to her thought. + +“'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen. Love, +I have chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens I will live this +life--I will live for YOU! It--nothing shall turn me aside; nothing, my +dear one. Even if you died--even if you died--' + +“'Yes,' she murmured, softly. + +“'Then--I also would die.' + +“And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking +eloquently--as I COULD do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make +the life we were living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was +deserting something hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine thing +to set aside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it, seeking +not only to convert her but myself to that. We talked, and she clung to +me, torn too between all that she deemed noble and all that she knew +was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made all the thickening +disaster of the world only a sort of glorious setting to our +unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls strutted there at +last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken rather with that glorious +delusion, under the still stars. + +“And so my moment passed. + +“It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders of +the south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot answer that +shattered Evesham's bluffing for ever, took shape and waited. And all +over Asia, and the ocean, and the south, the air and the wires were +throbbing with their warnings to prepare--prepare. + +“No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine, with +all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe most +people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms and +shouting charges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when half +the world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles away--.” + +The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face was +intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station, a string +of loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage, shot by the +carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap of noise, echoing the +tumult of the train. + +“After that,” he said, “I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights that +dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights when I +could not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS accursed life; and +THERE--somewhere lost to me--things were happening--momentous, terrible +things.... I lived at nights--my days, my waking days, this life I am +living now, became a faded, far-away dream, a drab setting, the cover of +the book.” + +He thought. + +“I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream, but as +to what I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not remember. +My memory--my memory has gone. The business of life slips from me--” + +He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long time +he said nothing. + +“And then?” said I. + +“The war burst like a hurricane.” + +He stared before him at unspeakable things. + +“And then?” I urged again. + +“One touch of unreality,” he said, in the low tone of a man who speaks +to himself, “and they would have been nightmares. But they were not +nightmares--they were not nightmares. NO!” + +He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was a danger +of losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking again in the +same tone of questioning self-communion. + +“What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would touch +Capri--I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all, as the contrast +to it all; but two nights after the whole place was shouting and +bawling, every woman almost and every other man wore a badge--Evesham's +badge--and there was no music but a jangling war-song over and over +again, and everywhere men enlisting, and in the dancing halls they were +drilling. The whole island was awhirl with rumours; it was said, again +and again, that fighting had begun. I had not expected this. I had seen +so little of the life of pleasure that I had failed to reckon with this +violence of the amateurs. And as for me, I was out of it. I was like +a man who might have prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had +gone. I was no one; the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more +than I. The crowd jostled us and bawled in our ears; that accursed song +deafened us; a woman shrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, +and we two went back to our own place again, ruffled and insulted--my +lady white and silent, and I aquiver with rage. So furious was I, +I could have quarrelled with her if I could have found one shade of +accusation in her eyes. + +“All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock +cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward that +flared and passed and came again. + +“'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have made my +choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will have nothing +of this war. We have taken our lives out of all these things. This is no +refuge for us. Let us go.' + +“And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered +the world. + +“And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight.” + +He mused darkly. + +“How much was there of it?” + +He made no answer. + +“How many days?” + +His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took no +heed of my curiosity. + +I tried to draw him back to his story with questions. + +“Where did you go?” I said. + +“When?” + +“When you left Capri.” + +“Southwest,” he said, and glanced at me for a second. “We went in a +boat.” + +“But I should have thought an aeroplane?” + +“They had been seized.” + +I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning again. He +broke out in an argumentative monotone: + +“But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and +stress IS life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty? If +there IS no refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all our dreams +of quiet places are a folly and a snare, why have we such dreams? Surely +it was no ignoble cravings, no base intentions, had brought us to this; +it was Love had isolated us. Love had come to me with her eyes and robed +in her beauty, more glorious than all else in life, in the very shape +and colour of life, and summoned me away. I had silenced all the voices, +I had answered all the questions--I had come to her. And suddenly there +was nothing but War and Death!” + +I had an inspiration. “After all,” I said, “it could have been only a +dream.” + +“A dream!” he cried, flaming upon me, “a dream--when even now--” + +For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into his +cheek. He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped it to his +knee. He spoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest of the time +he looked away. “We are but phantoms,” he said, “and the phantoms of +phantoms, desires like cloud shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the +wind; the days pass, use and wont carry us through as a train carries +the shadow of its lights, so be it! But one thing is real and certain, +one thing is no dreamstuff, but eternal and enduring. It is the centre +of my life, and all other things about it are subordinate or altogether +vain. I loved her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead +together! + +“A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life with +unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for and cared +for, worthless and unmeaning? + +“Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still a +chance of getting away,” he said. “All through the night and morning +that we sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno, we talked of +escape. We were full of hope, and it clung about us to the end, hope for +the life together we should lead, out of it all, out of the battle and +struggle, the wild and empty passions, the empty arbitrary 'thou shalt' +and 'thou shalt not' of the world. We were uplifted, as though our quest +was a holy thing, as though love for one another was a mission.... + +“Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock +Capri--already scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and +hiding-places that were to make it a fastness--we reckoned nothing of +the imminent slaughter, though the fury of preparation hung about in +puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the grey; but, +indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know, was the +rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, with its countless windows and +arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet, a vast carving +of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon and orange groves, and +masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs of almond blossom. And out +under the archway that is built over the Piccola Marina other boats were +coming; and as we came round the cape and within sight of the mainland, +another little string of boats came into view, driving before the wind +towards the southwest. In a little while a multitude had come out, the +remoter just little specks of ultramarine in the shadow of the eastward +cliff. + +“'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness, of +war.' + +“And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across the +southern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little dots in +the sky--and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon, and then still +more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled with blue specks. +Now they were all thin little strokes of blue, and now one and now +a multitude would heel and catch the sun and become short flashes of +light. They came rising and falling and growing larger, like some huge +flight of gulls or rooks, or such-like birds moving with a marvellous +uniformity, and ever as they drew nearer they spread over a greater +width of sky. The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud +athwart the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and +streamed eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and clearer +again until they vanished from the sky. And after that we noted to the +northward and very high Evesham's fighting machines hanging high over +Naples like an evening swarm of gnats. + +“It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds. + +“Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us to +signify nothing.... + +“Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still seeking +that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had come upon us, +pain and many distresses. For though we were dusty and stained by our +toilsome tramping, and half starved and with the horror of the dead +men we had seen and the flight of the peasants--for very soon a gust of +fighting swept up the peninsula--with these things haunting our minds it +still resulted only in a deepening resolution to escape. O, but she was +brave and patient! She who had never faced hardship and exposure had +courage for herself--and me. We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over +a country all commandeered and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. +Always we went on foot. At first there were other fugitives, but we did +not mingle with them. Some escaped northward, some were caught in +the torrent of peasantry that swept along the main roads; many gave +themselves into the hands of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many +of the men were impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had +brought no money to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at +the hands of these conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and +we had been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards +Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back for +want of food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum, +where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea that by +Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take once +more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us. + +“A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were being +hemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in its toils. +Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from the north +going to and fro, and had come upon them in the distance amidst the +mountains making ways for the ammunition and preparing the mounting of +the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us, taking us for spies--at +any rate a shot had gone shuddering over us. Several times we had hidden +in woods from hovering aeroplanes. + +“But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight and +pain.... We were in an open place near those great temples at Paestum, +at last, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky bushes, empty and +desolate and so flat that a grove of eucalyptus far away showed to the +feet of its stems. How I can see it! My lady was sitting down under +a bush, resting a little, for she was very weak and weary, and I was +standing up watching to see if I could tell the distance of the firing +that came and went. They were still, you know, fighting far from each +other, with those terrible new weapons that had never before been used: +guns that would carry beyond sight, and aeroplanes that would do--What +THEY would do no man could foretell. + +“I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew +together. I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there and +rest! + +“Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background. +They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking of +my lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she had owned +herself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me I could hear her +sobbing, but I would not turn round to her because I knew she had need +of weeping, and had held herself so far and so long for me. It was well, +I thought, that she would weep and rest and then we would toil on again, +for I had no inkling of the thing that hung so near. Even now I can see +her as she sat there, her lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again +the deepening hollow of her cheek. + +“'If we had parted,' she said, 'if I had let you go.' + +“'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent; I made my +choice, and I will hold on to the end.” + +“And then-- + +“Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about us I +heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas suddenly thrown. +They chipped the stones about us, and whirled fragments from the bricks +and passed....” + +He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips. + +“At the flash I had turned about.... + +“You know--she stood up-- + +“She stood up; you know, and moved a step towards me-- + +“As though she wanted to reach me-- + +“And she had been shot through the heart.” + +He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity an +Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, and +then stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence. When at +last I looked at him he was sitting back in his corner, his arms folded, +and his teeth gnawing at his knuckles. + +He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it. + +“I carried her,” he said, “towards the temples, in my arms--as though it +mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you know, +they had lasted so long, I suppose. + +“She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the +way.” + +Silence again. + +“I have seen those temples,” I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought +those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me. + +“It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar +and held her in my arms.... Silent after the first babble was over. And +after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, as though +nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed.... It was +tremendously still there, the sun high, and the shadows still; even the +shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still--in spite of the +thudding and banging that went all about the sky. + +“I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and +that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and +overset and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in +the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you +know--flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of +the temple--a black thing in the bright blue water. + +“Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased. +Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space. +That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed +the stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface. + +“As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater. + +“The curious thing,” he remarked, with the manner of a man who makes a +trivial conversation, “is that I didn't THINK--I didn't think at all. +I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort of +lethargy--stagnant. + +“And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day. I +know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open in front +of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being there, seeing that +in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum temple with a dead +woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine. I have forgotten +what they were about.” + +He stopped, and there was a long silence. + +Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from Chalk +Farm to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned on him with +a brutal question, with the tone of Now or never. + +“And did you dream again?” + +“Yes.” + +He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low. + +“Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed to have +suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen into a sitting +position, and the body lay there on the stones beside me. A gaunt body. +Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her.... + +“I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that men +were coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage. + +“I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into +sight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform of dirty +white, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing to the crest of +the old wall of the vanished city, and crouching there. They were little +bright figures in the sunlight, and there they hung, weapon in hand, +peering cautiously before them. + +“And further away I saw others and then more at another point in the +wall. It was a long lax line of men in open order. + +“Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command, and +his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds towards the +temple. He scrambled down with them and led them. He came facing towards +me, and when he saw me he stopped. + +“At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when I +had seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid them. I +shouted to the officer. + +“'You must not come here,' I cried, '_I_ am here. I am here with my +dead.' + +“He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown +tongue. + +“I repeated what I had said. + +“He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently he +spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword. + +“I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told him +again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here. These are old +temples and I am here with my dead.' + +“Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was a narrow +face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had a scar on +his upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept shouting +unintelligible things, questions perhaps, at me. + +“I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not +occur to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in imperious +tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside. + +“He made to go past me, And I caught hold of him. + +“I saw his face change at my grip. + +“'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!' + +“He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort of +exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then, suddenly, with a scowl, +he swept his sword back--SO--and thrust.” + +He stopped abruptly. I became aware of a change in the rhythm of the +train. The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage jarred and +jerked. This present world insisted upon itself, became clamorous. I saw +through the steamy window huge electric lights glaring down from tall +masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary empty carriages passing by, and +then a signal-box, hoisting its constellation of green and red into the +murky London twilight marched after them. I looked again at his drawn +features. + +“He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--no +fear, no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, felt the +sword drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know. It didn't hurt +at all.” + +The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing first +rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk. Dim shapes of +men passed to and fro without. + +“Euston!” cried a voice. + +“Do you mean--?” + +“There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness +sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face +of the man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of +existence--” + +“Euston!” clamoured the voices outside; “Euston!” + +The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stood +regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of +cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the +London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted lamps +blazed along the platform. + +“A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted out +all things.” + +“Any luggage, sir?” said the porter. + +“And that was the end?” I asked. + +He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, “No.” + +“You mean?” + +“I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the +Temple--And then--” + +“Yes,” I insisted. “Yes?” + +“Nightmares,” he cried; “nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds that +fought and tore.” + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM *** + +***** This file should be named 1743-0.txt or 1743-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/4/1743/ + +Produced by Aaron Cannon, and Stephanie Johnson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/1743-0.zip b/1743-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0acfd80 --- /dev/null +++ b/1743-0.zip diff --git a/1743-h.zip b/1743-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5dbcba1 --- /dev/null +++ b/1743-h.zip diff --git a/1743-h/1743-h.htm b/1743-h/1743-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..822cfdf --- /dev/null +++ b/1743-h/1743-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9607 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. Wells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Twelve Stories and a Dream + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #1743] +Last Updated: March 2, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM *** + + + + +Produced by Aaron Cannon, Stephanie Johnson, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By H. G. Wells + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + Contents + </h3> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> 1. FILMER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> 2. THE MAGIC SHOP </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> 3. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> 4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> 5. MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> 6. THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> 7. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> 8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> 9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> 10. THE STOLEN BODY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> 11. MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> 12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> 13. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + 1. FILMER + </h2> + <p> + In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men—this + man a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only one vigorous + intellectual effort was needed to finish the work. But the inexorable + injustice of the popular mind has decided that of all these thousands, one + man, and that a man who never flew, should be chosen as the discoverer, + just as it has chosen to honour Watt as the discoverer of steam and + Stephenson of the steam-engine. And surely of all honoured names none is + so grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, the timid, + intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the world had hung + perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations, the man who + pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare and well-nigh every + condition of human life and happiness. Never has that recurring wonder of + the littleness of the scientific man in the face of the greatness of his + science found such an amazing exemplification. Much concerning Filmer is, + and must remain, profoundly obscure—Filmers attract no Boswells—but + the essential facts and the concluding scene are clear enough, and there + are letters, and notes, and casual allusions to piece the whole together. + And this is the story one makes, putting this thing with that, of Filmer's + life and death. + </p> + <p> + The first authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is a document + in which he applies for admission as a paid student in physics to the + Government laboratories at South Kensington, and therein he describes + himself as the son of a “military bootmaker” (“cobbler” in the vulgar + tongue) of Dover, and lists his various examination proofs of a high + proficiency in chemistry and mathematics. With a certain want of dignity + he seeks to enhance these attainments by a profession of poverty and + disadvantages, and he writes of the laboratory as the “gaol” of his + ambitions, a slip which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself + exclusively to the exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner + that shows Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until + quite recently no traces of his success in the Government institution + could be found. + </p> + <p> + It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed zeal for + research, Filmer, before he had held this scholarship a year, was tempted, + by the possibility of a small increase in his immediate income, to abandon + it in order to become one of the nine-pence-an-hour computers employed by + a well-known Professor in his vicarious conduct of those extensive + researches of his in solar physics—researches which are still a + matter of perplexity to astronomers. Afterwards, for the space of seven + years, save for the pass lists of the London University, in which he is + seen to climb slowly to a double first class B.Sc., in mathematics and + chemistry, there is no evidence of how Filmer passed his life. No one + knows how or where he lived, though it seems highly probable that he + continued to support himself by teaching while he prosecuted the studies + necessary for this distinction. And then, oddly enough, one finds him + mentioned in the correspondence of Arthur Hicks, the poet. + </p> + <p> + “You remember Filmer,” Hicks writes to his friend Vance; “well, HE hasn't + altered a bit, the same hostile mumble and the nasty chin—how CAN a + man contrive to be always three days from shaving?—and a sort of + furtive air of being engaged in sneaking in front of one; even his coat + and that frayed collar of his show no further signs of the passing years. + He was writing in the library and I sat down beside him in the name of + God's charity, whereupon he deliberately insulted me by covering up his + memoranda. It seems he has some brilliant research on hand that he + suspects me of all people—with a Bodley Booklet a-printing!—of + stealing. He has taken remarkable honours at the University—he went + through them with a sort of hasty slobber, as though he feared I might + interrupt him before he had told me all—and he spoke of taking his + D.Sc. as one might speak of taking a cab. And he asked what I was doing—with + a sort of comparative accent, and his arm was spread nervously, positively + a protecting arm, over the paper that hid the precious idea—his one + hopeful idea. + </p> + <p> + “'Poetry,' he said, 'Poetry. And what do you profess to teach in it, + Hicks?' + </p> + <p> + “The thing's a Provincial professorling in the very act of budding, and I + thank the Lord devoutly that but for the precious gift of indolence I also + might have gone this way to D.Sc. and destruction...” + </p> + <p> + A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer in or + near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in anticipating a + provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse of him is lecturing + on “rubber and rubber substitutes,” to the Society of Arts—he had + become manager to a great plastic-substance manufactory—and at that + time, it is now known, he was a member of the Aeronautical Society, albeit + he contributed nothing to the discussions of that body, preferring no + doubt to mature his great conception without external assistance. And + within two years of that paper before the Society of Arts he was hastily + taking out a number of patents and proclaiming in various undignified ways + the completion of the divergent inquiries which made his flying machine + possible. The first definite statement to that effect appeared in a + halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man who lodged in the same + house with Filmer. His final haste after his long laborious secret + patience seems to have been due to a needless panic, Bootle, the notorious + American scientific quack, having made an announcement that Filmer + interpreted wrongly as an anticipation of his idea. + </p> + <p> + Now what precisely was Filmer's idea? Really a very simple one. Before his + time the pursuit of aeronautics had taken two divergent lines, and had + developed on the one hand balloons—large apparatus lighter than air, + easy in ascent, and comparatively safe in descent, but floating helplessly + before any breeze that took them; and on the other, flying machines that + flew only in theory—vast flat structures heavier than air, propelled + and kept up by heavy engines and for the most part smashing at the first + descent. But, neglecting the fact that the inevitable final collapse + rendered them impossible, the weight of the flying machines gave them this + theoretical advantage, that they could go through the air against a wind, + a necessary condition if aerial navigation was to have any practical + value. It is Filmer's particular merit that he perceived the way in which + the contrasted and hitherto incompatible merits of balloon and heavy + flying machine might be combined in one apparatus, which should be at + choice either heavier or lighter than air. He took hints from the + contractile bladders of fish and the pneumatic cavities of birds. He + devised an arrangement of contractile and absolutely closed balloons which + when expanded could lift the actual flying apparatus with ease, and when + retracted by the complicated “musculature” he wove about them, were + withdrawn almost completely into the frame; and he built the large + framework which these balloons sustained, of hollow, rigid tubes, the air + in which, by an ingenious contrivance, was automatically pumped out as the + apparatus fell, and which then remained exhausted so long as the aeronaut + desired. There were no wings or propellers to his machine, such as there + had been to all previous aeroplanes, and the only engine required was the + compact and powerful little appliance needed to contract the balloons. He + perceived that such an apparatus as he had devised might rise with frame + exhausted and balloons expanded to a considerable height, might then + contract its balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an adjustment + of its weights slide down the air in any desired direction. As it fell it + would accumulate velocity and at the same time lose weight, and the + momentum accumulated by its down-rush could be utilised by means of a + shifting of its weights to drive it up in the air again as the balloons + expanded. This conception, which is still the structural conception of all + successful flying machines, needed, however, a vast amount of toil upon + its details before it could actually be realised, and such toil Filmer—as + he was accustomed to tell the numerous interviewers who crowded upon him + in the heyday of his fame—“ungrudgingly and unsparingly gave.” His + particular difficulty was the elastic lining of the contractile balloon. + He found he needed a new substance, and in the discovery and manufacture + of that new substance he had, as he never failed to impress upon the + interviewers, “performed a far more arduous work than even in the actual + achievement of my seemingly greater discovery.” + </p> + <p> + But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard upon + Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly five years + elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber factory—he + seems to have been entirely dependent on his small income from this source—making + misdirected attempts to assure a quite indifferent public that he really + HAD invented what he had invented. He occupied the greater part of his + leisure in the composition of letters to the scientific and daily press, + and so forth, stating precisely the net result of his contrivances, and + demanding financial aid. That alone would have sufficed for the + suppression of his letters. He spent such holidays as he could arrange in + unsatisfactory interviews with the door-keepers of leading London papers—he + was singularly not adapted for inspiring hall-porters with confidence—and + he positively attempted to induce the War Office to take up his work with + him. There remains a confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to + the Earl of Frogs. “The man's a crank and a bounder to boot,” says the + Major-General in his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for + the Japanese to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this + side of warfare—a priority they still to our great discomfort + retain. + </p> + <p> + And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his + contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves of a new + oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial model of his + invention. He threw up his rubber factory appointment, desisted from all + further writing, and, with a certain secrecy that seems to have been an + inseparable characteristic of all his proceedings, set to work upon the + apparatus. He seems to have directed the making of its parts and collected + most of it in a room in Shoreditch, but its final putting together was + done at Dymchurch, in Kent. He did not make the affair large enough to + carry a man, but he made an extremely ingenious use of what were then + called the Marconi rays to control its flight. The first flight of this + first practicable flying machine took place over some fields near Burford + Bridge, near Hythe, in Kent, and Filmer followed and controlled its flight + upon a specially constructed motor tricycle. + </p> + <p> + The flight was, considering all things, an amazing success. The apparatus + was brought in a cart from Dymchurch to Burford Bridge, ascended there to + a height of nearly three hundred feet, swooped thence very nearly back to + Dymchurch, came about in its sweep, rose again, circled, and finally sank + uninjured in a field behind the Burford Bridge Inn. At its descent a + curious thing happened. Filmer got off his tricycle, scrambled over the + intervening dyke, advanced perhaps twenty yards towards his triumph, threw + out his arms in a strange gesticulation, and fell down in a dead faint. + Every one could then recall the ghastliness of his features and all the + evidences of extreme excitement they had observed throughout the trial, + things they might otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards in the inn he had + an unaccountable gust of hysterical weeping. + </p> + <p> + Altogether there were not twenty witnesses of this affair, and those for + the most part uneducated men. The New Romney doctor saw the ascent but not + the descent, his horse being frightened by the electrical apparatus on + Filmer's tricycle and giving him a nasty spill. Two members of the Kent + constabulary watched the affair from a cart in an unofficial spirit, and a + grocer calling round the Marsh for orders and two lady cyclists seem + almost to complete the list of educated people. There were two reporters + present, one representing a Folkestone paper and the other being a + fourth-class interviewer and “symposium” journalist, whose expenses down, + Filmer, anxious as ever for adequate advertisement—and now quite + realising the way in which adequate advertisement may be obtained—had + paid. The latter was one of those writers who can throw a convincing air + of unreality over the most credible events, and his half-facetious account + of the affair appeared in the magazine page of a popular journal. But, + happily for Filmer, this person's colloquial methods were more convincing. + He went to offer some further screed upon the subject to Banghurst, the + proprietor of the New Paper, and one of the ablest and most unscrupulous + men in London journalism, and Banghurst instantly seized upon the + situation. The interviewer vanishes from the narrative, no doubt very + doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, Banghurst himself, double chin, + grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, gestures and all, appears at Dymchurch, + following his large, unrivalled journalistic nose. He had seen the whole + thing at a glance, just what it was and what it might be. + </p> + <p> + At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded into + fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns over the + files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous + recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be. The + July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying, state by a most + effective silence that men never would, could or should fly. In August + flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes and aerial tactics and the + Japanese Government and Filmer and again flying, shouldered the war in + Yunnan and the gold mines of Upper Greenland off the leading page. And + Banghurst had given ten thousand pounds, and, further, Banghurst was + giving five thousand pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his well-known, + magnificent (but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and several acres + of land near his private residence on the Surrey hills to the strenuous + and violent completion—Banghurst fashion—of the life-size + practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of privileged + multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town residence in Fulham, + Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties putting the working model + through its paces. At enormous initial cost, but with a final profit, the + New Paper presented its readers with a beautiful photographic souvenir of + the first of these occasions. + </p> + <p> + Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance comes + to our aid. + </p> + <p> + “I saw Filmer in his glory,” he writes, with just the touch of envy + natural to his position as a poet passe. “The man is brushed and shaved, + dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon Lecturer, the very + newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes, and altogether in a + state of extraordinary streakiness between an owlish great man and a + scared abashed self-conscious bounder cruelly exposed. He hasn't a touch + of colour in the skin of his face, his head juts forward, and those queer + little dark amber eyes of his watch furtively round him for his fame. His + clothes fit perfectly and yet sit upon him as though he had bought them + ready-made. He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, you perceive + indistinctly, enormous self-assertive things, he backs into the rear of + groups by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, and when he + walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out of breath and + going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched. His is a state of + tension—horrible tension. And he is the Greatest Discoverer of This + or Any Age—the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age! What strikes + one so forcibly about him is that he didn't somehow quite expect it ever, + at any rate, not at all like this. Banghurst is about everywhere, the + energetic M.C. of his great little catch, and I swear he will have every + one down on his lawn there before he has finished with the engine; he had + bagged the prime minister yesterday, and he, bless his heart! didn't look + particularly outsize, on the very first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer! Our + obscure unwashed Filmer, the Glory of British science! Duchesses crowd + upon him, beautiful, bold peeresses say in their beautiful, clear loud + voices—have you noticed how penetrating the great lady is becoming + nowadays?—'Oh, Mr. Filmer, how DID you do it?' + </p> + <p> + “Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer. One + imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly and + unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps—I don't know—but + perhaps a little special aptitude.'” + </p> + <p> + So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in + sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine swings + down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church appears below it + through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer sits at his guiding + batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth stand around him, with + Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely in the rear. The grouping is + oddly apposite. Occluding much of Banghurst, and looking with a pensive, + speculative expression at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, still + beautiful, in spite of the breath of scandal and her eight-and-thirty + years, the only person whose face does not admit a perception of the + camera that was in the act of snapping them all. + </p> + <p> + So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all, they are very + exterior facts. About the real interest of the business one is necessarily + very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling at the time? How much was a + certain unpleasant anticipation present inside that very new and + fashionable frock-coat? He was in the halfpenny, penny, six-penny, and + more expensive papers alike, and acknowledged by the whole world as “the + Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age.” He had invented a practicable + flying machine, and every day down among the Surrey hills the life-sized + model was getting ready. And when it was ready, it followed as a clear + inevitable consequence of his having invented and made it—everybody + in the world, indeed, seemed to take it for granted; there wasn't a gap + anywhere in that serried front of anticipation—that he would proudly + and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend with it, and fly. + </p> + <p> + But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness in such + an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private constitution. + It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is. We can guess + with some confidence now that it must have been drifting about in his mind + a great deal during the day, and, from a little note to his physician + complaining of persistent insomnia, we have the soundest reason for + supposing it dominated his nights,—the idea that it would be after + all, in spite of his theoretical security, an abominably sickening, + uncomfortable, and dangerous thing for him to flap about in nothingness a + thousand feet or so in the air. It must have dawned upon him quite early + in the period of being the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age, the + vision of doing this and that with an extensive void below. Perhaps + somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height or fallen down in + some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit of sleeping on the + wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling nightmare one knows, + and given him his horror; of the strength of that horror there remains now + not a particle of doubt. + </p> + <p> + Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier days of + research; the machine had been his end, but now things were opening out + beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl up above there. He was a + Discoverer and he had Discovered. But he was not a Flying Man, and it was + only now that he was beginning to perceive clearly that he was expected to + fly. Yet, however much the thing was present in his mind he gave no + expression to it until the very end, and meanwhile he went to and fro from + Banghurst's magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed and lionised, + and wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in an elegant flat, + enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, wholesome Fame and + Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had been starved, might + be reasonably expected to enjoy. + </p> + <p> + After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model had failed + one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance, or he had been + distracted by the compliments of an archbishop. At any rate, it suddenly + dug its nose into the air just a little too steeply as the archbishop was + sailing through a Latin quotation for all the world like an archbishop in + a book, and it came down in the Fulham Road within three yards of a 'bus + horse. It stood for a second perhaps, astonishing and in its attitude + astonished, then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, and the 'bus horse was + incidentally killed. + </p> + <p> + Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up and + stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him. His long, + white hands still gripped his useless apparatus. The archbishop followed + his skyward stare with an apprehension unbecoming in an archbishop. + </p> + <p> + Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road to relieve + Filmer's tension. “My God!” he whispered, and sat down. + </p> + <p> + Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had vanished, + or rushing into the house. + </p> + <p> + The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly for this. + Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow and very careful in + his manner, always with a growing preoccupation in his mind. His care over + the strength and soundness of the apparatus was prodigious. The slightest + doubt, and he delayed everything until the doubtful part could be + replaced. Wilkinson, his senior assistant, fumed at some of these delays, + which, he insisted, were for the most part unnecessary. Banghurst + magnified the patient certitude of Filmer in the New Paper, and reviled it + bitterly to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second assistant, approved + Filmer's wisdom. “We're not wanting a fiasco, man,” said MacAndrew. “He's + perfectly well advised.” + </p> + <p> + And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson and + MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine was to be + controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be just as capable, + and even more capable, when at last the time came, of guiding it through + the skies. + </p> + <p> + Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage to define + just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line in the matter of his + ascent, he might have escaped that painful ordeal quite easily. If he had + had it clearly in his mind he could have done endless things. He would + surely have found no difficulty with a specialist to demonstrate a weak + heart, or something gastric or pulmonary, to stand in his way—that + is the line I am astonished he did not take,—or he might, had he + been man enough, have declared simply and finally that he did not intend + to do the thing. But the fact is, though the dread was hugely present in + his mind, the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy that all + through this period he kept telling himself that when the occasion came he + would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just gripped by a great + illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and expects to be better + presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of the machine, and let the + assumption that he was going to fly it take root and flourish exceedingly + about him. He even accepted anticipatory compliments on his courage. And, + barring this secret squeamishness, there can be no doubt he found all the + praise and distinction and fuss he got a delightful and even intoxicating + draught. + </p> + <p> + The Lady Mary Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated for him. + </p> + <p> + How THAT began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks. + Probably in the beginning she was just a little “nice” to him with that + impartial partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes, standing out + conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air, he had a + distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow they must + have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great Discoverer a + moment of sufficient courage for something just a little personal to be + mumbled or blurted. However it began, there is no doubt that it did begin, + and presently became quite perceptible to a world accustomed to find in + the proceedings of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a matter of entertainment. It + complicated things, because the state of love in such a virgin mind as + Filmer's would brace his resolution, if not sufficiently, at any rate + considerably towards facing a danger he feared, and hampered him in such + attempts at evasion as would otherwise be natural and congenial. + </p> + <p> + It remains a matter for speculation just how the Lady Mary felt for Filmer + and just what she thought of him. At thirty-eight one may have gathered + much wisdom and still be not altogether wise, and the imagination still + functions actively enough in creating glamours and effecting the + impossible. He came before her eyes as a very central man, and that always + counts, and he had powers, unique powers as it seemed, at any rate in the + air. The performance with the model had just a touch of the quality of a + potent incantation, and women have ever displayed an unreasonable + disposition to imagine that when a man has powers he must necessarily have + Power. Given so much, and what was not good in Filmer's manner and + appearance became an added merit. He was modest, he hated display, but + given an occasion where TRUE qualities are needed, then—then one + would see! + </p> + <p> + The late Mrs. Bampton thought it wise to convey to Lady Mary her opinion + that Filmer, all things considered, was rather a “grub.” “He's certainly + not a sort of man I have ever met before,” said the Lady Mary, with a + quite unruffled serenity. And Mrs. Bampton, after a swift, imperceptible + glance at that serenity, decided that so far as saying anything to Lady + Mary went, she had done as much as could be expected of her. But she said + a great deal to other people. + </p> + <p> + And at last, without any undue haste or unseemliness, the day dawned, the + great day, when Banghurst had promised his public—the world in fact—that + flying should be finally attained and overcome. Filmer saw it dawn, + watched even in the darkness before it dawned, watched its stars fade and + the grey and pearly pinks give place at last to the clear blue sky of a + sunny, cloudless day. He watched it from the window of his bedroom in the + new-built wing of Banghurst's Tudor house. And as the stars were + overwhelmed and the shapes and substances of things grew into being out of + the amorphous dark, he must have seen more and more distinctly the festive + preparations beyond the beech clumps near the green pavilion in the outer + park, the three stands for the privileged spectators, the raw, new fencing + of the enclosure, the sheds and workshops, the Venetian masts and + fluttering flags that Banghurst had considered essential, black and limp + in the breezeless dawn, and amidst all these things a great shape covered + with tarpauling. A strange and terrible portent for humanity was that + shape, a beginning that must surely spread and widen and change and + dominate all the affairs of men, but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether + it appeared in anything but a narrow and personal light. Several people + heard him pacing in the small hours—for the vast place was packed + with guests by a proprietor editor who, before all understood compression. + And about five o'clock, if not before, Filmer left his room and wandered + out of the sleeping house into the park, alive by that time with sunlight + and birds and squirrels and the fallow deer. MacAndrew, who was also an + early riser, met him near the machine, and they went and had a look at it + together. + </p> + <p> + It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast, in spite of the urgency of + Banghurst. So soon as the guests began to be about in some number he seems + to have retreated to his room. Thence about ten he went into the + shrubbery, very probably because he had seen the Lady Mary Elkinghorn + there. She was walking up and down, engaged in conversation with her old + school friend, Mrs. Brewis-Craven, and although Filmer had never met the + latter lady before, he joined them and walked beside them for some time. + There were several silences in spite of the Lady Mary's brilliance. The + situation was a difficult one, and Mrs. Brewis-Craven did not master its + difficulty. “He struck me,” she said afterwards with a luminous + self-contradiction, “as a very unhappy person who had something to say, + and wanted before all things to be helped to say it. But how was one to + help him when one didn't know what it was?” + </p> + <p> + At half-past eleven the enclosures for the public in the outer park were + crammed, there was an intermittent stream of equipages along the belt + which circles the outer park, and the house party was dotted over the lawn + and shrubbery and the corner of the inner park, in a series of brilliantly + attired knots, all making for the flying machine. Filmer walked in a group + of three with Banghurst, who was supremely and conspicuously happy, and + Sir Theodore Hickle, the president of the Aeronautical Society. Mrs. + Banghurst was close behind with the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, Georgina Hickle, + and the Dean of Stays. Banghurst was large and copious in speech, and such + interstices as he left were filled in by Hickle with complimentary remarks + to Filmer. And Filmer walked between them saying not a word except by way + of unavoidable reply. Behind, Mrs. Banghurst listened to the admirably + suitable and shapely conversation of the Dean with that fluttered + attention to the ampler clergy ten years of social ascent and ascendency + had not cured in her; and the Lady Mary watched, no doubt with an entire + confidence in the world's disillusionment, the drooping shoulders of the + sort of man she had never met before. + </p> + <p> + There was some cheering as the central party came into view of the + enclosures, but it was not very unanimous nor invigorating cheering. They + were within fifty yards of the apparatus when Filmer took a hasty glance + over his shoulder to measure the distance of the ladies behind them, and + decided to make the first remark he had initiated since the house had been + left. His voice was just a little hoarse, and he cut in on Banghurst in + mid-sentence on Progress. + </p> + <p> + “I say, Banghurst,” he said, and stopped. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Banghurst. + </p> + <p> + “I wish—” He moistened his lips. “I'm not feeling well.” + </p> + <p> + Banghurst stopped dead. “Eh?” he shouted. + </p> + <p> + “A queer feeling.” Filmer made to move on, but Banghurst was immovable. “I + don't know. I may be better in a minute. If not—perhaps... MacAndrew—” + </p> + <p> + “You're not feeling WELL?” said Banghurst, and stared at his white face. + </p> + <p> + “My dear!” he said, as Mrs. Banghurst came up with them, “Filmer says he + isn't feeling WELL.” + </p> + <p> + “A little queer,” exclaimed Filmer, avoiding the Lady Mary's eyes. “It may + pass off—” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause. + </p> + <p> + It came to Filmer that he was the most isolated person in the world. + </p> + <p> + “In any case,” said Banghurst, “the ascent must be made. Perhaps if you + were to sit down somewhere for a moment—” + </p> + <p> + “It's the crowd, I think,” said Filmer. + </p> + <p> + There was a second pause. Banghurst's eye rested in scrutiny on Filmer, + and then swept the sample of public in the enclosure. + </p> + <p> + “It's unfortunate,” said Sir Theodore Hickle; “but still—I suppose—Your + assistants—Of course, if you feel out of condition and disinclined—” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think Mr. Filmer would permit THAT for a moment,” said Lady Mary. + </p> + <p> + “But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run—It might even be dangerous for him + to attempt—” Hickle coughed. + </p> + <p> + “It's just because it's dangerous,” began the Lady Mary, and felt she had + made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough. + </p> + <p> + Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer. + </p> + <p> + “I feel I ought to go up,” he said, regarding the ground. He looked up and + met the Lady Mary's eyes. “I want to go up,” he said, and smiled whitely + at her. He turned towards Banghurst. “If I could just sit down somewhere + for a moment out of the crowd and sun—” + </p> + <p> + Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. “Come into my + little room in the green pavilion,” he said. “It's quite cool there.” He + took Filmer by the arm. + </p> + <p> + Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. “I shall be all + right in five minutes,” he said. “I'm tremendously sorry—” + </p> + <p> + The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. “I couldn't think—” he said + to Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull. + </p> + <p> + The rest remained watching the two recede. + </p> + <p> + “He is so fragile,” said the Lady Mary. + </p> + <p> + “He's certainly a highly nervous type,” said the Dean, whose weakness it + was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with enormous + families, as “neurotic.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said Hickle, “it isn't absolutely necessary for him to go up + because he has invented—” + </p> + <p> + “How COULD he avoid it?” asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest shadow of + scorn. + </p> + <p> + “It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now,” said Mrs. + Banghurst a little severely. + </p> + <p> + “He's not going to be ill,” said the Lady Mary, and certainly she had met + Filmer's eye. + </p> + <p> + “YOU'LL be all right,” said Banghurst, as they went towards the pavilion. + “All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you know. You'll be—you'd + get it rough, you know, if you let another man—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I want to go,” said Filmer. “I shall be all right. As a matter of + fact I'm almost inclined NOW—. No! I think I'll have that nip of + brandy first.” + </p> + <p> + Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty decanter. + He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps five minutes. + </p> + <p> + The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals Filmer's + face could be seen by the people on the easternmost of the stands erected + for spectators, against the window pane peering out, and then it would + recede and fade. Banghurst vanished shouting behind the grand stand, and + presently the butler appeared going pavilionward with a tray. + </p> + <p> + The apartment in which Filmer came to his last solution was a pleasant + little room very simply furnished with green furniture and an old bureau—for + Banghurst was simple in all his private ways. It was hung with little + engravings after Morland and it had a shelf of books. But as it happened, + Banghurst had left a rook rifle he sometimes played with on the top of the + desk, and on the corner of the mantelshelf was a tin with three or four + cartridges remaining in it. As Filmer went up and down that room wrestling + with his intolerable dilemma he went first towards the neat little rifle + athwart the blotting-pad and then towards the neat little red label + </p> + <p> + “.22 LONG.” + </p> + <p> + The thing must have jumped into his mind in a moment. + </p> + <p> + Nobody seems to have connected the report with him, though the gun, being + fired in a confined space, must have sounded loud, and there were several + people in the billiard-room, separated from him only by a lath-and-plaster + partition. But directly Banghurst's butler opened the door and smelt the + sour smell of the smoke, he knew, he says, what had happened. For the + servants at least of Banghurst's household had guessed something of what + was going on in Filmer's mind. + </p> + <p> + All through that trying afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held a man + should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests for the + most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact—though to conceal + their perception of it altogether was impossible—that Banghurst had + been pretty elaborately and completely swindled by the deceased. The + public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed “like a party that has + been ducking a welsher,” and there wasn't a soul in the train to London, + it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying was a quite impossible + thing for man. “But he might have tried it,” said many, “after carrying + the thing so far.” + </p> + <p> + In the evening, when he was comparatively alone, Banghurst broke down and + went on like a man of clay. I have been told he wept, which must have made + an imposing scene, and he certainly said Filmer had ruined his life, and + offered and sold the whole apparatus to MacAndrew for half-a-crown. “I've + been thinking—” said MacAndrew at the conclusion of the bargain, and + stopped. + </p> + <p> + The next morning the name of Filmer was, for the first time, less + conspicuous in the New Paper than in any other daily paper in the world. + The rest of the world's instructors, with varying emphasis, according to + their dignity and the degree of competition between themselves and the New + Paper, proclaimed the “Entire Failure of the New Flying Machine,” and + “Suicide of the Impostor.” But in the district of North Surrey the + reception of the news was tempered by a perception of unusual aerial + phenomena. + </p> + <p> + Overnight Wilkinson and MacAndrew had fallen into violent argument on the + exact motives of their principal's rash act. + </p> + <p> + “The man was certainly a poor, cowardly body, but so far as his science + went he was NO impostor,” said MacAndrew, “and I'm prepared to give that + proposition a very practical demonstration, Mr. Wilkinson, so soon as + we've got the place a little more to ourselves. For I've no faith in all + this publicity for experimental trials.” + </p> + <p> + And to that end, while all the world was reading of the certain failure of + the new flying machine, MacAndrew was soaring and curvetting with great + amplitude and dignity over the Epsom and Wimbledon divisions; and + Banghurst, restored once more to hope and energy, and regardless of public + security and the Board of Trade, was pursuing his gyrations and trying to + attract his attention, on a motor car and in his pyjamas—he had + caught sight of the ascent when pulling up the blind of his bedroom window—equipped, + among other things, with a film camera that was subsequently discovered to + be jammed. And Filmer was lying on the billiard table in the green + pavilion with a sheet about his body. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 2. THE MAGIC SHOP + </h2> + <p> + I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once or + twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic hens, + wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the basket trick, + packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all that sort of thing, but + never had I thought of going in until one day, almost without warning, Gip + hauled me by my finger right up to the window, and so conducted himself + that there was nothing for it but to take him in. I had not thought the + place was there, to tell the truth—a modest-sized frontage in Regent + Street, between the picture shop and the place where the chicks run about + just out of patent incubators, but there it was sure enough. I had fancied + it was down nearer the Circus, or round the corner in Oxford Street, or + even in Holborn; always over the way and a little inaccessible it had + been, with something of the mirage in its position; but here it was now + quite indisputably, and the fat end of Gip's pointing finger made a noise + upon the glass. + </p> + <p> + “If I was rich,” said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg, “I'd + buy myself that. And that”—which was The Crying Baby, Very Human—“and + that,” which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card asserted, “Buy One + and Astonish Your Friends.” + </p> + <p> + “Anything,” said Gip, “will disappear under one of those cones. I have + read about it in a book. + </p> + <p> + “And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny—, only they've put it + this way up so's we can't see how it's done.” + </p> + <p> + Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose to + enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously he + lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear. + </p> + <p> + “That,” he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle. + </p> + <p> + “If you had that?” I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up with a + sudden radiance. + </p> + <p> + “I could show it to Jessie,” he said, thoughtful as ever of others. + </p> + <p> + “It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles,” I said, and + laid my hand on the door-handle. + </p> + <p> + Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so we came + into the shop. + </p> + <p> + It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing + precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting. He + left the burthen of the conversation to me. + </p> + <p> + It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell pinged + again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us. For a moment or so + we were alone and could glance about us. There was a tiger in papier-mache + on the glass case that covered the low counter—a grave, kind-eyed + tiger that waggled his head in a methodical manner; there were several + crystal spheres, a china hand holding magic cards, a stock of magic + fish-bowls in various sizes, and an immodest magic hat that shamelessly + displayed its springs. On the floor were magic mirrors; one to draw you + out long and thin, one to swell your head and vanish your legs, and one to + make you short and fat like a draught; and while we were laughing at these + the shopman, as I suppose, came in. + </p> + <p> + At any rate, there he was behind the counter—a curious, sallow, dark + man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like the toe-cap of a + boot. + </p> + <p> + “What can we have the pleasure?” he said, spreading his long, magic + fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware of him. + </p> + <p> + “I want,” I said, “to buy my little boy a few simple tricks.” + </p> + <p> + “Legerdemain?” he asked. “Mechanical? Domestic?” + </p> + <p> + “Anything amusing?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Um!” said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if + thinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball. + “Something in this way?” he said, and held it out. + </p> + <p> + The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainments + endless times before—it's part of the common stock of conjurers—but + I had not expected it here. + </p> + <p> + “That's good,” I said, with a laugh. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it?” said the shopman. + </p> + <p> + Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found merely + a blank palm. + </p> + <p> + “It's in your pocket,” said the shopman, and there it was! + </p> + <p> + “How much will that be?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “We make no charge for glass balls,” said the shopman politely. “We get + them,”—he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke—“free.” He + produced another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside its + predecessor on the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely, then + directed a look of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally brought + his round-eyed scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled. + </p> + <p> + “You may have those too,” said the shopman, “and, if you DON'T mind, one + from my mouth. SO!” + </p> + <p> + Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence put + away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved himself for + the next event. + </p> + <p> + “We get all our smaller tricks in that way,” the shopman remarked. + </p> + <p> + I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. “Instead of going + to the wholesale shop,” I said. “Of course, it's cheaper.” + </p> + <p> + “In a way,” the shopman said. “Though we pay in the end. But not so + heavily—as people suppose.... Our larger tricks, and our daily + provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that hat... And + you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there ISN'T a wholesale + shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know if you noticed our + inscription—the Genuine Magic shop.” He drew a business-card from + his cheek and handed it to me. “Genuine,” he said, with his finger on the + word, and added, “There is absolutely no deception, sir.” + </p> + <p> + He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought. + </p> + <p> + He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. “You, you know, + are the Right Sort of Boy.” + </p> + <p> + I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests of + discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip received it + in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him. + </p> + <p> + “It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway.” + </p> + <p> + And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door, and + a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. “Nyar! I WARN 'a go in + there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!” and then the accents of a + down-trodden parent, urging consolations and propitiations. “It's locked, + Edward,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “But it isn't,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “It is, sir,” said the shopman, “always—for that sort of child,” and + as he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little, white face, + pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and distorted by evil + passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing at the enchanted pane. “It's + no good, sir,” said the shopman, as I moved, with my natural helpfulness, + doorward, and presently the spoilt child was carried off howling. + </p> + <p> + “How do you manage that?” I said, breathing a little more freely. + </p> + <p> + “Magic!” said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and behold! + sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into the + shadows of the shop. + </p> + <p> + “You were saying,” he said, addressing himself to Gip, “before you came + in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish your Friends' + boxes?” + </p> + <p> + Gip, after a gallant effort, said “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “It's in your pocket.” + </p> + <p> + And leaning over the counter—he really had an extraordinarily long + body—this amazing person produced the article in the customary + conjurer's manner. “Paper,” he said, and took a sheet out of the empty hat + with the springs; “string,” and behold his mouth was a string-box, from + which he drew an unending thread, which when he had tied his parcel he bit + off—and, it seemed to me, swallowed the ball of string. And then he + lit a candle at the nose of one of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck one + of his fingers (which had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, and so + sealed the parcel. “Then there was the Disappearing Egg,” he remarked, and + produced one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and also The Crying + Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready, and he + clasped them to his chest. + </p> + <p> + He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of his arms + was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. These, you + know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered something moving + about in my hat—something soft and jumpy. I whipped it off, and a + ruffled pigeon—no doubt a confederate—dropped out and ran on + the counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box behind the + papier-mache tiger. + </p> + <p> + “Tut, tut!” said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress; + “careless bird, and—as I live—nesting!” + </p> + <p> + He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three eggs, a + large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable glass balls, + and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more, talking all the + time of the way in which people neglect to brush their hats INSIDE as well + as out, politely, of course, but with a certain personal application. “All + sorts of things accumulate, sir.... Not YOU, of course, in particular.... + Nearly every customer.... Astonishing what they carry about with them....” + The crumpled paper rose and billowed on the counter more and more and + more, until he was nearly hidden from us, until he was altogether hidden, + and still his voice went on and on. “We none of us know what the fair + semblance of a human being may conceal, sir. Are we all then no better + than brushed exteriors, whited sepulchres—” + </p> + <p> + His voice stopped—exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone + with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle of the + paper stopped, and everything was still.... + </p> + <p> + “Have you done with my hat?” I said, after an interval. + </p> + <p> + There was no answer. + </p> + <p> + I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions in + the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet.... + </p> + <p> + “I think we'll go now,” I said. “Will you tell me how much all this comes + to?.... + </p> + <p> + “I say,” I said, on a rather louder note, “I want the bill; and my hat, + please.” + </p> + <p> + It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile.... + </p> + <p> + “Let's look behind the counter, Gip,” I said. “He's making fun of us.” + </p> + <p> + I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think there was + behind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor, and a common + conjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation, and looking as + stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit can do. I resumed my hat, + and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so out of my way. + </p> + <p> + “Dadda!” said Gip, in a guilty whisper. + </p> + <p> + “What is it, Gip?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I DO like this shop, dadda.” + </p> + <p> + “So should I,” I said to myself, “if the counter wouldn't suddenly extend + itself to shut one off from the door.” But I didn't call Gip's attention + to that. “Pussy!” he said, with a hand out to the rabbit as it came + lolloping past us; “Pussy, do Gip a magic!” and his eyes followed it as it + squeezed through a door I had certainly not remarked a moment before. Then + this door opened wider, and the man with one ear larger than the other + appeared again. He was smiling still, but his eye met mine with something + between amusement and defiance. “You'd like to see our show-room, sir,” he + said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged my finger forward. I glanced at + the counter and met the shopman's eye again. I was beginning to think the + magic just a little too genuine. “We haven't VERY much time,” I said. But + somehow we were inside the show-room before I could finish that. + </p> + <p> + “All goods of the same quality,” said the shopman, rubbing his flexible + hands together, “and that is the Best. Nothing in the place that isn't + genuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!” + </p> + <p> + I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then I saw + he held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail—the little + creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand—and in a moment + he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was only an + image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment—! And his gesture + was exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit of vermin. I + glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-horse. I was glad + he hadn't seen the thing. “I say,” I said, in an undertone, and indicating + Gip and the red demon with my eyes, “you haven't many things like THAT + about, have you?” + </p> + <p> + “None of ours! Probably brought it with you,” said the shopman—also + in an undertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever. “Astonishing + what people WILL carry about with them unawares!” And then to Gip, “Do you + see anything you fancy here?” + </p> + <p> + There were many things that Gip fancied there. + </p> + <p> + He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence and + respect. “Is that a Magic Sword?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers. It + renders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under eighteen. + Half-a-crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These panoplies on + cards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful—shield of + safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, daddy!” gasped Gip. + </p> + <p> + I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me. He + had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had embarked upon + the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing was going to stop + him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust and something very like + jealousy that Gip had hold of this person's finger as usually he has hold + of mine. No doubt the fellow was interesting, I thought, and had an + interestingly faked lot of stuff, really GOOD faked stuff, still— + </p> + <p> + I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye on this + prestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it. And no doubt when + the time came to go we should be able to go quite easily. + </p> + <p> + It was a long, rambling place, that show-room, a gallery broken up by + stands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to other + departments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and stared at + one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing, indeed, were + these that I was presently unable to make out the door by which we had + come. + </p> + <p> + The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork, + just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes of + soldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid and said—. + I myself haven't a very quick ear and it was a tongue-twisting sound, but + Gip—he has his mother's ear—got it in no time. “Bravo!” said + the shopman, putting the men back into the box unceremoniously and handing + it to Gip. “Now,” said the shopman, and in a moment Gip had made them all + alive again. + </p> + <p> + “You'll take that box?” asked the shopman. + </p> + <p> + “We'll take that box,” said I, “unless you charge its full value. In which + case it would need a Trust Magnate—” + </p> + <p> + “Dear heart! NO!” and the shopman swept the little men back again, shut + the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown paper, tied + up and—WITH GIP'S FULL NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE PAPER! + </p> + <p> + The shopman laughed at my amazement. + </p> + <p> + “This is the genuine magic,” he said. “The real thing.” + </p> + <p> + “It's a little too genuine for my taste,” I said again. + </p> + <p> + After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still odder the + way they were done. He explained them, he turned them inside out, and + there was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit of a head in the + sagest manner. + </p> + <p> + I did not attend as well as I might. “Hey, presto!” said the Magic + Shopman, and then would come the clear, small “Hey, presto!” of the boy. + But I was distracted by other things. It was being borne in upon me just + how tremendously rum this place was; it was, so to speak, inundated by a + sense of rumness. There was something a little rum about the fixtures + even, about the ceiling, about the floor, about the casually distributed + chairs. I had a queer feeling that whenever I wasn't looking at them + straight they went askew, and moved about, and played a noiseless + puss-in-the-corner behind my back. And the cornice had a serpentine design + with masks—masks altogether too expressive for proper plaster. + </p> + <p> + Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking + assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence—I + saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys and through + an arch—and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar in an idle + sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features! The particular + horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it just as though he was + idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all it was a short, blobby + nose, and then suddenly he shot it out like a telescope, and then out it + flew and became thinner and thinner until it was like a long, red, + flexible whip. Like a thing in a nightmare it was! He flourished it about + and flung it forth as a fly-fisher flings his line. + </p> + <p> + My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about, and there + was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking no evil. They + were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was standing on a little + stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of big drum in his hand. + </p> + <p> + “Hide and seek, dadda!” cried Gip. “You're He!” + </p> + <p> + And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped the + big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. “Take that off,” I cried, + “this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!” + </p> + <p> + The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held the big + cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little stool was + vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared?... + </p> + <p> + You know, perhaps, that sinister something that comes like a hand out of + the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes your common self + away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither slow nor hasty, neither + angry nor afraid. So it was with me. + </p> + <p> + I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside. + </p> + <p> + “Stop this folly!” I said. “Where is my boy?” + </p> + <p> + “You see,” he said, still displaying the drum's interior, “there is no + deception—-” + </p> + <p> + I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous movement. I + snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open a door to escape. + “Stop!” I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt after him—into + utter darkness. + </p> + <p> + THUD! + </p> + <p> + “Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!” + </p> + <p> + I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking working + man; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little perplexed with + himself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology, and then Gip had turned + and come to me with a bright little smile, as though for a moment he had + missed me. + </p> + <p> + And he was carrying four parcels in his arm! + </p> + <p> + He secured immediate possession of my finger. + </p> + <p> + For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see the door of + the magic shop, and, behold, it was not there! There was no door, no shop, + nothing, only the common pilaster between the shop where they sell + pictures and the window with the chicks!... + </p> + <p> + I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight to + the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab. + </p> + <p> + “'Ansoms,” said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation. + </p> + <p> + I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also. + Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and I felt and + discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression I flung it into the + street. + </p> + <p> + Gip said nothing. + </p> + <p> + For a space neither of us spoke. + </p> + <p> + “Dada!” said Gip, at last, “that WAS a proper shop!” + </p> + <p> + I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing had + seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged—so far, good; he was + neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously satisfied with the + afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms were the four parcels. + </p> + <p> + Confound it! what could be in them? + </p> + <p> + “Um!” I said. “Little boys can't go to shops like that every day.” + </p> + <p> + He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry I + was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there, coram + publico, in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought, the thing wasn't + so very bad. + </p> + <p> + But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be + reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary lead + soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether forget that + originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only genuine sort, + and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living white kitten, in + excellent health and appetite and temper. + </p> + <p> + I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about in + the nursery for quite an unconscionable time.... + </p> + <p> + That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe it is all + right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens, and the + soldiers seem as steady a company as any colonel could desire. And Gip—? + </p> + <p> + The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously with + Gip. + </p> + <p> + But I went so far as this one day. I said, “How would you like your + soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?” + </p> + <p> + “Mine do,” said Gip. “I just have to say a word I know before I open the + lid.” + </p> + <p> + “Then they march about alone?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, QUITE, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that.” + </p> + <p> + I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken occasion + to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when the soldiers were + about, but so far I have never discovered them performing in anything like + a magical manner. + </p> + <p> + It's so difficult to tell. + </p> + <p> + There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of paying + bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times, looking for + that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that matter honour is + satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address are known to them, I may + very well leave it to these people, whoever they may be, to send in their + bill in their own time. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 3. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS + </h2> + <p> + Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the + torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The + difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked the + fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope, and with a common + impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set + with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, a + little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle. + </p> + <p> + For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. It + spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn bushes + here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless ravine, to + break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances melted at last + into the bluish slopes of the further hills—hills it might be of a + greener kind—and above them invisibly supported, and seeming indeed + to hang in the blue, were the snowclad summits of mountains that grew + larger and bolder to the north-westward as the sides of the valley drew + together. And westward the valley opened until a distant darkness under + the sky told where the forests began. But the three men looked neither + east nor west, but only steadfastly across the valley. + </p> + <p> + The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. “Nowhere,” he + said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. “But after all, they had + a full day's start.” + </p> + <p> + “They don't know we are after them,” said the little man on the white + horse. + </p> + <p> + “SHE would know,” said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to himself. + </p> + <p> + “Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule, and all + to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding—-” + </p> + <p> + The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage on him. + “Do you think I haven't seen that?” he snarled. + </p> + <p> + “It helps, anyhow,” whispered the little man to himself. + </p> + <p> + The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. “They can't be over + the valley,” he said. “If we ride hard—” + </p> + <p> + He glanced at the white horse and paused. + </p> + <p> + “Curse all white horses!” said the man with the silver bridle, and turned + to scan the beast his curse included. + </p> + <p> + The little man looked down between the melancholy ears of his steed. + </p> + <p> + “I did my best,” he said. + </p> + <p> + The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt man + passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip. + </p> + <p> + “Come up!” said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. The little + man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs of the three made a + multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered grass as they turned back + towards the trail.... + </p> + <p> + They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came through + a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes of horny + branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below. And there the + trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only herbage was this + scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. Still, by hard scanning, by + leaning beside the horses' necks and pausing ever and again, even these + white men could contrive to follow after their prey. + </p> + <p> + There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse grass, and + ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once the + leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have trod. + And at that under his breath he cursed her for a fool. + </p> + <p> + The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man on the + white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode one after + another, the man with the silver bridle led the way, and they spoke never + a word. After a time it came to the little man on the white horse that the + world was very still. He started out of his dream. Besides the little + noises of their horses and equipment, the whole great valley kept the + brooding quiet of a painted scene. + </p> + <p> + Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forward + to the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; their + shadows went before them—still, noiseless, tapering attendants; and + nearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was it + had gone? Then he remembered the reverberation from the banks of the gorge + and the perpetual accompaniment of shifting, jostling pebbles. And, + moreover—? There was no breeze. That was it! What a vast, still + place it was, a monotonous afternoon slumber. And the sky open and blank, + except for a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the upper valley. + </p> + <p> + He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips to + whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, and stared + at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they had come. Blank! + Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign of a decent beast or tree—much + less a man. What a land it was! What a wilderness! He dropped again into + his former pose. + </p> + <p> + It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple black + flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. After + all, the infernal valley WAS alive. And then, to rejoice him still more, + came a little breath across his face, a whisper that came and went, the + faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered bush upon a little crest, + the first intimations of a possible breeze. Idly he wetted his finger, and + held it up. + </p> + <p> + He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who had + stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment he caught his + master's eye looking towards him. + </p> + <p> + For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode on + again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder, appearing and + disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours. They had ridden four + days out of the very limits of the world into this desolate place, short + of water, with nothing but a strip of dried meat under their saddles, over + rocks and mountains, where surely none but these fugitives had ever been + before—for THAT! + </p> + <p> + And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man had whole + cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding—girls, women! Why in the + name of passionate folly THIS one in particular? asked the little man, and + scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips with a blackened tongue. + It was the way of the master, and that was all he knew. Just because she + sought to evade him.... + </p> + <p> + His eye caught a whole row of high plumed canes bending in unison, and + then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. The + breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness out of + things—and that was well. + </p> + <p> + “Hullo!” said the gaunt man. + </p> + <p> + All three stopped abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “What?” asked the master. “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Over there,” said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley. + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Something coming towards us.” + </p> + <p> + And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing down upon + them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, tongue out, at a + steady pace, and running with such an intensity of purpose that he did not + seem to see the horsemen he approached. He ran with his nose up, + following, it was plain, neither scent nor quarry. As he drew nearer the + little man felt for his sword. “He's mad,” said the gaunt rider. + </p> + <p> + “Shout!” said the little man, and shouted. + </p> + <p> + The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, it + swerved aside and went panting by them and past. The eyes of the little + man followed its flight. “There was no foam,” he said. For a space the man + with the silver-studded bridle stared up the valley. “Oh, come on!” he + cried at last. “What does it matter?” and jerked his horse into movement + again. + </p> + <p> + The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from nothing + but the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human character. “Come + on!” he whispered to himself. “Why should it be given to one man to say + 'Come on!' with that stupendous violence of effect. Always, all his life, + the man with the silver bridle has been saying that. If <i>I</i> said it—!” + thought the little man. But people marvelled when the master was disobeyed + even in the wildest things. This half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to + every one, mad—blasphemous almost. The little man, by way of + comparison, reflected on the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart + as his master, as brave and, indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there + was obedience, nothing but to give obedience duly and stoutly... + </p> + <p> + Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back to + more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up beside his + gaunt fellow. “Do you notice the horses?” he said in an undertone. + </p> + <p> + The gaunt face looked interrogation. + </p> + <p> + “They don't like this wind,” said the little man, and dropped behind as + the man with the silver bridle turned upon him. + </p> + <p> + “It's all right,” said the gaunt-faced man. + </p> + <p> + They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode downcast + upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept down the + vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the wind grew in + strength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a line of dark + bulks—wild hog perhaps, galloping down the valley, but of that he + said nothing, nor did he remark again upon the uneasiness of the horses. + </p> + <p> + And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball, a great + shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistle-down, that drove before + the wind athwart the path. These balls soared high in the air, and dropped + and rose again and caught for a moment, and hurried on and passed, but at + the sight of them the restlessness of the horses increased. + </p> + <p> + Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes—and then + soon very many more—were hurrying towards him down the valley. + </p> + <p> + They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed, + turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then hurling + on down the valley again. And at that, all three stopped and sat in their + saddles, staring into the thickening haze that was coming upon them. + </p> + <p> + “If it were not for this thistle-down—” began the leader. + </p> + <p> + But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards of them. It + was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft, ragged, filmy + thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial jelly-fish, as it were, + but rolling over and over as it advanced, and trailing long, cobwebby + threads and streamers that floated in its wake. + </p> + <p> + “It isn't thistle-down,” said the little man. + </p> + <p> + “I don't like the stuff,” said the gaunt man. + </p> + <p> + And they looked at one another. + </p> + <p> + “Curse it!” cried the leader. “The air's full of it up there. If it keeps + on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether.” + </p> + <p> + An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the approach + of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses to the wind, + ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing multitude of + floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort of smooth + swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth, rebounding + high, soaring—all with a perfect unanimity, with a still, deliberate + assurance. + </p> + <p> + Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army passed. + At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly and trailing out + reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands, all three horses began + to shy and dance. The master was seized with a sudden unreasonable + impatience. He cursed the drifting globes roundly. “Get on!” he cried; + “get on! What do these things matter? How CAN they matter? Back to the + trail!” He fell swearing at his horse and sawed the bit across its mouth. + </p> + <p> + He shouted aloud with rage. “I will follow that trail, I tell you!” he + cried. “Where is the trail?” + </p> + <p> + He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst the grass. + A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey streamer dropped + about his bridle-arm, some big, active thing with many legs ran down the + back of his head. He looked up to discover one of those grey masses + anchored as it were above him by these things and flapping out ends as a + sail flaps when a boat comes, about—but noiselessly. + </p> + <p> + He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies, of + long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring the thing + down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his prancing horse + with the instinct born of years of horsemanship. Then the flat of a sword + smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead and cut the drifting balloon + of spider-web free, and the whole mass lifted softly and drove clear and + away. + </p> + <p> + “Spiders!” cried the voice of the gaunt man. “The things are full of big + spiders! Look, my lord!” + </p> + <p> + The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away. + </p> + <p> + “Look, my lord!” + </p> + <p> + The master found himself staring down at a red, smashed thing on the + ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle + unavailing legs. Then when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that bore + down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was like a + fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the situation. + </p> + <p> + “Ride for it!” the little man was shouting. “Ride for it down the valley.” + </p> + <p> + What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man with the + silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing furiously at + imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse of the gaunt man and hurl + it and its rider to earth. His own horse went a dozen paces before he + could rein it in. Then he looked up to avoid imaginary dangers, and then + back again to see a horse rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standing + and slashing over it at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamed + and wrapped about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on waste + land on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on. + </p> + <p> + The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse. He was + endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength of one + arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles of a second + grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle, and this second grey + mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank. + </p> + <p> + The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head, and + spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over, there were + blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man, suddenly + leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces. His legs + were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual movements with + his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was a thin veil of grey + across his face. With his left hand he beat at something on his body, and + suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled to rise, and fell again, and + suddenly, horribly, began to howl, “Oh—ohoo, ohooh!” + </p> + <p> + The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon the + ground. + </p> + <p> + As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaming + grey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, and + the little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his belly + athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. And again a + clinging thread of grey gossamer swept across the master's face. All about + him, and over him, it seemed this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled and + drew nearer him.... + </p> + <p> + To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment + happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its own + accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another second he was + galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword whirling furiously + overhead. And all about him on the quickening breeze, the spiders' + airships, their air bundles and air sheets, seemed to him to hurry in a + conscious pursuit. + </p> + <p> + Clatter, clatter, thud, thud—the man with the silver bridle rode, + heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, now + left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards ahead of + him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode the little man + on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle. The reeds bent + before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his shoulder the master + could see the webs hurrying to overtake.... + </p> + <p> + He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse + gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then he + realised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning forward on + his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late. + </p> + <p> + But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had not + forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air. He came off clear + with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse rolled, kicking + spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword drove its point into + the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as though Chance refused him any + longer as her Knight, and the splintered end missed his face by an inch or + so. + </p> + <p> + He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the onrushing + spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought of the + ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting terror, + and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides, and out of + the touch of the gale. + </p> + <p> + There under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might crouch, + and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind + fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he + crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their streamers + across his narrowed sky. + </p> + <p> + Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him—a full + foot it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand—and + after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape for a + little while, and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted up his + iron-heeled boot and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did so, and + for a time sought up and down for another. + </p> + <p> + Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not drop into + the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down, and sat and fell + into deep thought and began after his manner to gnaw his knuckles and bite + his nails. And from this he was moved by the coming of the man with the + white horse. + </p> + <p> + He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumbling + footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a rueful + figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. They + approached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The little + man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, and came + to a stop at last, face to face with his seated master. The latter winced + a little under his dependant's eye. “Well?” he said at last, with no + pretence of authority. + </p> + <p> + “You left him?” + </p> + <p> + “My horse bolted.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. So did mine.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed at his master mirthlessly. + </p> + <p> + “I say my horse bolted,” said the man who once had a silver-studded + bridle. + </p> + <p> + “Cowards both,” said the little man. + </p> + <p> + The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments, with his eye + on his inferior. + </p> + <p> + “Don't call me a coward,” he said at length. + </p> + <p> + “You are a coward like myself.” + </p> + <p> + “A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear. + That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where the + difference comes in.” + </p> + <p> + “I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved your life two + minutes before.... Why are you our lord?” + </p> + <p> + The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark. + </p> + <p> + “No man calls me a coward,” he said. “No. A broken sword is better than + none.... One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry two men a + four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time it cannot be + helped. You begin to understand me?... I perceive that you are minded, on + the strength of what you have seen and fancy, to taint my reputation. It + is men of your sort who unmake kings. Besides which—I never liked + you.” + </p> + <p> + “My lord!” said the little man. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said the master. “NO!” + </p> + <p> + He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps they + faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. There was a + quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, a cry of despair, a + gasp and a blow.... + </p> + <p> + Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity, and the + man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last very cautiously + and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now he led the white + horse that once belonged to the little man. He would have gone back to his + horse to get his silver-mounted bridle again, but he feared night and a + quickening breeze might still find him in the valley, and besides he + disliked greatly to think he might discover his horse all swathed in + cobwebs and perhaps unpleasantly eaten. + </p> + <p> + And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he had been + through, and the manner in which he had been preserved that day, his hand + sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck, and he clasped it for + a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so his eyes went across the + valley. + </p> + <p> + “I was hot with passion,” he said, “and now she has met her reward. They + also, no doubt—” + </p> + <p> + And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, but in + the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable, he saw a little + spire of smoke. + </p> + <p> + At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed anger. + Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and hesitated. And as + he did so a little rustle of air went through the grass about him. Far + away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of grey. He looked at the + cobwebs; he looked at the smoke. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps, after all, it is not them,” he said at last. + </p> + <p> + But he knew better. + </p> + <p> + After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white + horse. + </p> + <p> + As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some + reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that lived + feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs they + fled. + </p> + <p> + Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry them + or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, could do him + little evil. He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came too near. + Once, where a number ran together over a bare place, he was minded to + dismount and trample them with his boots, but this impulse he overcame. + Ever and again he turned in his saddle, and looked back at the smoke. + </p> + <p> + “Spiders,” he muttered over and over again. “Spiders! Well, well.... The + next time I must spin a web.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT + </h2> + <p> + He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see + him. And if I catch his eye—and usually I catch his eye—it + meets me with an expression. + </p> + <p> + It is mainly an imploring look—and yet with suspicion in it. + </p> + <p> + Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told long + ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his ease. As + if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who would believe + me if I did tell? + </p> + <p> + Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubman + in London. + </p> + <p> + He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, + stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him biting + at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me. Confound him!—with + his eyes on me! + </p> + <p> + That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL behave + as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your embedded eyes, + I write the thing down—the plain truth about Pyecraft. The man I + helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me by making my club + unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his liquid appeal, with the + perpetual “don't tell” of his looks. + </p> + <p> + And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating? + </p> + <p> + Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! + </p> + <p> + Pyecraft—. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very + smoking-room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was + sitting all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly he + came, a great rolling front of chins and abdomina, towards me, and grunted + and sat down in a chair close by me and wheezed for a space, and scraped + for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and then addressed me. I forget + what he said—something about the matches not lighting properly, and + afterwards as he talked he kept stopping the waiters one by one as they + went by, and telling them about the matches in that thin, fluty voice he + has. But, anyhow, it was in some such way we began our talking. + </p> + <p> + He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence to my + figure and complexion. “YOU ought to be a good cricketer,” he said. I + suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would call lean, and I + suppose I am rather dark, still—I am not ashamed of having a Hindu + great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want casual strangers to see + through me at a glance to HER. So that I was set against Pyecraft from the + beginning. + </p> + <p> + But he only talked about me in order to get to himself. + </p> + <p> + “I expect,” he said, “you take no more exercise than I do, and probably + you eat no less.” (Like all excessively obese people he fancied he ate + nothing.) “Yet,”—and he smiled an oblique smile—“we differ.” + </p> + <p> + And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness; all he did + for his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness; what people + had advised him to do for his fatness and what he had heard of people + doing for fatness similar to his. “A priori,” he said, “one would think a + question of nutrition could be answered by dietary and a question of + assimilation by drugs.” It was stifling. It was dumpling talk. It made me + feel swelled to hear him. + </p> + <p> + One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time came + when I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether too + conspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but he would come + wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and gormandised round and + about me while I had my lunch. He seemed at times almost to be clinging to + me. He was a bore, but not so fearful a bore as to be limited to me; and + from the first there was something in his manner—almost as though he + knew, almost as though he penetrated to the fact that I MIGHT—that + there was a remote, exceptional chance in me that no one else presented. + </p> + <p> + “I'd give anything to get it down,” he would say—“anything,” and + peer at me over his vast cheeks and pant. + </p> + <p> + Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged, no doubt to order another buttered + tea-cake! + </p> + <p> + He came to the actual thing one day. “Our Pharmacopoeia,” he said, “our + Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical science. + In the East, I've been told—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium. + </p> + <p> + I was quite suddenly angry with him. “Look here,” I said, “who told you + about my great-grandmother's recipes?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he fenced. + </p> + <p> + “Every time we've met for a week,” I said, “and we've met pretty often—you've + given me a broad hint or so about that little secret of mine.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he said, “now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, yes, it is so. + I had it—” + </p> + <p> + “From Pattison?” + </p> + <p> + “Indirectly,” he said, which I believe was lying, “yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Pattison,” I said, “took that stuff at his own risk.” + </p> + <p> + He pursed his mouth and bowed. + </p> + <p> + “My great-grandmother's recipes,” I said, “are queer things to handle. My + father was near making me promise—” + </p> + <p> + “He didn't?” + </p> + <p> + “No. But he warned me. He himself used one—once.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!... But do you think—? Suppose—suppose there did happen to + be one—” + </p> + <p> + “The things are curious documents,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Even the smell of 'em.... No!” + </p> + <p> + But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. I was + always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would fall on + me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was also annoyed with + Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling for him that disposed me to + say, “Well, TAKE the risk!” The little affair of Pattison to which I have + alluded was a different matter altogether. What it was doesn't concern us + now, but I knew, anyhow, that the particular recipe I used then was safe. + The rest I didn't know so much about, and, on the whole, I was inclined to + doubt their safety pretty completely. + </p> + <p> + Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned— + </p> + <p> + I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense + undertaking. + </p> + <p> + That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of my safe + and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote the recipes + for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins of a + miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last degree. + Some of the things are quite unreadable to me—though my family, with + its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge of + Hindustani from generation to generation—and none are absolutely + plain sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough, and + sat on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away from + his eager grasp. + </p> + <p> + “So far as I—can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight. + (“Ah!” said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that. And + if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know—I + blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft—my ancestors on that + side were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?” + </p> + <p> + “Let me try it,” said Pyecraft. + </p> + <p> + I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort and fell + flat within me. “What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft,” I asked, “do you think + you'll look like when you get thin?” + </p> + <p> + He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word to me + about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened—never, and then + I handed him that little piece of skin. + </p> + <p> + “It's nasty stuff,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “No matter,” he said, and took it. + </p> + <p> + He goggled at it. “But—but—” he said. + </p> + <p> + He had just discovered that it wasn't English. + </p> + <p> + “To the best of my ability,” I said, “I will do you a translation.” + </p> + <p> + I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever he + approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected our + compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever. And then he + got a word in. + </p> + <p> + “I must speak,” he said. “It isn't fair. There's something wrong. It's + done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice.” + </p> + <p> + “Where's the recipe?” + </p> + <p> + He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book. + </p> + <p> + I ran my eye over the items. “Was the egg addled?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “No. Ought it to have been?” + </p> + <p> + “That,” I said, “goes without saying in all my poor dear + great-grandmother's recipes. When condition or quality is not specified + you must get the worst. She was drastic or nothing.... And there's one or + two possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got FRESH + rattlesnake venom.” + </p> + <p> + “I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost—it cost—” + </p> + <p> + “That's your affair, anyhow. This last item—” + </p> + <p> + “I know a man who—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know the + language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious. + By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog.” + </p> + <p> + For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and as fat + and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke the spirit + of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day in the cloakroom he + said, “Your great-grandmother—” + </p> + <p> + “Not a word against her,” I said; and he held his peace. + </p> + <p> + I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking to + three new members about his fatness as though he was in search of other + recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Formalyn!” bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram + and opened it at once. + </p> + <p> + “For Heaven's sake come.—Pyecraft.” + </p> + <p> + “H'm,” said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the + rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently + promised that I made a most excellent lunch. + </p> + <p> + I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the + upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I had + done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Pyecraft?” said I, at the front door. + </p> + <p> + They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days. + </p> + <p> + “He expects me,” said I, and they sent me up. + </p> + <p> + I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing. + </p> + <p> + “He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow,” I said to myself. “A man who eats + like a pig ought to look like a pig.” + </p> + <p> + An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly placed + cap, came and surveyed me through the lattice. + </p> + <p> + I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of the + landing. + </p> + <p> + “'E said you was to come in if you came,” she said, and regarded me, + making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially, “'E's + locked in, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Locked in?” + </p> + <p> + “Locked himself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since, sir. + And ever and again SWEARING. Oh, my!” + </p> + <p> + I stared at the door she indicated by her glances. + </p> + <p> + “In there?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “What's up?” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head sadly, “'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir. 'EAVY + vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's 'ad, sooit puddin', + sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside, if you please, + and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink AWFUL.” + </p> + <p> + There came a piping bawl from inside the door: “That Formalyn?” + </p> + <p> + “That you, Pyecraft?” I shouted, and went and banged the door. + </p> + <p> + “Tell her to go away.” + </p> + <p> + I did. + </p> + <p> + Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like some one + feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar grunts. + </p> + <p> + “It's all right,” I said, “she's gone.” + </p> + <p> + But for a long time the door didn't open. + </p> + <p> + I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, “Come in.” + </p> + <p> + I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see + Pyecraft. + </p> + <p> + Well, you know, he wasn't there! + </p> + <p> + I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room in a state + of untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books and writing things, + and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft— + </p> + <p> + “It's all right, o' man; shut the door,” he said, and then I discovered + him. + </p> + <p> + There he was right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door, as + though some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious and + angry. He panted and gesticulated. “Shut the door,” he said. “If that + woman gets hold of it—” + </p> + <p> + I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared. + </p> + <p> + “If anything gives way and you tumble down,” I said, “you'll break your + neck, Pyecraft.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish I could,” he wheezed. + </p> + <p> + “A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't,” he said, and looked agonised. + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you,” he said, and gesticulated. + </p> + <p> + “How the deuce,” said I, “are you holding on up there?” + </p> + <p> + And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all, that he + was floating up there—just as a gas-filled bladder might have + floated in the same position. He began a struggle to thrust himself away + from the ceiling and to clamber down the wall to me. “It's that + prescription,” he panted, as he did so. “Your great-gran—” + </p> + <p> + He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke and it + gave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while the picture smashed + onto the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling, and I knew then why he + was all over white on the more salient curves and angles of his person. He + tried again more carefully, coming down by way of the mantel. + </p> + <p> + It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat, + apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceiling to + the floor. “That prescription,” he said. “Too successful.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “Loss of weight—almost complete.” + </p> + <p> + And then, of course, I understood. + </p> + <p> + “By Jove, Pyecraft,” said I, “what you wanted was a cure for fatness! But + you always called it weight. You would call it weight.” + </p> + <p> + Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time. + “Let me help you!” I said, and took his hand and pulled him down. He + kicked about, trying to get a foothold somewhere. It was very like holding + a flag on a windy day. + </p> + <p> + “That table,” he said, pointing, “is solid mahogany and very heavy. If you + can put me under that—-” + </p> + <p> + I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while I stood + on his hearthrug and talked to him. + </p> + <p> + I lit a cigar. “Tell me,” I said, “what happened?” + </p> + <p> + “I took it,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “How did it taste?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, BEASTLY!” + </p> + <p> + I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients or the + probable compound or the possible results, almost all of my + great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be extraordinarily + uninviting. For my own part— + </p> + <p> + “I took a little sip first.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take the + draught.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Pyecraft!” + </p> + <p> + “I held my nose,” he explained. “And then I kept on getting lighter and + lighter—and helpless, you know.” + </p> + <p> + He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. “What the goodness am I to DO?” + he said. + </p> + <p> + “There's one thing pretty evident,” I said, “that you mustn't do. If you + go out of doors, you'll go up and up.” I waved an arm upward. “They'd have + to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it will wear off?” + </p> + <p> + I shook my head. “I don't think you can count on that,” I said. + </p> + <p> + And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out at adjacent + chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should have expected a + great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying circumstances—that + is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and my great-grandmother with an + utter want of discretion. + </p> + <p> + “I never asked you to take the stuff,” I said. + </p> + <p> + And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me, I sat down + in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober, friendly fashion. + </p> + <p> + I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon himself, + and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had eaten too much. + This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point. + </p> + <p> + He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect of his lesson. + “And then,” said I, “you committed the sin of euphuism. You called it not + Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You—” + </p> + <p> + He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO? + </p> + <p> + I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we came to + the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that it would not be + difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling with his hands— + </p> + <p> + “I can't sleep,” he said. + </p> + <p> + But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out, to + make a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things on with + tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button at the side. He + would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said; and after some + squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was quite delightful to see + the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which the good lady took all these + amazing inversions.) He could have a library ladder in his room, and all + his meals could be laid on the top of his bookcase. We also hit on an + ingenious device by which he could get to the floor whenever he wanted, + which was simply to put the British Encyclopaedia (tenth edition) on the + top of his open shelves. He just pulled out a couple of volumes and held + on, and down he came. And we agreed there must be iron staples along the + skirting, so that he could cling to those whenever he wanted to get about + the room on the lower level. + </p> + <p> + As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested. It + was I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her, and it was I + chiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent two whole days at + his flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man with a screw-driver, and I + made all sorts of ingenious adaptations for him—ran a wire to bring + his bells within reach, turned all his electric lights up instead of down, + and so on. The whole affair was extremely curious and interesting to me, + and it was delightful to think of Pyecraft like some great, fat blow-fly, + crawling about on his ceiling and clambering round the lintels of his + doors from one room to another, and never, never, never coming to the club + any more.... + </p> + <p> + Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was sitting by + his fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his favourite corner by the + cornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the ceiling, when the idea struck me. + “By Jove, Pyecraft!” I said, “all this is totally unnecessary.” + </p> + <p> + And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion I + blurted it out. “Lead underclothing,” said I, and the mischief was done. + </p> + <p> + Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. “To be right ways up again—” + he said. I gave him the whole secret before I saw where it would take me. + “Buy sheet lead,” I said, “stamp it into discs. Sew 'em all over your + underclothes until you have enough. Have lead-soled boots, carry a bag of + solid lead, and the thing is done! Instead of being a prisoner here you + may go abroad again, Pyecraft; you may travel—” + </p> + <p> + A still happier idea came to me. “You need never fear a shipwreck. All you + need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the necessary + amount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air—” + </p> + <p> + In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head. “By + Jove!” he said, “I shall be able to come back to the club again.” + </p> + <p> + The thing pulled me up short. “By Jove!” I said faintly. “Yes. Of course—you + will.” + </p> + <p> + He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing—as I live!—a + third go of buttered tea-cake. And no one in the whole world knows—except + his housekeeper and me—that he weighs practically nothing; that he + is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere clouds in clothing, + niente, nefas, the most inconsiderable of men. There he sits watching + until I have done this writing. Then, if he can, he will waylay me. He + will come billowing up to me.... + </p> + <p> + He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it doesn't + feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little. And always + somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say, “The secret's + keeping, eh? If any one knew of it—I should be so ashamed.... Makes + a fellow look such a fool, you know. Crawling about on a ceiling and all + that....” + </p> + <p> + And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable strategic + position between me and the door. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 5. MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND + </h2> + <p> + “There's a man in that shop,” said the Doctor, “who has been in + Fairyland.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense!” I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual village + shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and brushes + outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window. “Tell me about + it,” I said, after a pause. + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> don't know,” said the Doctor. “He's an ordinary sort of lout—Skelmersdale + is his name. But everybody about here believes it like Bible truth.” + </p> + <p> + I reverted presently to the topic. + </p> + <p> + “I know nothing about it,” said the Doctor, “and I don't WANT to know. I + attended him for a broken finger—Married and Single cricket match—and + that's when I struck the nonsense. That's all. But it shows you the sort + of stuff I have to deal with, anyhow, eh? Nice to get modern sanitary + ideas into a people like this!” + </p> + <p> + “Very,” I said in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell me + about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind, I observe, + are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health. I was as + sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham people “asses,” I + said they were “thundering asses,” but even that did not allay him. + </p> + <p> + Afterwards, later in the summer, an urgent desire to seclude myself, while + finishing my chapter on Spiritual Pathology—it was really, I + believe, stiffer to write than it is to read—took me to Bignor. I + lodged at a farmhouse, and presently found myself outside that little + general shop again, in search of tobacco. “Skelmersdale,” said I to myself + at the sight of it, and went in. + </p> + <p> + I was served by a short, but shapely, young man, with a fair downy + complexion, good, small teeth, blue eyes, and a languid manner. I + scrutinised him curiously. Except for a touch of melancholy in his + expression, he was nothing out of the common. He was in the shirt-sleeves + and tucked-up apron of his trade, and a pencil was thrust behind his + inoffensive ear. Athwart his black waistcoat was a gold chain, from which + dangled a bent guinea. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing more to-day, sir?” he inquired. He leant forward over my bill as + he spoke. + </p> + <p> + “Are you Mr. Skelmersdale?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I am, sir,” he said, without looking up. + </p> + <p> + “Is it true that you have been in Fairyland?” + </p> + <p> + He looked up at me for a moment with wrinkled brows, with an aggrieved, + exasperated face. “O SHUT it!” he said, and, after a moment of hostility, + eye to eye, he went on adding up my bill. “Four, six and a half,” he said, + after a pause. “Thank you, Sir.” + </p> + <p> + So, unpropitiously, my acquaintance with Mr. Skelmersdale began. + </p> + <p> + Well, I got from that to confidence—through a series of toilsome + efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night I + went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme seclusion + from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day. I contrived to + play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found the one subject to + avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was open and amiable in a + commonplace sort of way, but on that he had been worried—it was a + manifest taboo. Only once in the room did I hear the slightest allusion to + his experience in his presence, and that was by a cross-grained farm hand + who was losing to him. Skelmersdale had run a break into double figures, + which, by the Bignor standards, was uncommonly good play. “Steady on!” + said his adversary. “None of your fairy flukes!” + </p> + <p> + Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung it down + and walked out of the room. + </p> + <p> + “Why can't you leave 'im alone?” said a respectable elder who had been + enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval the grin of + satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face. + </p> + <p> + I scented my opportunity. “What's this joke,” said I, “about Fairyland?” + </p> + <p> + “'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale,” said the + respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was more + communicative. “They DO say, sir,” he said, “that they took him into + Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks.” + </p> + <p> + And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep had + started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time I had at + least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair. Formerly, before he + came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar little shop at Aldington + Corner, and there whatever it was did happen had taken place. The story + was clear that he had stayed out late one night on the Knoll and vanished + for three weeks from the sight of men, and had returned with “his cuffs as + clean as when he started,” and his pockets full of dust and ashes. He + returned in a state of moody wretchedness that only slowly passed away, + and for many days he would give no account of where it was he had been. + The girl he was engaged to at Clapton Hill tried to get it out of him, and + threw him over partly because he refused, and partly because, as she said, + he fairly gave her the “'ump.” And then when, some time after, he let out + to some one carelessly that he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go + back, and when the thing spread and the simple badinage of the countryside + came into play, he threw up his situation abruptly, and came to Bignor to + get out of the fuss. But as to what had happened in Fairyland none of + these people knew. There the gathering in the Village Room went to pieces + like a pack at fault. One said this, and another said that. + </p> + <p> + Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and + sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing through + their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent interest, + tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story. + </p> + <p> + “If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll,” I said, “why don't you dig it + out?” + </p> + <p> + “That's what I says,” said the young ploughboy. + </p> + <p> + “There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll,” said the + respectable elder, solemnly, “one time and another. But there's none as + goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging.” + </p> + <p> + The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive; I + felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction, and + the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts of the case + was distinctly whetted. If these real facts were to be got from any one, + they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself; and I set myself, + therefore, still more assiduously to efface the first bad impression I had + made and win his confidence to the pitch of voluntary speech. In that + endeavour I had a social advantage. Being a person of affability and no + apparent employment, and wearing tweeds and knickerbockers, I was + naturally classed as an artist in Bignor, and in the remarkable code of + social precedence prevalent in Bignor an artist ranks considerably higher + than a grocer's assistant. Skelmersdale, like too many of his class, is + something of a snob; he had told me to “shut it,” only under sudden, + excessive provocation, and with, I am certain, a subsequent repentance; he + was, I knew, quite glad to be seen walking about the village with me. In + due course, he accepted the proposal of a pipe and whisky in my rooms + readily enough, and there, scenting by some happy instinct that there was + trouble of the heart in this, and knowing that confidences beget + confidences, I plied him with much of interest and suggestion from my real + and fictitious past. And it was after the third whisky of the third visit + of that sort, if I remember rightly, that a propos of some artless + expansion of a little affair that had touched and left me in my teens, + that he did at last, of his own free will and motion, break the ice. “It + was like that with me,” he said, “over there at Aldington. It's just that + that's so rum. First I didn't care a bit and it was all her, and + afterwards, when it was too late, it was, in a manner of speaking, all + me.” + </p> + <p> + I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out + another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight that + the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland adventure he + had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done the trick with him, and + from being just another half-incredulous, would-be facetious stranger, I + had, by all my wealth of shameless self-exposure, become the possible + confidant. He had been bitten by the desire to show that he, too, had + lived and felt many things, and the fever was upon him. + </p> + <p> + He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness to clear + him up with a few precise questions was only equalled and controlled by my + anxiety not to get to this sort of thing too soon. But in another meeting + or so the basis of confidence was complete; and from first to last I think + I got most of the items and aspects—indeed, I got quite a number of + times over almost everything that Mr. Skelmersdale, with his very limited + powers of narration, will ever be able to tell. And so I come to the story + of his adventure, and I piece it all together again. Whether it really + happened, whether he imagined it or dreamt it, or fell upon it in some + strange hallucinatory trance, I do not profess to say. But that he + invented it I will not for one moment entertain. The man simply and + honestly believes the thing happened as he says it happened; he is + transparently incapable of any lie so elaborate and sustained, and in the + belief of the simple, yet often keenly penetrating, rustic minds about him + I find a very strong confirmation of his sincerity. He believes—and + nobody can produce any positive fact to falsify his belief. As for me, + with this much of endorsement, I transmit his story—I am a little + old now to justify or explain. + </p> + <p> + He says he went to sleep on Aldington Knoll about ten o'clock one night—it + was quite possibly Midsummer night, though he has never thought of the + date, and he cannot be sure within a week or so—and it was a fine + night and windless, with a rising moon. I have been at the pains to visit + this Knoll thrice since his story grew up under my persuasions, and once I + went there in the twilight summer moonrise on what was, perhaps, a similar + night to that of his adventure. Jupiter was great and splendid above the + moon, and in the north and northwest the sky was green and vividly bright + over the sunken sun. The Knoll stands out bare and bleak under the sky, + but surrounded at a little distance by dark thickets, and as I went up + towards it there was a mighty starting and scampering of ghostly or quite + invisible rabbits. Just over the crown of the Knoll, but nowhere else, was + a multitudinous thin trumpeting of midges. The Knoll is, I believe, an + artificial mound, the tumulus of some great prehistoric chieftain, and + surely no man ever chose a more spacious prospect for a sepulchre. + Eastward one sees along the hills to Hythe, and thence across the Channel + to where, thirty miles and more perhaps, away, the great white lights by + Gris Nez and Boulogne wink and pass and shine. Westward lies the whole + tumbled valley of the Weald, visible as far as Hindhead and Leith Hill, + and the valley of the Stour opens the Downs in the north to interminable + hills beyond Wye. All Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch + and Romney and Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and + the hills multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up to Beachy + Head. + </p> + <p> + And out upon all this it was that Skelmersdale wandered, being troubled in + his earlier love affair, and as he says, “not caring WHERE he went.” And + there he sat down to think it over, and so, sulking and grieving, was + overtaken by sleep. And so he fell into the fairies' power. + </p> + <p> + The quarrel that had upset him was some trivial matter enough between + himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged. She was a + farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and “very respectable,” and no doubt + an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover were very young and + with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly keen edge of criticism, + that irrational hunger for a beautiful perfection, that life and wisdom do + presently and most mercifully dull. What the precise matter of quarrel was + I have no idea. She may have said she liked men in gaiters when he hadn't + any gaiters on, or he may have said he liked her better in a different + sort of hat, but however it began, it got by a series of clumsy stages to + bitterness and tears. She no doubt got tearful and smeary, and he grew + dusty and drooping, and she parted with invidious comparisons, grave + doubts whether she ever had REALLY cared for him, and a clear certainty + she would never care again. And with this sort of thing upon his mind he + came out upon Aldington Knoll grieving, and presently, after a long + interval, perhaps, quite inexplicably, fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + He woke to find himself on a softer turf than ever he had slept on before, + and under the shade of very dark trees that completely hid the sky. + Always, indeed, in Fairyland the sky is hidden, it seems. Except for one + night when the fairies were dancing, Mr. Skelmersdale, during all his time + with them, never saw a star. And of that night I am in doubt whether he + was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings and rushes are, in those + low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth. + </p> + <p> + But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves and + amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright and fine. Mr. + Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL, and the next that + quite a number of people still smaller were standing all about him. For + some reason, he says, he was neither surprised nor frightened, but sat up + quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. And there all + about him stood the smiling elves who had caught him sleeping under their + privileges and had brought him into Fairyland. + </p> + <p> + What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague and imperfect + is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor detail does he seem to + have been. They were clothed in something very light and beautiful, that + was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves, nor the petals of flowers. They + stood all about him as he sat and waked, and down the glade towards him, + down a glow-worm avenue and fronted by a star, came at once that Fairy + Lady who is the chief personage of his memory and tale. Of her I gathered + more. She was clothed in filmy green, and about her little waist was a + broad silver girdle. Her hair waved back from her forehead on either side; + there were curls not too wayward and yet astray, and on her brow was a + little tiara, set with a single star. Her sleeves were some sort of open + sleeves that gave little glimpses of her arms; her throat, I think, was a + little displayed, because he speaks of the beauty of her neck and chin. + There was a necklace of coral about her white throat, and in her breast a + coral-coloured flower. She had the soft lines of a little child in her + chin and cheeks and throat. And her eyes, I gather, were of a kindled + brown, very soft and straight and sweet under her level brows. You see by + these particulars how greatly this lady must have loomed in Mr. + Skelmersdale's picture. Certain things he tried to express and could not + express; “the way she moved,” he said several times; and I fancy a sort of + demure joyousness radiated from this Lady. + </p> + <p> + And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest and + chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale set out + to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed him gladly and + a little warmly—I suspect a pressure of his hand in both of hers and + a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago young Skelmersdale may have + been a very comely youth. And once she took his arm, and once, I think, + she led him by the hand adown the glade that the glow-worms lit. + </p> + <p> + Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from Mr. + Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives little + unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places where + there were many fairies together, of “toadstool things that shone pink,” + of fairy food, of which he could only say “you should have tasted it!” and + of fairy music, “like a little musical box,” that came out of nodding + flowers. There was a great open place where fairies rode and raced on + “things,” but what Mr. Skelmersdale meant by “these here things they + rode,” there is no telling. Larvae, perhaps, or crickets, or the little + beetles that elude us so abundantly. There was a place where water + splashed and gigantic king-cups grew, and there in the hotter times the + fairies bathed together. There were games being played and dancing and + much elvish love-making, too, I think, among the moss-branch thickets. + There can be no doubt that the Fairy Lady made love to Mr. Skelmersdale, + and no doubt either that this young man set himself to resist her. A time + came, indeed, when she sat on a bank beside him, in a quiet, secluded + place “all smelling of vi'lets,” and talked to him of love. + </p> + <p> + “When her voice went low and she whispered,” said Mr. Skelmersdale, “and + laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft, warm + friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my 'ead.” + </p> + <p> + It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent. He saw + “'ow the wind was blowing,” he says, and so, sitting there in a place all + smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely Fairy Lady about him, + Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently—that he was engaged! + </p> + <p> + She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad for + her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have—even his + heart's desire. + </p> + <p> + And Mr. Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking at her + little lips as they just dropped apart and came together, led up to the + more intimate question by saying he would like enough capital to start a + little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said, he had money enough to do + that. I imagine a little surprise in those brown eyes he talked about, but + she seemed sympathetic for all that, and she asked him many questions + about the little shop, “laughing like” all the time. So he got to the + complete statement of his affianced position, and told her all about + Millie. + </p> + <p> + “All?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Everything,” said Mr. Skelmersdale, “just who she was, and where she + lived, and everything about her. I sort of felt I 'ad to all the time, I + did.” + </p> + <p> + “'Whatever you want you shall have,' said the Fairy Lady. 'That's as good + as done. You SHALL feel you have the money just as you wish. And now, you + know—YOU MUST KISS ME.'” + </p> + <p> + And Mr. Skelmersdale pretended not to hear the latter part of her remark, + and said she was very kind. That he really didn't deserve she should be so + kind. And— + </p> + <p> + The Fairy Lady suddenly came quite close to him and whispered, “Kiss me!” + </p> + <p> + “And,” said Mr. Skelmersdale, “like a fool, I did.” + </p> + <p> + There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite the + other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard. There was something + magic in that kiss; assuredly it marked a turning point. At any rate, this + is one of the passages that he thought sufficiently important to describe + most at length. I have tried to get it right, I have tried to disentangle + it from the hints and gestures through which it came to me, but I have no + doubt that it was all different from my telling and far finer and sweeter, + in the soft filtered light and the subtly stirring silences of the fairy + glades. The Fairy Lady asked him more about Millie, and was she very + lovely, and so on—a great many times. As to Millie's loveliness, I + conceive him answering that she was “all right.” And then, or on some such + occasion, the Fairy Lady told him she had fallen in love with him as he + slept in the moonlight, and so he had been brought into Fairyland, and she + had thought, not knowing of Millie, that perhaps he might chance to love + her. “But now you know you can't,” she said, “so you must stop with me + just a little while, and then you must go back to Millie.” She told him + that, and you know Skelmersdale was already in love with her, but the pure + inertia of his mind kept him in the way he was going. I imagine him + sitting in a sort of stupefaction amidst all these glowing beautiful + things, answering about his Millie and the little shop he projected and + the need of a horse and cart.... And that absurd state of affairs must + have gone on for days and days. I see this little lady, hovering about him + and trying to amuse him, too dainty to understand his complexity and too + tender to let him go. And he, you know, hypnotised as it were by his + earthly position, went his way with her hither and thither, blind to + everything in Fairyland but this wonderful intimacy that had come to him. + It is hard, it is impossible, to give in print the effect of her radiant + sweetness shining through the jungle of poor Skelmersdale's rough and + broken sentences. To me, at least, she shone clear amidst the muddle of + his story like a glow-worm in a tangle of weeds. + </p> + <p> + There must have been many days of things while all this was happening—and + once, I say, they danced under the moonlight in the fairy rings that stud + the meadows near Smeeth—but at last it all came to an end. She led + him into a great cavernous place, lit by a red nightlight sort of thing, + where there were coffers piled on coffers, and cups and golden boxes, and + a great heap of what certainly seemed to all Mr. Skelmersdale's senses—coined + gold. There were little gnomes amidst this wealth, who saluted her at her + coming, and stood aside. And suddenly she turned on him there with + brightly shining eyes. + </p> + <p> + “And now,” she said, “you have been kind to stay with me so long, and it + is time I let you go. You must go back to your Millie. You must go back to + your Millie, and here—just as I promised you—they will give + you gold.” + </p> + <p> + “She choked like,” said Mr. Skelmersdale. “At that, I had a sort of + feeling—” (he touched his breastbone) “as though I was fainting + here. I felt pale, you know, and shivering, and even then—I 'adn't a + thing to say.” + </p> + <p> + He paused. “Yes,” I said. + </p> + <p> + The scene was beyond his describing. But I know that she kissed him + good-bye. + </p> + <p> + “And you said nothing?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” he said. “I stood like a stuffed calf. She just looked back + once, you know, and stood smiling like and crying—I could see the + shine of her eyes—and then she was gone, and there was all these + little fellows bustling about me, stuffing my 'ands and my pockets and the + back of my collar and everywhere with gold.” + </p> + <p> + And then it was, when the Fairy Lady had vanished, that Mr. Skelmersdale + really understood and knew. He suddenly began plucking out the gold they + were thrusting upon him, and shouting out at them to prevent their giving + him more. “'I don't WANT yer gold,' I said. 'I 'aven't done yet. I'm not + going. I want to speak to that Fairy Lady again.' I started off to go + after her and they held me back. Yes, stuck their little 'ands against my + middle and shoved me back. They kept giving me more and more gold until it + was running all down my trouser legs and dropping out of my 'ands. 'I + don't WANT yer gold,' I says to them, 'I want just to speak to the Fairy + Lady again.'” + </p> + <p> + “And did you?” + </p> + <p> + “It came to a tussle.” + </p> + <p> + “Before you saw her?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere to be + seen.” + </p> + <p> + So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long grotto, + seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate place athwart + which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro. And about him + elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes came out of the cave + after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting it after him, shouting, + “Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and fairy gold!” + </p> + <p> + And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over, and + he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly set + himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern, through a + place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly and often. The + elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him and pricking him, and the + will-o'-the-wisps circled round him and dashed into his face, and the + gnomes pursued him shouting and pelting him with fairy gold. As he ran + with all this strange rout about him and distracting him, suddenly he was + knee-deep in a swamp, and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted roots, and + he caught his foot in one and stumbled and fell.... + </p> + <p> + He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself sprawling + upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars. + </p> + <p> + He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff and cold, + and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor of dawn and a chilly + wind were coming up together. He could have believed the whole thing a + strangely vivid dream until he thrust his hand into his side pocket and + found it stuffed with ashes. Then he knew for certain it was fairy gold + they had given him. He could feel all their pinches and pricks still, + though there was never a bruise upon him. And in that manner, and so + suddenly, Mr. Skelmersdale came out of Fairyland back into this world of + men. Even then he fancied the thing was but the matter of a night until he + returned to the shop at Aldington Corner and discovered amidst their + astonishment that he had been away three weeks. + </p> + <p> + “Lor'! the trouble I 'ad!” said Mr. Skelmersdale. + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “Explaining. I suppose you've never had anything like that to explain.” + </p> + <p> + “Never,” I said, and he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of this + person and that. One name he avoided for a space. + </p> + <p> + “And Millie?” said I at last. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I expect she seemed changed?” + </p> + <p> + “Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big, you know, + and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun, when it rose in + the morning, fair hit me in the eye!” + </p> + <p> + “And Millie?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't want to see Millie.” + </p> + <p> + “And when you did?” + </p> + <p> + “I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?' she + said, and I saw there was a row. <i>I</i> didn't care if there was. I + seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking to me. She + was just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen in 'er ever, or + what there could 'ave been. Sometimes when she wasn't about, I did get + back a little, but never when she was there. Then it was always the other + came up and blotted her out.... Anyow, it didn't break her heart.” + </p> + <p> + “Married?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Married 'er cousin,” said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the pattern + of the tablecloth for a space. + </p> + <p> + When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean + vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy Lady + triumphant in his heart. He talked of her—soon he was letting out + the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to repeat. I + think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole affair, to hear + that neat little grocer man after his story was done, with a glass of + whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers, witnessing, with sorrow + still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted anguish, of the + inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently came upon him. “I couldn't + eat,” he said, “I couldn't sleep. I made mistakes in orders and got mixed + with change. There she was day and night, drawing me and drawing me. Oh, I + wanted her. Lord! how I wanted her! I was up there, most evenings I was up + there on the Knoll, often even when it rained. I used to walk over the + Knoll and round it and round it, calling for them to let me in. Shouting. + Near blubbering I was at times. Daft I was and miserable. I kept on saying + it was all a mistake. And every Sunday afternoon I went up there, wet and + fine, though I knew as well as you do it wasn't no good by day. And I've + tried to go to sleep there.” + </p> + <p> + He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky. + </p> + <p> + “I've tried to go to sleep there,” he said, and I could swear his lips + trembled. “I've tried to go to sleep there, often and often. And, you + know, I couldn't, sir—never. I've thought if I could go to sleep + there, there might be something. But I've sat up there and laid up there, + and I couldn't—not for thinking and longing. It's the longing.... + I've tried—” + </p> + <p> + He blew, drank up the rest of his whisky spasmodically, stood up suddenly + and buttoned his jacket, staring closely and critically at the cheap + oleographs beside the mantel meanwhile. The little black notebook in which + he recorded the orders of his daily round projected stiffly from his + breast pocket. When all the buttons were quite done, he patted his chest + and turned on me suddenly. “Well,” he said, “I must be going.” + </p> + <p> + There was something in his eyes and manner that was too difficult for him + to express in words. “One gets talking,” he said at last at the door, and + smiled wanly, and so vanished from my eyes. And that is the tale of Mr. + Skelmersdale in Fairyland just as he told it to me. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 6. THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST + </h2> + <p> + The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very vividly + to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, in the corner + of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and Sanderson sat + beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. There was Evans, + and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a modest man. We had all + come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday morning, except Clayton, who + had slept there overnight—which indeed gave him the opening of his + story. We had golfed until golfing was invisible; we had dined, and we + were in that mood of tranquil kindliness when men will suffer a story. + When Clayton began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may + be that indeed he was lying—of that the reader will speedily be able + to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact + anecdote, but that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man. + </p> + <p> + “I say!” he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward rain of + sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, “you know I was alone here + last night?” + </p> + <p> + “Except for the domestics,” said Wish. + </p> + <p> + “Who sleep in the other wing,” said Clayton. “Yes. Well—” He pulled + at his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about his + confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, “I caught a ghost!” + </p> + <p> + “Caught a ghost, did you?” said Sanderson. “Where is it?” + </p> + <p> + And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks in + America, shouted, “CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad of it! Tell + us all about it right now.” + </p> + <p> + Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door. + </p> + <p> + He looked apologetically at me. “There's no eavesdropping of course, but + we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours of + ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling to trifle + with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost. I don't think it + will come again—ever.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean to say you didn't keep it?” said Sanderson. + </p> + <p> + “I hadn't the heart to,” said Clayton. + </p> + <p> + And Sanderson said he was surprised. + </p> + <p> + We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. “I know,” he said, with the + flicker of a smile, “but the fact is it really WAS a ghost, and I'm as + sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not joking. I mean + what I say.” + </p> + <p> + Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton, and + then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words. + </p> + <p> + Clayton ignored the comment. “It is the strangest thing that has ever + happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts or anything of + the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag one in a corner; and the + whole business is in my hands.” + </p> + <p> + He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce a + second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected. + </p> + <p> + “You talked to it?” asked Wish. + </p> + <p> + “For the space, probably, of an hour.” + </p> + <p> + “Chatty?” I said, joining the party of the sceptics. + </p> + <p> + “The poor devil was in trouble,” said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end + and with the very faintest note of reproof. + </p> + <p> + “Sobbing?” some one asked. + </p> + <p> + Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. “Good Lord!” he said; + “yes.” And then, “Poor fellow! yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Where did you strike it?” asked Evans, in his best American accent. + </p> + <p> + “I never realised,” said Clayton, ignoring him, “the poor sort of thing a + ghost might be,” and he hung us up again for a time, while he sought for + matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar. + </p> + <p> + “I took an advantage,” he reflected at last. + </p> + <p> + We were none of us in a hurry. “A character,” he said, “remains just the + same character for all that it's been disembodied. That's a thing we too + often forget. People with a certain strength or fixity of purpose may have + ghosts of a certain strength and fixity of purpose—most haunting + ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea'd as monomaniacs and as obstinate as + mules to come back again and again. This poor creature wasn't.” He + suddenly looked up rather queerly, and his eye went round the room. “I say + it,” he said, “in all kindliness, but that is the plain truth of the case. + Even at the first glance he struck me as weak.” + </p> + <p> + He punctuated with the help of his cigar. + </p> + <p> + “I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards me + and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was transparent + and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer of the little + window at the end. And not only his physique but his attitude struck me as + being weak. He looked, you know, as though he didn't know in the slightest + whatever he meant to do. One hand was on the panelling and the other + fluttered to his mouth. Like—SO!” + </p> + <p> + “What sort of physique?” said Sanderson. + </p> + <p> + “Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great flutings + down the back, here and here—so! And a little, meanish head with + scrubby hair—And rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower than the + hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers baggy and a + little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me. I came very quietly up + the staircase. I did not carry a light, you know—the candles are on + the landing table and there is that lamp—and I was in my list + slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped dead at that—taking + him in. I wasn't a bit afraid. I think that in most of these affairs one + is never nearly so afraid or excited as one imagines one would be. I was + surprised and interested. I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at last! + And I haven't believed for a moment in ghosts during the last + five-and-twenty years.'” + </p> + <p> + “Um,” said Wish. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I was + there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature young + man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin. So for an + instant we stood—he looking over his shoulder at me and regarded one + another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling. He turned round, + drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms, spread his hands in + approved ghost fashion—came towards me. As he did so his little jaw + dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out 'Boo.' No, it wasn't—not + a bit dreadful. I'd dined. I'd had a bottle of champagne, and being all + alone, perhaps two or three—perhaps even four or five—whiskies, + so I was as solid as rocks and no more frightened than if I'd been + assailed by a frog. 'Boo!' I said. 'Nonsense. You don't belong to THIS + place. What are you doing here?' + </p> + <p> + “I could see him wince. 'Boo-oo,' he said. + </p> + <p> + “'Boo—be hanged! Are you a member?' I said; and just to show I + didn't care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and made to + light my candle. 'Are you a member?' I repeated, looking at him sideways. + </p> + <p> + “He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing became + crestfallen. 'No,' he said, in answer to the persistent interrogation of + my eye; 'I'm not a member—I'm a ghost.' + </p> + <p> + “'Well, that doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there any + one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as steadily + as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness of whisky for + the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight. I turned on him, holding + it. 'What are you doing here?' I said. + </p> + <p> + “He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, + abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. 'I'm + haunting,' he said. + </p> + <p> + “'You haven't any business to,' I said in a quiet voice. + </p> + <p> + “'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence. + </p> + <p> + “'That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is a + respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids and + children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor little + mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits. I suppose + you didn't think of that?' + </p> + <p> + “'No, sir,' he said, 'I didn't.' + </p> + <p> + “'You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you? + Weren't murdered here, or anything of that sort?' + </p> + <p> + “'None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled—' + </p> + <p> + “'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is a + mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned to see if I + had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly. 'If I were you I + wouldn't wait for cock-crow—I'd vanish right away.' + </p> + <p> + “He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir—' he began. + </p> + <p> + “'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home. + </p> + <p> + “'The fact is, sir, that—somehow—I can't.' + </p> + <p> + “'You CAN'T?' + </p> + <p> + “'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging about here + since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards of the empty bedrooms + and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never come haunting before, and + it seems to put me out.' + </p> + <p> + “'Put you out?' + </p> + <p> + “'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off. + There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.' + </p> + <p> + “That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such an abject + way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite the high, hectoring + vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said, and as I spoke I fancied I + heard some one moving about down below. 'Come into my room and tell me + more about it,' I said. 'I didn't, of course, understand this,' and I + tried to take him by the arm. But, of course, you might as well have tried + to take hold of a puff of smoke! I had forgotten my number, I think; + anyhow, I remember going into several bedrooms—it was lucky I was + the only soul in that wing—until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I + said, and sat down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. + It seems to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old + chap.' + </p> + <p> + “Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down the + room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little while we + were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently, you know, something + of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me, and I began to realise + just a little what a thundering rum and weird business it was that I was + in. There he was, semi-transparent—the proper conventional phantom, + and noiseless except for his ghost of a voice—flitting to and fro in + that nice, clean, chintz-hung old bedroom. You could see the gleam of the + copper candlesticks through him, and the lights on the brass fender, and + the corners of the framed engravings on the wall,—and there he was + telling me all about this wretched little life of his that had recently + ended on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you know, but being + transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the truth.” + </p> + <p> + “Eh?” said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair. + </p> + <p> + “What?” said Clayton. + </p> + <p> + “Being transparent—couldn't avoid telling the truth—I don't + see it,” said Wish. + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> don't see it,” said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. “But it + IS so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once a nail's + breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been killed—he + went down into a London basement with a candle to look for a leakage of + gas—and described himself as a senior English master in a London + private school when that release occurred.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor wretch!” said I. + </p> + <p> + “That's what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it. + There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked of + his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever been + anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive, too + nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood him, he + said. He had never had a real friend in the world, I think; he had never + had a success. He had shirked games and failed examinations. 'It's like + that with some people,' he said; 'whenever I got into the examination-room + or anywhere everything seemed to go.' Engaged to be married of course—to + another over-sensitive person, I suppose—when the indiscretion with + the gas escape ended his affairs. 'And where are you now?' I asked. 'Not + in—?' + </p> + <p> + “He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was of a + sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls too + non-existent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue. <i>I</i> + don't know. He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me any + clear idea of the kind of place, kind of country, there is on the Other + Side of Things. Wherever he was, he seems to have fallen in with a set of + kindred spirits: ghosts of weak Cockney young men, who were on a footing + of Christian names, and among these there was certainly a lot of talk + about 'going haunting' and things like that. Yes—going haunting! + They seemed to think 'haunting' a tremendous adventure, and most of them + funked it all the time. And so primed, you know, he had come.” + </p> + <p> + “But really!” said Wish to the fire. + </p> + <p> + “These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow,” said Clayton, modestly. “I + may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that was the + sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and down, with + his thin voice going talking, talking about his wretched self, and never a + word of clear, firm statement from first to last. He was thinner and + sillier and more pointless than if he had been real and alive. Only then, + you know, he would not have been in my bedroom here—if he HAD been + alive. I should have kicked him out.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said Evans, “there ARE poor mortals like that.” + </p> + <p> + “And there's just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest of + us,” I admitted. + </p> + <p> + “What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that he did seem + within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had made of haunting + had depressed him terribly. He had been told it would be a 'lark'; he had + come expecting it to be a 'lark,' and here it was, nothing but another + failure added to his record! He proclaimed himself an utter out-and-out + failure. He said, and I can quite believe it, that he had never tried to + do anything all his life that he hadn't made a perfect mess of—and + through all the wastes of eternity he never would. If he had had sympathy, + perhaps—. He paused at that, and stood regarding me. He remarked + that, strange as it might seem to me, nobody, not any one, ever, had given + him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. I could see what he wanted + straight away, and I determined to head him off at once. I may be a brute, + you know, but being the Only Real Friend, the recipient of the confidences + of one of these egotistical weaklings, ghost or body, is beyond my + physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't you brood on these things too + much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do is to get out of this get out + of this—sharp. You pull yourself together and TRY.' 'I can't,' he + said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did.” + </p> + <p> + “Try!” said Sanderson. “HOW?” + </p> + <p> + “Passes,” said Clayton. + </p> + <p> + “Passes?” + </p> + <p> + “Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's how he + had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord! what a business + I had!” + </p> + <p> + “But how could ANY series of passes—?” I began. + </p> + <p> + “My dear man,” said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great emphasis on + certain words, “you want EVERYTHING clear. <i>I</i> don't know HOW. All I + know is that you DO—that HE did, anyhow, at least. After a fearful + time, you know, he got his passes right and suddenly disappeared.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you,” said Sanderson, slowly, “observe the passes?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Clayton, and seemed to think. “It was tremendously queer,” he + said. “There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent room, in + this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night town. Not a + sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when he swung. There + was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the dressing-table alight, that + was all—sometimes one or other would flare up into a tall, lean, + astonished flame for a space. And queer things happened. 'I can't,' he + said; 'I shall never—!' And suddenly he sat down on a little chair + at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob. Lord! what a harrowing, + whimpering thing he seemed! + </p> + <p> + “'You pull yourself together,' I said, and tried to pat him on the back, + and... my confounded hand went through him! By that time, you know, I + wasn't nearly so—massive as I had been on the landing. I got the + queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out of him, as it + were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the dressing-table. 'You + pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and try.' And in order to + encourage and help him I began to try as well.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” said Sanderson, “the passes?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, the passes.” + </p> + <p> + “But—” I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space. + </p> + <p> + “This is interesting,” said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-bowl. + “You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away—” + </p> + <p> + “Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES.” + </p> + <p> + “He didn't,” said Wish; “he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there too.” + </p> + <p> + “That's precisely it,” I said, finding my elusive idea put into words for + me. + </p> + <p> + “That IS precisely it,” said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the fire. + </p> + <p> + For just a little while there was silence. + </p> + <p> + “And at last he did it?” said Sanderson. + </p> + <p> + “At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at last—rather + suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up abruptly and + asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so that he might + see. 'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE I should spot what was wrong at + once.' And he did. '<i>I</i> know,' he said. 'What do you know?' said I. '<i>I</i> + know,' he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, 'I CAN'T do it if you look at + me—I really CAN'T; it's been that, partly, all along. I'm such a + nervous fellow that you put me out.' Well, we had a bit of an argument. + Naturally I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate as a mule, and suddenly + I had come over as tired as a dog—he tired me out. 'All right,' I + said, '<i>I</i> won't look at you,' and turned towards the mirror, on the + wardrobe, by the bed. + </p> + <p> + “He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in the + looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went his arms and + his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush came to the last + gesture of all—you stand erect and open out your arms—and so, + don't you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't! He wasn't! I + wheeled round from the looking-glass to him. There was nothing, I was + alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. What had happened? + Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming?... And then, with an absurd + note of finality about it, the clock upon the landing discovered the + moment was ripe for striking ONE. So!—Ping! And I was as grave and + sober as a judge, with all my champagne and whisky gone into the vast + serene. Feeling queer, you know—confoundedly QUEER! Queer! Good + Lord!” + </p> + <p> + He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. “That's all that happened,” he + said. + </p> + <p> + “And then you went to bed?” asked Evans. + </p> + <p> + “What else was there to do?” + </p> + <p> + I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, + something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our desire. + </p> + <p> + “And about these passes?” said Sanderson. + </p> + <p> + “I believe I could do them now.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub the + dottel out of the bowl of his clay. + </p> + <p> + “Why don't you do them now?” said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife with a + click. + </p> + <p> + “That's what I'm going to do,” said Clayton. + </p> + <p> + “They won't work,” said Evans. + </p> + <p> + “If they do—” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + “You know, I'd rather you didn't,” said Wish, stretching out his legs. + </p> + <p> + “Why?” asked Evans. + </p> + <p> + “I'd rather he didn't,” said Wish. + </p> + <p> + “But he hasn't got 'em right,” said Sanderson, plugging too much tobacco + in his pipe. + </p> + <p> + “All the same, I'd rather he didn't,” said Wish. + </p> + <p> + We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those gestures + was like mocking a serious matter. “But you don't believe—?” I said. + Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing something + in his mind. “I do—more than half, anyhow, I do,” said Wish. + </p> + <p> + “Clayton,” said I, “you're too good a liar for us. Most of it was all + right. But that disappearance... happened to be convincing. Tell us, it's + a tale of cock and bull.” + </p> + <p> + He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug, and + faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and then for all + the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall, with an intent + expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level of his eyes and so + began.... + </p> + <p> + Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings, + which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the + mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this + lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions + with a singular interest in his reddish eye. “That's not bad,” he said, + when it was done. “You really do, you know, put things together, Clayton, + in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out.” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” said Clayton. “I believe I could tell you which.” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “This,” said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing and thrust + of the hands. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “That, you know, was what HE couldn't get right,” said Clayton. “But how + do YOU—?” + </p> + <p> + “Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't + understand at all,” said Sanderson, “but just that phase—I do.” He + reflected. “These happen to be a series of gestures—connected with a + certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know. Or else—HOW?” + He reflected still further. “I do not see I can do any harm in telling you + just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know; if you don't, you + don't.” + </p> + <p> + “I know nothing,” said Clayton, “except what the poor devil let out last + night.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, anyhow,” said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very carefully + upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he gesticulated with + his hands. + </p> + <p> + “So?” said Clayton, repeating. + </p> + <p> + “So,” said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, NOW,” said Clayton, “I can do the whole thing—right.” + </p> + <p> + He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think there + was just a little hesitation in his smile. “If I begin—” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn't begin,” said Wish. + </p> + <p> + “It's all right!” said Evans. “Matter is indestructible. You don't think + any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton into the world + of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as I'm concerned, until + your arms drop off at the wrists.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe that,” said Wish, and stood up and put his arm on + Clayton's shoulder. “You've made me half believe in that story somehow, + and I don't want to see the thing done!” + </p> + <p> + “Goodness!” said I, “here's Wish frightened!” + </p> + <p> + “I am,” said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. “I believe + that if he goes through these motions right he'll GO.” + </p> + <p> + “He'll not do anything of the sort,” I cried. “There's only one way out of + this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that. Besides... And + such a ghost! Do you think—?” + </p> + <p> + Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs and + stopped beside the tole and stood there. “Clayton,” he said, “you're a + fool.” + </p> + <p> + Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him. “Wish,” he + said, “is right and all you others are wrong. I shall go. I shall get to + the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles through the air, + Presto!—this hearthrug will be vacant, the room will be blank + amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of fifteen stone will plump + into the world of shades. I'm certain. So will you be. I decline to argue + further. Let the thing be tried.” + </p> + <p> + “NO,” said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised his hands + once more to repeat the spirit's passing. + </p> + <p> + By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension—largely + because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on + Clayton—I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me as + though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my body had + been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was imperturbably + serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands and arms before us. + As he drew towards the end one piled up, one tingled in one's teeth. The + last gesture, I have said, was to swing the arms out wide open, with the + face held up. And when at last he swung out to this closing gesture I + ceased even to breathe. It was ridiculous, of course, but you know that + ghost-story feeling. It was after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. + Would he, after all—? + </p> + <p> + There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his + upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp. We + hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from all of + us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a reassuring + “NO!” For visibly—he wasn't going. It was all nonsense. He had told + an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that was all!... And + then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed. + </p> + <p> + It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are suddenly + extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed, his smile was + frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood there, very gently + swaying. + </p> + <p> + That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping, + things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give, and + he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms.... + </p> + <p> + It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent thing. We + believed it, yet could not believe it.... I came out of a muddled + stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him, and his vest and shirt + were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay on his heart.... + </p> + <p> + Well—the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience; + there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour; it lies + athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day. Clayton had, + indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to and so far from our + own, and he had gone thither by the only road that mortal man may take. + But whether he did indeed pass there by that poor ghost's incantation, or + whether he was stricken suddenly by apoplexy in the midst of an idle tale—as + the coroner's jury would have us believe—is no matter for my + judging; it is just one of those inexplicable riddles that must remain + unsolved until the final solution of all things shall come. All I + certainly know is that, in the very moment, in the very instant, of + concluding those passes, he changed, and staggered, and fell down before + us—dead! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 7. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD + </h2> + <p> + “It isn't every one who's been a god,” said the sunburnt man. “But it's + happened to me. Among other things.” + </p> + <p> + I intimated my sense of his condescension. + </p> + <p> + “It don't leave much for ambition, does it?” said the sunburnt man. + </p> + <p> + “I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer. Gummy! how + time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll remember anything of + the Ocean Pioneer?” + </p> + <p> + The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had read it. + The Ocean Pioneer? “Something about gold dust,” I said vaguely, “but the + precise—” + </p> + <p> + “That's it,” he said. “In a beastly little channel she hadn't no business + in—dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh on that + business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks was + wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair have to follow the + rocks about to see where they're going next. Down she went in twenty + fathoms before you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand pounds + worth of gold aboard, it was said, in one form or another.” + </p> + <p> + “Survivors?” + </p> + <p> + “Three.” + </p> + <p> + “I remember the case now,” I said. “There was something about salvage—” + </p> + <p> + But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so + extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more + ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. “Excuse me,” he said, + “but—salvage!” + </p> + <p> + He leant over towards me. “I was in that job,” he said. “Tried to make + myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings— + </p> + <p> + “It ain't all jam being a god,” said the sunburnt man, and for some time + conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms. At last he took + up his tale again. + </p> + <p> + “There was me,” said the sunburnt man, “and a seaman named Jacobs, and + Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set the whole + thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the jolly-boat, suggesting + it all to our minds just by one sentence. He was a wonderful hand at + suggesting things. 'There was forty thousand pounds,' he said, 'on that + ship, and it's for me to say just where she went down.' It didn't need + much brains to tumble to that. And he was the leader from the first to the + last. He got hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, and + the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought the diving-dress—a + second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus instead of pumping. He'd + have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him sick going down. And the + salvage people were mucking about with a chart he'd cooked up, as solemn + as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and twenty miles away. + </p> + <p> + “I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink and + bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean and + straightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert.' And we used to + speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers, who'd started + two days before us, were getting on, until our sides fairly ached. We all + messed together in the Sanderses' cabin—it was a curious crew, all + officers and no men—and there stood the diving-dress waiting its + turn. Young Sanders was a humorous sort of chap, and there certainly was + something funny in the confounded thing's great fat head and its stare, + and he made us see it too. 'Jimmie Goggles,' he used to call it, and talk + to it like a Christian. Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. Goggles was, + and all the little Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And every blessed day + all of us used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrew + his eye and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead of that nasty + mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as a cask of rum. It was + jolly times we had in those days, I can tell you—little suspecting, + poor chaps! what was a-coming. + </p> + <p> + “We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry, you + know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where the Ocean + Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy grey rock—lava + rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had to lay off about half a + mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was a thundering row who should + stop on board. And there she lay just as she had gone down, so that you + could see the top of the masts that was still standing perfectly + distinctly. The row ending in all coming in the boat. I went down in the + diving-dress on Friday morning directly it was light. + </p> + <p> + “What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly. It was a + queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People over here think + every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore and palm trees and + surf, bless 'em! This place, for instance, wasn't a bit that way. Not + common rocks they were, undermined by waves; but great curved banks like + ironwork cinder heaps, with green slime below, and thorny shrubs and + things just waving upon them here and there, and the water glassy calm and + clear, and showing you a kind of dirty grey-black shine, with huge flaring + red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and darting things + going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and pools and the heaps + was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again after the fires and + cinder showers of the last eruption. And the other way forest, too, and a + kind of broken—what is it?—ambytheatre of black and rusty + cinders rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay in the middle. + </p> + <p> + “The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour about + things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight up or down + the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond a lump of rocks + towards the line of the sea. + </p> + <p> + “Not a human being in sight,” he repeated, and paused. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling so safe + that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing. I was in + Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always, 'there's her + mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale, I caught up the + bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought the boat round. When + the windows were screwed and everything was all right, I shut the valve + from the air belt in order to help my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet + foremost—for we hadn't a ladder. I left the boat pitching, and all + of them staring down into the water after me, as my head sank down into + the weeds and blackness that lay about the mast. I suppose nobody, not the + most cautious chap in the world, would have bothered about a lookout at + such a desolate place. It stunk of solitude. + </p> + <p> + “Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving. None of + us were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get the way of + it, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels damnable. Your + ears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt yourself yawning or + sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten times worse. And a pain + over the eyebrows here—splitting—and a feeling like influenza + in the head. And it isn't all heaven in your lungs and things. And going + down feels like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on. And you can't + turn your head to see what's above you, and you can't get a fair squint at + what's happening to your feet without bending down something painful. And + being deep it was dark, let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud that + formed the bottom. It was like going down out of the dawn back into the + night, so to speak. + </p> + <p> + “The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of fishes, + and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came with a kind + of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the fishes that had + been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of flies from road + stuff in summer time. I turned on the compressed air again—for the + suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in spite of the rum—and + stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down there, and that helped + take off the stuffiness a bit. + </p> + <p> + “When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was an + extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind of + reddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed that + floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just a moony, deep + green-blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight list to starboard, + was level, and lay all dark and long between the weeds, clear except where + the masts had snapped when she rolled, and vanishing into black night + towards the forecastle. There wasn't any dead on the decks, most were in + the weeds alongside, I suppose; but afterwards I found two skeletons lying + in the passengers' cabins, where death had come to them. It was curious to + stand on that deck and recognise it all, bit by bit; a place against the + rail where I'd been fond of smoking by starlight, and the corner where an + old chap from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we had aboard. A + comfortable couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now you couldn't + have got a meal for a baby crab off either of them. + </p> + <p> + “I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I spent the + best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went below to find + where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work hunting, feeling it + was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing blue gleams down the + companion. And there were things moving about, a dab at my glass once, and + once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. I kicked a lot of loose stuff + that puzzled me, and stooped and picked up something all knobs and spikes. + What do you think? Backbone! But I never had any particular feeling for + bones. We had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly, and Always knew + just where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box one + end an inch or more.” + </p> + <p> + He broke off in his story. “I've lifted it,” he said, “as near as that! + Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted inside my helmet + as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting confounded stuffy and + tired by this time—I must have been down twenty-five minutes or more—and + I thought this was good enough. I went up the companion again, and as my + eyes came up flush with the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of + hysterical jump and went scuttling off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. + I stood up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the + air accumulate to carry me up again—I noticed a kind of whacking + from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar, but I + didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up. + </p> + <p> + “And then something shot down by me—something heavy, and stood + a-quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd seen + young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was still calling + him this kind of fool and that—for it might have hurt me serious—when + I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight. Just about the level of + the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack! I came against something + sinking down, and a boot knocked in front of my helmet. Then something + else, struggling frightful. It was a big weight atop of me, whatever it + was, and moving and twisting about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or + some such thing, if it hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear + boots. It was all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking down + again, and I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot rolled + free of me and shot down as I went up—” + </p> + <p> + He paused. + </p> + <p> + “I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear + driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what looked + like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went clutching one + another, and turning over, and both too far gone to leave go. And in + another second my helmet came a whack, fit to split, against the niggers' + canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full. + </p> + <p> + “It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three spears + in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps kicking about me + in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw the game was up at a glance, + gave my valve a tremendous twist, and went bubbling down again after poor + Always, in as awful a state of scare and astonishment as you can well + imagine. I passed young Sanders and the nigger going up again and + struggling still a bit, and in another moment I was standing in the dim + again on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer. + </p> + <p> + “'Gummy,' thinks I, 'here's a fix!' Niggers? At first I couldn't see + anything for it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly + understand how much air there was to last me, but I didn't feel like + standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully heady—quite + apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd never repined with these beastly + natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good, coming up where I was, + but I had to do something. On the spur of the moment, I clambered over the + side of the brig and landed among the weeds, and set off through the + darkness as fast as I could. I just stopped once and knelt, and twisted + back my head in the helmet and had a look up. It was a most extraordinary + bright green-blue above, and the two canoes and the boat floating there + very small and distant like a kind of twisted H. And it made me feel sick + to squint up at it, and think what the pitching and swaying of the three + meant. + </p> + <p> + “It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering + about in that darkness, pressure something awful, like being buried in + sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing as it + seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit, I found + myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another squint to see if + anything was visible of the canoes and boats, and then kept on. I stopped + with my head a foot from the surface, and tried to see where I was going, + but, of course, nothing was to be seen but the reflection of the bottom. + Then out I dashed like knocking my head through a mirror. Directly I got + my eyes out of the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of beach near the + forest. I had a look round, but the natives and the brig were both hidden + by a big, hummucky heap of twisted lava, the born fool in me suggested a + run for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but eased open one of the + windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out of the water. You'd + hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your head in + a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five minutes under + water, you don't break any records running. I ran like a ploughboy going + to work. And half way to the trees I saw a dozen niggers or more, coming + out in a gaping, astonished sort of way to meet me. + </p> + <p> + “I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of London. I + had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as a turned turtle. + I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands free, and waited for + them. There wasn't anything else for me to do. + </p> + <p> + “But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'Jimmy + Goggles,' I says, 'it's your beauty does it.' I was inclined to be a + little light-headed, I think, with all these dangers about and the change + in the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' I said, as if + the savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm hanged if I don't + give you something to stare at,' I said, and with that I screwed up the + escape valve and turned on the compressed air from the belt, until I was + swelled out like a blown frog. Regular imposing it must have been. I'm + blessed if they'd come on a step; and presently one and then another went + down on their hands and knees. They didn't know what to make of me, and + they was doing the extra polite, which was very wise and reasonable of + them. I had half a mind to edge back seaward and cut and run, but it + seemed too hopeless. A step back and they'd have been after me. And out of + sheer desperation I began to march towards them up the beach, with slow, + heavy steps, and waving my blown-out arms about, in a dignified manner. + And inside of me I was singing as small as a tomtit. + </p> + <p> + “But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a + difficulty,—I've found that before and since. People like ourselves, + who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely imagine + the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two of these niggers + cut and run, the others started in a great hurry trying to knock their + brains out on the ground. And on I went as slow and solemn and + silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber. It was evident they took me + for something immense. + </p> + <p> + “Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures to + me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention between + me and something out at sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said. I turned + slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming round a point, + the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes. The sight fairly + made me sick. But they evidently expected some recognition, so I waved my + arms in a striking sort of non-committal manner. And then I turned and + stalked on towards the trees again. At that time I was praying like mad, I + remember, over and over again: 'Lord help me through with it! Lord help me + through with it!' It's only fools who know nothing of dangers can afford + to laugh at praying. + </p> + <p> + “But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away like + that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of pressed me + to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was clear to me they + didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever else they thought of me, + and for my own part I was never less anxious to own up to the old country. + </p> + <p> + “You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with savages, + but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me straight to their + kind of joss place to present me to the blessed old black stone there. By + this time I was beginning to sort of realise the depth of their ignorance, + and directly I set eyes on this deity I took my cue. I started a baritone + howl, 'wow-wow,' very long on one note, and began waving my arms about a + lot, and then very slowly and ceremoniously turned their image over on its + side and sat down on it. I wanted to sit down badly, for diving-dresses + ain't much wear in the tropics. Or, to put it different like, they're a + sight too much. It took away their breath, I could see, my sitting on + their joss, but in less time than a minute they made up their minds and + were hard at work worshipping me. And I can tell you I felt a bit relieved + to see things turning out so well, in spite of the weight on my shoulders + and feet. + </p> + <p> + “But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might think + when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before I went down, and + without the helmet on—for they might have been spying and hiding + since over night—they would very likely take a different view from + the others. I was in a deuce of a stew about that for hours, as it seemed, + until the shindy of the arrival began. + </p> + <p> + “But they took it down—the whole blessed village took it down. At + the cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting + Egyptian images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve + hours, I should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd hardly think + what it meant in that heat and stink. I don't think any of them dreamt of + the man inside. I was just a wonderful leathery great joss that had come + up with luck out of the water. But the fatigue! the heat! the beastly + closeness! the mackintosheriness and the rum! and the fuss! They lit a + stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there was before me, and brought in a + lot of gory muck—the worst parts of what they were feasting on + outside, the Beasts—and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting a + bit hungry, but I understand now how gods manage to do without eating, + what with the smell of burnt offerings about them. And they brought in a + lot of the stuff they'd got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I + was a bit relieved to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for + the compressed air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and + danced about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different + ways different people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet handy + I'd have gone for the lot of them—they made me feel that wild. All + this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better to do. + And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house place got a + bit too shadowy for their taste—all these here savages are afraid of + the dark, you know—and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise, they built + big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in the darkness of my hut, + free to unscrew my windows a bit and think things over, and feel just as + bad as I liked. And, Lord! I was sick. + </p> + <p> + “I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle on a + pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it. Come round + just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other chaps, beastly + drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate, and young Sanders with + the spear through his neck wouldn't go out of my mind. There was the + treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer, and how one might get it and + hide it somewhere safer, and get away and come back for it. And there was + the puzzle where to get anything to eat. I tell you I was fair rambling. I + was afraid to ask by signs for food, for fear of behaving too human, and + so there I sat and hungered until very near the dawn. Then the village got + a bit quiet, and I couldn't stand it any longer, and I went out and got + some stuff like artichokes in a bowl and some sour milk. What was left of + these I put away among the other offerings, just to give them a hint of my + tastes. And in the morning they came to worship, and found me sitting up + stiff and respectable on their previous god, just as they'd left me + overnight. I'd got my back against the central pillar of the hut, and, + practically, I was asleep. And that's how I became a god among the heathen—a + false god no doubt, and blasphemous, but one can't always pick and choose. + </p> + <p> + “Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits, but I + must confess that while I was god to these people they was extraordinary + successful. I don't say there's anything in it, mind you. They won a + battle with another tribe—I got a lot of offerings I didn't want + through it—they had wonderful fishing, and their crop of pourra was + exceptional fine. And they counted the capture of the brig among the + benefits I brought 'em. I must say I don't think that was a poor record + for a perfectly new hand. And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, I + was the tribal god of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four + months.... + </p> + <p> + “What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress all the + time. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and a deuce of a time + I had too, making them understand what it was I wanted them to do. That + indeed was the great difficulty—making them understand my wishes. I + couldn't let myself down by talking their lingo badly—even if I'd + been able to speak at all—and I couldn't go flapping a lot of + gestures at them. So I drew pictures in sand and sat down beside them and + hooted like one o'clock. Sometimes they did the things I wanted all right, + and sometimes they did them all wrong. They was always very willing, + certainly. All the while I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded + business settled. Every night before the dawn I used to march out in full + rig and go off to a place where I could see the channel in which the Ocean + Pioneer lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried to walk out + to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I didn't get back + till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers out on the beach + praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that vexed and tired, + messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going down again, I could + have punched their silly heads all round when they started rejoicing. I'm + hanged if I like so much ceremony. + </p> + <p> + “And then came the missionary. That missionary! It was in the afternoon, + and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on that old + black stone of theirs when he came. I heard a row outside and jabbering, + and then his voice speaking to an interpreter. 'They worship stocks and + stones,' he said, and I knew what was up, in a flash. I had one of my + windows out for comfort, and I sang out straight away on the spur of the + moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says. 'You come inside,' I says, 'and I'll + punch your blooming head.' There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, + and in he came, Bible in hand, after the manner of them—a little + sandy chap in specks and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me sitting + there in the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him a + bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in calico?' for I + don't hold with missionaries. + </p> + <p> + “I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite + outclassed with a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told him to + read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. Down he goes to + read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious as any of + them, took it as an act of worship and plumped down like a shot. All my + people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn't any more business to be + done in my village after that journey, not by the likes of him. + </p> + <p> + “But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had any + sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure and taken him + into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child, with a few hours + to think it over, could have seen the connection between my diving-dress + and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week after he left I went out one + morning and saw the Motherhood, the salver's ship from Starr Race, towing + up the channel and sounding. The whole blessed game was up, and all my + trouble thrown away. Gummy! How wild I felt! And guying it in that + stinking silly dress! Four months!” + </p> + <p> + The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. “Think of it,” he said, when + he emerged to linguistic purity once more. “Forty thousand pounds worth of + gold.” + </p> + <p> + “Did the little missionary come back?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man inside + the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous ceremony. But + there wasn't—he got sold again. I always did hate scenes and + explanations, and long before he came I was out of it all—going home + to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day, and thieving food from + the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear. No clothes, no money. + Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying is. And just a squeak of + eight thousand pounds of gold—fifth share. But the natives cut up + rusty, thank goodness, because they thought it was him had driven their + luck away.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR + </h2> + <p> + Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin it + is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of investigators + overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that he has done. He + has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of exaggeration in + the phrase, found something to revolutionise human life. And that when he + was simply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to bring languid people + up to the stresses of these pushful days. I have tasted the stuff now + several times, and I cannot do better than describe the effect the thing + had on me. That there are astonishing experiences in store for all in + search of new sensations will become apparent enough. + </p> + <p> + Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone. + Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages has + already appeared in The Strand Magazine—I think late in 1899; but I + am unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to some one who + has never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps, recall the high forehead + and the singularly long black eyebrows that give such a Mephistophelian + touch to his face. He occupies one of those pleasant little detached + houses in the mixed style that make the western end of the Upper Sandgate + Road so interesting. His is the one with the Flemish gables and the + Moorish portico, and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay + window that he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we + have so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but, + besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those men who + find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been able to follow the + conception of the New Accelerator right up from a very early stage. Of + course, the greater portion of his experimental work is not done in + Folkestone, but in Gower Street, in the fine new laboratory next to the + hospital that he has been the first to use. + </p> + <p> + As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, the + special department in which Gibberne has gained so great and deserved a + reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs upon the nervous + system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics he is, I am told, + unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable eminence, and I suppose + in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles that centres about the + ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are little cleared places of his + making, little glades of illumination, that, until he sees fit to publish + his results, are still inaccessible to every other living man. And in the + last few years he has been particularly assiduous upon this question of + nervous stimulants, and already, before the discovery of the New + Accelerator, very successful with them. Medical science has to thank him + for at least three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivalled + value to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the preparation known as + Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives already than any + lifeboat round the coast. + </p> + <p> + “But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet,” he told me + nearly a year ago. “Either they increase the central energy without + affecting the nerves or they simply increase the available energy by + lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are unequal and local + in their operation. One wakes up the heart and viscera and leaves the + brain stupefied, one gets at the brain champagne fashion and does nothing + good for the solar plexus, and what I want—and what, if it's an + earthly possibility, I mean to have—is a stimulant that stimulates + all round, that wakes you up for a time from the crown of your head to the + tip of your great toe, and makes you go two—or even three—to + everybody else's one. Eh? That's the thing I'm after.” + </p> + <p> + “It would tire a man,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble—and all that. But + just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with a little phial + like this”—he held up a little bottle of green glass and marked his + points with it—“and in this precious phial is the power to think + twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice as much work in a given + time as you could otherwise do.” + </p> + <p> + “But is such a thing possible?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These various + preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem to show that + something of the sort... Even if it was only one and a half times as fast + it would do.” + </p> + <p> + “It WOULD do,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up against + you, something urgent to be done, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “He could dose his private secretary,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “And gain—double time. And think if YOU, for example, wanted to + finish a book.” + </p> + <p> + “Usually,” I said, “I wish I'd never begun 'em.” + </p> + <p> + “Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out a case. Or + a barrister—or a man cramming for an examination.” + </p> + <p> + “Worth a guinea a drop,” said I, “and more to men like that.” + </p> + <p> + “And in a duel, again,” said Gibberne, “where it all depends on your + quickness in pulling the trigger.” + </p> + <p> + “Or in fencing,” I echoed. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” said Gibberne, “if I get it as an all-round thing it will + really do you no harm at all—except perhaps to an infinitesimal + degree it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice to + other people's once—” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” I meditated, “in a duel—it would be fair?” + </p> + <p> + “That's a question for the seconds,” said Gibberne. + </p> + <p> + I harked back further. “And you really think such a thing IS possible?” I + said. + </p> + <p> + “As possible,” said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went throbbing + by the window, “as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact—” + </p> + <p> + He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge of his + desk with the green phial. “I think I know the stuff.... Already I've got + something coming.” The nervous smile upon his face betrayed the gravity of + his revelation. He rarely talked of his actual experimental work unless + things were very near the end. “And it may be, it may be—I shouldn't + be surprised—it may even do the thing at a greater rate than twice.” + </p> + <p> + “It will be rather a big thing,” I hazarded. + </p> + <p> + “It will be, I think, rather a big thing.” + </p> + <p> + But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for all + that. + </p> + <p> + I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. “The New + Accelerator” he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident on + each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiological + results its use might have, and then he would get a little unhappy; at + others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long and anxiously how the + preparation might be turned to commercial account. “It's a good thing,” + said Gibberne, “a tremendous thing. I know I'm giving the world something, + and I think it only reasonable we should expect the world to pay. The + dignity of science is all very well, but I think somehow I must have the + monopoly of the stuff for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL the fun in + life should go to the dealers in ham.” + </p> + <p> + My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. I + have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. I + have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed to + me that Gibberne was really preparing no less than the absolute + acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with such a + preparation: he would live an active and record life indeed, but he would + be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at twenty-five, and by thirty well on + the road to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far Gibberne was only + going to do for any one who took his drug exactly what Nature has done for + the Jews and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, and + quicker in thought and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs + has always been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, make + him incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passion + and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle to be + added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use! But Gibberne was + far too eager upon his technical points to enter very keenly into my + aspect of the question. + </p> + <p> + It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation that + would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward as we + talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was done and the + New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met him as I was going + up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone—I think I was going to get + my hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet me—I suppose he was + coming to my house to tell me at once of his success. I remember that his + eyes were unusually bright and his face flushed, and I noted even then the + swift alacrity of his step. + </p> + <p> + “It's done,” he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast; “it's more + than done. Come up to my house and see.” + </p> + <p> + “Really?” + </p> + <p> + “Really!” he shouted. “Incredibly! Come up and see.” + </p> + <p> + “And it does—twice? + </p> + <p> + “It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff. Taste + it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth.” He gripped my arm and, + walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot, went shouting with + me up the hill. A whole char-a-banc-ful of people turned and stared at us + in unison after the manner of people in chars-a-banc. It was one of those + hot, clear days that Folkestone sees so much of, every colour incredibly + bright and every outline hard. There was a breeze, of course, but not so + much breeze as sufficed under these conditions to keep me cool and dry. I + panted for mercy. + </p> + <p> + “I'm not walking fast, am I?” cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace to a + quick march. + </p> + <p> + “You've been taking some of this stuff,” I puffed. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said. “At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker from + which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took some last + night, you know. But that is ancient history, now.” + </p> + <p> + “And it goes twice?” I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful + perspiration. + </p> + <p> + “It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!” cried Gibberne, with a + dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate. + </p> + <p> + “Phew!” said I, and followed him to the door. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know how many times it goes,” he said, with his latch-key in his + hand. + </p> + <p> + “And you—” + </p> + <p> + “It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory + of vision into a perfectly new shape!... Heaven knows how many thousand + times. We'll try all that after—The thing is to try the stuff now.” + </p> + <p> + “Try the stuff?” I said, as we went along the passage. + </p> + <p> + “Rather,” said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. “There it is in that + little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?” + </p> + <p> + I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous. I WAS + afraid. But on the other hand there is pride. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” I haggled. “You say you've tried it?” + </p> + <p> + “I've tried it,” he said, “and I don't look hurt by it, do I? I don't even + look livery and I FEEL—” + </p> + <p> + I sat down. “Give me the potion,” I said. “If the worst comes to the worst + it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one of the most + hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the mixture?” + </p> + <p> + “With water,” said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe. + </p> + <p> + He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair; his + manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street specialist. + “It's rum stuff, you know,” he said. + </p> + <p> + I made a gesture with my hand. + </p> + <p> + “I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down to shut + your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's time. One + still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length of vibration, and + not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind of shock to the retina, a + nasty giddy confusion just at the time, if the eyes are open. Keep 'em + shut.” + </p> + <p> + “Shut,” I said. “Good!” + </p> + <p> + “And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about. You may + fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will be going several + thousand times faster than you ever did before, heart, lungs, muscles, + brain—everything—and you will hit hard without knowing it. You + won't know it, you know. You'll feel just as you do now. Only everything + in the world will seem to be going ever so many thousand times slower than + it ever went before. That's what makes it so deuced queer.” + </p> + <p> + “Lor',” I said. “And you mean—” + </p> + <p> + “You'll see,” said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced at the + material on his desk. “Glasses,” he said, “water. All here. Mustn't take + too much for the first attempt.” + </p> + <p> + The little phial glucked out its precious contents. + </p> + <p> + “Don't forget what I told you,” he said, turning the contents of the + measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring whisky. + “Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness for two + minutes,” he said. “Then you will hear me speak.” + </p> + <p> + He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass. + </p> + <p> + “By-the-by,” he said, “don't put your glass down. Keep it in your hand and + rest your hand on your knee. Yes—so. And now—” + </p> + <p> + He raised his glass. + </p> + <p> + “The New Accelerator,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “The New Accelerator,” he answered, and we touched glasses and drank, and + instantly I closed my eyes. + </p> + <p> + You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one has taken + “gas.” For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then I heard Gibberne + telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened my eyes. There he stood as + he had been standing, glass still in hand. It was empty, that was all the + difference. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing out of the way?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more.” + </p> + <p> + “Sounds?” + </p> + <p> + “Things are still,” I said. “By Jove! yes! They ARE still. Except the sort + of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Analysed sounds,” I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced at the + window. “Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed in that way + before?” + </p> + <p> + I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen, as it + were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I; “that's odd.” + </p> + <p> + “And here,” he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally I + winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing it did not + even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air—motionless. + </p> + <p> + “Roughly speaking,” said Gibberne, “an object in these latitudes falls 16 + feet in the first second. This glass is falling 16 feet in a second now. + Only, you see, it hasn't been falling yet for the hundredth part of a + second. That gives you some idea of the pace of my Accelerator.” And he + waved his hand round and round, over and under the slowly sinking glass. + Finally, he took it by the bottom, pulled it down, and placed it very + carefully on the table. “Eh?” he said to me, and laughed. + </p> + <p> + “That seems all right,” I said, and began very gingerly to raise myself + from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and comfortable, and + quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all over. My heart, for + example, was beating a thousand times a second, but that caused me no + discomfort at all. I looked out of the window. An immovable cyclist, head + down and with a frozen puff of dust behind his driving-wheel, scorched to + overtake a galloping char-a-banc that did not stir. I gaped in amazement + at this incredible spectacle. “Gibberne,” I cried, “how long will this + confounded stuff last?” + </p> + <p> + “Heaven knows!” he answered. “Last time I took it I went to bed and slept + it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted some minutes, I + think—it seemed like hours. But after a bit it slows down rather + suddenly, I believe.” + </p> + <p> + I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened—I suppose + because there were two of us. “Why shouldn't we go out?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “They'll see us.” + </p> + <p> + “Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times faster + than the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come along! Which + way shall we go? Window, or door?” + </p> + <p> + And out by the window we went. + </p> + <p> + Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had, or + imagined, or read of other people having or imagining, that little raid I + made with Gibberne on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence of the New + Accelerator, was the strangest and maddest of all. We went out by his gate + into the road, and there we made a minute examination of the statuesque + passing traffic. The tops of the wheels and some of the legs of the horses + of this char-a-banc, the end of the whip-lash and the lower jaw of the + conductor—who was just beginning to yawn—were perceptibly in + motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance seemed still. And + quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came from one man's + throat! And as parts of this frozen edifice there were a driver, you know, + and a conductor, and eleven people! The effect as we walked about the + thing began by being madly queer, and ended by being disagreeable. There + they were, people like ourselves and yet not like ourselves, frozen in + careless attitudes, caught in mid-gesture. A girl and a man smiled at one + another, a leering smile that threatened to last for evermore; a woman in + a floppy capelline rested her arm on the rail and stared at Gibberne's + house with the unwinking stare of eternity; a man stroked his moustache + like a figure of wax, and another stretched a tiresome stiff hand with + extended fingers towards his loosened hat. We stared at them, we laughed + at them, we made faces at them, and then a sort of disgust of them came + upon us, and we turned away and walked round in front of the cyclist + towards the Leas. + </p> + <p> + “Goodness!” cried Gibberne, suddenly; “look there!” + </p> + <p> + He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the air + with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally languid + snail—was a bee. + </p> + <p> + And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder than ever. + The band was playing in the upper stand, though all the sound it made for + us was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of prolonged last sigh that + passed at times into a sound like the slow, muffled ticking of some + monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect, strange, silent, + self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in mid-stride, promenading + upon the grass. I passed close to a little poodle dog suspended in the act + of leaping, and watched the slow movement of his legs as he sank to earth. + “Lord, look here!” cried Gibberne, and we halted for a moment before a + magnificent person in white faint-striped flannels, white shoes, and a + Panama hat, who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed ladies he had + passed. A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation as we could + afford, is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of alert gaiety, + and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely close, that under + its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball and a little line of + white. “Heaven give me memory,” said I, “and I will never wink again.” + </p> + <p> + “Or smile,” said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth. + </p> + <p> + “It's infernally hot, somehow,” said I. “Let's go slower.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come along!” said Gibberne. + </p> + <p> + We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of the people + sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their passive poses, but + the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not a restful thing to see. A + purple-faced little gentleman was frozen in the midst of a violent + struggle to refold his newspaper against the wind; there were many + evidences that all these people in their sluggish way were exposed to a + considerable breeze, a breeze that had no existence so far as our + sensations went. We came out and walked a little way from the crowd, and + turned and regarded it. To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, + smitten rigid, as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was + impossibly wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an + irrational, an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder + of it! All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had + begun to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so far as + the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. “The New + Accelerator—” I began, but Gibberne interrupted me. + </p> + <p> + “There's that infernal old woman!” he said. + </p> + <p> + “What old woman?” + </p> + <p> + “Lives next door to me,” said Gibberne. “Has a lapdog that yaps. Gods! The + temptation is strong!” + </p> + <p> + There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times. + Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched the + unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running violently + with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most extraordinary. The + little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or make the slightest sign + of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an attitude of somnolent repose, and + Gibberne held it by the neck. It was like running about with a dog of + wood. “Gibberne,” I cried, “put it down!” Then I said something else. “If + you run like that, Gibberne,” I cried, “you'll set your clothes on fire. + Your linen trousers are going brown as it is!” + </p> + <p> + He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge. + “Gibberne,” I cried, coming up, “put it down. This heat is too much! It's + our running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!” + </p> + <p> + “What?” he said, glancing at the dog. + </p> + <p> + “Friction of the air,” I shouted. “Friction of the air. Going too fast. + Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne! I'm all over + pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people stirring slightly. + I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog down.” + </p> + <p> + “Eh?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “It's working off,” I repeated. “We're too hot and the stuff's working + off! I'm wet through.” + </p> + <p> + He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose performance + was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep of the arm he + hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning upward, still inanimate, + and hung at last over the grouped parasols of a knot of chattering people. + Gibberne was gripping my elbow. “By Jove!” he cried. “I believe—it + is! A sort of hot pricking and—yes. That man's moving his + pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly. We must get out of this sharp.” + </p> + <p> + But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps! For we + might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe, have burst into + flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into flames! You know we had + neither of us thought of that.... But before we could even begin to run + the action of the drug had ceased. It was the business of a minute + fraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like the + drawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heard + Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. “Sit down,” he said, and flop, down + upon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat—scorching as I sat. + There is a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole + stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of + the band rushed together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their + feet down and walked their ways, the papers and flags began flapping, + smiles passed into words, the winker finished his wink and went on his way + complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke. + </p> + <p> + The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were, or + rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was like + slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything seemed to + spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient feeling of + nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had seemed to hang for + a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was expended fell with a swift + acceleration clean through a lady's parasol! + </p> + <p> + That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old gentleman + in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of us and afterwards + regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious eye, and, finally, I + believe, said something to his nurse about us, I doubt if a solitary + person remarked our sudden appearance among them. Plop! We must have + appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder almost at once, though the turf + beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The attention of every one—including + even the Amusements' Association band, which on this occasion, for the + only time in its history, got out of tune—was arrested by the + amazing fact, and the still more amazing yapping and uproar caused by the + fact that a respectable, over-fed lap-dog sleeping quietly to the east of + the bandstand should suddenly fall through the parasol of a lady on the + west—in a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of + its movements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are all + trying to be as psychic, and silly, and superstitious as possible! People + got up and trod on other people, chairs were overturned, the Leas + policeman ran. How the matter settled itself I do not know—we were + much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from the affair and get out of + range of the eye of the old gentleman in the bath-chair to make minute + inquiries. As soon as we were sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered + from our giddiness and nausea and confusion of mind to do so we stood up + and, skirting the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below the + Metropole towards Gibberne's house. But amidst the din I heard very + distinctly the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of the + ruptured sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one of + those chair-attendants who have “Inspector” written on their caps. “If you + didn't throw the dog,” he said, “who DID?” + </p> + <p> + The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural anxiety + about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot, and the fronts of + the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were scorched a drabbish brown), + prevented the minute observations I should have liked to make on all these + things. Indeed, I really made no observations of any scientific value on + that return. The bee, of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, but + he was already out of sight as we came into the Upper Sandgate Road or + hidden from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, however, with its people now + all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a spanking pace almost + abreast of the nearer church. + </p> + <p> + We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped in getting + out of the house was slightly singed, and that the impressions of our feet + on the gravel of the path were unusually deep. + </p> + <p> + So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically we + had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things in the + space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour while the band + had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it had upon us was that the + whole world had stopped for our convenient inspection. Considering all + things, and particularly considering our rashness in venturing out of the + house, the experience might certainly have been much more disagreeable + than it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne has still much to learn + before his preparation is a manageable convenience, but its practicability + it certainly demonstrated beyond all cavil. + </p> + <p> + Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under control, + and I have several times, and without the slightest bad result, taken + measured doses under his direction; though I must confess I have not yet + ventured abroad again while under its influence. I may mention, for + example, that this story has been written at one sitting and without + interruption, except for the nibbling of some chocolate, by its means. I + began at 6.25, and my watch is now very nearly at the minute past the + half-hour. The convenience of securing a long, uninterrupted spell of work + in the midst of a day full of engagements cannot be exaggerated. Gibberne + is now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation, with + especial reference to its distinctive effects upon different types of + constitution. He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute its + present rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have the + reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable the patient + to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary time,—and so to + maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like absence of alacrity, amidst + the most animated or irritating surroundings. The two things together must + necessarily work an entire revolution in civilised existence. It is the + beginning of our escape from that Time Garment of which Carlyle speaks. + While this Accelerator will enable us to concentrate ourselves with + tremendous impact upon any moment or occasion that demands our utmost + sense and vigour, the Retarder will enable us to pass in passive + tranquillity through infinite hardship and tedium. Perhaps I am a little + optimistic about the Retarder, which has indeed still to be discovered, + but about the Accelerator there is no possible sort of doubt whatever. Its + appearance upon the market in a convenient, controllable, and assimilable + form is a matter of the next few months. It will be obtainable of all + chemists and druggists, in small green bottles, at a high but, considering + its extraordinary qualities, by no means excessive price. Gibberne's + Nervous Accelerator it will be called, and he hopes to be able to supply + it in three strengths: one in 200, one in 900, and one in 2000, + distinguished by yellow, pink, and white labels respectively. + </p> + <p> + No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things + possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even criminal + proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging, as it were, + into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations it will be + liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of the question + very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a matter of + medical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province. We shall + manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and, as for the consequences—we + shall see. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION + </h2> + <p> + My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural + mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam + through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates irritable + people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has come with him to + his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an elaborate clearness of + enunciation and a certain nervous determination to be firm and correct + upon all issues, important and unimportant alike. He is a sacerdotalist + and a chess player, and suspected by many of the secret practice of the + higher mathematics—creditable rather than interesting things. His + conversation is copious and given much to needless detail. By many, + indeed, his intercourse is condemned, to put it plainly, as “boring,” and + such have even done me the compliment to wonder why I countenance him. + But, on the other hand, there is a large faction who marvel at his + countenancing such a dishevelled, discreditable acquaintance as myself. + Few appear to regard our friendship with equanimity. But that is because + they do not know of the link that binds us, of my amiable connection via + Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past. + </p> + <p> + About that past he displays an anxious modesty. “I do not KNOW what I + should do if it became known,” he says; and repeats, impressively, “I do + not know WHAT I should do.” As a matter of fact, I doubt if he would do + anything except get very red about the ears. But that will appear later; + nor will I tell here of our first encounter, since, as a general rule—though + I am prone to break it—the end of a story should come after, rather + than before, the beginning. And the beginning of the story goes a long way + back; indeed, it is now nearly twenty years since Fate, by a series of + complicated and startling manoeuvres, brought Mr. Ledbetter, so to speak, + into my hands. + </p> + <p> + In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a + schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably the + same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage, the same or + similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise in his resting + expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when I saw him, and his collar + less of a collar than a wet bandage, and that may have helped to bridge + the natural gulf between us—but of that, as I say, later. + </p> + <p> + The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with Mr. + Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly needed rest, + with a bright brown portmanteau marked “F. W. L.”, a new white-and-black + straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel trousers. He was naturally + exhilarated at his release from school—for he was not very fond of + the boys he taught. After dinner he fell into a discussion with a + talkative person established in the boarding-house to which, acting on the + advice of his aunt, he had resorted. This talkative person was the only + other man in the house. Their discussion concerned the melancholy + disappearance of wonder and adventure in these latter days, the prevalence + of globe-trotting, the abolition of distance by steam and electricity, the + vulgarity of advertisement, the degradation of men by civilisation, and + many such things. Particularly was the talkative person eloquent on the + decay of human courage through security, a security Mr. Ledbetter rather + thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr. Ledbetter, in the first delight + of emancipation from “duty,” and being anxious, perhaps, to establish a + reputation for manly conviviality, partook, rather more freely than was + advisable, of the excellent whisky the talkative person produced. But he + did not become intoxicated, he insists. + </p> + <p> + He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer edge gone + from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave old days that + were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate—alone and up + the cliff road where the villas cluster together. + </p> + <p> + He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still + bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life as a + pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant, so colourless! + Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was there for bravery? He + thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval days, so near and so remote, + of quests and spies and condottieri and many a risky blade-drawing + business. And suddenly came a doubt, a strange doubt, springing out of + some chance thought of tortures, and destructive altogether of the + position he had assumed that evening. + </p> + <p> + Was he—Mr. Ledbetter—really, after all, so brave as he + assumed? Would he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and + security vanish suddenly from the earth? + </p> + <p> + The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. “The burglar,” he said, + “is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his single-handed + fight against the whole civilised world!” And Mr. Ledbetter had echoed his + envy. “They DO have some fun out of life,” Mr. Ledbetter had said. “And + about the only people who do. Just think how it must feel to wire a lawn!” + And he had laughed wickedly. Now, in this franker intimacy of + self-communion he found himself instituting a comparison between his own + brand of courage and that of the habitual criminal. He tried to meet these + insidious questionings with blank assertion. “I could do all that,” said + Mr. Ledbetter. “I long to do all that. Only I do not give way to my + criminal impulses. My moral courage restrains me.” But he doubted even + while he told himself these things. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently + situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping black, + wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture of it came + with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself climbing up that + balcony, crouching—plunging into that dark, mysterious interior. + “Bah! You would not dare,” said the Spirit of Doubt. “My duty to my + fellow-men forbids,” said Mr. Ledbetter's self-respect. + </p> + <p> + It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very still. + The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one warm oblong of + window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life. He turned and came + back slowly towards the villa of the open window. He stood for a time + outside the gate, a battlefield of motives. “Let us put things to the + test,” said Doubt. “For the satisfaction of these intolerable doubts, show + that you dare go into that house. Commit a burglary in blank. That, at any + rate, is no crime.” Very softly he opened and shut the gate and slipped + into the shadow of the shrubbery. “This is foolish,” said Mr. Ledbetter's + caution. “I expected that,” said Doubt. His heart was beating fast, but he + was certainly not afraid. He was NOT afraid. He remained in that shadow + for some considerable time. + </p> + <p> + The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done in a + rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from the gate into + the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious climbing roses made + the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that black shadow by the stone + vase of flowers, one might crouch and take a closer view of this gaping + breach in the domestic defences, the open window. For a while Mr. + Ledbetter was as still as the night, and then that insidious whisky tipped + the balance. He dashed forward. He went up the trellis with quick, + convulsive movements, swung his legs over the parapet of the balcony, and + dropped panting in the shadow even as he had designed. He was trembling + violently, short of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, but his mood was + exultation. He could have shouted to find he was so little afraid. + </p> + <p> + A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's “Mephistopheles” came into + his mind as he crouched there. “I feel like a cat on the tiles,” he + whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected—this + adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom burglary + was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And he was acting in the + bravest manner! + </p> + <p> + And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare do + that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or + passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about it, + or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility of a + sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then raised his + eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on a pedestal, and a + little startling at first, was a nearly life-size gesticulating bronze. He + ducked, and after some time he peered again. Beyond was a broad landing, + faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric of bead curtain, very black and sharp, + against a further window; a broad staircase, plunging into a gulf of + darkness below; and another ascending to the second floor. He glanced + behind him, but the stillness of the night was unbroken. “Crime,” he + whispered, “crime,” and scrambled softly and swiftly over the sill into + the house. His feet fell noiselessly on a mat of skin. He was a burglar + indeed! + </p> + <p> + He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was a + scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his enterprise. A + short “miaow,” a spitting, and a rush into silence, spoke reassuringly of + cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every one was abed, it seemed. So + easy is it to commit a burglary, if one is so minded. He was glad he had + put it to the test. He determined to take some petty trophy, just to prove + his freedom from any abject fear of the law, and depart the way he had + come. + </p> + <p> + He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again. + Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this: they + went into rooms, they forced safes. Well—he was not afraid. He could + not force safes, because that would be a stupid want of consideration for + his hosts. But he would go into rooms—he would go upstairs. More: he + told himself that he was perfectly secure; an empty house could not be + more reassuringly still. He had to clench his hands, nevertheless, and + summon all his resolution before he began very softly to ascend the dim + staircase, pausing for several seconds between each step. Above was a + square landing with one open and several closed doors; and all the house + was still. For a moment he stood wondering what would happen if some + sleeper woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit bedroom, + the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in three + interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder—his + trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had ascended. It was + as easy as— + </p> + <p> + Hist!... + </p> + <p> + Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house—and then the noise of a + latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match in the + hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden discovery of the + folly upon which he had come. “How on earth am I to get out of this?” said + Mr. Ledbetter. + </p> + <p> + The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped against + the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In a flash Mr. + Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood for a moment, a + pitiful figure of penitent confusion. “My goodness! What a FOOL I have + been!” he whispered, and then darted swiftly across the shadowy landing + into the empty bedroom from which he had just come. He stood listening—quivering. + The footsteps reached the first-floor landing. + </p> + <p> + Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment was + to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven for a + valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds too soon. He + became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing candle-light appeared + through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the shadows ran wildly about, + and became rigid as the candle was put down. + </p> + <p> + “Lord, what a day!” said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed he + deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging by the feet, + decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went to the door and locked + it, examined the fastenings of the windows carefully and pulled down the + blinds, and returning sat down upon the bed with startling ponderosity. + </p> + <p> + “WHAT a day!” he said. “Good Lord!” and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter + inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots were + good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance suggested a + formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed some upper + garments—a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred—and + casting them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less noisily, and + as it seemed cooling from a considerable temperature. At intervals he + muttered to himself, and once he laughed softly. And Mr. Ledbetter + muttered to himself, but he did not laugh. “Of all the foolish things,” + said Mr. Ledbetter. “What on earth am I to do now?” + </p> + <p> + His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between the + stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount of light, + but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain, save for those + sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled confusingly with + the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the edge of the valance a + strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously depressing his eye, Mr. + Ledbetter found that this strip broadened until the whole area of the + floor came into view. The carpet was a luxurious one, the room spacious, + and, to judge by the castors and so forth of the furniture, well equipped. + </p> + <p> + What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until this + person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping, to creep + to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony seemed the only + possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump from the balcony? The + danger of it! When he thought of the chances against him, Mr. Ledbetter + despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting forth his head beside the + gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary to attract his attention, and + then, smiling, apologising and explaining his unfortunate intrusion by a + few well-chosen sentences. But he found these sentences hard to choose. + “No doubt, sir, my appearance is peculiar,” or, “I trust, sir, you will + pardon my somewhat ambiguous appearance from beneath you,” was about as + much as he could get. + </p> + <p> + Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose they did + not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his unblemished high + character count for nothing? Technically he was a burglar, beyond dispute. + Following out this train of thought, he was composing a lucid apology for + “this technical crime I have committed,” to be delivered before sentence + in the dock, when the stout gentleman got up and began walking about the + room. He locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. Ledbetter had a transient + hope that he might be undressing. But, no! He seated himself at the + writing-table, and began to write and then tear up documents. Presently + the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with the odour of cigars in + Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils. + </p> + <p> + “The position I had assumed,” said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me of these + things, “was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse bar beneath + the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a disproportionate share of my + weight upon my hands. After a time, I experienced what is called, I + believe, a crick in the neck. The pressure of my hands on the + coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became painful. My knees, too, were + painful, my trousers being drawn tightly over them. At that time I wore + rather higher collars than I do now—two and a half inches, in fact—and + I discovered what I had not remarked before, that the edge of the one I + wore was frayed slightly under the chin. But much worse than these things + was an itching of my face, which I could only relieve by violent grimacing—I + tried to raise my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve alarmed me. After a + time I had to desist from this relief also, because—happily in time—I + discovered that my facial contortions were shifting my glasses down my + nose. Their fall would, of course, have exposed me, and as it was they + came to rest in an oblique position of by no means stable equilibrium. In + addition I had a slight cold, and an intermittent desire to sneeze or + sniff caused me inconvenience. In fact, quite apart from the extreme + anxiety of my position, my physical discomfort became in a short time very + considerable indeed. But I had to stay there motionless, nevertheless.” + </p> + <p> + After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This deepened + into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink—twenty-five chinks—a rap on + the writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout legs. It dawned + upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking of gold. He became + incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity grew. Already, if that + was the case, this extraordinary man must have counted some hundreds of + pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could resist it no longer, and he began very + cautiously to fold his arms and lower his head to the level of the floor, + in the hope of peeping under the valance. He moved his feet, and one made + a slight scraping on the floor. Suddenly the chinking ceased. Mr. + Ledbetter became rigid. After a while the chinking was resumed. Then it + ceased again, and everything was still, except Mr. Ledbetter's heart—that + organ seemed to him to be beating like a drum. + </p> + <p> + The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor, and he + could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were quite still. The + feet were resting on the toes and drawn back, as it seemed, under the + chair of the owner. Everything was quite still, everything continued + still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter that the unknown was in a fit or + suddenly dead, with his head upon the writing-table.... + </p> + <p> + The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep became + irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand forward, + projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance immediately next + his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now the stranger's knees, saw + the back of the writing-table, and then—he was staring at the barrel + of a heavy revolver pointed over the writing-table at his head. + </p> + <p> + “Come out of that, you scoundrel!” said the voice of the stout gentleman + in a tone of quiet concentration. “Come out. This side, and now. None of + your hanky-panky—come right out, now.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but without + any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told. + </p> + <p> + “Kneel,” said the stout gentleman, “and hold up your hands.” + </p> + <p> + The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from all-fours + and held up his hands. “Dressed like a parson,” said the stout gentleman. + “I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too! You SCOUNDREL! What the deuce + possessed you to come here to-night? What the deuce possessed you to get + under my bed?” + </p> + <p> + He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to several + very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal appearance. He + was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr. Ledbetter: he was as + stout as his legs had promised, he had rather delicately-chiselled small + features distributed over a considerable area of whitish face, and quite a + number of chins. And the note of his voice had a sort of whispering + undertone. + </p> + <p> + “What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He coughed. + “I can quite understand—” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!—you scoundrel. Don't you move + that hand.” + </p> + <p> + “It's soap,” said Mr. Ledbetter. “From your washstand. No doubt it—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't talk,” said the stout man. “I see it's soap. Of all incredible + things.” + </p> + <p> + “If I might explain—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for + explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?” + </p> + <p> + “In a few minutes, if you—” + </p> + <p> + “Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver I'll shoot. + Have you any mates?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Mr. Ledbetter. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it's a lie,” said the stout man. “But you'll pay for it if it + is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs? You won't get + a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed! I reckon it's a fair + cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see how I could prove an alibi,” remarked Mr. Ledbetter, trying + to show by his conversation that he was an educated man. There was a + pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside his captor was a + large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers, and that there were torn and + burnt papers on the table. And in front of these, and arranged + methodically along the edge were rows and rows of little yellow rouleaux—a + hundred times more gold than Mr. Ledbetter had seen in all his life + before. The light of two candles, in silver candlesticks, fell upon these. + The pause continued. “It is rather fatiguing holding up my hands like + this,” said Mr. Ledbetter, with a deprecatory smile. + </p> + <p> + “That's all right,” said the fat man. “But what to do with you I don't + exactly know.” + </p> + <p> + “I know my position is ambiguous.” + </p> + <p> + “Lord!” said the fat man, “ambiguous! And goes about with his own soap, + and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming burglar, + you are—if ever there was one!” + </p> + <p> + “To be strictly accurate,” said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his glasses + slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons. + </p> + <p> + The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution crossed his + face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put his other hand to the + weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter, and his eye went down to the + dropped pince-nez. + </p> + <p> + “Full-cock now, anyhow,” said the fat man, after a pause, and his breath + seemed to catch. “But I'll tell you, you've never been so near death + before. Lord! I'M almost glad. If it hadn't been that the revolver wasn't + cocked you'd be lying dead there now.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying. + </p> + <p> + “A miss is as good as a mile. It's lucky for both of us it wasn't. Lord!” + He blew noisily. “There's no need for you to go pale-green for a little + thing like that.” + </p> + <p> + “If I can assure you, sir—” said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort. + </p> + <p> + “There's only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I'm bust—a + little game I've got on is bust. That won't do. If I tie you up and leave + you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow's Sunday, and Monday's + Bank Holiday—I've counted on three clear days. Shooting you's murder—and + hanging; and besides, it will bust the whole blooming kernooze. I'm hanged + if I can think what to do—I'm hanged if I can.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you permit me—” + </p> + <p> + “You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I'm blessed if you don't. + Of all the burglars you are the—Well! No!—I WON'T permit you. + There isn't time. If you start off jawing again, I'll shoot right in your + stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're going to do first, my + man, is an examination for concealed arms—an examination for + concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you to do a thing, don't start + off at a gabble—do it brisk.” + </p> + <p> + And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol at Mr. + Ledbetter's head, the stout man stood him up and searched him for weapons. + “Why, you ARE a burglar!” he said “You're a perfect amateur. You haven't + even a pistol-pocket in the back of your breeches. No, you don't! Shut up, + now.” + </p> + <p> + So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter take + off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver at one + ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted. From the + stout man's point of view that was evidently the only possible + arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had to put down the + revolver. So that even the gold on the table was handled by Mr. Ledbetter. + This nocturnal packing was peculiar. The stout man's idea was evidently to + distribute the weight of the gold as unostentatiously as possible through + his luggage. It was by no means an inconsiderable weight. There was, Mr. + Ledbetter says, altogether nearly L18,000 in gold in the black bag and on + the table. There were also many little rolls of L5 bank-notes. Each + rouleau of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter in paper. These rouleaux were + then put neatly in cigar boxes and distributed between a travelling trunk, + a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. About L600 went in a tobacco tin in a + dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a number of L5 notes the stout man pocketed. + Occasionally he objurgated Mr. Ledbetter's clumsiness, and urged him to + hurry, and several times he appealed to Mr. Ledbetter's watch for + information. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man the + keys. It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of midnight + the stout man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he sat at a + reasonably safe distance on the trunk and held the revolver handy and + waited. He appeared to be now in a less aggressive mood, and having + watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered a few remarks. + </p> + <p> + “From your accent I judge you are a man of some education,” he said, + lighting a cigar. “No—DON'T begin that explanation of yours. I know + it will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar to be + interested in other men's lying. You are, I say, a person of education. + You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated people you might + pass as a curate.” + </p> + <p> + “I AM a curate,” said Mr. Ledbetter, “or, at least—” + </p> + <p> + “You are trying to be. I know. But you didn't ought to burgle. You are not + the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it—the thing will have been + pointed out to you before—a coward.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know,” said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening, “it was + that very question—” + </p> + <p> + The stout man waved him into silence. + </p> + <p> + “You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two things. + Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my own part, I + embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man could be doing with all + this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight!... Ten. Eleven. Twelve. There is + something very impressive to me in that slow beating of the hours. Time—space; + what mysteries they are! What mysteries.... It's time for us to be moving. + Stand up!” + </p> + <p> + And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the + dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder the + trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone bag in his + disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled perilously + downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat, the hatbox, and + the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr. Ledbetter's strength, + and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs. + </p> + <p> + “The back door,” he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through a + conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him. “Never + mind the crockery,” said the stout man; “it's good for trade. We wait here + until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You have!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. “Last night,” he gasped, “I + was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt—” + </p> + <p> + “There's no need for you to incriminate yourself,” said the stout + gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum. Mr. + Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it. + </p> + <p> + There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was taken to + the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man in yachting + costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started violently and + clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout man. “Bingham!” he + cried, “who's this?” + </p> + <p> + “Only a little philanthropic do of mine—burglar I'm trying to + reform. Caught him under my bed just now. He's all right. He's a frightful + ass. He'll be useful to carry some of our things.” + </p> + <p> + The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter's presence at first, + but the stout man reassured him. + </p> + <p> + “He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him. No!—don't + start talking, for goodness' sake.” + </p> + <p> + They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still bowing + Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume walked in front + with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came Mr. Ledbetter like Atlas; + Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box, coat, and revolver as before. The + house was one of those that have their gardens right up to the cliff. At + the cliff was a steep wooden stairway, descending to a bathing tent dimly + visible on the beach. Below was a boat pulled up, and a silent little man + with a black face stood beside it. “A few moments' explanation,” said Mr. + Ledbetter; “I can assure you—” Somebody kicked him, and he said no + more. + </p> + <p> + They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled him aboard + by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better name than “scoundrel” + and “burglar” all that night. But they spoke in undertones so that the + general public was happily unaware of his ignominy. They hauled him aboard + a yacht manned by strange, unsympathetic Orientals, and partly they thrust + him and partly he fell down a gangway into a noisome, dark place, where he + was to remain many days—how many he does not know, because he lost + count among other things when he was seasick. They fed him on biscuits and + incomprehensible words; they gave him water to drink mixed with + unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches where they put him, night and + day there were cockroaches, and in the night-time there were rats. The + Orientals emptied his pockets and took his watch—but Mr. Bingham, + being appealed to, took that himself. And five or six times the five + Lascars—if they were Lascars—and the Chinaman and the negro + who constituted the crew, fished him out and took him aft to Bingham and + his friend to play cribbage and euchre and three-anded whist, and to + listen to their stories and boastings in an interested manner. + </p> + <p> + Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who have + lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit, though they + made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest burglar they had + ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again. The fair man was of a + taciturn disposition and irascible at play; but Mr. Bingham, now that the + evident anxiety of his departure from England was assuaged, displayed a + vein of genial philosophy. He enlarged upon the mystery of space and time, + and quoted Kant and Hegel—or, at least, he said he did. Several + times Mr. Ledbetter got as far as: “My position under your bed, you know—,” + but then he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do some such + intervening thing. After his third failure, the fair man got quite to look + for this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after that, he would + roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. “Same old start, + same old story; good old burglar!” the fair-haired man would say. + </p> + <p> + So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one evening + he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over the side and put + ashore on a rocky little island with a spring. Mr. Bingham came in the + boat with him, giving him good advice all the way, and waving his last + attempts at an explanation aside. + </p> + <p> + “I am really NOT a burglar,” said Mr. Ledbetter. + </p> + <p> + “You never will be,” said Mr. Bingham. “You'll never make a burglar. I'm + glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession a man must + study his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later you will fail. + Compare myself, for example. All my life I have been in banks—I have + got on in banks. I have even been a bank manager. But was I happy? No. Why + wasn't I happy? Because it did not suit my temperament. I am too + adventurous—too versatile. Practically I have thrown it over. I do + not suppose I shall ever manage a bank again. They would be glad to get + me, no doubt; but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament—at + last.... No! I shall never manage a bank again. + </p> + <p> + “Now, your temperament unfits you for crime—just as mine unfits me + for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do not even + recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man. YOUR lay is the + philanthropic lay—that is your lay. With that voice—the + Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young—something + in that line. You think it over. + </p> + <p> + “The island we are approaching has no name apparently—at least, + there is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while you + are there—while you are thinking about all these things. It has + quite drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines—one + of the Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of the + Grenadines. There are quantities of Grenadines, but the majority are out + of sight. I have often wondered what these islands are for—now, you + see, I am wiser. This one at least is for you. Sooner or later some simple + native will come along and take you off. Say what you like about us then—abuse + us, if you like—we shan't care a solitary Grenadine! And here—here + is half a sovereign's worth of silver. Do not waste that in foolish + dissipation when you return to civilisation. Properly used, it may give + you a fresh start in life. And do not—Don't beach her, you beggars, + he can wade!—Do not waste the precious solitude before you in + foolish thoughts. Properly used, it may be a turning-point in your career. + Waste neither money nor time. You will die rich. I'm sorry, but I must ask + you to carry your tucker to land in your arms. No; it's not deep. Curse + that explanation of yours! There's not time. No, no, no! I won't listen. + Overboard you go!” + </p> + <p> + And the falling night found Mr. Ledbetter—the Mr. Ledbetter who had + complained that adventure was dead—sitting beside his cans of food, + his chin resting upon his drawn-up knees, staring through his glasses in + dismal mildness over the shining, vacant sea. + </p> + <p> + He was picked up in the course of three days by a negro fisherman and + taken to St. Vincent's, and from St. Vincent's he got, by the expenditure + of his last coins, to Kingston, in Jamaica. And there he might have + foundered. Even nowadays he is not a man of affairs, and then he was a + singularly helpless person. He had not the remotest idea what he ought to + do. The only thing he seems to have done was to visit all the ministers of + religion he could find in the place to borrow a passage home. But he was + much too dirty and incoherent—and his story far too incredible for + them. I met him quite by chance. It was close upon sunset, and I was + walking out after my siesta on the road to Dunn's Battery, when I met him—I + was rather bored, and with a whole evening on my hands—luckily for + him. He was trudging dismally towards the town. His woebegone face and the + quasi-clerical cut of his dust-stained, filthy costume caught my humour. + Our eyes met. He hesitated. “Sir,” he said, with a catching of the breath, + “could you spare a few minutes for what I fear will seem an incredible + story?” + </p> + <p> + “Incredible!” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Quite,” he answered eagerly. “No one will believe it, alter it though I + may. Yet I can assure you, sir—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped hopelessly. The man's tone tickled me. He seemed an odd + character. “I am,” he said, “one of the most unfortunate beings alive.” + </p> + <p> + “Among other things, you haven't dined?” I said, struck with an idea. + </p> + <p> + “I have not,” he said solemnly, “for many days.” + </p> + <p> + “You'll tell it better after that,” I said; and without more ado led the + way to a low place I knew, where such a costume as his was unlikely to + give offence. And there—with certain omissions which he subsequently + supplied—I got his story. At first I was incredulous, but as the + wine warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing which his + misfortunes had added to his manner disappeared, I began to believe. At + last, I was so far convinced of his sincerity that I got him a bed for the + night, and next day verified the banker's reference he gave me through my + Jamaica banker. And that done, I took him shopping for underwear and such + like equipments of a gentleman at large. Presently came the verified + reference. His astonishing story was true. I will not amplify our + subsequent proceedings. He started for England in three days' time. + </p> + <p> + “I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough,” began the letter he + wrote me from England, “for all your kindness to a total stranger,” and + proceeded for some time in a similar strain. “Had it not been for your + generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned in time for the + resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few minutes of reckless folly + would, perhaps, have proved my ruin. As it is, I am entangled in a tissue + of lies and evasions, of the most complicated sort, to account for my + sunburnt appearance and my whereabouts. I have rather carelessly told two + or three different stories, not realising the trouble this would mean for + me in the end. The truth I dare not tell. I have consulted a number of + law-books in the British Museum, and there is not the slightest doubt that + I have connived at and abetted and aided a felony. That scoundrel Bingham + was the Hithergate bank manager, I find, and guilty of the most flagrant + embezzlement. Please, please burn this letter when read—I trust you + implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my aunt nor her friend who kept + the boarding-house at which I was staying seem altogether to believe a + guarded statement I have made them practically of what actually happened. + They suspect me of some discreditable adventure, but what sort of + discreditable adventure they suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says + she would forgive me if I told her everything. I have—I have told + her MORE than everything, and still she is not satisfied. It would never + do to let them know the truth of the case, of course, and so I represent + myself as having been waylaid and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to + know WHY they waylaid and gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht. + I do not know. Can you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing. If, + when you wrote, you could write on TWO sheets so that I could show her + one, and on that one if you could show clearly that I really WAS in + Jamaica this summer, and had come there by being removed from a ship, it + would be of great service to me. It would certainly add to the load of my + obligation to you—a load that I fear I can never fully repay. + Although if gratitude...” And so forth. At the end he repeated his request + for me to burn the letter. + </p> + <p> + So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach with + his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him before + she died. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 10. THE STOLEN BODY + </h2> + <p> + Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, and Brown, + of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was well known among those + interested in psychical research as a liberal-minded and conscientious + investigator. He was an unmarried man, and instead of living in the + suburbs, after the fashion of his class, he occupied rooms in the Albany, + near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in the questions of + thought transference and of apparitions of the living, and in November, + 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in conjunction with Mr. Vincey, + of Staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility of projecting an + apparition of one's self by force of will through space. + </p> + <p> + Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a + pre-arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the + Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then + fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel had + acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could, he attempted + first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself as a “phantom of + the living” across the intervening space of nearly two miles into Mr. + Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried without any + satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth occasion Mr. Vincey did + actually see or imagine he saw an apparition of Mr. Bessel standing in his + room. He states that the appearance, although brief, was very vivid and + real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's face was white and his expression + anxious, and, moreover, that his hair was disordered. For a moment Mr. + Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation, was too surprised to speak + or move, and in that moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced + over its shoulder and incontinently vanished. + </p> + <p> + It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any + phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence of mind to snap + the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when he did so he + was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partial success, he + made a note of the exact time, and at once took a cab to the Albany to + inform Mr. Bessel of this result. + </p> + <p> + He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open to the + night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary disorder. An + empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor; its neck had been + broken off against the inkpot on the bureau and lay beside it. An + octagonal occasional table, which carried a bronze statuette and a number + of choice books, had been rudely overturned, and down the primrose paper + of the wall inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed for the mere + pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chintz curtains had been + violently torn from its rings and thrust upon the fire, so that the smell + of its smouldering filled the room. Indeed the whole place was disarranged + in the strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who had entered + sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, could scarcely + believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these unanticipated + things. + </p> + <p> + Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the + entrance lodge. “Where is Mr. Bessel?” he asked. “Do you know that all the + furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?” The porter said nothing, but, + obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's apartment to see the + state of affairs. “This settles it,” he said, surveying the lunatic + confusion. “I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's gone off. He's mad!” + </p> + <p> + He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour previously, + that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's apparition in Mr. + Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates of the + Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with disordered hair, and had + vanished into the direction of Bond Street. “And as he went past me,” said + the porter, “he laughed—a sort of gasping laugh, with his mouth open + and his eyes glaring—I tell you, sir, he fair scared me!—like + this.” + </p> + <p> + According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh. “He waved + his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing—like that. And he + said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that one word, 'LIFE!'” + </p> + <p> + “Dear me,” said Mr. Vincey. “Tut, tut,” and “Dear me!” He could think of + nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised. He turned from + the room to the porter and from the porter to the room in the gravest + perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably Mr. Bessel would come back + presently and explain what had happened, their conversation was unable to + proceed. “It might be a sudden toothache,” said the porter, “a very sudden + and violent toothache, jumping on him suddenly-like and driving him wild. + I've broken things myself before now in such a case...” He thought. “If it + was, why should he say 'LIFE' to me as he went past?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last Mr. + Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having addressed a + note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous position on the bureau, + returned in a very perplexed frame of mind to his own premises in Staple + Inn. This affair had given him a shock. He was at a loss to account for + Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis. He tried to read, but he + could not do so; he went for a short walk, and was so preoccupied that he + narrowly escaped a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; and at last—a + full hour before his usual time—he went to bed. For a considerable + time he could not sleep because of his memory of the silent confusion of + Mr. Bessel's apartment, and when at length he did attain an uneasy slumber + it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of Mr. + Bessel. + </p> + <p> + He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and + contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested + perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He even + believes that he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling + distressfully to him, though at the time he considered this to be an + illusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. Vincey awoke. For a + space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed with that + vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out of + dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself, and + turned over and went to sleep again, only for the dream to return with + enhanced vividness. + </p> + <p> + He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in overwhelming + distress and need of help that sleep was no longer possible. He was + persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire calamity. For a time + he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but at last he gave way to + it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas, and dressed, and set out + through the deserted streets—deserted, save for a noiseless + policeman or so and the early news carts—towards Vigo Street to + inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned. + </p> + <p> + But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some unaccountable + impulse turned him aside out of that street towards Covent Garden, which + was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw the market in front of + him—a queer effect of glowing yellow lights and busy black figures. + He became aware of a shouting, and perceived a figure turn the corner by + the hotel and run swiftly towards him. He knew at once that it was Mr. + Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel transfigured. He was hatless and + dishevelled, his collar was torn open, he grasped a bone-handled + walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his mouth was pulled awry. And he + ran, with agile strides, very rapidly. Their encounter was the affair of + an instant. “Bessel!” cried Vincey. + </p> + <p> + The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey or of his + own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with the stick, hitting + him in the face within an inch of the eye. Mr. Vincey, stunned and + astonished, staggered back, lost his footing, and fell heavily on the + pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel leapt over him as he fell. When + he looked again Mr. Bessel had vanished, and a policeman and a number of + garden porters and salesmen were rushing past towards Long Acre in hot + pursuit. + </p> + <p> + With the assistance of several passers-by—for the whole street was + speedily alive with running people—Mr. Vincey struggled to his feet. + He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see his injury. A + multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his safety, and then to + tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as they regarded Mr. Bessel. He + had suddenly appeared in the middle of the market screaming “LIFE! LIFE!” + striking left and right with a blood-stained walking-stick, and dancing + and shouting with laughter at each successful blow. A lad and two women + had broken heads, and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little child had + been knocked insensible, and for a time he had driven every one before + him, so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he made a raid + upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through the window of the + post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the foremost of the two + policemen who had the pluck to charge him. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit of his + friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence of the + indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had half stunned him, + and while this was still no more than a resolution came the news, shouted + through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded his pursuers. At first Mr. + Vincey could scarcely credit this, but the universality of the report, and + presently the dignified return of two futile policemen, convinced him. + After some aimless inquiries he returned towards Staple Inn, padding a + handkerchief to a now very painful nose. + </p> + <p> + He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him indisputable + that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst of his + experiment in thought transference, but why that should make him appear + with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed a problem beyond + solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain this. It seemed to him + at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but the order of things must be + insane. But he could think of nothing to do. He shut himself carefully + into his room, lit his fire—it was a gas fire with asbestos bricks—and, + fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained bathing his injured face, + or holding up books in a vain attempt to read, until dawn. Throughout that + vigil he had a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel was endeavouring to + speak to him, but he would not let himself attend to any such belief. + </p> + <p> + About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed and + slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested and anxious, + and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news of Mr. + Bessel's aberration—it had come too late for them. Mr. Vincey's + perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added fresh irritation, + became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless visit to the Albany, he + went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart, Mr. Bessel's partner, and, + so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest friend. + </p> + <p> + He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing of the + outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very vision that Mr. + Vincey had seen—Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled, pleading + earnestly by his gestures for help. That was his impression of the import + of his signs. “I was just going to look him up in the Albany when you + arrived,” said Mr. Hart. “I was so sure of something being wrong with + him.” + </p> + <p> + As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided to inquire + at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. “He is bound to be laid + by the heels,” said Mr. Hart. “He can't go on at that pace for long.” But + the police authorities had not laid Mr. Bessel by the heels. They + confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight experiences and added fresh + circumstances, some of an even graver character than those he knew—a + list of smashed glass along the upper half of Tottenham Court Road, an + attack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road, and an atrocious assault upon a + woman. All these outrages were committed between half-past twelve and a + quarter to two in the morning, and between those hours—and, indeed, + from the very moment of Mr. Bessel's first rush from his rooms at + half-past nine in the evening—they could trace the deepening + violence of his fantastic career. For the last hour, at least from before + one, that is, until a quarter to two, he had run amuck through London, + eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him. + </p> + <p> + But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses were + multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or pursued + him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to two he had + been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street, flourishing a + can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame therefrom at the + windows of the houses he passed. But none of the policemen on Euston Road + beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor any of those in the side streets down + which he must have passed had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything + of him. Abruptly he disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to + light in spite of the keenest inquiry. + </p> + <p> + Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerable + comfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: “He is bound to be laid by the heels + before long,” and in that assurance he had been able to suspend his mental + perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined to add new + impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers of his + acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory might not have + played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any of these things + could possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he hunted up Mr. Hart + again to share the intolerable weight on his mind. He found Mr. Hart + engaged with a well-known private detective, but as that gentleman + accomplished nothing in this case, we need not enlarge upon his + proceedings. + </p> + <p> + All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active + inquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion in + the back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention, and all + through the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face of anguish pursued + him through his dreams. And whenever he saw Mr. Bessel in his dreams he + also saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that seemed to be + pursuing Mr. Bessel. + </p> + <p> + It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certain + remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting + attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her. She + was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. Wilson Paget, + and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before, repaired + to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help. But scarcely had + he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Paget interrupted him. “Last + night—just at the end,” he said, “we had a communication.” + </p> + <p> + He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain words + written in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably the handwriting + of Mr. Bessel! + </p> + <p> + “How did you get this?” said Mr. Vincey. “Do you mean—?” + </p> + <p> + “We got it last night,” said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptions + from Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had been + obtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into a + condition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under her + eyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk very + rapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time one or + both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils are + provided they will then write messages simultaneously with and quite + independently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many she is + considered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated Mrs. Piper. + It was one of these messages, the one written by her left hand, that Mr. + Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight words written + disconnectedly: “George Bessel... trial excavn.... Baker Street... help... + starvation.” Curiously enough, neither Doctor Paget nor the two other + inquirers who were present had heard of the disappearance of Mr. Bessel—the + news of it appeared only in the evening papers of Saturday—and they + had put the message aside with many others of a vague and enigmatical sort + that Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered. + </p> + <p> + When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once with + great energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of Mr. Bessel. + It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the inquiries of Mr. + Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a genuine one, and that + Mr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid. + </p> + <p> + He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk and + abandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric railway + near Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were broken. The + shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and over this, + incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged gentleman, must + have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft. He was saturated in colza + oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him, but luckily the flame had been + extinguished by his fall. And his madness had passed from him altogether. + But he was, of course, terribly enfeebled, and at the sight of his + rescuers he gave way to hysterical weeping. + </p> + <p> + In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the house of + Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a sedative + treatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis through which + he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second day he volunteered + a statement. + </p> + <p> + Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated this statement—to + myself among other people—varying the details as the narrator of + real experiences always does, but never by any chance contradicting + himself in any particular. And the statement he makes is in substance as + follows. + </p> + <p> + In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to his + experiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's + first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey, + were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all of them + he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting out of the body—“willing + it with all my might,” he says. At last, almost against expectation, came + success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that he, being alive, did actually, by an + effort of will, leave his body and pass into some place or state outside + this world. + </p> + <p> + The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. “At one moment I was seated in + my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping the arms of the + chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind on Vincey, and then I + perceived myself outside my body—saw my body near me, but certainly + not containing me, with the hands relaxing and the head drooping forward + on the breast.” + </p> + <p> + Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes in a + quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced. He felt he had + become impalpable—so much he had expected, but he had not expected + to find himself enormously large. So, however, it would seem he became. “I + was a great cloud—if I may express it that way—anchored to my + body. It appeared to me, at first, as if I had discovered a greater self + of which the conscious being in my brain was only a little part. I saw the + Albany and Piccadilly and Regent Street and all the rooms and places in + the houses, very minute and very bright and distinct, spread out below me + like a little city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague shapes + like drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little indistinct, but at + first I paid little heed to them. The thing that astonished me most, and + which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite distinctly the insides of + the houses as well as the streets, saw little people dining and talking in + the private houses, men and women dining, playing billiards, and drinking + in restaurants and hotels, and several places of entertainment crammed + with people. It was like watching the affairs of a glass hive.” + </p> + <p> + Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told me the + story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space observing + these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped down, and, with + the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of, attempted to touch a man + walking along Vigo Street. But he could not do so, though his finger + seemed to pass through the man. Something prevented his doing this, but + what it was he finds it hard to describe. He compares the obstacle to a + sheet of glass. + </p> + <p> + “I felt as a kitten may feel,” he said, “when it goes for the first time + to pat its reflection in a mirror.” Again and again, on the occasion when + I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that comparison of the + sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise comparison, because, + as the reader will speedily see, there were interruptions of this + generally impermeable resistance, means of getting through the barrier to + the material world again. But, naturally, there is a very great difficulty + in expressing these unprecedented impressions in the language of everyday + experience. + </p> + <p> + A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon him + throughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place—he + was in a world without sound. + </p> + <p> + At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder. His thought + chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was out of the body—out + of his material body, at any rate—but that was not all. He believes, + and I for one believe also, that he was somewhere out of space, as we + understand it, altogether. By a strenuous effort of will he had passed out + of his body into a world beyond this world, a world undreamt of, yet lying + so close to it and so strangely situated with regard to it that all things + on this earth are clearly visible both from without and from within in + this other world about us. For a long time, as it seemed to him, this + realisation occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other matters, and + then he recalled the engagement with Mr. Vincey, to which this astonishing + experience was, after all, but a prelude. + </p> + <p> + He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found + himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment to + his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body of his simply + swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed with his efforts to free + himself, and then quite suddenly the link that bound him snapped. For a + moment everything was hidden by what appeared to be whirling spheres of + dark vapour, and then through a momentary gap he saw his drooping body + collapse limply, saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and found he was + driving along like a huge cloud in a strange place of shadowy clouds that + had the luminous intricacy of London spread like a model below. + </p> + <p> + But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was something + more than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first essay was + shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly, and then suddenly + very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES! that each roll and coil of + the seeming cloud-stuff was a face. And such faces! Faces of thin shadow, + faces of gaseous tenuity. Faces like those faces that glare with + intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his dreams. + Evil, greedy eyes that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces with knit + brows and snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched at Mr. Bessel + as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive streak of + trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never a sound from the mouths + that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressed in that dreamy silence, + passing freely through the dim mistiness that was his body, gathering ever + more numerously about him. And the shadowy Mr. Bessel, now suddenly + fear-stricken, drove through the silent, active multitude of eyes and + clutching hands. + </p> + <p> + So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes, and shadowy, + clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel to attempt + intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms, they seemed, + children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden the boon of being, + whose only expressions and gestures told of the envy and craving for life + that was their one link with existence. + </p> + <p> + It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud of these + noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey. He made a + violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how, stooping + towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert in his + arm-chair by the fire. + </p> + <p> + And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all that lives + and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless shadows, + longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life. + </p> + <p> + For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's + attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects in + his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected, ignorant of + the being that was so close to his own. The strange something that Mr. + Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated them impermeably. + </p> + <p> + And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that in some + strange way he could see not only the outside of a man as we see him, but + within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust his vague black fingers, + as it seemed, through the heedless brain. + </p> + <p> + Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention + from wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a little + dark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled and + glowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown anatomical + figures of the brain, and he knows now that this is that useless + structure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For, strange as it will + seem to many, we have, deep in our brains—where it cannot possibly + see any earthly light—an eye! At the time this, with the rest of the + internal anatomy of the brain, was quite new to him. At the sight of its + changed appearance, however, he thrust forth his finger, and, rather + fearful still of the consequences, touched this little spot. And instantly + Mr. Vincey started, and Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen. + </p> + <p> + And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened to his + body, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world of shadows and + tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that he thought no more of + Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all the countless faces drove + back with him like leaves before a gale. But he returned too late. In an + instant he saw the body that he had left inert and collapsed—lying, + indeed, like the body of a man just dead—had arisen, had arisen by + virtue of some strength and will beyond his own. It stood with staring + eyes, stretching its limbs in dubious fashion. + </p> + <p> + For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped towards it. + But the pane of glass had closed against him again, and he was foiled. He + beat himself passionately against this, and all about him the spirits of + evil grinned and pointed and mocked. He gave way to furious anger. He + compares himself to a bird that has fluttered heedlessly into a room and + is beating at the window-pane that holds it back from freedom. + </p> + <p> + And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing with + delight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts; he saw + the violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling his cherished + furniture about in the mad delight of existence, rend his books apart, + smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged fragments, leap and smite + in a passionate acceptance of living. He watched these actions in + paralysed astonishment. Then once more he hurled himself against the + impassable barrier, and then with all that crew of mocking ghosts about + him, hurried back in dire confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outrage + that had come upon him. + </p> + <p> + But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and the + disembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out into Holborn + to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel swept back again, to + find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious frenzy down the Burlington + Arcade.... + </p> + <p> + And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's + interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being whose + frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury and disaster had + indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel. It was an evil spirit + out of that strange world beyond existence, into which Mr. Bessel had so + rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held possession of him, and for all + those twenty hours the dispossessed spirit-body of Mr. Bessel was going to + and fro in that unheard-of middle world of shadows seeking help in vain. + He spent many hours beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey and of his friend + Mr. Hart. Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. But the language + that might convey his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did + not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in their + brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able to turn Mr. + Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolen body in its + career, but he could not make him understand the thing that had happened: + he was unable to draw any help from that encounter.... + </p> + <p> + All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel's + mind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant, and he + would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore. So that those long + hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever as he hurried to and fro in + his ineffectual excitement, innumerable spirits of that world about him + mobbed him and confused his mind. And ever an envious applauding multitude + poured after their successful fellow as he went upon his glorious career. + </p> + <p> + For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things of this + world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch, coveting a way + into a mortal body, in order that they may descend, as furies and + frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses, rejoicing in the + body they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only human soul in that + place. Witness the fact that he met first one, and afterwards several + shadows of men, men like himself, it seemed, who had lost their bodies + even it may be as he had lost his, and wandered, despairingly, in that + lost world that is neither life nor death. They could not speak because + that world is silent, yet he knew them for men because of their dim human + bodies, and because of the sadness of their faces. + </p> + <p> + But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where the + bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about the earth, + or whether they were closed forever in death against return. That they + were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I believe. But Doctor Wilson + Paget thinks they are the rational souls of men who are lost in madness on + the earth. + </p> + <p> + At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of such + disembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through them he + saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen and a + woman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting awkwardly + in a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from her portraits to be + Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived that tracts and structures in + her brain glowed and stirred as he had seen the pineal eye in the brain of + Mr. Vincey glow. The light was very fitful; sometimes it was a broad + illumination, and sometimes merely a faint twilight spot, and it shifted + slowly about her brain. She kept on talking and writing with one hand. And + Mr. Bessel saw that the crowding shadows of men about him, and a great + multitude of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all striving and + thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As one gained her + brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writing of her hand + changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused for the most + part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now a fragment of + another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies of the spirits of vain + desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she spoke for the spirit that had + touch of her, and he began to struggle very furiously towards her. But he + was on the outside of the crowd and at that time he could not reach her, + and at last, growing anxious, he went away to find what had happened + meanwhile to his body. For a long time he went to and fro seeking it in + vain and fearing that it must have been killed, and then he found it at + the bottom of the shaft in Baker Street, writhing furiously and cursing + with pain. Its leg and an arm and two ribs had been broken by its fall. + Moreover, the evil spirit was angry because his time had been so short and + because of the painmaking violent movements and casting his body about. + </p> + <p> + And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the room + where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust himself within + sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood about the medium + looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance should presently end. + At that a great number of the shadows who had been striving turned away + with gestures of despair. But the thought that the seance was almost over + only made Mr. Bessel the more earnest, and he struggled so stoutly with + his will against the others that presently he gained the woman's brain. It + chanced that just at that moment it glowed very brightly, and in that + instant she wrote the message that Doctor Wilson Paget preserved. And then + the other shadows and the cloud of evil spirits about him had thrust Mr. + Bessel away from her, and for all the rest of the seance he could regain + her no more. + </p> + <p> + So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom of the + shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had maimed, writhing + and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning the lesson of pain. + And towards dawn the thing he had waited for happened, the brain glowed + brightly and the evil spirit came out, and Mr. Bessel entered the body he + had feared he should never enter again. As he did so, the silence—the + brooding silence—ended; he heard the tumult of traffic and the + voices of people overhead, and that strange world that is the shadow of + our world—the dark and silent shadows of ineffectual desire and the + shadows of lost men—vanished clean away. + </p> + <p> + He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found. And + in spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim damp + place in which he lay; in spite of the tears—wrung from him by his + physical distress—his heart was full of gladness to know that he was + nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 11. MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE + </h2> + <p> + “You can't be TOO careful WHO you marry,” said Mr. Brisher, and pulled + thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache that hides his + want of chin. + </p> + <p> + “That's why—” I ventured. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey + eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol INTIMATELY at me. + “There's lots as 'ave 'ad a try at me—many as I could name in this + town—but none 'ave done it—none.” + </p> + <p> + I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion, the masterly + carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think that by reason of + the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last of his race. + </p> + <p> + “I was a smart young chap when I was younger,” said Mr. Brisher. “I 'ad my + work cut out. But I was very careful—very. And I got through...” + </p> + <p> + He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject of my + trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence. + </p> + <p> + “I was engaged once,” he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on the + shuv-a'penny board. + </p> + <p> + “So near as that?” + </p> + <p> + He looked at me. “So near as that. Fact is—” He looked about him, + brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an + unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. “If she ain't dead or married to + some one else or anything—I'm engaged still. Now.” He confirmed this + statement with nods and facial contortions. “STILL,” he said, ending the + pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise. “ME!” + </p> + <p> + “Run away,” he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows. “Come 'ome. + </p> + <p> + “That ain't all. + </p> + <p> + “You'd 'ardly believe it,” he said, “but I found a treasure. Found a + regular treasure.” + </p> + <p> + I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper + surprise. “Yes,” he said, “I found a treasure. And come 'ome. I tell you I + could surprise you with things that has happened to me.” And for some time + he was content to repeat that he had found a treasure—and left it. + </p> + <p> + I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr. + Brisher's bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted lady. + </p> + <p> + “She was a nice girl,” he said—a little sadly, I thought. “AND + respectable.” + </p> + <p> + He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme + respectability—beyond the likes of us elderly men. + </p> + <p> + “It was a long way from 'ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester. It was when + I was up in London—in the buildin' trade. I was a smart young chap + then, I can tell you. Slim. 'Ad best clo'es 's good as anybody. 'At—SILK + 'at, mind you.” Mr. Brisher's hand shot above his head towards the + infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest. “Umbrella—nice + umbrella with a 'orn 'andle. Savin's. Very careful I was....” + </p> + <p> + He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come to think + sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth. But he refrained, as + one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral. + </p> + <p> + “I got to know 'er through a chap what was engaged to 'er sister. She was + stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that 'ad a 'am an' beef shop. + This aunt was very particular—they was all very particular people, + all 'er people was—and wouldn't let 'er sister go out with this + feller except 'er other sister, MY girl that is, went with them. So 'e + brought me into it, sort of to ease the crowding. We used to go walks in + Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. Me in my topper, and 'im in 'is; and + the girl's—well—stylish. There wasn't many in Battersea Park + 'ad the larf of us. She wasn't what you'd call pretty, but a nicer girl I + never met. <i>I</i> liked 'er from the start, and, well—though I say + it who shouldn't—she liked me. You know 'ow it is, I dessay?” + </p> + <p> + I pretended I did. + </p> + <p> + “And when this chap married 'er sister—'im and me was great friends—what + must 'e do but arst me down to Colchester, close by where She lived. + Naturally I was introjuced to 'er people, and well, very soon, her and me + was engaged.” + </p> + <p> + He repeated “engaged.” + </p> + <p> + “She lived at 'ome with 'er father and mother, quite the lady, in a very + nice little 'ouse with a garden—and remarkable respectable people + they was. Rich you might call 'em a'most. They owned their own 'ouse—got + it out of the Building Society, and cheap because the chap who had it + before was a burglar and in prison—and they 'ad a bit of free'old + land, and some cottages and money 'nvested—all nice and tight: they + was what you'd call snug and warm. I tell you, I was On. Furniture too. + Why! They 'ad a pianner. Jane—'er name was Jane—used to play + it Sundays, and very nice she played too. There wasn't 'ardly a 'im toon + in the book she COULDN'T play... + </p> + <p> + “Many's the evenin' we've met and sung 'ims there, me and 'er and the + family. + </p> + <p> + “'Er father was quite a leadin' man in chapel. You should ha' seen him + Sundays, interruptin' the minister and givin' out 'ims. He had gold + spectacles, I remember, and used to look over 'em at you while he sang + hearty—he was always great on singing 'earty to the Lord—and + when HE got out o' toon 'arf the people went after 'im—always. 'E + was that sort of man. And to walk be'ind 'im in 'is nice black clo'es—'is + 'at was a brimmer—made one regular proud to be engaged to such a + father-in-law. And when the summer came I went down there and stopped a + fortnight. + </p> + <p> + “Now, you know there was a sort of Itch,” said Mr. Brisher. “We wanted to + marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad to get a + proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch. Consequently, when I + went down there, I was anxious to show that I was a good useful sort of + chap like. Show I could do pretty nearly everything like. See?” + </p> + <p> + I made a sympathetic noise. + </p> + <p> + “And down at the bottom of their garden was a bit of wild part like. So I + says to 'im, 'Why don't you 'ave a rockery 'ere?' I says. 'It 'ud look + nice.' + </p> + <p> + “'Too much expense,' he says. + </p> + <p> + “'Not a penny,' says I. 'I'm a dab at rockeries. Lemme make you one.' You + see, I'd 'elped my brother make a rockery in the beer garden be'ind 'is + tap, so I knew 'ow to do it to rights. 'Lemme make you one,' I says. 'It's + 'olidays, but I'm that sort of chap, I 'ate doing nothing,' I says. 'I'll + make you one to rights.' And the long and the short of it was, he said I + might. + </p> + <p> + “And that's 'ow I come on the treasure.” + </p> + <p> + “What treasure?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Why!” said Mr. Brisher, “the treasure I'm telling you about, what's the + reason why I never married.” + </p> + <p> + “What!—a treasure—dug up?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—buried wealth—treasure trove. Come out of the ground. + What I kept on saying—regular treasure....” He looked at me with + unusual disrespect. + </p> + <p> + “It wasn't more than a foot deep, not the top of it,” he said. “I'd 'ardly + got thirsty like, before I come on the corner.” + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” I said. “I didn't understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Why! Directly I 'it the box I knew it was treasure. A sort of instinct + told me. Something seemed to shout inside of me—'Now's your chance—lie + low.' It's lucky I knew the laws of treasure trove or I'd 'ave been + shoutin' there and then. I daresay you know—” + </p> + <p> + “Crown bags it,” I said, “all but one per cent. Go on. It's a shame. What + did you do?” + </p> + <p> + “Uncovered the top of the box. There wasn't anybody in the garden or about + like. Jane was 'elping 'er mother do the 'ouse. I WAS excited—I tell + you. I tried the lock and then gave a whack at the hinges. Open it came. + Silver coins—full! Shining. It made me tremble to see 'em. And jest + then—I'm blessed if the dustman didn't come round the back of the + 'ouse. It pretty nearly gave me 'eart disease to think what a fool I was + to 'ave that money showing. And directly after I 'eard the chap next door—'e + was 'olidaying, too—I 'eard him watering 'is beans. If only 'e'd + looked over the fence!” + </p> + <p> + “What did you do?” + </p> + <p> + “Kicked the lid on again and covered it up like a shot, and went on + digging about a yard away from it—like mad. And my face, so to + speak, was laughing on its own account till I had it hid. I tell you I was + regular scared like at my luck. I jest thought that it 'ad to be kep' + close and that was all. 'Treasure,' I kep' whisperin' to myself, + 'Treasure' and ''undreds of pounds, 'undreds, 'undreds of pounds.' + Whispering to myself like, and digging like blazes. It seemed to me the + box was regular sticking out and showing, like your legs do under the + sheets in bed, and I went and put all the earth I'd got out of my 'ole for + the rockery slap on top of it. I WAS in a sweat. And in the midst of it + all out toddles 'er father. He didn't say anything to me, jest stood + behind me and stared, but Jane tole me afterwards when he went indoors, 'e + says, 'That there jackanapes of yours, Jane'—he always called me a + jackanapes some'ow—'knows 'ow to put 'is back into it after all.' + Seemed quite impressed by it, 'e did.” + </p> + <p> + “How long was the box?” I asked, suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “'Ow long?” said Mr. Brisher. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—in length?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! 'bout so-by-so.” Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk. + </p> + <p> + “FULL?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Full up of silver coins—'arf-crowns, I believe.” + </p> + <p> + “Why!” I cried, “that would mean—hundreds of pounds.” + </p> + <p> + “Thousands,” said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. “I calc'lated it + out.” + </p> + <p> + “But how did they get there?” + </p> + <p> + “All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this. The chap + who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular slap-up burglar. + What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive 'is trap—like + Peace did.” Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties of narration and + embarked on a complicated parenthesis. “I don't know if I told you it'd + been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's father's, and I knew 'e'd + robbed a mail train once, I did know that. It seemed to me—” + </p> + <p> + “That's very likely,” I said. “But what did you do?” + </p> + <p> + “Sweated,” said Mr. Brisher. “Regular run orf me. All that morning,” said + Mr. Brisher, “I was at it, pretending to make that rockery and wondering + what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps, only I was doubtful of + 'is honesty—I was afraid he might rob me of it like, and give it up + to the authorities—and besides, considering I was marrying into the + family, I thought it would be nicer like if it came through me. Put me on + a better footing, so to speak. Well, I 'ad three days before me left of my + 'olidays, so there wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and went on + digging, and tried to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. Only I + couldn't. + </p> + <p> + “I thought,” said Mr. Brisher, “AND I thought. Once I got regular doubtful + whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it uncovered + again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin' she'd done. + Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave another go at it, + when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready. 'You'll want it,' she said, + 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.' + </p> + <p> + “I was in a regular daze all dinner, wondering whether that chap next door + wasn't over the fence and filling 'is pockets. But in the afternoon I got + easier in my mind—it seemed to me it must 'ave been there so long it + was pretty sure to stop a bit longer—and I tried to get up a bit of + a discussion to dror out the old man and see what 'E thought of treasure + trove.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brisher paused, and affected amusement at the memory. + </p> + <p> + “The old man was a scorcher,” he said; “a regular scorcher.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” said I; “did he—?” + </p> + <p> + “It was like this,” explained Mr. Brisher, laying a friendly hand on my + arm and breathing into my face to calm me. “Just to dror 'im out, I told a + story of a chap I said I knew—pretendin', you know—who'd found + a sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said 'e stuck to it, but I said + I wasn't sure whether that was right or not. And then the old man began. + Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!” Mr. Brisher affected an insincere amusement. + “'E was, well—what you might call a rare 'and at Snacks. Said that + was the sort of friend 'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said 'e'd + naturally expect that from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who took up + with daughters who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell you 'ARF + 'e said. 'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about it, just to + dror 'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you found it in + the street?' I says. 'Certainly not,' 'e says; 'certainly I wouldn't.' + 'What! not if you found it as a sort of treasure?' 'Young man,' 'e says, + 'there's 'i'er 'thority than mine—Render unto Caesar'—what is + it? Yes. Well, he fetched up that. A rare 'and at 'itting you over the 'ed + with the Bible, was the old man. And so he went on. 'E got to such Snacks + about me at last I couldn't stand it. I'd promised Jane not to answer 'im + back, but it got a bit TOO thick. I—I give it 'im...” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brisher, by means of enigmatical facework, tried to make me think he + had had the best of that argument, but I knew better. + </p> + <p> + “I went out in a 'uff at last. But not before I was pretty sure I 'ad to + lift that treasure by myself. The only thing that kep' me up was thinking + 'ow I'd take it out of 'im when I 'ad the cash.” + </p> + <p> + There was a lengthy pause. + </p> + <p> + “Now, you'd 'ardly believe it, but all them three days I never 'ad a + chance at the blessed treasure, never got out not even a 'arf-crown. There + was always a Somethink—always. + </p> + <p> + “'Stonishing thing it isn't thought of more,” said Mr. Brisher. “Finding + treasure's no great shakes. It's gettin' it. I don't suppose I slep' a + wink any of those nights, thinking where I was to take it, what I was to + do with it, 'ow I was to explain it. It made me regular ill. And days I + was that dull, it made Jane regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you + was in London,' she says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father + and 'is Snacks, but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but + that I'd got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had a + bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem to mind a + bit Anything she said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at planning, + though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it all out and + settled on a plan. First, I was going to take all my pockets full of these + 'ere 'arf-crowns—see?—and afterwards as I shall tell. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I got to that state I couldn't think of getting at the Treasure + again in the daytime, so I waited until the night before I had to go, and + then, when everything was still, up I gets and slips down to the back + door, meaning to get my pockets full. What must I do in the scullery but + fall over a pail! Up gets 'er father with a gun—'e was a light + sleeper was 'er father, and very suspicious and there was me: 'ad to + explain I'd come down to the pump for a drink because my water-bottle was + bad. 'E didn't let me off a Snack or two over that bit, you lay a bob.” + </p> + <p> + “And you mean to say—” I began. + </p> + <p> + “Wait a bit,” said Mr. Brisher. “I say, I'd made my plan. That put the + kybosh on one bit, but it didn't 'urt the general scheme not a bit. I went + and I finished that rockery next day, as though there wasn't a Snack in + the world; cemented over the stones, I did, dabbed it green and + everythink. I put a dab of green just to show where the box was. They all + came and looked at it, and sai 'ow nice it was—even 'e was a bit + softer like to see it, and all he said was, 'It's a pity you can't always + work like that, then you might get something definite to do,' he says. + </p> + <p> + “'Yes,' I says—I couldn't 'elp it—'I put a lot in that + rockery,' I says, like that. See? 'I put a lot in that rockery'—meaning—” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said I—for Mr. Brisher is apt to overelaborate his jokes. + </p> + <p> + “<i>'E</i> didn't,” said Mr. Brisher. “Not then, anyhow. + </p> + <p> + “Ar'ever—after all that was over, off I set for London.... Orf I set + for London.” + </p> + <p> + Pause. + </p> + <p> + “On'y I wasn't going to no London,” said Mr. Brisher, with sudden + animation, and thrusting his face into mine. “No fear! What do YOU think? + </p> + <p> + “I didn't go no further than Colchester—not a yard. + </p> + <p> + “I'd left the spade just where I could find it. I'd got everything planned + and right. I 'ired a little trap in Colchester, and pretended I wanted to + go to Ipswich and stop the night, and come back next day, and the chap I + 'ired it from made me leave two sovrings on it right away, and off I set. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't go to no Ipswich neither. + </p> + <p> + “Midnight the 'orse and trap was 'itched by the little road that ran by + the cottage where 'e lived—not sixty yards off, it wasn't—and + I was at it like a good 'un. It was jest the night for such games—overcast—but + a trifle too 'ot, and all round the sky there was summer lightning and + presently a thunderstorm. Down it came. First big drops in a sort of + fizzle, then 'ail. I kep'on. I whacked at it—I didn't dream the old + man would 'ear. I didn't even trouble to go quiet with the spade, and the + thunder and lightning and 'ail seemed to excite me like. I shouldn't + wonder if I was singing. I got so 'ard at it I clean forgot the thunder + and the 'orse and trap. I precious soon got the box showing, and started + to lift it....” + </p> + <p> + “Heavy?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't no more lift it than fly. I WAS sick. I'd never thought of + that I got regular wild—I tell you, I cursed. I got sort of + outrageous. I didn't think of dividing it like for the minute, and even + then I couldn't 'ave took money about loose in a trap. I hoisted one end + sort of wild like, and over the whole show went with a tremenjous noise. + Perfeck smash of silver. And then right on the heels of that, Flash! + Lightning like the day! and there was the back door open and the old man + coming down the garden with 'is blooming old gun. He wasn't not a 'undred + yards away! + </p> + <p> + “I tell you I was that upset—I didn't think what I was doing. I + never stopped-not even to fill my pockets. I went over the fence like a + shot, and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and swearing as I + went. I WAS in a state.... + </p> + <p> + “And will you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left the 'orse + and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't a cuss left for it. I + jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced enough I started off to + London.... I was done.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brisher was pensive for an interval. “I was done,” he repeated, very + bitterly. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “That's all,” said Mr. Brisher. + </p> + <p> + “You didn't go back?” + </p> + <p> + “No fear. I'd 'ad enough of THAT blooming treasure, any'ow for a bit. + Besides, I didn't know what was done to chaps who tried to collar a + treasure trove. I started off for London there and then....” + </p> + <p> + “And you never went back?” + </p> + <p> + “Never.” + </p> + <p> + “But about Jane? Did you write?” + </p> + <p> + “Three times, fishing like. And no answer. We'd parted in a bit of a 'uff + on account of 'er being jealous. So that I couldn't make out for certain + what it meant. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know whether the old man knew it + was me. I sort of kep' an eye open on papers to see when he'd give up that + treasure to the Crown, as I hadn't a doubt 'e would, considering 'ow + respectable he'd always been.” + </p> + <p> + “And did he?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brisher pursed his mouth and moved his head slowly from side to side. + “Not 'IM,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Jane was a nice girl,” he said, “a thorough nice girl mind you, if + jealous, and there's no knowing I mightn't 'ave gone back to 'er after a + bit. I thought if he didn't give up the treasure I might 'ave a sort of + 'old on 'im.... Well, one day I looks as usual under Colchester—and + there I saw 'is name. What for, d'yer think?” + </p> + <p> + I could not guess. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Brisher's voice sank to a whisper, and once more he spoke behind his + hand. His manner was suddenly suffused with a positive joy. “Issuing + counterfeit coins,” he said. “Counterfeit coins!” + </p> + <p> + “You don't mean to say—?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes-It. Bad. Quite a long case they made of it. But they got 'im, though + he dodged tremenjous. Traced 'is 'aving passed, oh!—nearly a dozen + bad 'arf-crowns.” + </p> + <p> + “And you didn't—?” + </p> + <p> + “No fear. And it didn't do 'IM much good to say it was treasure trove.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART + </h2> + <p> + Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind for a + month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her conversation that + quite a number of people who were not going to Rome, and who were not + likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal grievance against her. Some + indeed had attempted quite unavailingly to convince her that Rome was not + nearly such a desirable place as it was reported to be, and others had + gone so far as to suggest behind her back that she was dreadfully “stuck + up” about “that Rome of hers.” And little Lily Hardhurst had told her + friend Mr. Binns that so far as she was concerned Miss Winchelsea might + “go to her old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily Hardhurst) wouldn't + grieve.” And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put herself upon terms of + personal tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto Cellini and Raphael and + Shelley and Keats—if she had been Shelley's widow she could not have + professed a keener interest in his grave—was a matter of universal + astonishment. Her dress was a triumph of tactful discretion, sensible, but + not too “touristy”—Miss Winchelsea, had a great dread of being + “touristy”—and her Baedeker was carried in a cover of grey to hide + its glaring red. She made a prim and pleasant little figure on the Charing + Cross platform, in spite of her swelling pride, when at last the great day + dawned, and she could start for Rome. The day was bright, the Channel + passage would be pleasant, and all the omens promised well. There was the + gayest sense of adventure in this unprecedented departure. + </p> + <p> + She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her at + the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good at + history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up to her + immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she anticipated + some pleasant times to be spent in “stirring them up” to her own pitch of + aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had secured seats already, and + welcomed her effusively at the carriage door. In the instant criticism of + the encounter she noted that Fanny had a slightly “touristy” leather + strap, and that Helen had succumbed to a serge jacket with side pockets, + into which her hands were thrust. But they were much too happy with + themselves and the expedition for their friend to attempt any hint at the + moment about these things. As soon as the first ecstasies were over—Fanny's + enthusiasm was a little noisy and crude, and consisted mainly in emphatic + repetitions of “Just FANCY! we're going to Rome, my dear!—Rome!”—they + gave their attention to their fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to + secure a compartment to themselves, and, in order to discourage intruders, + got out and planted herself firmly on the step. Miss Winchelsea peeped out + over her shoulder, and made sly little remarks about the accumulating + people on the platform, at which Fanny laughed gleefully. + </p> + <p> + They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties—fourteen + days in Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personally + conducted party of course—Miss Winchelsea had seen to that—but + they travelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement. The + people were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing. There was a + vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in a pepper-and-salt + suit, very long in the arms and legs and very active. He shouted + proclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he stretched out an arm + and held them until his purpose was accomplished. One hand was full of + papers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists. The people of the personally + conducted party were, it seemed, of two sorts; people the conductor wanted + and could not find, and people he did not want and who followed him in a + steadily growing tail up and down the platform. These people seemed, + indeed, to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay in keeping + close to him. Three little old ladies were particularly energetic in his + pursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of clapping them into a + carriage and daring them to emerge again. For the rest of the time, one, + two, or three of their heads protruded from the window wailing enquiries + about “a little wickerwork box” whenever he drew near. There was a very + stout man with a very stout wife in shiny black; there was a little old + man like an aged hostler. + </p> + <p> + “What CAN such people want in Rome?” asked Miss Winchelsea. “What can it + mean to them?” There was a very tall curate in a very small straw hat, and + a very short curate encumbered by a long camera stand. The contrast amused + Fanny very much. Once they heard some one calling for “Snooks.” “I always + thought that name was invented by novelists,” said Miss Winchelsea. + “Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which IS Mr. Snooks.” Finally they picked out a + very stout and resolute little man in a large check suit. “If he isn't + Snooks, he ought to be,” said Miss Winchelsea. + </p> + <p> + Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner in + carriages. “Room for five,” he bawled with a parallel translation on his + fingers. A party of four together—mother, father, and two daughters—blundered + in, all greatly excited. “It's all right, Ma, you let me,” said one of the + daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet with a handbag she struggled to put + in the rack. Miss Winchelsea detested people who banged about and called + their mother “Ma.” A young man travelling alone followed. He was not at + all “touristy” in his costume, Miss Winchelsea observed; his Gladstone bag + was of good pleasant leather with labels reminiscent of Luxembourg and + Ostend, and his boots, though brown, were not vulgar. He carried an + overcoat on his arm. Before these people had properly settled in their + places, came an inspection of tickets and a slamming of doors, and behold! + they were gliding out of Charing Cross station on their way to Rome. + </p> + <p> + “Fancy!” cried Fanny, “we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! I don't seem + to believe it, even now.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile, and the + lady who was called “Ma” explained to people in general why they had “cut + it so close” at the station. The two daughters called her “Ma” several + times, toned her down in a tactless effective way, and drove her at last + to the muttered inventory of a basket of travelling requisites. Presently + she looked up. “Lor'!” she said, “I didn't bring THEM!” Both the daughters + said “Oh, Ma!” but what “them” was did not appear. Presently Fanny + produced Hare's Walks in Rome, a sort of mitigated guide-book very popular + among Roman visitors; and the father of the two daughters began to examine + his books of tickets minutely, apparently in a search after English words. + When he had looked at the tickets for a long time right way up, he turned + them upside down. Then he produced a fountain pen and dated them with + considerable care. The young man, having completed an unostentatious + survey of his fellow travellers, produced a book and fell to reading. When + Helen and Fanny were looking out of the window at Chiselhurst—the + place interested Fanny because the poor dear Empress of the French used to + live there—Miss Winchelsea took the opportunity to observe the book + the young man held. It was not a guide-book, but a little thin volume of + poetry—BOUND. She glanced at his face—it seemed a refined + pleasant face to her hasty glance. He wore a little gilt pince-nez. “Do + you think she lives there now?” said Fanny, and Miss Winchelsea's + inspection came to an end. + </p> + <p> + For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what she + said was as pleasant and as stamped with refinement as she could make it. + Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant, and she took care that on + this occasion it was particularly low and clear and pleasant. As they came + under the white cliffs the young man put his book of poetry away, and when + at last the train stopped beside the boat, he displayed a graceful + alacrity with the impedimenta of Miss Winchelsea and her friends. Miss + Winchelsea hated nonsense, but she was pleased to see the young man + perceived at once that they were ladies, and helped them without any + violent geniality; and how nicely he showed that his civilities were to be + no excuse for further intrusions. None of her little party had been out of + England before, and they were all excited and a little nervous at the + Channel passage. They stood in a little group in a good place near the + middle of the boat—the young man had taken Miss Winchelsea's + carry-all there and had told her it was a good place—and they + watched the white shores of Albion recede and quoted Shakespeare and made + quiet fun of their fellow travellers in the English way. + </p> + <p> + They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized people + had taken against the little waves—cut lemons and flasks prevailed, + one lady lay full-length in a deck chair with a handkerchief over her + face, and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown “touristy” suit + walked all the way from England to France along the deck, with his legs as + widely apart as Providence permitted. These were all excellent + precautions, and, nobody was ill. The personally conducted party pursued + the conductor about the deck with enquiries in a manner that suggested to + Helen's mind the rather vulgar image of hens with a piece of bacon peel, + until at last he went into hiding below. And the young man with the thin + volume of poetry stood at the stern watching England receding, looking + rather lonely and sad to Miss Winchelsea's eye. + </p> + <p> + And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man had not + forgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little things. All + three girls, though they had passed government examinations in French to + any extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their accents, and the + young man was very useful. And he did not intrude. He put them in a + comfortable carriage and raised his hat and went away. Miss Winchelsea + thanked him in her best manner—a pleasing, cultivated manner—and + Fanny said he was “nice” almost before he was out of earshot. “I wonder + what he can be,” said Helen. “He's going to Italy, because I noticed green + tickets in his book.” Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, and + decided not to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold upon + them and the young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they were + doing an educated sort of thing to travel through a country whose + commonest advertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea + made unpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-board + advertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that deface + the landscape in our land. But the north of France is really uninteresting + country, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's Walks and Helen + initiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy reverie; she had + been trying to realise, she said, that she was actually going to Rome, but + she perceived at Helen's suggestion that she was hungry, and they lunched + out of their baskets very cheerfully. In the afternoon they were tired and + silent until Helen made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have dozed, only she + knew Fanny slept with her mouth open; and as their fellow passengers were + two rather nice critical-looking ladies of uncertain age—who knew + French well enough to talk it—she employed herself in keeping Fanny + awake. The rhythm of the train became insistent, and the streaming + landscape outside became at last quite painful to the eye. They were + already dreadfully tired of travelling before their night's stoppage came. + </p> + <p> + The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of the young + man, and his manners were all that could be desired and his French quite + serviceable. His coupons availed for the same hotel as theirs, and by + chance as it seemed he sat next Miss Winchelsea at the table d'hote. In + spite of her enthusiasm for Rome, she had thought out some such + possibility very thoroughly, and when he ventured to make a remark upon + the tediousness of travelling—he let the soup and fish go by before + he did this—she did not simply assent to his proposition, but + responded with another. They were soon comparing their journeys, and Helen + and Fanny were cruelly overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the + same journey, they found; one day for the galleries at Florence—“from + what I hear,” said the young man, “it is barely enough,”—and the + rest at Rome. He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite + well read, and he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had “done” + that book of Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted to cap his + quotation. It gave a sort of tone to things, this incident—a touch + of refinement to mere chatting. Fanny expressed a few emotions, and Helen + interpolated a few sensible remarks, but the bulk of the talk on the + girls' side naturally fell to Miss Winchelsea. + </p> + <p> + Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party. They + did not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught, and Miss + Winchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer. At any rate he + was something of that sort, something gentlemanly and refined without + being opulent and impossible. She tried once or twice to ascertain whether + he came from Oxford or Cambridge, but he missed her timid importunities. + She tried to get him to make remarks about those places to see if he would + say “come up” to them instead of “go down”—she knew that was how you + told a 'Varsity man. He used the word “'Varsity”—not university—in + quite the proper way. + </p> + <p> + They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted; he + met them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting brightly, + and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew a great deal + about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely. It was fine to go + round recognising old favourites and finding new beauties, especially + while so many people fumbled helplessly with Baedeker. Nor was he a bit of + a prig, Miss Winchelsea said, and indeed she detested prigs. He had a + distinct undertone of humour, and was funny, for example, without being + vulgar, at the expense of the quaint work of Beato Angelico. He had a + grave seriousness beneath it all, and was quick to seize the moral lessons + of the pictures. Fanny went softly among these masterpieces; she admitted + “she knew so little about them,” and she confessed that to her they were + “all beautiful.” Fanny's “beautiful” inclined to be a little monotonous, + Miss Winchelsea thought. She had been quite glad when the last sunny Alp + had vanished, because of the staccato of Fanny's admiration. Helen said + little, but Miss Winchelsea had found her a little wanting on the + aesthetic side in the old days and was not surprised; sometimes she + laughed at the young man's hesitating delicate little jests and sometimes + she didn't, and sometimes she seemed quite lost to the art about them in + the contemplation of the dresses of the other visitors. + </p> + <p> + At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather “touristy” + friend of his took him away at times. He complained comically to Miss + Winchelsea. “I have only two short weeks in Rome,” he said, “and my friend + Leonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli, looking at a waterfall.” + </p> + <p> + “What is your friend Leonard?” asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met,” the young man replied, + amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelsea thought. They + had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think what they would have + done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest and Fanny's enormous capacity + for admiration were insatiable. They never flagged—through pictures + and sculpture galleries, immense crowded churches, ruins and museums, + Judas trees and prickly pears, wine carts and palaces, they admired their + way unflinchingly. They never saw a stone pine or a eucalyptus but they + named and admired it; they never glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. + Their common ways were made wonderful by imaginative play. “Here Caesar + may have walked,” they would say. “Raphael may have seen Soracte from this + very point.” They happened on the tomb of Bibulus. “Old Bibulus,” said the + young man. “The oldest monument of Republican Rome!” said Miss Winchelsea. + </p> + <p> + “I'm dreadfully stupid,” said Fanny, “but who WAS Bibulus?” + </p> + <p> + There was a curious little pause. + </p> + <p> + “Wasn't he the person who built the wall?” said Helen. + </p> + <p> + The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. “That was Balbus,” he + said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw any light + upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus. + </p> + <p> + Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was always + taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets and things like + that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took them, and told him + where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times they had, these young + people, in that pale brown cleanly city of memories that was once the + world. Their only sorrow was the shortness of the time. They said indeed + that the electric trams and the '70 buildings, and that criminal + advertisement that glares upon the Forum, outraged their aesthetic + feelings unspeakably; but that was only part of the fun. And indeed Rome + is such a wonderful place that it made Miss Winchelsea forget some of her + most carefully prepared enthusiasms at times, and Helen, taken unawares, + would suddenly admit the beauty of unexpected things. Yet Fanny and Helen + would have liked a shop window or so in the English quarter if Miss + Winchelsea's uncompromising hostility to all other English visitors had + not rendered that district impossible. + </p> + <p> + The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and the + scholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling. The + exuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite admiration + by playing her “beautiful,” with vigour, and saying “Oh! LET'S go,” with + enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest was mentioned. But + Helen developed a certain want of sympathy towards the end, that + disappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She refused to “see anything” in + the face of Beatrice Cenci—Shelley's Beatrice Cenci!—in the + Barberini gallery; and one day, when they were deploring the electric + trams, she said rather snappishly that “people must get about somehow, and + it's better than torturing horses up these horrid little hills.” She spoke + of the Seven Hills of Rome as “horrid little hills!” + </p> + <p> + And the day they went on the Palatine—though Miss Winchelsea did not + know of this—she remarked suddenly to Fanny, “Don't hurry like that, + my dear; THEY don't want us to overtake them. And we don't say the right + things for them when we DO get near.” + </p> + <p> + “I wasn't trying to overtake them,” said Fanny, slackening her excessive + pace; “I wasn't indeed.” And for a minute she was short of breath. + </p> + <p> + But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she came to + look back across an intervening tragedy that she quite realised how happy + she had been, pacing among the cypress-shadowed ruins, and exchanging the + very highest class of information the human mind can possess, the most + refined impressions it is possible to convey. Insensibly emotion crept + into their intercourse, sunning itself openly and pleasantly at last when + Helen's modernity was not too near. Insensibly their interest drifted from + the wonderful associations about them to their more intimate and personal + feelings. In a tentative way information was supplied; she spoke + allusively of her school, of her examination successes, of her gladness + that the days of “Cram” were over. He made it quite clear that he also was + a teacher. They spoke of the greatness of their calling, of the necessity + of sympathy to face its irksome details, of a certain loneliness they + sometimes felt. + </p> + <p> + That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day, because + Helen returned with Fanny—she had taken her into the upper + galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and + concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured + that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying way to his + students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual mate and helper; + she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus, with white shelves of + high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti and + Burne-Jones, with Morris's wall papers and flowers in pots of beaten + copper. Indeed she figured many things. On the Pincio the two had a few + precious moments together, while Helen marched Fanny off to see the muro + Torto, and he spoke at once plainly. He said he hoped their friendship was + only beginning, that he already found her company very precious to him, + that indeed it was more than that. + </p> + <p> + He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers as + though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. “I should of course,” + he said, “tell you things about myself. I know it is rather unusual my + speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has been so accidental—or + providential—and I am snatching at things. I came to Rome expecting + a lonely tour... and I have been so very happy, so very happy. Quite + recently I found myself in a position—I have dared to think—. + And—” + </p> + <p> + He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said “Damn!” quite distinctly—and + she did not condemn him for that manly lapse into profanity. She looked + and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drew nearer; he raised his hat to + Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was almost a grin. “I've been looking for + you everywhere, Snooks,” he said. “You promised to be on the Piazza steps + half an hour ago.” + </p> + <p> + Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face. She did + not hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard must have + considered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day she is not sure + whether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor what she said to him. A + sort of mental paralysis was upon her. Of all offensive surnames—Snooks! + </p> + <p> + Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young men + were receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face the + enquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived the life of a + heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name, chatting, observing, + with “Snooks” gnawing at her heart. From the moment that it first rang + upon her ears, the dream of her happiness was prostrate in the dust. All + the refinement she had figured was ruined and defaced by that cognomen's + unavoidable vulgarity. + </p> + <p> + What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes, Morris + papers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an incredible + inscription: “Mrs. Snooks.” That may seem a little thing to the reader, + but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's mind. Be as + refined as you can and then think of writing yourself down:—“Snooks.” + She conceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks by all the people she + liked least, conceived the patronymic touched with a vague quality of + insult. She figured a card of grey and silver bearing “Winchelsea,” + triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow, in favour of “Snooks.” + Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She imagined the terrible + rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain grocer cousins from whom + her growing refinement had long since estranged her. How they would make + it sprawl across the envelope that would bring their sarcastic + congratulations. Would even his pleasant company compensate her for that? + “It is impossible,” she muttered; “impossible! SNOOKS!” + </p> + <p> + She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself. For him + she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined, while all the + time he was “Snooks,” to hide under a pretentious gentility of demeanour + the badge sinister of his surname seemed a sort of treachery. To put it in + the language of sentimental science she felt he had “led her on.” + </p> + <p> + There were of course moments of terrible vacillation, a period even when + something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to the winds. And + there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige of vulgarity, that + made a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks was not so very bad a name + after all. Any hovering hesitation flew before Fanny's manner, when Fanny + came with an air of catastrophe to tell that she also knew the horror. + Fanny's voice fell to a whisper when she said SNOOKS. Miss Winchelsea + would not give him any answer when at last, in the Borghese, she could + have a minute with him; but she promised him a note. + </p> + <p> + She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent her, the + little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal was ambiguous, + allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected him than she could + have told a cripple of his hump. He too must feel something of the + unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he had avoided a dozen chances of + telling it, she now perceived. So she spoke of “obstacles she could not + reveal”—“reasons why the thing he spoke of was impossible.” She + addressed the note with a shiver, “E. K. Snooks.” + </p> + <p> + Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain. How COULD + she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful. She was haunted by + his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she had given him intimate + hopes, she had not the courage to examine her mind thoroughly for the + extent of her encouragement. She knew he must think her the most + changeable of beings. Now that she was in full retreat, she would not even + perceive his hints of a possible correspondence. But in that matter he did + a thing that seemed to her at once delicate and romantic. He made a + go-between of Fanny. Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and told + her that night under a transparent pretext of needed advice. “Mr. Snooks,” + said Fanny, “wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But should I let + him?” They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss Winchelsea was + careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was already repenting his + disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of him sometimes—painful + though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea decided it might be + permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with unusual emotion. After she + had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time at the window of her little + room. It was moonlight, and down the street a man sang “Santa Lucia” with + almost heart-dissolving tenderness.... She sat very still. + </p> + <p> + She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was “SNOOKS.” Then + she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning he said + to her meaningly, “I shall hear of you through your friend.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative + perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen he would + have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand as a sort of + encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England Miss Winchelsea on + six separate occasions made Fanny promise to write to her the longest of + long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new + school—she was always going to new schools—would be only five + miles from Steely Bank, and it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one + or two first-class schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might + even see her at times. They could not talk much of him—she and Fanny + always spoke of “him,” never of Mr. Snooks,—because Helen was apt to + say unsympathetic things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much, + Miss Winchelsea perceived, since the old Training College days; she had + become hard and cynical. She thought he had a weak face, mistaking + refinement for weakness as people of her stamp are apt to do, and when she + heard his name was Snooks, she said she had expected something of the + sort. Miss Winchelsea was careful to spare her own feelings after that, + but Fanny was less circumspect. + </p> + <p> + The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a new + interest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been an + increasingly valuable assistant for the last three years. Her new interest + in life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her a lead she wrote her + a lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight of her return. Fanny + answered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed had no literary gift, but it + was new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself deploring the want of gifts in + a friend. That letter was even criticised aloud in the safe solitude of + Miss Winchelsea's study, and her criticism, spoken with great bitterness, + was “Twaddle!” It was full of just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter had + been full of, particulars of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only this + much: “I have had a letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over to see me + on two Saturday afternoons running. He talked about Rome and you; we both + talked about you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear....” + </p> + <p> + Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information, + and wrote the sweetest long letter again. “Tell me all about yourself, + dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship, and I do so + want to keep in touch with you.” About Mr. Snooks she simply wrote on the + fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen him, and that if he SHOULD ask + after her, she was to be remembered to him VERY KINDLY (underlined). And + Fanny replied most obtusely in the key of that “ancient friendship,” + reminding Miss Winchelsea of a dozen foolish things of those old + schoolgirl days at the training college, and saying not a word about Mr. + Snooks! + </p> + <p> + For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure of Fanny as + a go-between that she could not write to her. And then she wrote less + effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank, “Have you seen Mr. + Snooks?” Fanny's letter was unexpectedly satisfactory. “I HAVE seen Mr. + Snooks,” she wrote, and having once named him she kept on about him; it + was all Snooks—Snooks this and Snooks that. He was to give a public + lecture, said Fanny, among other things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after the + first glow of gratification, still found this letter a little + unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report Mr. Snooks as saying anything about + Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking a little white and worn, as he ought to + have been doing. And behold! before she had replied, came a second letter + from Fanny on the same theme, quite a gushing letter, and covering six + sheets with her loose feminine hand. + </p> + <p> + And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that Miss + Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time. Fanny's natural + femininity had prevailed even against the round and clear traditions of + the training college; she was one of those she-creatures born to make all + her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's alike, and to leave her o's and + a's open and her i's undotted. So that it was only after an elaborate + comparison of word with word that Miss Winchelsea felt assured Mr. Snooks + was not really “Mr. Snooks” at all! In Fanny's first letter of gush he was + Mr. “Snooks,” in her second the spelling was changed to Mr. “Senoks.” Miss + Winchelsea's hand positively trembled as she turned the sheet over—it + meant so much to her. For it had already begun to seem to her that even + the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided at too great a price, and + suddenly—this possibility! She turned over the six sheets, all + dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the first letter had the + form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a hand pressed upon her + heart. + </p> + <p> + She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter of inquiry + that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing too what action + she should take after the answer came. She was resolved that if this + altered spelling was anything more than a quaint fancy of Fanny's, she + would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks. She had now reached a stage when the + minor refinements of behaviour disappear. Her excuse remained uninvented, + but she had the subject of her letter clear in her mind, even to the hint + that “circumstances in my life have changed very greatly since we talked + together.” But she never gave that hint. There came a third letter from + that fitful correspondent Fanny. The first line proclaimed her “the + happiest girl alive.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand—the rest unread—and + sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before + morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were well + under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of great calm. + But after the first sheet she went on reading the third without + discovering the error:—“told him frankly I did not like his name,” + the third sheet began. “He told me he did not like it himself—you + know that sort of sudden frank way he has”—Miss Winchelsea did know. + “So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it at first. Well, you + know, dear, he had told me what it really meant; it means Sevenoaks, only + it has got down to Snooks—both Snooks and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar + surnames though they be, are really worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said—even + I have my bright ideas at times—'if it got down from Sevenoaks to + Snooks, why not get it back from Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and + the short of it is, dear, he couldn't refuse me, and he changed his + spelling there and then to Senoks for the bills of the new lecture. And + afterwards, when we are married, we shall put in the apostrophe and make + it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind that fancy of mine, when many + men would have taken offence? But it is just like him all over; he is as + kind as he is clever. Because he knew as well as I did that I would have + had him in spite of it, had he been ten times Snooks. But he did it all + the same.” + </p> + <p> + The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, and + looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with some very + small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they stared + at her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more familiar one. + “Has any one finished number three?” she asked in an even tone. She + remained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day. And she + spent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts to Fanny, + before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason struggled + hopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedingly + treacherous manner. + </p> + <p> + One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart. + Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods of sexual + hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about mankind. “He forgot + himself with me,” she said. “But Fanny is pink and pretty and soft and a + fool—a very excellent match for a Man.” And by way of a wedding + present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound volume of poetry by George + Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly happy letter to say that it was + “ALL beautiful.” Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take + up that slim book and think for a moment of the donor. Fanny wrote several + times before and about her marriage, pursuing that fond legend of their + “ancient friendship,” and giving her happiness in the fullest detail. And + Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first time after the Roman journey, + saying nothing about the marriage, but expressing very cordial feelings. + </p> + <p> + They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the August + vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, describing her + home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements of their “teeny weeny” + little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning to assume a refinement in Miss + Winchelsea's memory out of all proportion to the facts of the case, and + she tried in vain to imagine his cultured greatness in a “teeny weeny” + little house. “Am busy enamelling a cosey corner,” said Fanny, sprawling + to the end of her third sheet, “so excuse more.” Miss Winchelsea answered + in her best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements and hoping + intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter. Only this hope enabled + her to write at all, answering not only that letter but one in November + and one at Christmas. + </p> + <p> + The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her to come + to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays. She tried to + think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was too much like Fanny's + opulent good-nature. She could not but believe that he must be sick of his + blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that he would presently + write her a letter beginning “Dear Friend.” Something subtly tragic in the + separation was a great support to her, a sad misunderstanding. To have + been jilted would have been intolerable. But he never wrote that letter + beginning “Dear Friend.” + </p> + <p> + For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, in spite of + the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks—it became full + Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter rest she felt + lonely and without a soul to understand her in the world, and her mind ran + once more on what is called Platonic friendship. Fanny was clearly happy + and busy in her new sphere of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his lonely + hours. Did he ever think of those days in Rome—gone now beyond + recalling? No one had understood her as he had done; no one in all the + world. It would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, and + what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night she wrote a + sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave—which would not + come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note to tell Fanny + she was coming down. + </p> + <p> + And so she saw him again. + </p> + <p> + Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed + stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his conversation + had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even seemed a + justification for Helen's description of weakness in his face—in + certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied about his + affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea had come for + the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny in an intelligent + way. They only had one good long talk together, and that came to nothing. + He did not refer to Rome, and spent some time abusing a man who had stolen + an idea he had had for a text-book. It did not seem a very wonderful idea + to Miss Winchelsea. She discovered he had forgotten the names of more than + half the painters whose work they had rejoiced over in Florence. + </p> + <p> + It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad when it + came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting them again. + After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their two little boys, and + Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of her letters had long since + faded away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + 13. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON + </h2> + <p> + The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved slowly + in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was still on the + platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the corner over + against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to arrange his + travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes staring vacantly. + Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, looked up at me, and + put out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then he glanced again in my + direction. + </p> + <p> + I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him, and in a + moment I was surprised to find him speaking. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “That book,” he repeated, pointing a lean finger, “is about dreams.” + </p> + <p> + “Obviously,” I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States, and the + title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if he sought words. + “Yes,” he said at last, “but they tell you nothing.” I did not catch his + meaning for a second. + </p> + <p> + “They don't know,” he added. + </p> + <p> + I looked a little more attentively at his face. + </p> + <p> + “There are dreams,” he said, “and dreams.” + </p> + <p> + That sort of proposition I never dispute. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose—” he hesitated. “Do you ever dream? I mean vividly.” + </p> + <p> + “I dream very little,” I answered. “I doubt if I have three vivid dreams + in a year.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “Your dreams don't mix with your memories?” he asked abruptly. “You don't + find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?” + </p> + <p> + “Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I + suppose few people do.” + </p> + <p> + “Does HE say—” he indicated the book. + </p> + <p> + “Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about intensity + of impression and the like to account for its not happening as a rule. I + suppose you know something of these theories—” + </p> + <p> + “Very little—except that they are wrong.” + </p> + <p> + His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I + prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next + remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming—that goes on + night after night?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental + trouble.” + </p> + <p> + “Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place for them. + But what I mean—” He looked at his bony knuckles. “Is that sort of + thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it something else? Mightn't + it be something else?” + </p> + <p> + I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn + anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the + lids red-stained—perhaps you know that look. + </p> + <p> + “I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion,” he said. “The thing's + killing me.” + </p> + <p> + “Dreams?” + </p> + <p> + “If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!—so vivid... this—” + (he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) “seems + unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I am + on....” + </p> + <p> + He paused. “Even now—” + </p> + <p> + “The dream is always the same—do you mean?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “It's over.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I died.” + </p> + <p> + “Died?” + </p> + <p> + “Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, is dead. + Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a different + part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night after + night. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes and + fresh happenings—until I came upon the last—” + </p> + <p> + “When you died?” + </p> + <p> + “When I died.” + </p> + <p> + “And since then—” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said. “Thank God! That was the end of the dream....” + </p> + <p> + It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour before + me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary way with + him. “Living in a different time,” I said: “do you mean in some different + age?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Past?” + </p> + <p> + “No, to come—to come.” + </p> + <p> + “The year three thousand, for example?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was + dreaming, that is, but not now—not now that I am awake. There's a + lot of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams, though I + knew them at the time when I was—I suppose it was dreaming. They + called the year differently from our way of calling the year.... What DID + they call it?” He put his hand to his forehead. “No,” said he, “I forget.” + </p> + <p> + He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell me + his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but this struck + me differently. I proffered assistance even. “It began—” I + suggested. + </p> + <p> + “It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. And it's + curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never remembered this life + I am living now. It seemed as if the dream life was enough while it + lasted. Perhaps—But I will tell you how I find myself when I do my + best to recall it all. I don't remember anything dearly until I found + myself sitting in a sort of loggia looking out over the sea. I had been + dozing, and suddenly I woke up—fresh and vivid—not a bit + dream-like—because the girl had stopped fanning me.” + </p> + <p> + “The girl?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out.” + </p> + <p> + He stopped abruptly. “You won't think I'm mad?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “No,” I answered; “you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream.” + </p> + <p> + “I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was not + surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you understand. I + did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply took it up at that + point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life, this nineteenth-century life, + faded as I woke, vanished like a dream. I knew all about myself, knew that + my name was no longer Cooper but Hedon, and all about my position in the + world. I've forgotten a lot since I woke—there's a want of + connection—but it was all quite clear and matter of fact then.” + </p> + <p> + He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face forward + and looking up at me appealingly. + </p> + <p> + “This seems bosh to you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” I cried. “Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like.” + </p> + <p> + “It was not really a loggia—I don't know what to call it. It faced + south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle above the + balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where the girl stood. I + was on a couch—it was a metal couch with light striped cushions-and + the girl was leaning over the balcony with her back to me. The light of + the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek. Her pretty white neck and the + little curls that nestled there, and her white shoulder were in the sun, + and all the grace of her body was in the cool blue shadow. She was dressed—how + can I describe it? It was easy and flowing. And altogether there she + stood, so that it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as + though I had never seen her before. And when at last I sighed and raised + myself upon my arm she turned her face to me—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped. + </p> + <p> + “I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother, + sisters, friends, wife, and daughters—all their faces, the play of + their faces, I know. But the face of this girl—it is much more real + to me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it again—I + could draw it or paint it. And after all—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped—but I said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “The face of a dream—the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not + that beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of a + saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of + radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey eyes. And + she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant and + gracious things—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up at me + and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute belief in + the reality of his story. + </p> + <p> + “You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had ever + worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master man away there in + the north, with influence and property and a great reputation, but none of + it had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the place, this city + of sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things to wreck and ruin + just to save a remnant at least of my life. While I had been in love with + her before I knew that she had any care for me, before I had imagined that + she would dare—that we should dare, all my life had seemed vain and + hollow, dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes. Night after night and + through the long days I had longed and desired—my soul had beaten + against the thing forbidden! + </p> + <p> + “But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. It's + emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's there, + everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left them in + their Crisis to do what they could.” + </p> + <p> + “Left whom?” I asked, puzzled. + </p> + <p> + “The people up in the north there. You see—in this dream, anyhow—I + had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group + themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to do + things and risk things because of their confidence in me. I had been + playing that game for years, that big laborious game, that vague, + monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and + agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last I had a sort of + leadership against the Gang—you know it was called the Gang—a + sort of compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast + public emotional stupidities and catchwords—the Gang that kept the + world noisy and blind year by year, and all the while that it was + drifting, drifting towards infinite disaster. But I can't expect you to + understand the shades and complications of the year—the year + something or other ahead. I had it all down to the smallest details—in + my dream. I suppose I had been dreaming of it before I awoke, and the + fading outline of some queer new development I had imagined still hung + about me as I rubbed my eyes. It was some grubby affair that made me thank + God for the sunlight. I sat up on the couch and remained looking at the + woman and rejoicing—rejoicing that I had come away out of all that + tumult and folly and violence before it was too late. After all, I + thought, this is life—love and beauty, desire and delight, are they + not worth all those dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I + blamed myself for having ever sought to be a leader when I might have + given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent my early + days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself upon vain and + worthless women, and at the thought all my being went out in love and + tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and + compelled me—compelled me by her invincible charm for me—to + lay that life aside. + </p> + <p> + “'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear; 'you + are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all things. Love! + to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at the murmur of my voice she + turned about. + </p> + <p> + “'Come and see,' she cried—I can hear her now—'come and see + the sunrise upon Monte Solaro.' + </p> + <p> + “I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She put + a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great masses of + limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted + the sunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How + can I describe to you the scene we had before us? We were at Capri—” + </p> + <p> + “I have been there,” I said. “I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk + vero Capri—muddy stuff like cider—at the summit.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said the man with the white face; “then perhaps you can tell me—you + will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have never been + there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a vast + multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed out of the + limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. The whole island, + you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the + other side there were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages + to which the flying machines came. They called it a pleasure city. Of + course, there was none of that in your time rather, I should say, IS none + of that NOW. Of course. Now!—yes. + </p> + <p> + “Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that one + could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff—a thousand feet + high perhaps—coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, and + beyond it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and + passed into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to the west, distinct and + near was a little bay, a little beach still in shadow. And out of that + shadow rose Solaro straight and tall, flushed and golden crested, like a + beauty throned, and the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And + before us from east to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with + little sailing boats. + </p> + <p> + “To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very minute + and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of gold—shining + gold—almost like little flames. And just below us was a rock with an + arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and foam all round + the rock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch.” + </p> + <p> + “I know that rock,” I said. “I was nearly drowned there. It is called the + Faraglioni.” + </p> + <p> + “I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that,” answered the man with the white + face. “There was some story—but that—” + </p> + <p> + He put his hand to his forehead again. “No,” he said, “I forget that + story.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that + little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of + mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat and + talked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers not because + there was any one to hear, but because there was still such a freshness of + mind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened, I think, to + find themselves at last in words. And so they went softly. + </p> + <p> + “Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going by a + strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great breakfast + room—there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful place it + was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of plucked strings. + And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would not heed a man + who was watching me from a table near by. + </p> + <p> + “And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describe that + hall. The place was enormous—larger than any building you have ever + seen—and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into + the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads of + gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora + across the roof and interlaced, like—like conjuring tricks. All + about the great circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, + strange dragons, and intricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. + The place was inundated with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. + And as we went through the throng the people turned about and looked at + us, for all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had + suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And they + looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how at last + she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were + there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and + dishonour that had come upon my name. + </p> + <p> + “The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the rhythm + of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about the + hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were dressed + in splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced about the + great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and glorious + processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not the + dreary monotonies of your days—of this time, I mean—but dances + that were beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing—dancing + joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she danced with a + serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and caressing me—smiling + and caressing with her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “The music was different,” he murmured. “It went—I cannot describe + it; but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has + ever come to me awake. + </p> + <p> + “And then—it was when we had done dancing—a man came to speak + to me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and + already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and + afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, as + we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure of all the people who + went to and fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me, and + spoke to me so that I was forced to listen. And he asked that he might + speak to me for a little time apart. + </p> + <p> + “'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to tell + me?' + </p> + <p> + “He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady to + hear. + </p> + <p> + “'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I. + </p> + <p> + “He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he asked + me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration that + Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man next to + myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a + forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and + soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that the + others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about what he + had done reawakened my old interest in the life I had put aside just for a + moment. + </p> + <p> + “'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What has + Evesham been saying?' + </p> + <p> + “And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess even I was + struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words he + had used. And this messenger they had sent to me not only told me of + Evesham's speech, but went on to ask counsel and to point out what need + they had of me. While he talked, my lady sat a little forward and watched + his face and mine. + </p> + <p> + “My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves. I could + even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all the dramatic + effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to the disorder of the + party indeed, but not to its damage. I should go back stronger than I had + come. And then I thought of my lady. You see—how can I tell you? + There were certain peculiarities of our relationship—as things are I + need not tell you about that—which would render her presence with me + impossible. I should have had to leave her; indeed, I should have had to + renounce her clearly and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in the + north. And the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew it as + well as she did, that my steps to duty were—first, separation, then + abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return was + shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his eloquence + was gaining ground with me. + </p> + <p> + “'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done with + them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming here?' + </p> + <p> + “'No,' he said; 'but—' + </p> + <p> + “'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. I have + ceased to be anything but a private man.' + </p> + <p> + “'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?—this talk of war, these + reckless challenges, these wild aggressions—' + </p> + <p> + “I stood up. + </p> + <p> + “'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, I + weighed them—and I have come away.' + </p> + <p> + “He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked from me + to where the lady sat regarding us. + </p> + <p> + “'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned slowly + from me and walked away. I stood, caught in the whirl of thoughts his + appeal had set going. + </p> + <p> + “I heard my lady's voice. + </p> + <p> + “'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you—' + </p> + <p> + “She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to her + sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled. + </p> + <p> + “'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I said. + 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.' + </p> + <p> + “She looked at me doubtfully. + </p> + <p> + “'But war—' she said. + </p> + <p> + “I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself and + me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and completely, + must drive us apart for ever. + </p> + <p> + “Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this belief + or that. + </p> + <p> + “'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. There + will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past. + Trust me to know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me, + dearest, and no one has a right upon me. I have been free to choose my + life, and I have chosen this.' + </p> + <p> + “'But WAR—' she said. + </p> + <p> + “I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand in mine. + I set myself to drive that doubt away—I set myself to fill her mind + with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying to her I lied also + to myself. And she was only too ready to believe me, only too ready to + forget. + </p> + <p> + “Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our + bathing-place in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom to + bathe every day. We swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyant + water I seemed to become something lighter and stronger than a man. And at + last we came out dripping and rejoicing and raced among the rocks. And + then I put on a dry bathing-dress, and we sat to bask in the sun, and + presently I nodded, resting my head against her knee, and she put her hand + upon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. And behold! as it were + with the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening, and I was in + my own bed in Liverpool, in the life of to-day. + </p> + <p> + “Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments had been + no more than the substance of a dream. + </p> + <p> + “In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering reality of + things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, and as I shaved + I argued why I of all men should leave the woman I loved to go back to + fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous north. Even if Evesham did + force the world back to war, what was that to me? I was a man, with the + heart of a man, and why should I feel the responsibility of a deity for + the way the world might go? + </p> + <p> + “You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about my real + affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view. + </p> + <p> + “The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike a dream + that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details; even the + ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine in the + breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt line that ran + about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with the messenger from my + deserted party. Have you ever heard of a dream that had a quality like + that?” + </p> + <p> + “Like—?” + </p> + <p> + “So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten.” + </p> + <p> + I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right. + </p> + <p> + “Never,” I said. “That is what you never seem to do with dreams.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he answered. “But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor, you + must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering what the + clients and business people I found myself talking to in my office would + think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a girl who would be born + a couple of hundred years or so hence, and worried about the politics of + my great-great-great-grandchildren. I was chiefly busy that day + negotiating a ninety-nine-year building lease. It was a private builder in + a hurry, and we wanted to tie him in every possible way. I had an + interview with him, and he showed a certain want of temper that sent me to + bed still irritated. That night I had no dream. Nor did I dream the next + night, at least, to remember. + </p> + <p> + “Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began to feel + sure it WAS a dream. And then it came again. + </p> + <p> + “When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very different. + I think it certain that four days had also elapsed in the dream. Many + things had happened in the north, and the shadow of them was back again + between us, and this time it was not so easily dispelled. I began, I know, + with moody musings. Why, in spite of all, should I go back, go back for + all the rest of my days to toil and stress, insults and perpetual + dissatisfaction, simply to save hundreds of millions of common people, + whom I did not love, whom too often I could do no other than despise, from + the stress and anguish of war and infinite misrule? And after all I might + fail. THEY all sought their own narrow ends, and why should not I—why + should not I also live as a man? And out of such thoughts her voice + summoned me, and I lifted my eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure + City, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the bay. + It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left Ischia hung + in a golden haze between sea and sky, and Naples was coldly white against + the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a tall and slender streamer + feathering at last towards the south, and the ruins of Torre dell' + Annunziata and Castellamare glittering and near.” + </p> + <p> + I interrupted suddenly: “You have been to Capri, of course?” + </p> + <p> + “Only in this dream,” he said, “only in this dream. All across the bay + beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City moored and + chained. And northward were the broad floating stages that received the + aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every afternoon, each bringing + its thousands of pleasure-seekers from the uttermost parts of the earth to + Capri and its delights. All these things, I say, stretched below. + </p> + <p> + “But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight that + evening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered useless + in the distant arsenals of the Rhinemouth were manoeuvring now in the + eastward sky. Evesham had astonished the world by producing them and + others, and sending them to circle here and there. It was the threat + material in the great game of bluff he was playing, and it had taken even + me by surprise. He was one of those incredibly stupid energetic people who + seem sent by Heaven to create disasters. His energy to the first glance + seemed so wonderfully like capacity! But he had no imagination, no + invention, only a stupid, vast, driving force of will, and a mad faith in + his stupid idiot 'luck' to pull him through. I remember how we stood out + upon the headland watching the squadron circling far away, and how I + weighed the full meaning of the sight, seeing clearly the way things must + go. And then even it was not too late. I might have gone back, I think, + and saved the world. The people of the north would follow me, I knew, + granted only that in one thing I respected their moral standards. The east + and south would trust me as they would trust no other northern man. And I + knew I had only to put it to her and she would have let me go.... Not + because she did not love me! + </p> + <p> + “Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about. I had so + newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still so fresh a + renegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what I OUGHT to do had + no power at all to touch my will. My will was to live, to gather pleasures + and make my dear lady happy. But though this sense of vast neglected + duties had no power to draw me, it could make me silent and preoccupied, + it robbed the days I had spent of half their brightness and roused me into + dark meditations in the silence of the night. And as I stood and watched + Evesham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro—those birds of infinite ill + omen—she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the trouble indeed, + but not perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my face, her expression + shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because the sunset was fading + out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she held me. She had asked me + to go from her, and again in the night time and with tears she had asked + me to go. + </p> + <p> + “At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I turned + upon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain slopes. + 'No,' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was resolved to end + that gravity, and made her run—no one can be very grey and sad who + is out of breath—and when she stumbled I ran with my hand beneath + her arm. We ran down past a couple of men, who turned back staring in + astonishment at my behaviour—they must have recognised my face. And + halfway down the slope came a tumult in the air, clang-clank, clang-clank, + and we stopped, and presently over the hill-crest those war things came + flying one behind the other.” + </p> + <p> + The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description. + </p> + <p> + “What were they like?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “They had never fought,” he said. “They were just like our ironclads are + nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might do, with + excited men inside them; few even cared to speculate. They were great + driving things shaped like spearheads without a shaft, with a propeller in + the place of the shaft.” + </p> + <p> + “Steel?” + </p> + <p> + “Not steel.” + </p> + <p> + “Aluminium?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common—as + common as brass, for example. It was called—let me see—.” He + squeezed his forehead with the fingers of one hand. “I am forgetting + everything,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “And they carried guns?” + </p> + <p> + “Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns backwards, + out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the beak. That + was the theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No one could + tell exactly what was going to happen. And meanwhile I suppose it was very + fine to go whirling through the air like a flight of young swallows, swift + and easy. I guess the captains tried not to think too clearly what the + real thing would be like. And these flying war machines, you know, were + only one sort of the endless war contrivances that had been invented and + had fallen into abeyance during the long peace. There were all sorts of + these things that people were routing out and furbishing up; infernal + things, silly things; things that had never been tried; big engines, + terrible explosives, great guns. You know the silly way of these ingenious + sort of men who make these things; they turn 'em out as beavers build + dams, and with no more sense of the rivers they're going to divert and the + lands they're going to flood! + </p> + <p> + “As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the twilight, + I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things were driving for + war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some inkling of what war + was bound to be under these new conditions. And even then, though I knew + it was drawing near the limit of my opportunity, I could find no will to + go back.” + </p> + <p> + He sighed. + </p> + <p> + “That was my last chance. + </p> + <p> + “We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we walked + out upon the high terrace, to and fro, and—she counselled me to go + back. + </p> + <p> + “'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me, 'this is + Death. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them, go back to your duty—.' + </p> + <p> + “She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm as + she said it, 'Go back—Go back.' + </p> + <p> + “Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read in an + instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those moments when + one SEES. + </p> + <p> + “'No!' I said. + </p> + <p> + “'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at the answer + to her thought. + </p> + <p> + “'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen. Love, I + have chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens I will live this life—I + will live for YOU! It—nothing shall turn me aside; nothing, my dear + one. Even if you died—even if you died—' + </p> + <p> + “'Yes,' she murmured, softly. + </p> + <p> + “'Then—I also would die.' + </p> + <p> + “And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking eloquently—as + I COULD do in that life—talking to exalt love, to make the life we + were living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was deserting + something hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine thing to set + aside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it, seeking not only + to convert her but myself to that. We talked, and she clung to me, torn + too between all that she deemed noble and all that she knew was sweet. And + at last I did make it heroic, made all the thickening disaster of the + world only a sort of glorious setting to our unparalleled love, and we two + poor foolish souls strutted there at last, clad in that splendid delusion, + drunken rather with that glorious delusion, under the still stars. + </p> + <p> + “And so my moment passed. + </p> + <p> + “It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders of + the south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot answer that + shattered Evesham's bluffing for ever, took shape and waited. And all over + Asia, and the ocean, and the south, the air and the wires were throbbing + with their warnings to prepare—prepare. + </p> + <p> + “No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine, with + all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe most + people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms and shouting + charges and triumphs and flags and bands—in a time when half the + world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles away—.” + </p> + <p> + The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face was + intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station, a string of + loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage, shot by the + carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap of noise, echoing the + tumult of the train. + </p> + <p> + “After that,” he said, “I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights that + dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights when I could + not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS accursed life; and THERE—somewhere + lost to me—things were happening—momentous, terrible + things.... I lived at nights—my days, my waking days, this life I am + living now, became a faded, far-away dream, a drab setting, the cover of + the book.” + </p> + <p> + He thought. + </p> + <p> + “I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream, but as to + what I did in the daytime—no. I could not tell—I do not + remember. My memory—my memory has gone. The business of life slips + from me—” + </p> + <p> + He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long time he + said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “And then?