15 files changed, 74046 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/9790-0.txt b/9790-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8ad721d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/9790-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11707 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Traffics and Discoveries
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Release Date: October 17, 2003 [eBook #9790]
+[Most recently updated: January 15, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES
+
+by Rudyard Kipling
+
+
+Contents
+
+ _from the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed (Wahabi)_
+ THE CAPTIVE
+ _Poseidon’s Law_
+ THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+ _The Runners_
+ A SAHIBS’ WAR
+ _The Wet Litany_
+ “THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS”—PART I.
+ “THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS”—PART II.
+ _The King’s Task_
+ THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+ _The Necessitarian_
+ STEAM TACTICS
+ _Kaspar’s Song in “Varda”_
+ “WIRELESS”
+ _Song of the Old Guard_
+ THE ARMY OF A DREAM—PART I.
+ THE ARMY OF A DREAM—PART II.
+ _The Return of the Children_
+ “THEY”
+ _From Lyden’s “Irenius_”
+ MRS. BATHURST
+ “_Our Fathers Also_”
+ BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+
+
+
+FROM THE MASJID-AL-AQSA OF SAYYID AHMED (WAHABI)
+
+
+Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
+He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
+When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
+He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
+Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
+Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.
+Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow
+Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,
+Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,
+Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.
+Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story;
+And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory
+Embroidered with names of the Djinns—a miraculous weaving—
+But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.
+So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture—
+Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture—
+Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed;
+But on him be the Peace and the Blessing: for he was great-hearted!
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+
+“He that believeth shall not make haste.”—_Isaiah_.
+
+
+The guard-boat lay across the mouth of the bathing-pool, her crew idly
+spanking the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated
+militia-man, rifle in hand, sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the
+stern. Between the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped,
+honey-coloured rocks on the beach the green water was troubled with
+shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war bathing. Behind their orderly tin camp and
+the electric-light poles rose those stone-dotted spurs that throw heat
+on Simonstown. Beneath them the little _Barracouta_ nodded to the big
+_Gibraltar_, and the old _Penelope_, that in ten years has been
+bachelors’ club, natural history museum, kindergarten, and prison,
+rooted and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a three-funnelled
+Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in from the deep
+sea.
+
+Said the sentry, assured of the visitor’s good faith, “Talk to ’em? You
+can, to any that speak English. You’ll find a lot that do.”
+
+Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch
+Reformed Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority
+preferred their bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused
+the visitor that day to receive two weeks’ delayed mails in one from a
+casual postman, and the whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a
+strap, he dangled as bait. At the edge of the beach, cross-legged,
+undressed to his sky-blue army shirt, sat a lean, ginger-haired man, on
+guard over a dozen heaps of clothing. His eyes followed the incoming
+Atlantic boat.
+
+“Excuse me, Mister,” he said, without turning (and the speech betrayed
+his nationality), “would you mind keeping away from these garments?
+I’ve been elected janitor—on the Dutch vote.”
+
+The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to
+his mail. At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured
+man turned quickly, the hunger of a press-ridden people in his
+close-set iron-grey eyes.
+
+“Have you any use for papers?” said the visitor.
+
+“Have I any use?” A quick, curved forefinger was already snicking off
+the outer covers. “Why, that’s the New York postmark! Give me the ads.
+at the back of _Harper’s_ and _M’Clure’s_ and I’m in touch with God’s
+Country again! Did you know how I was aching for papers?”
+
+The visitor told the tale of the casual postman.
+
+“Providential!” said the ginger-coloured man, keen as a terrier on his
+task; “both in time and matter. Yes! … The _Scientific American_ yet
+once more! Oh, it’s good! it’s good!” His voice broke as he pressed his
+hawk-like nose against the heavily-inked patent-specifications at the
+end. “Can I keep it? I thank you—I thank you! Why—why—well—well! The
+_American Tyler_ of all things created! Do you subscribe to that?”
+
+“I’m on the free list,” said the visitor, nodding.
+
+He extended his blue-tanned hand with that air of Oriental spaciousness
+which distinguishes the native-born American, and met the visitor’s
+grasp expertly. “I can only say that you have treated me like a Brother
+(yes, I’ll take every last one you can spare), and if ever—” He plucked
+at the bosom of his shirt. “Psha! I forgot I’d no card on me; but my
+name’s Zigler—Laughton G. Zigler. An American? If Ohio’s still in the
+Union, I am, Sir. But I’m no extreme States’-rights man. I’ve used all
+of my native country and a few others as I have found occasion, and now
+I am the captive of your bow and spear. I’m not kicking at that. I am
+not a coerced alien, nor a naturalised Texas mule-tender, nor an
+adventurer on the instalment plan. _I_ don’t tag after our consul when
+he comes around, expecting the American Eagle to lift me out o’ this by
+the slack of my pants. No, sir! If a Britisher went into Indian
+Territory and shot up his surroundings with a Colt automatic (not that
+_she’s_ any sort of weapon, but I take her for an illustration), he’d
+be strung up quicker’n a snowflake ’ud melt in hell. No ambassador of
+yours ’ud save him. I’m my neck ahead on this game, anyway. That’s how
+I regard the proposition.
+
+“Have I gone gunning against the British? To a certain extent, I
+presume you never heard tell of the Laughton-Zigler automatic two-inch
+field-gun, with self-feeding hopper, single oil-cylinder recoil, and
+ballbearing gear throughout? Or Laughtite, the new explosive?
+Absolutely uniform in effect, and one-ninth the bulk of any present
+effete charge—flake, cannonite, cordite, troisdorf, cellulose, cocoa,
+cord, or prism—I don’t care what it is. Laughtite’s immense; so’s the
+Zigler automatic. It’s me. It’s fifteen years of me. You are not a
+gun-sharp? I am sorry. I could have surprised you. Apart from my gun,
+my tale don’t amount to much of anything. I thank you, but I don’t use
+any tobacco you’d be likely to carry… Bull Durham? _Bull Durham!_ I
+take it all back—every last word. Bull Durham—here! If ever you strike
+Akron, Ohio, when this fool-war’s over, remember you’ve Laughton O.
+Zigler in your vest pocket. Including the city of Akron. We’ve a little
+club there…. Hell! What’s the sense of talking Akron with no pants?
+
+“My gun? … For two cents I’d have shipped her to our Filipeens. ‘Came
+mighty near it too; but from what I’d read in the papers, you can’t
+trust Aguinaldo’s crowd on scientific matters. Why don’t I offer it to
+our army? Well, you’ve an effete aristocracy running yours, and we’ve a
+crowd of politicians. The results are practically identical. I am not
+taking any U.S. Army in mine.
+
+“I went to Amsterdam with her—to this Dutch junta that supposes it’s
+bossing the war. I wasn’t brought up to love the British for one thing,
+and for another I knew that if she got in her fine work (my gun) I’d
+stand more chance of receiving an unbiassed report from a crowd of
+dam-fool British officers than from a hatful of politicians’ nephews
+doing duty as commissaries and ordnance sharps. As I said, I put the
+brown man out of the question. That’s the way _I_ regarded the
+proposition.
+
+“The Dutch in Holland don’t amount to a row of pins. Maybe I misjudge
+’em. Maybe they’ve been swindled too often by self-seeking adventurers
+to know a enthusiast when they see him. Anyway, they’re slower than the
+Wrath o’ God. But on delusions—as to their winning out next Thursday
+week at 9 A.M.—they are—if I may say so—quite British.
+
+“I’ll tell you a curious thing, too. I fought ’em for ten days before I
+could get the financial side of my game fixed to my liking. I knew they
+didn’t believe in the Zigler, but they’d no call to be crazy-mean. I
+fixed it—free passage and freight for me and the gun to Delagoa Bay,
+and beyond by steam and rail. Then I went aboard to see her crated, and
+there I struck my fellow-passengers—all deadheads, same as me. Well,
+Sir, I turned in my tracks where I stood and besieged the
+ticket-office, and I said, ‘Look at here, Van Dunk. I’m paying for my
+passage and her room in the hold—every square and cubic foot.’ ‘Guess
+he knocked down the fare to himself; but I paid. I paid. I wasn’t going
+to deadhead along o’ _that_ crowd of Pentecostal sweepings. ’Twould
+have hoodooed my gun for all time. That was the way I regarded the
+proposition. No, Sir, they were not pretty company.
+
+“When we struck Pretoria I had a hell-and-a-half of a time trying to
+interest the Dutch vote in my gun an’ her potentialities. The bottom
+was out of things rather much just about that time. Kruger was praying
+some and stealing some, and the Hollander lot was singing, ‘If you
+haven’t any money you needn’t come round,’ Nobody was spending his
+dough on anything except tickets to Europe. We were both grossly
+neglected. When I think how I used to give performances in the public
+streets with dummy cartridges, filling the hopper and turning the
+handle till the sweat dropped off me, I blush, Sir. I’ve made her to do
+her stunts before Kaffirs—naked sons of Ham—in Commissioner Street,
+trying to get a holt somewhere.
+
+“Did I talk? I despise exaggeration—’tain’t American or scientific—but
+as true as I’m sitting here like a blue-ended baboon in a kloof, Teddy
+Roosevelt’s Western tour was a maiden’s sigh compared to my advertising
+work.
+
+“’Long in the spring I was rescued by a commandant called Van Zyl—a
+big, fleshy man with a lame leg. Take away his hair and his gun and
+he’d make a first-class Schenectady bar-keep. He found me and the
+Zigler on the veldt (Pretoria wasn’t wholesome at that time), and he
+annexed me in a somnambulistic sort o’ way. He was dead against the war
+from the start, but, being a Dutchman, he fought a sight better than
+the rest of that ‘God and the Mauser’ outfit. Adrian Van Zyl. Slept a
+heap in the daytime—and didn’t love niggers. I liked him. I was the
+only foreigner in his commando. The rest was Georgia Crackers and
+Pennsylvania Dutch—with a dash o’ Philadelphia lawyer. I could tell you
+things about them would surprise you. Religion for one thing; women for
+another; but I don’t know as their notions o’ geography weren’t the
+craziest. ‘Guess that must be some sort of automatic compensation.
+There wasn’t one blamed ant-hill in their district they didn’t know
+_and_ use; but the world was flat, they said, and England was a day’s
+trek from Cape Town.
+
+“They could fight in their own way, and don’t you forget it. But I
+guess you will not. They fought to kill, and, by what I could make out,
+the British fought to be killed. So both parties were accommodated.
+
+“I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir. The position has its
+obligations—on both sides. You could not be offensive or partisan to
+me. I cannot, for the same reason, be offensive to you. Therefore I
+will not give you my opinions on the conduct of your war.
+
+“Anyway, I didn’t take the field as an offensive partisan, but as an
+inventor. It was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. (Yes,
+Sir, I’m a Democrat by conviction, and that was one of the best things
+Grover Cleveland ever got off.)
+
+“After three months’ trek, old man Van Zyl had his commando in good
+shape and refitted off the British, and he reckoned he’d wait on a
+British General of his acquaintance that did business on a circuit
+between Stompiesneuk, Jackhalputs, Vrelegen, and Odendaalstroom, year
+in and year out. He was a fixture in that section.
+
+“‘He’s a dam’ good man,’ says Van Zyl. ‘He’s a friend of mine. He sent
+in a fine doctor when I was wounded and our Hollander doc. wanted to
+cut my leg off. Ya, I’ll guess we’ll stay with him.’ Up to date, me and
+my Zigler had lived in innocuous desuetude owing to little odds and
+ends riding out of gear. How in thunder was I to know there wasn’t the
+ghost of any road in the country? But raw hide’s cheap and lastin’. I
+guess I’ll make my next gun a thousand pounds heavier, though.
+
+“Well, Sir, we struck the General on his beat—Vrelegen it was—and our
+crowd opened with the usual compliments at two thousand yards. Van Zyl
+shook himself into his greasy old saddle and says, ‘Now we shall be
+quite happy, Mr. Zigler. No more trekking. Joost twelve miles a day
+till the apricots are ripe.’
+
+“Then we hitched on to his outposts, and vedettes, and
+cossack-picquets, or whatever they was called, and we wandered around
+the veldt arm in arm like brothers.
+
+“The way we worked lodge was this way. The General, he had his
+breakfast at 8:45 A.M. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island
+commuter. At 8:42 A.M. I’d go down to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry to
+meet him—I mean I’d see the Zigler into position at two thousand (I
+began at three thousand, but that was cold and distant)—and blow him
+off to two full hoppers—eighteen rounds—just as they were bringing in
+his coffee. If his crowd was busy celebrating the anniversary of
+Waterloo or the last royal kid’s birthday, they’d open on me with two
+guns (I’ll tell you about them later on), but if they were disengaged
+they’d all stand to their horses and pile on the ironmongery, and
+washers, and typewriters, and five weeks’ grub, and in half an hour
+they’d sail out after me and the rest of Van Zyl’s boys; lying down and
+firing till 11:45 A.M. or maybe high noon. Then we’d go from labour to
+refreshment, resooming at 2 P.M. and battling till tea-time. Tuesday
+and Friday was the General’s moving days. He’d trek ahead ten or twelve
+miles, and we’d loaf around his flankers and exercise the ponies a
+piece. Sometimes he’d get hung up in a drift—stalled crossin’ a
+crick—and we’d make playful snatches at his wagons. First time that
+happened I turned the Zigler loose with high hopes, Sir; but the old
+man was well posted on rearguards with a gun to ’em, and I had to haul
+her out with three mules instead of six. I was pretty mad. I wasn’t
+looking for any experts back of the Royal British Artillery. Otherwise,
+the game was mostly even. He’d lay out three or four of our commando,
+and we’d gather in four or five of his once a week or thereon. One
+time, I remember, long towards dusk we saw ’em burying five of their
+boys. They stood pretty thick around the graves. We wasn’t more than
+fifteen hundred yards off, but old Van Zyl wouldn’t fire. He just took
+off his hat at the proper time. He said if you stretched a man at his
+prayers you’d have to hump his bad luck before the Throne as well as
+your own. I am inclined to agree with him. So we browsed along week in
+and week out. A war-sharp might have judged it sort of docile, but for
+an inventor needing practice one day and peace the next for checking
+his theories, it suited Laughton O. Zigler.
+
+“And friendly? Friendly was no word for it. We was brothers in arms.
+
+“Why, I knew those two guns of the Royal British Artillery as well as I
+used to know the old Fifth Avenoo stages. _They_ might have been
+brothers too.
+
+“They’d jolt into action, and wiggle around and skid and spit and cough
+and prize ’emselves back again during our hours of bloody battle till I
+could have wept, Sir, at the spectacle of modern white men chained up
+to these old hand-power, back-number, flint-and-steel reaping machines.
+One of ’em—I called her Baldy—she’d a long white scar all along her
+barrel—I’d made sure of twenty times. I knew her crew by sight, but
+she’d come switching and teturing out of the dust of my shells
+like—like a hen from under a buggy—and she’d dip into a gully, and next
+thing I’d know ’ud be her old nose peeking over the ridge sniffin’ for
+us. Her runnin’ mate had two grey mules in the lead, and a natural wood
+wheel repainted, and a whole raft of rope-ends trailin’ around. ‘Jever
+see Tom Reed with his vest off, steerin’ Congress through a heat-wave?
+I’ve been to Washington often—too often—filin’ my patents. I called her
+Tom Reed. We three ’ud play pussy-wants-a-corner all round the outposts
+on off-days—cross-lots through the sage and along the mezas till we was
+short-circuited by canons. O, it was great for me and Baldy and Tom
+Reed! I don’t know as we didn’t neglect the legitimate interests of our
+respective commanders sometimes for this ball-play. I know _I_ did.
+
+“’Long towards the fall the Royal British Artillery grew shy—hung back
+in their breeching sort of—and their shooting was way—way off. I
+observed they wasn’t taking any chances, not though I acted kitten
+almost underneath ’em.
+
+“I mentioned it to Van Zyl, because it struck me I had about knocked
+their Royal British moral endways.
+
+“‘No,’ says he, rocking as usual on his pony. ‘My Captain Mankeltow he
+is sick. That is all.’
+
+“‘So’s your Captain Mankeltow’s guns,’ I said. ‘But I’m going to make
+’em a heap sicker before he gets well.’
+
+“‘No,’ says Van Zyl. ‘He has had the enteric a little. Now he is
+better, and he was let out from hospital at Jackhalputs. Ah, that
+Mankeltow! He always makes me laugh so. I told him—long back—at
+Colesberg, I had a little home for him at Nooitgedacht. But he would
+not come—no! He has been sick, and I am sorry.’
+
+“‘How d’you know that?’ I says.
+
+“‘Why, only to-day he sends back his love by Johanna Van der Merwe,
+that goes to their doctor for her sick baby’s eyes. He sends his love,
+that Mankeltow, and he tells her tell me he has a little garden of
+roses all ready for me in the Dutch Indies—Umballa. He is very funny,
+my Captain Mankeltow.’
+
+“The Dutch and the English ought to fraternise, Sir. They’ve the same
+notions of humour, to my thinking.’
+
+“‘When he gets well,’ says Van Zyl, ‘you look out, Mr. Americaan. He
+comes back to his guns next Tuesday. Then they shoot better.’
+
+“I wasn’t so well acquainted with the Royal British Artillery as old
+man Van Zyl. I knew this Captain Mankeltow by sight, of course, and,
+considering what sort of a man with the hoe he was, I thought he’d done
+right well against my Zigler. But nothing epoch-making.
+
+“Next morning at the usual hour I waited on the General, and old Van
+Zyl come along with some of the boys. Van Zyl didn’t hang round the
+Zigler much as a rule, but this was his luck that day.
+
+“He was peeking through his glasses at the camp, and I was helping
+pepper, the General’s sow-belly—just as usual—when he turns to me quick
+and says, ‘Almighty! How all these Englishmen are liars! You cannot
+trust one,’ he says. ‘Captain Mankeltow tells our Johanna he comes not
+back till Tuesday, and to-day is Friday, and there he is! Almighty! The
+English are all Chamberlains!’
+
+“If the old man hadn’t stopped to make political speeches he’d have had
+his supper in laager that night, I guess. I was busy attending to Tom
+Reed at two thousand when Baldy got in her fine work on me. I saw one
+sheet of white flame wrapped round the hopper, and in the middle of it
+there was one o’ my mules straight on end. Nothing out of the way in a
+mule on end, but this mule hadn’t any head. I remember it struck me as
+incongruous at the time, and when I’d ciphered it out I was doing the
+Santos-Dumont act without any balloon and my motor out of gear. Then I
+got to thinking about Santos-Dumont and how much better my new way was.
+Then I thought about Professor Langley and the Smithsonian, and wishing
+I hadn’t lied so extravagantly in some of my specifications at
+Washington. Then I quit thinking for quite a while, and when I resumed
+my train of thought I was nude, Sir, in a very stale stretcher, and my
+mouth was full of fine dirt all flavoured with Laughtite.
+
+“I coughed up that dirt.
+
+“‘Hullo!’ says a man walking beside me. ‘You’ve spoke almost in time.
+Have a drink?’
+
+“I don’t use rum as a rule, but I did then, because I needed it.
+
+“‘What hit us?’ I said.
+
+“‘Me,’ he said. ‘I got you fair on the hopper as you pulled out of that
+donga; but I’m sorry to say every last round in the hopper’s exploded
+and your gun’s in a shocking state. I’m real sorry,’ he says. ‘I admire
+your gun, Sir.’
+
+“‘Are you Captain Mankeltow?’ I says.
+
+“‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I presoom you’re Mister Zigler. Your commanding
+officer told me about you.’
+
+“‘Have you gathered in old man Van Zyl?’ I said.
+
+“‘Commandant Van Zyl,’ he says very stiff, ‘was most unfortunately
+wounded, but I am glad to say it’s not serious. We hope he’ll be able
+to dine with us to-night; and I feel sure,’ he says, ‘the General would
+be delighted to see you too, though he didn’t expect,’ he says, ‘and no
+one else either, by Jove!’ he says, and blushed like the British do
+when they’re embarrassed.
+
+“I saw him slide an Episcopalian Prayer-book up his sleeve, and when I
+looked over the edge of the stretcher there was half-a-dozen enlisted
+men—privates—had just quit digging and was standing to attention by
+their spades. I guess he was right on the General not expecting me to
+dinner; but it was all of a piece with their sloppy British way of
+doing business. Any God’s quantity of fuss and flubdub to bury a man,
+and not an ounce of forehandedness in the whole outfit to find out
+whether he was rightly dead. And I am a Congregationalist anyway!
+
+“Well, Sir, that was my introduction to the British Army. I’d write a
+book about it if anyone would believe me. This Captain Mankeltow, Royal
+British Artillery, turned the doctor on me (I could write another book
+about _him_) and fixed me up with a suit of his own clothes, and fed me
+canned beef and biscuits, and give me a cigar—a Henry Clay and a
+whisky-and-sparklet. He was a white man.
+
+“‘Ye-es, by Jove,’ he said, dragging out his words like a twist of
+molasses, ‘we’ve all admired your gun and the way you’ve worked it.
+Some of us betted you was a British deserter. I won a sovereign on that
+from a yeoman. And, by the way,’ he says, ‘you’ve disappointed me groom
+pretty bad.’
+
+“‘Where does your groom come in?’ I said.
+
+“‘Oh, he was the yeoman. He’s a dam poor groom,’ says my captain, ‘but
+he’s a way-up barrister when he’s at home. He’s been running around the
+camp with his tongue out, waiting for the chance of defending you at
+the court-martial.’
+
+“‘What court-martial?’ I says.
+
+“‘On you as a deserter from the Artillery. You’d have had a good run
+for your money. Anyway, you’d never have been hung after the way you
+worked your gun. Deserter ten times over,’ he says, ‘I’d have stuck out
+for shooting you like a gentleman.’
+
+“Well, Sir, right there it struck me at the pit of my stomach—sort of
+sickish, sweetish feeling—that my position needed regularising pretty
+bad. I ought to have been a naturalised burgher of a year’s standing;
+but Ohio’s my State, and I wouldn’t have gone back on her for a
+desertful of Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led
+me to the existing crisis; but I couldn’t expect this Captain Mankeltow
+to regard the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of
+unreconstructed American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at
+the British Army for months on end. I tell _you_, Sir, I wished I was
+in Cincinnatah that summer evening. I’d have compromised on Brooklyn.
+
+“‘What d’you do about aliens?’ I said, and the dirt I’d coughed up
+seemed all back of my tongue again.
+
+“‘Oh,’ says he, ‘we don’t do much of anything. They’re about all the
+society we get. I’m a bit of a pro-Boer myself,’ he says, ‘but between
+you and me the average Boer ain’t over and above intellectual. You’re
+the first American we’ve met up with, but of course you’re a burgher.’
+
+“It was what I ought to have been if I’d had the sense of a common
+tick, but the way he drawled it out made me mad.
+
+“‘Of course I am not,’ I says. ‘Would _you_ be a naturalised Boer?’
+
+“‘I’m fighting against ’em,’ he says, lighting a cigarette, ‘but it’s
+all a matter of opinion.’
+
+“‘Well,’ I says, ‘you can hold any blame opinion you choose, but I’m a
+white man, and my present intention is to die in that colour.’
+
+“He laughed one of those big, thick-ended, British laughs that don’t
+lead anywhere, and whacked up some sort of compliment about America
+that made me mad all through.
+
+“I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir, but I do not understand
+the alleged British joke. It is depressing.
+
+“I was introdooced to five or six officers that evening, and every
+blame one of ’em grinned and asked me why I wasn’t in the Filipeens
+suppressing our war! And that was British humour! They all had to get
+it off their chests before they’d talk sense. But they was sound on the
+Zigler. They had all admired her. I made out a fairy-story of me being
+wearied of the war, and having pushed the gun at them these last three
+months in the hope they’d capture it and let me go home. That tickled
+’em to death. They made me say it three times over, and laughed like
+kids each time. But half the British _are_ kids; specially the older
+men. My Captain Mankeltow was less of it than the others. He talked
+about the Zigler like a lover, Sir, and I drew him diagrams of the
+hopper-feed and recoil-cylinder in his note-book. He asked the one
+British question I was waiting for, ‘Hadn’t I made my working-parts too
+light?’ The British think weight’s strength.
+
+“At last—I’d been shy of opening the subject before—at last I said,
+‘Gentlemen, you are the unprejudiced tribunal I’ve been hunting after.
+I guess you ain’t interested in any other gun-factory, and politics
+don’t weigh with you. How did it feel your end of the game? What’s my
+gun done, anyway?’
+
+“‘I hate to disappoint you,’ says Captain Mankeltow, ‘because I know
+you feel as an inventor.’ I wasn’t feeling like an inventor just then.
+I felt friendly, but the British haven’t more tact than you can pick up
+with a knife out of a plate of soup.
+
+“‘The honest truth,’ he says, ‘is that you’ve wounded about ten of us
+one way and another, killed two battery horses and four mules, and—oh,
+yes,’ he said, ‘you’ve bagged five Kaffirs. But, buck up,’ he said,
+‘we’ve all had mighty close calls’—shaves, he called ’em, I remember.
+‘Look at my pants.’
+
+“They was repaired right across the seat with Minneapolis
+flour-bagging. I could see the stencil.
+
+“‘I ain’t bluffing,’ he says. ‘Get the hospital returns, Doc.’
+
+“The doctor gets ’em and reads ’em out under the proper dates. That
+doctor alone was worth the price of admission.
+
+“I was right pleased right through that I hadn’t killed any of these
+cheerful kids; but none the less I couldn’t help thinking that a few
+more Kaffirs would have served me just as well for advertising purposes
+as white men. No, sir. Anywhichway you regard the proposition,
+twenty-one casualties after months of close friendship like ours
+was—paltry.
+
+“They gave me taffy about the gun—the British use taffy where we use
+sugar. It’s cheaper, and gets there just the same. They sat around and
+proved to me that my gun was too good, too uniform—shot as close as a
+Mannlicher rifle.
+
+“Says one kid chewing a bit of grass: ‘I counted eight of your shells,
+Sir, burst in a radius of ten feet. All of ’em would have gone through
+one waggon-tilt. It was beautiful,’ he says. ‘It was too good.’
+
+“I shouldn’t wonder if the boys were right. My Laughtite is too
+mathematically uniform in propelling power. Yes; she was too good for
+this refractory fool of a country. The training gear was broke, too,
+and we had to swivel her around by the trail. But I’ll build my next
+Zigler fifteen hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor
+under the axles. I must think that up.
+
+“‘Well, gentlemen,’ I said, ‘I’d hate to have been the death of any of
+you; and if a prisoner can deed away his property, I’d love to present
+the Captain here with what he’s seen fit to leave of my Zigler.’
+
+“‘Thanks awf’ly,’ says my Captain. ‘I’d like her very much. She’d look
+fine in the mess at Woolwich. That is, if you don’t mind, Mr. Zigler.’
+
+“‘Go right ahead,’ I says. ‘I’ve come out of all the mess I’ve any use
+for; but she’ll do to spread the light among the Royal British
+Artillery.’
+
+“I tell you, Sir, there’s not much of anything the matter with the
+Royal British Artillery. They’re brainy men languishing under an effete
+system which, when you take good holt of it, is England—just all
+England. ‘Times I’d feel I was talking with real live citizens, and
+times I’d feel I’d struck the Beef Eaters in the Tower.
+
+“How? Well, this way. I was telling my Captain Mankeltow what Van Zyl
+had said about the British being all Chamberlains when the old man saw
+him back from hospital four days ahead of time.
+
+“‘Oh, damn it all!’ he says, as serious as the Supreme Court. ‘It’s too
+bad,’ he says. ‘Johanna must have misunderstood me, or else I’ve got
+the wrong Dutch word for these blarsted days of the week. I told
+Johanna I’d be out on Friday. The woman’s a fool. Oah, da-am it all!’
+he says. ‘I wouldn’t have sold old Van Zyl a pup like that,’ he says.
+‘I’ll hunt him up and apologise.’
+
+“He must have fixed it all right, for when we sailed over to the
+General’s dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and
+bitters, as happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and
+treated him like their prodigal father. He’d been hit on the collarbone
+by a wad of shrapnel, and his arm was tied up.
+
+“But the General was the peach. I presume you’re acquainted with the
+average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his
+left hand, and he talked like—like the _Ladies’ Home Journal_. J’ever
+read that paper? It’s refined, Sir—and innocuous, and full of
+nickel-plated sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He
+began by a Lydia Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped
+the boys had done me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their
+midst. Then he thanked me for the interesting and valuable lessons that
+I’d given his crowd—specially in the matter of placing artillery and
+rearguard attacks. He’d wipe his long thin moustache between
+drinks—lime-juice and water he used—and blat off into a long ‘a-aah,’
+and ladle out more taffy for me or old man Van Zyl on his right. I told
+him how I’d had my first Pisgah-sight of the principles of the Zigler
+when I was a fourth-class postmaster on a star-route in Arkansas. I
+told him how I’d worked it up by instalments when I was machinist in
+Waterbury, where the dollar-watches come from. He had one on his wrist
+then. I told him how I’d met Zalinski (he’d never heard of Zalinski!)
+when I was an extra clerk in the Naval Construction Bureau at
+Washington. I told him how my uncle, who was a truck-farmer in Noo
+Jersey (he loaned money on mortgage too, for ten acres ain’t enough now
+in Noo Jersey), how he’d willed me a quarter of a million dollars,
+because I was the only one of our kin that called him down when he used
+to come home with a hard-cider jag on him and heave ox-bows at his
+nieces. I told him how I’d turned in every red cent on the Zigler, and
+I told him the whole circus of my coming out with her, and so on, and
+so following; and every forty seconds he’d wipe his moustache and blat,
+‘How interesting. Really, now? How interesting.’
+
+“It was like being in an old English book, Sir. Like _Bracebridge
+Hall_. But an American wrote _that!_ I kept peeking around for the
+Boar’s Head and the Rosemary and Magna Charta and the Cricket on the
+Hearth, and the rest of the outfit. Then Van Zyl whirled in. He was no
+ways jagged, but thawed—thawed, Sir, and among friends. They began
+discussing previous scraps all along the old man’s beat—about sixty of
+’em—as well as side-shows with other generals and columns. Van Zyl told
+’im of a big beat he’d worked on a column a week or so before I’d
+joined him. He demonstrated his strategy with forks on the table.
+
+“‘There!’ said the General, when he’d finished. ‘That proves my
+contention to the hilt. Maybe I’m a bit of a pro-Boer, but I stick to
+it,’ he says, ‘that under proper officers, with due regard to his race
+prejudices, the Boer’ud make the finest mounted infantry in the Empire.
+Adrian,’ he says, ‘you’re simply squandered on a cattle-run. You ought
+to be at the Staff College with De Wet.’
+
+“‘You catch De Wet and I come to your Staff College—eh,’ says Adrian,
+laughing. ‘But you are so slow, Generaal. Why are you so slow? For a
+month,’ he says, ‘you do so well and strong that we say we shall
+hands-up and come back to our farms. Then you send to England and make
+us a present of two—three—six hundred young men, with rifles and wagons
+and rum and tobacco, and such a great lot of cartridges, that our young
+men put up their tails and start all over again. If you hold an ox by
+the horn and hit him by the bottom he runs round and round. He never
+goes anywhere. So, too, this war goes round and round. You know that,
+Generaal!’
+
+“‘Quite right, Adrian,’ says the General; ‘but you must believe your
+Bible.’
+
+“‘Hooh!’ says Adrian, and reaches for the whisky. ‘I’ve never known a
+Dutchman a professing Atheist, but some few have been rather active
+Agnostics since the British sat down in Pretoria. Old man Van Zyl—he
+told me—had soured on religion after Bloemfontein surrendered. He was a
+Free Stater for one thing.’
+
+“‘He that believeth,’ says the General, ‘shall not make haste. That’s
+in Isaiah. We believe we’re going to win, and so we don’t make haste.
+As far as I’m concerned I’d like this war to last another five years.
+We’d have an army then. It’s just this way, Mr. Zigler,’ he says, ‘our
+people are brimfull of patriotism, but they’ve been born and brought up
+between houses, and England ain’t big enough to train ’em—not if you
+expect to preserve.’
+
+“‘Preserve what?’ I says. ‘England?’
+
+“‘No. The game,’ he says; ‘and that reminds me, gentlemen, we haven’t
+drunk the King and Fox-hunting.’
+
+“So they drank the King and Fox-hunting. I drank the King because
+there’s something about Edward that tickles me (he’s so blame British);
+but I rather stood out on the Fox-hunting. I’ve ridden wolves in the
+cattle-country, and needed a drink pretty bad afterwards, but it never
+struck me as I ought to drink about it—he-red-it-arily.
+
+“‘No, as I was saying, Mr. Zigler,’ he goes on, ‘we have to train our
+men in the field to shoot and ride. I allow six months for it; but many
+column-commanders—not that I ought to say a word against ’em, for
+they’re the best fellows that ever stepped, and most of ’em are my
+dearest friends—seem to think that if they have men and horses and guns
+they can take tea with the Boers. It’s generally the other way about,
+ain’t it, Mr. Zigler?’
+
+“‘To some extent, Sir,’ I said.
+
+“‘I’m _so_ glad you agree with me,’ he says. ‘My command here I regard
+as a training depot, and you, if I may say so, have been one of my most
+efficient instructors. I mature my men slowly but thoroughly. First I
+put ’em in a town which is liable to be attacked by night, where they
+can attend riding-school in the day. Then I use ’em with a convoy, and
+last I put ’em into a column. It takes time,’ he says, ‘but I flatter
+myself that any men who have worked under me are at least grounded in
+the rudiments of their profession. Adrian,’ he says, ‘was there
+anything wrong with the men who upset Van Bester’s applecart last month
+when he was trying to cross the line to join Piper with those horses
+he’d stole from Gabbitas?’
+
+“‘No, Generaal,’ says Van Zyl. ‘Your men got the horses back and eleven
+dead; and Van Besters, he ran to Delarey in his shirt. They was very
+good, those men. They shoot hard.’
+
+“_‘So_ pleased to hear you say so. I laid ’em down at the beginning of
+this century—a 1900 vintage. _You_ remember ’em, Mankeltow?’ he says.
+‘The Central Middlesex Buncho Busters—clerks and floorwalkers mostly,’
+and he wiped his moustache. ‘It was just the same with the Liverpool
+Buckjumpers, but they were stevedores. Let’s see—they were a
+last-century draft, weren’t they? They did well after nine months.
+_You_ know ’em, Van Zyl? You didn’t get much change out of ’em at
+Pootfontein?’
+
+“‘No,’ says Van Zyl. ‘At Pootfontein I lost my son Andries.’
+
+“‘I beg your pardon, Commandant,’ says the General; and the rest of the
+crowd sort of cooed over Adrian.
+
+“‘Excoose,’ says Adrian. ‘It was all right. They were good men those,
+but it is just what I say. Some are so dam good we want to hands-up,
+and some are so dam bad, we say, “Take the Vierkleur into Cape Town.”
+It is not upright of you, Generaal. It is not upright of you at all. I
+do not think you ever wish this war to finish.’
+
+“‘It’s a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,’ says the General.
+‘With luck, we ought to run half a million men through the mill. Why,
+we might even be able to give our Native Army a look in. Oh, not here,
+of course, Adrian, but down in the Colony—say a camp-of-exercise at
+Worcester. You mustn’t be prejudiced, Adrian. I’ve commanded a district
+in India, and I give you my word the native troops are splendid men.’
+
+“‘Oh, I should not mind them at Worcester,’ says Adrian. ‘I would sell
+you forage for them at Worcester—yes, and Paarl and Stellenbosch; but
+Almighty!’ he says, ‘must I stay with Cronje till you have taught half
+a million of these stupid boys to ride? I shall be an old man.’
+
+“Well, Sir, then and there they began arguing whether St. Helena would
+suit Adrian’s health as well as some other places they knew about, and
+fixing up letters of introduction to Dukes and Lords of their
+acquaintance, so’s Van Zyl should be well looked after. We own a
+fair-sized block of real estate—America does—but it made me sickish to
+hear this crowd fluttering round the Atlas (oh yes, they had an Atlas),
+and choosing stray continents for Adrian to drink his coffee in. The
+old man allowed he didn’t want to roost with Cronje, because one of
+Cronje’s kin had jumped one of his farms after Paardeberg. I forget the
+rights of the case, but it was interesting. They decided on a place
+called Umballa in India, because there was a first-class doctor there.
+
+“So Adrian was fixed to drink the King and Foxhunting, and study up the
+Native Army in India (I’d like to see ’em myself), till the British
+General had taught the male white citizens of Great Britain how to
+ride. Don’t misunderstand me, Sir. I loved that General. After ten
+minutes I loved him, and I wanted to laugh at him; but at the same
+time, sitting there and hearing him talk about the centuries, I tell
+you, Sir, it scared me. It scared me cold! He admitted everything—he
+acknowledged the corn before you spoke—he was more pleased to hear that
+his men had been used to wipe the geldt with than I was when I knocked
+out Tom Reed’s two lead-horses—and he sat back and blew smoke through
+his nose and matured his men like cigars and—he talked of the
+everlastin’ centuries!
+
+“I went to bed nearer nervous prostration than I’d come in a long time.
+Next morning me and Captain Mankeltow fixed up what his shrapnel had
+left of my Zigler for transport to the railroad. She went in on her own
+wheels, and I stencilled her ‘Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,’ on the
+muzzle, and he said he’d be grateful if I’d take charge of her to Cape
+Town, and hand her over to a man in the Ordnance there. ‘How are you
+fixed financially? You’ll need some money on the way home,’ he says at
+last.
+
+“‘For one thing, Cap,’ I said, ‘I’m not a poor man, and for another I’m
+not going home. I am the captive of your bow and spear. I decline to
+resign office.’
+
+“‘Skittles!’ he says (that was a great word of his), ‘you’ll take
+parole, and go back to America and invent another Zigler, a trifle
+heavier in the working parts—I would. We’ve got more prisoners than we
+know what to do with as it is,’ he says. ‘You’ll only be an additional
+expense to me as a taxpayer. Think of Schedule D,’ he says, ‘and take
+parole.’
+
+“‘I don’t know anything about your tariffs,’ I said, ‘but when I get to
+Cape Town I write home for money, and I turn in every cent my board’ll
+cost your country to any ten-century-old department that’s been
+ordained to take it since William the Conqueror came along.’
+
+“‘But, confound you for a thick-headed mule,’ he says, ‘this war ain’t
+any more than just started! Do you mean to tell me you’re going to play
+prisoner till it’s over?’
+
+“‘That’s about the size of it,’ I says, ‘if an Englishman and an
+American could ever understand each other.’
+
+“‘But, in Heaven’s Holy Name, why?’ he says, sitting down of a heap on
+an anthill.
+
+“‘Well, Cap,’ I says, ‘I don’t pretend to follow your ways of thought,
+and I can’t see why you abuse your position to persecute a poor
+prisoner o’ war on _his!_’
+
+“‘My dear fellow,’ he began, throwing up his hands and blushing, ‘I’ll
+apologise.’
+
+“‘But if you insist,’ I says, ‘there are just one and a half things in
+this world I can’t do. The odd half don’t matter here; but taking
+parole, and going home, and being interviewed by the boys, and giving
+lectures on my single-handed campaign against the hereditary enemies of
+my beloved country happens to be the one. We’ll let it go at that,
+Cap.’
+
+“‘But it’ll bore you to death,’ he says. The British are a heap more
+afraid of what they call being bored than of dying, I’ve noticed.
+
+“‘I’ll survive,’ I says, ‘I ain’t British. I can think,’ I says.
+
+“‘By God,’ he says, coming up to me, and extending the right hand of
+fellowship, ‘you ought to be English, Zigler!’
+
+“It’s no good getting mad at a compliment like that. The English all do
+it. They’re a crazy breed. When they don’t know you they freeze up
+tighter’n the St. Lawrence. When they _do_, they go out like an ice-jam
+in April. Up till we prisoners left—four days—my Captain Mankeltow told
+me pretty much all about himself there was; his mother and sisters, and
+his bad brother that was a trooper in some Colonial corps, and how his
+father didn’t get on with him, and—well, everything, as I’ve said.
+They’re undomesticated, the British, compared with us. They talk about
+their own family affairs as if they belonged to someone else. ’Taint as
+if they hadn’t any shame, but it sounds like it. I guess they talk out
+loud what we think, and we talk out loud what they think.
+
+“I liked my Captain Mankeltow. I liked him as well as any man I’d ever
+struck. He was white. He gave me his silver drinking-flask, and I gave
+him the formula of my Laughtite. That’s a hundred and fifty thousand
+dollars in his vest-pocket, on the lowest count, if he has the
+knowledge to use it. No, I didn’t tell him the money-value. He was
+English. He’d send his valet to find out.
+
+“Well, me and Adrian and a crowd of dam Dutchmen was sent down the road
+to Cape Town in first-class carriages under escort. (What did I think
+of your enlisted men? They are largely different from ours, Sir: very
+largely.) As I was saying, we slid down south, with Adrian looking out
+of the car-window and crying. Dutchmen cry mighty easy for a breed that
+fights as they do; but I never understood how a Dutchman could curse
+till we crossed into the Orange Free State Colony, and he lifted up his
+hand and cursed Steyn for a solid ten minutes. Then we got into the
+Colony, and the rebs—ministers mostly and schoolmasters—came round the
+cars with fruit and sympathy and texts. Van Zyl talked to ’em in Dutch,
+and one man, a big red-bearded minister, at Beaufort West, I remember,
+he jest wilted on the platform.
+
+“‘Keep your prayers for yourself,’ says Van Zyl, throwing back a bunch
+of grapes. ‘You’ll need ’em, and you’ll need the fruit too, when the
+war comes down here. _You_ done it,’ he says. ‘You and your picayune
+Church that’s deader than Cronje’s dead horses! What sort of a God have
+you been unloading on us, you black _aas vogels_? The British came, and
+we beat ’em,’ he says, ‘and you sat still and prayed. The British beat
+us, and you sat still,’ he says. ‘You told us to hang on, and we hung
+on, and our farms was burned, and you sat still—you and your God. See
+here,’ he says, ‘I shot my Bible full of bullets after Bloemfontein
+went, and you and God didn’t say anything. Take it and pray over it
+before we Federals help the British to knock hell out of you rebels.’
+
+“Then I hauled him back into the car. I judged he’d had a fit. But
+life’s curious—and sudden—and mixed. I hadn’t any more use for a reb
+than Van Zyl, and I knew something of the lies they’d fed us up with
+from the Colony for a year and more. I told the minister to pull his
+freight out of that, and went on with my lunch, when another man come
+along and shook hands with Van Zyl. He’d known him at close range in
+the Kimberley seige and before. Van Zyl was well seen by his
+neighbours, I judge. As soon as this other man opened his mouth I said,
+‘You’re Kentucky, ain’t you?’ ‘I am,’ he says; ‘and what may you be?’ I
+told him right off, for I was pleased to hear good United States in any
+man’s mouth; but he whipped his hands behind him and said, ‘I’m not
+knowing any man that fights for a Tammany Dutchman. But I presoom
+you’ve been well paid, you dam gun-runnin’ Yank.’
+
+“Well, Sir, I wasn’t looking for that, and it near knocked me over,
+while old man Van Zyl started in to explain.
+
+“‘Don’t you waste your breath, Mister Van Zyl,’ the man says. ‘I know
+this breed. The South’s full of ’em.’ Then he whirls round on me and
+says, ‘Look at here, you Yank. A little thing like a King’s neither
+here nor there, but what _you’ve_ done,’ he says, ‘is to go back on the
+White Man in six places at once—two hemispheres and four
+continents—America, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South
+Africa. Don’t open your head,’ he says. ‘You know well if you’d been
+caught at this game in our country you’d have been jiggling in the
+bight of a lariat before you could reach for your naturalisation
+papers. Go on and prosper,’ he says, ‘and you’ll fetch up by fighting
+for niggers, as the North did.’ And he threw me half-a-crown—English
+money.
+
+“Sir, I do not regard the proposition in that light, but I guess I must
+have been somewhat shook by the explosion. They told me at Cape Town
+one rib was driven in on to my lungs. I am not adducing this as an
+excuse, but the cold God’s truth of the matter is—the money on the
+floor did it…. I give up and cried. Put my head down and cried.
+
+“I dream about this still sometimes. He didn’t know the circumstances,
+but I dream about it. And it’s Hell!
+
+“How do you regard the proposition—as a Brother? If you’d invented your
+own gun, and spent fifty-seven thousand dollars on her—and had paid
+your own expenses from the word ‘go’? An American citizen has a right
+to choose his own side in an unpleasantness, and Van Zyl wasn’t any
+Krugerite … and I’d risked my hide at my own expense. I got that man’s
+address from Van Zyl; he was a mining man at Kimberley, and I wrote him
+the facts. But he never answered. Guess he thought I lied…. Damned
+Southern rebel!
+
+“Oh, say. Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord
+in Cape Town, and he fixed things so’s I could lie up a piece in his
+house? I was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib
+had gouged into the lung—here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he
+took charge of the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as
+much as any American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in
+your army. He said the British soldier had failed in every point except
+courage. He said England needed a Monroe Doctrine worse than America—a
+new doctrine, barring out all the Continent, and strictly devoting
+herself to developing her own Colonies. He said he’d abolish half the
+Foreign Office, and take all the old hereditary families clean out of
+it, because, he said, they was expressly trained to fool around with
+continental diplomats, and to despise the Colonies. His own family
+wasn’t more than six hundred years old. He was a very brainy man, and a
+good citizen. We talked politics and inventions together when my lung
+let up on me.
+
+“Did he know my General? Yes. He knew ’em all. Called ’em Teddie and
+Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his dearest
+friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of ’em fit to
+command a column in the field. He said they were too fond of
+advertising. Generals don’t seem very different from actors or doctors
+or—yes, Sir—inventors.
+
+“He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort
+of pull—even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless
+lunatic; but after a while I got ’em to let me keep some of their
+books. If I was left alone in the world with the British system of
+bookkeeping, I’d reconstruct the whole British Empire—beginning with
+the Army. Yes, I’m one of their most trusted accountants, and I’m paid
+for it. As much as a dollar a day. I keep that. I’ve earned it, and I
+deduct it from the cost of my board. When the war’s over I’m going to
+pay up the balance to the British Government. Yes, Sir, that’s how I
+regard the proposition.
+
+“Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was
+going to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn’t end in a
+year. ’Tisn’t in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if
+Adrian ever meets up with Steyn there’ll be an exception to the rule.
+Ye—es, when the war’s over it’ll take some of the British Army to
+protect Steyn from his fellow-patriots. But the war won’t be over yet
+awhile. He that believeth don’t hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers
+and the school-teachers and the rebs’ll have a war all to themselves
+long after the north is quiet.
+
+“I’m pleased with this country—it’s big. Not so many folk on the ground
+as in America. There’s a boom coming sure. I’ve talked it over with
+Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near Bloemfontein and
+start in cattle-raising. It’s big and peaceful—a ten-thousand-acre
+farm. I could go on inventing there, too. I’ll sell my Zigler, I guess.
+I’ll offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do
+the ‘reelly-now-how-interesting’ act over her, I’ll turn her over to
+Captain Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They’ll pretty quick find
+some Gussie, or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper
+quarters. I’m beginning to know my English.
+
+“And now I’ll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I
+haven’t had such a good time since Willie died.” He pulled the blue
+shirt over his head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing,
+and, speaking through the folds, added:
+
+“But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole
+proposition to America for ninety-nine years.”
+
+
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+
+
+
+POSEIDON’S LAW
+
+
+When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea
+His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, “Mariner,” said he,
+“Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
+That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
+
+“Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
+At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
+But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test—the immediate gulfs condemn—
+Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.
+
+“Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
+The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria’s white-lipped wrath;
+Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
+Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.
+
+“Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,
+A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts—
+The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,
+The soul that cannot tell a lie—except upon the land!”
+
+In dromond and in catafract—wet, wakeful, windward-eyed—
+He kept Poseidon’s Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
+But, once discharged the dromond’s hold, the bireme beached once more,
+Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.
+
+
+The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
+And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:
+The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,
+But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!
+
+From Punt returned, from Phormio’s Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
+He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
+And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
+Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!
+
+
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+
+As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance,
+armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British
+Navy—the whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches
+the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but
+the Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the
+present day, of the British sailorman.
+
+In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous
+amateur, though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he
+relies on that amateur’s hard-won information. There exists—unlike some
+other publication, it is not bound in lead boards—a work by one “M. de
+C.,” based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our
+well-known _Acolyte_ type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not
+happen. It covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of
+large type exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation
+points as the average Dumas novel.
+
+I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue—it is the
+disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer
+capable of writing one page of lyric prose—to the eloquent, the joyful,
+the impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated.
+In this sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the
+bibliophile lies at the mercy of his agent.
+
+“M. de C.,” I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her
+boats what time H.M.S. _Archimandrite_ lay off Funchal. “M. de C.” was,
+always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the
+conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him
+assist the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks
+to his histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted
+to the rank of “supernumerary captain’s servant”—a “post which,” I give
+his words, “I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished
+me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word
+malapropos would have been my destruction.”
+
+From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels
+like to those “M. de C.” had “envisaged”—if I translate him correctly.
+It became clear to me that “M. de C.” was either a pyramidal liar, or…
+
+I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the
+_Archimandrite_; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I
+took a third-class ticket to Plymouth.
+
+I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two
+seaman-gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously
+set my feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of
+Devonport to a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank
+with the proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when
+my guides had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or
+petty officer of the _Archimandrite_.
+
+“The _Bedlamite_, d’you mean—’er last commission, when they all went
+crazy?”
+
+“Shouldn’t wonder,” I replied. “Fetch me a sample and I’ll see.”
+
+“You’ll excuse me, o’ course, but—what d’you want ’im _for?_”
+
+“I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk—if you like. I want
+to make him drunk here.”
+
+“Spoke very ’andsome. I’ll do what I can.” He went out towards the
+water that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the
+pot-boy that he was a person of influence beyond Admirals.
+
+In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice
+of Mr. Wessels.
+
+“’E only wants to make you drunk at ’is expense. Dessay ’e’ll stand you
+all a drink. Come up an’ look at ’im. ’E don’t bite.”
+
+A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large
+bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful
+free-drinkers.
+
+“’E’s the only one I could get. Transferred to the _Postulant_ six
+months back. I found ’im quite accidental.” Mr. Wessels beamed.
+
+“I’m in charge o’ the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin’ on the beach _en
+masse_. They won’t be home till mornin’,” said the square man with the
+remarkable eyes. “Are you an _Archimandrite?_” I demanded.
+
+“That’s me. I was, as you might say.”
+
+“Hold on. I’m a _Archimandrite._” A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to
+climb on the table. “Was you lookin’ for a _Bedlamite?_ I’ve—I’ve been
+invalided, an’ what with that, an’ visitin’ my family ’ome at Lewes,
+per’aps I’ve come late. ’Ave I?”
+
+“You’ve ’ad all that’s good for you,” said Tom Wessels, as the Red
+Marine sat cross-legged on the floor.
+
+“There are those ’oo haven’t ’ad a thing yet!” cried a voice by the
+door.
+
+“I will take this _Archimandrite_,” I said, “and this Marine. Will you
+please give the boat’s crew a drink now, and another in half an hour
+if—if Mr.——”
+
+“Pyecroft,” said the square man. “Emanuel Pyecroft, second-class
+petty-officer.”
+
+“—Mr. Pyecroft doesn’t object?”
+
+“He don’t. Clear out. Goldin’, you picket the hill by yourself,
+throwin’ out a skirmishin’-line in ample time to let me know when
+Number One’s comin’ down from his vittles.”
+
+The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red
+Marine zealously leading the way.
+
+“And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?” I said.
+
+“Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an’ sugar an’ per’aps a
+lemon.”
+
+“Mine’s beer,” said the Marine. “It always was.”
+
+“Look ’ere, Glass. You take an’ go to sleep. The picket’ll be comin’
+for you in a little time, an’ per’aps you’ll ’ave slep’ it off by then.
+What’s your ship, now?” said Mr. Wessels.
+
+“The Ship o’ State—most important?” said the Red Marine magnificently,
+and shut his eyes.
+
+“That’s right,” said Mr. Pyecroft. “He’s safest where he is. An’
+now—here’s santy to us all!—what d’you want o’ me?”
+
+“I want to read you something.”
+
+“Tracts, again!” said the Marine, never opening his eyes. “Well. I’m
+game…. A little more ’ead to it, miss, please.”
+
+“He thinks ’e’s drinkin’—lucky beggar!” said Mr. Pyecroft. “I’m
+agreeable to be read to. ’Twon’t alter my convictions. I may as well
+tell you beforehand I’m a Plymouth Brother.”
+
+He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist’s chair, and I
+began at the third page of “M. de C.”
+
+“‘_At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the
+boat’s cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed
+with empress_’—coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. ‘_By this time I judged
+the vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors
+extricated me amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I
+responded that I named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself
+from the Portuguese conscription_.’
+
+“Ho!” said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed.
+Then pensively: “Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?”
+
+“It’s the story of Antonio—a stowaway in the _Archimandrite’s_ cutter.
+A French spy when he’s at home, I fancy. What do _you_ know about it?”
+
+“An’ I thought it was tracts! An’ yet some’ow I didn’t.” Mr. Pyecroft
+nodded his head wonderingly. “Our old man was quite right—so was ’Op—so
+was I. ’Ere, Glass!” He kicked the Marine. “Here’s our Antonio ’as
+written a impromptu book! He _was_ a spy all right.”
+
+The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of
+the half-drunk. “’As ’e got any-thin’ in about my ’orrible death an’
+execution? Ex_cuse_ me, but if I open my eyes, I shan’t be well. That’s
+where I’m different from _all_ other men. Ahem!”
+
+“What about Glass’s execution?” demanded Pyecroft.
+
+“The book’s in French,” I replied.
+
+“Then it’s no good to me.”
+
+“Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened. I’ll
+check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged out
+of the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the
+other things, because they’re unusual.”
+
+“They were,” said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. “Lookin’ back on it as I
+set here more an’ more I see what an ’ighly unusual affair it was. But
+it happened. It transpired in the _Archimandrite_—the ship you can
+trust… Antonio! Ther beggar!”
+
+“Take your time, Mr. Pyecroft.”
+
+In a few moments we came to it thus—
+
+“The old man was displeased. I don’t deny he was quite a little
+displeased. With the mail-boats trottin’ into Madeira every twenty
+minutes, he didn’t see why a lop-eared Portugee had to take liberties
+with a man-o’-war’s first cutter. Any’ow, we couldn’t turn ship round
+for him. We drew him out and took him out to Number One. ‘Drown ’im,’
+’e says. ‘Drown ’im before ’e dirties my fine new decks.’ But our owner
+was tenderhearted. ‘Take him to the galley,’ ’e says. ‘Boil ’im! Skin
+’im! Cook ’im! Cut ’is bloomin’ hair? Take ’is bloomin’ number! We’ll
+have him executed at Ascension.’
+
+“Retallick, our chief cook, an’ a Carth’lic, was the on’y one any way
+near grateful; bein’ short-’anded in the galley. He annexes the
+blighter by the left ear an’ right foot an’ sets him to work peelin’
+potatoes. So then, this Antonio that was avoidin’ the conscription—”
+
+“_Sub_scription, you pink-eyed matlow!” said the Marine, with the face
+of a stone Buddha, and whimpered sadly: “Pye don’t see any fun in it at
+all.”
+
+“_Con_scription—come to his illegitimate sphere in Her Majesty’s Navy,
+an’ it was just then that Old ’Op, our Yeoman of Signals, an’ a
+fastidious joker, made remarks to me about ’is hands.
+
+“‘Those ’ands,’ says ’Op, ‘properly considered, never done a day’s
+honest labour in their life. Tell me those hands belong to a blighted
+Portugee manual labourist and I won’t call you a liar, but I’ll say you
+an’ the Admiralty are pretty much unique in your statements.’ ’Op was
+always a fastidious joker—in his language as much as anything else. He
+pursued ’is investigations with the eye of an ’awk outside the galley.
+He knew better than to advance line-head against Retallick, so he
+attacked _ong eshlong_, speakin’ his remarks as much as possible into
+the breech of the starboard four point seven, an’ ’ummin’ to ’imself.
+Our chief cook ’ated ’ummin’. ‘What’s the matter of your bowels?’ he
+says at last, fistin’ out the mess-pork agitated like. “‘Don’t mind
+me,’ says ’Op. ‘I’m only a mildewed buntin’-tosser,’ ’e says: ‘but
+speakin’ for my mess, I do hope,’ ’e says, ‘you ain’t goin’ to boil
+your Portugee friend’s boots along o’ that pork you’re smellin’ so
+gay!’
+
+“‘Boots! Boots! Boots!’ says Retallick, an’ he run round like a earwig
+in a alder-stalk. ‘Boots in the galley,’ ’e says. ‘Cook’s mate, cast
+out an’ abolish this cutter-cuddlin’ abori_gine’s_ boots!’”
+
+“They was hove overboard in quick time, an’ that was what ’Op was lyin’
+to for. As subsequently transpired.
+
+“‘Fine Arab arch to that cutter-cuddler’s hinstep,’ he says to me. ‘Run
+your eye over it, Pye,’ ’e says. ‘Nails all present an’ correct,’ ’e
+says. ‘Bunion on the little toe, too,’ ’e says; ‘which comes from
+wearin’ a tight boot. What do _you_ think?’
+
+“‘Dook in trouble, per’aps,’ I says. ‘He ain’t got the hang of
+spud-skinnin’.’ No more he ’ad. ’E was simply cannibalisin’ ’em.
+
+“‘I want to know what ’e ’as got the ’ang of,’ says ’Op,
+obstructed-like. ‘Watch ’im,’ ’e says. ‘These shoulders were
+foreign-drilled somewhere.’
+
+‘“When it comes to “Down ’ammicks!” which is our naval way o’ goin’ to
+bye-bye, I took particular trouble over Antonio, ’oo had ’is ’ammick
+’ove at ’im with general instructions to sling it an’ be sugared. In
+the ensuin’ melly I pioneered him to the after-’atch, which is a
+orifice communicatin’ with the after-flat an’ similar suites of
+apartments. He havin’ navigated at three fifths power immejit ahead o’
+me, _I_ wasn’t goin’ to volunteer any assistance, nor he didn’t need
+it.’
+
+“‘Mong Jew!’ says ’e, sniffin’ round. An’ twice more ‘Mong Jew!’—which
+is pure French. Then he slings ’is ’ammick, nips in, an’ coils down.
+‘Not bad for a Portugee conscript,’ I says to myself, casts off the
+tow, abandons him, and reports to ’Op.
+
+“About three minutes later I’m over’auled by our sub-lootenant,
+navigatin’ under forced draught, with his bearin’s ’eated. ’E had the
+temerity to say I’d instructed our Antonio to sling his carcass in the
+alleyway, an’ ’e was peevish about it. O’ course, I prevaricated like
+’ell. You get to do that in the service. Nevertheless, to oblige Mr.
+Ducane, I went an’ readjusted Antonio. You may not ’ave ascertained
+that there are two ways o’ comin’ out of an ’ammick when it’s cut down.
+Antonio came out t’other way—slidin’ ’andsome to his feet. That showed
+me two things. First, ’e had been in an ’ammick before, an’ next, he
+hadn’t been asleep. Then I reproached ’im for goin’ to bed where ’e’d
+been told to go, instead o’ standin’ by till some one gave him entirely
+contradictory orders. Which is the essence o’ naval discipline.
+
+“In the middle o’ this argument the gunner protrudes his ram-bow from
+’is cabin, an’ brings it all to an ’urried conclusion with some remarks
+suitable to ’is piebald warrant-rank. Navigatin’ thence under easy
+steam, an’ leavin’ Antonio to re-sling his little foreign self, my
+large flat foot comes in detonatin’ contact with a small objec’ on the
+deck. Not ’altin’ for the obstacle, nor changin’ step, I shuffles it
+along under the ball of the big toe to the foot o’ the hatchway, when,
+lightly stoopin’, I catch it in my right hand and continue my
+evolutions in rapid time till I eventuates under ’Op’s lee.
+
+“It was a small moroccer-bound pocket-book, full of indelible
+pencil-writin’—in French, for I could plainly discern the
+_doodeladays_, which is about as far as my education runs.
+
+“’Op fists it open and peruses. ’E’d known an ’arf-caste Frenchwoman
+pretty intricate before he was married; when he was trained man in a
+stinkin’ gunboat up the Saigon River. He understood a lot o’
+French—domestic brands chiefly—the kind that isn’t in print.
+
+“‘Pye,’ he says to me, ‘you’re a tattician o’ no mean value. I am a
+trifle shady about the precise bearin’ an’ import’ o’ this beggar’s
+private log here,’ ’e says, ‘but it’s evidently a case for the owner.
+You’ll ’ave your share o’ the credit,’ ’e says.
+
+“‘Nay, nay, Pauline,’ I says, ‘You don’t catch Emanuel Pyecroft
+mine-droppin’ under any post-captain’s bows,’ I says, ‘in search of
+honour,’ I says. ‘I’ve been there oft.’
+
+“‘Well, if you must, you must,’ ’e says, takin’ me up quick. ‘But I’ll
+speak a good word for you, Pye.’
+
+“‘You’ll shut your mouth, ’Op,’ I says, ‘or you an’ me’ll part
+brass-rags. The owner has his duties, an’ I have mine. We will keep
+station,’ I says, ‘nor seek to deviate.’
+
+“‘Deviate to blazes!’ says ’Op. ‘I’m goin’ to deviate to the owner’s
+comfortable cabin direct.’ So he deviated.”
+
+Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward and dealt the Marine a large pattern Navy
+kick. “’Ere, Glass! You was sentry when ’Op went to the old man—the
+first time, with Antonio’s washin’-book. Tell us what transpired.
+You’re sober. You don’t know how sober you are!”
+
+The Marine cautiously raised his head a few inches. As Mr. Pyecroft
+said, he was sober—after some R.M.L.I. fashion of his own devising.
+“’Op bounds in like a startled anteloper, carryin’ ’is signal-slate at
+the ready. The old man was settin’ down to ’is bountiful platter—not
+like you an’ me, without anythin’ more in sight for an ’ole night an’
+’arf a day. Talkin’ about food—”
+
+“No! No! No!” cried Pyecroft, kicking again. “What about ’Op?” I
+thought the Marine’s ribs would have snapped, but he merely hiccuped.
+
+“Oh, ’im! ’E ’ad it written all down on ’is little slate—I think—an’ ’e
+shoves it under the old man’s nose. ‘Shut the door,’ says ’Op. ‘For
+’Eavin’s sake shut the cabin door!’ Then the old man must ha’ said
+somethin’ ’bout irons. ‘I’ll put ’em on, Sir, in your very presence,’
+says ’Op, ‘only ’ear my prayer,’ or—words to that ’fect…. It was jus’
+the same with me when I called our Sergeant a bladder-bellied,
+lard-’eaded, perspirin’ pension-cheater. They on’y put on the
+charge-sheet ‘words to that effect.’ Spoiled the ’ole ’fect.”
+
+“’Op! ’Op! ’Op! What about ’Op?” thundered Pyecroft.
+
+“’Op? Oh, shame thing. Words t’ that ’fect. Door shut. Nushin’ more
+transphired till ’Op comes out—nose exshtreme angle plungin’ fire or—or
+words ‘that effect. Proud’s parrot. ‘Oh, you prou’ old parrot,’ I
+says.”
+
+Mr. Glass seemed to slumber again.
+
+“Lord! How a little moisture disintegrates, don’t it? When we had
+ship’s theatricals off Vigo, Glass ’ere played Dick Deadeye to the
+moral, though of course the lower deck wasn’t pleased to see a
+leatherneck interpretin’ a strictly maritime part, as you might say.
+It’s only his repartees, which ’e can’t contain, that conquers him.
+Shall I resume my narrative?”
+
+Another drink was brought on this hint, and Mr. Pyecroft resumed.
+
+“The essence o’ strategy bein’ forethought, the essence o’ tattics is
+surprise. Per’aps you didn’t know that? My forethought ’avin’ secured
+the initial advantage in attack, it remained for the old man to ladle
+out the surprise-packets. ’Eavens! What surprises! That night he dines
+with the wardroom, bein’ of the kind—I’ve told you as we were a ’appy
+ship?—that likes it, and the wardroom liked it too. This ain’t common
+in the service. They had up the new Madeira—awful undisciplined stuff
+which gives you a cordite mouth next morning. They told the mess-men to
+navigate towards the extreme an’ remote ’orizon, an’ they abrogated the
+sentry about fifteen paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner,
+the Bo’sun, an’ the Carpenter, an’ stood them large round drinks. It
+all come out later—wardroom joints bein’ lower-deck hash, as the sayin’
+is—that our Number One stuck to it that ’e couldn’t trust the ship for
+the job. The old man swore ’e could, ’avin’ commanded ’er over two
+years. He was right. There wasn’t a ship, I don’t care in what fleet,
+could come near the _Archimandrites_ when we give our mind to a thing.
+We held the cruiser big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig)
+championship, an’ the challenge-cup row round the fleet. We ’ad the
+best nigger-minstrels, the best football an’ cricket teams, an’ the
+best squee-jee band of anything that ever pushed in front of a brace o’
+screws. An’ _yet_ our Number One mistrusted us! ’E said we’d be a
+floatin’ hell in a week, an’ it ’ud take the rest o’ the commission to
+stop our way. They was arguin’ it in the wardroom when the bridge
+reports a light three points off the port bow. We overtakes her,
+switches on our search-light, an’ she discloses herself as a collier o’
+no mean reputation, makin’ about seven knots on ’er lawful occasions—to
+the Cape most like.
+
+“Then the owner—so we ’eard in good time—broke the boom, springin’ all
+mines together at close interval.
+
+“‘Look ’ere, my jokers,’ ’e says (I’m givin’ the grist of ’is
+arguments, remember), ‘Number One says we can’t enlighten this
+cutter-cuddlin’ Gaulish lootenant on the manners an’ customs o’ the
+Navy without makin’ the ship a market-garden. There’s a lot in that,’
+’e says, ‘specially if we kept it up lavish, till we reached Ascension.
+But,’ ’e says, ‘the appearance o’ this strange sail has put a totally
+new aspect on the game. We can run to just one day’s amusement for our
+friend, or else what’s the good o’ discipline? An’ then we can turn ’im
+over to our presumably short-’anded fellow-subject in the small-coal
+line out yonder. He’ll be pleased,’ says the old man, ‘an’ so will
+Antonio. M’rover,’ he says to Number One, ‘I’ll lay you a dozen o’
+liquorice an’ ink’—it must ha’ been that new tawny port—‘that I’ve got
+a ship I can trust—for one day,’ ’e says. ‘Wherefore,’ he says, ‘will
+you have the extreme goodness to reduce speed as requisite for keepin’
+a proper distance behind this providential tramp till further orders?’
+Now, that’s what I call tattics.
+
+“The other manœuvres developed next day, strictly in accordance with
+the plans as laid down in the wardroom, where they sat long an’ steady.
+’Op whispers to me that Antonio was a Number One spy when ’e was in
+commission, and a French lootenant when ’e was paid off, so I navigated
+at three ’undred and ninety six revolutions to the galley, never ’avin’
+kicked a lootenant up to date. I may as well say that I did not
+manœuvre against ’im as a Frenchman, because I like Frenchmen, but
+stric’ly on ’is rank an’ ratin’ in ’is own navy. I inquired after ’is
+health from Retallick.
+
+“‘Don’t ask me,’ ’e says, sneerin’ be’ind his silver spectacles. ‘’E’s
+promoted to be captain’s second supernumerary servant, to be dressed
+and addressed as such. If ’e does ’is dooties same as he skinned the
+spuds, _I_ ain’t for changin’ with the old man.’
+
+“In the balmy dawnin’ it was given out, all among the ’olystones, by
+our sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil, that all orders
+after eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o’
+the velocity. ‘The reg’lar routine,’ he says, ‘was arrogated for
+reasons o’ state an’ policy, an’ any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit
+surprise, annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly
+reproached.’ Then the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some
+hanky-panky in the magazines, an’ led ’em off along with our Gunnery
+Jack, which is to say, our Gunnery Lootenant.
+
+“That put us on the _viva voce_—particularly when we understood how the
+owner was navigatin’ abroad in his sword-belt trustin’ us like
+brothers. We shifts into the dress o’ the day, an’ we musters _an’_ we
+prays _ong reggle_, an’ we carries on anticipatory to bafflin’ Antonio.
+
+“Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin’ his ’ands an’
+weepin’. ’E’d been talkin’ to the sub-lootenant, an’ it looked like as
+if his upper-works were collapsin’.
+
+“‘I want a guarantee,’ ’e says, wringin’ ’is ’ands like this. ‘_I_
+’aven’t ’ad sunstroke slave-dhowin’ in Tajurrah Bay, an’ been compelled
+to live on quinine an’ chlorodyne ever since. _I_ don’t get the horrors
+off glasses o’ brown sherry.’
+
+“‘What ’ave you got now?’ I says.
+
+“‘_I_ ain’t an officer,’ ’e says. ‘_My_ sword won’t be handed back to
+me at the end o’ the court-martial on account o’ my little weaknesses,
+an’ no stain on my character. I’m only a pore beggar of a Red Marine
+with eighteen years’ service, an’ why for,’ says he, wringin’ ’is hands
+like this all the time, ‘must I chuck away my pension, sub-lootenant or
+no sub-lootenant? Look at ’em,’ he says, ‘only look at ’em. Marines
+fallin’ in for small-arm drill!’
+
+“The leathernecks was layin’ aft at the double, an’ a more insanitary
+set of accidents I never wish to behold. Most of ’em was in their
+shirts. They had their trousers on, of course—rolled up nearly to the
+knee, but what I mean is belts over shirts. Three or four ’ad _our_
+caps, an’ them that had drawn helmets wore their chin-straps like
+Portugee earrings. Oh, yes; an’ three of ’em ’ad only one boot! I knew
+what our bafflin’ tattics was goin’ to be, but even I was mildly
+surprised when this gay fantasia of Brazee drummers halted under the
+poop, because of an ’ammick in charge of our Navigator, an’ a small but
+’ighly efficient landin’-party.
+
+“‘’Ard astern both screws!’ says the Navigator. ‘Room for the captain’s
+’ammick!’ The captain’s servant—Cockburn ’is name was—had one end, an’
+our newly promoted Antonio, in a blue slop rig, ’ad the other. They
+slung it from the muzzle of the port poop quick-firer thort-ships to a
+stanchion. Then the old man flickered up, smokin’ a cigarette, an’
+brought ’is stern to an anchor slow an’ oriental.
+
+“‘What a blessin’ it is, Mr. Ducane,’ ’e says to our sub-lootenant, ‘to
+be out o’ sight o’ the ’ole pack o’ blighted admirals! What’s an
+admiral after all?’ ’e says. ‘Why, ’e’s only a post-captain with the
+pip, Mr. Ducane. The drill will now proceed. What O! Antonio,
+_descendez_ an’ get me a split.’
+
+“When Antonio came back with the whisky-an’-soda, he was told off to
+swing the ’ammick in slow time, an’ that massacritin’ small-arm party
+went on with their oratorio. The Sergeant had been kindly excused from
+participating an’ he was jumpin’ round on the poop-ladder, stretchin’
+’is leather neck to see the disgustin’ exhibition an’ cluckin’ like a
+ash-hoist. A lot of us went on the fore an’ aft bridge an’ watched ’em
+like ‘Listen to the Band in the Park.’ All these evolutions, I may as
+well tell you, are highly unusual in the Navy. After ten minutes o’
+muckin’ about, Glass ’ere—pity ’e’s so drunk!—says that ’e’d had enough
+exercise for ’is simple needs an’ he wants to go ’ome. Mr. Ducane
+catches him a sanakatowzer of a smite over the ’ead with the flat of
+his sword. Down comes Glass’s rifle with language to correspond, and he
+fiddles with the bolt. Up jumps Maclean—’oo was a Gosport
+’ighlander—an’ lands on Glass’s neck, thus bringin’ him to the deck,
+fully extended.
+
+“The old man makes a great show o’ wakin’ up from sweet slumbers.
+‘Mistah Ducane,’ he says, ‘what is this painful interregnum?’ or words
+to that effect. Ducane takes one step to the front, an’ salutes: ‘Only
+’nother case of attempted assassination, Sir,’ he says.
+
+“‘Is that all?’ says the old man, while Maclean sits on Glass’s collar
+button. ‘Take him away,’ ’e says, ‘he knows the penalty.’”
+
+“Ah! I suppose that is the ‘invincible _morgue_ Britannic in the
+presence of brutally provoked mutiny,’” I muttered, as I turned over
+the pages of M. de C.
+
+“So, Glass, ’e was led off kickin’ an’ squealin’, an’ hove down the
+ladder into ’is Sergeant’s volupshus arms. ’E run Glass forward, an’
+was all for puttin’ ’im in irons as a maniac.
+
+“‘You refill your waterjacket and cool off!’ says Glass, sittin’ down
+rather winded. ‘The trouble with you is you haven’t any imagination.’
+
+“‘Haven’t I? I’ve got the remnants of a little poor authority though,’
+’e says, lookin’ pretty vicious.
+
+“‘You ’ave?’ says Glass. ‘Then for pity’s sake ’ave some proper feelin’
+too. I’m goin’ to be shot this evenin’. You’ll take charge o’ the
+firin’-party.’
+
+“Some’ow or other, that made the Sergeant froth at the mouth. ’E ’ad no
+more play to his intellects than a spit-kid. ’E just took everything as
+it come. Well, that was about all, I think…. Unless you’d care to have
+me resume my narrative.”
+
+We resumed on the old terms, but with rather less hot water. The marine
+on the floor breathed evenly, and Mr. Pyecroft nodded.
+
+“I may have omitted to inform you that our Number One took a general
+row round the situation while the small-arm party was at work, an’ o’
+course he supplied the outlines; but the details we coloured in by
+ourselves. These were our tattics to baffle Antonio. It occurs to the
+Carpenter to ’ave the steam-cutter down for repairs. ’E gets ’is
+cheero-party together, an’ down she comes. You’ve never seen a
+steam-cutter let down on the deck, ’ave you? It’s not usual, an’ she
+takes a lot o’ humourin’. Thus we ’ave the starboard side completely
+blocked an’ the general traffic tricklin’ over’ead along the
+fore-an’-aft bridge. Then Chips gets into her an’ begins balin’ out a
+mess o’ small reckonin’s on the deck. Simultaneous there come up three
+o’ those dirty engine-room objects which we call ‘tiffies,’ an’ a
+stoker or two with orders to repair her steamin’-gadgets. _They_ get
+into her an’ bale out another young Christmas-treeful of small
+reckonin’s—brass mostly. Simultaneous it hits the Pusser that ’e’d
+better serve out mess pork for the poor matlow. These things half
+shifted Retallick, our chief cook, off ’is bed-plate. Yes, you might
+say they broke ’im wide open. ’E wasn’t at all used to ’em.
+
+“Number One tells off five or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to
+the pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, ’ave
+you? Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now’s the day an’ now’s the
+hour for a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they all give
+way together, and the general effect was _non plus ultra_. There was
+the cutter’s innards spread out like a Fratton pawnbroker’s shop; there
+was the ‘tiffies’ hammerin’ in the stern of ’er, an’ _they_ ain’t
+antiseptic; there was the Maxim class in light skirmishin’ order among
+the pork, an’ forrard the blacksmith had ’is forge in full blast,
+makin’ ’orse-shoes, I suppose. Well, that accounts for the starboard
+side. The on’y warrant officer ’oo hadn’t a look in so far was the
+Bosun. So ’e stated, all out of ’is own ’ead, that Chips’s reserve o’
+wood an’ timber, which Chips ’ad stole at our last refit, needed
+restowin’. It was on the port booms—a young an’ healthy forest of it,
+for Charley Peace wasn’t to be named ’longside o’ Chips for burglary.
+
+“‘All right,’ says our Number One. ‘You can ’ave the whole port watch
+if you like. Hell’s Hell,’ ’e says, ’an when there study to improve.’
+
+“Jarvis was our Bosun’s name. He hunted up the ’ole of the port watch
+by hand, as you might say, callin’ ’em by name loud an’ lovin’, which
+is not precisely Navy makee-pigeon. They ‘ad that timber-loft off the
+booms, an’ they dragged it up and down like so many sweatin’ little
+beavers. But Jarvis was jealous o’ Chips an’ went round the starboard
+side to envy at him.
+
+“’Tain’t enough,’ ’e says, when he had climbed back. ‘Chips ’as got his
+bazaar lookin’ like a coal-hulk in a cyclone. We must adop’ more
+drastic measures.’ Off ’e goes to Number One and communicates with ’im.
+Number One got the old man’s leave, on account of our goin’ so slow (we
+were keepin’ be’ind the tramp), to fit the ship with a full set of
+patent supernumerary sails. Four trysails—yes, you might call ’em
+trysails—was our Admiralty allowance in the un’eard of event of a
+cruiser breakin’ down, but we had our awnin’s as well. They was all
+extricated from the various flats an’ ’oles where they was stored, an’
+at the end o’ two hours’ hard work Number One ’e made out eleven sails
+o’ different sorts and sizes. I don’t know what exact nature of sail
+you’d call ’em—pyjama-stun’sles with a touch of Sarah’s shimmy,
+per’aps—but the riggin’ of ’em an’ all the supernumerary details, as
+you might say, bein’ carried on through an’ over an’ between the cutter
+an’ the forge an’ the pork an’ cleanin’ guns, an’ the Maxim class an’
+the Bosun’s calaboose _and_ the paintwork, was sublime. There’s no
+other word for it. Sub-lime!
+
+“The old man keeps swimmin’ up an’ down through it all with the
+faithful Antonio at ’is side, fetchin’ him numerous splits. ’E had
+eight that mornin’, an’ when Antonio was detached to get ’is spy-glass,
+or his gloves, or his lily-white ’andkerchief, the old man would waste
+’em down a ventilator. Antonio must ha’ learned a lot about our Navy
+thirst.”
+
+“He did.”
+
+“Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin’ to the precise page indicated an’
+givin’ me a _résumé_ of ’is tattics?” said Mr. Pyecroft, drinking
+deeply. “I’d like to know ’ow it looked from ’is side o’ the deck.”
+
+“How will this do?” I said. “‘_Once clear of the land, like Voltaire’s
+Habakkuk_———”’
+
+“One o’ their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose,” Mr. Pyecroft
+interjected.
+
+“‘—_each man seemed veritably capable of all—to do according to his
+will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking.
+One cries “Aid me!” flourishing at the same time the weapons of his
+business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal
+misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a
+hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the
+utensil, colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in
+the stern of the boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the
+ironwork which impedes their brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches
+from on high wood, canvas, iron bolts, coal-dust—what do I know_?’”
+
+“That’s where ’e’s comin’ the bloomin’ _onjenew_. ’E knows a lot,
+reely.”
+
+“‘_They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot
+reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have
+well and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun
+(behold me also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not
+a little. They ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon
+the edge of the vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious “Roule
+Britannia”—to endure how lomg_?’”
+
+“That was me! On’y ’twas ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’—which I hate more
+than any stinkin’ tune I know, havin’ dragged too many nasty little
+guns to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an’ I
+ain’t musical, you might say.”
+
+“_‘Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this
+“tohu-bohu_”’ (that’s one of his names for the _Archimandrite_, Mr.
+Pyecroft), ‘_for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The
+captain, heavy with drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would
+have his people fire the Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him
+is equal. The breech-lock indispensable is not there. They demand it of
+one who opens a barrel of pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He
+refers them to the cook, yesterday my master_—’”
+
+“Yes, an’ Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an’ observin’
+little Antonio we ’ave!”
+
+“‘_It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not
+rebuke him, that he has found it by hazard_.’ I’m afraid I haven’t
+translated quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I’ve done my best.”
+
+“Why, it’s beautiful—you ought to be a Frenchman—you ought. You don’t
+want anything o’ _me_. You’ve got it all there.”
+
+“Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here’s a little thing I
+can’t quite see the end of. Listen! ‘_Of the domain which Britannia
+rules by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator,
+if possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the
+indeterminate chaos of the grand deck, I ascended—always with a
+whisky-and-soda in my hands—to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my
+captain in plain sea, at issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves
+due to the enormous quantity of alcohol which he had swallowed up to
+then, has filled for him the ocean with dangers, imaginary and
+fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by the phantasms of his brain
+inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the Hesperides beneath his
+keel—vigias innumerable.’_ I don’t know what a vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft.
+_‘He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the mid-Atlantic!’_ What
+was that, now?”
+
+“Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw ’is cap
+down an’ danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They ’ad a tea-party on
+the bridge. It was the old man’s contribution. Does he say anything
+about the leadsmen?”
+
+“Is this it? _‘Overborne by his superior’s causeless suspicion, the
+Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of
+my captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation
+followed. The argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel,
+crapulous’_ (that means drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), _‘shouting. It
+appeared that my captain would chenaler’_ (I don’t know what that
+means, Mr. Pyecroft) _‘to the Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with
+the sound’_ (that’s the lead, I think) _‘in his hand, garnished with
+suet.’_ Was it garnished with suet?”
+
+“He put two leadsmen in the chains, o’ course! He didn’t know that
+there mightn’t be shoals there, ’e said. Morgan went an’ armed his
+lead, to enter into the spirit o’ the thing. They ’eaved it for twenty
+minutes, but there wasn’t any suet—only tallow, o’ course.”
+
+“‘_Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly
+the Britannic Navy is well guarded_.’ Well, that’s all right, Mr.
+Pyecroft. Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that
+happened?”
+
+“There was a good deal, one way an’ another. I’d like to know what this
+Antonio thought of our sails.”
+
+“He merely says that ‘_the engines having broken down, an officer
+extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails_.’ Oh, yes! he says
+that some of them looked like ‘_bonnets in a needlecase_,’ I think.”
+
+“Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun’sles. That shows the beggar’s
+no sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought
+he was a sailorman, an’ ’e hasn’t sense enough to see what
+extemporisin’ eleven good an’ drawin’ sails out o’ four trys’les an’ a
+few awnin’s means. ’E must have been drunk!”
+
+“Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice,
+and the execution.”
+
+“Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio.
+As I told my crew—me bein’ captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though
+I’m a torpedo man now—it just showed how you can work your gun under
+any discomforts. A shell—twenty six-inch shells—burstin’ inboard
+couldn’t ’ave begun to make the varicose collection o’ tit-bits which
+we had spilled on our deck. It was a lather—a rich, creamy lather!
+
+“We took it very easy—that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary
+‘Jenny-’ave-another-cup-o’ tea’ style, an’ the crew was strictly
+ordered not to rupture ’emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn’t
+our custom in the Navy when we’re _in puris naturalibus_, as you might
+say. But we wasn’t so then. We was impromptu. An’ Antonio was busy
+fetchin’ splits for the old man, and the old man was wastin’ ’em down
+the ventilators. There must ’ave been four inches in the bilges, I
+should think—wardroom whisky-an’-soda.
+
+“Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my
+_bundoop_ go at fifteen ’undred—sightin’ very particular. There was a
+sort of ’appy little belch like—no more, I give you my word—an’ the
+shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an’ dropped into the deep Atlantic.
+
+“‘Government powder, Sir!’ sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge,
+laughin’ horrid sarcastic; an’ then, of course, we all laughs, which we
+are not encouraged to do _in puris naturalibus_. Then, of course, I saw
+what our Gunnery Jack ’ad been after with his subcutaneous details in
+the magazines all the mornin’ watch. He had redooced the charges to a
+minimum, as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an’
+sickish notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such
+transpired, our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin’ sarcastic about
+Government stores, an’ the old man fair howled. ’Op was on the bridge
+with ’im, an’ ’e told me—’cause ’e’s a free-knowledgeist an’ reads
+character—that Antonio’s face was sweatin’ with pure joy. ’Op wanted to
+kick him. Does Antonio say anything about that?”
+
+“Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr.
+Pyecroft. He has put all the results into a sort of appendix—a table of
+shots. He says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words.”
+
+“What? Nothin’ about the way the crews flinched an’ hopped? Nothin’
+about the little shells rumblin’ out o’ the guns so casual?”
+
+“There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say.
+He says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is
+out of sight of land. Oh, yes! I’ve forgotten. He says, _‘From the
+conversation of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small
+proportion of the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds
+itself in his pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on
+the deck below, who cried in a high voice: “I hope, Sir, you are making
+something out of it. It is rather monotonous.” This insult, so
+flagrant, albeit well-merited, was received with a smile of drunken
+bonhommy’_—that’s cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty.”
+
+“Resumin’ afresh,” said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered interval, “I
+may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two hours, and
+then we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an’ three-quarters
+cleaned up the decks an’ mucked about as requisite, haulin’ down the
+patent awnin’ stun’sles which Number One ’ad made. The old man was a
+shade doubtful of his course, ’cause I ’eard him say to Number One,
+‘You were right. A week o’ this would turn the ship into a Hayti
+bean-feast. But,’ he says pathetic, ‘haven’t they backed the band
+noble?’
+
+“‘Oh! it’s a picnic for them,’ says Number One.
+
+“‘But when do we get rid o’ this whisky-peddlin’ blighter o’ yours,
+Sir?’
+
+“‘That’s a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,’ says the old man. “E’s
+the bluest blood o’ France when he’s at home,’
+
+“‘Which is the precise landfall I wish ’im to make,’ says Number One.’
+It’ll take all ’ands and the Captain of the Head to clean up after
+’im.’
+
+“‘They won’t grudge it,’ says the old man. ‘Just as soon as it’s dusk
+we’ll overhaul our tramp friend an’ waft him over.’
+
+“Then a sno—midshipman—Moorshed was is name—come up an’ says somethin’
+in a low voice. It fetches the old man.
+
+“‘You’ll oblige me,’ ’e says, ‘by takin’ the wardroom poultry for
+_that_. I’ve ear-marked every fowl we’ve shipped at Madeira, so there
+can’t be any possible mistake. M’rover,’ ’e says, ‘tell ’em if they
+spill one drop of blood on the deck,’ he says, ‘they’ll not be
+extenuated, but hung.’
+
+“Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin’ unusual ’appy, even for him. The
+Marines was enjoyin’ a committee-meetin’ in their own flat.
+
+“After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on
+the sea—an’ anythin’ more chronic than the _Archimandrite_ I’d trouble
+you to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a auction-room—yes,
+she almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We’d picked up our tramp,
+an’ was about four mile be’ind ’er. I noticed the wardroom as a class,
+you might say, was manoeuvrin’ _en masse_, an’ then come the order to
+cockbill the yards. We hadn’t any yards except a couple o’ signallin’
+sticks, but we cock-billed ’em. I hadn’t seen that sight, not since
+thirteen years in the West Indies, when a post-captain died o’ yellow
+jack. It means a sign o’ mourning the yards bein’ canted opposite ways,
+to look drunk an’ disorderly. They do.
+
+“‘An’ what might our last giddy-go-round signify?’ I asks of ’Op.
+
+“‘Good ’Evins!’ ’e says, ‘Are you in the habit o’ permittin’
+leathernecks to assassinate lootenants every morning at drill without
+immejitly ’avin’ ’em shot on the foc’sle in the horrid crawly-crawly
+twilight?’”
+
+“‘Yes,’ I murmured over my dear book, ‘_the infinitely lugubrious
+crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity unparalleled—hideous—cold-blooded,
+and yet touched with appalling grandeur_.’”
+
+“Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he ’ad feelin’s.
+To resoom. Without anyone givin’ us orders to that effect, we began to
+creep about an’ whisper. Things got stiller and stiller, till they was
+as still as—mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the ‘Dead March’ from
+the upper bridge. He done it to cover the remarks of a cock-bird bein’
+killed forrard, but it came out paralysin’ in its _tout ensemble_. You
+never heard the ‘Dead March’ on a bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin’
+for both watches to attend public execution, an’ we came up like so
+many ghosts, the ’ole ship’s company. Why, Mucky ’Arcourt, one o’ our
+boys, was that took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an’ was
+properly kicked down the ladder for so doin’. Well, there we
+lay—engines stopped, rollin’ to the swell, all dark, yards cock-billed,
+an’ that merry tune yowlin’ from the upper bridge. We fell in on the
+foc’sle, leavin’ a large open space by the capstan, where our
+sail-maker was sittin’ sewin’ broken firebars into the foot of an old
+’ammick. ’E looked like a corpse, an’ Mucky had another fit o’
+hysterics, an’ you could ’ear us breathin’ ’ard. It beat anythin’ in
+the theatrical line that even us _Archimandrites_ had done—an’ we was
+the ship you could trust. Then come the doctor an’ lit a red lamp which
+he used for his photographic muckin’s, an’ chocked it on the capstan.
+That was finally gashly!
+
+“Then come twelve Marines guardin’ Glass ’ere. You wouldn’t think to
+see ’im what a gratooitous an’ aboundin’ terror he was that evenin’. ’E
+was in a white shirt ’e’d stole from Cockburn, an’ his regulation
+trousers, barefooted. ’E’d pipe-clayed ’is ’ands an’ face an’ feet an’
+as much of his chest as the openin’ of his shirt showed. ’E marched
+under escort with a firm an’ undeviatin’ step to the capstan, an’ came
+to attention. The old man reinforced by an extra strong split—his
+seventeenth, an’ ’e didn’t throw _that_ down the ventilator—come up on
+the bridge an’ stood like a image. ’Op, ’oo was with ’im, says that ’e
+heard Antonio’s teeth singin’, not chatterin’—singin’ like funnel-stays
+in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin’ æolian harp, ’Op said.
+
+“‘When you are ready, Sir, drop your ’andkerchief,’ Number One
+whispers.
+
+“‘Good Lord!’ says the old man, with a jump. ‘Eh! What? What a sight!
+What a sight!’ an’ he stood drinkin’ it in, I suppose, for quite two
+minutes.
+
+“Glass never says a word. ’E shoved aside an ’andkerchief which the
+sub-lootenant proffered ’im to bind ’is eyes with—quiet an’ collected;
+an’ if we ’adn’t been feelin’ so very much as we did feel, his gestures
+would ’ave brought down the ’ouse.”
+
+“I can’t open my eyes, or I’ll be sick,” said the Marine with appalling
+clearness. “I’m pretty far gone—I know it—but there wasn’t anyone could
+’ave beaten Edwardo Glass, R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself
+nearly into the ’orrors. Go on, Pye. Glass is in support—as ever.”
+
+“Then the old man drops ’is ’andkerchief, an’ the firin’-party fires
+like one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin’ an’ ’eavin’ horrid
+natural, into the shotted ’ammick all spread out before him, and the
+firin’ party closes in to guard the remains of the deceased while Sails
+is stitchin’ it up. An’ when they lifted that ’ammick it was one
+wringin’ mess of blood! They on’y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too.
+Did you know poultry bled that extravagant? _I_ never did.
+
+“The old man—so ’Op told me—stayed on the bridge, brought up on a dead
+centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser, impressed, but o’
+course ’is duty was to think of ’is fine white decks an’ the blood.
+’Arf a mo’, Sir,’ he says, when the old man was for leavin’. ‘We have
+to wait for the burial, which I am informed takes place immejit.’
+
+“‘It’s beyond me,’ says the owner. ‘There was general instructions for
+an execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of
+mountebanks aboard,’ he says. ‘I’m all cold up my back, still.’
+
+“The Marines carried the corpse below. Then the bugle give us some more
+‘Dead March,’ Then we ’eard a splash from a bow six-pounder port, an’
+the bugle struck up a cheerful tune. The whole lower deck was
+complimentin’ Glass, ’oo took it very meek. ’E _is_ a good actor, for
+all ’e’s a leatherneck.
+
+“‘Now,’ said the old man, ‘we must turn over Antonio. He’s in what I
+have ’eard called one perspirin’ funk.’
+
+“Of course, I’m tellin’ it slow, but it all ’appened much quicker. We
+run down our trampo—without o’ course informin’ Antonio of ’is ’appy
+destiny—an’ inquired of ’er if she had any use for a free and gratis
+stowaway. Oh, yes? she said she’d be highly grateful, but she seemed a
+shade puzzled at our generosity, as you might put it, an’ we lay by
+till she lowered a boat. Then Antonio—who was un’appy, distinctly
+un’appy—was politely requested to navigate elsewhere, which I don’t
+think he looked for. ’Op was deputed to convey the information, an’ ’Op
+got in one sixteen-inch kick which ’oisted ’im all up the ladder. ’Op
+ain’t really vindictive, an’ ’e’s fond of the French, especially the
+women, but his chances o’ kicking lootenants was like the
+cartridge—reduced to a minimum.
+
+“The boat ’adn’t more than shoved off before a change, as you might
+say, came o’er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like
+Elphinstone an’ Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy:
+‘Gentlemen,’ he says, ‘for gentlemen you have shown yourselves to
+be—from the bottom of my heart I thank you. The status an’ position of
+our late lamented shipmate made it obligato,’ ’e says, ‘to take certain
+steps not strictly included in the regulations. An’ nobly,’ says ’e,
+‘have you assisted me. Now,’ ’e says, ‘you hold the false and felonious
+reputation of bein’ the smartest ship in the Service. Pigsties,’ ’e
+says, ‘is plane trigonometry alongside our present disgustin’ state.
+Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,’ he says. ‘Jump, you
+lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig out, you
+briny-eyed beggars!’”
+
+“Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?” I asked.
+
+“I’ve told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The Bosun’s
+mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the lower
+deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night ’fore we
+got ’er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever,
+and we resoomed. I’ve thought it over a lot since; yes, an’ I’ve
+thought a lot of Antonio trimmin’ coal in that tramp’s bunkers. ’E must
+’ave been highly surprised. Wasn’t he?”
+
+“He was, Mr. Pyecroft,” I responded. “But now we’re talking of it,
+weren’t you all a little surprised?”
+
+“It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine,” said Mr.
+Pyecroft. “We appreciated it as an easy way o’ workin’ for your
+country. But—the old man was right—a week o’ similar manœuvres would
+’ave knocked our moral double-bottoms bung out. Now, couldn’t you
+oblige with Antonio’s account of Glass’s execution?”
+
+I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering
+of M. de C.’s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet,
+the eye of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent
+accord. His account of his descent from the side of the “_infamous
+vessel consecrated to blood_” in the “_vast and gathering dusk of the
+trembling ocean_” could only be matched by his description of the
+dishonoured hammock sinking unnoticed through the depths, while, above,
+the bugler played music “_of an indefinable brutality_”
+
+“By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass’s funeral?” I asked.
+
+“Him? Oh! ’e played ‘The Strict Q.T.’ It’s a very old song. We ’ad it
+in Fratton nearly fifteen years back,” said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily.
+
+I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet
+and discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.
+
+“Where is that—minutely particularised person—Glass?” said the sergeant
+of the picket.
+
+“’Ere!” The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. “An’ it’s no
+good smelling of my breath, because I’m strictly an’ ruinously sober.”
+
+“Oh! An’ what may you have been doin’ with yourself?”
+
+“Listenin’ to tracts. You can look! I’ve had the evenin’ of my little
+life. Lead on to the _Cornucopia’s_ midmost dunjing cell. There’s a
+crowd of brass-’atted blighters there which will say I’ve been absent
+without leaf. Never mind. I forgive them before’and. _The_ evenin’ of
+my life, an’ please don’t forget it.” Then in a tone of most
+ingratiating apology to me: “I soaked it all in be’ind my shut eyes.
+‘I’m”—he jerked a contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft—“’e’s a
+flatfoot, a indigo-blue matlow. ’E never saw the fun from first to
+last. A mournful beggar—most depressin’.” Private Glass departed,
+leaning heavily on the escort’s arm.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought—the profound and
+far-reaching meditation that follows five glasses of hot
+whisky-and-water.
+
+“Well, I don’t see anything comical—greatly—except here an’ there.
+Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do _you_ see
+anything funny in it?”
+
+There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for
+argument.
+
+“No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don’t,” I replied. “It was a beautiful tale, and I
+thank you very much.”
+
+
+
+
+A SAHIBS’ WAR
+
+
+
+
+THE RUNNERS
+
+
+                                   _News!_
+  What is the word that they tell now—now—now!
+  The little drums beating in the bazaars?
+      _They_ beat (among the buyers and sellers)
+          _“Nimrud—ah Nimrud!
+          God sends a gnat against Nimrud_!”
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  At the edge of the crops—now—now—where the well-wheels are halted,
+  One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
+      _They_ beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
+          _“Nimrud—ah Nimrud!
+          God prepares an ill day for Nimrud_!”
+      Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.
+
+                                   _News!_
+  By the fires of the camps—now—now—where the travellers meet
+  Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
+      _They_ beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
+          _“Nimrud—ah Nimrud!
+          Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud_!”
+      Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Under the shadow of the border-peels—now—now—now!
+  In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
+      _They_ beat (among the rifles and the riders)
+          _“Nimrud—ah Nimrud!
+          Shall we go up against Nimrud_?”
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Bring out the heaps of grain—open the account-books again!
+  Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
+  Eat and lie under the trees—pitch the police-guarded fair-grounds,
+      O dancers!
+  Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
+      _They_ beat (among all the peoples)
+          _“Now—now—now!
+          God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
+          God has given Victory to Nimrud!”
+          Let us abide under Nimrud_!”
+      O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!
+
+
+
+
+A SAHIBS’ WAR
+
+
+Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the
+_rêl_ from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I
+am to be paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a—trooper of the
+Gurgaon Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first
+Punjab Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh—a
+trooper of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk?
+Is there _any_ Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of
+the Gurgaon Rissala going about his business in this devil’s devising
+of a country, where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper,
+and no respect paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?… God be thanked, here
+is such a Sahib! Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young
+Lieutenant-Sahib that my name is Umr Singh; I am—I was servant to
+Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch,
+where the horses are. Do not let him herd me with these black Kaffirs!…
+Yes, I will sit by this truck till the Heaven-born has explained the
+matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who does not understand our
+tongue.
+
+
+What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go
+down to Eshtellenbosch by the next _terain_? Good! I go with the
+Heaven-born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born’s servant.
+Will the Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here
+is an empty truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus—for
+the sun is hot, though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it
+up thus, and I will arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at
+ease till God sends us a _terain_ for Eshtellenbosch….
+
+The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My
+village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big
+white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen’s
+by—by—I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar
+Dyal Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the
+Presence know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a
+different matter. The Sahib’s nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay
+side? That was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for
+those make stout nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no
+people like the Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A
+trooper only after all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the
+Sahib doubts. Nay—nay; the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank
+were picked off it long ago, but—but it is true—mine is not a common
+cloth such as troopers use for their coats, and—the Sahib has sharp
+eyes—that black mark is such a mark as a silver chain leaves when long
+worn on the breast. The Sahib says that troopers do not wear silver
+chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the Arder of Beritish India? No. The
+Sahib should have been in the Police of the Punjab. I am not a trooper,
+but I have been a Sahib’s servant for nearly a year—bearer, butler,
+sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says that Sikhs do not take
+menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib—my Kurban Sahib—dead
+these three months!
+
+
+Young—of a reddish face—with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his
+feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his
+father before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my
+father’s time when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. _My_ father? Jwala
+Singh. A Sikh of Sikhs—he fought against the English at Sobraon and
+carried the mark to his death. So we were knit as it were by a
+blood-tie, I and my Kurban Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first—nay, I had
+risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I remember—and my father gave me a dun
+stallion of his own breeding on that day; and _he_ was a little baba,
+sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground with his ayah—all in white,
+Sahib—laughing at the end of our drill. And his father and mine talked
+together, and mine beckoned to me, and I dismounted, and the baba put
+his hand into mine—eighteen—twenty-five—twenty-seven years gone
+now—Kurban Sahib—my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were great friends after that!
+He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying is. He called me Big
+Umr Singh—Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak plain. He stood only
+this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but he knew all our
+troopers by name—every one…. And he went to England, and he became a
+young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk, and cracking
+his finger-joints—back to his own regiment and to me. He had not
+forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart,
+Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers,
+keen-eyed, jestful, and careless. _I_ could tell tales about him in his
+first years. There was very little he hid from _me_. I was his Umr
+Singh, and when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him
+Son. Yes, that was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on
+everything—about war, and women, and money, and advancement, and such
+all.
+
+We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many
+box-wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at
+the city of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week
+how the Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and
+how big guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in
+order; and how a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest
+by the Boer-log. The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes
+over the earth? There was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo
+did not come into Hind in a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they
+forget their own cleverness has created the _dak_ (the post), and that
+for an anna or two all things become known. We of Hind listened and
+heard and wondered; and when it was a sure thing, as reported by the
+pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in
+bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us asked questions and waited
+for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of those signs. _Wherefore,
+Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah_! This Kurban Sahib knew, and we
+talked together. He said, “There is no haste. Presently we shall fight,
+and we shall fight for all Hind in that country round Yunasbagh. Here
+he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so. It is for Hind that
+the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one place rule and in
+another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or everywhere
+obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True—true—true!”
+
+So did matters ripen—a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
+think—and the Sahib sees this, too?—that it is foolish to make an army
+and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of
+the Tochi—the men of the Tirah—the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand
+times. _We_ could have done it all so gently—so gently.
+
+Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, “Ho, Dada, I am
+sick, and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months.” And he
+winked, and I said, “I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I
+bring my uniform?” He said, “Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean
+on. We go to Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis”
+(niggers). Mark his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the
+native regiments to get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they
+will not let our officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a
+bond not to take part in this war-game upon the road. But _he_ was
+clever. There was no whisper of war when he took his sick-leave. I came
+also? Assuredly. I went to my Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am—I
+was—of that rank for which a chair is placed when we speak with the
+Colonel) I said, “My child goes sick. Give me leave, for I am old and
+sick also.”
+
+And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue,
+said, “Yes, thou art truly _Sikh_”; and he called me an old
+devil—jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my
+Kurban Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at
+long last he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my
+Sahib safe again. My Sahib back again—aie me!
+
+So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black
+Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was
+dead. Then I said to Kurban Sahib, “What is one Mussulman pig more or
+less? Give me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white
+shirts for dinner.” Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson’s
+Hotel, and that night I prepared Kurban Sahib’s razors. I say, Sahib,
+that I, a Sikh of the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But
+I did not put on my uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban
+Sahib took for me, upon the steamer, a room in all respects like to his
+own, and would have given me a servant. We spoke of many things on the
+way to this country; and Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would
+be the conduct of the war. He said, “They have taken men afoot to fight
+men ahorse, and they will foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log
+because it is believed that they are white.” He said, “There is but one
+fault in this war, and that is that the Government have not employed
+_us_, but have made it altogether a Sahibs’ war. Very many men will
+thus be killed, and no vengeance will be taken.” True talk—true talk!
+It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.
+
+And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban
+Sahib said, “Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look
+for employment fit for a sick man.” I put on the uniform of my rank and
+went to the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nihâl Seyn,[1] and I caused
+the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place—is it known
+to the Sahib?—which was already full of the swords and baggage of
+officers. It is fuller now—dead men’s kit all! I was careful to secure
+a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back
+to the Punjab.
+
+ [1] Mount Nelson?
+
+
+Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I
+knew, and he said, “We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to
+Eshtellenbosch to oversee the despatch of horses.” Remember, Kurban
+Sahib was squadron-leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and _I_ was Umr
+Singh. So I said, speaking as we do—we did—when none was near, “Thou
+art a groom and I am a grass-cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?”
+At this he laughed, saying, “It is the way to better things. Have
+patience, Father.” (Aye, he called me father when none were by.) “This
+war ends not to-morrow nor the next day. I have seen the new Sahibs,”
+he said, “and they are fathers of owls—all—all—all!”
+
+So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing
+the service of servants in that business. And the whole business was
+managed without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had
+never seen a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but
+empty of all knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those
+Pathans—they are just like those vultures up there, Sahib—they always
+follow slaughter. And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs—Muzbees,
+though—and some Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent
+horses. Jhind and Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent
+horses.
+
+All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with
+them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses
+oil: with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me
+to the command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly
+ones—_Hubshis_—whose touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous
+eaters; sleeping on their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like
+animals. Some were called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but
+they were all Kaffirs—filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and
+feed, and sweep and rub down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers—a
+_jemadar_ of _mehtars_ (headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban
+Sahib little better, for five months. Evil months! The war went as
+Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men were slain and no vengeance was
+taken. It was a war of fools armed with the weapons of magicians. Guns
+that slew at half a day’s march, and men who, being new, walked blind
+into high grass and were driven off like cattle by the Boer-log! As to
+the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a Sahib—only a Sikh. I would have
+quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon Rissala in that city—one little
+troop—and I would have schooled that city till its men learned to kiss
+the shadow of a Government horse upon the ground. There are many
+_mullahs_ (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They preached the Jehad against
+us. This is true—all the camp knew it. And most of the houses were
+thatched! A war of fools indeed!
+
+At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said,
+“The reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow,
+and, once away, I shall be too sick to return. Make ready the baggage.”
+Thus we got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a
+certain new regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by
+_terain_, when we were watering at a desolate place without any sort of
+a bazaar to it, slipped out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan,
+that had been a _jemadar_ of _saises_ (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch,
+and was by service a trooper in a Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave
+him big abuse for his desertion; but the Pathan put up his hands as
+excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented and added him to our
+service. So there were three of us—Kurban Sahib, I, and Sikander
+Khan—Sahib, Sikh, and _Sag_ (dog). But the man said truly, “We be far
+from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we see the
+Indus again.” I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan—beef,
+too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine’s
+flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is
+written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial
+obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up
+of sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place
+where there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a
+grey gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new
+regiments.
+
+Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with _our_ horses
+on the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and
+once or twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was
+wise, and I am not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the
+front. Notably, there was one congregation of hard-bitten
+horse-thieves; tall, light Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for
+the most part, and upon all occasions they said, “Oah Hell!” which, in
+our tongue, signifies _Jehannum ko jao_. They bore each man a vine-leaf
+upon their uniforms, and they rode like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like
+Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs! The Ustrelyahs, whom we met
+later, also spoke through their noses not little, and they were tall,
+dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily eyelashed like camel’s
+eyes—very proper men—a new brand of Sahib to me. They said on all
+occasions, “No fee-ah,” which in our tongue means _Durro mut_ (“Do not
+be afraid”), so we called them the _Durro Muts_. Dark, tall men, most
+excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war _as_ war, and drinking
+tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib. Sikander Khan
+swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten generations;
+he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a _Durro Mut_ in regard to
+horse-lifting. The _Durro Muts_ cannot walk on their feet at all. They
+are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very
+proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah—“No fee-ah,” say the
+_Durro Muts_. _They_ saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. _They_ did not ask
+him to sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did
+substitute for one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day
+in a country full of little hills—like the mouth of the Khaibar; and
+when they returned in the evening, the _Durro Muts_ said, “Wallah! This
+is a man. Steal him!” So they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have
+stolen anything else that they needed, and they sent a sick officer
+back to Eshtellenbosch in his place.
+
+Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and
+Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs’
+war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride
+with their Sahib—and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up
+and down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no
+flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw
+corn and a little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but
+a plenty of gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with
+coffee to greet us, and to show us _purwanas_ (permits) from foolish
+English Generals who had gone that way before, certifying they were
+peaceful and well-disposed. When we were few, they hid behind stones
+and shot us. Now the order was that they were Sahibs, and this was a
+Sahibs’ war. Good! But, as I understand it, when a Sahib goes to war,
+he puts on the cloth of war, and only those who wear that cloth may
+take part in the war. Good! That also I understand. But these people
+were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis are. They shot at their
+pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and exhibited _purwanas_, or lay
+in a house and said they were farmers. Even such farmers as cut up the
+Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even such farmers as slew
+Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled _those_ men, to be
+sure—fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the verandah in front
+of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib (the
+Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but—no. All the
+people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that
+he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth,
+was all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform
+to make a loincloth. A fool’s war from first to last; for it is
+manifest that he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in
+one hand and a _purwana_ in the other, as did all these people. Yet we,
+when they had had their bellyful for the time, received them with
+honour, and gave them permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives
+and their babes, and severely punished our soldiers who took their
+fowls. So the work was to be done not once with a few dead, but thrice
+and four times over. I talked much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he
+said, “It is a Sahibs’ war. That is the order;” and one night, when
+Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond the pickets with his knife and
+shown them how it is worked on the Border, he hit Sikander Khan between
+the eyes and came near to breaking in his head. Then Sikander Khan, a
+bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like a sick camel, talked to
+him half one march, and he was more bewildered than I, and vowed he
+would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me Kurban Sahib said
+we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these people till
+they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was not of
+that sort which they comprehended.
+
+They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white
+flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by
+Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. _No
+fee-ah_! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had _purwanas_ signed by
+mad Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.
+
+They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the
+roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they
+did not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the
+thatch, for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log
+are very clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are
+clever? Never, never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools. For their own
+honour’s sake the Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it
+is the Sahibs’ wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs
+should have sent _us_ into the game.
+
+But the _Durro Muts_ did well. They dealt faithfully with all that
+country thereabouts—not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but
+they were not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a
+ridge in the cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for
+the sixth part of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again
+thrice for the twelfth part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib,
+for it was a house that had been spared—the people having many permits
+and swearing fidelity at our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib,
+“Send half a troop, Child, and finish that house. They signal to their
+brethren.” And he laughed where he lay and said, “If I listened to my
+bearer Umr Singh, there would not be left ten houses in all this land.”
+I said, “What need to leave one? This is as it was in Burma. They are
+farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow. Let us deal justly with them.”
+He laughed and curled himself up in his blanket, and I watched the far
+light in the house till day. I have been on the border in eight wars,
+not counting Burma. The first Afghan War; the second Afghan War; two
+Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two Black Mountain wars, if I
+remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not count Burma, or some
+small things. _I_ know when house signals to house!
+
+I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, “One
+of the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last
+night, lives in yonder house.” I said, “How dost thou know?” He said,
+“Because he rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his
+horse fought with him at the turn of the road; and before the light
+fell I stole out of the camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib’s
+glasses, and from a little hill I saw the pied horse of that
+pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house.” I said naught, but took Kurban
+Sahib’s glasses from his greasy hands and cleaned them with a silk
+handkerchief and returned them to their case. Sikander Khan told me
+that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley to use
+glasses—whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course of
+three months’ leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
+
+That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the
+land for our camp. The _Durro Muts_ moved slowly at that time. They
+were weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished
+to leave these all in some town and go on light to other business which
+pressed. So Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the
+line of march. We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came
+to a house under a high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a
+donga, behind it, and an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a
+kraal, before it. Two thorn bushes grew on either side of the door,
+like babul bushes, covered with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof
+was all of thatch. Before the house was a valley of stones that rose to
+another bush-covered hill. There was an old man in the verandah—an old
+man with a white beard and a wart upon the left side of his neck; and a
+fat woman with the eyes of a swine and the jowl of a swine; and a tall
+young man deprived of understanding. His head was hairless, no larger
+than an orange, and the pits of his nostrils were eaten away by a
+disease. He laughed and slavered and he sported sportively before
+Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the woman showed us _purwanas_
+from three General Sahibs, certifying that they were people of peace
+and goodwill. Here are the _purwanas_, Sahib. Does the Sahib know the
+Generals who signed them?
+
+They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and
+swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the
+verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost
+scent. At last he took my arm and said, “See yonder! There is the sun
+on the window of the house that signalled last night. This house can
+see that house from here,” and he looked at the hill behind him all
+hairy with bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the
+shrivelled head danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the
+roof and laughed like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it
+were, to cover some noise. After this passed I to the back of the house
+on pretence to get water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on
+the ground, and that the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs;
+and there had dropped in the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib
+called to me in our tongue, saying, “Is this a good place to make tea?”
+and I replied, knowing what he meant, “There are over many cooks in the
+cook-house. Mount and go, Child.” Then I returned, and he said, smiling
+to the woman, “Prepare food, and when we have loosened our girths we
+will come in and eat;” but to his men he said in a whisper, “Ride
+away!” No. He did not cover the old man or the fat woman with his
+rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the _Durro Muts_, being
+hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and before we
+were in our saddles many shots came from the roof—from rifles thrust
+through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones, and
+men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill
+behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house—so many shots
+that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan,
+riding low, said, “This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of
+the _Durro Muts_,” and I said, “Be quiet. Keep place!” for his place
+was behind me, and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets
+will pass through five men a-row! We were not hit—not one of us—and we
+reached the hill of rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban
+Sahib turned in his saddle and said, “Look at the old man!” He stood in
+the verandah firing swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the
+idiot also—both with guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by
+the wrist, but—his fate was written at that hour. The bullet passed
+under my arm-pit and struck him in the liver, and I pulled him backward
+between two great rocks atilt—Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the
+nullah behind the house and from the hills came our Boer-log in number
+more than a hundred, and Sikandar Khan said, “_Now_ we see the meaning
+of last night’s signal. Give me the rifle.” He took Kurban Sahib’s
+rifle—in this war of fools only the doctors carry swords—and lay
+belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib turned where he lay and said,
+“Be still. It is a Sahibs’ war,” and Kurban Sahib put up his hand—thus;
+and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave him water that he might pass
+the more quickly. And at the drinking his Spirit received permission….
+
+Thus went our fight, Sahib. We _Durro Muts_ were on a ridge working
+from the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log
+lay in a valley working from east to west. There were more than a
+hundred, and our men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley
+while they swiftly passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three
+Boers drop in the open. Then they all hid again and fired heavily at
+the rocks that hid our men; but our men were clever and did not show,
+but moved away and away, always south; and the noise of the battle
+withdrew itself southward, where we could hear the sound of big guns.
+So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan found a deep old jackal’s
+earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of Kurban Sahib upright.
+Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his handkerchief and some
+letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round his neck, and
+Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the handkerchief.
+Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for Kurban
+Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak—even he, a Pathan, a
+Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when
+the dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses.
+They gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib’s
+glasses, and the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them,
+and preached the holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought
+coffee; and the idiot capered among them and kissed their horses.
+Presently they went away in haste; they went over the hills and were
+not; and a black slave came out and washed the door-sills with bright
+water. Sikandar Khan saw through the glasses that the stain was blood,
+and he laughed, saying, “Wounded men lie there. We shall yet get
+vengeance.”
+
+About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as
+a burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how
+to take a bearing across a hill, said, “At last we have burned the
+house of the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled.” And I said: “What
+need now that they have slain my child? Let me mourn.” It was a high
+smoke, and the old man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold
+it, and shook his clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight,
+foodless and without water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor
+to drink till we had accomplished the matter. I had a little opium
+left, of which I gave Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban
+Sahib. When it was full dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain
+softish rock which, mixed with water, sharpens steel well, and we took
+off our boots and we went down to the house and looked through the
+windows very softly. The old man sat reading in a book, and the woman
+sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on the floor with his head against
+her knee, and he counted his fingers and laughed, and she laughed
+again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I laughed, too, for I
+had suspected this when I claimed her life and her body from Sikandar
+Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered with bare
+swords…. Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel, for the
+old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan prevented
+him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down and held
+up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they should be
+silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room, and a
+door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood stupidly
+fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and none
+followed him. It was a very pretty stroke—for a Pathan. They then were
+silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar
+Khan, “Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib’s sake will I defile my
+sword.” So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones,
+and said, “Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit
+from a General,” and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound
+the old man’s hands behind his back, and unwillingly—for he laughed in
+my face, and would have fingered my beard—the idiot’s. At this the
+woman with the swine’s eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and
+Sikandar Khan said, “Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on
+the division.” And I said, “Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her.
+Open the door.” I pushed out the two across the verandah into the
+darker shade of the thorn-trees, and she followed upon her knees and
+lay along the ground, and pawed at my boots and howled. Then Sikandar
+Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was a butler and would light the
+table, and I looked for a branch that would bear fruit. But the woman
+hindered me not a little with her screechings and plungings, and spoke
+fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue, “I am childless
+to-night because of thy perfidy, and _my_ child was praised among men
+and loved among women. He would have begotten men—not animals. Thou
+hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the greater.”
+
+I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot’s neck, and flung the
+end over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might
+well see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the
+lamp, the spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even
+where the bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and
+said, “No. It is a Sahibs’ war.” And I said, “Wait a while, Child, and
+thou shalt sleep.” But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my
+eyes, and said, “No. It is a Sahibs’ war.” And Sikandar Khan said, “Is
+it too heavy?” and set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned
+to tally on the rope, the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm’s
+reach of us, and his face was very angry, and a third time he said,
+“No. It is a Sahibs’ war.” And a little wind blew out the lamp, and I
+heard Sikandar Khan’s teeth chatter in his head.