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “The war burst like a hurricane.” + </p> + <p> + He stared before him at unspeakable things. + </p> + <p> + “And then?” I urged again. + </p> + <p> + “One touch of unreality,” he said, in the low tone of a man who speaks to + himself, “and they would have been nightmares. But they were not + nightmares—they were not nightmares. NO!” + </p> + <p> + He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was a danger + of losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking again in the same + tone of questioning self-communion. + </p> + <p> + “What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would touch + Capri—I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all, as the + contrast to it all; but two nights after the whole place was shouting and + bawling, every woman almost and every other man wore a badge—Evesham's + badge—and there was no music but a jangling war-song over and over + again, and everywhere men enlisting, and in the dancing halls they were + drilling. The whole island was awhirl with rumours; it was said, again and + again, that fighting had begun. I had not expected this. I had seen so + little of the life of pleasure that I had failed to reckon with this + violence of the amateurs. And as for me, I was out of it. I was like a man + who might have prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had gone. I + was no one; the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more than I. + The crowd jostled us and bawled in our ears; that accursed song deafened + us; a woman shrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, and we two + went back to our own place again, ruffled and insulted—my lady white + and silent, and I aquiver with rage. So furious was I, I could have + quarrelled with her if I could have found one shade of accusation in her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + “All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock cell, + and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward that flared + and passed and came again. + </p> + <p> + “'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have made my + choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will have nothing of + this war. We have taken our lives out of all these things. This is no + refuge for us. Let us go.' + </p> + <p> + “And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered the + world. + </p> + <p> + “And all the rest was Flight—all the rest was Flight.” + </p> + <p> + He mused darkly. + </p> + <p> + “How much was there of it?” + </p> + <p> + He made no answer. + </p> + <p> + “How many days?” + </p> + <p> + His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took no heed + of my curiosity. + </p> + <p> + I tried to draw him back to his story with questions. + </p> + <p> + “Where did you go?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “When you left Capri.” + </p> + <p> + “Southwest,” he said, and glanced at me for a second. “We went in a boat.” + </p> + <p> + “But I should have thought an aeroplane?” + </p> + <p> + “They had been seized.” + </p> + <p> + I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning again. He + broke out in an argumentative monotone: + </p> + <p> + “But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and stress + IS life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty? If there IS no + refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all our dreams of quiet + places are a folly and a snare, why have we such dreams? Surely it was no + ignoble cravings, no base intentions, had brought us to this; it was Love + had isolated us. Love had come to me with her eyes and robed in her + beauty, more glorious than all else in life, in the very shape and colour + of life, and summoned me away. I had silenced all the voices, I had + answered all the questions—I had come to her. And suddenly there was + nothing but War and Death!” + </p> + <p> + I had an inspiration. “After all,” I said, “it could have been only a + dream.” + </p> + <p> + “A dream!” he cried, flaming upon me, “a dream—when even now—” + </p> + <p> + For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into his cheek. + He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped it to his knee. He + spoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest of the time he looked + away. “We are but phantoms,” he said, “and the phantoms of phantoms, + desires like cloud shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the wind; the + days pass, use and wont carry us through as a train carries the shadow of + its lights, so be it! But one thing is real and certain, one thing is no + dreamstuff, but eternal and enduring. It is the centre of my life, and all + other things about it are subordinate or altogether vain. I loved her, + that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead together! + </p> + <p> + “A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life with + unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for and cared + for, worthless and unmeaning? + </p> + <p> + “Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still a + chance of getting away,” he said. “All through the night and morning that + we sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno, we talked of escape. We + were full of hope, and it clung about us to the end, hope for the life + together we should lead, out of it all, out of the battle and struggle, + the wild and empty passions, the empty arbitrary 'thou shalt' and 'thou + shalt not' of the world. We were uplifted, as though our quest was a holy + thing, as though love for one another was a mission.... + </p> + <p> + “Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock Capri—already + scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and hiding-places that were to + make it a fastness—we reckoned nothing of the imminent slaughter, + though the fury of preparation hung about in puffs and clouds of dust at a + hundred points amidst the grey; but, indeed, I made a text of that and + talked. There, you know, was the rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, + with its countless windows and arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a + thousand feet, a vast carving of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and + lemon and orange groves, and masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs + of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over the + Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round the cape and + within sight of the mainland, another little string of boats came into + view, driving before the wind towards the southwest. In a little while a + multitude had come out, the remoter just little specks of ultramarine in + the shadow of the eastward cliff. + </p> + <p> + “'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness, of war.' + </p> + <p> + “And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across the + southern sky we did not heed it. There it was—a line of little dots + in the sky—and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon, and then + still more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled with blue + specks. Now they were all thin little strokes of blue, and now one and now + a multitude would heel and catch the sun and become short flashes of + light. They came rising and falling and growing larger, like some huge + flight of gulls or rooks, or such-like birds moving with a marvellous + uniformity, and ever as they drew nearer they spread over a greater width + of sky. The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart + the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and streamed + eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and clearer again until + they vanished from the sky. And after that we noted to the northward and + very high Evesham's fighting machines hanging high over Naples like an + evening swarm of gnats. + </p> + <p> + “It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds. + </p> + <p> + “Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us to signify + nothing.... + </p> + <p> + “Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still seeking + that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had come upon us, pain + and many distresses. For though we were dusty and stained by our toilsome + tramping, and half starved and with the horror of the dead men we had seen + and the flight of the peasants—for very soon a gust of fighting + swept up the peninsula—with these things haunting our minds it still + resulted only in a deepening resolution to escape. O, but she was brave + and patient! She who had never faced hardship and exposure had courage for + herself—and me. We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a country + all commandeered and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. Always we + went on foot. At first there were other fugitives, but we did not mingle + with them. Some escaped northward, some were caught in the torrent of + peasantry that swept along the main roads; many gave themselves into the + hands of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the men were + impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had brought no money to + bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at the hands of these + conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and we had been turned back + from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards Taranto by a pass over Mount + Alburno, but we had been driven back for want of food, and so we had come + down among the marshes by Paestum, where those great temples stand alone. + I had some vague idea that by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat + or something, and take once more to sea. And there it was the battle + overtook us. + </p> + <p> + “A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were being + hemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in its toils. + Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from the north going + to and fro, and had come upon them in the distance amidst the mountains + making ways for the ammunition and preparing the mounting of the guns. + Once we fancied they had fired at us, taking us for spies—at any + rate a shot had gone shuddering over us. Several times we had hidden in + woods from hovering aeroplanes. + </p> + <p> + “But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight and + pain.... We were in an open place near those great temples at Paestum, at + last, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky bushes, empty and desolate + and so flat that a grove of eucalyptus far away showed to the feet of its + stems. How I can see it! My lady was sitting down under a bush, resting a + little, for she was very weak and weary, and I was standing up watching to + see if I could tell the distance of the firing that came and went. They + were still, you know, fighting far from each other, with those terrible + new weapons that had never before been used: guns that would carry beyond + sight, and aeroplanes that would do—What THEY would do no man could + foretell. + </p> + <p> + “I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew together. + I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there and rest! + </p> + <p> + “Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background. + They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking of + my lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she had owned + herself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me I could hear her + sobbing, but I would not turn round to her because I knew she had need of + weeping, and had held herself so far and so long for me. It was well, I + thought, that she would weep and rest and then we would toil on again, for + I had no inkling of the thing that hung so near. Even now I can see her as + she sat there, her lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again the + deepening hollow of her cheek. + </p> + <p> + “'If we had parted,' she said, 'if I had let you go.' + </p> + <p> + “'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent; I made my + choice, and I will hold on to the end.” + </p> + <p> + “And then— + </p> + <p> + “Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about us I heard + the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas suddenly thrown. They + chipped the stones about us, and whirled fragments from the bricks and + passed....” + </p> + <p> + He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips. + </p> + <p> + “At the flash I had turned about.... + </p> + <p> + “You know—she stood up— + </p> + <p> + “She stood up; you know, and moved a step towards me— + </p> + <p> + “As though she wanted to reach me— + </p> + <p> + “And she had been shot through the heart.” + </p> + <p> + He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity an + Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, and then + stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence. When at last I + looked at him he was sitting back in his corner, his arms folded, and his + teeth gnawing at his knuckles. + </p> + <p> + He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it. + </p> + <p> + “I carried her,” he said, “towards the temples, in my arms—as though + it mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you know, + they had lasted so long, I suppose. + </p> + <p> + “She must have died almost instantly. Only—I talked to her—all + the way.” + </p> + <p> + Silence again. + </p> + <p> + “I have seen those temples,” I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought + those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me. + </p> + <p> + “It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar + and held her in my arms.... Silent after the first babble was over. And + after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, as though + nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed.... It was + tremendously still there, the sun high, and the shadows still; even the + shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still—in spite of the + thudding and banging that went all about the sky. + </p> + <p> + “I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and that + the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset + and fell. I remember that—though it didn't interest me in the least. + It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know—flapping + for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple—a + black thing in the bright blue water. + </p> + <p> + “Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased. + Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space. + That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed the + stone hard by—made just a fresh bright surface. + </p> + <p> + “As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater. + </p> + <p> + “The curious thing,” he remarked, with the manner of a man who makes a + trivial conversation, “is that I didn't THINK—I didn't think at all. + I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones—in a sort of lethargy—stagnant. + </p> + <p> + “And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day. I + know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open in front + of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being there, seeing that + in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum temple with a dead + woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine. I have forgotten what + they were about.” + </p> + <p> + He stopped, and there was a long silence. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from Chalk Farm + to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned on him with a + brutal question, with the tone of Now or never. + </p> + <p> + “And did you dream again?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low. + </p> + <p> + “Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed to have + suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen into a sitting + position, and the body lay there on the stones beside me. A gaunt body. + Not her, you know. So soon—it was not her.... + </p> + <p> + “I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that men were + coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage. + </p> + <p> + “I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into sight—first + one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform of dirty white, trimmed + with blue, and then several, climbing to the crest of the old wall of the + vanished city, and crouching there. They were little bright figures in the + sunlight, and there they hung, weapon in hand, peering cautiously before + them. + </p> + <p> + “And further away I saw others and then more at another point in the wall. + It was a long lax line of men in open order. + </p> + <p> + “Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command, and + his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds towards the + temple. He scrambled down with them and led them. He came facing towards + me, and when he saw me he stopped. + </p> + <p> + “At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when I had + seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid them. I + shouted to the officer. + </p> + <p> + “'You must not come here,' I cried, '<i>I</i> am here. I am here with my + dead.' + </p> + <p> + “He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown tongue. + </p> + <p> + “I repeated what I had said. + </p> + <p> + “He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently he + spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword. + </p> + <p> + “I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told him + again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here. These are old + temples and I am here with my dead.' + </p> + <p> + “Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was a narrow + face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had a scar on his + upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept shouting unintelligible + things, questions perhaps, at me. + </p> + <p> + “I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not occur + to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in imperious tones, + bidding me, I suppose, stand aside. + </p> + <p> + “He made to go past me, And I caught hold of him. + </p> + <p> + “I saw his face change at my grip. + </p> + <p> + “'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!' + </p> + <p> + “He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort of + exultant resolve leap into them—delight. Then, suddenly, with a + scowl, he swept his sword back—SO—and thrust.” + </p> + <p> + He stopped abruptly. I became aware of a change in the rhythm of the + train. The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage jarred and jerked. + This present world insisted upon itself, became clamorous. I saw through + the steamy window huge electric lights glaring down from tall masts upon a + fog, saw rows of stationary empty carriages passing by, and then a + signal-box, hoisting its constellation of green and red into the murky + London twilight marched after them. I looked again at his drawn features. + </p> + <p> + “He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment—no + fear, no pain—but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, felt the + sword drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know. It didn't hurt at + all.” + </p> + <p> + The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing first + rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk. Dim shapes of men + passed to and fro without. + </p> + <p> + “Euston!” cried a voice. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean—?” + </p> + <p> + “There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness + sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face of the + man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of existence—” + </p> + <p> + “Euston!” clamoured the voices outside; “Euston!” + </p> + <p> + The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stood + regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of + cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the + London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted lamps blazed + along the platform. + </p> + <p> + “A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted out + all things.” + </p> + <p> + “Any luggage, sir?” said the porter. + </p> + <p> + “And that was the end?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, “No.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the Temple—And + then—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I insisted. “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “Nightmares,” he cried; “nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds that + fought and tore.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM *** + +***** This file should be named 1743-h.htm or 1743-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/4/1743/ + +Produced by Aaron Cannon, Stephanie Johnson, and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + </body> +</html> diff --git a/1743.txt b/1743.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87f8533 --- /dev/null +++ b/1743.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8215 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Twelve Stories and a Dream + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Posting Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #1743] +Release Date: May, 1999 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM *** + + + + +Produced by Aaron Cannon, and Stephanie Johnson + + + + + +TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM + +By H. G. Wells + + + +CONTENTS + + 1. Filmer + + 2. The Magic Shop + + 3. The Valley of Spiders + + 4. The Truth About Pyecraft + + 5. Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland + + 6. The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost + + 7. Jimmy Goggles the God + + 8. The New Accelerator + + 9. Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation + + 10. The Stolen Body + + 11. Mr. Brisher's Treasure + + 12. Miss Winchelsea's Heart + + 13. A Dream of Armageddon + + + + +1. FILMER + +In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men--this +man a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only one vigorous +intellectual effort was needed to finish the work. But the inexorable +injustice of the popular mind has decided that of all these thousands, +one man, and that a man who never flew, should be chosen as the +discoverer, just as it has chosen to honour Watt as the discoverer of +steam and Stephenson of the steam-engine. And surely of all honoured +names none is so grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, +the timid, intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the +world had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations, +the man who pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare and +well-nigh every condition of human life and happiness. Never has that +recurring wonder of the littleness of the scientific man in the face of +the greatness of his science found such an amazing exemplification. +Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain, profoundly obscure--Filmers +attract no Boswells--but the essential facts and the concluding scene +are clear enough, and there are letters, and notes, and casual allusions +to piece the whole together. And this is the story one makes, putting +this thing with that, of Filmer's life and death. + +The first authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is a document +in which he applies for admission as a paid student in physics to the +Government laboratories at South Kensington, and therein he describes +himself as the son of a "military bootmaker" ("cobbler" in the vulgar +tongue) of Dover, and lists his various examination proofs of a high +proficiency in chemistry and mathematics. With a certain want of dignity +he seeks to enhance these attainments by a profession of poverty and +disadvantages, and he writes of the laboratory as the "gaol" of his +ambitions, a slip which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself +exclusively to the exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner +that shows Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until +quite recently no traces of his success in the Government institution +could be found. + +It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed zeal +for research, Filmer, before he had held this scholarship a year, was +tempted, by the possibility of a small increase in his immediate income, +to abandon it in order to become one of the nine-pence-an-hour computers +employed by a well-known Professor in his vicarious conduct of those +extensive researches of his in solar physics--researches which are still +a matter of perplexity to astronomers. Afterwards, for the space of +seven years, save for the pass lists of the London University, in which +he is seen to climb slowly to a double first class B.Sc., in mathematics +and chemistry, there is no evidence of how Filmer passed his life. No +one knows how or where he lived, though it seems highly probable that he +continued to support himself by teaching while he prosecuted the studies +necessary for this distinction. And then, oddly enough, one finds him +mentioned in the correspondence of Arthur Hicks, the poet. + +"You remember Filmer," Hicks writes to his friend Vance; "well, HE +hasn't altered a bit, the same hostile mumble and the nasty chin--how +CAN a man contrive to be always three days from shaving?--and a sort of +furtive air of being engaged in sneaking in front of one; even his +coat and that frayed collar of his show no further signs of the passing +years. He was writing in the library and I sat down beside him in the +name of God's charity, whereupon he deliberately insulted me by covering +up his memoranda. It seems he has some brilliant research on hand that +he suspects me of all people--with a Bodley Booklet a-printing!--of +stealing. He has taken remarkable honours at the University--he went +through them with a sort of hasty slobber, as though he feared I might +interrupt him before he had told me all--and he spoke of taking his +D.Sc. as one might speak of taking a cab. And he asked what I was +doing--with a sort of comparative accent, and his arm was spread +nervously, positively a protecting arm, over the paper that hid the +precious idea--his one hopeful idea. + +"'Poetry,' he said, 'Poetry. And what do you profess to teach in it, +Hicks?' + +"The thing's a Provincial professorling in the very act of budding, and +I thank the Lord devoutly that but for the precious gift of indolence I +also might have gone this way to D.Sc. and destruction..." + +A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer in +or near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in anticipating +a provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse of him is +lecturing on "rubber and rubber substitutes," to the Society of Arts--he +had become manager to a great plastic-substance manufactory--and at +that time, it is now known, he was a member of the Aeronautical +Society, albeit he contributed nothing to the discussions of that body, +preferring no doubt to mature his great conception without external +assistance. And within two years of that paper before the Society of +Arts he was hastily taking out a number of patents and proclaiming in +various undignified ways the completion of the divergent inquiries which +made his flying machine possible. The first definite statement to that +effect appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man +who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after his long +laborious secret patience seems to have been due to a needless panic, +Bootle, the notorious American scientific quack, having made an +announcement that Filmer interpreted wrongly as an anticipation of his +idea. + +Now what precisely was Filmer's idea? Really a very simple one. Before +his time the pursuit of aeronautics had taken two divergent lines, and +had developed on the one hand balloons--large apparatus lighter than +air, easy in ascent, and comparatively safe in descent, but floating +helplessly before any breeze that took them; and on the other, flying +machines that flew only in theory--vast flat structures heavier than +air, propelled and kept up by heavy engines and for the most part +smashing at the first descent. But, neglecting the fact that the +inevitable final collapse rendered them impossible, the weight of the +flying machines gave them this theoretical advantage, that they could +go through the air against a wind, a necessary condition if aerial +navigation was to have any practical value. It is Filmer's particular +merit that he perceived the way in which the contrasted and hitherto +incompatible merits of balloon and heavy flying machine might be +combined in one apparatus, which should be at choice either heavier or +lighter than air. He took hints from the contractile bladders of fish +and the pneumatic cavities of birds. He devised an arrangement of +contractile and absolutely closed balloons which when expanded could +lift the actual flying apparatus with ease, and when retracted by the +complicated "musculature" he wove about them, were withdrawn almost +completely into the frame; and he built the large framework which these +balloons sustained, of hollow, rigid tubes, the air in which, by an +ingenious contrivance, was automatically pumped out as the apparatus +fell, and which then remained exhausted so long as the aeronaut desired. +There were no wings or propellers to his machine, such as there had been +to all previous aeroplanes, and the only engine required was the compact +and powerful little appliance needed to contract the balloons. He +perceived that such an apparatus as he had devised might rise with frame +exhausted and balloons expanded to a considerable height, might +then contract its balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an +adjustment of its weights slide down the air in any desired direction. +As it fell it would accumulate velocity and at the same time lose +weight, and the momentum accumulated by its down-rush could be utilised +by means of a shifting of its weights to drive it up in the air again +as the balloons expanded. This conception, which is still the structural +conception of all successful flying machines, needed, however, a vast +amount of toil upon its details before it could actually be +realised, and such toil Filmer--as he was accustomed to tell the +numerous interviewers who crowded upon him in the heyday of his +fame--"ungrudgingly and unsparingly gave." His particular difficulty was +the elastic lining of the contractile balloon. He found he needed a new +substance, and in the discovery and manufacture of that new substance he +had, as he never failed to impress upon the interviewers, "performed +a far more arduous work than even in the actual achievement of my +seemingly greater discovery." + +But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard upon +Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly five years +elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber factory--he +seems to have been entirely dependent on his small income from this +source--making misdirected attempts to assure a quite indifferent +public that he really HAD invented what he had invented. He occupied +the greater part of his leisure in the composition of letters to the +scientific and daily press, and so forth, stating precisely the net +result of his contrivances, and demanding financial aid. That alone +would have sufficed for the suppression of his letters. He spent such +holidays as he could arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the +door-keepers of leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for +inspiring hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted +to induce the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a +confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs. +"The man's a crank and a bounder to boot," says the Major-General in +his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese +to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side of +warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain. + +And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his +contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves of a new +oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial model of his +invention. He threw up his rubber factory appointment, desisted from all +further writing, and, with a certain secrecy that seems to have been an +inseparable characteristic of all his proceedings, set to work upon +the apparatus. He seems to have directed the making of its parts and +collected most of it in a room in Shoreditch, but its final putting +together was done at Dymchurch, in Kent. He did not make the affair +large enough to carry a man, but he made an extremely ingenious use of +what were then called the Marconi rays to control its flight. The first +flight of this first practicable flying machine took place over some +fields near Burford Bridge, near Hythe, in Kent, and Filmer followed and +controlled its flight upon a specially constructed motor tricycle. + +The flight was, considering all things, an amazing success. The +apparatus was brought in a cart from Dymchurch to Burford Bridge, +ascended there to a height of nearly three hundred feet, swooped thence +very nearly back to Dymchurch, came about in its sweep, rose again, +circled, and finally sank uninjured in a field behind the Burford +Bridge Inn. At its descent a curious thing happened. Filmer got off his +tricycle, scrambled over the intervening dyke, advanced perhaps +twenty yards towards his triumph, threw out his arms in a strange +gesticulation, and fell down in a dead faint. Every one could then +recall the ghastliness of his features and all the evidences of extreme +excitement they had observed throughout the trial, things they might +otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards in the inn he had an unaccountable +gust of hysterical weeping. + +Altogether there were not twenty witnesses of this affair, and those for +the most part uneducated men. The New Romney doctor saw the ascent but +not the descent, his horse being frightened by the electrical apparatus +on Filmer's tricycle and giving him a nasty spill. Two members of +the Kent constabulary watched the affair from a cart in an unofficial +spirit, and a grocer calling round the Marsh for orders and two lady +cyclists seem almost to complete the list of educated people. There were +two reporters present, one representing a Folkestone paper and the +other being a fourth-class interviewer and "symposium" journalist, whose +expenses down, Filmer, anxious as ever for adequate advertisement--and +now quite realising the way in which adequate advertisement may be +obtained--had paid. The latter was one of those writers who can throw +a convincing air of unreality over the most credible events, and his +half-facetious account of the affair appeared in the magazine page of +a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer, this person's colloquial +methods were more convincing. He went to offer some further screed upon +the subject to Banghurst, the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of +the ablest and most unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst +instantly seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from +the narrative, no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, +Banghurst himself, double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, +gestures and all, appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled +journalistic nose. He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it +was and what it might be. + +At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded +into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns +over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous +recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be. +The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying, state by +a most effective silence that men never would, could or should fly. In +August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes and aerial tactics +and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again flying, shouldered +the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of Upper Greenland off the leading +page. And Banghurst had given ten thousand pounds, and, further, +Banghurst was giving five thousand pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his +well-known, magnificent (but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and +several acres of land near his private residence on the Surrey hills +to the strenuous and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the +life-size practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of +privileged multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town +residence in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties +putting the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost, +but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers with a +beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions. + +Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance comes +to our aid. + +"I saw Filmer in his glory," he writes, with just the touch of envy +natural to his position as a poet passe. "The man is brushed and shaved, +dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon Lecturer, the +very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes, and altogether +in a state of extraordinary streakiness between an owlish great man and +a scared abashed self-conscious bounder cruelly exposed. He hasn't a +touch of colour in the skin of his face, his head juts forward, and +those queer little dark amber eyes of his watch furtively round him for +his fame. His clothes fit perfectly and yet sit upon him as though he +had bought them ready-made. He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, +you perceive indistinctly, enormous self-assertive things, he backs into +the rear of groups by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, +and when he walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out +of breath and going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched. +His is a state of tension--horrible tension. And he is the Greatest +Discoverer of This or Any Age--the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any +Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't somehow +quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this. Banghurst is +about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great little catch, and +I swear he will have every one down on his lawn there before he has +finished with the engine; he had bagged the prime minister yesterday, +and he, bless his heart! didn't look particularly outsize, on the very +first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer! Our obscure unwashed Filmer, the +Glory of British science! Duchesses crowd upon him, beautiful, bold +peeresses say in their beautiful, clear loud voices--have you noticed +how penetrating the great lady is becoming nowadays?--'Oh, Mr. Filmer, +how DID you do it?' + +"Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer. One +imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly +and unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps a +little special aptitude.'" + +So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in +sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine +swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church appears +below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer sits at his +guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth stand around +him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely in the rear. The +grouping is oddly apposite. Occluding much of Banghurst, and looking +with a pensive, speculative expression at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary +Elkinghorn, still beautiful, in spite of the breath of scandal and her +eight-and-thirty years, the only person whose face does not admit a +perception of the camera that was in the act of snapping them all. + +So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all, they are +very exterior facts. About the real interest of the business one is +necessarily very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling at the time? +How much was a certain unpleasant anticipation present inside that +very new and fashionable frock-coat? He was in the halfpenny, penny, +six-penny, and more expensive papers alike, and acknowledged by the +whole world as "the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age." He had +invented a practicable flying machine, and every day down among the +Surrey hills the life-sized model was getting ready. And when it was +ready, it followed as a clear inevitable consequence of his having +invented and made it--everybody in the world, indeed, seemed to take +it for granted; there wasn't a gap anywhere in that serried front of +anticipation--that he would proudly and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend +with it, and fly. + +But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness +in such an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private +constitution. It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is. +We can guess with some confidence now that it must have been drifting +about in his mind a great deal during the day, and, from a little +note to his physician complaining of persistent insomnia, we have the +soundest reason for supposing it dominated his nights,--the idea that it +would be after all, in spite of his theoretical security, an abominably +sickening, uncomfortable, and dangerous thing for him to flap about in +nothingness a thousand feet or so in the air. It must have dawned upon +him quite early in the period of being the Greatest Discoverer of This +or Any Age, the vision of doing this and that with an extensive void +below. Perhaps somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height +or fallen down in some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit +of sleeping on the wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling +nightmare one knows, and given him his horror; of the strength of that +horror there remains now not a particle of doubt. + +Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier days +of research; the machine had been his end, but now things were opening +out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl up above there. He +was a Discoverer and he had Discovered. But he was not a Flying Man, and +it was only now that he was beginning to perceive clearly that he was +expected to fly. Yet, however much the thing was present in his mind he +gave no expression to it until the very end, and meanwhile he went to +and fro from Banghurst's magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed +and lionised, and wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in +an elegant flat, enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, +wholesome Fame and Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had +been starved, might be reasonably expected to enjoy. + +After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model had +failed one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance, or he +had been distracted by the compliments of an archbishop. At any rate, +it suddenly dug its nose into the air just a little too steeply as the +archbishop was sailing through a Latin quotation for all the world like +an archbishop in a book, and it came down in the Fulham Road within +three yards of a 'bus horse. It stood for a second perhaps, astonishing +and in its attitude astonished, then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, +and the 'bus horse was incidentally killed. + +Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up and +stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him. His long, +white hands still gripped his useless apparatus. The archbishop followed +his skyward stare with an apprehension unbecoming in an archbishop. + +Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road to relieve +Filmer's tension. "My God!" he whispered, and sat down. + +Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had vanished, +or rushing into the house. + +The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly for this. +Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow and very careful +in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation in his mind. His care +over the strength and soundness of the apparatus was prodigious. The +slightest doubt, and he delayed everything until the doubtful part could +be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior assistant, fumed at some of these +delays, which, he insisted, were for the most part unnecessary. +Banghurst magnified the patient certitude of Filmer in the New +Paper, and reviled it bitterly to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second +assistant, approved Filmer's wisdom. "We're not wanting a fiasco, man," +said MacAndrew. "He's perfectly well advised." + +And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson and +MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine was to be +controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be just as capable, +and even more capable, when at last the time came, of guiding it through +the skies. + +Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage to define +just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line in the matter of +his ascent, he might have escaped that painful ordeal quite easily. If +he had had it clearly in his mind he could have done endless things. He +would surely have found no difficulty with a specialist to demonstrate a +weak heart, or something gastric or pulmonary, to stand in his way--that +is the line I am astonished he did not take,--or he might, had he been +man enough, have declared simply and finally that he did not intend to +do the thing. But the fact is, though the dread was hugely present in +his mind, the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy that all +through this period he kept telling himself that when the occasion came +he would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just gripped by a +great illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and expects to +be better presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of the machine, +and let the assumption that he was going to fly it take root and +flourish exceedingly about him. He even accepted anticipatory +compliments on his courage. And, barring this secret squeamishness, +there can be no doubt he found all the praise and distinction and fuss +he got a delightful and even intoxicating draught. + +The Lady Mary Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated for him. + +How THAT began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks. +Probably in the beginning she was just a little "nice" to him with that +impartial partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes, standing +out conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air, he had +a distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow they must +have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great Discoverer a +moment of sufficient courage for something just a little personal to +be mumbled or blurted. However it began, there is no doubt that it did +begin, and presently became quite perceptible to a world accustomed +to find in the proceedings of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a matter of +entertainment. It complicated things, because the state of love in +such a virgin mind as Filmer's would brace his resolution, if not +sufficiently, at any rate considerably towards facing a danger he +feared, and hampered him in such attempts at evasion as would otherwise +be natural and congenial. + +It remains a matter for speculation just how the Lady Mary felt for +Filmer and just what she thought of him. At thirty-eight one may +have gathered much wisdom and still be not altogether wise, and the +imagination still functions actively enough in creating glamours and +effecting the impossible. He came before her eyes as a very central man, +and that always counts, and he had powers, unique powers as it seemed, +at any rate in the air. The performance with the model had just a touch +of the quality of a potent incantation, and women have ever displayed an +unreasonable disposition to imagine that when a man has powers he must +necessarily have Power. Given so much, and what was not good in Filmer's +manner and appearance became an added merit. He was modest, he hated +display, but given an occasion where TRUE qualities are needed, +then--then one would see! + +The late Mrs. Bampton thought it wise to convey to Lady Mary her opinion +that Filmer, all things considered, was rather a "grub." "He's certainly +not a sort of man I have ever met before," said the Lady Mary, with a +quite unruffled serenity. And Mrs. Bampton, after a swift, imperceptible +glance at that serenity, decided that so far as saying anything to Lady +Mary went, she had done as much as could be expected of her. But she +said a great deal to other people. + +And at last, without any undue haste or unseemliness, the day dawned, +the great day, when Banghurst had promised his public--the world in +fact--that flying should be finally attained and overcome. Filmer saw it +dawn, watched even in the darkness before it dawned, watched its stars +fade and the grey and pearly pinks give place at last to the clear blue +sky of a sunny, cloudless day. He watched it from the window of his +bedroom in the new-built wing of Banghurst's Tudor house. And as the +stars were overwhelmed and the shapes and substances of things grew +into being out of the amorphous dark, he must have seen more and more +distinctly the festive preparations beyond the beech clumps near the +green pavilion in the outer park, the three stands for the privileged +spectators, the raw, new fencing of the enclosure, the sheds and +workshops, the Venetian masts and fluttering flags that Banghurst had +considered essential, black and limp in the breezeless dawn, and amidst +all these things a great shape covered with tarpauling. A strange and +terrible portent for humanity was that shape, a beginning that must +surely spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men, +but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything but a +narrow and personal light. Several people heard him pacing in the small +hours--for the vast place was packed with guests by a proprietor editor +who, before all understood compression. And about five o'clock, if not +before, Filmer left his room and wandered out of the sleeping house into +the park, alive by that time with sunlight and birds and squirrels and +the fallow deer. MacAndrew, who was also an early riser, met him near +the machine, and they went and had a look at it together. + +It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast, in spite of the urgency +of Banghurst. So soon as the guests began to be about in some number he +seems to have retreated to his room. Thence about ten he went into the +shrubbery, very probably because he had seen the Lady Mary Elkinghorn +there. She was walking up and down, engaged in conversation with her old +school friend, Mrs. Brewis-Craven, and although Filmer had never met the +latter lady before, he joined them and walked beside them for some time. +There were several silences in spite of the Lady Mary's brilliance. The +situation was a difficult one, and Mrs. Brewis-Craven did not master +its difficulty. "He struck me," she said afterwards with a luminous +self-contradiction, "as a very unhappy person who had something to say, +and wanted before all things to be helped to say it. But how was one to +help him when one didn't know what it was?" + +At half-past eleven the enclosures for the public in the outer park were +crammed, there was an intermittent stream of equipages along the belt +which circles the outer park, and the house party was dotted over the +lawn and shrubbery and the corner of the inner park, in a series of +brilliantly attired knots, all making for the flying machine. Filmer +walked in a group of three with Banghurst, who was supremely and +conspicuously happy, and Sir Theodore Hickle, the president of the +Aeronautical Society. Mrs. Banghurst was close behind with the Lady Mary +Elkinghorn, Georgina Hickle, and the Dean of Stays. Banghurst was large +and copious in speech, and such interstices as he left were filled in by +Hickle with complimentary remarks to Filmer. And Filmer walked between +them saying not a word except by way of unavoidable reply. Behind, Mrs. +Banghurst listened to the admirably suitable and shapely conversation of +the Dean with that fluttered attention to the ampler clergy ten years +of social ascent and ascendency had not cured in her; and the Lady +Mary watched, no doubt with an entire confidence in the world's +disillusionment, the drooping shoulders of the sort of man she had never +met before. + +There was some cheering as the central party came into view of the +enclosures, but it was not very unanimous nor invigorating cheering. +They were within fifty yards of the apparatus when Filmer took a hasty +glance over his shoulder to measure the distance of the ladies behind +them, and decided to make the first remark he had initiated since the +house had been left. His voice was just a little hoarse, and he cut in +on Banghurst in mid-sentence on Progress. + +"I say, Banghurst," he said, and stopped. + +"Yes," said Banghurst. + +"I wish--" He moistened his lips. "I'm not feeling well." + +Banghurst stopped dead. "Eh?" he shouted. + +"A queer feeling." Filmer made to move on, but Banghurst was immovable. +"I don't know. I may be better in a minute. If not--perhaps... +MacAndrew--" + +"You're not feeling WELL?" said Banghurst, and stared at his white face. + +"My dear!" he said, as Mrs. Banghurst came up with them, "Filmer says he +isn't feeling WELL." + +"A little queer," exclaimed Filmer, avoiding the Lady Mary's eyes. "It +may pass off--" + +There was a pause. + +It came to Filmer that he was the most isolated person in the world. + +"In any case," said Banghurst, "the ascent must be made. Perhaps if you +were to sit down somewhere for a moment--" + +"It's the crowd, I think," said Filmer. + +There was a second pause. Banghurst's eye rested in scrutiny on Filmer, +and then swept the sample of public in the enclosure. + +"It's unfortunate," said Sir Theodore Hickle; "but still--I suppose--Your +assistants--Of course, if you feel out of condition and disinclined--" + +"I don't think Mr. Filmer would permit THAT for a moment," said Lady +Mary. + +"But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run--It might even be dangerous for him to +attempt--" Hickle coughed. + +"It's just because it's dangerous," began the Lady Mary, and felt she +had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough. + +Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer. + +"I feel I ought to go up," he said, regarding the ground. He looked up +and met the Lady Mary's eyes. "I want to go up," he said, and smiled +whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. "If I could just sit down +somewhere for a moment out of the crowd and sun--" + +Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. "Come into my +little room in the green pavilion," he said. "It's quite cool there." He +took Filmer by the arm. + +Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. "I shall be +all right in five minutes," he said. "I'm tremendously sorry--" + +The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. "I couldn't think--" he said to +Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull. + +The rest remained watching the two recede. + +"He is so fragile," said the Lady Mary. + +"He's certainly a highly nervous type," said the Dean, whose weakness +it was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with enormous +families, as "neurotic." + +"Of course," said Hickle, "it isn't absolutely necessary for him to go +up because he has invented--" + +"How COULD he avoid it?" asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest shadow +of scorn. + +"It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now," said Mrs. +Banghurst a little severely. + +"He's not going to be ill," said the Lady Mary, and certainly she had +met Filmer's eye. + +"YOU'LL be all right," said Banghurst, as they went towards the +pavilion. "All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you +know. You'll be--you'd get it rough, you know, if you let another man--" + +"Oh, I want to go," said Filmer. "I shall be all right. As a matter of +fact I'm almost inclined NOW--. No! I think I'll have that nip of brandy +first." + +Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty +decanter. He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps five +minutes. + +The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals +Filmer's face could be seen by the people on the easternmost of the +stands erected for spectators, against the window pane peering out, and +then it would recede and fade. Banghurst vanished shouting behind the +grand stand, and presently the butler appeared going pavilionward with a +tray. + +The apartment in which Filmer came to his last solution was a pleasant +little room very simply furnished with green furniture and an old +bureau--for Banghurst was simple in all his private ways. It was hung +with little engravings after Morland and it had a shelf of books. But as +it happened, Banghurst had left a rook rifle he sometimes played with on +the top of the desk, and on the corner of the mantelshelf was a tin with +three or four cartridges remaining in it. As Filmer went up and down +that room wrestling with his intolerable dilemma he went first towards +the neat little rifle athwart the blotting-pad and then towards the neat +little red label + +".22 LONG." + +The thing must have jumped into his mind in a moment. + +Nobody seems to have connected the report with him, though the gun, +being fired in a confined space, must have sounded loud, and there +were several people in the billiard-room, separated from him only by a +lath-and-plaster partition. But directly Banghurst's butler opened the +door and smelt the sour smell of the smoke, he knew, he says, what had +happened. For the servants at least of Banghurst's household had guessed +something of what was going on in Filmer's mind. + +All through that trying afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held a man +should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests +for the most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact--though to +conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible--that Banghurst +had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled by the deceased. The +public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed "like a party that has +been ducking a welsher," and there wasn't a soul in the train to London, +it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying was a quite impossible +thing for man. "But he might have tried it," said many, "after carrying +the thing so far." + +In the evening, when he was comparatively alone, Banghurst broke down +and went on like a man of clay. I have been told he wept, which must +have made an imposing scene, and he certainly said Filmer had ruined +his life, and offered and sold the whole apparatus to MacAndrew for +half-a-crown. "I've been thinking--" said MacAndrew at the conclusion of +the bargain, and stopped. + +The next morning the name of Filmer was, for the first time, less +conspicuous in the New Paper than in any other daily paper in the world. +The rest of the world's instructors, with varying emphasis, according to +their dignity and the degree of competition between themselves and the +New Paper, proclaimed the "Entire Failure of the New Flying Machine," +and "Suicide of the Impostor." But in the district of North Surrey the +reception of the news was tempered by a perception of unusual aerial +phenomena. + +Overnight Wilkinson and MacAndrew had fallen into violent argument on +the exact motives of their principal's rash act. + +"The man was certainly a poor, cowardly body, but so far as his science +went he was NO impostor," said MacAndrew, "and I'm prepared to give that +proposition a very practical demonstration, Mr. Wilkinson, so soon as +we've got the place a little more to ourselves. For I've no faith in all +this publicity for experimental trials." + +And to that end, while all the world was reading of the certain failure +of the new flying machine, MacAndrew was soaring and curvetting with +great amplitude and dignity over the Epsom and Wimbledon divisions; +and Banghurst, restored once more to hope and energy, and regardless of +public security and the Board of Trade, was pursuing his gyrations and +trying to attract his attention, on a motor car and in his pyjamas--he +had caught sight of the ascent when pulling up the blind of his bedroom +window--equipped, among other things, with a film camera that was +subsequently discovered to be jammed. And Filmer was lying on the +billiard table in the green pavilion with a sheet about his body. + + + + +2. THE MAGIC SHOP + +I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once +or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic +hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the basket +trick, packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all that sort of +thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day, almost without +warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to the window, and so +conducted himself that there was nothing for it but to take him in. I +had not thought the place was there, to tell the truth--a modest-sized +frontage in Regent Street, between the picture shop and the place where +the chicks run about just out of patent incubators, but there it was +sure enough. I had fancied it was down nearer the Circus, or round the +corner in Oxford Street, or even in Holborn; always over the way and +a little inaccessible it had been, with something of the mirage in its +position; but here it was now quite indisputably, and the fat end of +Gip's pointing finger made a noise upon the glass. + +"If I was rich," said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg, +"I'd buy myself that. And that"--which was The Crying Baby, Very +Human--"and that," which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card +asserted, "Buy One and Astonish Your Friends." + +"Anything," said Gip, "will disappear under one of those cones. I have +read about it in a book. + +"And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--, only they've put it +this way up so's we can't see how it's done." + +Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose to +enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously +he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear. + +"That," he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle. + +"If you had that?" I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up with +a sudden radiance. + +"I could show it to Jessie," he said, thoughtful as ever of others. + +"It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles," I said, and +laid my hand on the door-handle. + +Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so we came +into the shop. + +It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing +precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting. +He left the burthen of the conversation to me. + +It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell +pinged again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us. For a +moment or so we were alone and could glance about us. There was a tiger +in papier-mache on the glass case that covered the low counter--a grave, +kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head in a methodical manner; there were +several crystal spheres, a china hand holding magic cards, a stock +of magic fish-bowls in various sizes, and an immodest magic hat that +shamelessly displayed its springs. On the floor were magic mirrors; one +to draw you out long and thin, one to swell your head and vanish your +legs, and one to make you short and fat like a draught; and while we +were laughing at these the shopman, as I suppose, came in. + +At any rate, there he was behind the counter--a curious, sallow, dark +man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like the toe-cap of a +boot. + +"What can we have the pleasure?" he said, spreading his long, magic +fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware of him. + +"I want," I said, "to buy my little boy a few simple tricks." + +"Legerdemain?" he asked. "Mechanical? Domestic?" + +"Anything amusing?" said I. + +"Um!" said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if +thinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball. +"Something in this way?" he said, and held it out. + +The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainments +endless times before--it's part of the common stock of conjurers--but I +had not expected it here. + +"That's good," I said, with a laugh. + +"Isn't it?" said the shopman. + +Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found +merely a blank palm. + +"It's in your pocket," said the shopman, and there it was! + +"How much will that be?" I asked. + +"We make no charge for glass balls," said the shopman politely. "We get +them,"--he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke--"free." He produced +another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside its predecessor on +the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely, then directed a look +of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally brought his round-eyed +scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled. + +"You may have those too," said the shopman, "and, if you DON'T mind, one +from my mouth. SO!" + +Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence +put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved +himself for the next event. + +"We get all our smaller tricks in that way," the shopman remarked. + +I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. "Instead of +going to the wholesale shop," I said. "Of course, it's cheaper." + +"In a way," the shopman said. "Though we pay in the end. But not +so heavily--as people suppose.... Our larger tricks, and our daily +provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that +hat... And you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there ISN'T a +wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know if +you noticed our inscription--the Genuine Magic shop." He drew a +business-card from his cheek and handed it to me. "Genuine," he +said, with his finger on the word, and added, "There is absolutely no +deception, sir." + +He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought. + +He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. "You, you know, +are the Right Sort of Boy." + +I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests of +discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip received it +in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him. + +"It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway." + +And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door, +and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. "Nyar! I WARN 'a go +in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!" and then the accents +of a down-trodden parent, urging consolations and propitiations. "It's +locked, Edward," he said. + +"But it isn't," said I. + +"It is, sir," said the shopman, "always--for that sort of child," and as +he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little, white face, +pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and distorted by evil +passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing at the enchanted pane. +"It's no good, sir," said the shopman, as I moved, with my natural +helpfulness, doorward, and presently the spoilt child was carried off +howling. + +"How do you manage that?" I said, breathing a little more freely. + +"Magic!" said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and behold! +sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into the +shadows of the shop. + +"You were saying," he said, addressing himself to Gip, "before you came +in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish your Friends' +boxes?" + +Gip, after a gallant effort, said "Yes." + +"It's in your pocket." + +And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinarily long +body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary +conjurer's manner. "Paper," he said, and took a sheet out of the empty +hat with the springs; "string," and behold his mouth was a string-box, +from which he drew an unending thread, which when he had tied his parcel +he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed the ball of string. And then +he lit a candle at the nose of one of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck +one of his fingers (which had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, +and so sealed the parcel. "Then there was the Disappearing Egg," he +remarked, and produced one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and +also The Crying Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was +ready, and he clasped them to his chest. + +He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of his arms +was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. These, +you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered something +moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped it off, and +a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out and ran on the +counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box behind the papier-mache +tiger. + +"Tut, tut!" said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress; +"careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!" + +He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three eggs, +a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable glass +balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more, +talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush their +hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with a certain +personal application. "All sorts of things accumulate, sir.... Not YOU, +of course, in particular.... Nearly every customer.... Astonishing what +they carry about with them...." The crumpled paper rose and billowed on +the counter more and more and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, +until he was altogether hidden, and still his voice went on and on. "We +none of us know what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, +sir. Are we all then no better than brushed exteriors, whited +sepulchres--" + +His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone +with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle of the +paper stopped, and everything was still.... + +"Have you done with my hat?" I said, after an interval. + +There was no answer. + +I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions in +the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet.... + +"I think we'll go now," I said. "Will you tell me how much all this +comes to?.... + +"I say," I said, on a rather louder note, "I want the bill; and my hat, +please." + +It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile.... + +"Let's look behind the counter, Gip," I said. "He's making fun of us." + +I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think there +was behind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor, and a +common conjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation, and looking +as stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit can do. I resumed my +hat, and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so out of my way. + +"Dadda!" said Gip, in a guilty whisper. + +"What is it, Gip?" said I. + +"I DO like this shop, dadda." + +"So should I," I said to myself, "if the counter wouldn't suddenly +extend itself to shut one off from the door." But I didn't call Gip's +attention to that. "Pussy!" he said, with a hand out to the rabbit as it +came lolloping past us; "Pussy, do Gip a magic!" and his eyes followed +it as it squeezed through a door I had certainly not remarked a moment +before. Then this door opened wider, and the man with one ear larger +than the other appeared again. He was smiling still, but his eye met +mine with something between amusement and defiance. "You'd like to see +our show-room, sir," he said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged +my finger forward. I glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye +again. I was beginning to think the magic just a little too genuine. +"We haven't VERY much time," I said. But somehow we were inside the +show-room before I could finish that. + +"All goods of the same quality," said the shopman, rubbing his flexible +hands together, "and that is the Best. Nothing in the place that isn't +genuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!" + +I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then +I saw he held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail--the little +creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand--and in a moment +he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was only an +image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment--! And his gesture was +exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit of vermin. I +glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-horse. I was +glad he hadn't seen the thing. "I say," I said, in an undertone, and +indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes, "you haven't many things +like THAT about, have you?" + +"None of ours! Probably brought it with you," said the shopman--also +in an undertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever. "Astonishing +what people WILL carry about with them unawares!" And then to Gip, "Do +you see anything you fancy here?" + +There were many things that Gip fancied there. + +He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence and +respect. "Is that a Magic Sword?" he said. + +"A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers. It +renders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under eighteen. +Half-a-crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These panoplies +on cards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful--shield of +safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility." + +"Oh, daddy!" gasped Gip. + +I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me. +He had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had embarked +upon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing was going +to stop him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust and something very +like jealousy that Gip had hold of this person's finger as usually he +has hold of mine. No doubt the fellow was interesting, I thought, +and had an interestingly faked lot of stuff, really GOOD faked stuff, +still-- + +I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye on this +prestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it. And no doubt when +the time came to go we should be able to go quite easily. + +It was a long, rambling place, that show-room, a gallery broken up +by stands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to other +departments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and stared +at one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing, indeed, +were these that I was presently unable to make out the door by which we +had come. + +The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork, +just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes of +soldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid and said--. I +myself haven't a very quick ear and it was a tongue-twisting sound, +but Gip--he has his mother's ear--got it in no time. "Bravo!" said the +shopman, putting the men back into the box unceremoniously and handing +it to Gip. "Now," said the shopman, and in a moment Gip had made them +all alive again. + +"You'll take that box?" asked the shopman. + +"We'll take that box," said I, "unless you charge its full value. In +which case it would need a Trust Magnate--" + +"Dear heart! NO!" and the shopman swept the little men back again, shut +the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown paper, +tied up and--WITH GIP'S FULL NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE PAPER! + +The shopman laughed at my amazement. + +"This is the genuine magic," he said. "The real thing." + +"It's a little too genuine for my taste," I said again. + +After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still odder +the way they were done. He explained them, he turned them inside out, +and there was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit of a head in the +sagest manner. + +I did not attend as well as I might. "Hey, presto!" said the Magic +Shopman, and then would come the clear, small "Hey, presto!" of the boy. +But I was distracted by other things. It was being borne in upon me just +how tremendously rum this place was; it was, so to speak, inundated by +a sense of rumness. There was something a little rum about the fixtures +even, about the ceiling, about the floor, about the casually distributed +chairs. I had a queer feeling that whenever I wasn't looking at them +straight they went askew, and moved about, and played a noiseless +puss-in-the-corner behind my back. And the cornice had a serpentine +design with masks--masks altogether too expressive for proper plaster. + +Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking +assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence--I +saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys and +through an arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar in an +idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features! The +particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it just as +though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all it was a +short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out like a telescope, +and then out it flew and became thinner and thinner until it was like +a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in a nightmare it was! He +flourished it about and flung it forth as a fly-fisher flings his line. + +My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about, and +there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking no evil. +They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was standing on +a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of big drum in his +hand. + +"Hide and seek, dadda!" cried Gip. "You're He!" + +And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped +the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. "Take that off," I +cried, "this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!" + +The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held the +big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little stool was +vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared?... + +You know, perhaps, that sinister something that comes like a hand out +of the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes your common +self away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither slow nor hasty, +neither angry nor afraid. So it was with me. + +I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside. + +"Stop this folly!" I said. "Where is my boy?" + +"You see," he said, still displaying the drum's interior, "there is no +deception---" + +I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous movement. +I snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open a door to +escape. "Stop!" I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt after +him--into utter darkness. + +THUD! + +"Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!" + +I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking working +man; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little perplexed with +himself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology, and then Gip had +turned and come to me with a bright little smile, as though for a moment +he had missed me. + +And he was carrying four parcels in his arm! + +He secured immediate possession of my finger. + +For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see the door +of the magic shop, and, behold, it was not there! There was no door, no +shop, nothing, only the common pilaster between the shop where they sell +pictures and the window with the chicks!... + +I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight +to the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab. + +"'Ansoms," said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation. + +I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also. +Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and I felt +and discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression I flung it into +the street. + +Gip said nothing. + +For a space neither of us spoke. + +"Dada!" said Gip, at last, "that WAS a proper shop!" + +I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing had +seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good; he was +neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously satisfied with +the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms were the four +parcels. + +Confound it! what could be in them? + +"Um!" I said. "Little boys can't go to shops like that every day." + +He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry I +was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there, coram +publico, in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought, the thing wasn't +so very bad. + +But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be +reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary +lead soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether forget +that originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only genuine +sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living white kitten, +in excellent health and appetite and temper. + +I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about in +the nursery for quite an unconscionable time.... + +That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe it is +all right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens, and +the soldiers seem as steady a company as any colonel could desire. And +Gip--? + +The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously with +Gip. + +But I went so far as this one day. I said, "How would you like your +soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?" + +"Mine do," said Gip. "I just have to say a word I know before I open the +lid." + +"Then they march about alone?" + +"Oh, QUITE, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that." + +I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken occasion +to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when the soldiers were +about, but so far I have never discovered them performing in anything +like a magical manner. + +It's so difficult to tell. + +There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of paying +bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times, looking for +that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that matter honour is +satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address are known to them, I +may very well leave it to these people, whoever they may be, to send in +their bill in their own time. + + + + +3. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS + +Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the +torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The +difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked +the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope, and with a common +impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set +with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, +a little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle. + +For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. +It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn +bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless +ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances +melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills--hills it +might be of a greener kind--and above them invisibly supported, and +seeming indeed to hang in the blue, were the snowclad summits of +mountains that grew larger and bolder to the north-westward as the sides +of the valley drew together. And westward the valley opened until a +distant darkness under the sky told where the forests began. But the +three men looked neither east nor west, but only steadfastly across the +valley. + +The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. "Nowhere," he +said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. "But after all, they +had a full day's start." + +"They don't know we are after them," said the little man on the white +horse. + +"SHE would know," said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to himself. + +"Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule, and +all to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding---" + +The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage on him. +"Do you think I haven't seen that?" he snarled. + +"It helps, anyhow," whispered the little man to himself. + +The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. "They can't be +over the valley," he said. "If we ride hard--" + +He glanced at the white horse and paused. + +"Curse all white horses!" said the man with the silver bridle, and +turned to scan the beast his curse included. + +The little man looked down between the melancholy ears of his steed. + +"I did my best," he said. + +The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt man +passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip. + +"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. The +little man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs of the three +made a multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered grass as they +turned back towards the trail.... + +They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came +through a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes of +horny branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below. +And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only +herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. Still, by +hard scanning, by leaning beside the horses' necks and pausing ever and +again, even these white men could contrive to follow after their prey. + +There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse grass, +and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once +the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have +trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for a fool. + +The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man on the +white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode one after +another, the man with the silver bridle led the way, and they spoke +never a word. After a time it came to the little man on the white horse +that the world was very still. He started out of his dream. Besides the +little noises of their horses and equipment, the whole great valley kept +the brooding quiet of a painted scene. + +Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forward +to the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; their +shadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; and +nearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was +it had gone? Then he remembered the reverberation from the banks of the +gorge and the perpetual accompaniment of shifting, jostling pebbles. +And, moreover--? There was no breeze. That was it! What a vast, still +place it was, a monotonous afternoon slumber. And the sky open and +blank, except for a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the upper +valley. + +He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips +to whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, and +stared at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they had come. +Blank! Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign of a decent beast +or tree--much less a man. What a land it was! What a wilderness! He +dropped again into his former pose. + +It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple +black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. +After all, the infernal valley WAS alive. And then, to rejoice him still +more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that came and +went, the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered bush upon a +little crest, the first intimations of a possible breeze. Idly he wetted +his finger, and held it up. + +He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who had +stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment he caught +his master's eye looking towards him. + +For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode on +again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder, appearing +and disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours. They had ridden +four days out of the very limits of the world into this desolate place, +short of water, with nothing but a strip of dried meat under their +saddles, over rocks and mountains, where surely none but these fugitives +had ever been before--for THAT! + +And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man had whole +cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women! Why in the +name of passionate folly THIS one in particular? asked the little man, +and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips with a blackened +tongue. It was the way of the master, and that was all he knew. Just +because she sought to evade him.... + +His eye caught a whole row of high plumed canes bending in unison, and +then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. The +breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness out of +things--and that was well. + +"Hullo!" said the gaunt man. + +All three stopped abruptly. + +"What?" asked the master. "What?" + +"Over there," said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley. + +"What?" + +"Something coming towards us." + +And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing down +upon them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, tongue out, at +a steady pace, and running with such an intensity of purpose that he +did not seem to see the horsemen he approached. He ran with his nose up, +following, it was plain, neither scent nor quarry. As he drew nearer the +little man felt for his sword. "He's mad," said the gaunt rider. + +"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted. + +The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, it +swerved aside and went panting by them and past. The eyes of the little +man followed its flight. "There was no foam," he said. For a space the +man with the silver-studded bridle stared up the valley. "Oh, come +on!" he cried at last. "What does it matter?" and jerked his horse into +movement again. + +The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from +nothing but the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human +character. "Come on!" he whispered to himself. "Why should it be given +to one man to say 'Come on!' with that stupendous violence of effect. +Always, all his life, the man with the silver bridle has been saying +that. If _I_ said it--!" thought the little man. But people marvelled +when the master was disobeyed even in the wildest things. This +half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one, mad--blasphemous +almost. The little man, by way of comparison, reflected on the gaunt +rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart as his master, as brave and, +indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there was obedience, nothing but +to give obedience duly and stoutly... + +Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back to +more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up beside +his gaunt fellow. "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an undertone. + +The gaunt face looked interrogation. + +"They don't like this wind," said the little man, and dropped behind as +the man with the silver bridle turned upon him. + +"It's all right," said the gaunt-faced man. + +They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode +downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept +down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the +wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a +line of dark bulks--wild hog perhaps, galloping down the valley, but of +that he said nothing, nor did he remark again upon the uneasiness of the +horses. + +And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball, a great +shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistle-down, that drove +before the wind athwart the path. These balls soared high in the air, +and dropped and rose again and caught for a moment, and hurried on +and passed, but at the sight of them the restlessness of the horses +increased. + +Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then soon +very many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley. + +They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed, +turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then hurling +on down the valley again. And at that, all three stopped and sat in +their saddles, staring into the thickening haze that was coming upon +them. + +"If it were not for this thistle-down--" began the leader. + +But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards of them. +It was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft, ragged, filmy +thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial jelly-fish, as it +were, but rolling over and over as it advanced, and trailing long, +cobwebby threads and streamers that floated in its wake. + +"It isn't thistle-down," said the little man. + +"I don't like the stuff," said the gaunt man. + +And they looked at one another. + +"Curse it!" cried the leader. "The air's full of it up there. If it +keeps on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether." + +An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the approach +of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses to the wind, +ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing multitude +of floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort of smooth +swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth, rebounding +high, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still, deliberate +assurance. + +Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army passed. +At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly and trailing +out reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands, all three horses +began to shy and dance. The master was seized with a sudden unreasonable +impatience. He cursed the drifting globes roundly. "Get on!" he cried; +"get on! What do these things matter? How CAN they matter? Back to +the trail!" He fell swearing at his horse and sawed the bit across its +mouth. + +He shouted aloud with rage. "I will follow that trail, I tell you!" he +cried. "Where is the trail?" + +He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst the +grass. A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey streamer +dropped about his bridle-arm, some big, active thing with many legs ran +down the back of his head. He looked up to discover one of those grey +masses anchored as it were above him by these things and flapping out +ends as a sail flaps when a boat comes, about--but noiselessly. + +He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies, of +long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring the +thing down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his prancing +horse with the instinct born of years of horsemanship. Then the flat +of a sword smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead and cut the +drifting balloon of spider-web free, and the whole mass lifted softly +and drove clear and away. + +"Spiders!" cried the voice of the gaunt man. "The things are full of big +spiders! Look, my lord!" + +The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away. + +"Look, my lord!" + +The master found himself staring down at a red, smashed thing on the +ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle +unavailing legs. Then when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that +bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was +like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the situation. + +"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down the +valley." + +What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man with +the silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing furiously at +imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse of the gaunt man and +hurl it and its rider to earth. His own horse went a dozen paces before +he could rein it in. Then he looked up to avoid imaginary dangers, and +then back again to see a horse rolling on the ground, the gaunt man +standing and slashing over it at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that +streamed and wrapped about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down +on waste land on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on. + +The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse. He +was endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength of +one arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles of a +second grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle, and this +second grey mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank. + +The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head, and +spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over, there +were blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man, +suddenly leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces. +His legs were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual +movements with his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was +a thin veil of grey across his face. With his left hand he beat at +something on his body, and suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled +to rise, and fell again, and suddenly, horribly, began to howl, +"Oh--ohoo, ohooh!" + +The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon the +ground. + +As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaming +grey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, +and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his belly +athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. And again +a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept across the master's face. +All about him, and over him, it seemed this drifting, noiseless cobweb +circled and drew nearer him.... + +To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment +happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its own +accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another second +he was galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword whirling +furiously overhead. And all about him on the quickening breeze, the +spiders' airships, their air bundles and air sheets, seemed to him to +hurry in a conscious pursuit. + +Clatter, clatter, thud, thud--the man with the silver bridle rode, +heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, +now left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards +ahead of him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode the +little man on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle. +The reeds bent before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his +shoulder the master could see the webs hurrying to overtake.... + +He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse +gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then +he realised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning +forward on his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late. + +But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had not +forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air. He came off +clear with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse rolled, +kicking spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword drove its +point into the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as though Chance +refused him any longer as her Knight, and the splintered end missed his +face by an inch or so. + +He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the onrushing +spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought of the +ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting terror, +and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides, and out +of the touch of the gale. + +There under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might crouch, +and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the +wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time +he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their +streamers across his narrowed sky. + +Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full foot +it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand--and +after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape for a +little while, and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted up his +iron-heeled boot and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did so, and +for a time sought up and down for another. + +Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not drop +into the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down, and sat and +fell into deep thought and began after his manner to gnaw his knuckles +and bite his nails. And from this he was moved by the coming of the man +with the white horse. + +He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumbling +footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a +rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. +They approached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The +little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, +and came to a stop at last, face to face with his seated master. The +latter winced a little under his dependant's eye. "Well?" he said at +last, with no pretence of authority. + +"You left him?" + +"My horse bolted." + +"I know. So did mine." + +He laughed at his master mirthlessly. + +"I say my horse bolted," said the man who once had a silver-studded +bridle. + +"Cowards both," said the little man. + +The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments, with his +eye on his inferior. + +"Don't call me a coward," he said at length. + +"You are a coward like myself." + +"A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear. +That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where the +difference comes in." + +"I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved your life +two minutes before.... Why are you our lord?" + +The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark. + +"No man calls me a coward," he said. "No. A broken sword is better than +none.... One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry two men +a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time it cannot be +helped. You begin to understand me?... I perceive that you are minded, +on the strength of what you have seen and fancy, to taint my reputation. +It is men of your sort who unmake kings. Besides which--I never liked +you." + +"My lord!" said the little man. + +"No," said the master. "NO!" + +He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps they +faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. There was a +quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, a cry of despair, a +gasp and a blow.... + +Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity, and +the man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last very +cautiously and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now he led +the white horse that once belonged to the little man. He would have gone +back to his horse to get his silver-mounted bridle again, but he feared +night and a quickening breeze might still find him in the valley, and +besides he disliked greatly to think he might discover his horse all +swathed in cobwebs and perhaps unpleasantly eaten. + +And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he had been +through, and the manner in which he had been preserved that day, his +hand sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck, and he clasped +it for a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so his eyes went +across the valley. + +"I was hot with passion," he said, "and now she has met her reward. They +also, no doubt--" + +And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, but in +the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable, he saw a little +spire of smoke. + +At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed anger. +Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and hesitated. And +as he did so a little rustle of air went through the grass about him. +Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of grey. He looked at +the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke. + +"Perhaps, after all, it is not them," he said at last. + +But he knew better. + +After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white +horse. + +As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some +reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that lived +feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs +they fled. + +Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry +them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, could +do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came +too near. Once, where a number ran together over a bare place, he was +minded to dismount and trample them with his boots, but this impulse he +overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle, and looked back at the +smoke. + +"Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders! Well, well.... The +next time I must spin a web." + + + + +4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT + +He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see +him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--it meets me +with an expression. + +It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it. + +Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told +long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his +ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who +would believe me if I did tell? + +Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubman +in London. + +He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, +stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him biting +at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me. Confound +him!--with his eyes on me! + +That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL +behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your +embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft. +The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me by making +my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his liquid appeal, +with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks. + +And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating? + +Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the +truth! + +Pyecraft--. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very +smoking-room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was +sitting all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly +he came, a great rolling front of chins and abdomina, towards me, and +grunted and sat down in a chair close by me and wheezed for a space, and +scraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and then addressed +me. I forget what he said--something about the matches not lighting +properly, and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping the waiters one +by one as they went by, and telling them about the matches in that thin, +fluty voice he has. But, anyhow, it was in some such way we began our +talking. + +He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence to +my figure and complexion. "YOU ought to be a good cricketer," he said. I +suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would call lean, and +I suppose I am rather dark, still--I am not ashamed of having a Hindu +great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want casual strangers to +see through me at a glance to HER. So that I was set against Pyecraft +from the beginning. + +But he only talked about me in order to get to himself. + +"I expect," he said, "you take no more exercise than I do, and probably +you eat no less." (Like all excessively obese people he fancied he ate +nothing.) "Yet,"--and he smiled an oblique smile--"we differ." + +And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness; all he did +for his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness; what people +had advised him to do for his fatness and what he had heard of people +doing for fatness similar to his. "A priori," he said, "one would think +a question of nutrition could be answered by dietary and a question of +assimilation by drugs." It was stifling. It was dumpling talk. It made +me feel swelled to hear him. + +One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time came +when I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether too +conspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but he would come +wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and gormandised round and +about me while I had my lunch. He seemed at times almost to be clinging +to me. He was a bore, but not so fearful a bore as to be limited to me; +and from the first there was something in his manner--almost as though +he knew, almost as though he penetrated to the fact that I MIGHT--that +there was a remote, exceptional chance in me that no one else presented. + +"I'd give anything to get it down," he would say--"anything," and peer +at me over his vast cheeks and pant. + +Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged, no doubt to order another +buttered tea-cake! + +He came to the actual thing one day. "Our Pharmacopoeia," he said, "our +Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical science. +In the East, I've been told--" + +He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium. + +I was quite suddenly angry with him. "Look here," I said, "who told you +about my great-grandmother's recipes?" + +"Well," he fenced. + +"Every time we've met for a week," I said, "and we've met pretty +often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret of +mine." + +"Well," he said, "now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, yes, it is +so. I had it--" + +"From Pattison?" + +"Indirectly," he said, which I believe was lying, "yes." + +"Pattison," I said, "took that stuff at his own risk." + +He pursed his mouth and bowed. + +"My great-grandmother's recipes," I said, "are queer things to handle. +My father was near making me promise--" + +"He didn't?" + +"No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once." + +"Ah!... But do you think--? Suppose--suppose there did happen to be +one--" + +"The things are curious documents," I said. + +"Even the smell of 'em.... No!" + +But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. I was +always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would fall +on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was also annoyed +with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling for him that disposed +me to say, "Well, TAKE the risk!" The little affair of Pattison to which +I have alluded was a different matter altogether. What it was doesn't +concern us now, but I knew, anyhow, that the particular recipe I used +then was safe. The rest I didn't know so much about, and, on the whole, +I was inclined to doubt their safety pretty completely. + +Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned-- + +I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense +undertaking. + +That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of my +safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote the +recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins of +a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last +degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family, +with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge of +Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely plain +sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough, and sat +on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it. + +"Look here," said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away +from his eager grasp. + +"So far as I--can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight. +("Ah!" said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that. +And if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know--I +blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on that side +were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?" + +"Let me try it," said Pyecraft. + +I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort and +fell flat within me. "What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft," I asked, "do you +think you'll look like when you get thin?" + +He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word to +me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never, and then +I handed him that little piece of skin. + +"It's nasty stuff," I said. + +"No matter," he said, and took it. + +He goggled at it. "But--but--" he said. + +He had just discovered that it wasn't English. + +"To the best of my ability," I said, "I will do you a translation." + +I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever +he approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected our +compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever. And then +he got a word in. + +"I must speak," he said. "It isn't fair. There's something wrong. It's +done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice." + +"Where's the recipe?" + +He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book. + +I ran my eye over the items. "Was the egg addled?" I asked. + +"No. Ought it to have been?" + +"That," I said, "goes without saying in all my poor dear +great-grandmother's recipes. When condition or quality is not specified +you must get the worst. She was drastic or nothing.... And there's one +or two possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got +FRESH rattlesnake venom." + +"I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost--" + +"That's your affair, anyhow. This last item--" + +"I know a man who--" + +"Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know +the language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious. +By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog." + +For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and as +fat and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke +the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day in the +cloakroom he said, "Your great-grandmother--" + +"Not a word against her," I said; and he held his peace. + +I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking to +three new members about his fatness as though he was in search of other +recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came. + +"Mr. Formalyn!" bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram +and opened it at once. + +"For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft." + +"H'm," said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the +rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently +promised that I made a most excellent lunch. + +I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the +upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I had +done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar. + +"Mr. Pyecraft?" said I, at the front door. + +They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days. + +"He expects me," said I, and they sent me up. + +I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing. + +"He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow," I said to myself. "A man who eats +like a pig ought to look like a pig." + +An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly placed +cap, came and surveyed me through the lattice. + +I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion. + +"Well?" said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of the +landing. + +"'E said you was to come in if you came," she said, and regarded me, +making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially, "'E's +locked in, sir." + +"Locked in?" + +"Locked himself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since, +sir. And ever and again SWEARING. Oh, my!" + +I stared at the door she indicated by her glances. + +"In there?" I said. + +"Yes, sir." + +"What's up?" + +She shook her head sadly, "'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir. 'EAVY +vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's 'ad, sooit puddin', +sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside, if you please, +and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink AWFUL." + +There came a piping bawl from inside the door: "That Formalyn?" + +"That you, Pyecraft?" I shouted, and went and banged the door. + +"Tell her to go away." + +I did. + +Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like some +one feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar grunts. + +"It's all right," I said, "she's gone." + +But for a long time the door didn't open. + +I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, "Come in." + +I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see +Pyecraft. + +Well, you know, he wasn't there! + +I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room in a +state of untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books and writing +things, and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft-- + +"It's all right, o' man; shut the door," he said, and then I discovered +him. + +There he was right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door, as +though some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious and +angry. He panted and gesticulated. "Shut the door," he said. "If that +woman gets hold of it--" + +I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared. + +"If anything gives way and you tumble down," I said, "you'll break your +neck, Pyecraft." + +"I wish I could," he wheezed. + +"A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics--" + +"Don't," he said, and looked agonised. + +"I'll tell you," he said, and gesticulated. + +"How the deuce," said I, "are you holding on up there?" + +And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all, that he +was floating up there--just as a gas-filled bladder might have floated +in the same position. He began a struggle to thrust himself away +from the ceiling and to clamber down the wall to me. "It's that +prescription," he panted, as he did so. "Your great-gran--" + +He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke and +it gave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while the picture +smashed onto the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling, and I knew then +why he was all over white on the more salient curves and angles of his +person. He tried again more carefully, coming down by way of the mantel. + +It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat, +apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceiling to +the floor. "That prescription," he said. "Too successful." + +"How?" + +"Loss of weight--almost complete." + +And then, of course, I understood. + +"By Jove, Pyecraft," said I, "what you wanted was a cure for fatness! +But you always called it weight. You would call it weight." + +Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time. +"Let me help you!" I said, and took his hand and pulled him down. He +kicked about, trying to get a foothold somewhere. It was very like +holding a flag on a windy day. + +"That table," he said, pointing, "is solid mahogany and very heavy. If +you can put me under that---" + +I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while I stood +on his hearthrug and talked to him. + +I lit a cigar. "Tell me," I said, "what happened?" + +"I took it," he said. + +"How did it taste?" + +"Oh, BEASTLY!" + +I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients or +the probable compound or the possible results, almost all of my +great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be extraordinarily +uninviting. For my own part-- + +"I took a little sip first." + +"Yes?" + +"And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take the +draught." + +"My dear Pyecraft!" + +"I held my nose," he explained. "And then I kept on getting lighter and +lighter--and helpless, you know." + +He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. "What the goodness am I to +DO?" he said. + +"There's one thing pretty evident," I said, "that you mustn't do. If you +go out of doors, you'll go up and up." I waved an arm upward. "They'd +have to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again." + +"I suppose it will wear off?" + +I shook my head. "I don't think you can count on that," I said. + +And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out at +adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should +have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying +circumstances--that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and my +great-grandmother with an utter want of discretion. + +"I never asked you to take the stuff," I said. + +And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me, I sat +down in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober, friendly +fashion. + +I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon +himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had eaten +too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point. + +He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect of his +lesson. "And then," said I, "you committed the sin of euphuism. You +called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You--" + +He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO? + +I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we came to +the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that it would +not be difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling with his +hands-- + +"I can't sleep," he said. + +But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out, +to make a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things on +with tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button at the +side. He would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said; and after +some squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was quite delightful +to see the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which the good lady took +all these amazing inversions.) He could have a library ladder in his +room, and all his meals could be laid on the top of his bookcase. We +also hit on an ingenious device by which he could get to the floor +whenever he wanted, which was simply to put the British Encyclopaedia +(tenth edition) on the top of his open shelves. He just pulled out a +couple of volumes and held on, and down he came. And we agreed there +must be iron staples along the skirting, so that he could cling to those +whenever he wanted to get about the room on the lower level. + +As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested. It +was I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her, and it was +I chiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent two whole days +at his flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man with a screw-driver, +and I made all sorts of ingenious adaptations for him--ran a wire to +bring his bells within reach, turned all his electric lights up +instead of down, and so on. The whole affair was extremely curious and +interesting to me, and it was delightful to think of Pyecraft like some +great, fat blow-fly, crawling about on his ceiling and clambering round +the lintels of his doors from one room to another, and never, never, +never coming to the club any more.... + +Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was sitting +by his fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his favourite corner +by the cornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the ceiling, when the +idea struck me. "By Jove, Pyecraft!" I said, "all this is totally +unnecessary." + +And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion I +blurted it out. "Lead underclothing," said I, and the mischief was done. + +Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. "To be right ways up +again--" he said. I gave him the whole secret before I saw where it +would take me. "Buy sheet lead," I said, "stamp it into discs. Sew 'em +all over your underclothes until you have enough. Have lead-soled boots, +carry a bag of solid lead, and the thing is done! Instead of being a +prisoner here you may go abroad again, Pyecraft; you may travel--" + +A still happier idea came to me. "You need never fear a shipwreck. +All you need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the +necessary amount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air--" + +In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head. "By +Jove!" he said, "I shall be able to come back to the club again." + +The thing pulled me up short. "By Jove!" I said faintly. "Yes. Of +course--you will." + +He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing--as I +live!--a third go of buttered tea-cake. And no one in the whole world +knows--except his housekeeper and me--that he weighs practically +nothing; that he is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere +clouds in clothing, niente, nefas, the most inconsiderable of men. There +he sits watching until I have done this writing. Then, if he can, he +will waylay me. He will come billowing up to me.... + +He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it doesn't +feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little. And always +somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say, "The secret's +keeping, eh? If any one knew of it--I should be so ashamed.... Makes a +fellow look such a fool, you know. Crawling about on a ceiling and all +that...." + +And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable strategic +position between me and the door. + + + + +5. MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND + +"There's a man in that shop," said the Doctor, "who has been in +Fairyland." + +"Nonsense!" I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual +village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and +brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window. "Tell +me about it," I said, after a pause. + +"_I_ don't know," said the Doctor. "He's an ordinary sort of +lout--Skelmersdale is his name. But everybody about here believes it +like Bible truth." + +I reverted presently to the topic. + +"I know nothing about it," said the Doctor, "and I don't WANT to know. I +attended him for a broken finger--Married and Single cricket match--and +that's when I struck the nonsense. That's all. But it shows you the sort +of stuff I have to deal with, anyhow, eh? Nice to get modern sanitary +ideas into a people like this!" + +"Very," I said in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell me +about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind, I observe, +are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health. I was as +sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham people "asses," +I said they were "thundering asses," but even that did not allay him. + +Afterwards, later in the summer, an urgent desire to seclude myself, +while finishing my chapter on Spiritual Pathology--it was really, I +believe, stiffer to write than it is to read--took me to Bignor. I +lodged at a farmhouse, and presently found myself outside that little +general shop again, in search of tobacco. "Skelmersdale," said I to +myself at the sight of it, and went in. + +I was served by a short, but shapely, young man, with a fair downy +complexion, good, small teeth, blue eyes, and a languid manner. I +scrutinised him curiously. Except for a touch of melancholy in +his expression, he was nothing out of the common. He was in the +shirt-sleeves and tucked-up apron of his trade, and a pencil was thrust +behind his inoffensive ear. Athwart his black waistcoat was a gold +chain, from which dangled a bent guinea. + +"Nothing more to-day, sir?" he inquired. He leant forward over my bill +as he spoke. + +"Are you Mr. Skelmersdale?" said I. + +"I am, sir," he said, without looking up. + +"Is it true that you have been in Fairyland?" + +He looked up at me for a moment with wrinkled brows, with an aggrieved, +exasperated face. "O SHUT it!" he said, and, after a moment of +hostility, eye to eye, he went on adding up my bill. "Four, six and a +half," he said, after a pause. "Thank you, Sir." + +So, unpropitiously, my acquaintance with Mr. Skelmersdale began. + +Well, I got from that to confidence--through a series of toilsome +efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night +I went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme +seclusion from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day. I +contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found the +one subject to avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was open +and amiable in a commonplace sort of way, but on that he had been +worried--it was a manifest taboo. Only once in the room did I hear the +slightest allusion to his experience in his presence, and that was by +a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him. Skelmersdale had run +a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor standards, was +uncommonly good play. "Steady on!" said his adversary. "None of your +fairy flukes!" + +Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung it down +and walked out of the room. + +"Why can't you leave 'im alone?" said a respectable elder who had been +enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval the grin of +satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face. + +I scented my opportunity. "What's this joke," said I, "about Fairyland?" + +"'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale," said the +respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was more +communicative. "They DO say, sir," he said, "that they took him into +Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks." + +And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep had +started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time I +had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair. Formerly, +before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar little shop +at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen had taken +place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late one night on +the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight of men, and had +returned with "his cuffs as clean as when he started," and his pockets +full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of moody wretchedness +that only slowly passed away, and for many days he would give no account +of where it was he had been. The girl he was engaged to at Clapton +Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him over partly because he +refused, and partly because, as she said, he fairly gave her the "'ump." +And then when, some time after, he let out to some one carelessly that +he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go back, and when the thing +spread and the simple badinage of the countryside came into play, he +threw up his situation abruptly, and came to Bignor to get out of the +fuss. But as to what had happened in Fairyland none of these people +knew. There the gathering in the Village Room went to pieces like a pack +at fault. One said this, and another said that. + +Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and +sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing +through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent +interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story. + +"If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll," I said, "why don't you dig it +out?" + +"That's what I says," said the young ploughboy. + +"There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll," said the +respectable elder, solemnly, "one time and another. But there's none as +goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging." + +The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive; +I felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction, +and the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts of the +case was distinctly whetted. If these real facts were to be got from any +one, they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself; and I set myself, +therefore, still more assiduously to efface the first bad impression +I had made and win his confidence to the pitch of voluntary speech. In +that endeavour I had a social advantage. Being a person of affability +and no apparent employment, and wearing tweeds and knickerbockers, I was +naturally classed as an artist in Bignor, and in the remarkable code +of social precedence prevalent in Bignor an artist ranks considerably +higher than a grocer's assistant. Skelmersdale, like too many of his +class, is something of a snob; he had told me to "shut it," only under +sudden, excessive provocation, and with, I am certain, a subsequent +repentance; he was, I knew, quite glad to be seen walking about the +village with me. In due course, he accepted the proposal of a pipe and +whisky in my rooms readily enough, and there, scenting by some happy +instinct that there was trouble of the heart in this, and knowing that +confidences beget confidences, I plied him with much of interest and +suggestion from my real and fictitious past. And it was after the third +whisky of the third visit of that sort, if I remember rightly, that a +propos of some artless expansion of a little affair that had touched +and left me in my teens, that he did at last, of his own free will and +motion, break the ice. "It was like that with me," he said, "over there +at Aldington. It's just that that's so rum. First I didn't care a bit +and it was all her, and afterwards, when it was too late, it was, in a +manner of speaking, all me." + +I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out +another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight +that the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland +adventure he had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done the +trick with him, and from being just another half-incredulous, would-be +facetious stranger, I had, by all my wealth of shameless self-exposure, +become the possible confidant. He had been bitten by the desire to show +that he, too, had lived and felt many things, and the fever was upon +him. + +He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness +to clear him up with a few precise questions was only equalled and +controlled by my anxiety not to get to this sort of thing too soon. But +in another meeting or so the basis of confidence was complete; and from +first to last I think I got most of the items and aspects--indeed, I got +quite a number of times over almost everything that Mr. Skelmersdale, +with his very limited powers of narration, will ever be able to tell. +And so I come to the story of his adventure, and I piece it all together +again. Whether it really happened, whether he imagined it or dreamt it, +or fell upon it in some strange hallucinatory trance, I do not profess +to say. But that he invented it I will not for one moment entertain. +The man simply and honestly believes the thing happened as he says it +happened; he is transparently incapable of any lie so elaborate +and sustained, and in the belief of the simple, yet often keenly +penetrating, rustic minds about him I find a very strong confirmation of +his sincerity. He believes--and nobody can produce any positive fact to +falsify his belief. As for me, with this much of endorsement, I transmit +his story--I am a little old now to justify or explain. + +He says he went to sleep on Aldington Knoll about ten o'clock one +night--it was quite possibly Midsummer night, though he has never +thought of the date, and he cannot be sure within a week or so--and it +was a fine night and windless, with a rising moon. I have been at +the pains to visit this Knoll thrice since his story grew up under my +persuasions, and once I went there in the twilight summer moonrise on +what was, perhaps, a similar night to that of his adventure. Jupiter was +great and splendid above the moon, and in the north and northwest the +sky was green and vividly bright over the sunken sun. The Knoll stands +out bare and bleak under the sky, but surrounded at a little distance by +dark thickets, and as I went up towards it there was a mighty starting +and scampering of ghostly or quite invisible rabbits. Just over +the crown of the Knoll, but nowhere else, was a multitudinous thin +trumpeting of midges. The Knoll is, I believe, an artificial mound, +the tumulus of some great prehistoric chieftain, and surely no man ever +chose a more spacious prospect for a sepulchre. Eastward one sees along +the hills to Hythe, and thence across the Channel to where, thirty miles +and more perhaps, away, the great white lights by Gris Nez and Boulogne +wink and pass and shine. Westward lies the whole tumbled valley of the +Weald, visible as far as Hindhead and Leith Hill, and the valley of the +Stour opens the Downs in the north to interminable hills beyond Wye. +All Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch and Romney and +Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and the hills +multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up to Beachy Head. + +And out upon all this it was that Skelmersdale wandered, being troubled +in his earlier love affair, and as he says, "not caring WHERE he went." +And there he sat down to think it over, and so, sulking and grieving, +was overtaken by sleep. And so he fell into the fairies' power. + +The quarrel that had upset him was some trivial matter enough between +himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged. She was +a farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and "very respectable," and +no doubt an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover were very +young and with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly keen edge of +criticism, that irrational hunger for a beautiful perfection, that +life and wisdom do presently and most mercifully dull. What the precise +matter of quarrel was I have no idea. She may have said she liked men in +gaiters when he hadn't any gaiters on, or he may have said he liked her +better in a different sort of hat, but however it began, it got by +a series of clumsy stages to bitterness and tears. She no doubt got +tearful and smeary, and he grew dusty and drooping, and she parted with +invidious comparisons, grave doubts whether she ever had REALLY cared +for him, and a clear certainty she would never care again. And with this +sort of thing upon his mind he came out upon Aldington Knoll grieving, +and presently, after a long interval, perhaps, quite inexplicably, fell +asleep. + +He woke to find himself on a softer turf than ever he had slept on +before, and under the shade of very dark trees that completely hid the +sky. Always, indeed, in Fairyland the sky is hidden, it seems. Except +for one night when the fairies were dancing, Mr. Skelmersdale, during +all his time with them, never saw a star. And of that night I am in +doubt whether he was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings and +rushes are, in those low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth. + +But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves and +amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright and fine. +Mr. Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL, and the next +that quite a number of people still smaller were standing all about him. +For some reason, he says, he was neither surprised nor frightened, but +sat up quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. And +there all about him stood the smiling elves who had caught him sleeping +under their privileges and had brought him into Fairyland. + +What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague and +imperfect is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor detail +does he seem to have been. They were clothed in something very light and +beautiful, that was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves, nor the petals +of flowers. They stood all about him as he sat and waked, and down the +glade towards him, down a glow-worm avenue and fronted by a star, came +at once that Fairy Lady who is the chief personage of his memory and +tale. Of her I gathered more. She was clothed in filmy green, and about +her little waist was a broad silver girdle. Her hair waved back from +her forehead on either side; there were curls not too wayward and yet +astray, and on her brow was a little tiara, set with a single star. Her +sleeves were some sort of open sleeves that gave little glimpses of her +arms; her throat, I think, was a little displayed, because he speaks of +the beauty of her neck and chin. There was a necklace of coral about +her white throat, and in her breast a coral-coloured flower. She had the +soft lines of a little child in her chin and cheeks and throat. And +her eyes, I gather, were of a kindled brown, very soft and straight and +sweet under her level brows. You see by these particulars how greatly +this lady must have loomed in Mr. Skelmersdale's picture. Certain things +he tried to express and could not express; "the way she moved," he said +several times; and I fancy a sort of demure joyousness radiated from +this Lady. + +And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest and +chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale set +out to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed him +gladly and a little warmly--I suspect a pressure of his hand in both of +hers and a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago young Skelmersdale +may have been a very comely youth. And once she took his arm, and once, +I think, she led him by the hand adown the glade that the glow-worms +lit. + +Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from Mr. +Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives little +unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places where +there were many fairies together, of "toadstool things that shone pink," +of fairy food, of which he could only say "you should have tasted +it!" and of fairy music, "like a little musical box," that came out of +nodding flowers. There was a great open place where fairies rode and +raced on "things," but what Mr. Skelmersdale meant by "these here things +they rode," there is no telling. Larvae, perhaps, or crickets, or the +little beetles that elude us so abundantly. There was a place where +water splashed and gigantic king-cups grew, and there in the hotter +times the fairies bathed together. There were games being played and +dancing and much elvish love-making, too, I think, among the moss-branch +thickets. There can be no doubt that the Fairy Lady made love to Mr. +Skelmersdale, and no doubt either that this young man set himself to +resist her. A time came, indeed, when she sat on a bank beside him, in +a quiet, secluded place "all smelling of vi'lets," and talked to him of +love. + +"When her voice went low and she whispered," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "and +laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft, warm +friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my 'ead." + +It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent. He +saw "'ow the wind was blowing," he says, and so, sitting there in a +place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely Fairy Lady +about him, Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently--that he was engaged! + +She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad for +her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have--even his heart's +desire. + +And Mr. Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking at her +little lips as they just dropped apart and came together, led up to the +more intimate question by saying he would like enough capital to start a +little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said, he had money enough to do +that. I imagine a little surprise in those brown eyes he talked +about, but she seemed sympathetic for all that, and she asked him many +questions about the little shop, "laughing like" all the time. So he got +to the complete statement of his affianced position, and told her all +about Millie. + +"All?" said I. + +"Everything," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "just who she was, and where she +lived, and everything about her. I sort of felt I 'ad to all the time, I +did." + +"'Whatever you want you shall have,' said the Fairy Lady. 'That's as +good as done. You SHALL feel you have the money just as you wish. And +now, you know--YOU MUST KISS ME.'" + +And Mr. Skelmersdale pretended not to hear the latter part of her +remark, and said she was very kind. That he really didn't deserve she +should be so kind. And-- + +The Fairy Lady suddenly came quite close to him and whispered, "Kiss +me!" + +"And," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "like a fool, I did." + +There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite +the other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard. There was +something magic in that kiss; assuredly it marked a turning point. +At any rate, this is one of the passages that he thought sufficiently +important to describe most at length. I have tried to get it right, I +have tried to disentangle it from the hints and gestures through which +it came to me, but I have no doubt that it was all different from my +telling and far finer and sweeter, in the soft filtered light and the +subtly stirring silences of the fairy glades. The Fairy Lady asked him +more about Millie, and was she very lovely, and so on--a great many +times. As to Millie's loveliness, I conceive him answering that she was +"all right." And then, or on some such occasion, the Fairy Lady told him +she had fallen in love with him as he slept in the moonlight, and so +he had been brought into Fairyland, and she had thought, not knowing of +Millie, that perhaps he might chance to love her. "But now you know you +can't," she said, "so you must stop with me just a little while, and +then you must go back to Millie." She told him that, and you know +Skelmersdale was already in love with her, but the pure inertia of his +mind kept him in the way he was going. I imagine him sitting in a sort +of stupefaction amidst all these glowing beautiful things, answering +about his Millie and the little shop he projected and the need of a +horse and cart.... And that absurd state of affairs must have gone on +for days and days. I see this little lady, hovering about him and trying +to amuse him, too dainty to understand his complexity and too tender +to let him go. And he, you know, hypnotised as it were by his earthly +position, went his way with her hither and thither, blind to everything +in Fairyland but this wonderful intimacy that had come to him. It is +hard, it is impossible, to give in print the effect of her radiant +sweetness shining through the jungle of poor Skelmersdale's rough and +broken sentences. To me, at least, she shone clear amidst the muddle of +his story like a glow-worm in a tangle of weeds. + +There must have been many days of things while all this was +happening--and once, I say, they danced under the moonlight in the fairy +rings that stud the meadows near Smeeth--but at last it all came to an +end. She led him into a great cavernous place, lit by a red nightlight +sort of thing, where there were coffers piled on coffers, and cups +and golden boxes, and a great heap of what certainly seemed to all Mr. +Skelmersdale's senses--coined gold. There were little gnomes amidst this +wealth, who saluted her at her coming, and stood aside. And suddenly she +turned on him there with brightly shining eyes. + +"And now," she said, "you have been kind to stay with me so long, and it +is time I let you go. You must go back to your Millie. You must go back +to your Millie, and here--just as I promised you--they will give you +gold." + +"She choked like," said Mr. Skelmersdale. "At that, I had a sort of +feeling--" (he touched his breastbone) "as though I was fainting here. +I felt pale, you know, and shivering, and even then--I 'adn't a thing to +say." + +He paused. "Yes," I said. + +The scene was beyond his describing. But I know that she kissed him +good-bye. + +"And you said nothing?" + +"Nothing," he said. "I stood like a stuffed calf. She just looked back +once, you know, and stood smiling like and crying--I could see the +shine of her eyes--and then she was gone, and there was all these little +fellows bustling about me, stuffing my 'ands and my pockets and the back +of my collar and everywhere with gold." + +And then it was, when the Fairy Lady had vanished, that Mr. Skelmersdale +really understood and knew. He suddenly began plucking out the gold +they were thrusting upon him, and shouting out at them to prevent their +giving him more. "'I don't WANT yer gold,' I said. 'I 'aven't done yet. +I'm not going. I want to speak to that Fairy Lady again.' I started off +to go after her and they held me back. Yes, stuck their little 'ands +against my middle and shoved me back. They kept giving me more and more +gold until it was running all down my trouser legs and dropping out of +my 'ands. 'I don't WANT yer gold,' I says to them, 'I want just to speak +to the Fairy Lady again.'" + +"And did you?" + +"It came to a tussle." + +"Before you saw her?" + +"I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere to be +seen." + +So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long grotto, +seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate place +athwart which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro. And +about him elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes came out +of the cave after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting it after +him, shouting, "Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and fairy gold!" + +And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over, +and he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly +set himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern, through +a place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly and often. +The elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him and pricking him, and +the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him and dashed into his face, and +the gnomes pursued him shouting and pelting him with fairy gold. As he +ran with all this strange rout about him and distracting him, suddenly +he was knee-deep in a swamp, and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted +roots, and he caught his foot in one and stumbled and fell.... + +He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself +sprawling upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars. + +He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff and +cold, and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor of dawn and +a chilly wind were coming up together. He could have believed the whole +thing a strangely vivid dream until he thrust his hand into his side +pocket and found it stuffed with ashes. Then he knew for certain it +was fairy gold they had given him. He could feel all their pinches and +pricks still, though there was never a bruise upon him. And in that +manner, and so suddenly, Mr. Skelmersdale came out of Fairyland back +into this world of men. Even then he fancied the thing was but the +matter of a night until he returned to the shop at Aldington Corner and +discovered amidst their astonishment that he had been away three weeks. + +"Lor'! the trouble I 'ad!" said Mr. Skelmersdale. + +"How?" + +"Explaining. I suppose you've never had anything like that to explain." + +"Never," I said, and he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of this +person and that. One name he avoided for a space. + +"And Millie?" said I at last. + +"I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie," he said. + +"I expect she seemed changed?" + +"Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big, you +know, and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun, when it +rose in the morning, fair hit me in the eye!" + +"And Millie?" + +"I didn't want to see Millie." + +"And when you did?" + +"I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?' +she said, and I saw there was a row. _I_ didn't care if there was. I +seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking to me. She +was just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen in 'er ever, +or what there could 'ave been. Sometimes when she wasn't about, I did +get back a little, but never when she was there. Then it was always the +other came up and blotted her out.... Anyow, it didn't break her heart." + +"Married?" I asked. + +"Married 'er cousin," said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the +pattern of the tablecloth for a space. + +When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean +vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy +Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting out +the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to repeat. I +think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole affair, to hear +that neat little grocer man after his story was done, with a glass of +whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers, witnessing, with +sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted anguish, of +the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently came upon him. "I +couldn't eat," he said, "I couldn't sleep. I made mistakes in orders +and got mixed with change. There she was day and night, drawing me and +drawing me. Oh, I wanted her. Lord! how I wanted her! I was up there, +most evenings I was up there on the Knoll, often even when it rained. I +used to walk over the Knoll and round it and round it, calling for them +to let me in. Shouting. Near blubbering I was at times. Daft I was +and miserable. I kept on saying it was all a mistake. And every Sunday +afternoon I went up there, wet and fine, though I knew as well as you do +it wasn't no good by day. And I've tried to go to sleep there." + +He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky. + +"I've tried to go to sleep there," he said, and I could swear his lips +trembled. "I've tried to go to sleep there, often and often. And, you +know, I couldn't, sir--never. I've thought if I could go to sleep there, +there might be something. But I've sat up there and laid up there, and +I couldn't--not for thinking and longing. It's the longing.... I've +tried--" + +He blew, drank up the rest of his whisky spasmodically, stood up +suddenly and buttoned his jacket, staring closely and critically at the +cheap oleographs beside the mantel meanwhile. The little black notebook +in which he recorded the orders of his daily round projected stiffly +from his breast pocket. When all the buttons were quite done, he patted +his chest and turned on me suddenly. "Well," he said, "I must be going." + +There was something in his eyes and manner that was too difficult for +him to express in words. "One gets talking," he said at last at the +door, and smiled wanly, and so vanished from my eyes. And that is the +tale of Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland just as he told it to me. + + + + +6. THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST + +The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very +vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, +in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and +Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. +There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a +modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday +morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which indeed +gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was +invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness +when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we +naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was lying--of +that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, +it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but that we thought +was only the incurable artifice of the man. + +"I say!" he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward rain of +sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, "you know I was alone +here last night?" + +"Except for the domestics," said Wish. + +"Who sleep in the other wing," said Clayton. "Yes. Well--" He pulled at +his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about his +confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, "I caught a ghost!" + +"Caught a ghost, did you?" said Sanderson. "Where is it?" + +And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks in +America, shouted, "CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad of it! +Tell us all about it right now." + +Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door. + +He looked apologetically at me. "There's no eavesdropping of course, but +we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours of +ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling to trifle +with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost. I don't think it +will come again--ever." + +"You mean to say you didn't keep it?" said Sanderson. + +"I hadn't the heart to," said Clayton. + +And Sanderson said he was surprised. + +We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. "I know," he said, with the +flicker of a smile, "but the fact is it really WAS a ghost, and I'm as +sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not joking. I mean +what I say." + +Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton, and +then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words. + +Clayton ignored the comment. "It is the strangest thing that has ever +happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts or anything of +the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag one in a corner; and +the whole business is in my hands." + +He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce a +second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected. + +"You talked to it?" asked Wish. + +"For the space, probably, of an hour." + +"Chatty?" I said, joining the party of the sceptics. + +"The poor devil was in trouble," said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end +and with the very faintest note of reproof. + +"Sobbing?" some one asked. + +Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. "Good Lord!" he said; +"yes." And then, "Poor fellow! yes." + +"Where did you strike it?" asked Evans, in his best American accent. + +"I never realised," said Clayton, ignoring him, "the poor sort of thing +a ghost might be," and he hung us up again for a time, while he sought +for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar. + +"I took an advantage," he reflected at last. + +We were none of us in a hurry. "A character," he said, "remains just the +same character for all that it's been disembodied. That's a thing we too +often forget. People with a certain strength or fixity of purpose may +have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity of purpose--most haunting +ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea'd as monomaniacs and as obstinate +as mules to come back again and again. This poor creature wasn't." He +suddenly looked up rather queerly, and his eye went round the room. "I +say it," he said, "in all kindliness, but that is the plain truth of the +case. Even at the first glance he struck me as weak." + +He punctuated with the help of his cigar. + +"I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards +me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was +transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer +of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but his +attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though he +didn't know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand was on +the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like--SO!" + +"What sort of physique?" said Sanderson. + +"Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great +flutings down the back, here and here--so! And a little, meanish head +with scrubby hair--And rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower than the +hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers baggy and a +little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me. I came very quietly +up the staircase. I did not carry a light, you know--the candles are on +the landing table and there is that lamp--and I was in my list slippers, +and I saw him as I came up. I stopped dead at that--taking him in. I +wasn't a bit afraid. I think that in most of these affairs one is +never nearly so afraid or excited as one imagines one would be. I was +surprised and interested. I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at +last! And I haven't believed for a moment in ghosts during the last +five-and-twenty years.'" + +"Um," said Wish. + +"I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I was +there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature young +man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin. So for an +instant we stood--he looking over his shoulder at me and regarded one +another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling. He turned round, +drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms, spread his hands +in approved ghost fashion--came towards me. As he did so his little jaw +dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out 'Boo.' No, it wasn't--not a +bit dreadful. I'd dined. I'd had a bottle of champagne, and being all +alone, perhaps two or three--perhaps even four or five--whiskies, so I +was as solid as rocks and no more frightened than if I'd been assailed +by a frog. 'Boo!' I said. 'Nonsense. You don't belong to THIS place. +What are you doing here?' + +"I could see him wince. 'Boo-oo,' he said. + +"'Boo--be hanged! Are you a member?' I said; and just to show I didn't +care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and made to light +my candle. 'Are you a member?' I repeated, looking at him sideways. + +"He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing became +crestfallen. 'No,' he said, in answer to the persistent interrogation of +my eye; 'I'm not a member--I'm a ghost.' + +"'Well, that doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there any +one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as steadily +as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness of whisky +for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight. I turned on him, +holding it. 'What are you doing here?' I said. + +"He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, +abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. 'I'm +haunting,' he said. + +"'You haven't any business to,' I said in a quiet voice. + +"'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence. + +"'That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is a +respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids and +children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor little +mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits. I suppose +you didn't think of that?' + +"'No, sir,' he said, 'I didn't.' + +"'You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you? +Weren't murdered here, or anything of that sort?' + +"'None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled--' + +"'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is a +mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned to see +if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly. 'If I were you I +wouldn't wait for cock-crow--I'd vanish right away.' + +"He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir--' he began. + +"'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home. + +"'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.' + +"'You CAN'T?' + +"'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging about +here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards of the empty +bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never come haunting +before, and it seems to put me out.' + +"'Put you out?' + +"'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off. +There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.' + +"That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such an +abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite the high, +hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said, and as I spoke I +fancied I heard some one moving about down below. 'Come into my room and +tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't, of course, understand this,' +and I tried to take him by the arm. But, of course, you might as well +have tried to take hold of a puff of smoke! I had forgotten my number, +I think; anyhow, I remember going into several bedrooms--it was lucky I +was the only soul in that wing--until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I +said, and sat down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. +It seems to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old +chap.' + +"Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down the +room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little +while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently, you know, +something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me, and I began +to realise just a little what a thundering rum and weird business it was +that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent--the proper conventional +phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost of a voice--flitting to +and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung old bedroom. You could see +the gleam of the copper candlesticks through him, and the lights on the +brass fender, and the corners of the framed engravings on the wall,--and +there he was telling me all about this wretched little life of his that +had recently ended on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you +know, but being transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the +truth." + +"Eh?" said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair. + +"What?" said Clayton. + +"Being transparent--couldn't avoid telling the truth--I don't see it," +said Wish. + +"_I_ don't see it," said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. "But it IS +so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once a nail's +breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been killed--he +went down into a London basement with a candle to look for a leakage +of gas--and described himself as a senior English master in a London +private school when that release occurred." + +"Poor wretch!" said I. + +"That's what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it. +There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked +of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever been +anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive, too +nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood him, he +said. He had never had a real friend in the world, I think; he had never +had a success. He had shirked games and failed examinations. 'It's +like that with some people,' he said; 'whenever I got into the +examination-room or anywhere everything seemed to go.' Engaged to be +married of course--to another over-sensitive person, I suppose--when the +indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs. 'And where are you +now?' I asked. 'Not in--?' + +"He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was +of a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls too +non-existent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue. _I_ don't +know. He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me any clear +idea of the kind of place, kind of country, there is on the Other Side +of Things. Wherever he was, he seems to have fallen in with a set of +kindred spirits: ghosts of weak Cockney young men, who were on a footing +of Christian names, and among these there was certainly a lot of talk +about 'going haunting' and things like that. Yes--going haunting! They +seemed to think 'haunting' a tremendous adventure, and most of them +funked it all the time. And so primed, you know, he had come." + +"But really!" said Wish to the fire. + +"These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow," said Clayton, modestly. +"I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that was +the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and down, +with his thin voice going talking, talking about his wretched self, and +never a word of clear, firm statement from first to last. He was thinner +and sillier and more pointless than if he had been real and alive. Only +then, you know, he would not have been in my bedroom here--if he HAD +been alive. I should have kicked him out." + +"Of course," said Evans, "there ARE poor mortals like that." + +"And there's just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest of +us," I admitted. + +"What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that he did +seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had made of +haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told it would be +a 'lark'; he had come expecting it to be a 'lark,' and here it was, +nothing but another failure added to his record! He proclaimed himself +an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and I can quite believe it, that +he had never tried to do anything all his life that he hadn't made a +perfect mess of--and through all the wastes of eternity he never +would. If he had had sympathy, perhaps--. He paused at that, and stood +regarding me. He remarked that, strange as it might seem to me, nobody, +not any one, ever, had given him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. +I could see what he wanted straight away, and I determined to head him +off at once. I may be a brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, +the recipient of the confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, +ghost or body, is beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't +you brood on these things too much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do +is to get out of this get out of this--sharp. You pull yourself together +and TRY.' 'I can't,' he said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did." + +"Try!" said Sanderson. "HOW?" + +"Passes," said Clayton. + +"Passes?" + +"Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's how +he had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord! what a +business I had!" + +"But how could ANY series of passes--?" I began. + +"My dear man," said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great emphasis +on certain words, "you want EVERYTHING clear. _I_ don't know HOW. All +I know is that you DO--that HE did, anyhow, at least. After a fearful +time, you know, he got his passes right and suddenly disappeared." + +"Did you," said Sanderson, slowly, "observe the passes?" + +"Yes," said Clayton, and seemed to think. "It was tremendously queer," +he said. "There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent +room, in this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night +town. Not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when +he swung. There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the +dressing-table alight, that was all--sometimes one or other would flare +up into a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things +happened. 'I can't,' he said; 'I shall never--!' And suddenly he sat +down on a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob. +Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed! + +"'You pull yourself together,' I said, and tried to pat him on the back, +and... my confounded hand went through him! By that time, you know, +I wasn't nearly so--massive as I had been on the landing. I got the +queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out of him, as +it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the dressing-table. +'You pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and try.' And in order to +encourage and help him I began to try as well." + +"What!" said Sanderson, "the passes?" + +"Yes, the passes." + +"But--" I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space. + +"This is interesting," said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-bowl. +"You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away--" + +"Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES." + +"He didn't," said Wish; "he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there too." + +"That's precisely it," I said, finding my elusive idea put into words +for me. + +"That IS precisely it," said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the +fire. + +For just a little while there was silence. + +"And at last he did it?" said Sanderson. + +"At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at +last--rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up +abruptly and asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so +that he might see. 'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE I should spot +what was wrong at once.' And he did. '_I_ know,' he said. 'What do you +know?' said I. '_I_ know,' he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, 'I +CAN'T do it if you look at me--I really CAN'T; it's been that, partly, +all along. I'm such a nervous fellow that you put me out.' Well, we had +a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate +as a mule, and suddenly I had come over as tired as a dog--he tired me +out. 'All right,' I said, '_I_ won't look at you,' and turned towards +the mirror, on the wardrobe, by the bed. + +"He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in the +looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went his arms +and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush came to the last +gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your arms--and so, don't +you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't! He wasn't! I wheeled +round from the looking-glass to him. There was nothing, I was alone, +with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. What had happened? Had +anything happened? Had I been dreaming?... And then, with an absurd note +of finality about it, the clock upon the landing discovered the moment +was ripe for striking ONE. So!--Ping! And I was as grave and sober as +a judge, with all my champagne and whisky gone into the vast serene. +Feeling queer, you know--confoundedly QUEER! Queer! Good Lord!" + +He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. "That's all that happened," he +said. + +"And then you went to bed?" asked Evans. + +"What else was there to do?" + +I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, +something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our +desire. + +"And about these passes?" said Sanderson. + +"I believe I could do them now." + +"Oh!" said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub +the dottel out of the bowl of his clay. + +"Why don't you do them now?" said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife with +a click. + +"That's what I'm going to do," said Clayton. + +"They won't work," said Evans. + +"If they do--" I suggested. + +"You know, I'd rather you didn't," said Wish, stretching out his legs. + +"Why?" asked Evans. + +"I'd rather he didn't," said Wish. + +"But he hasn't got 'em right," said Sanderson, plugging too much tobacco +in his pipe. + +"All the same, I'd rather he didn't," said Wish. + +We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those +gestures was like mocking a serious matter. "But you don't believe--?" +I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing +something in his mind. "I do--more than half, anyhow, I do," said Wish. + +"Clayton," said I, "you're too good a liar for us. Most of it was all +right. But that disappearance... happened to be convincing. Tell us, +it's a tale of cock and bull." + +He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug, and +faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and then for +all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall, with an +intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level of his +eyes and so began.... + +Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings, +which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the +mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this +lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions +with a singular interest in his reddish eye. "That's not bad," he +said, when it was done. "You really do, you know, put things together, +Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out." + +"I know," said Clayton. "I believe I could tell you which." + +"Well?" + +"This," said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing and +thrust of the hands. + +"Yes." + +"That, you know, was what HE couldn't get right," said Clayton. "But how +do YOU--?" + +"Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't +understand at all," said Sanderson, "but just that phase--I do." He +reflected. "These happen to be a series of gestures--connected with a +certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know. Or else--HOW?" He +reflected still further. "I do not see I can do any harm in telling you +just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know; if you don't, +you don't." + +"I know nothing," said Clayton, "except what the poor devil let out last +night." + +"Well, anyhow," said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very +carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he +gesticulated with his hands. + +"So?" said Clayton, repeating. + +"So," said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again. + +"Ah, NOW," said Clayton, "I can do the whole thing--right." + +He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think +there was just a little hesitation in his smile. "If I begin--" he said. + +"I wouldn't begin," said Wish. + +"It's all right!" said Evans. "Matter is indestructible. You don't think +any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton into the +world of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as I'm concerned, +until your arms drop off at the wrists." + +"I don't believe that," said Wish, and stood up and put his arm on +Clayton's shoulder. "You've made me half believe in that story somehow, +and I don't want to see the thing done!" + +"Goodness!" said I, "here's Wish frightened!" + +"I am," said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. "I believe +that if he goes through these motions right he'll GO." + +"He'll not do anything of the sort," I cried. "There's only one way out +of this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that. Besides... +And such a ghost! Do you think--?" + +Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs and +stopped beside the tole and stood there. "Clayton," he said, "you're a +fool." + +Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him. "Wish," +he said, "is right and all you others are wrong. I shall go. I shall get +to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles through the +air, Presto!--this hearthrug will be vacant, the room will be blank +amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of fifteen stone will +plump into the world of shades. I'm certain. So will you be. I decline +to argue further. Let the thing be tried." + +"NO," said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised his +hands once more to repeat the spirit's passing. + +By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension--largely +because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on +Clayton--I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me as +though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my body had +been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was imperturbably +serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands and arms before us. +As he drew towards the end one piled up, one tingled in one's teeth. The +last gesture, I have said, was to swing the arms out wide open, with the +face held up. And when at last he swung out to this closing gesture I +ceased even to breathe. It was ridiculous, of course, but you know that +ghost-story feeling. It was after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. +Would he, after all--? + +There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his +upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp. We +hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from all +of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a +reassuring "NO!" For visibly--he wasn't going. It was all nonsense. He +had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that was +all!... And then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed. + +It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are +suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed, his +smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood there, +very gently swaying. + +That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping, +things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give, +and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms.... + +It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent thing. +We believed it, yet could not believe it.... I came out of a muddled +stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him, and his vest and shirt +were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay on his heart.... + +Well--the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience; +there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour; it +lies athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day. Clayton +had, indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to and so far from +our own, and he had gone thither by the only road that mortal man +may take. But whether he did indeed pass there by that poor ghost's +incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly by apoplexy in the +midst of an idle tale--as the coroner's jury would have us believe--is +no matter for my judging; it is just one of those inexplicable riddles +that must remain unsolved until the final solution of all things shall +come. All I certainly know is that, in the very moment, in the very +instant, of concluding those passes, he changed, and staggered, and fell +down before us--dead! + + + + +7. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD + +"It isn't every one who's been a god," said the sunburnt man. "But it's +happened to me. Among other things." + +I intimated my sense of his condescension. + +"It don't leave much for ambition, does it?" said the sunburnt man. + +"I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer. Gummy! +how time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll remember +anything of the Ocean Pioneer?" + +The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had read +it. The Ocean Pioneer? "Something about gold dust," I said vaguely, "but +the precise--" + +"That's it," he said. "In a beastly little channel she hadn't no +business in--dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh on +that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks +was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair have to follow +the rocks about to see where they're going next. Down she went in twenty +fathoms before you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand +pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said, in one form or another." + +"Survivors?" + +"Three." + +"I remember the case now," I said. "There was something about salvage--" + +But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so +extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more +ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. "Excuse me," he said, +"but--salvage!" + +He leant over towards me. "I was in that job," he said. "Tried to make +myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings-- + +"It ain't all jam being a god," said the sunburnt man, and for some time +conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms. At last he +took up his tale again. + +"There was me," said the sunburnt man, "and a seaman named Jacobs, and +Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set the +whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the jolly-boat, +suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence. He was a wonderful +hand at suggesting things. 'There was forty thousand pounds,' he said, +'on that ship, and it's for me to say just where she went down.' It +didn't need much brains to tumble to that. And he was the leader from +the first to the last. He got hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they +were brothers, and the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought +the diving-dress--a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus +instead of pumping. He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him +sick going down. And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart +he'd cooked up, as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and +twenty miles away. + +"I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink +and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean and +straightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert.' And we used to +speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers, who'd started +two days before us, were getting on, until our sides fairly ached. We +all messed together in the Sanderses' cabin--it was a curious crew, all +officers and no men--and there stood the diving-dress waiting its turn. +Young Sanders was a humorous sort of chap, and there certainly was +something funny in the confounded thing's great fat head and its stare, +and he made us see it too. 'Jimmie Goggles,' he used to call it, and +talk to it like a Christian. Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. +Goggles was, and all the little Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And +every blessed day all of us used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in +rum, and unscrew his eye and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead +of that nasty mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as +a cask of rum. It was jolly times we had in those days, I can tell +you--little suspecting, poor chaps! what was a-coming. + +"We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry, you +know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where the Ocean +Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy grey rock--lava +rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had to lay off about half a +mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was a thundering row who should +stop on board. And there she lay just as she had gone down, so that +you could see the top of the masts that was still standing perfectly +distinctly. The row ending in all coming in the boat. I went down in the +diving-dress on Friday morning directly it was light. + +"What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly. It was +a queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People over here +think every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore and palm trees +and surf, bless 'em! This place, for instance, wasn't a bit that way. +Not common rocks they were, undermined by waves; but great curved banks +like ironwork cinder heaps, with green slime below, and thorny shrubs +and things just waving upon them here and there, and the water glassy +calm and clear, and showing you a kind of dirty grey-black shine, with +huge flaring red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and +darting things going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and +pools and the heaps was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again +after the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption. And the other +way forest, too, and a kind of broken--what is it?--ambytheatre of black +and rusty cinders rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay in +the middle. + +"The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour about +things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight up or down +the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond a lump of rocks +towards the line of the sea. + +"Not a human being in sight," he repeated, and paused. + +"I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling so +safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing. I was +in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always, 'there's +her mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale, I caught +up the bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought the boat +round. When the windows were screwed and everything was all right, I +shut the valve from the air belt in order to help my sinking, and +jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't a ladder. I left the boat +pitching, and all of them staring down into the water after me, as my +head sank down into the weeds and blackness that lay about the mast. +I suppose nobody, not the most cautious chap in the world, would have +bothered about a lookout at such a desolate place. It stunk of solitude. + +"Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving. None of +us were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get the way of +it, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels damnable. Your +ears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt yourself yawning or +sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten times worse. And a pain +over the eyebrows here--splitting--and a feeling like influenza in the +head. And it isn't all heaven in your lungs and things. And going down +feels like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on. And you can't turn +your head to see what's above you, and you can't get a fair squint at +what's happening to your feet without bending down something painful. +And being deep it was dark, let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud +that formed the bottom. It was like going down out of the dawn back into +the night, so to speak. + +"The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of +fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came +with a kind of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the +fishes that had been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of +flies from road stuff in summer time. I turned on the compressed air +again--for the suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in +spite of the rum--and stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down +there, and that helped take off the stuffiness a bit. + +"When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was +an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind of +reddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed that +floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just a moony, +deep green-blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight list to +starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between the weeds, clear +except where the masts had snapped when she rolled, and vanishing into +black night towards the forecastle. There wasn't any dead on the decks, +most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose; but afterwards I found two +skeletons lying in the passengers' cabins, where death had come to them. +It was curious to stand on that deck and recognise it all, bit by bit; a +place against the rail where I'd been fond of smoking by starlight, and +the corner where an old chap from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we +had aboard. A comfortable couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now +you couldn't have got a meal for a baby crab off either of them. + +"I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I spent +the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went below +to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work hunting, +feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing blue +gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about, a dab at +my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. I kicked a +lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and picked up something +all knobs and spikes. What do you think? Backbone! But I never had +any particular feeling for bones. We had talked the affair over pretty +thoroughly, and Always knew just where the stuff was stowed. I found it +that trip. I lifted a box one end an inch or more." + +He broke off in his story. "I've lifted it," he said, "as near as that! +Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted inside my +helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting confounded +stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down twenty-five minutes +or more--and I thought this was good enough. I went up the companion +again, and as my eyes came up flush with the deck, a thundering great +crab gave a kind of hysterical jump and went scuttling off sideways. +Quite a start it gave me. I stood up clear on deck and shut the valve +behind the helmet to let the air accumulate to carry me up again--I +noticed a kind of whacking from above, as though they were hitting the +water with an oar, but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling +me to come up. + +"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood a-quiver +in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd seen young +Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was still calling him +this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt me serious--when I +began to lift and drive up towards the daylight. Just about the level +of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack! I came against something +sinking down, and a boot knocked in front of my helmet. Then something +else, struggling frightful. It was a big weight atop of me, whatever it +was, and moving and twisting about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, +or some such thing, if it hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't +wear boots. It was all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking +down again, and I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot +rolled free of me and shot down as I went up--" + +He paused. + +"I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear +driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what looked +like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went clutching +one another, and turning over, and both too far gone to leave go. And +in another second my helmet came a whack, fit to split, against the +niggers' canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full. + +"It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three +spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps kicking +about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw the game was up at +a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist, and went bubbling down again +after poor Always, in as awful a state of scare and astonishment as you +can well imagine. I passed young Sanders and the nigger going up again +and struggling still a bit, and in another moment I was standing in the +dim again on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer. + +"'Gummy,' thinks I, 'here's a fix!' Niggers? At first I couldn't see +anything for it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly +understand how much air there was to last me, but I didn't feel like +standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully +heady--quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd never repined with +these beastly natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good, coming +up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur of the moment, I +clambered over the side of the brig and landed among the weeds, and set +off through the darkness as fast as I could. I just stopped once and +knelt, and twisted back my head in the helmet and had a look up. It was +a most extraordinary bright green-blue above, and the two canoes and the +boat floating there very small and distant like a kind of twisted H. And +it made me feel sick to squint up at it, and think what the pitching and +swaying of the three meant. + +"It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering +about in that darkness, pressure something awful, like being buried in +sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing as it +seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit, I found +myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another squint to see +if anything was visible of the canoes and boats, and then kept on. I +stopped with my head a foot from the surface, and tried to see where I +was going, but, of course, nothing was to be seen but the reflection of +the bottom. Then out I dashed like knocking my head through a mirror. +Directly I got my eyes out of the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of +beach near the forest. I had a look round, but the natives and the brig +were both hidden by a big, hummucky heap of twisted lava, the born fool +in me suggested a run for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but +eased open one of the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out +of the water. You'd hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted. + +"Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your head +in a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five minutes +under water, you don't break any records running. I ran like a ploughboy +going to work. And half way to the trees I saw a dozen niggers or more, +coming out in a gaping, astonished sort of way to meet me. + +"I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of London. +I had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as a turned +turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands free, and +waited for them. There wasn't anything else for me to do. + +"But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'Jimmy +Goggles,' I says, 'it's your beauty does it.' I was inclined to be +a little light-headed, I think, with all these dangers about and the +change in the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' +I said, as if the savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm +hanged if I don't give you something to stare at,' I said, and with that +I screwed up the escape valve and turned on the compressed air from the +belt, until I was swelled out like a blown frog. Regular imposing it +must have been. I'm blessed if they'd come on a step; and presently one +and then another went down on their hands and knees. They didn't know +what to make of me, and they was doing the extra polite, which was very +wise and reasonable of them. I had half a mind to edge back seaward and +cut and run, but it seemed too hopeless. A step back and they'd have +been after me. And out of sheer desperation I began to march towards +them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps, and waving my blown-out arms +about, in a dignified manner. And inside of me I was singing as small as +a tomtit. + +"But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a +difficulty,--I've found that before and since. People like ourselves, +who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely +imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two of these +niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry trying to knock +their brains out on the ground. And on I went as slow and solemn and +silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber. It was evident they took +me for something immense. + +"Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures +to me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention +between me and something out at sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said. I +turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming round +a point, the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes. The +sight fairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some recognition, +so I waved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal manner. And then +I turned and stalked on towards the trees again. At that time I was +praying like mad, I remember, over and over again: 'Lord help me through +with it! Lord help me through with it!' It's only fools who know nothing +of dangers can afford to laugh at praying. + +"But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away like +that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of pressed +me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was clear to me they +didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever else they thought of +me, and for my own part I was never less anxious to own up to the old +country. + +"You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with savages, +but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me straight to their +kind of joss place to present me to the blessed old black stone there. +By this time I was beginning to sort of realise the depth of their +ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity I took my cue. I +started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long on one note, and began +waving my arms about a lot, and then very slowly and ceremoniously +turned their image over on its side and sat down on it. I wanted to sit +down badly, for diving-dresses ain't much wear in the tropics. Or, to +put it different like, they're a sight too much. It took away their +breath, I could see, my sitting on their joss, but in less time than a +minute they made up their minds and were hard at work worshipping me. +And I can tell you I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so +well, in spite of the weight on my shoulders and feet. + +"But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might think +when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before I went down, +and without the helmet on--for they might have been spying and hiding +since over night--they would very likely take a different view from the +others. I was in a deuce of a stew about that for hours, as it seemed, +until the shindy of the arrival began. + +"But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down. At the +cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting Egyptian +images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve hours, I +should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd hardly think what +it meant in that heat and stink. I don't think any of them dreamt of the +man inside. I was just a wonderful leathery great joss that had come +up with luck out of the water. But the fatigue! the heat! the beastly +closeness! the mackintosheriness and the rum! and the fuss! They lit a +stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there was before me, and brought +in a lot of gory muck--the worst parts of what they were feasting on +outside, the Beasts--and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting a bit +hungry, but I understand now how gods manage to do without eating, what +with the smell of burnt offerings about them. And they brought in a lot +of the stuff they'd got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was +a bit relieved to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the +compressed air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and +danced about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different +ways different people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet +handy I'd have gone for the lot of them--they made me feel that wild. +All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better to +do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house place +got a bit too shadowy for their taste--all these here savages are afraid +of the dark, you know--and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise, they built +big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in the darkness of my +hut, free to unscrew my windows a bit and think things over, and feel +just as bad as I liked. And, Lord! I was sick. + +"I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle on a +pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it. Come round +just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other chaps, +beastly drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate, and young +Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn't go out of my mind. +There was the treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer, and how one +might get it and hide it somewhere safer, and get away and come back for +it. And there was the puzzle where to get anything to eat. I tell you +I was fair rambling. I was afraid to ask by signs for food, for fear of +behaving too human, and so there I sat and hungered until very near +the dawn. Then the village got a bit quiet, and I couldn't stand it any +longer, and I went out and got some stuff like artichokes in a bowl +and some sour milk. What was left of these I put away among the other +offerings, just to give them a hint of my tastes. And in the morning +they came to worship, and found me sitting up stiff and respectable on +their previous god, just as they'd left me overnight. I'd got my back +against the central pillar of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. +And that's how I became a god among the heathen--a false god no doubt, +and blasphemous, but one can't always pick and choose. + +"Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits, but I +must confess that while I was god to these people they was extraordinary +successful. I don't say there's anything in it, mind you. They won +a battle with another tribe--I got a lot of offerings I didn't want +through it--they had wonderful fishing, and their crop of pourra was +exceptional fine. And they counted the capture of the brig among the +benefits I brought 'em. I must say I don't think that was a poor record +for a perfectly new hand. And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, +I was the tribal god of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four +months.... + +"What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress all the +time. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and a deuce of a +time I had too, making them understand what it was I wanted them to do. +That indeed was the great difficulty--making them understand my wishes. +I couldn't let myself down by talking their lingo badly--even if I'd +been able to speak at all--and I couldn't go flapping a lot of gestures +at them. So I drew pictures in sand and sat down beside them and hooted +like one o'clock. Sometimes they did the things I wanted all right, +and sometimes they did them all wrong. They was always very willing, +certainly. All the while I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded +business settled. Every night before the dawn I used to march out in +full rig and go off to a place where I could see the channel in which +the Ocean Pioneer lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried +to walk out to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I +didn't get back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers +out on the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that +vexed and tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going +down again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they +started rejoicing. I'm hanged if I like so much ceremony. + +"And then came the missionary. That missionary! It was in the afternoon, +and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on that old +black stone of theirs when he came. I heard a row outside and jabbering, +and then his voice speaking to an interpreter. 'They worship stocks and +stones,' he said, and I knew what was up, in a flash. I had one of my +windows out for comfort, and I sang out straight away on the spur of +the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says. 