+
+So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while,
+for we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his
+water-bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me
+and said, “We are absolved from our vow.” So I drank, and together we
+waited for the dawn in that place where we stood—the ropes in our hand.
+A little after third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun
+wheels very far off, and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the
+threshold of the house, and the roof of the verandah that was thatched
+fell in and blazed before the windows. And I said, “What of the wounded
+Boer-log within?” And Sikandar Khan said, “We have heard the order. It
+is a Sahibs’ war. Stand still.” Then came a second shell—good line, but
+short—and scattered dust upon us where we stood; and then came ten of
+the little quick shells from the gun that speaks like a stammerer—yes,
+pompom the Sahibs call it—and the face of the house folded down like
+the nose and the chin of an old man mumbling, and the forefront of the
+house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan said, “If it be the fate of the
+wounded to die in the fire, _I_ shall not prevent it.” And he passed to
+the back of the house and presently came back, and four wounded
+Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk upright. And I
+said, “What hast thou done?” And he said, “I have neither spoken to
+them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy.” And I said,
+“It is a Sahibs’ war. Let them wait the Sahibs’ mercy.” So they lay
+still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the
+thorn-tree, and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound
+of cartouches in the roof—one or two at first; then a trill, and last
+of all one loud noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the
+captives would have crawled aside on account of the heat that was
+withering the thorn-trees, and on account of wood and bricks flying at
+random. But I said, “Abide! Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs’
+war, O Sahibs. There is no order that ye should depart from this war.”
+They did not understand my words. Yet they abode and they lived.
+
+Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib’s command, and one I
+knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I
+told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib
+would understand; and at the end I said, “An order has reached us here
+from the dead that this is a Sahibs’ war. I take the soul of my Kurban
+Sahib to witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these
+Sahibs who have made me childless.” Then I gave him the ropes and fell
+down senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty,
+except for the little opium.
+
+They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
+understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and
+two nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban
+Sahib, saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the
+_Durro Muts_—very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They
+buried my Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the
+ridge overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the
+faith, and Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five
+signalling-candles, which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave
+as if it had been the grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very
+bitterly all that night, and I wept with him, and he took hold of my
+feet and besought me to give him a remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I
+divided equally with him one of Kurban Sahib’s handkerchiefs—not the
+silk ones, for those were given him by a certain woman; and I also gave
+him a button from a coat, and a little steel ring of no value that
+Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed them and put them into
+his bosom. The rest I have here in that little bundle, and I must get
+the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town—some four shirts we sent to be
+washed, for which we could not wait when we went up-country—and I must
+give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the Punjab. For my
+child is dead—my baba is dead!… I would have come away before; there
+was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far from the
+rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come to
+look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
+and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
+what they called me—orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
+did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
+after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I
+went up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a
+troop there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut
+an inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and it
+was a jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have
+the inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will
+explain the jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:—
+
+In Memory of
+WALTER DECIES CORBYN
+Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
+
+
+The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
+
+Treacherously shot near this place by
+The connivance of the late
+HENDRIK DIRK UYS
+A Minister of God
+Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
+And Piet his son,
+This little work
+
+
+Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
+
+Was accomplished in partial
+And inadequate recognition of their loss
+By some men who loved him
+
+
+_Si monumentum requiris circumspice_
+
+
+That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to
+behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house.
+And, Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank
+which they call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There
+is nothing at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire.
+The rest is like the desert here—or my hand—or my heart. Empty,
+Sahib—all empty!
+
+
+
+
+“THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS”
+
+
+
+
+THE WET LITANY
+
+
+When the water’s countenance
+Blurrs ’twixt glance and second glance;
+When the tattered smokes forerun
+Ashen ’neath a silvered sun;
+When the curtain of the haze
+Shuts upon our helpless ways—
+     Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+     _Libera nos domine_!
+
+When the engines’ bated pulse
+Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
+When the wash along the side
+Sounds, a sudden, magnified
+When the intolerable blast
+Marks each blindfold minute passed.
+
+When the fog-buoy’s squattering flight
+Guides us through the haggard night;
+When the warning bugle blows;
+When the lettered doorways close;
+When our brittle townships press,
+Impotent, on emptiness.
+
+When the unseen leadsmen lean
+Questioning a deep unseen;
+When their lessened count they tell
+To a bridge invisible;
+When the hid and perilous
+Cliffs return our cry to us.
+
+When the treble thickness spread
+Swallows up our next-ahead;
+When her siren’s frightened whine
+Shows her sheering out of line;
+When, her passage undiscerned,
+We must turn where she has turned—
+     Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+     _Libera nos Domine_!
+
+
+
+
+“THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS”
+
+
+“… And a security for such as pass on the seas upon   their lawful
+occasions.”—_Navy Prayer_.
+
+PART I
+
+Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is
+Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.
+
+H.M.S. _Caryatid_ went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manœuvres. I
+travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
+friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. _Caryatid_, whose guest I was
+to have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret
+rendezvous off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was
+filled with Red Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances,
+who received me with unstinted hospitality. For example,
+Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, in charge of three destroyers,
+_Wraith, Stiletto_, and _Kobbold_, due to depart at 6 P.M. that
+evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot flagship, but I
+preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in H.M.S.
+_Pedantic_ (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining
+aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the
+battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance
+from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no
+wrong. I truly intended to return to the _Pedantic_ and help to fight
+Blue Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a
+chemist in a side street at 9:15 P.M. As I turned to go, one entered
+seeking alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster,
+a black silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure
+brass spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh
+from leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light
+fell on his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late
+second-class petty officer of H.M.S. _Archimandrite_, an unforgettable
+man, met a year before under Tom Wessel’s roof in Plymouth. It occurred
+to me that when a petty officer takes to spurs he may conceivably
+meditate desertion. For that reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign.
+Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft, following me out of the shop, who said
+hollowly: “What might you be doing here?”
+
+“I’m going on manœuvres in the _Pedantic_,” I replied.
+
+“Ho!” said Mr. Pyecroft. “An’ what manner o’ manœuvres d’you expect to
+see in a blighted cathedral like the _Pedantic_? _I_ know ’er. I knew
+her in Malta, when the _Vulcan_ was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres!
+You won’t see more than ‘Man an’ arm watertight doors!’ in your little
+woollen undervest.”
+
+“I’m sorry for that.”
+
+“Why?” He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like
+tuning-forks. “War’s declared at midnight. _Pedantics_ be sugared! Buy
+an ’am an’ see life!”
+
+For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice,
+purposed that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands
+of Dorset. The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much.
+“Them!” he said, coming to an intricate halt. “They’re part of the
+_prima facie_ evidence. But as for me—let me carry your bag—I’m second
+in command, leadin’-hand, cook, steward, an’ lavatory man, with a few
+incidentals for sixpence a day extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat.”
+
+“They wear spurs there?”
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Peycroft, “seein’ that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue
+Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative.
+It transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral
+Master Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin’ Blue Fleet, can’t be
+bothered with one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin’ in
+the Reserve four years, an’ what with the new kind o’ tiffy which
+cleans dynamos with brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won’t
+render!), Two Six Seven’s steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed
+done his painstakin’ best—it’s his first command of a war-canoe, matoor
+age nineteen (down that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His
+Holiness Frankie is aware of us crabbin’ ourselves round the breakwater
+at five knots, an’ steerin’ _pari passu_, as the French say. (Up this
+alley-way, please!) If he’d given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer,
+a little time, it would never have transpired, for what Hinch can’t
+drive he can coax; but the new port bein’ a trifle cloudy, an’ ’is
+joints tinglin’ after a post-captain dinner, Frankie come on the upper
+bridge seekin’ for a sacrifice. We, offerin’ a broadside target, got
+it. He told us what ’is grandmamma, ’oo was a lady an’ went to sea in
+stick- and string-batteaus, had told him about steam. He throwed in his
+own prayers for the ’ealth an’ safety of all steam-packets an’ their
+officers. Then he give us several distinct orders. The first few—I kept
+tally—was all about going to Hell; the next many was about not
+evolutin’ in his company, when there; an’ the last all was simply
+repeatin’ the motions in quick time. Knowin’ Frankie’s groovin’ to be
+badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn’t much panic; but our
+Mr. Moorshed, ’e took it a little to heart. Me an’ Mr. Hinchcliffe
+consoled ’im as well as service conditions permits of, an’ we had a
+_résumé_-supper at the back o’ the Camber—secluded _an’_ lugubrious!
+Then one thing leadin’ up to another, an’ our orders, except about
+anchorin’ where he’s booked for, leavin’ us a clear ’orizon, Number Two
+Six Seven is now—mind the edge of the wharf—here!”
+
+By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a
+narrow strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up
+into Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and
+under the round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a
+slate-coloured, unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type—but I am no
+expert—between the first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded
+destroyer. From her archaic torpedo-tubes at the stern, and
+quick-firers forward and amidship, she must have dated from the early
+nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with spurts of steam and fumes of
+hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure in a striped jersey
+squatted on the engine-room gratings.
+
+“She ain’t much of a war-canoe, but you’ll see more life in ’er than on
+an whole squadron of bleedin’ _Pedantics.”_
+
+“But she’s laid up here—and Blue Fleet have gone,” I protested.
+“Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn’t put us out
+of action. Thus we’re a non-neglectable fightin’ factor which you
+mightn’t think from this elevation; _an’_ m’rover, Red Fleet don’t know
+we’re ’ere. Most of us”—he glanced proudly at his boots—“didn’t run to
+spurs, but we’re disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan,
+our signaliser, when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine
+proprietor. Hinchcliffe was naturally a German waiter, and me you
+behold as a squire of low degree; while yonder Levantine dragoman on
+the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was the second cutter’s snotty—_my_
+snotty—on the _Archimandrite_—two years—Cape Station. Likewise on the
+West Coast, mangrove swampin’, an’ gettin’ the cutter stove in on small
+an’ unlikely bars, an’ manufacturin’ lies to correspond. What I don’t
+know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the same gauge as what Mr.
+Moorshed don’t know about me—half a millimetre, as you might say. He
+comes into awful opulence of his own when ’e’s of age; an’ judgin’ from
+what passed between us when Frankie cursed ’im, I don’t think ’e cares
+whether he’s broke to-morrow or—the day after. Are you beginnin’ to
+follow our tattics? They’ll be worth followin’. Or _are_ you goin’ back
+to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_—which I lay they’ve just
+dismounted the third engineer out of—to eat four fat meals per diem,
+an’ smoke in the casement?”
+
+The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.
+
+“Yes, Sir,” was Mr. Pyecroft’s answer. “I ’ave ascertained that
+_Stiletto, Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P.M. with the first
+division o’ Red Fleet’s cruisers except _Devolotion_ and _Cryptic_,
+which are delayed by engine-room defects.” Then to me: “Won’t you go
+aboard? Mr. Moorshed ’ud like some one to talk to. You buy an ’am an’
+see life.”
+
+At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me
+lower myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No.
+267.
+
+“What d’you want?” said the striped jersey.
+
+“I want to join Blue Fleet if I can,” I replied. “I’ve been left behind
+by—an accident.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
+you need?”
+
+“I don’t want any ham, thank you. That’s the way up the wharf.
+_Good_-night.”
+
+“Good-night!” I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a
+shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
+salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop
+supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things
+I, sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the
+shadow of a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to
+time I laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the
+face of it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me
+very far from the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and
+see life clinched it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft—I heard spurs clink—passed
+me. Then the jersey voice said: “What the mischief’s that?”
+
+“’Asn’t the visitor come aboard, Sir? ’E told me he’d purposely
+abandoned the _Pedantic_ for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me
+he was official correspondent for the _Times_; an’ I know he’s littery
+by the way ’e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven’t you seen ’im, Sir?”
+
+Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; “Pye,
+you are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!”
+
+“Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It’s marked with his name.”
+There was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said “Oh!” in a tone which the
+listener might construe precisely as he pleased.
+
+“_He_ was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life—was he? If he
+goes back to the _Pedantic_—”
+
+“Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir.”
+
+“Then what possessed _you_ to give it away to him, you owl?”
+
+“I’ve got his bag. If ’e gives anything away, he’ll have to go naked.”
+
+At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the
+shadow of the crane.
+
+“I’ve bought the ham,” I called sweetly. “Have you still any objection
+to my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?”
+
+“All right, if you’re insured. Won’t you come down?”
+
+I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself
+of all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.
+
+“Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?” said my host.
+
+“Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?”
+
+“What do _you_ think of him?”
+
+“I’ve left the _Pedantic_—her boat will be waiting for me at ten
+o’clock, too—simply because I happened to meet him,” I replied.
+
+“That’s all right. If you’ll come down below, we may get some grub.”
+
+We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps
+twelve feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either
+side; a swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre.
+Other furniture there was none.
+
+“You can’t shave here, of course. We don’t wash, and, as a rule, we eat
+with our fingers when we’re at sea. D’you mind?”
+
+Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked
+me over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way,
+but his smile drew the heart. “You didn’t happen to hear what Frankie
+told me from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I’ve
+logged them here in shorthand, were”—he opened a neat
+pocket-book—”_‘Get out of this and conduct your own damned manœuvres in
+your own damned tinker fashion! You’re a disgrace to the Service, and
+your boat’s offal.’”_
+
+“Awful?” I said.
+
+“No—offal—tripes—swipes—ullage.” Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume
+of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he
+dealt out like cards.
+
+“I shall take these as my orders,” said Mr. Moorshed. “I’m chucking the
+Service at the end of the year, so it doesn’t matter.”
+
+We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with
+whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an
+uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.
+
+“That’s Mr. Hinchcliffe,” said Pyecroft. “He’s what is called a
+first-class engine-room artificer. If you hand ’im a drum of oil an’
+leave ’im alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin’.”
+
+Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a
+folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manœuvres, with the
+rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.
+
+“Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string
+admiral,” he said, yawning. “Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?”
+
+As a preparation for naval manœuvres these councils seemed inadequate.
+I followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the
+big lumber-ship’s side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that
+No. 267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels—soft, for
+they gave as I touched them.
+
+“More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an’ aft, an’ you
+erects perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane
+hoops, thus ’avin’ as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o’
+command, up they go like a pair of concertinas, an’ consequently
+collapses equally ’andy when requisite. Comin’ aft we shall doubtless
+overtake the Dawlish bathin’-machine proprietor fittin’ on her bustle.”
+
+Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group
+at the stern.
+
+“None of us who ain’t built that way can be destroyers, but we can look
+as near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a
+Thorneycroft boat, which we are _not_, comes out in a pretty bulge,
+totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on
+the other ’and, _Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn_, and
+_A-frite_—Red Fleet dee-stroyers, with ’oom we hope to consort later on
+terms o’ perfect equality—_are_ Thorneycrofts, an’ carry that Grecian
+bend which we are now adjustin’ to our _arriere-pensée_—as the French
+would put it—by means of painted canvas an’ iron rods bent as
+requisite. Between you an’ me an’ Frankie, we are the _Gnome_, now in
+the Fleet Reserve at Pompey—Portsmouth, I should say.”
+
+“The first sea will carry it all away,” said Moorshed, leaning gloomily
+outboard, “but it will do for the present.”
+
+“We’ve a lot of _prima facie_ evidence about us,” Mr. Pyecroft went on.
+“A first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer.
+Hence we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak
+to represent extra freeboard; _at_ the same time paddin’ out the cover
+of the forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an’
+variously fakin’ up the bows of ’er. As you might say, we’ve took
+thought an’ added a cubic to our stature. It’s our len’th that sugars
+us. A ’undred an’ forty feet, which is our len’th into two ’undred and
+ten, which is about the _Gnome’s,_ leaves seventy feet over, which we
+haven’t got.”
+
+“Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?” I asked.
+
+“In spots, you might say—yes; though we all contributed to make up
+deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin’ for further Navy after
+what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity.”
+
+“What the dickens are we going to do?”
+
+“Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we’d wait till the sights
+came on, an’ then fire. Speakin’ as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I.,
+M.D., etc., I presume we fall in—Number One in rear of the tube, etc.,
+secure tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin’-bar, release
+safety-pin from lockin-levers, an’ pray Heaven to look down on us. As
+second in command o’ 267, I say wait an’ see!”
+
+“What’s happened? We’re off,” I said. The timber ship had slid away
+from us.
+
+“We are. Stern first, an’ broadside on! If we don’t hit anything too
+hard, we’ll do.”
+
+“Come on the bridge,” said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over
+some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the
+next few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than
+with the science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out
+of Weymouth Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left
+and wallow in what appeared to be surf.
+
+“Excuse me,” said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, “_I_ don’t mind rammin’ a
+bathin’-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters
+has thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we’ll rip our plates
+open on it; 267 isn’t the _Archimandrite’s_ old cutter.”
+
+“I am hugging the shore,” was the answer.
+
+“There’s no actual ’arm in huggin’, but it can come expensive if
+pursooed.”
+
+“Right-O!” said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those
+scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.
+
+A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.
+
+“Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?” said Moorshed.
+
+“I merely wished to report that she is still continuin’ to go, Sir.”
+
+“Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d’you think?”
+
+“I’ll try, Sir; but we’d prefer to have the engine-room hatch open—at
+first, Sir.”
+
+Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely
+through the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us
+across the narrow deck.
+
+“This,” said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock
+receives a shadow, “represents the _Gnome_ arrivin’ cautious from the
+direction o’ Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders.”
+
+He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes
+opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards
+away.
+
+“Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to
+panic about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater,
+and several millimetres too excited over the approachin’ war to keep a
+look-out inshore. Hence our tattics!”
+
+We wailed through our siren—a long, malignant, hyena-like howl—and a
+voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.
+
+“The _Gnome_—Carteret-Jones—from Portsmouth, with
+orders—mm—mm—_Stiletto_,” Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a
+high, whining voice, rather like a chaplain’s.
+
+“_Who_?” was the answer.
+
+“Carter—et—Jones.”
+
+“Oh, Lord!”
+
+There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, “It’s Podgie, adrift
+on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!”
+
+Another voice echoed, “Podgie!” and from its note I gathered that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.
+
+“Who’s your sub?” said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the
+_Dirk_.
+
+“A gunner, at present, Sir. The _Stiletto_—broken down—turns over to
+us.”
+
+“When did the _Stiletto_ break down?”
+
+“Off the Start, Sir; two hours after—after she left here this evening,
+I believe. My orders are to report to you for the manœuvre
+signal-codes, and join Commander Hignett’s flotilla, which is in
+attendance on _Stiletto_.”
+
+A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed’s voice was high and
+uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: “The amount o’ trouble me an’ my
+bright spurs ’ad fishin’ out that information from torpedo coxswains
+and similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never
+believe.”
+
+“But has the _Stiletto_ broken down?” I asked weakly.
+
+“How else are we to get Red Fleet’s private signal-code? Any way, if
+she ’asn’t now, she will before manœuvres are ended. It’s only
+executin’ in anticipation.”
+
+“Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones.” Water
+carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear
+the next sentence: “They must have given him _one_ intelligent keeper.”
+
+“That’s me,” said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy—I
+did not foresee how well I should come to know her—was flung overside
+by three men.
+
+“Havin’ bought an ’am, we will now see life.” He stepped into the boat
+and was away.
+
+“I say, Podgie!”—the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers,
+as we thumped astern—“aren’t you lonely out there?”
+
+“Oh, don’t rag me!” said Moorshed. “Do you suppose I’ll have to
+manœuvre with your flo-tilla?”
+
+“No, Podgie! I’m pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders
+in Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla.”
+
+“Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds.”
+
+Two men laughed together.
+
+“By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he’s at home?” I whispered.
+
+“I was with him in the _Britannia_. I didn’t like him much, but I’m
+grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day.”
+
+“They seemed to know him hereabouts.”
+
+“He rammed the _Caryatid_ twice with her own steam-pinnace.”
+
+Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming
+across the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel
+spurned it.
+
+“Commander Fasset’s compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the
+sooner he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at
+Portsmouth, the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there’s a
+lot more——”
+
+“Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it
+as we go. Well?”
+
+Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.
+
+“Day an’ night private signals of Red Fleet _com_plete, Sir!” He handed
+a little paper to Moorshed. “You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones bein’, so to say, a little new to his duties, ’ad forgot
+to give ’is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin’, but, as I told
+Commander Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin’ ’em to me, nervous-like,
+most of the way from Portsmouth, so I knew ’em by heart—an’ better. The
+Commander, recognisin’ in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a
+father an’ mother to Mr. Carteret-Jones.”
+
+“Didn’t he know you?” I asked, thinking for the moment that there could
+be no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.
+
+“What’s a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding
+six thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? ’E seemed to cherish the
+’ope that ’e might use the _Gnome_ for ’is own ’orrible purposes; but
+what I told him about Mr. Jones’s sad lack o’ nerve comin’ from Pompey,
+an’ going dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited _that_
+connection. ‘M’rover,’ I says to him, ‘our orders is explicit;
+_Stiletto’s_ reported broke down somewhere off the Start, an’ we’ve
+been tryin’ to coil down a new stiff wire hawser all the evenin’, so it
+looks like towin’ ’er back, don’t it?’ I says. That more than ever jams
+his turrets, an’ makes him keen to get rid of us. ’E even hinted that
+Mr. Carteret-Jones passin’ hawsers an’ assistin’ the impotent in a
+sea-way might come pretty expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a
+disciplined way. I ain’t proud. Gawd knows I ain’t proud! But when I’m
+really diggin’ out in the fancy line, I sometimes think that me in a
+copper punt, single-’anded, ’ud beat a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in
+a row round the fleet.”
+
+At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft’s bosom,
+supported by his quivering arm.
+
+“Well?” said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267’s bows
+snapped at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed
+together.
+
+“‘You’d better go on,’ says Commander Fassett, ‘an’ do what you’re told
+to do. I don’t envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the _Gnome’s_
+commander. But what d’you want with signals?’ ’e says. ‘It’s criminal
+lunacy to trust Mr. Jones with anything that steams.’
+
+“‘May I make an observation, Sir?’ I says. ‘Suppose,’ I says, ‘you was
+torpedo-gunner on the _Gnome_, an’ Mr. Carteret-Jones was your
+commandin’ officer, an’ you had your reputation _as_ a second in
+command for the first time,’ I says, well knowin’ it was his first
+command of a flotilla, ‘what ’ud you do, Sir?’ That gouged ’is
+unprotected ends open—clear back to the citadel.”
+
+“What did he say?” Moorshed jerked over his shoulder.
+
+“If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to
+repeat it, Sir.”
+
+“Go ahead,” I heard the boy chuckle.
+
+“‘Do?’ ’e says. ‘I’d rub the young blighter’s nose into it till I made
+a perishin’ man of him, or a perspirin’ pillow-case,’ ’e says, ‘which,’
+he adds, ‘is forty per cent, more than he is at present.’
+
+“Whilst he’s gettin’ the private signals—they’re rather particular
+ones—I went forrard to see the _Dirk’s_ gunner about borrowin’ a
+holdin’-down bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was
+rovin’ over his packet, got the followin’ authentic particulars.” I
+heard his voice change, and his feet shifted. “There’s been a last
+council o’ war of destroyer-captains at the flagship, an’ a lot of
+things ’as come out. To begin with _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, Captain
+Panke and Captain Malan—”
+
+“_Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, first-class cruisers,” said Mr. Moorshed
+dreamily. “Go on, Pyecroft.”
+
+“—bein’ delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did _not_, as we know,
+accompany Red Fleet’s first division of scouting cruisers, whose
+rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard.
+_Cryptic_ an’ _Devolution_ left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin’ copious
+minor defects in engine-room. Admiral’s final instructions was they was
+to put into Torbay, an’ mend themselves there. If they can do it in
+twenty-four hours, they’re to come on and join the battle squadron at
+the first rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn’t get that,
+Sir.) If they can’t, he’ll think about sendin’ them some destroyers for
+escort. But his present intention is to go ’ammer and tongs down
+Channel, usin’ ’is destroyers for all they’re worth, an’ thus keepin’
+Blue Fleet too busy off the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries.”
+
+“But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let ’em out of
+Weymouth at all?” I asked.
+
+“The tax-payer,” said Mr. Moorshed.
+
+“An’ newspapers,” added Mr. Pyecroft. “In Torbay they’ll look as they
+was muckin’ about for strategical purposes—hammerin’ like blazes in the
+engine room all the weary day, an’ the skipper droppin’ questions down
+the engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. _I’ve_ been there.
+Now, Sir?” I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.
+
+The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.
+
+“Mr. Hinchcliffe, what’s her extreme economical radius?”
+
+“Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers.”
+
+“Can do,” said Moorshed. “By the way, have her revolutions any bearing
+on her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?”
+
+“None that I can make out yet, Sir.”
+
+“Then slow to eight knots. We’ll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or
+four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by
+nine o’clock to-morrow morning. We’ll have to muck about till dusk
+before we run in and try our luck with the cruisers.”
+
+“Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin’ round them all night.
+It’s considered good for the young gentlemen.”
+
+“Hallo! War’s declared! They’re off!” said Moorshed.
+
+He swung 267’s head round to get a better view. A few miles to our
+right the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while
+nearer ran a procession of tiny cigar ends.
+
+“Red hot! Set ’em alight,” said Mr. Pyecroft. “That’s the second
+destroyer flotilla diggin’ out for Commander Fassett’s reputation.”
+
+The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers’ funnels
+dwindled even as we watched.
+
+“They’re going down Channel with lights out, thus showin’ their zeal
+an’ drivin’ all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think
+I’ll get you your pyjamas, an’ you’ll turn in,” said Pyecroft.
+
+He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung
+majestically over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a
+coat with a monk’s hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.
+
+“If you fall over in these you’ll be drowned. They’re lammies. I’ll
+chock you off with a pillow; but sleepin’ in a torpedo-boat’s what you
+might call an acquired habit.”
+
+I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering
+steel wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267’s skin,
+worried me with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed
+tackily to gather my attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and,
+on the eve of that portentous communication, retired up stage as a
+multitude whispering. Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum
+of crowded cities awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and
+dry roaring of wild beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold
+floor was, naturally enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking
+uplift across the crest of some little swell, nothing less than the
+haling forth of new worlds; our half-turning descent into the hollow of
+its mate, the abysmal plunge of God-forgotten planets. Through all
+these phenomena and more—though I ran with wild horses over illimitable
+plains of rustling grass; though I crouched belly-flat under appalling
+fires of musketry; though I was Livingstone, painless, and incurious in
+the grip of his lion—my shut eyes saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals,
+the irregularly gliding patch of light on the steel ladder, and every
+elastic shadow in the corners of the frail angle-irons; while my body
+strove to accommodate itself to the infernal vibration of the machine.
+At the last I rolled limply on the floor, and woke to real life with a
+bruised nose and a great call to go on deck at once.
+
+“It’s all right,” said a voice in my booming ears. “Morgan and Laughton
+are worse than you!”
+
+I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two
+bundles beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller
+and a most able seaman. “She’d do better in a bigger sea,” said Mr.
+Pyecroft. “This lop is what fetches it up.”
+
+The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down
+the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round
+wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good
+omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to
+267’s heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves—such waves as
+I had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton
+liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped,
+and splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops
+along their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey
+cutting of water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge,
+beheld the Channel traffic—full-sailed to that fair breeze—all about
+us, and swung slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into
+the next furrow. Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to
+living, leaping opal, the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many
+sails to pearl, and the little steam-plume of our escape to an
+inconstant rainbow.
+
+“A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!” said Emanuel Pyecroft,
+throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was
+pitted with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes
+shone like a gull’s.
+
+“I told you you’d see life. Think o’ the _Pedantic_ now. Think o’ her
+Number One chasin’ the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats.
+Think o’ the pore little snotties now bein’ washed, fed, and taught,
+an’ the yeoman o’ signals with a pink eye wakin’ bright ’an brisk to
+another perishin’ day of five-flag hoists. Whereas _we_ shall caulk an’
+smoke cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks
+after war was declared.” He dropped into the wardroom singing:—
+
+If you’re going to marry me, marry me, Bill,
+It’s no use muckin’ about!
+
+
+The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o’-shanter,
+a pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a
+black sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava
+and a brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our
+supplementary funnel guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho
+restaurant sat at the head of the engine-room ladder exhorting the
+unseen below. The following wind beat down our smoke and covered all
+things with an inch-thick layer of stokers, so that eyelids, teeth, and
+feet gritted in their motions. I began to see that my previous
+experiences among battleships and cruisers had been altogether beside
+the mark.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+The wind went down with the sunset—
+    The fog came up with the tide,
+When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (_bis_)
+    With a little Blue Devil inside.
+“Sink,” she said, “or swim,” she said,
+    “It’s all you will get from me.
+And that is the finish of him!” she said,
+    And the Egg-shell went to sea.
+
+The wind got up with the morning,
+    And the fog blew off with the rain,
+When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
+    And the little Blue Devil again.
+“Did you swim?” she said. “Did you sink?” she said,
+    And the little Blue Devil replied:
+“For myself I swam, but I think,” he said,
+    “There’s somebody sinking outside.”
+
+
+But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and
+might not alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all
+that priceless day. Moorshed, after breakfast—frizzled ham and a devil
+that Pyecroft made out of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard
+smashed together with a spanner—showed me his few and simple navigating
+tools, and took an observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the
+chamois leathers while he cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be
+better equipped with electricity than most of our class), that lived
+under a bulbous umbrella-cover amidship. Then Pyecroft and Morgan,
+standing easy, talked together of the King’s Service as reformers and
+revolutionists, so notably, that were I not engaged on this tale I
+would, for its conclusion, substitute theirs.
+
+I would speak of Hinchcliffe—Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class
+engine-room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of
+having taken part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his
+daring, his skill, and his nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for
+an hour in the packed and dancing engine-room, when Moorshed suggested
+“whacking her up” to eighteen knots, to see if she would stand it. The
+floor was ankle-deep in a creamy batter of oil and water; each moving
+part flicking more oil in zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible
+for their dizzy chattering on the chattering steel bulkhead. Leading
+stoker Grant, said to be a bigamist, an ox-eyed man smothered in hair,
+took me to the stokehold and planted me between a searing white furnace
+and some hell-hot iron plate for fifteen minutes, while I listened to
+the drone of fans and the worry of the sea without, striving to wrench
+all that palpitating firepot wide open.
+
+Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed—revolving in his orbit from
+the canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room,
+conning-tower, and wheel, to the doll’s house of a foc’sle—learned in
+experience withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge,
+authoritative, entirely adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his
+play. _I_ could not take ten steps along the crowded deck but I
+collided with some body or thing; but he and his satellites swung,
+passed, and returned on their vocations with the freedom and
+spaciousness of the well-poised stars.
+
+Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each
+dissolving picture inboard or overside—Hinchcliffe’s white arm buried
+to the shoulder in a hornet’s nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed’s
+halt and jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft’s
+back bent over the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men
+in expanding it swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a
+homeward-bound Chinaman not a hundred yards away, and her
+shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails bulging sideways like insolent
+cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on our decks, all iridescent
+under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled the shadows of our
+funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and dulling over of the
+short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell: the swell that
+crumbled up and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant, almost audible
+roll inward of wandering fog-walls that had been stalking us for two
+hours, and—welt upon welt, chill as the grave—the drive of the
+interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than
+steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred
+like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship
+literally above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we
+scrooped by, and the little drops of dew gathered below them.
+
+“Wonder why they’re always barks—always steel—always four-masted—an’
+never less than two thousand tons. But they are,” said Pyecroft. He was
+out on the turtle-backed bows of her; Moorshed was at the wheel, and
+another man worked the whistle.
+
+“This fog is the best thing could ha’ happened to us,” said Moorshed.
+“It gives us our chance to run in on the quiet…. Hal-lo!”
+
+A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a
+bowsprit surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially
+hooking itself into our forward rail.
+
+I saw Pyecroft’s arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of
+the tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed’s voice down the
+tube saying, “Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!” and Pyecroft’s
+cry, “Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our propeller, Sir, or
+we’ll be wrapped up in the rope.”
+
+267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the
+downward-bearing bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc’sle
+had already thrown out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible
+bulwark.
+
+Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive
+crunching of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler,
+her crew struck dumb.
+
+“Any luck?” said Moorshed politely.
+
+“Not till we met yeou,” was the answer. “The Lard he saved us from they
+big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be’e gwine tu with our
+fine new bobstay?”
+
+“Yah! You’ve had time to splice it by now,” said Pyecroft with
+contempt.
+
+“Aie; but we’m all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin’
+twenty-seven knots, us reckoned it. Didn’t us, Albert?”
+
+“Liker twenty-nine, an’ niver no whistle.”
+
+“Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?” said Moorshed.
+
+A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.
+
+We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing
+crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a
+mere picket-boat.
+
+“What for?” said a puzzled voice.
+
+“For love; for nothing. You’ll be abed in Brixham by midnight.”
+
+“Yiss; but trawl’s down.”
+
+“No hurry. I’ll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when you’re
+ready.” A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they made it fast;
+we slid forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet of the
+wire rope running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of
+debate.
+
+“Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog,” said
+Moorshed listening.
+
+“But what in the world do you want him for?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, he’ll came in handy later.”
+
+“Was that your first collision?”
+
+“Yes.” I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.
+
+“Aie! yeou little man-o’-war!” The voice rose muffled and wailing.
+“After us’ve upped trawl, us’ll be glad of a tow. Leave line just slack
+abaout as ’tis now, and kip a good fine look-out be’ind ’ee.”
+
+“There’s an accommodatin’ blighter for you!” said Pyecroft. “Where does
+he expect we’ll be, with these currents evolutin’ like sailormen at the
+Agricultural Hall?”
+
+I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out
+and smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept
+it from fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The
+fog now thickened and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like
+the glare of intermittent flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision
+of a sick sun that leered and fled, or burying all a thousand fathom
+deep in gulfs of vapours. At no time could we see the trawler though we
+heard the click of her windlass, the jar of her trawl-beam, and the
+very flap of the fish on her deck. Forward was Pyecroft with the lead;
+on the bridge Moorshed pawed a Channel chart; aft sat I, listening to
+the whole of the British Mercantile Marine (never a keel less)
+returning to England, and watching the fog-dew run round the bight of
+the tow back to its mother-fog.
+
+“Aie! yeou little man-o’-war! We’m done with trawl. You can take us
+home if you know the road.”
+
+“Right O!” said Moorshed. “We’ll give the fishmonger a run for his
+money. Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe.”
+
+The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be
+afraid, but more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of
+my neck) that any fear which would begin to do justice to the situation
+would, if yielded to, incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow
+of spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us
+like the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and,
+miraculously withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance
+that I should reach the beach—any beach—alive, if not dry; and (this
+was when an economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser
+water) were I so spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.
+
+Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added
+herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they,
+too, should melt in the general dissolution.
+
+“Where’s that prevaricatin’ fishmonger?” said Pyecroft, turning a
+lantern on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a
+stick to my left. “He’s doin’ some fancy steerin’ on his own. No wonder
+Mr. Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow’s sheered off to starboard,
+Sir. He’ll fair pull the stern out of us.”
+
+Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.
+
+“Aie! yeou little man-o’-war!” The voice butted through the fog with
+the monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep’s. “We don’t all like the
+road you’m takin’. ’Tis no road to Brixham. You’ll be buckled up under
+Prawle Point by’mbye.”
+
+“Do you pretend to know where you are?” the megaphone roared.
+
+“Iss, I reckon; but there’s no pretence to me!”
+
+“O Peter!” said Pyecroft. “Let’s hang him at ’is own gaff.”
+
+I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: “Take another man
+with you. If you lose the tow, you’re done. I’ll slow her down.”
+
+I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry “Murder!” Heard the
+rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my
+ear, Pyecroft’s enormous and jubilant bellow astern: “Why, he’s here!
+Right atop of us! The blighter ’as pouched half the tow, like a shark!”
+A long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then Pyecroft, _solo
+arpeggio_: “Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come an’ try it, uncle.”
+
+I lifted my face to where once God’s sky had been, and besought The
+Trues I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles,
+but live at least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as
+happy as I was happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow—slow as
+the processes of evolution—till the boat-hook rasped again.
+
+“He’s not what you might call a scientific navigator,” said Pyecroft,
+still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap.
+“The lead’s what ’e goes by mostly; rum is what he’s come for; an’
+Brixham is ’is ’ome. Lay on, Mucduff!”
+
+A white whiskered man in a frock-coat—as I live by bread, a
+frock-coat!—sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube
+into Moorshed’s grip and vanished forward.
+
+“’E’ll probably ’old three gallon (look sharp with that dinghy!); but
+’is nephew, left in charge of the _Agatha_, wants two bottles
+command-allowance. You’re a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that
+excessive?”
+
+“Lead there! Lead!” rang out from forward.
+
+“Didn’t I say ’e wouldn’t understand compass deviations? Watch him
+close. It’ll be worth it!”
+
+As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: “Let me zmell un!” and
+to his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King’s Navy.
+
+“I’ll tell ’ee where to goo, if yeou’ll tell your donkey-man what to
+du. I’m no hand wi’ steam.” On these lines we proceeded miraculously,
+and, under Moorshed’s orders—I was the fisherman’s Ganymede, even as
+“M. de C.” had served the captain—I found both rum and curaçoa in a
+locker, and mixed them equal bulk in an enamelled iron cup.
+
+“Now we’m just abeam o’ where we should be,” he said at last, “an’ here
+we’ll lay till she lifts. I’d take ’e in for another bottle—and wan for
+my nevvy; but I reckon yeou’m shart-allowanced for rum. That’s nivver
+no Navy rum yeou’m give me. Knowed ’ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!”
+
+I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them
+spring to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet
+to port caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar
+at gaze, for not far away an unmistakable ship’s bell was ringing. It
+ceased, and another began.
+
+“Them!” said Pyecroft. “Anchored!”
+
+“More!” said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The
+trawler astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk
+of his arm threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the
+back-sight was heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.
+
+“No—they wouldn’t have their picket-boats out in this weather, though
+they ought to.” He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.
+
+“Be yeou gwine to anchor?” said Macduff, smacking his lips, “or be yeou
+gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?”
+
+“Tell him what we’re driving at. Get it into his head somehow,” said
+Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man
+with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.
+
+“And if you pull it off,” said Moorshed at the last, “I’ll give you a
+fiver.”
+
+“Lard! What’s fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes ’em; but I do
+cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o’ God’s good
+weeks. Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall ’ee, gentlemen,
+I hain’t the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before
+the mast I’ve fared in my time; fisherman I’ve been since I seed the
+unsense of sea-dangerin’. Baccy and spirits—yiss, an’ cigars too, I’ve
+run a plenty. I’m no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your
+forty-mile free towin’ and rum atop of all. There’s none more sober to
+Brix’am this tide, I don’t care who ’tis—than me. _I_ know—_I_ know.
+Yander’m two great King’s ships. Yeou’m wishful to sink, burn, and
+destroy they while us kips ’em busy sellin’ fish. No need tall me so
+twanty taime over. Us’ll find they ships! Us’ll find ’em, if us has to
+break our fine new bowsprit so close as Crump’s bull’s horn!”
+
+“Good egg!” quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide
+shoulders with the smack of a beaver’s tail.
+
+“Us’ll go look for they by hand. Us’ll give they something to play
+upon; an’ do ’ee deal with them faithfully, an’ may the Lard have mercy
+on your sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again.”
+
+The fog was as dense as ever—we moved in the very womb of night—but I
+cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided
+by the tow-rope, disappeared toward the _Agatha_, Pyecroft rowing. The
+bell began again on the starboard bow.
+
+“We’re pretty near,” said Moorshed, slowing down. “Out with the
+Berthon. (_We’ll_ sell ’em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke,
+I’ll break his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the
+tube), “you’ll stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the
+engine-room staff. Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes.” A deep
+groan broke from Morgan’s chest, but he said nothing. “If the fog thins
+and you’re seen by any one, keep’em quiet with the signals. I can’t
+think of the precise lie just now, but _you_ can, Morgan.”
+
+“Yes, Sir.”
+
+“Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?” I whispered, shivering with
+excitement.
+
+“If they’ve been repairing minor defects all day, they won’t have any
+one to spare from the engine-room, and ‘Out nets!’ is a job for the
+whole ship’s company. I expect they’ve trusted to the fog—like us.
+Well, Pyecroft?”
+
+That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. “’Ad to
+see the first o’ the rum into the _Agathites_, Sir. They was a bit
+jealous o’ their commandin’ officer comin’ ’ome so richly lacquered,
+and at first the _conversazione_ languished, as you might say. But they
+sprang to attention ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any
+of ’em are sober enough to keep tally, will be the signal that our
+consort ’as cast off her tow an’ is manceuvrin’ on ’er own.”
+
+“Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over
+quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?”
+
+I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into
+the Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved
+me in generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of
+the dinghy.
+
+“I want you for _prima facie_ evidence, in case the vaccination don’t
+take,” said Pyecroft in my ear. “Push off, Alf!”
+
+The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little
+tinkles from the _Agatha_, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of
+pans, and loose shouting.
+
+“Where be gwine tu? Port your ’ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the
+fairway, goo astern! Out boats! She’ll sink us!”
+
+A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: “Quiet! you gardeners
+there. This is the _Cryptic_ at anchor.”
+
+“Thank you for the range,” said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. “Feel
+well out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only
+Marconi installation.” The voices resumed:
+
+“Bournemouth steamer he says she be.”
+
+“Then where be Brixham Harbor?”
+
+“Damme, I’m a tax-payer tu. They’ve no right to cruise about this way.
+I’ll have the laa on ’ee if anything carries away.”
+
+Then the man-of-war:
+
+“Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You’ll get
+yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift.”
+
+The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking,
+swung. I passed one hand down Laughton’s stretched arm and felt an iron
+gooseneck and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The
+other hand I laid on broad, cold iron—even the flanks of H.M.S.
+_Cryptic_, which is twelve thousand tons.
+
+I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour
+to shave, and I smelled paint. “Drop aft a bit, Alf; we’ll put a
+stencil under the stern six-inch casements.”
+
+Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall.
+Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was
+renewed.
+
+“Umpires are ’ard-’earted blighters, but this ought to convince ’em….
+Captain Panke’s stern-walk is now above our defenceless ’eads. Repeat
+the evolution up the starboard side, Alf.”
+
+I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating
+with life. Though my knowledge was all by touch—as, for example, when
+Pyecroft led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson,
+or when my palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it
+timidly—yet I felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless
+ship was withdrawn, and we drifted away into the void where voices
+sang:
+
+Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,
+All along, out along, down along lea!
+I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair
+With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,
+Old Uncle Tom Cobley an’ all!
+
+
+“That’s old Sinbad an’ ’is little lot from the _Agatha_! Give way, Alf!
+_You_ might sing somethin’, too.”
+
+“I’m no burnin’ Patti. Ain’t there noise enough for you, Pye?”
+
+“Yes, but it’s only amateurs. Give me the tones of ’earth and ’ome. Ha!
+List to the blighter on the ’orizon sayin’ his prayers, Navy-fashion.
+’Eaven ’elp me argue that way when I’m a warrant-officer!”
+
+We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a
+fair-sized riot.
+
+“An’ I’ve ’eard the _Devolution_ called a happy ship, too,” said
+Pyecroft. “Just shows ’ow a man’s misled by prejudice. She’s
+peevish—that’s what she is—nasty-peevish. Prob’ly all because the
+_Agathites_ are scratching ’er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I’ve got
+the lymph!”
+
+A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter,
+was speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the
+lower deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly
+reduced rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the
+_Devolution_ at anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.
+
+“Mark how the Navy ’olds it’s own. He’s sober. The _Agathites_ are not,
+as you might say, an’ yet they can’t live with ’im. It’s the discipline
+that does it. ’Ark to the bald an’ unconvincin’ watch-officer chimin’
+in. I wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?”
+
+We drifted down the _Devolution’s_ side, as we had drifted down her
+sister’s; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt
+with her sister.
+
+“Whai! ’Tis a man-o’-war, after all! I can see the captain’s whisker
+all gilt at the edges! We took ’ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three
+cheers for the real man-o’-war!”
+
+That cry came from under the _Devolution’s_ stern. Pyecroft held
+something in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, “Our Mister Moorshed!”
+
+Said a boy’s voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from
+some valve: “I don’t half like that cheer. If I’d been the old man I’d
+ha’ turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren’t they
+rowing Navy-stroke, yonder?”
+
+“True,” said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. “It’s time to go
+’ome when snotties begin to think. The fog’s thinnin’, too.”
+
+I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel
+stand out darker than the darkness, disappear—it was then the dinghy
+shot away from it—and emerge once more.
+
+“Hallo! what boat’s that?” said the voice suspiciously.
+
+“Why, I do believe it’s a real man-o’-war, after all,” said Pyecroft,
+and kicked Laughton.
+
+“What’s that for?” Laughton was no dramatist.
+
+“Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin’ opposite.”
+
+“What boat’s _thatt_?” The hail was repeated.
+
+“What do yee say-ay?” Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me:
+“Give us a hand.”
+
+“It’s called the _Marietta_—F. J. Stokes—Torquay,” I began,
+quaveringly. “At least, that’s the name on the name-board. I’ve been
+dining—on a yacht.”
+
+“I see.” The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with
+disgraceful ease.
+
+“Yesh. Dining private yacht. _Eshmesheralda_. I belong to Torquay Yacht
+Club. _Are_ you member Torquay Yacht Club?”
+
+“You’d better go to bed, Sir. Good-night.” We slid into the rapidly
+thinning fog.
+
+“Dig out, Alf. Put your _nix mangiare_ back into it. The fog’s peelin’
+off like a petticoat. Where’s Two Six Seven?”
+
+“I can’t see her,” I replied, “but there’s a light low down ahead.”
+
+“The _Agatha_!” They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of
+the fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler’s bow.
+
+“Well, Emanuel means ‘God with us’—so far.” Pyecroft wiped his brow,
+laid a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I
+saw Moorshed’s face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.
+
+“Was it all right?” said he, over the bulwarks.
+
+“Vaccination ain’t in it. She’s took beautiful. But where’s 267, Sir?”
+Pyecroft replied.
+
+“Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the _Devolution_ four.
+Was that you behind us?”
+
+“Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the _Devolution_. I gave the
+_Cryptic_ nine, though. They’re what you might call more or less
+vaccinated.”
+
+He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the
+_Agatha’s_ hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.
+
+“Where is the old man?” I asked.
+
+“Still selling ’em fish, I suppose. He’s a darling! But I wish I could
+get this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the
+_Cryptic_ signalling?”
+
+A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was
+answered by a white pencil to the southward.
+
+“Destroyer signalling with searchlight.” Pyecroft leaped on the
+stern-rail. “The first part is private signals. Ah! now she’s Morsing
+against the fog. ‘P-O-S-T—yes, ‘postpone’—‘D-E-P- (go on)!
+departure—till—further—orders—which—will—be com (he’s dropped the other
+m) unicated—verbally. End,’. He swung round. “_Cryptic_ is now
+answering: ‘Ready—proceed—immediately.
+What—news—promised—destroyer—flotilla?’”
+
+“Hallo!” said Moorshed. “Well, never mind, They’ll come too late.”
+
+“Whew! That’s some ’igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer
+signals: ‘Care not. All will be known later.’ What merry beehive’s
+broken loose now?”
+
+“What odds! We’ve done our little job.”
+
+“Why—why—it’s Two Six Seven!”
+
+Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the
+_Agatha_ with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over
+the stern, and fell into his subordinate’s arms. I heard the guggle of
+engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards
+away, a cough, and Morgan’s subdued hail. … So far as I remember, it
+was Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were
+Pyecroft and Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.
+
+There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the _Agatha’s_
+side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common
+safety, because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open
+by hand for the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like
+wild geese, and crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the
+_Agatha’s_ boat, returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: “Have
+’ee done the trick? Have ’ee done the trick?” and we could only shout
+hoarsely over the stern, guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.
+
+“Fog got patchy here at 12:27,” said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing
+clearer every instant in the dawn. “Went down to Brixham Harbour to
+keep out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I
+had her up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet
+signals out of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was
+answered by three destroyers. Morgan signalled ’em by searchlight:
+‘Alter course to South Seventeen East, so as not to lose time.’ They
+came round quick. We kept well away—on their port beam—and Morgan gave
+’em their orders.” He looked at Morgan and coughed.
+
+“The signalman, acting as second in command,” said Morgan, swelling,
+“then informed destroyer flotilla that _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_ had
+made good defects, and, in obedience to Admiral’s supplementary orders
+(I was afraid they might suspect that, but they didn’t), had proceeded
+at seven knots at 11:23 P.M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven
+miles N.N.W. the Casquet light. (I’ve rendezvoused there myself, Sir.)
+Destroyer flotilla would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with
+them on their course. Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course
+indicated, all funnels sparking briskly.”
+
+“Who were the destroyers?”
+
+“_Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto_, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett,
+acting under Admiral’s orders to escort cruisers received off the
+Dodman at 7 P.M. They’d come slow on account of fog.”
+
+“Then who were you?”
+
+“We were the _Afrite_, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and
+there instructed by _Cryptic_, previous to her departure with
+_Devolution_) to inform Commander Hignett of change of plans.
+Lieutenant-Commander Hignett signalled that our meeting was quite
+providential. After this we returned to pick up our commanding officer,
+and being interrogated by _Cryptic_, marked time signalling as
+requisite, which you may have seen. The _Agatha_ representing the last
+known rallying-point—or, as I should say, pivot-ship of the
+evolution—it was decided to repair to the _Agatha_ at conclusion of
+manœuvre.”
+
+We breathed deeply, all of us, but no one spoke a word till Moorshed
+said: “Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine
+big battleship?”
+
+“Can do, sir,” said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr. Moorshed
+and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker, we
+drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of
+stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other’s face, and
+we nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.
+
+Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a
+captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke
+over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our
+victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had
+made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet
+long and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece,
+and they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were
+ours, and they did not know it. Indeed, the _Cryptic_, senior ship, was
+signalling vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.
+
+“If you take these glasses, you’ll get the general run o’ last night’s
+vaccination,” said Pyecroft. “Each one represents a torpedo got ’ome,
+as you might say.”
+
+I saw on the _Cryptic’s_ port side, as she lay half a mile away across
+the glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in
+the centre.
+
+“There are five more to starboard. ’Ere’s the original!” He handed me a
+paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the
+centre the six-inch initials, “G.M.”
+
+“Ten minutes ago I’d ha’ eulogised about that little trick of ours, but
+Morgan’s performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?”
+
+“Bustin’,” said the signalman briefly.
+
+“You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen ’Enrietta said to
+the ’ousemaid, _I_ never will. I’d ha’ given a year’s pay for ten
+minutes o’ your signallin’ work this mornin’.”
+
+“I wouldn’t ’ave took it up,” was the answer. “Perishin’ ’Eavens above!
+Look at the _Devolution’s_ semaphore!” Two black wooden arms waved from
+the junior ship’s upper bridge. “They’ve seen it.”
+
+“_The_ mote _on_ their neighbour’s beam, of course,” said Pyecroft, and
+read syllable by syllable: “‘Captain Malan to Captain Panke.
+Is—sten—cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or
+your Number One’s private expense?’ Now _Cryptic_ is saying, ‘Not
+understood.’ Poor old _Crippy_, the _Devolute’s_ raggin’ ’er sore. ‘Who
+is G.M.?’ she says. That’s fetched the _Cryptic_. She’s answerin’: ‘You
+ought to know. Examine own paintwork.’ Oh, Lord! they’re both on to it
+now. This is balm. This is beginning to be balm. I forgive you,
+Morgan!”
+
+Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into
+the water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose
+to the _Cryptic’s_ yardarm: “Destroyer will close at once. Wish to
+speak by semaphore.” Then on the bridge semaphore itself: “Have been
+trying to attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding
+officer aboard at once.”
+
+“Our attention? After all the attention we’ve given ’er, too,” said
+Pyecroft. “What a greedy old woman!” To Moorshed: “Signal from the
+_Cryptic_, Sir.”
+
+“Never mind that!” said the boy, peering through his glasses. “Our
+dinghy quick, or they’ll paint our marks out. Come along!”
+
+By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft’s
+bending back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as
+we skimmed the _Cryptic’s_ ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman
+in her whaler when we barged fairly into him.
+
+“Mind my paint!” he yelled.
+
+“You mind mine, snotty,” said Moorshed. “I was all night putting these
+little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave ’em alone.”
+
+We splashed past him to the _Devolution’s_ boat, where sat no one less
+than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.
+
+“What the deuce is the meaning of this?” he roared, with an accusing
+forefinger.
+
+“You’re sunk, that’s all. You’ve been dead half a tide.”
+
+“Dead, am I? I’ll show you whether I’m dead or not, Sir!”
+
+“Well, you may be a survivor,” said Moorshed ingratiatingly, “though it
+isn’t at all likely.”
+
+The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern
+said, half aloud: “Then I _was_ right—last night.”
+
+“Yesh,” I gasped from the dinghy’s coal-dust. “Are you member Torquay
+Yacht Club?”
+
+“Hell!” said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The _Cryptic’s_ boat
+was already at that cruiser’s side, and semaphores flicked zealously
+from ship to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls,
+while the pipes went for the captain’s galley on the _Devolution_.
+
+“That’s all right,” said Moorshed. “Wait till the gangway’s down and
+then board her decently. We oughtn’t to be expected to climb up a ship
+we’ve sunk.”
+
+Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan,
+full-uniformed, descended the _Devolution’s_ side. With due
+compliments—not acknowledged, I grieve to say—we fell in behind his
+sumptuous galley, and at last, upon pressing invitation, climbed, black
+as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of the _Cryptic_. At the top stood
+as fine a constellation of marine stars as ever sang together of a
+morning on a King’s ship. Every one who could get within earshot found
+that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able seamen polishing the
+breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines zealously
+relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine midshipmen
+of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks past all
+census.
+
+“If I die o’ joy,” said Pyecroft behind his hand, “remember I died
+forgivin’ Morgan from the bottom of my ’eart, because, like Martha, we
+’ave scoffed the better part. You’d better try to come to attention,
+Sir.”
+
+Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge
+beam, and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and
+Captain Malan stood on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling
+hatch. Precisely over the flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her
+black petticoat half hitched up, meekly floating on the still sea. She
+looked like the pious Abigail who has just spoken her mind, and, with
+folded hands, sits thanking Heaven among the pieces. I could almost
+have sworn that she wore black worsted gloves and had a little dry
+cough. But it was Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He favoured
+us with a lecture on uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of
+answering signals from a senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of
+masquerading, that he loved discipline, and would be obliged by an
+explanation. And while he delivered himself deeper and more deeply into
+our hands, I saw Captain Malan wince. He was watching Moorshed’s eye.
+
+“I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven,” said
+Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. “Have you such a thing as a
+frame-plan of the _Cryptic_ aboard?” He spoke with winning politeness
+as he opened a small and neatly folded paper.
+
+“I have, sir.” The little man’s face was working with passion.
+
+“Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were
+torpedoed last night in”—he consulted the paper with one finely arched
+eyebrow—“in nine places. And since the _Devolution_ is, I understand, a
+sister ship”—he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan—“the same plan——”
+
+I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement
+which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan’s
+eye turn from Moorshed and seek that of the _Cryptic’s_ commander. And
+he telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: “My dear friend and
+brother officer, _I_ know Panke; _you_ know Panke; _we_ know Panke—good
+little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke
+will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things
+straight, unless you who are a man of tact and discernment——”
+
+“Carry on.” The Commander’s order supplied the unspoken word. The
+cruiser boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers
+together, up to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan
+turn to his senior.
+
+“Come to my cabin!” said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and
+I stayed still.
+
+“It’s all right,” said Pyecroft. “They daren’t leave us loose aboard
+for one revolution,” and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.
+
+“You, too!” said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the
+sentry between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since
+that Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from
+curiosity, I winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned,
+photo-speckled, brass-fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with
+a ruler, was demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S. _Cryptic_.
+
+“—making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.,” I heard him say.
+“Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir”—he
+bowed to Captain Malan yet again—“one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice
+torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I
+have sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have
+requested them to judge on the facts as they—appear.” He nodded through
+the large window to the stencilled _Devolution_ awink with brass work
+in the morning sun, and ceased.
+
+Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and
+caught myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.
+
+“Good God, Johnny!” he said, dropping his lower lip like a child, “this
+young pup says he has put us both out of action. Inconceivable—eh? My
+first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we do with him? What
+shall we do with him—eh?”
+
+“As far as I can see, there’s no getting over the stencils,” his
+companion answered.
+
+“Why didn’t I have the nets down? Why didn’t I have the nets down?” The
+cry tore itself from Captain Panke’s chest as he twisted his hands.
+
+“I suppose we’d better wait and find out what the umpires will say. The
+Admiral won’t be exactly pleased.” Captain Malan spoke very soothingly.
+Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven. Pyecroft
+and I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had
+dropped into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.
+
+Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for
+a lead. “What—what are you going to do about it, Johnny—eh?”
+
+“Well, if you don’t want him, I’m going to ask this young gentleman to
+breakfast, and then we’ll make and mend clothes till the umpires have
+decided.”
+
+Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.
+
+“Come with me,” said Captain Malan. “Your men had better go back in the
+dinghy to—their—own—ship.”
+
+“Yes, I think so,” said Moorshed, and passed out behind the captain. We
+followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended the
+ladder.
+
+Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: “For Gawd’s
+sake! ’Ere, come ’ere! For Gawd’s sake! What’s ’appened? Oh! come
+’_ere_ an’ tell.”
+
+“Tell? You?” said Pyecroft. Neither man’s lips moved, and the words
+were whispers: “Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might begin to
+understand, not you—nor ever will.”
+
+“Captain Malan’s galley away, Sir,” cried a voice above; and one
+replied: “Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the
+blue peter. We’re out of action.”
+
+“Can you do it, Sir?” said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder. “Do you
+think it is in the English language, or do you not?”
+
+“I don’t think I can, but I’ll try. If it takes me two years, I’ll
+try.”
+
+
+There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I
+have, on the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of _opus alexandrinum_.
+My gold I have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with
+sepia of the sea, and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have
+substituted pale amethyst and mere jargoon. Because I would say again
+“Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain whose other name is
+Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.”
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+
+
+
+THE KING’S TASK
+
+
+After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
+In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came.
+Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing,
+Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.
+
+Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde—
+Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword;
+Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood,
+And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred’s Wood …
+
+They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,
+Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine;
+Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,
+The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
+Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome
+Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
+Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman’s ire,
+Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.
+Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now
+If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+
+Private Copper’s father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper
+had studied under him. Five years’ army service had somewhat blunted
+Private Copper’s pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory
+of the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one
+across turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger,
+or in this case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet
+back-first advanced with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full
+a mile behind. The picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not
+protest. A year ago it would have been an officer’s command, moving as
+such. To-day it paid casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a
+sergeant, actually a trooper of Irregular Horse, discovered
+convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and forthwith employed on odd jobs.
+Private Copper crawled up the side of a bluish rock-strewn hill thinly
+fringed with brush atop, and remembering how he had peered at Sussex
+conies through the edge of furze-clumps, cautiously parted the dry
+stems before his face. At the foot of the long slope sat three farmers
+smoking. To his natural lust for tobacco was added personal wrath
+because spiky plants were pricking his belly, and Private Copper slid
+the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards….
+
+“Good evening, Khaki. Please don’t move,” said a voice on his left, and
+as he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a
+well-kept Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn.
+Very few graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through
+the next ten seconds.
+
+“It’s nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen,” said a young man in an
+obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of Private
+Copper’s rifle. “Thank _you_. We’ve got a post of thirty-seven men out
+yonder. You’ve eleven—eh? We don’t want to kill ’em. We have no quarrel
+with poor uneducated Khakis, and we do not want prisoners we do not
+keep. It is demoralising to both sides—eh?”
+
+Private Copper did not feel called upon to lay down the conduct of
+guerilla warfare. This dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed
+stranger was his first intimate enemy. He spoke, allowing for a clipped
+cadence that recalled to Copper vague memories of Umballa, in precisely
+the same offensive accent that the young squire of Wilmington had used
+fifteen years ago when he caught and kicked Alf Copper, a rabbit in
+each pocket, out of the ditches of Cuckmere. The enemy looked Copper up
+and down, folded and re-pocketed a copy of an English weekly which he
+had been reading, and said: “You seem an inarticulate sort of
+swine—like the rest of them—eh?”
+
+“You,” said Copper, thinking, somehow, of the crushing answers he had
+never given to the young squire, “are a renegid. Why, you ain’t Dutch.
+You’re English, same as me.”
+
+“_No_, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow
+your head off.”
+
+Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some
+six or eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain
+was working with a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience
+of Alf Copper. While he rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own
+jaws amazed him: “If you did, ’twouldn’t make you any less of a
+renegid.” As a useful afterthought he added: “I’ve sprained my ankle.”
+
+The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to
+rise, but, cross-legged under the rock, grunted: “’Ow much did old
+Krujer pay you for this? What was you wanted for at ’ome? Where did you
+desert from?”
+
+“Khaki,” said the young man, sitting down in his turn, “you are a shade
+better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a yoke of
+oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant
+diseased beast like the rest of your people—eh? When you were at the
+Ragged Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy—’istory I mean?”
+
+“Don’t need no schoolin’ to know a renegid,” said Copper. He had made
+three yards down the hill—out of sight, unless they could see through
+rocks, of the enemy’s smoking party.
+
+The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of
+“True Affection.” (Private Copper had not smoked a pipe for three
+weeks.)
+
+“_You_ don’t get this—eh?” said the young man. “_We_ do. We take it
+from the trains as we want it. You can keep the cake—you po-ah Tommee.”
+Copper rammed the good stuff into his long-cold pipe and puffed
+luxuriously. Two years ago the sister of gunner-guard De Souza, East
+India Railway, had, at a dance given by the sergeants to the Allahabad
+Railway Volunteers, informed Copper that she could not think of
+waltzing with “a poo-ah Tommee.” Private Copper wondered why that
+memory should have returned at this hour.
+
+“I’m going to waste a little trouble on you before I send you back to
+your picket _quite_ naked—eh? Then you can say how you were overpowered
+by twenty of us and fired off your last round—like the men we picked up
+at the drift playing cards at Stryden’s farm—eh? What’s your name—eh?”
+
+Private Copper thought for a moment of a far-away housemaid who might
+still, if the local postman had not gone too far, be interested in his
+fate. On the other hand, he was, by temperament, economical of the
+truth. “Pennycuik,” he said, “John Pennycuik.”
+
+“Thank you. Well, Mr. John Pennycuik, I’m going to teach you a little
+’istory, as you’d call it—eh?”
+
+“’Ow!” said Copper, stuffing his left hand in his mouth. “So long since
+I’ve smoked I’ve burned my ’and—an’ the pipe’s dropped too. No
+objection to my movin’ down to fetch it, is there—Sir?”
+
+“I’ve got you covered,” said the young man, graciously, and Private
+Copper, hopping on one leg, because of his sprain, recovered the pipe
+yet another three yards downhill and squatted under another rock
+slightly larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest
+for his captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his
+rifle across his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard.
+
+“Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you
+were born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave
+country, England, sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie,
+to say that so long as the sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses
+the Transvaal would belong to England. Did you ever hear that,
+khaki—eh?”
+
+“Oh no, Sir,” said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the rivers
+happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist
+of D Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war.
+Copper had thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and
+dry camps for intoning it.
+
+“_Of_ course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen.” He spat
+aside and cleared his throat. “Because of that little promise, my
+father he moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm—a little place of
+twenty or thirty thousand acres, don’t—you—know.”
+
+The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured
+parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington
+squire’s, and Copper found himself saying: “I ought to. I’ve ’elped
+burn some.”
+
+“Yes, you’ll pay for that later. _And_ he opened a store.”
+
+“Ho! Shopkeeper was he?”
+
+“The kind you call “Sir” and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik…. You see,
+in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father
+did. _Then_ the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat
+them six times running. You know _thatt_—eh?”
+
+“Isn’t what we’ve come ’ere for.”
+
+“_But_ my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the
+English. I suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that
+cheated him—eh? Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own
+country. _So_—you see—he was a little startled when he found himself
+handed over to the Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That’s what it came
+to, Tommy—a prisoner of war. You know what that is—eh? England was too
+honourable and too gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms
+made for my father.”
+
+“So ’e made ’em ’imself. Useful old bird.” Private Copper sliced up
+another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea of kopjes,
+through which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike
+quiet Cuckmere.
+
+The young man’s face darkened. “I think I shall sjambok you myself when
+I’ve quite done with you. _No_, my father (he was a fool) made no terms
+for eight years—ninety-six months—and for every day of them the
+Transvaal made his life hell for my father and—his people.”
+
+“I’m glad to hear that,” said the impenitent Copper.
+
+“Are you? You can think of it when I’m taking the skin off your
+back—eh?… My father, he lost everything—everything down to his
+self-respect. You don’t know what _thatt_ means—eh?”
+
+“Why?” said Copper. “I’m smokin’ baccy stole by a renegid. Why wouldn’t
+I know?”
+
+If it came to a flogging on that hillside there might be a chance of
+reprisals. Of course, he might be marched to the Boer camp in the next
+valley and there operated upon; but Army life teaches no man to cross
+bridges unnecessarily.
+
+“Yes, after eight years, my father, cheated by your bitch of a country,
+he found out who was the upper dog in South Africa.”
+
+“That’s me,” said Copper valiantly. “If it takes another ’alf century,
+it’s me an’ the likes of me.”
+
+“You? Heaven help you! You’ll be screaming at a wagon-wheel in an
+hour…. Then it struck my father that he’d like to shoot the people
+who’d betrayed him. You—you—_you_! He told his son all about it. He
+told him never to trust the English. He told him to do them all the
+harm he could. Mann, I tell you, I don’t want much telling. I was born
+in the Transvaal—I’m a burgher. If my father didn’t love the English,
+by the Lord, mann, I tell you, I hate them from the bottom of my soul.”
+
+The voice quavered and ran high. Once more, for no conceivable reason,
+Private Copper found his inward eye turned upon Umballa cantonments of
+a dry dusty afternoon, when the saddle-coloured son of a local
+hotel-keeper came to the barracks to complain of a theft of fowls. He
+saw the dark face, the plover’s-egg-tinted eyeballs, and the thin
+excited hands. Above all, he remembered the passionate, queerly-strung
+words. Slowly he returned to South Africa, using the very sentence his
+sergeant had used to the poultry man.
+
+“Go on with your complaint. I’m listenin’.”
+
+“Complaint! Complaint about _you_, you ox! We strip and kick your sort
+by thousands.”
+
+The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus
+deflected itself from the pit of Private Copper’s stomach. His face was
+dusky with rage.
+
+“Yess, I’m a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to find
+out how rotten you were. _We_ know and you know it now. Your army—it is
+the laughing-stock of the Continent.” He tapped the newspaper in his
+pocket. “You think you’re going to win, you poor fools. Your
+people—your own people—your silly rotten fools of people will crawl out
+of it as they did after Majuba. They are beginning now. Look what your
+own working classes, the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff that you
+come out of, are saying.” He thrust the English weekly, doubled at the
+leading article, on Copper’s knee. “See what dirty dogs your masters
+are. They do not even back you in your dirty work. _We_ cleared the
+country down to Ladysmith—to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to
+Colesberg.”
+
+“Yes, we ’ad to clean up be’ind you. Messy, I call it.”
+
+“You’ve had to stop farm-burning because your people daren’t do it.
+They were afraid. You daren’t kill a spy. You daren’t shoot a spy when
+you catch him in your own uniform. You daren’t touch our loyall people
+in Cape Town! Your masters won’t let you. You will feed our women and
+children till we are quite ready to take them back. _You_ can’t put
+your cowardly noses out of the towns you say you’ve occupied. _You_
+daren’t move a convoy twenty miles. You think you’ve done something?
+You’ve done nothing, and you’ve taken a quarter of a million of men to
+do it! There isn’t a nigger in South Africa that doesn’t obey us if we
+lift our finger. You pay the stuff four pounds a month and they lie to
+you. _We_ flog ’em, as I shall flog you.”
+
+He clasped his hands together and leaned forward his out-thrust chin
+within two feet of Copper’s left, or pipe hand.
+
+“Yuss,” said Copper, “it’s a fair knock-out.” The fist landed to a hair
+on the chin-point, the neck snicked like a gun-lock, and the back of
+the head crashed on the boulder behind.
+
+Copper grabbed up both rifles, unshipped the cross-bandoliers, drew
+forth the English weekly, and picking up the lax hands, looked long and
+intently at the fingernails.
+
+“No! Not a sign of it there,” he said. “’Is nails are as clean as
+mine—but he talks just like ’em, though. And he’s a landlord too! A
+landed proprietor! Shockin’, I call it.”
+
+The arms began to flap with returning consciousness. Private Copper
+rose up and whispered: “If you open your head, I’ll bash it.” There was
+no suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. “Now walk in front
+of me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I’m only a third-class shot,
+so, if you don’t object, I’ll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly but
+firmly on your collar-button—coverin’ the serviceable vertebree. If
+your friends see us thus engaged, you pray—’ard.”
+
+Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of
+the afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.
+
+“There’s a lot of things I could say to you,” Copper observed, at the
+close of the paroxysm, “but it doesn’t matter. Look ’ere, you call me
+‘pore Tommy’ again.”
+
+The prisoner hesitated.
+
+“Oh, I ain’t goin’ to do anythin’ _to_ you. I’m recon-noiterin’ in my
+own. Say ‘pore Tommy’ ’alf-a-dozen times.”
+
+The prisoner obeyed.
+
+“_That’s_ what’s been puzzlin’ me since I ’ad the pleasure o’ meetin’
+you,” said Copper. “You ain’t ’alf-caste, but you talk
+_chee-chee_—_pukka_ bazar chee-chee. _Pro_ceed.”
+
+“Hullo,” said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later, “where
+did you round him up?”
+
+“On the top o’ yonder craggy mounting. There’s a mob of ’em sitting
+round their Bibles seventeen ’undred yards (you said it was seventeen
+’undred?) t’other side—an’ I want some coffee.” He sat down on the
+smoke-blackened stones by the fire.
+
+“’Ow did you get ’im?” said McBride, professional humorist, quietly
+filching the English weekly from under Copper’s armpit.
+
+“On the chin—while ’e was waggin’ it at me.”
+
+“What is ’e? ’Nother Colonial rebel to be ’orribly disenfranchised, or
+a Cape Minister, or only a loyal farmer with dynamite in both boots.
+Tell us all about it, Burjer!”
+
+“You leave my prisoner alone,” said Private Copper. “’E’s ’ad losses
+an’ trouble; an’ it’s in the family too. ’E thought I never read the
+papers, so ’e kindly lent me his very own _Jerrold’s Weekly_—an’ ’e
+explained it to me as patronisin’ as a—as a militia subaltern doin’
+Railway Staff Officer. ’E’s a left-over from Majuba—one of the worst
+kind, an’ ’earin’ the evidence as I did, I don’t exactly blame ’im. It
+was this way.”
+
+To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the
+life-history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was
+an absolute fair rendering.
+
+“But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin’ beggar, ’oo’s people, on
+’is own showin’, couldn’t ’ave been more than thirty or forty years in
+the coun—on this Gawd-forsaken dust-’eap, comin’ the squire over me.
+They’re all parsons—we know _that_, but parson _an’_ squire is a bit
+too thick for Alf Copper. Why, I caught ’im in the shameful act of
+tryin’ to start a aristocracy on a gun an’ a wagon an’ a _shambuk_!
+Yes; that’s what it was: a bloomin’ aristocracy.”
+
+“No, it weren’t,” said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the
+purloined weekly. “You’re the aristocrat, Alf. Old _Jerrold’s_ givin’
+it you ’ot. You’re the uneducated ’ireling of a callous aristocracy
+which ’as sold itself to the ’Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky”—he ran
+his finger down a column of assorted paragraphs—“you’re slakin’ your
+brutal instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin’ women an’ desolated
+’omesteads is what you enjoy, Alf …, Halloa! What’s a smokin’
+’ektacomb?”
+
+“’Ere! Let’s look. ’Aven’t seen a proper spicy paper for a year. Good
+old _Jerrold’s!”_ Pinewood and Moppet, reservists, flung themselves on
+McBride’s shoulders, pinning him to the ground.
+
+“Lie over your own bloomin’ side of the bed, an’ we can all look,” he
+protested.
+
+“They’re only po-ah Tommies,” said Copper, apologetically, to the
+prisoner. “Po-ah unedicated Khakis. _They_ don’t know what they’re
+fightin’ for. They’re lookin’ for what the diseased, lying, drinkin’
+white stuff that they come from is sayin’ about ’em!”
+
+The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the
+circle.
+
+“I—I don’t understand them.”
+
+The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded
+sympathetically:
+
+“If it comes to that, _we_ don’t in my country!… Say, boys, when you’re
+through with your English mail you might’s well provide an escort for
+your prisoner. He’s waitin’.”
+
+“Arf a mo’, Sergeant,” said McBride, still reading.
+
+“’Ere’s Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of ’is lady friends,
+’oo don’t like concentration camps. Wish they’d visit ours. Pinewood’s
+a married man. He’d know how to be’ave!”
+
+“Well, I ain’t goin’ to amuse my prisoner alone. ’E’s gettin’
+’omesick,” cried Copper. “One of you thieves read out what’s vexin’ Old
+Barbarity an’ ’is ’arem these days. You’d better listen, Burjer,
+because, afterwards, I’m goin’ to fall out an’ perpetrate those
+nameless barbarities all over you to keep up the reputation of the
+British Army.”
+
+From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff
+of Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did
+Pinewood of the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the
+accredited leaders of His Majesty’s Opposition. The night-picket
+arrived in the middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any
+compliments, till Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article,
+and several occasional notes.
+
+“Gentlemen of the jury,” said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left
+to him of trousers—“you’ve ’eard what ’e’s been fed up with. _Do_ you
+blame the beggar? ’Cause I don’t! … Leave ’im alone, McBride. He’s my
+first and only cap-ture, an’ I’m goin’ to walk ’ome with ’im, ain’t I,
+Ducky? … Fall in, Burjer. It’s Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for
+you—and I’d give a month’s pay to be in your little shoes.”
+
+As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the
+prisoner’s nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and
+began to struggle—kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all
+together.
+
+“Pore beggar—oh pore, _pore_ beggar!” said Alf, leaning in on one side
+of him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.
+
+“Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go——”
+
+“’E screams like a woman!” said McBride. “They’ll ’ear ’im five miles
+off.”
+
+“There’s one or two ought to ’ear ’im—in England,” said Copper, putting
+aside a wildly waving arm.
+
+“Married, ain’t ’e?” said Pinewood. “I’ve seen ’em go like this
+before—just at the last. ’_Old_ on, old man, No one’s goin’ to ’urt
+you.”
+
+The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the
+little, anxious, wriggling group.
+
+“Quit that,” said the Serjeant of a sudden. “You’re only making him
+worse. Hands _up_, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this’ll
+go off.”
+
+And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man’s panting chest seemed
+to act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between
+Copper and Pinewood.
+
+As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among
+the officers’ tents:
+
+’E sent us ’is blessin’ from London town,
+    (The beggar that kep’ the cordite down,)
+But what do we care if ’e smile or frown,
+    The beggar that kep’ the cordite down?
+The mildly nefarious
+Wildly barbarious
+    Beggar that kept the cordite down!
+
+
+Said a captain a mile away: “Why are they singing _that?_ We haven’t
+had a mail for a month, have we?”
+
+An hour later the same captain said to his servant: “Jenkins, I
+understand the picket have got a—got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day.
+I wish you could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the _Times_, I
+think.”
+
+“Yes, Sir. Copy of the _Times_, Sir,” said Jenkins, without a quiver,
+and went forth to make his own arrangements.
+
+“Copy of the _Times_,” said the blameless Alf, from beneath his
+blanket. “I ain’t a member of the Soldier’s Institoot. Go an’ look in
+the reg’mental Readin’-room—Veldt Row, Kopje Street, second turnin’ to
+the left between ’ere an’ Naauwport.”
+
+Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper
+need not be.
+
+“But my particular copy of the _Times_ is specially pro’ibited by the
+censor from corruptin’ the morals of the Army. Get a written order from
+K. o’ K., properly countersigned, an’ I’ll think about it.”
+
+“I’ve got all _you_ want,” said Jenkins. “’Urry up. I want to ’ave a
+squint myself.”
+
+Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back
+smacking his lips.
+
+“Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. ’Ere you are,
+Jenkins. It’s dirt cheap at a tot.”
+
+
+
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+
+
+
+THE NECESSITARIAN
+
+
+I know not in whose hands are laid
+    To empty upon earth
+From unsuspected ambuscade
+    The very Urns of Mirth:
+
+Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
+    And cheer our solemn round—
+The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
+    And grovellings on the ground;
+
+Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
+    Behind the prey preferred,
+And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
+    The Sacredly Absurd,
+
+Till Laughter, voiceless through excess.
+    Waves mute appeal and sore,
+Above the midriff’s deep distress,
+    For breath to laugh once more.
+
+No creed hath dared to hail him Lord,
+    No raptured choirs proclaim,
+And Nature’s strenuous Overword
+    Hath nowhere breathed his name.
+
+Yet, may it be, on wayside jape,
+    The selfsame Power bestows
+The selfsame power as went to shape
+    His Planet or His Rose.
+
+
+
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+
+I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the
+narrow Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o’clock, they were
+both asleep.
+
+That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference
+to his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and
+specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces
+of superior coachmen. Then he pulled slantwise across me.
+
+There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could
+be applied at pleasure….
+
+The cart was removed about a bowshot’s length in seven and a quarter
+seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the
+next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the
+tail-board.
+
+My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.
+
+“The blighted egg-boiler has steam up,” said Mr. Hinchcliffe, pausing
+to gather a large stone. “Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the
+sights come on!”
+
+“I can’t leave my ’orse!” roared the carrier; “but bring ’em up ’ere,
+an’ I’ll kill ’em all over again.”
+
+“Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft,” I called cheerfully. “Can I give you a
+lift anywhere?”
+
+The attack broke up round my forewheels.
+
+“Well, we _do_ ’ave the knack o’ meeting _in puris naturalibus,_ as
+I’ve so often said.” Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. “Yes, I’m on leaf.
+So’s Hinch. We’re visiting friends among these kopjes.”
+
+A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was
+still calling for corpses.
+
+“That’s Agg. He’s Hinch’s cousin. You aren’t fortunit in your family
+connections, Hinch. ’E’s usin’ language in derogation of good manners.
+Go and abolish ’im.”
+
+Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his
+cousin. I recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the
+carrier’s. It seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid
+throes.
+
+“’Ave it your own silly way, then,” roared the carrier, “an’ get into
+Linghurst on your own silly feet. I’ve done with you two runagates.” He
+lashed his horse and passed out of sight still rumbling.
+
+“The fleet’s sailed,” said Pyecroft, “leavin’ us on the beach as
+before. Had you any particular port in your mind?”
+
+“Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don’t mind—”
+
+“Oh! that’ll do as well as anything! We’re on leaf, you see.”
+
+“She’ll hardly hold four,” said my engineer. I had broken him of the
+foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.
+
+Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he
+walked in narrowing circles.
+
+“What’s her speed?” he demanded of the engineer.
+
+“Twenty-five,” said that loyal man.
+
+“Easy to run?”
+
+“No; very difficult,” was the emphatic answer.
+
+“That just shows that you ain’t fit for your rating. D’you suppose that
+a man who earns his livin’ by runnin’ 30-knot destroyers for a
+parstime—for a parstime, mark you!—is going to lie down before any
+blighted land-crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?”
+
+Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked
+upward into pipes—petrol, steam, and water—with a keen and searching
+eye.
+
+I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.
+
+“Not—in—the—least,” was the answer. “Steam gadgets always take him that
+way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through his tryin’ to show
+a traction-engine haulin’ gipsy-wagons how to turn corners.”
+
+“Tell him everything he wants to know,” I said to the engineer, as I
+dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.
+
+“_He_ don’t want much showing,” said the engineer. Now, the two men had
+not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more
+than three minutes.
+
+“This,” said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure of
+the hedge-foot, “is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn’t let
+too much o’ that hot muckings drop in my eyes. Your leaf’s up in a
+fortnight, an’ you’ll be wantin’ ’em.”
+
+“Here!” said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. “Come
+here and show me the lead of this pipe.” And the engineer lay down
+beside him.
+
+“That’s all right,” said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. “But she’s more of a
+bag of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft”—he
+pointed to the back seat—“and I’ll have a look at the forced draught.”
+
+The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that
+he had a brother an artificer in the Navy.
+
+“They couple very well, those two,” said Pyecroft critically, while
+Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay
+jets of steam.
+
+“Now take me up the road,” he said. My man, for form’s sake, looked at
+me.
+
+“Yes, take him,” I said. “He’s all right.”
+
+“No, I’m not,” said Hinchcliffe of a sudden—“not if I’m expected to
+judge my water out of a little shaving-glass.”
+
+The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the
+right of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.
+
+“Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind
+how you steer while you’re doing it, or you’ll get ditched!” I cried,
+as the car ran down the road.
+
+“I wonder!” said Pyecroft, musing. “But, after all, it’s your steamin’
+gadgets he’s usin’ for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me
+after breakfast only this mornin’ ’ow he thanked his Maker, on all
+fours, that he wouldn’t see nor smell nor thumb a runnin’ bulgine till
+the nineteenth prox. Now look at him! Only look at ’im!”
+
+We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering
+his seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge
+to hedge.
+
+“What happens if he upsets?”
+
+“The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up.”
+
+“How rambunkshus! And”—Pyecroft blew a slow cloud—“Agg’s about three
+hoops up this mornin’, too.”
+
+“What’s that to do with us? He’s gone down the road,” I retorted.
+
+“Ye—es, but we’ll overtake him. He’s a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch
+’ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O’ course, Hinch don’t know
+the elements o’ that evolution; but he fell back on ’is naval rank an’
+office, an’ Agg grew peevish. I wasn’t sorry to get out of the cart …
+Have you ever considered how, when you an’ I meet, so to say, there’s
+nearly always a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the
+beef-boat returnin’!”
+
+He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: “In bow! Way
+’nuff!”
+
+“You be quiet!” cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his
+dark face shining with joy. “She’s the Poetry o’ Motion! She’s the
+Angel’s Dream. She’s———” He shut off steam, and the slope being against
+her, the car slid soberly downhill again.
+
+“What’s this? I’ve got the brake on!” he yelled.
+
+“It doesn’t hold backwards,” I said. “Put her on the mid-link.”
+
+“That’s a nasty one for the chief engineer o’ the _Djinn_, 31-knot,
+T.B.D.,” said Pyecroft. “_Do_ you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?”
+
+Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up
+the rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like
+speed she retired backwards into her own steam.
+
+“Apparently ’e don’t,” said Pyecroft. “What’s he done now, Sir?”
+
+“Reversed her. I’ve done it myself.”
+
+“But he’s an engineer.”
+
+For the third time the car manœuvred up the hill.
+
+“I’ll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you ’tiffies out
+all night!” shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation.
+Hinchcliffe’s face grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working
+on the throttle, the car buzzed twenty yards uphill.
+
+“That’s enough. We’ll take your word for it. The mountain will go to
+Ma’ommed. Stand _fast_!”
+
+Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed
+together.
+
+“Not as easy as it looks—eh, Hinch?”
+
+“It is dead easy. I’m going to drive her to Instead Wick—aren’t I?”
+said the first-class engine-room artificer. I thought of his
+performances with No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small
+privilege to accord to pure genius.
+
+“But my engineer will stand by—at first,” I added.
+
+“An’ you a family man, too,” muttered Pyecroft, swinging himself into
+the right rear seat. “Sure to be a remarkably hectic day when we meet.”
+
+We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor,
+paved our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.
+
+Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the
+engineer, and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had
+enjoyed the rack on which he voluntarily extended himself.
+
+And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.
+
+“How cautious is the ’tiffy-bird!” said Pyecroft.
+
+“Even in a destroyer,” Hinch snapped over his shoulder, “you ain’t
+expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don’t address any remarks to
+_me!_”
+
+“Pump!” said the engineer. “Your water’s droppin’.”
+
+“_I_ know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pass?”
+
+He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he
+found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting
+all else, twisted it furiously.
+
+My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching
+into a ditch.
+
+“If I was a burnin’ peacock, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my
+shinin’ tail, I’d need ’em all on this job!” said Hinch.
+
+“Don’t talk! Steer! This ain’t the North Atlantic,” Pyecroft replied.
+
+“Blast my stokers! Why, the steam’s dropped fifty pounds!” Hinchcliffe
+cried.
+
+“Fire’s blown out,” said the engineer. “Stop her!”
+
+“Does she do that often?” said Hinch, descending.
+
+“Sometimes.”
+
+“Anytime?”
+
+“Any time a cross-wind catches her.”
+
+The engineer produced a match and stooped.
+
+That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit
+twice in the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and
+Pyecroft went out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow
+flame.
+
+“I’ve seen a mine explode at Bantry—once—prematoor,” he volunteered.
+
+“That’s all right,” said Hinchcliffe, brushing down his singed beard
+with a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.) “Has she
+any more little surprises up her dainty sleeve?”
+
+“She hasn’t begun yet,” said my engineer, with a scornful cough. “Some
+one ’as opened the petrol-supply-valve too wide.”
+
+“Change places with me, Pyecroft,” I commanded, for I remembered that
+the petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all
+controlled from the right rear seat.
+
+“Me? Why? There’s a whole switchboard full o’ nickel-plated muckin’s
+which I haven’t begun to play with yet. The starboard side’s crawlin’
+with ’em.”
+
+“Change, or I’ll kill you!” said Hinchcliffe, and he looked like it.
+
+“That’s the ’tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame it on the
+lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! _I_ won’t help you
+any more.”
+
+We navigated for a mile in dead silence.
+
+“Talkin’ o’ wakes——” said Pyecroft suddenly.
+
+“We weren’t,” Hinchcliffe grunted.
+
+“There’s some wakes would break a snake’s back; but this of yours, so
+to speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That’s all I wish to
+observe, Hinch. … Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It’s Agg!”
+
+Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier’s
+cart at rest before the post-office.
+
+“He’s bung in the fairway. How’m I to get past?” said Hinchcliffe.
+“There’s no room. Here, Pye, come and relieve the wheel!”
+
+“Nay, nay, Pauline. You’ve made your own bed. You’ve as good as left
+your happy home an’ family cart to steal it. Now you lie on it.”
+
+“Ring your bell,” I suggested.
+
+“Glory!” said Pyecroft, falling forward into the nape of Hinchcliffe’s
+neck as the car stopped dead.
+
+“Get out o’ my back-hair! That must have been the brake I touched off,”
+Hinchcliffe muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.
+
+We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from
+the port-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered
+later that the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.
+
+Hinchcliffe wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the
+first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.
+
+“You needn’t grip so hard,” said my engineer. “She steers as easy as a
+bicycle.”
+
+“Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an’ down my engine-room?” was the
+answer. “I’ve other things to think about. She’s a terror. She’s a
+whistlin’ lunatic. I’d sooner run the old South-Easter at Simon’s Town
+than her!”
+
+“One of the nice things they say about her,” I interrupted, “is that no
+engineer is needed to run this machine.”
+
+“No. They’d need about seven.”
+
+“‘Common-sense only is needed,’” I quoted.
+
+“Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common-sense,” Pyecroft put in.
+
+“And now,” I said, “we’ll have to take in water. There isn’t more than
+a couple of inches of water in the tank.”
+
+“Where d’you get it from?”
+
+“Oh!—cottages and such-like.”
+
+“Yes, but that being so, where does your much-advertised twenty-five
+miles an hour come in? Ain’t a dung-cart more to the point?”
+
+“If you want to go anywhere, I suppose it would be,” I replied.
+
+“_I_ don’t want to go anywhere. I’m thinkin’ of you who’ve got to live
+with her. She’ll burn her tubes if she loses her water?”
+
+“She will.”
+
+“I’ve never scorched yet, and I not beginnin’ now.” He shut off steam
+firmly. “Out you get, Pye, an’ shove her along by hand.”
+
+“Where to?”
+
+“The nearest water-tank,” was the reply. “And Sussex is a dry county.”
+
+“She ought to have drag-ropes—little pipe-clayed ones,” said Pyecroft.
+
+We got out and pushed under the hot sun for half-a-mile till we came to
+a cottage, sparsely inhabited by one child who wept.
+
+“All out haymakin’, o’ course,” said Pyecroft, thrusting his head into
+the parlour for an instant. “What’s the evolution now?”
+
+“Skirmish till we find a well,” I said.
+
+“Hmm! But they wouldn’t ’ave left that kid without a chaperon, so to
+say… I thought so! Where’s a stick?”
+
+A bluish and silent beast of the true old sheep-dog breed glided from
+behind an outhouse and without words fell to work.
+
+Pyecroft kept him at bay with a rake-handle while our party, in
+rallying-square, retired along the box-bordered brick-path to the car.
+
+At the garden gate the dumb devil halted, looked back on the child, and
+sat down to scratch.
+
+“That’s his three-mile limit, thank Heaven!” said Pyecroft. “Fall in,
+push-party, and proceed with land-transport o’ pinnace. I’ll protect
+your flanks in case this sniffin’ flea-bag is tempted beyond ’is
+strength.”
+
+We pushed off in silence. The car weighed 1,200 lb., and even on
+ball-bearings was a powerful sudorific. From somewhere behind a hedge
+we heard a gross rustic laugh.
+
+“Those are the beggars we lie awake for, patrollin’ the high seas.
+There ain’t a port in China where we wouldn’t be better treated. Yes, a
+Boxer ’ud be ashamed of it,” said Pyecroft.
+
+A cloud of fine dust boomed down the road.
+
+“Some happy craft with a well-found engine-room! How different!” panted
+Hinchcliffe, bent over the starboard mudguard.
+
+It was a claret-coloured petrol car, and it stopped courteously, as
+good cars will at sight of trouble.
+
+“Water, only water,” I answered in reply to offers of help.
+
+“There’s a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They’ll give you all
+you want. Say I sent you. Gregory—Michael Gregory. Good-bye!”
+
+“Ought to ’ave been in the Service. Prob’ly is,” was Pyecroft’s
+comment.
+
+At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not
+quote Mr. Hinchcliffe’s remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber
+bucket with which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir
+Michael Gregory owned many acres, and that his park ran for miles.
+
+“No objection to your going through it,” said the lodge-keeper. “It’ll
+save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick.”
+
+But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few
+miles farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had
+decreed.
+
+“We’ve come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far,” said
+Hinchcliffe (he was driving with greater freedom and less
+responsibility), “and now we have to fill our bunkers. This is worse
+than the Channel Fleet.”
+
+At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and
+lavishly oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our
+engineer on the grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely
+abreast of his work. To this I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in
+the language of the road, held up for a day and a half, and by most
+bitter experience I suspected that her time was very near. Therefore,
+three miles short of Linghurst, I was less surprised than any one,
+excepting always my engineer, when the engines set up a lunatic
+clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.
+
+“Heaven forgive me all the harsh things I may have said about
+destroyers in my sinful time!” wailed Hinchcliffe, snapping back the
+throttle. “What’s worryin’ Ada now?”
+
+“The forward eccentric-strap screw’s dropped off,” said the engineer,
+investigating.
+
+“That all? I thought it was a propeller-blade.”
+
+“We must go an’ look for it. There isn’t another.”
+
+“Not me,” said Pyecroft from his seat. “Out pinnace, Hinch, an’ creep
+for it. It won’t be more than five miles back.”
+
+The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road.
+
+“Look like etymologists, don’t they? Does she decant her innards often,
+so to speak?” Pyecroft asked.
+
+I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four
+miles along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was
+profoundly touched.
+
+“Poor Hinch! Poor—poor Hinch!” he said. “And that’s only one of her
+little games, is it? He’ll be homesick for the Navy by night.”
+
+When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was
+Hinchcliffe who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my
+engineer looked on admiringly.
+
+“Your boiler’s only seated on four little paperclips,” he said,
+crawling from beneath her. “She’s a wicker-willow lunch-basket below.
+She’s a runnin’ miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp
+long?”
+
+I told him.
+
+“And yet you were afraid to come into the _Nightmare’s_ engine-room
+when we were runnin’ trials!”
+
+“It’s all a matter of taste,” Pyecroft volunteered. “But I will say for
+you, Hinch, you’ve certainly got the hang of her steamin’ gadgets in
+quick time.”
+
+He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and
+a tremor in his arm.
+
+“She don’t seem so answer her helm somehow,” he said.
+
+“There’s a lot of play to the steering-gear,” said my engineer. “We
+generally tighten it up every few miles.”
+
+“‘Like me to stop now? We’ve run as much as one mile and a half without
+incident,” he replied tartly.
+
+“Then you’re lucky,” said my engineer, bristling in turn.
+
+“They’ll wreck the whole turret out o’ nasty professional spite in a
+minute,” said Pyecroft. “That’s the worst o’ machinery. Man dead ahead,
+Hinch—semaphorin’ like the flagship in a fit!”
+
+“Amen!” said Hinchcliffe. “Shall I stop, or shall I cut him down?”
+
+He stopped, for full in the centre of the Linghurst Road stood a person
+in pepper-and-salt raiment (ready-made), with a brown telegraph
+envelope in his hands.
+
+“Twenty-three and a half miles an hour,” he began, weighing a small
+beam-engine of a Waterbury in one red paw. “From the top of the hill
+over our measured quarter-mile—twenty-three and a half.”
+
+“You manurial gardener——” Hinchcliffe began. I prodded him warningly
+from behind, and laid the other hand on Pyecroft’s stiffening knee.
+
+“Also—on information received—drunk and disorderly in charge of a
+motor-car—to the common danger—two men like sailors in appearance,” the
+man went on.
+
+“Like sailors! … That’s Agg’s little _roose_. No wonder he smiled at
+us,” said Pyecroft.
+
+“I’ve been waiting for you some time,” the man concluded, folding up
+the telegram.
+
+“Who’s the owner?”
+
+I indicated myself.
+
+“Then I want you as well as the two seafaring men. Drunk and disorderly
+can be treated summary. You come on.”
+
+My relations with the Sussex constabulary have, so far, been of the
+best, but I could not love this person.
+
+“Of course you have your authority to show?” I hinted.
+
+“I’ll show it you at Linghurst,” he retorted hotly——“all the authority
+you want.”
+
+“I only want the badge, or warrant, or whatever it is a plain-clothes
+man has to show.”
+
+He made as though to produce it, but checked himself, repeating less
+politely the invitation to Linghurst. The action and the tone confirmed
+my many-times tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing
+institutions are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious
+inaccuracy. I reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of
+the front seat that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping
+with his knuckles. The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe’s brow had
+given place to a greasy imbecility, and he nodded over the
+steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as laid down by the pious and
+immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, “Sham drunk. Get him in the
+car.”
+
+“I can’t stay here all day,” said the constable.
+
+Pyecroft raised his head. Then was seen with what majesty the British
+sailor-man envisages a new situation.
+
+“Met gennelman heavy sheeway,” said he. “Do tell me British gelman
+can’t give ’ole Brish Navy lif’ own blighted ste’ cart. Have another
+drink!”
+
+“I didn’t know they were as drunk as all that when they stopped me,” I
+explained.
+
+“You can say all that at Linghurst,” was the answer. “Come on.”
+
+“Quite right,” I said. “But the question is, if you take these two out
+on the road, they’ll fall down or start killing you.”
+
+“Then I’d call on you to assist me in the execution o’ my duty.”
+
+“But I’d see you further first. You’d better come with us in the car.
+I’ll turn this passenger out.” (This was my engineer, sitting quite
+silent.) “You don’t want him, and, anyhow, he’d only be a witness for
+the defence.”
+
+“That’s true,” said the constable. “But it wouldn’t make any odds—at
+Linghurst.”
+
+My engineer skipped into the bracken like a rabbit. I bade him cut
+across Sir Michael Gregory’s park, and if he caught my friend, to tell
+him I should probably be rather late for lunch.
+
+“I ain’t going to be driven by _him_.” Our destined prey pointed at
+Hinchcliffe with apprehension.
+
+“Of course not. You take my seat and keep the big sailor in order. He’s
+too drunk to do much. I’ll change places with the other one. Only be
+quick; I want to pay my fine and get it over.”
+
+“That’s the way to look at it,” he said, dropping into the left rear
+seat. “We’re making quite a lot out o’ you motor gentry.” He folded his
+arms judicially as the car gathered way under Hinchcliffe’s stealthy
+hand.
+
+“But _you_ aren’t driving?” he cried, half rising.
+
+“You’ve noticed it?” said Pyecroft, and embraced him with one
+anaconda-like left arm.
+
+“Don’t kill him,” said Hinchcliffe briefly. “I want to show him what
+twenty-three and a quarter is.” We were going a fair twelve, which was
+about the car’s limit.
+
+Our passenger swore something and then groaned.
+
+“Hush, darling!” said Pyecroft, “or I’ll have to hug you.”
+
+The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running
+north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.
+
+“And now,” said I, “I want to see your authority.”
+
+“The badge of your ratin’?” Pyecroft added.
+
+“I’m a constable,” he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have
+bewrayed him across half a county’s plough; but boots are not legal
+evidence.
+
+“I want your authority,” I repeated coldly; “some evidence that you are
+not a common drunken tramp.”
+
+It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had
+neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money
+and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite
+trouble to supplement his deficiencies.
+
+“If you don’t believe me, come to Linghurst,” was the burden of his
+almost national anthem.
+
+“But I can’t run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up and
+says he is a policeman.”
+
+“Why, it’s quite close,” he persisted.
+
+“’Twon’t be—soon,” said Hinchcliffe.
+
+“None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, _they_ was
+gentlemen,” he cried. “All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it
+ain’t fair.”
+
+I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten
+his badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub
+or barracks where he had left it.
+
+Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.
+
+“If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn’t expect much more,” he
+observed. “Now, suppose I’d been a lady in a delicate state o’
+health—you’d ha’ made me very ill with your doings.”
+
+“I wish I ’ad. ’Ere! ’Elp! ’Elp! Hi!”
+
+The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane
+ran into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked
+her up that lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable
+came running heavily.
+
+It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform
+smiled as we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.
+
+“You’ll know all about it in a little time,” said our guest. “You’ve
+only yourselves to thank for runnin’ your ’ead into a trap.” And he
+whistled ostentatiously.
+
+We made no answer.
+
+“If that man ’ad chose, ’e could have identified me,” he said.
+
+Still we were silent.
+
+“But ’e’ll do it later, when you’re caught.”
+
+“Not if you go on talking. ’E won’t be able to,” said Pyecroft. “I
+don’t know what traverse you think you’re workin’, but your duty till
+you’re put in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an’
+cherish _me_ most special—performin’ all evolutions signalled in rapid
+time. I tell you this, in case o’ anything turnin’ up.”
+
+“Don’t you fret about things turnin’ up,” was the reply.
+
+Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set
+to work, when, without warning, the road—there are two or three in
+Sussex like it—turned down and ceased.
+
+“Holy Muckins!” he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless
+tyres slithered over wet grass and bracken—down and down into
+forest—early British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and
+that all should fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred
+our way. On the far side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits
+and fern, gently sloped upwards and away, but behind us was no hope.
+Forty horse-power would never have rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that
+verdurous cliff we had descended.
+
+“H’m!” Our guest coughed significantly. “A great many cars thinks they
+can take this road; but they all come back. We walks after ’em at our
+convenience.”
+
+“Meanin’ that the other jaunty is now pursuin’ us on his lily feet?”
+said Pyecroft.
+
+“_Pre_cisely.”
+
+“An’ you think,” said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of
+the words), “_that’ll_ make any odds? Get out!”
+
+The man obeyed with alacrity.
+
+“See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing.
+Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at
+the double.”
+
+And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a
+perfect understanding.
+
+There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down stream, laid aside after
+sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in the brook. Hinchcliffe
+rearranged these last to make some sort of causeway; I brought up the
+hurdles; and when Pyecroft and his subaltern had dropped a dozen
+hop-poles across the stream, laid them down over all.
+
+“Talk o’ the Agricultur’l Hall!” he said, mopping his brow—“’tisn’t in
+it with us. The approach to the bridge must now be paved with hurdles,
+owin’ to the squashy nature o’ the country. Yes, an’ we’d better have
+one or two on the far side to lead her on to _terror fermior_. Now,
+Hinch! Give her full steam and ’op along. If she slips off, we’re done.
+Shall I take the wheel?”
+
+“No. This is my job,” said the first-class engine-room artificer. “Get
+over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the
+uphill.”
+
+We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken.
+Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her
+trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our
+arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing
+her madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite.
+Of the bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those
+hurdles which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.
+
+“She—she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished with
+’em,” Hinchcliffe panted.
+
+“At the Agricultural Hall they would ’ave been fastened down with
+ribbons,” said Pyecroft. “But this ain’t Olympia.”
+
+“She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don’t you think I
+conned her like a cock-angel, Pye?”
+
+“_I_ never saw anything like it,” said our guest propitiatingly. “And
+now, gentlemen, if you’ll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you
+you won’t hear another word from me.”
+
+“Get in,” said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once
+more. “We ’aven’t begun on _you_ yet.”
+
+“A joke’s a joke,” he replied. “I don’t mind a little bit of a joke
+myself, but this is going beyond it.”
+
+“Miles an’ miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We’ll want water
+pretty soon.”
+
+Our guest’s countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.
+
+“Let me tell you,” he said earnestly, “It won’t make any difference to
+you whatever happens. Barrin’ a dhow or two Tajurrah-way, prizes are
+scarce in the Navy. Hence we never abandon ’em.”
+
+There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.
+
+“Robert,” he said, “have you a mother?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Have you a big brother?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“An’ a little sister?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?”
+
+“Yes. Why?”
+
+“All right, Robert. I won’t forget it.”
+
+I looked for an explanation.
+
+“I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o’
+that cottage before faithful Fido turned up,” Pyecroft whispered.
+“Ain’t you glad it’s all in the family somehow?”
+
+We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard’s Forest,
+and, despite our increasing leakage, made shift to climb the ridge
+above Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final
+collapse would not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our
+guest well into the wilderness before that came.
+
+On the roof of the world—a naked plateau clothed with young heather—she
+retired from active life in floods of tears. Her feed-water-heater
+(Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was leaking
+beyond hope of repair; she had shifted most of her packing, and her
+water-pump would not lift.
+
+“If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case
+an’ feed direct into the boiler. It ’ud knock down her speed, but we
+could get on,” said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges
+that hove us above the panorama of Sussex. Northward we could see the
+London haze. Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the
+Channel’s zinc-blue. But all our available population in that vast
+survey was one cow and a kestrel.
+
+“It’s down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by gravity,” I
+said at last.
+
+“Then he’ll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we
+take off ’is boots first,” Pyecroft replied.
+
+“That,” said our guest earnestly, “would be theft atop of assault and
+very serious.”
+
+“Oh, let’s hang him an’ be done,” Hinchcliffe grunted. “It’s evidently
+what he’s sufferin’ for.”
+
+Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to
+smoke in the heather, and presently out of the valley below came the
+thick beat of a petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it
+till I heard the roar of a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home
+Counties.
+
+“That’s the man I was going to lunch with!” I cried. “Hold on!” and I
+ran down the road.
+
+It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod;
+and it bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my
+own man, who for the first time in our acquaintance smiled.
+
+“Did they get you? What did you get? I was coming into Linghurst as
+witness to character—your man told me what happened—but I was stopped
+near Instead Wick myself,” cried Kysh.
+
+“What for?”
+
+“Leaving car unattended. An infernal swindle, when you think of the
+loose carts outside every pub in the county. I was jawing with the
+police for an hour, but it’s no use. They’ve got it all their own way,
+and we’re helpless.”
+
+Hereupon I told him my tale, and for proof, as we topped the hill,
+pointed out the little group round my car.
+
+All supreme emotion is dumb. Kysh put on the brake and hugged me to his
+bosom till I groaned. Then, as I remember, he crooned like a mother
+returned to her suckling.
+
+“Divine! Divine!” he murmured. “Command me.”
+
+“Take charge of the situation,” I said. “You’ll find a Mr. Pyecroft on
+the quarter-deck. I’m altogether out of it.”
+
+“He shall stay there. Who am I but the instrument of vengeance in the
+hands of an over-ruling Providence? (And I put in fresh sparking-plugs
+this morning.) Salmon, take that steam-kettle home, somehow. I would be
+alone.”
+
+“Leggat,” I said to my man, “help Salmon home with my car.”
+
+“Home? Now? It’s hard. It’s cruel hard,” said Leggat, almost with a
+sob.
+
+Hinchcliffe outlined my car’s condition briefly to the two engineers.
+Mr. Pyecroft clung to our guest, who stared with affrighted eyes at the
+palpitating Octopod; and the free wind of high Sussex whimpered across
+the ling.
+
+“I am quite agreeable to walkin’ ’ome all the way on my feet,” said our
+guest. “I wouldn’t go to any railway station. It ’ud be just the proper
+finish to our little joke.” He laughed nervously.
+
+“What’s the evolution?” said Pyecroft. “Do we turn over to the new
+cruiser?”
+
+I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I
+was in, he sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which
+controls the door. Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh.
+
+“You drive?” Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his chequered
+way through the world.
+
+“Steam only, and I’ve about had my whack for to-day, thanks.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+The long, low car slid forward and then dropped like a bullet down the
+descent our steam toy had so painfully climbed. Our guest’s face
+blanched, and he clutched the back of the tonneau.
+
+“New commander’s evidently been trained on a destroyer,” said
+Hinchcliffe.
+
+“What’s ’is wonderful name?” whispered Pyecroft. “Ho! Well, I’m glad it
+ain’t Saul we’ve run up against—nor Nimshi, for that matter. This is
+makin’ me feel religious.”
+
+Our impetus carried us half-way up the next slope, where we steadied to
+a resonant fifteen an hour against the collar.
+
+“What do you think?” I called to Hinchcliffe.
+
+“’Taint as sweet as steam, o’ course; but for power it’s twice the
+_Furious_ against half the _Jaseur_ in a head-sea.”
+
+Volumes could not have touched it more exactly. His bright eyes were
+glued on Kysh’s hands juggling with levers behind the discreet backward
+sloping dash.
+
+“An’ what sort of a brake might you use?” he said politely.
+
+“This,” Kysh replied, as the last of the hill shot up to one in eight.
+He let the car run back a few feet and caught her deftly on the brake,
+repeating the performance cup and ball fashion. It was like being daped
+above the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft
+held his breath.
+
+“It ain’t fair! It ain’t fair!” our guest moaned. “You’re makin’ me
+sick.”
+
+“What an ungrateful blighter he is!” said Pyecroft. “Money couldn’t buy
+you a run like this … Do it well overboard!”
+
+“We’ll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I think,”
+said Kysh. “There’s a bit of good going hereabouts.”
+
+He flung a careless knee over the low raking tiller that the ordinary
+expert puts under his armpit, and down four miles of yellow road, cut
+through barren waste, the Octopod sang like a six-inch shell.
+
+“Whew! But you know your job,” said Hinchcliffe. “You’re wasted here.
+I’d give something to have you in my engine-room.”
+
+“He’s steering with ’is little hind-legs,” said Pyecroft. “Stand up and
+look at him, Robert. You’ll never see such a sight again!”
+
+“Nor don’t want to,” was our guest’s reply. “Five ’undred pounds
+wouldn’t begin to cover ’is fines even since I’ve been with him.”
+
+Park Row is reached by one hill which drops three hundred feet in half
+a mile. Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but
+the manner in which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my
+few remaining hairs much nearer the grave.
+
+“We’re in Surrey now; better look out,” I said.
+
+“Never mind. I’ll roll her into Kent for a bit. We’ve lots of time;
+it’s only three o’clock.”
+
+“Won’t you want to fill your bunkers, or take water, or oil her up?”
+said Hinchcliffe.
+
+“We don’t use water, and she’s good for two hundred on one tank o’
+petrol if she doesn’t break down.”
+
+“Two hundred miles from ’ome and mother _and_ faithful Fido to-night,
+Robert,” said Pyecroft, slapping our guest on the knee. “Cheer up! Why,
+I’ve known a destroyer do less.”
+
+We passed with some decency through some towns, till by way of the
+Hastings road we whirled into Cramberhurst, which is a deep pit.
+
+“Now,” said Kysh, “we begin.”
+
+“Previous service not reckoned towards pension,” said Pyecroft. “We are
+doin’ you lavish, Robert.”
+
+“But when’s this silly game to finish, any’ow?” our guest snarled.
+
+“Don’t worry about the _when_ of it, Robert. The _where’s_ the
+interestin’ point for you just now.”
+
+I had seen Kysh drive before, and I thought I knew the Octopod, but
+that afternoon he and she were exalted beyond my knowledge. He
+improvised on the keys—the snapping levers and quivering
+accelerators—marvellous variations, so that our progress was sometimes
+a fugue and sometimes a barn-dance, varied on open greens by the
+weaving of fairy rings. When I protested, all that he would say was:
+“I’ll hypnotise the fowl! I’ll dazzle the rooster!” or other words
+equally futile. And she—oh! that I could do her justice!—she turned her
+broad black bows to the westering light, and lifted us high upon hills
+that we might see and rejoice with her. She whooped into veiled hollows
+of elm and Sussex oak; she devoured infinite perspectives of park
+palings; she surged through forgotten hamlets, whose single streets
+gave back, reduplicated, the clatter of her exhaust, and, tireless, she
+repeated the motions. Over naked uplands she droned like a homing bee,
+her shadow lengthening in the sun that she chased to his lair. She
+nosed up unparochial byways and accommodation-roads of the least
+accommodation, and put old scarred turf or new-raised molehills under
+her most marvellous springs with never a jar. And since the King’s
+highway is used for every purpose save traffic, in mid-career she
+stepped aside for, or flung amazing loops about, the brainless driver,
+the driverless horse, the drunken carrier, the engaged couple, the
+female student of the bicycle and her staggering instructor, the pig,
+the perambulator, and the infant school (where it disembogued yelping
+on cross-roads), with the grace of Nellie Farren (upon whom be the
+Peace) and the lithe abandon of all the Vokes family. But at heart she
+was ever Judic as I remember that Judic long ago—Judic clad in
+bourgeois black from wrist to ankle, achieving incredible
+improprieties.
+
+We were silent—Hinchcliffe and Pyecroft through professional
+appreciation; I with a layman’s delight in the expert; and our guest
+because of fear.
+
+At the edge of the evening she smelt the sea to southward and sheered
+thither like the strong-winged albatross, to circle enormously amid
+green flats fringed by martello towers.
+
+“Ain’t that Eastbourne yonder?” said our guest, reviving. “I’ve a aunt
+there—she’s cook to a J.P.—could identify me.”
+
+“Don’t worry her for a little thing like that,” said Pyecroft; and ere
+he had ceased to praise family love, our unpaid judiciary, and domestic
+service, the Downs rose between us and the sea, and the Long Man of
+Hillingdon lay out upon the turf.
+
+“Trevington—up yonder—is a fairly isolated little dorp,” I said, for I
+was beginning to feel hungry.
+
+“No,” said Kysh. “He’d get a lift to the railway in no time…. Besides,
+I’m enjoying myself…. Three pounds eighteen and sixpence. Infernal
+swindle!”
+
+I take it one of his more recent fines was rankling in Kysh’s brain;
+but he drove like the Archangel of the Twilight.
+
+About the longitude of Cassocks, Hinchcliffe yawned. “Aren’t we goin’
+to maroon our Robert? I’m hungry, too.”
+
+“The commodore wants his money back,” I answered.
+
+“If he drives like this habitual, there must be a tidyish little lump
+owin’ to him,” said Pyecroft. “Well, I’m agreeable.”
+
+“I didn’t know it could be done. S’welp me, I didn’t,” our guest
+murmured.
+
+“But you will,” said Kysh. And that was the first and last time he
+addressed the man.
+
+We ran through Penfield Green, half stupefied with open air, drugged
+with the relentless boom of the Octopod, and extinct with famine.
+
+“I used to shoot about here,” said Kysh, a few miles further on. “Open
+that gate, please,” and he slowed as the sun touched the sky-line. At
+this point we left metalled roads and bucked vigorously amid ditches
+and under trees for twenty minutes.
+
+“Only cross-country car on the market,” he said, as we wheeled into a
+straw-yard where a lone bull bellowed defiance to our growlings. “Open
+that gate, please. I hope the cattle-bridge will stand up.”
+
+“I’ve took a few risks in my time,” said Pyecroft as timbers cracked
+beneath us and we entered between thickets, “but I’m a babe to this
+man, Hinch.”
+
+“Don’t talk to me. Watch _him!_ It’s a liberal education, as
+Shakespeare says. Fallen tree on the port bow, Sir.”
+
+“Right! That’s my mark. Sit tight!”
+
+She flung up her tail like a sounding whale and buried us in a
+fifteen-foot deep bridle-path buttressed with the exposed roots of
+enormous beeches. The wheels leaped from root to rounded boulder, and
+it was very dark in the shadow of the foliage.
+
+“There ought to be a hammer-pond somewhere about here.” Kysh was
+letting her down this chute in brakeful spasms.
+
+“Water dead ahead, Sir. Stack o’ brushwood on the starboard beam,
+and—no road,” sang Pyecroft.
+
+“Cr-r-ri-key!” said Hinchcliffe, as the car on a wild cant to the left
+went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung
+the pond. “If she only had two propellers, I believe she’d talk poetry.
+She can do everything else.”
+
+“We’re rather on our port wheels now,” said Kysh; “but I don’t think
+she’ll capsize. This road isn’t used much by motors.”
+
+“You don’t say so,” said Pyecroft. “What a pity!”
+
+She bored through a mass of crackling brushwood, and emerged into an
+upward sloping fern-glade fenced with woods so virgin, so untouched,
+that William Rufus might have ridden off as we entered. We climbed out
+of the violet-purple shadows towards the upland where the last of the
+day lingered. I was filled to my moist eyes with the almost sacred
+beauty of sense and association that clad the landscape.
+
+“Does ’unger produce ’alluciations?” said Pyecroft in a whisper.
+“Because I’ve just seen a sacred ibis walkin’ arm in arm with a British
+cock-pheasant.”
+
+“What are you panickin’ at?” said Hinchcliffe. “I’ve been seein’ zebra
+for the last two minutes, but I ’aven’t complained.”
+
+He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted zebra (Burchell’s,
+I think), following our track with palpitating nostrils. The car
+stopped, and it fled away.
+
+There was a little pond in front of us from which rose a dome of
+irregular sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled beast that sat upon its
+haunches.
+
+“Is it catching?” said Pyecroft.
+
+“Yes. I’m seeing beaver,” I replied.
+
+“It is here!” said Kysh, with the air and gesture of Captain Nemo, and
+half turned.
+
+“No—no—no! For ’Eaven’s sake—not ’ere!” Our guest gasped like a
+sea-bathed child, as four efficient hands swung him far out-board on to
+the turf. The car ran back noiselessly down the slope.
+
+“Look! Look! It’s sorcery!” cried Hinchcliffe.
+
+There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver dived from the roof
+of his lodge, but we watched our guest. He was on his knees, praying to
+kangaroos. Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos—gigantic,
+erect, silhouetted against the light—four buck-kangaroos in the heart
+of Sussex!
+
+And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our hind-wheels struck
+well-rolled gravel, leading us to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour
+later, the “Grapnel Inn” at Horsham.
+
+
+After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings in
+honour of Kysh, who received our homage graciously, and, by the way,
+explained a few things in the natural history line that had puzzled us.
+England is a most marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows
+the eccentricities of large land-owners, trained to accept kangaroos,
+zebras, or beavers as part of its landscape.
+
+When we went to bed Pyecroft pressed my hand, his voice thick with
+emotion.
+
+“We owe it to you,” he said. “We owe it all to you. Didn’t I say we
+never met in _pup-pup-puris naturalibus_, if I may so put it, without a
+remarkably hectic day ahead of us?”
+
+“That’s all right,” I said. “Mind the candle.” He was tracing
+smoke-patterns on the wall.
+
+“But what I want to know is whether we’ll succeed in acclimatisin’ the
+blighter, or whether Sir William Gardner’s keepers ’ll kill ’im before
+’e gets accustomed to ’is surroundin’s?”
+
+Some day, I think, we must go up the Linghurst Road and find out.
+
+
+
+
+“WIRELESS”
+
+
+
+
+KASPAR’S SONG IN VARDA
+
+
+(_From the Swedish of Stagnelius_.)
+
+
+    Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
+    The children follow where Psyche flies,
+And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
+    Slash with a net at the empty skies.
+
+So it goes they fall amid brambles,
+    And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
+Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles
+    They wipe their brows, and the hunting stops.
+
+Then to quiet them comes their father
+    And stills the riot of pain and grief,
+Saying, “Little ones, go and gather
+    Out of my garden a cabbage leaf.
+
+“You will find on it whorls and clots of
+    Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
+Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
+    Radiant Psyches raised from the dead.”
+
+
+“Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,”
+    The three-dimensioned preacher saith,
+So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie
+    For Psyche’s birth … And that is our death!
+
+
+
+
+“WIRELESS”
+
+
+“It’s a funny thing, this Marconi business, isn’t it?” said Mr.
+Shaynor, coughing heavily. “Nothing seems to make any difference, by
+what they tell me—storms, hills, or anything; but if that’s true we
+shall know before morning.”
+
+“Of course it’s true,” I answered, stepping behind the counter.
+“Where’s old Mr. Cashell?”
+
+“He’s had to go to bed on account of his influenza. He said you’d very
+likely drop in.”
+
+“Where’s his nephew?”
+
+“Inside, getting the things ready. He told me that the last time they
+experimented they put the pole on the roof of one of the big hotels
+here, and the batteries electrified all the water-supply, and”—he
+giggled—“the ladies got shocks when they took their baths.”
+
+“I never heard of that.”
+
+“The hotel wouldn’t exactly advertise it, would it? Just now, by what
+Mr. Cashell tells me, they’re trying to signal from here to Poole, and
+they’re using stronger batteries than ever. But, you see, he being the
+guvnor’s nephew and all that (and it will be in the papers too), it
+doesn’t matter how they electrify things in this house. Are you going
+to watch?”
+
+“Very much. I’ve never seen this game. Aren’t you going to bed?”
+
+“We don’t close till ten on Saturdays. There’s a good deal of influenza
+in town, too, and there’ll be a dozen prescriptions coming in before
+morning. I generally sleep in the chair here. It’s warmer than jumping
+out of bed every time. Bitter cold, isn’t it?”
+
+“Freezing hard. I’m sorry your cough’s worse.”
+
+“Thank you. I don’t mind cold so much. It’s this wind that fair cuts me
+to pieces.” He coughed again hard and hackingly, as an old lady came in
+for ammoniated quinine. “We’ve just run out of it in bottles, madam,”
+said Mr. Shaynor, returning to the professional tone, “but if you will
+wait two minutes, I’ll make it up for you, madam.”
+
+I had used the shop for some time, and my acquaintance with the
+proprietor had ripened into friendship. It was Mr. Cashell who revealed
+to me the purpose and power of Apothecaries’ Hall what time a
+fellow-chemist had made an error in a prescription of mine, had lied to
+cover his sloth, and when error and lie were brought home to him had
+written vain letters.
+
+“A disgrace to our profession,” said the thin, mild-eyed man, hotly,
+after studying the evidence. “You couldn’t do a better service to the
+profession than report him to Apothecaries’ Hall.”
+
+I did so, not knowing what djinns I should evoke; and the result was
+such an apology as one might make who had spent a night on the rack. I
+conceived great respect for Apothecaries’ Hall, and esteem for Mr.
+Cashell, a zealous craftsman who magnified his calling. Until Mr.
+Shaynor came down from the North his assistants had by no means agreed
+with Mr. Cashell. “They forget,” said he, “that, first and foremost,
+the compounder is a medicine-man. On him depends the physician’s
+reputation. He holds it literally in the hollow of his hand, Sir.”
+
+Mr. Shaynor’s manners had not, perhaps, the polish of the grocery and
+Italian warehouse next door, but he knew and loved his dispensary work
+in every detail. For relaxation he seemed to go no farther afield than
+the romance of drugs—their discovery, preparation packing, and
+export—but it led him to the ends of the earth, and on this subject,
+and the Pharmaceutical Formulary, and Nicholas Culpepper, most
+confident of physicians, we met.
+
+Little by little I grew to know something of his beginnings and his
+hopes—of his mother, who had been a school-teacher in one of the
+northern counties, and of his red-headed father, a small job-master at
+Kirby Moors, who died when he was a child; of the examinations he had
+passed and of their exceeding and increasing difficulty; of his dreams
+of a shop in London; of his hate for the price-cutting Co-operative
+stores; and, most interesting, of his mental attitude towards
+customers.
+
+“There’s a way you get into,” he told me, “of serving them carefully,
+and I hope, politely, without stopping your own thinking. I’ve been
+reading Christie’s _New Commercial Plants_ all this autumn, and that
+needs keeping your mind on it, I can tell you. So long as it isn’t a
+prescription, of course, I can carry as much as half a page of Christie
+in my head, and at the same time I could sell out all that window twice
+over, and not a penny wrong at the end. As to prescriptions, I think I
+could make up the general run of ’em in my sleep, almost.”
+
+For reasons of my own, I was deeply interested in Marconi experiments
+at their outset in England; and it was of a piece with Mr. Cashell’s
+unvarying thoughtfulness that, when his nephew the electrician
+appropriated the house for a long-range installation, he should, as I
+have said, invite me to see the result.
+
+The old lady went away with her medicine, and Mr. Shaynor and I stamped
+on the tiled floor behind the counter to keep ourselves warm. The shop,
+by the light of the many electrics, looked like a Paris-diamond mine,
+for Mr. Cashell believed in all the ritual of his craft. Three superb
+glass jars—red, green, and blue—of the sort that led Rosamund to
+parting with her shoes—blazed in the broad plate-glass windows, and
+there was a confused smell of orris, Kodak films, vulcanite,
+tooth-powder, sachets, and almond-cream in the air. Mr. Shaynor fed the
+dispensary stove, and we sucked cayenne-pepper jujubes and menthol
+lozenges. The brutal east wind had cleared the streets, and the few
+passers-by were muffled to their puckered eyes. In the Italian
+warehouse next door some gay feathered birds and game, hung upon hooks,
+sagged to the wind across the left edge of our window-frame.
+
+“They ought to take these poultry in—all knocked about like that,” said
+Mr. Shaynor. “Doesn’t it make you feel fair perishing? See that old
+hare! The wind’s nearly blowing the fur off him.”
+
+I saw the belly-fur of the dead beast blown apart in ridges and streaks
+as the wind caught it, showing bluish skin underneath. “Bitter cold,”
+said Mr. Shaynor, shuddering. “Fancy going out on a night like this!
+Oh, here’s young Mr. Cashell.”
+
+The door of the inner office behind the dispensary opened, and an
+energetic, spade-bearded man stepped forth, rubbing his hands.
+
+“I want a bit of tin-foil, Shaynor,” he said. “Good-evening. My uncle
+told me you might be coming.” This to me, as I began the first of a
+hundred questions.
+
+“I’ve everything in order,” he replied. “We’re only waiting until Poole
+calls us up. Excuse me a minute. You can come in whenever you like—but
+I’d better be with the instruments. Give me that tin-foil. Thanks.”
+
+While we were talking, a girl—evidently no customer—had come into the
+shop, and the face and bearing of Mr. Shaynor changed. She leaned
+confidently across the counter.
+
+“But I can’t,” I heard him whisper uneasily—the flush on his cheek was
+dull red, and his eyes shone like a drugged moth’s. “I can’t. I tell
+you I’m alone in the place.”
+
+“No, you aren’t. Who’s _that_? Let him look after it for half an hour.
+A brisk walk will do you good. Ah, come now, John.”
+
+“But he isn’t——”
+
+“I don’t care. I want you to; we’ll only go round by St. Agnes. If you
+don’t——”
+
+He crossed to where I stood in the shadow of the dispensary counter,
+and began some sort of broken apology about a lady-friend.
+
+“Yes,” she interrupted. “You take the shop for half an hour—to oblige
+_me_, won’t you?”
+
+She had a singularly rich and promising voice that well matched her
+outline.
+
+“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it—but you’d better wrap yourself up, Mr.
+Shaynor.”
+
+“Oh, a brisk walk ought to help me. We’re only going round by the
+church.” I heard him cough grievously as they went out together.
+
+I refilled the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell’s
+coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the
+glass-knobbed drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting
+drugs, and, by the aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger,
+chloric-ether, and dilute alcohol, manufactured a new and wildish
+drink, of which I bore a glassful to young Mr. Cashell, busy in the
+back office. He laughed shortly when I told him that Mr. Shaynor had
+stepped out—but a frail coil of wire held all his attention, and he had
+no word for me bewildered among the batteries and rods. The noise of
+the sea on the beach began to make itself heard as the traffic in the
+street ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly, he gave me the names and
+uses of the mechanism that crowded the tables and the floor.
+
+“When do you expect to get the message from Poole?” I demanded, sipping
+my liquor out of a graduated glass.
+
+“About midnight, if everything is in order. We’ve got our
+installation-pole fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn’t advise
+you to turn on a tap or anything tonight. We’ve connected up with the
+plumbing, and all the water will be electrified.” He repeated to me the
+history of the agitated ladies at the hotel at the time of the first
+installation.
+
+“But what _is_ it?” I asked. “Electricity is out of my beat
+altogether.”
+
+“Ah, if you knew _that_ you’d know something nobody knows. It’s just
+It—what we call Electricity, but the magic—the manifestations—the
+Hertzian waves—are all revealed by _this_. The coherer, we call it.”
+
+He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in
+which, almost touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an
+infinitesimal pinch of metallic dust. “That’s all,” he said, proudly,
+as though himself responsible for the wonder. “That is the thing that
+will reveal to us the Powers—whatever the Powers may be—at work—through
+space—a long distance away.”
+
+Just then Mr. Shaynor returned alone and stood coughing his heart out
+on the mat.
+
+“Serves you right for being such a fool,” said young Mr. Cashell, as
+annoyed as myself at the interruption. “Never mind—we’ve all the night
+before us to see wonders.”
+
+Shaynor clutched the counter, his handkerchief to his lips. When he
+brought it away I saw two bright red stains.
+
+“I—I’ve got a bit of a rasped throat from smoking cigarettes,” he
+panted. “I think I’ll try a cubeb.”
+
+“Better take some of this. I’ve been compounding while you’ve been
+away.” I handed him the brew.
+
+“’Twon’t make me drunk, will it? I’m almost a teetotaller. My word!
+That’s grateful and comforting.”
+
+He sat down the empty glass to cough afresh.
+
+“Brr! But it was cold out there! I shouldn’t care to be lying in my
+grave a night like this. Don’t _you_ ever have a sore throat from
+smoking?” He pocketed the handkerchief after a furtive peep.
+
+“Oh, yes, sometimes,” I replied, wondering, while I spoke, into what
+agonies of terror I should fall if ever I saw those bright-red
+danger-signals under my nose. Young Mr. Cashell among the batteries
+coughed slightly to show that he was quite ready to continue his
+scientific explanations, but I was thinking still of the girl with the
+rich voice and the significantly cut mouth, at whose command I had
+taken charge of the shop. It flashed across me that she distantly
+resembled the seductive shape on a gold-framed toilet-water
+advertisement whose charms were unholily heightened by the glare from
+the red bottle in the window. Turning to make sure, I saw Mr. Shaynor’s
+eyes bent in the same direction, and by instinct recognised that the
+flamboyant thing was to him a shrine. “What do you take for
+your—cough?” I asked.
+
+“Well, I’m the wrong side of the counter to believe much in patent
+medicines. But there are asthma cigarettes and there are pastilles. To
+tell you the truth, if you don’t object to the smell, which is very
+like incense, I believe, though I’m not a Roman Catholic, Blaudett’s
+Cathedral Pastilles relieve me as much as anything.”
+
+“Let’s try.” I had never raided a chemist’s shop before, so I was
+thorough. We unearthed the pastilles—brown, gummy cones of benzoin—and
+set them alight under the toilet-water advertisement, where they fumed
+in thin blue spirals.
+
+“Of course,” said Mr. Shaynor, to my question, “what one uses in the
+shop for one’s self comes out of one’s pocket. Why, stock-taking in our
+business is nearly the same as with jewellers—and I can’t say more than
+that. But one gets them”—he pointed to the pastille-box—“at trade
+prices.” Evidently the censing of the gay, seven-tinted wench with the
+teeth was an established ritual which cost something.
+
+“And when do we shut up shop?”
+
+“We stay like this all night. The gov—old Mr. Cashell—doesn’t believe
+in locks and shutters as compared with electric light. Besides it
+brings trade. I’ll just sit here in the chair by the stove and write a
+letter, if you don’t mind. Electricity isn’t my prescription.”
+
+The energetic young Mr. Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled
+himself up in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black,
+and yellow Austrian jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast
+about, amid patent medicine pamphlets, for something to read, but
+finding little, returned to the manufacture of the new drink. The
+Italian warehouse took down its game and went to bed. Across the street
+blank shutters flung back the gaslight in cold smears; the dried
+pavement seemed to rough up in goose-flesh under the scouring of the
+savage wind, and we could hear, long ere he passed, the policeman
+flapping his arms to keep himself warm. Within, the flavours of
+cardamoms and chloric-ether disputed those of the pastilles and a score
+of drugs and perfume and soap scents. Our electric lights, set low down
+in the windows before the tun-bellied Rosamund jars, flung inward three
+monstrous daubs of red, blue, and green, that broke into kaleidoscopic
+lights on the facetted knobs of the drug-drawers, the cut-glass scent
+flagons, and the bulbs of the sparklet bottles. They flushed the
+white-tiled floor in gorgeous patches; splashed along the nickel-silver
+counter-rails, and turned the polished mahogany counter-panels to the
+likeness of intricate grained marbles—slabs of porphyry and malachite.
+Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and ere he began to write, took out a
+meagre bundle of letters. From my place by the stove, I could see the
+scalloped edges of the paper with a flaring monogram in the corner and
+could even smell the reek of chypre. At each page he turned toward the
+toilet-water lady of the advertisement and devoured her with
+over-luminous eyes. He had drawn the Austrian blanket over his
+shoulders, and among those warring lights he looked more than ever the
+incarnation of a drugged moth—a tiger-moth as I thought.
+
+He put his letter into an envelope, stamped it with stiff mechanical
+movements, and dropped it in the drawer. Then I became aware of the
+silence of a great city asleep—the silence that underlaid the even
+voice of the breakers along the sea-front—a thick, tingling quiet of
+warm life stilled down for its appointed time, and unconsciously I
+moved about the glittering shop as one moves in a sick-room. Young Mr.
+Cashell was adjusting some wire that crackled from time to time with
+the tense, knuckle-stretching sound of the electric spark. Upstairs,
+where a door shut and opened swiftly, I could hear his uncle coughing
+abed.
+
+“Here,” I said, when the drink was properly warmed, “take some of this,
+Mr. Shaynor.”
+
+He jerked in his chair with a start and a wrench, and held out his hand
+for the glass. The mixture, of a rich port-wine colour, frothed at the
+top.
+
+“It looks,” he said, suddenly, “it looks—those bubbles—like a string of
+pearls winking at you—rather like the pearls round that young lady’s
+neck.” He turned again to the advertisement where the female in the
+dove-coloured corset had seen fit to put on all her pearls before she
+cleaned her teeth.
+
+“Not bad, is it?” I said.
+
+“Eh?”
+
+He rolled his eyes heavily full on me, and, as I stared, I beheld all
+meaning and consciousness die out of the swiftly dilating pupils. His
+figure lost its stark rigidity, softened into the chair, and, chin on
+chest, hands dropped before him, he rested open-eyed, absolutely still.
+
+“I’m afraid I’ve rather cooked Shaynor’s goose,” I said, bearing the
+fresh drink to young Mr. Cashell. “Perhaps it was the chloric-ether.”
+
+“Oh, he’s all right.” The spade-bearded man glanced at him pityingly.
+“Consumptives go off in those sort of doses very often. It’s
+exhaustion… I don’t wonder. I dare say the liquor will do him good.
+It’s grand stuff,” he finished his share appreciatively. “Well, as I
+was saying—before he interrupted—about this little coherer. The pinch
+of dust, you see, is nickel-filings. The Hertzian waves, you see, come
+out of space from the station that despatches ’em, and all these little
+particles are attracted together—cohere, we call it—for just so long as
+the current passes through them. Now, it’s important to remember that
+the current is an induced current. There are a good many kinds of
+induction——”
+
+“Yes, but what _is_ induction?”
+
+“That’s rather hard to explain untechnically. But the long and the
+short of it is that when a current of electricity passes through a wire
+there’s a lot of magnetism present round that wire; and if you put
+another wire parallel to, and within what we call its magnetic
+field—why then, the second wire will also become charged with
+electricity.”
+
+“On its own account?”
+
+“On its own account.”
+
+“Then let’s see if I’ve got it correctly. Miles off, at Poole, or
+wherever it is——”
+
+“It will be anywhere in ten years.”
+
+“You’ve got a charged wire——”
+
+“Charged with Hertzian waves which vibrate, say, two hundred and thirty
+million times a second.” Mr. Cashell snaked his forefinger rapidly
+through the air.
+
+“All right—a charged wire at Poole, giving out these waves into space.
+Then this wire of yours sticking out into space—on the roof of the
+house—in some mysterious way gets charged with those waves from
+Poole——”
+
+“Or anywhere—it only happens to be Poole tonight.”
+
+“And those waves set the coherer at work, just like an ordinary
+telegraph-office ticker?”
+
+“No! That’s where so many people make the mistake. The Hertzian waves
+wouldn’t be strong enough to work a great heavy Morse instrument like
+ours. They can only just make that dust cohere, and while it coheres (a
+little while for a dot and a longer while for a dash) the current from
+this battery—the home battery”—he laid his hand on the thing—“can get
+through to the Morse printing-machine to record the dot or dash. Let me
+make it clearer. Do you know anything about steam?”
+
+“Very little. But go on.”
+
+“Well, the coherer is like a steam-valve. Any child can open a valve
+and start a steamer’s engines, because a turn of the hand lets in the
+main steam, doesn’t it? Now, this home battery here ready to print is
+the main steam. The coherer is the valve, always ready to be turned on.
+The Hertzian wave is the child’s hand that turns it.”
+
+“I see. That’s marvellous.”
+
+“Marvellous, isn’t it? And, remember, we’re only at the beginning.
+There’s nothing we sha’n’t be able to do in ten years. I want to
+live—my God, how I want to live, and see it develop!” He looked through
+the door at Shaynor breathing lightly in his chair. “Poor beast! And he
+wants to keep company with Fanny Brand.”
+
+“Fanny _who_?” I said, for the name struck an obscurely familiar chord
+in my brain—something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the
+word “arterial.”
+
+“Fanny Brand—the girl you kept shop for.” He laughed, “That’s all I
+know about her, and for the life of me I can’t see what Shaynor sees in
+her, or she in him.”
+
+“_Can’t_ you see what he sees in her?” I insisted.
+
+“Oh, yes, if _that’s_ what you mean. She’s a great, big, fat lump of a
+girl, and so on. I suppose that’s why he’s so crazy after her. She
+isn’t his sort. Well, it doesn’t matter. My uncle says he’s bound to
+die before the year’s out. Your drink’s given him a good sleep, at any
+rate.” Young Mr. Cashell could not catch Mr. Shaynor’s face, which was
+half turned to the advertisement.
+
+I stoked the stove anew, for the room was growing cold, and lighted
+another pastille. Mr. Shaynor in his chair, never moving, looked
+through and over me with eyes as wide and lustreless as those of a dead
+hare.
+
+“Poole’s late,” said young Mr. Cashell, when I stepped back. “I’ll just
+send them a call.”
+
+He pressed a key in the semi-darkness, and with a rending crackle there
+leaped between two brass knobs a spark, streams of sparks, and sparks
+again.
+
+“Grand, isn’t it? _That’s_ the Power—our unknown Power—kicking and
+fighting to be let loose,” said young Mr. Cashell. “There she
+goes—kick—kick—kick into space. I never get over the strangeness of it
+when I work a sending-machine—waves going into space, you know. T.R. is
+our call. Poole ought to answer with L.L.L.”
+
+We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom
+of the tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear “_kiss—kiss—kiss_”
+of the halliards on the roof, as they were blown against the
+installation-pole.
+
+“Poole is not ready. I’ll stay here and call you when he is.”
+
+I returned to the shop, and set down my glass on a marble slab with a
+careless clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed
+once more on the advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the
+light from the red jar simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved
+without cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. “And threw—and threw—and
+threw,” he repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
+
+I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words—delivered
+roundly and clearly. These:—
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast.
+
+
+The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his
+place, rubbing his hands.
+
+It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading
+and prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read
+Keats, or could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a
+certain stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the
+highly-polished picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a
+vile chromo recalls some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken.
+Night, my drink, and solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a
+poet. He sat down again and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper,
+his lips quivering.
+
+I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made
+no sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read,
+amid half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:—
+
+—Very cold it was. Very cold
+The hare—the hare—the hare—
+The birds——
+
+
+He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of
+the poulterer’s shop where they jutted out against our window. Then one
+clear line came:—
+
+The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.
+
+
+The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where
+the Blaudett’s Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and
+went on:—
+
+Incense in a censer—
+Before her darling picture framed in gold—
+Maiden’s picture—angel’s portrait—
+
+
+“Hsh!” said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though in
+the presence of spirits. “There’s something coming through from
+somewhere; but it isn’t Poole.” I heard the crackle of sparks as he
+depressed the keys of the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something
+crackled, or it might have been the hair on my head. Then I heard my
+own voice, in a harsh whisper: “Mr. Cashell, there is something coming
+through here, too. Leave me alone till I tell you.”
+
+“But I thought you’d come to see this wonderful thing—Sir,” indignantly
+at the end.
+
+“Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet.”
+
+I watched—I waited. Under the blue-veined hand—the dry hand of the
+consumptive—came away clear, without erasure:
+
+And my weak spirit fails
+To think how the dead must freeze—
+
+
+he shivered as he wrote—
+
+Beneath the churchyard mould.
+
+
+Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.
+
+For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
+rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most
+dispassionately considered my own soul as that fought with an
+over-mastering fear. Then I smelt the strong smell of cigarettes from
+Mr. Shaynor’s clothing, and heard, as though it had been the rending of
+trumpets, the rattle of his breathing. I was still in my place of
+observation, much as one would watch a rifle-shot at the butts,
+half-bent, hands on my knees, and head within a few inches of the
+black, red, and yellow blanket of his shoulder. I was whispering
+encouragement, evidently to my other self, sounding sentences, such as
+men pronounce in dreams.
+
+“If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn’t—like causes
+_must_ beget like effects. There is no escape from this law. _You_
+ought to be grateful that you know ‘St. Agnes Eve’ without the book;
+because, given the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is the key
+of the enigma, and approximately represents the latitude and longitude
+of Fanny Brawne; allowing also for the bright red colour of the
+arterial blood upon the handkerchief, which was just what you were
+puzzling over in the shop just now; and counting the effect of the
+professional environment, here almost perfectly duplicated—the result
+is logical and inevitable. As inevitable as induction.”
+
+Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was
+cowering in some minute and inadequate corner—at an immense distance.
+
+Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my
+knees, and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers
+accept and explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of
+the dead, with excerpts from the evening hymn or the
+multiplication-table, so I had accepted the facts, whatever they might
+be, that I should witness, and had devised a theory, sane and plausible
+to my mind, that explained them all. Nay, I was even in advance of my
+facts, walking hurriedly before them, assured that they would fit my
+theory. And all that I now recall of that epoch-making theory are the
+lofty words: “If he has read Keats it’s the chloric-ether. If he
+hasn’t, it’s the identical bacillus, or Hertzian wave of tuberculosis,
+_plus_ Fanny Brand and the professional status which, in conjunction
+with the main-stream of subconscious thought common to all mankind, has
+thrown up temporarily an induced Keats.”
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with
+swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote,
+muttering:
+
+The little smoke of a candle that goes out.
+
+
+“No,” he muttered. “Little smoke—little smoke—little smoke. What else?”
+He thrust his chin forward toward the advertisement, whereunder the
+last of the Blaudett’s Cathedral pastilles fumed in its holder. “Ah!”
+Then with relief:—
+
+The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.
+
+
+Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote
+and rewrote “gold—cold—mould” many times. Again he sought inspiration
+from the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had
+overheard:
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast.
+
+
+As I remembered the original it is “fair”—a trite word—instead of
+“young,” and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that
+the attempt to reproduce “its little smoke in pallid moonlight died”
+was a failure.
+
+Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose—the naked
+soul’s confession of its physical yearning for its beloved—unclean as
+we count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw
+material, so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence
+Keats wove the twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem.
+Shame I had none in overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone
+with the smoke of the pastille.
+
+“That’s it,” I murmured. “That’s how it’s blocked out. Go on! Ink it
+in, man. Ink it in!”
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein “loveliness” was made to
+rhyme with a desire to look upon “her empty dress.” He picked up a fold
+of the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with
+infinite tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I
+could not decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped
+the stuff. Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I
+do now) in what manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket
+coloured his dreams.
+
+In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered
+the shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the
+blanket, rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names
+on the labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie’s _New
+Commercial Plants_ and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened
+and laid them side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone
+from his face, read first in one and then in the other, and paused with
+pen behind his ear.
+
+“What wonder of Heaven’s coming now?” I thought.
+
+“Manna—manna—manna,” he said at last, under wrinkled brows. “That’s
+what I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that’s
+good!” His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:—
+
+Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
+And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
+And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,
+Manna and dates in Argosy transferred
+From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
+From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
+
+
+He repeated it once more, using “blander” for “smoother” in the second
+line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes
+missed no stroke of any word) he substituted “soother” for his
+atrocious second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is
+written in the book—as it is written in the book.
+
+A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind
+followed a spurt and rattle of rain.
+
+After a smiling pause—and good right had he to smile—he began anew,
+always tossing the last sheet over his shoulder:—
+
+“The sharp rain falling on the window-pane,
+Rattling sleet—the wind-blown sleet.”
+
+
+Then prose: “It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and
+sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and
+thought of you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we
+could both run away like two lovers into the storm and get that little
+cottage by the sea which we are always thinking about, my own dear
+darling. We could sit and watch the sea beneath our windows. It would
+be a fairyland all of our own—a fairy sea—a fairy sea….”
+
+He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the
+Channel along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up
+a note to the sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to
+flood. It beat in like the change of step throughout an army—this
+renewed pulse of the sea—and filled our ears till they, accepting it,
+marked it no longer.
+
+“A fairyland for you and me
+Across the foam—beyond …
+A magic foam, a perilous sea.”
+
+
+He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but
+I dared not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was
+drawing him nearer and nearer to the high-water mark but two of the
+sons of Adam have reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted
+there are no more than five—five little lines—of which one can say:
+“These are the pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only
+poetry.” And Mr. Shaynor was playing hot and cold with two of them!
+
+I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold
+soul, and pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and
+re-repeating:
+
+A savage spot as holy and enchanted
+As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
+By woman wailing for her demon lover.
+
+
+But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon
+the writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals
+and cigarette-smoke.
+
+Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,
+
+
+(he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then—
+
+“Our open casements facing desolate seas
+Forlorn—forlorn—”
+
+
+Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I
+had first seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was
+tenfold keener. As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It
+lighted his face from within till I thought the visibly scourged soul
+must leap forth naked between his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of
+sweat trickled from my forehead down my nose and splashed on the back
+of my hand.
+
+“Our windows facing on the desolate seas
+And pearly foam of magic fairyland—”
+
+
+“Not yet—not yet,” he muttered, “wait a minute. _Please_ wait a minute.
+I shall get it then—”
+
+Our magic windows fronting on the sea,
+The dangerous foam of desolate seas …
+For aye.
+
+
+_Ouh_, my God!”
+
+From head to heel he shook—shook from the marrow of his bones
+outwards—then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair
+screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind
+and fell with a jar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.
+
+As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.
+
+“I’ve had a bit of a doze,” he said. “How did I come to knock the chair
+over? You look rather—”
+
+“The chair startled me,” I answered. “It was so sudden in this quiet.”
+
+Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.
+
+“I suppose I must have been dreaming,” said Mr. Shaynor.
+
+“I suppose you must,” I said. “Talking of dreams—I—I noticed you
+writing—before—”
+
+He flushed consciously.
+
+“I meant to ask you if you’ve ever read anything written by a man
+called Keats.”
+
+“Oh! I haven’t much time to read poetry, and I can’t say that I
+remember the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?”
+
+“Middling. I thought you might know him because he’s the only poet who
+was ever a druggist. And he’s rather what’s called the lover’s poet.”
+
+“Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?”
+
+“A lot of things. Here’s a sample that may interest you.”
+
+Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and
+once written not ten minutes ago.
+
+“Ah. Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the
+tinctures and syrups. It’s a fine tribute to our profession.”
+
+“I don’t know,” said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening
+the door one half-inch, “if you still happen to be interested in our
+trifling experiments. But, should such be the case——”
+
+I drew him aside, whispering, “Shaynor seemed going off into some sort
+of fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of
+being rude, it wouldn’t do to take you off your instruments just as the
+call was coming through. Don’t you see?”
+
+“Granted—granted as soon as asked,” he said unbending. “I _did_ think
+it a shade odd at the time. So that was why he knocked the chair down?”
+
+“I hope I haven’t missed anything,” I said. “I’m afraid I can’t say
+that, but you’re just in time for the end of a rather curious
+performance. You can come in, too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen, while I read it
+off.”
+
+The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted:
+“‘_K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals_.’” A pause. “‘_M.M.V.
+M.M.V. Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sandown Bay. Examine
+instruments to-morrow.’_ Do you know what that means? It’s a couple of
+men-o’-war working Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight. They are
+trying to talk to each other. Neither can read the other’s messages,
+but all their messages are being taken in by our receiver here. They’ve
+been going on for ever so long. I wish you could have heard it.”
+
+“How wonderful!” I said. “Do you mean we’re overhearing Portsmouth
+ships trying to talk to each other—that we’re eavesdropping across half
+South England?”
+
+“Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are
+out of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing
+clear.”
+
+“Why is that?”
+
+“God knows—and Science will know to-morrow. Perhaps the induction is
+faulty; perhaps the receivers aren’t tuned to receive just the number
+of vibrations per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here
+and there. Just enough to tantalise.”
+
+Again the Morse sprang to life.
+
+“That’s one of ’em complaining now. Listen: ‘_Disheartening—most
+disheartening_.’ It’s quite pathetic. Have you ever seen a
+spiritualistic seance? It reminds me of that sometimes—odds and ends of
+messages coming out of nowhere—a word here and there—no good at all.”
+
+“But mediums are all impostors,” said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway,
+lighting an asthma-cigarette. “They only do it for the money they can
+make. I’ve seen ’em.”
+
+“Here’s Poole, at last—clear as a bell. L.L.L. _Now_ we sha’n’t be
+long.” Mr. Cashell rattled the keys merrily. “Anything you’d like to
+tell ’em?”
+
+“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll go home and get to bed. I’m
+feeling a little tired.”
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+
+
+
+SONG OF THE OLD GUARD
+
+
+“And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work shall
+the candlestick be made: his shaft and its branches, his bowls, his
+knops, and his flowers, shall be the same.
+
+“And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop
+under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the
+same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the
+candlestick. Their knops and their branches shall be the
+same.”—_Exodus._
+
+    “Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
+    And all the clouds are gone—
+The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
+    Good times are coming on”—
+The evil that was threatened late
+    To all of our degree,
+Hath passed in discord and debate,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+A common people strove in vain
+    To shame us unto toil,
+But they are spent and we remain,
+    And we shall share the spoil
+According to our several needs
+    As Beauty shall decree,
+As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+And they that with accursed zeal
+    Our Service would amend,
+Shall own the odds and come to heel
+    Ere worse befall their end
+For though no naked word be wrote
+    Yet plainly shall they see
+What pinneth Orders to their coat,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+Our doorways that, in time of fear,
+    We opened overwide
+Shall softly close from year to year
+    Till all be purified;
+For though no fluttering fan be heard
+    Nor chaff be seen to flee—
+The Lord shall winnow the Lord’s Preferred—
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+Our altars which the heathen brake
+    Shall rankly smoke anew,
+And anise, mint, and cummin take
+    Their dread and sovereign due,
+Whereby the buttons of our trade
+    Shall all restored be
+With curious work in gilt and braid,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+Then come, my brethren, and prepare
+    The candlesticks and bells,
+The scarlet, brass, and badger’s hair
+    Wherein our Honour dwells,
+And straitly fence and strictly keep
+    The Ark’s integrity
+Till Armageddon break our sleep …
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+PART I
+
+
+I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.
+
+
+It was entirely natural that I should be talking to “Boy” Bayley. We
+had met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside
+Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount
+Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half
+the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think
+he stayed a long, long time.
+
+But now he had come back.
+
+“Are you still a Tynesider?” I asked.
+
+“I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son,”
+he replied.
+
+“Guard which? They’ve been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don’t pull my leg,
+Boy.”
+
+“I said Guard, not Guard-_s_. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters.
+Does that make it any clearer?”
+
+“Not in the least.”
+
+“Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren’t a step from
+barracks. Keep on my right side. I’m—I’m a bit deaf on the near.”
+
+We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied
+pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I
+could see no sentry at the gates.
+
+“There ain’t any,” said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled
+restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the
+room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.
+
+“Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves.
+These are our chaps—but what am I thinking of? You must know most of
+’em. Devine’s my second in command now. There’s old Luttrell—remember
+him at Cherat?—Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him),
+Harrison, Pigeon, and Kyd.”
+
+With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not
+remember that they had all been Tynesiders.
+
+“I’ve never seen this sort of place,” I said, looking round. “Half the
+men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children
+doing?”
+
+“Eating, I hope,” Boy Bayley answered. “Our canteens would never pay if
+it wasn’t for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started
+people looked on ’em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or
+two to lunch in ’em, and they’ve been grossly fashionable since.”
+
+“So I see,” I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores
+came up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of
+the corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three
+other uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.
+
+“I give it up,” I said. “This is guilty splendour that I don’t
+understand.”
+
+“Quite simple,” said Burgard across the table. “The barrack supplies
+breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard
+(which we call I. G.) when it’s in barracks as well as to the Line and
+Militia. They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for
+them. That’s where we make our profits. Look!”
+
+Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in
+the raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to
+jest with the uniforms about them; and when one o’clock clanged from a
+big half-built block of flats across the street, filed out.
+
+“Those,” Devine explained, “are either our Line or Militiamen, as such
+entitled to the regulation whack at regulation cost. It’s cheaper than
+they could buy it; an’ they meet their friends too. A man’ll walk a
+mile in his dinner hour to mess with his own lot.”
+
+“Wait a minute,” I pleaded. “Will you tell me what those plumbers and
+plasterers and bricklayers that I saw go out just now have to do with
+what I was taught to call the Line?”
+
+“Tell him,” said the Boy over his shoulder to Burgard. He was busy
+talking with the large Verschoyle, my old schoolmate.
+
+“The Line comes next to the Guard. The Linesman’s generally a town-bird
+who can’t afford to be a Volunteer. He has to go into camp in an Area
+for two months his first year, six weeks his second, and a month the
+third. He gets about five bob a week the year round for that and for
+being on duty two days of the week, and for being liable to be ordered
+out to help the Guard in a row. He needn’t live in barracks unless he
+wants to, and he and his family can feed at the regimental canteen at
+usual rates. The women like it.”
+
+“All this,” I said politely, but intensely, “is the raving of delirium.
+Where may your precious recruit who needn’t live in barracks learn his
+drill?”
+
+“At his precious school, my child, like the rest of us. The notion of
+allowing a human being to reach his twentieth year before asking him to
+put his feet in the first position _was_ raving lunacy if you like!”
+Boy Bayley dived back into the conversation.
+
+“Very good,” I said meekly. “I accept the virtuous plumber who puts in
+two months of his valuable time at Aldershot——”
+
+“Aldershot!” The table exploded. I felt a little annoyed.
+
+“A camp in an Area is not exactly Aldershot,” said Burgard. “The Line
+isn’t exactly what you fancy. Some of them even come to _us_!”
+
+“You recruit from ’em?”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said Devine with mock solemnity. “The Guard
+doesn’t recruit. It selects.”
+
+“It would,” I said, “with a Spiers and Pond restaurant; pretty girls to
+play with; and——”
+
+“A room apiece, four bob a day and all found,” said Verschoyle. “Don’t
+forget that.”
+
+“Of course!” I said. “It probably beats off recruits with a club.”
+
+“No, with the ballot-box,” said Verschoyle, laughing. “At least in all
+R.C. companies.”
+
+“I didn’t know Roman Catholics were so particular,” I ventured.
+
+They grinned. “R.C. companies,” said the Boy, “mean Right of Choice.
+When a company has been very good and pious for a long time it may, if
+the C.O. thinks fit, choose its own men—all same one-piecee club. All
+our companies are R.C.’s, and as the battalion is making up a few
+vacancies ere starting once more on the wild and trackless ‘heef’ into
+the Areas, the Linesman is here in force to-day sucking up to our
+non-coms.”
+
+“Would some one mind explaining to me the meaning of every other word
+you’ve used,” I said. “What’s a trackless ‘heef’? What’s an Area?
+What’s everything generally?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, ‘heef’s’ part of the British Constitution,” said the Boy. “It
+began long ago when they’d first mapped out the big military
+manoeuvring grounds—we call ’em Areas for short—where the I. G. spend
+two-thirds of their time and the other regiments get their training. It
+was slang originally for beef on the hoof, because in the Military
+Areas two-thirds of your meat-rations at least are handed over to you
+on the hoof, and you make your own arrangements. The word ‘heef’ became
+a parable for camping in the Military Areas and all its miseries. There
+are two Areas in Ireland, one in Wales for hill-work, a couple in
+Scotland, and a sort of parade-ground in the Lake District; but the
+real working Areas are in India, Africa, and Australia, and so on.”
+
+“And what do you do there?”
+
+“We ‘heef’ under service conditions, which are rather like hard work.
+We ‘heef’ in an English Area for about a year, coming into barracks for
+one month to make up wastage. Then we may ‘heef’ foreign for another
+year or eighteen months. Then we do sea-time in the war boats——”
+
+“_What-t?_” I said.
+
+“Sea-time,” Bayley repeated. “Just like Marines, to learn about the big
+guns and how to embark and disembark quick. Then we come back to our
+territorial headquarters for six months, to educate the Line and
+Volunteer camps, to go to Hythe, to keep abreast of any new ideas, and
+then we fill up vacancies. We call those six months ‘Schools.’ Then we
+begin all over again, thus: Home ‘heef,’ foreign ‘heef,’ sea-time,
+schools. ‘Heefing’ isn’t precisely luxurious, but it’s on ‘heef’ that
+we make our head-money.”
+
+“Or lose it,” said the sallow Pigeon, and all laughed, as men will, at
+regimental jokes.
+
+“The Dove never lets me forget that,” said Boy Bayley. “It happened
+last March. We were out in the Second Northern Area at the top end of
+Scotland where a lot of those silly deer forests used to be. I’d sooner
+‘heef’ in the middle of Australia myself—or Athabasca, with all respect
+to the Dove—he’s a native of those parts. We were camped somewhere near
+Caithness, and the Armity (that’s the combined Navy and Army board that
+runs our show) sent us about eight hundred raw remounts to break in to
+keep us warm.”
+
+“Why horses for a foot regiment?”
+
+“I. G.’s don’t foot it unless they’re obliged to. No have gee-gee how
+can move? I’ll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we broke those
+beasts in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we started
+across Scotland to Applecross to hand ’em over to a horse-depot there.
+It was snowing cruel, and we didn’t know the country overmuch. You
+remember the 30th—the old East Lancashire—at Mian Mir?
+
+“Their Guard Battalion had been ‘heefing’ round those parts for six
+months. We thought they’d be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but Burden,
+their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to Eschol.”
+
+“Confound him,” said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking. “I
+entertained one of ’em—in a red worsted comforter—under Bean Derig. He
+said he was a crofter. ‘Gave him a drink too.”
+
+“I don’t mind admitting,” said the Boy, “that, what with the cold and
+the remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden bottled us
+under Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut off
+a lot of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the
+dirt.”
+
+“Was he allowed to do that?” I said.
+
+“There is no peace in a Military Area. If we’d beaten him off or got
+away without losing anyone, we’d have been entitled to a day’s pay from
+every man engaged against us. But we didn’t. He cut off fifty of ours,
+held ’em as prisoners for the regulation three days, and then sent in
+his bill—three days’ pay for each man taken. Fifty men at twelve bob a
+head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured officer, and Kyd
+here, his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden & Co. They
+crowed over us horrid.”
+
+“Couldn’t you have appealed to an umpire or—or something?”
+
+“We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and
+look happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr
+Mohr. I spent three days huntin’ ’em in the snow, but they went off on
+our remounts about twenty mile that night.”
+
+“Do you always do this sham-fight business?” I asked.
+
+“Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that
+a fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week’s pay
+isn’t so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the
+long run, it’s like whist on a P. & O. It comes out fairly level if you
+play long enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present—say, when a
+Line regiment’s out on the ‘heef,’ and signifies that it’s ready to
+abide by the rules of the game. You mustn’t take head-money from a Line
+regiment in an Area unless it says that it’ll play you; but, after a
+week or two, those clever Linesmen always think they see a chance of
+making a pot, and send in their compliments to the nearest I. G. Then
+the fun begins. We caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years
+ago in Ireland—caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had
+just moved in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march
+in fourteen hours, and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to
+ground like a badger—I _will_ say those Line regiments can dig—but we
+got out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to
+get its baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that
+some Sappers had made for experimental purposes (_they_ were rather
+stuffy about it) on its line of retreat, while we lay up in the
+mountains and signalled for the A.C. of those parts.”
+
+“Who’s an A.C.?” I asked.
+
+“The Adjustment Committee—the umpires of the Military Areas. They’re a
+set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the purpose, but
+they occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our
+dispositions, and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and
+that we were entitled to our full pound of flesh—head-money for one
+whole regiment, with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line
+rates this worked out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not
+bad!”
+
+“But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their
+patent bridge to pieces,” Devine interpolated. “That was a swindle.”
+
+“That’s true,” the Boy went on, “but the Adjustment Committee gave our
+helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred to hear.”
+
+“But isn’t there a lot of unfairness in this head-money system?” I
+asked.
+
+“Can’t have everything perfect,” said the Boy. “Head-money is an
+attempt at payment by results, and it gives the men a direct interest
+in their job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C. will
+disallow both sides’ claim, but there’s always the chance of bringing
+off a coup.”
+
+“Do all regiments do it?”
+
+“Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence,
+not to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It
+isn’t supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than
+anyone. Why, the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at
+Aldershot or Salisbury.”
+
+“Head-money’s a national institution—like betting,” said Burgard.
+
+“I should say it was,” said Pigeon suddenly. “I was roped in the other
+day as an Adjustment Committee by the Kemptown Board School. I was
+riding under the Brighton racecourse, and I heard the whistle goin’ for
+umpire—the regulation, two longs and two shorts. I didn’t take any
+notice till an infant about a yard high jumped up from a furze-patch
+and shouted: ‘Guard! Guard! Come ’ere! I want you _per_fessionally. Alf
+says ’e ain’t outflanked. Ain’t ’e a liar? Come an’ look ’ow I’ve
+posted my men.’ You bet I looked. The young demon trotted by my stirrup
+and showed me his whole army (twenty of ’em) laid out under cover as
+nicely as you please round a cowhouse in a hollow. He kept on shouting:
+‘I’ve drew Alf into there. ’Is persition ain’t tenable. Say it ain’t
+tenable, Guard!’ I rode round the position, and Alf with his army came
+out of his cowhouse an’ sat on the roof and protested like a—like a
+Militia Colonel; but the facts were in favour of my friend and I
+umpired according. Well, Alf abode by my decision. I explained it to
+him at length, and he solemnly paid up his head-money—farthing points
+if you please.”
+
+“Did they pay you umpire’s fee?” said Kyd. “I umpired a whole afternoon
+once for a village school at home, and they stood me a bottle of hot
+ginger beer.”
+
+“I compromised on a halfpenny—a sticky one—or I’d have hurt their
+feelings,” said Pigeon gravely. “But I gave ’em sixpence back.”
+
+“How were they manoeuvring and what with?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, by whistle and hand-signal. They had the dummy Board School guns
+and flags for positions, but they were rushing their attack much too
+quick for that open country. I told ’em so, and they admitted it.”
+
+“But who taught ’em?” I said.
+
+“They had learned in their schools, of course, like the rest of us.
+They were all of ’em over ten; and squad-drill begins when they’re
+eight. They knew their company-drill a heap better than they knew their
+King’s English.”
+
+“How much drill do the boys put in?” I asked.
+
+“All boys begin physical drill to music in the Board Schools when
+they’re six; squad-drill, one hour a week, when they’re eight;
+company-drill when they’re ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between
+ten and twelve they get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle
+at twelve and record their first target-score at thirteen. That’s what
+the Code lays down. But it’s worked very loosely so long as a boy comes
+up to the standard of his age.”
+
+“In Canada we don’t need your physical drill. We’re born fit,” said
+Pigeon, “and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of your
+twelve-year-olds.”
+
+“I may as well explain,” said the Boy, “that the Dove is our ‘swop’
+officer. He’s an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when he’s at home. An
+I. G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a Canadian or
+Australian or African Guard Corps. We’ve had a year of our Dove, an’ we
+shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride. Meantime,
+Morten, our ‘swop’ in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck humble. When
+Pij. goes we shall swop Kyd, who’s next on the roster, for a Cornstalk
+or a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can’t attend First
+Camp, as we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First
+Musketry certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and
+the boys usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they’ve
+been to their little private camps and Boys’ Fresh Air Camps and public
+school picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the
+young drafts all meet—generally at Aldershot in this part of the world.
+First Camp lasts a week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for
+vaccination and worked lightly in brigades with lots of blank
+cartridge. Second Camp—that’s for the fifteen to
+eighteen-year-olds—lasts ten days or a fortnight, and that includes a
+final medical examination. Men don’t like to be chucked out on medical
+certificates much—nowadays. I assure you Second Camp, at Salisbury,
+say, is an experience for a young I. G. officer. We’re told off to ’em
+in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys isn’t in it. The kids are apt to
+think ’emselves soldiers, and we have to take the edge off ’em with
+lots of picquet-work and night attacks.”
+
+“And what happens after Second Camp?”
+
+“It’s hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically, the
+boys needn’t show up for the next three or four years after Second
+Camp. They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the
+young doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that
+sticks to the minimum of camp—ten days per annum. That gives him a
+holiday in the open air, and now that men have taken to endowing their
+Volunteer drill-halls with baths and libraries, he finds, if he can’t
+run to a club, that his own drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He
+meets men there who’ll be useful to him later, and he keeps himself in
+touch with what’s going on while he’s studying for his profession. The
+town-birds—such as the chemist’s assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic,
+electrician, and so forth—generally put in for their town Volunteer
+corps as soon as they begin to walk out with the girls. They like
+takin’ their true-loves to our restaurants. Look yonder!” I followed
+his gaze, and saw across the room a man and a maid at a far table,
+forgetting in each other’s eyes the good food on their plates.
+
+“So it is,” said I. “Go ahead.”
+
+“Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out
+to attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of ’em
+on condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their
+county. Under the new county qualifications—birth or three years’
+residence—that means a great deal in League matches, and the same in
+County cricket.”
+
+“By Jove, that’s a good notion,” I cried. “Who invented it?”
+
+“C. B. Fry—long ago. He said in his paper, that County cricket and
+County volunteering ought to be on the same footing—unpaid and genuine.
+‘No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer’ was his watchword. There
+was a row among the pro’s at first, but C. B. won, and later the League
+had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when
+County matches began to be _pukka_ county, _plus_ inter-regimental,
+affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the
+regiments supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in
+cash. It’s all unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call
+’em, can take their pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten
+guineas entrance-fee, and get it too, from the young bloods that want
+to shine in the arena. I told you we catered for all tastes. Now, as
+regards the Line proper, I believe the young artisan and mechanic puts
+in for that before he marries. He likes the two-months’ ‘heef’ in his
+first year, and five bob a week is something to go on with between
+times.”
+
+“Do they follow their trade while they’re in the Line?” I demanded.
+
+“Why not? How many well-paid artisans work more than four days a week
+anyhow? Remember a Linesman hasn’t to be drilled in your sense of the
+word. He must have had at least eight years’ grounding in that, as well
+as two or three years in his Volunteer battalion. He can sleep where he
+pleases. He can’t leave town-limits without reporting himself, of
+course, but he can get leave if he wants it. He’s on duty two days in
+the week as a rule, and he’s liable to be invited out for garrison duty
+down the Mediterranean, but his benefit societies will insure him
+against that. I’ll tell you about that later. If it’s a hard winter and
+trade’s slack, a lot of the bachelors are taken into the I. G. barracks
+(while the I. G. is out on the heef) for theoretical instruction. Oh, I
+assure you the Line hasn’t half a bad time of it.”
+
+“Amazing!” I murmured. “And what about the others?”
+
+“The Volunteers? Observe the beauty of our system. We’re a free people.
+We get up and slay the man who says we aren’t. But as a little detail
+we never mention, if we don’t volunteer in some corps or another—as
+combatants if we’re fit, as non-combatants, if we ain’t—till we’re
+thirty-five we don’t vote, and we don’t get poor-relief, and the women
+don’t love us.”
+
+“Oh, that’s the compulsion of it?” said I.
+
+Bayley inclined his head gravely. “That, Sir, is the compulsion. We
+voted the legal part of it ourselves in a fit of panic, and we have not
+yet rescinded our resolution. The women attend to the unofficial
+penalties. But being free British citizens——”
+
+“_And_ snobs,” put in Pigeon. “The point is well taken, Pij———we have
+supplied ourselves with every sort and shape and make of Volunteer
+corps that you can imagine, and we’ve mixed the whole show up with our
+Odd Fellows and our I.O.G.T.’s and our Buffaloes, and our Burkes and
+our Debretts, not to mention Leagues and Athletic Clubs, till you can’t
+tell t’other from which. You remember the young pup who used to look on
+soldiering as a favour done to his ungrateful country—the gun-poking,
+ferret-pettin’, landed gentleman’s offspring—the suckin’ Facey Romford?
+Well, he generally joins a Foreign Service Corps when he leaves
+college.”
+
+“Can Volunteers go foreign, then?”
+
+“Can’t they just, if their C.O. _or_ his wife has influence! The Armity
+will always send a well-connected F.S. corps out to help a guard
+battalion in a small campaign. Otherwise F.S. corps make their own
+arrangements about camps. You see, the Military Areas are always open.
+They can ‘heef’ there (and gamble on head-money) as long as their
+finances run to it; or they can apply to do sea-time in the ships. It’s
+a cheap way for a young man to see the world, and if he’s any good he
+can try to get into the Guard later.”
+
+“The main point,” said Pigeon, “is that F.S. corps are ‘swagger’—the
+correct thing. It ’ud never do to be drawn for the Militia, don’t you
+know,” he drawled, trying to render the English voice.
+
+“That’s what happens to a chap who doesn’t volunteer,” said Bayley.
+“Well, after the F.S. corps (we’ve about forty of ’em) come our
+territorial Volunteer battalions, and a man who can’t suit himself
+somewhere among ’em must be a shade difficult. We’ve got those ‘League’
+corps I was talking about; and those studious corps that just scrape
+through their ten days’ camp; and we’ve crack corps of highly-paid
+mechanics who can afford a two months’ ‘heef’ in an interesting Area
+every other year; and we’ve senior and junior scientific corps of
+earnest boilermakers and fitters and engineers who read papers on high
+explosives, and do their ‘heefing’ in a wet
+picket-boat—mine-droppin’—at the ports. Then we’ve heavy
+artillery—recruited from the big manufacturing towns and ship-building
+yards—and ferocious hard-ridin’ Yeomanry (they _can_ ride—now),
+genteel, semi-genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till
+you come to the Home Defence Establishment—the young chaps knocked out
+under medical certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit
+behind hedges or clean up camp, and the old was-birds who’ve served
+their time but don’t care to drop out of the fun of the yearly camps
+and the halls. They call ’emselves veterans and do fancy-shooting at
+Bisley, but, between you and me, they’re mostly Fresh Air Benefit
+Clubs. They contribute to the Volunteer journals and tell the Guard
+that it’s no good. But I like ’em. I shall be one of ’em some day—a
+copper-nosed was-bird! … So you see we’re mixed to a degree on the
+Volunteer side.”
+
+“It sounds that way,” I ventured.
+
+“You’ve overdone it, Bayley,” said Devine. “You’ve missed our one
+strong point.” He turned to me and continued: “It’s embarkation. The
+Volunteers may be as mixed as the Colonel says, but they _are_ trained
+to go down to the sea in ships. You ought to see a big Bank-Holiday
+roll-out. We suspend most of the usual railway traffic and turn on the
+military time-table—say on Friday at midnight. By 4 A.M. the trains are
+running from every big centre in England to the nearest port at
+two-minute intervals. As a rule, the Armity meets us at the other end
+with shipping of sorts—fleet reserves or regular men of war or
+hulks—anything you can stick a gang-plank to. We pile the men on to the
+troop-decks, stack the rifles in the racks, send down the sea-kit,
+steam about for a few hours, and land ’em somewhere. It’s a good
+notion, because our army to be any use _must_ be an army of
+embarkation. Why, last Whit Monday we had—how many were down at the
+dock-edge in the first eight hours? Kyd, you’re the Volunteer
+enthusiast last from school.”
+
+“In the first ten hours over a hundred and eighteen thousand,” said Kyd
+across the table, “with thirty-six thousand actually put in and taken
+out of ship. In the whole thirty-six hours we had close on ninety
+thousand men on the water and a hundred and thirty-three thousand on
+the quays fallen in with their sea-kit.”
+
+“That must have been a sight,” I said.
+
+“One didn’t notice it much. It was scattered between Chatham, Dover,
+Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, and so on, merely to give the
+inland men a chance to get rid of their breakfasts. We don’t like to
+concentrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the
+Continent jumpy. Otherwise,” said Kyd, “I believe we could get two
+hundred thousand men, with their kits, away on one tide.”
+
+“What d’you want with so many?” I asked.
+
+“_We_ don’t want one of ’em; but the Continent used to point out, every
+time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier than to raid
+England if they got command of the sea for a week. After a few years
+some genius discovered that it cut both ways, an’ there was no reason
+why we, who are supposed to command the sea and own a few ships, should
+not organise our little raids in case of need. The notion caught on
+among the Volunteers—they were getting rather sick of manœuvres on dry
+land—and since then we haven’t heard so much about raids from the
+Continent,” said Bayley.
+
+“It’s the offensive-defensive,” said Verschoyle, “that they talk so
+much about. We learned it _all_ from the Continent—bless ’em! They
+insisted on it so.”
+
+“No, we learned it from the Fleet,” said Devine. “The Mediterranean
+Fleet landed ten thousand marines and sailors, with guns, in twenty
+minutes once at manœuvres. That was long ago. I’ve seen the Fleet
+Reserve and a few paddle-steamers, hired for the day, land twenty-five
+thousand Volunteers at Bantry in four hours—half the men sea-sick too.
+You’ve no notion what a difference that sort of manœuvre makes in the
+calculations of our friends on the mainland. The Continent knows what
+invasion means. It’s like dealing with a man whose nerve has been
+shaken. It doesn’t cost much after all, and it makes us better friends
+with the great European family. We’re now as thick as thieves.”
+
+“Where does the Imperial Guard come in in all this gorgeousness?” I
+asked. “You’re unusual modest about yourselves.”
+
+“As a matter of fact, we’re supposed to go out and stay out. We’re the
+permanently mobilised lot. I don’t think there are more than eight I.
+G. battalions in England now. We’re a hundred battalions all told.
+Mostly on the ‘heef’ in India, Africa and so forth.”
+
+“A hundred thousand. Isn’t that small allowance?” I suggested.
+
+“You think so? One hundred thousand _men_, without a single case of
+venereal, and an average sick list of two per cent, permanently on a
+war footing? Well, perhaps you’re right, but it’s a useful little force
+to begin with while the others are getting ready. There’s the native
+Indian Army also, which isn’t a broken reed, and, since ‘no Volunteer
+no Vote’ is the rule throughout the Empire, you will find a few men in
+Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, that are fairly hefty in their
+class.”
+
+“But a hundred thousand isn’t enough for garrison duty,” I persisted.
+
+“A hundred thousand _sound_ men, not sick boys, go quite a way,” said
+Pigeon.
+
+“We expect the Line to garrison the Mediterranean Ports and
+thereabouts,” said Bayley. “Don’t sneer at the mechanic. He’s deuced
+good stuff. He isn’t rudely ordered out, because this ain’t a military
+despotism, and we have to consider people’s feelings. The Armity
+usually brackets three Line regiments together, and calls for men for
+six months or a year for Malta, Gib, or elsewhere, at a bob a day.
+Three battalions will give you nearly a whole battalion of bachelors
+between ’em. You fill up deficiencies with a call on the territorial
+Volunteer battalion, and away you go with what we call a Ports
+battalion. What’s astonishing in that? Remember that in this country,
+where fifty per cent of the able-bodied males have got a pretty fair
+notion of soldiering, and, which is more, have all camped out in the
+open, you wake up the spirit of adventure in the young.”
+
+“Not much adventure at Malta, Gib, or Cyprus,” I retorted. “Don’t they
+get sick of it?”
+
+“But you don’t realise that we treat ’em rather differently from the
+soldier of the past. You ought to go and see a Ports battalion drawn
+from a manufacturing centre growin’ vines in Cyprus in its shirt
+sleeves; and at Gib, and Malta, of course, the battalions are working
+with the Fleet half the time.”
+
+“It seems to me,” I said angrily, “you are knocking _esprit de corps_
+on the head with all this Army-Navy jumble. It’s as bad as——”
+
+“I know what you’re going to say. As bad as what Kitchener used to do
+when he believed that a thousand details picked up on the veldt were as
+good as a column of two regiments. In the old days, when drill was a
+sort of holy sacred art learned in old age, you’d be quite right. But
+remember _our_ chaps are broke to drill from childhood, and the theory
+we work on is that a thousand trained Englishmen ought to be about as
+good as another thousand trained Englishmen. We’ve enlarged our
+horizon, that’s all. Some day the Army and the Navy will be
+interchangeable.”
+
+“You’ve enlarged it enough to fall out of, I think. Now where in all
+this mess of compulsory Volunteers——?”