'You come inside,' I says, 'and +I'll punch your blooming head.' There was a kind of silence and more +jabbering, and in he came, Bible in hand, after the manner of them--a +little sandy chap in specks and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me +sitting there in the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, +struck him a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in +calico?' for I don't hold with missionaries. + +"I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite +outclassed with a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told him +to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. Down he goes +to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious as any of +them, took it as an act of worship and plumped down like a shot. All my +people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn't any more business to be +done in my village after that journey, not by the likes of him. + +"But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had any +sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure and taken him +into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child, with a few hours +to think it over, could have seen the connection between my diving-dress +and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week after he left I went out +one morning and saw the Motherhood, the salver's ship from Starr Race, +towing up the channel and sounding. The whole blessed game was up, and +all my trouble thrown away. Gummy! How wild I felt! And guying it in +that stinking silly dress! Four months!" + +The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. "Think of it," he said, when +he emerged to linguistic purity once more. "Forty thousand pounds worth +of gold." + +"Did the little missionary come back?" I asked. + +"Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man +inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous ceremony. +But there wasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate scenes and +explanations, and long before he came I was out of it all--going home to +Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day, and thieving food from +the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear. No clothes, no money. +Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying is. And just a squeak +of eight thousand pounds of gold--fifth share. But the natives cut up +rusty, thank goodness, because they thought it was him had driven their +luck away." + + + + +8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR + +Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin +it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of +investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that +he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of +exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise human life. +And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to +bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful days. I have +tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do better than describe +the effect the thing had on me. That there are astonishing experiences +in store for all in search of new sensations will become apparent +enough. + +Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone. +Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages has +already appeared in The Strand Magazine--I think late in 1899; but I am +unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to some one who has +never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps, recall the high forehead +and the singularly long black eyebrows that give such a Mephistophelian +touch to his face. He occupies one of those pleasant little detached +houses in the mixed style that make the western end of the Upper +Sandgate Road so interesting. His is the one with the Flemish gables and +the Moorish portico, and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay +window that he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening +we have so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but, +besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those men +who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been able to +follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from a very early +stage. Of course, the greater portion of his experimental work is not +done in Folkestone, but in Gower Street, in the fine new laboratory next +to the hospital that he has been the first to use. + +As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, the +special department in which Gibberne has gained so great and deserved a +reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs upon the nervous +system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics he is, I am told, +unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable eminence, and I suppose +in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles that centres about the +ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are little cleared places of +his making, little glades of illumination, that, until he sees fit to +publish his results, are still inaccessible to every other living man. +And in the last few years he has been particularly assiduous upon this +question of nervous stimulants, and already, before the discovery of the +New Accelerator, very successful with them. Medical science has to thank +him for at least three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators +of unrivalled value to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the +preparation known as Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives +already than any lifeboat round the coast. + +"But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet," he told me +nearly a year ago. "Either they increase the central energy without +affecting the nerves or they simply increase the available energy by +lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are unequal and local +in their operation. One wakes up the heart and viscera and leaves +the brain stupefied, one gets at the brain champagne fashion and does +nothing good for the solar plexus, and what I want--and what, if it's an +earthly possibility, I mean to have--is a stimulant that stimulates all +round, that wakes you up for a time from the crown of your head to the +tip of your great toe, and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody +else's one. Eh? That's the thing I'm after." + +"It would tire a man," I said. + +"Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that. But +just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with a little +phial like this"--he held up a little bottle of green glass and marked +his points with it--"and in this precious phial is the power to think +twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice as much work in a given +time as you could otherwise do." + +"But is such a thing possible?" + +"I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These +various preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem to show +that something of the sort... Even if it was only one and a half times +as fast it would do." + +"It WOULD do," I said. + +"If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up +against you, something urgent to be done, eh?" + +"He could dose his private secretary," I said. + +"And gain--double time. And think if YOU, for example, wanted to finish +a book." + +"Usually," I said, "I wish I'd never begun 'em." + +"Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out a case. +Or a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination." + +"Worth a guinea a drop," said I, "and more to men like that." + +"And in a duel, again," said Gibberne, "where it all depends on your +quickness in pulling the trigger." + +"Or in fencing," I echoed. + +"You see," said Gibberne, "if I get it as an all-round thing it will +really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal degree +it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice to other +people's once--" + +"I suppose," I meditated, "in a duel--it would be fair?" + +"That's a question for the seconds," said Gibberne. + +I harked back further. "And you really think such a thing IS possible?" +I said. + +"As possible," said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went +throbbing by the window, "as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--" + +He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge of his +desk with the green phial. "I think I know the stuff.... Already I've +got something coming." The nervous smile upon his face betrayed the +gravity of his revelation. He rarely talked of his actual experimental +work unless things were very near the end. "And it may be, it may be--I +shouldn't be surprised--it may even do the thing at a greater rate than +twice." + +"It will be rather a big thing," I hazarded. + +"It will be, I think, rather a big thing." + +But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for all +that. + +I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. "The New +Accelerator" he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident on +each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiological +results its use might have, and then he would get a little unhappy; at +others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long and anxiously how +the preparation might be turned to commercial account. "It's a good +thing," said Gibberne, "a tremendous thing. I know I'm giving the world +something, and I think it only reasonable we should expect the world to +pay. The dignity of science is all very well, but I think somehow I must +have the monopoly of the stuff for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL +the fun in life should go to the dealers in ham." + +My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. +I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. I +have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed +to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less than the absolute +acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with such a +preparation: he would live an active and record life indeed, but he +would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at twenty-five, and by thirty +well on the road to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far Gibberne +was only going to do for any one who took his drug exactly what Nature +has done for the Jews and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged +by fifty, and quicker in thought and act than we are all the time. The +marvel of drugs has always been great to my mind; you can madden a man, +calm a man, make him incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, +quicken this passion and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was +a new miracle to be added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors +use! But Gibberne was far too eager upon his technical points to enter +very keenly into my aspect of the question. + +It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation that +would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward as we +talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was done and +the New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met him as I was +going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think I was going to +get my hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet me--I suppose he was +coming to my house to tell me at once of his success. I remember that +his eyes were unusually bright and his face flushed, and I noted even +then the swift alacrity of his step. + +"It's done," he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast; "it's +more than done. Come up to my house and see." + +"Really?" + +"Really!" he shouted. "Incredibly! Come up and see." + +"And it does--twice? + +"It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff. Taste +it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth." He gripped my arm +and, walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot, went shouting +with me up the hill. A whole char-a-banc-ful of people turned and stared +at us in unison after the manner of people in chars-a-banc. It was one +of those hot, clear days that Folkestone sees so much of, every colour +incredibly bright and every outline hard. There was a breeze, of course, +but not so much breeze as sufficed under these conditions to keep me +cool and dry. I panted for mercy. + +"I'm not walking fast, am I?" cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace to +a quick march. + +"You've been taking some of this stuff," I puffed. + +"No," he said. "At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker +from which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took some +last night, you know. But that is ancient history, now." + +"And it goes twice?" I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful +perspiration. + +"It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!" cried Gibberne, with a +dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate. + +"Phew!" said I, and followed him to the door. + +"I don't know how many times it goes," he said, with his latch-key in +his hand. + +"And you--" + +"It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory +of vision into a perfectly new shape!... Heaven knows how many thousand +times. We'll try all that after--The thing is to try the stuff now." + +"Try the stuff?" I said, as we went along the passage. + +"Rather," said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. "There it is in +that little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?" + +I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous. I WAS +afraid. But on the other hand there is pride. + +"Well," I haggled. "You say you've tried it?" + +"I've tried it," he said, "and I don't look hurt by it, do I? I don't +even look livery and I FEEL--" + +I sat down. "Give me the potion," I said. "If the worst comes to the +worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one of the +most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the mixture?" + +"With water," said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe. + +He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair; his +manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street specialist. +"It's rum stuff, you know," he said. + +I made a gesture with my hand. + +"I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down to +shut your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's +time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length of +vibration, and not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind of shock +to the retina, a nasty giddy confusion just at the time, if the eyes are +open. Keep 'em shut." + +"Shut," I said. "Good!" + +"And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about. You +may fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will be going +several thousand times faster than you ever did before, heart, lungs, +muscles, brain--everything--and you will hit hard without knowing +it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just as you do now. Only +everything in the world will seem to be going ever so many thousand +times slower than it ever went before. That's what makes it so deuced +queer." + +"Lor'," I said. "And you mean--" + +"You'll see," said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced at the +material on his desk. "Glasses," he said, "water. All here. Mustn't take +too much for the first attempt." + +The little phial glucked out its precious contents. + +"Don't forget what I told you," he said, turning the contents of the +measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring +whisky. "Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness for +two minutes," he said. "Then you will hear me speak." + +He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass. + +"By-the-by," he said, "don't put your glass down. Keep it in your hand +and rest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now--" + +He raised his glass. + +"The New Accelerator," I said. + +"The New Accelerator," he answered, and we touched glasses and drank, +and instantly I closed my eyes. + +You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one has +taken "gas." For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then I heard +Gibberne telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened my eyes. There +he stood as he had been standing, glass still in hand. It was empty, +that was all the difference. + +"Well?" said I. + +"Nothing out of the way?" + +"Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more." + +"Sounds?" + +"Things are still," I said. "By Jove! yes! They ARE still. Except the +sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things. What +is it?" + +"Analysed sounds," I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced at the +window. "Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed in that way +before?" + +I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen, as it +were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze. + +"No," said I; "that's odd." + +"And here," he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally +I winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing it did +not even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless. + +"Roughly speaking," said Gibberne, "an object in these latitudes falls +16 feet in the first second. This glass is falling 16 feet in a second +now. Only, you see, it hasn't been falling yet for the hundredth part of +a second. That gives you some idea of the pace of my Accelerator." And +he waved his hand round and round, over and under the slowly sinking +glass. Finally, he took it by the bottom, pulled it down, and placed it +very carefully on the table. "Eh?" he said to me, and laughed. + +"That seems all right," I said, and began very gingerly to raise myself +from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and comfortable, and +quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all over. My heart, for +example, was beating a thousand times a second, but that caused me no +discomfort at all. I looked out of the window. An immovable cyclist, +head down and with a frozen puff of dust behind his driving-wheel, +scorched to overtake a galloping char-a-banc that did not stir. I gaped +in amazement at this incredible spectacle. "Gibberne," I cried, "how +long will this confounded stuff last?" + +"Heaven knows!" he answered. "Last time I took it I went to bed and +slept it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted some +minutes, I think--it seemed like hours. But after a bit it slows down +rather suddenly, I believe." + +I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened--I suppose because +there were two of us. "Why shouldn't we go out?" I asked. + +"Why not?" + +"They'll see us." + +"Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times faster +than the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come along! Which +way shall we go? Window, or door?" + +And out by the window we went. + +Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had, or +imagined, or read of other people having or imagining, that little raid +I made with Gibberne on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence of the +New Accelerator, was the strangest and maddest of all. We went out by +his gate into the road, and there we made a minute examination of the +statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the wheels and some of the legs +of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end of the whip-lash and the +lower jaw of the conductor--who was just beginning to yawn--were +perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance +seemed still. And quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came +from one man's throat! And as parts of this frozen edifice there were a +driver, you know, and a conductor, and eleven people! The effect as we +walked about the thing began by being madly queer, and ended by being +disagreeable. There they were, people like ourselves and yet not like +ourselves, frozen in careless attitudes, caught in mid-gesture. A girl +and a man smiled at one another, a leering smile that threatened to last +for evermore; a woman in a floppy capelline rested her arm on the rail +and stared at Gibberne's house with the unwinking stare of eternity; a +man stroked his moustache like a figure of wax, and another stretched a +tiresome stiff hand with extended fingers towards his loosened hat. We +stared at them, we laughed at them, we made faces at them, and then +a sort of disgust of them came upon us, and we turned away and walked +round in front of the cyclist towards the Leas. + +"Goodness!" cried Gibberne, suddenly; "look there!" + +He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the air +with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally languid +snail--was a bee. + +And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder than +ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all the sound it +made for us was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of prolonged last +sigh that passed at times into a sound like the slow, muffled ticking +of some monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect, strange, silent, +self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in mid-stride, promenading +upon the grass. I passed close to a little poodle dog suspended in the +act of leaping, and watched the slow movement of his legs as he sank +to earth. "Lord, look here!" cried Gibberne, and we halted for a moment +before a magnificent person in white faint-striped flannels, white +shoes, and a Panama hat, who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed +ladies he had passed. A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation +as we could afford, is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of +alert gaiety, and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely +close, that under its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball +and a little line of white. "Heaven give me memory," said I, "and I will +never wink again." + +"Or smile," said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth. + +"It's infernally hot, somehow," said I. "Let's go slower." + +"Oh, come along!" said Gibberne. + +We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of the people +sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their passive poses, but +the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not a restful thing to see. +A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen in the midst of a violent +struggle to refold his newspaper against the wind; there were many +evidences that all these people in their sluggish way were exposed to +a considerable breeze, a breeze that had no existence so far as our +sensations went. We came out and walked a little way from the crowd, and +turned and regarded it. To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, +smitten rigid, as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was +impossibly wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an +irrational, an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder +of it! All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had +begun to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so +far as the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. "The New +Accelerator--" I began, but Gibberne interrupted me. + +"There's that infernal old woman!" he said. + +"What old woman?" + +"Lives next door to me," said Gibberne. "Has a lapdog that yaps. Gods! +The temptation is strong!" + +There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times. +Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched the +unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running violently +with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most extraordinary. The +little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or make the slightest +sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an attitude of somnolent +repose, and Gibberne held it by the neck. It was like running about with +a dog of wood. "Gibberne," I cried, "put it down!" Then I said something +else. "If you run like that, Gibberne," I cried, "you'll set your +clothes on fire. Your linen trousers are going brown as it is!" + +He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge. +"Gibberne," I cried, coming up, "put it down. This heat is too much! +It's our running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!" + +"What?" he said, glancing at the dog. + +"Friction of the air," I shouted. "Friction of the air. Going too fast. +Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne! I'm all +over pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people stirring +slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog down." + +"Eh?" he said. + +"It's working off," I repeated. "We're too hot and the stuff's working +off! I'm wet through." + +He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose +performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep +of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning upward, +still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols of a knot of +chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow. "By Jove!" he cried. +"I believe--it is! A sort of hot pricking and--yes. That man's moving +his pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly. We must get out of this sharp." + +But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps! For we +might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe, have burst into +flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into flames! You know we +had neither of us thought of that.... But before we could even begin to +run the action of the drug had ceased. It was the business of a minute +fraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like +the drawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heard +Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. "Sit down," he said, and flop, down +upon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There +is a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole +stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration +of the band rushed together into a blast of music, the promenaders +put their feet down and walked their ways, the papers and flags began +flapping, smiles passed into words, the winker finished his wink and +went on his way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke. + +The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were, or +rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was like +slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything seemed +to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient feeling of +nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had seemed to hang +for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was expended fell with a +swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol! + +That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old gentleman +in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of us and +afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious eye, and, +finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us, I doubt if a +solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among them. Plop! We must +have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder almost at once, though +the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The attention of every +one--including even the Amusements' Association band, which on this +occasion, for the only time in its history, got out of tune--was +arrested by the amazing fact, and the still more amazing yapping and +uproar caused by the fact that a respectable, over-fed lap-dog sleeping +quietly to the east of the bandstand should suddenly fall through the +parasol of a lady on the west--in a slightly singed condition due to the +extreme velocity of its movements through the air. In these absurd +days, too, when we are all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and +superstitious as possible! People got up and trod on other people, +chairs were overturned, the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled +itself I do not know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves +from the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman in +the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were sufficiently +cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness and nausea and +confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting the crowd, directed +our steps back along the road below the Metropole towards Gibberne's +house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly the gentleman who +had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured sunshade using quite +unjustifiable threats and language to one of those chair-attendants who +have "Inspector" written on their caps. "If you didn't throw the dog," +he said, "who DID?" + +The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural +anxiety about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot, and +the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were scorched a +drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations I should have liked +to make on all these things. Indeed, I really made no observations of +any scientific value on that return. The bee, of course, had gone. I +looked for that cyclist, but he was already out of sight as we came into +the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, +however, with its people now all alive and stirring, was clattering +along at a spanking pace almost abreast of the nearer church. + +We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped in +getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the impressions +of our feet on the gravel of the path were unusually deep. + +So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically +we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things in +the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour while the +band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it had upon us +was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient inspection. +Considering all things, and particularly considering our rashness in +venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly have been +much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne +has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable +convenience, but its practicability it certainly demonstrated beyond all +cavil. + +Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under +control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad result, +taken measured doses under his direction; though I must confess I have +not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence. I may mention, +for example, that this story has been written at one sitting and without +interruption, except for the nibbling of some chocolate, by its means. +I began at 6.25, and my watch is now very nearly at the minute past the +half-hour. The convenience of securing a long, uninterrupted spell of +work in the midst of a day full of engagements cannot be exaggerated. +Gibberne is now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation, +with especial reference to its distinctive effects upon different types +of constitution. He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute +its present rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have +the reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable the +patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary time,--and +so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like absence of +alacrity, amidst the most animated or irritating surroundings. The two +things together must necessarily work an entire revolution in civilised +existence. It is the beginning of our escape from that Time Garment +of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator will enable us to +concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact upon any moment or occasion +that demands our utmost sense and vigour, the Retarder will enable us +to pass in passive tranquillity through infinite hardship and tedium. +Perhaps I am a little optimistic about the Retarder, which has indeed +still to be discovered, but about the Accelerator there is no possible +sort of doubt whatever. Its appearance upon the market in a convenient, +controllable, and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months. +It will be obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green +bottles, at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no +means excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called, +and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200, one +in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and white labels +respectively. + +No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things +possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even +criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging, as +it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations it +will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of +the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a +matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province. +We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and, as for the +consequences--we shall see. + + + + +9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION + +My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural +mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam +through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates +irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has come +with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an elaborate +clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination to be firm +and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant alike. He is a +sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many of the secret +practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather than interesting +things. His conversation is copious and given much to needless detail. +By many, indeed, his intercourse is condemned, to put it plainly, as +"boring," and such have even done me the compliment to wonder why I +countenance him. But, on the other hand, there is a large faction +who marvel at his countenancing such a dishevelled, discreditable +acquaintance as myself. Few appear to regard our friendship with +equanimity. But that is because they do not know of the link that binds +us, of my amiable connection via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past. + +About that past he displays an anxious modesty. "I do not KNOW what I +should do if it became known," he says; and repeats, impressively, "I do +not know WHAT I should do." As a matter of fact, I doubt if he would do +anything except get very red about the ears. But that will appear +later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter, since, as a general +rule--though I am prone to break it--the end of a story should come +after, rather than before, the beginning. And the beginning of the story +goes a long way back; indeed, it is now nearly twenty years since +Fate, by a series of complicated and startling manoeuvres, brought Mr. +Ledbetter, so to speak, into my hands. + +In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a +schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably the +same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage, the same or +similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise in his resting +expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when I saw him, and his +collar less of a collar than a wet bandage, and that may have helped to +bridge the natural gulf between us--but of that, as I say, later. + +The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with Mr. +Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly needed rest, +with a bright brown portmanteau marked "F. W. L.", a new white-and-black +straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel trousers. He was naturally +exhilarated at his release from school--for he was not very fond of the +boys he taught. After dinner he fell into a discussion with a talkative +person established in the boarding-house to which, acting on the advice +of his aunt, he had resorted. This talkative person was the only +other man in the house. Their discussion concerned the melancholy +disappearance of wonder and adventure in these latter days, the +prevalence of globe-trotting, the abolition of distance by steam and +electricity, the vulgarity of advertisement, the degradation of men +by civilisation, and many such things. Particularly was the talkative +person eloquent on the decay of human courage through security, a +security Mr. Ledbetter rather thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr. +Ledbetter, in the first delight of emancipation from "duty," and being +anxious, perhaps, to establish a reputation for manly conviviality, +partook, rather more freely than was advisable, of the excellent whisky +the talkative person produced. But he did not become intoxicated, he +insists. + +He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer edge +gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave old days +that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate--alone and +up the cliff road where the villas cluster together. + +He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still +bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life as +a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant, so +colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was there +for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval days, so +near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri and many a risky +blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt, a strange doubt, +springing out of some chance thought of tortures, and destructive +altogether of the position he had assumed that evening. + +Was he--Mr. Ledbetter--really, after all, so brave as he assumed? Would +he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and security vanish +suddenly from the earth? + +The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. "The burglar," he said, +"is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his single-handed +fight against the whole civilised world!" And Mr. Ledbetter had echoed +his envy. "They DO have some fun out of life," Mr. Ledbetter had said. +"And about the only people who do. Just think how it must feel to wire +a lawn!" And he had laughed wickedly. Now, in this franker intimacy of +self-communion he found himself instituting a comparison between his +own brand of courage and that of the habitual criminal. He tried to +meet these insidious questionings with blank assertion. "I could do all +that," said Mr. Ledbetter. "I long to do all that. Only I do not give +way to my criminal impulses. My moral courage restrains me." But he +doubted even while he told himself these things. + +Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently +situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping black, +wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture of it came +with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself climbing up that +balcony, crouching--plunging into that dark, mysterious interior. "Bah! +You would not dare," said the Spirit of Doubt. "My duty to my fellow-men +forbids," said Mr. Ledbetter's self-respect. + +It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very +still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one warm +oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life. He turned +and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window. He stood for +a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives. "Let us put things +to the test," said Doubt. "For the satisfaction of these intolerable +doubts, show that you dare go into that house. Commit a burglary in +blank. That, at any rate, is no crime." Very softly he opened and +shut the gate and slipped into the shadow of the shrubbery. "This is +foolish," said Mr. Ledbetter's caution. "I expected that," said Doubt. +His heart was beating fast, but he was certainly not afraid. He was NOT +afraid. He remained in that shadow for some considerable time. + +The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done in a +rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from the gate into +the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious climbing roses +made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that black shadow by the +stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and take a closer view of this +gaping breach in the domestic defences, the open window. For a while +Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night, and then that insidious whisky +tipped the balance. He dashed forward. He went up the trellis with +quick, convulsive movements, swung his legs over the parapet of the +balcony, and dropped panting in the shadow even as he had designed. He +was trembling violently, short of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, +but his mood was exultation. He could have shouted to find he was so +little afraid. + +A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's "Mephistopheles" came into +his mind as he crouched there. "I feel like a cat on the tiles," he +whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected--this +adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom burglary +was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And he was acting in +the bravest manner! + +And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare +do that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or +passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about +it, or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility +of a sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then raised +his eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on a pedestal, +and a little startling at first, was a nearly life-size gesticulating +bronze. He ducked, and after some time he peered again. Beyond was a +broad landing, faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric of bead curtain, very +black and sharp, against a further window; a broad staircase, plunging +into a gulf of darkness below; and another ascending to the second +floor. He glanced behind him, but the stillness of the night was +unbroken. "Crime," he whispered, "crime," and scrambled softly and +swiftly over the sill into the house. His feet fell noiselessly on a mat +of skin. He was a burglar indeed! + +He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was a +scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his enterprise. +A short "miaow," a spitting, and a rush into silence, spoke reassuringly +of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every one was abed, it seemed. +So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one is so minded. He was glad he +had put it to the test. He determined to take some petty trophy, just to +prove his freedom from any abject fear of the law, and depart the way he +had come. + +He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again. +Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this: they +went into rooms, they forced safes. Well--he was not afraid. He could +not force safes, because that would be a stupid want of consideration +for his hosts. But he would go into rooms--he would go upstairs. More: +he told himself that he was perfectly secure; an empty house could not +be more reassuringly still. He had to clench his hands, nevertheless, +and summon all his resolution before he began very softly to ascend the +dim staircase, pausing for several seconds between each step. Above was +a square landing with one open and several closed doors; and all the +house was still. For a moment he stood wondering what would happen if +some sleeper woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit +bedroom, the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in +three interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder--his +trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had ascended. It +was as easy as-- + +Hist!... + +Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house--and then the noise of a +latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match in +the hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden discovery +of the folly upon which he had come. "How on earth am I to get out of +this?" said Mr. Ledbetter. + +The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped +against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In a +flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood for +a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. "My goodness! What +a FOOL I have been!" he whispered, and then darted swiftly across the +shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he had just come. +He stood listening--quivering. The footsteps reached the first-floor +landing. + +Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment +was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven for +a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds too soon. +He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing candle-light +appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the shadows ran +wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down. + +"Lord, what a day!" said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed he +deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging by the feet, +decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went to the door and +locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows carefully and pulled +down the blinds, and returning sat down upon the bed with startling +ponderosity. + +"WHAT a day!" he said. "Good Lord!" and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter +inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots were +good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance suggested +a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed some upper +garments--a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred--and casting +them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less noisily, and as it +seemed cooling from a considerable temperature. At intervals he muttered +to himself, and once he laughed softly. And Mr. Ledbetter muttered to +himself, but he did not laugh. "Of all the foolish things," said Mr. +Ledbetter. "What on earth am I to do now?" + +His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between the +stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount of +light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain, save +for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled +confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the +edge of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously +depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened until +the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was a luxurious +one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors and so forth of the +furniture, well equipped. + +What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until this +person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping, to +creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony seemed +the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump from the +balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances against him, +Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting forth his +head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary to attract his +attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining his unfortunate +intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he found these sentences +hard to choose. "No doubt, sir, my appearance is peculiar," or, "I +trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous appearance from +beneath you," was about as much as he could get. + +Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose they did +not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his unblemished +high character count for nothing? Technically he was a burglar, beyond +dispute. Following out this train of thought, he was composing a lucid +apology for "this technical crime I have committed," to be delivered +before sentence in the dock, when the stout gentleman got up and +began walking about the room. He locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. +Ledbetter had a transient hope that he might be undressing. But, no! He +seated himself at the writing-table, and began to write and then tear up +documents. Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with +the odour of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils. + +"The position I had assumed," said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me of +these things, "was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse bar +beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a disproportionate +share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I experienced what is +called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The pressure of my hands on the +coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became painful. My knees, too, were +painful, my trousers being drawn tightly over them. At that time I wore +rather higher collars than I do now--two and a half inches, in fact--and +I discovered what I had not remarked before, that the edge of the one +I wore was frayed slightly under the chin. But much worse than these +things was an itching of my face, which I could only relieve by violent +grimacing--I tried to raise my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve +alarmed me. After a time I had to desist from this relief also, +because--happily in time--I discovered that my facial contortions were +shifting my glasses down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have +exposed me, and as it was they came to rest in an oblique position of +by no means stable equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an +intermittent desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In +fact, quite apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical +discomfort became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to +stay there motionless, nevertheless." + +After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This deepened +into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink--twenty-five chinks--a rap on the +writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout legs. It dawned +upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking of gold. He +became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity grew. Already, +if that was the case, this extraordinary man must have counted some +hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could resist it no longer, +and he began very cautiously to fold his arms and lower his head to the +level of the floor, in the hope of peeping under the valance. He moved +his feet, and one made a slight scraping on the floor. Suddenly the +chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became rigid. After a while the chinking +was resumed. Then it ceased again, and everything was still, except Mr. +Ledbetter's heart--that organ seemed to him to be beating like a drum. + +The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor, and +he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were quite still. +The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back, as it seemed, under +the chair of the owner. Everything was quite still, everything continued +still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter that the unknown was in a fit +or suddenly dead, with his head upon the writing-table.... + +The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep became +irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand forward, +projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance immediately +next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now the stranger's +knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then--he was staring at +the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over the writing-table at his +head. + +"Come out of that, you scoundrel!" said the voice of the stout gentleman +in a tone of quiet concentration. "Come out. This side, and now. None of +your hanky-panky--come right out, now." + +Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but without +any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told. + +"Kneel," said the stout gentleman, "and hold up your hands." + +The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from +all-fours and held up his hands. "Dressed like a parson," said the stout +gentleman. "I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too! You SCOUNDREL! +What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night? What the deuce +possessed you to get under my bed?" + +He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to several +very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal appearance. He +was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr. Ledbetter: he was as +stout as his legs had promised, he had rather delicately-chiselled small +features distributed over a considerable area of whitish face, and quite +a number of chins. And the note of his voice had a sort of whispering +undertone. + +"What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?" + +Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He +coughed. "I can quite understand--" he said. + +"Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!--you scoundrel. Don't you move that +hand." + +"It's soap," said Mr. Ledbetter. "From your washstand. No doubt it--" + +"Don't talk," said the stout man. "I see it's soap. Of all incredible +things." + +"If I might explain--" + +"Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for +explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?" + +"In a few minutes, if you--" + +"Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver I'll +shoot. Have you any mates?" + +"No," said Mr. Ledbetter. + +"I suppose it's a lie," said the stout man. "But you'll pay for it if +it is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs? You won't +get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed! I reckon it's +a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned." + +"I don't see how I could prove an alibi," remarked Mr. Ledbetter, trying +to show by his conversation that he was an educated man. There was a +pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside his captor was a +large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers, and that there were torn +and burnt papers on the table. And in front of these, and arranged +methodically along the edge were rows and rows of little yellow +rouleaux--a hundred times more gold than Mr. Ledbetter had seen in all +his life before. The light of two candles, in silver candlesticks, fell +upon these. The pause continued. "It is rather fatiguing holding up my +hands like this," said Mr. Ledbetter, with a deprecatory smile. + +"That's all right," said the fat man. "But what to do with you I don't +exactly know." + +"I know my position is ambiguous." + +"Lord!" said the fat man, "ambiguous! And goes about with his own +soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming +burglar, you are--if ever there was one!" + +"To be strictly accurate," said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his glasses +slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons. + +The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution crossed +his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put his other hand +to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter, and his eye went +down to the dropped pince-nez. + +"Full-cock now, anyhow," said the fat man, after a pause, and his breath +seemed to catch. "But I'll tell you, you've never been so near death +before. Lord! I'M almost glad. If it hadn't been that the revolver +wasn't cocked you'd be lying dead there now." + +Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying. + +"A miss is as good as a mile. It's lucky for both of us it wasn't. +Lord!" He blew noisily. "There's no need for you to go pale-green for a +little thing like that." + +"If I can assure you, sir--" said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort. + +"There's only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I'm bust--a +little game I've got on is bust. That won't do. If I tie you up and +leave you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow's Sunday, and +Monday's Bank Holiday--I've counted on three clear days. Shooting +you's murder--and hanging; and besides, it will bust the whole blooming +kernooze. I'm hanged if I can think what to do--I'm hanged if I can." + +"Will you permit me--" + +"You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I'm blessed if you don't. +Of all the burglars you are the--Well! No!--I WON'T permit you. There +isn't time. If you start off jawing again, I'll shoot right in your +stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're going to do first, +my man, is an examination for concealed arms--an examination for +concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you to do a thing, don't +start off at a gabble--do it brisk." + +And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol at +Mr. Ledbetter's head, the stout man stood him up and searched him for +weapons. "Why, you ARE a burglar!" he said "You're a perfect amateur. +You haven't even a pistol-pocket in the back of your breeches. No, you +don't! Shut up, now." + +So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter take +off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver at +one ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted. From +the stout man's point of view that was evidently the only possible +arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had to put down +the revolver. So that even the gold on the table was handled by Mr. +Ledbetter. This nocturnal packing was peculiar. The stout man's idea was +evidently to distribute the weight of the gold as unostentatiously +as possible through his luggage. It was by no means an inconsiderable +weight. There was, Mr. Ledbetter says, altogether nearly L18,000 in gold +in the black bag and on the table. There were also many little rolls +of L5 bank-notes. Each rouleau of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter +in paper. These rouleaux were then put neatly in cigar boxes and +distributed between a travelling trunk, a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. +About L600 went in a tobacco tin in a dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a +number of L5 notes the stout man pocketed. Occasionally he objurgated +Mr. Ledbetter's clumsiness, and urged him to hurry, and several times he +appealed to Mr. Ledbetter's watch for information. + +Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man +the keys. It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of +midnight the stout man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he sat +at a reasonably safe distance on the trunk and held the revolver handy +and waited. He appeared to be now in a less aggressive mood, and having +watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered a few remarks. + +"From your accent I judge you are a man of some education," he said, +lighting a cigar. "No--DON'T begin that explanation of yours. I know it +will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar to be +interested in other men's lying. You are, I say, a person of education. +You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated people you might +pass as a curate." + +"I AM a curate," said Mr. Ledbetter, "or, at least--" + +"You are trying to be. I know. But you didn't ought to burgle. You are +not the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it--the thing will have +been pointed out to you before--a coward." + +"Do you know," said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening, "it +was that very question--" + +The stout man waved him into silence. + +"You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two things. +Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my own part, I +embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man could be doing with +all this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight!... Ten. Eleven. Twelve. +There is something very impressive to me in that slow beating of the +hours. Time--space; what mysteries they are! What mysteries.... It's +time for us to be moving. Stand up!" + +And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the +dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder the +trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone bag in +his disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled perilously +downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat, the hatbox, +and the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr. Ledbetter's +strength, and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs. + +"The back door," he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through a +conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him. "Never +mind the crockery," said the stout man; "it's good for trade. We wait +here until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You have!" + +Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. "Last night," he gasped, +"I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt--" + +"There's no need for you to incriminate yourself," said the stout +gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum. Mr. +Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it. + +There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was taken to +the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man in yachting +costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started violently and +clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout man. "Bingham!" he +cried, "who's this?" + +"Only a little philanthropic do of mine--burglar I'm trying to reform. +Caught him under my bed just now. He's all right. He's a frightful ass. +He'll be useful to carry some of our things." + +The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter's presence at +first, but the stout man reassured him. + +"He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him. +No!--don't start talking, for goodness' sake." + +They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still +bowing Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume walked +in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came Mr. Ledbetter +like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box, coat, and revolver as +before. The house was one of those that have their gardens right up to +the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden stairway, descending to a +bathing tent dimly visible on the beach. Below was a boat pulled up, and +a silent little man with a black face stood beside it. "A few moments' +explanation," said Mr. Ledbetter; "I can assure you--" Somebody kicked +him, and he said no more. + +They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled him +aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better name than +"scoundrel" and "burglar" all that night. But they spoke in undertones +so that the general public was happily unaware of his ignominy. They +hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange, unsympathetic Orientals, +and partly they thrust him and partly he fell down a gangway into a +noisome, dark place, where he was to remain many days--how many he does +not know, because he lost count among other things when he was seasick. +They fed him on biscuits and incomprehensible words; they gave him water +to drink mixed with unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches +where they put him, night and day there were cockroaches, and in the +night-time there were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took +his watch--but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. +And five or six times the five Lascars--if they were Lascars--and the +Chinaman and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and +took him aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and +three-anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an +interested manner. + +Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who have +lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit, though they +made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest burglar they +had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again. The fair man +was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play; but Mr. Bingham, +now that the evident anxiety of his departure from England was assuaged, +displayed a vein of genial philosophy. He enlarged upon the mystery of +space and time, and quoted Kant and Hegel--or, at least, he said he did. +Several times Mr. Ledbetter got as far as: "My position under your bed, +you know--," but then he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do +some such intervening thing. After his third failure, the fair man got +quite to look for this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after +that, he would roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. +"Same old start, same old story; good old burglar!" the fair-haired man +would say. + +So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one evening +he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over the side and +put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring. Mr. Bingham came in +the boat with him, giving him good advice all the way, and waving his +last attempts at an explanation aside. + +"I am really NOT a burglar," said Mr. Ledbetter. + +"You never will be," said Mr. Bingham. "You'll never make a burglar. I'm +glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession a man must +study his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later you will fail. +Compare myself, for example. All my life I have been in banks--I have +got on in banks. I have even been a bank manager. But was I happy? No. +Why wasn't I happy? Because it did not suit my temperament. I am too +adventurous--too versatile. Practically I have thrown it over. I do not +suppose I shall ever manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, +no doubt; but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament--at last.... +No! I shall never manage a bank again. + +"Now, your temperament unfits you for crime--just as mine unfits me +for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do not even +recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man. YOUR lay +is the philanthropic lay--that is your lay. With that voice--the +Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young--something +in that line. You think it over. + +"The island we are approaching has no name apparently--at least, there +is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while you are +there--while you are thinking about all these things. It has quite +drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines--one of the +Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of the Grenadines. +There are quantities of Grenadines, but the majority are out of sight. +I have often wondered what these islands are for--now, you see, I am +wiser. This one at least is for you. Sooner or later some simple native +will come along and take you off. Say what you like about us then--abuse +us, if you like--we shan't care a solitary Grenadine! And here--here +is half a sovereign's worth of silver. Do not waste that in foolish +dissipation when you return to civilisation. Properly used, it may give +you a fresh start in life. And do not--Don't beach her, you beggars, +he can wade!--Do not waste the precious solitude before you in foolish +thoughts. Properly used, it may be a turning-point in your career. Waste +neither money nor time. You will die rich. I'm sorry, but I must ask you +to carry your tucker to land in your arms. No; it's not deep. Curse +that explanation of yours! There's not time. No, no, no! I won't listen. +Overboard you go!" + +And the falling night found Mr. Ledbetter--the Mr. Ledbetter who had +complained that adventure was dead--sitting beside his cans of food, +his chin resting upon his drawn-up knees, staring through his glasses in +dismal mildness over the shining, vacant sea. + +He was picked up in the course of three days by a negro fisherman +and taken to St. Vincent's, and from St. Vincent's he got, by the +expenditure of his last coins, to Kingston, in Jamaica. And there he +might have foundered. Even nowadays he is not a man of affairs, and then +he was a singularly helpless person. He had not the remotest idea what +he ought to do. The only thing he seems to have done was to visit all +the ministers of religion he could find in the place to borrow a passage +home. But he was much too dirty and incoherent--and his story far +too incredible for them. I met him quite by chance. It was close upon +sunset, and I was walking out after my siesta on the road to Dunn's +Battery, when I met him--I was rather bored, and with a whole evening +on my hands--luckily for him. He was trudging dismally towards the +town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical cut of his dust-stained, +filthy costume caught my humour. Our eyes met. He hesitated. "Sir," he +said, with a catching of the breath, "could you spare a few minutes for +what I fear will seem an incredible story?" + +"Incredible!" I said. + +"Quite," he answered eagerly. "No one will believe it, alter it though I +may. Yet I can assure you, sir--" + +He stopped hopelessly. The man's tone tickled me. He seemed an odd +character. "I am," he said, "one of the most unfortunate beings alive." + +"Among other things, you haven't dined?" I said, struck with an idea. + +"I have not," he said solemnly, "for many days." + +"You'll tell it better after that," I said; and without more ado led the +way to a low place I knew, where such a costume as his was unlikely to +give offence. And there--with certain omissions which he subsequently +supplied--I got his story. At first I was incredulous, but as the wine +warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing which his misfortunes +had added to his manner disappeared, I began to believe. At last, I was +so far convinced of his sincerity that I got him a bed for the night, +and next day verified the banker's reference he gave me through my +Jamaica banker. And that done, I took him shopping for underwear +and such like equipments of a gentleman at large. Presently came the +verified reference. His astonishing story was true. I will not amplify +our subsequent proceedings. He started for England in three days' time. + +"I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough," began the letter he +wrote me from England, "for all your kindness to a total stranger," and +proceeded for some time in a similar strain. "Had it not been for your +generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned in time for +the resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few minutes of reckless +folly would, perhaps, have proved my ruin. As it is, I am entangled in +a tissue of lies and evasions, of the most complicated sort, to account +for my sunburnt appearance and my whereabouts. I have rather carelessly +told two or three different stories, not realising the trouble this +would mean for me in the end. The truth I dare not tell. I have +consulted a number of law-books in the British Museum, and there is +not the slightest doubt that I have connived at and abetted and aided a +felony. That scoundrel Bingham was the Hithergate bank manager, I find, +and guilty of the most flagrant embezzlement. Please, please burn this +letter when read--I trust you implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my +aunt nor her friend who kept the boarding-house at which I was staying +seem altogether to believe a guarded statement I have made them +practically of what actually happened. They suspect me of some +discreditable adventure, but what sort of discreditable adventure they +suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says she would forgive me if I +told her everything. I have--I have told her MORE than everything, and +still she is not satisfied. It would never do to let them know the truth +of the case, of course, and so I represent myself as having been waylaid +and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to know WHY they waylaid and +gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht. I do not know. Can +you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing. If, when you wrote, you +could write on TWO sheets so that I could show her one, and on that one +if you could show clearly that I really WAS in Jamaica this summer, +and had come there by being removed from a ship, it would be of great +service to me. It would certainly add to the load of my obligation +to you--a load that I fear I can never fully repay. Although if +gratitude..." And so forth. At the end he repeated his request for me to +burn the letter. + +So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach +with his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him +before she died. + + + + +10. THE STOLEN BODY + +Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, and +Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was well known +among those interested in psychical research as a liberal-minded and +conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried man, and instead of +living in the suburbs, after the fashion of his class, he occupied rooms +in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in the +questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living, and +in November, 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in conjunction +with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility +of projecting an apparition of one's self by force of will through +space. + +Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a +pre-arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the +Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then +fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel +had acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could, he +attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself as a +"phantom of the living" across the intervening space of nearly two miles +into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried without +any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth occasion Mr. Vincey +did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition of Mr. Bessel standing +in his room. He states that the appearance, although brief, was very +vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's face was white and his +expression anxious, and, moreover, that his hair was disordered. For +a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation, was too +surprised to speak or move, and in that moment it seemed to him as +though the figure glanced over its shoulder and incontinently vanished. + +It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any +phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence of mind to +snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when he +did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partial +success, he made a note of the exact time, and at once took a cab to the +Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result. + +He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open to the +night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary disorder. +An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor; its neck had +been broken off against the inkpot on the bureau and lay beside it. +An octagonal occasional table, which carried a bronze statuette and +a number of choice books, had been rudely overturned, and down the +primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed for +the mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chintz curtains had +been violently torn from its rings and thrust upon the fire, so that +the smell of its smouldering filled the room. Indeed the whole place was +disarranged in the strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who +had entered sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, +could scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these +unanticipated things. + +Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the +entrance lodge. "Where is Mr. Bessel?" he asked. "Do you know that all +the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?" The porter said nothing, +but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's apartment to see +the state of affairs. "This settles it," he said, surveying the lunatic +confusion. "I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's gone off. He's mad!" + +He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour previously, +that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's apparition in Mr. +Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates of +the Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with disordered hair, and had +vanished into the direction of Bond Street. "And as he went past me," +said the porter, "he laughed--a sort of gasping laugh, with his mouth +open and his eyes glaring--I tell you, sir, he fair scared me!--like +this." + +According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh. "He +waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing--like that. +And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that one word, +'LIFE!'" + +"Dear me," said Mr. Vincey. "Tut, tut," and "Dear me!" He could think +of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised. He turned +from the room to the porter and from the porter to the room in the +gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably Mr. Bessel would +come back presently and explain what had happened, their conversation +was unable to proceed. "It might be a sudden toothache," said +the porter, "a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping on him +suddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken things myself before now +in such a case..." He thought. "If it was, why should he say 'LIFE' to +me as he went past?" + +Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last Mr. +Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having addressed +a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous position on the +bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind to his own premises +in Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock. He was at a loss to +account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis. He tried to +read, but he could not do so; he went for a short walk, and was so +preoccupied that he narrowly escaped a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; +and at last--a full hour before his usual time--he went to bed. For a +considerable time he could not sleep because of his memory of the silent +confusion of Mr. Bessel's apartment, and when at length he did attain an +uneasy slumber it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing +dream of Mr. Bessel. + +He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and +contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested +perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He +even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling +distressfully to him, though at the time he considered this to be an +illusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. Vincey awoke. For a +space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed with that +vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out of +dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself, and +turned over and went to sleep again, only for the dream to return with +enhanced vividness. + +He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in +overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer +possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire +calamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but at +last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas, and +dressed, and set out through the deserted streets--deserted, save for a +noiseless policeman or so and the early news carts--towards Vigo Street +to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned. + +But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some +unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards Covent +Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw the +market in front of him--a queer effect of glowing yellow lights and busy +black figures. He became aware of a shouting, and perceived a figure +turn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards him. He knew at +once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel transfigured. He +was hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open, he grasped a +bone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his mouth was pulled +awry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly. Their encounter was +the affair of an instant. "Bessel!" cried Vincey. + +The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey or of +his own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with the stick, +hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye. Mr. Vincey, stunned +and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing, and fell heavily on +the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel leapt over him as he +fell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had vanished, and a policeman and +a number of garden porters and salesmen were rushing past towards Long +Acre in hot pursuit. + +With the assistance of several passers-by--for the whole street was +speedily alive with running people--Mr. Vincey struggled to his feet. +He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see his injury. A +multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his safety, and then to +tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as they regarded Mr. Bessel. +He had suddenly appeared in the middle of the market screaming "LIFE! +LIFE!" striking left and right with a blood-stained walking-stick, and +dancing and shouting with laughter at each successful blow. A lad and +two women had broken heads, and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little +child had been knocked insensible, and for a time he had driven every +one before him, so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he +made a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through +the window of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the +foremost of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him. + +Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit of +his friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence of the +indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had half stunned +him, and while this was still no more than a resolution came the news, +shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded his pursuers. At +first Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but the universality of +the report, and presently the dignified return of two futile policemen, +convinced him. After some aimless inquiries he returned towards Staple +Inn, padding a handkerchief to a now very painful nose. + +He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him +indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst +of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make him +appear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed a problem +beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain this. It seemed +to him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but the order of things +must be insane. But he could think of nothing to do. He shut himself +carefully into his room, lit his fire--it was a gas fire with asbestos +bricks--and, fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained bathing +his injured face, or holding up books in a vain attempt to read, until +dawn. Throughout that vigil he had a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel +was endeavouring to speak to him, but he would not let himself attend to +any such belief. + +About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed and +slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested and anxious, +and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news of +Mr. Bessel's aberration--it had come too late for them. Mr. Vincey's +perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added fresh irritation, +became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless visit to the Albany, +he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart, Mr. Bessel's partner, +and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest friend. + +He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing of the +outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very vision that Mr. +Vincey had seen--Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled, pleading earnestly +by his gestures for help. That was his impression of the import of his +signs. "I was just going to look him up in the Albany when you arrived," +said Mr. Hart. "I was so sure of something being wrong with him." + +As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided to +inquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. "He is bound +to be laid by the heels," said Mr. Hart. "He can't go on at that pace +for long." But the police authorities had not laid Mr. Bessel by the +heels. They confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight experiences and added fresh +circumstances, some of an even graver character than those he knew--a +list of smashed glass along the upper half of Tottenham Court Road, an +attack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road, and an atrocious assault upon +a woman. All these outrages were committed between half-past twelve and +a quarter to two in the morning, and between those hours--and, indeed, +from the very moment of Mr. Bessel's first rush from his rooms at +half-past nine in the evening--they could trace the deepening violence +of his fantastic career. For the last hour, at least from before one, +that is, until a quarter to two, he had run amuck through London, +eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him. + +But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses +were multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or +pursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to +two he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street, +flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame +therefrom at the windows of the houses he passed. But none of the +policemen on Euston Road beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor any of +those in the side streets down which he must have passed had he left the +Euston Road, had seen anything of him. Abruptly he disappeared. Nothing +of his subsequent doings came to light in spite of the keenest inquiry. + +Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerable +comfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: "He is bound to be laid by the heels +before long," and in that assurance he had been able to suspend his +mental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined to add +new impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers of his +acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory might not have +played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any of these things +could possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he hunted up Mr. Hart +again to share the intolerable weight on his mind. He found Mr. Hart +engaged with a well-known private detective, but as that gentleman +accomplished nothing in this case, we need not enlarge upon his +proceedings. + +All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active +inquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion in +the back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention, and all +through the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face of anguish pursued +him through his dreams. And whenever he saw Mr. Bessel in his dreams he +also saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that seemed to be +pursuing Mr. Bessel. + +It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certain +remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting +attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her. +She was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. Wilson +Paget, and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before, +repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help. +But scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Paget +interrupted him. "Last night--just at the end," he said, "we had a +communication." + +He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain words +written in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably the handwriting +of Mr. Bessel! + +"How did you get this?" said Mr. Vincey. "Do you mean--?" + +"We got it last night," said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptions +from Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had been +obtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into a +condition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under her +eyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk very +rapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time one +or both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils are +provided they will then write messages simultaneously with and quite +independently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many she is +considered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated Mrs. +Piper. It was one of these messages, the one written by her left hand, +that Mr. Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight words written +disconnectedly: "George Bessel... trial excavn.... Baker Street... +help... starvation." Curiously enough, neither Doctor Paget nor the two +other inquirers who were present had heard of the disappearance of +Mr. Bessel--the news of it appeared only in the evening papers of +Saturday--and they had put the message aside with many others of a vague +and enigmatical sort that Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered. + +When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once with +great energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of Mr. Bessel. +It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the inquiries of Mr. +Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a genuine one, and that +Mr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid. + +He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk and +abandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric railway +near Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were broken. +The shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and over this, +incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged gentleman, +must have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft. He was saturated in +colza oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him, but luckily the flame +had been extinguished by his fall. And his madness had passed from him +altogether. But he was, of course, terribly enfeebled, and at the sight +of his rescuers he gave way to hysterical weeping. + +In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the house +of Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a sedative +treatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis through +which he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second day he +volunteered a statement. + +Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated this +statement--to myself among other people--varying the details as the +narrator of real experiences always does, but never by any chance +contradicting himself in any particular. And the statement he makes is +in substance as follows. + +In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to his +experiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's +first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey, +were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all of +them he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting out of the +body--"willing it with all my might," he says. At last, almost against +expectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that he, being alive, +did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body and pass into some +place or state outside this world. + +The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. "At one moment I was seated +in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping the arms of +the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind on Vincey, and then +I perceived myself outside my body--saw my body near me, but certainly +not containing me, with the hands relaxing and the head drooping forward +on the breast." + +Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes in a +quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced. He felt he +had become impalpable--so much he had expected, but he had not expected +to find himself enormously large. So, however, it would seem he became. +"I was a great cloud--if I may express it that way--anchored to my body. +It appeared to me, at first, as if I had discovered a greater self of +which the conscious being in my brain was only a little part. I saw the +Albany and Piccadilly and Regent Street and all the rooms and places in +the houses, very minute and very bright and distinct, spread out below +me like a little city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague +shapes like drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little +indistinct, but at first I paid little heed to them. The thing that +astonished me most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite +distinctly the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw little +people dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining, +playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several +places of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching the +affairs of a glass hive." + +Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told +me the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space +observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped down, +and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of, attempted to +touch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could not do so, though +his finger seemed to pass through the man. Something prevented his doing +this, but what it was he finds it hard to describe. He compares the +obstacle to a sheet of glass. + +"I felt as a kitten may feel," he said, "when it goes for the first time +to pat its reflection in a mirror." Again and again, on the occasion +when I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that comparison +of the sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise comparison, +because, as the reader will speedily see, there were interruptions of +this generally impermeable resistance, means of getting through the +barrier to the material world again. But, naturally, there is a very +great difficulty in expressing these unprecedented impressions in the +language of everyday experience. + +A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon him +throughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place--he was +in a world without sound. + +At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder. His +thought chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was out of +the body--out of his material body, at any rate--but that was not all. +He believes, and I for one believe also, that he was somewhere out of +space, as we understand it, altogether. By a strenuous effort of will +he had passed out of his body into a world beyond this world, a world +undreamt of, yet lying so close to it and so strangely situated with +regard to it that all things on this earth are clearly visible both from +without and from within in this other world about us. For a long time, +as it seemed to him, this realisation occupied his mind to the exclusion +of all other matters, and then he recalled the engagement with Mr. +Vincey, to which this astonishing experience was, after all, but a +prelude. + +He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found +himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment +to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body of +his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed with his +efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link that bound +him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by what appeared to be +whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then through a momentary gap he saw +his drooping body collapse limply, saw his lifeless head drop sideways, +and found he was driving along like a huge cloud in a strange place of +shadowy clouds that had the luminous intricacy of London spread like a +model below. + +But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was something +more than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first essay +was shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly, and then +suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES! that each roll +and coil of the seeming cloud-stuff was a face. And such faces! Faces of +thin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity. Faces like those faces that glare +with intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his +dreams. Evil, greedy eyes that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces +with knit brows and snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched +at Mr. Bessel as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an +elusive streak of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never a +sound from the mouths that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressed +in that dreamy silence, passing freely through the dim mistiness that +was his body, gathering ever more numerously about him. And the shadowy +Mr. Bessel, now suddenly fear-stricken, drove through the silent, active +multitude of eyes and clutching hands. + +So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes, and +shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel to +attempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms, they +seemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden the boon of +being, whose only expressions and gestures told of the envy and craving +for life that was their one link with existence. + +It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud of these +noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey. He made +a violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how, stooping +towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert in his +arm-chair by the fire. + +And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all that +lives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless +shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life. + +For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's +attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects in +his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected, ignorant of +the being that was so close to his own. The strange something that Mr. +Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated them impermeably. + +And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that in +some strange way he could see not only the outside of a man as we see +him, but within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust his vague black +fingers, as it seemed, through the heedless brain. + +Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention +from wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a little +dark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled and +glowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown anatomical +figures of the brain, and he knows now that this is that useless +structure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For, strange as it will +seem to many, we have, deep in our brains--where it cannot possibly +see any earthly light--an eye! At the time this, with the rest of the +internal anatomy of the brain, was quite new to him. At the sight of +its changed appearance, however, he thrust forth his finger, and, +rather fearful still of the consequences, touched this little spot. And +instantly Mr. Vincey started, and Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen. + +And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened to his +body, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world of shadows +and tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that he thought no more +of Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all the countless faces +drove back with him like leaves before a gale. But he returned too +late. In an instant he saw the body that he had left inert and +collapsed--lying, indeed, like the body of a man just dead--had arisen, +had arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond his own. It stood +with staring eyes, stretching its limbs in dubious fashion. + +For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped towards +it. But the pane of glass had closed against him again, and he was +foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and all about him the +spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked. He gave way to furious +anger. He compares himself to a bird that has fluttered heedlessly +into a room and is beating at the window-pane that holds it back from +freedom. + +And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing with +delight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts; he saw +the violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling his cherished +furniture about in the mad delight of existence, rend his books apart, +smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged fragments, leap and +smite in a passionate acceptance of living. He watched these actions +in paralysed astonishment. Then once more he hurled himself against the +impassable barrier, and then with all that crew of mocking ghosts about +him, hurried back in dire confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outrage +that had come upon him. + +But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and the +disembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out into +Holborn to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel swept back +again, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious frenzy down +the Burlington Arcade.... + +And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's +interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being whose +frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury and disaster +had indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel. It was an evil +spirit out of that strange world beyond existence, into which Mr. Bessel +had so rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held possession of him, and +for all those twenty hours the dispossessed spirit-body of Mr. Bessel +was going to and fro in that unheard-of middle world of shadows seeking +help in vain. He spent many hours beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey and +of his friend Mr. Hart. Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. But +the language that might convey his situation to these helpers across the +gulf he did not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly +in their brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able to +turn Mr. Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolen +body in its career, but he could not make him understand the thing that +had happened: he was unable to draw any help from that encounter.... + +All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel's +mind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant, and +he would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore. So that those +long hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever as he hurried to and +fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable spirits of that world +about him mobbed him and confused his mind. And ever an envious +applauding multitude poured after their successful fellow as he went +upon his glorious career. + +For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things of +this world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch, coveting +a way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend, as furies and +frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses, rejoicing in the +body they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only human soul in that +place. Witness the fact that he met first one, and afterwards several +shadows of men, men like himself, it seemed, who had lost their bodies +even it may be as he had lost his, and wandered, despairingly, in that +lost world that is neither life nor death. They could not speak because +that world is silent, yet he knew them for men because of their dim +human bodies, and because of the sadness of their faces. + +But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where the +bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about the earth, +or whether they were closed forever in death against return. That they +were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I believe. But Doctor Wilson +Paget thinks they are the rational souls of men who are lost in madness +on the earth. + +At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of such +disembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through them +he saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen and a +woman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting awkwardly +in a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from her portraits to +be Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived that tracts and structures +in her brain glowed and stirred as he had seen the pineal eye in the +brain of Mr. Vincey glow. The light was very fitful; sometimes it was a +broad illumination, and sometimes merely a faint twilight spot, and it +shifted slowly about her brain. She kept on talking and writing with one +hand. And Mr. Bessel saw that the crowding shadows of men about him, +and a great multitude of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all +striving and thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As one +gained her brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writing +of her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused +for the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now a +fragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies of the +spirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she spoke +for the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle very +furiously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd and at +that time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious, he went +away to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a long time +he went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it must have been +killed, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft in Baker Street, +writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and an arm and two +ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover, the evil spirit was angry +because his time had been so short and because of the painmaking violent +movements and casting his body about. + +And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the room +where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust himself +within sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood about the +medium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance should +presently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had been +striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the thought that the +seance was almost over only made Mr. Bessel the more earnest, and he +struggled so stoutly with his will against the others that presently he +gained the woman's brain. It chanced that just at that moment it glowed +very brightly, and in that instant she wrote the message that Doctor +Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other shadows and the cloud of evil +spirits about him had thrust Mr. Bessel away from her, and for all the +rest of the seance he could regain her no more. + +So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom of +the shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had maimed, +writhing and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning the lesson +of pain. And towards dawn the thing he had waited for happened, the +brain glowed brightly and the evil spirit came out, and Mr. Bessel +entered the body he had feared he should never enter again. As he did +so, the silence--the brooding silence--ended; he heard the tumult of +traffic and the voices of people overhead, and that strange world that +is the shadow of our world--the dark and silent shadows of ineffectual +desire and the shadows of lost men--vanished clean away. + +He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found. And +in spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim damp +place in which he lay; in spite of the tears--wrung from him by his +physical distress--his heart was full of gladness to know that he was +nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men. + + + + +11. MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE + +"You can't be TOO careful WHO you marry," said Mr. Brisher, and pulled +thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache that hides +his want of chin. + +"That's why--" I ventured. + +"Yes," said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey +eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol INTIMATELY at +me. "There's lots as 'ave 'ad a try at me--many as I could name in this +town--but none 'ave done it--none." + +I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion, the +masterly carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think that +by reason of the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last of his +race. + +"I was a smart young chap when I was younger," said Mr. Brisher. "I 'ad +my work cut out. But I was very careful--very. And I got through..." + +He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject of my +trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence. + +"I was engaged once," he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on the +shuv-a'penny board. + +"So near as that?" + +He looked at me. "So near as that. Fact is--" He looked about him, +brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an +unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. "If she ain't dead or married to +some one else or anything--I'm engaged still. Now." He confirmed this +statement with nods and facial contortions. "STILL," he said, ending the +pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise. "ME!" + +"Run away," he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows. "Come 'ome. + +"That ain't all. + +"You'd 'ardly believe it," he said, "but I found a treasure. Found a +regular treasure." + +I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper +surprise. "Yes," he said, "I found a treasure. And come 'ome. I tell you +I could surprise you with things that has happened to me." And for some +time he was content to repeat that he had found a treasure--and left it. + +I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr. +Brisher's bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted +lady. + +"She was a nice girl," he said--a little sadly, I thought. "AND +respectable." + +He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme +respectability--beyond the likes of us elderly men. + +"It was a long way from 'ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester. It was +when I was up in London--in the buildin' trade. I was a smart young +chap then, I can tell you. Slim. 'Ad best clo'es 's good as anybody. +'At--SILK 'at, mind you." Mr. Brisher's hand shot above his head towards +the infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest. "Umbrella--nice +umbrella with a 'orn 'andle. Savin's. Very careful I was...." + +He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come to +think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth. But he +refrained, as one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral. + +"I got to know 'er through a chap what was engaged to 'er sister. She +was stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that 'ad a 'am an' beef +shop. This aunt was very particular--they was all very particular +people, all 'er people was--and wouldn't let 'er sister go out with this +feller except 'er other sister, MY girl that is, went with them. So 'e +brought me into it, sort of to ease the crowding. We used to go walks in +Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. Me in my topper, and 'im in 'is; +and the girl's--well--stylish. There wasn't many in Battersea Park 'ad +the larf of us. She wasn't what you'd call pretty, but a nicer girl I +never met. _I_ liked 'er from the start, and, well--though I say it who +shouldn't--she liked me. You know 'ow it is, I dessay?" + +I pretended I did. + +"And when this chap married 'er sister--'im and me was great +friends--what must 'e do but arst me down to Colchester, close by where +She lived. Naturally I was introjuced to 'er people, and well, very +soon, her and me was engaged." + +He repeated "engaged." + +"She lived at 'ome with 'er father and mother, quite the lady, in a very +nice little 'ouse with a garden--and remarkable respectable people they +was. Rich you might call 'em a'most. They owned their own 'ouse--got +it out of the Building Society, and cheap because the chap who had it +before was a burglar and in prison--and they 'ad a bit of free'old land, +and some cottages and money 'nvested--all nice and tight: they was what +you'd call snug and warm. I tell you, I was On. Furniture too. Why! They +'ad a pianner. Jane--'er name was Jane--used to play it Sundays, and +very nice she played too. There wasn't 'ardly a 'im toon in the book she +COULDN'T play... + +"Many's the evenin' we've met and sung 'ims there, me and 'er and the +family. + +"'Er father was quite a leadin' man in chapel. You should ha' seen him +Sundays, interruptin' the minister and givin' out 'ims. He had gold +spectacles, I remember, and used to look over 'em at you while he sang +hearty--he was always great on singing 'earty to the Lord--and when HE +got out o' toon 'arf the people went after 'im--always. 'E was that sort +of man. And to walk be'ind 'im in 'is nice black clo'es--'is 'at was a +brimmer--made one regular proud to be engaged to such a father-in-law. +And when the summer came I went down there and stopped a fortnight. + +"Now, you know there was a sort of Itch," said Mr. Brisher. "We wanted +to marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad +to get a proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch. +Consequently, when I went down there, I was anxious to show that I was a +good useful sort of chap like. Show I could do pretty nearly everything +like. See?" + +I made a sympathetic noise. + +"And down at the bottom of their garden was a bit of wild part like. So +I says to 'im, 'Why don't you 'ave a rockery 'ere?' I says. 'It 'ud look +nice.' + +"'Too much expense,' he says. + +"'Not a penny,' says I. 'I'm a dab at rockeries. Lemme make you one.' +You see, I'd 'elped my brother make a rockery in the beer garden be'ind +'is tap, so I knew 'ow to do it to rights. 'Lemme make you one,' I says. +'It's 'olidays, but I'm that sort of chap, I 'ate doing nothing,' I +says. 'I'll make you one to rights.' And the long and the short of it +was, he said I might. + +"And that's 'ow I come on the treasure." + +"What treasure?" I asked. + +"Why!" said Mr. Brisher, "the treasure I'm telling you about, what's the +reason why I never married." + +"What!--a treasure--dug up?" + +"Yes--buried wealth--treasure trove. Come out of the ground. What I +kept on saying--regular treasure...." He looked at me with unusual +disrespect. + +"It wasn't more than a foot deep, not the top of it," he said. "I'd +'ardly got thirsty like, before I come on the corner." + +"Go on," I said. "I didn't understand." + +"Why! Directly I 'it the box I knew it was treasure. A sort of instinct +told me. Something seemed to shout inside of me--'Now's your chance--lie +low.' It's lucky I knew the laws of treasure trove or I'd 'ave been +shoutin' there and then. I daresay you know--" + +"Crown bags it," I said, "all but one per cent. Go on. It's a shame. +What did you do?" + +"Uncovered the top of the box. There wasn't anybody in the garden or +about like. Jane was 'elping 'er mother do the 'ouse. I WAS excited--I +tell you. I tried the lock and then gave a whack at the hinges. Open it +came. Silver coins--full! Shining. It made me tremble to see 'em. And +jest then--I'm blessed if the dustman didn't come round the back of the +'ouse. It pretty nearly gave me 'eart disease to think what a fool I +was to 'ave that money showing. And directly after I 'eard the chap next +door--'e was 'olidaying, too--I 'eard him watering 'is beans. If only +'e'd looked over the fence!" + +"What did you do?" + +"Kicked the lid on again and covered it up like a shot, and went on +digging about a yard away from it--like mad. And my face, so to speak, +was laughing on its own account till I had it hid. I tell you I was +regular scared like at my luck. I jest thought that it 'ad to be +kep' close and that was all. 'Treasure,' I kep' whisperin' to myself, +'Treasure' and ''undreds of pounds, 'undreds, 'undreds of pounds.' +Whispering to myself like, and digging like blazes. It seemed to me the +box was regular sticking out and showing, like your legs do under the +sheets in bed, and I went and put all the earth I'd got out of my 'ole +for the rockery slap on top of it. I WAS in a sweat. And in the midst of +it all out toddles 'er father. He didn't say anything to me, jest stood +behind me and stared, but Jane tole me afterwards when he went indoors, +'e says, 'That there jackanapes of yours, Jane'--he always called me +a jackanapes some'ow--'knows 'ow to put 'is back into it after all.' +Seemed quite impressed by it, 'e did." + +"How long was the box?" I asked, suddenly. + +"'Ow long?" said Mr. Brisher. + +"Yes--in length?" + +"Oh! 'bout so-by-so." Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk. + +"FULL?" said I. + +"Full up of silver coins--'arf-crowns, I believe." + +"Why!" I cried, "that would mean--hundreds of pounds." + +"Thousands," said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. "I calc'lated it +out." + +"But how did they get there?" + +"All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this. The +chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular slap-up +burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive 'is +trap--like Peace did." Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties of +narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. "I don't know if I +told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's father's, +and I knew 'e'd robbed a mail train once, I did know that. It seemed to +me--" + +"That's very likely," I said. "But what did you do?" + +"Sweated," said Mr. Brisher. "Regular run orf me. All that morning," +said Mr. Brisher, "I was at it, pretending to make that rockery and +wondering what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps, only I was +doubtful of 'is honesty--I was afraid he might rob me of it like, and +give it up to the authorities--and besides, considering I was marrying +into the family, I thought it would be nicer like if it came through me. +Put me on a better footing, so to speak. Well, I 'ad three days before +me left of my 'olidays, so there wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and +went on digging, and tried to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. +Only I couldn't. + +"I thought," said Mr. Brisher, "AND I thought. Once I got regular +doubtful whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it +uncovered again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin' +she'd done. Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave another +go at it, when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready. 'You'll want it,' +she said, 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.' + +"I was in a regular daze all dinner, wondering whether that chap next +door wasn't over the fence and filling 'is pockets. But in the afternoon +I got easier in my mind--it seemed to me it must 'ave been there so long +it was pretty sure to stop a bit longer--and I tried to get up a bit of +a discussion to dror out the old man and see what 'E thought of treasure +trove." + +Mr. Brisher paused, and affected amusement at the memory. + +"The old man was a scorcher," he said; "a regular scorcher." + +"What!" said I; "did he--?" + +"It was like this," explained Mr. Brisher, laying a friendly hand on my +arm and breathing into my face to calm me. "Just to dror 'im out, I told +a story of a chap I said I knew--pretendin', you know--who'd found a +sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said 'e stuck to it, but I said +I wasn't sure whether that was right or not. And then the old man +began. Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!" Mr. Brisher affected an insincere +amusement. "'E was, well--what you might call a rare 'and at Snacks. +Said that was the sort of friend 'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said +'e'd naturally expect that from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who +took up with daughters who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell +you 'ARF 'e said. 'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about +it, just to dror 'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you +found it in the street?' I says. 'Certainly not,' 'e says; 'certainly +I wouldn't.' 'What! not if you found it as a sort of treasure?' +'Young man,' 'e says, 'there's 'i'er 'thority than mine--Render unto +Caesar'--what is it? Yes. Well, he fetched up that. A rare 'and at +'itting you over the 'ed with the Bible, was the old man. And so he +went on. 'E got to such Snacks about me at last I couldn't stand it. I'd +promised Jane not to answer 'im back, but it got a bit TOO thick. I--I +give it 'im..." + +Mr. Brisher, by means of enigmatical facework, tried to make me think he +had had the best of that argument, but I knew better. + +"I went out in a 'uff at last. But not before I was pretty sure I 'ad +to lift that treasure by myself. The only thing that kep' me up was +thinking 'ow I'd take it out of 'im when I 'ad the cash." + +There was a lengthy pause. + +"Now, you'd 'ardly believe it, but all them three days I never 'ad a +chance at the blessed treasure, never got out not even a 'arf-crown. +There was always a Somethink--always. + +"'Stonishing thing it isn't thought of more," said Mr. Brisher. "Finding +treasure's no great shakes. It's gettin' it. I don't suppose I slep' a +wink any of those nights, thinking where I was to take it, what I was to +do with it, 'ow I was to explain it. It made me regular ill. And days I +was that dull, it made Jane regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you +was in London,' she says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father +and 'is Snacks, but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but +that I'd got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had a +bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem to mind +a bit Anything she said. + +"Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at +planning, though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it +all out and settled on a plan. First, I was going to take all my pockets +full of these 'ere 'arf-crowns--see?--and afterwards as I shall tell. + +"Well, I got to that state I couldn't think of getting at the Treasure +again in the daytime, so I waited until the night before I had to go, +and then, when everything was still, up I gets and slips down to +the back door, meaning to get my pockets full. What must I do in the +scullery but fall over a pail! Up gets 'er father with a gun--'e was a +light sleeper was 'er father, and very suspicious and there was me: 'ad +to explain I'd come down to the pump for a drink because my water-bottle +was bad. 'E didn't let me off a Snack or two over that bit, you lay a +bob." + +"And you mean to say--" I began. + +"Wait a bit," said Mr. Brisher. "I say, I'd made my plan. That put the +kybosh on one bit, but it didn't 'urt the general scheme not a bit. +I went and I finished that rockery next day, as though there wasn't a +Snack in the world; cemented over the stones, I did, dabbed it green and +everythink. I put a dab of green just to show where the box was. They +all came and looked at it, and sai 'ow nice it was--even 'e was a bit +softer like to see it, and all he said was, 'It's a pity you can't +always work like that, then you might get something definite to do,' he +says. + +"'Yes,' I says--I couldn't 'elp it--'I put a lot in that rockery,' I +says, like that. See? 'I put a lot in that rockery'--meaning--" + +"I see," said I--for Mr. Brisher is apt to overelaborate his jokes. + +"_'E_ didn't," said Mr. Brisher. "Not then, anyhow. + +"Ar'ever--after all that was over, off I set for London.... Orf I set +for London." + +Pause. + +"On'y I wasn't going to no London," said Mr. Brisher, with sudden +animation, and thrusting his face into mine. "No fear! What do YOU +think? + +"I didn't go no further than Colchester--not a yard. + +"I'd left the spade just where I could find it. I'd got everything +planned and right. I 'ired a little trap in Colchester, and pretended I +wanted to go to Ipswich and stop the night, and come back next day, and +the chap I 'ired it from made me leave two sovrings on it right away, +and off I set. + +"I didn't go to no Ipswich neither. + +"Midnight the 'orse and trap was 'itched by the little road that ran by +the cottage where 'e lived--not sixty yards off, it wasn't--and I was at +it like a good 'un. It was jest the night for such games--overcast--but +a trifle too 'ot, and all round the sky there was summer lightning and +presently a thunderstorm. Down it came. First big drops in a sort of +fizzle, then 'ail. I kep'on. I whacked at it--I didn't dream the old man +would 'ear. I didn't even trouble to go quiet with the spade, and the +thunder and lightning and 'ail seemed to excite me like. I shouldn't +wonder if I was singing. I got so 'ard at it I clean forgot the thunder +and the 'orse and trap. I precious soon got the box showing, and started +to lift it...." + +"Heavy?" I said. + +"I couldn't no more lift it than fly. I WAS sick. I'd never thought of +that I got regular wild--I tell you, I cursed. I got sort of outrageous. +I didn't think of dividing it like for the minute, and even then I +couldn't 'ave took money about loose in a trap. I hoisted one end sort +of wild like, and over the whole show went with a tremenjous noise. +Perfeck smash of silver. And then right on the heels of that, Flash! +Lightning like the day! and there was the back door open and the old +man coming down the garden with 'is blooming old gun. He wasn't not a +'undred yards away! + +"I tell you I was that upset--I didn't think what I was doing. I never +stopped-not even to fill my pockets. I went over the fence like a shot, +and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and swearing as I went. I +WAS in a state.... + +"And will you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left the +'orse and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't a cuss left +for it. I jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced enough I started +off to London.... I was done." + +Mr. Brisher was pensive for an interval. "I was done," he repeated, very +bitterly. + +"Well?" I said. + +"That's all," said Mr. Brisher. + +"You didn't go back?" + +"No fear. I'd 'ad enough of THAT blooming treasure, any'ow for a bit. +Besides, I didn't know what was done to chaps who tried to collar a +treasure trove. I started off for London there and then...." + +"And you never went back?" + +"Never." + +"But about Jane? Did you write?" + +"Three times, fishing like. And no answer. We'd parted in a bit of a +'uff on account of 'er being jealous. So that I couldn't make out for +certain what it meant. + +"I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know whether the old man knew +it was me. I sort of kep' an eye open on papers to see when he'd give +up that treasure to the Crown, as I hadn't a doubt 'e would, considering +'ow respectable he'd always been." + +"And did he?" + +Mr. Brisher pursed his mouth and moved his head slowly from side to +side. "Not 'IM," he said. + +"Jane was a nice girl," he said, "a thorough nice girl mind you, if +jealous, and there's no knowing I mightn't 'ave gone back to 'er after a +bit. I thought if he didn't give up the treasure I might 'ave a sort +of 'old on 'im.... Well, one day I looks as usual under Colchester--and +there I saw 'is name. What for, d'yer think?" + +I could not guess. + +Mr. Brisher's voice sank to a whisper, and once more he spoke behind +his hand. His manner was suddenly suffused with a positive joy. "Issuing +counterfeit coins," he said. "Counterfeit coins!" + +"You don't mean to say--?" + +"Yes-It. Bad. Quite a long case they made of it. But they got 'im, +though he dodged tremenjous. Traced 'is 'aving passed, oh!--nearly a +dozen bad 'arf-crowns." + +"And you didn't--?" + +"No fear. And it didn't do 'IM much good to say it was treasure trove." + + + + +12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART + +Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind for +a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her conversation +that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome, and who were +not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal grievance against her. +Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly to convince her that Rome +was not nearly such a desirable place as it was reported to be, and +others had gone so far as to suggest behind her back that she was +dreadfully "stuck up" about "that Rome of hers." And little Lily +Hardhurst had told her friend Mr. Binns that so far as she was concerned +Miss Winchelsea might "go to her old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily +Hardhurst) wouldn't grieve." And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put +herself upon terms of personal tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto +Cellini and Raphael and Shelley and Keats--if she had been Shelley's +widow she could not have professed a keener interest in his grave--was +a matter of universal astonishment. Her dress was a triumph of tactful +discretion, sensible, but not too "touristy"--Miss Winchelsea, had a +great dread of being "touristy"--and her Baedeker was carried in a cover +of grey to hide its glaring red. She made a prim and pleasant little +figure on the Charing Cross platform, in spite of her swelling pride, +when at last the great day dawned, and she could start for Rome. The +day was bright, the Channel passage would be pleasant, and all the +omens promised well. There was the gayest sense of adventure in this +unprecedented departure. + +She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her +at the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good at +history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up to her +immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she anticipated +some pleasant times to be spent in "stirring them up" to her own pitch +of aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had secured seats already, +and welcomed her effusively at the carriage door. In the instant +criticism of the encounter she noted that Fanny had a slightly +"touristy" leather strap, and that Helen had succumbed to a serge jacket +with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust. But they were much +too happy with themselves and the expedition for their friend to +attempt any hint at the moment about these things. As soon as the first +ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was a little noisy and crude, +and consisted mainly in emphatic repetitions of "Just FANCY! we're +going to Rome, my dear!--Rome!"--they gave their attention to their +fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to secure a compartment to +themselves, and, in order to discourage intruders, got out and planted +herself firmly on the step. Miss Winchelsea peeped out over her +shoulder, and made sly little remarks about the accumulating people on +the platform, at which Fanny laughed gleefully. + +They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen +days in Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personally +conducted party of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but they +travelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement. The +people were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing. There was a +vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in a pepper-and-salt +suit, very long in the arms and legs and very active. He shouted +proclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he stretched out an arm +and held them until his purpose was accomplished. One hand was full of +papers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists. The people of the personally +conducted party were, it seemed, of two sorts; people the conductor +wanted and could not find, and people he did not want and who followed +him in a steadily growing tail up and down the platform. These people +seemed, indeed, to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay +in keeping close to him. Three little old ladies were particularly +energetic in his pursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of +clapping them into a carriage and daring them to emerge again. For the +rest of the time, one, two, or three of their heads protruded from the +window wailing enquiries about "a little wickerwork box" whenever he +drew near. There was a very stout man with a very stout wife in shiny +black; there was a little old man like an aged hostler. + +"What CAN such people want in Rome?" asked Miss Winchelsea. "What can it +mean to them?" There was a very tall curate in a very small straw hat, +and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera stand. The contrast +amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some one calling for "Snooks." +"I always thought that name was invented by novelists," said Miss +Winchelsea. "Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which IS Mr. Snooks." Finally they +picked out a very stout and resolute little man in a large check suit. +"If he isn't Snooks, he ought to be," said Miss Winchelsea. + +Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner in +carriages. "Room for five," he bawled with a parallel translation on +his fingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two +daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. "It's all right, Ma, you +let me," said one of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet with +a handbag she struggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea detested +people who banged about and called their mother "Ma." A young man +travelling alone followed. He was not at all "touristy" in his costume, +Miss Winchelsea observed; his Gladstone bag was of good pleasant leather +with labels reminiscent of Luxembourg and Ostend, and his boots, though +brown, were not vulgar. He carried an overcoat on his arm. Before these +people had properly settled in their places, came an inspection of +tickets and a slamming of doors, and behold! they were gliding out of +Charing Cross station on their way to Rome. + +"Fancy!" cried Fanny, "we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! I don't seem +to believe it, even now." + +Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile, and +the lady who was called "Ma" explained to people in general why they +had "cut it so close" at the station. The two daughters called her "Ma" +several times, toned her down in a tactless effective way, and drove her +at last to the muttered inventory of a basket of travelling requisites. +Presently she looked up. "Lor'!" she said, "I didn't bring THEM!" +Both the daughters said "Oh, Ma!" but what "them" was did not appear. +Presently Fanny produced Hare's Walks in Rome, a sort of mitigated +guide-book very popular among Roman visitors; and the father of the two +daughters began to examine his books of tickets minutely, apparently in +a search after English words. When he had looked at the tickets for a +long time right way up, he turned them upside down. Then he produced +a fountain pen and dated them with considerable care. The young man, +having completed an unostentatious survey of his fellow travellers, +produced a book and fell to reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking +out of the window at Chiselhurst--the place interested Fanny because the +poor dear Empress of the French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took +the opportunity to observe the book the young man held. It was not a +guide-book, but a little thin volume of poetry--BOUND. She glanced at +his face--it seemed a refined pleasant face to her hasty glance. He wore +a little gilt pince-nez. "Do you think she lives there now?" said Fanny, +and Miss Winchelsea's inspection came to an end. + +For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what she +said was as pleasant and as stamped with refinement as she could make +it. Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant, and she took care +that on this occasion it was particularly low and clear and pleasant. +As they came under the white cliffs the young man put his book of poetry +away, and when at last the train stopped beside the boat, he displayed +a graceful alacrity with the impedimenta of Miss Winchelsea and her +friends. Miss Winchelsea hated nonsense, but she was pleased to see +the young man perceived at once that they were ladies, and helped +them without any violent geniality; and how nicely he showed that his +civilities were to be no excuse for further intrusions. None of her +little party had been out of England before, and they were all excited +and a little nervous at the Channel passage. They stood in a little +group in a good place near the middle of the boat--the young man had +taken Miss Winchelsea's carry-all there and had told her it was a good +place--and they watched the white shores of Albion recede and quoted +Shakespeare and made quiet fun of their fellow travellers in the English +way. + +They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized people +had taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks prevailed, one +lady lay full-length in a deck chair with a handkerchief over her face, +and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown "touristy" suit walked +all the way from England to France along the deck, with his legs +as widely apart as Providence permitted. These were all excellent +precautions, and, nobody was ill. The personally conducted party pursued +the conductor about the deck with enquiries in a manner that suggested +to Helen's mind the rather vulgar image of hens with a piece of bacon +peel, until at last he went into hiding below. And the young man with +the thin volume of poetry stood at the stern watching England receding, +looking rather lonely and sad to Miss Winchelsea's eye. + +And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man had not +forgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little things. All +three girls, though they had passed government examinations in French +to any extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their accents, and +the young man was very useful. And he did not intrude. He put them in a +comfortable carriage and raised his hat and went away. Miss Winchelsea +thanked him in her best manner--a pleasing, cultivated manner--and Fanny +said he was "nice" almost before he was out of earshot. "I wonder what +he can be," said Helen. "He's going to Italy, because I noticed green +tickets in his book." Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, +and decided not to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold +upon them and the young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they +were doing an educated sort of thing to travel through a country whose +commonest advertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea +made unpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-board +advertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that +deface the landscape in our land. But the north of France is really +uninteresting country, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's Walks +and Helen initiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy reverie; +she had been trying to realise, she said, that she was actually going to +Rome, but she perceived at Helen's suggestion that she was hungry, and +they lunched out of their baskets very cheerfully. In the afternoon they +were tired and silent until Helen made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have +dozed, only she knew Fanny slept with her mouth open; and as their +fellow passengers were two rather nice critical-looking ladies of +uncertain age--who knew French well enough to talk it--she employed +herself in keeping Fanny awake. The rhythm of the train became +insistent, and the streaming landscape outside became at last quite +painful to the eye. They were already dreadfully tired of travelling +before their night's stoppage came. + +The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of the young +man, and his manners were all that could be desired and his French quite +serviceable. His coupons availed for the same hotel as theirs, and by +chance as it seemed he sat next Miss Winchelsea at the table d'hote. +In spite of her enthusiasm for Rome, she had thought out some such +possibility very thoroughly, and when he ventured to make a remark upon +the tediousness of travelling--he let the soup and fish go by before he +did this--she did not simply assent to his proposition, but responded +with another. They were soon comparing their journeys, and Helen and +Fanny were cruelly overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the same +journey, they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--"from what I +hear," said the young man, "it is barely enough,"--and the rest at Rome. +He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite well read, and +he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had "done" that book of +Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted to cap his quotation. It +gave a sort of tone to things, this incident--a touch of refinement to +mere chatting. Fanny expressed a few emotions, and Helen interpolated +a few sensible remarks, but the bulk of the talk on the girls' side +naturally fell to Miss Winchelsea. + +Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party. They +did not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught, and Miss +Winchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer. At any rate +he was something of that sort, something gentlemanly and refined without +being opulent and impossible. She tried once or twice to ascertain +whether he came from Oxford or Cambridge, but he missed her timid +importunities. She tried to get him to make remarks about those places +to see if he would say "come up" to them instead of "go down"--she knew +that was how you told a 'Varsity man. He used the word "'Varsity"--not +university--in quite the proper way. + +They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted; +he met them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting +brightly, and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew a +great deal about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely. It was +fine to go round recognising old favourites and finding new beauties, +especially while so many people fumbled helplessly with Baedeker. Nor +was he a bit of a prig, Miss Winchelsea said, and indeed she detested +prigs. He had a distinct undertone of humour, and was funny, for +example, without being vulgar, at the expense of the quaint work of +Beato Angelico. He had a grave seriousness beneath it all, and was quick +to seize the moral lessons of the pictures. Fanny went softly among +these masterpieces; she admitted "she knew so little about them," and +she confessed that to her they were "all beautiful." Fanny's "beautiful" +inclined to be a little monotonous, Miss Winchelsea thought. She had +been quite glad when the last sunny Alp had vanished, because of the +staccato of Fanny's admiration. Helen said little, but Miss Winchelsea +had found her a little wanting on the aesthetic side in the old days and +was not surprised; sometimes she laughed at the young man's hesitating +delicate little jests and sometimes she didn't, and sometimes she seemed +quite lost to the art about them in the contemplation of the dresses of +the other visitors. + +At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather "touristy" +friend of his took him away at times. He complained comically to Miss +Winchelsea. "I have only two short weeks in Rome," he said, "and my +friend Leonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli, looking at a +waterfall." + +"What is your friend Leonard?" asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly. + +"He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met," the young man +replied, amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelsea +thought. They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think what +they would have done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest and +Fanny's enormous capacity for admiration were insatiable. They never +flagged--through pictures and sculpture galleries, immense crowded +churches, ruins and museums, Judas trees and prickly pears, wine carts +and palaces, they admired their way unflinchingly. They never saw a +stone pine or a eucalyptus but they named and admired it; they never +glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. Their common ways were made +wonderful by imaginative play. "Here Caesar may have walked," they would +say. "Raphael may have seen Soracte from this very point." They happened +on the tomb of Bibulus. "Old Bibulus," said the young man. "The oldest +monument of Republican Rome!" said Miss Winchelsea. + +"I'm dreadfully stupid," said Fanny, "but who WAS Bibulus?" + +There was a curious little pause. + +"Wasn't he the person who built the wall?" said Helen. + +The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. "That was Balbus," he +said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw any light +upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus. + +Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was always +taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets and things like +that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took them, and told him +where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times they had, these +young people, in that pale brown cleanly city of memories that was once +the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness of the time. They said +indeed that the electric trams and the '70 buildings, and that criminal +advertisement that glares upon the Forum, outraged their aesthetic +feelings unspeakably; but that was only part of the fun. And indeed Rome +is such a wonderful place that it made Miss Winchelsea forget some +of her most carefully prepared enthusiasms at times, and Helen, taken +unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty of unexpected things. Yet +Fanny and Helen would have liked a shop window or so in the English +quarter if Miss Winchelsea's uncompromising hostility to all other +English visitors had not rendered that district impossible. + +The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and the +scholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling. +The exuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite +admiration by playing her "beautiful," with vigour, and saying "Oh! +LET'S go," with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest was +mentioned. But Helen developed a certain want of sympathy towards the +end, that disappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She refused to "see +anything" in the face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's Beatrice Cenci!--in +the Barberini gallery; and one day, when they were deploring the +electric trams, she said rather snappishly that "people must get about +somehow, and it's better than torturing horses up these horrid little +hills." She spoke of the Seven Hills of Rome as "horrid little hills!" + +And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea did not +know of this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, "Don't hurry like that, +my dear; THEY don't want us to overtake them. And we don't say the right +things for them when we DO get near." + +"I wasn't trying to overtake them," said Fanny, slackening her excessive +pace; "I wasn't indeed." And for a minute she was short of breath. + +But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she came +to look back across an intervening tragedy that she quite realised +how happy she had been, pacing among the cypress-shadowed ruins, and +exchanging the very highest class of information the human mind +can possess, the most refined impressions it is possible to convey. +Insensibly emotion crept into their intercourse, sunning itself +openly and pleasantly at last when Helen's modernity was not too near. +Insensibly their interest drifted from the wonderful associations about +them to their more intimate and personal feelings. In a tentative way +information was supplied; she spoke allusively of her school, of her +examination successes, of her gladness that the days of "Cram" were +over. He made it quite clear that he also was a teacher. They spoke of +the greatness of their calling, of the necessity of sympathy to face its +irksome details, of a certain loneliness they sometimes felt. + +That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day, +because Helen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper +galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and +concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured +that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying way to his +students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual mate and +helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus, with white +shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti +and Burne-Jones, with Morris's wall papers and flowers in pots of beaten +copper. Indeed she figured many things. On the Pincio the two had a few +precious moments together, while Helen marched Fanny off to see the muro +Torto, and he spoke at once plainly. He said he hoped their friendship +was only beginning, that he already found her company very precious to +him, that indeed it was more than that. + +He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers as +though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. "I should of course," +he said, "tell you things about myself. I know it is rather unusual my +speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has been so accidental--or +providential--and I am snatching at things. I came to Rome expecting +a lonely tour... and I have been so very happy, so very happy. Quite +recently I found myself in a position--I have dared to think--. And--" + +He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said "Damn!" quite +distinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse into +profanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drew +nearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was almost +a grin. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks," he said. "You +promised to be on the Piazza steps half an hour ago." + +Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face. She +did not hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard must have +considered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day she is not sure +whether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor what she said to +him. A sort of mental paralysis was upon her. Of all offensive +surnames--Snooks! + +Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young +men were receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face the +enquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived the life +of a heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name, chatting, +observing, with "Snooks" gnawing at her heart. From the moment that it +first rang upon her ears, the dream of her happiness was prostrate in +the dust. All the refinement she had figured was ruined and defaced by +that cognomen's unavoidable vulgarity. + +What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes, Morris +papers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an incredible +inscription: "Mrs. Snooks." That may seem a little thing to the reader, +but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's mind. Be as +refined as you can and then think of writing yourself down:--"Snooks." +She conceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks by all the people +she liked least, conceived the patronymic touched with a vague quality +of insult. She figured a card of grey and silver bearing "Winchelsea," +triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow, in favour of "Snooks." +Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She imagined the terrible +rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain grocer cousins from whom +her growing refinement had long since estranged her. How they would +make it sprawl across the envelope that would bring their sarcastic +congratulations. Would even his pleasant company compensate her for +that? "It is impossible," she muttered; "impossible! SNOOKS!" + +She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself. For him +she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined, while all the +time he was "Snooks," to hide under a pretentious gentility of demeanour +the badge sinister of his surname seemed a sort of treachery. To put it +in the language of sentimental science she felt he had "led her on." + +There were of course moments of terrible vacillation, a period even when +something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to the winds. And +there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige of vulgarity, that +made a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks was not so very bad a +name after all. Any hovering hesitation flew before Fanny's manner, when +Fanny came with an air of catastrophe to tell that she also knew the +horror. Fanny's voice fell to a whisper when she said SNOOKS. Miss +Winchelsea would not give him any answer when at last, in the Borghese, +she could have a minute with him; but she promised him a note. + +She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent her, +the little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal was +ambiguous, allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected +him than she could have told a cripple of his hump. He too must feel +something of the unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he had avoided +a dozen chances of telling it, she now perceived. So she spoke of +"obstacles she could not reveal"--"reasons why the thing he spoke of was +impossible." She addressed the note with a shiver, "E. K. Snooks." + +Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain. How +COULD she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful. She was +haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she had given him +intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine her mind thoroughly +for the extent of her encouragement. She knew he must think her the most +changeable of beings. Now that she was in full retreat, she would not +even perceive his hints of a possible correspondence. But in that matter +he did a thing that seemed to her at once delicate and romantic. He made +a go-between of Fanny. Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and +told her that night under a transparent pretext of needed advice. "Mr. +Snooks," said Fanny, "wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But +should I let him?" They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss +Winchelsea was careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was +already repenting his disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of +him sometimes--painful though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea +decided it might be permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with +unusual emotion. After she had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time +at the window of her little room. It was moonlight, and down the street +a man sang "Santa Lucia" with almost heart-dissolving tenderness.... She +sat very still. + +She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was "SNOOKS." Then +she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning he +said to her meaningly, "I shall hear of you through your friend." + +Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative +perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen he +would have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand as a sort of +encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England Miss Winchelsea on +six separate occasions made Fanny promise to write to her the longest of +long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new +school--she was always going to new schools--would be only five miles +from Steely Bank, and it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or +two first-class schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even +see her at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always +spoke of "him," never of Mr. Snooks,--because Helen was apt to say +unsympathetic things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much, +Miss Winchelsea perceived, since the old Training College days; she +had become hard and cynical. She thought he had a weak face, mistaking +refinement for weakness as people of her stamp are apt to do, and when +she heard his name was Snooks, she said she had expected something of +the sort. Miss Winchelsea was careful to spare her own feelings after +that, but Fanny was less circumspect. + +The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a new +interest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been +an increasingly valuable assistant for the last three years. Her new +interest in life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her a lead +she wrote her a lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight of her +return. Fanny answered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed had no +literary gift, but it was new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself +deploring the want of gifts in a friend. That letter was even criticised +aloud in the safe solitude of Miss Winchelsea's study, and her +criticism, spoken with great bitterness, was "Twaddle!" It was full of +just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter had been full of, particulars +of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only this much: "I have had a +letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over to see me on two Saturday +afternoons running. He talked about Rome and you; we both talked about +you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear...." + +Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information, +and wrote the sweetest long letter again. "Tell me all about yourself, +dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship, and I do +so want to keep in touch with you." About Mr. Snooks she simply wrote +on the fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen him, and that if +he SHOULD ask after her, she was to be remembered to him VERY KINDLY +(underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely in the key of that +"ancient friendship," reminding Miss Winchelsea of a dozen foolish +things of those old schoolgirl days at the training college, and saying +not a word about Mr. Snooks! + +For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure of Fanny +as a go-between that she could not write to her. And then she wrote less +effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank, "Have you seen Mr. +Snooks?" Fanny's letter was unexpectedly satisfactory. "I HAVE seen Mr. +Snooks," she wrote, and having once named him she kept on about him; +it was all Snooks--Snooks this and Snooks that. He was to give a public +lecture, said Fanny, among other things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after +the first glow of gratification, still found this letter a little +unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report Mr. Snooks as saying anything about +Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking a little white and worn, as he ought +to have been doing. And behold! before she had replied, came a second +letter from Fanny on the same theme, quite a gushing letter, and +covering six sheets with her loose feminine hand. + +And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that Miss +Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time. Fanny's +natural femininity had prevailed even against the round and clear +traditions of the training college; she was one of those she-creatures +born to make all her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's alike, and to +leave her o's and a's open and her i's undotted. So that it was only +after an elaborate comparison of word with word that Miss Winchelsea +felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really "Mr. Snooks" at all! In Fanny's +first letter of gush he was Mr. "Snooks," in her second the spelling was +changed to Mr. "Senoks." Miss Winchelsea's hand positively trembled as +she turned the sheet over--it meant so much to her. For it had already +begun to seem to her that even the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided +at too great a price, and suddenly--this possibility! She turned over +the six sheets, all dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the +first letter had the form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a +hand pressed upon her heart. + +She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter of +inquiry that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing too what +action she should take after the answer came. She was resolved that if +this altered spelling was anything more than a quaint fancy of Fanny's, +she would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks. She had now reached a stage +when the minor refinements of behaviour disappear. Her excuse remained +uninvented, but she had the subject of her letter clear in her mind, +even to the hint that "circumstances in my life have changed very +greatly since we talked together." But she never gave that hint. There +came a third letter from that fitful correspondent Fanny. The first line +proclaimed her "the happiest girl alive." + +Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and +sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before +morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were +well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of +great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading the third +without discovering the error:--"told him frankly I did not like +his name," the third sheet began. "He told me he did not like it +himself--you know that sort of sudden frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea +did know. "So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it at +first. Well, you know, dear, he had told me what it really meant; it +means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks--both Snooks and Noaks, +dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really worn forms of +Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas at times--'if it +got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it back from Snooks +to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, he couldn't +refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoks for the +bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, we shall +put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind +that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it is +just like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew +as well as I did that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been +ten times Snooks. But he did it all the same." + +The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, and +looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with some very +small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they +stared at her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more +familiar one. "Has any one finished number three?" she asked in an even +tone. She remained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day. +And she spent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts +to Fanny, before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason +struggled hopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an +exceedingly treacherous manner. + +One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart. +Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods of sexual +hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about mankind. "He +forgot himself with me," she said. "But Fanny is pink and pretty and +soft and a fool--a very excellent match for a Man." And by way of a +wedding present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound volume of poetry by +George Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly happy letter to say that +it was "ALL beautiful." Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks +might take up that slim book and think for a moment of the donor. Fanny +wrote several times before and about her marriage, pursuing that fond +legend of their "ancient friendship," and giving her happiness in the +fullest detail. And Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first +time after the Roman journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but +expressing very cordial feelings. + +They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the August +vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, describing +her home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements of their "teeny weeny" +little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning to assume a refinement in +Miss Winchelsea's memory out of all proportion to the facts of the case, +and she tried in vain to imagine his cultured greatness in a "teeny +weeny" little house. "Am busy enamelling a cosey corner," said Fanny, +sprawling to the end of her third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss +Winchelsea answered in her best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's +arrangements and hoping intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter. +Only this hope enabled her to write at all, answering not only that +letter but one in November and one at Christmas. + +The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her to +come to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays. She tried +to think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was too much like +Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe that he must be +sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that he +would presently write her a letter beginning "Dear Friend." Something +subtly tragic in the separation was a great support to her, a sad +misunderstanding. To have been jilted would have been intolerable. But +he never wrote that letter beginning "Dear Friend." + +For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, in +spite of the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became full +Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter rest she felt +lonely and without a soul to understand her in the world, and her mind +ran once more on what is called Platonic friendship. Fanny was clearly +happy and busy in her new sphere of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his +lonely hours. Did he ever think of those days in Rome--gone now beyond +recalling? No one had understood her as he had done; no one in all the +world. It would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, +and what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night she +wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave--which would +not come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note to tell +Fanny she was coming down. + +And so she saw him again. + +Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed +stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his conversation +had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even seemed a +justification for Helen's description of weakness in his face--in +certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied about his +affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea had +come for the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny in an +intelligent way. They only had one good long talk together, and that +came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some time abusing a +man who had stolen an idea he had had for a text-book. It did not seem a +very wonderful idea to Miss Winchelsea. She discovered he had forgotten +the names of more than half the painters whose work they had rejoiced +over in Florence. + +It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad when it +came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting them again. +After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their two little boys, +and Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of her letters had long +since faded away. + + + + +13. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON + +The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved +slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was +still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the +corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to +arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes +staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, +looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then +he glanced again in my direction. + +I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him, and in a +moment I was surprised to find him speaking. + +"I beg your pardon?" said I. + +"That book," he repeated, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams." + +"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States, and +the title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if he sought +words. "Yes," he said at last, "but they tell you nothing." I did not +catch his meaning for a second. + +"They don't know," he added. + +I looked a little more attentively at his face. + +"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams." + +That sort of proposition I never dispute. + +"I suppose--" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I mean vividly." + +"I dream very little," I answered. "I doubt if I have three vivid dreams +in a year." + +"Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts. + +"Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly. "You +don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?" + +"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I +suppose few people do." + +"Does HE say--" he indicated the book. + +"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about +intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as +a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--" + +"Very little--except that they are wrong." + +His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I +prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next +remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me. + +"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night +after night?" + +"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental +trouble." + +"Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place for +them. But what I mean--" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is that sort +of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it something else? +Mightn't it be something else?" + +I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn +anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the +lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look. + +"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The thing's +killing me." + +"Dreams?" + +"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid... this--" +(he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) "seems +unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I +am on...." + +He paused. "Even now--" + +"The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked. + +"It's over." + +"You mean?" + +"I died." + +"Died?" + +"Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, is +dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a +different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night +after night. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes +and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--" + +"When you died?" + +"When I died." + +"And since then--" + +"No," he said. "Thank God! That was the end of the dream...." + +It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour +before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary +way with him. "Living in a different time," I said: "do you mean in some +different age?" + +"Yes." + +"Past?" + +"No, to come--to come." + +"The year three thousand, for example?" + +"I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was +dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's a lot +of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams, though I +knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming. They called +the year differently from our way of calling the year.... What DID they +call it?" He put his hand to his forehead. "No," said he, "I forget." + +He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell +me his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but this +struck me differently. I proffered assistance even. "It began--" I +suggested. + +"It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. And +it's curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never remembered +this life I am living now. It seemed as if the dream life was enough +while it lasted. Perhaps--But I will tell you how I find myself when I +do my best to recall it all. I don't remember anything dearly until I +found myself sitting in a sort of loggia looking out over the sea. I +had been dozing, and suddenly I woke up--fresh and vivid--not a bit +dream-like--because the girl had stopped fanning me." + +"The girl?" + +"Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out." + +He stopped abruptly. "You won't think I'm mad?" he said. + +"No," I answered; "you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream." + +"I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was not +surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you understand. +I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply took it up at +that point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life, this nineteenth-century +life, faded as I woke, vanished like a dream. I knew all about myself, +knew that my name was no longer Cooper but Hedon, and all about my +position in the world. I've forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want +of connection--but it was all quite clear and matter of fact then." + +He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face forward +and looking up at me appealingly. + +"This seems bosh to you?" + +"No, no!" I cried. "Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like." + +"It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced +south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle above +the balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where the +girl stood. I was on a couch--it was a metal couch with light striped +cushions-and the girl was leaning over the balcony with her back to me. +The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek. Her pretty white +neck and the little curls that nestled there, and her white shoulder +were in the sun, and all the grace of her body was in the cool blue +shadow. She was dressed--how can I describe it? It was easy and flowing. +And altogether there she stood, so that it came to me how beautiful and +desirable she was, as though I had never seen her before. And when at +last I sighed and raised myself upon my arm she turned her face to me--" + +He stopped. + +"I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother, +sisters, friends, wife, and daughters--all their faces, the play of +their faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more real to +me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it again--I could draw +it or paint it. And after all--" + +He stopped--but I said nothing. + +"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not that +beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of +a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of +radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey eyes. +And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant and +gracious things--" + +He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up +at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute +belief in the reality of his story. + +"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had +ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master man away +there in the north, with influence and property and a great reputation, +but none of it had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the +place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things +to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant at least of my life. While I +had been in love with her before I knew that she had any care for me, +before I had imagined that she would dare--that we should dare, all my +life had seemed vain and hollow, dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes. +Night after night and through the long days I had longed and desired--my +soul had beaten against the thing forbidden! + +"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. +It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's +there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left +them in their Crisis to do what they could." + +"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled. + +"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--I +had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group +themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to +do things and risk things because of their confidence in me. I had +been playing that game for years, that big laborious game, that vague, +monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and +agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last I had a sort of +leadership against the Gang--you know it was called the Gang--a sort of +compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast public +emotional stupidities and catchwords--the Gang that kept the world noisy +and blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting +towards infinite disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the +shades and complications of the year--the year something or other ahead. +I had it all down to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had +been dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer +new development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes. +It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I +sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and +rejoicing--rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and +folly and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is +life--love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth all those +dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for +having ever sought to be a leader when I might have given my days to +love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent my early days sternly and +austerely, I might have wasted myself upon vain and worthless women, and +at the thought all my being went out in love and tenderness to my dear +mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me--compelled +me by her invincible charm for me--to lay that life aside. + +"'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear; +'you are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all +things. Love! to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at the murmur +of my voice she turned about. + +"'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see the +sunrise upon Monte Solaro.' + +"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She +put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great masses of +limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted +the sunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How +can I describe to you the scene we had before us? We were at Capri--" + +"I have been there," I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk +vero Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit." + +"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can tell +me--you will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have +never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a +vast multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed out of the +limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. The whole island, +you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the +other side there were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages +to which the flying machines came. They called it a pleasure city. Of +course, there was none of that in your time rather, I should say, IS +none of that NOW. Of course. Now!--yes. + +"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that one +could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand feet +high perhaps--coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, and beyond +it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and passed +into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to the west, distinct and near +was a little bay, a little beach still in shadow. And out of that shadow +rose Solaro straight and tall, flushed and golden crested, like a beauty +throned, and the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And +before us from east to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted +with little sailing boats. + +"To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very +minute and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of +gold--shining gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was a +rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and +foam all round the rock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch." + +"I know that rock," I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It is called +the Faraglioni." + +"I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that," answered the man with the white +face. "There was some story--but that--" + +He put his hand to his forehead again. "No," he said, "I forget that +story." + +"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that +little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of +mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat +and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers not +because there was any one to hear, but because there was still such a +freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened, +I think, to find themselves at last in words. And so they went softly. + +"Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going by +a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great +breakfast room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful +place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of plucked +strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would not +heed a man who was watching me from a table near by. + +"And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describe +that hall. The place was enormous--larger than any building you have +ever seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into +the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads +of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora +across the roof and interlaced, like--like conjuring tricks. All about +the great circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange +dragons, and intricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The +place was inundated with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. +And as we went through the throng the people turned about and looked at +us, for all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had +suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And they +looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how at last +she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were +there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and +dishonour that had come upon my name. + +"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the +rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about +the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were +dressed in splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced +about the great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and +glorious processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, +not the dreary monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but +dances that were beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady +dancing--dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; +she danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and +caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes. + +"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe it; +but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has +ever come to me awake. + +"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to +me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and +already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and +afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, +as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure of all the people +who went to and fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me, +and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen. And he asked that he +might speak to me for a little time apart. + +"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to +tell me?' + +"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady +to hear. + +"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I. + +"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he +asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration +that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man next +to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a +forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and +soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that +the others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about +what he had done reawakened my old interest in the life I had put aside +just for a moment. + +"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What has +Evesham been saying?' + +"And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess even I +was struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words +he had used. And this messenger they had sent to me not only told me of +Evesham's speech, but went on to ask counsel and to point out what +need they had of me. While he talked, my lady sat a little forward and +watched his face and mine. + +"My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves. I could +even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all the dramatic +effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to the disorder of the +party indeed, but not to its damage. I should go back stronger than I +had come. And then I thought of my lady. You see--how can I tell you? +There were certain peculiarities of our relationship--as things are I +need not tell you about that--which would render her presence with me +impossible. I should have had to leave her; indeed, I should have had to +renounce her clearly and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in +the north. And the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew +it as well as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, +then abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return +was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his +eloquence was gaining ground with me. + +"'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done with +them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming here?' + +"'No,' he said; 'but--' + +"'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. I have +ceased to be anything but a private man.' + +"'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war, these +reckless challenges, these wild aggressions--' + +"I stood up. + +"'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, I +weighed them--and I have come away.' + +"He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked from me +to where the lady sat regarding us. + +"'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned +slowly from me and walked away. I stood, caught in the whirl of thoughts +his appeal had set going. + +"I heard my lady's voice. + +"'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--' + +"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to her +sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled. + +"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I +said. 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.' + +"She looked at me doubtfully. + +"'But war--' she said. + +"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself +and me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and +completely, must drive us apart for ever. + +"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this belief +or that. + +"'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. There +will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past. +Trust me to know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me, +dearest, and no one has a right upon me. I have been free to choose my +life, and I have chosen this.' + +"'But WAR--' she said. + +"I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand in +mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill her +mind with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying to her I +lied also to myself. And she was only too ready to believe me, only too +ready to forget. + +"Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our +bathing-place in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom to +bathe every day. We swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyant +water I seemed to become something lighter and stronger than a man. And +at last we came out dripping and rejoicing and raced among the rocks. +And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, and we sat to bask in the sun, +and presently I nodded, resting my head against her knee, and she put +her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. And behold! as +it were with the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening, +and I was in my own bed in Liverpool, in the life of to-day. + +"Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments had +been no more than the substance of a dream. + +"In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering reality +of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, and as I +shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman I loved to go +back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous north. Even if +Evesham did force the world back to war, what was that to me? I was a +man, with the heart of a man, and why should I feel the responsibility +of a deity for the way the world might go? + +"You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about my real +affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view. + +"The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike a dream +that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details; even the +ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine in the +breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt line that ran +about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with the messenger from +my deserted party. Have you ever heard of a dream that had a quality +like that?" + +"Like--?" + +"So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten." + +I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right. + +"Never," I said. "That is what you never seem to do with dreams." + +"No," he answered. "But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor, you +must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering what the +clients and business people I found myself talking to in my office would +think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a girl who would +be born a couple of hundred years or so hence, and worried about the +politics of my great-great-great-grandchildren. I was chiefly busy that +day negotiating a ninety-nine-year building lease. It was a private +builder in a hurry, and we wanted to tie him in every possible way. I +had an interview with him, and he showed a certain want of temper that +sent me to bed still irritated. That night I had no dream. Nor did I +dream the next night, at least, to remember. + +"Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began to +feel sure it WAS a dream. And then it came again. + +"When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very +different. I think it certain that four days had also elapsed in the +dream. Many things had happened in the north, and the shadow of them was +back again between us, and this time it was not so easily dispelled. +I began, I know, with moody musings. Why, in spite of all, should I go +back, go back for all the rest of my days to toil and stress, insults +and perpetual dissatisfaction, simply to save hundreds of millions of +common people, whom I did not love, whom too often I could do no other +than despise, from the stress and anguish of war and infinite misrule? +And after all I might fail. THEY all sought their own narrow ends, and +why should not I--why should not I also live as a man? And out of such +thoughts her voice summoned me, and I lifted my eyes. + +"I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure +City, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the +bay. It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left +Ischia hung in a golden haze between sea and sky, and Naples was coldly +white against the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a tall and +slender streamer feathering at last towards the south, and the ruins of +Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellamare glittering and near." + +I interrupted suddenly: "You have been to Capri, of course?" + +"Only in this dream," he said, "only in this dream. All across the bay +beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City moored +and chained. And northward were the broad floating stages that received +the aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every afternoon, each +bringing its thousands of pleasure-seekers from the uttermost parts of +the earth to Capri and its delights. All these things, I say, stretched +below. + +"But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight that +evening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered useless +in the distant arsenals of the Rhinemouth were manoeuvring now in the +eastward sky. Evesham had astonished the world by producing them and +others, and sending them to circle here and there. It was the threat +material in the great game of bluff he was playing, and it had taken +even me by surprise. He was one of those incredibly stupid energetic +people who seem sent by Heaven to create disasters. His energy to +the first glance seemed so wonderfully like capacity! But he had no +imagination, no invention, only a stupid, vast, driving force of will, +and a mad faith in his stupid idiot 'luck' to pull him through. I +remember how we stood out upon the headland watching the squadron +circling far away, and how I weighed the full meaning of the sight, +seeing clearly the way things must go. And then even it was not too +late. I might have gone back, I think, and saved the world. The people +of the north would follow me, I knew, granted only that in one thing I +respected their moral standards. The east and south would trust me as +they would trust no other northern man. And I knew I had only to put it +to her and she would have let me go.... Not because she did not love me! + +"Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about. I had +so newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still so fresh +a renegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what I OUGHT to do +had no power at all to touch my will. My will was to live, to gather +pleasures and make my dear lady happy. But though this sense of vast +neglected duties had no power to draw me, it could make me silent and +preoccupied, it robbed the days I had spent of half their brightness and +roused me into dark meditations in the silence of the night. And as I +stood and watched Evesham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds +of infinite ill omen--she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the +trouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my +face, her expression shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because +the sunset was fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she +held me. She had asked me to go from her, and again in the night time +and with tears she had asked me to go. + +"At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I turned +upon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain slopes. +'No,' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was resolved to +end that gravity, and made her run--no one can be very grey and sad who +is out of breath--and when she stumbled I ran with my hand beneath +her arm. We ran down past a couple of men, who turned back staring in +astonishment at my behaviour--they must have recognised my face. +And halfway down the slope came a tumult in the air, clang-clank, +clang-clank, and we stopped, and presently over the hill-crest those war +things came flying one behind the other." + +The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description. + +"What were they like?" I asked. + +"They had never fought," he said. "They were just like our ironclads are +nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might do, with +excited men inside them; few even cared to speculate. They were great +driving things shaped like spearheads without a shaft, with a propeller +in the place of the shaft." + +"Steel?" + +"Not steel." + +"Aluminium?" + +"No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as common +as brass, for example. It was called--let me see--." He squeezed his +forehead with the fingers of one hand. "I am forgetting everything," he +said. + +"And they carried guns?" + +"Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns +backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the +beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No +one could tell exactly what was going to happen. And meanwhile I suppose +it was very fine to go whirling through the air like a flight of young +swallows, swift and easy. I guess the captains tried not to think +too clearly what the real thing would be like. And these flying war +machines, you know, were only one sort of the endless war contrivances +that had been invented and had fallen into abeyance during the long +peace. There were all sorts of these things that people were routing out +and furbishing up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never +been tried; big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the +silly way of these ingenious sort of men who make these things; they +turn 'em out as beavers build dams, and with no more sense of the rivers +they're going to divert and the lands they're going to flood! + +"As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the +twilight, I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things +were driving for war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some +inkling of what war was bound to be under these new conditions. And even +then, though I knew it was drawing near the limit of my opportunity, I +could find no will to go back." + +He sighed. + +"That was my last chance. + +"We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we +walked out upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counselled me to +go back. + +"'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me, 'this is +Death. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them, go back to your +duty--.' + +"She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm as +she said it, 'Go back--Go back.' + +"Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read in +an instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those moments +when one SEES. + +"'No!' I said. + +"'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at the +answer to her thought. + +"'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen. Love, +I have chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens I will live this +life--I will live for YOU! It--nothing shall turn me aside; nothing, my +dear one. Even if you died--even if you died--' + +"'Yes,' she murmured, softly. + +"'Then--I also would die.' + +"And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking +eloquently--as I COULD do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make +the life we were living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was +deserting something hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine thing +to set aside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it, seeking +not only to convert her but myself to that. We talked, and she clung to +me, torn too between all that she deemed noble and all that she knew +was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made all the thickening +disaster of the world only a sort of glorious setting to our +unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls strutted there at +last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken rather with that glorious +delusion, under the still stars. + +"And so my moment passed. + +"It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders of +the south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot answer that +shattered Evesham's bluffing for ever, took shape and waited. And all +over Asia, and the ocean, and the south, the air and the wires were +throbbing with their warnings to prepare--prepare. + +"No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine, with +all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe most +people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms and +shouting charges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when half +the world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles away--." + +The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face was +intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station, a string +of loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage, shot by the +carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap of noise, echoing the +tumult of the train. + +"After that," he said, "I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights that +dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights when I +could not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS accursed life; and +THERE--somewhere lost to me--things were happening--momentous, terrible +things.... I lived at nights--my days, my waking days, this life I am +living now, became a faded, far-away dream, a drab setting, the cover of +the book." + +He thought. + +"I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream, but as +to what I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not remember. +My memory--my memory has gone. The business of life slips from me--" + +He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long time +he said nothing. + +"And then?" said I. + +"The war burst like a hurricane." + +He stared before him at unspeakable things. + +"And then?" I urged again. + +"One touch of unreality," he said, in the low tone of a man who speaks +to himself, "and they would have been nightmares. But they were not +nightmares--they were not nightmares. NO!" + +He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was a danger +of losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking again in the +same tone of questioning self-communion. + +"What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would touch +Capri--I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all, as the contrast +to it all; but two nights after the whole place was shouting and +bawling, every woman almost and every other man wore a badge--Evesham's +badge--and there was no music but a jangling war-song over and over +again, and everywhere men enlisting, and in the dancing halls they were +drilling. The whole island was awhirl with rumours; it was said, again +and again, that fighting had begun. I had not expected this. I had seen +so little of the life of pleasure that I had failed to reckon with this +violence of the amateurs. And as for me, I was out of it. I was like +a man who might have prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had +gone. I was no one; the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more +than I. The crowd jostled us and bawled in our ears; that accursed song +deafened us; a woman shrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, +and we two went back to our own place again, ruffled and insulted--my +lady white and silent, and I aquiver with rage. So furious was I, +I could have quarrelled with her if I could have found one shade of +accusation in her eyes. + +"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock +cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward that +flared and passed and came again. + +"'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have made my +choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will have nothing +of this war. We have taken our lives out of all these things. This is no +refuge for us. Let us go.' + +"And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered +the world. + +"And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight." + +He mused darkly. + +"How much was there of it?" + +He made no answer. + +"How many days?" + +His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took no +heed of my curiosity. + +I tried to draw him back to his story with questions. + +"Where did you go?" I said. + +"When?" + +"When you left Capri." + +"Southwest," he said, and glanced at me for a second. "We went in a +boat." + +"But I should have thought an aeroplane?" + +"They had been seized." + +I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning again. He +broke out in an argumentative monotone: + +"But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and +stress IS life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty? If +there IS no refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all our dreams +of quiet places are a folly and a snare, why have we such dreams? Surely +it was no ignoble cravings, no base intentions, had brought us to this; +it was Love had isolated us. Love had come to me with her eyes and robed +in her beauty, more glorious than all else in life, in the very shape +and colour of life, and summoned me away. I had silenced all the voices, +I had answered all the questions--I had come to her. And suddenly there +was nothing but War and Death!" + +I had an inspiration. "After all," I said, "it could have been only a +dream." + +"A dream!" he cried, flaming upon me, "a dream--when even now--" + +For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into his +cheek. He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped it to his +knee. He spoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest of the time +he looked away. "We are but phantoms," he said, "and the phantoms of +phantoms, desires like cloud shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the +wind; the days pass, use and wont carry us through as a train carries +the shadow of its lights, so be it! But one thing is real and certain, +one thing is no dreamstuff, but eternal and enduring. It is the centre +of my life, and all other things about it are subordinate or altogether +vain. I loved her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead +together! + +"A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life with +unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for and cared +for, worthless and unmeaning? + +"Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still a +chance of getting away," he said. "All through the night and morning +that we sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno, we talked of +escape. We were full of hope, and it clung about us to the end, hope for +the life together we should lead, out of it all, out of the battle and +struggle, the wild and empty passions, the empty arbitrary 'thou shalt' +and 'thou shalt not' of the world. We were uplifted, as though our quest +was a holy thing, as though love for one another was a mission.... + +"Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock +Capri--already scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and +hiding-places that were to make it a fastness--we reckoned nothing of +the imminent slaughter, though the fury of preparation hung about in +puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the grey; but, +indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know, was the +rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, with its countless windows and +arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet, a vast carving +of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon and orange groves, and +masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs of almond blossom. And out +under the archway that is built over the Piccola Marina other boats were +coming; and as we came round the cape and within sight of the mainland, +another little string of boats came into view, driving before the wind +towards the southwest. In a little while a multitude had come out, the +remoter just little specks of ultramarine in the shadow of the eastward +cliff. + +"'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness, of +war.' + +"And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across the +southern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little dots in +the sky--and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon, and then still +more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled with blue specks. +Now they were all thin little strokes of blue, and now one and now +a multitude would heel and catch the sun and become short flashes of +light. They came rising and falling and growing larger, like some huge +flight of gulls or rooks, or such-like birds moving with a marvellous +uniformity, and ever as they drew nearer they spread over a greater +width of sky. The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud +athwart the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and +streamed eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and clearer +again until they vanished from the sky. And after that we noted to the +northward and very high Evesham's fighting machines hanging high over +Naples like an evening swarm of gnats. + +"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds. + +"Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us to +signify nothing.... + +"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still seeking +that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had come upon us, +pain and many distresses. For though we were dusty and stained by our +toilsome tramping, and half starved and with the horror of the dead +men we had seen and the flight of the peasants--for very soon a gust of +fighting swept up the peninsula--with these things haunting our minds it +still resulted only in a deepening resolution to escape. O, but she was +brave and patient! She who had never faced hardship and exposure had +courage for herself--and me. We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over +a country all commandeered and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. +Always we went on foot. At first there were other fugitives, but we did +not mingle with them. Some escaped northward, some were caught in +the torrent of peasantry that swept along the main roads; many gave +themselves into the hands of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many +of the men were impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had +brought no money to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at +the hands of these conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and +we had been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards +Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back for +want of food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum, +where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea that by +Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take once +more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us. + +"A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were being +hemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in its toils. +Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from the north +going to and fro, and had come upon them in the distance amidst the +mountains making ways for the ammunition and preparing the mounting of +the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us, taking us for spies--at +any rate a shot had gone shuddering over us. Several times we had hidden +in woods from hovering aeroplanes. + +"But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight and +pain.... We were in an open place near those great temples at Paestum, +at last, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky bushes, empty and +desolate and so flat that a grove of eucalyptus far away showed to the +feet of its stems. How I can see it! My lady was sitting down under +a bush, resting a little, for she was very weak and weary, and I was +standing up watching to see if I could tell the distance of the firing +that came and went. They were still, you know, fighting far from each +other, with those terrible new weapons that had never before been used: +guns that would carry beyond sight, and aeroplanes that would do--What +THEY would do no man could foretell. + +"I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew +together. I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there and +rest! + +"Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background. +They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking of +my lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she had owned +herself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me I could hear her +sobbing, but I would not turn round to her because I knew she had need +of weeping, and had held herself so far and so long for me. It was well, +I thought, that she would weep and rest and then we would toil on again, +for I had no inkling of the thing that hung so near. Even now I can see +her as she sat there, her lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again +the deepening hollow of her cheek. + +"'If we had parted,' she said, 'if I had let you go.' + +"'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent; I made my +choice, and I will hold on to the end." + +"And then-- + +"Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about us I +heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas suddenly thrown. +They chipped the stones about us, and whirled fragments from the bricks +and passed...." + +He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips. + +"At the flash I had turned about.... + +"You know--she stood up-- + +"She stood up; you know, and moved a step towards me-- + +"As though she wanted to reach me-- + +"And she had been shot through the heart." + +He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity an +Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, and +then stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence. When at +last I looked at him he was sitting back in his corner, his arms folded, +and his teeth gnawing at his knuckles. + +He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it. + +"I carried her," he said, "towards the temples, in my arms--as though it +mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you know, +they had lasted so long, I suppose. + +"She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the +way." + +Silence again. + +"I have seen those temples," I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought +those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me. + +"It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar +and held her in my arms.... Silent after the first babble was over. And +after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, as though +nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed.... It was +tremendously still there, the sun high, and the shadows still; even the +shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still--in spite of the +thudding and banging that went all about the sky. + +"I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and +that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and +overset and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in +the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you +know--flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of +the temple--a black thing in the bright blue water. + +"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased. +Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space. +That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed +the stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface. + +"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater. + +"The curious thing," he remarked, with the manner of a man who makes a +trivial conversation, "is that I didn't THINK--I didn't think at all. +I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort of +lethargy--stagnant. + +"And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day. I +know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open in front +of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being there, seeing that +in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum temple with a dead +woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine. I have forgotten +what they were about." + +He stopped, and there was a long silence. + +Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from Chalk +Farm to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned on him with +a brutal question, with the tone of Now or never. + +"And did you dream again?" + +"Yes." + +He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low. + +"Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed to have +suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen into a sitting +position, and the body lay there on the stones beside me. A gaunt body. +Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her.... + +"I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that men +were coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage. + +"I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into +sight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform of dirty +white, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing to the crest of +the old wall of the vanished city, and crouching there. They were little +bright figures in the sunlight, and there they hung, weapon in hand, +peering cautiously before them. + +"And further away I saw others and then more at another point in the +wall. It was a long lax line of men in open order. + +"Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command, and +his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds towards the +temple. He scrambled down with them and led them. He came facing towards +me, and when he saw me he stopped. + +"At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when I +had seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid them. I +shouted to the officer. + +"'You must not come here,' I cried, '_I_ am here. I am here with my +dead.' + +"He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown +tongue. + +"I repeated what I had said. + +"He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently he +spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword. + +"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told him +again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here. These are old +temples and I am here with my dead.' + +"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was a narrow +face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had a scar on +his upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept shouting +unintelligible things, questions perhaps, at me. + +"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not +occur to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in imperious +tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside. + +"He made to go past me, And I caught hold of him. + +"I saw his face change at my grip. + +"'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!' + +"He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort of +exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then, suddenly, with a scowl, +he swept his sword back--SO--and thrust." + +He stopped abruptly. I became aware of a change in the rhythm of the +train. The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage jarred and +jerked. This present world insisted upon itself, became clamorous. I saw +through the steamy window huge electric lights glaring down from tall +masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary empty carriages passing by, and +then a signal-box, hoisting its constellation of green and red into the +murky London twilight marched after them. I looked again at his drawn +features. + +"He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--no +fear, no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, felt the +sword drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know. It didn't hurt +at all." + +The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing first +rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk. Dim shapes of +men passed to and fro without. + +"Euston!" cried a voice. + +"Do you mean--?" + +"There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness +sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face +of the man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of +existence--" + +"Euston!" clamoured the voices outside; "Euston!" + +The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stood +regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of +cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the +London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted lamps +blazed along the platform. + +"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted out +all things." + +"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter. + +"And that was the end?" I asked. + +He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "No." + +"You mean?" + +"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the +Temple--And then--" + +"Yes," I insisted. "Yes?" + +"Nightmares," he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds that +fought and tore." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM *** + +***** This file should be named 1743.txt or 1743.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/4/1743/ + +Produced by Aaron Cannon, and Stephanie Johnson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/1743.zip b/1743.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..844e2e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/1743.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ba615b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1743 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1743) diff --git a/old/12sad10.txt b/old/12sad10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76ef5d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12sad10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8339 @@ +
+Project Gutenberg Etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream
+by H. G. Wells, #17 in our series by H. G. Wells
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below. We need your donations.
+
+
+Twelve Stories and a Dream
+
+by H. G. Wells
+
+May, 1999 [Etext #1743]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream
+by H. G. Wells, #17 in our series by H. G. Wells
+******This file should be named 12sad10.txt or 12sad10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 12sad11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 12sad10a.txt
+
+
+Etext scanned by Aaron Cannon, formatted and proofed by
+Stephanie Johnson
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included. Therefore, we do usually do NOT! keep
+these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+
+Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text
+files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
+manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly
+from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an
+assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few
+more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we
+don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie-
+Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box 2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
+if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
+it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email.
+
+******
+
+To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser
+to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by
+author and by title, and includes information about how
+to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also
+download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This
+is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com,
+for a more complete list of our various sites.
+
+To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any
+Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror
+sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed
+at http://promo.net/pg).
+
+Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better.
+
+Example FTP session:
+
+ftp sunsite.unc.edu
+login: anonymous
+password: your@login
+cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
+cd etext90 through etext99
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
+GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
+
+***
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
+ requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+ etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
+ if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+ binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+ including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+ cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+ *EITHER*:
+
+ [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+ does *not* contain characters other than those
+ intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+ (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+ be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+ author, and additional characters may be used to
+ indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+ [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+ no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+ form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+ the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+ OR
+
+ [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+ no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+ etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+ or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+ "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+ net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+ already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
+ don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
+ payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+ University" within the 60 days following each
+ date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+ your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+Etext scanned by Aaron Cannon, formatted and proofed by
+Stephanie Johnson
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM
+
+BY H. G. WELLS
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+1. Filmer
+
+2. The Magic Shop
+
+3. The Valley of Spiders
+
+4. The Truth About Pyecraft
+
+5. Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland
+
+6. The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost
+
+7. Jimmy Goggles the God
+
+8. The New Accelerator
+
+9. Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation
+
+10. The Stolen Body
+
+11. Mr. Brisher's Treasure
+
+12. Miss Winchelsea's Heart
+
+13. A Dream of Armageddon
+
+
+
+
+1. FILMER
+
+In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men--
+this man a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only
+one vigorous intellectual effort was needed to finish the work.
+But the inexorable injustice of the popular mind has decided
+that of all these thousands, one man, and that a man who never flew,
+should be chosen as the discoverer, just as it has chosen to
+honour Watt as the discoverer of steam and Stephenson of the
+steam-engine. And surely of all honoured names none is so
+grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, the timid,
+intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the world
+had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations,
+the man who pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare
+and well-nigh every condition of human life and happiness. Never
+has that recurring wonder of the littleness of the scientific man
+in the face of the greatness of his science found such an amazing
+exemplification. Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain,
+profoundly obscure--Filmers attract no Boswells--but the essential
+facts and the concluding scene are clear enough, and there are
+letters, and notes, and casual allusions to piece the whole together.
+And this is the story one makes, putting this thing with that,
+of Filmer's life and death.
+
+The first authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is
+a document in which he applies for admission as a paid student
+in physics to the Government laboratories at South Kensington,
+and therein he describes himself as the son of a "military bootmaker"
+("cobbler" in the vulgar tongue) of Dover, and lists his various
+examination proofs of a high proficiency in chemistry and
+mathematics. With a certain want of dignity he seeks to enhance
+these attainments by a profession of poverty and disadvantages,
+and he writes of the laboratory as the "gaol" of his ambitions,
+a slip which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself exclusively
+to the exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner that
+shows Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until
+quite recently no traces of his success in the Government institution
+could be found.
+
+It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed zeal
+for research, Filmer, before he had held this scholarship a year,
+was tempted, by the possibility of a small increase in his immediate
+income, to abandon it in order to become one of the nine-pence-an-hour
+computers employed by a well-known Professor in his vicarious
+conduct of those extensive researches of his in solar physics--researches
+which are still a matter of perplexity to astronomers. Afterwards,
+for the space of seven years, save for the pass lists of the
+London University, in which he is seen to climb slowly to a double
+first class B.Sc., in mathematics and chemistry, there is no evidence
+of how Filmer passed his life. No one knows how or where he lived,
+though it seems highly probable that he continued to support
+himself by teaching while he prosecuted the studies necessary for
+this distinction. And then, oddly enough, one finds him mentioned
+in the correspondence of Arthur Hicks, the poet.
+
+"You remember Filmer," Hicks writes to his friend Vance; "well,
+HE hasn't altered a bit, the same hostile mumble and the nasty
+chin--how CAN a man contrive to be always three days from shaving?
+-- and a sort of furtive air of being engaged in sneaking in front
+of one; even his coat and that frayed collar of his show no further
+signs of the passing years. He was writing in the library and
+I sat down beside him in the name of God's charity, whereupon
+he deliberately insulted me by covering up his memoranda. It seems
+he has some brilliant research on hand that he suspects me of all
+people--with a Bodley Booklet a-printing!--of stealing. He has taken
+remarkable honours at the University--he went through them with
+a sort of hasty slobber, as though he feared I might interrupt him
+before he had told me all--and he spoke of taking his D.Sc. as one
+might speak of taking a cab. And he asked what I was doing--with
+a sort of comparative accent, and his arm was spread nervously,
+positively a protecting arm, over the paper that hid the precious
+idea--his one hopeful idea.
+
+"'Poetry,' he said, 'Poetry. And what do you profess to teach
+in it, Hicks?'
+
+"The thing's a Provincial professorling in the very act of budding,
+and I thank the Lord devoutly that but for the precious gift
+of indolence I also might have gone this way to D.Sc. and
+destruction . . ."
+
+A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer
+in or near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in
+anticipating a provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse
+of him is lecturing on "rubber and rubber substitutes," to the
+Society of Arts--he had become manager to a great plastic-substance
+manufactory--and at that time, it is now known, he was a member
+of the Aeronautical Society, albeit he contributed nothing to the
+discussions of that body, preferring no doubt to mature his great
+conception without external assistance. And within two years
+of that paper before the Society of Arts he was hastily taking out
+a number of patents and proclaiming in various undignified ways
+the completion of the divergent inquiries which made his flying
+machine possible. The first definite statement to that effect
+appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man
+who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after
+his long laborious secret patience seems to have been due to
+a needless panic, Bootle, the notorious American scientific quack,
+having made an announcement that Filmer interpreted wrongly as
+an anticipation of his idea.
+
+Now what precisely was Filmer's idea? Really a very simple one.
+Before his time the pursuit of aeronautics had taken two divergent
+lines, and had developed on the one hand balloons--large apparatus
+lighter than air, easy in ascent, and comparatively safe in descent,
+but floating helplessly before any breeze that took them; and on
+the other, flying machines that flew only in theory--vast flat
+structures heavier than air, propelled and kept up by heavy engines
+and for the most part smashing at the first descent. But, neglecting
+the fact that the inevitable final collapse rendered them impossible,
+the weight of the flying machines gave them this theoretical
+advantage, that they could go through the air against a wind,
+a necessary condition if aerial navigation was to have any practical
+value. It is Filmer's particular merit that he perceived the way
+in which the contrasted and hitherto incompatible merits of balloon
+and heavy flying machine might be combined in one apparatus,
+which should be at choice either heavier or lighter than air.
+He took hints from the contractile bladders of fish and the pneumatic
+cavities of birds. He devised an arrangement of contractile
+and absolutely closed balloons which when expanded could lift
+the actual flying apparatus with ease, and when retracted by the
+complicated "musculature" he wove about them, were withdrawn
+almost completely into the frame; and he built the large framework
+which these balloons sustained, of hollow, rigid tubes, the air
+in which, by an ingenious contrivance, was automatically pumped
+out as the apparatus fell, and which then remained exhausted
+so long as the aeronaut desired. There were no wings or propellers
+to his machine, such as there had been to all previous aeroplanes,
+and the only engine required was the compact and powerful little
+appliance needed to contract the balloons. He perceived that such
+an apparatus as he had devised might rise with frame exhausted
+and balloons expanded to a considerable height, might then contract
+its balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an adjustment
+of its weights slide down the air in any desired direction. As it fell
+it would accumulate velocity and at the same time lose weight,
+and the momentum accumulated by its down-rush could be utilised
+by means of a shifting of its weights to drive it up in the air again
+as the balloons expanded. This conception, which is still the
+structural conception of all successful flying machines, needed,
+however, a vast amount of toil upon its details before it could
+actually be realised, and such toil Filmer--as he was accustomed
+to tell the numerous interviewers who crowded upon him in
+the heyday of his fame--"ungrudgingly and unsparingly gave."
+His particular difficulty was the elastic lining of the contractile
+balloon. He found he needed a new substance, and in the discovery
+and manufacture of that new substance he had, as he never failed
+to impress upon the interviewers, "performed a far more arduous
+work than even in the actual achievement of my seemingly greater
+discovery."
+
+But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard
+upon Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly
+five years elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber
+factory--he seems to have been entirely dependent on his small
+income from this source--making misdirected attempts to assure
+a quite indifferent public that he really HAD invented what he had
+invented. He occupied the greater part of his leisure in the
+composition of letters to the scientific and daily press, and
+so forth, stating precisely the net result of his contrivances,
+and demanding financial aid. That alone would have sufficed for
+the suppression of his letters. He spent such holidays as he could
+arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the door-keepers of
+leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for inspiring
+hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted to induce
+the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a
+confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs.
+"The man's a crank and a bounder to boot," says the Major-General
+in his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese
+to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side
+of warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain.
+
+And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his
+contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves
+of a new oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial
+model of his invention. He threw up his rubber factory appointment,
+desisted from all further writing, and, with a certain secrecy
+that seems to have been an inseparable characteristic of all his
+proceedings, set to work upon the apparatus. He seems to have
+directed the making of its parts and collected most of it in a room
+in Shoreditch, but its final putting together was done at Dymchurch,
+in Kent. He did not make the affair large enough to carry a man,
+but he made an extremely ingenious use of what were then called
+the Marconi rays to control its flight. The first flight of this
+first practicable flying machine took place over some fields
+near Burford Bridge, near Hythe, in Kent, and Filmer followed
+and controlled its flight upon a specially constructed motor tricycle.
+
+The flight was, considering all things, an amazing success.
+The apparatus was brought in a cart from Dymchurch to Burford Bridge,
+ascended there to a height of nearly three hundred feet, swooped
+thence very nearly back to Dymchurch, came about in its sweep,
+rose again, circled, and finally sank uninjured in a field behind
+the Burford Bridge Inn. At its descent a curious thing happened.
+Filmer got off his tricycle, scrambled over the intervening dyke,
+advanced perhaps twenty yards towards his triumph, threw out
+his arms in a strange gesticulation, and fell down in a dead faint.
+Every one could then recall the ghastliness of his features and
+all the evidences of extreme excitement they had observed throughout
+the trial, things they might otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards
+in the inn he had an unaccountable gust of hysterical weeping.
+
+Altogether there were not twenty witnesses of this affair, and
+those for the most part uneducated men. The New Romney doctor
+saw the ascent but not the descent, his horse being frightened
+by the electrical apparatus on Filmer's tricycle and giving him
+a nasty spill. Two members of the Kent constabulary watched
+the affair from a cart in an unofficial spirit, and a grocer calling
+round the Marsh for orders and two lady cyclists seem almost
+to complete the list of educated people. There were two reporters
+present, one representing a Folkestone paper and the other being
+a fourth-class interviewer and "symposium" journalist, whose
+expenses down, Filmer, anxious as ever for adequate advertisement
+--and now quite realising the way in which adequate advertisement
+may be obtained--had paid. The latter was one of those writers
+who can throw a convincing air of unreality over the most credible
+events, and his half-facetious account of the affair appeared
+in the magazine page of a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer,
+this person's colloquial methods were more convincing. He went
+to offer some further screed upon the subject to Banghurst,
+the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of the ablest and most
+unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst instantly
+seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from the narrative,
+no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, Banghurst himself,
+double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, gestures and all,
+appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled journalistic nose.
+He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it was and
+what it might be.
+
+At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded
+into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns
+over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous
+recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be.
+The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying,
+state by a most effective silence that men never would, could or
+should fly. In August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes
+and aerial tactics and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again
+flying, shouldered the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of
+Upper Greenland off the leading page. And Banghurst had given
+ten thousand pounds, and, further, Banghurst was giving five thousand
+pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his well-known, magnificent
+(but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and several acres of land
+near his private residence on the Surrey hills to the strenuous
+and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the life-size
+practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of privileged
+multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town residence
+in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties putting
+the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost,
+but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers
+with a beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions.
+
+Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance
+comes to our aid.
+
+"I saw Filmer in his glory," he writes, with just the touch of envy
+natural to his position as a poet passe. "The man is brushed
+and shaved, dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon
+Lecturer, the very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes,
+and altogether in a state of extraordinary streakiness between
+an owlish great man and a scared abashed self-conscious bounder
+cruelly exposed. He hasn't a touch of colour in the skin of his face,
+his head juts forward, and those queer little dark amber eyes of his
+watch furtively round him for his fame. His clothes fit perfectly
+and yet sit upon him as though he had bought them ready-made.
+He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, you perceive indistinctly,
+enormous self-assertive things, he backs into the rear of groups
+by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, and when
+he walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out
+of breath and going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched.
+His is a state of tension--horrible tension. And he is the Greatest
+Discoverer of This or Any Age--the Greatest Discoverer of This
+or Any Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't
+somehow quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this.
+Banghurst is about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great
+little catch, and I swear he will have every one down on his lawn
+there before he has finished with the engine; he had bagged
+the prime minister yesterday, and he, bless his heart! didn't look
+particularly outsize, on the very first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer!
+Our obscure unwashed Filmer, the Glory of British science!
+Duchesses crowd upon him, beautiful, bold peeresses say in their
+beautiful, clear loud voices--have you noticed how penetrating
+the great lady is becoming nowadays?--'Oh, Mr. Filmer, how DID
+you do it?'
+
+"Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer.
+One imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly
+and unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps
+a little special aptitude.'"
+
+So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in
+sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine
+swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church
+appears below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer
+sits at his guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth
+stand around him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely
+in the rear. The grouping is oddly apposite. Occluding much of
+Banghurst, and looking with a pensive, speculative expression
+at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, still beautiful,
+in spite of the breath of scandal and her eight-and-thirty years,
+the only person whose face does not admit a perception of the camera
+that was in the act of snapping them all.
+
+So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all,
+they are very exterior facts. About the real interest of the business
+one is necessarily very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling
+at the time? How much was a certain unpleasant anticipation present
+inside that very new and fashionable frock-coat? He was in the
+halfpenny, penny, six-penny, and more expensive papers alike,
+and acknowledged by the whole world as "the Greatest Discoverer
+of This or Any Age." He had invented a practicable flying machine,
+and every day down among the Surrey hills the life-sized model
+was getting ready. And when it was ready, it followed as a clear
+inevitable consequence of his having invented and made it--everybody
+in the world, indeed, seemed to take it for granted; there wasn't
+a gap anywhere in that serried front of anticipation--that he would
+proudly and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend with it, and fly.
+
+But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness
+in such an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private
+constitution. It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is.
+We can guess with some confidence now that it must have been
+drifting about in his mind a great deal during the day, and, from
+a little note to his physician complaining of persistent insomnia,
+we have the soundest reason for supposing it dominated his nights,
+--the idea that it would be after all, in spite of his theoretical
+security, an abominably sickening, uncomfortable, and dangerous
+thing for him to flap about in nothingness a thousand feet or so
+in the air. It must have dawned upon him quite early in the period
+of being the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age, the vision
+of doing this and that with an extensive void below. Perhaps
+somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height or fallen
+down in some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit of
+sleeping on the wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling
+nightmare one knows, and given him his horror; of the strength
+of that horror there remains now not a particle of doubt.
+
+Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier
+days of research; the machine had been his end, but now things
+were opening out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl
+up above there. He was a Discoverer and he had Discovered.
+But he was not a Flying Man, and it was only now that he was beginning
+to perceive clearly that he was expected to fly. Yet, however much
+the thing was present in his mind he gave no expression to it until
+the very end, and meanwhile he went to and fro from Banghurst's
+magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed and lionised, and
+wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in an elegant flat,
+enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, wholesome
+Fame and Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had been
+starved, might be reasonably expected to enjoy.
+
+After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model
+had failed one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance,
+or he had been distracted by the compliments of an archbishop.
+At any rate, it suddenly dug its nose into the air just a little
+too steeply as the archbishop was sailing through a Latin quotation
+for all the world like an archbishop in a book, and it came down
+in the Fulham Road within three yards of a 'bus horse. It stood
+for a second perhaps, astonishing and in its attitude astonished,
+then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, and the 'bus horse was
+incidentally killed.
+
+Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up
+and stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him.
+His long, white hands still gripped his useless apparatus.
+The archbishop followed his skyward stare with an apprehension
+unbecoming in an archbishop.
+
+Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road
+to relieve Filmer's tension. "My God!" he whispered, and sat down.
+
+Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had
+vanished, or rushing into the house.
+
+The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly
+for this. Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow
+and very careful in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation
+in his mind. His care over the strength and soundness of the apparatus
+was prodigious. The slightest doubt, and he delayed everything
+until the doubtful part could be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior
+assistant, fumed at some of these delays, which, he insisted, were
+for the most part unnecessary. Banghurst magnified the patient
+certitude of Filmer in the New Paper, and reviled it bitterly
+to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second assistant, approved Filmer's
+wisdom. "We're not wanting a fiasco, man," said MacAndrew. "He's
+perfectly well advised."
+
+And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson
+and MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine
+was to be controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be
+just as capable, and even more capable, when at last the time came,
+of guiding it through the skies.
+
+Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage
+to define just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line
+in the matter of his ascent, he might have escaped that painful
+ordeal quite easily. If he had had it clearly in his mind he could
+have done endless things. He would surely have found no difficulty
+with a specialist to demonstrate a weak heart, or something gastric
+or pulmonary, to stand in his way--that is the line I am astonished
+he did not take,--or he might, had he been man enough, have
+declared simply and finally that he did not intend to do the thing.
+But the fact is, though the dread was hugely present in his mind,
+the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy that all through
+this period he kept telling himself that when the occasion came
+he would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just gripped
+by a great illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and expects
+to be better presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of
+the machine, and let the assumption that he was going to fly it
+take root and flourish exceedingly about him. He even accepted
+anticipatory compliments on his courage. And, barring this secret
+squeamishness, there can be no doubt he found all the praise and
+distinction and fuss he got a delightful and even intoxicating draught.
+
+The Lady Mary Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated
+for him.
+
+How THAT began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks.
+Probably in the beginning she was just a little "nice" to him
+with that impartial partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes,
+standing out conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air,
+he had a distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow
+they must have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great
+Discoverer a moment of sufficient courage for something just
+a little personal to be mumbled or blurted. However it began,
+there is no doubt that it did begin, and presently became quite
+perceptible to a world accustomed to find in the proceedings
+of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a matter of entertainment. It complicated
+things, because the state of love in such a virgin mind as Filmer's
+would brace his resolution, if not sufficiently, at any rate
+considerably towards facing a danger he feared, and hampered him
+in such attempts at evasion as would otherwise be natural and congenial.
+
+It remains a matter for speculation just how the Lady Mary felt
+for Filmer and just what she thought of him. At thirty-eight one
+may have gathered much wisdom and still be not altogether wise,
+and the imagination still functions actively enough in creating
+glamours and effecting the impossible. He came before her eyes
+as a very central man, and that always counts, and he had powers,
+unique powers as it seemed, at any rate in the air. The performance
+with the model had just a touch of the quality of a potent incantation,
+and women have ever displayed an unreasonable disposition to imagine
+that when a man has powers he must necessarily have Power. Given
+so much, and what was not good in Filmer's manner and appearance
+became an added merit. He was modest, he hated display, but given
+an occasion where TRUE qualities are needed, then--then one would see!
+
+The late Mrs. Bampton thought it wise to convey to Lady Mary her opinion
+that Filmer, all things considered, was rather a "grub." "He's certainly
+not a sort of man I have ever met before," said the Lady Mary,
+with a quite unruffled serenity. And Mrs. Bampton, after a swift,
+imperceptible glance at that serenity, decided that so far as saying
+anything to Lady Mary went, she had done as much as could be expected
+of her. But she said a great deal to other people.
+
+And at last, without any undue haste or unseemliness, the day
+dawned, the great day, when Banghurst had promised his public--
+the world in fact--that flying should be finally attained and overcome.
+Filmer saw it dawn, watched even in the darkness before it dawned,
+watched its stars fade and the grey and pearly pinks give place
+at last to the clear blue sky of a sunny, cloudless day. He watched it
+from the window of his bedroom in the new-built wing of Banghurst's
+Tudor house. And as the stars were overwhelmed and the shapes and
+substances of things grew into being out of the amorphous dark,
+he must have seen more and more distinctly the festive preparations
+beyond the beech clumps near the green pavilion in the outer park,
+the three stands for the privileged spectators, the raw, new fencing
+of the enclosure, the sheds and workshops, the Venetian masts
+and fluttering flags that Banghurst had considered essential,
+black and limp in the breezeless dawn, and amidst all these things
+a great shape covered with tarpauling. A strange and terrible
+portent for humanity was that shape, a beginning that must surely
+spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men,
+but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything
+but a narrow and personal light. Several people heard him pacing
+in the small hours--for the vast place was packed with guests
+by a proprietor editor who, before all understood compression.
+And about five o'clock, if not before, Filmer left his room and
+wandered out of the sleeping house into the park, alive by that time
+with sunlight and birds and squirrels and the fallow deer. MacAndrew,
+who was also an early riser, met him near the machine, and they went
+and had a look at it together.
+
+It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast, in spite of the urgency
+of Banghurst. So soon as the guests began to be about in some number
+he seems to have retreated to his room. Thence about ten he went
+into the shrubbery, very probably because he had seen the Lady Mary
+Elkinghorn there. She was walking up and down, engaged in conversation
+with her old school friend, Mrs. Brewis-Craven, and although Filmer
+had never met the latter lady before, he joined them and walked
+beside them for some time. There were several silences in spite
+of the Lady Mary's brilliance. The situation was a difficult one,
+and Mrs. Brewis-Craven did not master its difficulty. "He struck me,"
+she said afterwards with a luminous self-contradiction, "as a very
+unhappy person who had something to say, and wanted before all things
+to be helped to say it. But how was one to help him when one didn't
+know what it was?"
+
+At half-past eleven the enclosures for the public in the outer park
+were crammed, there was an intermittent stream of equipages along
+the belt which circles the outer park, and the house party was dotted
+over the lawn and shrubbery and the corner of the inner park,
+in a series of brilliantly attired knots, all making for the
+flying machine. Filmer walked in a group of three with Banghurst,
+who was supremely and conspicuously happy, and Sir Theodore Hickle,
+the president of the Aeronautical Society. Mrs. Banghurst was close
+behind with the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, Georgina Hickle, and the Dean
+of Stays. Banghurst was large and copious in speech, and such
+interstices as he left were filled in by Hickle with complimentary
+remarks to Filmer. And Filmer walked between them saying not a word
+except by way of unavoidable reply. Behind, Mrs. Banghurst listened
+to the admirably suitable and shapely conversation of the Dean
+with that fluttered attention to the ampler clergy ten years
+of social ascent and ascendency had not cured in her; and the Lady Mary
+watched, no doubt with an entire confidence in the world's
+disillusionment, the drooping shoulders of the sort of man she had
+never met before.
+
+There was some cheering as the central party came into view of
+the enclosures, but it was not very unanimous nor invigorating cheering.
+They were within fifty yards of the apparatus when Filmer took
+a hasty glance over his shoulder to measure the distance of the ladies
+behind them, and decided to make the first remark he had initiated
+since the house had been left. His voice was just a little hoarse,
+and he cut in on Banghurst in mid-sentence on Progress.
+
+"I say, Banghurst," he said, and stopped.
+
+"Yes," said Banghurst.
+
+"I wish--" He moistened his lips. "I'm not feeling well."
+
+Banghurst stopped dead. "Eh?" he shouted.
+
+"A queer feeling." Filmer made to move on, but Banghurst was immovable.
+"I don't know. I may be better in a minute. If not--perhaps . . .
+MacAndrew--"
+
+"You're not feeling WELL?" said Banghurst, and stared at his white face.
+
+"My dear!" he said, as Mrs. Banghurst came up with them, "Filmer
+says he isn't feeling WELL."
+
+"A little queer," exclaimed Filmer, avoiding the Lady Mary's eyes.
+"It may pass off--"
+
+There was a pause.
+
+It came to Filmer that he was the most isolated person in the world.
+
+"In any case," said Banghurst, "the ascent must be made. Perhaps
+if you were to sit down somewhere for a moment--"
+
+"It's the crowd, I think," said Filmer.
+
+There was a second pause. Banghurst's eye rested in scrutiny
+on Filmer, and then swept the sample of public in the enclosure.
+
+"It's unfortunate," said Sir Theodore Hickle; but still--I suppose--
+Your assistants--Of course, if you feel out of condition and disinclined--"
+
+"I don't think Mr. Filmer would permit THAT for a moment," said Lady Mary.
+
+"But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run--It might even be dangerous for him
+to attempt--" Hickle coughed.
+
+"It's just because it's dangerous," began the Lady Mary, and felt
+she had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough.
+
+Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer.
+
+"I feel I ought to go up," he said, regarding the ground. He looked
+up and met the Lady Mary's eyes. "I want to go up," he said, and
+smiled whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. "If I could
+just sit down somewhere for a moment out of the crowd and sun--"
+
+Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. "Come
+into my little room in the green pavilion," he said. "It's quite
+cool there." He took Filmer by the arm.
+
+Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. "I shall
+be all right in five minutes," he said. "I'm tremendously sorry--"
+
+The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. "I couldn't think--" he
+said to Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull.
+
+The rest remained watching the two recede.
+
+"He is so fragile," said the Lady Mary.
+
+"He's certainly a highly nervous type," said the Dean, whose weakness
+it was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with
+enormous families, as "neurotic."
+
+"Of course," said Hickle, "it isn't absolutely necessary for him
+to go up because he has invented--"
+
+"How COULD he avoid it?" asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest
+shadow of scorn.
+
+"It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now," said
+Mrs. Banghurst a little severely.
+
+"He's not going to be ill," said the Lady Mary, and certainly
+she had met Filmer's eye.
+
+"YOU'LL be all right," said Banghurst, as they went towards the pavilion.
+"All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you know.
+You'll be--you'd get it rough, you know, if you let another man--"
+
+"Oh, I want to go," said Filmer. "I shall be all right. As a matter
+of fact I'm almost inclined NOW--. No! I think I'll have that nip
+of brandy first."
+
+Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty
+decanter. He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps
+five minutes.
+
+The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals
+Filmer's face could be seen by the people on the easternmost
+of the stands erected for spectators, against the window pane
+peering out, and then it would recede and fade. Banghurst vanished
+shouting behind the grand stand, and presently the butler appeared
+going pavilionward with a tray.
+
+The apartment in which Filmer came to his last solution was a pleasant
+little room very simply furnished with green furniture and an old
+bureau--for Banghurst was simple in all his private ways. It was
+hung with little engravings after Morland and it had a shelf of books.
+But as it happened, Banghurst had left a rook rifle he sometimes
+played with on the top of the desk, and on the corner of the mantelshelf
+was a tin with three or four cartridges remaining in it. As Filmer
+went up and down that room wrestling with his intolerable dilemma
+he went first towards the neat little rifle athwart the blotting-pad
+and then towards the neat little red label
+
+".22 LONG."
+
+The thing must have jumped into his mind in a moment.
+
+Nobody seems to have connected the report with him, though the gun,
+being fired in a confined space, must have sounded loud, and there
+were several people in the billiard-room, separated from him only
+by a lath-and-plaster partition. But directly Banghurst's butler
+opened the door and smelt the sour smell of the smoke, he knew,
+he says, what had happened. For the servants at least of Banghurst's
+household had guessed something of what was going on in Filmer's mind.
+
+All through that trying afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held
+a man should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests
+for the most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact--though
+to conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible--that
+Banghurst had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled
+by the deceased. The public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed
+"like a party that has been ducking a welsher," and there wasn't a soul
+in the train to London, it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying
+was a quite impossible thing for man. "But he might have tried it,"
+said many, "after carrying the thing so far."
+
+In the evening, when he was comparatively alone, Banghurst broke
+down and went on like a man of clay. I have been told he wept,
+which must have made an imposing scene, and he certainly said
+Filmer had ruined his life, and offered and sold the whole apparatus
+to MacAndrew for half-a-crown. "I've been thinking--" said MacAndrew
+at the conclusion of the bargain, and stopped.
+
+The next morning the name of Filmer was, for the first time, less
+conspicuous in the New Paper than in any other daily paper in the world.
+The rest of the world's instructors, with varying emphasis, according
+to their dignity and the degree of competition between themselves
+and the New Paper, proclaimed the "Entire Failure of the New Flying
+Machine," and "Suicide of the Impostor." But in the district of North
+Surrey the reception of the news was tempered by a perception of unusual
+aerial phenomena.
+
+Overnight Wilkinson and MacAndrew had fallen into violent argument
+on the exact motives of their principal's rash act.
+
+"The man was certainly a poor, cowardly body, but so far as his
+science went he was NO impostor," said MacAndrew, "and I'm prepared
+to give that proposition a very practical demonstration, Mr. Wilkinson,
+so soon as we've got the place a little more to ourselves. For I've
+no faith in all this publicity for experimental trials."
+
+And to that end, while all the world was reading of the certain
+failure of the new flying machine, MacAndrew was soaring and curvetting
+with great amplitude and dignity over the Epsom and Wimbledon divisions;
+and Banghurst, restored once more to hope and energy, and regardless
+of public security and the Board of Trade, was pursuing his gyrations
+and trying to attract his attention, on a motor car and in his pyjamas--
+he had caught sight of the ascent when pulling up the blind of his
+bedroom window--equipped, among other things, with a film camera
+that was subsequently discovered to be jammed. And Filmer
+was lying on the billiard table in the green pavilion with a sheet
+about his body.
+
+
+2. THE MAGIC SHOP
+
+I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed
+it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic
+balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material
+of the basket trick, packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all
+that sort of thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day,
+almost without warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to
+the window, and so conducted himself that there was nothing for it
+but to take him in. I had not thought the place was there, to tell
+the truth--a modest-sized frontage in Regent Street, between
+the picture shop and the place where the chicks run about just
+out of patent incubators, but there it was sure enough. I had fancied
+it was down nearer the Circus, or round the corner in Oxford Street,
+or even in Holborn; always over the way and a little inaccessible
+it had been, with something of the mirage in its position; but here
+it was now quite indisputably, and the fat end of Gip's pointing
+finger made a noise upon the glass.
+
+"If I was rich," said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg,
+"I'd buy myself that. And that"--which was The Crying Baby, Very Human
+--and that," which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card asserted,
+"Buy One and Astonish Your Friends."
+
+"Anything," said Gip, "will disappear under one of those cones.
+I have read about it in a book.
+
+"And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--, only they've put it
+this way up so's we can't see how it's done."
+
+Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose
+to enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously
+he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear.
+
+"That," he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle.
+
+"If you had that?" I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up
+with a sudden radiance.
+
+"I could show it to Jessie," he said, thoughtful as ever of others.
+
+"It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles," I said,
+and laid my hand on the door-handle.
+
+Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so
+we came into the shop.
+
+It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing
+precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting.
+He left the burthen of the conversation to me.
+
+It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell
+pinged again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us.
+For a moment or so we were alone and could glance about us.
+There was a tiger in papier-mache on the glass case that covered
+the low counter--a grave, kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head
+in a methodical manner; there were several crystal spheres, a china
+hand holding magic cards, a stock of magic fish-bowls in various
+sizes, and an immodest magic hat that shamelessly displayed its springs.
+On the floor were magic mirrors; one to draw you out long and thin,
+one to swell your head and vanish your legs, and one to make you short
+and fat like a draught; and while we were laughing at these the shopman,
+as I suppose, came in.
+
+At any rate, there he was behind the counter--a curious, sallow,
+dark man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like
+the toe-cap of a boot.
+
+"What can we have the pleasure?" he said, spreading his long,
+magic fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware
+of him.
+
+"I want," I said, "to buy my little boy a few simple tricks."
+
+"Legerdemain?" he asked. "Mechanical? Domestic?"
+
+"Anything amusing?" said I.
+
+"Um!" said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if
+thinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball.
+"Something in this way?" he said, and held it out.
+
+The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainments
+endless times before--it's part of the common stock of conjurers--
+but I had not expected it here.
+
+"That's good," I said, with a laugh.
+
+"Isn't it?" said the shopman.
+
+Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found
+merely a blank palm.
+
+"It's in your pocket," said the shopman, and there it was!
+
+"How much will that be?" I asked.
+
+"We make no charge for glass balls," said the shopman politely.
+"We get them,"--he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke--"free."
+He produced another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside
+its predecessor on the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely,
+then directed a look of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally
+brought his round-eyed scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled.
+
+"You may have those too," said the shopman, "and, if you DON'T mind,
+one from my mouth. SO!"
+
+Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence
+put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved
+himself for the next event.
+
+"We get all our smaller tricks in that way," the shopman remarked.
+
+I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. "Instead
+of going to the wholesale shop," I said. "Of course, it's cheaper."
+
+"In a way," the shopman said. "Though we pay in the end. But not
+so heavily--as people suppose. . . . Our larger tricks, and our daily
+provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that hat. . .
+And you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there ISN'T
+a wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know
+if you noticed our inscription--the Genuine Magic shop." He drew
+a business-card from his cheek and handed it to me. "Genuine,"
+he said, with his finger on the word, and added, "There is absolutely
+no deception, sir."
+
+He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought.
+
+He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. "You, you know,
+are the Right Sort of Boy."
+
+I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests
+of discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip
+received it in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him.
+
+"It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway."
+
+And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door,
+and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. "Nyar! I WARN 'a
+go in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!" and then
+the accents of a down-trodden parent, urging consolations and
+propitiations. "It's locked, Edward," he said.
+
+"But it isn't," said I.
+
+"It is, sir," said the shopman, "always--for that sort of child,"
+and as he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little,
+white face, pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and
+distorted by evil passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing
+at the enchanted pane. "It's no good, sir," said the shopman,
+as I moved, with my natural helpfulness, doorward, and presently
+the spoilt child was carried off howling.
+
+"How do you manage that?" I said, breathing a little more freely.
+
+"Magic!" said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and behold!
+sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into
+the shadows of the shop.
+
+"You were saying," he said, addressing himself to Gip, "before
+you came in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish
+your Friends' boxes?"
+
+Gip, after a gallant effort, said "Yes."
+
+"It's in your pocket."
+
+And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinarily
+long body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary
+conjurer's manner. "Paper," he said, and took a sheet out of
+the empty hat with the springs; "string," and behold his mouth was
+a string-box, from which he drew an unending thread, which when
+he had tied his parcel he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed
+the ball of string. And then he lit a candle at the nose of one
+of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck one of his fingers (which
+had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, and so sealed the parcel.
+"Then there was the Disappearing Egg," he remarked, and produced
+one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and also The Crying
+Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready,
+and he clasped them to his chest.
+
+He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of
+his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions.
+These, you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered
+something moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped
+it off, and a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out
+and ran on the counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box
+behind the papier-mache tiger.
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress;
+"careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!"
+
+He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three
+eggs, a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable
+glass balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more,
+talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush
+their hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with
+a certain personal application. "All sorts of things accumulate,
+sir. . . . Not YOU, of course, in particular. . . . Nearly every
+customer. . . . Astonishing what they carry about with them. . . ."
+The crumpled paper rose and billowed on the counter more and more
+and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, until he was altogether
+hidden, and still his voice went on and on. "We none of us know
+what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, sir. Are we
+all then no better than brushed exteriors, whited sepulchres--"
+
+His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone
+with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle
+of the paper stopped, and everything was still. . . .
+
+"Have you done with my hat?" I said, after an interval.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions
+in the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet. . . .
+
+"I think we'll go now," I said. "Will you tell me how much all this
+comes to? . . . .
+
+"I say," I said, on a rather louder note, "I want the bill; and
+my hat, please."
+
+It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile. . . .
+
+"Let's look behind the counter, Gip," I said. "He's making fun of us."
+
+I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think
+there was behind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor,
+and a common conjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation,
+and looking as stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit
+can do. I resumed my hat, and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so
+out of my way.
+
+"Dadda!" said Gip, in a guilty whisper.
+
+"What is it, Gip?" said I.
+
+"I DO like this shop, dadda."
+
+"So should I," I said to myself, "if the counter wouldn't suddenly
+extend itself to shut one off from the door." But I didn't call
+Gip's attention to that. "Pussy!" he said, with a hand out to
+the rabbit as it came lolloping past us; "Pussy, do Gip a magic!"
+and his eyes followed it as it squeezed through a door I had
+certainly not remarked a moment before. Then this door opened wider,
+and the man with one ear larger than the other appeared again.
+He was smiling still, but his eye met mine with something between
+amusement and defiance. "You'd like to see our show-room, sir," he
+said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged my finger forward. I
+glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye again. I was
+beginning to think the magic just a little too genuine. "We haven't
+VERY much time," I said. But somehow we were inside the show-room
+before I could finish that.
+
+"All goods of the same quality," said the shopman, rubbing his
+flexible hands together, "and that is the Best. Nothing in the place
+that isn't genuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!"
+
+I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then
+I saw he held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail--the little
+creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand--and in a moment
+he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was
+only an image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment--! And his
+gesture was exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit
+of vermin. I glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-
+horse. I was glad he hadn't seen the thing. "I say," I said, in an
+undertone, and indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes, "you
+haven't many things like THAT about, have you?"
+
+"None of ours! Probably brought it with you," said the shopman--
+also in an undertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever.
+"Astonishing what people WILL carry about with them unawares!"
+And then to Gip, "Do you see anything you fancy here?"
+
+There were many things that Gip fancied there.
+
+He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence
+and respect. "Is that a Magic Sword?" he said.
+
+"A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers.
+It renders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under
+eighteen. Half-a-crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These
+panoplies on cards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful--
+shield of safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility."
+
+"Oh, daddy!" gasped Gip.
+
+I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me.
+He had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had
+embarked upon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing
+was going to stop him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust
+and something very like jealousy that Gip had hold of this person's
+finger as usually he has hold of mine. No doubt the fellow was
+interesting, I thought, and had an interestingly faked lot of stuff,
+really GOOD faked stuff, still--
+
+I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye
+on this prestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it.
+And no doubt when the time came to go we should be able to go
+quite easily.
+
+It was a long, rambling place, that show-room, a gallery broken up
+by stands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to other
+departments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and
+stared at one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing,
+indeed, were these that I was presently unable to make out the door
+by which we had come.
+
+The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork,
+just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes
+of soldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid
+and said--. I myself haven't a very quick ear and it was a tongue-
+twisting sound, but Gip--he has his mother's ear--got it in no time.
+"Bravo!" said the shopman, putting the men back into the box
+unceremoniously and handing it to Gip. "Now," said the shopman, and in
+a moment Gip had made them all alive again.
+
+"You'll take that box?" asked the shopman.
+
+"We'll take that box," said I, "unless you charge its full value.
+In which case it would need a Trust Magnate--"
+
+"Dear heart! NO!" and the shopman swept the little men back again,
+shut the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown
+paper, tied up and--WITH GIP'S FULL NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE PAPER!
+
+The shopman laughed at my amazement.
+
+"This is the genuine magic," he said. "The real thing."
+
+"It's a little too genuine for my taste," I said again.
+
+After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still
+odder the way they were done. He explained them, he turned them
+inside out, and there was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit
+of a head in the sagest manner.
+
+I did not attend as well as I might. "Hey, presto!" said the Magic
+Shopman, and then would come the clear, small "Hey, presto!"
+of the boy. But I was distracted by other things. It was being
+borne in upon me just how tremendously rum this place was; it was,
+so to speak, inundated by a sense of rumness. There was something
+a little rum about the fixtures even, about the ceiling, about the
+floor, about the casually distributed chairs. I had a queer feeling
+that whenever I wasn't looking at them straight they went askew, and
+moved about, and played a noiseless puss-in-the-corner behind my back.
+And the cornice had a serpentine design with masks--masks altogether
+too expressive for proper plaster.
+
+Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking
+assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence--
+I saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys
+and through an arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar
+in an idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features!
+The particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it
+just as though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all
+it was a short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out
+like a telescope, and then out it flew and became thinner and thinner
+until it was like a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in
+a nightmare it was! He flourished it about and flung it forth
+as a fly-fisher flings his line.
+
+My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about,
+and there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking
+no evil. They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was
+standing on a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of
+big drum in his hand.
+
+"Hide and seek, dadda!" cried Gip. "You're He!"
+
+And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped
+the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. "Take that off,"
+I cried, "this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!"
+
+The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held
+the big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little
+stool was vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared? . . .
+
+You know, perhaps, that sinister something that comes like a hand
+out of the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes
+your common self away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither
+slow nor hasty, neither angry nor afraid. So it was with me.
+
+I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside.
+
+"Stop this folly!" I said. "Where is my boy?"
+
+"You see," he said, still displaying the drum's interior, "there is
+no deception---"
+
+I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous
+movement. I snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open
+a door to escape. "Stop!" I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt
+after him--into utter darkness.
+
+THUD!
+
+"Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!"
+
+I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking
+working man; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little
+perplexed with himself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology,
+and then Gip had turned and come to me with a bright little smile,
+as though for a moment he had missed me.
+
+And he was carrying four parcels in his arm!
+
+He secured immediate possession of my finger.
+
+For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see
+the door of the magic shop, and, behold, it was not there!
+There was no door, no shop, nothing, only the common pilaster
+between the shop where they sell pictures and the window with
+the chicks! . . .
+
+I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight
+to the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab.
+
+"'Ansoms," said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation.
+
+I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also.
+Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and
+I felt and discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression
+I flung it into the street.
+
+Gip said nothing.
+
+For a space neither of us spoke.
+
+"Dada!" said Gip, at last, "that WAS a proper shop!"
+
+I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing
+had seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good;
+he was neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously
+satisfied with the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms
+were the four parcels.
+
+Confound it! what could be in them?
+
+"Um!" I said. "Little boys can't go to shops like that every day."
+
+He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry
+I was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there,
+coram publico, in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought,
+the thing wasn't so very bad.
+
+But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be
+reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary
+lead soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether
+forget that originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only
+genuine sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living
+white kitten, in excellent health and appetite and temper.
+
+I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about
+in the nursery for quite an unconscionable time. . . .
+
+That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe
+it is all right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens,
+and the soldiers seem as steady a company as any colonel could
+desire. And Gip--?
+
+The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously
+with Gip.
+
+But I went so far as this one day. I said, "How would you like
+your soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?"
+
+"Mine do," said Gip. "I just have to say a word I know before
+I open the lid."
+
+"Then they march about alone?"
+
+"Oh, QUITE, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that."
+
+I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken
+occasion to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when
+the soldiers were about, but so far I have never discovered them
+performing in anything like a magical manner.
+
+It's so difficult to tell.
+
+There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of
+paying bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times,
+looking for that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that
+matter honour is satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address
+are known to them, I may very well leave it to these people,
+whoever they may be, to send in their bill in their own time.
+
+
+3. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS
+
+Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in
+the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley.
+The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had
+tracked the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope,
+and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode
+to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted,
+the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with
+the silver-studded bridle.
+
+For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes.
+It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere
+thorn bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now
+waterless ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple
+distances melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills--
+hills it might be of a greener kind--and above them invisibly
+supported, and seeming indeed to hang in the blue, were the snowclad
+summits of mountains that grew larger and bolder to the north-westward
+as the sides of the valley drew together. And westward the valley
+opened until a distant darkness under the sky told where the forests
+began. But the three men looked neither east nor west, but only
+steadfastly across the valley.
+
+The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. "Nowhere,"
+he said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. "But after all,
+they had a full day's start."
+
+"They don't know we are after them," said the little man on the white
+horse.
+
+"SHE would know," said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to himself.
+
+"Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule,
+and all to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding---"
+
+The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage
+on him. "Do you think I haven't seen that?" he snarled.
+
+"It helps, anyhow," whispered the little man to himself.
+
+The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. "They can't
+be over the valley," he said. "If we ride hard--"
+
+He glanced at the white horse and paused.
+
+"Curse all white horses!" said the man with the silver bridle,
+and turned to scan the beast his curse included.
+
+The little man looked down between the mclancholy ears of his steed.
+
+"I did my best," he said.
+
+The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt
+man passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip.
+
+"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly.
+The little man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs
+of the three made a multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered
+grass as they turned back towards the trail. . . .
+
+They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came
+through a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes
+of horny branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below.
+And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only
+herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground.
+Still, by hard scanning, by leaning beside the horses' necks and
+pausing ever and again, even these white men could contrive to follow
+after their prey.
+
+There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse
+grass, and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark.
+And once the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste
+girl may have trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for
+a fool.
+
+The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man
+on the white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode
+one after another, the man with the silver bridle led the way,
+and they spoke never a word. After a time it came to the little man
+on the white horse that the world was very still. He started out
+of his dream. Besides the little noises of their horses and equipment,
+the whole great valley kept the brooding quiet of a painted scene.
+
+Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning
+forward to the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his
+horse; their shadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering
+attendants; and nearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked
+about him. What was it had gone? Then he remembered the reverberation
+from the banks of the gorge and the perpetual accompaniment of
+shifting, jostling pebbles. And, moreover--? There was no breeze.
+That was it! What a vast, still place it was, a monotonous afternoon
+slumber. And the sky open and blank, except for a sombre veil of haze
+that had gathered in the upper valley.
+
+He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips
+to whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time,
+and stared at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they
+had come. Blank! Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign
+of a decent beast or tree--much less a man. What a land it was!
+What a wilderness! He dropped again into his former pose.
+
+It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple
+black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown.
+After all, the infernal valley WAS alive. And then, to rejoice him
+still more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that
+came and went, the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered
+bush upon a little crest, the first intimations of a possible breeze.
+Idly he wetted his finger, and held it up.
+
+He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who
+had stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment
+he caught his master's eye looking towards him.
+
+For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode
+on again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder,
+appearing and disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours.
+They had ridden four days out of the very limits of the world into
+this desolate place, short of water, with nothing but a strip
+of dried meat under their saddles, over rocks and mountains,
+where surely none but these fugitives had ever been before--for THAT!
+
+And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man
+had whole cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women!
+Why in the name of passionate folly THIS one in particular? asked
+the little man, and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips
+with a blackened tongue. It was the way of the master, and that
+was all he knew. Just because she sought to evade him. . . .
+
+His eye caught a whole row of high plumed canes bending in unison,
+and then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell.
+The breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness
+out of things--and that was well.
+
+"Hullo!" said the gaunt man.
+
+All three stopped abruptly.
+
+"What?" asked the master. "What?"
+
+"Over there," said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Something coming towards us."
+
+And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing
+down upon them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind,
+tongue out, at a steady pace, and running with such an intensity
+of purpose that he did not seem to see the horsemen he approached.
+He ran with his nose up, following, it was plain, neither scent
+nor quarry. As he drew nearer the little man felt for his sword.
+"He's mad," said the gaunt rider.
+
+"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted.
+
+The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out,
+it swerved aside and went panting by them and past. The eyes of
+the little man followed its flight. "There was no foam," he said.
+For a space the man with the silver-studded bridle stared up
+the valley. "Oh, come on!" he cried at last. "What does it matter?"
+and jerked his horse into movement again.
+
+The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from
+nothing but the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human
+character. "Come on!" he whispered to himself. "Why should it be
+given to one man to say 'Come on!' with that stupendous violence
+of effect. Always, all his life, the man with the silver bridle
+has been saying that. If _I_ said it--!" thought the little man.
+But people marvelled when the master was disobeyed even in the wildest
+things. This half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one,
+mad--blasphemous almost. The little man, by way of comparison,
+reflected on the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart as
+his master, as brave and, indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him
+there was obedience, nothing but to give obedience duly and stoutly. . .
+
+Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back
+to more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up
+beside his gaunt fellow. "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an
+undertone.
+
+The gaunt face looked interrogation.
+
+"They don't like this wind," said the little man, and dropped behind
+as the man with the silver bridle turned upon him.
+
+"It's all right," said the gaunt-faced man.
+
+They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode
+downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that
+crept down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted
+how the wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left
+he saw a line of dark bulks--wild hog perhaps, galloping down
+the valley, but of that he said nothing, nor did he remark again upon
+the uneasiness of the horses.
+
+And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball,
+a great shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistle-down,
+that drove before the wind athwart the path. These balls soared
+high in the air, and dropped and rose again and caught for a moment,
+and hurried on and passed, but at the sight of them the restlessness
+of the horses increased.
+
+Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then
+soon very many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley.
+
+They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed,
+turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then
+hurling on down the valley again. And at that, all three stopped
+and sat in their saddles, staring into the thickening haze that
+was coming upon them.
+
+"If it were not for this thistle-down--" began the leader.
+
+But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards
+of them. It was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft,
+ragged, filmy thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial
+jelly-fish, as it were, but rolling over and over as it advanced,
+and trailing long, cobwebby threads and streamers that floated
+in its wake.
+
+"It isn't thistle-down," said the little man.
+
+"I don't like the stuff," said the gaunt man.
+
+And they looked at one another.
+
+"Curse it!" cried the leader. "The air's full of it up there.
+If it keeps on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether."
+
+An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the
+approach of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses
+to the wind, ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing
+multitude of floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort
+of smooth swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth,
+rebounding high, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still,
+deliberate assurance.
+
+Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army
+passed. At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly
+and trailing out reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands,
+all three horses began to shy and dance. The master was seized
+with a sudden unreasonable impatience. He cursed the drifting globes
+roundly. "Get on!" he cried; "get on! What do these things matter?
+How CAN they matter? Back to the trail!" He fell swearing at his horse
+and sawed the bit across its mouth.
+
+He shouted aloud with rage. "I will follow that trail, I tell you!"
+he cried. "Where is the trail?"
+
+He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst
+the grass. A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey
+streamer dropped about his bridle-arm, some big, active thing
+with many legs ran down the back of his head. He looked up to discover
+one of those grey masses anchored as it were above him by these things
+and flapping out ends as a sail flaps when a boat comes, about--
+but noiselessly.
+
+He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies,
+of long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring
+the thing down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his
+prancing horse with the instinct born of years of horsemanship.
+Then the flat of a sword smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead
+and cut the drifting balloon of spider-web free, and the whole mass
+lifted softly and drove clear and away.
+
+"Spiders!" cried the voice of the gaunt man. "The things are full
+of big spiders! Look, my lord!"
+
+The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away.
+
+"Look, my lord!"
+
+The master found himself staring down at a red, smashed thing
+on the ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still
+wriggle unavailing legs. Then when the gaunt man pointed to another
+mass that bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the
+valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the
+situation.
+
+"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down the
+valley."
+
+What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man
+with the silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing
+furiously at imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse
+of the gaunt man and hurl it and its rider to earth. His own horse
+went a dozen paces before he could rein it in. Then he looked up
+to avoid imaginary dangers, and then back again to see a horse
+rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standing and slashing over it
+at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamed and wrapped
+about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on waste land
+on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on.
+
+The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse.
+He was endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength
+of one arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles
+of a second grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle,
+and this second grey mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank.
+
+The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head,
+and spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over,
+there were blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man,
+suddenly leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces.
+His legs were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual
+movements with his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was
+a thin veil of grey across his face. With his left hand he beat at
+something on his body, and suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled
+to rise, and fell again, and suddenly, horribly, began to howl,
+"Oh--ohoo, ohooh!"
+
+The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon
+the ground.
+
+As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating,
+screaming grey object that struggled up and down, there came a
+clatter of hoofs, and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless,
+balanced on his belly athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane,
+whirled past. And again a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept
+across the master's face. All about him, and over him, it seemed
+this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled and drew nearer him. . . .
+
+To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment
+happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its
+own accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another
+second he was galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword
+whirling furiously overhead. And all about him on the quickening
+breeze, the spiders' airships, their air bundles and air sheets,
+seemed to him to hurry in a conscious pursuit.
+
+Clatter, clatter, thud, thud--the man with the silver bridle rode,
+heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right,
+now left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards
+ahead of him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode
+the little man on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle.
+The reeds bent before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his
+shoulder the master could see the webs hurrying to overtake. . . .
+
+He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse
+gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then
+he reaIised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning
+forward on his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late.
+
+But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had
+not forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air.
+He came off clear with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse
+rolled, kicking spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword
+drove its point into the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as
+though Chance refused him any longer as her Knight, and the splintered
+end missed his face by an inch or so.
+
+He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the onrushing
+spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought
+of the ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting
+terror, and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides,
+and out of the touch of the gale.
+
+There under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might
+crouch, and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety
+till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there
+for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged
+masses trail their streamers across his narrowed sky.
+
+Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full
+foot it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand--
+and after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape
+for a little while, and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted
+up his iron-heeled boot and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did
+so, and for a time sought up and down for another.
+
+Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not
+drop into the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down,
+and sat and fell into deep thought and began after his manner
+to gnaw his knuckles and bite his nails. And from this he was moved
+by the coming of the man with the white horse.
+
+He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs,
+stumbling footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man
+appeared, a rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing
+behind him. They approached each other without speaking, without
+a salutation. The little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch
+of hopeless bitterness, and came to a stop at last, face to face with
+his seated master. The latter winced a little under his dependant's
+eye. "Well?" he said at last, with no pretence of authority.
+
+"You left him?"
+
+"My horse bolted."
+
+"I know. So did mine."
+
+He laughed at his master mirthlessly.
+
+"I say my horse bolted," said the man who once had a silver-studded
+bridle.
+
+"Cowards both," said the little man.
+
+The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments,
+with his eye on his inferior.
+
+"Don't call me a coward," he said at length.
+
+"You are a coward like myself."
+
+"A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear.
+That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where
+the difference comes in."
+
+"I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved
+your life two minutes before. . . . Why are you our lord?"
+
+The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark.
+
+"No man calls me a coward," he said. "No. A broken sword is better
+than none. . . . One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry
+two men a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time
+it cannot be helped. You begin to understand me? . . . I perceive
+that you are minded, on the strength of what you have seen and fancy,
+to taint my reputation. It is men of your sort who unmake kings.
+Besides which--I never liked you."
+
+"My lord!" said the little man.
+
+"No," said the master. "NO!"
+
+He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps
+they faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving.
+There was a quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet,
+a cry of despair, a gasp and a blow. . . .
+
+Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity,
+and the man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last
+very cautiously and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now
+he led the white horse that once belonged to the little man.
+He would have gone back to his horse to get his silver-mounted
+bridle again, but he feared night and a quickening breeze might
+still find him in the valley, and besides he disliked greatly
+to think he might discover his horse all swathed in cobwebs
+and perhaps unpleasantly eaten.
+
+And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he
+had been through, and the manner in which he had been preserved
+that day, his hand sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck,
+and he clasped it for a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so
+his eyes went across the valley.
+
+"I was hot with passion," he said, "and now she has met her reward.
+They also, no doubt--"
+
+And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley,
+but in the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable,
+he saw a little spire of smoke.
+
+At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed
+anger. Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and
+hesitated. And as he did so a little rustle of air went through the
+grass about him. Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of
+grey. He looked at the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke.
+
+"Perhaps, after all, it is not them," he said at last.
+
+But he knew better.
+
+After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white
+horse.
+
+As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some
+reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that
+lived feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's
+hoofs they fled.
+
+Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry
+them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison,
+could do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those
+he fancied came too near. Once, where a number ran together over
+a bare place, he was minded to dismount and trample them with his boots,
+but this impulse he overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle,
+and looked back at the smoke.
+
+"Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders! Well, well. . . .
+The next time I must spin a web."
+
+
+4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT
+
+He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder
+I can see him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--
+it meets me with an expression.
+
+It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it.
+
+Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told
+long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his
+ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who
+would believe me if I did tell?
+
+Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest
+clubman in London.
+
+He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire,
+stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him
+biting at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me.
+Confound him!--with his eyes on me!
+
+That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL
+behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your
+embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft.
+The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me
+by making my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his
+liquid appeal, with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks.
+
+And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating?
+
+Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth!
+
+Pyecraft--. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very smoking-
+room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was sitting
+all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly he came,
+a great rolling front of chins and abdomina, towards me, and grunted
+and sat down in a chair close by me and wheezed for a space,
+and scraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and then
+addressed me. I forget what he said--something about the matches
+not lighting properly, and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping
+the waiters one by one as they went by, and telling them about
+the matches in that thin, fluty voice he has. But, anyhow, it was
+in some such way we began our talking.
+
+He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence
+to my figure and complexion. "YOU ought to be a good cricketer,"
+he said. I suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would
+call lean, and I suppose I am rather dark, still--I am not ashamed
+of having a Hindu great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want
+casual strangers to see through me at a glance to HER. So that
+I was set against Pyecraft from the beginning.
+
+But he only talked about me in order to get to himself.
+
+"I expect," he said, "you take no more exercise than I do, and
+probably you eat no less." (Like all excessively obese people
+he fancied he ate nothing.) "Yet,"--and he smiled an oblique smile--
+"we differ."
+
+And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness;
+all he did for his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness;
+what people had advised him to do for his fatness and what he had
+heard of people doing for fatness similar to his. "A priori," he said,
+"one would think a question of nutrition could be answered by dietary
+and a question of assimilation by drugs." It was stifling. It was
+dumpling talk. It made me feel swelled to hear him.
+
+One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time
+came when I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether
+too conspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but
+he would come wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and
+gormandised round and about me while I had my lunch. He seemed
+at times almost to be clinging to me. He was a bore, but not so
+fearful a bore as to be limited to me; and from the first there
+was something in his manner--almost as though he knew, almost as
+though he penetrated to the fact that I MIGHT--that there was a remote,
+exceptional chance in me that no one else presented.
+
+"I'd give anything to get it down," he would say--"anything,"
+and peer at me over his vast cheeks and pant.
+
+Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged, no doubt to order another
+buttered tea-cake!
+
+He came to the actual thing one day. "Our Pharmacopoeia," he said,
+"our Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical
+science. In the East, I've been told--"
+
+He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium.
+
+I was quite suddenly angry with him. "Look here," I said, "who told
+you about my great-grandmother's recipes?"
+
+"Well," he fenced.
+
+"Every time we've met for a week," I said, "and we've met pretty
+often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret
+of mine."
+
+"Well," he said, "now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, yes,
+it is so. I had it--"
+
+"From Pattison?"
+
+"Indirectly," he said, which I believe was lying, "yes."
+
+"Pattison," I said, "took that stuff at his own risk."
+
+He pursed his mouth and bowed.
+
+"My great-grandmother's recipes," I said, "are queer things to handle.
+My father was near making me promise--"
+
+"He didn't?"
+
+"No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once."
+
+"Ah! . . . But do you think--? Suppose--suppose there did happen
+to be one--"
+
+"The things are curious documents," I said.
+
+"Even the smell of 'em. . . . No!"
+
+But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther.
+I was always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would
+fall on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was
+also annoyed with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling
+for him that disposed me to say, "Well, TAKE the risk!" The little
+affair of Pattison to which I have alluded was a different matter
+altogether. What it was doesn't concern us now, but I knew, anyhow,
+that the particular recipe I used then was safe. The rest I didn't
+know so much about, and, on the whole, I was inclined to doubt
+their safety pretty completely.
+
+Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned--
+
+I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense
+undertaking.
+
+That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of
+my safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote
+the recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins
+of a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last
+degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family,
+with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge
+of Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely
+plain sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough,
+and sat on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it.
+
+"Look here," said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away
+from his eager grasp.
+
+"So far as I--can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight.
+("Ah!" said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that.
+And if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know--
+I blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on
+that side were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?"
+
+"Let me try it," said Pyecraft.
+
+I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort
+and fell flat within me. "What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft," I asked,
+"do you think you'll look like when you get thin?"
+
+He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word
+to me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never,
+and then I handed him that little piece of skin.
+
+"It's nasty stuff," I said.
+
+"No matter," he said, and took it.
+
+He goggled at it. "But--but--" he said.
+
+He had just discovered that it wasn't English.
+
+"To the best of my ability," I said, "I will do you a translation."
+
+I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever he
+approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected
+our compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever.
+And then he got a word in.
+
+"I must speak," he said. "It isn't fair. There's something wrong.
+It's done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice."
+
+"Where's the recipe?"
+
+He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book.
+
+I ran my eye over the items. "Was the egg addled?" I asked.
+
+"No. Ought it to have been?"
+
+"That," I said, "goes without saying in all my poor dear
+great-grandmother's
+recipes. When condition or quality is not specified you must get
+the worst. She was drastic or nothing. . . . And there's one or two
+possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got FRESH
+rattlesnake venom."
+
+"I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost--"
+
+"That's your affair, anyhow. This last item--"
+
+"I know a man who--"
+
+"Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know
+the language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious.
+By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog."
+
+For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and
+as fat and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke
+the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day
+in the cloakroom he said, "Your great-grandmother--"
+
+"Not a word against her," I said; and he held his peace.
+
+I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking
+to three new members about his fatness as though he was in search
+of other recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came.
+
+"Mr. Formalyn!" bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram
+and opened it at once.
+
+"For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft."
+
+"H'm," said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the
+rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently
+promised that I made a most excellent lunch.
+
+I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the
+upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I
+had done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar.
+
+"Mr. Pyecraft?" said I, at the front door.
+
+They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days.
+
+"He expects me," said I, and they sent me up.
+
+I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing.
+
+"He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow," I said to myself. "A man who
+eats like a pig ought to look like a pig."
+
+An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly
+placed cap, came and surveyed me through the lattice.
+
+I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion.
+
+"Well?" said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of the
+landing.
+
+"'E said you was to come in if you came," she said, and regarded me,
+making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially,
+"'E's locked in, sir."
+
+"Locked in?"
+
+"Locked himself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since,
+sir. And ever and again SWEARING. Oh, my!"
+
+I stared at the door she indicated by her glances.
+
+"In there?" I said.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What's up?"
+
+She shook her head sadly, "'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir.
+'EAVY vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's 'ad,
+sooit puddin', sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside,
+if you please, and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink AWFUL."
+
+There came a piping bawl from inside the door: "That Formalyn?"
+
+"That you, Pyecraft?" I shouted, and went and banged the door.
+
+"Tell her to go away."
+
+I did.
+
+Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like
+some one feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar
+grunts.
+
+"It's all right," I said, "she's gone."
+
+But for a long time the door didn't open.
+
+I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, "Come in."
+
+I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see
+Pyecraft.
+
+Well, you know, he wasn't there!
+
+I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room
+in a state of untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books
+and writing things, and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft--
+
+"It's all right, o' man; shut the door," he said, and then I
+discovered him.
+
+There he was right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door,
+as though some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious
+and angry. He panted and gesticulated. "Shut the door," he said.
+"If that woman gets hold of it--"
+
+I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared.
+
+"If anything gives way and you tumble down," I said, "you'll break
+your neck, Pyecraft."
+
+"I wish I could," he wheezed.
+
+"A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics--"
+
+"Don't," he said, and looked agonised.
+
+"I'll tell you," he said, and gesticulated.
+
+"How the deuce," said I, "are you holding on up there?"
+
+And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all,
+that he was floating up there--just as a gas-filled bladder might
+have floated in the same position. He began a struggle to thrust
+himself away from the ceiling and to clamber down the wall to me.
+"It's that prescription," he panted, as he did so. "Your great-gran--"
+
+He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke
+and it gave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while
+the picture smashed onto the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling,
+and I knew then why he was all over white on the more salient curves
+and angles of his person. He tried again more carefully, coming
+down by way of the mantel.
+
+It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat,
+apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceiling
+to the floor. "That prescription," he said. "Too successful."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Loss of weight--almost complete."
+
+And then, of course, I understood.
+
+"By Jove, Pyecraft," said I, "what you wanted was a cure for fatness!
+But you always called it weight. You would call it weight."
+
+Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time.
+"Let me help you!" I said, and took his hand and pulled him down.
+He kicked about, trying to get a foothold somewhere. It was very like
+holding a flag on a windy day.
+
+"That table," he said, pointing, "is solid mahogany and very heavy.
+If you can put me under that---"
+
+I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while
+I stood on his hearthrug and talked to him.
+
+I lit a cigar. "Tell me," I said, "what happened?"
+
+"I took it," he said.
+
+"How did it taste?"
+
+"Oh, BEASTLY!"
+
+I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients
+or the probable compound or the possible results, almost all of
+my great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be
+extraordinarily uninviting. For my own part--
+
+"I took a little sip first."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take
+the draught."
+
+"My dear Pyecraft!"
+
+"I held my nose," he explained. "And then I kept on getting lighter
+and lighter--and helpless, you know."
+
+He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. "What the goodness am I
+to DO?" he said.
+
+"There's one thing pretty evident," I said, "that you mustn't do.
+If you go out of doors, you'll go up and up." I waved an arm upward.
+"They'd have to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again."
+
+"I suppose it will wear off?"
+
+I shook my head. "I don't think you can count on that," I said.
+
+And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out
+at adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should
+have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying
+circumstances--that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and
+my great-grandmother with an utter want of discretion.
+
+"I never asked you to take the stuff," I said.
+
+And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me,
+I sat down in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober,
+friendly fashion.
+
+I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon
+himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had
+eaten too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point.
+
+He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect
+of his lesson. "And then," said I, "you committed the sin of euphuism.
+You called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You--"
+
+He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO?
+
+I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we
+came to the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that
+it would not be difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling
+with his hands--
+
+"I can't sleep," he said.
+
+But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out,
+to make a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things
+on with tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button
+at the side. He would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said;
+and after some squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was
+quite delightful to see the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which
+the good lady took all these amazing inversions.) He could have
+a library ladder in his room, and all his meals could be laid on
+the top of his bookcase. We also hit on an ingenious device by which
+he could get to the floor whenever he wanted, which was simply to put
+the British Encyclopaedia (tenth edition) on the top of his open
+shelves. He just pulled out a couple of volumes and held on, and down
+he came. And we agreed there must be iron staples along the skirting,
+so that he could cling to those whenever he wanted to get about the
+room on the lower level.
+
+As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested.
+It was I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her,
+and it was I chiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent
+two whole days at his flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man
+with a screw-driver, and I made all sorts of ingenious adaptations
+for him--ran a wire to bring his bells within reach, turned all
+his electric lights up instead of down, and so on. The whole affair
+was extremely curious and interesting to me, and it was delightful
+to think of Pyecraft like some great, fat blow-fly, crawling about
+on his ceiling and clambering round the lintels of his doors
+from one room to another, and never, never, never coming to
+the club any more. . . .
+
+Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was
+sitting by his fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his
+favourite corner by the cornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the
+ceiling, when the idea struck me. "By Jove, Pyecraft!" I said, "all
+this is totally unnecessary."
+
+And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion
+I blurted it out. "Lead underclothing," said I, and the mischief was
+done.
+
+Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. "To be right ways up
+again--" he said. I gave him the whole secret before I saw where
+it would take me. "Buy sheet lead," I said, "stamp it into discs.
+Sew 'em all over your underclothes until you have enough. Have
+lead-soled boots, carry a bag of solid lead, and the thing is done!
+Instead of being a prisoner here you may go abroad again, Pyecraft;
+you may travel--"
+
+A still happier idea came to me. "You need never fear a shipwreck.
+All you need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the
+necessary amount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air--"
+
+In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head.
+"By Jove!" he said, "I shall be able to come back to the club again."
+
+The thing pulled me up short. "By Jove!" I said faintly. "Yes.
+Of course--you will."
+
+He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing--as I live!--
+a third go of buttered tea-cake. And no one in the whole world knows--
+except his housekeeper and me--that he weighs practically nothing;
+that he is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere clouds
+in clothing, niente, nefas, the most inconsiderable of men. There
+he sits watching until I have done this writing. Then, if he can,
+he will waylay me. He will come billowing up to me. . . .
+
+He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it
+doesn't feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little.
+And always somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say,
+"The secret's keeping, eh? If any one knew of it--I should be
+so ashamed. . . . Makes a fellow look such a fool, you know.
+Crawling about on a ceiling and all that. . . ."
+
+And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable
+strategic position between me and the door.
+
+
+5. MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND
+
+"There's a man in that shop," said the Doctor, "who has been in
+Fairyland."
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual
+village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and
+brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window.
+"Tell me about it," I said, after a pause.
+
+"_I_ don't know," said the Doctor. "He's an ordinary sort of lout--
+Skelmersdale is his name. But everybody about here believes it
+like Bible truth."
+
+I reverted presently to the topic.
+
+"I know nothing about it," said the Doctor, "and I don't WANT to know.
+I attended him for a broken finger--Married and Single cricket match--
+and that's when I struck the nonsense. That's all. But it shows you
+the sort of stuff I have to deal with, anyhow, eh? Nice to get
+modern sanitary ideas into a people like this!"
+
+"Very," I said in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell
+me about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind,
+I observe, are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health.
+I was as sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham
+people "asses," I said they were "thundering asses," but even that
+did not allay him.
+
+Afterwards, later in the summer, an urgent desire to seclude myself,
+while finishing my chapter on Spiritual Pathology--it was really,
+I believe, stiffer to write than it is to read--took me to Bignor.
+I lodged at a farmhouse, and presently found myself outside that
+little general shop again, in search of tobacco. "Skelmersdale,"
+said I to myself at the sight of it, and went in.
+
+I was served by a short, but shapely, young man, with a fair downy
+complexion, good, small teeth, blue eyes, and a languid manner.
+I scrutinised him curiously. Except for a touch of melancholy
+in his expression, he was nothing out of the common. He was in the
+shirt-sleeves and tucked-up apron of his trade, and a pencil was
+thrust behind his inoffensive ear. Athwart his black waistcoat was
+a gold chain, from which dangled a bent guinea.
+
+"Nothing more to-day, sir?" he inquired. He leant forward over
+my bill as he spoke.
+
+"Are you Mr. Skelmersdale?" said I.
+
+"I am, sir," he said, without looking up.
+
+"Is it true that you have been in Fairyland?"
+
+He looked up at me for a moment with wrinkled brows, with an aggrieved,
+exasperated face. "O SHUT it! " he said, and, after a moment
+of hostility, eye to eye, he went on adding up my bill. "Four,
+six and a half," he said, after a pause. "Thank you, Sir."
+
+So, unpropitiously, my acquaintance with Mr. Skelmersdale began.
+
+Well, I got from that to confidence--through a series of toilsome
+efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night
+I went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme
+seclusion from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day.
+I contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found
+the one subject to avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was
+open and amiable in a commonplace sort of way, but on that he had
+been worried--it was a manifest taboo. Only once in the room did
+I hear the slightest allusion to his experience in his presence,
+and that was by a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him.
+Skelmersdale had run a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor
+standards, was uncommonly good play. "Steady on!" said his adversary.
+"None of your fairy flukes!"
+
+Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung
+it down and walked out of the room.
+
+"Why can't you leave 'im alone?" said a respectable elder who had
+been enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval
+the grin of satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face.
+
+I scented my opportunity. "What's this joke," said I, "about Fairyland?"
+
+"'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale," said
+the respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was
+more communicative. "They DO say, sir," he said, "that they took him
+into Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks."
+
+And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep
+had started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time
+I had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair.
+Formerly, before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar
+little shop at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen
+had taken place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late
+one night on the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight
+of men, and had returned with "his cuffs as clean as when he started,"
+and his pockets full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of
+moody wretchedness that only slowly passed away, and for many days he
+would give no account of where it was he had been. The girl he was
+engaged to at Clapton Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him
+over partly because he refused, and partly because, as she said, he
+fairly gave her the "'ump." And then when, some time after, he let out
+to some one carelessly that he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go
+back, and when the thing spread and the simple badinage of the
+countryside came into play, he threw up his situation abruptly, and
+came to Bignor to get out of the fuss. But as to what had happened in
+Fairyland none of these people knew. There the gathering in the Village
+Room went to pieces like a pack at fault. One said this, and another
+said that.
+
+Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and
+sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing
+through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent
+interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story.
+
+"If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll," I said, "why don't you dig it
+out?"
+
+"That's what I says," said the young ploughboy.
+
+"There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll," said the
+respectable elder, solemnly, "one time and another. But there's
+none as goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging."
+
+The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive;
+I felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction,
+and the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts
+of the case was distinctly whetted. If these real facts were to be
+got from any one, they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself;
+and I set myself, therefore, still more assiduously to efface
+the first bad impression I had made and win his confidence to the pitch
+of voluntary speech. In that endeavour I had a social advantage.
+Being a person of affability and no apparent employment, and wearing
+tweeds and knickerbockers, I was naturally classed as an artist
+in Bignor, and in the remarkable code of social precedence prevalent
+in Bignor an artist ranks considerably higher than a grocer's assistant.
+Skelmersdale, like too many of his class, is something of a snob;
+he had told me to "shut it," only under sudden, excessive provocation,
+and with, I am certain, a subsequent repentance; he was, I knew,
+quite glad to be seen walking about the village with me. In due course,
+he accepted the proposal of a pipe and whisky in my rooms readily
+enough, and there, scenting by some happy instinct that there
+was trouble of the heart in this, and knowing that confidences beget
+confidences, I plied him with much of interest and suggestion from
+my real and fictitious past. And it was after the third whisky
+of the third visit of that sort, if I remember rightly, that a propos
+of some artless expansion of a little affair that had touched and
+left me in my teens, that he did at last, of his own free will
+and motion, break the ice. "It was like that with me," he said,
+"over there at Aldington. It's just that that's so rum. First I didn't
+care a bit and it was all her, and afterwards, when it was too late,
+it was, in a manner of speaking, all me."
+
+I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out
+another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight
+that the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland
+adventure he had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done
+the trick with him, and from being just another half-incredulous,
+would-be facetious stranger, I had, by all my wealth of shameless
+self-exposure, become the possible confidant. He had been bitten
+by the desire to show that he, too, had lived and felt many things,
+and the fever was upon him.
+
+He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness
+to clear him up with a few precise questions was only equalled
+and controlled by my anxiety not to get to this sort of thing too soon.
+But in another meeting or so the basis of confidence was complete;
+and from first to last I think I got most of the items and aspects--
+indeed, I got quite a number of times over almost everything that
+Mr. Skelmersdale, with his very limited powers of narration, will
+ever be able to tell. And so I come to the story of his adventure,
+and I piece it all together again. Whether it really happened,
+whether he imagined it or dreamt it, or fell upon it in some strange
+hallucinatory trance, I do not profess to say. But that he invented
+it I will not for one moment entertain. The man simply and honestly
+believes the thing happened as he says it happened; he is transparently
+incapable of any lie so elaborate and sustained, and in the belief
+of the simple, yet often keenly penetrating, rustic minds about him
+I find a very strong confirmation of his sincerity. He believes--
+and nobody can produce any positive fact to falsify his belief.
+As for me, with this much of endorsement, I transmit his story--
+I am a little old now to justify or explain.
+
+He says he went to sleep on Aldington Knoll about ten o'clock one
+night--it was quite possibly Midsummer night, though he has never
+thought of the date, and he cannot be sure within a week or so--
+and it was a fine night and windless, with a rising moon. I have been
+at the pains to visit this Knoll thrice since his story grew up
+under my persuasions, and once I went there in the twilight summer
+moonrise on what was, perhaps, a similar night to that of his adventure.
+Jupiter was great and splendid above the moon, and in the north
+and northwest the sky was green and vividly bright over the sunken
+sun. The Knoll stands out bare and bleak under the sky, but surrounded
+at a little distance by dark thickets, and as I went up towards it
+there was a mighty starting and scampering of ghostly or quite
+invisible rabbits. Just over the crown of the Knoll, but nowhere else,
+was a multitudinous thin trumpeting of midges. The Knoll is, I believe,
+an artificial mound, the tumulus of some great prehistoric chieftain,
+and surely no man ever chose a more spacious prospect for a sepulchre.
+Eastward one sees along the hills to Hythe, and thence across
+the Channel to where, thirty miles and more perhaps, away, the great
+white lights by Gris Nez and Boulogne wink and pass and shine.
+Westward lies the whole tumbled valley of the Weald, visible as far
+as Hindhead and Leith Hill, and the valley of the Stour opens
+the Downs in the north to interminable hills beyond Wye. All
+Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch and Romney
+and Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and
+the hills multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up
+to Beachy Head.
+
+And out upon all this it was that Skelmersdale wandered, being troubled
+in his earlier love affair, and as he says, "not caring WHERE he went."
+And there he sat down to think it over, and so, sulking and grieving,
+was overtaken by sleep. And so he fell into the fairies' power.
+
+The quarrel that had upset him was some trivial matter enough
+between himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged.
+She was a farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and "very respectable,"
+and no doubt an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover
+were very young and with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly
+keen edge of criticism, that irrational hunger for a beautiful
+perfection, that life and wisdom do presently and most mercifully
+dull. What the precise matter of quarrel was I have no idea. She may
+have said she liked men in gaiters when he hadn't any gaiters on,
+or he may have said he liked her better in a different sort of hat,
+but however it began, it got by a series of clumsy stages to bitterness
+and tears. She no doubt got tearful and smeary, and he grew dusty
+and drooping, and she parted with invidious comparisons, grave doubts
+whether she ever had REALLY cared for him, and a clear certainty
+she would never care again. And with this sort of thing upon his mind
+he came out upon Aldington Knoll grieving, and presently, after
+a long interval, perhaps, quite inexplicably, fell asleep.
+
+He woke to find himself on a softer turf than ever he had slept
+on before, and under the shade of very dark trees that completely
+hid the sky. Always, indeed, in Fairyland the sky is hidden, it seems.
+Except for one night when the fairies were dancing, Mr. Skelmersdale,
+during all his time with them, never saw a star. And of that night
+I am in doubt whether he was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings
+and rushes are, in those low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth.
+
+But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves
+and amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright
+and fine. Mr. Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL,
+and the next that quite a number of people still smaller were standing
+all about him. For some reason, he says, he was neither surprised
+nor frightened, but sat up quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep
+out of his eyes. And there all about him stood the smiling elves
+who had caught him sleeping under their privileges and had brought
+him into Fairyland.
+
+What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague
+and imperfect is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor
+detail does he seem to have been. They were clothed in something
+very light and beautiful, that was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves,
+nor the petals of flowers. They stood all about him as he sat and waked,
+and down the glade towards him, down a glow-worm avenue and fronted
+by a star, came at once that Fairy Lady who is the chief personage
+of his memory and tale. Of her I gathered more. She was clothed in
+filmy green, and about her little waist was a broad silver girdle. Her
+hair waved back from her forehead on either side; there were curls not
+too wayward and yet astray, and on her brow was a little tiara,
+set with a single star. Her sleeves were some sort of open sleeves
+that gave little glimpses of her arms; her throat, I think, was
+a little displayed, because he speaks of the beauty of her neck
+and chin. There was a necklace of coral about her white throat,
+and in her breast a coral-coloured flower. She had the soft lines
+of a little child in her chin and cheeks and throat. And her eyes,
+I gather, were of a kindled brown, very soft and straight and sweet
+under her level brows. You see by these particulars how greatly
+this lady must have loomed in Mr. Skelmersdale's picture. Certain
+things he tried to express and could not express; "the way she moved,"
+he said several times; and I fancy a sort of demure joyousness
+radiated from this Lady.
+
+And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest
+and chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale
+set out to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed
+him gladly and a little warmly--I suspect a pressure of his hand
+in both of hers and a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago
+young Skelmersdale may have been a very comely youth. And once
+she took his arm, and once, I think, she led him by the hand adown
+the glade that the glow-worms lit.
+
+Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from
+Mr. Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives
+little unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places
+where there were many fairies together, of "toadstool things that
+shone pink," of fairy food, of which he could only say "you should
+have tasted it!" and of fairy music, "like a little musical box,"
+that came out of nodding flowers. There was a great open place
+where fairies rode and raced on "things," but what Mr. Skelmersdale
+meant by "these here things they rode," there is no telling. Larvae,
+perhaps, or crickets, or the little beetles that elude us so abundantly.
+There was a place where water splashed and gigantic king-cups grew,
+and there in the hotter times the fairies bathed together. There were
+games being played and dancing and much elvish love-making, too,
+I think, among the moss-branch thickets. There can be no doubt that
+the Fairy Lady made love to Mr. Skelmersdale, and no doubt either
+that this young man set himself to resist her. A time came, indeed,
+when she sat on a bank beside him, in a quiet, secluded place
+"all smelling of vi'lets," and talked to him of love.
+
+"When her voice went low and she whispered," said Mr. Skelmersdale,
+"and laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft,
+warm friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my
+'ead."
+
+It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent.
+He saw "'ow the wind was blowing," he says, and so, sitting there
+in a place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely
+Fairy Lady about him, Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently--
+that he was engaged!
+
+She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad
+for her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have--even
+his heart's desire.
+
+And Mr. Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking
+at her little lips as they just dropped apart and came together,
+led up to the more intimate question by saying he would like enough
+capital to start a little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said,
+he had money enough to do that. I imagine a little surprise in those
+brown eyes he talked about, but she seemed sympathetic for all that,
+and she asked him many questions about the little shop, "laughing like"
+all the time. So he got to the complete statement of his affianced
+position, and told her all about Millie.
+
+"All?" said I.
+
+"Everything," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "just who she was, and where
+she lived, and everything about her. I sort of felt I 'ad to all
+the time, I did."
+
+"'Whatever you want you shall have,' said the Fairy Lady. 'That's as
+good as done. You SHALL feel you have the money just as you wish.
+And now, you know--YOU MUST KISS ME.'"
+
+And Mr. Skelmersdale pretended not to hear the latter part of her
+remark, and said she was very kind. That he really didn't deserve she
+should be so kind. And--
+
+The Fairy Lady suddenly came quite close to him and whispered, "Kiss
+me!"
+
+"And," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "like a fool, I did."
+
+There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite
+the other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard. There was
+something magic in that kiss; assuredly it marked a turning point.
+At any rate, this is one of the passages that he thought sufficiently
+important to describe most at length. I have tried to get it right,
+I have tried to disentangle it from the hints and gestures through
+which it came to me, but I have no doubt that it was all different
+from my telling and far finer and sweeter, in the soft filtered light
+and the subtly stirring silences of the fairy glades. The Fairy Lady
+asked him more about Millie, and was she very lovely, and so on--
+a great many times. As to Millie's loveliness, I conceive him
+answering that she was "all right." And then, or on some such
+occasion, the Fairy Lady told him she had fallen in love with him
+as he slept in the moonlight, and so he had been brought into
+Fairyland, and she had thought, not knowing of Millie, that perhaps
+he might chance to love her. "But now you know you can't," she said,
+"so you must stop with me just a little while, and then you must
+go back to Millie." She told him that, and you know Skelmersdale
+was already in love with her, but the pure inertia of his mind kept
+him in the way he was going. I imagine him sitting in a sort
+of stupefaction amidst all these glowing beautiful things, answering
+about his Millie and the little shop he projected and the need
+of a horse and cart. . . . And that absurd state of affairs must
+have gone on for days and days. I see this little lady, hovering
+about him and trying to amuse him, too dainty to understand his
+complexity and too tender to let him go. And he, you know, hypnotised
+as it were by his earthly position, went his way with her hither
+and thither, blind to everything in Fairyland but this wonderful
+intimacy that had come to him. It is hard, it is impossible, to give
+in print the effect of her radiant sweetness shining through the jungle
+of poor Skelmersdale's rough and broken sentences. To me, at least,
+she shone clear amidst the muddle of his story like a glow-worm
+in a tangle of weeds.
+
+There must have been many days of things while all this was happening--
+and once, I say, they danced under the moonlight in the fairy rings
+that stud the meadows near Smeeth--but at last it all came to an end.
+She led him into a great cavernous place, lit by a red nightlight
+sort of thing, where there were coffers piled on coffers, and cups
+and golden boxes, and a great heap of what certainly seemed to all
+Mr. Skelmersdale's senses--coined gold. There were little gnomes
+amidst this wealth, who saluted her at her coming, and stood aside.
+And suddenly she turned on him there with brightly shining eyes.
+
+"And now," she said, "you have been kind to stay with me so long,
+and it is time I let you go. You must go back to your Millie. You must
+go back to your Millie, and here--just as I promised you--they will
+give you gold."
+
+"She choked like," said Mr. Skelmersdale. "At that, I had a sort
+of feeling--" (he touched his breastbone) "as though I was fainting
+here. I felt pale, you know, and shivering, and even then--I 'adn't
+a thing to say."
+
+He paused. "Yes," I said.
+
+The scene was beyond his describing. But I know that she kissed
+him good-bye.
+
+"And you said nothing?"
+
+"Nothing," he said. "I stood like a stuffed calf. She just looked
+back once, you know, and stood smiling like and crying--I could
+see the shine of her eyes--and then she was gone, and there was
+all these little fellows bustling about me, stuffing my 'ands and
+my pockets and the back of my collar and everywhere with gold."
+
+And then it was, when the Fairy Lady had vanished, that Mr. Skelmersdale
+really understood and knew. He suddenly began plucking out the gold
+they were thrusting upon him, and shouting out at them to prevent
+their giving him more. "'I don't WANT yer gold,' I said. 'I 'aven't
+done yet. I'm not going. I want to speak to that Fairy Lady again.'
+I started off to go after her and they held me back. Yes, stuck
+their little 'ands against my middle and shoved me back. They kept
+giving me more and more gold until it was running all down my
+trouser legs and dropping out of my 'ands. 'I don't WANT yer gold,'
+I says to them, 'I want just to speak to the Fairy Lady again.'"
+
+"And did you?"
+
+"It came to a tussle."
+
+"Before you saw her?"
+
+"I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere
+to be seen."
+
+So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long
+grotto, seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate
+place athwart which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro.
+And about him elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes
+came out of the cave after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting
+it after him, shouting, "Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and
+fairy gold!"
+
+And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over,
+and he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly
+set himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern,
+through a place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly
+and often. The elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him
+and pricking him, and the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him
+and dashed into his face, and the gnomes pursued him shouting and
+pelting him with fairy gold. As he ran with all this strange rout
+about him and distracting him, suddenly he was knee-deep in a swamp,
+and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted roots, and he caught his foot
+in one and stumbled and fell. . . .
+
+He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself
+sprawling upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars.
+
+He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff
+and cold, and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor
+of dawn and a chilly wind were coming up together. He could have
+believed the whole thing a strangely vivid dream until he thrust
+his hand into his side pocket and found it stuffed with ashes.
+Then he knew for certain it was fairy gold they had given him.
+He could feel all their pinches and pricks still, though there was
+never a bruise upon him. And in that manner, and so suddenly,
+Mr. Skelmersdale came out of Fairyland back into this world of men.
+Even then he fancied the thing was but the matter of a night until
+he returned to the shop at Aldington Corner and discovered amidst
+their astonishment that he had been away three weeks.
+
+"Lor'! the trouble I 'ad!" said Mr. Skelmersdale.
+
+"How?"
+
+"Explaining. I suppose you've never had anything like that to explain."
+
+"Never," I said, and he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of
+this person and that. One name he avoided for a space.
+
+"And Millie?" said I at last.
+
+"I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie," he said.
+
+"I expect she seemed changed?"
+
+"Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big,
+you know, and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun,
+when it rose in the morning, fair hit me in the eye!"
+
+"And Millie?"
+
+"I didn't want to see Millie."
+
+"And when you did?"
+
+"I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?'
+she said, and I saw there was a row. _I_ didn't care if there was.
+I seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking
+to me. She was just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen
+in 'er ever, or what there could 'ave been. Sometimes when she
+wasn't about, I did get back a little, but never when she was there.
+Then it was always the other came up and blotted her out. . . .
+Anyow, it didn't break her heart."
+
+"Married?" I asked.
+
+"Married 'er cousin," said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the
+pattern of the tablecloth for a space.
+
+When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean
+vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy
+Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting
+out the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to
+repeat. I think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole
+affair, to hear that neat little grocer man after his story was done,
+with a glass of whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers,
+witnessing, with sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted
+anguish, of the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently
+came upon him. "I couldn't eat," he said, "I couldn't sleep. I made
+mistakes in orders and got mixed with change. There she was day
+and night, drawing me and drawing me. Oh, I wanted her. Lord! how
+I wanted her! I was up there, most evenings I was up there on the Knoll,
+often even when it rained. I used to walk over the Knoll and round it
+and round it, calling for them to let me in. Shouting. Near blubbering
+I was at times. Daft I was and miserable. I kept on saying it was all
+a mistake. And every Sunday afternoon I went up there, wet and fine,
+though I knew as well as you do it wasn't no good by day. And I've
+tried to go to sleep there."
+
+He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky.
+
+"I've tried to go to sleep there," he said, and I could swear his lips
+trembled. "I've tried to go to sleep there, often and often. And,
+you know, I couldn't, sir--never. I've thought if I could go to sleep
+there, there might be something. But I've sat up there and laid up
+there, and I couldn't--not for thinking and longing. It's the
+longing. . . . I've tried--"
+
+He blew, drank up the rest of his whisky spasmodically, stood up
+suddenly and buttoned his jacket, staring closely and critically
+at the cheap oleographs beside the mantel meanwhile. The little
+black notebook in which he recorded the orders of his daily round
+projected stiffly from his breast pocket. When all the buttons were
+quite done, he patted his chest and turned on me suddenly. "Well,"
+he said, "I must be going."
+
+There was something in his eyes and manner that was too difficult
+for him to express in words. "One gets talking," he said at last
+at the door, and smiled wanly, and so vanished from my eyes.
+And that is the tale of Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland just as
+he told it to me.
+
+
+6. THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST
+
+The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very
+vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time,
+in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and
+Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name.
+There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a
+modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday
+morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which indeed
+gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was
+invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil
+kindliness when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell
+one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was
+lying--of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I.
+He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but
+that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man.
+
+"I say!" he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward
+rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, "you know
+I was alone here last night?"
+
+"Except for the domestics," said Wish.
+
+"Who sleep in the other wing," said Clayton. "Yes. Well--" He pulled
+at his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about
+his confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, "I caught a ghost!"
+
+"Caught a ghost, did you?" said Sanderson. "Where is it?"
+
+And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks
+in America, shouted, "CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad
+of it! Tell us all about it right now."
+
+Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door.
+
+He looked apologetically at me. "There's no eavesdropping of course,
+but we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours
+of ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling
+to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost.
+I don't think it will come again--ever."
+
+"You mean to say you didn't keep it?" said Sanderson.
+
+"I hadn't the heart to," said Clayton.
+
+And Sanderson said he was surprised.
+
+We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. "I know," he said, with
+the flicker of a smile, "but the fact is it really WAS a ghost,
+and I'm as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not
+joking. I mean what I say."
+
+Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton,
+and then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words.
+
+Clayton ignored the comment. "It is the strangest thing that has
+ever happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts
+or anything of the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag
+one in a corner; and the whole business is in my hands."
+
+He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce
+a second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected.
+
+"You talked to it?" asked Wish.
+
+"For the space, probably, of an hour."
+
+"Chatty?" I said, joining the party of the sceptics.
+
+"The poor devil was in trouble," said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end
+and with the very faintest note of reproof.
+
+"Sobbing?" some one asked.
+
+Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. "Good Lord!" he said;
+"yes." And then, "Poor fellow! yes."
+
+"Where did you strike it?" asked Evans, in his best American accent.
+
+"I never realised," said Clayton, ignoring him, "the poor sort of
+thing a ghost might be," and he hung us up again for a time, while
+he sought for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar.
+
+"I took an advantage," he reflected at last.
+
+We were none of us in a hurry. "A character," he said, "remains
+just the same character for all that it's been disembodied. That's
+a thing we too often forget. People with a certain strength or
+fixity of purpose may have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity
+of purpose--most haunting ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea'd
+as monomaniacs and as obstinate as mules to come back again and again.
+This poor creature wasn't." He suddenly looked up rather queerly, and
+his eye went round the room. "I say it," he said, "in all kindliness,
+but that is the plain truth of the case. Even at the first glance
+he struck me as weak."
+
+He punctuated with the help of his cigar.
+
+"I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards
+me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was
+transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer
+of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but
+his attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though
+he didn't know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand
+was on the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like--SO!"
+
+"What sort of physique?" said Sanderson.
+
+"Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great
+flutings down the back, here and here--so! And a little, meanish head
+with scrubby hair--And rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower
+than the hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers
+baggy and a little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me.
+I came very quietly up the staircase. I did not carry a light,
+you know--the candles are on the landing table and there is that lamp--
+and I was in my list slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped
+dead at that--taking him in. I wasn't a bit afraid. I think that
+in most of these affairs one is never nearly so afraid or excited
+as one imagines one would be. I was surprised and interested.
+I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at last! And I haven't believed
+for a moment in ghosts during the last five-and-twenty years.'"
+
+"Um," said Wish.
+
+"I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I
+was there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature
+young man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin.
+So for an instant we stood--he looking over his shoulder at me
+and regarded one another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling.
+He turned round, drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms,
+spread his hands in approved ghost fashion--came towards me.
+As he did so his little jaw dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out
+'Boo.' No, it wasn't--not a bit dreadful. I'd dined. I'd had a bottle
+of champagne, and being all alone, perhaps two or three--perhaps
+even four or five--whiskies, so I was as solid as rocks and no more
+frightened than if I'd been assailed by a frog. 'Boo!' I said.
+'Nonsense. You don't belong to THIS place. What are you doing here?'
+
+"I could see him wince. 'Boo-oo,' he said.
+
+"'Boo--be hanged! Are you a member?' I said; and just to show
+I didn't care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and
+made to light my candle. 'Are you a member?' I repeated, looking
+at him sideways.
+
+"He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing
+became crestfallen. 'No,' he said, in answer to the persistent
+interrogation of my eye; 'I'm not a member--I'm a ghost.'
+
+"'Well, that doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there
+any one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as
+steadily as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness
+of whisky for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight.
+I turned on him, holding it. 'What are you doing here?' I said.
+
+"He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood,
+abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man.
+'I'm haunting,' he said.
+
+"'You haven't any business to,' I said in a quiet voice.
+
+"'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence.
+
+"'That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is
+a respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids
+and children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor
+little mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits.
+I suppose you didn't think of that?'
+
+"'No, sir,' he said, 'I didn't.'
+
+"'You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you?
+Weren't murdered here, or anything of that sort?'
+
+"'None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled--'
+
+"'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is
+a mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned
+to see if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly.
+'If I were you I wouldn't wait for cock-crow--I'd vanish right away.'
+
+"He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir--' he began.
+
+"'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home.
+
+"'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.'
+
+"'You CAN'T?'
+
+"'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging
+about here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards
+of the empty bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never
+come haunting before, and it seems to put me out.'
+
+"'Put you out?'
+
+"'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off.
+There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.'
+
+"That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such
+an abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite
+the high, hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said,
+and as I spoke I fancied I heard some one moving about down below.
+'Come into my room and tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't,
+of course, understand this,' and I tried to take him by the arm.
+But, of course, you might as well have tried to take hold of a puff
+of smoke! I had forgotten my number, I think; anyhow, I remember
+going into several bedrooms--it was lucky I was the only soul
+in that wing--until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I said, and sat
+down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. It seems
+to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old chap.'
+
+"Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down
+the room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little
+while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently,
+you know, something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me,
+and I began to realise just a little what a thundering rum and weird
+business it was that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent--
+the proper conventional phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost
+of a voice--flitting to and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung
+old bedroom. You could see the gleam of the copper candlesticks
+through him, and the lights on the brass fender, and the corners
+of the framed engravings on the wall,--and there he was telling me
+all about this wretched little life of his that had recently ended
+on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you know, but being
+transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the truth."
+
+"Eh?" said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair.
+
+"What?" said Clayton.
+
+"Being transparent--couldn't avoid telling the truth--I don't see it,"
+said Wish.
+
+"_I_ don't see it," said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. "But
+it IS so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once
+a nail's breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been
+killed--he went down into a London basement with a candle to look
+for a leakage of gas--and described himself as a senior English
+master in a London private school when that release occurred."
+
+"Poor wretch!" said I.
+
+"That's what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it.
+There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked
+of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever
+been anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive,
+too nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood
+him, he said. He had never had a real friend in the world,
+I think; he had never had a success. He had shirked games and failed
+examinations. 'It's like that with some people,' he said; 'whenever
+I got into the examination-room or anywhere everything seemed to go.'
+Engaged to be married of course--to another over-sensitive person, I
+suppose--when the indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs.
+'And where are you now?' I asked. 'Not in--?'
+
+"He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was
+of a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls
+too non-existent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue.
+_I_ don't know. He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give
+me any clear idea of the kind of place, kind of country, there is on
+the Other Side of Things. Wherever he was, he seems to have fallen in
+with a set of kindred spirits: ghosts of weak Cockney young men,
+who were on a footing of Christian names, and among these there was
+certainly a lot of talk about 'going haunting' and things like that.
+Yes--going haunting! They seemed to think 'haunting' a tremendous
+adventure, and most of them funked it all the time. And so primed,
+you know, he had come."
+
+"But really!" said Wish to the fire.
+
+"These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow," said Clayton, modestly.
+"I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that
+was the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and
+down, with his thin voice going talking, talking about his wretched
+self, and never a word of clear, firm statement from first to last.
+He was thinner and sillier and more pointless than if he had been
+real and alive. Only then, you know, he would not have been in my
+bedroom here--if he HAD been alive. I should have kicked him out."
+
+"Of course," said Evans, "there ARE poor mortals like that."
+
+"And there's just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest
+of us," I admitted.
+
+"What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that
+he did seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had
+made of haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told
+it would be a 'lark'; he had come expecting it to be a 'lark,'
+and here it was, nothing but another failure added to his record!
+He proclaimed himself an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and
+I can quite believe it, that he had never tried to do anything all
+his life that he hadn't made a perfect mess of--and through all
+the wastes of eternity he never would. If he had had sympathy,
+perhaps--. He paused at that, and stood regarding me. He remarked that,
+strange as it might seem to me, nobody, not any one, ever, had given
+him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. I could see what he wanted
+straight away, and I determined to head him off at once. I may be a
+brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, the recipient of the
+confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, ghost or body, is
+beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't you brood on
+these things too much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do is to get
+out of this get out of this--sharp. You pull yourself together and
+TRY.' 'I can't,' he said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did."
+
+"Try!" said Sanderson. "HOW?"
+
+"Passes," said Clayton.
+
+"Passes?"
+
+"Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's
+how he had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord!
+what a business I had!"
+
+"But how could ANY series of passes--?" I began.
+
+"My dear man," said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great
+emphasis on certain words, "you want EVERYTHING clear. _I_ don't
+know HOW. All I know is that you DO--that HE did, anyhow, at least.
+After a fearful time, you know, he got his passes right and suddenly
+disappeared."
+
+"Did you," said Sanderson, slowly, "observe the passes?"
+
+"Yes," said Clayton, and seemed to think. "It was tremendously queer,"
+he said. "There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent
+room, in this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night
+town. Not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when
+he swung. There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the dressing-
+table alight, that was all--sometimes one or other would flare up into
+a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things happened.
+'I can't,' he said; 'I shall never--!' And suddenly he sat down on
+a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob.
+Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed!
+
+"'You pull yourself together,' I said, and tried to pat him on the
+back, and . . . my confounded hand went through him! By that time,
+you know, I wasn't nearly so--massive as I had been on the landing.
+I got the queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out
+of him, as it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the
+dressing-table. 'You pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and
+try.' And in order to encourage and help him I began to try as well."
+
+"What!" said Sanderson, "the passes?"
+
+"Yes, the passes."
+
+"But--" I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space.
+
+"This is interesting," said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-
+bowl. "You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away--"
+
+"Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES."
+
+"He didn't," said Wish; "he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there too."
+
+"That's precisely it," I said, finding my elusive idea put into words
+for me.
+
+"That IS precisely it," said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the
+fire.
+
+For just a little while there was silence.
+
+"And at last he did it?" said Sanderson.
+
+"At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it
+at last--rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then
+he got up abruptly and asked me to go through the whole performance,
+slowly, so that he might see. 'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE
+I should spot what was wrong at once.' And he did. '_I_ know,'
+he said. 'What do you know?' said I. '_I_ know,' he repeated.
+Then he said, peevishly, 'I CAN'T do it if you look at me--I really
+CAN'T; it's been that, partly, all along. I'm such a nervous fellow
+that you put me out.' Well, we had a bit of an argument. Naturally
+I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate as a mule, and suddenly
+I had come over as tired as a dog--he tired me out. 'All right,'
+I said, '_I_ won't look at you,' and turned towards the mirror,
+on the wardrobe, by the bed.
+
+He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in
+the looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went
+his arms and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush
+came to the last gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your
+arms--and so, don't you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't!
+He wasn't! I wheeled round from the looking-glass to him. There was
+nothingl I was alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind.
+What had happened? Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming? . . .
+And then, with an absurd note of finality about it, the clock upon
+the landing discovered the moment was ripe for striking ONE. So!--Ping!
+And I was as grave and sober as a judge, with all my champagne and
+whisky gone into the vast serene. Feeling queer, you know--confoundedly
+QUEER! Queer! Good Lord!"
+
+He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. "That's all that happened," he
+said.
+
+"And then you went to bed?" asked Evans.
+
+"What else was there to do?"
+
+I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something,
+something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our
+desire.
+
+"And about these passes?" said Sanderson.
+
+"I believe I could do them now."
+
+"Oh!" said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub
+the dottel out of the bowl of his clay.
+
+"Why don't you do them now?" said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife
+with a click.
+
+"That's what I'm going to do," said Clayton.
+
+"They won't work," said Evans.
+
+"If they do--" I suggested.
+
+"You know, I'd rather you didn't," said Wish, stretching out his legs.
+
+"Why?" asked Evans.
+
+"I'd rather he didn't," said Wish.
+
+"But he hasn't got 'em right," said Sanderson, plugging too much
+tobacco in his pipe.
+
+"All the same, I'd rather he didn't," said Wish.
+
+We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those
+gestures was like mocking a serious matter. "But you don't believe--?"
+I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing
+something in his mind. "I do--more than half, anyhow, I do," said Wish.
+
+"Clayton," said I, "you're too good a liar for us. Most of it was
+all right. But that disappearance . . . happened to be convincing.
+Tell us, it's a tale of cock and bull."
+
+He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug,
+and faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and
+then for all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall,
+with an intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level
+of his eyes and so began. . . .
+
+Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings,
+which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the
+mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this
+lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions
+with a singular interest in his reddish eye. "That's not bad," he said,
+when it was done. "You really do, you know, put things together,
+Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out."
+
+"I know," said Clayton. "I believe I could tell you which."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"This," said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing
+and thrust of the hands.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That, you know, was what HE couldn't get right," said Clayton.
+"But how do YOU--?"
+
+"Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't
+understand at all," said Sanderson, "but just that phase--I do."
+He reflected. "These happen to be a series of gestures--connected
+with a certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know.
+Or else--HOW?" He reflected still further. "I do not see I can do
+any harm in telling you just the proper twist. After all, if you know,
+you know; if you don't, you don't."
+
+"I know nothing," said Clayton, "except what the poor devil let
+out last night."
+
+"Well, anyhow," said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very
+carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he
+gesticulated with his hands.
+
+"So?" said Clayton, repeating.
+
+"So," said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again.
+
+"Ah, NOW," said Clayton, "I can do the whole thing--right."
+
+He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think
+there was just a little hesitation in his smile. "If I begin--"
+he said.
+
+"I wouldn't begin," said Wish.
+
+"It's all right!" said Evans. "Matter is indestructible. You don't
+think any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton
+into the world of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as
+I'm concerned, until your arms drop off at the wrists."
+
+"I don't believe that," said Wish, and stood up and put his arm
+on Clayton's shoulder. "You've made me half believe in that story
+somehow, and I don't want to see the thing done!"
+
+"Goodness!" said I, "here's Wish frightened!"
+
+"I am," said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. "I
+believe that if he goes through these motions right he'll GO."
+
+"He'll not do anything of the sort," I cried. "There's only one way
+out of this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that.
+Besides . . . And such a ghost! Do you think--?"
+
+Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs
+and stopped beside the tole and stood there. "Clayton," he said,
+"you're a fool."
+
+Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him.
+"Wish," he said, "is right and all you others are wrong. I shall go.
+I shall get to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles
+through the air, Presto!--this hearthrug will be vacant, the room
+will be blank amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of
+fifteen stone will plump into the world of shades. I'm certain.
+So will you be. I decline to argue further. Let the thing be tried."
+
+"NO," said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised
+his hands once more to repeat the spirit's passing.
+
+By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension--largely
+because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on
+Clayton--I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me
+as though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my
+body had been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was
+imperturbably serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands
+and arms before us. As he drew towards the end one piled up, one
+tingled in one's teeth. The last gesture, I have said, was to swing
+the arms out wide open, with the face held up. And when at last he
+swung out to this closing gesture I ceased even to breathe. It was
+ridiculous, of course, but you know that ghost-story feeling. It was
+after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. Would he, after all--?
+
+There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his
+upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp.
+We hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from
+all of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a
+reassuring "NO!" For visibly--he wasn't going. It was all nonsense.
+He had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that
+was all! . . . And then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed.
+
+It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are
+suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed,
+his smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood
+there, very gently swaying.
+
+That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping,
+things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give,
+and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms. . . .
+
+It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent
+thing. We believed it, yet could not believe it. . . . I came out
+of a muddled stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him,
+and his vest and shirt were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay
+on his heart. . . .
+
+Well--the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience;
+there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour;
+it lies athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day.
+Clayton had, indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to
+and so far from our own, and he had gone thither by the only road
+that mortal man may take. But whether he did indeed pass there
+by that poor ghost's incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly
+by apoplexy in the midst of an idle tale--as the coroner's jury would
+have us believe--is no matter for my judging; it is just one of those
+inexplicable riddles that must remain unsolved until the final solution
+of all things shall come. All I certainly know is that, in the very
+moment, in the very instant, of concluding those passes, he changed,
+and staggered, and fell down before us--dead!
+
+
+7. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD
+
+"It isn't every one who's been a god," said the sunburnt man. "But
+it's happened to me. Among other things."
+
+I intimated my sense of his condescension.
+
+"It don't leave much for ambition, does it?" said the sunburnt man.
+
+"I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer.
+Gummy! how time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll
+remember anything of the Ocean Pioneer?"
+
+The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had
+read it. The Ocean Pioneer? "Something about gold dust," I said
+vaguely, "but the precise--"
+
+"That's it," he said. "In a beastly little channel she hadn't no
+business in--dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh
+on that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all
+the rocks was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair
+have to follow the rocks about to see where they're going next.
+Down she went in twenty fathoms before you could have dealt for whist,
+with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said,
+in one form or another."
+
+"Survivors?"
+
+"Three."
+
+"I remember the case now," I said. "There was something about salvage--"
+
+But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so
+extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more
+ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. "Excuse me,"
+he said, "but--salvage!"
+
+He leant over towards me. "I was in that job," he said. "Tried to make
+myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings--
+
+"It ain't all jam being a god," said the sunburnt man, and for some
+time conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms.
+At last he took up his tale again.
+
+"There was me," said the sunburnt man, "and a seaman named Jacobs,
+and Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set
+the whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the
+jolly-boat, suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence.
+He was a wonderful hand at suggesting things. 'There was forty
+thousand pounds,' he said, 'on that ship, and it's for me to say
+just where she went down.' It didn't need much brains to tumble
+to that. And he was the leader from the first to the last. He got
+hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, and
+the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought the diving-dress--
+a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus instead of pumping.
+He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him sick going down.
+And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart he'd cooked up,
+as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and twenty miles away.
+
+"I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink
+and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean
+and straightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert.' And we
+used to speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers,
+who'd started two days before us, were getting on, until our sides
+fairly ached. We all messed together in the Sanderses' cabin--it
+was a curious crew, all officers and no men--and there stood the
+diving-dress waiting its turn. Young Sanders was a humorous sort of
+chap, and there certainly was something funny in the confounded
+thing's great fat head and its stare, and he made us see it too.
+'Jimmie Goggles,' he used to call it, and talk to it like a Christian.
+Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. Goggles was, and all the little
+Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And every blessed day all of us
+used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrew his eye
+and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead of that nasty
+mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as a cask of rum.
+It was jolly times we had in those days, I can tell you--little
+suspecting, poor chaps! what was a-coming.
+
+"We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry,
+you know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where
+the Ocean Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy
+grey rock--lava rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had
+to lay off about half a mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was
+a thundering row who should stop on board. And there she lay just
+as she had gone down, so that you could see the top of the masts
+that was still standing perfectly distinctly. The row ending in
+all coming in the boat. I went down in the diving-dress on Friday
+morning directly it was light.
+
+"What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly.
+It was a queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People
+over here think every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore
+and palm trees and surf, bless 'em! This place, for instance,
+wasn't a bit that way. Not common rocks they were, undermined
+by waves; but great curved banks like ironwork cinder heaps,
+with green slime below, and thorny shrubs and things just waving
+upon them here and there, and the water glassy calm and clear,
+and showing you a kind of dirty grey-black shine, with huge flaring
+red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and darting
+things going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and pools
+and the heaps was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again after
+the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption. And the other way
+forest, too, and a kind of broken--what is it?--ambytheatre of black
+and rusty cinders rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay
+in the middle.
+
+"The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour
+about things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight
+up or down the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond
+a lump of rocks towards the line of the sea.
+
+"Not a human being in sight," he repeated, and paused.
+
+"I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling
+so safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing.
+I was in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always,
+'there's her mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale,
+I caught up the bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought
+the boat round. When the windows were screwed and everything was
+all right, I shut the valve from the air belt in order to help
+my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't
+a ladder. I left the boat pitching, and all of them staring down
+into the water after me, as my head sank down into the weeds and
+blackness that lay about the mast. I suppose nobody, not the most
+cautious chap in the world, would have bothered about a lookout
+at such a desolate place. It stunk of solitude.
+
+"Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving.
+None of us were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get
+the way of it, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels
+damnable. Your ears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt
+yourself yawning or sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten
+times worse. And a pain over the eyebrows here--splitting--and a
+feeling like influenza in the head. And it isn't all heaven in your
+lungs and things. And going down feels like the beginning of a lift,
+only it keeps on. And you can't turn your head to see what's above you,
+and you can't get a fair squint at what's happening to your feet
+without bending down something painful. And being deep it was dark,
+let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud that formed the bottom.
+It was like going down out of the dawn back into the night, so to speak.
+
+"The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of
+fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came
+with a kind of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the
+fishes that had been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of
+flies from road stuff in summer time. I turned on the compressed air
+again--for the suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in
+spite of the rum--and stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down
+there, and that helped take off the stuffiness a bit.
+
+"When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was
+an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind
+of reddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed
+that floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just
+a moony, deep green-blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight
+list to starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between
+the weeds, clear except where the masts had snapped when she rolled,
+and vanishing into black night towards the forecastle. There wasn't
+any dead on the decks, most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose;
+but afterwards I found two skeletons lying in the passengers' cabins,
+where death had come to them. It was curious to stand on that deck
+and recognise it all, bit by bit; a place against the rail where I'd
+been fond of smoking by starlight, and the corner where an old chap
+from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we had aboard. A comfortable
+couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now you couldn't have
+got a meal for a baby crab off either of them.
+
+"I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I
+spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went
+below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work
+hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing
+blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about,
+a dab at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect.
+I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and
+picked up something all knobs and spikes. What do you think?
+Backbone! But I never had any particular feeling for bones. We
+had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly, and Always knew just
+where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box
+one end an inch or more."
+
+He broke off in his story. "I've lifted it," he said, "as near as
+that! Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted
+inside my helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting
+confounded stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down
+twenty-five minutes or more--and I thought this was good enough.
+I went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up flush with
+the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of hysterical jump
+and went scuttling off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. I stood
+up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the air
+accumulate to carry me up again--I noticed a kind of whacking
+from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar,
+but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up.
+
+"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood
+a-quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd
+seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was
+still calling him this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt
+me serious--when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight.
+Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack!
+I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front
+of my helmet. Then something else, struggling frightful. It was
+a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving and twisting
+about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or some such thing, if it
+hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear boots. It was
+all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking down again, and
+I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot rolled
+free of me and shot down as I went up--"
+
+He paused.
+
+"I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear
+driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what
+looked like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went
+clutching one another, and turning over, and both too far gone
+to leave go. And in another second my helmet came a whack, fit
+to split, against the niggers' canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full.
+
+"It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three
+spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps
+kicking about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw
+the game was up at a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist,
+and went bubbling down again after poor Always, in as awful a state
+of scare and astonishment as you can well imagine. I passed young
+Sanders and the nigger going up again and struggling still a bit,
+and in another moment I was standing in the dim again on the deck
+of the Ocean Pioneer.
+
+"'Gummy,' thinks I, 'here's a fix!' Niggers? At first I couldn't see
+anything for it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly
+understand how much air there was to last me, but I didn't feel like
+standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully
+heady--quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd never repined
+with these beastly natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good,
+coming up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur
+of the moment, I clambered over the side of the brig and landed
+among the weeds, and set off through the darkness as fast as I could.
+I just stopped once and knelt, and twisted back my head in the helmet
+and had a look up. It was a most extraordinary bright green-blue above,
+and the two canoes and the boat floating there very small and distant
+like a kind of twisted H. And it made me feel sick to squint up at it,
+and think what the pitching and swaying of the three meant.
+
+"It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering
+about in that darkness, pressure something awful, like being buried
+in sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing
+as it seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit,
+I found myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another
+squint to see if anything was visible of the canoes and boats,
+and then kept on. I stopped with my head a foot from the surface,
+and tried to see where I was going, but, of course, nothing was
+to be seen but the reflection of the bottom. Then out I dashed like
+knocking my head through a mirror. Directly I got my eyes out of
+the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of beach near the forest. I had a
+look round, but the natives and the brig were both hidden by a big,
+hummucky heap of twisted lava, the born fool in me suggested a run
+for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but eased open one of
+the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out of the water.
+You'd hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted.
+
+"Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your
+head in a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five
+minutes under water, you don't break any records running. I ran like
+a ploughboy going to work. And half way to the trees I saw a dozen
+niggers or more, coming out in a gaping, astonished sort of way
+to meet me.
+
+"I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of
+London. I had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as
+a turned turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands
+free, and waited for them. There wasn't anything else for me to do.
+
+"But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'Jimmy
+Goggles,' I says, 'it's your beauty does it.' I was inclined to be a
+little light-headed, I think, with all these dangers about and the
+change in the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' I
+said, as if the savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm
+hanged if I don't give you something to stare at,' I said, and with
+that I screwed up the escape valve and turned on the compressed air
+from the belt, until I was swelled out like a blown frog. Regular
+imposing it must have been. I'm blessed if they'd come on a step;
+and presently one and then another went down on their hands and knees.
+They didn't know what to make of me, and they was doing the extra
+polite, which was very wise and reasonable of them. I had half a mind
+to edge back seaward and cut and run, but it seemed too hopeless. A
+step back and they'd have been after me. And out of sheer desperation
+I began to march towards them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps,
+and waving my blown-out arms about, in a dignified manner. And inside
+of me I was singing as small as a tomtit.
+
+"But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a
+difficulty,--I've found that before and since. People like ourselves,
+who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely
+imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two
+of these niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry
+trying to knock their brains out on the ground. And on I went as
+slow and solemn and silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber.
+It was evident they took me for something immense.
+
+"Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures
+to me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention
+between me and something out at sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said.
+I turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming
+round a point, the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes.
+The sight fairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some
+recognition, so I waved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal
+manner. And then I turned and stalked on towards the trees again.
+At that time I was praying like mad, I remember, over and over again:
+'Lord help me through with it! Lord help me through with it!' It's
+only fools who know nothing of dangers can afford to laugh at praying.
+
+"But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away
+like that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of
+pressed me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was
+clear to me they didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever
+else they thought of me, and for my own part I was never less anxious
+to own up to the old country.
+
+"You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with
+savages, but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me
+straight to their kind of joss place to present me to the blessed
+old black stone there. By this time I was beginning to sort of realise
+the depth of their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity
+I took my cue. I started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long
+on one note, and began waving my arms about a lot, and then very
+slowly and ceremoniously turned their image over on its side and
+sat down on it. I wanted to sit down badly, for diving-dresses ain't
+much wear in the tropics. Or, to put it different like, they're
+a sight too much. It took away their breath, I could see, my sitting
+on their joss, but in less time than a minute they made up their
+minds and were hard at work worshipping me. And I can tell you
+I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so well, in spite
+of the weight on my shoulders and feet.
+
+"But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might
+think when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before
+I went down, and without the helmet on--for they might have been
+spying and hiding since over night--they would very likely take
+a different view from the others. I was in a deuce of a stew about
+that for hours, as it seemed, until the shindy of the arrival began.
+
+"But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down.
+At the cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting
+Egyptian images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly
+twelve hours, I should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd
+hardly think what it meant in that heat and stink. I don't think
+any of them dreamt of the man inside. I was just a wonderful leathery
+great joss that had come up with luck out of the water. But the fatigue!
+the heat! the beastly closeness! the mackintosheriness and the rum!
+and the fuss! They lit a stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there
+was before me, and brought in a lot of gory muck--the worst parts
+of what they were feasting on outside, the Beasts--and burnt it
+all in my honour. I was getting a bit hungry, but I understand now
+how gods manage to do without eating, what with the smell of burnt
+offerings about them. And they brought in a lot of the stuff they'd
+got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was a bit relieved
+to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the compressed
+air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced
+about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different ways
+different people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet handy
+I'd have gone for the lot of them--they made me feel that wild.
+All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better
+to do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house
+place got a bit too shadowy for their taste--all these here savages
+are afraid of the dark, you know--and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise,
+they built big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in the
+darkness of my hut, free to unscrew my windows a bit and think
+things over, and feel just as bad as I liked. And, Lord! I was sick.
+
+"I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle
+on a pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it.
+Come round just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other
+chaps, beastly drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate,
+and young Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn't go out
+of my mind. There was the treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer,
+and how one might get it and hide it somewhere safer, and get away
+and come back for it. And there was the puzzle where to get anything
+to eat. I tell you I was fair rambling. I was afraid to ask by signs
+for food, for fear of behaving too human, and so there I sat and
+hungered until very near the dawn. Then the village got a bit quiet,
+and I couldn't stand it any longer, and I went out and got some stuff
+like artichokes in a bowl and some sour milk. What was left of these
+I put away among the other offerings, just to give them a hint
+of my tastes. And in the morning they came to worship, and found
+me sitting up stiff and respectable on their previous god, just as
+they'd left me overnight. I'd got my back against the central pillar
+of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. And that's how I became
+a god among the heathen--a false god no doubt, and blasphemous,
+but one can't always pick and choose.
+
+"Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits,
+but I must confess that while I was god to these people they was
+extraordinary successful. I don't say there's anything in it,
+mind you. They won a battle with another tribe--I got a lot of
+offerings I didn't want through it--they had wonderful fishing,
+and their crop of pourra was exceptional fine. And they counted
+the capture of the brig among the benefits I brought 'em. I must
+say I don't think that was a poor record for a perfectly new hand.
+And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, I was the tribal god
+of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four months. . . .
+
+"What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress
+all the time. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and
+a deuce of a time I had too, making them understand what it was
+I wanted them to do. That indeed was the great difficulty--making
+them understand my wishes. I couldn't let myself down by talking their
+lingo badly--even if I'd been able to speak at all--and I couldn't
+go flapping a lot of gestures at them. So I drew pictures in sand
+and sat down beside them and hooted like one o'clock. Sometimes
+they did the things I wanted all right, and sometimes they did them
+all wrong. They was always very willing, certainly. All the while
+I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded business settled.
+Every night before the dawn I used to march out in full rig and go off
+to a place where I could see the channel in which the Ocean Pioneer
+lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried to walk out
+to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I didn't get
+back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers out on
+the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that vexed
+and tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going down
+again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they
+started rejoicing. I'm hanged if I like so much ceremony.
+
+"And then came the missionary. That missionary! It was in the afternoon,
+and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on
+that old black stone of theirs when he came. I heard a row outside
+and jabbering, and then his voice speaking to an interpreter.
+'They worship stocks and stones,' he said, and I knew what was up,
+in a flash. I had one of my windows out for comfort, and I sang out
+straight away on the spur of the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says.
+'You come inside,' I says, 'and I'll punch your blooming head.'
+There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, and in he came,
+Bible in hand, after the manner of them--a little sandy chap in specks
+and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me sitting there in
+the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him
+a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in calico?'
+for I don't hold with missionaries.
+
+"I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite
+outclassed with a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told
+him to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. Down
+he goes to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious
+as any of them, took it as an act of worship and plumped down like
+a shot. All my people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn't
+any more business to be done in my village after that journey,
+not by the likes of him.
+
+"But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had
+any sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure
+and taken him into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child,
+with a few hours to think it over, could have seen the connection
+between my diving-dress and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week
+after he left I went out one morning and saw the Motherhood, the
+salver's ship from Starr Race, towing up the channel and sounding.
+The whole blessed game was up, and all my trouble thrown away. Gummy!
+How wild I felt! And guying it in that stinking silly dress! Four
+months!"
+
+The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. "Think of it," he said,
+when he emerged to linguistic purity once more. "Forty thousand
+pounds worth of gold."
+
+"Did the little missionary come back?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man
+inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous
+ceremony. But there wasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate
+scenes and explanations, and long before he came I was out of it
+all--going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day,
+and thieving food from the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear.
+No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying
+is. And just a squeak of eight thousand pounds of gold--fifth share.
+But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, because they thought
+it was him had driven their luck away."
+
+
+8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR
+
+Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin
+it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of
+investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent
+that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any
+touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise
+human life. And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous
+stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful
+days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do
+better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are
+astonishing experiences in store for all in search of new sensations
+will become apparent enough.
+
+Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone.
+Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages
+has already appeared in The Strand Magazine--I think late in 1899;
+but I am unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to
+some one who has never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps,
+recall the high forehead and the singularly long black eyebrows
+that give such a Mephistophelian touch to his face. He occupies one
+of those pleasant little detached houses in the mixed style that
+make the western end of the Upper Sandgate Road so interesting.
+His is the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorish portico,
+and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay window that
+he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have
+so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but,
+besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those
+men who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been
+able to follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from
+a very early stage. Of course, the greater portion of his experimental
+work is not done in Folkestone, but in Gower Street, in the fine
+new laboratory next to the hospital that he has been the first to use.
+
+As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know,
+the special department in which Gibberne has gained so great
+and deserved a reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs
+upon the nervous system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics
+he is, I am told, unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable
+eminence, and I suppose in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles
+that centres about the ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are
+little cleared places of his making, little glades of illumination,
+that, until he sees fit to publish his results, are still inaccessible
+to every other living man. And in the last few years he has been
+particularly assiduous upon this question of nervous stimulants,
+and already, before the discovery of the New Accelerator, very
+successful with them. Medical science has to thank him for at least
+three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivalled value
+to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the preparation known
+as Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives already
+than any lifeboat round the coast.
+
+"But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet," he told
+me nearly a year ago. "Either they increase the central energy
+without affecting the nerves or they simply increase the available
+energy by lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are
+unequal and local in their operation. One wakes up the heart and
+viscera and leaves the brain stupefied, one gets at the brain
+champagne fashion and does nothing good for the solar plexus, and
+what I want--and what, if it's an earthly possibility, I mean to have--
+is a stimulant that stimulates all round, that wakes you up for
+a time from the crown of your head to the tip of your great toe,
+and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody else's one. Eh?
+That's the thing I'm after."
+
+"It would tire a man," I said.
+
+"Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that.
+But just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with
+a little phial like this"--he held up a little bottle of green glass
+and marked his points with it--"and in this precious phial is
+the power to think twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice
+as much work in a given time as you could otherwise do."
+
+"But is such a thing possible?"
+
+"I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These
+various preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem
+to show that something of the sort . . . Even if it was only one
+and a half times as fast it would do."
+
+"It WOULD do," I said.
+
+"If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up
+against you, something urgent to be done, eh?"
+
+"He could dose his private secretary," I said.
+
+"And gain--double time. And think if YOU, for example, wanted
+to finish a book."
+
+"Usually," I said, "I wish I'd never begun 'em."
+
+"Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out
+a case. Or a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination."
+
+"Worth a guinea a drop," said I, "and more to men like that."
+
+"And in a duel, again," said Gibberne, "where it all depends on
+your quickness in pulling the trigger."
+
+"Or in fencing," I echoed.
+
+"You see," said Gibberne, "if I get it as an all-round thing it will
+really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal
+degree it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice
+to other people's once--"
+
+"I suppose," I meditated, "in a duel--it would be fair?"
+
+"That's a question for the seconds," said Gibberne.
+
+I harked back further. "And you really think such a thing IS
+possible?" I said.
+
+"As possible," said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went
+throbbing by the window, "as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--"
+
+He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge
+of his desk with the green phial. "I think I know the stuff. . . .
+Already I've got something coming." The nervous smile upon his
+face betrayed the gravity of his revelation. He rarely talked of
+his actual experimental work unless things were very near the end.
+"And it may be, it may be--I shouldn't be surprised--it may even
+do the thing at a greater rate than twice."
+
+"It will be rather a big thing," I hazarded.
+
+"It will be, I think, rather a big thing."
+
+But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for
+all that.
+
+I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. "The New
+Accelerator" he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident
+on each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected
+physiological results its use might have, and then he would get
+a little unhappy; at others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated
+long and anxiously how the preparation might be turned to commercial
+account. "It's a good thing," said Gibberne, "a tremendous thing.
+I know I'm giving the world something, and I think it only reasonable
+we should expect the world to pay. The dignity of science is all
+very well, but I think somehow I must have the monopoly of the stuff
+for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL the fun in life should go
+to the dealers in ham."
+
+My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time.
+I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my
+mind. I have always been given to paradoxes about space and time,
+and it seemed to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less
+than the absolute acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly
+dosed with such a preparation: he would live an active and record
+life indeed, but he would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at
+twenty-five, and by thirty well on the road to senile decay. It seemed
+to me that so far Gibberne was only going to do for any one who
+took his drug exactly what Nature has done for the Jews and Orientals,
+who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, and quicker in thought
+and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs has always
+been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, make him
+incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passion
+and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle
+to be added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use!
+But Gibberne was far too eager upon his technical points to enter
+very keenly into my aspect of the question.
+
+It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation
+that would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward
+as we talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was
+done and the New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met
+him as I was going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think
+I was going to get my hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet
+me--I suppose he was coming to my house to tell me at once of his
+success. I remember that his eyes were unusually bright and his face
+flushed, and I noted even then the swift alacrity of his step.
+
+"It's done," he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast;
+"it's more than done. Come up to my house and see."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Really!" he shouted. "Incredibly! Come up and see."