+
+“My dear boy, there’s no compulsion. You’ve _got_ to be drilled when
+you’re a child, same as you’ve got to learn to read, and if you don’t
+pretend to serve in some corps or other till you’re thirty-five or
+medically chucked you rank with lunatics, women, and minors. That’s
+fair enough.”
+
+“Compulsory conscripts,” I continued. “Where, as I was going to say,
+does the Militia come in?”
+
+“As I have said—for the men who can’t afford volunteering. The Militia
+is recruited by ballot—pretty comprehensively too. Volunteers are
+exempt, but most men not otherwise accounted for are bagged by the
+Militia. They have to put in a minimum three weeks’ camp every other
+year, and they get fifteen bob a week and their keep when they’re at
+it, and some sort of a yearly fee, I’ve forgotten how much. ’Tisn’t a
+showy service, but it’s very useful. It keeps the mass of the men
+between twenty-five, say, and thirty-five moderately fit, and gives the
+Armity an excuse for having more equipment ready—in case of
+emergencies.”
+
+“I don’t think you’re quite fair on the Militia,” drawled Verschoyle.
+“They’re better than we give ’em credit for. Don’t you remember the
+Middle Moor Collieries’ strike?”
+
+“Tell me,” I said quickly. Evidently the others knew.
+
+“We-ell, it was no end of a pitman’s strike about eight years ago.
+There were twenty-five thousand men involved—Militia, of course. At the
+end of the first month—October—when things were looking rather blue,
+one of those clever Labour leaders got hold of the Militia Act and
+discovered that any Militia regiment could, by a two-thirds vote, go on
+‘heef’ in a Military Area in addition to its usual biennial camp.
+Two-and-twenty battalions of Geordies solemnly applied, and they were
+turned loose into the Irish and Scotch Areas under an I. G. Brigadier
+who had private instructions to knock clinkers out of ’em. But the
+pitman is a strong and agile bird. He throve on snowdrifts and
+entrenching and draggin’ guns through heather. _He_ was being fed and
+clothed for nothing, besides having a chance of making head-money, and
+his strike-pay was going clear to his wife and family. You see? Wily
+man. But wachtabittje! When that ‘heef’ finished in December the strike
+was still on. _Then_ that same Labour leader found out, from the same
+Act, that if at any time more than thirty or forty men of a Militia
+regiment wished to volunteer to do sea-time and study big guns in the
+Fleet they were in no wise to be discouraged, but were to be taken on
+as opportunity offered and paid a bob a day. Accordingly, about
+January, Geordie began volunteering for sea-time—seven and eight
+hundred men out of each regiment. Anyhow, it made up seventeen thousand
+men! It was a splendid chance and the Armity jumped at it. The Home and
+Channel Fleets and the North Sea and Cruiser Squadrons were
+strengthened with lame ducks from the Fleet Reserve, and between ’em
+with a little stretching and pushing they accommodated all of that
+young division.”
+
+“Yes, but you’ve forgotten how we lied to the Continent about it. All
+Europe wanted to know what the dooce we were at,” said Boy Bayley, “and
+the wretched Cabinet had to stump the country in the depths of winter
+explaining our new system of poor-relief. I beg your pardon,
+Verschoyle.”
+
+“The Armity improvised naval manœuvres between Gib and Land’s End, with
+frequent coalings and landings; ending in a cruise round England that
+fairly paralysed the pitmen. The first day out they wanted the fleet
+stopped while they went ashore and killed their Labour leader, but they
+couldn’t be obliged. Then they wanted to mutiny over the coaling—it was
+too like their own job. Oh, they had a lordly time! They came back—the
+combined Fleets anchored off Hull—with a nautical hitch to their
+breeches. They’d had a free fight at Gib with the Ports battalion
+there; they cleared out the town of Lagos; and they’d fought a pitched
+battle with the dockyard-mateys at Devonport. So they’d done ’emselves
+well, but they didn’t want any more military life for a bit.”
+
+“And the strike?”
+
+“That ended, all right enough, when the strike-money came to an end.
+The pit-owners were furious. They said the Armity had wilfully
+prolonged the strike, and asked questions in the House. The Armity said
+that they had taken advantage of the crisis to put a six months’ polish
+on fifteen thousand fine young men, and if the masters cared to come
+out on the same terms they’d be happy to do the same by them.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Palaver done set,” said Bayley. “Everybody laughed.”
+
+“I don’t quite understand about this sea-time business,” I said. “Is
+the Fleet open to take any regiment aboard?”
+
+“Rather. The I. G. must, the Line can, the Militia may, and the
+Volunteers do put in sea-time. The Coast Volunteers began it, and the
+fashion is spreading inland. Under certain circumstances, as Verschoyle
+told you, a Volunteer or Militia regiment can vote whether it ‘heefs’
+wet or dry. If it votes wet and has influence (like some F.S. corps),
+it can sneak into the Channel or the Home Fleet and do a cruise round
+England or to Madeira or the North Sea. The regiment, of course, is
+distributed among the ships, and the Fleet dry nurse ’em. It rather
+breaks up shore discipline, but it gives the inland men a bit of
+experience, and, of course, it gives us a fairish supply of men behind
+the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet. Some coast corps make a
+specialty of it, and compete for embarking and disembarking records. I
+believe some of the Tyneside engineerin’ corps put ten per cent of
+their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there’s no need to stay
+talking here all the afternoon. Come and see the I. G. in his lair—the
+miserable conscript driven up to the colours at the point of the
+bayonet.”
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+The great hall was emptying apace as the clocks struck two, and we
+passed out through double doors into a huge reading and smoking room,
+blue with tobacco and buzzing with voices.
+
+“We’re quieter as a rule,” said the Boy. “But we’re filling up
+vacancies to-day. Hence the anxious faces of the Line and Militia.
+Look!” There were four tables against the walls, and at each stood a
+crowd of uniforms. The centres of disturbance were noncommissioned
+officers who, seated, growled and wrote down names.
+
+“Come to my table,” said Burgard. “Well, Purvis, have you ear-marked
+our little lot?”
+
+“I’ve been tellin’ ’em for the last hour we’ve only twenty-three
+vacancies,” was the sergeant’s answer. “I’ve taken nearly fifty for
+Trials, and this is what’s left.” Burgard smiled.
+
+“I’m very sorry,” he said to the crowd, “but C Company’s full.”
+
+“Excuse me, Sir,” said a man, “but wouldn’t sea-time count in my
+favour? I’ve put in three months with the Fleet. Small quick-firers,
+Sir? Company guns? Any sort of light machinery?”
+
+“Come away,” said a voice behind. “They’ve chucked the best farrier
+between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they’ll take _you_ an’ your potty
+quick-firers?”
+
+The speaker turned on his heel and swore.
+
+“Oh, damn the Guard, by all means!” said Sergeant Purvis, collecting
+his papers. “D’you suppose it’s any pleasure to _me_ to reject chaps of
+your build and make? Vote us a second Guard battalion and we’ll
+accommodate you. Now, you can come into Schools and watch Trials if you
+like.”
+
+Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily.
+I followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a
+riding-school, under whose roof the voices of the few hundred assembled
+wandered in lost echoes.
+
+“I’ll leave you, if you don’t mind,” said Burgard. “Company officers
+aren’t supposed to assist at these games. Here, Matthews!” He called to
+a private and put me in his charge.
+
+In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of
+stripped men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.
+
+“These are our crowd,” said Matthews. “They’ve been vetted, an’ we’re
+putting ’em through their paces.”
+
+“They don’t look a bit like raw material,” I said.
+
+“No, we don’t use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the
+Guard,” Matthews replied. “Life’s too short.”
+
+Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was
+physical drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his
+hand over some man’s heart.
+
+Six or seven, I noticed, were sent back at this stage of the game. Then
+a cry went up from a group of privates standing near the line of
+contorted figures. “White, Purvis, white! Number Nine is spitting
+white!”
+
+“I know it,” said Purvis. “Don’t you worry.”
+
+“Unfair!” murmured the man who understood quick-firers. “If I couldn’t
+shape better than that I’d hire myself out to wheel a perambulator.
+He’s cooked.”
+
+“Nah,” said the intent Matthews. “He’ll answer to a month’s training
+like a horse. It’s only suet. _You’ve_ been training for this, haven’t
+you?”
+
+“Look at me,” said the man simply.
+
+“Yes. You’re overtrained,” was Matthews’ comment. “The Guard isn’t a
+circus.”
+
+“Guns!” roared Purvis, as the men broke off and panted. “Number off
+from the right. Fourteen is one, three is two, eleven’s three, twenty
+and thirty-nine are four and five, and five is six.” He was giving them
+their numbers at the guns as they struggled into their uniforms. In
+like manner he told off three other guncrews, and the remainder left at
+the double, to return through the further doors with four light
+quick-firers jerking at the end of man-ropes.
+
+“Knock down and assemble against time!” Purvis called.
+
+The audience closed in a little as the crews flung themselves on the
+guns, which melted, wheel by wheel, beneath their touch.
+
+“I’ve never seen anything like this,” I whispered.
+
+“Huh!” said Matthews scornfully. “They’re always doin’ it in the Line
+and Militia drill-halls. It’s only circus-work.”
+
+The guns were assembled again and some one called the time. Then
+followed ten minutes of the quickest firing and feeding with dummy
+cartridges that was ever given man to behold.
+
+“They look as if they might amount to something—this draft,” said
+Matthews softly.
+
+“What might you teach ’em after this, then?” I asked.
+
+“To be Guard,” said Matthews.
+
+“Spurs,” cried Purvis, as the guns disappeared through the doors into
+the stables. Each man plucked at his sleeve, and drew up first one heel
+and then the other.
+
+“What the deuce are they doing?” I asked.
+
+“This,” said Matthews. He put his hand to a ticket-pocket inside his
+regulation cuff, showed me two very small black box-spurs: drawing up a
+gaitered foot, he snapped them into the box in the heel, and when I had
+inspected snapped them out again.
+
+“That’s all the spur you really need,” he said.
+
+Then horses were trotted out into the school barebacked, and the
+neophytes were told to ride.
+
+Evidently the beasts knew the game and enjoyed it, for they would not
+make it easy for the men.
+
+A heap of saddlery was thrown in a corner, and from this each man, as
+he captured his mount, made shift to draw proper equipment, while the
+audience laughed, derided, or called the horses towards them.
+
+It was, most literally, wild horseplay, and by the time it was finished
+the recruits and the company were weak with fatigue and laughter.
+
+“That’ll do,” said Purvis, while the men rocked in their saddles. “I
+don’t see any particular odds between any of you. C Company! Does
+anybody here know anything against any of these men?”
+
+“That’s a bit of the Regulations,” Matthews whispered. “Just like
+forbiddin’ the banns in church. Really, it was all settled long ago
+when the names first came up.”
+
+There was no answer.
+
+“You’ll take ’em as they stand?”
+
+There was a grunt of assent.
+
+“Very good. There’s forty men for twenty-three billets.” He turned to
+the sweating horsemen. “I must put you into the Hat.”
+
+With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not
+follow, an enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which
+numbers and blanks were dropped, and the whole was handed round to the
+riders by a private, evidently the joker of C Company.
+
+Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished
+receptacle (sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the
+final drawing. He was telling me how his company had once stolen the
+Sacred Article used by D Company for this purpose and of the riot that
+followed, when through the west door of the schools entered a fresh
+detachment of stripped men, and the arena was flooded with another
+company.
+
+Said Matthews as we withdrew, “Each company does Trials their own way.
+B Company is all for teaching men how to cook and camp. D Company keeps
+’em to horse-work mostly. We call D the circus-riders and B the cooks.
+They call us the Gunners.”
+
+“An’ you’ve rejected _me_,” said the man who had done sea-time, pushing
+out before us. “The Army’s goin’ to the dogs.”
+
+I stood in the corridor looking for Burgard.
+
+“Come up to my room and have a smoke,” said Matthews, private of the
+Imperial Guard.
+
+We climbed two flights of stone stairs ere we reached an immense
+landing flanked with numbered doors.
+
+Matthews pressed a spring-latch and led me into a little cabin-like
+room. The cot was a standing bunk, with drawers beneath. On the bed lay
+a brilliant blanket; by the bed head was an electric light and a shelf
+of books: a writing table stood in the window, and I dropped into a low
+wicker chair.
+
+“This is a cut above subaltern’s quarters,” I said, surveying the
+photos, the dhurri on the floor, the rifle in its rack, the field-kit
+hung up behind the door, and the knicknacks on the walls.
+
+“The Line bachelors use ’em while we’re away; but they’re nice to come
+back to after ‘heef.’” Matthews passed me his cigarette-case.
+
+“Where have you ‘heefed’?” I said.
+
+“In Scotland, Central Australia, and North-Eastern Rhodesia and the
+North-West Indian front.”
+
+“What’s your service?”
+
+“Four years. I’ll have to go in a year. I got in when I was
+twenty-two—by a fluke—from the Militia direct—on Trials.”
+
+“Trials like those we just saw?”
+
+“Not so severe. There was less competition then. I hoped to get my
+stripes, but there’s no chance.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I haven’t the knack of handling men. Purvis let me have a half-company
+for a month in Rhodesia—over towards Lake N’Garni. I couldn’t work ’em
+properly. It’s a gift.”
+
+“Do colour-sergeants handle half-companies with you?”
+
+“They can command ’em on the ‘heef.’ We’ve only four company
+officers—Burgard, Luttrell, Kyd, and Harrison. Pigeon’s our swop, and
+he’s in charge of the ponies. Burgard got his company on the ‘heef.’
+You see Burgard had been a lieutenant in the Line, but he came into the
+Guards on Trials like the men. _He_ could command. They tried him in
+India with a wing of the battalion for three months. He did well so he
+got his company. That’s what made me hopeful. But it’s a gift, you
+see—managing men—and so I’m only a senior private. They let ten per
+cent of us stay on for two years extra after our three are finished—to
+polish the others.”
+
+“Aren’t you even a corporal?”
+
+“We haven’t corporals, or lances for that matter, in the Guard. As a
+senior private I’d take twenty men into action; but one Guard don’t
+tell another how to clean himself. You’ve learned that before you
+apply. … Come in!”
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Burgard entered, removing his cap.
+
+“I thought you’d be here,” he said, as Matthews vacated the other chair
+and sat on the bed. “Well, has Matthews told you all about it? How did
+our Trials go, Matthews?”
+
+“Forty names in the Hat, Sir, at the finish. They’ll make a fairish
+lot. Their gun-tricks weren’t bad; but D company has taken the best
+horsemen—as usual.”
+
+“Oh, I’ll attend to that on ‘heef.’ Give me a man who can handle
+company-guns and I’ll engage to make him a horse-master. D company will
+end by thinkin’ ’emselves Captain Pigeon’s private cavalry some day.”
+
+I had never heard a private and a captain talking after this fashion,
+and my face must have betrayed my astonishment, for Burgard said:
+
+“These are not our parade manners. In our rooms, as we say in the
+Guard, all men are men. Outside we are officers and men.”
+
+“I begin to see,” I stammered. “Matthews was telling me that sergeants
+handled half-companies and rose from the ranks—and I don’t see that
+there are any lieutenants—and your companies appear to be two hundred
+and fifty strong. It’s a shade confusing to the layman.”
+
+Burgard leaned forward didactically. “The Regulations lay down that
+every man’s capacity for command must be tested to the uttermost. We
+construe that very literally when we’re on the ‘heef.’ F’r instance,
+any man can apply to take the command next above him, and if a man’s
+too shy to ask, his company officer must see that he gets his chance. A
+sergeant is given a wing of the battalion to play with for three
+weeks—a month, or six weeks—according to his capacity, and turned
+adrift in an Area to make his own arrangements. That’s what Areas are
+for—and to experiment in. A good gunner—a private very often—has all
+four company-guns to handle through a week’s fight, acting for the time
+as the major. Majors of Guard battalions (Verschoyle’s our major) are
+supposed to be responsible for the guns, by the way. There’s nothing to
+prevent any man who has the gift working his way up to the experimental
+command of the battalion on ‘heef.’ Purvis, my colour-sergeant,
+commanded the battalion for three months at the back of Coolgardie, an’
+very well he did it. Bayley ’verted to company officer for the time
+being an’ took Harrison’s company, and Harrison came over to me as my
+colour-sergeant. D’you see? Well, Purvis is down for a commission when
+there’s a vacancy. He’s been thoroughly tested, and we all like him.
+Two other sergeants have passed that three months’ trial in the same
+way (just as second mates go up for extra master’s certificate). They
+have E.C. after their names in the Army List. That shows they’re
+capable of taking command in event of war. The result of our system is
+that you could knock out every single officer of a Guard battalion
+early in the day, and the wheels ’ud still go forward, _not_ merely
+round. We’re allowed to fill up half our commissioned list from the
+ranks direct. _Now_ d’you see why there’s such a rush to get into a
+Guard battalion?”
+
+“Indeed I do. Have you commanded the regiment experimentally?”
+
+“Oh, time and again,” Burgard laughed. “We’ve all had our E.C. turn.”
+
+“Doesn’t the chopping and changing upset the men?”
+
+“It takes something to upset the Guard. Besides, they’re all in the
+game together. They give each other a fair show you may be sure.”
+
+“That’s true,” said Matthews. “When I went to N’Gami with my—with the
+half-company,” he sighed, “they helped me all they knew. But it’s a
+gift—handling men. I found _that_ out.”
+
+“I know you did,” said Burgard softly. “But you found it out in time,
+which is the great thing. You see,” he turned to me, “with our limited
+strength we can’t afford to have a single man who isn’t more than up to
+any duty—in reason. Don’t you be led away by what you saw at Trials
+just now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the monkey-tricks of
+the trade—such as mounting and dismounting guns, and making fancy
+scores and doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up
+before they can pull their weight in the boat.”
+
+There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it
+and smiled.
+
+“Bayley wants to know if you’d care to come with us to the Park and see
+the kids. It’s only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the
+taxpayer…. Very good. If you’ll press the button we’ll try to do the
+rest.”
+
+He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a
+platform, not unlike a ship’s bridge, immediately above the barrelled
+glass roof of the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could
+see B Company far below watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard
+unlocked a glass-fronted fire-alarm arrangement flanked with dials and
+speaking-tubes, and bade me press the centre button.
+
+Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he
+had not caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the
+multiplied purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished
+like minnows before a shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on
+staircases I heard the neighing of many horses.
+
+“What in the world have I done?” I gasped.
+
+“Turned out the Guard—horse, foot, and guns!”
+
+A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:
+
+“Yes, Sir…. _What_, Sir?… I never heard they said that,” he laughed,
+“but it would be just like ’em. In an hour and a half? Yes, Sir.
+Opposite the Statue? Yes, Sir.”
+
+He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.
+
+“Bayley’s playing up for you. Now you’ll see some fun.”
+
+“Who’s going to catch it?” I demanded.
+
+“Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that
+it’s _en état de partir_, and Bayley’s going to take him at his word
+and have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their
+drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the
+mansard roof!”
+
+He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the
+building to the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the
+flagstaff that crowned it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black
+storm-cone followed.
+
+“Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir,” said Burgard down the
+telephone. “Now we’d better go to the riding-school. The battalion
+falls in there. I have to change, but you’re free of the corps. Go
+anywhere. Ask anything. In another ten minutes we’re off.”
+
+I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of
+houses and the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open
+windows of this dial-dotted eyrie.
+
+When I descended the halls and corridors were as hushed as they had
+been noisy, and my feet echoed down the broad tiled staircases. On the
+third floor, Matthews, gaitered and armed, overtook me smiling.
+
+“I thought you might want a guide,” said he. “We’ve five minutes yet,”
+and piloted me to the sunsplashed gloom of the riding-school. Three
+companies were in close order on the tan. They moved out at a whistle,
+and as I followed in their rear I was overtaken by Pigeon on a rough
+black mare.
+
+“Wait a bit,” he said, “till the horses are all out of stables, and
+come with us. D Company is the only one mounted just now. We do it to
+amuse the taxpayer,” he explained, above the noise of horses on the
+tan.
+
+“Where are the guns?” I asked, as the mare lipped my coat-collar.
+
+“Gone ahead long ago. They come out of their own door at the back of
+barracks. We don’t haul guns through traffic more than we can help…. If
+Belinda breathes down your neck smack her. She’ll be quiet in the
+streets. She loves lookin’ into the shop-windows.”
+
+The mounted company clattered through vaulted concrete corridors in the
+wake of the main body, and filed out into the crowded streets.
+
+When I looked at the townsfolk on the pavement, or in the double-decked
+trams, I saw that the bulk of them saluted, not grudgingly or of
+necessity, but in a light-hearted, even flippant fashion.
+
+“Those are Line and Militia men,” said Pigeon. “That old chap in the
+top-hat by the lamp-post is an ex-Guardee. That’s why he’s saluting in
+slow-time. No, there’s no regulation governing these things, but we’ve
+all fallen into the way of it somehow. Steady, mare!”
+
+“I don’t know whether I care about this aggressive militarism,” I
+began, when the company halted, and Belinda almost knocked me down.
+Looking forward I saw the badged cuff of a policeman upraised at a
+crossing, his back towards us.
+
+“Horrid aggressive, ain’t we?” said Pigeon with a chuckle when we moved
+on again and overtook the main body. Here I caught the strains of the
+band, which Pigeon told me did not accompany the battalion on ‘heef,’
+but lived in barracks and made much money by playing at parties in
+town.
+
+“If we want anything more than drums and fifes on ‘heef’ we sing,” said
+Pigeon. “Singin’ helps the wind.”
+
+I rejoiced to the marrow of my bones thus to be borne along on billows
+of surging music among magnificent men, in sunlight, through a crowded
+town whose people, I could feel, regarded us with comradeship,
+affection—and more.
+
+“By Jove,” I said at last, watching the eyes about us, “these people
+are looking us over as if we were horses.”
+
+“Why not? They know the game.”
+
+The eyes on the pavement, in the trams, the cabs, at the upper windows,
+swept our lines back and forth with a weighed intensity of regard which
+at first seemed altogether new to me, till I recalled just such eyes, a
+thousand of them, at manœuvres in the Channel when one crowded
+battleship drew past its sister at biscuit-toss range. Then I stared at
+the ground, overborne by those considering eyes.
+
+Suddenly the music changed to the wail of the Dead March in “Saul,” and
+once more—we were crossing a large square—the regiment halted.
+
+“Damn!” said Pigeon, glancing behind him at the mounted company. “I
+believe they save up their Saturday corpses on purpose.”
+
+“What is it?” I asked.
+
+“A dead Volunteer. We must play him through.” Again I looked forward
+and saw the top of a hearse, followed by two mourning-coaches, boring
+directly up the halted regiment, which opened out company by company to
+let it through.
+
+“But they’ve got the whole blessed square to funeralise in!” I
+exclaimed. “Why don’t they go round?”
+
+“Not so!” Pigeon replied. “In this city it’s the Volunteer’s perquisite
+to be played through by any corps he happens to meet on his way to the
+cemetery. And they make the most of it. You’ll see.”
+
+I heard the order, “Rest on your arms,” run before the poor little
+procession as the men opened out. The driver pulled the black Flanders
+beasts into a more than funeral crawl, and in the first mourning-coach
+I saw the tearful face of a fat woman (his mother, doubtless), a
+handkerchief pressed to one eye, but the other rolling vigilantly,
+alight with proper pride. Last came a knot of uniformed men—privates, I
+took it—of the dead one’s corps.
+
+Said a man in the crowd beside us to the girl on his arm, “There,
+Jenny! That’s what I’ll get if I ’ave the luck to meet ’em when my time
+comes.”
+
+“You an’ your luck,” she snapped. “’Ow can you talk such silly
+nonsense?”
+
+“Played through by the Guard,” he repeated slowly. “The undertaker ’oo
+could guarantee _that_, mark you, for all his customers—well, ’e’d
+monopolise the trade, is all I can say. See the horses passagin’
+sideways!”
+
+“She done it a purpose,” said the woman with a sniff.
+
+“An’ I only hope you’ll follow her example. Just as long as you think
+I’ll keep, too.”
+
+We reclosed when the funeral had left us twenty paces behind. A small
+boy stuck his head out of a carriage and watched us jealously.
+
+“Amazing! Amazing!” I murmured. “Is it regulation?”
+
+“No. Town-custom. It varies a little in different cities, but the
+people value being played through more than most things, I imagine.
+Duddell, the big Ipswich manufacturer—he’s a Quaker—tried to bring in a
+bill to suppress it as unchristian.” Pigeon laughed.
+
+“And?”
+
+“It cost him his seat next election. You see, we’re all in the game.”
+
+We reached the Park without further adventure, and found the four
+company-guns with their spike teams and single drivers waiting for us.
+Many people were gathered here, and we were halted, so far as I could
+see, that they might talk with the men in the ranks. The officers broke
+into groups.
+
+“Why on earth didn’t you come along with me?” said Boy Bayley at my
+side. “I was expecting you.”
+
+“Well, I had a delicacy about brigading myself with a colonel at the
+head of his regiment, so I stayed with the rear company and the horses.
+It’s all too wonderful for any words. What’s going to happen next?”
+
+“I’ve handed over to Verschoyle, who will amuse and edify the school
+children while I take you round our kindergarten. Don’t kill any one,
+Vee. Are you goin’ to charge ’em?”
+
+Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used
+to do at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn
+man.
+
+“Now!” Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding road
+towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park)
+perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the
+encircling rails leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women—the
+women outnumbering the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road
+flanking the common and disappear behind the trees.
+
+As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the
+ground inside the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform,
+armed and unarmed. I saw squads here, half-companies there; then three
+companies in an open space, wheeling with stately steps; a knot of
+drums and fifes near the railings unconcernedly slashing their way
+across popular airs; and a batch of gamins labouring through some
+extended attack destined to be swept aside by a corps crossing the
+ground at the double. They broke out of furze bushes, ducked over
+hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from hillocks and rough
+sandbanks till the eye wearied of their busy legs.
+
+Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of
+a freckled twelve-year-old near by.
+
+“What’s your corps?” said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion
+to that child.
+
+“Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren’t out
+to-day.” Then, with a twinkle, “I go to First Camp next year.”
+
+“What are those boys yonder—that squad at the double?”
+
+“Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir.”
+
+“And that full company extending behind the three elms to the
+south-west?”
+
+“Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir.”
+
+“Can you come with us?”
+
+“Certainly, Sir.”
+
+“Here’s the raw material at the beginning of the process,” said Bayley
+to me.
+
+We strolled on towards the strains of “A Bicycle Built for Two,”
+breathed jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some
+dozen infants with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging
+through the extension movements which that tune calls for. A stunted
+hawthorn overhung the little group, and from a branch a dirty white
+handkerchief flapped in the breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and
+wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve as we came up.
+
+“We’re all waiting for our big bruvvers,” piped up one bold person in
+blue breeches—seven if he was a day.
+
+“It keeps ’em quieter, Sir,” the maiden lisped. “The others are with
+the regiments.”
+
+“Yeth, and they’ve all lots of blank for _you_,” said the gentleman in
+blue breeches ferociously.
+
+“Oh, Artie! ’Ush!” the girl cried.
+
+“But why have they lots of blank for _us_?” Bayley asked. Blue Breeches
+stood firm.
+
+“’Cause—’cause the Guard’s goin’ to fight the Schools this afternoon;
+but my big bruvver says they’ll be dam-well surprised.”
+
+“_Artie!_” The girl leaped towards him. “You know your ma said I was to
+smack——”
+
+“Don’t. Please don’t,” said Bayley, pink with suppressed mirth. “It was
+all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this. I’ve surprised his plan
+out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.”
+
+“What plan?”
+
+“Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he
+told me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they’re on to him
+already. He’ll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!”
+
+Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to
+weep.
+
+“I didn’t tell,” he roared. “My big bruvver _he_ knew when he saw them
+go up the road…”
+
+“Never mind! Never mind, old man,” said Bayley soothingly. “I’m not
+fighting to-day. It’s all right.”
+
+He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at
+feud over the spoil.
+
+“Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist,” he chuckled. “We’ll pull Vee’s leg
+to-night.”
+
+Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.
+
+“So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground,” Bayley
+demanded.
+
+“Not for certain, Sir, but we’re preparin’ for the worst,” he answered
+with a cheerful grin. “They allow the Schools a little blank ammunition
+after we’ve passed the third standard; and we nearly always bring it on
+to the ground of Saturdays.”
+
+“The deuce you do! Why?”
+
+“On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They’re always
+experimentin’ upon us, Sir, comin’ over from their ground an’
+developin’ attacks on our flanks. Oh, it’s chronic ’ere of a Saturday
+sometimes, unless you flag yourself.”
+
+I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and
+fife band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy
+breech of a four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.
+
+“The attacks don’t interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir,” the
+boy explained. “That’s a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools
+loading against time for a bet.”
+
+We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was
+not etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the
+twenty-five pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly
+finished hoist and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe
+distance, when I became aware of a change among the scattered boys on
+the common, who disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of
+querulous whistles. A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to
+corps, and on their arrival each corps seemed to fade away.
+
+The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round
+them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley
+exploded afresh. “The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I
+wonder who’s directin’ ’em. Do _you_ know?”
+
+The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.
+
+“I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the
+road. ’E’s our ’ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth
+District, is actin’ as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most
+likely Mr. Levitt is commandin’.”
+
+“How many corps are there here?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, bits of lots of ’em—thirty or forty, p’r’aps, Sir. But the
+whistles says they’ve all got to rally on the Board Schools. ’Ark!
+There’s the whistle for the Private Schools! They’ve been called up the
+ground at the double.”
+
+“Stop!” cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside
+the breech wiping their brows and panting.
+
+“Hullo! there’s some attack on the Schools,” said one. “Well, Marden,
+you owe me three half-crowns. I’ve beaten your record. Pay up.”
+
+The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions
+melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets
+without once looking up.
+
+The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that
+I could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of
+blank in the distance.
+
+“The Saturday allowance,” murmured Bayley. “War’s begun, but it
+wouldn’t be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my
+child?”
+
+“Nothin’, Sir, only—only I don’t think the Guard will be able to come
+through on so narrer a front, Sir. They’ll all be jammed up be’ind the
+ridge if _we_’ve got there in time. It’s awful sticky for guns at the
+end of our ground, Sir.”
+
+“I’m inclined to think you’re right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up:
+distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a
+pernicious amount of blank the kids seem to have!”
+
+It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the
+hillocks for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the
+“Cease Fire” over the ridge.
+
+“They’ve sent for the Umpires,” the Board School boy squeaked, dancing
+on one foot. “You’ve been hung up, Sir. I—I thought the sand-pits ’ud
+stop you.”
+
+Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat:
+“Well, that’s enough for this afternoon. I’m off,” and moved to the
+railings without even glancing towards the fray.
+
+“I anticipate the worst,” said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.
+“Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!”
+
+The Guard was pouring over the ridge—a disorderly mob—horse, foot, and
+guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys
+cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the
+railings, and spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and
+waved handkerchiefs.
+
+Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. “We
+got ’em! We got ’em!” he squealed.
+
+The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into
+shape, coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.
+
+“Vee, Vee,” said Bayley. “Give me back my legions. Well, I hope you’re
+proud of yourself?”
+
+“The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too,”
+Verschoyle replied. “I wish you’d seen that first attack on our flank.
+Rather impressive. Who warned ’em?”
+
+“I don’t know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush breeches.
+Did they do well?”
+
+“Very decently indeed. I’ve complimented their C.O. and buttered the
+whole boiling.” He lowered his voice. “As a matter o’ fact, I halted
+five good minutes to give ’em time to get into position.”
+
+“Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We sha’n’t need
+the men for an hour, Vee.”
+
+“Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!” cried Verschoyle, raising his
+voice, and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers
+left their men, people began to climb over the railings, and the
+regiment dissolved among the spectators and the school corps of the
+city.
+
+“No sense keeping men standing when you don’t need ’em,” said Bayley.
+“Besides, the Schools learn more from our chaps in an afternoon than
+they can pick up in a month’s drill. Look at those Board-schoolmaster
+captains buttonholing old Purvis on the art of war!”
+
+“Wonder what the evening papers’ll say about this,” said Pigeon.
+
+“You’ll know in half an hour,” Burgard laughed. “What possessed you to
+take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?”
+
+“Pride. Silly pride,” said the Canadian.
+
+We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a
+statue of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with
+pretty women, and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats.
+“This is distinctly social,” I suggested to Kyd.
+
+“Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley’ll
+sweat ’em all the same.”
+
+I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long
+sausage-shaped kit-bags. A band welcomed us with “A Life on the Ocean
+Wave.”
+
+“What cheek!” muttered Verschoyle. “Give ’em beans, Bayley.”
+
+“I intend to,” said the Colonel, grimly. “Will each of you fellows take
+a company, please, and inspect ’em faithfully. ‘_En état de partir_’ is
+their little boast, remember. When you’ve finished you can give ’em a
+little pillow-fighting.”
+
+“What does the single cannon on those men’s sleeves mean?” I asked.
+
+“That they’re big gun-men, who’ve done time with the Fleet,” Bayley
+returned. “Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per cent big-gun men
+thinks itself entitled to play ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’—when it’s out
+of hearing of the Navy.”
+
+“What beautiful stuff they are! What’s their regimental average?”
+
+“It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and
+twenty-four years, age. What is it?” Bayley asked of a Private.
+
+“Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half,” was the
+reply, and he added insolently, “_En état de partir_.” Evidently that
+F.S. corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.
+
+“What about their musketry average?” I went on.
+
+“Not my pidgin,” said Bayley. “But they wouldn’t be in the corps a day
+if they couldn’t shoot; I know _that_ much. Now I’m going to go through
+’em for socks and slippers.”
+
+The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from
+company to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per
+cent, at least, of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone
+through in detail.
+
+“What have they got jumpers and ducks for?” I asked of Harrison.
+
+“For Fleet work, of course. _En état de partir_ with an F. S. corps
+means they are amphibious.”
+
+“Who gives ’em their kit—Government?”
+
+“There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It’s the
+same as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one’s
+pockets. How much does your kit cost you?”—this to the private in front
+of us.
+
+“About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose,” was the
+answer.
+
+“Very good. Pack your bag—quick.”
+
+The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag,
+lashed and tied it, and fell back.
+
+“Arms,” said Harrison. “Strip and show ammunition.”
+
+The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one
+wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate
+of the rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to
+Harrison with one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded
+belt.
+
+“What baby cartridges!” I exclaimed. “No bigger than bulletted
+breech-caps.”
+
+“They’re the regulation .256,” said Harrison. “No one has complained of
+’em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive…. Empty your bottle,
+please, and show your rations.”
+
+The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency
+tin.
+
+Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in
+which the man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles,
+asking no help from either side.
+
+“How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?” I asked him.
+
+“Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes,” he smiled. “I
+didn’t see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the Club.”
+
+“Weren’t a good many of you out of town?”
+
+“Not _this_ Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull
+through the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for
+foreign service…. You’d better stand back. We’re going to
+pillow-fight.”
+
+The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them
+variously, piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder
+to shoulder like buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.
+
+“What’s the idea?” I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded behind him,
+was controlling the display. Many women had descended from the
+carriages, and were pressing in about us admiringly.
+
+“For one thing, it’s a fair test of wind and muscle, and for another it
+saves time at the docks. We’ll suppose this first company to be drawn
+up on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train. How
+would you get their kit into the ship?”
+
+“Fall ’em all in on the platform, march ’em to the gangways,” I
+answered, “and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the
+baggage and drunks in later.”
+
+“Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know _that_
+game,” Verschoyle drawled. “We don’t play it any more. Look!”
+
+He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and
+breathing hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing
+his sixty-pound bag.
+
+“Pack away,” cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can
+compare it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed
+along either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who
+passed, stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by
+the rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five
+minutes the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.
+
+“Of course on a trooper there’d be a company below stacking the kit
+away,” said Verschoyle, “but that wasn’t so bad.”
+
+“Bad!” I cried. “It was miraculous!”
+
+“Circus-work—all circus-work!” said Pigeon. “It won’t prevent ’em bein’
+sick as dogs when the ship rolls.” The crowd round us applauded, while
+the men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.
+
+A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.
+
+“Have we made good, Bayley?” he said. “Are we _en état de partir_?”
+
+“That’s what I shall report,” said Bayley, smiling.
+
+“I thought my bit o’ French ’ud draw you,” said the little man, rubbing
+his hands.
+
+“Who is he?” I whispered to Pigeon.
+
+“Ramsay—their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say
+he spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns
+till he came into his property.”
+
+“Take ’em home an’ make ’em drunk,” I heard Bayley say. “I suppose
+you’ll have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the
+officers of E company that I don’t think much of them. I sha’n’t report
+it, but their men were all over the shop.”
+
+“Well, they’re young, you see,” Colonel Ramsay began.
+
+“You’re quite right. Send ’em to me and I’ll talk to ’em. Youth is the
+time to learn.”
+
+“Six hundred a year,” I repeated to Pigeon. “That must be an awful tax
+on a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days.”
+
+“That’s where you make your mistake,” said Verschoyle. “In the old days
+a man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they
+weren’t the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour
+of putting in drills, didn’t they? And they were, most of ’em, the
+children we have to take over at Second Camp, weren’t they? Well, now
+that a C. O. is sure of his _men_, now that he hasn’t to waste himself
+in conciliating an’ bribin’, an’ beerin’ _kids_, he doesn’t care what
+he spends on his corps, because every pound tells. Do you understand?”
+
+“I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed——”
+
+“And trained material at that,” Pigeon put in. “Eight years in the
+schools, remember, as well as——”
+
+“Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That’s as it should be,”
+I said.
+
+“Bayly’s saying the very same to those F. S. pups,” said Verschoyle.
+
+The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the
+shoulder of each.
+
+“Yes, that’s all doocid interesting,” he growled paternally. “But you
+forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you’re trebly
+bound to put a polish on ’em. You’ve let your company simply go to
+seed. Don’t try and explain. I’ve told all those lies myself in my
+time. It’s only idleness. _I_ know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow
+and I’ll give you a wrinkle or two in barracks.” He turned to me.
+
+“Suppose we pick up Vee’s defeated legion and go home. You’ll dine with
+us to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you’re _en état de partir_, right
+enough. You’d better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you
+want the corps sent foreign. I’m no politician.”
+
+We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with
+sceptre, orb, and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the
+common, where the Guard battalion walked with the female of its species
+and the children of all its relatives. At sight of the officers the
+uniforms began to detach themselves and gather in companies. A Board
+School corps was moving off the ground, headed by its drums and fifes,
+which it assisted with song. As we drew nearer we caught the words, for
+they were launched with intention:—
+
+’Oo is it mashes the country nurse?
+    The Guardsman!
+’Oo is it takes the lydy’s purse?
+    The Guardsman!
+Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,
+Batters a sovereign down on the bar,
+Collars the change and says “Ta-ta!”
+    The Guardsman!
+
+
+“Why, that’s one of old Jemmy Fawne’s songs. I haven’t heard it in
+ages,” I began.
+
+“Little devils!” said Pigeon. “Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports Edition!”
+a newsboy cried. “’Ere y’are, Captain. Defeat o’ the Guard!”
+
+“I’ll buy a copy,” said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. “I must,
+to see how the Dove lost his mounted company.” He unfolded the flapping
+sheet and we crowded round it.
+
+“‘_Complete Rout of the Guard,_’” he read. “‘_Too Narrow a Front._’
+That’s one for you, Vee! ‘_Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._’
+Aha! ‘_The Schools Stand Fast._’”
+
+“Here’s another version,” said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. “‘_To your
+tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._’ Pij,
+were you scuppered by Jewboys?”
+
+“‘_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_’” Bayley went on. “By Jove,
+there’ll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!”
+
+“I’ll never try to amuse the kids again,” said the baited Verschoyle.
+“Children and newspapers are low things…. And I was hit on the nose by
+a wad, too! They oughtn’t to be allowed blank ammunition!”
+
+So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the
+battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken
+over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the
+hum of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known
+faces bent above them, brought back to me the memory of another
+evening, years ago, when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns
+missing in no sham fight.
+
+“A regular Sanna’s Post, isn’t it?” I said at last. “D’you remember,
+Vee—by the market-square—that night when the wagons went out?”
+
+Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that
+we had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and
+that Vee himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The
+rustling of the papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly,
+revealed to me the three-day old wound on his left side that had soaked
+the ground about him. I saw Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard
+himself against a spatter of shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish
+tight-lipped smile lurched over all in one jointless piece. Only old
+Vee’s honest face held steady for awhile against the darkness that had
+swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then his jaw dropped and the face
+stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore the puffed and scornful
+nostril.
+
+
+I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out
+the evening papers on the table.
+
+
+
+
+“THEY”
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
+
+
+Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’ dove-winged races—
+Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome;
+Plucking the radiant robes of the passers by, and with pitiful faces
+Begging what Princes and Powers refused:—“Ah, please will you let us go home?”
+
+Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
+Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway—
+Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
+Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed them straightway.
+
+Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: “On the night that I bore Thee
+What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my arm?
+Didst Thou push from the nipple, O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?
+When we two lay in the breath of the kine?” And He said:—“Thou hast done no harm.”
+
+So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,
+Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still;
+And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command.
+“Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against their will?”
+
+
+
+
+“THEY”
+
+
+One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across
+the county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the
+snapping forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels.
+The orchid-studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and
+grey grass of the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees
+of the lower coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left
+hand for fifteen level miles; and when at last I turned inland through
+a huddle of rounded hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my
+known marks. Beyond that precise hamlet which stands godmother to the
+capital of the United States, I found hidden villages where bees, the
+only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey
+Norman churches; miraculous brooks diving under stone bridges built for
+heavier traffic than would ever vex them again; tithe-barns larger than
+their churches, and an old smithy that cried out aloud how it had once
+been a hall of the Knights of the Temple. Gipsies I found on a common
+where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it out together up a mile of
+Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed a red fox rolling
+dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.
+
+As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the
+bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty
+miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country
+would bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet,
+but I did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn
+plunged me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next
+into a gloomy tunnel where last year’s dead leaves whispered and
+scuffled about my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had
+not been cut for a couple of generations at least, nor had any axe
+helped the moss-cankered oak and beech to spring above them. Here the
+road changed frankly into a carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent
+primrose-clumps showed like jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked
+bluebells nodded together. As the slope favoured I shut off the power
+and slid over the whirled leaves, expecting every moment to meet a
+keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off, arguing against the silence
+under the twilight of the trees.
+
+Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working
+my way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw
+sunshine through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.
+
+It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my
+fore-wheels took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang
+horsemen ten feet high with levelled lances, monstrous peacocks, and
+sleek round-headed maids of honour—blue, black, and glistening—all of
+clipped yew. Across the lawn—the marshalled woods besieged it on three
+sides—stood an ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with
+mullioned windows and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by
+semi-circular walls, also rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth
+side, and at their feet a box hedge grew man-high. There were doves on
+the roof about the slim brick chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an
+octagonal dove-house behind the screening wall.
+
+Here, then, I stayed; a horseman’s green spear laid at my breast; held
+by the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.
+
+“If I am not packed off for a trespasser, or if this knight does not
+ride a wallop at me,” thought I, “Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at
+least must come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea.”
+
+A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing
+waved a friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently
+another bright head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the
+yew-peacocks, and turning to make sure (till then I had been watching
+the house only) I saw the silver of a fountain behind a hedge thrown up
+against the sun. The doves on the roof cooed to the cooing water; but
+between the two notes I caught the utterly happy chuckle of a child
+absorbed in some light mischief.
+
+The garden door—heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall—opened
+further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on the
+time-hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was
+forming some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was
+blind.
+
+“I heard you,” she said. “Isn’t that a motor car?”
+
+“I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake in my road. I should have turned off up
+above—I never dreamed”—I began.
+
+“But I’m very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It will
+be such a treat——” She turned and made as though looking about her.
+“You—you haven’t seen any one have you—perhaps?”
+
+“No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a distance.”
+
+“Which?”
+
+“I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little
+chap in the grounds.”
+
+“Oh, lucky you!” she cried, and her face brightened. “I hear them, of
+course, but that’s all. You’ve seen them and heard them?”
+
+“Yes,” I answered. “And if I know anything of children one of them’s
+having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should
+imagine.”
+
+“You’re fond of children?”
+
+I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.
+
+“Of course, of course,” she said. “Then you understand. Then you won’t
+think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the gardens,
+once or twice—quite slowly. I’m sure they’d like to see it. They see so
+little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant, but——” she
+threw out her hands towards the woods. “We’re so out of the world
+here.”
+
+“That will be splendid,” I said. “But I can’t cut up your grass.”
+
+She faced to the right. “Wait a minute,” she said. “We’re at the South
+gate, aren’t we? Behind those peacocks there’s a flagged path. We call
+it the Peacock’s Walk. You can’t see it from here, they tell me, but if
+you squeeze along by the edge of the wood you can turn at the first
+peacock and get on to the flags.”
+
+It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of
+machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the
+edge of the wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the
+fountain-basin lay like one star-sapphire.
+
+“May I come too?” she cried. “No, please don’t help me. They’ll like it
+better if they see me.”
+
+She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on
+the step she called: “Children, oh, children! Look and see what’s going
+to happen!”
+
+The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning
+that underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an
+answering shout behind the yews. It must have been the child by the
+fountain, but he fled at our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the
+water. I saw the glint of his blue blouse among the still horsemen.
+
+Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request
+backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but
+stood far off and doubting.
+
+“The little fellow’s watching us,” I said. “I wonder if he’d like a
+ride.”
+
+“They’re very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see
+them! Let’s listen.”
+
+I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the
+scent of box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener
+was clipping; a mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been
+the doves.
+
+“Oh, unkind!” she said weariedly.
+
+“Perhaps they’re only shy of the motor. The little maid at the window
+looks tremendously interested.”
+
+“Yes?” She raised her head. “It was wrong of me to say that. They are
+really fond of me. It’s the only thing that makes life worth
+living—when they’re fond of you, isn’t it? I daren’t think what the
+place would be without them. By the way, is it beautiful?”
+
+“I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.”
+
+“So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn’t quite
+the same thing.”
+
+“Then have you never—-?” I began, but stopped abashed.
+
+“Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months
+old, they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I
+dream about colours. I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never
+see _them_. I only hear them just as I do when I’m awake.”
+
+“It’s difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most of us
+haven’t the gift,” I went on, looking up at the window where the child
+stood all but hidden.
+
+“I’ve heard that too,” she said. “And they tell me that one never sees
+a dead person’s face in a dream. Is that true?”
+
+“I believe it is—now I come to think of it.”
+
+“But how is it with yourself—yourself?” The blind eyes turned towards
+me.
+
+“I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream,” I answered.
+
+“Then it must be as bad as being blind.”
+
+The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing
+the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top
+of a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft
+black. The house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an
+hundred thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the
+shadows.
+
+“Have you ever wanted to?” she said after the silence.
+
+“Very much sometimes,” I replied. The child had left the window as the
+shadows closed upon it.
+
+“Ah! So’ve I, but I don’t suppose it’s allowed. … Where d’you live?”
+
+“Quite the other side of the county—sixty miles and more, and I must be
+going back. I’ve come without my big lamp.”
+
+“But it’s not dark yet. I can feel it.”
+
+“I’m afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me
+someone to set me on my road at first? I’ve utterly lost myself.”
+
+“I’ll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the
+world, I don’t wonder you were lost! I’ll guide you round to the front
+of the house; but you will go slowly, won’t you, till you’re out of the
+grounds? It isn’t foolish, do you think?”
+
+“I promise you I’ll go like this,” I said, and let the car start
+herself down the flagged path.
+
+We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead
+guttering alone was worth a day’s journey; passed under a great
+rose-grown gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the
+house which in beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that
+all others I had seen.
+
+“Is it so very beautiful?” she said wistfully when she heard my
+raptures. “And you like the lead-figures too? There’s the old azalea
+garden behind. They say that this place must have been made for
+children. Will you help me out, please? I should like to come with you
+as far as the cross-roads, but I mustn’t leave them. Is that you,
+Madden? I want you to show this gentleman the way to the cross-roads.
+He has lost his way but—he has seen them.”
+
+A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be
+called the front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood
+looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for
+the first time that she was beautiful.
+
+“Remember,” she said quietly, “if you are fond of them you will come
+again,” and disappeared within the house.
+
+The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge
+gates, where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I
+swerved amply lest the devil that leads little boys to play should drag
+me into child-murder.
+
+“Excuse me,” he asked of a sudden, “but why did you do that, Sir?”
+
+“The child yonder.”
+
+“Our young gentleman in blue?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?”
+
+“Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?”
+
+“Yes, Sir. And did you ’appen to see them upstairs too?”
+
+“At the upper window? Yes.”
+
+“Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?”
+
+“A little before that. Why d’you want to know?”
+
+He paused a little. “Only to make sure that—that they had seen the car,
+Sir, because with children running about, though I’m sure you’re
+driving particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was all,
+Sir. Here are the cross-roads. You can’t miss your way from now on.
+Thank you, Sir, but that isn’t _our_ custom, not with——”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” I said, and thrust away the British silver.
+
+“Oh, it’s quite right with the rest of ’em as a rule. Goodbye, Sir.”
+
+He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked
+away. Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and
+interested, probably through a maid, in the nursery.
+
+Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the
+crumpled hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the
+house had lain. When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the
+fat woman who sold sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people
+with motor cars had small right to live—much less to “go about talking
+like carriage folk.” They were not a pleasant-mannered community.
+
+When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser.
+Hawkin’s Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the
+old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big
+house of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian
+embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my
+difficulty to a neighbour—a deep-rooted tree of that soil—and he gave
+me a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.
+
+A month or so later—I went again, or it may have been that my car took
+the road of her own volition. She over-ran the fruitless Downs,
+threaded every turn of the maze of lanes below the hills, drew through
+the high-walled woods, impenetrable in their full leaf, came out at the
+cross roads where the butler had left me, and a little further on
+developed an internal trouble which forced me to turn her in on a grass
+way-waste that cut into a summer-silent hazel wood. So far as I could
+make sure by the sun and a six-inch Ordnance map, this should be the
+road flank of that wood which I had first explored from the heights
+above. I made a mighty serious business of my repairs and a glittering
+shop of my repair kit, spanners, pump, and the like, which I spread out
+orderly upon a rug. It was a trap to catch all childhood, for on such a
+day, I argued, the children would not be far off. When I paused in my
+work I listened, but the wood was so full of the noises of summer
+(though the birds had mated) that I could not at first distinguish
+these from the tread of small cautious feet stealing across the dead
+leaves. I rang my bell in an alluring manner, but the feet fled, and I
+repented, for to a child a sudden noise is very real terror. I must
+have been at work half an hour when I heard in the wood the voice of
+the blind woman crying: “Children, oh children, where are you?” and the
+stillness made slow to close on the perfection of that cry. She came
+towards me, half feeling her way between the tree boles, and though a
+child it seemed clung to her skirt, it swerved into the leafage like a
+rabbit as she drew nearer.
+
+“Is that you?” she said, “from the other side of the county?”
+
+“Yes, it’s me from the other side of the county.”
+
+“Then why didn’t you come through the upper woods? They were there just
+now.”
+
+“They were here a few minutes ago. I expect they knew my car had broken
+down, and came to see the fun.”
+
+“Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?”
+
+“In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first.”
+
+She laughed merrily at the tiny joke, cooed with delicious laughter,
+and pushed her hat back.
+
+“Let me hear,” she said.
+
+“Wait a moment,” I cried, “and I’ll get you a cushion.”
+
+She set her foot on the rug all covered with spare parts, and stooped
+above it eagerly. “What delightful things!” The hands through which she
+saw glanced in the chequered sunlight. “A box here—another box! Why
+you’ve arranged them like playing shop!”
+
+“I confess now that I put it out to attract them. I don’t need half
+those things really.”
+
+“How nice of you! I heard your bell in the upper wood. You say they
+were here before that?”
+
+“I’m sure of it. Why are they so shy? That little fellow in blue who
+was with you just now ought to have got over his fright. He’s been
+watching me like a Red Indian.”
+
+“It must have been your bell,” she said. “I heard one of them go past
+me in trouble when I was coming down. They’re shy—so shy even with me.”
+She turned her face over her shoulder and cried again: “Children! Oh,
+children! Look and see!”
+
+“They must have gone off together on their own affairs,” I suggested,
+for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by the sudden
+squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and she
+leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.
+
+“How many are they?” I said at last. The work was finished, but I saw
+no reason to go.
+
+Her forehead puckered a little in thought. “I don’t quite know,” she
+said simply. “Sometimes more—sometimes less. They come and stay with me
+because I love them, you see.”
+
+“That must be very jolly,” I said, replacing a drawer, and as I spoke I
+heard the inanity of my answer.
+
+“You—you aren’t laughing at me,” she cried. “I—I haven’t any of my own.
+I never married. People laugh at me sometimes about them
+because—because———”
+
+“Because they’re savages,” I returned. “It’s nothing to fret for. That
+sort laugh at everything that isn’t in their own fat lives.”
+
+“I don’t know. How should I? I only don’t like being laughed at about
+_them_. It hurts; and when one can’t see…. I don’t want to seem silly,”
+her chin quivered like a child’s as she spoke, “but we blindies have
+only one skin, I think. Everything outside hits straight at our souls.
+It’s different with you. You’ve such good defences in your eyes—looking
+out—before anyone can really pain you in your soul. People forget that
+with us.”
+
+I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter—the more than
+inherited (since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the
+Christian peoples, beside which the mere heathendom of the West Coast
+nigger is clean and restrained. It led me a long distance into myself.
+
+“Don’t do that!” she said of a sudden, putting her hands before her
+eyes.
+
+“What?”
+
+She made a gesture with her hand.
+
+“That! It’s—it’s all purple and black. Don’t! That colour hurts.”
+
+“But, how in the world do you know about colours?” I exclaimed, for
+here was a revelation indeed.
+
+“Colours as colours?” she asked.
+
+“No. _Those_ Colours which you saw just now.”
+
+“You know as well as I do,” she laughed, “else you wouldn’t have asked
+that question. They aren’t in the world at all. They’re in _you_—when
+you went so angry.”
+
+“D’you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with ink?” I
+said.
+
+“I’ve never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren’t mixed. They
+are separate—all separate.”
+
+“Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?”
+
+She nodded. “Yes—if they are like this,” and zigzagged her finger
+again, “but it’s more red than purple—that bad colour.”
+
+“And what are the colours at the top of the—whatever you see?”
+
+Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg
+itself.
+
+“I see them so,” she said, pointing with a grass stem, “white, green,
+yellow, red, purple, and when people are angry or bad, black across the
+red—as you were just now.”
+
+“Who told you anything about it—in the beginning?” I demanded.
+
+“About the colours? No one. I used to ask what colours were when I was
+little—in table-covers and curtains and carpets, you see—because some
+colours hurt me and some made me happy. People told me; and when I got
+older that was how I saw people.” Again she traced the outline of the
+Egg which it is given to very few of us to see.
+
+“All by yourself?” I repeated.
+
+“All by myself. There wasn’t anyone else. I only found out afterwards
+that other people did not see the Colours.”
+
+She leaned against the tree-hole plaiting and unplaiting chance-plucked
+grass stems. The children in the wood had drawn nearer. I could see
+them with the tail of my eye frolicking like squirrels.
+
+“Now I am sure you will never laugh at me,” she went on after a long
+silence. “Nor at _them_.”
+
+“Goodness! No!” I cried, jolted out of my train of thought. “A man who
+laughs at a child—unless the child is laughing too—is a heathen!”
+
+“I didn’t mean that of course. You’d never laugh _at_ children, but I
+thought—I used to think—that perhaps you might laugh about _them_. So
+now I beg your pardon…. What are you going to laugh at?”
+
+I had made no sound, but she knew.
+
+“At the notion of your begging my pardon. If you had done your duty as
+a pillar of the state and a landed proprietress you ought to have
+summoned me for trespass when I barged through your woods the other
+day. It was disgraceful of me—inexcusable.”
+
+She looked at me, her head against the tree trunk—long and
+steadfastly—this woman who could see the naked soul.
+
+“How curious,” she half whispered. “How very curious.”
+
+“Why, what have I done?”
+
+“You don’t understand … and yet you understood about the Colours. Don’t
+you understand?”
+
+She spoke with a passion that nothing had justified, and I faced her
+bewilderedly as she rose. The children had gathered themselves in a
+roundel behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent over something
+smaller, and the set of the little shoulders told me that fingers were
+on lips. They, too, had some child’s tremendous secret. I alone was
+hopelessly astray there in the broad sunlight.
+
+“No,” I said, and shook my head as though the dead eyes could note.
+“Whatever it is, I don’t understand yet. Perhaps I shall later—if
+you’ll let me come again.”
+
+“You will come again,” she answered. “You will surely come again and
+walk in the wood.”
+
+“Perhaps the children will know me well enough by that time to let me
+play with them—as a favour. You know what children are like.”
+
+“It isn’t a matter of favour but of right,” she replied, and while I
+wondered what she meant, a dishevelled woman plunged round the bend of
+the road, loose-haired, purple, almost lowing with agony as she ran. It
+was my rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard
+and stepped forward. “What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?” she asked.
+
+The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the
+dust, crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local
+doctor was away fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and
+so forth, with repetitions and bellowings.
+
+“Where’s the next nearest doctor?” I asked between paroxysms.
+
+“Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you.
+I’ll attend to this. Be quick!” She half-supported the fat woman into
+the shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under
+the front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to
+the crisis like a butler and a man.
+
+A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles
+away. Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in
+motors, at the door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to
+await the verdict.
+
+“Useful things cars,” said Madden, all man and no butler. “If I’d had
+one when mine took sick she wouldn’t have died.”
+
+“How was it?” I asked.
+
+“Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight
+miles in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back.
+This car ’d ha’ saved her. She’d have been close on ten now.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you were rather fond of children from
+what you told me going to the cross-roads the other day.”
+
+“Have you seen ’em again, Sir—this mornin’?”
+
+“Yes, but they’re well broke to cars. I couldn’t get any of them within
+twenty yards of it.”
+
+He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger—not as a
+menial should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.
+
+“I wonder why,” he said just above the breath that he drew.
+
+We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long
+lines of the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with
+summer dust, rose and bowed in sallow waves.
+
+A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
+sweetmeat shop.
+
+“I’ve be’n listenin’ in de back-yard,” she said cheerily. “He says
+Arthur’s unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him shruck just now?
+Unaccountable bad. I reckon t’will come Jenny’s turn to walk in de wood
+nex’ week along, Mr. Madden.”