+
+"And it does--twice?
+
+"It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff.
+Taste it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth." He gripped
+my arm and, walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot,
+went shouting with me up the hill. A whole char-a-banc-ful of people
+turned and stared at us in unison after the manner of people in
+chars-a-banc. It was one of those hot, clear days that Folkestone
+sees so much of, every colour incredibly bright and every outline
+hard. There was a breeze, of course, but not so much breeze as
+sufficed under these conditions to keep me cool and dry. I panted for
+mercy.
+
+"I'm not walking fast, am I?" cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace
+to a quick march.
+
+"You've been taking some of this stuff," I puffed.
+
+"No," he said. "At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker
+from which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took
+some last night, you know. But that is ancient history, now."
+
+"And it goes twice?" I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful
+perspiration.
+
+"It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!" cried Gibberne, with
+a dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate.
+
+"Phew!" said I, and followed him to the door.
+
+"I don't know how many times it goes," he said, with his latch-key
+in his hand.
+
+"And you--"
+
+"It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory
+of vision into a perfectly new shape! . . . Heaven knows how many
+thousand times. We'll try all that after--The thing is to try the stuff
+now."
+
+"Try the stuff?" I said, as we went along the passage.
+
+"Rather," said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. "There it is
+in that little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?"
+
+I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous.
+I WAS afraid. But on the other hand there is pride.
+
+"Well," I haggled. "You say you've tried it?"
+
+"I've tried it," he said, "and I don't look hurt by it, do I?
+I don't even look livery and I FEEL--"
+
+I sat down. "Give me the potion," I said. "If the worst comes to
+the worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one
+of the most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the
+mixture?"
+
+"With water," said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe.
+
+He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair;
+his manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street
+specialist. "It's rum stuff, you know," he said.
+
+I made a gesture with my hand.
+
+"I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down
+to shut your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's
+time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length
+of vibration, and not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind
+of shock to the retina, a nasty giddy confusion just at the time,
+if the eyes are open. Keep 'em shut."
+
+"Shut," I said. "Good!"
+
+"And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about.
+You may fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will
+be going several thousand times faster than you ever did before,
+heart, lungs, muscles, brain--everything--and you will hit hard
+without knowing it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just
+as you do now. Only everything in the world will seem to be going
+ever so many thousand times slower than it ever went before. That's
+what makes it so deuced queer."
+
+"Lor'," I said. "And you mean--"
+
+"You'll see," said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced
+at the material on his desk. "Glasses," he said, "water. All here.
+Mustn't take too much for the first attempt."
+
+The little phial glucked out its precious contents.
+
+"Don't forget what I told you," he said, turning the contents of
+the measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring
+whisky. "Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness
+for two minutes," he said. "Then you will hear me speak."
+
+He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass.
+
+"By-the-by," he said, "don't put your glass down. Keep it in your
+hand and rest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now--"
+
+He raised his glass.
+
+"The New Accelerator," I said.
+
+"The New Accelerator," he answered, and we touched glasses and
+drank, and instantly I closed my eyes.
+
+You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one
+has taken "gas." For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then
+I heard Gibberne telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened
+my eyes. There he stood as he had been standing, glass still
+in hand. It was empty, that was all the difference.
+
+"Well?" said I.
+
+"Nothing out of the way?"
+
+"Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more."
+
+"Sounds?"
+
+"Things are still," I said. "By Jove! yes! They ARE still. Except the
+sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things.
+What is it?"
+
+"Analysed sounds," I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced
+at the window. "Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed
+in that way before?"
+
+I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen,
+as it were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze.
+
+"No," said I; "that's odd."
+
+"And here," he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally
+I winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing
+it did not even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless.
+
+"Roughly speaking," said Gibberne, "an object in these latitudes
+falls 16 feet in the first second. This glass is falling 16 feet in
+a second now. Only, you see, it hasn't been falling yet for the
+hundredth part of a second. That gives you some idea of the pace
+of my Accelerator." And he waved his hand round and round, over and
+under the slowly sinking glass. Finally, he took it by the bottom,
+pulled it down, and placed it very carefully on the table. "Eh?"
+he said to me, and laughed.
+
+"That seems all right," I said, and began very gingerly to raise
+myself from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and
+comfortable, and quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all
+over. My heart, for example, was beating a thousand times a second,
+but that caused me no discomfort at all. I looked out of the window.
+An immovable cyclist, head down and with a frozen puff of dust
+behind his driving-wheel, scorched to overtake a galloping char-a-banc
+that did not stir. I gaped in amazement at this incredible spectacle.
+"Gibberne," I cried, "how long will this confounded stuff last?"
+
+"Heaven knows!" he answered. "Last time I took it I went to bed
+and slept it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted
+some minutes, I think--it seemed like hours. But after a bit it
+slows down rather suddenly, I believe."
+
+I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened--I suppose
+because there were two of us. "Why shouldn't we go out?" I asked.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"They'll see us."
+
+"Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times
+faster than the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come
+along! Which way shall we go? Window, or door?"
+
+And out by the window we went.
+
+Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had,
+or imagined, or read of other people having or imagining, that little
+raid I made with Gibberne on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence
+of the New Accelerator, was the strangest and maddest of all.
+We went out by his gate into the road, and there we made a minute
+examination of the statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the wheels
+and some of the legs of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end
+of the whip-lash and the lower jaw of the conductor--who was just
+beginning to yawn--were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest
+of the lumbering conveyance seemed still. And quite noiseless except
+for a faint rattling that came from one man's throat! And as parts
+of this frozen edifice there were a driver, you know, and a conductor,
+and eleven people! The effect as we walked about the thing began
+by being madly queer, and ended by being disagreeable. There they
+were, people like ourselves and yet not like ourselves, frozen
+in careless attitudes, caught in mid-gesture. A girl and a man
+smiled at one another, a leering smile that threatened to last
+for evermore; a woman in a floppy capelline rested her arm on
+the rail and stared at Gibberne's house with the unwinking stare
+of eternity; a man stroked his moustache like a figure of wax,
+and another stretched a tiresome stiff hand with extended fingers
+towards his loosened hat. We stared at them, we laughed at them,
+we made faces at them, and then a sort of disgust of them came upon
+us, and we turned away and walked round in front of the cyclist
+towards the Leas.
+
+"Goodness!" cried Gibberne, suddenly; "look there!"
+
+He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the
+air with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally
+languid snail--was a bee.
+
+And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder
+than ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all
+the sound it made for us was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of
+prolonged last sigh that passed at times into a sound like the slow,
+muffled ticking of some monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect,
+strange, silent, self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in
+mid-stride, promenading upon the grass. I passed close to a little
+poodle dog suspended in the act of leaping, and watched the slow
+movement of his legs as he sank to earth. "Lord, look here!" cried
+Gibberne, and we halted for a moment before a magnificent person
+in white faint-striped flannels, white shoes, and a Panama hat,
+who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed ladies he had passed.
+A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation as we could afford,
+is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of alert gaiety,
+and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely close,
+that under its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball
+and a little line of white. "Heaven give me memory," said I,
+"and I will never wink again."
+
+"Or smile," said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth.
+
+"It's infernally hot, somehow," said I. "Let's go slower."
+
+"Oh, come along!" said Gibberne.
+
+We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of
+the people sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their
+passive poses, but the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not
+a restful thing to see. A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen
+in the midst of a violent struggle to refold his newspaper against
+the wind; there were many evidences that all these people in their
+sluggish way were exposed to a considerable breeze, a breeze that
+had no existence so far as our sensations went. We came out and
+walked a little way from the crowd, and turned and regarded it.
+To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, smitten rigid,
+as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was impossibly
+wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an irrational,
+an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder of it!
+All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had begun
+to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so far
+as the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. "The
+New Accelerator--" I began, but Gibberne interrupted me.
+
+"There's that infernal old woman!" he said.
+
+"What old woman?"
+
+"Lives next door to me," said Gibberne. "Has a lapdog that yaps.
+Gods! The temptation is strong!"
+
+There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times.
+Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched
+the unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running
+violently with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most
+extraordinary. The little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or
+make the slightest sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an
+attitude of somnolent repose, and Gibberne held it by the neck. It
+was like running about with a dog of wood. "Gibberne," I cried, "put
+it down!" Then I said something else. "If you run like that,
+Gibberne," I cried, "you'll set your clothes on fire. Your linen
+trousers are going brown as it is!"
+
+He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge.
+"Gibberne," I cried, coming up, "put it down. This heat is too much!
+It's our running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!"
+
+"What?" he said, glancing at the dog.
+
+"Friction of the air," I shouted. "Friction of the air. Going too
+fast. Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne!
+I'm all over pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people
+stirring slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog
+down."
+
+"Eh?" he said.
+
+"It's working off," I repeated. "We're too hot and the stuff's
+working off! I'm wet through."
+
+He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose
+performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep
+of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning
+upward, still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols
+of a knot of chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow.
+"By Jove!" he cried. "I believe--it is! A sort of hot pricking
+and--yes. That man's moving his pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly.
+We must get out of this sharp."
+
+But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps!
+For we might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe,
+have burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into
+flames! You know we had neither of us thought of that. . . . But
+before we could even begin to run the action of the drug had ceased.
+It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of
+the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in
+the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm.
+"Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the
+Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass
+there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake
+up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed
+together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet down
+and walked their ways, the papers and flags began flapping, smiles
+passed into words, the winker finished his wink and went on his
+way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke.
+
+The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were,
+or rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was
+like slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything
+seemed to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient
+feeling of nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had
+seemed to hang for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was
+expended fell with a swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol!
+
+That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old
+gentleman in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of
+us and afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious
+eye, and, finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us,
+I doubt if a solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among
+them. Plop! We must have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder
+almost at once, though the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The
+attention of every one--including even the Amusements' Association
+band, which on this occasion, for the only time in its history,
+got out of tune--was arrested by the amazing fact, and the still
+more amazing yapping and uproar caused by the fact that a respectable,
+over-fed lap-dog sleeping quietly to the east of the bandstand
+should suddenly fall through the parasol of a lady on the west--in
+a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of its
+movements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are
+all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and superstitious as possible!
+People got up and trod on other people, chairs were overturned,
+the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled itself I do not
+know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from
+the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman
+in the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were
+sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness
+and nausea and confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting
+the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below the Metropole
+towards Gibberne's house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly
+the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured
+sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one of
+those chair-attendants who have "Inspector" written on their caps.
+"If you didn't throw the dog," he said, "who DID?"
+
+The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural
+anxiety about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot,
+and the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were
+scorched a drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations
+I should have liked to make on all these things. Indeed, I really
+made no observations of any scientific value on that return. The bee,
+of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, but he was already
+out of sight as we came into the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden
+from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, however, with its people now
+all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a spanking pace
+almost abreast of the nearer church.
+
+We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped
+in getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the
+impressions of our feet on the gravel of the path were unusually deep.
+
+So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically
+we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things
+in the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour
+while the band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it
+had upon us was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient
+inspection. Considering all things, and particularly considering our
+rashness in venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly
+have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt,
+that Gibberne has still much to learn before his preparation is
+a manageable convenience, but its practicability it certainly
+demonstrated beyond all cavil.
+
+Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under
+control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad
+result, taken measured doses under his direction; though I must
+confess I have not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence.
+I may mention, for example, that this story has been written at one
+sitting and without interruption, except for the nibbling of some
+chocolate, by its means. I began at 6.25, and my watch is now very
+nearly at the minute past the half-hour. The convenience of securing
+a long, uninterrupted spell of work in the midst of a day full
+of engagements cannot be exaggerated. Gibberne is now working
+at the quantitative handling of his preparation, with especial reference
+to its distinctive effects upon different types of constitution.
+He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute its present
+rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have the
+reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable
+the patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary
+time,--and so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like
+absence of alacrity, amidst the most animated or irritating
+surroundings. The two things together must necessarily work an entire
+revolution in civilised existence. It is the beginning of our escape
+from that Time Garment of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator
+will enable us to concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact
+upon any moment or occasion that demands our utmost sense and vigour,
+the Retarder will enable us to pass in passive tranquillity through
+infinite hardship and tedium. Perhaps I am a little optimistic
+about the Retarder, which has indeed still to be discovered, but
+about the Accelerator there is no possible sort of doubt whatever.
+Its appearance upon the market in a convenient, controllable,
+and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months. It will be
+obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green bottles,
+at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no means
+excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called,
+and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200,
+one in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and
+white labels respectively.
+
+No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things
+possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even
+criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging,
+as it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations
+it will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect
+of the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this
+is purely a matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside
+our province. We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and,
+as for the consequences--we shall see.
+
+
+9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION
+
+My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural
+mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam
+through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates
+irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has
+come with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an
+elaborate clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination
+to be firm and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant
+alike. He is a sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many
+of the secret practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather
+than interesting things. His conversation is copious and given
+much to needless detail. By many, indeed, his intercourse is
+condemned, to put it plainly, as "boring," and such have even done
+me the compliment to wonder why I countenance him. But, on the other
+hand, there is a large faction who marvel at his countenancing
+such a dishevelled, discreditable acquaintance as myself. Few appear
+to regard our friendship with equanimity. But that is because they
+do not know of the link that binds us, of my amiable connection
+via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past.
+
+About that past he displays an anxious modesty. "I do not KNOW what
+I should do if it became known," he says; and repeats, impressively,
+"I do not know WHAT I should do." As a matter of fact, I doubt if
+he would do anything except get very red about the ears. But that
+will appear later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter,
+since, as a general rule--though I am prone to break it--the end
+of a story should come after, rather than before, the beginning.
+And the beginning of the story goes a long way back; indeed, it is
+now nearly twenty years since Fate, by a series of complicated and
+startling manoeuvres, brought Mr. Ledbetter, so to speak, into my
+hands.
+
+In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a
+schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably
+the same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage,
+the same or similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise
+in his resting expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when
+I saw him, and his collar less of a collar than a wet bandage,
+and that may have helped to bridge the natural gulf between us--but
+of that, as I say, later.
+
+The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with
+Mr. Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly
+needed rest, with a bright brown portmanteau marked "F. W. L.",
+a new white-and-black straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel
+trousers. He was naturally exhilarated at his release from school--
+for he was not very fond of the boys he taught. After dinner he
+fell into a discussion with a talkative person established in the
+boarding-house to which, acting on the advice of his aunt, he had
+resorted. This talkative person was the only other man in the house.
+Their discussion concerned the melancholy disappearance of wonder
+and adventure in these latter days, the prevalence of globe-trotting,
+the abolition of distance by steam and electricity, the vulgarity
+of advertisement, the degradation of men by civilisation, and many
+such things. Particularly was the talkative person eloquent on
+the decay of human courage through security, a security Mr. Ledbetter
+rather thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr. Ledbetter, in the
+first delight of emancipation from "duty," and being anxious, perhaps,
+to establish a reputation for manly conviviality, partook, rather
+more freely than was advisable, of the excellent whisky the talkative
+person produced. But he did not become intoxicated, he insists.
+
+He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer
+edge gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave
+old days that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate--
+alone and up the cliff road where the villas cluster together.
+
+He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still
+bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life
+as a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant,
+so colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was
+there for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval
+days, so near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri
+and many a risky blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt,
+a strange doubt, springing out of some chance thought of tortures,
+and destructive altogether of the position he had assumed that evening.
+
+Was he--Mr. Ledbetter--really, after all, so brave as he assumed?
+Would he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and
+security vanish suddenly from the earth?
+
+The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. "The burglar,"
+he said, "is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his
+single-handed fight against the whole civilised world!" And Mr.
+Ledbetter had echoed his envy. "They DO have some fun out of life,"
+Mr. Ledbetter had said. "And about the only people who do. Just
+think how it must feel to wire a lawn!" And he had laughed wickedly.
+Now, in this franker intimacy of self-communion he found himself
+instituting a comparison between his own brand of courage and that of
+the habitual criminal. He tried to meet these insidious questionings
+with blank assertion. "I could do all that," said Mr. Ledbetter.
+"I long to do all that. Only I do not give way to my criminal impulses.
+My moral courage restrains me." But he doubted even while he told
+himself these things.
+
+"Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently
+situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping
+black, wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture
+of it came with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself
+climbing up that balcony, crouching--plunging into that dark,
+mysterious interior. "Bah! You would not dare," said the Spirit
+of Doubt. "My duty to my fellow-men forbids," said Mr. Ledbetter's
+self-respect.
+
+It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very
+still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one
+warm oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life.
+He turned and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window.
+He stood for a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives.
+"Let us put things to the test," said Doubt. "For the satisfaction
+of these intolerable doubts, show that you dare go into that house.
+Commit a burglary in blank. That, at any rate, is no crime." Very
+softly he opened and shut the gate and slipped into the shadow
+of the shrubbery. "This is foolish," said Mr. Ledbetter's caution.
+"I expected that," said Doubt. His heart was beating fast, but he
+was certainly not afraid. He was NOT afraid. He remained in that
+shadow for some considerable time.
+
+The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done
+in a rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from
+the gate into the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious
+climbing roses made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that
+black shadow by the stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and
+take a closer view of this gaping breach in the domestic defences,
+the open window. For a while Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night,
+and then that insidious whisky tipped the balance. He dashed forward.
+He went up the trellis with quick, convulsive movements, swung his
+legs over the parapet of the balcony, and dropped panting in the
+shadow even as he had designed. He was trembling violently, short
+of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, but his mood was exultation.
+He could have shouted to find he was so little afraid.
+
+A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's "Mephistopheles" came
+into his mind as he crouched there. "I feel like a cat on the tiles,"
+he whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected--
+this adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom
+burglary was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And
+he was acting in the bravest manner!
+
+And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare do
+that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or
+passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about
+it, or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility
+of a sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then
+raised his eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on
+a pedestal, and a little startling at first, was a nearly life-size
+gesticulating bronze. He ducked, and after some time he peered
+again. Beyond was a broad landing, faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric
+of bead curtain, very black and sharp, against a further window; a
+broad staircase, plunging into a gulf of darkness below; and another
+ascending to the second floor. He glanced behind him, but the
+stillness of the night was unbroken. "Crime," he whispered, "crime,"
+and scrambled softly and swiftly over the sill into the house. His
+feet fell noiselessly on a mat of skin. He was a burglar indeed!
+
+He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was
+a scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his
+enterprise. A short "miaow," a spitting, and a rush into silence,
+spoke reassuringly of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every
+one was abed, it seemed. So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one
+is so minded. He was glad he had put it to the test. He determined
+to take some petty trophy, just to prove his freedom from any abject
+fear of the law, and depart the way he had come.
+
+He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again.
+Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this:
+they went into rooms, they forced safes. Well--he was not afraid.
+He could not force safes, because that would be a stupid want
+of consideration for his hosts. But he would go into rooms--he would
+go upstairs. More: he told himself that he was perfectly secure;
+an empty house could not be more reassuringly still. He had to clench
+his hands, nevertheless, and summon all his resolution before he
+began very softly to ascend the dim staircase, pausing for several
+seconds between each step. Above was a square landing with one
+open and several closed doors; and all the house was still. For
+a moment he stood wondering what would happen if some sleeper
+woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit bedroom,
+the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in three
+interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder--
+his trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had
+ascended. It was as easy as--
+
+Hist! . . .
+
+Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house--and then the noise of a
+latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match
+in the hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden
+discovery of the folly upon which he had come. "How on earth am
+I to get out of this?" said Mr. Ledbetter.
+
+The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped
+against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In
+a flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood
+for a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. "My goodness!
+What a FOOL I have been!" he whispered, and then darted swiftly
+across the shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he
+had just come. He stood listening--quivering. The footsteps reached
+the first-floor landing.
+
+Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment
+was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven
+for a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds
+too soon. He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing
+candle-light appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the
+shadows ran wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down.
+
+"Lord, what a day!" said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed
+he deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging
+by the feet, decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went
+to the door and locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows
+carefully and pulled down the blinds, and returning sat down upon
+the bed with startling ponderosity.
+
+"WHAT a day!" he said. "Good Lord!" and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter
+inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots
+were good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance
+suggested a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed
+some upper garments--a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred--
+and casting them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less
+noisily, and as it seemed cooling from a considerable temperature.
+At intervals he muttered to himself, and once he laughed softly. And
+Mr. Ledbetter muttered to himself, but he did not laugh. "Of all the
+foolish things," said Mr. Ledbetter. "What on earth am I to do now?"
+
+His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between
+the stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount
+of light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain,
+save for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled
+confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the edge
+of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously
+depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened
+until the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was
+a luxurious one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors
+and so forth of the furniture, well equipped.
+
+What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until
+this person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping,
+to creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony
+seemed the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump
+from the balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances
+against him, Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting
+forth his head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary
+to attract his attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining
+his unfortunate intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he
+found these sentences hard to choose. "No doubt, sir, my appearance
+is peculiar," or, "I trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous
+appearance from beneath you," was about as much as he could get.
+
+Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose
+they did not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his
+unblemished high character count for nothing? Technically he was
+a burglar, beyond dispute. Following out this train of thought,
+he was composing a lucid apology for "this technical crime I have
+committed," to be delivered before sentence in the dock, when
+the stout gentleman got up and began walking about the room. He
+locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. Ledbetter had a transient hope
+that he might be undressing. But, no! He seated himself at the
+writing-table, and began to write and then tear up documents.
+Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with the odour
+of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils.
+
+"The position I had assumed," said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me of
+these things, "was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse
+bar beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a
+disproportionate share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I
+experienced what is called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The
+pressure of my hands on the coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became
+painful. My knees, too, were painful, my trousers being drawn tightly
+over them. At that time I wore rather higher collars than I do now--two
+and a half inches, in fact--and I discovered what I had not remarked
+before, that the edge of the one I wore was frayed slightly under
+the chin. But much worse than these things was an itching of my face,
+which I could only relieve by violent grimacing--I tried to raise
+my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve alarmed me. After a time
+I had to desist from this relief also, because--happily in time--
+I discovered that my facial contortions were shifting my glasses
+down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have exposed me, and as it
+was they came to rest in an oblique position of by no means stable
+equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an intermittent
+desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In fact, quite
+apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical discomfort
+became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to stay
+there motionless, nevertheless."
+
+After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This
+deepened into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink--twenty-five chinks--
+a rap on the writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout
+legs. It dawned upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking
+of gold. He became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity
+grew. Already, if that was the case, this extraordinary man must
+have counted some hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could
+resist it no longer, and he began very cautiously to fold his arms
+and lower his head to the level of the floor, in the hope of peeping
+under the valance. He moved his feet, and one made a slight scraping
+on the floor. Suddenly the chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became
+rigid. After a while the chinking was resumed. Then it ceased again,
+and everything was still, except Mr. Ledbetter's heart--that organ
+seemed to him to be beating like a drum.
+
+The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor,
+and he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were
+quite still. The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back,
+as it seemed, under the chair of the owner. Everything was quite
+still, everything continued still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter
+that the unknown was in a fit or suddenly dead, with his head upon
+the writing-table. . . .
+
+The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep
+became irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand
+forward, projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance
+immediately next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now
+the stranger's knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then--
+he was staring at the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over
+the writing-table at his head.
+
+"Come out of that, you scoundrel!" said the voice of the stout
+gentleman in a tone of quiet concentration. "Come out. This side,
+and now. None of your hanky-panky--come right out, now."
+
+Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but
+without any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told.
+
+"Kneel," said the stout gentleman. "and hold up your hands."
+
+The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from
+all-fours and held up his hands. "Dressed like a parson," said
+the stout gentleman. "I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too!
+You SCOUNDREL! What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night?
+What the deuce possessed you to get under my bed?"
+
+He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to
+several very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal
+appearance. He was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr.
+Ledbetter: he was as stout as his legs had promised, he had rather
+delicately-chiselled small features distributed over a considerable
+area of whitish face, and quite a number of chins. And the note
+of his voice had a sort of whispering undertone.
+
+"What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?"
+
+Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He
+coughed. "I can quite understand--" he said.
+
+"Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!--you scoundrel. Don't you move
+that hand."
+
+"It's soap," said Mr. Ledbetter. "From your washstand. No doubt it--"
+
+"Don't talk," said the stout man. "I see it's soap. Of all incredible
+things."
+
+"If I might explain--"
+
+"Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for
+explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?"
+
+"In a few minutes, if you--"
+
+"Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver
+I'll shoot. Have you any mates?"
+
+"No," said Mr. Ledbetter.
+
+"I suppose it's a lie," said the stout man. "But you'll pay for it
+if it is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs?
+You won't get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed!
+I reckon it's a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned."
+
+"I don't see how I could prove an alibi," remarked Mr. Ledbetter,
+trying to show by his conversation that he was an educated man.
+There was a pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside
+his captor was a large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers,
+and that there were torn and burnt papers on the table. And in front
+of these, and arranged methodically along the edge were rows and
+rows of little yellow rouleaux--a hundred times more gold than Mr.
+Ledbetter had seen in all his life before. The light of two candles,
+in silver candlesticks, fell upon these. The pause continued. "It is
+rather fatiguing holding up my hands like this," said Mr. Ledbetter,
+with a deprecatory smile.
+
+"That's all right," said the fat man. "But what to do with you
+I don't exactly know."
+
+"I know my position is ambiguous."
+
+"Lord!" said the fat man, "ambiguous! And goes about with his own
+soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming
+burglar, you are--if ever there was one!"
+
+"To be strictly accurate," said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his
+glasses slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons.
+
+The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution
+crossed his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put
+his other hand to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter,
+and his eye went down to the dropped pince-nez.
+
+"Full-cock now, anyhow," said the fat man, after a pause, and his
+breath seemed to catch. "But I'll tell you, you've never been so
+near death before. Lord! I'M almost glad. If it hadn't been that
+the revolver wasn't cocked you'd be lying dead there now."
+
+Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying.
+
+"A miss is as good as a mile. It's lucky for both of us it wasn't.
+Lord!" He blew noisily. "There's no need for you to go pale-green
+for a little thing like that."
+
+"If I can assure you, sir--" said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort.
+
+"There's only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I'm bust--
+a little game I've got on is bust. That won't do. If I tie you up
+and leave you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow's
+Sunday, and Monday's Bank Holiday--I've counted on three clear
+days. Shooting you's murder--and hanging; and besides, it will bust
+the whole blooming kernooze. I'm hanged if I can think what to do--
+I'm hanged if I can."
+
+"Will you permit me--"
+
+"You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I'm blessed if you
+don't. Of all the burglars you are the--Well! No!--I WON'T permit
+you. There isn't time. If you start off jawing again, I'll shoot
+right in your stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're
+going to do first, my man, is an examination for concealed arms--
+an examination for concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you
+to do a thing, don't start off at a gabble--do it brisk."
+
+And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol
+at Mr. Ledbetter's head, the stout man stood him up and searched
+him for weapons. "Why, you ARE a burglar!" he said "You're a perfect
+amateur. You haven't even a pistol-pocket in the back of your
+breeches. No, you don't! Shut up, now."
+
+So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter
+take off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver
+at one ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted.
+From the stout man's point of view that was evidently the only
+possible arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had
+to put down the revolver. So that even the gold on the table was
+handled by Mr. Ledbetter. This nocturnal packing was peculiar.
+The stout man's idea was evidently to distribute the weight of
+the gold as unostentatiously as possible through his luggage. It was
+by no means an inconsiderable weight. There was, Mr. Ledbetter says,
+altogether nearly L18,000 in gold in the black bag and on the table.
+There were also many little rolls of L5 bank-notes. Each rouleau
+of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter in paper. These rouleaux were
+then put neatly in cigar boxes and distributed between a travelling
+trunk, a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. About L600 went in a tobacco
+tin in a dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a number of L5 notes the stout
+man pocketed. Occasionally he objurgated Mr. Ledbetter's clumsiness,
+and urged him to hurry, and several times he appealed to Mr.
+Ledbetter's watch for information.
+
+Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man
+the keys. It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of
+midnight the stout man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he
+sat at a reasonably safe distance on the trunk and held the revolver
+handy and waited. He appeared to be now in a less aggressive mood,
+and having watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered a few
+remarks.
+
+"From your accent I judge you are a man of some education," he said,
+lighting a cigar. "No--DON'T begin that explanation of yours. I know
+it will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar
+to be interested in other men's lying. You are, I say, a person
+of education. You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated
+people you might pass as a curate."
+
+"I AM a curate," said Mr. Ledbetter, "or, at least--"
+
+"You are trying to be. I know. But you didn't ought to burgle.
+You are not the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it--the thing
+will have been pointed out to you before--a coward."
+
+"Do you know," said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening,
+"it was that very question--"
+
+The stout man waved him into silence.
+
+"You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two
+things. Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my
+own part, I embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man
+could be doing with all this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight! . . .
+Ten. Eleven. Twelve. There is something very impressive to me
+in that slow beating of the hours. Time--space; what mysteries
+they are! What mysteries. . . . It's time for us to be moving.
+Stand up!"
+
+And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the
+dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder
+the trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone
+bag in his disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled
+perilously downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat,
+the hatbox, and the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr.
+Ledbetter's strength, and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs.
+
+"The back door," he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through
+a conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him.
+"Never mind the crockery," said the stout man; "it's good for trade.
+We wait here until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You
+have!"
+
+Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. "Last night," he gasped,
+"I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt--"
+
+"There's no need for you to incriminate yourself," said the stout
+gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum.
+Mr. Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it.
+
+There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was
+taken to the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man
+in yachting costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started
+violently and clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout
+man. "Bingham!" he cried, "who's this?"
+
+"Only a little philanthropic do of mine--burglar I'm trying to reform.
+Caught him under my bed just now. He's all right. He's a frightful
+ass. He'll be useful to carry some of our things."
+
+The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter's presence
+at first, but the stout man reassured him.
+
+"He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him.
+No!--don't start talking, for goodness' sake."
+
+They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still
+bowing Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume
+walked in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came
+Mr. Ledbetter like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box,
+coat, and revolver as before. The house was one of those that have
+their gardens right up to the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden
+stairway, descending to a bathing tent dimly visible on the beach.
+Below was a boat pulled up, and a silent little man with a black face
+stood beside it. "A few moments' explanation," said Mr. Ledbetter;
+"I can assure you--" Somebody kicked him, and he said no more.
+
+They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled
+him aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better
+name than "scoundrel" and "burglar" all that night. But they spoke
+in undertones so that the general public was happily unaware of his
+ignominy. They hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange,
+unsympathetic Orientals, and partly they thrust him and partly he
+fell down a gangway into a noisome, dark place, where he was to
+remain many days--how many he does not know, because he lost count
+among other things when he was seasick. They fed him on biscuits and
+incomprehensible words; they gave him water to drink mixed with
+unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches where they put him,
+night and day there were cockroaches, and in the night-time there
+were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took his watch--
+but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. And five or
+six times the five Lascars--if they were Lascars--and the Chinaman
+and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and took him
+aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and three-
+anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an
+interested manner.
+
+Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who
+have lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit,
+though they made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest
+burglar they had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again.
+The fair man was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play;
+but Mr. Bingham, now that the evident anxiety of his departure
+from England was assuaged, displayed a vein of genial philosophy.
+He enlarged upon the mystery of space and time, and quoted Kant
+and Hegel--or, at least, he said he did. Several times Mr. Ledbetter
+got as far as: "My position under your bed, you know--," but then
+he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do some such intervening
+thing. After his third failure, the fair man got quite to look for
+this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after that, he would
+roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. "Same old start,
+same old story; good old burglar!" the fair-haired man would say.
+
+So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one
+evening he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over
+the side and put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring.
+Mr. Bingham came in the boat with him, giving him good advice
+all the way, and waving his last attempts at an explanation aside.
+
+"I am really NOT a burglar," said Mr. Ledbetter.
+
+"You never will be," said Mr. Bingham. "You'll never make a burglar.
+I'm glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession
+a man must study his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later
+you will fail. Compare myself, for example. All my life I have
+been in banks--I have got on in banks. I have even been a bank
+manager. But was I happy? No. Why wasn't I happy? Because it did
+not suit my temperament. I am too adventurous--too versatile.
+Practically I have thrown it over. I do not suppose I shall ever
+manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, no doubt;
+but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament--at last. . . .
+No! I shall never manage a bank again.
+
+"Now, your temperament unfits you for crime--just as mine unfits
+me for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do
+not even recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man.
+YOUR lay is the philanthropic lay--that is your lay. With that voice--
+the Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young--
+something in that line. You think it over.
+
+"The island we are approaching has no name apparently--at least,
+there is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while
+you are there--while you are thinking about all these things. It has
+quite drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines--
+one of the Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of
+the Grenadines. There are quantities of Grenadines, but the majority
+are out of sight. I have often wondered what these islands are
+for--now, you see, I am wiser. This one at least is for you. Sooner
+or later some simple native will come along and take you off.
+Say what you like about us then--abuse us, if you like--we shan't
+care a solitary Grenadine! And here--here is half a sovereign's
+worth of silver. Do not waste that in foolish dissipation when
+you return to civilisation. Properly used, it may give you a fresh
+start in life. And do not--Don't beach her, you beggars, he can
+wade!--Do not waste the precious solitude before you in foolish
+thoughts. Properly used, it may be a turning-point in your career.
+Waste neither money nor time. You will die rich. I'm sorry, but
+I must ask you to carry your tucker to land in your arms. No; it's
+not deep. Curse that explanation of yours! There's not time.
+No, no, no! I won't listen. Overboard you go!"
+
+And the falling night found Mr. Ledbetter--the Mr. Ledbetter who
+had complained that adventure was dead--sitting beside his cans
+of food, his chin resting upon his drawn-up knees, staring through
+his glasses in dismal mildness over the shining, vacant sea.
+
+He was picked up in the course of three days by a negro fisherman
+and taken to St. Vincent's, and from St. Vincent's he got, by
+the expenditure of his last coins, to Kingston, in Jamaica. And there
+he might have foundered. Even nowadays he is not a man of affairs,
+and then he was a singularly helpless person. He had not the remotest
+idea what he ought to do. The only thing he seems to have done was
+to visit all the ministers of religion he could find in the place
+to borrow a passage home. But he was much too dirty and incoherent--
+and his story far too incredible for them. I met him quite by chance.
+It was close upon sunset, and I was walking out after my siesta
+on the road to Dunn's Battery, when I met him--I was rather bored,
+and with a whole evening on my hands--luckily for him. He was trudging
+dismally towards the town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical
+cut of his dust-stained, filthy costume caught my humour. Our eyes met.
+He hesitated. "Sir," he said, with a catching of the breath, "could
+you spare a few minutes for what I fear will seem an incredible story?"
+
+"Incredible!" I said.
+
+"Quite," he answered eagerly. "No one will believe it, alter it
+though I may. Yet I can assure you, sir--"
+
+He stopped hopelessly. The man's tone tickled me. He seemed an odd
+character. "I am," he said, "one of the most unfortunate beings alive."
+
+"Among other things, you haven't dined?" I said, struck with an idea.
+
+"I have not," he said solemnly, "for many days."
+
+"You'll tell it better after that," I said; and without more ado led
+the way to a low place I knew, where such a costume as his was
+unlikely to give offence. And there--with certain omissions which
+he subsequently supplied--I got his story. At first I was incredulous,
+but as the wine warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing
+which his misfortunes had added to his manner disappeared, I began
+to believe. At last, I was so far convinced of his sincerity that
+I got him a bed for the night, and next day verified the banker's
+reference he gave me through my Jamaica banker. And that done, I took
+him shopping for underwear and such like equipments of a gentleman
+at large. Presently came the verified reference. His astonishing
+story was true. I will not amplify our subsequent proceedings.
+He started for England in three days' time.
+
+"I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough," began the letter
+he wrote me from England, "for all your kindness to a total stranger,"
+and proceeded for some time in a similar strain. "Had it not been
+for your generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned
+in time for the resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few
+minutes of reckless folly would, perhaps, have proved my ruin.
+As it is, I am entangled in a tissue of lies and evasions, of the most
+complicated sort, to account for my sunburnt appearance and my
+whereabouts. I have rather carelessly told two or three different
+stories, not realising the trouble this would mean for me in the end.
+The truth I dare not tell. I have consulted a number of law-books
+in the British Museum, and there is not the slightest doubt that
+I have connived at and abetted and aided a felony. That scoundrel
+Bingham was the Hithergate bank manager, I find, and guilty of
+the most flagrant embezzlement. Please, please burn this letter
+when read--I trust you implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my aunt
+nor her friend who kept the boarding-house at which I was staying
+seem altogether to believe a guarded statement I have made them
+practically of what actually happened. They suspect me of some
+discreditable adventure, but what sort of discreditable adventure
+they suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says she would forgive me
+if I told her everything. I have--I have told her MORE than everything,
+and still she is not satisfied. It would never do to let them know
+the truth of the case, of course, and so I represent myself as having
+been waylaid and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to know
+WHY they waylaid and gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht.
+I do not know. Can you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing.
+If, when you wrote, you could write on TWO sheets so that I could
+show her one, and on that one if you could show clearly that I really
+WAS in Jamaica this summer, and had come there by being removed
+from a ship, it would be of great service to me. It would certainly
+add to the load of my obligation to you--a load that I fear I can
+never fully repay. Although if gratitude . . ." And so forth.
+At the end he repeated his request for me to burn the letter.
+
+So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach
+with his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him
+before she died.
+
+
+10. THE STOLEN BODY
+
+Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart,
+and Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was
+well known among those interested in psychical research as a
+liberal-minded and conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried
+man, and instead of living in the suburbs, after the fashion of
+his class, he occupied rooms in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He
+was particularly interested in the questions of thought transference
+and of apparitions of the living, and in November, 1896, he commenced
+a series of experiments in conjunction with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn,
+in order to test the alleged possibility of projecting an apparition
+of one's self by force of will through space.
+
+Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a pre-
+arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the
+Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then
+fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel
+had acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could,
+he attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself
+as a "phantom of the living" across the intervening space of nearly
+two miles into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this
+was tried without any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth
+occasion Mr. Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition
+of Mr. Bessel standing in his room. He states that the appearance,
+although brief, was very vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's
+face was white and his expression anxious, and, moreover, that
+his hair was disordered. For a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his
+state of expectation, was too surprised to speak or move, and in that
+moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced over its shoulder
+and incontinently vanished.
+
+It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph
+any phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence
+of mind to snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him,
+and when he did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even
+by this partial success, he made a note of the exact time, and
+at once took a cab to the Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result.
+
+He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open
+to the night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary
+disorder. An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor;
+its neck had been broken off against the inkpot on the bureau
+and lay beside it. An octagonal occasional table, which carried
+a bronze statuette and a number of choice books, had been rudely
+overturned, and down the primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had
+been drawn, as it seemed for the mere pleasure of defilement. One of
+the delicate chintz curtains had been violently torn from its rings
+and thrust upon the fire, so that the smell of its smouldering
+filled the room. Indeed the whole place was disarranged in the
+strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who had entered
+sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, could
+scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these
+unanticipated things.
+
+Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at
+the entrance lodge. "Where is Mr. Bessel?" he asked. "Do you know
+that all the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?" The porter
+said nothing, but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's
+apartment to see the state of affairs. "This settles it," he said,
+surveying the lunatic confusion. "I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's
+gone off. He's mad!"
+
+He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour
+previously, that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's
+apparition in Mr. Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed
+out of the gates of the Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with
+disordered hair, and had vanished into the direction of Bond Street.
+"And as he went past me," said the porter, "he laughed--a sort of
+gasping laugh, with his mouth open and his eyes glaring--I tell you,
+sir, he fair scared me!--like this."
+
+According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh.
+"He waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing--like
+that. And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that
+one word, 'LIFE!'"
+
+"Dear me," said Mr. Vincey. "Tut, tut," and "Dear me!" He could
+think of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised.
+He turned from the room to the porter and from the porter to the
+room in the gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably
+Mr. Bessel would come back presently and explain what had happened,
+their conversation was unable to proceed. "It might be a sudden
+toothache," said the porter, "a very sudden and violent toothache,
+jumping on him suddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken
+things myself before now in such a case . . ." He thought. "If it was,
+why should he say 'LIFE' to me as he went past?"
+
+Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last
+Mr. Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having
+addressed a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous
+position on the bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind
+to his own premises in Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock.
+He was at a loss to account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane
+hypothesis. He tried to read, but he could not do so; he went for
+a short walk, and was so preoccupied that he narrowly escaped
+a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; and at last--a full hour before
+his usual time--he went to bed. For a considerable time he could not
+sleep because of his memory of the silent confusion of Mr. Bessel's
+apartment, and when at length he did attain an uneasy slumber it was
+at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of Mr. Bessel.
+
+He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white
+and contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance,
+suggested perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency
+to act. He even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow
+experimenter calling distressfully to him, though at the time he
+considered this to be an illusion. The vivid impression remained
+though Mr. Vincey awoke. For a space he lay awake and trembling
+in the darkness, possessed with that vague, unaccountable terror of
+unknown possibilities that comes out of dreams upon even the bravest
+men. But at last he roused himself, and turned over and went to sleep
+again, only for the dream to return with enhanced vividness.
+
+He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in
+overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer
+possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire
+calamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but
+at last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas,
+and dressed, and set out through the deserted streets--deserted, save
+for a noiseless policeman or so and the early news carts--towards Vigo
+Street to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned.
+
+But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some
+unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards
+Covent Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He
+saw the market in front of him--a queer effect of glowing yellow
+lights and busy black figures. He became aware of a shouting, and
+perceived a figure turn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards
+him. He knew at once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel
+transfigured. He was hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open,
+he grasped a bone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his
+mouth was pulled awry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly.
+Their encounter was the affair of an instant. "Bessel!" cried Vincey.
+
+The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey
+or of his own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with
+the stick, hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye.
+Mr. Vincey, stunned and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing,
+and fell heavily on the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel
+leapt over him as he fell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had
+vanished, and a policeman and a number of garden porters and salesmen
+were rushing past towards Long Acre in hot pursuit.
+
+With the assistance of several passers-by--for the whole street
+was speedily alive with running people--Mr. Vincey struggled to
+his feet. He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see
+his injury. A multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his
+safety, and then to tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as
+they regarded Mr. Bessel. He had suddenly appeared in the middle
+of the market screaming "LIFE! LIFE!" striking left and right with a
+blood-stained walking-stick, and dancing and shouting with laughter
+at each successful blow. A lad and two women had broken heads,
+and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little child had been knocked
+insensible, and for a time he had driven every one before him,
+so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he made a raid
+upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through the window
+of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the foremost
+of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him.
+
+Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit
+of his friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence
+of the indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had
+half stunned him, and while this was still no more than a resolution
+came the news, shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded
+his pursuers. At first Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but
+the universality of the report, and presently the dignified return
+of two futile policemen, convinced him. After some aimless inquiries
+he returned towards Staple Inn, padding a handkerchief to a now
+very painful nose.
+
+He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him
+indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst
+of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make
+him appear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed
+a problem beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain
+this. It seemed to him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but
+the order of things must be insane. But he could think of nothing
+to do. He shut himself carefully into his room, lit his fire--it was
+a gas fire with asbestos bricks--and, fearing fresh dreams if he
+went to bed, remained bathing his injured face, or holding up books
+in a vain attempt to read, until dawn. Throughout that vigil he had
+a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel was endeavouring to speak
+to him, but he would not let himself attend to any such belief.
+
+About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed
+and slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested
+and anxious, and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers
+had no news of Mr. Bessel's aberration--it had come too late for them.
+Mr. Vincey's perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added
+fresh irritation, became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless
+visit to the Albany, he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart,
+Mr. Bessel's partner, and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest
+friend.
+
+He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing
+of the outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very
+vision that Mr. Vincey had seen--Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled,
+pleading earnestly by his gestures for help. That was his impression
+of the import of his signs. "I was just going to look him up in the
+Albany when you arrived," said Mr. Hart. "I was so sure of something
+being wrong with him."
+
+As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided
+to inquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend.
+"He is bound to be laid by the heels," said Mr. Hart. "He can't go
+on at that pace for long." But the police authorities had not laid
+Mr. Bessel by the heels. They confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight
+experiences and added fresh circumstances, some of an even graver
+character than those he knew--a list of smashed glass along the upper
+half of Tottenham Court Road, an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead
+Road, and an atrocious assault upon a woman. All these outrages were
+committed between half-past twelve and a quarter to two in the morning,
+and between those hours--and, indeed, from the very moment of Mr.
+Bessel's first rush from his rooms at half-past nine in the evening--
+they could trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For
+the last hour, at least from before one, that is, until a quarter to
+two, he had run amuck through London, eluding with amazing agility
+every effort to stop or capture him.
+
+But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses
+were multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or
+pursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to
+two he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street,
+flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame
+therefrom at the windows of the houses he passed. But none of
+the policemen on Euston Road beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor
+any of those in the side streets down which he must have passed
+had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything of him. Abruptly he
+disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to light in spite
+of the keenest inquiry.
+
+Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerable
+comfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: "He is bound to be laid by the heels
+before long," and in that assurance he had been able to suspend
+his mental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined
+to add new impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers
+of his acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory
+might not have played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any
+of these things could possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he
+hunted up Mr. Hart again to share the intolerable weight on his mind.
+He found Mr. Hart engaged with a well-known private detective,
+but as that gentleman accomplished nothing in this case, we need
+not enlarge upon his proceedings.
+
+All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active
+inquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion
+in the back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention,
+and all through the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face
+of anguish pursued him through his dreams. And whenever he saw
+Mr. Bessel in his dreams he also saw a number of other faces, vague
+but malignant, that seemed to be pursuing Mr. Bessel.
+
+It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certain
+remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting
+attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her.
+She was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. Wilson
+Paget, and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before,
+repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help.
+But scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Paget
+interrupted him. "Last night--just at the end," he said, "we had
+a communication."
+
+He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain
+words written in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably
+the handwriting of Mr. Bessel!
+
+"How did you get this?" said Mr. Vincey. "Do you mean--?"
+
+"We got it last night," said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptions
+from Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had been
+obtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into
+a condition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under
+her eyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk
+very rapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time
+one or both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils
+are provided they will then write messages simultaneously with
+and quite independently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many
+she is considered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated
+Mrs. Piper. It was one of these messages, the one written by her
+left hand, that Mr. Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight
+words written disconnectedly: "George Bessel . . . trial excavn. . . .
+Baker Street . . . help . . . starvation." Curiously enough, neither
+Doctor Paget nor the two other inquirers who were present had heard
+of the disappearance of Mr. Bessel--the news of it appeared only
+in the evening papers of Saturday--and they had put the message
+aside with many others of a vague and enigmatical sort that
+Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered.
+
+When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once
+with great energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of
+Mr. Bessel. It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the
+inquiries of Mr. Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a
+genuine one, and that Mr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid.
+
+He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk
+and abandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric
+railway near Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were
+broken. The shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and
+over this, incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged
+gentleman, must have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft.
+He was saturated in colza oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him,
+but luckily the flame had been extinguished by his fall. And his
+madness had passed from him altogether. But he was, of course,
+terribly enfeebled, and at the sight of his rescuers he gave way
+to hysterical weeping.
+
+In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the
+house of Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a
+sedative treatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis
+through which he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second
+day he volunteered a statement.
+
+Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated this
+statement--to myself among other people--varying the details as
+the narrator of real experiences always does, but never by any
+chance contradicting himself in any particular. And the statement
+he makes is in substance as follows.
+
+In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to his
+experiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's
+first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey,
+were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all
+of them he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting
+out of the body--"willing it with all my might," he says. At last,
+almost against expectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that
+he, being alive, did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body
+and pass into some place or state outside this world.
+
+The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. "At one moment I was
+seated in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping
+the arms of the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind
+on Vincey, and then I perceived myself outside my body--saw my body
+near me, but certainly not containing me, with the hands relaxing
+and the head drooping forward on the breast."
+
+Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes
+in a quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced.
+He felt he had become impalpable--so much he had expected, but
+he had not expected to find himself enormously large. So, however,
+it would seem he became. "I was a great cloud--if I may express it
+that way--anchored to my body. It appeared to me, at first, as if
+I had discovered a greater self of which the conscious being in my
+brain was only a little part. I saw the Albany and Piccadilly and
+Regent Street and all the rooms and places in the houses, very minute
+and very bright and distinct, spread out below me like a little
+city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague shapes like
+drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little indistinct, but
+at first I paid little heed to them. The thing that astonished me
+most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite distinctly
+the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw little people
+dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining,
+playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several
+places of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching
+the affairs of a glass hive."
+
+Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told
+me the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space
+observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped
+down, and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of,
+attempted to touch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could
+not do so, though his finger seemed to pass through the man. Something
+prevented his doing this, but what it was he finds it hard to describe.
+He compares the obstacle to a sheet of glass.
+
+"I felt as a kitten may feel," he said, "when it goes for the first
+time to pat its reflection in a mirror." Again and again, on the
+occasion when I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that
+comparison of the sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise
+comparison, because, as the reader will speedily see, there were
+interruptions of this generally impermeable resistance, means of
+getting through the barrier to the material world again. But,
+naturally, there is a very great difficulty in expressing these
+unprecedented impressions in the language of everyday experience.
+
+A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon him
+throughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place--he
+was in a world without sound.
+
+At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder.
+His thought chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was
+out of the body--out of his material body, at any rate--but that
+was not all. He believes, and I for one believe also, that he was
+somewhere out of space, as we understand it, altogether. By a strenuous
+effort of will he had passed out of his body into a world beyond
+this world, a world undreamt of, yet lying so close to it and so
+strangely situated with regard to it that all things on this earth
+are clearly visible both from without and from within in this other
+world about us. For a long time, as it seemed to him, this realisation
+occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other matters, and then
+he recalled the engagement with Mr. Vincey, to which this astonishing
+experience was, after all, but a prelude.
+
+He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found
+himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment
+to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body
+of his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed
+with his efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link
+that bound him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by
+what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then
+through a momentary gap he saw his drooping body collapse limply,
+saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and found he was driving along
+like a huge cloud in a strange place of shadowy clouds that had
+the luminous intricacy of London spread like a model below.
+
+But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was
+something more than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first
+essay was shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly,
+and then suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES!
+that each roll and coil of the seeming cloud-stuff was a face.
+And such faces! Faces of thin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity.
+Faces like those faces that glare with intolerable strangeness
+upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his dreams. Evil, greedy eyes
+that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces with knit brows and
+snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched at Mr. Bessel
+as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive streak
+of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never a sound from
+the mouths that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressed in that
+dreamy silence, passing freely through the dim mistiness that was
+his body, gathering ever more numerously about him. And the shadowy
+Mr. Bessel, now suddenly fear-stricken, drove through the silent,
+active multitude of eyes and clutching hands.
+
+So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes,
+and shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel
+to attempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms,
+they seemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden
+the boon of being, whose only expressions and gestures told of
+the envy and craving for life that was their one link with existence.
+
+It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud
+of these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey.
+He made a violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how,
+stooping towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert
+in his arm-chair by the fire.
+
+And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all
+that lives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless
+shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life.
+
+For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's
+attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects
+in his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected,
+ignorant of the being that was so close to his own. The strange
+something that Mr. Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated
+them impermeably.
+
+And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that
+in some strange way he could see not only the outside of a man
+as we see him, but within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust
+his vague black fingers, as it seemed, through the heedless brain.
+
+Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention
+from wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a little
+dark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled
+and glowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown
+anatomical figures of the brain, and he knows now that this is
+that useless structure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For,
+strange as it will seem to many, we have, deep in our brains--where
+it cannot possibly see any earthly light--an eye! At the time this,
+with the rest of the internal anatomy of the brain, was quite new
+to him. At the sight of its changed appearance, however, he thrust
+forth his finger, and, rather fearful still of the consequences,
+touched this little spot. And instantly Mr. Vincey started, and
+Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen.
+
+And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened
+to his body, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world
+of shadows and tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that
+he thought no more of Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all
+the countless faces drove back with him like leaves before a gale.
+But he returned too late. In an instant he saw the body that he had
+left inert and collapsed--lying, indeed, like the body of a man
+just dead--had arisen, had arisen by virtue of some strength and
+will beyond his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs
+in dubious fashion.
+
+For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped
+towards it. But the pane of glass had closed against him again,
+and he was foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and
+all about him the spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked.
+He gave way to furious anger. He compares himself to a bird that
+has fluttered heedlessly into a room and is beating at the window-
+pane that holds it back from freedom.
+
+And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing
+with delight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts;
+he saw the violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling
+his cherished furniture about in the mad delight of existence,
+rend his books apart, smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged
+fragments, leap and smite in a passionate acceptance of living.
+He watched these actions in paralysed astonishment. Then once more
+he hurled himself against the impassable barrier, and then with all
+that crew of mocking ghosts about him, hurried back in dire confusion
+to Vincey to tell him of the outrage that had come upon him.
+
+But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and
+the disembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out
+into Holborn to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel
+swept back again, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious
+frenzy down the Burlington Arcade. . . .
+
+And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's
+interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being
+whose frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury
+and disaster had indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel.
+It was an evil spirit out of that strange world beyond existence,
+into which Mr. Bessel had so rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held
+possession of him, and for all those twenty hours the dispossessed
+spirit-body of Mr. Bessel was going to and fro in that unheard-of
+middle world of shadows seeking help in vain. He spent many hours
+beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey and of his friend Mr. Hart.
+Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. But the language that
+might convey his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did
+not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in their
+brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able to turn
+Mr. Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolen
+body in its career, but he could not make him understand the thing
+that had happened: he was unable to draw any help from that
+encounter. . . .
+
+All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel's
+mind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant,
+and he would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore.
+So that those long hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever
+as he hurried to and fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable
+spirits of that world about him mobbed him and confused his mind.
+And ever an envious applauding multitude poured after their successful
+fellow as he went upon his glorious career.
+
+For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things
+of this world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch,
+coveting a way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend,
+as furies and frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses,
+rejoicing in the body they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only
+human soul in that place. Witness the fact that he met first one,
+and afterwards several shadows of men, men like himself, it seemed,
+who had lost their bodies even it may be as he had lost his, and
+wandered, despairingly, in that lost world that is neither life
+nor death. They could not speak because that world is silent, yet
+he knew them for men because of their dim human bodies, and because
+of the sadness of their faces.
+
+But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where
+the bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about
+the earth, or whether they were closed forever in death against
+return. That they were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I
+believe. But Doctor Wilson Paget thinks they are the rational souls
+of men who are lost in madness on the earth.
+
+At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of such
+disembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through them
+he saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen
+and a woman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting
+awkwardly in a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from
+her portraits to be Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived
+that tracts and structures in her brain glowed and stirred as he had
+seen the pineal eye in the brain of Mr. Vincey glow. The light was
+very fitful; sometimes it was a broad illumination, and sometimes
+merely a faint twilight spot, and it shifted slowly about her brain.
+She kept on talking and writing with one hand. And Mr. Bessel saw
+that the crowding shadows of men about him, and a great multitude
+of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all striving and
+thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As one gained
+her brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writing of
+her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused
+for the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now
+a fragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies
+of the spirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she
+spoke for the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle
+very furiously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd
+and at that time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious,
+he went away to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a
+long time he went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it
+must have been killed, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft
+in Baker Street, writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and
+an arm and two ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover, the evil
+spirit was angry because his time had been so short and because of the
+painmaking violent movements and casting his body about.
+
+And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the
+room where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust
+himself within sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood
+about the medium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance
+should presently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had
+been striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the thought
+that the seance was almost over only made Mr. Bessel the more
+earnest, and he struggled so stoutly with his will against the others
+that presently he gained the woman's brain. It chanced that just
+at that moment it glowed very brightly, and in that instant she wrote
+the message that Doctor Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other
+shadows and the cloud of evil spirits about him had thrust Mr. Bessel
+away from her, and for all the rest of the seance he could regain
+her no more.
+
+So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom
+of the shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had
+maimed, writhing and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning
+the lesson of pain. And towards dawn the thing he had waited for
+happened, the brain glowed brightly and the evil spirit came out,
+and Mr. Bessel entered the body he had feared he should never enter
+again. As he did so, the silence--the brooding silence--ended;
+he heard the tumult of traffic and the voices of people overhead,
+and that strange world that is the shadow of our world--the dark
+and silent shadows of ineffectual desire and the shadows of lost
+men--vanished clean away.
+
+He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found.
+And in spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim
+damp place in which he lay; in spite of the tears--wrung from him
+by his physical distress--his heart was full of gladness to know
+that he was nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men.
+
+
+11. MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE
+
+"You can't be TOO careful WHO you marry," said Mr. Brisher, and
+pulled thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache
+that hides his want of chin.
+
+"That's why--" I ventured.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey
+eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol INTIMATELY
+at me. "There's lots as 'ave 'ad a try at me--many as I could name
+in this town--but none 'ave done it--none."
+
+I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion,
+the masterly carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think
+that by reason of the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last
+of his race.
+
+"I was a smart young chap when I was younger," said Mr. Brisher.
+"I 'ad my work cut out. But I was very careful--very. And I got
+through . . ."
+
+He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject
+of my trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence.
+
+"I was engaged once," he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on
+the shuv-a'penny board.
+
+"So near as that?"
+
+He looked at me. "So near as that. Fact is--" He looked about him,
+brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an
+unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. "If she ain't dead or married
+to some one else or anything--I'm engaged still. Now." He confirmed
+this statement with nods and facial contortions. "STILL," he said,
+ending the pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise.
+"ME!"
+
+"Run away," he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows.
+"Come 'ome.
+
+"That ain't all.
+
+"You'd 'ardly believe it," he said, "but I found a treasure. Found
+a regular treasure."
+
+I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper
+surprise. "Yes," he said, "I found a treasure. And come 'ome. I tell
+you I could surprise you with things that has happened to me."
+And for some time he was content to repeat that he had found
+a treasure--and left it.
+
+I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr.
+Brisher's bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted
+lady.
+
+"She was a nice girl," he said--a little sadly, I thought. "AND
+respectable."
+
+He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme
+respectability--beyond the likes of us elderly men.
+
+"It was a long way from 'ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester.
+It was when I was up in London--in the buildin' trade. I was a smart
+young chap then, I can tell you. Slim. 'Ad best clo'es 's good
+as anybody. 'At--SILK 'at, mind you." Mr. Brisher's hand shot above
+his head towards the infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest.
+"Umbrella--nice umbrella with a 'orn 'andle. Savin's. Very careful
+I was. . . ."
+
+He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come
+to think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth.
+But he refrained, as one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral.
+
+"I got to know 'er through a chap what was engaged to 'er sister.
+She was stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that 'ad a 'am
+an' beef shop. This aunt was very particular--they was all very
+particular people, all 'er people was--and wouldn't let 'er sister
+go out with this feller except 'er other sister, MY girl that is,
+went with them. So 'e brought me into it, sort of to ease the crowding.
+We used to go walks in Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. Me in
+my topper, and 'im in 'is; and the girl's--well--stylish. There wasn't
+many in Battersea Park 'ad the larf of us. She wasn't what you'd
+call pretty, but a nicer girl I never met. _I _ liked 'er from
+the start, and, well--though I say it who shouldn't--she liked me.
+You know 'ow it is, I dessay?"
+
+I pretended I did.
+
+"And when this chap married 'er sister--'im and me was great
+friends--what must 'e do but arst me down to Colchester, close by
+where She lived. Naturally I was introjuced to 'er people, and well,
+very soon, her and me was engaged."
+
+He repeated "engaged."
+
+"She lived at 'ome with 'er father and mother, quite the lady, in a
+very nice little 'ouse with a garden--and remarkable respectable
+people they was. Rich you might call 'em a'most. They owned their
+own 'ouse--got it out of the Building Society, and cheap because
+the chap who had it before was a burglar and in prison--and they 'ad
+a bit of free'old land, and some cottages and money 'nvested--all
+nice and tight: they was what you'd call snug and warm. I tell you,
+I was On. Furniture too. Why! They 'ad a pianner. Jane--'er name
+was Jane--used to play it Sundays, and very nice she played too.
+There wasn't 'ardly a 'im toon in the book she COULDN'T play . . .
+
+"Many's the evenin' we've met and sung 'ims there, me and 'er
+and the family.
+
+"'Er father was quite a leadin' man in chapel. You should ha' seen
+him Sundays, interruptin' the minister and givin' out 'ims. He had
+gold spectacles, I remember, and used to look over 'em at you while
+he sang hearty--he was always great on singing 'earty to the Lord--
+and when HE got out o' toon 'arf the people went after 'im--always.
+'E was that sort of man. And to walk be'ind 'im in 'is nice black
+clo'es--'is 'at was a brimmer--made one regular proud to be engaged
+to such a father-in-law. And when the summer came I went down there
+and stopped a fortnight.
+
+"Now, you know there was a sort of Itch," said Mr. Brisher. "We wanted
+to marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad
+to get a proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch.
+Consequently, when I went down there, I was anxious to show that
+I was a good useful sort of chap like. Show I could do pretty nearly
+everything like. See?"
+
+I made a sympathetic noise.
+
+"And down at the bottom of their garden was a bit of wild part like.
+So I says to 'im, 'Why don't you 'ave a rockery 'ere?' I says.
+'It 'ud look nice.'
+
+"'Too much expense,' he says.
+
+"'Not a penny,' says I. 'I'm a dab at rockeries. Lemme make you one.'
+You see, I'd 'elped my brother make a rockery in the beer garden
+be'ind 'is tap, so I knew 'ow to do it to rights. 'Lemme make you
+one,' I says. 'It's 'olidays, but I'm that sort of chap, I 'ate doing
+nothing,' I says. 'I'll make you one to rights.' And the long and
+the short of it was, he said I might.
+
+"And that's 'ow I come on the treasure."
+
+"What treasure?" I asked.
+
+"Why!" said Mr. Brisher, "the treasure I'm telling you about, what's
+the reason why I never married."
+
+"What!--a treasure--dug up?"
+
+"Yes--buried wealth--treasure trove. Come out of the ground. What
+I kept on saying--regular treasure. . . ." He looked at me with
+unusual disrespect.
+
+"It wasn't more than a foot deep, not the top of it," he said.
+"I'd 'ardly got thirsty like, before I come on the corner."
+
+"Go on," I said. "I didn't understand."
+
+"Why! Directly I 'it the box I knew it was treasure. A sort of instinct
+told me. Something seemed to shout inside of me--'Now's your chance--
+lie low.' It's lucky I knew the laws of treasure trove or I'd 'ave been
+shoutin' there and then. I daresay you know--"
+
+"Crown bags it," I said, "all but one per cent. Go on. It's a shame.
+What did you do?"
+
+"Uncovered the top of the box. There wasn't anybody in the garden
+or about like. Jane was 'elping 'er mother do the 'ouse. I WAS
+excited--I tell you. I tried the lock and then gave a whack at
+the hinges. Open it came. Silver coins--full! Shining. It made me
+tremble to see 'em. And jest then--I'm blessed if the dustman didn't
+come round the back of the 'ouse. It pretty nearly gave me 'eart
+disease to think what a fool I was to 'ave that money showing. And
+directly after I 'eard the chap next door--'e was 'olidaying, too--
+I 'eard him watering 'is beans. If only 'e'd looked over the fence!"
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Kicked the lid on again and covered it up like a shot, and went
+on digging about a yard away from it--like mad. And my face, so
+to speak, was laughing on its own account till I had it hid. I tell
+you I was regular scared like at my luck. I jest thought that it
+'ad to be kep' close and that was all. 'Treasure,' I kep' whisperin'
+to myself, 'Treasure' and ''undreds of pounds, 'undreds, 'undreds
+of pounds.' Whispering to myself like, and digging like blazes. It
+seemed to me the box was regular sticking out and showing, like your
+legs do under the sheets in bed, and I went and put all the earth
+I'd got out of my 'ole for the rockery slap on top of it. I WAS
+in a sweat. And in the midst of it all out toddles 'er father.
+He didn't say anything to me, jest stood behind me and stared,
+but Jane tole me afterwards when he went indoors, 'e says, 'That
+there jackanapes of yours, Jane'--he always called me a jackanapes
+some'ow--'knows 'ow to put 'is back into it after all.' Seemed quite
+impressed by it, 'e did."
+
+"How long was the box?" I asked, suddenly.
+
+"'Ow long?" said Mr. Brisher.
+
+"Yes--in length?"
+
+"Oh! 'bout so-by-so." Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk.
+
+"FULL?" said I.
+
+"Full up of silver coins--'arf-crowns, I believe."
+
+"Why!" I cried, "that would mean--hundreds of pounds."
+
+"Thousands," said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. "I calc'lated it
+out."
+
+"But how did they get there?"
+
+"All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this.
+The chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular
+slap-up burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive
+'is trap--like Peace did." Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties
+of narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. "I don't
+know if I told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's
+father's, and I knew 'e'd robbed a mail train once, I did know that.
+It seemed to me--"
+
+"That's very likely," I said. "But what did you do?"
+
+"Sweated," said Mr. Brisher. "Regular run orf me. All that morning,"
+said Mr. Brisher, "I was at it, pretending to make that rockery
+and wondering what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps,
+only I was doubtful of 'is honesty--I was afraid he might rob me of
+it like, and give it up to the authorities--and besides, considering
+I was marrying into the family, I thought it would be nicer like
+if it came through me. Put me on a better footing, so to speak.
+Well, I 'ad three days before me left of my 'olidays, so there
+wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and went on digging, and tried
+to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. Only I couldn't.
+
+"I thought," said Mr. Brisher, "AND I thought. Once I got regular
+doubtful whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it
+uncovered again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin'
+she'd done. Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave
+another go at it, when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready.
+'You'll want it,' she said, 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.'
+
+"I was in a regular daze all dinner, wondering whether that chap
+next door wasn't over the fence and filling 'is pockets. But in
+the afternoon I got easier in my mind--it seemed to me it must 'ave
+been there so long it was pretty sure to stop a bit longer--and
+I tried to get up a bit of a discussion to dror out the old man
+and see what 'E thought of treasure trove."
+
+Mr. Brisher paused, and affected amusement at the memory.
+
+"The old man was a scorcher," he said; "a regular scorcher."
+
+"What!" said I; "did he--?"
+
+"It was like this," explained Mr. Brisher, laying a friendly hand
+on my arm and breathing into my face to calm me. "Just to dror
+'im out, I told a story of a chap I said I knew--pretendin', you
+know--who'd found a sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said
+'e stuck to it, but I said I wasn't sure whether that was right
+or not. And then the old man began. Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!"
+Mr. Brisher affected an insincere amusement. "'E was, well--what you
+might call a rare 'and at Snacks. Said that was the sort of friend
+'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said 'e'd naturally expect that
+from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who took up with daughters
+who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell you 'ARF 'e said.
+'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about it, just to dror
+'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you found it in
+the street?' I says. 'Certainly not,' 'e says; 'certainly I wouldn't.'
+'What! not if you found it as a sort of treasure?' 'Young man,'
+'e says, 'there's 'i'er 'thority than mine--Render unto Caesar'--
+what is it? Yes. Well, he fetched up that. A rare 'and at 'itting
+you over the 'ed with the Bible, was the old man. And so he went on.
+'E got to such Snacks about me at last I couldn't stand it. I'd
+promised Jane not to answer 'im back, but it got a bit TOO thick.
+I--I give it 'im . . ."
+
+Mr. Brisher, by means of enigmatical facework, tried to make me
+think he had had the best of that argument, but I knew better.
+
+"I went out in a 'uff at last. But not before I was pretty sure I
+'ad to lift that treasure by myself. The only thing that kep' me up
+was thinking 'ow I'd take it out of 'im when I 'ad the cash."
+
+There was a lengthy pause.
+
+"Now, you'd 'ardly believe it, but all them three days I never
+'ad a chance at the blessed treasure, never got out not even
+a 'arf-crown. There was always a Somethink--always.
+
+"'Stonishing thing it isn't thought of more," said Mr. Brisher.
+"Finding treasure's no great shakes. It's gettin' it. I don't
+suppose I slep' a wink any of those nights, thinking where I was
+to take it, what I was to do with it, 'ow I was to explain it.
+It made me regular ill. And days I was that dull, it made Jane
+regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you was in London,' she
+says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father and 'is Snacks,
+but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but that I'd
+got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had
+a bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem
+to mind a bit Anything she said.
+
+"Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at
+planning, though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it
+all out and settled on a plan. First, I was going to take all my
+pockets full of these 'ere 'arf-crowns--see?--and afterwards as I
+shall tell.
+
+"Well, I got to that state I couldn't think of getting at the Treasure
+again in the daytime, so I waited until the night before I had to go,
+and then, when everything was still, up I gets and slips down
+to the back door, meaning to get my pockets full. What must I do
+in the scullery but fall over a pail! Up gets 'er father with a gun--'e
+was a light sleeper was 'er father, and very suspicious and there
+was me: 'ad to explain I'd come down to the pump for a drink because
+my water-bottle was bad. 'E didn't let me off a Snack or two over
+that bit, you lay a bob."
+
+"And you mean to say--" I began.
+
+"Wait a bit," said Mr. Brisher. "I say, I'd made my plan. That put
+the kybosh on one bit, but it didn't 'urt the general scheme not a bit.
+I went and I finished that rockery next day, as though there wasn't
+a Snack in the world; cemented over the stones, I did, dabbed
+it green and everythink. I put a dab of green just to show where
+the box was. They all came and looked at it, and sai 'ow nice
+it was--even 'e was a bit softer like to see it, and all he said was,
+"It's a pity you can't always work like that, then you might get
+something definite to do," he says.
+
+"'Yes,' I says--I couldn't 'elp it--'I put a lot in that rockery,'
+I says, like that. See? 'I put a lot in that rockery'--meaning--"
+
+"I see," said I--for Mr. Brisher is apt to overelaborate his jokes.
+
+"_'E_ didn't," said Mr. Brisher. "Not then, anyhow.
+
+"Ar'ever--after all that was over, off I set for London. . . .
+Orf I set for London."
+
+Pause.
+
+"On'y I wasn't going to no London," said Mr. Brisher, with sudden
+animation, and thrusting his face into mine. "No fear! What do YOU
+think?
+
+"I didn't go no further than Colchester--not a yard.
+
+"I'd left the spade just where I could find it. I'd got everything
+planned and right. I 'ired a little trap in Colchester, and pretended
+I wanted to go to Ipswich and stop the night, and come back next
+day, and the chap I 'ired it from made me leave two sovrings on it
+right away, and off I set.
+
+"I didn't go to no Ipswich neither.
+
+"Midnight the 'orse and trap was 'itched by the little road that ran
+by the cottage where 'e lived--not sixty yards off, it wasn't--and
+I was at it like a good 'un. It was jest the night for such
+games--overcast--but a trifle too 'ot, and all round the sky there
+was summer lightning and presently a thunderstorm. Down it came.
+First big drops in a sort of fizzle, then 'ail. I kep'on. I whacked
+at it--I didn't dream the old man would 'ear. I didn't even trouble
+to go quiet with the spade, and the thunder and lightning and 'ail
+seemed to excite me like. I shouldn't wonder if I was singing. I got
+so 'ard at it I clean forgot the thunder and the 'orse and trap. I
+precious soon got the box showing, and started to lift it . . . ."
+
+"Heavy?" I said.
+
+"I couldn't no more lift it than fly. I WAS sick. I'd never thought
+of that I got regular wild--I tell you, I cursed. I got sort of
+outrageous. I didn't think of dividing it like for the minute,
+and even then I couldn't 'ave took money about loose in a trap.
+I hoisted one end sort of wild like, and over the whole show went
+with a tremenjous noise. Perfeck smash of silver. And then right
+on the heels of that, Flash! Lightning like the day! and there was
+the back door open and the old man coming down the garden with
+'is blooming old gun. He wasn't not a 'undred yards away!
+
+"I tell you I was that upset--I didn't think what I was doing.
+I never stopped-not even to fill my pockets. I went over the fence
+like a shot, and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and
+swearing as I went. I WAS in a state. . . .
+
+"And will you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left
+the 'orse and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't
+a cuss left for it. I jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced
+enough I started off to London. . . . I was done."
+
+Mr. Brisher was pensive for an interval. "I was done," he repeated,
+very bitterly.
+
+"Well?" I said.
+
+"That's all," said Mr. Brisher.
+
+"You didn't go back?"
+
+"No fear. I'd 'ad enough of THAT blooming treasure, any'ow for a bit.
+Besides, I didn't know what was done to chaps who tried to collar
+a treasure trove. I started off for London there and then. . . ."
+
+"And you never went back?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"But about Jane? Did you write?"
+
+"Three times, fishing like. And no answer. We'd parted in a bit
+of a 'uff on account of 'er being jealous. So that I couldn't make
+out for certain what it meant.
+
+"I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know whether the old man
+knew it was me. I sort of kep' an eye open on papers to see when he'd
+give up that treasure to the Crown, as I hadn't a doubt 'e would,
+considering 'ow respectable he'd always been."
+
+"And did he?"
+
+Mr. Brisher pursed his mouth and moved his head slowly from side
+to side. "Not 'IM," he said.
+
+"Jane was a nice girl," he said, "a thorough nice girl mind you,
+if jealous, and there's no knowing I mightn't 'ave gone back to 'er
+after a bit. I thought if he didn't give up the treasure I might 'ave
+a sort of 'old on 'im. . . . Well, one day I looks as usual under
+Colchester--and there I saw 'is name. What for, d'yer think?"
+
+I could not guess.
+
+Mr. Brisher's voice sank to a whisper, and once more he spoke behind
+his hand. His manner was suddenly suffused with a positive joy.
+"Issuing counterfeit coins," he said. "Counterfeit coins!"
+
+"You don't mean to say--?"
+
+"Yes-It. Bad. Quite a long case they made of it. But they got 'im,
+though he dodged tremenjous. Traced 'is 'aving passed, oh!--nearly
+a dozen bad 'arf-crowns."
+
+"And you didn't--?"
+
+"No fear. And it didn't do 'IM much good to say it was treasure trove."
+
+
+12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART
+
+Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind
+for a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her
+conversation that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome,
+and who were not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal
+grievance against her. Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly
+to convince her that Rome was not nearly such a desirable place
+as it was reported to be, and others had gone so far as to suggest
+behind her back that she was dreadfully "stuck up" about "that Rome
+of hers." And little Lily Hardhurst had told her friend Mr. Binns
+that so far as she was concerned Miss Winchelsea might "go to her
+old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily Hardhurst) wouldn't grieve."
+And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put herself upon terms of personal
+tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto Cellini and Raphael and Shelley
+and Keats--if she had been Shelley's widow she could not have professed
+a keener interest in his grave--was a matter of universal astonishment.
+Her dress was a triumph of tactful discretion, sensible, but not too
+"touristy"--Miss Winchelsea, had a great dread of being "touristy"--
+and her Baedeker was carried in a cover of grey to hide its glaring
+red. She made a prim and pleasant little figure on the Charing Cross
+platform, in spite of her swelling pride, when at last the great
+day dawned, and she could start for Rome. The day was bright,
+the Channel passage would be pleasant, and all the omens promised
+well. There was the gayest sense of adventure in this unprecedented
+departure.
+
+She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her
+at the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good
+at history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up
+to her immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she
+anticipated some pleasant times to be spent in "stirring them up"
+to her own pitch of aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had
+secured seats already, and welcomed her effusively at the carriage
+door. In the instant criticism of the encounter she noted that Fanny
+had a slightly "touristy" leather strap, and that Helen had succumbed
+to a serge jacket with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust.
+But they were much too happy with themselves and the expedition
+for their friend to attempt any hint at the moment about these things.
+As soon as the first ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was
+a little noisy and crude, and consisted mainly in emphatic repetitions
+of "Just FANCY! we're going to Rome, my dear!--Rome!"--they gave
+their attention to their fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to
+secure a compartment to themselves, and, in order to discourage
+intruders, got out and planted herself firmly on the step. Miss
+Winchelsea peeped out over her shoulder, and made sly little remarks
+about the accumulating people on the platform, at which Fanny laughed
+gleefully.
+
+They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen
+days in Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personally
+conducted party of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but
+they travelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement.
+The people were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing.
+There was a vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in
+a pepper-and-salt suit, very long in the arms and legs and very
+active. He shouted proclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he
+stretched out an arm and held them until his purpose was accomplished.
+One hand was full of papers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists.
+The people of the personally conducted party were, it seemed,
+of two sorts; people the conductor wanted and could not find,
+and people he did not want and who followed him in a steadily
+growing tail up and down the platform. These people seemed, indeed,
+to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay in keeping
+close to him. Three little old ladies were particularly energetic
+in his pursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of clapping
+them into a carriage and daring them to emerge again. For the rest
+of the time, one, two, or three of their heads protruded from
+the window wailing enquiries about "a little wickerwork box"
+whenever he drew near. There was a very stout man with a very stout
+wife in shiny black; there was a little old man like an aged hostler.
+
+"What CAN such people want in Rome?" asked Miss Winchelsea. "What
+can it mean to them?" There was a very tall curate in a very small
+straw hat, and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera
+stand. The contrast amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some
+one calling for "Snooks." "I always thought that name was invented
+by novelists," said Miss Winchelsea. "Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which
+IS Mr. Snooks." Finally they picked out a very stout and resolute
+little man in a large check suit. "If he isn't Snooks, he ought
+to be," said Miss Winchelsea.
+
+Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner
+in carriages. "Room for five," he bawled with a parallel translation
+on his fingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two
+daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. "It's all right, Ma,
+you let me," said one of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet
+with a handbag she struggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea
+detested people who banged about and called their mother "Ma."
+A young man travelling alone followed. He was not at all "touristy"
+in his costume, Miss Winchelsea observed; his Gladstone bag was
+of good pleasant leather with labels reminiscent of Luxembourg and
+Ostend, and his boots, though brown, were not vulgar. He carried
+an overcoat on his arm. Before these people had properly settled
+in their places, came an inspection of tickets and a slamming
+of doors, and behold! they were gliding out of Charing Cross
+station on their way to Rome.
+
+"Fancy!" cried Fanny, "we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! I don't
+seem to believe it, even now."
+
+Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile,
+and the lady who was called "Ma" explained to people in general
+why they had "cut it so close" at the station. The two daughters
+called her "Ma" several times, toned her down in a tactless effective
+way, and drove her at last to the muttered inventory of a basket
+of travelling requisites. Presently she looked up. "Lor'!" she said,
+"I didn't bring THEM!" Both the daughters said "Oh, Ma!" but what
+"them" was did not appear. Presently Fanny produced Hare's Walks
+in Rome, a sort of mitigated guide-book very popular among Roman
+visitors; and the father of the two daughters began to examine
+his books of tickets minutely, apparently in a search after English
+words. When he had looked at the tickets for a long time right way up,
+he turned them upside down. Then he produced a fountain pen and
+dated them with considerable care. The young man, having completed
+an unostentatious survey of his fellow travellers, produced a book and
+fell to reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking out of the window
+at Chiselhurst--the place interested Fanny because the poor dear
+Empress of the French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took
+the opportunity to observe the book the young man held. It was not
+a guide-book, but a little thin volume of poetry--BOUND. She glanced
+at his face--it seemed a refined pleasant face to her hasty glance.
+He wore a little gilt pince-nez. "Do you think she lives there
+now?" said Fanny, and Miss Winchelsea's inspection came to an end.
+
+For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what
+she said was as pleasant and as stamped with refinement as she
+could make it. Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant,
+and she took care that on this occasion it was particularly low and
+clear and pleasant. As they came under the white cliffs the young
+man put his book of poetry away, and when at last the train stopped
+beside the boat, he displayed a graceful alacrity with the impedimenta
+of Miss Winchelsea and her friends. Miss Winchelsea hated nonsense,
+but she was pleased to see the young man perceived at once that
+they were ladies, and helped them without any violent geniality;
+and how nicely he showed that his civilities were to be no excuse
+for further intrusions. None of her little party had been out
+of England before, and they were all excited and a little nervous
+at the Channel passage. They stood in a little group in a good place
+near the middle of the boat--the young man had taken Miss Winchelsea's
+carry-all there and had told her it was a good place--and they watched
+the white shores of Albion recede and quoted Shakespeare and made
+quiet fun of their fellow travellers in the English way.
+
+They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized
+people had taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks
+prevailed, one lady lay full-length in a deck chair with a handkerchief
+over her face, and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown
+"touristy" suit walked all the way from England to France along
+the deck, with his legs as widely apart as Providence permitted. These
+were all excellent precautions, and, nobody was ill. The personally
+conducted party pursued the conductor about the deck with enquiries
+in a manner that suggested to Helen's mind the rather vulgar image
+of hens with a piece of bacon peel, until at last he went into hiding
+below. And the young man with the thin volume of poetry stood
+at the stern watching England receding, looking rather lonely
+and sad to Miss Winchelsea's eye.
+
+And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man
+had not forgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little
+things. All three girls, though they had passed government examinations
+in French to any extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their
+accents, and the young man was very useful. And he did not intrude.
+He put them in a comfortable carriage and raised his hat and went
+away. Miss Winchelsea thanked him in her best manner--a pleasing,
+cultivated manner--and Fanny said he was "nice" almost before he
+was out of earshot. "I wonder what he can be," said Helen. "He's
+going to Italy, because I noticed green tickets in his book."
+Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, and decided not
+to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold upon them
+and the young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they were
+doing an educated sort of thing to travel through a country whose
+commonest advertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea
+made unpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-board
+advertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that
+deface the landscape in our land. But the north of France is really
+uninteresting country, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's Walks
+and Helen initiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy
+reverie; she had been trying to realise, she said, that she was
+actually going to Rome, but she perceived at Helen's suggestion
+that she was hungry, and they lunched out of their baskets very
+cheerfully. In the afternoon they were tired and silent until Helen
+made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have dozed, only she knew Fanny
+slept with her mouth open; and as their fellow passengers were
+two rather nice critical-looking ladies of uncertain age--who knew
+French well enough to talk it--she employed herself in keeping Fanny
+awake. The rhythm of the train became insistent, and the streaming
+landscape outside became at last quite painful to the eye. They were
+already dreadfully tired of travelling before their night's stoppage
+came.
+
+The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of
+the young man, and his manners were all that could be desired and
+his French quite serviceable. His coupons availed for the same hotel
+as theirs, and by chance as it seemed he sat next Miss Winchelsea
+at the table d'hote. In spite of her enthusiasm for Rome, she had
+thought out some such possibility very thoroughly, and when he
+ventured to make a remark upon the tediousness of travelling--he
+let the soup and fish go by before he did this--she did not simply
+assent to his proposition, but responded with another. They were
+soon comparing their journeys, and Helen and Fanny were cruelly
+overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the same journey,
+they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--"from what I
+hear," said the young man, "it is barely enough,"--and the rest
+at Rome. He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite
+well read, and he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had
+"done" that book of Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted
+to cap his quotation. It gave a sort of tone to things, this
+incident--a touch of refinement to mere chatting. Fanny expressed
+a few emotions, and Helen interpolated a few sensible remarks, but
+the bulk of the talk on the girls' side naturally fell to Miss
+Winchelsea.
+
+Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party.
+They did not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught,
+and Miss Winchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer.
+At any rate he was something of that sort, something gentlemanly
+and refined without being opulent and impossible. She tried once
+or twice to ascertain whether he came from Oxford or Cambridge,
+but he missed her timid importunities. She tried to get him to make
+remarks about those places to see if he would say "come up" to them
+instead of "go down"--she knew that was how you told a 'Varsity man.
+He used the word "'Varsity"--not university--in quite the proper way.
+
+They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted;
+he met them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting
+brightly, and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew
+a great deal about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely.
+It was fine to go round recognising old favourites and finding
+new beauties, especially while so many people fumbled helplessly
+with Baedeker. Nor was he a bit of a prig, Miss Winchelsea said,
+and indeed she detested prigs. He had a distinct undertone of humour,
+and was funny, for example, without being vulgar, at the expense of
+the quaint work of Beato Angelico. He had a grave seriousness beneath
+it all, and was quick to seize the moral lessons of the pictures.
+Fanny went softly among these masterpieces; she admitted "she knew
+so little about them," and she confessed that to her they were "all
+beautiful." Fanny's "beautiful" inclined to be a little monotonous,
+Miss Winchelsea thought. She had been quite glad when the last
+sunny Alp had vanished, because of the staccato of Fanny's admiration.
+Helen said little, but Miss Winchelsea had found her a little wanting
+on the aesthetic side in the old days and was not surprised; sometimes
+she laughed at the young man's hesitating delicate little jests and
+sometimes she didn't, and sometimes she seemed quite lost to the art
+about them in the contemplation of the dresses of the other visitors.
+
+At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather
+"touristy" friend of his took him away at times. He complained
+comically to Miss Winchelsea. "I have only two short weeks in Rome,"
+he said, "and my friend Leonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli,
+looking at a waterfall."
+
+"What is your friend Leonard?" asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly.
+
+"He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met," the young man
+replied, amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelsea
+thought. They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think
+what they would have done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest
+and Fanny's enormous capacity for admiration were insatiable. They
+never flagged--through pictures and sculpture galleries, immense
+crowded churches, ruins and museums, Judas trees and prickly pears,
+wine carts and palaces, they admired their way unflinchingly. They
+never saw a stone pine or a eucalyptus but they named and admired it;
+they never glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. Their common ways
+were made wonderful by imaginative play. "Here Caesar may have
+walked," they would say. "Raphael may have seen Soracte from this
+very point." They happened on the tomb of Bibulus. "Old Bibulus,"
+said the young man. "The oldest monument of Republican Rome!"
+said Miss Winchelsea.
+
+"I'm dreadfully stupid," said Fanny, "but who WAS Bibulus?"
+
+There was a curious little pause.
+
+"Wasn't he the person who built the wall?" said Helen.
+
+The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. "That was Balbus,"
+he said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw
+any light upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus.
+
+Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was
+always taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets
+and things like that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took
+them, and told him where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times
+they had, these young people, in that pale brown cleanly city of
+memories that was once the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness
+of the time. They said indeed that the electric trams and the '70
+buildings, and that criminal advertisement that glares upon the Forum,
+outraged their aesthetic feelings unspeakably; but that was only part
+of the fun. And indeed Rome is such a wonderful place that it made
+Miss Winchelsea forget some of her most carefully prepared enthusiasms
+at times, and Helen, taken unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty
+of unexpected things. Yet Fanny and Helen would have liked a shop
+window or so in the English quarter if Miss Winchelsea's uncompromising
+hostility to all other English visitors had not rendered that district
+impossible.
+
+The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and
+the scholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling.
+The exuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite
+admiration by playing her "beautiful," with vigour, and saying "Oh!
+LET'S go," with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest
+was mentioned. But Helen developed a certain want of sympathy
+towards the end, that disappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She
+refused to "see anything" in the face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's
+Beatrice Cenci!--in the Barberini gallery; and one day, when they
+were deploring the electric trams, she said rather snappishly that
+"people must get about somehow, and it's better than torturing
+horses up these horrid little hills." She spoke of the Seven Hills
+of Rome as "horrid little hills!"
+
+And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea
+did not know of this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, "Don't hurry
+like that, my dear; THEY don't want us to overtake them. And we
+don't say the right things for them when we DO get near."
+
+"I wasn't trying to overtake them," said Fanny, slackening her
+excessive pace; "I wasn't indeed." And for a minute she was short of
+breath.
+
+But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she
+came to look back across an intervening tragedy that she quite
+realised how happy she had been, pacing among the cypress-shadowed
+ruins, and exchanging the very highest class of information the human
+mind can possess, the most refined impressions it is possible
+to convey. Insensibly emotion crept into their intercourse, sunning
+itself openly and pleasantly at last when Helen's modernity was not
+too near. Insensibly their interest drifted from the wonderful
+associations about them to their more intimate and personal feelings.
+In a tentative way information was supplied; she spoke allusively
+of her school, of her examination successes, of her gladness that
+the days of "Cram" were over. He made it quite clear that he also
+was a teacher. They spoke of the greatness of their calling, of the
+necessity of sympathy to face its irksome details, of a certain
+loneliness they sometimes felt.
+
+That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day,
+because Helen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper
+galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid
+and concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree.
+She figured that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying
+way to his students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual
+mate and helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus,
+with white shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures
+of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, with Morris's wall papers and flowers in
+pots of beaten copper. Indeed she figured many things. On the Pincio
+the two had a few precious moments together, while Helen marched
+Fanny off to see the muro Torto, and he spoke at once plainly. He
+said he hoped their friendship was only beginning, that he already
+found her company very precious to him, that indeed it was more than
+that.
+
+He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers
+as though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. "I should
+of course," he said, "tell you things about myself. I know it is
+rather unusual my speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has
+been so accidental--or providential--and I am snatching at things.
+I came to Rome expecting a lonely tour . . . and I have been so very
+happy, so very happy. Quite recently I found myself in a position--
+I have dared to think--. And--"
+
+He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said "Damn!" quite
+distinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse into
+profanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drew
+nearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was
+almost a grin. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks," he
+said. "You promised to be on the Piazza steps half an hour ago."
+
+Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face.
+She did not hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard
+must have considered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day
+she is not sure whether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor
+what she said to him. A sort of mental paralysis was upon her.
+Of all offensive surnames--Snooks!
+
+Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young
+men were receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face
+the enquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived
+the life of a heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name,
+chatting, observing, with "Snooks" gnawing at her heart. From the
+moment that it first rang upon her ears, the dream of her happiness
+was prostrate in the dust. All the refinement she had figured was
+ruined and defaced by that cognomen's unavoidable vulgarity.
+
+What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes,
+Morris papers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an
+incredible inscription: "Mrs. Snooks." That may seem a little thing to
+the reader, but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's
+mind. Be as refined as you can and then think of writing yourself
+down:--"Snooks." She conceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks
+by all the people she liked least, conceived the patronymic touched
+with a vague quality of insult. She figured a card of grey and silver
+bearing "Winchelsea," triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow,
+in favour of "Snooks." Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She
+imagined the terrible rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain
+grocer cousins from whom her growing refinement had long since
+estranged her. How they would make it sprawl across the envelope
+that would bring their sarcastic congratulations. Would even his
+pleasant company compensate her for that? "It is impossible,"
+she muttered; "impossible! SNOOKS!"
+
+She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself.
+For him she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined,
+while all the time he was "Snooks," to hide under a pretentious
+gentility of demeanour the badge sinister of his surname seemed
+a sort of treachery. To put it in the language of sentimental science
+she felt he had "led her on."
+
+There were of course moments of terrible vacillation, a period even
+when something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to
+the winds. And there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige
+of vulgarity, that made a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks
+was not so very bad a name after all. Any hovering hesitation flew
+before Fanny's manner, when Fanny came with an air of catastrophe to
+tell that she also knew the horror. Fanny's voice fell to a whisper
+when she said SNOOKS. Miss Winchelsea would not give him any answer
+when at last, in the Borghese, she could have a minute with him;
+but she promised him a note.
+
+She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent
+her, the little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal
+was ambiguous, allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected
+him than she could have told a cripple of his hump. He too must
+feel something of the unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he
+had avoided a dozen chances of telling it, she now perceived. So she
+spoke of "obstacles she could not reveal"--"reasons why the thing he
+spoke of was impossible." She addressed the note with a shiver, "E. K.
+Snooks."
+
+Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain.
+How COULD she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful.
+She was haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she
+had given him intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine
+her mind thoroughly for the extent of her encouragement. She knew
+he must think her the most changeable of beings. Now that she was
+in full retreat, she would not even perceive his hints of a possible
+correspondence. But in that matter he did a thing that seemed to her
+at once delicate and romantic. He made a go-between of Fanny.
+Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and told her that night
+under a transparent pretext of needed advice. "Mr. Snooks," said
+Fanny, "wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But should I let
+him?" They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss Winchelsea was
+careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was already repenting his
+disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of him sometimes--painful
+though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea decided it might
+be permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with unusual emotion.
+After she had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time at the window
+of her little room. It was moonlight, and down the street a man
+sang "Santa Lucia" with almost heart-dissolving tenderness. . . .
+She sat very still.
+
+She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was "SNOOKS."
+Then she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning
+he said to her meaningly, "I shall hear of you through your friend."
+
+Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative
+perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen
+he would have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand
+as a sort of encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England
+Miss Winchelsea on six separate occasions made Fanny promise
+to write to her the longest of long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would
+be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new school--she was always going
+to new schools--would be only five miles from Steely Bank, and
+it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or two first-class
+schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even see her
+at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always
+spoke of "him," never of Mr. Snooks,--because Helen was apt to say
+unsympathetic things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much,
+Miss Winchelsea perceived, since the old Training College days;
+she had become hard and cynical. She thought he had a weak face,
+mistaking refinement for weakness as people of her stamp are apt
+to do, and when she heard his name was Snooks, she said she had
+expected something of the sort. Miss Winchelsea was careful to spare
+her own feelings after that, but Fanny was less circumspect.
+
+The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with
+a new interest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had
+been an increasingly valuable assistant for the last three years.
+Her new interest in life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her
+a lead she wrote her a lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight
+of her return. Fanny answered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed
+had no literary gift, but it was new to Miss Winchelsea to find
+herself deploring the want of gifts in a friend. That letter was
+even criticised aloud in the safe solitude of Miss Winchelsea's
+study, and her criticism, spoken with great bitterness, was "Twaddle!"
+It was full of just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter had been
+full of, particulars of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only this
+much: "I have had a letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over
+to see me on two Saturday afternoons running. He talked about Rome
+and you; we both talked about you. Your ears must have burnt, my
+dear. . . ."
+
+Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information,
+and wrote the sweetest long letter again. "Tell me all about yourself,
+dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship,
+and I do so want to keep in touch with you." About Mr. Snooks she
+simply wrote on the fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen
+him, and that if he SHOULD ask after her, she was to be remembered
+to him VERY KINDLY (underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely
+in the key of that "ancient friendship," reminding Miss Winchelsea
+of a dozen foolish things of those old schoolgirl days at the training
+college, and saying not a word about Mr. Snooks!
+
+For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure
+of Fanny as a go-between that she could not write to her. And then
+she wrote less effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank,
+"Have you seen Mr. Snooks?" Fanny's letter was unexpectedly
+satisfactory. "I HAVE seen Mr. Snooks," she wrote, and having once
+named him she kept on about him; it was all Snooks--Snooks this and
+Snooks that. He was to give a public lecture, said Fanny, among other
+things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after the first glow of gratification,
+still found this letter a little unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report
+Mr. Snooks as saying anything about Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking
+a little white and worn, as he ought to have been doing. And behold!
+before she had replied, came a second letter from Fanny on the same
+theme, quite a gushing letter, and covering six sheets with her loose
+feminine hand.
+
+And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that
+Miss Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time.
+Fanny's natural femininity had prevailed even against the round
+and clear traditions of the training college; she was one of those
+she-creatures born to make all her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's
+alike, and to leave her o's and a's open and her i's undotted. So that
+it was only after an elaborate comparison of word with word that Miss
+Winchelsea felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really "Mr. Snooks"
+at all! In Fanny's first letter of gush he was Mr. "Snooks," in her
+second the spelling was changed to Mr. "Senoks." Miss Winchelsea's
+hand positively trembled as she turned the sheet over--it meant
+so much to her. For it had already begun to seem to her that even
+the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided at too great a price,
+and suddenly--this possibility! She turned over the six sheets,
+all dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the first letter
+had the form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a hand
+pressed upon her heart.
+
+She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter
+of inquiry that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing
+too what action she should take after the answer came. She was
+resolved that if this altered spelling was anything more than
+a quaint fancy of Fanny's, she would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks.
+She had now reached a stage when the minor refinements of behaviour
+disappear. Her excuse remained uninvented, but she had the subject
+of her letter clear in her mind, even to the hint that "circumstances
+in my life have changed very greatly since we talked together." But
+she never gave that hint. There came a third letter from that fitful
+correspondent Fanny. The first line proclaimed her "the happiest
+girl alive."
+
+Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and
+sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before
+morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were
+well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of
+great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading the third
+without discovering the error:--"told him frankly I did not like his
+name," the third sheet began. "He told me he did not like it himself
+--you know that sort of sudden frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea
+did know. "So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it
+at first. Well, you know, dear, he had told me what it really meant;
+it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks--both Snooks
+and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really
+worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas
+at times--'if it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it
+back from Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it
+is, dear, he couldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there
+and then to Senoks for the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards,
+when we are married, we shall put in the apostrophe and make it
+Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind that fancy of mine, when
+many men would have taken offence? But it is just like him all over;
+he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew as well as I did
+that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been ten times
+Snooks. But he did it all the same."
+
+The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn,
+and looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with
+some very small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few
+seconds they stared at her stare, and then her expression changed
+back to a more familiar one. "Has any one finished number three?" she
+asked in an even tone. She remained calm after that. But impositions
+ruled high that day. And she spent two laborious evenings writing
+letters of various sorts to Fanny, before she found a decent
+congratulatory vein. Her reason struggled hopelessly against the
+persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedingly treacherous manner.
+
+One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart.
+Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods
+of sexual hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about
+mankind. "He forgot himself with me," she said. "But Fanny is pink
+and pretty and soft and a fool--a very excellent match for a Man."
+And by way of a wedding present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound
+volume of poetry by George Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly
+happy letter to say that it was "ALL beautiful." Miss Winchelsea
+hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take up that slim book and
+think for a moment of the donor. Fanny wrote several times before
+and about her marriage, pursuing that fond legend of their "ancient
+friendship," and giving her happiness in the fullest detail. And
+Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first time after the Roman
+journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but expressing very
+cordial feelings.
+
+They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the
+August vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea,
+describing her home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements
+of their "teeny weeny" little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning
+to assume a refinement in Miss Winchelsea's memory out of all
+proportion to the facts of the case, and she tried in vain to imagine
+his cultured greatness in a "teeny weeny" little house. "Am busy
+enamelling a cosey corner," said Fanny, sprawling to the end of her
+third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss Winchelsea answered in her
+best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements and hoping
+intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter. Only this hope
+enabled her to write at all, answering not only that letter but
+one in November and one at Christmas.
+
+The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her
+to come to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays.
+She tried to think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was
+too much like Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe
+that he must be sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more
+than a hope that he would presently write her a letter beginning
+"Dear Friend." Something subtly tragic in the separation was
+a great support to her, a sad misunderstanding. To have been jilted
+would have been intolerable. But he never wrote that letter beginning
+"Dear Friend."
+
+For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends,
+in spite of the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became
+full Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter
+rest she felt lonely and without a soul to understand her in the
+world, and her mind ran once more on what is called Platonic
+friendship. Fanny was clearly happy and busy in her new sphere
+of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his lonely hours. Did he ever
+think of those days in Rome--gone now beyond recalling? No one
+had understood her as he had done; no one in all the world. It
+would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, and
+what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night
+she wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave--which
+would not come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note
+to tell Fanny she was coming down.
+
+And so she saw him again.
+
+Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed
+stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his
+conversation had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even
+seemed a justification for Helen's description of weakness in his
+face--in certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied
+about his affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea
+had come for the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny
+in an intelligent way. They only had one good long talk together,
+and that came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some
+time abusing a man who had stolen an idea he had had for a text-book.
+It did not seem a very wonderful idea to Miss Winchelsea. She
+discovered he had forgotten the names of more than half the painters
+whose work they had rejoiced over in Florence.
+
+It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad
+when it came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting
+them again. After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their
+two little boys, and Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of
+her letters had long since faded away.
+
+
+13. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON
+
+The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved
+slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was
+still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into
+the corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt
+to arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his
+eyes staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my
+observation, looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for
+his newspaper. Then he glanced again in my direction.
+
+I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him,
+and in a moment I was surprised to find him speaking.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" said I.
+
+"That book," he repeated, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams."
+
+"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States,
+and the title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if
+he sought words. "Yes," he said at last, "but they tell you nothing."
+I did not catch his meaning for a second.
+
+"They don't know," he added.
+
+I looked a little more attentively at his face.
+
+"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams."
+
+That sort of proposition I never dispute.
+
+"I suppose--" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I mean vividly."
+
+"I dream very little," I answered. "I doubt if I have three vivid
+dreams in a year."
+
+"Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts.
+
+"Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly.
+"You don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?"
+
+"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then.
+I suppose few people do."
+
+"Does HE say--" he indicated the book.
+
+"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about
+intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening
+as a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--"
+
+"Very little--except that they are wrong."
+
+His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time.
+I prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his
+next remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.
+
+"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on
+night after night?"
+
+"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental
+trouble."
+
+"Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place
+for them. But what I mean--" He looked at his bony knuckles.
+"Is that sort of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it
+something else? Mightn't it be something else?"
+
+I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn
+anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes
+and the lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look.
+
+"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The
+thing's killing me."
+
+"Dreams?"
+
+"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid . . .
+this--" (he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the
+window) "seems unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am,
+what business I am on. . . ."
+
+He paused. "Even now--"
+
+"The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked.
+
+"It's over."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I died."
+
+"Died?"
+
+"Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was,
+is dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living
+in a different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt
+that night after night. Night after night I woke into that other
+life. Fresh scenes and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--"
+
+"When you died?"
+
+"When I died."
+
+"And since then--"
+
+"No," he said. "Thank God! That was the end of the dream. . . ."
+
+It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour
+before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has
+a dreary way with him. "Living in a different time," I said:
+"do you mean in some different age?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Past?"
+
+"No, to come--to come."
+
+"The year three thousand, for example?"
+
+"I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was
+dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's
+a lot of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams,
+though I knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming.
+They called the year differently from our way of calling the year. . . .
+What DID they call it?" He put his hand to his forehead. "No," said
+he, "I forget."
+
+He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell
+me his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but
+this struck me differently. I proffered assistance even. "It began--"
+I suggested.
+
+"It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly.
+And it's curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never
+remembered this life I am living now. It seemed as if the dream
+life was enough while it lasted. Perhaps--But I will tell you how
+I find myself when I do my best to recall it all. I don't remember
+anything dearly until I found myself sitting in a sort of loggia
+looking out over the sea. I had been dozing, and suddenly I woke
+up--fresh and vivid--not a bit dream-like--because the girl had
+stopped fanning me."
+
+"The girl?"
+
+"Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out."
+
+He stopped abruptly. "You won't think I'm mad?" he said.
+
+"No," I answered; "you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream."
+
+"I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was
+not surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you
+understand. I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply
+took it up at that point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life,
+this nineteenth-century life, faded as I woke, vanished like
+a dream. I knew all about myself, knew that my name was no longer
+Cooper but Hedon, and all about my position in the world. I've
+forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want of connection--but
+it was all quite clear and matter of fact then."
+
+He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face
+forward and looking up at me appealingly.
+
+"This seems bosh to you?"
+
+"No, no!" I cried. "Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like."
+
+"It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced
+south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle
+above the balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where
+the girl stood. I was on a couch--it was a metal couch with light
+striped cushions-and the girl was leaning over the balcony with
+her back to me. The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek.
+Her pretty white neck and the little curls that nestled there,
+and her white shoulder were in the sun, and all the grace of her
+body was in the cool blue shadow. She was dressed--how can I describe
+it? It was easy and flowing. And altogether there she stood, so that
+it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as though I had
+never seen her before. And when at last I sighed and raised myself
+upon my arm she turned her face to me--"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother,
+sisters, friends, wife, and daughters--all their faces, the play
+of their faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more
+real to me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it
+again--I could draw it or paint it. And after all--"
+
+He stopped--but I said nothing.
+
+"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not
+that beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty
+of a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort
+of radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey
+eyes. And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all
+pleasant and gracious things--"
+
+He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up
+at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute
+belief in the reality of his story.
+
+"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all
+I had ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master
+man away there in the north, with influence and property and a great
+reputation, but none of it had seemed worth having beside her.
+I had come to the place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her,
+and left all those things to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant
+at least of my life. While I had been in love with her before I knew
+that she had any care for me, before I had imagined that she would
+dare--that we should dare, all my life had seemed vain and hollow,
+dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes. Night after night and through
+the long days I had longed and desired--my soul had beaten against
+the thing forbidden!
+
+"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things.
+It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while
+it's there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came
+away and left them in their Crisis to do what they could."
+
+"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled.
+
+"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--
+I had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group
+themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready
+to do things and risk things because of their confidence in me.
+I had been playing that game for years, that big laborious game,
+that vague, monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals,
+speech and agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last
+I had a sort of leadership against the Gang--you know it was called
+the Gang--a sort of compromise of scoundrelly projects and base
+ambitions and vast public emotional stupidities and catchwords--
+the Gang that kept the world noisy and blind year by year, and all
+the while that it was drifting, drifting towards infinite disaster.
+But I can't expect you to understand the shades and complications
+of the year--the year something or other ahead. I had it all down
+to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had been dreaming
+of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer new
+development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes.
+It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight.
+I sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and rejoicing--
+rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and folly
+and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this
+is life--love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth
+all those dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I blamed
+myself for having ever sought to be a leader when I might have
+given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent
+my early days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself
+upon vain and worthless women, and at the thought all my being
+went out in love and tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady,
+who had come at last and compelled me--compelled me by her invincible
+charm for me--to lay that life aside.
+
+"'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear;
+'you are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all
+things. Love! to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at
+the murmur of my voice she turned about.
+
+"'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see
+the sunrise upon Monte Solaro.'
+
+"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony.
+She put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great
+masses of limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked.
+But first I noted the sunlight on her face caressing the lines
+of her cheeks and neck. How can I describe to you the scene we had
+before us? We were at Capri--"
+
+"I have been there," I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro
+and drunk vero Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit."
+
+"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can tell
+me--you will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have
+never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room,
+one of a vast multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed
+out of the limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea.
+The whole island, you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond
+explaining, and on the other side there were miles of floating hotels,
+and huge floating stages to which the flying machines came. They
+called it a pleasure city. Of course, there was none of that in your
+time rather, I should say, IS none of that NOW. Of course. Now!--yes.
+
+"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that
+one could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand
+feet high perhaps--coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold,
+and beyond it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that
+faded and passed into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to
+the west, distinct and near was a little bay, a little beach still
+in shadow. And out of that shadow rose Solaro straight and tall,
+flushed and golden crested, like a beauty throned, and the white
+moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from east to
+west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with little sailing
+boats.
+
+"To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very
+minute and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of gold--
+shining gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was
+a rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke
+to green and foam all round the rock, and a galley came gliding
+out of the arch."
+
+"I know that rock," I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It is called
+the Faraglioni."
+
+"I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that," answered the man with
+the white face. "There was some story--but that--"
+
+He put his hand to his forehead again. "No," he said, "I forget
+that story."
+
+"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had,
+that little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that
+dear lady of mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe,
+and how we sat and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked
+in whispers not because there was any one to hear, but because there
+was still such a freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were
+a little frightened, I think, to find themselves at last in words.
+And so they went softly.
+
+"Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going
+by a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great
+breakfast room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and
+joyful place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur
+of plucked strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another,
+and I would not heed a man who was watching me from a table near by.
+
+"And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot
+describe that hall. The place was enormous--larger than any building
+you have ever seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri,
+caught into the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders,
+stems and threads of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains,
+streamed like an Aurora across the roof and interlaced, like--
+like conjuring tricks. All about the great circle for the dancers
+there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, and intricate and
+wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The place was inundated
+with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. And as we went
+through the throng the people turned about and looked at us, for
+all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had
+suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And
+they looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how
+at last she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the
+men who were there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite
+of all the shame and dishonour that had come upon my name.
+
+"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of
+the rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people
+swarmed about the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad
+recesses; they were dressed in splendid colours and crowned
+with flowers; thousands danced about the great circle beneath
+the white images of the ancient gods, and glorious processions
+of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not the dreary
+monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but dances that were
+beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing--
+dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she
+danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and
+caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes.
+
+"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe
+it; but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music
+that has ever come to me awake.
+
+"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to
+me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place,
+and already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting
+hall, and afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his
+eye. But now, as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure
+of all the people who went to and fro across the shining floor, he
+came and touched me, and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen.
+And he asked that he might speak to me for a little time apart.
+
+"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want
+to tell me?'
+
+"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for
+a lady to hear.
+
+"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.
+
+"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he
+asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration
+that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man
+next to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north.
+He was a forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able
+to control and soften him. It was on his account even more than
+my own, I think, that the others had been so dismayed at my retreat.
+So this question about what he had done reawakened my old interest
+in the life I had put aside just for a moment.
+
+"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What
+has Evesham been saying?'
+
+"And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess
+even I was struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and
+threatening words he had used. And this messenger they had sent
+to me not only told me of Evesham's speech, but went on to ask
+counsel and to point out what need they had of me. While he talked,
+my lady sat a little forward and watched his face and mine.
+
+"My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves.
+I could even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all
+the dramatic effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to
+the disorder of the party indeed, but not to its damage. I should
+go back stronger than I had come. And then I thought of my lady.
+You see--how can I tell you? There were certain peculiarities of our
+relationship--as things are I need not tell you about that--which
+would render her presence with me impossible. I should have had
+to leave her; indeed, I should have had to renounce her clearly
+and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in the north. And
+the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew it as well
+as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, then
+abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return
+was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining
+his eloquence was gaining ground with me.
+
+"'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done
+with them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming
+here?'
+
+"'No,' he said; 'but--'
+
+"'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things.
+I have ceased to be anything but a private man.'
+
+"'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war,
+these reckless challenges, these wild aggressions--'
+
+"I stood up.
+
+"'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things,
+I weighed them--and I have come away.'
+
+"He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked
+from me to where the lady sat regarding us.
+
+"'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned
+slowly from me and walked away. I stood, caught in the whirl of
+thoughts his appeal had set going.
+
+"I heard my lady's voice.
+
+"'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'
+
+"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned
+to her sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled.
+
+"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I
+said. 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.'
+
+"She looked at me doubtfully.
+
+"'But war--' she said.
+
+"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself
+and me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and
+completely, must drive us apart for ever.
+
+"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this
+belief or that.
+
+"'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things.
+There will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age
+of wars is past. Trust me to know the justice of this case. They
+have no right upon me, dearest, and no one has a right upon me.
+I have been free to choose my life, and I have chosen this.'
+
+"'But WAR--' she said.
+
+"I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand
+in mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill
+her mind with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying
+to her I lied also to myself. And she was only too ready to believe
+me, only too ready to forget.
+
+"Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our
+bathing-place in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom
+to bathe every day. We swam and splashed one another, and in that
+buoyant water I seemed to become something lighter and stronger
+than a man. And at last we came out dripping and rejoicing and raced
+among the rocks. And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, and we sat
+to bask in the sun, and presently I nodded, resting my head against
+her knee, and she put her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly
+and I dozed. And behold! as it were with the snapping of the string
+of a violin, I was awakening, and I was in my own bed in Liverpool,
+in the life of to-day.
+
+"Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments
+had been no more than the substance of a dream.
+
+"In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering
+reality of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit,
+and as I shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman
+I loved to go back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous
+north. Even if Evesham did force the world back to war, what was
+that to me? I was a man, with the heart of a man, and why should
+I feel the responsibility of a deity for the way the world might go?
+
+"You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about
+my real affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view.
+
+"The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike
+a dream that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details;
+even the ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine
+in the breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt
+line that ran about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with
+the messenger from my deserted party. Have you ever heard of
+a dream that had a quality like that?"
+
+"Like--?"
+
+"So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten."
+
+I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right.
+
+"Never," I said. "That is what you never seem to do with dreams."
+
+"No," he answered. "But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor,
+you must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering
+what the clients and business people I found myself talking to in
+my office would think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a
+girl who would be born a couple of hundred years or so hence, and
+worried about the politics of my great-great-great-grandchildren.
+I was chiefly busy that day negotiating a ninety-nine-year building
+lease. It was a private builder in a hurry, and we wanted to tie him
+in every possible way. I had an interview with him, and he showed a
+certain want of temper that sent me to bed still irritated. That night
+I had no dream. Nor did I dream the next night, at least, to remember.
+
+"Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began
+to feel sure it WAS a dream. And then it came again.
+
+"When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very
+different. I think it certain that four days had also elapsed in
+the dream. Many things had happened in the north, and the shadow
+of them was back again between us, and this time it was not so
+easily dispelled. I began, I know, with moody musings. Why, inspite
+of all, should I go back, go back for all the rest of my days to toil
+and stress, insults and perpetual dissatisfaction, simply to save
+hundreds of millions of common people, whom I did not love, whom
+too often I could do no other than despise, from the stress and
+anguish of war and infinite misrule? And after all I might fail.
+THEY all sought their own narrow ends, and why should not I--why
+should not I also live as a man? And out of such thoughts her voice
+summoned me, and I lifted my eyes.
+
+"I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure
+City, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the
+bay. It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left
+Ischia hung in a golden haze between sea. and sky, and Naples was
+coldly white against the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a
+tall and slender streamer feathering at last towards the south, and
+the ruins of Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellamare glittering and
+near."
+
+I interrupted suddenly: "You have been to Capri, of course?"
+
+"Only in this dream," he said, "only in this dream. All across
+the bay beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City
+moored and chained. And northward were the broad floating stages
+that received the aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every
+afternoon, each bringing its thousands of pleasure-seekers from
+the uttermost parts of the earth to Capri and its delights. All
+these things, I say, stretched below.
+
+"But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight
+that evening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered
+useless in the distant arsenals of the Rhinemouth were manoeuvring
+now in the eastward sky. Evesham had astonished the world by
+producing them and others, and sending them to circle here and
+there. It was the threat material in the great game of bluff he was
+playing, and it had taken even me by surprise. He was one of those
+incredibly stupid energetic people who seem sent by Heaven to create
+disasters. His energy to the first glance seemed so wonderfully
+like capacity! But he had no imagination, no invention, only a stupid,
+vast, driving force of will, and a mad faith in his stupid idiot
+'luck' to pull him through. I remember how we stood out upon
+the headland watching the squadron circling far away, and how
+I weighed the full meaning of the sight, seeing clearly the way
+things must go. And then even it was not too late. I might have
+gone back, I think, and saved the world. The people of the north
+would follow me, I knew, granted only that in one thing I respected
+their moral standards. The east and south would trust me as they would
+trust no other northern man. And I knew I had only to put it to her
+and she would have let me go. . . . Not because she did not love me!
+
+"Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about.
+I had so newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still
+so fresh a renegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what
+I OUGHT to do had no power at all to touch my will. My will was
+to live, to gather pleasures and make my dear lady happy. But
+though this sense of vast neglected duties had no power to draw
+me, it could make me silent and preoccupied, it robbed the days I had
+spent of half their brightness and roused me into dark meditations
+in the silence of the night. And as I stood and watched Evesham's
+aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds of infinite ill omen--she
+stood beside me watching me, perceiving the trouble indeed, but not
+perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my face, her expression
+shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because the sunset was
+fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she held me.
+She had asked me to go from her, and again in the night time and
+with tears she had asked me to go.
+
+"At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I
+turned upon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain
+slopes. 'No,' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was
+resolved to end that gravity, and made her run--no one can be very
+grey and sad who is out of breath--and when she stumbled I ran with
+my hand beneath her arm. We ran down past a couple of men, who turned
+back staring in astonishment at my behaviour--they must have
+recognised my face. And halfway down the slope came a tumult in the
+air, clang-clank, clang-clank, and we stopped, and presently over the
+hill-crest those war things came flying one behind the other."
+
+The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description.
+
+"What were they like?" I asked.
+
+"They had never fought," he said. "They were just like our ironclads
+are nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might
+do, with excited men inside them; few even cared to speculate.
+They were great driving things shaped like spearheads without a shaft,
+with a propeller in the place of the shaft."
+
+"Steel?"
+
+"Not steel."
+
+"Aluminium?"
+
+"No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as
+common as brass, for example. It was called--let me see--." He
+squeezed his forehead with the fingers of one hand. "I am forgetting
+everything," he said.
+
+"And they carried guns?"
+
+"Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns
+backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed
+with the beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never
+been fought. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen.
+And meanwhile I suppose it was very fine to go whirling through
+the air like a flight of young swallows, swift and easy. I guess
+the captains tried not to think too clearly what the real thing
+would be like. And these flying war machines, you know, were only
+one sort of the endless war contrivances that had been invented
+and had fallen into abeyance during the long peace. There were
+all sorts of these things that people were routing out and furbishing
+up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never been tried;
+big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the silly way
+of these ingenious sort of men who make these things; they turn 'em
+out as beavers build dams, and with no more sense of the rivers
+they're going to divert and the lands they're going to flood!
+
+"As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the
+twilight, I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things
+were driving for war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some
+inkling of what war was bound to be under these new conditions. And
+even then, though I knew it was drawing near the limit of my
+opportunity, I could find no will to go back."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"That was my last chance.
+
+"We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we
+walked out upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counselled
+me to go back.
+
+"'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me,
+'this is Death. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them,
+go back to your duty--.'
+
+"She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm
+as she said it, 'Go back--Go back.'
+
+"Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read
+in an instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those
+moments when one SEES.
+
+"'No!' I said.
+
+"'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at
+the answer to her thought.
+
+"'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen.
+Love, I have chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens
+I will live this life--I will live for YOU! It--nothing shall turn
+me aside; nothing, my dear one. Even if you died--even if you died--'
+
+"'Yes,' she murmured, softly.
+
+"'Then--I also would die.'
+
+"And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking eloquently--
+as I COULD do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make the life
+we were living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was
+deserting something hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine
+thing to set aside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it,
+seeking not only to convert her but myself to that. We talked, and
+she clung to me, torn too between all that she deemed noble and all
+that she knew was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made
+all the thickening disaster of the world only a sort of glorious
+setting to our unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls
+strutted there at last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken
+rather with that glorious delusion, under the still stars.
+
+"And so my moment passed.
+
+"It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders
+of the south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot
+answer that shattered Evesham's bluffing for ever, took shape
+and waited. And all over Asia, and the ocean, and the south, the air
+and the wires were throbbing with their warnings to prepare--prepare.
+
+"No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine,
+with all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe
+most people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms
+and shouting charges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when
+half the world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles
+away--."
+
+The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face
+was intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station,
+a string of loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage,
+shot by the carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap
+of noise, echoing the tumult of the train.
+
+"After that," he said, "I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights
+that dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights
+when I could not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS
+accursed life; and THERE--somewhere lost to me--things were
+happening--momentous, terrible things. . . . I lived at nights--my days,
+my waking days, this life I am living now, became a faded, far-away
+dream, a drab setting, the cover of the book."
+
+He thought.
+
+"I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream,
+but as to what I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not
+remember. My memory--my memory has gone. The business of life
+slips from me--"
+
+He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long
+time he said nothing.
+
+"And then?" said I.
+
+"The war burst like a hurricane."
+
+He stared before him at unspeakable things.
+
+"And then?" I urged again.
+
+"One touch of unreality," he said, in the low tone of a man who
+speaks to himself, "and they would have been nightmares. But they
+were not nightmares--they were not nightmares. NO!"
+
+He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was
+a danger of losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking
+again in the same tone of questioning self-communion.
+
+"What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would
+touch Capri--I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all,
+as the contrast to it all; but two nights after the whole place
+was shouting and bawling, every woman almost and every other man
+wore a badge--Evesham's badge--and there was no music but a jangling
+war-song over and over again, and everywhere men enlisting, and in
+the dancing halls they were drilling. The whole island was awhirl
+with rumours; it was said, again and again, that fighting had begun.
+I had not expected this. I had seen so little of the life of pleasure
+that I had failed to reckon with this violence of the amateurs.
+And as for me, I was out of it. I was like a man who might have
+prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had gone. I was no one;
+the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more than I. The crowd
+jostled us and bawled in our ears; that accursed song deafened us;
+a woman shrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, and we
+two went back to our own place again, ruffled and insulted--
+my lady white and silent, and I aquiver with rage. So furious was I,
+I could have quarrelled with her if I could have found one shade
+of accusation in her eyes.
+
+"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock
+cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward
+that flared and passed and came again.
+
+"'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have
+made my choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will
+have nothing of this war. We have taken our lives out of all these
+things. This is no refuge for us. Let us go.'
+
+"And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered
+the world.
+
+"And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight."
+
+He mused darkly.
+
+"How much was there of it?"
+
+He made no answer.
+
+"How many days?"
+
+His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took
+no heed of my curiosity.
+
+I tried to draw him back to his story with questions.
+
+"Where did you go?" I said.
+
+"When?"
+
+"When you left Capri."
+
+"Southwest," he said, and glanced at me for a second. "We went
+in a boat."
+
+"But I should have thought an aeroplane?"
+
+"They had been seized."
+
+I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning
+again. He broke out in an argumentative monotone:
+
+"But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and
+stress IS life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty?
+If there IS no refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all
+our dreams of quiet places are a folly and a snare, why have we
+such dreams? Surely it was no ignoble cravings, no base intentions,
+had brought us to this; it was Love had isolated us. Love had come
+to me with her eyes and robed in her beauty, more glorious than all
+else in life, in the very shape and colour of life, and summoned me
+away. I had silenced all the voices, I had answered all the questions--
+I had come to her. And suddenly there was nothing but War and Death!"
+
+I had an inspiration. "After all," I said, "it could have been only a
+dream."
+
+"A dream!" he cried, flaming upon me, "a dream--when even now--"
+
+For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into
+his cheek. He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped
+it to his knee. He spoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest
+of the time he looked away. "We are but phantoms," he said, "and
+the phantoms of phantoms, desires like cloud shadows and wills
+of straw that eddy in the wind; the days pass, use and wont carry
+us through as a train carries the shadow of its lights, so be it!
+But one thing is real and certain, one thing is no dreamstuff,
+but eternal and enduring. It is the centre of my life, and all
+other things about it are subordinate or altogether vain. I loved
+her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead together!
+
+"A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life
+with unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for
+and cared for, worthless and unmeaning?
+
+"Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still
+a chance of getting away," he said. "All through the night and
+morning that we sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno,
+we talked of escape. We were full of hope, and it clung about us
+to the end, hope for the life together we should lead, out of
+it all, out of the battle and struggle, the wild and empty passions,
+the empty arbitrary 'thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not' of the world.
+We were uplifted, as though our quest was a holy thing, as though
+love for one another was a mission. . . .
+
+"Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock
+Capri--already scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and
+hiding-places that were to make it a fastness--we reckoned nothing
+of the imminent slaughter, though the fury of preparation hung about
+in puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the grey;
+but, indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know,
+was the rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, with its countless
+windows and arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet,
+a vast carving of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon
+and orange groves, and masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs
+of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over
+the Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round
+the cape and within sight of the mainland, another little string of
+boats came into view, driving before the wind towards the southwest.
+In a little while a multitude had come out, the remoter just little
+specks of ultramarine in the shadow of the eastward cliff.
+
+"'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness, of
+war.'
+
+"And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across
+the southern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little
+dots in the sky--and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon,
+and then still more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled
+with blue specks. Now they were all thin little strokes of blue,
+and now one and now a multitude would heel and catch the sun
+and become short flashes of light. They came rising and falling
+and growing larger, like some huge flight of gulls or rooks,
+or such-like birds moving with a marvellous uniformity, and ever
+as they drew nearer they spread over a greater width of sky.
+The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart
+the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and
+streamed eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and
+clearer again until they vanished from the sky. And after that we
+noted to the northward and very high Evesham's fighting machines
+hanging high over Naples like an evening swarm of gnats.
+
+"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds.
+
+"Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us
+to signify nothing. . . .
+
+"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still
+seeking that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had
+come upon us, pain and many distresses. For though we were dusty
+and stained by our toilsome tramping, and half starved and with the
+horror of the dead men we had seen and the flight of the peasants--
+for very soon a gust of fighting swept up the peninsula--with these
+things haunting our minds it still resulted only in a deepening
+resolution to escape. O, but she was brave and patient! She who had
+never faced hardship and exposure had courage for herself--and me.
+We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a country all commandeered
+and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. Always we went on foot.
+At first there were other fugitives, but we did not mingle with them.
+Some escaped northward, some were caught in the torrent of peasantry
+that swept along the main roads; many gave themselves into the hands
+of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the men were
+impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had brought no
+money to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at the hands
+of these conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and we had
+been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards
+Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back
+for want of food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum,
+where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea that
+by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take
+once more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us.
+
+"A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were
+being hemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in
+its toils. Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from
+the north going to and fro, and had come upon them in the distance
+amidst the mountains making ways for the ammunition and preparing
+the mounting of the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us,
+taking us for spies--at any rate a shot had gone shuddering over us.
+Several times we had hidden in woods from hovering aeroplanes.
+
+"But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight
+and pain. . . . We were in an open place near those great temples
+at Paestum, at last, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky
+bushes, empty and desolate and so flat that a grove of eucalyptus
+far away showed to the feet of its stems. How I can see it! My lady
+was sitting down under a bush, resting a little, for she was very
+weak and weary, and I was standing up watching to see if I could
+tell the distance of the firing that came and went. They were still,
+you know, fighting far from each other, with those terrible new
+weapons that had never before been used: guns that would carry
+beyond sight, and aeroplanes that would do--What THEY would do
+no man could foretell.
+
+"I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew
+together. I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there
+and rest!
+
+"Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background.
+They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking
+of my lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she
+had owned herself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me
+I could hear her sobbing, but I would not turn round to her because
+I knew she had need of weeping, and had held herself so far and
+so long for me. It was well, I thought, that she would weep and
+rest and then we would toil on again, for I had no inkling of the thing
+that hung so near. Even now I can see her as she sat there, her
+lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again the deepening hollow
+of her cheek.
+
+"'If we had parted,' she said, "if I had let you go.'
+
+"'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent;
+I made my choice, and I will hold on to the end."
+
+"And then--
+
+"Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about
+us I heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas
+suddenly thrown. They chipped the stones about us, and whirled
+fragments from the bricks and passed. . . ."
+
+He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips.
+
+"At the flash I had turned about. . . .
+
+"You know--she stood up--
+
+"She stood up; you know, and moved a step towards me--
+
+"As though she wanted to reach me--
+
+"And she had been shot through the heart."
+
+He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity
+an Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment,
+and then stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence.
+When at last I looked at him he was sitting back in his corner,
+his arms folded, and his teeth gnawing at his knuckles.
+
+He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it.
+
+"I carried her," he said, "towards the temples, in my arms--as though
+it mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you
+know, they had lasted so long, I suppose.
+
+"She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the
+way."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"I have seen those temples," I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought
+those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me.
+
+"It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar
+and held her in my arms. . . . Silent after the first babble was over.
+And after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again,
+as though nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had
+changed. . . . It was tremendously still there, the sun high, and the
+shadows still; even the shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were
+still--in spite of the thudding and banging that went all about the sky.
+
+"I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south,
+and that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck,
+and overset and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me
+in the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull,
+you know--flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down
+the aisle of the temple--a black thing in the bright blue water.
+
+"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that
+ceased. Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid
+for a space. That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray
+bullet gashed the stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface.
+
+"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater.
+
+"The curious thing," he remarked, with the manner of a man who
+makes a trivial conversation, "is that I didn't THINK--I didn't
+think at all. I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort
+of lethargy--stagnant.
+
+"And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day.
+I know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open
+in front of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being
+there, seeing that in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum
+temple with a dead woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine.
+I have forgotten what they were about."
+
+He stopped, and there was a long silence.
+
+Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from
+Chalk Farm to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned
+on him with a brutal question, with the tone of Now or never.
+
+"And did you dream again?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low.
+
+"Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed
+to have suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen
+into a sitting position, and the body lay there on the stones beside
+me. A gaunt body. Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her. . . .
+
+"I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that
+men were coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage.
+
+"I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into
+sight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform
+of dirty white, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing
+to the crest of the old wall of the vanished city, and crouching
+there. They were little bright figures in the sunlight, and there
+they hung, weapon in hand, peering cautiously before them.
+
+"And further away I saw others and then more at another point
+in the wall. It was a long lax line of men in open order.
+
+"Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command,
+and his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds
+towards the temple. He scrambled down with them and led them.
+He came facing towards me, and when he saw me he stopped.
+
+"At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when
+I had seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid
+them. I shouted to the officer.
+
+"'You must not come here,' I cried, '_I_ am here. I am here with my
+dead.'
+
+"He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown
+tongue.
+
+"I repeated what I had said.
+
+"He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently
+he spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword.
+
+"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told
+him again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here.
+These are old temples and I am here with my dead.'
+
+"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was
+a narrow face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had
+a scar on his upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept
+shouting unintelligible things, questions perhaps, at me.
+
+"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not
+occur to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in
+imperious tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside.
+
+"He made to go past me, And I caught hold of him.
+
+"I saw his face change at my grip.
+
+"'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!'
+
+"He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort
+of exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then, suddenly,
+with a scowl, he swept his sword back--SO--and thrust."
+
+He stopped abruptly. I became aware of a change in the rhythm
+of the train. The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage
+jarred and jerked. This present world insisted upon itself, became
+clamorous. I saw through the steamy window huge electric lights
+glaring down from tall masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary
+empty carriages passing by, and then a signal-box, hoisting its
+constellation of green and red into the murky London twilight marched
+after them. I looked again at his drawn features.
+
+"He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--
+no fear, no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me,
+felt the sword drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know.
+It didn't hurt at all."
+
+The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing
+first rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk.
+Dim shapes of men passed to and fro without.
+
+"Euston!" cried a voice.
+
+"Do you mean--?"
+
+"There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness
+sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face
+of the man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of
+existence--"
+
+"Euston!" clamoured the voices outside; "Euston!"
+
+The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter
+stood regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter
+of cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar
+of the London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted
+lamps blazed along the platform.
+
+"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted
+out all things."
+
+"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter.
+
+"And that was the end?" I asked.
+
+He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "No."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the Temple--
+And then--"
+
+"Yes," I insisted. "Yes?"
+
+"Nightmares," he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds
+that fought and tore."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream by H.G.
+Wells
+
diff --git a/old/12sad10.zip b/old/12sad10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..288cc81 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12sad10.zip diff --git a/old/12sad10h.htm b/old/12sad10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a86c19 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12sad10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7096 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> + +<html> +<head> +<title>Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H.G. Wells</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +</head> + +<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> + +<h1>Project Gutenberg Etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream +by H. G. Wells</h1> +<h2>#17 in our series by H. G. Wells</h2> + +<pre> + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Twelve Stories and a Dream + +by H. G. Wells + +May, 1999 [Etext #1743] + +Etext scanned by Aaron Cannon, formatted and proofed by +Stephanie Johnson +</pre> +<p></p> +<p></p> +<p> + TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM</p> +<p>BY H. G. WELLS</p> +<p> + CONTENTS</p> +<p>1. Filmer</p> +<p>2. The Magic Shop</p> +<p>3. The Valley of Spiders</p> +<p>4. The Truth About Pyecraft</p> +<p>5. Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland</p> +<p>6. The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost</p> +<p>7. Jimmy Goggles the God</p> +<p>8. The New Accelerator</p> +<p>9. Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation</p> +<p>10. The Stolen Body</p> +<p>11. Mr. Brisher's Treasure</p> +<p>12. Miss Winchelsea's Heart</p> +<p>13. A Dream of Armageddon</p> +<p></p> +<p> + 1. FILMER</p> +<p>In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men-- this man + a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only one vigorous intellectual + effort was needed to finish the work. But the inexorable injustice of the popular + mind has decided that of all these thousands, one man, and that a man who never + flew, should be chosen as the discoverer, just as it has chosen to honour Watt + as the discoverer of steam and Stephenson of the steam-engine. And surely of + all honoured names none is so grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, + the timid, intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the world + had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations, the man who + pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare and well-nigh every condition + of human life and happiness. Never has that recurring wonder of the littleness + of the scientific man in the face of the greatness of his science found such + an amazing exemplification. Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain, profoundly + obscure--Filmers attract no Boswells--but the essential facts and the concluding + scene are clear enough, and there are letters, and notes, and casual allusions + to piece the whole together. And this is the story one makes, putting this thing + with that, of Filmer's life and death. </p> +<p>The first authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is + a document in which he applies for admission as a paid student + in physics to the Government laboratories at South Kensington, + and therein he describes himself as the son of a "military bootmaker" + ("cobbler" in the vulgar tongue) of Dover, and lists his various + examination proofs of a high proficiency in chemistry and + mathematics. With a certain want of dignity he seeks to enhance + these attainments by a profession of poverty and disadvantages, + and he writes of the laboratory as the "gaol" of his ambitions, + a slip which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself exclusively + to the exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner that + shows Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until + quite recently no traces of his success in the Government institution + could be found.</p> +<p>It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed zeal + for research, Filmer, before he had held this scholarship a year, + was tempted, by the possibility of a small increase in his immediate + income, to abandon it in order to become one of the nine-pence-an-hour + computers employed by a well-known Professor in his vicarious + conduct of those extensive researches of his in solar physics--researches + which are still a matter of perplexity to astronomers. Afterwards, + for the space of seven years, save for the pass lists of the + London University, in which he is seen to climb slowly to a double + first class B.Sc., in mathematics and chemistry, there is no evidence + of how Filmer passed his life. No one knows how or where he lived, + though it seems highly probable that he continued to support + himself by teaching while he prosecuted the studies necessary for + this distinction. And then, oddly enough, one finds him mentioned + in the correspondence of Arthur Hicks, the poet.</p> +<p>"You remember Filmer," Hicks writes to his friend Vance; "well, + HE hasn't altered a bit, the same hostile mumble and the nasty + chin--how CAN a man contrive to be always three days from shaving? + -- and a sort of furtive air of being engaged in sneaking in front + of one; even his coat and that frayed collar of his show no further + signs of the passing years. He was writing in the library and + I sat down beside him in the name of God's charity, whereupon + he deliberately insulted me by covering up his memoranda. It seems + he has some brilliant research on hand that he suspects me of all + people--with a Bodley Booklet a-printing!--of stealing. He has taken + remarkable honours at the University--he went through them with + a sort of hasty slobber, as though he feared I might interrupt him + before he had told me all--and he spoke of taking his D.Sc. as one + might speak of taking a cab. And he asked what I was doing--with + a sort of comparative accent, and his arm was spread nervously, + positively a protecting arm, over the paper that hid the precious + idea--his one hopeful idea.</p> +<p>"'Poetry,' he said, 'Poetry. And what do you profess to teach + in it, Hicks?'</p> +<p>"The thing's a Provincial professorling in the very act of budding, + and I thank the Lord devoutly that but for the precious gift + of indolence I also might have gone this way to D.Sc. and + destruction . . ."</p> +<p>A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer + in or near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in + anticipating a provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse + of him is lecturing on "rubber and rubber substitutes," to the + Society of Arts--he had become manager to a great plastic-substance + manufactory--and at that time, it is now known, he was a member + of the Aeronautical Society, albeit he contributed nothing to the + discussions of that body, preferring no doubt to mature his great + conception without external assistance. And within two years + of that paper before the Society of Arts he was hastily taking out + a number of patents and proclaiming in various undignified ways + the completion of the divergent inquiries which made his flying + machine possible. The first definite statement to that effect + appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man + who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after + his long laborious secret patience seems to have been due to + a needless panic, Bootle, the notorious American scientific quack, + having made an announcement that Filmer interpreted wrongly as + an anticipation of his idea.</p> +<p>Now what precisely was Filmer's idea? Really a very simple one. + Before his time the pursuit of aeronautics had taken two divergent + lines, and had developed on the one hand balloons--large apparatus + lighter than air, easy in ascent, and comparatively safe in descent, + but floating helplessly before any breeze that took them; and on + the other, flying machines that flew only in theory--vast flat + structures heavier than air, propelled and kept up by heavy engines + and for the most part smashing at the first descent. But, neglecting + the fact that the inevitable final collapse rendered them impossible, + the weight of the flying machines gave them this theoretical + advantage, that they could go through the air against a wind, + a necessary condition if aerial navigation was to have any practical + value. It is Filmer's particular merit that he perceived the way + in which the contrasted and hitherto incompatible merits of balloon + and heavy flying machine might be combined in one apparatus, + which should be at choice either heavier or lighter than air. + He took hints from the contractile bladders of fish and the pneumatic + cavities of birds. He devised an arrangement of contractile + and absolutely closed balloons which when expanded could lift + the actual flying apparatus with ease, and when retracted by the + complicated "musculature" he wove about them, were withdrawn + almost completely into the frame; and he built the large framework + which these balloons sustained, of hollow, rigid tubes, the air + in which, by an ingenious contrivance, was automatically pumped + out as the apparatus fell, and which then remained exhausted + so long as the aeronaut desired. There were no wings or propellers + to his machine, such as there had been to all previous aeroplanes, + and the only engine required was the compact and powerful little + appliance needed to contract the balloons. He perceived that such + an apparatus as he had devised might rise with frame exhausted + and balloons expanded to a considerable height, might then contract + its balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an adjustment + of its weights slide down the air in any desired direction. As it fell + it would accumulate velocity and at the same time lose weight, + and the momentum accumulated by its down-rush could be utilised + by means of a shifting of its weights to drive it up in the air again + as the balloons expanded. This conception, which is still the + structural conception of all successful flying machines, needed, + however, a vast amount of toil upon its details before it could + actually be realised, and such toil Filmer--as he was accustomed + to tell the numerous interviewers who crowded upon him in + the heyday of his fame--"ungrudgingly and unsparingly gave." + His particular difficulty was the elastic lining of the contractile + balloon. He found he needed a new substance, and in the discovery + and manufacture of that new substance he had, as he never failed + to impress upon the interviewers, "performed a far more arduous + work than even in the actual achievement of my seemingly greater + discovery."</p> +<p>But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard + upon Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly + five years elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber + factory--he seems to have been entirely dependent on his small + income from this source--making misdirected attempts to assure + a quite indifferent public that he really HAD invented what he had + invented. He occupied the greater part of his leisure in the + composition of letters to the scientific and daily press, and + so forth, stating precisely the net result of his contrivances, + and demanding financial aid. That alone would have sufficed for + the suppression of his letters. He spent such holidays as he could + arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the door-keepers of + leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for inspiring + hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted to induce + the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a + confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs. + "The man's a crank and a bounder to boot," says the Major-General + in his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese + to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side + of warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain.</p> +<p>And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his + contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves + of a new oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial + model of his invention. He threw up his rubber factory appointment, + desisted from all further writing, and, with a certain secrecy + that seems to have been an inseparable characteristic of all his + proceedings, set to work upon the apparatus. He seems to have + directed the making of its parts and collected most of it in a room + in Shoreditch, but its final putting together was done at Dymchurch, + in Kent. He did not make the affair large enough to carry a man, + but he made an extremely ingenious use of what were then called + the Marconi rays to control its flight. The first flight of this + first practicable flying machine took place over some fields + near Burford Bridge, near Hythe, in Kent, and Filmer followed + and controlled its flight upon a specially constructed motor tricycle.</p> +<p>The flight was, considering all things, an amazing success. The apparatus was + brought in a cart from Dymchurch to Burford Bridge, ascended there to a height + of nearly three hundred feet, swooped thence very nearly back to Dymchurch, + came about in its sweep, rose again, circled, and finally sank uninjured in + a field behind the Burford Bridge Inn. At its descent a curious thing happened. + Filmer got off his tricycle, scrambled over the intervening dyke, advanced perhaps + twenty yards towards his triumph, threw out his arms in a strange gesticulation, + and fell down in a dead faint. Every one could then recall the ghastliness of + his features and all the evidences of extreme excitement they had observed throughout + the trial, things they might otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards in the inn + he had an unaccountable gust of hysterical weeping. </p> +<p>Altogether there were not twenty witnesses of this affair, and + those for the most part uneducated men. The New Romney doctor + saw the ascent but not the descent, his horse being frightened + by the electrical apparatus on Filmer's tricycle and giving him + a nasty spill. Two members of the Kent constabulary watched + the affair from a cart in an unofficial spirit, and a grocer calling + round the Marsh for orders and two lady cyclists seem almost + to complete the list of educated people. There were two reporters + present, one representing a Folkestone paper and the other being + a fourth-class interviewer and "symposium" journalist, whose + expenses down, Filmer, anxious as ever for adequate advertisement + --and now quite realising the way in which adequate advertisement + may be obtained--had paid. The latter was one of those writers + who can throw a convincing air of unreality over the most credible + events, and his half-facetious account of the affair appeared + in the magazine page of a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer, + this person's colloquial methods were more convincing. He went + to offer some further screed upon the subject to Banghurst, + the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of the ablest and most + unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst instantly + seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from the narrative, + no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, Banghurst himself, + double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, gestures and all, + appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled journalistic nose. + He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it was and + what it might be.</p> +<p>At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded + into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns + over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous + recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be. + The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying, + state by a most effective silence that men never would, could or + should fly. In August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes + and aerial tactics and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again + flying, shouldered the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of + Upper Greenland off the leading page. And Banghurst had given + ten thousand pounds, and, further, Banghurst was giving five thousand + pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his well-known, magnificent + (but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and several acres of land + near his private residence on the Surrey hills to the strenuous + and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the life-size + practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of privileged + multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town residence + in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties putting + the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost, + but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers + with a beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions.</p> +<p>Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance + comes to our aid.</p> +<p>"I saw Filmer in his glory," he writes, with just the touch of envy + natural to his position as a poet passe. "The man is brushed + and shaved, dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon + Lecturer, the very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes, + and altogether in a state of extraordinary streakiness between + an owlish great man and a scared abashed self-conscious bounder + cruelly exposed. He hasn't a touch of colour in the skin of his face, + his head juts forward, and those queer little dark amber eyes of his + watch furtively round him for his fame. His clothes fit perfectly + and yet sit upon him as though he had bought them ready-made. + He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, you perceive indistinctly, + enormous self-assertive things, he backs into the rear of groups + by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, and when + he walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out + of breath and going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched. + His is a state of tension--horrible tension. And he is the Greatest + Discoverer of This or Any Age--the Greatest Discoverer of This + or Any Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't + somehow quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this. + Banghurst is about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great + little catch, and I swear he will have every one down on his lawn + there before he has finished with the engine; he had bagged + the prime minister yesterday, and he, bless his heart! didn't look + particularly outsize, on the very first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer! + Our obscure unwashed Filmer, the Glory of British science! + Duchesses crowd upon him, beautiful, bold peeresses say in their + beautiful, clear loud voices--have you noticed how penetrating + the great lady is becoming nowadays?--'Oh, Mr. Filmer, how DID + you do it?'</p> +<p>"Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer. + One imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly + and unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps + a little special aptitude.'"</p> +<p>So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in + sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine + swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church + appears below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer + sits at his guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth + stand around him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely + in the rear. The grouping is oddly apposite. Occluding much of + Banghurst, and looking with a pensive, speculative expression + at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, still beautiful, + in spite of the breath of scandal and her eight-and-thirty years, + the only person whose face does not admit a perception of the camera + that was in the act of snapping them all.</p> +<p>So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all, + they are very exterior facts. About the real interest of the business + one is necessarily very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling + at the time? How much was a certain unpleasant anticipation present + inside that very new and fashionable frock-coat? He was in the + halfpenny, penny, six-penny, and more expensive papers alike, + and acknowledged by the whole world as "the Greatest Discoverer + of This or Any Age." He had invented a practicable flying machine, + and every day down among the Surrey hills the life-sized model + was getting ready. And when it was ready, it followed as a clear + inevitable consequence of his having invented and made it--everybody + in the world, indeed, seemed to take it for granted; there wasn't + a gap anywhere in that serried front of anticipation--that he would + proudly and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend with it, and fly.</p> +<p>But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness + in such an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private + constitution. It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is. + We can guess with some confidence now that it must have been + drifting about in his mind a great deal during the day, and, from + a little note to his physician complaining of persistent insomnia, + we have the soundest reason for supposing it dominated his nights, + --the idea that it would be after all, in spite of his theoretical + security, an abominably sickening, uncomfortable, and dangerous + thing for him to flap about in nothingness a thousand feet or so + in the air. It must have dawned upon him quite early in the period + of being the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age, the vision + of doing this and that with an extensive void below. Perhaps + somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height or fallen + down in some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit of + sleeping on the wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling + nightmare one knows, and given him his horror; of the strength + of that horror there remains now not a particle of doubt.</p> +<p>Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier + days of research; the machine had been his end, but now things + were opening out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl + up above there. He was a Discoverer and he had Discovered. + But he was not a Flying Man, and it was only now that he was beginning + to perceive clearly that he was expected to fly. Yet, however much + the thing was present in his mind he gave no expression to it until + the very end, and meanwhile he went to and fro from Banghurst's + magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed and lionised, and + wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in an elegant flat, + enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, wholesome + Fame and Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had been + starved, might be reasonably expected to enjoy.</p> +<p>After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model + had failed one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance, + or he had been distracted by the compliments of an archbishop. + At any rate, it suddenly dug its nose into the air just a little + too steeply as the archbishop was sailing through a Latin quotation + for all the world like an archbishop in a book, and it came down + in the Fulham Road within three yards of a 'bus horse. It stood + for a second perhaps, astonishing and in its attitude astonished, + then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, and the 'bus horse was + incidentally killed.</p> +<p>Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up + and stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him. + His long, white hands still gripped his useless apparatus. + The archbishop followed his skyward stare with an apprehension + unbecoming in an archbishop.</p> +<p>Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road + to relieve Filmer's tension. "My God!" he whispered, and sat down.</p> +<p>Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had + vanished, or rushing into the house.</p> +<p>The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly + for this. Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow + and very careful in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation + in his mind. His care over the strength and soundness of the apparatus + was prodigious. The slightest doubt, and he delayed everything + until the doubtful part could be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior + assistant, fumed at some of these delays, which, he insisted, were + for the most part unnecessary. Banghurst magnified the patient + certitude of Filmer in the New Paper, and reviled it bitterly + to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second assistant, approved Filmer's + wisdom. "We're not wanting a fiasco, man," said MacAndrew. "He's + perfectly well advised."</p> +<p>And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson + and MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine + was to be controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be + just as capable, and even more capable, when at last the time came, + of guiding it through the skies.</p> +<p>Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage + to define just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line + in the matter of his ascent, he might have escaped that painful + ordeal quite easily. If he had had it clearly in his mind he could + have done endless things. He would surely have found no difficulty + with a specialist to demonstrate a weak heart, or something gastric + or pulmonary, to stand in his way--that is the line I am astonished + he did not take,--or he might, had he been man enough, have + declared simply and finally that he did not intend to do the thing. + But the fact is, though the dread was hugely present in his mind, + the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy that all through + this period he kept telling himself that when the occasion came + he would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just gripped + by a great illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and expects + to be better presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of + the machine, and let the assumption that he was going to fly it + take root and flourish exceedingly about him. He even accepted + anticipatory compliments on his courage. And, barring this secret + squeamishness, there can be no doubt he found all the praise and + distinction and fuss he got a delightful and even intoxicating draught.</p> +<p>The Lady Mary Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated + for him.</p> +<p>How THAT began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks. + Probably in the beginning she was just a little "nice" to him + with that impartial partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes, + standing out conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air, + he had a distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow + they must have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great + Discoverer a moment of sufficient courage for something just + a little personal to be mumbled or blurted. However it began, + there is no doubt that it did begin, and presently became quite + perceptible to a world accustomed to find in the proceedings + of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a matter of entertainment. It complicated + things, because the state of love in such a virgin mind as Filmer's + would brace his resolution, if not sufficiently, at any rate + considerably towards facing a danger he feared, and hampered him + in such attempts at evasion as would otherwise be natural and congenial.</p> +<p>It remains a matter for speculation just how the Lady Mary felt for Filmer + and just what she thought of him. At thirty-eight one may have gathered much + wisdom and still be not altogether wise, and the imagination still functions + actively enough in creating glamours and effecting the impossible. He came before + her eyes as a very central man, and that always counts, and he had powers, unique + powers as it seemed, at any rate in the air. The performance with the model + had just a touch of the quality of a potent incantation, and women have ever + displayed an unreasonable disposition to imagine that when a man has powers + he must necessarily have Power. Given so much, and what was not good in Filmer's + manner and appearance became an added merit. He was modest, he hated display, + but given an occasion where TRUE qualities are needed, then--then one would + see!</p> +<p>The late Mrs. Bampton thought it wise to convey to Lady Mary her opinion + that Filmer, all things considered, was rather a "grub." "He's + certainly + not a sort of man I have ever met before," said the Lady Mary, + with a quite unruffled serenity. And Mrs. Bampton, after a swift, + imperceptible glance at that serenity, decided that so far as saying + anything to Lady Mary went, she had done as much as could be expected + of her. But she said a great deal to other people.</p> +<p>And at last, without any undue haste or unseemliness, the day + dawned, the great day, when Banghurst had promised his public-- + the world in fact--that flying should be finally attained and overcome. + Filmer saw it dawn, watched even in the darkness before it dawned, + watched its stars fade and the grey and pearly pinks give place + at last to the clear blue sky of a sunny, cloudless day. He watched it + from the window of his bedroom in the new-built wing of Banghurst's + Tudor house. And as the stars were overwhelmed and the shapes and + substances of things grew into being out of the amorphous dark, + he must have seen more and more distinctly the festive preparations + beyond the beech clumps near the green pavilion in the outer park, + the three stands for the privileged spectators, the raw, new fencing + of the enclosure, the sheds and workshops, the Venetian masts + and fluttering flags that Banghurst had considered essential, + black and limp in the breezeless dawn, and amidst all these things + a great shape covered with tarpauling. A strange and terrible + portent for humanity was that shape, a beginning that must surely + spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men, + but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything + but a narrow and personal light. Several people heard him pacing + in the small hours--for the vast place was packed with guests + by a proprietor editor who, before all understood compression. + And about five o'clock, if not before, Filmer left his room and + wandered out of the sleeping house into the park, alive by that time + with sunlight and birds and squirrels and the fallow deer. MacAndrew, + who was also an early riser, met him near the machine, and they went + and had a look at it together.</p> +<p>It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast, in spite of the urgency + of Banghurst. So soon as the guests began to be about in some number + he seems to have retreated to his room. Thence about ten he went + into the shrubbery, very probably because he had seen the Lady Mary + Elkinghorn there. She was walking up and down, engaged in conversation + with her old school friend, Mrs. Brewis-Craven, and although Filmer + had never met the latter lady before, he joined them and walked + beside them for some time. There were several silences in spite + of the Lady Mary's brilliance. The situation was a difficult one, + and Mrs. Brewis-Craven did not master its difficulty. "He struck me," + she said afterwards with a luminous self-contradiction, "as a very + unhappy person who had something to say, and wanted before all things + to be helped to say it. But how was one to help him when one didn't + know what it was?"</p> +<p>At half-past eleven the enclosures for the public in the outer park + were crammed, there was an intermittent stream of equipages along + the belt which circles the outer park, and the house party was dotted + over the lawn and shrubbery and the corner of the inner park, + in a series of brilliantly attired knots, all making for the + flying machine. Filmer walked in a group of three with Banghurst, + who was supremely and conspicuously happy, and Sir Theodore Hickle, + the president of the Aeronautical Society. Mrs. Banghurst was close + behind with the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, Georgina Hickle, and the Dean + of Stays. Banghurst was large and copious in speech, and such + interstices as he left were filled in by Hickle with complimentary + remarks to Filmer. And Filmer walked between them saying not a word + except by way of unavoidable reply. Behind, Mrs. Banghurst listened + to the admirably suitable and shapely conversation of the Dean + with that fluttered attention to the ampler clergy ten years + of social ascent and ascendency had not cured in her; and the Lady Mary + watched, no doubt with an entire confidence in the world's + disillusionment, the drooping shoulders of the sort of man she had + never met before.</p> +<p>There was some cheering as the central party came into view of + the enclosures, but it was not very unanimous nor invigorating cheering. + They were within fifty yards of the apparatus when Filmer took + a hasty glance over his shoulder to measure the distance of the ladies + behind them, and decided to make the first remark he had initiated + since the house had been left. His voice was just a little hoarse, + and he cut in on Banghurst in mid-sentence on Progress.</p> +<p>"I say, Banghurst," he said, and stopped.</p> +<p>"Yes," said Banghurst.</p> +<p>"I wish--" He moistened his lips. "I'm not feeling well."</p> +<p>Banghurst stopped dead. "Eh?" he shouted.</p> +<p>"A queer feeling." Filmer made to move on, but Banghurst was immovable. + "I don't know. I may be better in a minute. If not--perhaps . . . + MacAndrew--"</p> +<p>"You're not feeling WELL?" said Banghurst, and stared at his white + face.</p> +<p>"My dear!" he said, as Mrs. Banghurst came up with them, "Filmer + says he isn't feeling WELL."</p> +<p>"A little queer," exclaimed Filmer, avoiding the Lady Mary's eyes. + "It may pass off--"</p> +<p>There was a pause.</p> +<p>It came to Filmer that he was the most isolated person in the world.</p> +<p>"In any case," said Banghurst, "the ascent must be made. Perhaps + if you were to sit down somewhere for a moment--"</p> +<p>"It's the crowd, I think," said Filmer.</p> +<p>There was a second pause. Banghurst's eye rested in scrutiny + on Filmer, and then swept the sample of public in the enclosure.</p> +<p>"It's unfortunate," said Sir Theodore Hickle; but still--I suppose-- + Your assistants--Of course, if you feel out of condition and disinclined--"</p> +<p>"I don't think Mr. Filmer would permit THAT for a moment," said Lady + Mary.</p> +<p>"But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run--It might even be dangerous for him + to attempt--" Hickle coughed.</p> +<p>"It's just because it's dangerous," began the Lady Mary, and felt + she had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough.</p> +<p>Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer.</p> +<p>"I feel I ought to go up," he said, regarding the ground. He looked + up and met the Lady Mary's eyes. "I want to go up," he said, and + smiled whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. "If I could + just sit down somewhere for a moment out of the crowd and sun--"</p> +<p>Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. "Come + into my little room in the green pavilion," he said. "It's quite + cool there." He took Filmer by the arm.</p> +<p>Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. "I shall + be all right in five minutes," he said. "I'm tremendously sorry--"</p> +<p>The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. "I couldn't think--" he + said to Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull.</p> +<p>The rest remained watching the two recede.</p> +<p>"He is so fragile," said the Lady Mary.</p> +<p>"He's certainly a highly nervous type," said the Dean, whose weakness + it was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with + enormous families, as "neurotic."</p> +<p>"Of course," said Hickle, "it isn't absolutely necessary for + him + to go up because he has invented--"</p> +<p>"How COULD he avoid it?" asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest + shadow of scorn.</p> +<p>"It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now," said + Mrs. Banghurst a little severely.</p> +<p>"He's not going to be ill," said the Lady Mary, and certainly + she had met Filmer's eye.</p> +<p>"YOU'LL be all right," said Banghurst, as they went towards the pavilion. + "All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you know. + You'll be--you'd get it rough, you know, if you let another man--"</p> +<p>"Oh, I want to go," said Filmer. "I shall be all right. As a + matter + of fact I'm almost inclined NOW--. No! I think I'll have that nip + of brandy first."</p> +<p>Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty + decanter. He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps + five minutes.</p> +<p>The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals + Filmer's face could be seen by the people on the easternmost + of the stands erected for spectators, against the window pane + peering out, and then it would recede and fade. Banghurst vanished + shouting behind the grand stand, and presently the butler appeared + going pavilionward with a tray.</p> +<p>The apartment in which Filmer came to his last solution was a pleasant + little room very simply furnished with green furniture and an old + bureau--for Banghurst was simple in all his private ways. It was + hung with little engravings after Morland and it had a shelf of books. + But as it happened, Banghurst had left a rook rifle he sometimes + played with on the top of the desk, and on the corner of the mantelshelf + was a tin with three or four cartridges remaining in it. As Filmer + went up and down that room wrestling with his intolerable dilemma + he went first towards the neat little rifle athwart the blotting-pad + and then towards the neat little red label </p> +<p>".22 LONG."</p> +<p>The thing must have jumped into his mind in a moment.</p> +<p>Nobody seems to have connected the report with him, though the gun, + being fired in a confined space, must have sounded loud, and there + were several people in the billiard-room, separated from him only + by a lath-and-plaster partition. But directly Banghurst's butler + opened the door and smelt the sour smell of the smoke, he knew, + he says, what had happened. For the servants at least of Banghurst's + household had guessed something of what was going on in Filmer's mind.</p> +<p>All through that trying afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held + a man should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests + for the most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact--though + to conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible--that + Banghurst had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled + by the deceased. The public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed + "like a party that has been ducking a welsher," and there wasn't a + soul + in the train to London, it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying + was a quite impossible thing for man. "But he might have tried it," + said many, "after carrying the thing so far."</p> +<p>In the evening, when he was comparatively alone, Banghurst broke + down and went on like a man of clay. I have been told he wept, + which must have made an imposing scene, and he certainly said + Filmer had ruined his life, and offered and sold the whole apparatus + to MacAndrew for half-a-crown. "I've been thinking--" said MacAndrew + at the conclusion of the bargain, and stopped.</p> +<p>The next morning the name of Filmer was, for the first time, less + conspicuous in the New Paper than in any other daily paper in the world. + The rest of the world's instructors, with varying emphasis, according + to their dignity and the degree of competition between themselves + and the New Paper, proclaimed the "Entire Failure of the New Flying + Machine," and "Suicide of the Impostor." But in the district + of North + Surrey the reception of the news was tempered by a perception of unusual + aerial phenomena.</p> +<p>Overnight Wilkinson and MacAndrew had fallen into violent argument + on the exact motives of their principal's rash act.</p> +<p>"The man was certainly a poor, cowardly body, but so far as his + science went he was NO impostor," said MacAndrew, "and I'm prepared + to give that proposition a very practical demonstration, Mr. Wilkinson, + so soon as we've got the place a little more to ourselves. For I've + no faith in all this publicity for experimental trials."</p> +<p>And to that end, while all the world was reading of the certain failure of + the new flying machine, MacAndrew was soaring and curvetting with great amplitude + and dignity over the Epsom and Wimbledon divisions; and Banghurst, restored + once more to hope and energy, and regardless of public security and the Board + of Trade, was pursuing his gyrations and trying to attract his attention, on + a motor car and in his pyjamas-- he had caught sight of the ascent when pulling + up the blind of his bedroom window--equipped, among other things, with a film + camera that was subsequently discovered to be jammed. And Filmer was lying on + the billiard table in the green pavilion with a sheet about his body. </p> +<p>2. THE MAGIC SHOP</p> +<p>I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed + it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic + balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material + of the basket trick, packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all + that sort of thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day, + almost without warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to + the window, and so conducted himself that there was nothing for it + but to take him in. I had not thought the place was there, to tell + the truth--a modest-sized frontage in Regent Street, between + the picture shop and the place where the chicks run about just + out of patent incubators, but there it was sure enough. I had fancied + it was down nearer the Circus, or round the corner in Oxford Street, + or even in Holborn; always over the way and a little inaccessible + it had been, with something of the mirage in its position; but here + it was now quite indisputably, and the fat end of Gip's pointing + finger made a noise upon the glass.</p> +<p>"If I was rich," said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg, + "I'd buy myself that. And that"--which was The Crying Baby, Very Human + --and that," which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card asserted, + "Buy One and Astonish Your Friends."</p> +<p>"Anything," said Gip, "will disappear under one of those cones. + I have read about it in a book.</p> +<p>"And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--, only they've put it + this way up so's we can't see how it's done."</p> +<p>Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose + to enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously + he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear.</p> +<p>"That," he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle.</p> +<p>"If you had that?" I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up + with a sudden radiance.</p> +<p>"I could show it to Jessie," he said, thoughtful as ever of others.</p> +<p>"It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles," I said, + and laid my hand on the door-handle.</p> +<p>Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so + we came into the shop.</p> +<p>It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing + precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting. + He left the burthen of the conversation to me.</p> +<p>It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell + pinged again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us. + For a moment or so we were alone and could glance about us. + There was a tiger in papier-mache on the glass case that covered + the low counter--a grave, kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head + in a methodical manner; there were several crystal spheres, a china + hand holding magic cards, a stock of magic fish-bowls in various + sizes, and an immodest magic hat that shamelessly displayed its springs. + On the floor were magic mirrors; one to draw you out long and thin, + one to swell your head and vanish your legs, and one to make you short + and fat like a draught; and while we were laughing at these the shopman, + as I suppose, came in.</p> +<p>At any rate, there he was behind the counter--a curious, sallow, + dark man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like + the toe-cap of a boot.</p> +<p>"What can we have the pleasure?" he said, spreading his long, + magic fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware + of him.</p> +<p>"I want," I said, "to buy my little boy a few simple tricks."</p> +<p>"Legerdemain?" he asked. "Mechanical? Domestic?"</p> +<p>"Anything amusing?" said I.</p> +<p>"Um!" said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if + thinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball. + "Something in this way?" he said, and held it out.</p> +<p>The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainments + endless times before--it's part of the common stock of conjurers-- + but I had not expected it here.</p> +<p>"That's good," I said, with a laugh.</p> +<p>"Isn't it?" said the shopman.</p> +<p>Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found + merely a blank palm.</p> +<p>"It's in your pocket," said the shopman, and there it was!</p> +<p>"How much will that be?" I asked.</p> +<p>"We make no charge for glass balls," said the shopman politely. + "We get them,"--he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke--"free." + He produced another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside + its predecessor on the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely, + then directed a look of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally + brought his round-eyed scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled.</p> +<p>"You may have those too," said the shopman, "and, if you DON'T + mind, + one from my mouth. SO!"</p> +<p>Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence + put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved + himself for the next event.</p> +<p>"We get all our smaller tricks in that way," the shopman remarked.</p> +<p>I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. "Instead + of going to the wholesale shop," I said. "Of course, it's cheaper."</p> +<p>"In a way," the shopman said. "Though we pay in the end. But + not + so heavily--as people suppose. . . . Our larger tricks, and our daily + provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that hat. . . + And you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there ISN'T + a wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know + if you noticed our inscription--the Genuine Magic shop." He drew + a business-card from his cheek and handed it to me. "Genuine," + he said, with his finger on the word, and added, "There is absolutely + no deception, sir."</p> +<p>He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought.</p> +<p>He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. "You, you know, + are the Right Sort of Boy."</p> +<p>I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests + of discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip + received it in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him.</p> +<p>"It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway."</p> +<p>And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door, + and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. "Nyar! I WARN 'a + go in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!" and then + the accents of a down-trodden parent, urging consolations and + propitiations. "It's locked, Edward," he said.</p> +<p>"But it isn't," said I.</p> +<p>"It is, sir," said the shopman, "always--for that sort of child," + and as he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little, + white face, pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and + distorted by evil passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing + at the enchanted pane. "It's no good, sir," said the shopman, + as I moved, with my natural helpfulness, doorward, and presently + the spoilt child was carried off howling.</p> +<p>"How do you manage that?" I said, breathing a little more freely.</p> +<p>"Magic!" said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and + behold! + sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into + the shadows of the shop.</p> +<p>"You were saying," he said, addressing himself to Gip, "before + you came in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish + your Friends' boxes?"</p> +<p>Gip, after a gallant effort, said "Yes."</p> +<p>"It's in your pocket."</p> +<p>And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinarily + long body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary + conjurer's manner. "Paper," he said, and took a sheet out of + the empty hat with the springs; "string," and behold his mouth was + a string-box, from which he drew an unending thread, which when + he had tied his parcel he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed + the ball of string. And then he lit a candle at the nose of one + of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck one of his fingers (which + had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, and so sealed the parcel. + "Then there was the Disappearing Egg," he remarked, and produced + one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and also The Crying + Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready, + and he clasped them to his chest.</p> +<p>He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of + his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. + These, you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered + something moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped + it off, and a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out + and ran on the counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box + behind the papier-mache tiger.</p> +<p>"Tut, tut!" said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress; + "careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!"</p> +<p>He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three + eggs, a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable + glass balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more, + talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush + their hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with + a certain personal application. "All sorts of things accumulate, + sir. . . . Not YOU, of course, in particular. . . . Nearly every + customer. . . . Astonishing what they carry about with them. . . ." + The crumpled paper rose and billowed on the counter more and more + and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, until he was altogether + hidden, and still his voice went on and on. "We none of us know + what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, sir. Are we + all then no better than brushed exteriors, whited sepulchres--"</p> +<p>His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone + with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle + of the paper stopped, and everything was still. . . .</p> +<p>"Have you done with my hat?" I said, after an interval.</p> +<p>There was no answer.</p> +<p>I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions + in the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet. . . .</p> +<p>"I think we'll go now," I said. "Will you tell me how much all + this + comes to? . . . .</p> +<p>"I say," I said, on a rather louder note, "I want the bill; + and + my hat, please."</p> +<p>It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile. . . .</p> +<p>"Let's look behind the counter, Gip," I said. "He's making fun + of us."</p> +<p>I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think + there was behind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor, + and a common conjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation, + and looking as stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit + can do. I resumed my hat, and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so + out of my way.</p> +<p>"Dadda!" said Gip, in a guilty whisper.</p> +<p>"What is it, Gip?" said I.</p> +<p>"I DO like this shop, dadda."</p> +<p>"So should I," I said to myself, "if the counter wouldn't suddenly + extend itself to shut one off from the door." But I didn't call + Gip's attention to that. "Pussy!" he said, with a hand out to + the rabbit as it came lolloping past us; "Pussy, do Gip a magic!" + and his eyes followed it as it squeezed through a door I had + certainly not remarked a moment before. Then this door opened wider, + and the man with one ear larger than the other appeared again. + He was smiling still, but his eye met mine with something between + amusement and defiance. "You'd like to see our show-room, sir," he + said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged my finger forward. I + glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye again. I was + beginning to think the magic just a little too genuine. "We haven't + VERY much time," I said. But somehow we were inside the show-room + before I could finish that.</p> +<p>"All goods of the same quality," said the shopman, rubbing his + flexible hands together, "and that is the Best. Nothing in the place + that isn't genuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!"</p> +<p>I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then + I saw he held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail--the little + creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand--and in a moment + he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was + only an image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment--! And his + gesture was exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit + of vermin. I glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking- + horse. I was glad he hadn't seen the thing. "I say," I said, in an + undertone, and indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes, "you + haven't many things like THAT about, have you?"</p> +<p>"None of ours! Probably brought it with you," said the shopman-- + also in an undertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever. + "Astonishing what people WILL carry about with them unawares!" + And then to Gip, "Do you see anything you fancy here?"</p> +<p>There were many things that Gip fancied there.</p> +<p>He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence + and respect. "Is that a Magic Sword?" he said.</p> +<p>"A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers. + It renders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under + eighteen. Half-a-crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These + panoplies on cards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful-- + shield of safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility."</p> +<p>"Oh, daddy!" gasped Gip.</p> +<p>I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me. + He had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had + embarked upon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing + was going to stop him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust + and something very like jealousy that Gip had hold of this person's + finger as usually he has hold of mine. No doubt the fellow was + interesting, I thought, and had an interestingly faked lot of stuff, + really GOOD faked stuff, still--</p> +<p>I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye + on this prestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it. + And no doubt when the time came to go we should be able to go + quite easily.</p> +<p>It was a long, rambling place, that show-room, a gallery broken up + by stands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to other + departments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and + stared at one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing, + indeed, were these that I was presently unable to make out the door + by which we had come.</p> +<p>The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork, + just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes + of soldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid + and said--. I myself haven't a very quick ear and it was a tongue- + twisting sound, but Gip--he has his mother's ear--got it in no time. + "Bravo!" said the shopman, putting the men back into the box + unceremoniously and handing it to Gip. "Now," said the shopman, and + in + a moment Gip had made them all alive again.</p> +<p>"You'll take that box?" asked the shopman.</p> +<p>"We'll take that box," said I, "unless you charge its full value. + In which case it would need a Trust Magnate--"</p> +<p>"Dear heart! NO!" and the shopman swept the little men back again, + shut the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown + paper, tied up and--WITH GIP'S FULL NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE PAPER!</p> +<p>The shopman laughed at my amazement.</p> +<p>"This is the genuine magic," he said. "The real thing."</p> +<p>"It's a little too genuine for my taste," I said again.</p> +<p>After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still + odder the way they were done. He explained them, he turned them + inside out, and there was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit + of a head in the sagest manner.</p> +<p>I did not attend as well as I might. "Hey, presto!" said the Magic + Shopman, and then would come the clear, small "Hey, presto!" + of the boy. But I was distracted by other things. It was being + borne in upon me just how tremendously rum this place was; it was, + so to speak, inundated by a sense of rumness. There was something + a little rum about the fixtures even, about the ceiling, about the + floor, about the casually distributed chairs. I had a queer feeling + that whenever I wasn't looking at them straight they went askew, and + moved about, and played a noiseless puss-in-the-corner behind my back. + And the cornice had a serpentine design with masks--masks altogether + too expressive for proper plaster.</p> +<p>Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking + assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence-- + I saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys + and through an arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar + in an idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features! + The particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it + just as though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all + it was a short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out + like a telescope, and then out it flew and became thinner and thinner + until it was like a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in + a nightmare it was! He flourished it about and flung it forth + as a fly-fisher flings his line.</p> +<p>My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about, + and there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking + no evil. They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was + standing on a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of + big drum in his hand.</p> +<p>"Hide and seek, dadda!" cried Gip. "You're He!"</p> +<p>And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped + the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. "Take that off," + I cried, "this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!"</p> +<p>The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held + the big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little + stool was vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared? . . .</p> +<p>You know, perhaps, that sinister something that comes like a hand + out of the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes + your common self away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither + slow nor hasty, neither angry nor afraid. So it was with me.</p> +<p>I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside.</p> +<p>"Stop this folly!" I said. "Where is my boy?"</p> +<p>"You see," he said, still displaying the drum's interior, "there + is + no deception---"</p> +<p>I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous + movement. I snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open + a door to escape. "Stop!" I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt + after him--into utter darkness.</p> +<p>THUD!</p> +<p>"Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!"</p> +<p>I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking + working man; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little + perplexed with himself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology, + and then Gip had turned and come to me with a bright little smile, + as though for a moment he had missed me.</p> +<p>And he was carrying four parcels in his arm!</p> +<p>He secured immediate possession of my finger.</p> +<p>For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see + the door of the magic shop, and, behold, it was not there! + There was no door, no shop, nothing, only the common pilaster + between the shop where they sell pictures and the window with + the chicks! . . .</p> +<p>I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight + to the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab.</p> +<p>"'Ansoms," said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation.</p> +<p>I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also. + Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and + I felt and discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression + I flung it into the street.</p> +<p>Gip said nothing.</p> +<p>For a space neither of us spoke.</p> +<p>"Dada!" said Gip, at last, "that WAS a proper shop!"</p> +<p>I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing + had seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good; + he was neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously + satisfied with the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms + were the four parcels.</p> +<p>Confound it! what could be in them?</p> +<p>"Um!" I said. "Little boys can't go to shops like that every + day."</p> +<p>He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry + I was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there, + coram publico, in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought, + the thing wasn't so very bad.</p> +<p>But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be + reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary + lead soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether + forget that originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only + genuine sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living + white kitten, in excellent health and appetite and temper.</p> +<p>I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about + in the nursery for quite an unconscionable time. . . .</p> +<p>That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe + it is all right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens, + and the soldiers seem as steady a company as any colonel could + desire. And Gip--?</p> +<p>The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously + with Gip.</p> +<p>But I went so far as this one day. I said, "How would you like + your soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?"</p> +<p>"Mine do," said Gip. "I just have to say a word I know before + I open the lid."</p> +<p>"Then they march about alone?"</p> +<p>"Oh, QUITE, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that."</p> +<p>I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken + occasion to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when + the soldiers were about, but so far I have never discovered them + performing in anything like a magical manner.</p> +<p>It's so difficult to tell.</p> +<p>There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of + paying bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times, + looking for that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that + matter honour is satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address + are known to them, I may very well leave it to these people, + whoever they may be, to send in their bill in their own time.</p> +<p> + 3. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS</p> +<p>Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in + the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. + The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had + tracked the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope, + and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode + to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted, + the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with + the silver-studded bridle.</p> +<p>For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. + It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere + thorn bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now + waterless ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple + distances melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills-- + hills it might be of a greener kind--and above them invisibly + supported, and seeming indeed to hang in the blue, were the snowclad + summits of mountains that grew larger and bolder to the north-westward + as the sides of the valley drew together. And westward the valley + opened until a distant darkness under the sky told where the forests + began. But the three men looked neither east nor west, but only + steadfastly across the valley.</p> +<p>The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. "Nowhere," + he said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. "But after all, + they had a full day's start."</p> +<p>"They don't know we are after them," said the little man on the white + horse.</p> +<p>"SHE would know," said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to himself.</p> +<p>"Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule, + and all to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding---"</p> +<p>The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage + on him. "Do you think I haven't seen that?" he snarled.</p> +<p>"It helps, anyhow," whispered the little man to himself.</p> +<p>The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. "They can't + be over the valley," he said. "If we ride hard--"</p> +<p>He glanced at the white horse and paused.</p> +<p>"Curse all white horses!" said the man with the silver bridle, + and turned to scan the beast his curse included.</p> +<p>The little man looked down between the mclancholy ears of his steed.</p> +<p>"I did my best," he said.</p> +<p>The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt + man passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip.</p> +<p>"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. + The little man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs + of the three made a multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered + grass as they turned back towards the trail. . . .</p> +<p>They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came + through a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes + of horny branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below. + And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only + herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. + Still, by hard scanning, by leaning beside the horses' necks and + pausing ever and again, even these white men could contrive to follow + after their prey.</p> +<p>There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse + grass, and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. + And once the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste + girl may have trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for + a fool.</p> +<p>The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man + on the white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode + one after another, the man with the silver bridle led the way, + and they spoke never a word. After a time it came to the little man + on the white horse that the world was very still. He started out + of his dream. Besides the little noises of their horses and equipment, + the whole great valley kept the brooding quiet of a painted scene.</p> +<p>Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forward to + the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; their shadows + went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; and nearer a crouched + cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was it had gone? Then he remembered + the reverberation from the banks of the gorge and the perpetual accompaniment + of shifting, jostling pebbles. And, moreover--? There was no breeze. That was + it! What a vast, still place it was, a monotonous afternoon slumber. And the + sky open and blank, except for a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the + upper valley.</p> +<p>He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips + to whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, + and stared at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they + had come. Blank! Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign + of a decent beast or tree--much less a man. What a land it was! + What a wilderness! He dropped again into his former pose.</p> +<p>It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple + black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. + After all, the infernal valley WAS alive. And then, to rejoice him + still more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that + came and went, the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered + bush upon a little crest, the first intimations of a possible breeze. + Idly he wetted his finger, and held it up.</p> +<p>He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who + had stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment + he caught his master's eye looking towards him.</p> +<p>For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode + on again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder, + appearing and disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours. + They had ridden four days out of the very limits of the world into + this desolate place, short of water, with nothing but a strip + of dried meat under their saddles, over rocks and mountains, + where surely none but these fugitives had ever been before--for THAT!</p> +<p>And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man + had whole cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women! + Why in the name of passionate folly THIS one in particular? asked + the little man, and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips + with a blackened tongue. It was the way of the master, and that + was all he knew. Just because she sought to evade him. . . .</p> +<p>His eye caught a whole row of high plumed canes bending in unison, + and then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. + The breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness + out of things--and that was well.</p> +<p>"Hullo!" said the gaunt man.</p> +<p>All three stopped abruptly.</p> +<p>"What?" asked the master. "What?"</p> +<p>"Over there," said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley.</p> +<p>"What?"</p> +<p>"Something coming towards us."</p> +<p>And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing + down upon them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, + tongue out, at a steady pace, and running with such an intensity + of purpose that he did not seem to see the horsemen he approached. + He ran with his nose up, following, it was plain, neither scent + nor quarry. As he drew nearer the little man felt for his sword. + "He's mad," said the gaunt rider.</p> +<p>"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted.</p> +<p>The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, + it swerved aside and went panting by them and past. The eyes of + the little man followed its flight. "There was no foam," he said. + For a space the man with the silver-studded bridle stared up + the valley. "Oh, come on!" he cried at last. "What does it matter?" + and jerked his horse into movement again.</p> +<p>The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from nothing but + the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human character. "Come on!" + he whispered to himself. "Why should it be given to one man to say 'Come + on!' with that stupendous violence of effect. Always, all his life, the man + with the silver bridle has been saying that. If <i>I</i> said it--!" + thought the little man. But people marvelled when the master was disobeyed even + in the wildest things. This half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one, + mad--blasphemous almost. The little man, by way of comparison, reflected on + the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart as his master, as brave and, + indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there was obedience, nothing but to + give obedience duly and stoutly. . .</p> +<p>Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back + to more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up + beside his gaunt fellow. "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an + undertone.</p> +<p>The gaunt face looked interrogation.</p> +<p>"They don't like this wind," said the little man, and dropped behind + as the man with the silver bridle turned upon him.</p> +<p>"It's all right," said the gaunt-faced man.</p> +<p>They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode + downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that + crept down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted + how the wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left + he saw a line of dark bulks--wild hog perhaps, galloping down + the valley, but of that he said nothing, nor did he remark again upon + the uneasiness of the horses.</p> +<p>And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball, + a great shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistle-down, + that drove before the wind athwart the path. These balls soared + high in the air, and dropped and rose again and caught for a moment, + and hurried on and passed, but at the sight of them the restlessness + of the horses increased.</p> +<p>Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then + soon very many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley.</p> +<p>They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed, + turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then + hurling on down the valley again. And at that, all three stopped + and sat in their saddles, staring into the thickening haze that + was coming upon them.</p> +<p>"If it were not for this thistle-down--" began the leader.</p> +<p>But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards + of them. It was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft, + ragged, filmy thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial + jelly-fish, as it were, but rolling over and over as it advanced, + and trailing long, cobwebby threads and streamers that floated + in its wake.</p> +<p>"It isn't thistle-down," said the little man.</p> +<p>"I don't like the stuff," said the gaunt man.</p> +<p>And they looked at one another.</p> +<p>"Curse it!" cried the leader. "The air's full of it up there. + If it keeps on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether."</p> +<p>An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the + approach of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses + to the wind, ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing + multitude of floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort + of smooth swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth, + rebounding high, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still, + deliberate assurance.</p> +<p>Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army + passed. At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly + and trailing out reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands, + all three horses began to shy and dance. The master was seized + with a sudden unreasonable impatience. He cursed the drifting globes + roundly. "Get on!" he cried; "get on! What do these things matter? + How CAN they matter? Back to the trail!" He fell swearing at his horse + and sawed the bit across its mouth.</p> +<p>He shouted aloud with rage. "I will follow that trail, I tell you!" + he cried. "Where is the trail?"</p> +<p>He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst + the grass. A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey + streamer dropped about his bridle-arm, some big, active thing + with many legs ran down the back of his head. He looked up to discover + one of those grey masses anchored as it were above him by these things + and flapping out ends as a sail flaps when a boat comes, about-- + but noiselessly.</p> +<p>He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies, + of long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring + the thing down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his + prancing horse with the instinct born of years of horsemanship. + Then the flat of a sword smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead + and cut the drifting balloon of spider-web free, and the whole mass + lifted softly and drove clear and away.</p> +<p>"Spiders!" cried the voice of the gaunt man. "The things are + full + of big spiders! Look, my lord!"</p> +<p>The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away.</p> +<p>"Look, my lord!"</p> +<p>The master found himself staring down at a red, smashed thing + on the ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still + wriggle unavailing legs. Then when the gaunt man pointed to another + mass that bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the + valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the + situation.</p> +<p>"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down + the + valley."</p> +<p>What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man + with the silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing + furiously at imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse + of the gaunt man and hurl it and its rider to earth. His own horse + went a dozen paces before he could rein it in. Then he looked up + to avoid imaginary dangers, and then back again to see a horse + rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standing and slashing over it + at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamed and wrapped + about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on waste land + on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on.</p> +<p>The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse. + He was endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength + of one arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles + of a second grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle, + and this second grey mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank.</p> +<p>The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head, + and spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over, + there were blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man, + suddenly leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces. + His legs were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual + movements with his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was + a thin veil of grey across his face. With his left hand he beat at + something on his body, and suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled + to rise, and fell again, and suddenly, horribly, began to howl, + "Oh--ohoo, ohooh!"</p> +<p>The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon + the ground.</p> +<p>As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, + screaming grey object that struggled up and down, there came a + clatter of hoofs, and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless, + balanced on his belly athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, + whirled past. And again a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept + across the master's face. All about him, and over him, it seemed + this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled and drew nearer him. . . .</p> +<p>To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment + happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its + own accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another + second he was galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword + whirling furiously overhead. And all about him on the quickening + breeze, the spiders' airships, their air bundles and air sheets, + seemed to him to hurry in a conscious pursuit.</p> +<p>Clatter, clatter, thud, thud--the man with the silver bridle rode, + heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, + now left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards + ahead of him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode + the little man on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle. + The reeds bent before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his + shoulder the master could see the webs hurrying to overtake. . . .</p> +<p>He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse + gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then + he reaIised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning + forward on his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late.</p> +<p>But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had + not forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air. + He came off clear with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse + rolled, kicking spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword + drove its point into the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as + though Chance refused him any longer as her Knight, and the splintered + end missed his face by an inch or so.</p> +<p>He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the onrushing + spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought + of the ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting + terror, and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides, + and out of the touch of the gale.</p> +<p>There under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might + crouch, and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety + till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there + for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged + masses trail their streamers across his narrowed sky.</p> +<p>Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full + foot it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand-- + and after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape + for a little while, and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted + up his iron-heeled boot and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did + so, and for a time sought up and down for another.</p> +<p>Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not + drop into the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down, + and sat and fell into deep thought and began after his manner + to gnaw his knuckles and bite his nails. And from this he was moved + by the coming of the man with the white horse.</p> +<p>He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, + stumbling footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man + appeared, a rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing + behind him. They approached each other without speaking, without + a salutation. The little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch + of hopeless bitterness, and came to a stop at last, face to face with + his seated master. The latter winced a little under his dependant's + eye. "Well?" he said at last, with no pretence of authority.</p> +<p>"You left him?"</p> +<p>"My horse bolted."</p> +<p>"I know. So did mine."</p> +<p>He laughed at his master mirthlessly.</p> +<p>"I say my horse bolted," said the man who once had a silver-studded + bridle.</p> +<p>"Cowards both," said the little man.</p> +<p>The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments, + with his eye on his inferior.</p> +<p>"Don't call me a coward," he said at length.</p> +<p>"You are a coward like myself."</p> +<p>"A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear. + That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where + the difference comes in."</p> +<p>"I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved + your life two minutes before. . . . Why are you our lord?"</p> +<p>The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark.</p> +<p>"No man calls me a coward," he said. "No. A broken sword is + better + than none. . . . One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry + two men a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time + it cannot be helped. You begin to understand me? . . . I perceive + that you are minded, on the strength of what you have seen and fancy, + to taint my reputation. It is men of your sort who unmake kings. + Besides which--I never liked you."</p> +<p>"My lord!" said the little man.</p> +<p>"No," said the master. "NO!"</p> +<p>He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps + they faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. + There was a quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, + a cry of despair, a gasp and a blow. . . .</p> +<p>Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity, + and the man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last + very cautiously and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now + he led the white horse that once belonged to the little man. + He would have gone back to his horse to get his silver-mounted + bridle again, but he feared night and a quickening breeze might + still find him in the valley, and besides he disliked greatly + to think he might discover his horse all swathed in cobwebs + and perhaps unpleasantly eaten.</p> +<p>And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he + had been through, and the manner in which he had been preserved + that day, his hand sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck, + and he clasped it for a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so + his eyes went across the valley.</p> +<p>"I was hot with passion," he said, "and now she has met her + reward. + They also, no doubt--"</p> +<p>And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, + but in the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable, + he saw a little spire of smoke.</p> +<p>At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed + anger. Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and + hesitated. And as he did so a little rustle of air went through the + grass about him. Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of + grey. He looked at the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke.</p> +<p>"Perhaps, after all, it is not them," he said at last.</p> +<p>But he knew better.</p> +<p>After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white + horse.</p> +<p>As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some + reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that + lived feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's + hoofs they fled.</p> +<p>Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry + them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, + could do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those + he fancied came too near. Once, where a number ran together over + a bare place, he was minded to dismount and trample them with his boots, + but this impulse he overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle, + and looked back at the smoke.</p> +<p>"Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders! Well, + well. . . . + The next time I must spin a web."</p> +<p> + 4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT</p> +<p>He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder + I can see him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye-- + it meets me with an expression.</p> +<p>It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it.</p> +<p>Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told + long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his + ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who + would believe me if I did tell?</p> +<p>Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest + clubman in London.</p> +<p>He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, + stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him + biting at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me. + Confound him!--with his eyes on me!</p> +<p>That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL + behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your + embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft. + The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me + by making my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his + liquid appeal, with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks.</p> +<p>And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating?</p> +<p>Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the + truth!</p> +<p>Pyecraft--. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very smoking- room. + I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was sitting all alone, wishing + I knew more of the members, and suddenly he came, a great rolling front of chins + and abdomina, towards me, and grunted and sat down in a chair close by me and + wheezed for a space, and scraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and + then addressed me. I forget what he said--something about the matches not lighting + properly, and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping the waiters one by one + as they went by, and telling them about the matches in that thin, fluty voice + he has. But, anyhow, it was in some such way we began our talking. </p> +<p>He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence + to my figure and complexion. "YOU ought to be a good cricketer," + he said. I suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would + call lean, and I suppose I am rather dark, still--I am not ashamed + of having a Hindu great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want + casual strangers to see through me at a glance to HER. So that + I was set against Pyecraft from the beginning.</p> +<p>But he only talked about me in order to get to himself.</p> +<p>"I expect," he said, "you take no more exercise than I do, and + probably you eat no less." (Like all excessively obese people + he fancied he ate nothing.) "Yet,"--and he smiled an oblique smile-- + "we differ."</p> +<p>And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness; + all he did for his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness; + what people had advised him to do for his fatness and what he had + heard of people doing for fatness similar to his. "A priori," he said, + "one would think a question of nutrition could be answered by dietary + and a question of assimilation by drugs." It was stifling. It was + dumpling talk. It made me feel swelled to hear him.</p> +<p>One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time + came when I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether + too conspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but + he would come wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and + gormandised round and about me while I had my lunch. He seemed + at times almost to be clinging to me. He was a bore, but not so + fearful a bore as to be limited to me; and from the first there + was something in his manner--almost as though he knew, almost as + though he penetrated to the fact that I MIGHT--that there was a remote, + exceptional chance in me that no one else presented.</p> +<p>"I'd give anything to get it down," he would say--"anything," + and peer at me over his vast cheeks and pant.</p> +<p>Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged, no doubt to order another + buttered tea-cake!</p> +<p>He came to the actual thing one day. "Our Pharmacopoeia," he said, + "our Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical + science. In the East, I've been told--"</p> +<p>He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium.</p> +<p>I was quite suddenly angry with him. "Look here," I said, "who + told + you about my great-grandmother's recipes?"</p> +<p>"Well," he fenced.</p> +<p>"Every time we've met for a week," I said, "and we've met pretty + often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret + of mine."</p> +<p>"Well," he said, "now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, + yes, + it is so. I had it--"</p> +<p>"From Pattison?"</p> +<p>"Indirectly," he said, which I believe was lying, "yes."</p> +<p>"Pattison," I said, "took that stuff at his own risk."</p> +<p>He pursed his mouth and bowed.</p> +<p>"My great-grandmother's recipes," I said, "are queer things + to handle. + My father was near making me promise--"</p> +<p>"He didn't?"</p> +<p>"No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once."</p> +<p>"Ah! . . . But do you think--? Suppose--suppose there did happen + to be one--"</p> +<p>"The things are curious documents," I said.</p> +<p>"Even the smell of 'em. . . . No!"</p> +<p>But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. + I was always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would + fall on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was + also annoyed with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling + for him that disposed me to say, "Well, TAKE the risk!" The little + affair of Pattison to which I have alluded was a different matter + altogether. What it was doesn't concern us now, but I knew, anyhow, + that the particular recipe I used then was safe. The rest I didn't + know so much about, and, on the whole, I was inclined to doubt + their safety pretty completely.</p> +<p>Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned--</p> +<p>I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense + undertaking.</p> +<p>That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of + my safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote + the recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins + of a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last + degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family, + with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge + of Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely + plain sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough, + and sat on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it.</p> +<p>"Look here," said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away + from his eager grasp.</p> +<p>"So far as I--can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight. + ("Ah!" said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that. + And if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know-- + I blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on + that side were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?"</p> +<p>"Let me try it," said Pyecraft.</p> +<p>I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort + and fell flat within me. "What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft," I asked, + "do you think you'll look like when you get thin?"</p> +<p>He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word + to me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never, + and then I handed him that little piece of skin.</p> +<p>"It's nasty stuff," I said.</p> +<p>"No matter," he said, and took it.</p> +<p>He goggled at it. "But--but--" he said.</p> +<p>He had just discovered that it wasn't English.</p> +<p>"To the best of my ability," I said, "I will do you a translation."</p> +<p>I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever he + approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected + our compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever. + And then he got a word in.</p> +<p>"I must speak," he said. "It isn't fair. There's something wrong. + It's done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice."</p> +<p>"Where's the recipe?"</p> +<p>He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book.</p> +<p>I ran my eye over the items. "Was the egg addled?" I asked.</p> +<p>"No. Ought it to have been?"</p> +<p>"That," I said, "goes without saying in all my poor dear + great-grandmother's + recipes. When condition or quality is not specified you must get + the worst. She was drastic or nothing. . . . And there's one or two + possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got FRESH + rattlesnake venom."</p> +<p>"I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost--"</p> +<p>"That's your affair, anyhow. This last item--"</p> +<p>"I know a man who--"</p> +<p>"Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know + the language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious. + By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog."</p> +<p>For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and + as fat and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke + the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day + in the cloakroom he said, "Your great-grandmother--"</p> +<p>"Not a word against her," I said; and he held his peace.</p> +<p>I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking + to three new members about his fatness as though he was in search + of other recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came.</p> +<p>"Mr. Formalyn!" bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram + and opened it at once.</p> +<p>"For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft."</p> +<p>"H'm," said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the + rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently + promised that I made a most excellent lunch.</p> +<p>I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the + upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I + had done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar.</p> +<p>"Mr. Pyecraft?" said I, at the front door.</p> +<p>They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days.</p> +<p>"He expects me," said I, and they sent me up.</p> +<p>I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing.</p> +<p>"He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow," I said to myself. "A man + who + eats like a pig ought to look like a pig."</p> +<p>An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly + placed cap, came and surveyed me through the lattice.</p> +<p>I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion.</p> +<p>"Well?" said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of the + landing.</p> +<p>"'E said you was to come in if you came," she said, and regarded + me, + making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially, + "'E's locked in, sir." </p> +<p>"Locked in?"</p> +<p>"Locked himself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since, + sir. And ever and again SWEARING. Oh, my!"</p> +<p>I stared at the door she indicated by her glances.</p> +<p>"In there?" I said.</p> +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> +<p>"What's up?"</p> +<p>She shook her head sadly, "'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir. + 'EAVY vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's 'ad, + sooit puddin', sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside, + if you please, and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink AWFUL."</p> +<p>There came a piping bawl from inside the door: "That Formalyn?"</p> +<p>"That you, Pyecraft?" I shouted, and went and banged the door.</p> +<p>"Tell her to go away."</p> +<p>I did.</p> +<p>Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like + some one feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar + grunts.</p> +<p>"It's all right," I said, "she's gone."</p> +<p>But for a long time the door didn't open.</p> +<p>I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, "Come in."</p> +<p>I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see + Pyecraft.</p> +<p>Well, you know, he wasn't there!</p> +<p>I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room + in a state of untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books + and writing things, and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft--</p> +<p>"It's all right, o' man; shut the door," he said, and then I + discovered him.</p> +<p>There he was right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door, + as though some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious + and angry. He panted and gesticulated. "Shut the door," he said. + "If that woman gets hold of it--"</p> +<p>I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared.</p> +<p>"If anything gives way and you tumble down," I said, "you'll + break + your neck, Pyecraft."</p> +<p>"I wish I could," he wheezed.</p> +<p>"A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics--"</p> +<p>"Don't," he said, and looked agonised.</p> +<p>"I'll tell you," he said, and gesticulated.</p> +<p>"How the deuce," said I, "are you holding on up there?"</p> +<p>And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all, + that he was floating up there--just as a gas-filled bladder might + have floated in the same position. He began a struggle to thrust + himself away from the ceiling and to clamber down the wall to me. + "It's that prescription," he panted, as he did so. "Your great-gran--"</p> +<p>He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke + and it gave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while + the picture smashed onto the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling, + and I knew then why he was all over white on the more salient curves + and angles of his person. He tried again more carefully, coming + down by way of the mantel.</p> +<p>It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat, + apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceiling + to the floor. "That prescription," he said. "Too successful."</p> +<p>"How?"</p> +<p>"Loss of weight--almost complete."</p> +<p>And then, of course, I understood.</p> +<p>"By Jove, Pyecraft," said I, "what you wanted was a cure for + fatness! + But you always called it weight. You would call it weight."</p> +<p>Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time. + "Let me help you!" I said, and took his hand and pulled him down. + He kicked about, trying to get a foothold somewhere. It was very like + holding a flag on a windy day.</p> +<p>"That table," he said, pointing, "is solid mahogany and very + heavy. + If you can put me under that---"</p> +<p>I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while + I stood on his hearthrug and talked to him.</p> +<p>I lit a cigar. "Tell me," I said, "what happened?"</p> +<p>"I took it," he said.</p> +<p>"How did it taste?"</p> +<p>"Oh, BEASTLY!"</p> +<p>I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients + or the probable compound or the possible results, almost all of + my great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be + extraordinarily uninviting. For my own part--</p> +<p>"I took a little sip first."</p> +<p>"Yes?"</p> +<p>"And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take + the draught."</p> +<p>"My dear Pyecraft!"</p> +<p>"I held my nose," he explained. "And then I kept on getting + lighter + and lighter--and helpless, you know."</p> +<p>He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. "What the goodness am I + to DO?" he said.</p> +<p>"There's one thing pretty evident," I said, "that you mustn't + do. + If you go out of doors, you'll go up and up." I waved an arm upward. + "They'd have to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again."</p> +<p>"I suppose it will wear off?"</p> +<p>I shook my head. "I don't think you can count on that," I said.</p> +<p>And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out + at adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should + have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying + circumstances--that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and + my great-grandmother with an utter want of discretion.</p> +<p>"I never asked you to take the stuff," I said.</p> +<p>And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me, + I sat down in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober, + friendly fashion.</p> +<p>I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon + himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had + eaten too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point.</p> +<p>He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect + of his lesson. "And then," said I, "you committed the sin of + euphuism. + You called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You--"</p> +<p>He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO?</p> +<p>I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we + came to the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that + it would not be difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling + with his hands--</p> +<p>"I can't sleep," he said.</p> +<p>But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out, + to make a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things + on with tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button + at the side. He would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said; + and after some squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was + quite delightful to see the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which + the good lady took all these amazing inversions.) He could have + a library ladder in his room, and all his meals could be laid on + the top of his bookcase. We also hit on an ingenious device by which + he could get to the floor whenever he wanted, which was simply to put + the British Encyclopaedia (tenth edition) on the top of his open + shelves. He just pulled out a couple of volumes and held on, and down + he came. And we agreed there must be iron staples along the skirting, + so that he could cling to those whenever he wanted to get about the + room on the lower level.</p> +<p>As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested. + It was I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her, + and it was I chiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent + two whole days at his flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man + with a screw-driver, and I made all sorts of ingenious adaptations + for him--ran a wire to bring his bells within reach, turned all + his electric lights up instead of down, and so on. The whole affair + was extremely curious and interesting to me, and it was delightful + to think of Pyecraft like some great, fat blow-fly, crawling about + on his ceiling and clambering round the lintels of his doors + from one room to another, and never, never, never coming to + the club any more. . . .</p> +<p>Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was + sitting by his fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his + favourite corner by the cornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the + ceiling, when the idea struck me. "By Jove, Pyecraft!" I said, "all + this is totally unnecessary."</p> +<p>And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion + I blurted it out. "Lead underclothing," said I, and the mischief was + done.</p> +<p>Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. "To be right ways up + again--" he said. I gave him the whole secret before I saw where + it would take me. "Buy sheet lead," I said, "stamp it into discs. + Sew 'em all over your underclothes until you have enough. Have + lead-soled boots, carry a bag of solid lead, and the thing is done! + Instead of being a prisoner here you may go abroad again, Pyecraft; + you may travel--"</p> +<p>A still happier idea came to me. "You need never fear a shipwreck. + All you need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the + necessary amount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air--"</p> +<p>In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head. + "By Jove!" he said, "I shall be able to come back to the club + again."</p> +<p>The thing pulled me up short. "By Jove!" I said faintly. "Yes. + Of course--you will."</p> +<p>He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing--as I live!-- + a third go of buttered tea-cake. And no one in the whole world knows-- + except his housekeeper and me--that he weighs practically nothing; + that he is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere clouds + in clothing, niente, nefas, the most inconsiderable of men. There + he sits watching until I have done this writing. Then, if he can, + he will waylay me. He will come billowing up to me. . . .</p> +<p>He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it + doesn't feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little. + And always somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say, + "The secret's keeping, eh? If any one knew of it--I should be + so ashamed. . . . Makes a fellow look such a fool, you know. + Crawling about on a ceiling and all that. . . ."</p> +<p>And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable + strategic position between me and the door.</p> +<p> + 5. MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND</p> +<p>"There's a man in that shop," said the Doctor, "who has been + in + Fairyland."</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual + village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and + brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window. + "Tell me about it," I said, after a pause.</p> +<p>"<i>I</i> don't know," said the Doctor. "He's an ordinary + sort of lout-- Skelmersdale is his name. But everybody about here believes it + like Bible truth."</p> +<p>I reverted presently to the topic.</p> +<p>"I know nothing about it," said the Doctor, "and I don't WANT + to know. + I attended him for a broken finger--Married and Single cricket match-- + and that's when I struck the nonsense. That's all. But it shows you + the sort of stuff I have to deal with, anyhow, eh? Nice to get + modern sanitary ideas into a people like this!"</p> +<p>"Very," I said in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell + me about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind, + I observe, are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health. + I was as sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham + people "asses," I said they were "thundering asses," but + even that + did not allay him.</p> +<p>Afterwards, later in the summer, an urgent desire to seclude myself, + while finishing my chapter on Spiritual Pathology--it was really, + I believe, stiffer to write than it is to read--took me to Bignor. + I lodged at a farmhouse, and presently found myself outside that + little general shop again, in search of tobacco. "Skelmersdale," + said I to myself at the sight of it, and went in.</p> +<p>I was served by a short, but shapely, young man, with a fair downy complexion, + good, small teeth, blue eyes, and a languid manner. I scrutinised him curiously. + Except for a touch of melancholy in his expression, he was nothing out of the + common. He was in the shirt-sleeves and tucked-up apron of his trade, and a + pencil was thrust behind his inoffensive ear. Athwart his black waistcoat was + a gold chain, from which dangled a bent guinea.</p> +<p>"Nothing more to-day, sir?" he inquired. He leant forward over + my bill as he spoke.</p> +<p>"Are you Mr. Skelmersdale?" said I.</p> +<p>"I am, sir," he said, without looking up.</p> +<p>"Is it true that you have been in Fairyland?"</p> +<p>He looked up at me for a moment with wrinkled brows, with an aggrieved, + exasperated face. "O SHUT it! " he said, and, after a moment + of hostility, eye to eye, he went on adding up my bill. "Four, + six and a half," he said, after a pause. "Thank you, Sir."</p> +<p>So, unpropitiously, my acquaintance with Mr. Skelmersdale began.</p> +<p>Well, I got from that to confidence--through a series of toilsome + efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night + I went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme + seclusion from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day. + I contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found + the one subject to avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was + open and amiable in a commonplace sort of way, but on that he had + been worried--it was a manifest taboo. Only once in the room did + I hear the slightest allusion to his experience in his presence, + and that was by a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him. + Skelmersdale had run a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor + standards, was uncommonly good play. "Steady on!" said his adversary. + "None of your fairy flukes!"</p> +<p>Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung + it down and walked out of the room.</p> +<p>"Why can't you leave 'im alone?" said a respectable elder who had + been enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval + the grin of satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face.</p> +<p>I scented my opportunity. "What's this joke," said I, "about + Fairyland?"</p> +<p>"'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale," said + the respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was + more communicative. "They DO say, sir," he said, "that they took + him + into Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks."</p> +<p>And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep + had started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time + I had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair. + Formerly, before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar + little shop at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen + had taken place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late + one night on the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight + of men, and had returned with "his cuffs as clean as when he started," + and his pockets full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of + moody wretchedness that only slowly passed away, and for many days he + would give no account of where it was he had been. The girl he was + engaged to at Clapton Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him + over partly because he refused, and partly because, as she said, he + fairly gave her the "'ump." And then when, some time after, he let + out + to some one carelessly that he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go + back, and when the thing spread and the simple badinage of the + countryside came into play, he threw up his situation abruptly, and + came to Bignor to get out of the fuss. But as to what had happened in + Fairyland none of these people knew. There the gathering in the Village + Room went to pieces like a pack at fault. One said this, and another + said that.</p> +<p>Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and + sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing + through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent + interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story.</p> +<p>"If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll," I said, "why don't + you dig it + out?"</p> +<p>"That's what I says," said the young ploughboy.</p> +<p>"There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll," said the + respectable elder, solemnly, "one time and another. But there's + none as goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging."</p> +<p>The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive; + I felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction, + and the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts + of the case was distinctly whetted. If these real facts were to be + got from any one, they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself; + and I set myself, therefore, still more assiduously to efface + the first bad impression I had made and win his confidence to the pitch + of voluntary speech. In that endeavour I had a social advantage. + Being a person of affability and no apparent employment, and wearing + tweeds and knickerbockers, I was naturally classed as an artist + in Bignor, and in the remarkable code of social precedence prevalent + in Bignor an artist ranks considerably higher than a grocer's assistant. + Skelmersdale, like too many of his class, is something of a snob; + he had told me to "shut it," only under sudden, excessive provocation, + and with, I am certain, a subsequent repentance; he was, I knew, + quite glad to be seen walking about the village with me. In due course, + he accepted the proposal of a pipe and whisky in my rooms readily + enough, and there, scenting by some happy instinct that there + was trouble of the heart in this, and knowing that confidences beget + confidences, I plied him with much of interest and suggestion from + my real and fictitious past. And it was after the third whisky + of the third visit of that sort, if I remember rightly, that a propos + of some artless expansion of a little affair that had touched and + left me in my teens, that he did at last, of his own free will + and motion, break the ice. "It was like that with me," he said, + "over there at Aldington. It's just that that's so rum. First I didn't + care a bit and it was all her, and afterwards, when it was too late, + it was, in a manner of speaking, all me."</p> +<p>I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out + another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight + that the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland + adventure he had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done + the trick with him, and from being just another half-incredulous, + would-be facetious stranger, I had, by all my wealth of shameless + self-exposure, become the possible confidant. He had been bitten + by the desire to show that he, too, had lived and felt many things, + and the fever was upon him.</p> +<p>He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness + to clear him up with a few precise questions was only equalled + and controlled by my anxiety not to get to this sort of thing too soon. + But in another meeting or so the basis of confidence was complete; + and from first to last I think I got most of the items and aspects-- + indeed, I got quite a number of times over almost everything that + Mr. Skelmersdale, with his very limited powers of narration, will + ever be able to tell. And so I come to the story of his adventure, + and I piece it all together again. Whether it really happened, + whether he imagined it or dreamt it, or fell upon it in some strange + hallucinatory trance, I do not profess to say. But that he invented + it I will not for one moment entertain. The man simply and honestly + believes the thing happened as he says it happened; he is transparently + incapable of any lie so elaborate and sustained, and in the belief + of the simple, yet often keenly penetrating, rustic minds about him + I find a very strong confirmation of his sincerity. He believes-- + and nobody can produce any positive fact to falsify his belief. + As for me, with this much of endorsement, I transmit his story-- + I am a little old now to justify or explain.</p> +<p>He says he went to sleep on Aldington Knoll about ten o'clock one + night--it was quite possibly Midsummer night, though he has never + thought of the date, and he cannot be sure within a week or so-- + and it was a fine night and windless, with a rising moon. I have been + at the pains to visit this Knoll thrice since his story grew up + under my persuasions, and once I went there in the twilight summer + moonrise on what was, perhaps, a similar night to that of his adventure. + Jupiter was great and splendid above the moon, and in the north + and northwest the sky was green and vividly bright over the sunken + sun. The Knoll stands out bare and bleak under the sky, but surrounded + at a little distance by dark thickets, and as I went up towards it + there was a mighty starting and scampering of ghostly or quite + invisible rabbits. Just over the crown of the Knoll, but nowhere else, + was a multitudinous thin trumpeting of midges. The Knoll is, I believe, + an artificial mound, the tumulus of some great prehistoric chieftain, + and surely no man ever chose a more spacious prospect for a sepulchre. + Eastward one sees along the hills to Hythe, and thence across + the Channel to where, thirty miles and more perhaps, away, the great + white lights by Gris Nez and Boulogne wink and pass and shine. + Westward lies the whole tumbled valley of the Weald, visible as far + as Hindhead and Leith Hill, and the valley of the Stour opens + the Downs in the north to interminable hills beyond Wye. All + Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch and Romney + and Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and + the hills multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up + to Beachy Head.</p> +<p>And out upon all this it was that Skelmersdale wandered, being troubled + in his earlier love affair, and as he says, "not caring WHERE he went." + And there he sat down to think it over, and so, sulking and grieving, + was overtaken by sleep. And so he fell into the fairies' power.</p> +<p>The quarrel that had upset him was some trivial matter enough + between himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged. + She was a farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and "very respectable," + and no doubt an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover + were very young and with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly + keen edge of criticism, that irrational hunger for a beautiful + perfection, that life and wisdom do presently and most mercifully + dull. What the precise matter of quarrel was I have no idea. She may + have said she liked men in gaiters when he hadn't any gaiters on, + or he may have said he liked her better in a different sort of hat, + but however it began, it got by a series of clumsy stages to bitterness + and tears. She no doubt got tearful and smeary, and he grew dusty + and drooping, and she parted with invidious comparisons, grave doubts + whether she ever had REALLY cared for him, and a clear certainty + she would never care again. And with this sort of thing upon his mind + he came out upon Aldington Knoll grieving, and presently, after + a long interval, perhaps, quite inexplicably, fell asleep.</p> +<p>He woke to find himself on a softer turf than ever he had slept + on before, and under the shade of very dark trees that completely + hid the sky. Always, indeed, in Fairyland the sky is hidden, it seems. + Except for one night when the fairies were dancing, Mr. Skelmersdale, + during all his time with them, never saw a star. And of that night + I am in doubt whether he was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings + and rushes are, in those low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth.</p> +<p>But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves + and amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright + and fine. Mr. Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL, + and the next that quite a number of people still smaller were standing + all about him. For some reason, he says, he was neither surprised + nor frightened, but sat up quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep + out of his eyes. And there all about him stood the smiling elves + who had caught him sleeping under their privileges and had brought + him into Fairyland.</p> +<p>What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague + and imperfect is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor + detail does he seem to have been. They were clothed in something + very light and beautiful, that was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves, + nor the petals of flowers. They stood all about him as he sat and waked, + and down the glade towards him, down a glow-worm avenue and fronted + by a star, came at once that Fairy Lady who is the chief personage + of his memory and tale. Of her I gathered more. She was clothed in + filmy green, and about her little waist was a broad silver girdle. Her + hair waved back from her forehead on either side; there were curls not + too wayward and yet astray, and on her brow was a little tiara, + set with a single star. Her sleeves were some sort of open sleeves + that gave little glimpses of her arms; her throat, I think, was + a little displayed, because he speaks of the beauty of her neck + and chin. There was a necklace of coral about her white throat, + and in her breast a coral-coloured flower. She had the soft lines + of a little child in her chin and cheeks and throat. And her eyes, + I gather, were of a kindled brown, very soft and straight and sweet + under her level brows. You see by these particulars how greatly + this lady must have loomed in Mr. Skelmersdale's picture. Certain + things he tried to express and could not express; "the way she moved," + he said several times; and I fancy a sort of demure joyousness + radiated from this Lady.</p> +<p>And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest + and chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale + set out to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed + him gladly and a little warmly--I suspect a pressure of his hand + in both of hers and a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago + young Skelmersdale may have been a very comely youth. And once + she took his arm, and once, I think, she led him by the hand adown + the glade that the glow-worms lit.</p> +<p>Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from + Mr. Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives + little unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places + where there were many fairies together, of "toadstool things that + shone pink," of fairy food, of which he could only say "you should + have tasted it!" and of fairy music, "like a little musical box," + that came out of nodding flowers. There was a great open place + where fairies rode and raced on "things," but what Mr. Skelmersdale + meant by "these here things they rode," there is no telling. Larvae, + perhaps, or crickets, or the little beetles that elude us so abundantly. + There was a place where water splashed and gigantic king-cups grew, + and there in the hotter times the fairies bathed together. There were + games being played and dancing and much elvish love-making, too, + I think, among the moss-branch thickets. There can be no doubt that + the Fairy Lady made love to Mr. Skelmersdale, and no doubt either + that this young man set himself to resist her. A time came, indeed, + when she sat on a bank beside him, in a quiet, secluded place + "all smelling of vi'lets," and talked to him of love.</p> +<p>"When her voice went low and she whispered," said Mr. Skelmersdale, + "and laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft, + warm friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my + 'ead."</p> +<p>It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent. + He saw "'ow the wind was blowing," he says, and so, sitting there + in a place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely + Fairy Lady about him, Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently-- + that he was engaged!</p> +<p>She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad + for her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have--even + his heart's desire.</p> +<p>And Mr. Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking + at her little lips as they just dropped apart and came together, + led up to the more intimate question by saying he would like enough + capital to start a little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said, + he had money enough to do that. I imagine a little surprise in those + brown eyes he talked about, but she seemed sympathetic for all that, + and she asked him many questions about the little shop, "laughing like" + all the time. So he got to the complete statement of his affianced + position, and told her all about Millie.</p> +<p>"All?" said I.</p> +<p>"Everything," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "just who she was, and + where + she lived, and everything about her. I sort of felt I 'ad to all + the time, I did."</p> +<p>"'Whatever you want you shall have,' said the Fairy Lady. 'That's as + good as done. You SHALL feel you have the money just as you wish. + And now, you know--YOU MUST KISS ME.'"</p> +<p>And Mr. Skelmersdale pretended not to hear the latter part of her + remark, and said she was very kind. That he really didn't deserve she + should be so kind. And--</p> +<p>The Fairy Lady suddenly came quite close to him and whispered, "Kiss + me!"</p> +<p>"And," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "like a fool, I did."</p> +<p>There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite + the other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard. There was + something magic in that kiss; assuredly it marked a turning point. + At any rate, this is one of the passages that he thought sufficiently + important to describe most at length. I have tried to get it right, + I have tried to disentangle it from the hints and gestures through + which it came to me, but I have no doubt that it was all different + from my telling and far finer and sweeter, in the soft filtered light + and the subtly stirring silences of the fairy glades. The Fairy Lady + asked him more about Millie, and was she very lovely, and so on-- + a great many times. As to Millie's loveliness, I conceive him + answering that she was "all right." And then, or on some such + occasion, the Fairy Lady told him she had fallen in love with him + as he slept in the moonlight, and so he had been brought into + Fairyland, and she had thought, not knowing of Millie, that perhaps + he might chance to love her. "But now you know you can't," she said, + "so you must stop with me just a little while, and then you must + go back to Millie." She told him that, and you know Skelmersdale + was already in love with her, but the pure inertia of his mind kept + him in the way he was going. I imagine him sitting in a sort + of stupefaction amidst all these glowing beautiful things, answering + about his Millie and the little shop he projected and the need + of a horse and cart. . . . And that absurd state of affairs must + have gone on for days and days. I see this little lady, hovering + about him and trying to amuse him, too dainty to understand his + complexity and too tender to let him go. And he, you know, hypnotised + as it were by his earthly position, went his way with her hither + and thither, blind to everything in Fairyland but this wonderful + intimacy that had come to him. It is hard, it is impossible, to give + in print the effect of her radiant sweetness shining through the jungle + of poor Skelmersdale's rough and broken sentences. To me, at least, + she shone clear amidst the muddle of his story like a glow-worm + in a tangle of weeds.</p> +<p>There must have been many days of things while all this was happening-- + and once, I say, they danced under the moonlight in the fairy rings + that stud the meadows near Smeeth--but at last it all came to an end. + She led him into a great cavernous place, lit by a red nightlight + sort of thing, where there were coffers piled on coffers, and cups + and golden boxes, and a great heap of what certainly seemed to all + Mr. Skelmersdale's senses--coined gold. There were little gnomes + amidst this wealth, who saluted her at her coming, and stood aside. + And suddenly she turned on him there with brightly shining eyes.</p> +<p>"And now," she said, "you have been kind to stay with me so + long, + and it is time I let you go. You must go back to your Millie. You must + go back to your Millie, and here--just as I promised you--they will + give you gold."</p> +<p>"She choked like," said Mr. Skelmersdale. "At that, I had a + sort + of feeling--" (he touched his breastbone) "as though I was fainting + here. I felt pale, you know, and shivering, and even then--I 'adn't + a thing to say."</p> +<p>He paused. "Yes," I said.</p> +<p>The scene was beyond his describing. But I know that she kissed + him good-bye.</p> +<p>"And you said nothing?"</p> +<p>"Nothing," he said. "I stood like a stuffed calf. She just looked + back once, you know, and stood smiling like and crying--I could + see the shine of her eyes--and then she was gone, and there was + all these little fellows bustling about me, stuffing my 'ands and + my pockets and the back of my collar and everywhere with gold."</p> +<p>And then it was, when the Fairy Lady had vanished, that Mr. Skelmersdale + really understood and knew. He suddenly began plucking out the gold + they were thrusting upon him, and shouting out at them to prevent + their giving him more. "'I don't WANT yer gold,' I said. 'I 'aven't + done yet. I'm not going. I want to speak to that Fairy Lady again.' + I started off to go after her and they held me back. Yes, stuck + their little 'ands against my middle and shoved me back. They kept + giving me more and more gold until it was running all down my + trouser legs and dropping out of my 'ands. 'I don't WANT yer gold,' + I says to them, 'I want just to speak to the Fairy Lady again.'"</p> +<p>"And did you?"</p> +<p>"It came to a tussle."</p> +<p>"Before you saw her?"</p> +<p>"I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere + to be seen."</p> +<p>So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long + grotto, seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate + place athwart which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro. + And about him elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes + came out of the cave after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting + it after him, shouting, "Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and + fairy gold!"</p> +<p>And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over, + and he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly + set himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern, + through a place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly + and often. The elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him + and pricking him, and the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him + and dashed into his face, and the gnomes pursued him shouting and + pelting him with fairy gold. As he ran with all this strange rout + about him and distracting him, suddenly he was knee-deep in a swamp, + and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted roots, and he caught his foot + in one and stumbled and fell. . . .</p> +<p>He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself + sprawling upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars.</p> +<p>He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff + and cold, and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor + of dawn and a chilly wind were coming up together. He could have + believed the whole thing a strangely vivid dream until he thrust + his hand into his side pocket and found it stuffed with ashes. + Then he knew for certain it was fairy gold they had given him. + He could feel all their pinches and pricks still, though there was + never a bruise upon him. And in that manner, and so suddenly, + Mr. Skelmersdale came out of Fairyland back into this world of men. + Even then he fancied the thing was but the matter of a night until + he returned to the shop at Aldington Corner and discovered amidst + their astonishment that he had been away three weeks.</p> +<p>"Lor'! the trouble I 'ad!" said Mr. Skelmersdale.</p> +<p>"How?"</p> +<p>"Explaining. I suppose you've never had anything like that to explain."</p> +<p>"Never," I said, and he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of + this person and that. One name he avoided for a space.</p> +<p>"And Millie?" said I at last.</p> +<p>"I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie," he said.</p> +<p>"I expect she seemed changed?"</p> +<p>"Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big, + you know, and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun, + when it rose in the morning, fair hit me in the eye!"</p> +<p>"And Millie?"</p> +<p>"I didn't want to see Millie."</p> +<p>"And when you did?"</p> +<p>"I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?' + she said, and I saw there was a row. <i>I</i> didn't care if there was. I + seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking to me. She was + just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen in 'er ever, or what there + could 'ave been. Sometimes when she wasn't about, I did get back a little, but + never when she was there. Then it was always the other came up and blotted her + out. . . . Anyow, it didn't break her heart."</p> +<p>"Married?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Married 'er cousin," said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the + pattern of the tablecloth for a space.</p> +<p>When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean + vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy + Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting + out the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to + repeat. I think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole + affair, to hear that neat little grocer man after his story was done, + with a glass of whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers, + witnessing, with sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted + anguish, of the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently + came upon him. "I couldn't eat," he said, "I couldn't sleep. + I made + mistakes in orders and got mixed with change. There she was day + and night, drawing me and drawing me. Oh, I wanted her. Lord! how + I wanted her! I was up there, most evenings I was up there on the Knoll, + often even when it rained. I used to walk over the Knoll and round it + and round it, calling for them to let me in. Shouting. Near blubbering + I was at times. Daft I was and miserable. I kept on saying it was all + a mistake. And every Sunday afternoon I went up there, wet and fine, + though I knew as well as you do it wasn't no good by day. And I've + tried to go to sleep there."</p> +<p>He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky.</p> +<p>"I've tried to go to sleep there," he said, and I could swear his + lips + trembled. "I've tried to go to sleep there, often and often. And, + you know, I couldn't, sir--never. I've thought if I could go to sleep + there, there might be something. But I've sat up there and laid up + there, and I couldn't--not for thinking and longing. It's the + longing. . . . I've tried--"</p> +<p>He blew, drank up the rest of his whisky spasmodically, stood up + suddenly and buttoned his jacket, staring closely and critically + at the cheap oleographs beside the mantel meanwhile. The little + black notebook in which he recorded the orders of his daily round + projected stiffly from his breast pocket. When all the buttons were + quite done, he patted his chest and turned on me suddenly. "Well," + he said, "I must be going."</p> +<p>There was something in his eyes and manner that was too difficult + for him to express in words. "One gets talking," he said at last + at the door, and smiled wanly, and so vanished from my eyes. + And that is the tale of Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland just as + he told it to me.</p> +<p> + 6. THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST</p> +<p>The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very vividly + to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, in the corner of + the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and Sanderson sat beside him + smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. There was Evans, and that marvel + among actors, Wish, who is also a modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid + Club that Saturday morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which + indeed gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was invisible; + we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness when men will + suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was + lying. It may be that indeed he was lying--of that the reader will speedily + be able to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact + anecdote, but that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man. </p> +<p>"I say!" he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward + rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, "you know + I was alone here last night?"</p> +<p>"Except for the domestics," said Wish.</p> +<p>"Who sleep in the other wing," said Clayton. "Yes. Well--" + He pulled + at his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about + his confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, "I caught a ghost!"</p> +<p>"Caught a ghost, did you?" said Sanderson. "Where is it?"</p> +<p>And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks + in America, shouted, "CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad + of it! Tell us all about it right now."</p> +<p>Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door.</p> +<p>He looked apologetically at me. "There's no eavesdropping of course, + but we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours + of ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling + to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost. + I don't think it will come again--ever."</p> +<p>"You mean to say you didn't keep it?" said Sanderson.</p> +<p>"I hadn't the heart to," said Clayton.</p> +<p>And Sanderson said he was surprised.</p> +<p>We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. "I know," he said, with + the flicker of a smile, "but the fact is it really WAS a ghost, + and I'm as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not + joking. I mean what I say."</p> +<p>Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton, + and then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words.</p> +<p>Clayton ignored the comment. "It is the strangest thing that has + ever happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts + or anything of the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag + one in a corner; and the whole business is in my hands."</p> +<p>He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce + a second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected.</p> +<p>"You talked to it?" asked Wish.</p> +<p>"For the space, probably, of an hour."</p> +<p>"Chatty?" I said, joining the party of the sceptics.</p> +<p>"The poor devil was in trouble," said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end + and with the very faintest note of reproof.</p> +<p>"Sobbing?" some one asked.</p> +<p>Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. "Good Lord!" he said; + "yes." And then, "Poor fellow! yes."</p> +<p>"Where did you strike it?" asked Evans, in his best American accent.</p> +<p>"I never realised," said Clayton, ignoring him, "the poor sort + of + thing a ghost might be," and he hung us up again for a time, while + he sought for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar.</p> +<p>"I took an advantage," he reflected at last.</p> +<p>We were none of us in a hurry. "A character," he said, "remains + just the same character for all that it's been disembodied. That's + a thing we too often forget. People with a certain strength or + fixity of purpose may have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity + of purpose--most haunting ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea'd + as monomaniacs and as obstinate as mules to come back again and again. + This poor creature wasn't." He suddenly looked up rather queerly, and + his eye went round the room. "I say it," he said, "in all kindliness, + but that is the plain truth of the case. Even at the first glance + he struck me as weak."</p> +<p>He punctuated with the help of his cigar.</p> +<p>"I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards + me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was + transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer + of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but + his attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though + he didn't know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand + was on the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like--SO!"</p> +<p>"What sort of physique?" said Sanderson.</p> +<p>"Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great + flutings down the back, here and here--so! And a little, meanish head + with scrubby hair--And rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower + than the hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers + baggy and a little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me. + I came very quietly up the staircase. I did not carry a light, + you know--the candles are on the landing table and there is that lamp-- + and I was in my list slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped + dead at that--taking him in. I wasn't a bit afraid. I think that + in most of these affairs one is never nearly so afraid or excited + as one imagines one would be. I was surprised and interested. + I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at last! And I haven't believed + for a moment in ghosts during the last five-and-twenty years.'"</p> +<p>"Um," said Wish.</p> +<p>"I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I + was there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature + young man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin. + So for an instant we stood--he looking over his shoulder at me + and regarded one another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling. + He turned round, drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms, + spread his hands in approved ghost fashion--came towards me. + As he did so his little jaw dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out + 'Boo.' No, it wasn't--not a bit dreadful. I'd dined. I'd had a bottle + of champagne, and being all alone, perhaps two or three--perhaps + even four or five--whiskies, so I was as solid as rocks and no more + frightened than if I'd been assailed by a frog. 'Boo!' I said. + 'Nonsense. You don't belong to THIS place. What are you doing here?'</p> +<p>"I could see him wince. 'Boo-oo,' he said.</p> +<p>"'Boo--be hanged! Are you a member?' I said; and just to show + I didn't care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and + made to light my candle. 'Are you a member?' I repeated, looking + at him sideways.</p> +<p>"He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing + became crestfallen. 'No,' he said, in answer to the persistent + interrogation of my eye; 'I'm not a member--I'm a ghost.'</p> +<p>"'Well, that doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there + any one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as + steadily as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness + of whisky for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight. + I turned on him, holding it. 'What are you doing here?' I said.</p> +<p>"He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, + abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. + 'I'm haunting,' he said.</p> +<p>"'You haven't any business to,' I said in a quiet voice.</p> +<p>"'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence.</p> +<p>"'That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is + a respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids + and children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor + little mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits. + I suppose you didn't think of that?'</p> +<p>"'No, sir,' he said, 'I didn't.'</p> +<p>"'You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you? + Weren't murdered here, or anything of that sort?'</p> +<p>"'None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled--'</p> +<p>"'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is + a mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned + to see if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly. + 'If I were you I wouldn't wait for cock-crow--I'd vanish right away.'</p> +<p>"He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir--' he began.</p> +<p>"'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home.</p> +<p>"'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.'</p> +<p>"'You CAN'T?'</p> +<p>"'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging + about here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards + of the empty bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never + come haunting before, and it seems to put me out.'</p> +<p>"'Put you out?'</p> +<p>"'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off. + There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.'</p> +<p>"That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such + an abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite + the high, hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said, + and as I spoke I fancied I heard some one moving about down below. + 'Come into my room and tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't, + of course, understand this,' and I tried to take him by the arm. + But, of course, you might as well have tried to take hold of a puff + of smoke! I had forgotten my number, I think; anyhow, I remember + going into several bedrooms--it was lucky I was the only soul + in that wing--until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I said, and sat + down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. It seems + to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old chap.'</p> +<p>"Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down + the room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little + while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently, + you know, something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me, + and I began to realise just a little what a thundering rum and weird + business it was that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent-- + the proper conventional phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost + of a voice--flitting to and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung + old bedroom. You could see the gleam of the copper candlesticks + through him, and the lights on the brass fender, and the corners + of the framed engravings on the wall,--and there he was telling me + all about this wretched little life of his that had recently ended + on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you know, but being + transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the truth."</p> +<p>"Eh?" said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair.</p> +<p>"What?" said Clayton.</p> +<p>"Being transparent--couldn't avoid telling the truth--I don't see it," + said Wish.</p> +<p>"<i>I</i> don't see it," said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. + "But it IS so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once + a nail's breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been killed--he + went down into a London basement with a candle to look for a leakage of gas--and + described himself as a senior English master in a London private school when + that release occurred."</p> +<p>"Poor wretch!" said I.</p> +<p>"That's what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it. + There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked + of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever + been anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive, + too nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood + him, he said. He had never had a real friend in the world, + I think; he had never had a success. He had shirked games and failed + examinations. 'It's like that with some people,' he said; 'whenever + I got into the examination-room or anywhere everything seemed to go.' + Engaged to be married of course--to another over-sensitive person, I + suppose--when the indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs. + 'And where are you now?' I asked. 'Not in--?'</p> +<p>"He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was of + a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls too non-existent + for anything so positive as either sin or virtue. <i>I</i> don't know. He + was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me any clear idea of the kind + of place, kind of country, there is on the Other Side of Things. Wherever he + was, he seems to have fallen in with a set of kindred spirits: ghosts of weak + Cockney young men, who were on a footing of Christian names, and among these + there was certainly a lot of talk about 'going haunting' and things like that. + Yes--going haunting! They seemed to think 'haunting' a tremendous adventure, + and most of them funked it all the time. And so primed, you know, he had come."</p> +<p>"But really!" said Wish to the fire.</p> +<p>"These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow," said Clayton, modestly. + "I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that + was the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and + down, with his thin voice going talking, talking about his wretched + self, and never a word of clear, firm statement from first to last. + He was thinner and sillier and more pointless than if he had been + real and alive. Only then, you know, he would not have been in my + bedroom here--if he HAD been alive. I should have kicked him out."</p> +<p>"Of course," said Evans, "there ARE poor mortals like that."</p> +<p>"And there's just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest + of us," I admitted.</p> +<p>"What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that + he did seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had + made of haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told + it would be a 'lark'; he had come expecting it to be a 'lark,' + and here it was, nothing but another failure added to his record! + He proclaimed himself an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and + I can quite believe it, that he had never tried to do anything all + his life that he hadn't made a perfect mess of--and through all + the wastes of eternity he never would. If he had had sympathy, + perhaps--. He paused at that, and stood regarding me. He remarked that, + strange as it might seem to me, nobody, not any one, ever, had given + him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. I could see what he wanted + straight away, and I determined to head him off at once. I may be a + brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, the recipient of the + confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, ghost or body, is + beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't you brood on + these things too much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do is to get + out of this get out of this--sharp. You pull yourself together and + TRY.' 'I can't,' he said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did."</p> +<p>"Try!" said Sanderson. "HOW?"</p> +<p>"Passes," said Clayton.</p> +<p>"Passes?"</p> +<p>"Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's + how he had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord! + what a business I had!"</p> +<p>"But how could ANY series of passes--?" I began.</p> +<p>"My dear man," said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great emphasis + on certain words, "you want EVERYTHING clear. <i>I</i> don't know HOW. + All I know is that you DO--that HE did, anyhow, at least. After a fearful time, + you know, he got his passes right and suddenly disappeared."</p> +<p>"Did you," said Sanderson, slowly, "observe the passes?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said Clayton, and seemed to think. "It was tremendously + queer," + he said. "There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent + room, in this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night + town. Not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when + he swung. There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the dressing- + table alight, that was all--sometimes one or other would flare up into + a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things happened. + 'I can't,' he said; 'I shall never--!' And suddenly he sat down on + a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob. + Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed!</p> +<p>"'You pull yourself together,' I said, and tried to pat him on the + back, and . . . my confounded hand went through him! By that time, + you know, I wasn't nearly so--massive as I had been on the landing. + I got the queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out + of him, as it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the + dressing-table. 'You pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and + try.' And in order to encourage and help him I began to try as well."</p> +<p>"What!" said Sanderson, "the passes?"</p> +<p>"Yes, the passes."</p> +<p>"But--" I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space.</p> +<p>"This is interesting," said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe- + bowl. "You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away--"</p> +<p>"Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES."</p> +<p>"He didn't," said Wish; "he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there + too."</p> +<p>"That's precisely it," I said, finding my elusive idea put into words + for me.</p> +<p>"That IS precisely it," said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the + fire.</p> +<p>For just a little while there was silence.</p> +<p>"And at last he did it?" said Sanderson.</p> +<p>"At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at + last--rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up abruptly + and asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so that he might see. + 'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE I should spot what was wrong at once.' + And he did. '<i>I</i> know,' he said. 'What do you know?' said I. '<i>I</i> + know,' he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, 'I CAN'T do it if you look at me--I + really CAN'T; it's been that, partly, all along. I'm such a nervous fellow that + you put me out.' Well, we had a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see; + but he was as obstinate as a mule, and suddenly I had come over as tired as + a dog--he tired me out. 'All right,' I said, '<i>I</i> won't look at you,' + and turned towards the mirror, on the wardrobe, by the bed.</p> +<p>He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in + the looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went + his arms and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush + came to the last gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your + arms--and so, don't you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't! + He wasn't! I wheeled round from the looking-glass to him. There was + nothingl I was alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. + What had happened? Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming? . . . + And then, with an absurd note of finality about it, the clock upon + the landing discovered the moment was ripe for striking ONE. So!--Ping! + And I was as grave and sober as a judge, with all my champagne and + whisky gone into the vast serene. Feeling queer, you know--confoundedly + QUEER! Queer! Good Lord!"</p> +<p>He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. "That's all that happened," + he + said.</p> +<p>"And then you went to bed?" asked Evans.</p> +<p>"What else was there to do?"</p> +<p>I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, + something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our + desire.</p> +<p>"And about these passes?" said Sanderson.</p> +<p>"I believe I could do them now."</p> +<p>"Oh!" said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to + grub + the dottel out of the bowl of his clay.</p> +<p>"Why don't you do them now?" said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife + with a click.</p> +<p>"That's what I'm going to do," said Clayton.</p> +<p>"They won't work," said Evans.</p> +<p>"If they do--" I suggested.</p> +<p>"You know, I'd rather you didn't," said Wish, stretching out his + legs.</p> +<p>"Why?" asked Evans.</p> +<p>"I'd rather he didn't," said Wish.</p> +<p>"But he hasn't got 'em right," said Sanderson, plugging too much + tobacco in his pipe.</p> +<p>"All the same, I'd rather he didn't," said Wish.</p> +<p>We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those + gestures was like mocking a serious matter. "But you don't believe--?" + I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing + something in his mind. "I do--more than half, anyhow, I do," said + Wish.</p> +<p>"Clayton," said I, "you're too good a liar for us. Most of it + was + all right. But that disappearance . . . happened to be convincing. + Tell us, it's a tale of cock and bull."</p> +<p>He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug, + and faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and + then for all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall, + with an intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level + of his eyes and so began. . . .</p> +<p>Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings, + which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the + mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this + lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions + with a singular interest in his reddish eye. "That's not bad," he + said, + when it was done. "You really do, you know, put things together, + Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out."</p> +<p>"I know," said Clayton. "I believe I could tell you which."</p> +<p>"Well?"</p> +<p>"This," said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing + and thrust of the hands.</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"That, you know, was what HE couldn't get right," said Clayton. + "But how do YOU--?"</p> +<p>"Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't + understand at all," said Sanderson, "but just that phase--I do." + He reflected. "These happen to be a series of gestures--connected with + a certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know. Or else--HOW?" + He reflected still further. "I do not see I can do any harm in telling + you just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know; if you don't, you + don't." </p> +<p>"I know nothing," said Clayton, "except what the poor devil + let + out last night."</p> +<p>"Well, anyhow," said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very + carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he + gesticulated with his hands.</p> +<p>"So?" said Clayton, repeating.</p> +<p>"So," said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again.</p> +<p>"Ah, NOW," said Clayton, "I can do the whole thing--right."</p> +<p>He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think + there was just a little hesitation in his smile. "If I begin--" + he said.</p> +<p>"I wouldn't begin," said Wish.</p> +<p>"It's all right!" said Evans. "Matter is indestructible. You + don't + think any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton + into the world of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as + I'm concerned, until your arms drop off at the wrists."</p> +<p>"I don't believe that," said Wish, and stood up and put his arm + on Clayton's shoulder. "You've made me half believe in that story + somehow, and I don't want to see the thing done!"</p> +<p>"Goodness!" said I, "here's Wish frightened!"</p> +<p>"I am," said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. "I + believe that if he goes through these motions right he'll GO."</p> +<p>"He'll not do anything of the sort," I cried. "There's only + one way + out of this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that. + Besides . . . And such a ghost! Do you think--?"</p> +<p>Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs + and stopped beside the tole and stood there. "Clayton," he said, + "you're a fool."</p> +<p>Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him. + "Wish," he said, "is right and all you others are wrong. I shall + go. + I shall get to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles + through the air, Presto!--this hearthrug will be vacant, the room + will be blank amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of + fifteen stone will plump into the world of shades. I'm certain. + So will you be. I decline to argue further. Let the thing be tried."</p> +<p>"NO," said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised + his hands once more to repeat the spirit's passing.</p> +<p>By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension--largely + because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on + Clayton--I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me + as though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my + body had been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was + imperturbably serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands + and arms before us. As he drew towards the end one piled up, one + tingled in one's teeth. The last gesture, I have said, was to swing + the arms out wide open, with the face held up. And when at last he + swung out to this closing gesture I ceased even to breathe. It was + ridiculous, of course, but you know that ghost-story feeling. It was + after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. Would he, after all--?</p> +<p>There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his + upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp. + We hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from + all of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a + reassuring "NO!" For visibly--he wasn't going. It was all nonsense. + He had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that + was all! . . . And then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed.</p> +<p>It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are + suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed, + his smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood + there, very gently swaying.</p> +<p>That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping, + things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give, + and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms. . . .</p> +<p>It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent + thing. We believed it, yet could not believe it. . . . I came out + of a muddled stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him, + and his vest and shirt were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay + on his heart. . . .</p> +<p>Well--the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience; + there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour; + it lies athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day. + Clayton had, indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to + and so far from our own, and he had gone thither by the only road + that mortal man may take. But whether he did indeed pass there + by that poor ghost's incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly + by apoplexy in the midst of an idle tale--as the coroner's jury would + have us believe--is no matter for my judging; it is just one of those + inexplicable riddles that must remain unsolved until the final solution + of all things shall come. All I certainly know is that, in the very + moment, in the very instant, of concluding those passes, he changed, + and staggered, and fell down before us--dead!</p> +<p> + 7. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD</p> +<p>"It isn't every one who's been a god," said the sunburnt man. "But + it's happened to me. Among other things."</p> +<p>I intimated my sense of his condescension.</p> +<p>"It don't leave much for ambition, does it?" said the sunburnt man.</p> +<p>"I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer. + Gummy! how time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll + remember anything of the Ocean Pioneer?"</p> +<p>The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had + read it. The Ocean Pioneer? "Something about gold dust," I said + vaguely, "but the precise--"</p> +<p>"That's it," he said. "In a beastly little channel she hadn't + no + business in--dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh + on that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all + the rocks was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair + have to follow the rocks about to see where they're going next. + Down she went in twenty fathoms before you could have dealt for whist, + with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said, + in one form or another."</p> +<p>"Survivors?"</p> +<p>"Three."</p> +<p>"I remember the case now," I said. "There was something about + salvage--"</p> +<p>But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so + extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more + ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. "Excuse me," + he said, "but--salvage!"</p> +<p>He leant over towards me. "I was in that job," he said. "Tried + to make + myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings--</p> +<p>"It ain't all jam being a god," said the sunburnt man, and for some + time conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms. + At last he took up his tale again.</p> +<p>"There was me," said the sunburnt man, "and a seaman named Jacobs, + and Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set + the whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the + jolly-boat, suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence. + He was a wonderful hand at suggesting things. 'There was forty + thousand pounds,' he said, 'on that ship, and it's for me to say + just where she went down.' It didn't need much brains to tumble + to that. And he was the leader from the first to the last. He got + hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, and + the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought the diving-dress-- + a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus instead of pumping. + He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him sick going down. + And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart he'd cooked up, + as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and twenty miles away.</p> +<p>"I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink + and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean + and straightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert.' And we + used to speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers, + who'd started two days before us, were getting on, until our sides + fairly ached. We all messed together in the Sanderses' cabin--it + was a curious crew, all officers and no men--and there stood the + diving-dress waiting its turn. Young Sanders was a humorous sort of + chap, and there certainly was something funny in the confounded + thing's great fat head and its stare, and he made us see it too. + 'Jimmie Goggles,' he used to call it, and talk to it like a Christian. + Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. Goggles was, and all the little + Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And every blessed day all of us + used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrew his eye + and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead of that nasty + mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as a cask of rum. + It was jolly times we had in those days, I can tell you--little + suspecting, poor chaps! what was a-coming.</p> +<p>"We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry, + you know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where + the Ocean Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy + grey rock--lava rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had + to lay off about half a mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was + a thundering row who should stop on board. And there she lay just + as she had gone down, so that you could see the top of the masts + that was still standing perfectly distinctly. The row ending in + all coming in the boat. I went down in the diving-dress on Friday + morning directly it was light.</p> +<p>"What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly. + It was a queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People + over here think every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore + and palm trees and surf, bless 'em! This place, for instance, + wasn't a bit that way. Not common rocks they were, undermined + by waves; but great curved banks like ironwork cinder heaps, + with green slime below, and thorny shrubs and things just waving + upon them here and there, and the water glassy calm and clear, + and showing you a kind of dirty grey-black shine, with huge flaring + red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and darting + things going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and pools + and the heaps was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again after + the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption. And the other way + forest, too, and a kind of broken--what is it?--ambytheatre of black + and rusty cinders rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay + in the middle.</p> +<p>"The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour + about things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight + up or down the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond + a lump of rocks towards the line of the sea.</p> +<p>"Not a human being in sight," he repeated, and paused.</p> +<p>"I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling + so safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing. + I was in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always, + 'there's her mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale, + I caught up the bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought + the boat round. When the windows were screwed and everything was + all right, I shut the valve from the air belt in order to help + my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't + a ladder. I left the boat pitching, and all of them staring down + into the water after me, as my head sank down into the weeds and + blackness that lay about the mast. I suppose nobody, not the most + cautious chap in the world, would have bothered about a lookout + at such a desolate place. It stunk of solitude.</p> +<p>"Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving. + None of us were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get + the way of it, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels + damnable. Your ears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt + yourself yawning or sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten + times worse. And a pain over the eyebrows here--splitting--and a + feeling like influenza in the head. And it isn't all heaven in your + lungs and things. And going down feels like the beginning of a lift, + only it keeps on. And you can't turn your head to see what's above you, + and you can't get a fair squint at what's happening to your feet + without bending down something painful. And being deep it was dark, + let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud that formed the bottom. + It was like going down out of the dawn back into the night, so to speak.</p> +<p>"The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of + fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came + with a kind of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the + fishes that had been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of + flies from road stuff in summer time. I turned on the compressed air + again--for the suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in + spite of the rum--and stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down + there, and that helped take off the stuffiness a bit.</p> +<p>"When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was + an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind + of reddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed + that floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just + a moony, deep green-blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight + list to starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between + the weeds, clear except where the masts had snapped when she rolled, + and vanishing into black night towards the forecastle. There wasn't + any dead on the decks, most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose; + but afterwards I found two skeletons lying in the passengers' cabins, + where death had come to them. It was curious to stand on that deck + and recognise it all, bit by bit; a place against the rail where I'd + been fond of smoking by starlight, and the corner where an old chap + from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we had aboard. A comfortable + couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now you couldn't have + got a meal for a baby crab off either of them.</p> +<p>"I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I + spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went + below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work + hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing + blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about, + a dab at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. + I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and + picked up something all knobs and spikes. What do you think? + Backbone! But I never had any particular feeling for bones. We + had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly, and Always knew just + where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box + one end an inch or more."</p> +<p>He broke off in his story. "I've lifted it," he said, "as near + as + that! Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted + inside my helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting + confounded stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down + twenty-five minutes or more--and I thought this was good enough. + I went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up flush with + the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of hysterical jump + and went scuttling off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. I stood + up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the air + accumulate to carry me up again--I noticed a kind of whacking + from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar, + but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up.</p> +<p>"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood + a-quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd + seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was + still calling him this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt + me serious--when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight. + Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack! + I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front + of my helmet. Then something else, struggling frightful. It was + a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving and twisting + about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or some such thing, if it + hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear boots. It was + all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking down again, and + I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot rolled + free of me and shot down as I went up--"</p> +<p>He paused.</p> +<p>"I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear + driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what + looked like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went + clutching one another, and turning over, and both too far gone + to leave go. And in another second my helmet came a whack, fit + to split, against the niggers' canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full.</p> +<p>"It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three + spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps + kicking about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw + the game was up at a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist, + and went bubbling down again after poor Always, in as awful a state + of scare and astonishment as you can well imagine. I passed young + Sanders and the nigger going up again and struggling still a bit, + and in another moment I was standing in the dim again on the deck + of the Ocean Pioneer.</p> +<p>"'Gummy,' thinks I, 'here's a fix!' Niggers? At first I couldn't see + anything for it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly + understand how much air there was to last me, but I didn't feel like + standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully + heady--quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd never repined + with these beastly natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good, + coming up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur + of the moment, I clambered over the side of the brig and landed + among the weeds, and set off through the darkness as fast as I could. + I just stopped once and knelt, and twisted back my head in the helmet + and had a look up. It was a most extraordinary bright green-blue above, + and the two canoes and the boat floating there very small and distant + like a kind of twisted H. And it made me feel sick to squint up at it, + and think what the pitching and swaying of the three meant.</p> +<p>"It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering + about in that darkness, pressure something awful, like being buried + in sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing + as it seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit, + I found myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another + squint to see if anything was visible of the canoes and boats, + and then kept on. I stopped with my head a foot from the surface, + and tried to see where I was going, but, of course, nothing was + to be seen but the reflection of the bottom. Then out I dashed like + knocking my head through a mirror. Directly I got my eyes out of + the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of beach near the forest. I had a + look round, but the natives and the brig were both hidden by a big, + hummucky heap of twisted lava, the born fool in me suggested a run + for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but eased open one of + the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out of the water. + You'd hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted.</p> +<p>"Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your + head in a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five + minutes under water, you don't break any records running. I ran like + a ploughboy going to work. And half way to the trees I saw a dozen + niggers or more, coming out in a gaping, astonished sort of way + to meet me.</p> +<p>"I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of + London. I had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as + a turned turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands + free, and waited for them. There wasn't anything else for me to do.</p> +<p>"But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'Jimmy + Goggles,' I says, 'it's your beauty does it.' I was inclined to be a + little light-headed, I think, with all these dangers about and the + change in the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' I + said, as if the savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm + hanged if I don't give you something to stare at,' I said, and with + that I screwed up the escape valve and turned on the compressed air + from the belt, until I was swelled out like a blown frog. Regular + imposing it must have been. I'm blessed if they'd come on a step; + and presently one and then another went down on their hands and knees. + They didn't know what to make of me, and they was doing the extra + polite, which was very wise and reasonable of them. I had half a mind + to edge back seaward and cut and run, but it seemed too hopeless. A + step back and they'd have been after me. And out of sheer desperation + I began to march towards them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps, + and waving my blown-out arms about, in a dignified manner. And inside + of me I was singing as small as a tomtit.</p> +<p>"But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a + difficulty,--I've found that before and since. People like ourselves, + who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely + imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two + of these niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry + trying to knock their brains out on the ground. And on I went as + slow and solemn and silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber. + It was evident they took me for something immense.</p> +<p>"Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures + to me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention + between me and something out at sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said. + I turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming + round a point, the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes. + The sight fairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some + recognition, so I waved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal + manner. And then I turned and stalked on towards the trees again. + At that time I was praying like mad, I remember, over and over again: + 'Lord help me through with it! Lord help me through with it!' It's + only fools who know nothing of dangers can afford to laugh at praying.</p> +<p>"But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away + like that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of + pressed me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was + clear to me they didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever + else they thought of me, and for my own part I was never less anxious + to own up to the old country.</p> +<p>"You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with + savages, but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me + straight to their kind of joss place to present me to the blessed + old black stone there. By this time I was beginning to sort of realise + the depth of their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity + I took my cue. I started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long + on one note, and began waving my arms about a lot, and then very + slowly and ceremoniously turned their image over on its side and + sat down on it. I wanted to sit down badly, for diving-dresses ain't + much wear in the tropics. Or, to put it different like, they're + a sight too much. It took away their breath, I could see, my sitting + on their joss, but in less time than a minute they made up their + minds and were hard at work worshipping me. And I can tell you + I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so well, in spite + of the weight on my shoulders and feet.</p> +<p>"But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might + think when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before + I went down, and without the helmet on--for they might have been + spying and hiding since over night--they would very likely take + a different view from the others. I was in a deuce of a stew about + that for hours, as it seemed, until the shindy of the arrival began.</p> +<p>"But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down. At the + cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting Egyptian images + one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve hours, I should guess at + least, on end, I got over it. You'd hardly think what it meant in that heat + and stink. I don't think any of them dreamt of the man inside. I was just a + wonderful leathery great joss that had come up with luck out of the water. But + the fatigue! the heat! the beastly closeness! the mackintosheriness and the + rum! and the fuss! They lit a stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there was + before me, and brought in a lot of gory muck--the worst parts of what they were + feasting on outside, the Beasts--and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting + a bit hungry, but I understand now how gods manage to do without eating, what + with the smell of burnt offerings about them. And they brought in a lot of the + stuff they'd got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was a bit relieved + to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the compressed air affair, + and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced about me something disgraceful. + It's extraordinary the different ways different people have of showing respect. + If I'd had a hatchet handy I'd have gone for the lot of them--they made me feel + that wild. All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better + to do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house place got + a bit too shadowy for their taste--all these here savages are afraid of the + dark, you know--and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise, they built big bonfires + outside and left me alone in peace in the darkness of my hut, free to unscrew + my windows a bit and think things over, and feel just as bad as I liked. And, + Lord! I was sick.</p> +<p>"I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle + on a pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it. + Come round just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other + chaps, beastly drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate, + and young Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn't go out + of my mind. There was the treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer, + and how one might get it and hide it somewhere safer, and get away + and come back for it. And there was the puzzle where to get anything + to eat. I tell you I was fair rambling. I was afraid to ask by signs + for food, for fear of behaving too human, and so there I sat and + hungered until very near the dawn. Then the village got a bit quiet, + and I couldn't stand it any longer, and I went out and got some stuff + like artichokes in a bowl and some sour milk. What was left of these + I put away among the other offerings, just to give them a hint + of my tastes. And in the morning they came to worship, and found + me sitting up stiff and respectable on their previous god, just as + they'd left me overnight. I'd got my back against the central pillar + of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. And that's how I became + a god among the heathen--a false god no doubt, and blasphemous, + but one can't always pick and choose.</p> +<p>"Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits, + but I must confess that while I was god to these people they was + extraordinary successful. I don't say there's anything in it, + mind you. They won a battle with another tribe--I got a lot of + offerings I didn't want through it--they had wonderful fishing, + and their crop of pourra was exceptional fine. And they counted + the capture of the brig among the benefits I brought 'em. I must + say I don't think that was a poor record for a perfectly new hand. + And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, I was the tribal god + of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four months. . . .</p> +<p>"What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress + all the time. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and + a deuce of a time I had too, making them understand what it was + I wanted them to do. That indeed was the great difficulty--making + them understand my wishes. I couldn't let myself down by talking their + lingo badly--even if I'd been able to speak at all--and I couldn't + go flapping a lot of gestures at them. So I drew pictures in sand + and sat down beside them and hooted like one o'clock. Sometimes + they did the things I wanted all right, and sometimes they did them + all wrong. They was always very willing, certainly. All the while + I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded business settled. + Every night before the dawn I used to march out in full rig and go off + to a place where I could see the channel in which the Ocean Pioneer + lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried to walk out + to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I didn't get + back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers out on + the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that vexed + and tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going down + again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they + started rejoicing. I'm hanged if I like so much ceremony.</p> +<p>"And then came the missionary. That missionary! It was in the afternoon, + and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on + that old black stone of theirs when he came. I heard a row outside + and jabbering, and then his voice speaking to an interpreter. + 'They worship stocks and stones,' he said, and I knew what was up, + in a flash. I had one of my windows out for comfort, and I sang out + straight away on the spur of the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says. + 'You come inside,' I says, 'and I'll punch your blooming head.' + There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, and in he came, + Bible in hand, after the manner of them--a little sandy chap in specks + and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me sitting there in + the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him + a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in calico?' + for I don't hold with missionaries.</p> +<p>"I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite + outclassed with a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told + him to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. Down + he goes to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious + as any of them, took it as an act of worship and plumped down like + a shot. All my people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn't + any more business to be done in my village after that journey, + not by the likes of him.</p> +<p>"But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had + any sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure + and taken him into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child, + with a few hours to think it over, could have seen the connection + between my diving-dress and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week + after he left I went out one morning and saw the Motherhood, the + salver's ship from Starr Race, towing up the channel and sounding. + The whole blessed game was up, and all my trouble thrown away. Gummy! + How wild I felt! And guying it in that stinking silly dress! Four + months!"</p> +<p>The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. "Think of it," he said, + when he emerged to linguistic purity once more. "Forty thousand + pounds worth of gold."</p> +<p>"Did the little missionary come back?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man + inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous + ceremony. But there wasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate + scenes and explanations, and long before he came I was out of it + all--going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day, + and thieving food from the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear. + No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying + is. And just a squeak of eight thousand pounds of gold--fifth share. + But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, because they thought + it was him had driven their luck away."</p> +<p> + 8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR</p> +<p>Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin + it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of + investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent + that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any + touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise + human life. And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous + stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful + days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do + better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are + astonishing experiences in store for all in search of new sensations + will become apparent enough.</p> +<p>Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone. + Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages + has already appeared in The Strand Magazine--I think late in 1899; + but I am unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to + some one who has never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps, + recall the high forehead and the singularly long black eyebrows + that give such a Mephistophelian touch to his face. He occupies one + of those pleasant little detached houses in the mixed style that + make the western end of the Upper Sandgate Road so interesting. + His is the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorish portico, + and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay window that + he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have + so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but, + besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those + men who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been + able to follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from + a very early stage. Of course, the greater portion of his experimental + work is not done in Folkestone, but in Gower Street, in the fine + new laboratory next to the hospital that he has been the first to use.</p> +<p>As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, + the special department in which Gibberne has gained so great + and deserved a reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs + upon the nervous system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics + he is, I am told, unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable + eminence, and I suppose in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles + that centres about the ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are + little cleared places of his making, little glades of illumination, + that, until he sees fit to publish his results, are still inaccessible + to every other living man. And in the last few years he has been + particularly assiduous upon this question of nervous stimulants, + and already, before the discovery of the New Accelerator, very + successful with them. Medical science has to thank him for at least + three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivalled value + to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the preparation known + as Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives already + than any lifeboat round the coast.</p> +<p>"But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet," he told + me nearly a year ago. "Either they increase the central energy + without affecting the nerves or they simply increase the available + energy by lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are + unequal and local in their operation. One wakes up the heart and + viscera and leaves the brain stupefied, one gets at the brain + champagne fashion and does nothing good for the solar plexus, and + what I want--and what, if it's an earthly possibility, I mean to have-- + is a stimulant that stimulates all round, that wakes you up for + a time from the crown of your head to the tip of your great toe, + and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody else's one. Eh? + That's the thing I'm after."</p> +<p>"It would tire a man," I said.</p> +<p>"Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that. + But just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with + a little phial like this"--he held up a little bottle of green glass + and marked his points with it--"and in this precious phial is + the power to think twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice + as much work in a given time as you could otherwise do."</p> +<p>"But is such a thing possible?"</p> +<p>"I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These + various preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem + to show that something of the sort . . . Even if it was only one + and a half times as fast it would do."</p> +<p>"It WOULD do," I said.</p> +<p>"If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up + against you, something urgent to be done, eh?"</p> +<p>"He could dose his private secretary," I said.</p> +<p>"And gain--double time. And think if YOU, for example, wanted + to finish a book."</p> +<p>"Usually," I said, "I wish I'd never begun 'em."</p> +<p>"Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out + a case. Or a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination."</p> +<p>"Worth a guinea a drop," said I, "and more to men like that."</p> +<p>"And in a duel, again," said Gibberne, "where it all depends + on + your quickness in pulling the trigger."</p> +<p>"Or in fencing," I echoed.</p> +<p>"You see," said Gibberne, "if I get it as an all-round thing + it will + really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal + degree it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice + to other people's once--"</p> +<p>"I suppose," I meditated, "in a duel--it would be fair?"</p> +<p>"That's a question for the seconds," said Gibberne.</p> +<p>I harked back further. "And you really think such a thing IS + possible?" I said.</p> +<p>"As possible," said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went + throbbing by the window, "as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--"</p> +<p>He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge + of his desk with the green phial. "I think I know the stuff. . . . + Already I've got something coming." The nervous smile upon his + face betrayed the gravity of his revelation. He rarely talked of + his actual experimental work unless things were very near the end. + "And it may be, it may be--I shouldn't be surprised--it may even + do the thing at a greater rate than twice."</p> +<p>"It will be rather a big thing," I hazarded.</p> +<p>"It will be, I think, rather a big thing."</p> +<p>But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for + all that.</p> +<p>I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. "The New + Accelerator" he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident + on each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected + physiological results its use might have, and then he would get + a little unhappy; at others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated + long and anxiously how the preparation might be turned to commercial + account. "It's a good thing," said Gibberne, "a tremendous thing. + I know I'm giving the world something, and I think it only reasonable + we should expect the world to pay. The dignity of science is all + very well, but I think somehow I must have the monopoly of the stuff + for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL the fun in life should go + to the dealers in ham."</p> +<p>My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. + I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my + mind. I have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, + and it seemed to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less + than the absolute acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly + dosed with such a preparation: he would live an active and record + life indeed, but he would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at + twenty-five, and by thirty well on the road to senile decay. It seemed + to me that so far Gibberne was only going to do for any one who + took his drug exactly what Nature has done for the Jews and Orientals, + who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, and quicker in thought + and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs has always + been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, make him + incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passion + and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle + to be added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use! + But Gibberne was far too eager upon his technical points to enter + very keenly into my aspect of the question.</p> +<p>It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation + that would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward + as we talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was + done and the New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met + him as I was going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think + I was going to get my hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet + me--I suppose he was coming to my house to tell me at once of his + success. I remember that his eyes were unusually bright and his face + flushed, and I noted even then the swift alacrity of his step.</p> +<p>"It's done," he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast; + "it's more than done. Come up to my house and see."</p> +<p>"Really?"</p> +<p>"Really!" he shouted. "Incredibly! Come up and see."</p> +<p>"And it does--twice?</p> +<p>"It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff. + Taste it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth." He gripped + my arm and, walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot, + went shouting with me up the hill. A whole char-a-banc-ful of people + turned and stared at us in unison after the manner of people in + chars-a-banc. It was one of those hot, clear days that Folkestone + sees so much of, every colour incredibly bright and every outline + hard. There was a breeze, of course, but not so much breeze as + sufficed under these conditions to keep me cool and dry. I panted for + mercy.</p> +<p>"I'm not walking fast, am I?" cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace + to a quick march.</p> +<p>"You've been taking some of this stuff," I puffed.</p> +<p>"No," he said. "At the utmost a drop of water that stood in + a beaker + from which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took + some last night, you know. But that is ancient history, now."</p> +<p>"And it goes twice?" I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful + perspiration.</p> +<p>"It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!" cried Gibberne, + with + a dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate.</p> +<p>"Phew!" said I, and followed him to the door.</p> +<p>"I don't know how many times it goes," he said, with his latch-key + in his hand.</p> +<p>"And you--"</p> +<p>"It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory + of vision into a perfectly new shape! . . . Heaven knows how many + thousand times. We'll try all that after--The thing is to try the stuff + now."</p> +<p>"Try the stuff?" I said, as we went along the passage.</p> +<p>"Rather," said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. "There + it is + in that little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?"</p> +<p>I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous. + I WAS afraid. But on the other hand there is pride.</p> +<p>"Well," I haggled. "You say you've tried it?"</p> +<p>"I've tried it," he said, "and I don't look hurt by it, do I? + I don't even look livery and I FEEL--"</p> +<p>I sat down. "Give me the potion," I said. "If the worst comes + to + the worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one + of the most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the + mixture?"</p> +<p>"With water," said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe.</p> +<p>He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair; + his manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street + specialist. "It's rum stuff, you know," he said.</p> +<p>I made a gesture with my hand.</p> +<p>"I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down + to shut your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's + time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length + of vibration, and not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind + of shock to the retina, a nasty giddy confusion just at the time, + if the eyes are open. Keep 'em shut."</p> +<p>"Shut," I said. "Good!"</p> +<p>"And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about. + You may fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will + be going several thousand times faster than you ever did before, + heart, lungs, muscles, brain--everything--and you will hit hard + without knowing it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just + as you do now. Only everything in the world will seem to be going + ever so many thousand times slower than it ever went before. That's + what makes it so deuced queer."</p> +<p>"Lor'," I said. "And you mean--"</p> +<p>"You'll see," said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced + at the material on his desk. "Glasses," he said, "water. All + here. + Mustn't take too much for the first attempt."</p> +<p>The little phial glucked out its precious contents.</p> +<p>"Don't forget what I told you," he said, turning the contents of + the measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring + whisky. "Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness + for two minutes," he said. "Then you will hear me speak."</p> +<p>He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass.</p> +<p>"By-the-by," he said, "don't put your glass down. Keep it in + your + hand and rest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now--"</p> +<p>He raised his glass.</p> +<p>"The New Accelerator," I said.</p> +<p>"The New Accelerator," he answered, and we touched glasses and + drank, and instantly I closed my eyes.</p> +<p>You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one + has taken "gas." For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then + I heard Gibberne telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened + my eyes. There he stood as he had been standing, glass still + in hand. It was empty, that was all the difference.</p> +<p>"Well?" said I.</p> +<p>"Nothing out of the way?"</p> +<p>"Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more."</p> +<p>"Sounds?"</p> +<p>"Things are still," I said. "By Jove! yes! They ARE still. Except + the + sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things. + What is it?"</p> +<p>"Analysed sounds," I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced + at the window. "Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed + in that way before?"</p> +<p>I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen, + as it were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze.</p> +<p>"No," said I; "that's odd."