+
+“Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping,” said Madden
+deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.
+
+“What does she mean by ‘walking in the wood’?” I asked.
+
+“It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I’m from Norfolk myself,”
+said Madden. “They’re an independent lot in this county. She took you
+for a chauffeur, Sir.”
+
+I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed
+wench who clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with
+Death. “Dat sort,” she wailed—“dey’re just as much to us dat has ’em as
+if dey was lawful born. Just as much—just as much! An’ God he’d be just
+as pleased if you saved ’un, Doctor. Don’t take it from me. Miss
+Florence will tell ye de very same. Don’t leave ’im, Doctor!”
+
+“I know. I know,” said the man, “but he’ll be quiet for a while now.
+We’ll get the nurse and the medicine as fast as we can.” He signalled
+me to come forward with the car, and I strove not to be privy to what
+followed; but I saw the girl’s face, blotched and frozen with grief,
+and I felt the hand without a ring clutching at my knees when we moved
+away.
+
+The Doctor was a man of some humour, for I remember he claimed my car
+under the Oath of Æsculapius, and used it and me without mercy. First
+we convoyed Mrs. Madehurst and the blind woman to wait by the sick bed
+till the nurse should come. Next we invaded a neat county town for
+prescriptions (the Doctor said the trouble was cerebro-spinal
+meningitis), and when the County Institute, banked and flanked with
+scared market cattle, reported itself out of nurses for the moment we
+literally flung ourselves loose upon the county. We conferred with the
+owners of great houses—magnates at the ends of overarching avenues
+whose big-boned womenfolk strode away from their tea-tables to listen
+to the imperious Doctor. At last a white-haired lady sitting under a
+cedar of Lebanon and surrounded by a court of magnificent Borzois—all
+hostile to motors—gave the Doctor, who received them as from a
+princess, written orders which we bore many miles at top speed, through
+a park, to a French nunnery, where we took over in exchange a
+pallid-faced and trembling Sister. She knelt at the bottom of the
+tonneau telling her beads without pause till, by short cuts of the
+Doctor’s invention, we had her to the sweetmeat shop once more. It was
+a long afternoon crowded with mad episodes that rose and dissolved like
+the dust of our wheels; cross-sections of remote and incomprehensible
+lives through which we raced at right angles; and I went home in the
+dusk, wearied out, to dream of the clashing horns of cattle; round-eyed
+nuns walking in a garden of graves; pleasant tea-parties beneath shaded
+trees; the carbolic-scented, grey-painted corridors of the County
+Institute; the steps of shy children in the wood, and the hands that
+clung to my knees as the motor began to move.
+
+
+I had intended to return in a day or two, but it pleased Fate to hold
+me from that side of the county, on many pretexts, till the elder and
+the wild rose had fruited. There came at last a brilliant day, swept
+clear from the south-west, that brought the hills within hand’s reach—a
+day of unstable airs and high filmy clouds. Through no merit of my own
+I was free, and set the car for the third time on that known road. As I
+reached the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze
+under the sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the
+blue of the Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to
+dingy pewter. A laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for
+deeper water and, across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails rise one by
+one on the anchored fishing-fleet. In a deep dene behind me an eddy of
+sudden wind drummed through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the first
+day sample of autumn leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog
+fumed over the brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groins of
+the gale beyond Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in
+chill grey. We were again the shut island of the North, all the ships
+of the world bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their
+outcries ran the piping of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped moisture,
+the folds of the rug held it in pools or sluiced it away in runnels,
+and the salt-rime stuck to my lips.
+
+Inland the smell of autumn loaded the thickened fog among the trees,
+and the drip became a continuous shower. Yet the late flowers—mallow of
+the wayside, scabious of the field, and dahlia of the garden—showed gay
+in the mist, and beyond the sea’s breath there was little sign of decay
+in the leaf. Yet in the villages the house doors were all open, and
+bare-legged, bare-headed children sat at ease on the damp doorsteps to
+shout “pip-pip” at the stranger.
+
+I made bold to call at the sweetmeat shop, where Mrs. Madehurst met me
+with a fat woman’s hospitable tears. Jenny’s child, she said, had died
+two days after the nun had come. It was, she felt, best out of the way,
+even though insurance offices, for reasons which she did not pretend to
+follow, would not willingly insure such stray lives. “Not but what
+Jenny didn’t tend to Arthur as though he’d come all proper at de end of
+de first year—like Jenny herself.” Thanks to Miss Florence, the child
+had been buried with a pomp which, in Mrs. Madehurst’s opinion, more
+than covered the small irregularity of its birth. She described the
+coffin, within and without, the glass hearse, and the evergreen lining
+of the grave.
+
+“But how’s the mother?” I asked.
+
+“Jenny? Oh, she’ll get over it. I’ve felt dat way with one or two o’ my
+own. She’ll get over. She’s walkin’ in de wood now.”
+
+“In this weather?”
+
+Mrs. Madehurst looked at me with narrowed eyes across the counter.
+
+“I dunno but it opens de ’eart like. Yes, it opens de ’eart. Dat’s
+where losin’ and bearin’ comes so alike in de long run, we do say.”
+
+Now the wisdom of the old wives is greater than that of all the
+Fathers, and this last oracle sent me thinking so extendedly as I went
+up the road, that I nearly ran over a woman and a child at the wooded
+corner by the lodge gates of the House Beautiful.
+
+“Awful weather!” I cried, as I slowed dead for the turn.
+
+“Not so bad,” she answered placidly out of the fog. “Mine’s used to
+’un. You’ll find yours indoors, I reckon.”
+
+Indoors, Madden received me with professional courtesy, and kind
+inquiries for the health of the motor, which he would put under cover.
+
+I waited in a still, nut-brown hall, pleasant with late flowers and
+warmed with a delicious wood fire—a place of good influence and great
+peace. (Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a
+creditable lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say
+anything save the truth of those who have lived in it.) A child’s cart
+and a doll lay on the black-and-white floor, where a rug had been
+kicked back. I felt that the children had only just hurried away—to
+hide themselves, most like—in the many turns of the great adzed
+staircase that climbed statelily out of the hall, or to crouch at gaze
+behind the lions and roses of the carven gallery above. Then I heard
+her voice above me, singing as the blind sing—from the soul:—
+
+In the pleasant orchard-closes.
+
+
+And all my early summer came back at the call.
+
+In the pleasant orchard-closes,
+God bless all our gains say we—
+But may God bless all our losses,
+Better suits with our degree,
+
+
+She dropped the marring fifth line, and repeated—
+
+Better suits with our degree!
+
+
+I saw her lean over the gallery, her linked hands white as pearl
+against the oak.
+
+“Is that you—from the other side of the county?” she called.
+
+“Yes, me—from the other side of the county,” I answered laughing.
+
+“What a long time before you had to come here again.” She ran down the
+stairs, one hand lightly touching the broad rail. “It’s two months and
+four days. Summer’s gone!”
+
+“I meant to come before, but Fate prevented.”
+
+“I knew it. Please do something to that fire. They won’t let me play
+with it, but I can feel it’s behaving badly. Hit it!”
+
+I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a
+half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.
+
+“It never goes out, day or night,” she said, as though explaining. “In
+case any one comes in with cold toes, you see.”
+
+“It’s even lovelier inside than it was out,” I murmured. The red light
+poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor roses
+and lions of the gallery took colour and motion. An old eagle-topped
+convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart,
+distorting afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines
+into the curves of a ship. The day was shutting down in half a gale as
+the fog turned to stringy scud. Through the uncurtained mullions of the
+broad window I could see valiant horsemen of the lawn rear and recover
+against the wind that taunted them with legions of dead leaves. “Yes,
+it must be beautiful,” she said. “Would you like to go over it? There’s
+still light enough upstairs.”
+
+I followed her up the unflinching, wagon-wide staircase to the gallery
+whence opened the thin fluted Elizabethan doors.
+
+“Feel how they put the latch low down for the sake of the children.”
+She swung a light door inward.
+
+“By the way, where are they?” I asked. “I haven’t even heard them
+to-day.”
+
+She did not answer at once. Then, “I can only hear them,” she replied
+softly. “This is one of their rooms—everything ready, you see.”
+
+She pointed into a heavily-timbered room. There were little low gate
+tables and children’s chairs. A doll’s house, its hooked front half
+open, faced a great dappled rocking-horse, from whose padded saddle it
+was but a child’s scramble to the broad window-seat overlooking the
+lawn. A toy gun lay in a corner beside a gilt wooden cannon.
+
+“Surely they’ve only just gone,” I whispered. In the failing light a
+door creaked cautiously. I heard the rustle of a frock and the patter
+of feet—quick feet through a room beyond.
+
+“I heard that,” she cried triumphantly. “Did you? Children, O children,
+where are you?”
+
+The voice filled the walls that held it lovingly to the last perfect
+note, but there came no answering shout such as I had heard in the
+garden. We hurried on from room to oak-floored room; up a step here,
+down three steps there; among a maze of passages; always mocked by our
+quarry. One might as well have tried to work an unstopped warren with a
+single ferret. There were bolt-holes innumerable—recesses in walls,
+embrasures of deep slitten windows now darkened, whence they could
+start up behind us; and abandoned fireplaces, six feet deep in the
+masonry, as well as the tangle of communicating doors. Above all, they
+had the twilight for their helper in our game. I had caught one or two
+joyous chuckles of evasion, and once or twice had seen the silhouette
+of a child’s frock against some darkening window at the end of a
+passage; but we returned empty-handed to the gallery, just as a
+middle-aged woman was setting a lamp in its niche.
+
+“No, I haven’t seen her either this evening, Miss Florence,” I heard
+her say, “but that Turpin he says he wants to see you about his shed.”
+
+“Oh, Mr. Turpin must want to see me very badly. Tell him to come to the
+hall, Mrs. Madden.”
+
+I looked down into the hall whose only light was the dulled fire, and
+deep in the shadow I saw them at last. They must have slipped down
+while we were in the passages, and now thought themselves perfectly
+hidden behind an old gilt leather screen. By child’s law, my fruitless
+chase was as good as an introduction, but since I had taken so much
+trouble I resolved to force them to come forward later by the simple
+trick, which children detest, of pretending not to notice them. They
+lay close, in a little huddle, no more than shadows except when a quick
+flame betrayed an outline.
+
+“And now we’ll have some tea,” she said. “I believe I ought to have
+offered it you at first, but one doesn’t arrive at manners somehow when
+one lives alone and is considered—h’m—peculiar.” Then with very pretty
+scorn, “would you like a lamp to see to eat by?”
+
+“The firelight’s much pleasanter, I think.” We descended into that
+delicious gloom and Madden brought tea.
+
+I took my chair in the direction of the screen ready to surprise or be
+surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth
+is always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.
+
+“Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?” I asked idly.
+“Why, they are tallies!”
+
+“Of course,” she said. “As I can’t read or write I’m driven back on the
+early English tally for my accounts. Give me one and I’ll tell you what
+it meant.”
+
+I passed her an unburned hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran
+her thumb down the nicks.
+
+“This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last
+year, in gallons,” said she. “I don’t know what I should have done
+without tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It’s out
+of date now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of
+them’s coming now to see me. Oh, it doesn’t matter. He has no business
+here out of office hours. He’s a greedy, ignorant man—very greedy or—he
+wouldn’t come here after dark.”
+
+“Have you much land then?”
+
+“Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six
+hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this
+Turpin is quite a new man—and a highway robber.”
+
+“But are you sure I sha’n’t be——?”
+
+“Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn’t any children.”
+
+“Ah, the children!” I said, and slid my low chair back till it nearly
+touched the screen that hid them. “I wonder whether they’ll come out
+for me.”
+
+There was a murmur of voices—Madden’s and a deeper note—at the low,
+dark side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the
+unmistakable tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.
+
+“Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin,” she said.
+
+“If—if you please, Miss, I’ll—I’ll be quite as well by the door.” He
+clung to the latch as he spoke like a frightened child. Of a sudden I
+realised that he was in the grip of some almost overpowering fear.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“About that new shed for the young stock—that was all. These first
+autumn storms settin’ in … but I’ll come again, Miss.” His teeth did
+not chatter much more than the door latch.
+
+“I think not,” she answered levelly. “The new shed—m’m. What did my
+agent write you on the 15th?”
+
+“I—fancied p’raps that if I came to see you—ma—man to man like, Miss.
+But——”
+
+His eyes rolled into every corner of the room wide with horror. He half
+opened the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut
+again—from without and firmly.
+
+“He wrote what I told him,” she went on. “You are overstocked already.
+Dunnett’s Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks—even in Mr.
+Wright’s time. And _he_ used cake. You’ve sixty-seven and you don’t
+cake. You’ve broken the lease in that respect. You’re dragging the
+heart out of the farm.”
+
+“I’m—I’m getting some minerals—superphosphates—next week. I’ve as good
+as ordered a truck-load already. I’ll go down to the station to-morrow
+about ’em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the
+daylight…. That gentleman’s not going away, is he?” He almost shrieked.
+
+I had only slid the chair a little further back, reaching behind me to
+tap on the leather of the screen, but he jumped like a rat.
+
+“No. Please attend to me, Mr. Turpin.” She turned in her chair and
+faced him with his back to the door. It was an old and sordid little
+piece of scheming that she forced from him—his plea for the new cowshed
+at his landlady’s expense, that he might with the covered manure pay
+his next year’s rent out of the valuation after, as she made clear, he
+had bled the enriched pastures to the bone. I could not but admire the
+intensity of his greed, when I saw him out-facing for its sake whatever
+terror it was that ran wet on his forehead.
+
+I ceased to tap the leather—was, indeed, calculating the cost of the
+shed—when I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the
+soft hands of a child. So at last I had triumphed. In a moment I would
+turn and acquaint myself with those quick-footed wanderers….
+
+The little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm—as a gift on
+which the fingers were, once, expected to close: as the all faithful
+half-reproachful signal of a waiting child not used to neglect even
+when grown-ups were busiest—a fragment of the mute code devised very
+long ago.
+
+Then I knew. And it was as though I had known from the first day when I
+looked across the lawn at the high window.
+
+I heard the door shut. The woman turned to me in silence, and I felt
+that she knew.
+
+What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a
+log, and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place
+in the chair very close to the screen.
+
+“Now you understand,” she whispered, across the packed shadows.
+
+“Yes, I understand—now. Thank you.”
+
+“I—I only hear them.” She bowed her head in her hands. “I have no
+right, you know—no other right. I have neither borne nor lost—neither
+borne nor lost!”
+
+“Be very glad then,” said I, for my soul was torn open within me.
+
+“Forgive me!”
+
+She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.
+
+“It was because I loved them so,” she said at last, brokenly. “_That_
+was why it was, even from the first—even before I knew that they—they
+were all I should ever have. And I loved them so!”
+
+She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the
+shadow.
+
+“They came because I loved them—because I needed them. I—I must have
+made them come. Was that wrong, think you?”
+
+“No—no.”
+
+“I—I grant you that the toys and—and all that sort of thing were
+nonsense, but—but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
+little.” She pointed to the gallery. “And the passages all empty. … And
+how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose——”
+
+“Don’t! For pity’s sake, don’t!” I cried. The twilight had brought a
+cold rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded windows.
+
+“And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. _I_ don’t think
+it so foolish—do you?”
+
+I looked at the broad brick hearth, saw, through tears I believe, that
+there was no unpassable iron on or near it, and bowed my head.
+
+“I did all that and lots of other things—just to make believe. Then
+they came. I heard them, but I didn’t know that they were not mine by
+right till Mrs. Madden told me——”
+
+“The butler’s wife? What?”
+
+“One of them—I heard—she saw. And knew. Hers! _Not_ for me. I didn’t
+know at first. Perhaps I was jealous. Afterwards, I began to understand
+that it was only because I loved them, not because——… Oh, you _must_
+bear or lose,” she said piteously. “There is no other way—and yet they
+love me. They must! Don’t they?”
+
+There was no sound in the room except the lapping voices of the fire,
+but we two listened intently, and she at least took comfort from what
+she heard. She recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair
+by the screen.
+
+“Don’t think me a wretch to whine about myself like this, but—but I’m
+all in the dark, you know, and _you_ can see.”
+
+In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though
+that was like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer
+I would stay since it was the last time.
+
+“You think it is wrong, then?” she cried sharply, though I had said
+nothing.
+
+“Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right…. I am grateful
+to you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only….”
+
+“Why?” she said, but passed her hand before her face as she had done at
+our second meeting in the wood. “Oh, I see,” she went on simply as a
+child. “For you it would be wrong.” Then with a little indrawn laugh,
+“and, d’you remember, I called you lucky—once—at first. You who must
+never come here again!”
+
+She left me to sit a little longer by the screen, and I heard the sound
+of her feet die out along the gallery above.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+
+
+
+FROM LYDEN’S “IRENIUS”
+
+
+ACT III. Sc. II.
+
+
+GOW.—Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose
+there’s not an astrologer of the city——
+
+PRINCE.—Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
+
+GOW.—So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha’
+sworn he’d foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught
+her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since ’tis Jack
+of the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their
+tablets.
+
+PRINCE.—Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the poor fool
+come by it?
+
+GOW.—_Simpliciter_ thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she
+did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He
+that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than
+“Where is the rope?” The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works
+God’s will, in which holy employ he’s not to be questioned. We have
+then left upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left
+sleeve of Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly
+on a sunny wall. Whuff! Soh!
+
+PRINCE.—Your cloak, Ferdinand. I’ll sleep now.
+
+FERDINAND.—Sleep, then… He too, loved his life?
+
+GOW.—He was born of woman … but at the end threw life from him, like
+your Prince, for a little sleep … “Have I any look of a King?” said he,
+clanking his chain—“to be so baited on all sides by Fortune, that I
+must e’en die now to live with myself one day longer?” I left him
+railing at Fortune and woman’s love.
+
+FERDINAND.—Ah, woman’s love!
+
+_(Aside)_ Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones, Stealing from
+feasts as rare to coneycatch, Privily in the hedgerows for a clown With
+that same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one
+hammer and lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
+Yesterday ’gainst some King.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+
+The day that I chose to visit H.M.S. _Peridot_ in Simon’s Bay was the
+day that the Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. She was just
+steaming out to sea as my train came in, and since the rest of the
+Fleet were either coaling or busy at the rifle-ranges a thousand feet
+up the hill, I found myself stranded, lunchless, on the sea-front with
+no hope of return to Cape Town before five P.M. At this crisis I had
+the luck to come across my friend Inspector Hooper, Cape Government
+Railways, in command of an engine and a brake-van chalked for repair.
+
+“If you get something to eat,” he said, “I’ll run you down to
+Glengariff siding till the goods comes along. It’s cooler there than
+here, you see.”
+
+I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price,
+and the engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of
+drifted sand and a plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred
+yards from the edge of the surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow,
+rolled far inland up a brown and purple valley of splintered rocks and
+dry scrub. A crowd of Malays hauled at a net beside two blue and green
+boats on the beach; a picnic party danced and shouted barefoot where a
+tiny river trickled across the flat, and a circle of dry hills, whose
+feet were set in sands of silver, locked us in against a seven-coloured
+sea. At either horn of the bay the railway line, cut just above high
+water-mark, ran round a shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.
+
+“You see there’s always a breeze here,” said Hooper, opening the door
+as the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong
+south-easter buffeting under Elsie’s Peak dusted sand into our tickey
+beer. Presently he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had
+returned from a long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on
+damaged rolling-stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland
+wind on my eyelids; the song of it under the car roof, and high up
+among the rocks; the drift of fine grains chasing each other musically
+ashore; the tramp of the surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle
+of Hooper’s file, and the presence of the assured sun, joined with the
+beer to cast me into magical slumber. The hills of False Bay were just
+dissolving into those of fairyland when I heard footsteps on the sand
+outside, and the clink of our couplings.
+
+“Stop that!” snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his work.
+“It’s those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they’re always playing
+with the trucks….”
+
+“Don’t be hard on ’em. The railway’s a general refuge in Africa,” I
+replied.
+
+“’Tis—up-country at any rate. That reminds me,” he felt in his
+waistcoat-pocket, “I’ve got a curiosity for you from Wankies—beyond
+Buluwayo. It’s more of a souvenir perhaps than——”
+
+“The old hotel’s inhabited,” cried a voice. “White men from the
+language. Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here’s your Belmont.
+Wha—i—i!”
+
+The last word dragged like a rope as Mr. Pyecroft ran round to the open
+door, and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous
+Sergeant of Marines trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the
+sand nervously from his fingers.
+
+“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought the _Hierophant_ was
+down the coast?”
+
+“We came in last Tuesday—from Tristan D’Acunha—for overhaul, and we
+shall be in dockyard ’ands for two months, with boiler-seatings.”
+
+“Come and sit down,” Hooper put away the file.
+
+“This is Mr. Hooper of the Railway,” I exclaimed, as Pyecroft turned to
+haul up the black-moustached sergeant.
+
+“This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the _Agaric_, an old shipmate,” said
+he. “We were strollin’ on the beach.” The monster blushed and nodded.
+He filled up one side of the van when he sat down.
+
+“And this is my friend, Mr. Pyecroft,” I added to Hooper, already busy
+with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.
+
+“_Moi aussi_” quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a labelled
+quart bottle.
+
+“Why, it’s Bass,” cried Hooper.
+
+“It was Pritchard,” said Pyecroft. “They can’t resist him.”
+
+“That’s not so,” said Pritchard, mildly.
+
+“Not _verbatim_ per’aps, but the look in the eye came to the same
+thing.”
+
+“Where was it?” I demanded.
+
+“Just on beyond here—at Kalk Bay. She was slappin’ a rug in a back
+verandah. Pritch hadn’t more than brought his batteries to bear, before
+she stepped indoors an’ sent it flyin’ over the wall.”
+
+Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
+
+“It was all a mistake,” said Pritchard. “I shouldn’t wonder if she
+mistook me for Maclean. We’re about of a size.”
+
+I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James’s, and Kalk Bay
+complain of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the
+seaside, and I began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent
+Bass, and I too drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
+
+“It’s the uniform that fetches ’em, an’ they fetch it,” said Pyecroft.
+“My simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin’. Now Pritch in
+’is Number One rig is always ‘purr Mary, on the terrace’—_ex officio_
+as you might say.”
+
+“She took me for Maclean, I tell you,” Pritchard insisted. “Why—why—to
+listen to him you wouldn’t think that only yesterday——”
+
+“Pritch,” said Pyecroft, “be warned in time. If we begin tellin’ what
+we know about each other we’ll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention
+aggravated desertion on several occasions——”
+
+“Never anything more than absence without leaf—I defy you to prove it,”
+said the Sergeant hotly. “An’ if it comes to that how about Vancouver
+in ’87?”
+
+“How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
+Niven…?”
+
+“Surely you were court martialled for that?” I said. The story of Boy
+Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
+woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
+
+“Yes, we were court-martialled to rights,” said Pritchard, “but we
+should have been tried for murder if Boy Niven ’adn’t been unusually
+tough. He told us he had an uncle ’oo’d give us land to farm. ’E said
+he was born at the back o’ Vancouver Island, and _all_ the time the
+beggar was a balmy Barnado Orphan!”
+
+“_But_ we believed him,” said Pyecroft. “I did—you did—Paterson did—an’
+’oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards—him with
+the mouth?”
+
+“Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I ’aven’t thought of ’im in years,” said
+Pritchard. “Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an’ George Anstey and Moon. We
+were very young an’ very curious.”
+
+“_But_ lovin’ an’ trustful to a degree,” said Pyecroft.
+
+“Remember when ’e told us to walk in single file for fear o’ bears?
+‘Remember, Pye, when ’e ’opped about in that bog full o’ ferns an’
+sniffed an’ said ’e could smell the smoke of ’is uncle’s farm? An’
+_all_ the time it was a dirty little out-lyin’ uninhabited island. We
+walked round it in a day, an’ come back to our boat lyin’ on the beach.
+A whole day Boy Niven kept us walkin’ in circles lookin’ for ’is
+uncle’s farm! He said his uncle was compelled by the law of the land to
+give us a farm!”
+
+“Don’t get hot, Pritch. We believed,” said Pyecroft.
+
+“He’d been readin’ books. He only did it to get a run ashore an’ have
+himself talked of. A day an’ a night—eight of us—followin’ Boy Niven
+round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the
+picket came for us an’ a nice pack o’ idiots we looked!”
+
+“What did you get for it?” Hooper asked.
+
+“Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter
+sleet-squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till
+conclusion o’ cruise,” said Pyecroft. “It was only what we expected,
+but what we felt, an’ I assure you, Mr. Hooper, even a sailor-man has a
+heart to break, was bein’ told that we able seamen an’ promisin’
+marines ’ad misled Boy Niven. Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was
+supposed to ’ave misled him! He rounded on us, o’ course, an’ got off
+easy.”
+
+“Excep’ for what we gave him in the steerin’-flat when we came out o’
+cells. ’Eard anything of ’im lately, Pye?”
+
+“Signal Boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe—Mr. L.L. Niven is.”
+
+“An’ Anstey died o’ fever in Benin,” Pritchard mused. “What come to
+Moon? Spit-Kid we know about.”
+
+“Moon—Moon! Now where did I last…? Oh yes, when I was in the
+_Palladium_! I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon ’ad run
+when the _Astrild_ sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years
+back. He always showed signs o’ bein’ a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he
+slipped off quietly an’ they ’adn’t time to chase ’im round the islands
+even if the navigatin’ officer ’ad been equal to the job.”
+
+“Wasn’t he?” said Hooper.
+
+“Not so. Accordin’ to Quigley the _Astrild_ spent half her commission
+rompin’ up the beach like a she-turtle, an’ the other half hatching
+turtles’ eggs on the top o’ numerous reefs. When she was docked at
+Sydney her copper looked like Aunt Maria’s washing on the line—an’ her
+’midship frames was sprung. The commander swore the dockyard ’ad done
+it haulin’ the pore thing on to the slips. They _do_ do strange things
+at sea, Mr. Hooper.”
+
+“Ah! I’m not a tax-payer,” said Hooper, and opened a fresh bottle. The
+Sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping subjects.
+
+“How it all comes back, don’t it?” he said. “Why Moon must ’ave ’ad
+sixteen years’ service before he ran.”
+
+“It takes ’em at all ages. Look at—you know,” said Pyecroft.
+
+“Who?” I asked.
+
+“A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party
+you’re thinkin’ of,” said Pritchard. “A warrant ’oose name begins with
+a V., isn’t it?”
+
+“But, in a way o’ puttin’ it, we can’t say that he actually did
+desert,” Pyecroft suggested.
+
+“Oh, no,” said Pritchard. “It was only permanent absence up country
+without leaf. That was all.”
+
+“Up country?” said Hooper. “Did they circulate his description?”
+
+“What for?” said Pritchard, most impolitely.
+
+“Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don’t move away
+from the line, you see. I’ve known a chap caught at Salisbury that way
+tryin’ to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o’ course I don’t know, that
+they don’t ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I’ve
+heard of a P. and O. quartermaster in full command of an armed launch
+there.”
+
+“Do you think Click ’ud ha’ gone up that way?” Pritchard asked.
+
+“There’s no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some
+Navy ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it
+into the trucks. Then there was no more Click—then or thereafter. Four
+months ago it transpired, and thus the _casus belli_ stands at
+present,” said Pyecroft.
+
+“What were his marks?” said Hooper again.
+
+“Does the Railway get a reward for returnin’ ’em, then?” said
+Pritchard.
+
+“If I did d’you suppose I’d talk about it?” Hooper retorted angrily.
+
+“You seemed so very interested,” said Pritchard with equal crispness.
+
+“Why was he called Click?” I asked to tide over an uneasy little break
+in the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very
+fixedly.
+
+“Because of an ammunition hoist carryin’ away,” said Pyecroft. “And it
+carried away four of ’is teeth—on the lower port side, wasn’t it,
+Pritch? The substitutes which he bought weren’t screwed home in a
+manner o’ sayin’. When he talked fast they used to lift a little on the
+bed plate. ’Ence, ‘Click.’ They called ’im a superior man which is what
+we’d call a long, black-’aired, genteely speakin’, ’alf-bred beggar on
+the lower deck.”
+
+“Four false teeth on the lower left jaw,” said Hooper, his hand in his
+waistcoat pocket. “What tattoo marks?”
+
+“Look here,” began Pritchard, half rising. “I’m sure we’re very
+grateful to you as a gentleman for your ’orspitality, but per’aps we
+may ’ave made an error in—”
+
+I looked at Pyecroft for aid, Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.
+
+“If the fat marine now occupying the foc’sle will kindly bring ’is
+_status quo_ to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk like
+gentlemen—not to say friends,” said Pyecroft. “He regards you, Mr.
+Hooper, as a emissary of the Law.”
+
+“I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar,
+or I should rather say, such a _bloomin’_ curiosity in identification
+marks as our friend here——”
+
+“Mr. Pritchard,” I interposed, “I’ll take all the responsibility for
+Mr. Hooper.”
+
+“An’ _you_’ll apologise all round,” said Pyecroft. “You’re a rude
+little man, Pritch.”
+
+“But how was I——” he began, wavering.
+
+“I don’t know an’ I don’t care. Apologise!”
+
+The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his
+vast grip, one by one. “I was wrong,” he said meekly as a sheep. “My
+suspicions was unfounded. Mr. Hooper, I apologise.”
+
+“You did quite right to look out for your own end o’ the line,” said
+Hooper. “I’d ha’ done the same with a gentleman I didn’t know, you see.
+If you don’t mind I’d like to hear a little more o’ your Mr. Vickery.
+It’s safe with me, you see.”
+
+“Why did Vickery run,” I began, but Pyecroft’s smile made me turn my
+question to “Who was she?”
+
+“She kep’ a little hotel at Hauraki—near Auckland,” said Pyecroft.
+
+“By Gawd!” roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. “Not Mrs.
+Bathurst!”
+
+Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of
+darkness to witness his bewilderment.
+
+“So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question.”
+
+“But Click was married,” cried Pritchard.
+
+“An’ ’ad a fifteen year old daughter. ’E’s shown me her photograph.
+Settin’ that aside, so to say, ’ave you ever found these little things
+make much difference? Because I haven’t.”
+
+“Good Lord Alive an’ Watchin’!… Mrs. Bathurst….” Then with another
+roar: “You can say what you please, Pye, but you don’t make me believe
+it was any of ’er fault. She wasn’t _that!_”
+
+“If I was going to say what I please, I’d begin by callin’ you a silly
+ox an’ work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I’m trying to say
+solely what transpired. M’rover, for once you’re right. It wasn’t her
+fault.”
+
+“You couldn’t ’aven’t made me believe it if it ’ad been,” was the
+answer.
+
+Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. “Never mind
+about that,” I cried. “Tell me what she was like.”
+
+“She was a widow,” said Pyecroft. “Left so very young and never
+re-spliced. She kep’ a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close to
+Auckland, an’ she always wore black silk, and ’er neck—”
+
+“You ask what she was like,” Pritchard broke in. “Let me give you an
+instance. I was at Auckland first in ’97, at the end o’ the
+_Marroquin’s_ commission, an’ as I’d been promoted I went up with the
+others. She used to look after us all, an’ she never lost by it—not a
+penny! ‘Pay me now,’ she’d say, ‘or settle later. I know you won’t let
+me suffer. Send the money from home if you like,’ Why, gentlemen all, I
+tell you I’ve seen that lady take her own gold watch an’ chain off her
+neck in the bar an’ pass it to a bosun ’oo’d come ashore without ’is
+ticker an’ ’ad to catch the last boat. ‘I don’t know your name,’ she
+said, ‘but when you’ve done with it, you’ll find plenty that know me on
+the front. Send it back by one o’ them.’ And it was worth thirty pounds
+if it was worth ’arf a crown. The little gold watch, Pye, with the blue
+monogram at the back. But, as I was sayin’, in those days she kep’ a
+beer that agreed with me—Slits it was called. One way an’ another I
+must ’ave punished a good few bottles of it while we was in the
+bay—comin’ ashore every night or so. Chaffin across the bar like, once
+when we were alone, ‘Mrs. B.,’ I said, ‘when next I call I want you to
+remember that this is my particular—just as you’re my particular?’
+(She’d let you go _that_ far!) ‘Just as you’re my particular,’ I said.
+‘Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,’ she says, an’ put ’er hand up to
+the curl be’ind ’er ear. Remember that way she had, Pye?”
+
+“I think so,” said the sailor.
+
+“Yes, ‘Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,’ she says. ‘The least I can do is
+to mark it for you in case you change your mind. There’s no great
+demand for it in the Fleet,’ she says, ‘but to make sure I’ll put it at
+the back o’ the shelf,’ an’ she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon
+with that old dolphin cigar cutter on the bar—remember it, Pye?—an’ she
+tied a bow round what was left—just four bottles. That was ’97—no, ’96.
+In ’98 I was in the _Resiliant_—China station—full commission. In
+Nineteen One, mark you, I was in the _Carthusian_, back in Auckland Bay
+again. Of course I went up to Mrs. B.’s with the rest of us to see how
+things were goin’. They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree
+on the pavement by the side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin’ in special
+(there was too many of us talkin’ to her), but she saw me at once.”
+
+“That wasn’t difficult?” I ventured.
+
+“Ah, but wait. I was comin’ up to the bar, when, ‘Ada,’ she says to her
+niece, ‘get me Sergeant Pritchard’s particular,’ and, gentlemen all, I
+tell you before I could shake ’ands with the lady, there were those
+four bottles o’ Slits, with ’er ’air ribbon in a bow round each o’
+their necks, set down in front o’ me, an’ as she drew the cork she
+looked at me under her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o’
+lookin’, an’, ‘Sergeant Pritchard,’ she says, ‘I do ’ope you ’aven’t
+changed your mind about your particulars.’ That’s the kind o’ woman she
+was—after five years!”
+
+“I don’t _see_ her yet somehow,” said Hooper, but with sympathy.
+
+“She—she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set ’er foot on a
+scorpion at any time of ’er life,” Pritchard added valiantly.
+
+“That don’t help me either. My mother’s like that for one.”
+
+The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the
+car-roof. Said Pyecroft suddenly:—
+
+“How many women have you been intimate with all over the world,
+Pritch?”
+
+Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch
+neck.
+
+“’Undreds,” said Pyecroft. “So’ve I. How many of ’em can you remember
+in your own mind, settin’ aside the first—an’ per’aps the last—_and one
+more_?”
+
+“Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself,” said Sergeant Pritchard,
+relievedly.
+
+“An’ how many times might you ’ave been at Aukland?”
+
+“One—two,” he began. “Why, I can’t make it more than three times in ten
+years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B.”
+
+“So can I—an’ I’ve only been to Auckland twice—how she stood an’ what
+she was sayin’ an’ what she looked like. That’s the secret. ’Tisn’t
+beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some
+women’ll stay in a man’s memory if they once walked down a street, but
+most of ’em you can live with a month on end, an’ next commission you’d
+be put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as
+one might say.”
+
+“Ah,” said Hooper. “That’s more the idea. I’ve known just two women of
+that nature.”
+
+“An’ it was no fault o’ theirs?” asked Pritchard.
+
+“None whatever. I know that!”
+
+“An’ if a man gets struck with that kind o’ woman, Mr. Hooper?”
+Pritchard went on.
+
+“He goes crazy—or just saves himself,” was the slow answer.
+
+“You’ve hit it,” said the Sergeant. “You’ve seen an’ known somethin’ in
+the course o’ your life, Mr. Hooper. I’m lookin’ at you!” He set down
+his bottle.
+
+“And how often had Vickery seen her?” I asked.
+
+“That’s the dark an’ bloody mystery,” Pyecroft answered. “I’d never
+come across him till I come out in the _Hierophant_ just now, an’ there
+wasn’t any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was
+what you call a superior man. ’E spoke to me once or twice about
+Auckland and Mrs. B. on the voyage out. I called that to mind
+subsequently. There must ’ave been a good deal between ’em, to my way
+o’ thinkin’. Mind you I’m only giving you my _sum_ of it all, because
+all I know is second-hand so to speak, or rather I should say more than
+second-’and.”
+
+“How?” said Hooper peremptorily. “You must have seen it or heard it.”
+
+“Yes,” said Pyecroft. “I used to think seein’ and hearin’ was the only
+regulation aids to ascertainin’ facts, but as we get older we get more
+accommodatin’. The cylinders work easier, I suppose…. Were you in Cape
+Town last December when Phyllis’s Circus came?”
+
+“No—up country,” said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue.
+
+“I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called ‘Home
+and Friends for a Tickey.’”
+
+“Oh, you mean the cinematograph—the pictures of prize-fights and
+steamers. I’ve seen ’em up country.”
+
+“Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin’ to. London Bridge
+with the omnibuses—a troopship goin’ to the war—marines on parade at
+Portsmouth an’ the Plymouth Express arrivin’ at Paddin’ton.”
+
+“Seen ’em all. Seen ’em all,” said Hooper impatiently.
+
+“We _Hierophants_ came in just before Christmas week an’ leaf was
+easy.”
+
+“I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on
+the station. Why, even Durban’s more like Nature. We was there for
+Christmas,” Pritchard put in.
+
+“Not bein’ a devotee of Indian _peeris_, as our Doctor said to the
+Pusser, I can’t exactly say. Phyllis’s was good enough after musketry
+practice at Mozambique. I couldn’t get off the first two or three
+nights on account of what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo
+Lieutenant in the submerged flat, where some pride of the West country
+had sugared up a gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our
+Carpenter Rigdon—old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus
+never left ’is ship unless an’ until he was ’oisted out with a winch,
+but _when_ ’e went ’e would return noddin’ like a lily gemmed with dew.
+We smothered him down below that night, but the things ’e said about
+Vickery as a fittin’ playmate for a Warrant Officer of ’is cubic
+capacity, before we got him quiet, was what I should call pointed.”
+
+“I’ve been with Crocus—in the _Redoubtable_,” said the Sergeant. “He’s
+a character if there is one.”
+
+“Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at
+the door of the Circus I came across Vickery. ‘Oh!’ he says, ‘you’re
+the man I’m looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin’
+places!’ I went astern at once, protestin’ because tickey seats better
+suited my so-called finances. ‘Come on,’ says Vickery, ‘I’m payin’.’
+Naturally I abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o’ drinks to
+match the seats. ‘No,’ he says, when this was ’inted—‘not now. Not now.
+As many as you please afterwards, but I want you sober for the
+occasion.’ I caught ’is face under a lamp just then, an’ the appearance
+of it quite cured me of my thirsts. Don’t mistake. It didn’t frighten
+me. It made me anxious. I can’t tell you what it was like, but that was
+the effect which it ’ad on me. If you want to know, it reminded me of
+those things in bottles in those herbalistic shops at
+Plymouth—preserved in spirits of wine. White an’ crumply
+things—previous to birth as you might say.”
+
+“You ’ave a beastial mind, Pye,” said the Sergeant, relighting his
+pipe.
+
+“Perhaps. We were in the front row, an’ ‘Home an’ Friends’ came on
+early. Vickery touched me on the knee when the number went up. ‘If you
+see anything that strikes you,’ he says, ‘drop me a hint’; then he went
+on clicking. We saw London Bridge an’ so forth an’ so on, an’ it was
+most interestin’. I’d never seen it before. You ’eard a little dynamo
+like buzzin’, but the pictures were the real thing—alive an’ movin’.”
+
+“I’ve seen ’em,” said Hooper. “Of course they are taken from the very
+thing itself—you see.”
+
+“Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin’ton on the big magic lantern
+sheet. First we saw the platform empty an’ the porters standin’ by.
+Then the engine come in, head on, an’ the women in the front row
+jumped: she headed so straight. Then the doors opened and the
+passengers came out and the porters got the luggage—just like life.
+Only—only when any one came down too far towards us that was watchin’,
+they walked right out o’ the picture, so to speak. I was ’ighly
+interested, I can tell you. So were all of us. I watched an old man
+with a rug ’oo’d dropped a book an’ was tryin’ to pick it up, when
+quite slowly, from be’ind two porters—carryin’ a little reticule an’
+lookin’ from side to side—comes out Mrs. Bathurst. There was no
+mistakin’ the walk in a hundred thousand. She come forward—right
+forward—she looked out straight at us with that blindish look which
+Pritch alluded to. She walked on and on till she melted out of the
+picture—like—like a shadow jumpin’ over a candle, an’ as she went I
+’eard Dawson in the ticky seats be’ind sing out: ‘Christ! There’s Mrs.
+B.!’”
+
+Hooper swallowed his spittle and leaned forward intently.
+
+“Vickery touched me on the knee again. He was clickin’ his four false
+teeth with his jaw down like an enteric at the last kick. ‘Are you
+sure?’ says he. ‘Sure,’ I says, ‘didn’t you ’ear Dawson give tongue?
+Why, it’s the woman herself.’ ‘I was sure before,’ he says, ‘but I
+brought you to make sure. Will you come again with me to-morrow?’
+
+“‘Willingly,’ I says, ‘it’s like meetin’ old friends.’
+
+“‘Yes,’ he says, openin’ his watch, ‘very like. It will be
+four-and-twenty hours less four minutes before I see her again. Come
+and have a drink,’ he says. ‘It may amuse you, but it’s no sort of
+earthly use to me.’ He went out shaking his head an’ stumblin’ over
+people’s feet as if he was drunk already. I anticipated a swift drink
+an’ a speedy return, because I wanted to see the performin’ elephants.
+Instead o’ which Vickery began to navigate the town at the rate o’
+knots, lookin’ in at a bar every three minutes approximate Greenwich
+time. I’m not a drinkin’ man, though there are those present”—he cocked
+his unforgetable eye at me—“who may have seen me more or less imbued
+with the fragrant spirit. None the less, when I drink I like to do it
+at anchor an’ not at an average speed of eighteen knots on the measured
+mile. There’s a tank as you might say at the back o’ that big hotel up
+the hill—what do they call it?”
+
+“The Molteno Reservoir,” I suggested, and Hooper nodded.
+
+“That was his limit o’ drift. We walked there an’ we come down through
+the Gardens—there was a South-Easter blowin’—an’ we finished up by the
+Docks. Then we bore up the road to Salt River, and wherever there was a
+pub Vickery put in sweatin’. He didn’t look at what he drunk—he didn’t
+look at the change. He walked an’ he drunk an’ he perspired in rivers.
+I understood why old Crocus ’ad come back in the condition ’e did,
+because Vickery an’ I ’ad two an’ a half hours o’ this gipsy manœuvre
+an’ when we got back to the station there wasn’t a dry atom on or in
+me.”
+
+“Did he say anything?” Pritchard asked.
+
+“The sum total of ’is conversation from 7.45 P.M. till 11.15 P.M. was
+‘Let’s have another.’ Thus the mornin’ an’ the evenin’ were the first
+day, as Scripture says…. To abbreviate a lengthy narrative, I went into
+Cape Town for five consecutive nights with Master Vickery, and in that
+time I must ’ave logged about fifty knots over the ground an’ taken in
+two gallon o’ all the worst spirits south the Equator. The evolution
+never varied. Two shilling seats for us two; five minutes o’ the
+pictures, an’ perhaps forty-five seconds o’ Mrs. B. walking down
+towards us with that blindish look in her eyes an’ the reticule in her
+hand. Then out walk—and drink till train time.”
+
+“What did you think?” said Hooper, his hand fingering his waistcoat
+pocket.
+
+“Several things,” said Pyecroft. “To tell you the truth, I aren’t quite
+done thinkin’ about it yet. Mad? The man was a dumb lunatic—must ’ave
+been for months—years p’raps. I know somethin’ o’ maniacs, as every man
+in the Service must. I’ve been shipmates with a mad skipper—an’ a
+lunatic Number One, but never both together I thank ’Eaven. I could
+give you the names o’ three captains now ’oo ought to be in an asylum,
+but you don’t find me interferin’ with the mentally afflicted till they
+begin to lay about ’em with rammers an’ winch-handles. Only once I
+crept up a little into the wind towards Master Vickery. ‘I wonder what
+she’s doin’ in England,’ I says. ‘Don’t it seem to you she’s lookin’
+for somebody?’ That was in the Gardens again, with the South-Easter
+blowin’ as we were makin’ our desperate round. ‘She’s lookin’ for me,’
+he says, stoppin’ dead under a lamp an’ clickin’. When he wasn’t
+drinkin’, in which case all ’is teeth clicked on the glass, ’e was
+clickin’ ’is four false teeth like a Marconi ticker. ‘Yes! lookin’ for
+me,’ he said, an’ he went on very softly an’ as you might say
+affectionately. ‘_But_, he went on, ‘in future, Mr. Pyecroft, I should
+take it kindly of you if you’d confine your remarks to the drinks set
+before you. Otherwise,’ he says, ‘with the best will in the world
+towards you, I may find myself guilty of murder! Do you understand?’ he
+says. ‘Perfectly,’ I says, ‘but would it at all soothe you to know that
+in such a case the chances o’ your being killed are precisely
+equivalent to the chances o’ me being outed.’ ‘Why, no,’ he says, ‘I’m
+almost afraid that ’ud be a temptation,’
+
+“Then I said—we was right under the lamp by that arch at the end o’ the
+Gardens where the trams came round—‘Assumin’ murder was done—or
+attempted murder—I put it to you that you would still be left so badly
+crippled, as one might say, that your subsequent capture by the
+police—to ’oom you would ’ave to explain—would be largely inevitable.’
+‘That’s better,’ ’e says, passin’ ’is hands over his forehead. ‘That’s
+much better, because,’ he says, ‘do you know, as I am now, Pye, I’m not
+so sure if I could explain anything much.’ Those were the only
+particular words I had with ’im in our walks as I remember.”
+
+“What walks!” said Hooper. “Oh my soul, what walks!”
+
+“They were chronic,” said Pyecroft gravely, “but I didn’t anticipate
+any danger till the Circus left. Then I anticipated that, bein’
+deprived of ’is stimulant, he might react on me, so to say, with a
+hatchet. Consequently, after the final performance an’ the ensuin’ wet
+walk, I kep’ myself aloof from my superior officer on board in the
+execution of ’is duty as you might put it. Consequently, I was
+interested when the sentry informs me while I was passin’ on my lawful
+occasions that Click had asked to see the captain. As a general rule
+warrant officers don’t dissipate much of the owner’s time, but Click
+put in an hour and more be’ind that door. My duties kep’ me within
+eyeshot of it. Vickery came out first, an’ ’e actually nodded at me an’
+smiled. This knocked me out o’ the boat, because, havin’ seen ’is face
+for five consecutive nights, I didn’t anticipate any change there more
+than a condenser in hell, so to speak. The owner emerged later. His
+face didn’t read off at all, so I fell back on his cox, ’oo’d been
+eight years with him and knew him better than boat signals. Lamson—that
+was the cox’s name—crossed ’is bows once or twice at low speeds an’
+dropped down to me visibly concerned. ‘He’s shipped ’is court-martial
+face,’ says Lamson. ‘Some one’s goin’ to be ’ung. I’ve never seen that
+look but once before when they chucked the gun-sights overboard in the
+_Fantastic_.’ Throwin’ gun-sights overboard, Mr. Hooper, is the
+equivalent for mutiny in these degenerate days. It’s done to attract
+the notice of the authorities an’ the _Western Mornin’ News_—generally
+by a stoker. Naturally, word went round the lower deck an’ we had a
+private over’aul of our little consciences. But, barrin’ a shirt which
+a second-class stoker said ’ad walked into ’is bag from the marines
+flat by itself, nothin’ vital transpired. The owner went about flyin’
+the signal for ‘attend public execution,’ so to say, but there was no
+corpse at the yardarm. ’E lunched on the beach an’ ’e returned with ’is
+regulation harbour-routine face about 3 P.M. Thus Lamson lost prestige
+for raising false alarms. The only person ’oo might ’ave connected the
+epicycloidal gears correctly was one Pyecroft, when he was told that
+Mr. Vickery would go up country that same evening to take over certain
+naval ammunition left after the war in Bloemfontein Fort. No details
+was ordered to accompany Master Vickery. He was told off first person
+singular—as a unit—-by himself.”
+
+The marine whistled penetratingly.
+
+“That’s what I thought,” said Pyecroft. “I went ashore with him in the
+cutter an’ ’e asked me to walk through the station. He was clickin’
+audibly, but otherwise seemed happy-ish.
+
+“‘You might like to know,’ he says, stoppin’ just opposite the
+Admiral’s front gate, ‘that Phyllis’s Circus will be performin’ at
+Worcester to-morrow night. So I shall see ’er yet once again. You’ve
+been very patient with me,’ he says.
+
+“‘Look here, Vickery,’ I said, ‘this thing’s come to be just as much as
+I can stand. Consume your own smoke. I don’t want to know any more.’
+
+“‘You!’ he said. ‘What have you got to complain of?—you’ve only ’ad to
+watch. I’m _it_,’ he says, ‘but that’s neither here nor there,’ he
+says. ‘I’ve one thing to say before shakin’ ’ands. Remember,’ ’e
+says—we were just by the Admiral’s garden-gate then—‘remember, that I
+am _not_ a murderer, because my lawful wife died in childbed six weeks
+after I came out. That much at least I am clear of,’ ’e says.
+
+“‘Then what have you done that signifies?’ I said. ‘What’s the rest of
+it?’
+
+“‘The rest,’ ’e says, ‘is silence,’ an’ he shook ’ands and went
+clickin’ into Simons Town station.”
+
+“Did he stop to see Mrs. Bathurst at Worcester?” I asked.
+
+“It’s not known. He reported at Bloemfontein, saw the ammunition into
+the trucks, and then ’e disappeared. Went out—deserted, if you care to
+put it so—within eighteen months of his pension, an’ if what ’e said
+about ’is wife was true he was a free man as ’e then stood. How do you
+read it off?”
+
+“Poor devil!” said Hooper. “To see her that way every night! I wonder
+what it was.”
+
+“I’ve made my ’ead ache in that direction many a long night.”
+
+“But I’ll swear Mrs. B. ’ad no ’and in it,” said the Sergeant unshaken.
+
+“No. Whatever the wrong or deceit was, he did it, I’m sure o’ that. I
+’ad to look at ’is face for five consecutive nights. I’m not so fond o’
+navigatin’ about Cape Town with a South-Easter blowin’ these days. I
+can hear those teeth click, so to say.”
+
+“Ah, those teeth,” said Hooper, and his hand went to his waistcoat
+pocket once more. “Permanent things false teeth are. You read about ’em
+in all the murder trials.”
+
+“What d’you suppose the captain knew—or did?” I asked.
+
+“I never turned my searchlight that way,” Pyecroft answered
+unblushingly.
+
+We all reflected together, and drummed on empty beer bottles as the
+picnic-party, sunburned, wet, and sandy, passed our door singing “The
+Honeysuckle and the Bee.”
+
+“Pretty girl under that kapje,” said Pyecroft.
+
+“They never circulated his description?” said Pritchard.
+
+“I was askin’ you before these gentlemen came,” said Hooper to me,
+“whether you knew Wankies—on the way to the Zambesi—beyond Buluwayo?”
+
+“Would he pass there—tryin’ to get to that Lake what’s ’is name?” said
+Pritchard.
+
+Hooper shook his head and went on: “There’s a curious bit o’ line
+there, you see. It runs through solid teak forest—a sort o’ mahogany
+really—seventy-two miles without a curve. I’ve had a train derailed
+there twenty-three times in forty miles. I was up there a month ago
+relievin’ a sick inspector, you see. He told me to look out for a
+couple of tramps in the teak.”
+
+“Two?” Pyecroft said. “I don’t envy that other man if——”
+
+“We get heaps of tramps up there since the war. The inspector told me
+I’d find ’em at M’Bindwe siding waiting to go North. He’d given ’em
+some grub and quinine, you see. I went up on a construction train. I
+looked out for ’em. I saw them miles ahead along the straight, waiting
+in the teak. One of ’em was standin’ up by the dead-end of the siding
+an’ the other was squattin’ down lookin’ up at ’im, you see.”
+
+“What did you do for ’em?” said Pritchard.
+
+“There wasn’t much I could do, except bury ’em. There’d been a bit of a
+thunderstorm in the teak, you see, and they were both stone dead and as
+black as charcoal. That’s what they really were, you see—charcoal. They
+fell to bits when we tried to shift ’em. The man who was standin’ up
+had the false teeth. I saw ’em shinin’ against the black. Fell to bits
+he did too, like his mate squatting down an’ watchin’ him, both of ’em
+all wet in the rain. Both burned to charcoal, you see. And—that’s what
+made me ask about marks just now—the false-toother was tattooed on the
+arms and chest—a crown and foul anchor with M.V. above.”
+
+“I’ve seen that,” said Pyecroft quickly. “It was so.”
+
+“But if he was all charcoal-like?” said Pritchard, shuddering.
+
+“You know how writing shows up white on a burned letter? Well, it was
+like that, you see. We buried ’em in the teak and I kept… But he was a
+friend of you two gentlemen, you see.”
+
+Mr. Hooper brought his hand away from his waistcoat-pocket—empty.
+
+Pritchard covered his face with his hands for a moment, like a child
+shutting out an ugliness.
+
+“And to think of her at Hauraki!” he murmured—“with ’er ’air-ribbon on
+my beer. ‘Ada,’ she said to her niece… Oh, my Gawd!”…
+
+“On a summer afternoon, when the honeysuckle blooms,
+    And all Nature seems at rest,
+Underneath the bower, ’mid the perfume of the flower,
+    Sat a maiden with the one she loves the best——”
+
+
+sang the picnic-party waiting for their train at Glengariff.
+
+“Well, I don’t know how you feel about it,” said Pyecroft, “but ’avin’
+seen ’is face for five consecutive nights on end, I’m inclined to
+finish what’s left of the beer an’ thank Gawd he’s dead!”
+
+
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+
+
+
+“OUR FATHERS ALSO”
+
+
+By—they are by with mirth and tears,
+    Wit or the works of Desire—
+Cushioned about on the kindly years
+    Between the wall and the fire.
+
+The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked—
+    Standeth no more to glean;
+For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
+    When they went out between.
+
+All lore our Lady Venus bares
+    Signalled it was or told
+By the dear lips long given to theirs
+    And longer to the mould.
+
+All Profit, all Device, all Truth
+    Written it was or said
+By the mighty men of their mighty youth.
+    Which is mighty being dead.
+
+The film that floats before their eyes
+    The Temple’s Veil they call;
+And the dust that on the Shewbread lies
+    Is holy over all.
+
+Warn them of seas that slip our yoke
+    Of slow conspiring stars—
+The ancient Front of Things unbroke
+    But heavy with new wars?
+
+By—they are by with mirth and tears.
+    Wit or the waste of Desire—
+Cushioned about on the kindly years
+    Between the wall and the fire.
+
+
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+
+“Book—Book—Domesday Book!” They were letting in the water for the
+evening stint at Robert’s Mill, and the wooden Wheel where lived the
+Spirit of the Mill settled to its nine hundred year old song: “Here
+Azor, a freeman, held one rod, but it never paid geld. _Nun-nun-nunquam
+geldavit_. Here Reinbert has one villein and four cottars with one
+plough—and wood for six hogs and two fisheries of sixpence and a mill
+of ten shillings—_unum molinum_—one mill. Reinbert’s mill—Robert’s
+Mill. Then and afterwards and now—_tunc et post et modo_—Robert’s Mill.
+Book—Book—Domesday Book!”
+
+“I confess,” said the Black Rat on the crossbeam, luxuriously trimming
+his whiskers—“I confess I am not above appreciating my position and all
+it means.” He was a genuine old English black rat, a breed which,
+report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown
+variety.
+
+“Appreciation is the surest sign of inadequacy,” said the Grey Cat,
+coiled up on a piece of sacking.
+
+“But I know what you mean,” she added. “To sit by right at the heart of
+things—eh?”
+
+“Yes,” said the Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy stones
+thuttered on the grist. “To possess—er—all this environment as an
+integral part of one’s daily life must insensibly of course … You see?”
+
+“I feel,” said the Grey Cat. “Indeed, if _we_ are not saturated with
+the spirit of the Mill, who should be?”
+
+“Book—Book—Domesday Book!” the Wheel, set to his work, was running off
+the tenure of the whole rape, for he knew Domesday Book backwards and
+forwards: “_In Ferle tenuit Abbatia de Wiltuna unam hidam et unam
+virgam et dimidiam. Nunquam geldavit_. And Agemond, a freeman, has half
+a hide and one rod. I remember Agemond well. Charmin’ fellow—friend of
+mine. He married a Norman girl in the days when we rather looked down
+on the Normans as upstarts. An’ Agemond’s dead? So he is. Eh, dearie
+me! dearie me! I remember the wolves howling outside his door in the
+big frost of Ten Fifty-Nine…. _Essewelde hundredum nunquam geldum
+reddidit_. Book! Book! Domesday Book!”
+
+“After all,” the Grey Cat continued, “atmospere is life. It is the
+influences under which we live that count in the long run. Now,
+outside”—she cocked one ear towards the half-opened door—“there is an
+absurd convention that rats and cats are, I won’t go so far as to say
+natural enemies, but opposed forces. Some such ruling may be crudely
+effective—I don’t for a minute presume to set up my standards as
+final—among the ditches; but from the larger point of view that one
+gains by living at the heart of things, it seems for a rule of life a
+little overstrained. Why, because some of your associates have, shall I
+say, liberal views on the ultimate destination of a sack
+of—er—middlings don’t they call them——”
+
+“Something of that sort,” said the Black Rat, a most sharp and
+sweet-toothed judge of everything ground in the mill for the last three
+years.
+
+“Thanks—middlings be it. _Why_, as I was saying, must I disarrange my
+fur and my digestion to chase you round the dusty arena whenever we
+happen to meet?”
+
+“As little reason,” said the Black Rat, “as there is for me, who, I
+trust, am a person of ordinarily decent instincts, to wait till you
+have gone on a round of calls, and then to assassinate your very
+charming children.”
+
+“Exactly! It has its humorous side though.” The Grey Cat yawned. “The
+miller seems afflicted by it. He shouted large and vague threats to my
+address, last night at tea, that he wasn’t going to keep cats who
+‘caught no mice.’ Those were his words. I remember the grammar sticking
+in my throat like a herring-bone.”
+
+“And what did you do?”
+
+“What does one do when a barbarian utters? One ceases to utter and
+removes. I removed—towards his pantry. It was a _riposte_ he might
+appreciate.”
+
+“Really those people grow absolutely insufferable,” said the Black Rat.
+“There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles—a
+builder—who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of
+the Wheel for the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in
+red brick where those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used to stand.
+Have you noticed?”