</p> +<p>"And here," he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally + I winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing + it did not even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless.</p> +<p>"Roughly speaking," said Gibberne, "an object in these latitudes + falls 16 feet in the first second. This glass is falling 16 feet in + a second now. Only, you see, it hasn't been falling yet for the + hundredth part of a second. That gives you some idea of the pace + of my Accelerator." And he waved his hand round and round, over and + under the slowly sinking glass. Finally, he took it by the bottom, + pulled it down, and placed it very carefully on the table. "Eh?" + he said to me, and laughed.</p> +<p>"That seems all right," I said, and began very gingerly to raise + myself from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and + comfortable, and quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all + over. My heart, for example, was beating a thousand times a second, + but that caused me no discomfort at all. I looked out of the window. + An immovable cyclist, head down and with a frozen puff of dust + behind his driving-wheel, scorched to overtake a galloping char-a-banc + that did not stir. I gaped in amazement at this incredible spectacle. + "Gibberne," I cried, "how long will this confounded stuff last?"</p> +<p>"Heaven knows!" he answered. "Last time I took it I went to + bed + and slept it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted + some minutes, I think--it seemed like hours. But after a bit it + slows down rather suddenly, I believe."</p> +<p>I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened--I suppose + because there were two of us. "Why shouldn't we go out?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Why not?"</p> +<p>"They'll see us."</p> +<p>"Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times + faster than the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come + along! Which way shall we go? Window, or door?"</p> +<p>And out by the window we went.</p> +<p>Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had, or imagined, + or read of other people having or imagining, that little raid I made with Gibberne + on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence of the New Accelerator, was the + strangest and maddest of all. We went out by his gate into the road, and there + we made a minute examination of the statuesque passing traffic. The tops of + the wheels and some of the legs of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end of + the whip-lash and the lower jaw of the conductor--who was just beginning to + yawn--were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance + seemed still. And quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came from + one man's throat! And as parts of this frozen edifice there were a driver, you + know, and a conductor, and eleven people! The effect as we walked about the + thing began by being madly queer, and ended by being disagreeable. There they + were, people like ourselves and yet not like ourselves, frozen in careless attitudes, + caught in mid-gesture. A girl and a man smiled at one another, a leering smile + that threatened to last for evermore; a woman in a floppy capelline rested her + arm on the rail and stared at Gibberne's house with the unwinking stare of eternity; + a man stroked his moustache like a figure of wax, and another stretched a tiresome + stiff hand with extended fingers towards his loosened hat. We stared at them, + we laughed at them, we made faces at them, and then a sort of disgust of them + came upon us, and we turned away and walked round in front of the cyclist towards + the Leas. </p> +<p>"Goodness!" cried Gibberne, suddenly; "look there!"</p> +<p>He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the + air with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally + languid snail--was a bee.</p> +<p>And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder + than ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all + the sound it made for us was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of + prolonged last sigh that passed at times into a sound like the slow, + muffled ticking of some monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect, + strange, silent, self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in + mid-stride, promenading upon the grass. I passed close to a little + poodle dog suspended in the act of leaping, and watched the slow + movement of his legs as he sank to earth. "Lord, look here!" cried + Gibberne, and we halted for a moment before a magnificent person + in white faint-striped flannels, white shoes, and a Panama hat, + who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed ladies he had passed. + A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation as we could afford, + is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of alert gaiety, + and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely close, + that under its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball + and a little line of white. "Heaven give me memory," said I, + "and I will never wink again."</p> +<p>"Or smile," said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth.</p> +<p>"It's infernally hot, somehow," said I. "Let's go slower."</p> +<p>"Oh, come along!" said Gibberne.</p> +<p>We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of + the people sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their + passive poses, but the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not + a restful thing to see. A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen + in the midst of a violent struggle to refold his newspaper against + the wind; there were many evidences that all these people in their + sluggish way were exposed to a considerable breeze, a breeze that + had no existence so far as our sensations went. We came out and + walked a little way from the crowd, and turned and regarded it. + To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, smitten rigid, + as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was impossibly + wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an irrational, + an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder of it! + All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had begun + to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so far + as the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. "The + New Accelerator--" I began, but Gibberne interrupted me.</p> +<p>"There's that infernal old woman!" he said.</p> +<p>"What old woman?"</p> +<p>"Lives next door to me," said Gibberne. "Has a lapdog that yaps. + Gods! The temptation is strong!"</p> +<p>There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times. + Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched + the unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running + violently with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most + extraordinary. The little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or + make the slightest sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an + attitude of somnolent repose, and Gibberne held it by the neck. It + was like running about with a dog of wood. "Gibberne," I cried, "put + it down!" Then I said something else. "If you run like that, + Gibberne," I cried, "you'll set your clothes on fire. Your linen + trousers are going brown as it is!"</p> +<p>He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge. + "Gibberne," I cried, coming up, "put it down. This heat is too + much! + It's our running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!"</p> +<p>"What?" he said, glancing at the dog.</p> +<p>"Friction of the air," I shouted. "Friction of the air. Going + too + fast. Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne! + I'm all over pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people + stirring slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog + down."</p> +<p>"Eh?" he said.</p> +<p>"It's working off," I repeated. "We're too hot and the stuff's + working off! I'm wet through."</p> +<p>He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose + performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep + of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning + upward, still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols + of a knot of chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow. + "By Jove!" he cried. "I believe--it is! A sort of hot pricking + and--yes. That man's moving his pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly. + We must get out of this sharp."</p> +<p>But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps! + For we might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe, + have burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into + flames! You know we had neither of us thought of that. . . . But + before we could even begin to run the action of the drug had ceased. + It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of + the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in + the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. + "Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the + Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass + there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake + up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed + together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet down + and walked their ways, the papers and flags began flapping, smiles + passed into words, the winker finished his wink and went on his + way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke.</p> +<p>The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were, + or rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was + like slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything + seemed to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient + feeling of nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had + seemed to hang for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was + expended fell with a swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol!</p> +<p>That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old + gentleman in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of + us and afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious + eye, and, finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us, + I doubt if a solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among + them. Plop! We must have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder + almost at once, though the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The + attention of every one--including even the Amusements' Association + band, which on this occasion, for the only time in its history, + got out of tune--was arrested by the amazing fact, and the still + more amazing yapping and uproar caused by the fact that a respectable, + over-fed lap-dog sleeping quietly to the east of the bandstand + should suddenly fall through the parasol of a lady on the west--in + a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of its + movements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are + all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and superstitious as possible! + People got up and trod on other people, chairs were overturned, + the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled itself I do not + know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from + the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman + in the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were + sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness + and nausea and confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting + the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below the Metropole + towards Gibberne's house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly + the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured + sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one of + those chair-attendants who have "Inspector" written on their caps. + "If you didn't throw the dog," he said, "who DID?"</p> +<p>The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural + anxiety about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot, + and the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were + scorched a drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations + I should have liked to make on all these things. Indeed, I really + made no observations of any scientific value on that return. The bee, + of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, but he was already + out of sight as we came into the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden + from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, however, with its people now + all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a spanking pace + almost abreast of the nearer church.</p> +<p>We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped + in getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the + impressions of our feet on the gravel of the path were unusually deep.</p> +<p>So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically + we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things + in the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour + while the band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it + had upon us was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient + inspection. Considering all things, and particularly considering our + rashness in venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly + have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt, + that Gibberne has still much to learn before his preparation is + a manageable convenience, but its practicability it certainly + demonstrated beyond all cavil.</p> +<p>Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under + control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad + result, taken measured doses under his direction; though I must + confess I have not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence. + I may mention, for example, that this story has been written at one + sitting and without interruption, except for the nibbling of some + chocolate, by its means. I began at 6.25, and my watch is now very + nearly at the minute past the half-hour. The convenience of securing + a long, uninterrupted spell of work in the midst of a day full + of engagements cannot be exaggerated. Gibberne is now working + at the quantitative handling of his preparation, with especial reference + to its distinctive effects upon different types of constitution. + He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute its present + rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have the + reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable + the patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary + time,--and so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like + absence of alacrity, amidst the most animated or irritating + surroundings. The two things together must necessarily work an entire + revolution in civilised existence. It is the beginning of our escape + from that Time Garment of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator + will enable us to concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact + upon any moment or occasion that demands our utmost sense and vigour, + the Retarder will enable us to pass in passive tranquillity through + infinite hardship and tedium. Perhaps I am a little optimistic + about the Retarder, which has indeed still to be discovered, but + about the Accelerator there is no possible sort of doubt whatever. + Its appearance upon the market in a convenient, controllable, + and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months. It will be + obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green bottles, + at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no means + excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called, + and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200, + one in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and + white labels respectively.</p> +<p>No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things + possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even + criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging, + as it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations + it will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect + of the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this + is purely a matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside + our province. We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and, + as for the consequences--we shall see.</p> +<p> + 9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION</p> +<p>My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural + mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam + through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates + irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has + come with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an + elaborate clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination + to be firm and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant + alike. He is a sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many + of the secret practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather + than interesting things. His conversation is copious and given + much to needless detail. By many, indeed, his intercourse is + condemned, to put it plainly, as "boring," and such have even done + me the compliment to wonder why I countenance him. But, on the other + hand, there is a large faction who marvel at his countenancing + such a dishevelled, discreditable acquaintance as myself. Few appear + to regard our friendship with equanimity. But that is because they + do not know of the link that binds us, of my amiable connection + via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past.</p> +<p>About that past he displays an anxious modesty. "I do not KNOW what + I should do if it became known," he says; and repeats, impressively, + "I do not know WHAT I should do." As a matter of fact, I doubt if + he would do anything except get very red about the ears. But that + will appear later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter, + since, as a general rule--though I am prone to break it--the end + of a story should come after, rather than before, the beginning. + And the beginning of the story goes a long way back; indeed, it is + now nearly twenty years since Fate, by a series of complicated and + startling manoeuvres, brought Mr. Ledbetter, so to speak, into my + hands.</p> +<p>In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a + schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably + the same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage, + the same or similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise + in his resting expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when + I saw him, and his collar less of a collar than a wet bandage, + and that may have helped to bridge the natural gulf between us--but + of that, as I say, later.</p> +<p>The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with + Mr. Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly + needed rest, with a bright brown portmanteau marked "F. W. L.", + a new white-and-black straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel + trousers. He was naturally exhilarated at his release from school-- + for he was not very fond of the boys he taught. After dinner he + fell into a discussion with a talkative person established in the + boarding-house to which, acting on the advice of his aunt, he had + resorted. This talkative person was the only other man in the house. + Their discussion concerned the melancholy disappearance of wonder + and adventure in these latter days, the prevalence of globe-trotting, + the abolition of distance by steam and electricity, the vulgarity + of advertisement, the degradation of men by civilisation, and many + such things. Particularly was the talkative person eloquent on + the decay of human courage through security, a security Mr. Ledbetter + rather thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr. Ledbetter, in the + first delight of emancipation from "duty," and being anxious, perhaps, + to establish a reputation for manly conviviality, partook, rather + more freely than was advisable, of the excellent whisky the talkative + person produced. But he did not become intoxicated, he insists.</p> +<p>He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer + edge gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave + old days that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate-- + alone and up the cliff road where the villas cluster together.</p> +<p>He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still + bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life + as a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant, + so colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was + there for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval + days, so near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri + and many a risky blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt, + a strange doubt, springing out of some chance thought of tortures, + and destructive altogether of the position he had assumed that evening.</p> +<p>Was he--Mr. Ledbetter--really, after all, so brave as he assumed? + Would he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and + security vanish suddenly from the earth?</p> +<p>The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. "The burglar," + he said, "is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his + single-handed fight against the whole civilised world!" And Mr. + Ledbetter had echoed his envy. "They DO have some fun out of life," + Mr. Ledbetter had said. "And about the only people who do. Just + think how it must feel to wire a lawn!" And he had laughed wickedly. + Now, in this franker intimacy of self-communion he found himself + instituting a comparison between his own brand of courage and that of + the habitual criminal. He tried to meet these insidious questionings + with blank assertion. "I could do all that," said Mr. Ledbetter. + "I long to do all that. Only I do not give way to my criminal impulses. + My moral courage restrains me." But he doubted even while he told + himself these things.</p> +<p>"Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently + situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping + black, wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture + of it came with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself + climbing up that balcony, crouching--plunging into that dark, + mysterious interior. "Bah! You would not dare," said the Spirit + of Doubt. "My duty to my fellow-men forbids," said Mr. Ledbetter's + self-respect.</p> +<p>It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very + still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one + warm oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life. + He turned and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window. + He stood for a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives. + "Let us put things to the test," said Doubt. "For the satisfaction + of these intolerable doubts, show that you dare go into that house. + Commit a burglary in blank. That, at any rate, is no crime." Very + softly he opened and shut the gate and slipped into the shadow + of the shrubbery. "This is foolish," said Mr. Ledbetter's caution. + "I expected that," said Doubt. His heart was beating fast, but he + was certainly not afraid. He was NOT afraid. He remained in that + shadow for some considerable time.</p> +<p>The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done + in a rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from + the gate into the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious + climbing roses made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that + black shadow by the stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and + take a closer view of this gaping breach in the domestic defences, + the open window. For a while Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night, + and then that insidious whisky tipped the balance. He dashed forward. + He went up the trellis with quick, convulsive movements, swung his + legs over the parapet of the balcony, and dropped panting in the + shadow even as he had designed. He was trembling violently, short + of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, but his mood was exultation. + He could have shouted to find he was so little afraid.</p> +<p>A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's "Mephistopheles" came + into his mind as he crouched there. "I feel like a cat on the tiles," + he whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected-- + this adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom + burglary was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And + he was acting in the bravest manner!</p> +<p>And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare do + that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or + passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about + it, or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility + of a sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then + raised his eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on + a pedestal, and a little startling at first, was a nearly life-size + gesticulating bronze. He ducked, and after some time he peered + again. Beyond was a broad landing, faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric + of bead curtain, very black and sharp, against a further window; a + broad staircase, plunging into a gulf of darkness below; and another + ascending to the second floor. He glanced behind him, but the + stillness of the night was unbroken. "Crime," he whispered, "crime," + and scrambled softly and swiftly over the sill into the house. His + feet fell noiselessly on a mat of skin. He was a burglar indeed!</p> +<p>He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was + a scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his + enterprise. A short "miaow," a spitting, and a rush into silence, + spoke reassuringly of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every + one was abed, it seemed. So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one + is so minded. He was glad he had put it to the test. He determined + to take some petty trophy, just to prove his freedom from any abject + fear of the law, and depart the way he had come.</p> +<p>He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again. + Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this: + they went into rooms, they forced safes. Well--he was not afraid. + He could not force safes, because that would be a stupid want + of consideration for his hosts. But he would go into rooms--he would + go upstairs. More: he told himself that he was perfectly secure; + an empty house could not be more reassuringly still. He had to clench + his hands, nevertheless, and summon all his resolution before he + began very softly to ascend the dim staircase, pausing for several + seconds between each step. Above was a square landing with one + open and several closed doors; and all the house was still. For + a moment he stood wondering what would happen if some sleeper + woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit bedroom, + the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in three + interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder-- + his trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had + ascended. It was as easy as--</p> +<p>Hist! . . .</p> +<p>Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house--and then the noise of a + latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match + in the hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden + discovery of the folly upon which he had come. "How on earth am + I to get out of this?" said Mr. Ledbetter.</p> +<p>The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped + against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In + a flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood + for a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. "My goodness! + What a FOOL I have been!" he whispered, and then darted swiftly + across the shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he + had just come. He stood listening--quivering. The footsteps reached + the first-floor landing.</p> +<p>Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment + was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven + for a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds + too soon. He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing + candle-light appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the + shadows ran wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down.</p> +<p>"Lord, what a day!" said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed + he deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging + by the feet, decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went + to the door and locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows + carefully and pulled down the blinds, and returning sat down upon + the bed with startling ponderosity.</p> +<p>"WHAT a day!" he said. "Good Lord!" and blew again, and + Mr. Ledbetter + inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots + were good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance + suggested a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed + some upper garments--a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred-- + and casting them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less + noisily, and as it seemed cooling from a considerable temperature. + At intervals he muttered to himself, and once he laughed softly. And + Mr. Ledbetter muttered to himself, but he did not laugh. "Of all the + foolish things," said Mr. Ledbetter. "What on earth am I to do now?"</p> +<p>His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between + the stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount + of light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain, + save for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled + confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the edge + of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously + depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened + until the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was + a luxurious one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors + and so forth of the furniture, well equipped.</p> +<p>What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until + this person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping, + to creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony + seemed the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump + from the balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances + against him, Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting + forth his head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary + to attract his attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining + his unfortunate intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he + found these sentences hard to choose. "No doubt, sir, my appearance + is peculiar," or, "I trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous + appearance from beneath you," was about as much as he could get.</p> +<p>Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose + they did not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his + unblemished high character count for nothing? Technically he was + a burglar, beyond dispute. Following out this train of thought, + he was composing a lucid apology for "this technical crime I have + committed," to be delivered before sentence in the dock, when + the stout gentleman got up and began walking about the room. He + locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. Ledbetter had a transient hope + that he might be undressing. But, no! He seated himself at the + writing-table, and began to write and then tear up documents. + Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with the odour + of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils.</p> +<p>"The position I had assumed," said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me + of + these things, "was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse + bar beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a + disproportionate share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I + experienced what is called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The + pressure of my hands on the coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became + painful. My knees, too, were painful, my trousers being drawn tightly + over them. At that time I wore rather higher collars than I do now--two + and a half inches, in fact--and I discovered what I had not remarked + before, that the edge of the one I wore was frayed slightly under + the chin. But much worse than these things was an itching of my face, + which I could only relieve by violent grimacing--I tried to raise + my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve alarmed me. After a time + I had to desist from this relief also, because--happily in time-- + I discovered that my facial contortions were shifting my glasses + down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have exposed me, and as it + was they came to rest in an oblique position of by no means stable + equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an intermittent + desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In fact, quite + apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical discomfort + became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to stay + there motionless, nevertheless."</p> +<p>After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This + deepened into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink--twenty-five chinks-- + a rap on the writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout + legs. It dawned upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking + of gold. He became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity + grew. Already, if that was the case, this extraordinary man must + have counted some hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could + resist it no longer, and he began very cautiously to fold his arms + and lower his head to the level of the floor, in the hope of peeping + under the valance. He moved his feet, and one made a slight scraping + on the floor. Suddenly the chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became + rigid. After a while the chinking was resumed. Then it ceased again, + and everything was still, except Mr. Ledbetter's heart--that organ + seemed to him to be beating like a drum.</p> +<p>The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor, + and he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were + quite still. The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back, + as it seemed, under the chair of the owner. Everything was quite + still, everything continued still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter + that the unknown was in a fit or suddenly dead, with his head upon + the writing-table. . . .</p> +<p>The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep + became irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand + forward, projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance + immediately next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now + the stranger's knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then-- + he was staring at the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over + the writing-table at his head.</p> +<p>"Come out of that, you scoundrel!" said the voice of the stout + gentleman in a tone of quiet concentration. "Come out. This side, + and now. None of your hanky-panky--come right out, now."</p> +<p>Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but + without any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told.</p> +<p>"Kneel," said the stout gentleman. "and hold up your hands."</p> +<p>The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from + all-fours and held up his hands. "Dressed like a parson," said + the stout gentleman. "I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too! + You SCOUNDREL! What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night? + What the deuce possessed you to get under my bed?"</p> +<p>He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to + several very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal + appearance. He was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr. + Ledbetter: he was as stout as his legs had promised, he had rather + delicately-chiselled small features distributed over a considerable + area of whitish face, and quite a number of chins. And the note + of his voice had a sort of whispering undertone.</p> +<p>"What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?"</p> +<p>Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He + coughed. "I can quite understand--" he said.</p> +<p>"Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!--you scoundrel. Don't you move + that hand."</p> +<p>"It's soap," said Mr. Ledbetter. "From your washstand. No doubt + it--"</p> +<p>"Don't talk," said the stout man. "I see it's soap. Of all incredible + things."</p> +<p>"If I might explain--"</p> +<p>"Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for + explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?"</p> +<p>"In a few minutes, if you--"</p> +<p>"Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver + I'll shoot. Have you any mates?"</p> +<p>"No," said Mr. Ledbetter.</p> +<p>"I suppose it's a lie," said the stout man. "But you'll pay + for it + if it is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs? + You won't get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed! + I reckon it's a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned."</p> +<p>"I don't see how I could prove an alibi," remarked Mr. Ledbetter, + trying to show by his conversation that he was an educated man. + There was a pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside + his captor was a large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers, + and that there were torn and burnt papers on the table. And in front + of these, and arranged methodically along the edge were rows and + rows of little yellow rouleaux--a hundred times more gold than Mr. + Ledbetter had seen in all his life before. The light of two candles, + in silver candlesticks, fell upon these. The pause continued. "It is + rather fatiguing holding up my hands like this," said Mr. Ledbetter, + with a deprecatory smile.</p> +<p>"That's all right," said the fat man. "But what to do with you + I don't exactly know."</p> +<p>"I know my position is ambiguous."</p> +<p>"Lord!" said the fat man, "ambiguous! And goes about with his + own + soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming + burglar, you are--if ever there was one!"</p> +<p>"To be strictly accurate," said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his + glasses slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons.</p> +<p>The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution + crossed his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put + his other hand to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter, + and his eye went down to the dropped pince-nez.</p> +<p>"Full-cock now, anyhow," said the fat man, after a pause, and his + breath seemed to catch. "But I'll tell you, you've never been so + near death before. Lord! I'M almost glad. If it hadn't been that + the revolver wasn't cocked you'd be lying dead there now."</p> +<p>Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying.</p> +<p>"A miss is as good as a mile. It's lucky for both of us it wasn't. + Lord!" He blew noisily. "There's no need for you to go pale-green + for a little thing like that."</p> +<p>"If I can assure you, sir--" said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort.</p> +<p>"There's only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I'm bust-- + a little game I've got on is bust. That won't do. If I tie you up + and leave you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow's + Sunday, and Monday's Bank Holiday--I've counted on three clear + days. Shooting you's murder--and hanging; and besides, it will bust + the whole blooming kernooze. I'm hanged if I can think what to do-- + I'm hanged if I can."</p> +<p>"Will you permit me--"</p> +<p>"You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I'm blessed if you + don't. Of all the burglars you are the--Well! No!--I WON'T permit + you. There isn't time. If you start off jawing again, I'll shoot + right in your stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're + going to do first, my man, is an examination for concealed arms-- + an examination for concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you + to do a thing, don't start off at a gabble--do it brisk."</p> +<p>And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol + at Mr. Ledbetter's head, the stout man stood him up and searched + him for weapons. "Why, you ARE a burglar!" he said "You're a + perfect + amateur. You haven't even a pistol-pocket in the back of your + breeches. No, you don't! Shut up, now."</p> +<p>So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter + take off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver + at one ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted. + From the stout man's point of view that was evidently the only + possible arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had + to put down the revolver. So that even the gold on the table was + handled by Mr. Ledbetter. This nocturnal packing was peculiar. + The stout man's idea was evidently to distribute the weight of + the gold as unostentatiously as possible through his luggage. It was + by no means an inconsiderable weight. There was, Mr. Ledbetter says, + altogether nearly L18,000 in gold in the black bag and on the table. + There were also many little rolls of L5 bank-notes. Each rouleau + of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter in paper. These rouleaux were + then put neatly in cigar boxes and distributed between a travelling + trunk, a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. About L600 went in a tobacco + tin in a dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a number of L5 notes the stout + man pocketed. Occasionally he objurgated Mr. Ledbetter's clumsiness, + and urged him to hurry, and several times he appealed to Mr. + Ledbetter's watch for information.</p> +<p>Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man the keys. + It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of midnight the stout + man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he sat at a reasonably safe distance + on the trunk and held the revolver handy and waited. He appeared to be now in + a less aggressive mood, and having watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered + a few remarks.</p> +<p>"From your accent I judge you are a man of some education," he said, + lighting a cigar. "No--DON'T begin that explanation of yours. I know + it will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar + to be interested in other men's lying. You are, I say, a person + of education. You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated + people you might pass as a curate."</p> +<p>"I AM a curate," said Mr. Ledbetter, "or, at least--"</p> +<p>"You are trying to be. I know. But you didn't ought to burgle. + You are not the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it--the thing + will have been pointed out to you before--a coward."</p> +<p>"Do you know," said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening, + "it was that very question--"</p> +<p>The stout man waved him into silence.</p> +<p>"You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two + things. Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my + own part, I embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man + could be doing with all this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight! . . . + Ten. Eleven. Twelve. There is something very impressive to me + in that slow beating of the hours. Time--space; what mysteries + they are! What mysteries. . . . It's time for us to be moving. + Stand up!"</p> +<p>And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the + dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder + the trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone + bag in his disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled + perilously downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat, + the hatbox, and the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr. + Ledbetter's strength, and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs.</p> +<p>"The back door," he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through + a conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him. + "Never mind the crockery," said the stout man; "it's good for + trade. + We wait here until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You + have!"</p> +<p>Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. "Last night," he gasped, + "I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt--"</p> +<p>"There's no need for you to incriminate yourself," said the stout + gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum. + Mr. Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it.</p> +<p>There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was + taken to the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man + in yachting costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started + violently and clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout + man. "Bingham!" he cried, "who's this?"</p> +<p>"Only a little philanthropic do of mine--burglar I'm trying to reform. + Caught him under my bed just now. He's all right. He's a frightful + ass. He'll be useful to carry some of our things."</p> +<p>The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter's presence + at first, but the stout man reassured him.</p> +<p>"He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him. + No!--don't start talking, for goodness' sake."</p> +<p>They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still + bowing Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume + walked in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came + Mr. Ledbetter like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box, + coat, and revolver as before. The house was one of those that have + their gardens right up to the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden + stairway, descending to a bathing tent dimly visible on the beach. + Below was a boat pulled up, and a silent little man with a black face + stood beside it. "A few moments' explanation," said Mr. Ledbetter; + "I can assure you--" Somebody kicked him, and he said no more.</p> +<p>They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled + him aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better + name than "scoundrel" and "burglar" all that night. But + they spoke + in undertones so that the general public was happily unaware of his + ignominy. They hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange, + unsympathetic Orientals, and partly they thrust him and partly he + fell down a gangway into a noisome, dark place, where he was to + remain many days--how many he does not know, because he lost count + among other things when he was seasick. They fed him on biscuits and + incomprehensible words; they gave him water to drink mixed with + unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches where they put him, + night and day there were cockroaches, and in the night-time there + were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took his watch-- + but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. And five or + six times the five Lascars--if they were Lascars--and the Chinaman + and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and took him + aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and three- + anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an + interested manner.</p> +<p>Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who + have lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit, + though they made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest + burglar they had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again. + The fair man was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play; + but Mr. Bingham, now that the evident anxiety of his departure + from England was assuaged, displayed a vein of genial philosophy. + He enlarged upon the mystery of space and time, and quoted Kant + and Hegel--or, at least, he said he did. Several times Mr. Ledbetter + got as far as: "My position under your bed, you know--," but then + he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do some such intervening + thing. After his third failure, the fair man got quite to look for + this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after that, he would + roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. "Same old start, + same old story; good old burglar!" the fair-haired man would say.</p> +<p>So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one + evening he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over + the side and put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring. + Mr. Bingham came in the boat with him, giving him good advice + all the way, and waving his last attempts at an explanation aside.</p> +<p>"I am really NOT a burglar," said Mr. Ledbetter.</p> +<p>"You never will be," said Mr. Bingham. "You'll never make a + burglar. + I'm glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession + a man must study his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later + you will fail. Compare myself, for example. All my life I have + been in banks--I have got on in banks. I have even been a bank + manager. But was I happy? No. Why wasn't I happy? Because it did + not suit my temperament. I am too adventurous--too versatile. + Practically I have thrown it over. I do not suppose I shall ever + manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, no doubt; + but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament--at last. . . . + No! I shall never manage a bank again.</p> +<p>"Now, your temperament unfits you for crime--just as mine unfits + me for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do + not even recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man. + YOUR lay is the philanthropic lay--that is your lay. With that voice-- + the Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young-- + something in that line. You think it over.</p> +<p>"The island we are approaching has no name apparently--at least, + there is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while + you are there--while you are thinking about all these things. It has + quite drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines-- + one of the Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of + the Grenadines. There are quantities of Grenadines, but the majority + are out of sight. I have often wondered what these islands are + for--now, you see, I am wiser. This one at least is for you. Sooner + or later some simple native will come along and take you off. + Say what you like about us then--abuse us, if you like--we shan't + care a solitary Grenadine! And here--here is half a sovereign's + worth of silver. Do not waste that in foolish dissipation when + you return to civilisation. Properly used, it may give you a fresh + start in life. And do not--Don't beach her, you beggars, he can + wade!--Do not waste the precious solitude before you in foolish + thoughts. Properly used, it may be a turning-point in your career. + Waste neither money nor time. You will die rich. I'm sorry, but + I must ask you to carry your tucker to land in your arms. No; it's + not deep. Curse that explanation of yours! There's not time. + No, no, no! I won't listen. Overboard you go!"</p> +<p>And the falling night found Mr. Ledbetter--the Mr. Ledbetter who + had complained that adventure was dead--sitting beside his cans + of food, his chin resting upon his drawn-up knees, staring through + his glasses in dismal mildness over the shining, vacant sea.</p> +<p>He was picked up in the course of three days by a negro fisherman + and taken to St. Vincent's, and from St. Vincent's he got, by + the expenditure of his last coins, to Kingston, in Jamaica. And there + he might have foundered. Even nowadays he is not a man of affairs, + and then he was a singularly helpless person. He had not the remotest + idea what he ought to do. The only thing he seems to have done was + to visit all the ministers of religion he could find in the place + to borrow a passage home. But he was much too dirty and incoherent-- + and his story far too incredible for them. I met him quite by chance. + It was close upon sunset, and I was walking out after my siesta + on the road to Dunn's Battery, when I met him--I was rather bored, + and with a whole evening on my hands--luckily for him. He was trudging + dismally towards the town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical + cut of his dust-stained, filthy costume caught my humour. Our eyes met. + He hesitated. "Sir," he said, with a catching of the breath, "could + you spare a few minutes for what I fear will seem an incredible story?"</p> +<p>"Incredible!" I said.</p> +<p>"Quite," he answered eagerly. "No one will believe it, alter + it + though I may. Yet I can assure you, sir--"</p> +<p>He stopped hopelessly. The man's tone tickled me. He seemed an odd + character. "I am," he said, "one of the most unfortunate beings + alive."</p> +<p>"Among other things, you haven't dined?" I said, struck with an idea.</p> +<p>"I have not," he said solemnly, "for many days."</p> +<p>"You'll tell it better after that," I said; and without more ado + led + the way to a low place I knew, where such a costume as his was + unlikely to give offence. And there--with certain omissions which + he subsequently supplied--I got his story. At first I was incredulous, + but as the wine warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing + which his misfortunes had added to his manner disappeared, I began + to believe. At last, I was so far convinced of his sincerity that + I got him a bed for the night, and next day verified the banker's + reference he gave me through my Jamaica banker. And that done, I took + him shopping for underwear and such like equipments of a gentleman + at large. Presently came the verified reference. His astonishing + story was true. I will not amplify our subsequent proceedings. + He started for England in three days' time.</p> +<p>"I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough," began the letter + he wrote me from England, "for all your kindness to a total stranger," + and proceeded for some time in a similar strain. "Had it not been + for your generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned + in time for the resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few + minutes of reckless folly would, perhaps, have proved my ruin. + As it is, I am entangled in a tissue of lies and evasions, of the most + complicated sort, to account for my sunburnt appearance and my + whereabouts. I have rather carelessly told two or three different + stories, not realising the trouble this would mean for me in the end. + The truth I dare not tell. I have consulted a number of law-books + in the British Museum, and there is not the slightest doubt that + I have connived at and abetted and aided a felony. That scoundrel + Bingham was the Hithergate bank manager, I find, and guilty of + the most flagrant embezzlement. Please, please burn this letter + when read--I trust you implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my aunt + nor her friend who kept the boarding-house at which I was staying + seem altogether to believe a guarded statement I have made them + practically of what actually happened. They suspect me of some + discreditable adventure, but what sort of discreditable adventure + they suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says she would forgive me + if I told her everything. I have--I have told her MORE than everything, + and still she is not satisfied. It would never do to let them know + the truth of the case, of course, and so I represent myself as having + been waylaid and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to know + WHY they waylaid and gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht. + I do not know. Can you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing. + If, when you wrote, you could write on TWO sheets so that I could + show her one, and on that one if you could show clearly that I really + WAS in Jamaica this summer, and had come there by being removed + from a ship, it would be of great service to me. It would certainly + add to the load of my obligation to you--a load that I fear I can + never fully repay. Although if gratitude . . ." And so forth. + At the end he repeated his request for me to burn the letter.</p> +<p>So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach + with his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him + before she died.</p> +<p> + 10. THE STOLEN BODY</p> +<p>Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, + and Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was + well known among those interested in psychical research as a + liberal-minded and conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried + man, and instead of living in the suburbs, after the fashion of + his class, he occupied rooms in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He + was particularly interested in the questions of thought transference + and of apparitions of the living, and in November, 1896, he commenced + a series of experiments in conjunction with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn, + in order to test the alleged possibility of projecting an apparition + of one's self by force of will through space.</p> +<p>Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a pre- + arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the + Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then + fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel + had acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could, + he attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself + as a "phantom of the living" across the intervening space of nearly + two miles into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this + was tried without any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth + occasion Mr. Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition + of Mr. Bessel standing in his room. He states that the appearance, + although brief, was very vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's + face was white and his expression anxious, and, moreover, that + his hair was disordered. For a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his + state of expectation, was too surprised to speak or move, and in that + moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced over its shoulder + and incontinently vanished.</p> +<p>It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph + any phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence + of mind to snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, + and when he did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even + by this partial success, he made a note of the exact time, and + at once took a cab to the Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result.</p> +<p>He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open + to the night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary + disorder. An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor; + its neck had been broken off against the inkpot on the bureau + and lay beside it. An octagonal occasional table, which carried + a bronze statuette and a number of choice books, had been rudely + overturned, and down the primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had + been drawn, as it seemed for the mere pleasure of defilement. One of + the delicate chintz curtains had been violently torn from its rings + and thrust upon the fire, so that the smell of its smouldering + filled the room. Indeed the whole place was disarranged in the + strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who had entered + sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, could + scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these + unanticipated things.</p> +<p>Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at + the entrance lodge. "Where is Mr. Bessel?" he asked. "Do you + know + that all the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?" The porter + said nothing, but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's + apartment to see the state of affairs. "This settles it," he said, + surveying the lunatic confusion. "I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's + gone off. He's mad!"</p> +<p>He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour + previously, that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's + apparition in Mr. Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed + out of the gates of the Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with + disordered hair, and had vanished into the direction of Bond Street. + "And as he went past me," said the porter, "he laughed--a sort + of + gasping laugh, with his mouth open and his eyes glaring--I tell you, + sir, he fair scared me!--like this."</p> +<p>According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh. + "He waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing--like + that. And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that + one word, 'LIFE!'"</p> +<p>"Dear me," said Mr. Vincey. "Tut, tut," and "Dear + me!" He could + think of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised. + He turned from the room to the porter and from the porter to the + room in the gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably + Mr. Bessel would come back presently and explain what had happened, + their conversation was unable to proceed. "It might be a sudden + toothache," said the porter, "a very sudden and violent toothache, + jumping on him suddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken + things myself before now in such a case . . ." He thought. "If it + was, + why should he say 'LIFE' to me as he went past?"</p> +<p>Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last + Mr. Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having + addressed a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous + position on the bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind + to his own premises in Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock. + He was at a loss to account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane + hypothesis. He tried to read, but he could not do so; he went for + a short walk, and was so preoccupied that he narrowly escaped + a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; and at last--a full hour before + his usual time--he went to bed. For a considerable time he could not + sleep because of his memory of the silent confusion of Mr. Bessel's + apartment, and when at length he did attain an uneasy slumber it was + at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of Mr. Bessel.</p> +<p>He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and contorted. + And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested perhaps by his gestures, + was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He even believes that he heard the voice + of his fellow experimenter calling distressfully to him, though at the time + he considered this to be an illusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. + Vincey awoke. For a space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed + with that vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out + of dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself, and turned + over and went to sleep again, only for the dream to return with enhanced vividness. +</p> +<p>He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in + overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer + possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire + calamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but + at last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas, + and dressed, and set out through the deserted streets--deserted, save + for a noiseless policeman or so and the early news carts--towards Vigo + Street to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned.</p> +<p>But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some + unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards + Covent Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He + saw the market in front of him--a queer effect of glowing yellow + lights and busy black figures. He became aware of a shouting, and + perceived a figure turn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards + him. He knew at once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel + transfigured. He was hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open, + he grasped a bone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his + mouth was pulled awry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly. + Their encounter was the affair of an instant. "Bessel!" cried Vincey.</p> +<p>The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey + or of his own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with + the stick, hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye. + Mr. Vincey, stunned and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing, + and fell heavily on the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel + leapt over him as he fell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had + vanished, and a policeman and a number of garden porters and salesmen + were rushing past towards Long Acre in hot pursuit.</p> +<p>With the assistance of several passers-by--for the whole street + was speedily alive with running people--Mr. Vincey struggled to + his feet. He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see + his injury. A multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his + safety, and then to tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as + they regarded Mr. Bessel. He had suddenly appeared in the middle + of the market screaming "LIFE! LIFE!" striking left and right with + a + blood-stained walking-stick, and dancing and shouting with laughter + at each successful blow. A lad and two women had broken heads, + and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little child had been knocked + insensible, and for a time he had driven every one before him, + so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he made a raid + upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through the window + of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the foremost + of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him.</p> +<p>Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit + of his friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence + of the indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had + half stunned him, and while this was still no more than a resolution + came the news, shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded + his pursuers. At first Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but + the universality of the report, and presently the dignified return + of two futile policemen, convinced him. After some aimless inquiries + he returned towards Staple Inn, padding a handkerchief to a now + very painful nose.</p> +<p>He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him + indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst + of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make + him appear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed + a problem beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain + this. It seemed to him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but + the order of things must be insane. But he could think of nothing + to do. He shut himself carefully into his room, lit his fire--it was + a gas fire with asbestos bricks--and, fearing fresh dreams if he + went to bed, remained bathing his injured face, or holding up books + in a vain attempt to read, until dawn. Throughout that vigil he had + a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel was endeavouring to speak + to him, but he would not let himself attend to any such belief.</p> +<p>About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed + and slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested + and anxious, and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers + had no news of Mr. Bessel's aberration--it had come too late for them. + Mr. Vincey's perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added + fresh irritation, became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless + visit to the Albany, he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart, + Mr. Bessel's partner, and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest + friend.</p> +<p>He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing + of the outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very + vision that Mr. Vincey had seen--Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled, + pleading earnestly by his gestures for help. That was his impression + of the import of his signs. "I was just going to look him up in the + Albany when you arrived," said Mr. Hart. "I was so sure of something + being wrong with him."</p> +<p>As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided + to inquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. + "He is bound to be laid by the heels," said Mr. Hart. "He can't + go + on at that pace for long." But the police authorities had not laid + Mr. Bessel by the heels. They confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight + experiences and added fresh circumstances, some of an even graver + character than those he knew--a list of smashed glass along the upper + half of Tottenham Court Road, an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead + Road, and an atrocious assault upon a woman. All these outrages were + committed between half-past twelve and a quarter to two in the morning, + and between those hours--and, indeed, from the very moment of Mr. + Bessel's first rush from his rooms at half-past nine in the evening-- + they could trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For + the last hour, at least from before one, that is, until a quarter to + two, he had run amuck through London, eluding with amazing agility + every effort to stop or capture him.</p> +<p>But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses + were multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or + pursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to + two he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street, + flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame + therefrom at the windows of the houses he passed. But none of + the policemen on Euston Road beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor + any of those in the side streets down which he must have passed + had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything of him. Abruptly he + disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to light in spite + of the keenest inquiry.</p> +<p>Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerable + comfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: "He is bound to be laid by the heels + before long," and in that assurance he had been able to suspend + his mental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined + to add new impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers + of his acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory + might not have played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any + of these things could possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he + hunted up Mr. Hart again to share the intolerable weight on his mind. + He found Mr. Hart engaged with a well-known private detective, + but as that gentleman accomplished nothing in this case, we need + not enlarge upon his proceedings.</p> +<p>All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active + inquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion + in the back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention, + and all through the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face + of anguish pursued him through his dreams. And whenever he saw + Mr. Bessel in his dreams he also saw a number of other faces, vague + but malignant, that seemed to be pursuing Mr. Bessel.</p> +<p>It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certain + remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting + attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her. + She was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. Wilson + Paget, and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before, + repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help. + But scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Paget + interrupted him. "Last night--just at the end," he said, "we + had + a communication."</p> +<p>He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain + words written in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably + the handwriting of Mr. Bessel!</p> +<p>"How did you get this?" said Mr. Vincey. "Do you mean--?"</p> +<p>"We got it last night," said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptions + from Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had been + obtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into + a condition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under + her eyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk + very rapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time + one or both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils + are provided they will then write messages simultaneously with + and quite independently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many + she is considered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated + Mrs. Piper. It was one of these messages, the one written by her + left hand, that Mr. Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight + words written disconnectedly: "George Bessel . . . trial excavn. . . . + Baker Street . . . help . . . starvation." Curiously enough, neither + Doctor Paget nor the two other inquirers who were present had heard + of the disappearance of Mr. Bessel--the news of it appeared only + in the evening papers of Saturday--and they had put the message + aside with many others of a vague and enigmatical sort that + Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered.</p> +<p>When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once + with great energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of + Mr. Bessel. It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the + inquiries of Mr. Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a + genuine one, and that Mr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid.</p> +<p>He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk + and abandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric + railway near Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were + broken. The shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and + over this, incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged + gentleman, must have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft. + He was saturated in colza oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him, + but luckily the flame had been extinguished by his fall. And his + madness had passed from him altogether. But he was, of course, + terribly enfeebled, and at the sight of his rescuers he gave way + to hysterical weeping.</p> +<p>In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the + house of Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a + sedative treatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis + through which he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second + day he volunteered a statement.</p> +<p>Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated this + statement--to myself among other people--varying the details as + the narrator of real experiences always does, but never by any + chance contradicting himself in any particular. And the statement + he makes is in substance as follows.</p> +<p>In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to his + experiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's + first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey, + were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all + of them he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting + out of the body--"willing it with all my might," he says. At last, + almost against expectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that + he, being alive, did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body + and pass into some place or state outside this world.</p> +<p>The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. "At one moment I was + seated in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping + the arms of the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind + on Vincey, and then I perceived myself outside my body--saw my body + near me, but certainly not containing me, with the hands relaxing + and the head drooping forward on the breast."</p> +<p>Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes + in a quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced. + He felt he had become impalpable--so much he had expected, but + he had not expected to find himself enormously large. So, however, + it would seem he became. "I was a great cloud--if I may express it + that way--anchored to my body. It appeared to me, at first, as if + I had discovered a greater self of which the conscious being in my + brain was only a little part. I saw the Albany and Piccadilly and + Regent Street and all the rooms and places in the houses, very minute + and very bright and distinct, spread out below me like a little + city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague shapes like + drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little indistinct, but + at first I paid little heed to them. The thing that astonished me + most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite distinctly + the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw little people + dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining, + playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several + places of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching + the affairs of a glass hive."</p> +<p>Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told + me the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space + observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped + down, and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of, + attempted to touch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could + not do so, though his finger seemed to pass through the man. Something + prevented his doing this, but what it was he finds it hard to describe. + He compares the obstacle to a sheet of glass.</p> +<p>"I felt as a kitten may feel," he said, "when it goes for the + first + time to pat its reflection in a mirror." Again and again, on the + occasion when I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that + comparison of the sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise + comparison, because, as the reader will speedily see, there were + interruptions of this generally impermeable resistance, means of + getting through the barrier to the material world again. But, + naturally, there is a very great difficulty in expressing these + unprecedented impressions in the language of everyday experience.</p> +<p>A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon him + throughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place--he + was in a world without sound.</p> +<p>At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder. + His thought chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was + out of the body--out of his material body, at any rate--but that + was not all. He believes, and I for one believe also, that he was + somewhere out of space, as we understand it, altogether. By a strenuous + effort of will he had passed out of his body into a world beyond + this world, a world undreamt of, yet lying so close to it and so + strangely situated with regard to it that all things on this earth + are clearly visible both from without and from within in this other + world about us. For a long time, as it seemed to him, this realisation + occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other matters, and then + he recalled the engagement with Mr. Vincey, to which this astonishing + experience was, after all, but a prelude.</p> +<p>He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found + himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment + to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body + of his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed + with his efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link + that bound him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by + what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then + through a momentary gap he saw his drooping body collapse limply, + saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and found he was driving along + like a huge cloud in a strange place of shadowy clouds that had + the luminous intricacy of London spread like a model below.</p> +<p>But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was + something more than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first + essay was shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly, + and then suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES! + that each roll and coil of the seeming cloud-stuff was a face. + And such faces! Faces of thin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity. + Faces like those faces that glare with intolerable strangeness + upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his dreams. Evil, greedy eyes + that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces with knit brows and + snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched at Mr. Bessel + as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive streak + of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never a sound from + the mouths that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressed in that + dreamy silence, passing freely through the dim mistiness that was + his body, gathering ever more numerously about him. And the shadowy + Mr. Bessel, now suddenly fear-stricken, drove through the silent, + active multitude of eyes and clutching hands.</p> +<p>So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes, + and shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel + to attempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms, + they seemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden + the boon of being, whose only expressions and gestures told of + the envy and craving for life that was their one link with existence.</p> +<p>It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud + of these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey. + He made a violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how, + stooping towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert + in his arm-chair by the fire.</p> +<p>And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all + that lives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless + shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life.</p> +<p>For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's + attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects + in his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected, + ignorant of the being that was so close to his own. The strange + something that Mr. Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated + them impermeably.</p> +<p>And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that + in some strange way he could see not only the outside of a man + as we see him, but within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust + his vague black fingers, as it seemed, through the heedless brain.</p> +<p>Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention + from wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a little + dark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled + and glowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown + anatomical figures of the brain, and he knows now that this is + that useless structure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For, + strange as it will seem to many, we have, deep in our brains--where + it cannot possibly see any earthly light--an eye! At the time this, + with the rest of the internal anatomy of the brain, was quite new + to him. At the sight of its changed appearance, however, he thrust + forth his finger, and, rather fearful still of the consequences, + touched this little spot. And instantly Mr. Vincey started, and + Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen.</p> +<p>And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened + to his body, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world + of shadows and tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that + he thought no more of Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all + the countless faces drove back with him like leaves before a gale. + But he returned too late. In an instant he saw the body that he had + left inert and collapsed--lying, indeed, like the body of a man + just dead--had arisen, had arisen by virtue of some strength and + will beyond his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs + in dubious fashion.</p> +<p>For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped + towards it. But the pane of glass had closed against him again, + and he was foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and + all about him the spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked. + He gave way to furious anger. He compares himself to a bird that + has fluttered heedlessly into a room and is beating at the window- + pane that holds it back from freedom.</p> +<p>And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing + with delight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts; + he saw the violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling + his cherished furniture about in the mad delight of existence, + rend his books apart, smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged + fragments, leap and smite in a passionate acceptance of living. + He watched these actions in paralysed astonishment. Then once more + he hurled himself against the impassable barrier, and then with all + that crew of mocking ghosts about him, hurried back in dire confusion + to Vincey to tell him of the outrage that had come upon him.</p> +<p>But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and + the disembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out + into Holborn to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel + swept back again, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious + frenzy down the Burlington Arcade. . . .</p> +<p>And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's + interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being + whose frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury + and disaster had indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel. + It was an evil spirit out of that strange world beyond existence, + into which Mr. Bessel had so rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held + possession of him, and for all those twenty hours the dispossessed + spirit-body of Mr. Bessel was going to and fro in that unheard-of + middle world of shadows seeking help in vain. He spent many hours + beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey and of his friend Mr. Hart. + Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. But the language that + might convey his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did + not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in their + brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able to turn + Mr. Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolen + body in its career, but he could not make him understand the thing + that had happened: he was unable to draw any help from that + encounter. . . .</p> +<p>All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel's + mind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant, + and he would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore. + So that those long hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever + as he hurried to and fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable + spirits of that world about him mobbed him and confused his mind. + And ever an envious applauding multitude poured after their successful + fellow as he went upon his glorious career.</p> +<p>For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things + of this world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch, + coveting a way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend, + as furies and frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses, + rejoicing in the body they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only + human soul in that place. Witness the fact that he met first one, + and afterwards several shadows of men, men like himself, it seemed, + who had lost their bodies even it may be as he had lost his, and + wandered, despairingly, in that lost world that is neither life + nor death. They could not speak because that world is silent, yet + he knew them for men because of their dim human bodies, and because + of the sadness of their faces.</p> +<p>But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where + the bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about + the earth, or whether they were closed forever in death against + return. That they were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I + believe. But Doctor Wilson Paget thinks they are the rational souls + of men who are lost in madness on the earth.</p> +<p>At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of such + disembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through them + he saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen + and a woman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting + awkwardly in a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from + her portraits to be Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived + that tracts and structures in her brain glowed and stirred as he had + seen the pineal eye in the brain of Mr. Vincey glow. The light was + very fitful; sometimes it was a broad illumination, and sometimes + merely a faint twilight spot, and it shifted slowly about her brain. + She kept on talking and writing with one hand. And Mr. Bessel saw + that the crowding shadows of men about him, and a great multitude + of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all striving and + thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As one gained + her brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writing of + her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused + for the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now + a fragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies + of the spirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she + spoke for the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle + very furiously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd + and at that time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious, + he went away to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a + long time he went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it + must have been killed, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft + in Baker Street, writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and + an arm and two ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover, the evil + spirit was angry because his time had been so short and because of the + painmaking violent movements and casting his body about.</p> +<p>And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the + room where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust + himself within sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood + about the medium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance + should presently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had + been striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the thought + that the seance was almost over only made Mr. Bessel the more + earnest, and he struggled so stoutly with his will against the others + that presently he gained the woman's brain. It chanced that just + at that moment it glowed very brightly, and in that instant she wrote + the message that Doctor Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other + shadows and the cloud of evil spirits about him had thrust Mr. Bessel + away from her, and for all the rest of the seance he could regain + her no more.</p> +<p>So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom + of the shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had + maimed, writhing and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning + the lesson of pain. And towards dawn the thing he had waited for + happened, the brain glowed brightly and the evil spirit came out, + and Mr. Bessel entered the body he had feared he should never enter + again. As he did so, the silence--the brooding silence--ended; + he heard the tumult of traffic and the voices of people overhead, + and that strange world that is the shadow of our world--the dark + and silent shadows of ineffectual desire and the shadows of lost + men--vanished clean away.</p> +<p>He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found. + And in spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim + damp place in which he lay; in spite of the tears--wrung from him + by his physical distress--his heart was full of gladness to know + that he was nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men.</p> +<p> + 11. MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE</p> +<p>"You can't be TOO careful WHO you marry," said Mr. Brisher, and + pulled thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache + that hides his want of chin.</p> +<p>"That's why--" I ventured.</p> +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey + eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol INTIMATELY + at me. "There's lots as 'ave 'ad a try at me--many as I could name + in this town--but none 'ave done it--none."</p> +<p>I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion, + the masterly carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think + that by reason of the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last + of his race.</p> +<p>"I was a smart young chap when I was younger," said Mr. Brisher. + "I 'ad my work cut out. But I was very careful--very. And I got + through . . ."</p> +<p>He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject + of my trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence.</p> +<p>"I was engaged once," he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on + the shuv-a'penny board.</p> +<p>"So near as that?"</p> +<p>He looked at me. "So near as that. Fact is--" He looked about him, + brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an + unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. "If she ain't dead or married + to some one else or anything--I'm engaged still. Now." He confirmed + this statement with nods and facial contortions. "STILL," he said, + ending the pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise. + "ME!"</p> +<p>"Run away," he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows. + "Come 'ome.</p> +<p>"That ain't all.</p> +<p>"You'd 'ardly believe it," he said, "but I found a treasure. + Found + a regular treasure."</p> +<p>I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper + surprise. "Yes," he said, "I found a treasure. And come 'ome. + I tell + you I could surprise you with things that has happened to me." + And for some time he was content to repeat that he had found + a treasure--and left it.</p> +<p>I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr. + Brisher's bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted + lady.</p> +<p>"She was a nice girl," he said--a little sadly, I thought. "AND + respectable."</p> +<p>He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme + respectability--beyond the likes of us elderly men.</p> +<p>"It was a long way from 'ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester. + It was when I was up in London--in the buildin' trade. I was a smart + young chap then, I can tell you. Slim. 'Ad best clo'es 's good + as anybody. 'At--SILK 'at, mind you." Mr. Brisher's hand shot above + his head towards the infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest. + "Umbrella--nice umbrella with a 'orn 'andle. Savin's. Very careful + I was. . . ."</p> +<p>He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come + to think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth. + But he refrained, as one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral.</p> +<p>"I got to know 'er through a chap what was engaged to 'er sister. She + was stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that 'ad a 'am an' beef shop. + This aunt was very particular--they was all very particular people, all 'er + people was--and wouldn't let 'er sister go out with this feller except 'er other + sister, MY girl that is, went with them. So 'e brought me into it, sort of to + ease the crowding. We used to go walks in Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. + Me in my topper, and 'im in 'is; and the girl's--well--stylish. There wasn't + many in Battersea Park 'ad the larf of us. She wasn't what you'd call pretty, + but a nicer girl I never met. <i>I</i> liked 'er from the start, and, well--though + I say it who shouldn't--she liked me. You know 'ow it is, I dessay?"</p> +<p>I pretended I did.</p> +<p>"And when this chap married 'er sister--'im and me was great + friends--what must 'e do but arst me down to Colchester, close by + where She lived. Naturally I was introjuced to 'er people, and well, + very soon, her and me was engaged."</p> +<p>He repeated "engaged."</p> +<p>"She lived at 'ome with 'er father and mother, quite the lady, in a + very nice little 'ouse with a garden--and remarkable respectable + people they was. Rich you might call 'em a'most. They owned their + own 'ouse--got it out of the Building Society, and cheap because + the chap who had it before was a burglar and in prison--and they 'ad + a bit of free'old land, and some cottages and money 'nvested--all + nice and tight: they was what you'd call snug and warm. I tell you, + I was On. Furniture too. Why! They 'ad a pianner. Jane--'er name + was Jane--used to play it Sundays, and very nice she played too. + There wasn't 'ardly a 'im toon in the book she COULDN'T play . . .</p> +<p>"Many's the evenin' we've met and sung 'ims there, me and 'er + and the family.</p> +<p>"'Er father was quite a leadin' man in chapel. You should ha' seen + him Sundays, interruptin' the minister and givin' out 'ims. He had + gold spectacles, I remember, and used to look over 'em at you while + he sang hearty--he was always great on singing 'earty to the Lord-- + and when HE got out o' toon 'arf the people went after 'im--always. + 'E was that sort of man. And to walk be'ind 'im in 'is nice black + clo'es--'is 'at was a brimmer--made one regular proud to be engaged + to such a father-in-law. And when the summer came I went down there + and stopped a fortnight.</p> +<p>"Now, you know there was a sort of Itch," said Mr. Brisher. "We + wanted + to marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad + to get a proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch. + Consequently, when I went down there, I was anxious to show that + I was a good useful sort of chap like. Show I could do pretty nearly + everything like. See?"</p> +<p>I made a sympathetic noise.</p> +<p>"And down at the bottom of their garden was a bit of wild part like. + So I says to 'im, 'Why don't you 'ave a rockery 'ere?' I says. + 'It 'ud look nice.'</p> +<p>"'Too much expense,' he says.</p> +<p>"'Not a penny,' says I. 'I'm a dab at rockeries. Lemme make you one.' + You see, I'd 'elped my brother make a rockery in the beer garden + be'ind 'is tap, so I knew 'ow to do it to rights. 'Lemme make you + one,' I says. 'It's 'olidays, but I'm that sort of chap, I 'ate doing + nothing,' I says. 'I'll make you one to rights.' And the long and + the short of it was, he said I might.</p> +<p>"And that's 'ow I come on the treasure."</p> +<p>"What treasure?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Why!" said Mr. Brisher, "the treasure I'm telling you about, + what's + the reason why I never married."</p> +<p>"What!--a treasure--dug up?"</p> +<p>"Yes--buried wealth--treasure trove. Come out of the ground. What + I kept on saying--regular treasure. . . ." He looked at me with + unusual disrespect.</p> +<p>"It wasn't more than a foot deep, not the top of it," he said. + "I'd 'ardly got thirsty like, before I come on the corner."</p> +<p>"Go on," I said. "I didn't understand."</p> +<p>"Why! Directly I 'it the box I knew it was treasure. A sort of instinct + told me. Something seemed to shout inside of me--'Now's your chance-- + lie low.' It's lucky I knew the laws of treasure trove or I'd 'ave been + shoutin' there and then. I daresay you know--"</p> +<p>"Crown bags it," I said, "all but one per cent. Go on. It's + a shame. + What did you do?"</p> +<p>"Uncovered the top of the box. There wasn't anybody in the garden + or about like. Jane was 'elping 'er mother do the 'ouse. I WAS + excited--I tell you. I tried the lock and then gave a whack at + the hinges. Open it came. Silver coins--full! Shining. It made me + tremble to see 'em. And jest then--I'm blessed if the dustman didn't + come round the back of the 'ouse. It pretty nearly gave me 'eart + disease to think what a fool I was to 'ave that money showing. And + directly after I 'eard the chap next door--'e was 'olidaying, too-- + I 'eard him watering 'is beans. If only 'e'd looked over the fence!"</p> +<p>"What did you do?"</p> +<p>"Kicked the lid on again and covered it up like a shot, and went + on digging about a yard away from it--like mad. And my face, so + to speak, was laughing on its own account till I had it hid. I tell + you I was regular scared like at my luck. I jest thought that it + 'ad to be kep' close and that was all. 'Treasure,' I kep' whisperin' + to myself, 'Treasure' and ''undreds of pounds, 'undreds, 'undreds + of pounds.' Whispering to myself like, and digging like blazes. It + seemed to me the box was regular sticking out and showing, like your + legs do under the sheets in bed, and I went and put all the earth + I'd got out of my 'ole for the rockery slap on top of it. I WAS + in a sweat. And in the midst of it all out toddles 'er father. + He didn't say anything to me, jest stood behind me and stared, + but Jane tole me afterwards when he went indoors, 'e says, 'That + there jackanapes of yours, Jane'--he always called me a jackanapes + some'ow--'knows 'ow to put 'is back into it after all.' Seemed quite + impressed by it, 'e did."</p> +<p>"How long was the box?" I asked, suddenly.</p> +<p>"'Ow long?" said Mr. Brisher.</p> +<p>"Yes--in length?"</p> +<p>"Oh! 'bout so-by-so." Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk.</p> +<p>"FULL?" said I.</p> +<p>"Full up of silver coins--'arf-crowns, I believe."</p> +<p>"Why!" I cried, "that would mean--hundreds of pounds."</p> +<p>"Thousands," said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. "I calc'lated + it + out."</p> +<p>"But how did they get there?"</p> +<p>"All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this. + The chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular + slap-up burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive + 'is trap--like Peace did." Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties + of narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. "I don't + know if I told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's + father's, and I knew 'e'd robbed a mail train once, I did know that. + It seemed to me--"</p> +<p>"That's very likely," I said. "But what did you do?"</p> +<p>"Sweated," said Mr. Brisher. "Regular run orf me. All that morning," + said Mr. Brisher, "I was at it, pretending to make that rockery + and wondering what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps, + only I was doubtful of 'is honesty--I was afraid he might rob me of + it like, and give it up to the authorities--and besides, considering + I was marrying into the family, I thought it would be nicer like + if it came through me. Put me on a better footing, so to speak. + Well, I 'ad three days before me left of my 'olidays, so there + wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and went on digging, and tried + to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. Only I couldn't.</p> +<p>"I thought," said Mr. Brisher, "AND I thought. Once I got regular + doubtful whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it + uncovered again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin' + she'd done. Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave + another go at it, when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready. + 'You'll want it,' she said, 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.'</p> +<p>"I was in a regular daze all dinner, wondering whether that chap + next door wasn't over the fence and filling 'is pockets. But in + the afternoon I got easier in my mind--it seemed to me it must 'ave + been there so long it was pretty sure to stop a bit longer--and + I tried to get up a bit of a discussion to dror out the old man + and see what 'E thought of treasure trove."</p> +<p>Mr. Brisher paused, and affected amusement at the memory.</p> +<p>"The old man was a scorcher," he said; "a regular scorcher."</p> +<p>"What!" said I; "did he--?"</p> +<p>"It was like this," explained Mr. Brisher, laying a friendly hand + on my arm and breathing into my face to calm me. "Just to dror + 'im out, I told a story of a chap I said I knew--pretendin', you + know--who'd found a sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said + 'e stuck to it, but I said I wasn't sure whether that was right + or not. And then the old man began. Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!" + Mr. Brisher affected an insincere amusement. "'E was, well--what you + might call a rare 'and at Snacks. Said that was the sort of friend + 'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said 'e'd naturally expect that + from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who took up with daughters + who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell you 'ARF 'e said. + 'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about it, just to dror + 'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you found it in + the street?' I says. 'Certainly not,' 'e says; 'certainly I wouldn't.' + 'What! not if you found it as a sort of treasure?' 'Young man,' + 'e says, 'there's 'i'er 'thority than mine--Render unto Caesar'-- + what is it? Yes. Well, he fetched up that. A rare 'and at 'itting + you over the 'ed with the Bible, was the old man. And so he went on. + 'E got to such Snacks about me at last I couldn't stand it. I'd + promised Jane not to answer 'im back, but it got a bit TOO thick. + I--I give it 'im . . ."</p> +<p>Mr. Brisher, by means of enigmatical facework, tried to make me + think he had had the best of that argument, but I knew better.</p> +<p>"I went out in a 'uff at last. But not before I was pretty sure I + 'ad to lift that treasure by myself. The only thing that kep' me up + was thinking 'ow I'd take it out of 'im when I 'ad the cash."</p> +<p>There was a lengthy pause.</p> +<p>"Now, you'd 'ardly believe it, but all them three days I never + 'ad a chance at the blessed treasure, never got out not even + a 'arf-crown. There was always a Somethink--always.</p> +<p>"'Stonishing thing it isn't thought of more," said Mr. Brisher. + "Finding treasure's no great shakes. It's gettin' it. I don't + suppose I slep' a wink any of those nights, thinking where I was + to take it, what I was to do with it, 'ow I was to explain it. + It made me regular ill. And days I was that dull, it made Jane + regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you was in London,' she + says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father and 'is Snacks, + but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but that I'd + got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had + a bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem + to mind a bit Anything she said.</p> +<p>"Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at + planning, though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it + all out and settled on a plan. First, I was going to take all my + pockets full of these 'ere 'arf-crowns--see?--and afterwards as I + shall tell.</p> +<p>"Well, I got to that state I couldn't think of getting at the Treasure + again in the daytime, so I waited until the night before I had to go, + and then, when everything was still, up I gets and slips down + to the back door, meaning to get my pockets full. What must I do + in the scullery but fall over a pail! Up gets 'er father with a gun--'e + was a light sleeper was 'er father, and very suspicious and there + was me: 'ad to explain I'd come down to the pump for a drink because + my water-bottle was bad. 'E didn't let me off a Snack or two over + that bit, you lay a bob." +</p> +<p>"And you mean to say--" I began.</p> +<p>"Wait a bit," said Mr. Brisher. "I say, I'd made my plan. That + put + the kybosh on one bit, but it didn't 'urt the general scheme not a bit. + I went and I finished that rockery next day, as though there wasn't + a Snack in the world; cemented over the stones, I did, dabbed + it green and everythink. I put a dab of green just to show where + the box was. They all came and looked at it, and sai 'ow nice + it was--even 'e was a bit softer like to see it, and all he said was, + "It's a pity you can't always work like that, then you might get + something definite to do," he says.</p> +<p>"'Yes,' I says--I couldn't 'elp it--'I put a lot in that rockery,' + I says, like that. See? 'I put a lot in that rockery'--meaning--"</p> +<p>"I see," said I--for Mr. Brisher is apt to overelaborate his jokes.</p> +<p>"'<i>E</i> didn't," said Mr. Brisher. "Not then, anyhow.</p> +<p>"Ar'ever--after all that was over, off I set for London. . . . + Orf I set for London."</p> +<p>Pause.</p> +<p>"On'y I wasn't going to no London," said Mr. Brisher, with sudden + animation, and thrusting his face into mine. "No fear! What do YOU + think?</p> +<p>"I didn't go no further than Colchester--not a yard.</p> +<p>"I'd left the spade just where I could find it. I'd got everything + planned and right. I 'ired a little trap in Colchester, and pretended + I wanted to go to Ipswich and stop the night, and come back next + day, and the chap I 'ired it from made me leave two sovrings on it + right away, and off I set.</p> +<p>"I didn't go to no Ipswich neither.</p> +<p>"Midnight the 'orse and trap was 'itched by the little road that ran + by the cottage where 'e lived--not sixty yards off, it wasn't--and + I was at it like a good 'un. It was jest the night for such + games--overcast--but a trifle too 'ot, and all round the sky there + was summer lightning and presently a thunderstorm. Down it came. + First big drops in a sort of fizzle, then 'ail. I kep'on. I whacked + at it--I didn't dream the old man would 'ear. I didn't even trouble + to go quiet with the spade, and the thunder and lightning and 'ail + seemed to excite me like. I shouldn't wonder if I was singing. I got + so 'ard at it I clean forgot the thunder and the 'orse and trap. I + precious soon got the box showing, and started to lift it . . . ."</p> +<p>"Heavy?" I said.</p> +<p>"I couldn't no more lift it than fly. I WAS sick. I'd never thought + of that I got regular wild--I tell you, I cursed. I got sort of + outrageous. I didn't think of dividing it like for the minute, + and even then I couldn't 'ave took money about loose in a trap. + I hoisted one end sort of wild like, and over the whole show went + with a tremenjous noise. Perfeck smash of silver. And then right + on the heels of that, Flash! Lightning like the day! and there was + the back door open and the old man coming down the garden with + 'is blooming old gun. He wasn't not a 'undred yards away!</p> +<p>"I tell you I was that upset--I didn't think what I was doing. + I never stopped-not even to fill my pockets. I went over the fence + like a shot, and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and + swearing as I went. I WAS in a state. . . .</p> +<p>"And will you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left + the 'orse and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't + a cuss left for it. I jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced + enough I started off to London. . . . I was done."</p> +<p>Mr. Brisher was pensive for an interval. "I was done," he repeated, + very bitterly.</p> +<p>"Well?" I said.</p> +<p>"That's all," said Mr. Brisher.</p> +<p>"You didn't go back?"</p> +<p>"No fear. I'd 'ad enough of THAT blooming treasure, any'ow for a bit. + Besides, I didn't know what was done to chaps who tried to collar + a treasure trove. I started off for London there and then. . . ."</p> +<p>"And you never went back?"</p> +<p>"Never."</p> +<p>"But about Jane? Did you write?"</p> +<p>"Three times, fishing like. And no answer. We'd parted in a bit + of a 'uff on account of 'er being jealous. So that I couldn't make + out for certain what it meant.</p> +<p>"I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know whether the old man + knew it was me. I sort of kep' an eye open on papers to see when he'd + give up that treasure to the Crown, as I hadn't a doubt 'e would, + considering 'ow respectable he'd always been."</p> +<p>"And did he?"</p> +<p>Mr. Brisher pursed his mouth and moved his head slowly from side + to side. "Not 'IM," he said.</p> +<p>"Jane was a nice girl," he said, "a thorough nice girl mind + you, + if jealous, and there's no knowing I mightn't 'ave gone back to 'er + after a bit. I thought if he didn't give up the treasure I might 'ave + a sort of 'old on 'im. . . . Well, one day I looks as usual under + Colchester--and there I saw 'is name. What for, d'yer think?"</p> +<p>I could not guess.</p> +<p>Mr. Brisher's voice sank to a whisper, and once more he spoke behind + his hand. His manner was suddenly suffused with a positive joy. + "Issuing counterfeit coins," he said. "Counterfeit coins!"</p> +<p>"You don't mean to say--?"</p> +<p>"Yes-It. Bad. Quite a long case they made of it. But they got 'im, + though he dodged tremenjous. Traced 'is 'aving passed, oh!--nearly + a dozen bad 'arf-crowns."</p> +<p>"And you didn't--?"</p> +<p>"No fear. And it didn't do 'IM much good to say it was treasure trove."</p> +<p> + 12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART</p> +<p>Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind + for a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her + conversation that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome, + and who were not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal + grievance against her. Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly + to convince her that Rome was not nearly such a desirable place + as it was reported to be, and others had gone so far as to suggest + behind her back that she was dreadfully "stuck up" about "that + Rome + of hers." And little Lily Hardhurst had told her friend Mr. Binns + that so far as she was concerned Miss Winchelsea might "go to her + old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily Hardhurst) wouldn't grieve." + And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put herself upon terms of personal + tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto Cellini and Raphael and Shelley + and Keats--if she had been Shelley's widow she could not have professed + a keener interest in his grave--was a matter of universal astonishment. + Her dress was a triumph of tactful discretion, sensible, but not too + "touristy"--Miss Winchelsea, had a great dread of being "touristy"-- + and her Baedeker was carried in a cover of grey to hide its glaring + red. She made a prim and pleasant little figure on the Charing Cross + platform, in spite of her swelling pride, when at last the great + day dawned, and she could start for Rome. The day was bright, + the Channel passage would be pleasant, and all the omens promised + well. There was the gayest sense of adventure in this unprecedented + departure.</p> +<p>She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her + at the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good + at history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up + to her immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she + anticipated some pleasant times to be spent in "stirring them up" + to her own pitch of aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had + secured seats already, and welcomed her effusively at the carriage + door. In the instant criticism of the encounter she noted that Fanny + had a slightly "touristy" leather strap, and that Helen had succumbed + to a serge jacket with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust. + But they were much too happy with themselves and the expedition + for their friend to attempt any hint at the moment about these things. + As soon as the first ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was + a little noisy and crude, and consisted mainly in emphatic repetitions + of "Just FANCY! we're going to Rome, my dear!--Rome!"--they gave + their attention to their fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to + secure a compartment to themselves, and, in order to discourage + intruders, got out and planted herself firmly on the step. Miss + Winchelsea peeped out over her shoulder, and made sly little remarks + about the accumulating people on the platform, at which Fanny laughed + gleefully.</p> +<p>They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen + days in Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personally + conducted party of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but + they travelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement. + The people were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing. + There was a vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in + a pepper-and-salt suit, very long in the arms and legs and very + active. He shouted proclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he + stretched out an arm and held them until his purpose was accomplished. + One hand was full of papers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists. + The people of the personally conducted party were, it seemed, + of two sorts; people the conductor wanted and could not find, + and people he did not want and who followed him in a steadily + growing tail up and down the platform. These people seemed, indeed, + to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay in keeping + close to him. Three little old ladies were particularly energetic + in his pursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of clapping + them into a carriage and daring them to emerge again. For the rest + of the time, one, two, or three of their heads protruded from + the window wailing enquiries about "a little wickerwork box" + whenever he drew near. There was a very stout man with a very stout + wife in shiny black; there was a little old man like an aged hostler.</p> +<p>"What CAN such people want in Rome?" asked Miss Winchelsea. "What + can it mean to them?" There was a very tall curate in a very small + straw hat, and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera + stand. The contrast amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some + one calling for "Snooks." "I always thought that name was invented + by novelists," said Miss Winchelsea. "Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which + IS Mr. Snooks." Finally they picked out a very stout and resolute + little man in a large check suit. "If he isn't Snooks, he ought + to be," said Miss Winchelsea.</p> +<p>Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner + in carriages. "Room for five," he bawled with a parallel translation + on his fingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two + daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. "It's all right, Ma, + you let me," said one of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet + with a handbag she struggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea + detested people who banged about and called their mother "Ma." + A young man travelling alone followed. He was not at all "touristy" + in his costume, Miss Winchelsea observed; his Gladstone bag was + of good pleasant leather with labels reminiscent of Luxembourg and + Ostend, and his boots, though brown, were not vulgar. He carried + an overcoat on his arm. Before these people had properly settled + in their places, came an inspection of tickets and a slamming + of doors, and behold! they were gliding out of Charing Cross + station on their way to Rome.</p> +<p>"Fancy!" cried Fanny, "we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! + I don't + seem to believe it, even now."</p> +<p>Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile, + and the lady who was called "Ma" explained to people in general + why they had "cut it so close" at the station. The two daughters + called her "Ma" several times, toned her down in a tactless effective + way, and drove her at last to the muttered inventory of a basket + of travelling requisites. Presently she looked up. "Lor'!" she said, + "I didn't bring THEM!" Both the daughters said "Oh, Ma!" + but what + "them" was did not appear. Presently Fanny produced Hare's Walks + in Rome, a sort of mitigated guide-book very popular among Roman + visitors; and the father of the two daughters began to examine + his books of tickets minutely, apparently in a search after English + words. When he had looked at the tickets for a long time right way up, + he turned them upside down. Then he produced a fountain pen and + dated them with considerable care. The young man, having completed + an unostentatious survey of his fellow travellers, produced a book and + fell to reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking out of the window + at Chiselhurst--the place interested Fanny because the poor dear + Empress of the French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took + the opportunity to observe the book the young man held. It was not + a guide-book, but a little thin volume of poetry--BOUND. She glanced + at his face--it seemed a refined pleasant face to her hasty glance. + He wore a little gilt pince-nez. "Do you think she lives there + now?" said Fanny, and Miss Winchelsea's inspection came to an end.</p> +<p>For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what + she said was as pleasant and as stamped with refinement as she + could make it. Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant, + and she took care that on this occasion it was particularly low and + clear and pleasant. As they came under the white cliffs the young + man put his book of poetry away, and when at last the train stopped + beside the boat, he displayed a graceful alacrity with the impedimenta + of Miss Winchelsea and her friends. Miss Winchelsea hated nonsense, + but she was pleased to see the young man perceived at once that + they were ladies, and helped them without any violent geniality; + and how nicely he showed that his civilities were to be no excuse + for further intrusions. None of her little party had been out + of England before, and they were all excited and a little nervous + at the Channel passage. They stood in a little group in a good place + near the middle of the boat--the young man had taken Miss Winchelsea's + carry-all there and had told her it was a good place--and they watched + the white shores of Albion recede and quoted Shakespeare and made + quiet fun of their fellow travellers in the English way.</p> +<p>They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized + people had taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks + prevailed, one lady lay full-length in a deck chair with a handkerchief + over her face, and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown + "touristy" suit walked all the way from England to France along + the deck, with his legs as widely apart as Providence permitted. These + were all excellent precautions, and, nobody was ill. The personally + conducted party pursued the conductor about the deck with enquiries + in a manner that suggested to Helen's mind the rather vulgar image + of hens with a piece of bacon peel, until at last he went into hiding + below. And the young man with the thin volume of poetry stood + at the stern watching England receding, looking rather lonely + and sad to Miss Winchelsea's eye.</p> +<p>And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man + had not forgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little + things. All three girls, though they had passed government examinations + in French to any extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their + accents, and the young man was very useful. And he did not intrude. + He put them in a comfortable carriage and raised his hat and went + away. Miss Winchelsea thanked him in her best manner--a pleasing, + cultivated manner--and Fanny said he was "nice" almost before he + was out of earshot. "I wonder what he can be," said Helen. "He's + going to Italy, because I noticed green tickets in his book." + Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, and decided not + to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold upon them + and the young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they were + doing an educated sort of thing to travel through a country whose + commonest advertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea + made unpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-board + advertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that + deface the landscape in our land. But the north of France is really + uninteresting country, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's Walks + and Helen initiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy + reverie; she had been trying to realise, she said, that she was + actually going to Rome, but she perceived at Helen's suggestion + that she was hungry, and they lunched out of their baskets very + cheerfully. In the afternoon they were tired and silent until Helen + made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have dozed, only she knew Fanny + slept with her mouth open; and as their fellow passengers were + two rather nice critical-looking ladies of uncertain age--who knew + French well enough to talk it--she employed herself in keeping Fanny + awake. The rhythm of the train became insistent, and the streaming + landscape outside became at last quite painful to the eye. They were + already dreadfully tired of travelling before their night's stoppage + came.</p> +<p>The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of + the young man, and his manners were all that could be desired and + his French quite serviceable. His coupons availed for the same hotel + as theirs, and by chance as it seemed he sat next Miss Winchelsea + at the table d'hote. In spite of her enthusiasm for Rome, she had + thought out some such possibility very thoroughly, and when he + ventured to make a remark upon the tediousness of travelling--he + let the soup and fish go by before he did this--she did not simply + assent to his proposition, but responded with another. They were + soon comparing their journeys, and Helen and Fanny were cruelly + overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the same journey, + they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--"from what I + hear," said the young man, "it is barely enough,"--and the rest + at Rome. He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite + well read, and he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had + "done" that book of Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted + to cap his quotation. It gave a sort of tone to things, this + incident--a touch of refinement to mere chatting. Fanny expressed + a few emotions, and Helen interpolated a few sensible remarks, but + the bulk of the talk on the girls' side naturally fell to Miss + Winchelsea.</p> +<p>Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party. + They did not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught, + and Miss Winchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer. + At any rate he was something of that sort, something gentlemanly + and refined without being opulent and impossible. She tried once + or twice to ascertain whether he came from Oxford or Cambridge, + but he missed her timid importunities. She tried to get him to make + remarks about those places to see if he would say "come up" to them + instead of "go down"--she knew that was how you told a 'Varsity man. + He used the word "'Varsity"--not university--in quite the proper way.</p> +<p>They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted; + he met them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting + brightly, and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew + a great deal about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely. + It was fine to go round recognising old favourites and finding + new beauties, especially while so many people fumbled helplessly + with Baedeker. Nor was he a bit of a prig, Miss Winchelsea said, + and indeed she detested prigs. He had a distinct undertone of humour, + and was funny, for example, without being vulgar, at the expense of + the quaint work of Beato Angelico. He had a grave seriousness beneath + it all, and was quick to seize the moral lessons of the pictures. + Fanny went softly among these masterpieces; she admitted "she knew + so little about them," and she confessed that to her they were "all + beautiful." Fanny's "beautiful" inclined to be a little monotonous, + Miss Winchelsea thought. She had been quite glad when the last + sunny Alp had vanished, because of the staccato of Fanny's admiration. + Helen said little, but Miss Winchelsea had found her a little wanting + on the aesthetic side in the old days and was not surprised; sometimes + she laughed at the young man's hesitating delicate little jests and + sometimes she didn't, and sometimes she seemed quite lost to the art + about them in the contemplation of the dresses of the other visitors.</p> +<p>At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather + "touristy" friend of his took him away at times. He complained + comically to Miss Winchelsea. "I have only two short weeks in Rome," + he said, "and my friend Leonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli, + looking at a waterfall."</p> +<p>"What is your friend Leonard?" asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly.</p> +<p>"He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met," the young man + replied, amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelsea + thought. They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think + what they would have done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest + and Fanny's enormous capacity for admiration were insatiable. They + never flagged--through pictures and sculpture galleries, immense + crowded churches, ruins and museums, Judas trees and prickly pears, + wine carts and palaces, they admired their way unflinchingly. They + never saw a stone pine or a eucalyptus but they named and admired it; + they never glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. Their common ways + were made wonderful by imaginative play. "Here Caesar may have + walked," they would say. "Raphael may have seen Soracte from this + very point." They happened on the tomb of Bibulus. "Old Bibulus," + said the young man. "The oldest monument of Republican Rome!" + said Miss Winchelsea.</p> +<p>"I'm dreadfully stupid," said Fanny, "but who WAS Bibulus?"</p> +<p>There was a curious little pause.</p> +<p>"Wasn't he the person who built the wall?" said Helen.</p> +<p>The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. "That was Balbus," + he said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw + any light upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus.</p> +<p>Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was + always taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets + and things like that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took + them, and told him where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times + they had, these young people, in that pale brown cleanly city of + memories that was once the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness + of the time. They said indeed that the electric trams and the '70 + buildings, and that criminal advertisement that glares upon the Forum, + outraged their aesthetic feelings unspeakably; but that was only part + of the fun. And indeed Rome is such a wonderful place that it made + Miss Winchelsea forget some of her most carefully prepared enthusiasms + at times, and Helen, taken unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty + of unexpected things. Yet Fanny and Helen would have liked a shop + window or so in the English quarter if Miss Winchelsea's uncompromising + hostility to all other English visitors had not rendered that district + impossible.</p> +<p>The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and + the scholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling. + The exuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite + admiration by playing her "beautiful," with vigour, and saying "Oh! + LET'S go," with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest + was mentioned. But Helen developed a certain want of sympathy + towards the end, that disappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She + refused to "see anything" in the face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's + Beatrice Cenci!--in the Barberini gallery; and one day, when they + were deploring the electric trams, she said rather snappishly that + "people must get about somehow, and it's better than torturing + horses up these horrid little hills." She spoke of the Seven Hills + of Rome as "horrid little hills!"</p> +<p>And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea + did not know of this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, "Don't hurry + like that, my dear; THEY don't want us to overtake them. And we + don't say the right things for them when we DO get near."</p> +<p>"I wasn't trying to overtake them," said Fanny, slackening her + excessive pace; "I wasn't indeed." And for a minute she was short + of + breath.</p> +<p>But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she + came to look back across an intervening tragedy that she quite + realised how happy she had been, pacing among the cypress-shadowed + ruins, and exchanging the very highest class of information the human + mind can possess, the most refined impressions it is possible + to convey. Insensibly emotion crept into their intercourse, sunning + itself openly and pleasantly at last when Helen's modernity was not + too near. Insensibly their interest drifted from the wonderful + associations about them to their more intimate and personal feelings. + In a tentative way information was supplied; she spoke allusively + of her school, of her examination successes, of her gladness that + the days of "Cram" were over. He made it quite clear that he also + was a teacher. They spoke of the greatness of their calling, of the + necessity of sympathy to face its irksome details, of a certain + loneliness they sometimes felt.</p> +<p>That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day, + because Helen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper + galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid + and concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. + She figured that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying + way to his students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual + mate and helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus, + with white shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures + of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, with Morris's wall papers and flowers in + pots of beaten copper. Indeed she figured many things. On the Pincio + the two had a few precious moments together, while Helen marched + Fanny off to see the muro Torto, and he spoke at once plainly. He + said he hoped their friendship was only beginning, that he already + found her company very precious to him, that indeed it was more than + that.</p> +<p>He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers + as though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. "I should + of course," he said, "tell you things about myself. I know it is + rather unusual my speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has + been so accidental--or providential--and I am snatching at things. + I came to Rome expecting a lonely tour . . . and I have been so very + happy, so very happy. Quite recently I found myself in a position-- + I have dared to think--. And--"</p> +<p>He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said "Damn!" quite + distinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse into + profanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drew + nearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was + almost a grin. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks," he + said. "You promised to be on the Piazza steps half an hour ago."</p> +<p>Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face. + She did not hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard + must have considered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day + she is not sure whether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor + what she said to him. A sort of mental paralysis was upon her. + Of all offensive surnames--Snooks!</p> +<p>Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young + men were receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face + the enquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived + the life of a heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name, + chatting, observing, with "Snooks" gnawing at her heart. From the + moment that it first rang upon her ears, the dream of her happiness + was prostrate in the dust. All the refinement she had figured was + ruined and defaced by that cognomen's unavoidable vulgarity.</p> +<p>What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes, + Morris papers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an + incredible inscription: "Mrs. Snooks." That may seem a little thing + to + the reader, but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's + mind. Be as refined as you can and then think of writing yourself + down:--"Snooks." She conceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks + by all the people she liked least, conceived the patronymic touched + with a vague quality of insult. She figured a card of grey and silver + bearing "Winchelsea," triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow, + in favour of "Snooks." Degrading confession of feminine weakness! + She + imagined the terrible rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain + grocer cousins from whom her growing refinement had long since + estranged her. How they would make it sprawl across the envelope + that would bring their sarcastic congratulations. Would even his + pleasant company compensate her for that? "It is impossible," + she muttered; "impossible! SNOOKS!"</p> +<p>She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself. + For him she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined, + while all the time he was "Snooks," to hide under a pretentious + gentility of demeanour the badge sinister of his surname seemed + a sort of treachery. To put it in the language of sentimental science + she felt he had "led her on."</p> +<p>There were of course moments of terrible vacillation, a period even + when something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to + the winds. And there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige + of vulgarity, that made a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks + was not so very bad a name after all. Any hovering hesitation flew + before Fanny's manner, when Fanny came with an air of catastrophe to + tell that she also knew the horror. Fanny's voice fell to a whisper + when she said SNOOKS. Miss Winchelsea would not give him any answer + when at last, in the Borghese, she could have a minute with him; + but she promised him a note.</p> +<p>She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent + her, the little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal + was ambiguous, allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected + him than she could have told a cripple of his hump. He too must + feel something of the unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he + had avoided a dozen chances of telling it, she now perceived. So she + spoke of "obstacles she could not reveal"--"reasons why the thing + he + spoke of was impossible." She addressed the note with a shiver, "E. + K. + Snooks."</p> +<p>Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain. + How COULD she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful. + She was haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she + had given him intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine + her mind thoroughly for the extent of her encouragement. She knew + he must think her the most changeable of beings. Now that she was + in full retreat, she would not even perceive his hints of a possible + correspondence. But in that matter he did a thing that seemed to her + at once delicate and romantic. He made a go-between of Fanny. + Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and told her that night + under a transparent pretext of needed advice. "Mr. Snooks," said + Fanny, "wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But should I let + him?" They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss Winchelsea was + careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was already repenting his + disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of him sometimes--painful + though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea decided it might + be permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with unusual emotion. + After she had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time at the window + of her little room. It was moonlight, and down the street a man + sang "Santa Lucia" with almost heart-dissolving tenderness. . . . + She sat very still.</p> +<p>She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was "SNOOKS." + Then she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning + he said to her meaningly, "I shall hear of you through your friend."</p> +<p>Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative + perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen + he would have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand + as a sort of encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England + Miss Winchelsea on six separate occasions made Fanny promise + to write to her the longest of long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would + be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new school--she was always going + to new schools--would be only five miles from Steely Bank, and + it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or two first-class + schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even see her + at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always + spoke of "him," never of Mr. Snooks,--because Helen was apt to say + unsympathetic things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much, + Miss Winchelsea perceived, since the old Training College days; + she had become hard and cynical. She thought he had a weak face, + mistaking refinement for weakness as people of her stamp are apt + to do, and when she heard his name was Snooks, she said she had + expected something of the sort. Miss Winchelsea was careful to spare + her own feelings after that, but Fanny was less circumspect.</p> +<p>The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a new interest + in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been an increasingly valuable + assistant for the last three years. Her new interest in life was Fanny as a + correspondent, and to give her a lead she wrote her a lengthy descriptive letter + within a fortnight of her return. Fanny answered, very disappointingly. Fanny + indeed had no literary gift, but it was new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself + deploring the want of gifts in a friend. That letter was even criticised aloud + in the safe solitude of Miss Winchelsea's study, and her criticism, spoken with + great bitterness, was "Twaddle!" It was full of just the things Miss + Winchelsea's letter had been full of, particulars of the school. And of Mr. + Snooks, only this much: "I have had a letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has + been over to see me on two Saturday afternoons running. He talked about Rome + and you; we both talked about you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear. . . ." +</p> +<p>Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information, + and wrote the sweetest long letter again. "Tell me all about yourself, + dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship, + and I do so want to keep in touch with you." About Mr. Snooks she + simply wrote on the fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen + him, and that if he SHOULD ask after her, she was to be remembered + to him VERY KINDLY (underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely + in the key of that "ancient friendship," reminding Miss Winchelsea + of a dozen foolish things of those old schoolgirl days at the training + college, and saying not a word about Mr. Snooks!</p> +<p>For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure + of Fanny as a go-between that she could not write to her. And then + she wrote less effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank, + "Have you seen Mr. Snooks?" Fanny's letter was unexpectedly + satisfactory. "I HAVE seen Mr. Snooks," she wrote, and having once + named him she kept on about him; it was all Snooks--Snooks this and + Snooks that. He was to give a public lecture, said Fanny, among other + things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after the first glow of gratification, + still found this letter a little unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report + Mr. Snooks as saying anything about Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking + a little white and worn, as he ought to have been doing. And behold! + before she had replied, came a second letter from Fanny on the same + theme, quite a gushing letter, and covering six sheets with her loose + feminine hand.</p> +<p>And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that + Miss Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time. + Fanny's natural femininity had prevailed even against the round + and clear traditions of the training college; she was one of those + she-creatures born to make all her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's + alike, and to leave her o's and a's open and her i's undotted. So that + it was only after an elaborate comparison of word with word that Miss + Winchelsea felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really "Mr. Snooks" + at all! In Fanny's first letter of gush he was Mr. "Snooks," in her + second the spelling was changed to Mr. "Senoks." Miss Winchelsea's + hand positively trembled as she turned the sheet over--it meant + so much to her. For it had already begun to seem to her that even + the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided at too great a price, + and suddenly--this possibility! She turned over the six sheets, + all dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the first letter + had the form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a hand + pressed upon her heart.</p> +<p>She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter + of inquiry that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing + too what action she should take after the answer came. She was + resolved that if this altered spelling was anything more than + a quaint fancy of Fanny's, she would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks. + She had now reached a stage when the minor refinements of behaviour + disappear. Her excuse remained uninvented, but she had the subject + of her letter clear in her mind, even to the hint that "circumstances + in my life have changed very greatly since we talked together." But + she never gave that hint. There came a third letter from that fitful + correspondent Fanny. The first line proclaimed her "the happiest + girl alive."</p> +<p>Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and + sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before + morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were + well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of + great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading the third + without discovering the error:--"told him frankly I did not like his + name," the third sheet began. "He told me he did not like it himself + --you know that sort of sudden frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea + did know. "So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it + at first. Well, you know, dear, he had told me what it really meant; + it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks--both Snooks + and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really + worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas + at times--'if it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it + back from Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it + is, dear, he couldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there + and then to Senoks for the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, + when we are married, we shall put in the apostrophe and make it + Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind that fancy of mine, when + many men would have taken offence? But it is just like him all over; + he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew as well as I did + that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been ten times + Snooks. But he did it all the same."</p> +<p>The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, + and looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with + some very small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few + seconds they stared at her stare, and then her expression changed + back to a more familiar one. "Has any one finished number three?" + she + asked in an even tone. She remained calm after that. But impositions + ruled high that day. And she spent two laborious evenings writing + letters of various sorts to Fanny, before she found a decent + congratulatory vein. Her reason struggled hopelessly against the + persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedingly treacherous manner.</p> +<p>One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart. + Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods + of sexual hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about + mankind. "He forgot himself with me," she said. "But Fanny is + pink + and pretty and soft and a fool--a very excellent match for a Man." + And by way of a wedding present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound + volume of poetry by George Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly + happy letter to say that it was "ALL beautiful." Miss Winchelsea + hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take up that slim book and + think for a moment of the donor. Fanny wrote several times before + and about her marriage, pursuing that fond legend of their "ancient + friendship," and giving her happiness in the fullest detail. And + Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first time after the Roman + journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but expressing very + cordial feelings.</p> +<p>They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the + August vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, + describing her home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements + of their "teeny weeny" little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning + to assume a refinement in Miss Winchelsea's memory out of all + proportion to the facts of the case, and she tried in vain to imagine + his cultured greatness in a "teeny weeny" little house. "Am busy + enamelling a cosey corner," said Fanny, sprawling to the end of her + third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss Winchelsea answered in her + best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements and hoping + intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter. Only this hope + enabled her to write at all, answering not only that letter but + one in November and one at Christmas.</p> +<p>The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her + to come to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays. + She tried to think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was + too much like Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe + that he must be sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more + than a hope that he would presently write her a letter beginning + "Dear Friend." Something subtly tragic in the separation was + a great support to her, a sad misunderstanding. To have been jilted + would have been intolerable. But he never wrote that letter beginning + "Dear Friend."</p> +<p>For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, + in spite of the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became + full Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter + rest she felt lonely and without a soul to understand her in the + world, and her mind ran once more on what is called Platonic + friendship. Fanny was clearly happy and busy in her new sphere + of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his lonely hours. Did he ever + think of those days in Rome--gone now beyond recalling? No one + had understood her as he had done; no one in all the world. It + would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, and + what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night + she wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave--which + would not come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note + to tell Fanny she was coming down.</p> +<p>And so she saw him again.</p> +<p>Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed + stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his + conversation had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even + seemed a justification for Helen's description of weakness in his + face--in certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied + about his affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea + had come for the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny + in an intelligent way. They only had one good long talk together, + and that came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some + time abusing a man who had stolen an idea he had had for a text-book. + It did not seem a very wonderful idea to Miss Winchelsea. She + discovered he had forgotten the names of more than half the painters + whose work they had rejoiced over in Florence.</p> +<p>It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad + when it came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting + them again. After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their + two little boys, and Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of + her letters had long since faded away.</p> +<p> + 13. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON</p> +<p>The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved + slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was + still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into + the corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt + to arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his + eyes staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my + observation, looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for + his newspaper. Then he glanced again in my direction.</p> +<p>I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him, + and in a moment I was surprised to find him speaking.</p> +<p>"I beg your pardon?" said I.</p> +<p>"That book," he repeated, pointing a lean finger, "is about + dreams."</p> +<p>"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States, + and the title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if + he sought words. "Yes," he said at last, "but they tell you nothing." + I did not catch his meaning for a second.</p> +<p>"They don't know," he added.</p> +<p>I looked a little more attentively at his face.</p> +<p>"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams."</p> +<p>That sort of proposition I never dispute.</p> +<p>"I suppose--" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I mean vividly."</p> +<p>"I dream very little," I answered. "I doubt if I have three + vivid + dreams in a year."</p> +<p>"Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts.</p> +<p>"Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly. + "You don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?"</p> +<p>"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. + I suppose few people do."</p> +<p>"Does HE say--" he indicated the book.</p> +<p>"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about + intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening + as a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--"</p> +<p>"Very little--except that they are wrong."</p> +<p>His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. + I prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his + next remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.</p> +<p>"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on + night after night?"</p> +<p>"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental + trouble."</p> +<p>"Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place + for them. But what I mean--" He looked at his bony knuckles. + "Is that sort of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it + something else? Mightn't it be something else?"</p> +<p>I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn + anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes + and the lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look.</p> +<p>"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The + thing's killing me."</p> +<p>"Dreams?"</p> +<p>"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid . . . + this--" (he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the + window) "seems unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, + what business I am on. . . ."</p> +<p>He paused. "Even now--"</p> +<p>"The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked.</p> +<p>"It's over."</p> +<p>"You mean?"</p> +<p>"I died."</p> +<p>"Died?"</p> +<p>"Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, + is dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living + in a different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt + that night after night. Night after night I woke into that other + life. Fresh scenes and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--"</p> +<p>"When you died?"</p> +<p>"When I died."</p> +<p>"And since then--"</p> +<p>"No," he said. "Thank God! That was the end of the dream. . + . ."</p> +<p>It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour + before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has + a dreary way with him. "Living in a different time," I said: + "do you mean in some different age?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Past?"</p> +<p>"No, to come--to come."</p> +<p>"The year three thousand, for example?"</p> +<p>"I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was + dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's + a lot of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams, + though I knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming. + They called the year differently from our way of calling the year. . . . + What DID they call it?" He put his hand to his forehead. "No," + said + he, "I forget."</p> +<p>He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell + me his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but + this struck me differently. I proffered assistance even. "It began--" + I suggested.</p> +<p>"It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. + And it's curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never + remembered this life I am living now. It seemed as if the dream + life was enough while it lasted. Perhaps--But I will tell you how + I find myself when I do my best to recall it all. I don't remember + anything dearly until I found myself sitting in a sort of loggia + looking out over the sea. I had been dozing, and suddenly I woke + up--fresh and vivid--not a bit dream-like--because the girl had + stopped fanning me."</p> +<p>"The girl?"</p> +<p>"Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out."</p> +<p>He stopped abruptly. "You won't think I'm mad?" he said.</p> +<p>"No," I answered; "you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream."</p> +<p>"I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was + not surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you + understand. I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply + took it up at that point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life, + this nineteenth-century life, faded as I woke, vanished like + a dream. I knew all about myself, knew that my name was no longer + Cooper but Hedon, and all about my position in the world. I've + forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want of connection--but + it was all quite clear and matter of fact then."</p> +<p>He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face + forward and looking up at me appealingly.</p> +<p>"This seems bosh to you?"</p> +<p>"No, no!" I cried. "Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like."</p> +<p>"It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced + south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle + above the balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where + the girl stood. I was on a couch--it was a metal couch with light + striped cushions-and the girl was leaning over the balcony with + her back to me. The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek. + Her pretty white neck and the little curls that nestled there, + and her white shoulder were in the sun, and all the grace of her + body was in the cool blue shadow. She was dressed--how can I describe + it? It was easy and flowing. And altogether there she stood, so that + it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as though I had + never seen her before. And when at last I sighed and raised myself + upon my arm she turned her face to me--"</p> +<p>He stopped.</p> +<p>"I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother, + sisters, friends, wife, and daughters--all their faces, the play + of their faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more + real to me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it + again--I could draw it or paint it. And after all--"</p> +<p>He stopped--but I said nothing.</p> +<p>"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not + that beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty + of a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort + of radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey + eyes. And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all + pleasant and gracious things--"</p> +<p>He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up + at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute + belief in the reality of his story.</p> +<p>"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all + I had ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master + man away there in the north, with influence and property and a great + reputation, but none of it had seemed worth having beside her. + I had come to the place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her, + and left all those things to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant + at least of my life. While I had been in love with her before I knew + that she had any care for me, before I had imagined that she would + dare--that we should dare, all my life had seemed vain and hollow, + dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes. Night after night and through + the long days I had longed and desired--my soul had beaten against + the thing forbidden!</p> +<p>"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. + It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while + it's there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came + away and left them in their Crisis to do what they could."</p> +<p>"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled.</p> +<p>"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow-- I + had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group themselves + about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to do things and risk + things because of their confidence in me. I had been playing that game for years, + that big laborious game, that vague, monstrous political game amidst intrigues + and betrayals, speech and agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last + I had a sort of leadership against the Gang--you know it was called the Gang--a + sort of compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast public + emotional stupidities and catchwords-- the Gang that kept the world noisy and + blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting towards + infinite disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the shades and complications + of the year--the year something or other ahead. I had it all down to the smallest + details--in my dream. I suppose I had been dreaming of it before I awoke, and + the fading outline of some queer new development I had imagined still hung about + me as I rubbed my eyes. It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for + the sunlight. I sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and rejoicing-- + rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and folly and violence + before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is life--love and beauty, + desire and delight, are they not worth all those dismal struggles for vague, + gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for having ever sought to be a leader when + I might have given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent + my early days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself upon vain and + worthless women, and at the thought all my being went out in love and tenderness + to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me--compelled + me by her invincible charm for me--to lay that life aside.</p> +<p>"'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear; + 'you are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all + things. Love! to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at + the murmur of my voice she turned about.</p> +<p>"'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see + the sunrise upon Monte Solaro.'</p> +<p>"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. + She put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great + masses of limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. + But first I noted the sunlight on her face caressing the lines + of her cheeks and neck. How can I describe to you the scene we had + before us? We were at Capri--"</p> +<p>"I have been there," I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro + and drunk vero Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit."</p> +<p>"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can + tell + me--you will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have + never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, + one of a vast multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed + out of the limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. + The whole island, you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond + explaining, and on the other side there were miles of floating hotels, + and huge floating stages to which the flying machines came. They + called it a pleasure city. Of course, there was none of that in your + time rather, I should say, IS none of that NOW. Of course. Now!--yes.</p> +<p>"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that + one could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand + feet high perhaps--coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, + and beyond it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that + faded and passed into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to + the west, distinct and near was a little bay, a little beach still + in shadow. And out of that shadow rose Solaro straight and tall, + flushed and golden crested, like a beauty throned, and the white + moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from east to + west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with little sailing + boats.</p> +<p>"To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very + minute and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of gold-- + shining gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was + a rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke + to green and foam all round the rock, and a galley came gliding + out of the arch."</p> +<p>"I know that rock," I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It + is called + the Faraglioni."</p> +<p>"I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that," answered the man with + the white face. "There was some story--but that--"</p> +<p>He put his hand to his forehead again. "No," he said, "I forget + that story."</p> +<p>"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, + that little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that + dear lady of mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, + and how we sat and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked + in whispers not because there was any one to hear, but because there + was still such a freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were + a little frightened, I think, to find themselves at last in words. + And so they went softly.</p> +<p>"Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going + by a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great + breakfast room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and + joyful place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur + of plucked strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, + and I would not heed a man who was watching me from a table near by.</p> +<p>"And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot + describe that hall. The place was enormous--larger than any building + you have ever seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, + caught into the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, + stems and threads of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, + streamed like an Aurora across the roof and interlaced, like-- + like conjuring tricks. All about the great circle for the dancers + there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, and intricate and + wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The place was inundated + with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. And as we went + through the throng the people turned about and looked at us, for + all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had + suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And + they looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how + at last she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the + men who were there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite + of all the shame and dishonour that had come upon my name.</p> +<p>"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of + the rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people + swarmed about the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad + recesses; they were dressed in splendid colours and crowned + with flowers; thousands danced about the great circle beneath + the white images of the ancient gods, and glorious processions + of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not the dreary + monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but dances that were + beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing-- + dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she + danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and + caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes.</p> +<p>"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe + it; but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music + that has ever come to me awake.</p> +<p>"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to + me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, + and already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting + hall, and afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his + eye. But now, as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure + of all the people who went to and fro across the shining floor, he + came and touched me, and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen. + And he asked that he might speak to me for a little time apart.</p> +<p>"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want + to tell me?'</p> +<p>"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for + a lady to hear.</p> +<p>"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.</p> +<p>"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he + asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration + that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man + next to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. + He was a forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able + to control and soften him. It was on his account even more than + my own, I think, that the others had been so dismayed at my retreat. + So this question about what he had done reawakened my old interest + in the life I had put aside just for a moment.</p> +<p>"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What + has Evesham been saying?'</p> +<p>"And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess + even I was struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and + threatening words he had used. And this messenger they had sent + to me not only told me of Evesham's speech, but went on to ask + counsel and to point out what need they had of me. While he talked, + my lady sat a little forward and watched his face and mine.</p> +<p>"My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves. + I could even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all + the dramatic effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to + the disorder of the party indeed, but not to its damage. I should + go back stronger than I had come. And then I thought of my lady. + You see--how can I tell you? There were certain peculiarities of our + relationship--as things are I need not tell you about that--which + would render her presence with me impossible. I should have had + to leave her; indeed, I should have had to renounce her clearly + and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in the north. And + the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew it as well + as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, then + abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return + was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining + his eloquence was gaining ground with me.</p> +<p>"'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done + with them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming + here?'</p> +<p>"'No,' he said; 'but--'</p> +<p>"'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. + I have ceased to be anything but a private man.'</p> +<p>"'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war, + these reckless challenges, these wild aggressions--'</p> +<p>"I stood up.</p> +<p>"'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, + I weighed them--and I have come away.'</p> +<p>"He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked + from me to where the lady sat regarding us.</p> +<p>"'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned + slowly from me and walked away. I stood, caught in the whirl of + thoughts his appeal had set going.</p> +<p>"I heard my lady's voice.</p> +<p>"'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'</p> +<p>"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned + to her sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled.</p> +<p>"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I + said. 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.'</p> +<p>"She looked at me doubtfully.</p> +<p>"'But war--' she said.</p> +<p>"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself + and me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and + completely, must drive us apart for ever.</p> +<p>"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this + belief or that.</p> +<p>"'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. + There will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age + of wars is past. Trust me to know the justice of this case. They + have no right upon me, dearest, and no one has a right upon me. + I have been free to choose my life, and I have chosen this.'</p> +<p>"'But WAR--' she said.</p> +<p>"I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand + in mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill + her mind with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying + to her I lied also to myself. And she was only too ready to believe + me, only too ready to forget.</p> +<p>"Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our bathing-place + in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom to bathe every day. We + swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyant water I seemed to become + something lighter and stronger than a man. And at last we came out dripping + and rejoicing and raced among the rocks. And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, + and we sat to bask in the sun, and presently I nodded, resting my head against + her knee, and she put her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. + And behold! as it were with the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening, + and I was in my own bed in Liverpool, in the life of to-day. </p> +<p>"Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments + had been no more than the substance of a dream.</p> +<p>"In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering + reality of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, + and as I shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman + I loved to go back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous + north. Even if Evesham did force the world back to war, what was + that to me? I was a man, with the heart of a man, and why should + I feel the responsibility of a deity for the way the world might go?</p> +<p>"You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about + my real affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view.</p> +<p>"The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike + a dream that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details; + even the ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine + in the breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt + line that ran about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with + the messenger from my deserted party. Have you ever heard of + a dream that had a quality like that?"</p> +<p>"Like--?"</p> +<p>"So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten."</p> +<p>I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right.</p> +<p>"Never," I said. "That is what you never seem to do with dreams."</p> +<p>"No," he answered. "But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor, + you must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering + what the clients and business people I found myself talking to in + my office would think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a + girl who would be born a couple of hundred years or so hence, and + worried about the politics of my great-great-great-grandchildren. + I was chiefly busy that day negotiating a ninety-nine-year building + lease. It was a private builder in a hurry, and we wanted to tie him + in every possible way. I had an interview with him, and he showed a + certain want of temper that sent me to bed still irritated. That night + I had no dream. Nor did I dream the next night, at least, to remember.</p> +<p>"Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began + to feel sure it WAS a dream. And then it came again.</p> +<p>"When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very + different. I think it certain that four days had also elapsed in + the dream. Many things had happened in the north, and the shadow + of them was back again between us, and this time it was not so + easily dispelled. I began, I know, with moody musings. Why, inspite + of all, should I go back, go back for all the rest of my days to toil + and stress, insults and perpetual dissatisfaction, simply to save + hundreds of millions of common people, whom I did not love, whom + too often I could do no other than despise, from the stress and + anguish of war and infinite misrule? And after all I might fail. + THEY all sought their own narrow ends, and why should not I--why + should not I also live as a man? And out of such thoughts her voice + summoned me, and I lifted my eyes.</p> +<p>"I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure + City, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the + bay. It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left + Ischia hung in a golden haze between sea. and sky, and Naples was + coldly white against the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a + tall and slender streamer feathering at last towards the south, and + the ruins of Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellamare glittering and + near."</p> +<p>I interrupted suddenly: "You have been to Capri, of course?"</p> +<p>"Only in this dream," he said, "only in this dream. All across + the bay beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City + moored and chained. And northward were the broad floating stages + that received the aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every + afternoon, each bringing its thousands of pleasure-seekers from + the uttermost parts of the earth to Capri and its delights. All + these things, I say, stretched below.</p> +<p>"But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight + that evening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered + useless in the distant arsenals of the Rhinemouth were manoeuvring + now in the eastward sky. Evesham had astonished the world by + producing them and others, and sending them to circle here and + there. It was the threat material in the great game of bluff he was + playing, and it had taken even me by surprise. He was one of those + incredibly stupid energetic people who seem sent by Heaven to create + disasters. His energy to the first glance seemed so wonderfully + like capacity! But he had no imagination, no invention, only a stupid, + vast, driving force of will, and a mad faith in his stupid idiot + 'luck' to pull him through. I remember how we stood out upon + the headland watching the squadron circling far away, and how + I weighed the full meaning of the sight, seeing clearly the way + things must go. And then even it was not too late. I might have + gone back, I think, and saved the world. The people of the north + would follow me, I knew, granted only that in one thing I respected + their moral standards. The east and south would trust me as they would + trust no other northern man. And I knew I had only to put it to her + and she would have let me go. . . . Not because she did not love me!</p> +<p>"Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about. + I had so newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still + so fresh a renegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what + I OUGHT to do had no power at all to touch my will. My will was + to live, to gather pleasures and make my dear lady happy. But + though this sense of vast neglected duties had no power to draw + me, it could make me silent and preoccupied, it robbed the days I had + spent of half their brightness and roused me into dark meditations + in the silence of the night. And as I stood and watched Evesham's + aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds of infinite ill omen--she + stood beside me watching me, perceiving the trouble indeed, but not + perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my face, her expression + shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because the sunset was + fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she held me. + She had asked me to go from her, and again in the night time and + with tears she had asked me to go.</p> +<p>"At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I + turned upon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain + slopes. 'No,' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was + resolved to end that gravity, and made her run--no one can be very + grey and sad who is out of breath--and when she stumbled I ran with + my hand beneath her arm. We ran down past a couple of men, who turned + back staring in astonishment at my behaviour--they must have + recognised my face. And halfway down the slope came a tumult in the + air, clang-clank, clang-clank, and we stopped, and presently over the + hill-crest those war things came flying one behind the other."</p> +<p>The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description.</p> +<p>"What were they like?" I asked.</p> +<p>"They had never fought," he said. "They were just like our ironclads + are nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might + do, with excited men inside them; few even cared to speculate. + They were great driving things shaped like spearheads without a shaft, + with a propeller in the place of the shaft."</p> +<p>"Steel?"</p> +<p>"Not steel."</p> +<p>"Aluminium?"</p> +<p>"No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as + common as brass, for example. It was called--let me see--." He + squeezed his forehead with the fingers of one hand. "I am forgetting + everything," he said.</p> +<p>"And they carried guns?"</p> +<p>"Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns + backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed + with the beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never + been fought. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen. + And meanwhile I suppose it was very fine to go whirling through + the air like a flight of young swallows, swift and easy. I guess + the captains tried not to think too clearly what the real thing + would be like. And these flying war machines, you know, were only + one sort of the endless war contrivances that had been invented + and had fallen into abeyance during the long peace. There were + all sorts of these things that people were routing out and furbishing + up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never been tried; + big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the silly way + of these ingenious sort of men who make these things; they turn 'em + out as beavers build dams, and with no more sense of the rivers + they're going to divert and the lands they're going to flood!</p> +<p>"As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the + twilight, I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things + were driving for war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some + inkling of what war was bound to be under these new conditions. And + even then, though I knew it was drawing near the limit of my + opportunity, I could find no will to go back."</p> +<p>He sighed.</p> +<p>"That was my last chance.</p> +<p>"We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we + walked out upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counselled + me to go back.</p> +<p>"'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me, + 'this is Death. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them, + go back to your duty--.'</p> +<p>"She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm + as she said it, 'Go back--Go back.'</p> +<p>"Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read + in an instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those + moments when one SEES.</p> +<p>"'No!' I said.</p> +<p>"'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at + the answer to her thought.</p> +<p>"'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen. + Love, I have chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens + I will live this life--I will live for YOU! It--nothing shall turn + me aside; nothing, my dear one. Even if you died--even if you died--'</p> +<p>"'Yes,' she murmured, softly.</p> +<p>"'Then--I also would die.'</p> +<p>"And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking eloquently-- + as I COULD do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make the life + we were living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was + deserting something hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine + thing to set aside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it, + seeking not only to convert her but myself to that. We talked, and + she clung to me, torn too between all that she deemed noble and all + that she knew was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made + all the thickening disaster of the world only a sort of glorious + setting to our unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls + strutted there at last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken + rather with that glorious delusion, under the still stars.</p> +<p>"And so my moment passed.</p> +<p>"It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders + of the south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot + answer that shattered Evesham's bluffing for ever, took shape + and waited. And all over Asia, and the ocean, and the south, the air + and the wires were throbbing with their warnings to prepare--prepare.</p> +<p>"No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine, + with all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe + most people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms + and shouting charges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when + half the world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles + away--."</p> +<p>The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face + was intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station, + a string of loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage, + shot by the carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap + of noise, echoing the tumult of the train.</p> +<p>"After that," he said, "I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights + that dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights + when I could not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS + accursed life; and THERE--somewhere lost to me--things were + happening--momentous, terrible things. . . . I lived at nights--my days, + my waking days, this life I am living now, became a faded, far-away + dream, a drab setting, the cover of the book."</p> +<p>He thought.</p> +<p>"I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream, + but as to what I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not + remember. My memory--my memory has gone. The business of life + slips from me--"</p> +<p>He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long + time he said nothing.</p> +<p>"And then?" said I.</p> +<p>"The war burst like a hurricane."</p> +<p>He stared before him at unspeakable things.</p> +<p>"And then?" I urged again.</p> +<p>"One touch of unreality," he said, in the low tone of a man who + speaks to himself, "and they would have been nightmares. But they + were not nightmares--they were not nightmares. NO!"</p> +<p>He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was + a danger of losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking + again in the same tone of questioning self-communion.</p> +<p>"What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would touch + Capri--I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all, as the contrast to + it all; but two nights after the whole place was shouting and bawling, every + woman almost and every other man wore a badge--Evesham's badge--and there was + no music but a jangling war-song over and over again, and everywhere men enlisting, + and in the dancing halls they were drilling. The whole island was awhirl with + rumours; it was said, again and again, that fighting had begun. I had not expected + this. I had seen so little of the life of pleasure that I had failed to reckon + with this violence of the amateurs. And as for me, I was out of it. I was like + a man who might have prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had gone. + I was no one; the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more than I. The + crowd jostled us and bawled in our ears; that accursed song deafened us; a woman + shrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, and we two went back to our + own place again, ruffled and insulted-- my lady white and silent, and I aquiver + with rage. So furious was I, I could have quarrelled with her if I could have + found one shade of accusation in her eyes.</p> +<p>"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock + cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward + that flared and passed and came again.</p> +<p>"'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have + made my choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will + have nothing of this war. We have taken our lives out of all these + things. This is no refuge for us. Let us go.'</p> +<p>"And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered + the world.</p> +<p>"And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight."</p> +<p>He mused darkly.</p> +<p>"How much was there of it?"</p> +<p>He made no answer.</p> +<p>"How many days?"</p> +<p>His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took + no heed of my curiosity.</p> +<p>I tried to draw him back to his story with questions.</p> +<p>"Where did you go?" I said.</p> +<p>"When?"</p> +<p>"When you left Capri."</p> +<p>"Southwest," he said, and glanced at me for a second. "We went + in a boat."</p> +<p>"But I should have thought an aeroplane?"</p> +<p>"They had been seized."</p> +<p>I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning + again. He broke out in an argumentative monotone:</p> +<p>"But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and + stress IS life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty? + If there IS no refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all + our dreams of quiet places are a folly and a snare, why have we + such dreams? Surely it was no ignoble cravings, no base intentions, + had brought us to this; it was Love had isolated us. Love had come + to me with her eyes and robed in her beauty, more glorious than all + else in life, in the very shape and colour of life, and summoned me + away. I had silenced all the voices, I had answered all the questions-- + I had come to her. And suddenly there was nothing but War and Death!"</p> +<p>I had an inspiration. "After all," I said, "it could have been + only a + dream."</p> +<p>"A dream!" he cried, flaming upon me, "a dream--when even now--"</p> +<p>For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into + his cheek. He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped + it to his knee. He spoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest + of the time he looked away. "We are but phantoms," he said, "and + the phantoms of phantoms, desires like cloud shadows and wills + of straw that eddy in the wind; the days pass, use and wont carry + us through as a train carries the shadow of its lights, so be it! + But one thing is real and certain, one thing is no dreamstuff, + but eternal and enduring. It is the centre of my life, and all + other things about it are subordinate or altogether vain. I loved + her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead together!</p> +<p>"A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life + with unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for + and cared for, worthless and unmeaning?</p> +<p>"Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still + a chance of getting away," he said. "All through the night and + morning that we sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno, + we talked of escape. We were full of hope, and it clung about us + to the end, hope for the life together we should lead, out of + it all, out of the battle and struggle, the wild and empty passions, + the empty arbitrary 'thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not' of the world. + We were uplifted, as though our quest was a holy thing, as though + love for one another was a mission. . . .</p> +<p>"Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock + Capri--already scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and + hiding-places that were to make it a fastness--we reckoned nothing + of the imminent slaughter, though the fury of preparation hung about + in puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the grey; + but, indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know, + was the rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, with its countless + windows and arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet, + a vast carving of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon + and orange groves, and masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs + of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over + the Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round + the cape and within sight of the mainland, another little string of + boats came into view, driving before the wind towards the southwest. + In a little while a multitude had come out, the remoter just little + specks of ultramarine in the shadow of the eastward cliff.</p> +<p>"'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness, of + war.'</p> +<p>"And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across + the southern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little + dots in the sky--and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon, + and then still more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled + with blue specks. Now they were all thin little strokes of blue, + and now one and now a multitude would heel and catch the sun + and become short flashes of light. They came rising and falling + and growing larger, like some huge flight of gulls or rooks, + or such-like birds moving with a marvellous uniformity, and ever + as they drew nearer they spread over a greater width of sky. + The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart + the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and + streamed eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and + clearer again until they vanished from the sky. And after that we + noted to the northward and very high Evesham's fighting machines + hanging high over Naples like an evening swarm of gnats.</p> +<p>"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds.</p> +<p>"Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us + to signify nothing. . . .</p> +<p>"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still + seeking that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had + come upon us, pain and many distresses. For though we were dusty + and stained by our toilsome tramping, and half starved and with the + horror of the dead men we had seen and the flight of the peasants-- + for very soon a gust of fighting swept up the peninsula--with these + things haunting our minds it still resulted only in a deepening + resolution to escape. O, but she was brave and patient! She who had + never faced hardship and exposure had courage for herself--and me. + We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a country all commandeered + and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. Always we went on foot. + At first there were other fugitives, but we did not mingle with them. + Some escaped northward, some were caught in the torrent of peasantry + that swept along the main roads; many gave themselves into the hands + of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the men were + impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had brought no + money to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at the hands + of these conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and we had + been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards + Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back + for want of food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum, + where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea that + by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take + once more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us.</p> +<p>"A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were + being hemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in + its toils. Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from + the north going to and fro, and had come upon them in the distance + amidst the mountains making ways for the ammunition and preparing + the mounting of the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us, + taking us for spies--at any rate a shot had gone shuddering over us. + Several times we had hidden in woods from hovering aeroplanes.</p> +<p>"But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight + and pain. . . . We were in an open place near those great temples + at Paestum, at last, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky + bushes, empty and desolate and so flat that a grove of eucalyptus + far away showed to the feet of its stems. How I can see it! My lady + was sitting down under a bush, resting a little, for she was very + weak and weary, and I was standing up watching to see if I could + tell the distance of the firing that came and went. They were still, + you know, fighting far from each other, with those terrible new + weapons that had never before been used: guns that would carry + beyond sight, and aeroplanes that would do--What THEY would do + no man could foretell.</p> +<p>"I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew + together. I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there + and rest!</p> +<p>"Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background. + They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking + of my lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she + had owned herself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me + I could hear her sobbing, but I would not turn round to her because + I knew she had need of weeping, and had held herself so far and + so long for me. It was well, I thought, that she would weep and + rest and then we would toil on again, for I had no inkling of the thing + that hung so near. Even now I can see her as she sat there, her + lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again the deepening hollow + of her cheek.</p> +<p>"'If we had parted,' she said, "if I had let you go.'</p> +<p>"'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent; + I made my choice, and I will hold on to the end."</p> +<p>"And then--</p> +<p>"Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about + us I heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas + suddenly thrown. They chipped the stones about us, and whirled + fragments from the bricks and passed. . . ."</p> +<p>He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips.</p> +<p>"At the flash I had turned about. . . .</p> +<p>"You know--she stood up--</p> +<p>"She stood up; you know, and moved a step towards me--</p> +<p>"As though she wanted to reach me--</p> +<p>"And she had been shot through the heart."</p> +<p>He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity + an Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, + and then stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence. + When at last I looked at him he was sitting back in his corner, + his arms folded, and his teeth gnawing at his knuckles.</p> +<p>He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it.</p> +<p>"I carried her," he said, "towards the temples, in my arms--as + though + it mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you + know, they had lasted so long, I suppose.</p> +<p>"She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the + way."</p> +<p>Silence again.</p> +<p>"I have seen those temples," I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought + those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me.</p> +<p>"It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar + and held her in my arms. . . . Silent after the first babble was over. + And after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, + as though nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had + changed. . . . It was tremendously still there, the sun high, and the + shadows still; even the shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were + still--in spite of the thudding and banging that went all about the sky.</p> +<p>"I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and + that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset + and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't + seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know--flapping for a time in + the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple--a black thing in the + bright blue water.</p> +<p>"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that + ceased. Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid + for a space. That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray + bullet gashed the stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface.</p> +<p>"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater.</p> +<p>"The curious thing," he remarked, with the manner of a man who + makes a trivial conversation, "is that I didn't THINK--I didn't + think at all. I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort + of lethargy--stagnant.</p> +<p>"And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day. + I know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open + in front of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being + there, seeing that in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum + temple with a dead woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine. + I have forgotten what they were about."</p> +<p>He stopped, and there was a long silence.</p> +<p>Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from + Chalk Farm to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned + on him with a brutal question, with the tone of Now or never.</p> +<p>"And did you dream again?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low.</p> +<p>"Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed + to have suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen + into a sitting position, and the body lay there on the stones beside + me. A gaunt body. Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her. . . .</p> +<p>"I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that + men were coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage.</p> +<p>"I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into + sight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform + of dirty white, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing + to the crest of the old wall of the vanished city, and crouching + there. They were little bright figures in the sunlight, and there + they hung, weapon in hand, peering cautiously before them.</p> +<p>"And further away I saw others and then more at another point + in the wall. It was a long lax line of men in open order.</p> +<p>"Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command, + and his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds + towards the temple. He scrambled down with them and led them. + He came facing towards me, and when he saw me he stopped.</p> +<p>"At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when + I had seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid + them. I shouted to the officer.</p> +<p>"'You must not come here,' I cried, '<i>I </i>am here. I am here with + my dead.'</p> +<p>"He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown + tongue.</p> +<p>"I repeated what I had said.</p> +<p>"He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently + he spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword.</p> +<p>"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told + him again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here. + These are old temples and I am here with my dead.'</p> +<p>"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was + a narrow face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had + a scar on his upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept + shouting unintelligible things, questions perhaps, at me.</p> +<p>"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not + occur to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in + imperious tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside.</p> +<p>"He made to go past me, And I caught hold of him.</p> +<p>"I saw his face change at my grip.</p> +<p>"'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!'</p> +<p>"He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort + of exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then, suddenly, + with a scowl, he swept his sword back--SO--and thrust."</p> +<p>He stopped abruptly. I became aware of a change in the rhythm + of the train. The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage + jarred and jerked. This present world insisted upon itself, became + clamorous. I saw through the steamy window huge electric lights + glaring down from tall masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary + empty carriages passing by, and then a signal-box, hoisting its + constellation of green and red into the murky London twilight marched + after them. I looked again at his drawn features.</p> +<p>"He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment-- + no fear, no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, + felt the sword drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know. + It didn't hurt at all."</p> +<p>The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing + first rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk. + Dim shapes of men passed to and fro without.</p> +<p>"Euston!" cried a voice.</p> +<p>"Do you mean--?"</p> +<p>"There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness + sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face + of the man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of + existence--"</p> +<p>"Euston!" clamoured the voices outside; "Euston!"</p> +<p>The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter + stood regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter + of cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar + of the London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted + lamps blazed along the platform.</p> +<p>"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted + out all things."</p> +<p>"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter.</p> +<p>"And that was the end?" I asked.</p> +<p>He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "No."</p> +<p>"You mean?"</p> +<p>"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the Temple-- + And then--"</p> +<p>"Yes," I insisted. "Yes?"</p> +<p>"Nightmares," he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds + that fought and tore."</p> +<p></p> +<p></p> +<p>End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream by H.G. Wells</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named 12sad10h.htm or 12sad10h.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 12sad11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 12sad10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +<a href="http://gutenberg.net">http://gutenberg.net</a> or +<a href="http://promo.net/pg">http://promo.net/pg</a> + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +<a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04">http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04</a> or +<a href="ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03">ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03</a> + +Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html">http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html</a> + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +<a href="mailto:hart@pobox.com">hart@pobox.com</a> + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + + + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/old/12sad10h.zip b/old/12sad10h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..abdbd48 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12sad10h.zip |