+
+“There has been much misdirected activity of late among the humans.
+They jabber inordinately. I haven’t yet been able to arrive at their
+reason for existence.” The Cat yawned.
+
+“A couple of them came in here last week with wires, and fixed them all
+about the walls. Wires protected by some abominable composition, ending
+in iron brackets with glass bulbs. Utterly useless for any purpose and
+artistically absolutely hideous. What do they mean?”
+
+“Aaah! I have known _four_-and-twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza,”
+said the Cat, who kept good company with the boarders spending a summer
+at the Mill Farm. “It means nothing except that humans occasionally
+bring their dogs with them. I object to dogs in all forms.”
+
+“Shouldn’t object to dogs,” said the Wheel sleepily…. “The Abbot of
+Wilton kept the best pack in the county. He enclosed all the Harryngton
+Woods to Sturt Common. Aluric, a freeman, was dispossessed of his
+holding. They tried the case at Lewes, but he got no change out of
+William de Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric
+eight and fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated
+him for blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot’s brother
+married … I’ve forgotten her name, but she was a charmin’ little woman.
+The Lady Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was
+conferred. She rode devilish straight to hounds. They were a bit
+throatier than we breed now, but a good pack: one of the best. The
+Abbot kept ’em in splendid shape. Now, who was the woman the Abbot
+kept? Book—Book! I shall have to go right back to Domesday and work up
+the centuries: _Modo per omnia reddit burgum tunc—tunc—tunc_! Was it
+_burgum_ or _hundredum_? I shall remember in a minute. There’s no
+hurry.” He paused as he turned over silvered with showering drops.
+
+“This won’t do,” said the Waters in the sluice. “Keep moving.”
+
+The Wheel swung forward; the Waters roared on the buckets and dropped
+down to the darkness below.
+
+“Noisier than usual,” said the Black Rat. “It must have been raining up
+the valley.”
+
+“Floods maybe,” said the Wheel dreamily. “It isn’t the proper season,
+but they can come without warning. I shall never forget the big
+one—when the Miller went to sleep and forgot to open the hatches. More
+than two hundred years ago it was, but I recall it distinctly. Most
+unsettling.”
+
+“We lifted that wheel off his bearings,” cried the Waters. “We said,
+‘Take away that bauble!’ And in the morning he was five mile down the
+valley—hung up in a tree.”
+
+“Vulgar!” said the Cat. “But I am sure he never lost his dignity.”
+
+“We don’t know. He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished
+with him…. Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! Get over!”
+
+“And why on this day more than any other,” said the Wheel statelily. “I
+am not aware that my department requires the stimulus of external
+pressure to keep it up to its duties. I trust I have the elementary
+instincts of a gentleman.”
+
+“Maybe,” the Waters answered together, leaping down on the buckets. “We
+only know that you are very stiff on your bearings. Over, get over!”
+
+The Wheel creaked and groaned. There was certainly greater pressure
+upon him than he had ever felt, and his revolutions had increased from
+six and three-quarters to eight and a third per minute. But the uproar
+between the narrow, weed-hung walls annoyed the Grey Cat.
+
+“Isn’t it almost time,” she said plaintively, “that the person who is
+paid to understand these things shuts off those vehement drippings with
+that screw-thing on the top of that box-thing.”
+
+“They’ll be shut off at eight o’clock as usual,” said Rat; “then we can
+go to dinner.”
+
+“But we shan’t be shut off till ever so late,” said the Waters gaily.
+“We shall keep it up all night.”
+
+“The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for
+by its eternal hopefulness,” said the Cat. “Our dam is not, I am glad
+to say, designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time.
+Reserve is Life.”
+
+“Thank goodness!” said the Black Rat. “Then they can return to their
+native ditches.”
+
+“Ditches!” cried the Waters; “Raven’s Gill Brook is no ditch. It is
+almost navigable, and _we_ come from there away.” They slid over solid
+and compact till the Wheel thudded under their weight.
+
+“Raven’s Gill Brook,” said the Rat. “_I_ never heard of Raven’s Gill.”
+
+“We are the waters of Harpenden Brook—down from under Callton Rise.
+Phew! how the race stinks compared with the heather country.” Another
+five foot of water flung itself against the Wheel, broke, roared,
+gurgled, and was gone.
+
+“Indeed,” said the Grey Cat, “I am sorry to tell you that Raven’s Gill
+Brook is cut off from this valley by an absolutely impassable range of
+mountains, and Callton Rise is more than nine miles away. It belongs to
+another system entirely.”
+
+“Ah yes,” said the Rat, grinning, “but we forget that, for the young,
+water always runs uphill.”
+
+“Oh, hopeless! hopeless! hopeless!” cried the Waters, descending
+open-palmed upon the Wheel “There is nothing between here and Raven’s
+Gill Brook that a hundred yards of channelling and a few square feet of
+concrete could not remove; and hasn’t removed!”
+
+“And Harpenden Brook is north of Raven’s Gill and runs into Raven’s
+Gill at the foot of Callton Rise, where ilex trees are, and _we_ come
+from there!” These were the glassy, clear waters of the high chalk.
+
+“And Batten’s Ponds, that are fed by springs, have been led through
+Trott’s Wood, taking the spare water from the old Witches’ Spring under
+Churt Haw, and we—we—_we_ are their combined waters!” Those were the
+Waters from the upland bogs and moors—a porter-coloured, dusky, and
+foam-flecked flood.
+
+“It’s all very interesting,” purred the Cat to the sliding waters, “and
+I have no doubt that Trott’s Woods and Bott’s Woods are tremendously
+important places; but if you could manage to do your work—whose value I
+don’t in the least dispute—a little more soberly, I, for one, should be
+grateful.”
+
+“Book—book—book—book—book—Domesday Book!” The urged Wheel was fairly
+clattering now: “In Burgelstaltone a monk holds of Earl Godwin one hide
+and a half with eight villeins. There is a church—and a monk…. I
+remember that monk. Blessed if he could rattle his rosary off any
+quicker than I am doing now … and wood for seven hogs. I must be
+running twelve to the minute … almost as fast as Steam. Damnable
+invention, Steam! … Surely it’s time we went to dinner or prayers—or
+something. Can’t keep up this pressure, day in and day out, and not
+feel it. I don’t mind for myself, of course. _Noblesse oblige_, you
+know. I’m only thinking of the Upper and the Nether Millstones. They
+came out of the common rock. They can’t be expected to——”
+
+“Don’t worry on our account, please,” said the Millstones huskily. “So
+long as you supply the power we’ll supply the weight and the bite.”
+
+“Isn’t it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this way?”
+grunted the Wheel. “I seem to remember something about the Mills of God
+grinding ‘slowly.’ _Slowly_ was the word!”
+
+“But we are not the Mills of God. We’re only the Upper and the Nether
+Millstones. We have received no instructions to be anything else. We
+are actuated by power transmitted through you.”
+
+“Ah, but let us be merciful as we are strong. Think of all the
+beautiful little plants that grow on my woodwork. There are five
+varieties of rare moss within less than one square yard—and all these
+delicate jewels of nature are being grievously knocked about by this
+excessive rush of the water.”
+
+“Umph!” growled the Millstones. “What with your religious scruples and
+your taste for botany we’d hardly know you for the Wheel that put the
+carter’s son under last autumn. You never worried about _him_!”
+
+“He ought to have known better.”
+
+“So ought your jewels of nature. Tell ’em to grow where it’s safe.”
+
+“How a purely mercantile life debases and brutalises!” said the Cat to
+the Rat.
+
+“They were such beautiful little plants too,” said the Rat tenderly.
+“Maiden’s-tongue and hart’s-hair fern trellising all over the wall just
+as they do on the sides of churches in the Downs. Think what a joy the
+sight of them must be to our sturdy peasants pulling hay!”
+
+“Golly!” said the Millstones. “There’s nothing like coming to the heart
+of things for information”; and they returned to the song that all
+English water-mills have sung from time beyond telling:
+
+There was a jovial miller once
+    Lived on the River Dee,
+And this the burden of his song
+    For ever used to be.
+
+
+Then, as fresh grist poured in and dulled the note:
+
+I care for nobody—no not I,
+    And nobody cares for me.
+
+
+“Even these stones have absorbed something of our atmosphere,” said the
+Grey Cat. “Nine-tenths of the trouble in this world comes from lack of
+detachment.”
+
+“One of your people died from forgetting that, didn’t she?” said the
+Rat.
+
+“One only. The example has sufficed us for generations.”
+
+“Ah! but what happened to Don’t Care?” the Waters demanded.
+
+“Brutal riding to death of the casual analogy is another mark of
+provincialism!” The Grey Cat raised her tufted chin. “I am going to
+sleep. With my social obligations I must snatch rest when I can; but,
+as our old friend here says, _Noblesse oblige_…. Pity me! Three
+functions to-night in the village, and a barn dance across the valley!”
+
+“There’s no chance, I suppose, of your looking in on the loft about
+two. Some of our young people are going to amuse themselves with a new
+sacque-dance—best white flour only,” said the Black Rat.
+
+“I believe I am officially supposed not to countenance that sort of
+thing, but youth is youth.… By the way, the humans set my milk-bowl in
+the loft these days; I hope your youngsters respect it.”
+
+“My dear lady,” said the Black Rat, bowing, “you grieve me. You hurt me
+inexpressibly. After all these years, too!”
+
+“A general crush is so mixed—highways and hedges—all that sort of
+thing—and no one can answer for one’s best friends. _I_ never try. So
+long as mine are amusin’ and in full voice, and can hold their own at a
+tile-party, I’m as catholic as these mixed waters in the dam here!”
+
+“We aren’t mixed. We _have_ mixed. We are one now,” said the Waters
+sulkily.
+
+“Still uttering?” said the Cat. “Never mind, here’s the Miller coming
+to shut you off. Ye-es, I have known—_four_—or five is it?—and twenty
+leaders of revolt in Faenza…. A little more babble in the dam, a little
+more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the wheel, and
+then——”
+
+“They will find that nothing has occurred,” said the Black Rat. “The
+old things persist and survive and are recognised—our old friend here
+first of all. By the way,” he turned toward the Wheel, “I believe we
+have to congratulate you on your latest honour.”
+
+“Profoundly well deserved—even if he had never—as he has—-laboured
+strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of millkind,” said
+the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse committees. “Doubly
+deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified rebuke his existence
+offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands of—er—some people.
+What form did the honour take?”
+
+“It was,” said the Wheel bashfully, “a machine-moulded pinion.”
+
+“Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!” the Black Rat sighed. “I never see a bat
+without wishing for wings.”
+
+“Not exactly that sort of pinion,” said the Wheel, “but a really ornate
+circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying. Mr.
+Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally—on my
+left rim—the side that you can’t see from the mill. I hadn’t meant to
+say anything about it—or the new steel straps round my axles—bright
+red, you know—to be worn on all occasions—but, without false modesty, I
+assure you that the recognition cheered me not a little.”
+
+“How intensely gratifying!” said the Black Rat. “I must really steal an
+hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on your left
+side.”
+
+“By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr.
+Mangles?” the Grey Cat asked. “He seems to be building small houses on
+the far side of the tail-race. Believe me, I don’t ask from any vulgar
+curiosity.”
+
+“It affects our Order,” said the Black Rat simply but firmly.
+
+“Thank you,” said the Wheel. “Let me see if I can tabulate it properly.
+Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On the
+side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now
+was a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and
+two carts of two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards
+and a half, and one roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and
+afterwards beer in large tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three
+villeins and one very great cart, deposits on it one engine of iron and
+brass and a small iron mill of four feet, and a broad strap of leather.
+And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins, constructs the floor for
+the same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the small mill. There
+are there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number
+fifty-seven. The whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four
+pounds…. I’m sorry I can’t make myself clearer, but you can see for
+yourself.”
+
+“Amazingly lucid,” said the Cat. She was the more to be admired because
+the language of Domesday Book is not, perhaps, the clearest medium
+wherein to describe a small but complete electric-light installation,
+deriving its power from a water-wheel by means of cogs and gearing.
+
+“See for yourself—by all means, see for yourself,” said the Waters,
+spluttering and choking with mirth.
+
+“Upon my word,” said the Black Rat furiously, “I may be at fault, but I
+wholly fail to perceive where these offensive eavesdroppers—er—come in.
+We were discussing a matter that solely affected our Order.”
+
+Suddenly they heard, as they had heard many times before, the Miller
+shutting off the water. To the rattle and rumble of the labouring
+stones succeeded thick silence, punctuated with little drops from the
+stayed wheel. Then some water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as
+she slid to her nest, and the plop of a water-rat sounded like the fall
+of a log in the water.
+
+“It is all over—it always is all over at just this time. Listen, the
+Miller is going to bed—as usual. Nothing has occurred,” said the Cat.
+
+Something creaked in the house where the pig-styes had stood, as metal
+engaged on metal with a clink and a burr.
+
+“Shall I turn her on?” cried the Miller.
+
+“Ay,” said the voice from the dynamo-house.
+
+“A human in Mangles’ new house!” the Rat squeaked.
+
+“What of it?” said the Grey Cat. “Even supposing Mr. Mangles’
+cats’-meat-coloured hovel ululated with humans, can’t you see for
+yourself—that—?”
+
+There was a solid crash of released waters leaping upon the wheel more
+furiously than ever, a grinding of cogs, a hum like the hum of a
+hornet, and then the unvisited darkness of the old mill was scattered
+by intolerable white light. It threw up every cobweb, every burl and
+knot in the beams and the floor; till the shadows behind the flakes of
+rough plaster on the wall lay clear-cut as shadows of mountains on the
+photographed moon.
+
+“See! See! See!” hissed the Waters in full flood. “Yes, see for
+yourselves. Nothing has occurred. Can’t you see?”
+
+The Rat, amazed, had fallen from his foothold and lay half-stunned on
+the floor. The Cat, following her instinct, leaped nigh to the ceiling,
+and with flattened ears and bared teeth backed in a corner ready to
+fight whatever terror might be loosed on her. But nothing happened.
+Through the long aching minutes nothing whatever happened, and her
+wire-brush tail returned slowly to its proper shape.
+
+“Whatever it is,” she said at last, “it’s overdone. They can never keep
+it up, you know.”
+
+“Much you know,” said the Waters. “Over you go, old man. You can take
+the full head of us now. Those new steel axle-straps of yours can stand
+anything. Come along, Raven’s Gill, Harpenden, Callton Rise, Batten’s
+Ponds, Witches’ Spring, all together! Let’s show these gentlemen how to
+work!”
+
+“But—but—I thought it was a decoration. Why—why—why—it only means more
+work for _me_!”
+
+“Exactly. You’re to supply about sixty eight-candle lights when
+required. But they won’t be all in use at once——”
+
+“Ah! I thought as much,” said the Cat. “The reaction is bound to come.”
+
+“_And_,” said the Waters, “you will do the ordinary work of the mill as
+well.”
+
+“Impossible!” the old Wheel quivered as it drove. “Aluric never did
+it—nor Azor, nor Reinbert. Not even William de Warrenne or the Papal
+Legate. There’s no precedent for it. I tell you there’s no precedent
+for working a wheel like this.”
+
+“Wait a while! We’re making one as fast as we can. Aluric and Co. are
+dead. So’s the Papal Legate. You’ve no notion how dead they are, but
+we’re here—the Waters of Five Separate Systems. We’re just as
+interesting as Domesday Book. Would you like to hear about the
+land-tenure in Trott’s Wood? It’s squat-right, chiefly.” The mocking
+Waters leaped one over the other, chuckling and chattering profanely.
+
+“In that hundred Jenkins, a tinker, with one dog—_unis canis_—holds, by
+the Grace of God and a habit he has of working hard, _unam hidam_—a
+large potato patch. Charmin’ fellow, Jenkins. Friend of ours. Now, who
+the dooce did Jenkins keep? … In the hundred of Callton is one
+charcoal-burner _irreligiosissimus homo_—a bit of a rip—but a thorough
+sportsman. _Ibi est ecclesia. Non multum_. Not much of a church, _quia_
+because, _episcopus_ the Vicar irritated the Nonconformists _tunc et
+post et modo_—then and afterwards and now—until they built a cut-stone
+Congregational chapel with red brick facings that did not return
+itself—_defendebat se_—at four thousand pounds.”
+
+“Charcoal-burners, vicars, schismatics, and red brick facings,” groaned
+the Wheel. “But this is sheer blasphemy. What waters have they let in
+upon me?”
+
+“Floods from the gutters. Faugh, this light is positively sickening!”
+said the Cat, rearranging her fur.
+
+“We come down from the clouds or up from the springs, exactly like all
+other waters everywhere. Is that what’s surprising you?” sang the
+Waters.
+
+“Of course not. I know my work if you don’t. What I complain of is your
+lack of reverence and repose. You’ve no instinct of deference towards
+your betters—your heartless parody of the Sacred volume (the Wheel
+meant Domesday Book)—proves it.”
+
+“Our betters?” said the Waters most solemnly. “What is there in all
+this dammed race that hasn’t come down from the clouds, or——”
+
+“Spare me that talk, please,” the Wheel persisted. “You’d _never_
+understand. It’s the tone—your tone that we object to.”
+
+“Yes. It’s your tone,” said the Black Rat, picking himself up limb by
+limb.
+
+“If you thought a trifle more about the work you’re supposed to do, and
+a trifle less about your precious feelings, you’d render a little more
+duty in return for the power vested in you—we mean wasted on you,” the
+Waters replied.
+
+“I have been some hundreds of years laboriously acquiring the knowledge
+which you see fit to challenge so light-heartedly,” the Wheel jarred.
+
+“Challenge him! Challenge him!” clamoured the little waves riddling
+down through the tail-race. “As well now as later. Take him up!”
+
+The main mass of the Waters plunging on the Wheel shocked that
+well-bolted structure almost into box-lids by saying: “Very good. Tell
+us what you suppose yourself to be doing at the present moment.”
+
+“Waiving the offensive form of your question, I answer, purely as a
+matter of courtesy, that I am engaged in the trituration of farinaceous
+substances whose ultimate destination it would be a breach of the trust
+reposed in me to reveal.”
+
+“Fiddle!” said the Waters. “We knew it all along! The first direct
+question shows his ignorance of his own job. Listen, old thing. Thanks
+to us, you are now actuating a machine of whose construction you know
+nothing, that that machine may, over wires of whose ramifications you
+are, by your very position, profoundly ignorant, deliver a power which
+you can never realise, to localities beyond the extreme limits of your
+mental horizon, with the object of producing phenomena which in your
+wildest dreams (if you ever dream) you could never comprehend. Is that
+clear, or would you like it all in words of four syllables?”
+
+“Your assumptions are deliciously sweeping, but may I point out that a
+decent and—the dear old Abbot of Wilton would have put it in his
+resonant monkish Latin much better than I can—a scholarly reserve, does
+not necessarily connote blank vacuity of mind on all subjects.”
+
+“Ah, the dear old Abbot of Wilton,” said the Rat sympathetically, as
+one nursed in that bosom. “Charmin’ fellow—thorough scholar and
+gentleman. Such a pity!”
+
+“Oh, Sacred Fountains!” the Waters were fairly boiling. “He goes out of
+his way to expose his ignorance by triple bucketfuls. He creaks to high
+Heaven that he is hopelessly behind the common order of things! He
+invites the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal
+incompetence, and then he talks as though there were untold reserves of
+knowledge behind him that he is too modest to bring forward. For a
+bland, circular, absolutely sincere impostor, you’re a miracle, O
+Wheel!”
+
+“I do not pretend to be anything more than an integral portion of an
+accepted and not altogether mushroom institution.”
+
+“Quite so,” said the Waters. “Then go round—hard——”
+
+“To what end?” asked the Wheel.
+
+“Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and fume—gassing
+is the proper word.”
+
+“It would be,” said the Cat, sniffing.
+
+“That will show that your accumulators are full. When the accumulators
+are exhausted, and the lights burn badly, you will find us whacking you
+round and round again.”
+
+“The end of life as decreed by Mangles and his creatures is to go
+whacking round and round for ever,” said the Cat.
+
+“In order,” the Rat said, “that you may throw raw and unnecessary
+illumination upon all the unloveliness in the world. Unloveliness which
+we shall—er—have always with us. At the same time you will riotously
+neglect the so-called little but vital graces that make up Life.”
+
+“Yes, Life,” said the Cat, “with its dim delicious half-tones and
+veiled indeterminate distances. Its surprisals, escapes, encounters,
+and dizzying leaps—its full-throated choruses in honour of the morning
+star, and its melting reveries beneath the sun-warmed wall.”
+
+“Oh, you can go on the tiles, Pussalina, just the same as usual,” said
+the laughing Waters. “_We_ sha’n’t interfere with you.”
+
+“On the tiles, forsooth!” hissed the Cat.
+
+“Well, that’s what it amounts to,” persisted the Waters. “We see a good
+deal of the minor graces of life on our way down to our job.”
+
+“And—but I fear I speak to deaf ears—do they never impress you?” said
+the Wheel.
+
+“Enormously,” said the Waters. “We have already learned six refined
+synonyms for loafing.”
+
+“But (here again I feel as though preaching in the wilderness) it never
+occurs to you that there may exist some small difference between the
+wholly animal—ah—rumination of bovine minds and the discerning,
+well-apportioned leisure of the finer type of intellect?”
+
+“Oh, yes. The bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no
+bones about it when it’s shouted at. We’ve seen _that_—in
+haying-time—all along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough
+to fudge up excuses for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when
+its excuses aren’t accepted. Turn over!”
+
+“But, my good people, no gentleman gets stuffy as you call it. A
+certain proper pride, to put it no higher, forbids—-”
+
+“Nothing that he wants to do if he really wants to do it. Get along!
+What are you giving us? D’you suppose we’ve scoured half heaven in the
+clouds, and half earth in the mists, to be taken in at this time of the
+day by a bone-idle, old hand-quern of your type?”
+
+“It is not for me to bandy personalities with you. I can only say that
+I simply decline to accept the situation.”
+
+“Decline away. It doesn’t make any odds. They’ll probably put in a
+turbine if you decline too much.”
+
+“What’s a turbine?” said the Wheel, quickly.
+
+“A little thing you don’t see, that performs surprising revolutions.
+But you won’t decline. You’ll hang on to your two nice red-strapped
+axles and your new machine-moulded pinions like—a—like a leech on a
+lily stem! There’s centuries of work in your old bones if you’d only
+apply yourself to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel with this
+head of water is about as efficient as a turbine.”
+
+“So in future I am to be considered mechanically? I have been painted
+by at least five Royal Academicians.”
+
+“Oh, you can be painted by five hundred when you aren’t at work, of
+course. But while you are at work you’ll work. You won’t half-stop and
+think and talk about rare plants and dicky-birds and farinaceous
+fiduciary interests. You’ll continue to revolve, and this new head of
+water will see that you do so continue.”
+
+“It is a matter on which it would be exceedingly ill-advised to form a
+hasty or a premature conclusion. I will give it my most careful
+consideration,” said the Wheel.
+
+“Please do,” said the Waters gravely. “Hullo! Here’s the Miller again.”
+
+The Cat coiled herself in a picturesque attitude on the softest corner
+of a sack, and the Rat without haste, yet certainly without rest,
+slipped behind the sacking as though an appointment had just occurred
+to him.
+
+In the doorway, with the young Engineer, stood the Miller grinning
+amazedly.
+
+“Well—well—well! ’tis true-ly won’erful. An’ what a power o’ dirt! It
+come over me now looking at these lights, that I’ve never rightly seen
+my own mill before. She needs a lot bein’ done to her.”
+
+“Ah! I suppose one must make oneself moderately agreeable to the baser
+sort. They have their uses. This thing controls the dairy.” The Cat,
+pincing on her toes, came forward and rubbed her head against the
+Miller’s knee.
+
+“Ay, you pretty puss,” he said, stooping. “You’re as big a cheat as the
+rest of ’em that catch no mice about me. A won’erful smooth-skinned,
+rough-tongued cheat you be. I’ve more than half a mind——”
+
+“She does her work well,” said the Engineer, pointing to where the
+Rat’s beady eyes showed behind the sacking. “Cats and Rats livin’
+together—see?”
+
+“Too much they do—too long they’ve done. I’m sick and tired of it. Go
+and take a swim and larn to find your own vittles honest when you come
+out, Pussy.”
+
+“My word!” said the Waters, as a sprawling Cat landed all unannounced
+in the centre of the tail-race. “Is that you, Mewsalina? You seem to
+have been quarrelling with your best friend. Get over to the left. It’s
+shallowest there. Up on that alder-root with all four paws.
+Good-night!”
+
+“You’ll never get any they rats,” said the Miller, as the young
+Engineer struck wrathfully with his stick at the sacking. “They’re not
+the common sort. They’re the old black English sort.”
+
+“Are they, by Jove? I must catch one to stuff, some day.”
+
+
+Six months later, in the chill of a January afternoon, they were
+letting in the Waters as usual.
+
+“Come along! It’s both gears this evening,” said the Wheel, kicking
+joyously in the first rush of the icy stream. “There’s a heavy load of
+grist just in from Lamber’s Wood. Eleven miles it came in an hour and a
+half in our new motor-lorry, and the Miller’s rigged five new
+five-candle lights in his cow-stables. I’m feeding ’em to-night.
+There’s a cow due to calve. Oh, while I think of it, what’s the news
+from Callton Rise?”
+
+“The waters are finding their level as usual—but why do you ask?” said
+the deep outpouring Waters.
+
+“Because Mangles and Felden and the Miller are talking of increasing
+the plant here and running a saw-mill by electricity. I was wondering
+whether we——”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said the Waters chuckling. “_What_ did you say?”
+
+“Whether _we_, of course, had power enough for the job. It will be a
+biggish contract. There’s all Harpenden Brook to be considered and
+Batten’s Ponds as well, and Witches’ Fountain, and the Churt’s Hawd
+system.
+
+“We’ve power enough for anything in the world,” said the Waters. “The
+only question is whether you could stand the strain if we came down on
+you full head.”
+
+“Of course I can,” said the Wheel. “Mangles is going to turn me into a
+set of turbines—beauties.”
+
+“Oh—er—I suppose it’s the frost that has made us a little thick-headed,
+but to whom are we talking?” asked the amazed Waters.
+
+“To me—the Spirit of the Mill, of course.”
+
+“Not to the old Wheel, then?”
+
+“I happen to be living in the old Wheel just at present. When the
+turbines are installed I shall go and live in them. What earthly
+difference does it make?”
+
+“Absolutely none,” said the Waters, “in the earth or in the waters
+under the earth. But we thought turbines didn’t appeal to you.”
+
+“Not like turbines? Me? My dear fellows, turbines are good for fifteen
+hundred revolutions a minute—and with our power we can drive ’em at
+full speed. Why, there’s nothing we couldn’t grind or saw or illuminate
+or heat with a set of turbines! That’s to say if all the Five
+Watersheds are agreeable.”
+
+“Oh, we’ve been agreeable for ever so long.”
+
+“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
+
+“Don’t know. Suppose it slipped our memory.”
+
+The Waters were holding themselves in for fear of bursting with mirth.
+
+“How careless of you! You should keep abreast of the age, my dear
+fellows. We might have settled it long ago, if you’d only spoken. Yes,
+four good turbines and a neat brick penstock—eh? This old Wheel’s
+absurdly out of date.”
+
+“Well,” said the Cat, who after a little proud seclusion had returned
+to her place impenitent as ever. “Praised be Pasht and the Old Gods,
+that whatever may have happened _I_, at least, have preserved the
+Spirit of the Mill!”
+
+She looked round as expecting her faithful ally, the Black Rat; but
+that very week the Engineer had caught and stuffed him, and had put him
+in a glass case; he being a genuine old English black rat. That breed,
+the report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the
+brown variety.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law 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 an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. 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
+www.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 unprotected by copyright law 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 other than 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 in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
+  you are located before using this eBook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (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 website
+(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 the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager 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
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law 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 1.F.3. 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 MERCHANTABILITY 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 are 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 information page at
+www.gutenberg.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. 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 business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
+widespread 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 www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+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: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty 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 not protected by copyright 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 website which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This website 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/9790-0.zip b/9790-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0986cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/9790-0.zip
diff --git a/9790-h.zip b/9790-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e53452f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/9790-h.zip
diff --git a/9790-h/9790-h.htm b/9790-h/9790-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4bab347
--- /dev/null
+++ b/9790-h/9790-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,16860 @@
+<!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" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling</title>
+
+<style type="text/css">
+
+body { margin-left: 20%;
+       margin-right: 20%;
+       text-align: justify; }
+
+h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight:
+normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;}
+
+h1 {font-size: 300%;
+    margin-top: 0.6em;
+    margin-bottom: 0.6em;
+    letter-spacing: 0.12em;
+    word-spacing: 0.2em;
+    text-indent: 0em;}
+h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;}
+h4 {font-size: 120%;}
+h5 {font-size: 110%;}
+
+.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */
+
+div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;}
+
+hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+
+p {text-indent: 1em;
+   margin-top: 0.25em;
+   margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+
+p.poem {text-indent: 0%;
+        margin-left: 10%;
+        font-size: 90%;
+        margin-top: 1em;
+        margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.noindent {text-indent: 0% }
+
+p.center  {text-align: center;
+           text-indent: 0em;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+p.footnote {font-size: 90%;
+           text-indent: 0%;
+           margin-left: 10%;
+           margin-right: 10%;
+           margin-top: 1em;
+           margin-bottom: 1em; }
+
+sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; }
+
+a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
+a:hover {color:red}
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Traffics and Discoveries</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Rudyard Kipling</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 17, 2003 [eBook #9790]<br />
+[Most recently updated: January 15, 2022]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich and PG Distributed Proofreaders</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***</div>
+
+<h1>TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by Rudyard Kipling</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01"><i>from the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed (Wahabi)</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">THE CAPTIVE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03"><i>Poseidon&rsquo;s Law</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05"><i>The Runners</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">A SAHIBS&rsquo; WAR</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07"><i>The Wet Litany</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">&ldquo;THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS&rdquo;&mdash;PART I.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">&ldquo;THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS&rdquo;&mdash;PART II.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10"><i>The King&rsquo;s Task</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12"><i>The Necessitarian</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">STEAM TACTICS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14"><i>Kaspar&rsquo;s Song in &ldquo;Varda&rdquo;</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">&ldquo;WIRELESS&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16"><i>Song of the Old Guard</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">THE ARMY OF A DREAM&mdash;PART I.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">THE ARMY OF A DREAM&mdash;PART II.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19"><i>The Return of the Children</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">&ldquo;THEY&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21"><i>From Lyden&rsquo;s &ldquo;Irenius</i>&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">MRS. BATHURST</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">&ldquo;<i>Our Fathers Also</i>&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">BELOW THE MILL DAM</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>THE CAPTIVE</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>
+FROM THE MASJID-AL-AQSA OF SAYYID AHMED (WAHABI)</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining<br/>
+He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.<br/>
+When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,<br/>
+He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.<br/>
+Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,<br/>
+Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.<br/>
+Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow<br/>
+Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,<br/>
+Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,<br/>
+Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.<br/>
+Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story;<br/>
+And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory<br/>
+Embroidered with names of the Djinns&mdash;a miraculous weaving&mdash;<br/>
+But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.<br/>
+So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture&mdash;<br/>
+Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture&mdash;<br/>
+Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed;<br/>
+But on him be the Peace and the Blessing: for he was great-hearted!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>THE CAPTIVE</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;He that believeth shall not make haste.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Isaiah</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guard-boat lay across the mouth of the bathing-pool, her crew idly spanking
+the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated militia-man, rifle in hand,
+sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the stern. Between the snow-white
+cutter and the flat-topped, honey-coloured rocks on the beach the green water
+was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war bathing. Behind their orderly
+tin camp and the electric-light poles rose those stone-dotted spurs that throw
+heat on Simonstown. Beneath them the little <i>Barracouta</i> nodded to the big
+<i>Gibraltar</i>, and the old <i>Penelope</i>, that in ten years has been
+bachelors&rsquo; club, natural history museum, kindergarten, and prison, rooted
+and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a three-funnelled Atlantic transport
+with turtle bow and stern waddled in from the deep sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said the sentry, assured of the visitor&rsquo;s good faith, &ldquo;Talk to
+&rsquo;em? You can, to any that speak English. You&rsquo;ll find a lot that
+do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch Reformed
+Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority preferred their
+bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused the visitor that day to
+receive two weeks&rsquo; delayed mails in one from a casual postman, and the
+whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a strap, he dangled as bait. At the
+edge of the beach, cross-legged, undressed to his sky-blue army shirt, sat a
+lean, ginger-haired man, on guard over a dozen heaps of clothing. His eyes
+followed the incoming Atlantic boat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excuse me, Mister,&rdquo; he said, without turning (and the speech
+betrayed his nationality), &ldquo;would you mind keeping away from these
+garments? I&rsquo;ve been elected janitor&mdash;on the Dutch vote.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to his mail.
+At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured man turned quickly,
+the hunger of a press-ridden people in his close-set iron-grey eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you any use for papers?&rdquo; said the visitor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I any use?&rdquo; A quick, curved forefinger was already snicking
+off the outer covers. &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s the New York postmark! Give me
+the ads. at the back of <i>Harper&rsquo;s</i> and <i>M&rsquo;Clure&rsquo;s</i>
+and I&rsquo;m in touch with God&rsquo;s Country again! Did you know how I was
+aching for papers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The visitor told the tale of the casual postman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Providential!&rdquo; said the ginger-coloured man, keen as a terrier on
+his task; &ldquo;both in time and matter. Yes! … The <i>Scientific American</i>
+yet once more! Oh, it&rsquo;s good! it&rsquo;s good!&rdquo; His voice broke as
+he pressed his hawk-like nose against the heavily-inked patent-specifications
+at the end. &ldquo;Can I keep it? I thank you&mdash;I thank you!
+Why&mdash;why&mdash;well&mdash;well! The <i>American Tyler</i> of all things
+created! Do you subscribe to that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m on the free list,&rdquo; said the visitor, nodding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He extended his blue-tanned hand with that air of Oriental spaciousness which
+distinguishes the native-born American, and met the visitor&rsquo;s grasp
+expertly. &ldquo;I can only say that you have treated me like a Brother (yes,
+I&rsquo;ll take every last one you can spare), and if ever&mdash;&rdquo; He
+plucked at the bosom of his shirt. &ldquo;Psha! I forgot I&rsquo;d no card on
+me; but my name&rsquo;s Zigler&mdash;Laughton G. Zigler. An American? If
+Ohio&rsquo;s still in the Union, I am, Sir. But I&rsquo;m no extreme
+States&rsquo;-rights man. I&rsquo;ve used all of my native country and a few
+others as I have found occasion, and now I am the captive of your bow and
+spear. I&rsquo;m not kicking at that. I am not a coerced alien, nor a
+naturalised Texas mule-tender, nor an adventurer on the instalment plan.
+<i>I</i> don&rsquo;t tag after our consul when he comes around, expecting the
+American Eagle to lift me out o&rsquo; this by the slack of my pants. No, sir!
+If a Britisher went into Indian Territory and shot up his surroundings with a
+Colt automatic (not that <i>she&rsquo;s</i> any sort of weapon, but I take her
+for an illustration), he&rsquo;d be strung up quicker&rsquo;n a snowflake
+&rsquo;ud melt in hell. No ambassador of yours &rsquo;ud save him. I&rsquo;m my
+neck ahead on this game, anyway. That&rsquo;s how I regard the proposition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I gone gunning against the British? To a certain extent, I presume
+you never heard tell of the Laughton-Zigler automatic two-inch field-gun, with
+self-feeding hopper, single oil-cylinder recoil, and ballbearing gear
+throughout? Or Laughtite, the new explosive? Absolutely uniform in effect, and
+one-ninth the bulk of any present effete charge&mdash;flake, cannonite,
+cordite, troisdorf, cellulose, cocoa, cord, or prism&mdash;I don&rsquo;t care
+what it is. Laughtite&rsquo;s immense; so&rsquo;s the Zigler automatic.
+It&rsquo;s me. It&rsquo;s fifteen years of me. You are not a gun-sharp? I am
+sorry. I could have surprised you. Apart from my gun, my tale don&rsquo;t
+amount to much of anything. I thank you, but I don&rsquo;t use any tobacco
+you&rsquo;d be likely to carry… Bull Durham? <i>Bull Durham!</i> I take it all
+back&mdash;every last word. Bull Durham&mdash;here! If ever you strike Akron,
+Ohio, when this fool-war&rsquo;s over, remember you&rsquo;ve Laughton O. Zigler
+in your vest pocket. Including the city of Akron. We&rsquo;ve a little club
+there…. Hell! What&rsquo;s the sense of talking Akron with no pants?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My gun? … For two cents I&rsquo;d have shipped her to our Filipeens.
+&lsquo;Came mighty near it too; but from what I&rsquo;d read in the papers, you
+can&rsquo;t trust Aguinaldo&rsquo;s crowd on scientific matters. Why
+don&rsquo;t I offer it to our army? Well, you&rsquo;ve an effete aristocracy
+running yours, and we&rsquo;ve a crowd of politicians. The results are
+practically identical. I am not taking any U.S. Army in mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I went to Amsterdam with her&mdash;to this Dutch junta that supposes
+it&rsquo;s bossing the war. I wasn&rsquo;t brought up to love the British for
+one thing, and for another I knew that if she got in her fine work (my gun)
+I&rsquo;d stand more chance of receiving an unbiassed report from a crowd of
+dam-fool British officers than from a hatful of politicians&rsquo; nephews
+doing duty as commissaries and ordnance sharps. As I said, I put the brown man
+out of the question. That&rsquo;s the way <i>I</i> regarded the proposition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Dutch in Holland don&rsquo;t amount to a row of pins. Maybe I
+misjudge &rsquo;em. Maybe they&rsquo;ve been swindled too often by self-seeking
+adventurers to know a enthusiast when they see him. Anyway, they&rsquo;re
+slower than the Wrath o&rsquo; God. But on delusions&mdash;as to their winning
+out next Thursday week at 9 <small>A.M</small>.&mdash;they are&mdash;if I may
+say so&mdash;quite British.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you a curious thing, too. I fought &rsquo;em for ten
+days before I could get the financial side of my game fixed to my liking. I
+knew they didn&rsquo;t believe in the Zigler, but they&rsquo;d no call to be
+crazy-mean. I fixed it&mdash;free passage and freight for me and the gun to
+Delagoa Bay, and beyond by steam and rail. Then I went aboard to see her
+crated, and there I struck my fellow-passengers&mdash;all deadheads, same as
+me. Well, Sir, I turned in my tracks where I stood and besieged the
+ticket-office, and I said, &lsquo;Look at here, Van Dunk. I&rsquo;m paying for
+my passage and her room in the hold&mdash;every square and cubic foot.&rsquo;
+&lsquo;Guess he knocked down the fare to himself; but I paid. I paid. I
+wasn&rsquo;t going to deadhead along o&rsquo; <i>that</i> crowd of Pentecostal
+sweepings. &rsquo;Twould have hoodooed my gun for all time. That was the way I
+regarded the proposition. No, Sir, they were not pretty company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When we struck Pretoria I had a hell-and-a-half of a time trying to
+interest the Dutch vote in my gun an&rsquo; her potentialities. The bottom was
+out of things rather much just about that time. Kruger was praying some and
+stealing some, and the Hollander lot was singing, &lsquo;If you haven&rsquo;t
+any money you needn&rsquo;t come round,&rsquo; Nobody was spending his dough on
+anything except tickets to Europe. We were both grossly neglected. When I think
+how I used to give performances in the public streets with dummy cartridges,
+filling the hopper and turning the handle till the sweat dropped off me, I
+blush, Sir. I&rsquo;ve made her to do her stunts before Kaffirs&mdash;naked
+sons of Ham&mdash;in Commissioner Street, trying to get a holt somewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did I talk? I despise exaggeration&mdash;&rsquo;tain&rsquo;t American or
+scientific&mdash;but as true as I&rsquo;m sitting here like a blue-ended baboon
+in a kloof, Teddy Roosevelt&rsquo;s Western tour was a maiden&rsquo;s sigh
+compared to my advertising work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Long in the spring I was rescued by a commandant called Van
+Zyl&mdash;a big, fleshy man with a lame leg. Take away his hair and his gun and
+he&rsquo;d make a first-class Schenectady bar-keep. He found me and the Zigler
+on the veldt (Pretoria wasn&rsquo;t wholesome at that time), and he annexed me
+in a somnambulistic sort o&rsquo; way. He was dead against the war from the
+start, but, being a Dutchman, he fought a sight better than the rest of that
+&lsquo;God and the Mauser&rsquo; outfit. Adrian Van Zyl. Slept a heap in the
+daytime&mdash;and didn&rsquo;t love niggers. I liked him. I was the only
+foreigner in his commando. The rest was Georgia Crackers and Pennsylvania
+Dutch&mdash;with a dash o&rsquo; Philadelphia lawyer. I could tell you things
+about them would surprise you. Religion for one thing; women for another; but I
+don&rsquo;t know as their notions o&rsquo; geography weren&rsquo;t the
+craziest. &lsquo;Guess that must be some sort of automatic compensation. There
+wasn&rsquo;t one blamed ant-hill in their district they didn&rsquo;t know
+<i>and</i> use; but the world was flat, they said, and England was a
+day&rsquo;s trek from Cape Town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They could fight in their own way, and don&rsquo;t you forget it. But I
+guess you will not. They fought to kill, and, by what I could make out, the
+British fought to be killed. So both parties were accommodated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir. The position has its
+obligations&mdash;on both sides. You could not be offensive or partisan to me.
+I cannot, for the same reason, be offensive to you. Therefore I will not give
+you my opinions on the conduct of your war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anyway, I didn&rsquo;t take the field as an offensive partisan, but as
+an inventor. It was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. (Yes, Sir,
+I&rsquo;m a Democrat by conviction, and that was one of the best things Grover
+Cleveland ever got off.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After three months&rsquo; trek, old man Van Zyl had his commando in good
+shape and refitted off the British, and he reckoned he&rsquo;d wait on a
+British General of his acquaintance that did business on a circuit between
+Stompiesneuk, Jackhalputs, Vrelegen, and Odendaalstroom, year in and year out.
+He was a fixture in that section.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;He&rsquo;s a dam&rsquo; good man,&rsquo; says Van Zyl.
+&lsquo;He&rsquo;s a friend of mine. He sent in a fine doctor when I was wounded
+and our Hollander doc. wanted to cut my leg off. Ya, I&rsquo;ll guess
+we&rsquo;ll stay with him.&rsquo; Up to date, me and my Zigler had lived in
+innocuous desuetude owing to little odds and ends riding out of gear. How in
+thunder was I to know there wasn&rsquo;t the ghost of any road in the country?
+But raw hide&rsquo;s cheap and lastin&rsquo;. I guess I&rsquo;ll make my next
+gun a thousand pounds heavier, though.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Sir, we struck the General on his beat&mdash;Vrelegen it
+was&mdash;and our crowd opened with the usual compliments at two thousand
+yards. Van Zyl shook himself into his greasy old saddle and says, &lsquo;Now we
+shall be quite happy, Mr. Zigler. No more trekking. Joost twelve miles a day
+till the apricots are ripe.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then we hitched on to his outposts, and vedettes, and cossack-picquets,
+or whatever they was called, and we wandered around the veldt arm in arm like
+brothers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The way we worked lodge was this way. The General, he had his breakfast
+at 8:45 <small>A.M</small>. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island
+commuter. At 8:42 <small>A.M</small>. I&rsquo;d go down to the Thirty-fourth
+Street ferry to meet him&mdash;I mean I&rsquo;d see the Zigler into position at
+two thousand (I began at three thousand, but that was cold and
+distant)&mdash;and blow him off to two full hoppers&mdash;eighteen
+rounds&mdash;just as they were bringing in his coffee. If his crowd was busy
+celebrating the anniversary of Waterloo or the last royal kid&rsquo;s birthday,
+they&rsquo;d open on me with two guns (I&rsquo;ll tell you about them later
+on), but if they were disengaged they&rsquo;d all stand to their horses and
+pile on the ironmongery, and washers, and typewriters, and five weeks&rsquo;
+grub, and in half an hour they&rsquo;d sail out after me and the rest of Van
+Zyl&rsquo;s boys; lying down and firing till 11:45 <small>A.M</small>. or maybe
+high noon. Then we&rsquo;d go from labour to refreshment, resooming at 2
+<small>P.M</small>. and battling till tea-time. Tuesday and Friday was the
+General&rsquo;s moving days. He&rsquo;d trek ahead ten or twelve miles, and
+we&rsquo;d loaf around his flankers and exercise the ponies a piece. Sometimes
+he&rsquo;d get hung up in a drift&mdash;stalled crossin&rsquo; a
+crick&mdash;and we&rsquo;d make playful snatches at his wagons. First time that
+happened I turned the Zigler loose with high hopes, Sir; but the old man was
+well posted on rearguards with a gun to &rsquo;em, and I had to haul her out
+with three mules instead of six. I was pretty mad. I wasn&rsquo;t looking for
+any experts back of the Royal British Artillery. Otherwise, the game was mostly
+even. He&rsquo;d lay out three or four of our commando, and we&rsquo;d gather
+in four or five of his once a week or thereon. One time, I remember, long
+towards dusk we saw &rsquo;em burying five of their boys. They stood pretty
+thick around the graves. We wasn&rsquo;t more than fifteen hundred yards off,
+but old Van Zyl wouldn&rsquo;t fire. He just took off his hat at the proper
+time. He said if you stretched a man at his prayers you&rsquo;d have to hump
+his bad luck before the Throne as well as your own. I am inclined to agree with
+him. So we browsed along week in and week out. A war-sharp might have judged it
+sort of docile, but for an inventor needing practice one day and peace the next
+for checking his theories, it suited Laughton O. Zigler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And friendly? Friendly was no word for it. We was brothers in arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, I knew those two guns of the Royal British Artillery as well as I
+used to know the old Fifth Avenoo stages. <i>They</i> might have been brothers
+too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;d jolt into action, and wiggle around and skid and spit and
+cough and prize &rsquo;emselves back again during our hours of bloody battle
+till I could have wept, Sir, at the spectacle of modern white men chained up to
+these old hand-power, back-number, flint-and-steel reaping machines. One of
+&rsquo;em&mdash;I called her Baldy&mdash;she&rsquo;d a long white scar all
+along her barrel&mdash;I&rsquo;d made sure of twenty times. I knew her crew by
+sight, but she&rsquo;d come switching and teturing out of the dust of my shells
+like&mdash;like a hen from under a buggy&mdash;and she&rsquo;d dip into a
+gully, and next thing I&rsquo;d know &rsquo;ud be her old nose peeking over the
+ridge sniffin&rsquo; for us. Her runnin&rsquo; mate had two grey mules in the
+lead, and a natural wood wheel repainted, and a whole raft of rope-ends
+trailin&rsquo; around. &lsquo;Jever see Tom Reed with his vest off,
+steerin&rsquo; Congress through a heat-wave? I&rsquo;ve been to Washington
+often&mdash;too often&mdash;filin&rsquo; my patents. I called her Tom Reed. We
+three &rsquo;ud play pussy-wants-a-corner all round the outposts on
+off-days&mdash;cross-lots through the sage and along the mezas till we was
+short-circuited by canons. O, it was great for me and Baldy and Tom Reed! I
+don&rsquo;t know as we didn&rsquo;t neglect the legitimate interests of our
+respective commanders sometimes for this ball-play. I know <i>I</i> did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Long towards the fall the Royal British Artillery grew
+shy&mdash;hung back in their breeching sort of&mdash;and their shooting was
+way&mdash;way off. I observed they wasn&rsquo;t taking any chances, not though
+I acted kitten almost underneath &rsquo;em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mentioned it to Van Zyl, because it struck me I had about knocked
+their Royal British moral endways.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No,&rsquo; says he, rocking as usual on his pony. &lsquo;My
+Captain Mankeltow he is sick. That is all.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;So&rsquo;s your Captain Mankeltow&rsquo;s guns,&rsquo; I said.
+&lsquo;But I&rsquo;m going to make &rsquo;em a heap sicker before he gets
+well.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No,&rsquo; says Van Zyl. &lsquo;He has had the enteric a little.
+Now he is better, and he was let out from hospital at Jackhalputs. Ah, that
+Mankeltow! He always makes me laugh so. I told him&mdash;long back&mdash;at
+Colesberg, I had a little home for him at Nooitgedacht. But he would not
+come&mdash;no! He has been sick, and I am sorry.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;How d&rsquo;you know that?&rsquo; I says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Why, only to-day he sends back his love by Johanna Van der Merwe,
+that goes to their doctor for her sick baby&rsquo;s eyes. He sends his love,
+that Mankeltow, and he tells her tell me he has a little garden of roses all
+ready for me in the Dutch Indies&mdash;Umballa. He is very funny, my Captain
+Mankeltow.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Dutch and the English ought to fraternise, Sir. They&rsquo;ve the
+same notions of humour, to my thinking.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;When he gets well,&rsquo; says Van Zyl, &lsquo;you look out, Mr.
+Americaan. He comes back to his guns next Tuesday. Then they shoot
+better.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t so well acquainted with the Royal British Artillery as
+old man Van Zyl. I knew this Captain Mankeltow by sight, of course, and,
+considering what sort of a man with the hoe he was, I thought he&rsquo;d done
+right well against my Zigler. But nothing epoch-making.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Next morning at the usual hour I waited on the General, and old Van Zyl
+come along with some of the boys. Van Zyl didn&rsquo;t hang round the Zigler
+much as a rule, but this was his luck that day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was peeking through his glasses at the camp, and I was helping
+pepper, the General&rsquo;s sow-belly&mdash;just as usual&mdash;when he turns
+to me quick and says, &lsquo;Almighty! How all these Englishmen are liars! You
+cannot trust one,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;Captain Mankeltow tells our Johanna he
+comes not back till Tuesday, and to-day is Friday, and there he is! Almighty!
+The English are all Chamberlains!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If the old man hadn&rsquo;t stopped to make political speeches
+he&rsquo;d have had his supper in laager that night, I guess. I was busy
+attending to Tom Reed at two thousand when Baldy got in her fine work on me. I
+saw one sheet of white flame wrapped round the hopper, and in the middle of it
+there was one o&rsquo; my mules straight on end. Nothing out of the way in a
+mule on end, but this mule hadn&rsquo;t any head. I remember it struck me as
+incongruous at the time, and when I&rsquo;d ciphered it out I was doing the
+Santos-Dumont act without any balloon and my motor out of gear. Then I got to
+thinking about Santos-Dumont and how much better my new way was. Then I thought
+about Professor Langley and the Smithsonian, and wishing I hadn&rsquo;t lied so
+extravagantly in some of my specifications at Washington. Then I quit thinking
+for quite a while, and when I resumed my train of thought I was nude, Sir, in a
+very stale stretcher, and my mouth was full of fine dirt all flavoured with
+Laughtite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I coughed up that dirt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Hullo!&rsquo; says a man walking beside me. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve
+spoke almost in time. Have a drink?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t use rum as a rule, but I did then, because I needed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;What hit us?&rsquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Me,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;I got you fair on the hopper as you
+pulled out of that donga; but I&rsquo;m sorry to say every last round in the
+hopper&rsquo;s exploded and your gun&rsquo;s in a shocking state. I&rsquo;m
+real sorry,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;I admire your gun, Sir.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Are you Captain Mankeltow?&rsquo; I says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;I presoom you&rsquo;re Mister Zigler.
+Your commanding officer told me about you.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Have you gathered in old man Van Zyl?&rsquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Commandant Van Zyl,&rsquo; he says very stiff, &lsquo;was most
+unfortunately wounded, but I am glad to say it&rsquo;s not serious. We hope
+he&rsquo;ll be able to dine with us to-night; and I feel sure,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;the General would be delighted to see you too, though he didn&rsquo;t
+expect,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;and no one else either, by Jove!&rsquo; he says,
+and blushed like the British do when they&rsquo;re embarrassed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw him slide an Episcopalian Prayer-book up his sleeve, and when I
+looked over the edge of the stretcher there was half-a-dozen enlisted
+men&mdash;privates&mdash;had just quit digging and was standing to attention by
+their spades. I guess he was right on the General not expecting me to dinner;
+but it was all of a piece with their sloppy British way of doing business. Any
+God&rsquo;s quantity of fuss and flubdub to bury a man, and not an ounce of
+forehandedness in the whole outfit to find out whether he was rightly dead. And
+I am a Congregationalist anyway!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Sir, that was my introduction to the British Army. I&rsquo;d write
+a book about it if anyone would believe me. This Captain Mankeltow, Royal
+British Artillery, turned the doctor on me (I could write another book about
+<i>him</i>) and fixed me up with a suit of his own clothes, and fed me canned
+beef and biscuits, and give me a cigar&mdash;a Henry Clay and a
+whisky-and-sparklet. He was a white man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Ye-es, by Jove,&rsquo; he said, dragging out his words like a
+twist of molasses, &lsquo;we&rsquo;ve all admired your gun and the way
+you&rsquo;ve worked it. Some of us betted you was a British deserter. I won a
+sovereign on that from a yeoman. And, by the way,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;you&rsquo;ve disappointed me groom pretty bad.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Where does your groom come in?&rsquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Oh, he was the yeoman. He&rsquo;s a dam poor groom,&rsquo; says
+my captain, &lsquo;but he&rsquo;s a way-up barrister when he&rsquo;s at home.
+He&rsquo;s been running around the camp with his tongue out, waiting for the
+chance of defending you at the court-martial.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;What court-martial?&rsquo; I says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;On you as a deserter from the Artillery. You&rsquo;d have had a
+good run for your money. Anyway, you&rsquo;d never have been hung after the way
+you worked your gun. Deserter ten times over,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;I&rsquo;d
+have stuck out for shooting you like a gentleman.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Sir, right there it struck me at the pit of my stomach&mdash;sort
+of sickish, sweetish feeling&mdash;that my position needed regularising pretty
+bad. I ought to have been a naturalised burgher of a year&rsquo;s standing; but
+Ohio&rsquo;s my State, and I wouldn&rsquo;t have gone back on her for a
+desertful of Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led me to the
+existing crisis; but I couldn&rsquo;t expect this Captain Mankeltow to regard
+the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of unreconstructed
+American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at the British Army for
+months on end. I tell <i>you</i>, Sir, I wished I was in Cincinnatah that
+summer evening. I&rsquo;d have compromised on Brooklyn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;What d&rsquo;you do about aliens?&rsquo; I said, and the dirt
+I&rsquo;d coughed up seemed all back of my tongue again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Oh,&rsquo; says he, &lsquo;we don&rsquo;t do much of anything.
+They&rsquo;re about all the society we get. I&rsquo;m a bit of a pro-Boer
+myself,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;but between you and me the average Boer
+ain&rsquo;t over and above intellectual. You&rsquo;re the first American
+we&rsquo;ve met up with, but of course you&rsquo;re a burgher.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was what I ought to have been if I&rsquo;d had the sense of a common
+tick, but the way he drawled it out made me mad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Of course I am not,&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;Would <i>you</i> be a
+naturalised Boer?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I&rsquo;m fighting against &rsquo;em,&rsquo; he says, lighting a
+cigarette, &lsquo;but it&rsquo;s all a matter of opinion.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Well,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;you can hold any blame opinion you
+choose, but I&rsquo;m a white man, and my present intention is to die in that
+colour.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He laughed one of those big, thick-ended, British laughs that
+don&rsquo;t lead anywhere, and whacked up some sort of compliment about America
+that made me mad all through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir, but I do not understand the
+alleged British joke. It is depressing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was introdooced to five or six officers that evening, and every blame
+one of &rsquo;em grinned and asked me why I wasn&rsquo;t in the Filipeens
+suppressing our war! And that was British humour! They all had to get it off
+their chests before they&rsquo;d talk sense. But they was sound on the Zigler.
+They had all admired her. I made out a fairy-story of me being wearied of the
+war, and having pushed the gun at them these last three months in the hope
+they&rsquo;d capture it and let me go home. That tickled &rsquo;em to death.
+They made me say it three times over, and laughed like kids each time. But half
+the British <i>are</i> kids; specially the older men. My Captain Mankeltow was
+less of it than the others. He talked about the Zigler like a lover, Sir, and I
+drew him diagrams of the hopper-feed and recoil-cylinder in his note-book. He
+asked the one British question I was waiting for, &lsquo;Hadn&rsquo;t I made my
+working-parts too light?&rsquo; The British think weight&rsquo;s strength.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At last&mdash;I&rsquo;d been shy of opening the subject before&mdash;at
+last I said, &lsquo;Gentlemen, you are the unprejudiced tribunal I&rsquo;ve
+been hunting after. I guess you ain&rsquo;t interested in any other
+gun-factory, and politics don&rsquo;t weigh with you. How did it feel your end
+of the game? What&rsquo;s my gun done, anyway?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I hate to disappoint you,&rsquo; says Captain Mankeltow,
+&lsquo;because I know you feel as an inventor.&rsquo; I wasn&rsquo;t feeling
+like an inventor just then. I felt friendly, but the British haven&rsquo;t more
+tact than you can pick up with a knife out of a plate of soup.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;The honest truth,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;is that you&rsquo;ve
+wounded about ten of us one way and another, killed two battery horses and four
+mules, and&mdash;oh, yes,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;you&rsquo;ve bagged five
+Kaffirs. But, buck up,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;we&rsquo;ve all had mighty close
+calls&rsquo;&mdash;shaves, he called &rsquo;em, I remember. &lsquo;Look at my
+pants.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They was repaired right across the seat with Minneapolis flour-bagging.
+I could see the stencil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I ain&rsquo;t bluffing,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;Get the hospital
+returns, Doc.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The doctor gets &rsquo;em and reads &rsquo;em out under the proper
+dates. That doctor alone was worth the price of admission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was right pleased right through that I hadn&rsquo;t killed any of
+these cheerful kids; but none the less I couldn&rsquo;t help thinking that a
+few more Kaffirs would have served me just as well for advertising purposes as
+white men. No, sir. Anywhichway you regard the proposition, twenty-one
+casualties after months of close friendship like ours was&mdash;paltry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They gave me taffy about the gun&mdash;the British use taffy where we
+use sugar. It&rsquo;s cheaper, and gets there just the same. They sat around
+and proved to me that my gun was too good, too uniform&mdash;shot as close as a
+Mannlicher rifle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Says one kid chewing a bit of grass: &lsquo;I counted eight of your
+shells, Sir, burst in a radius of ten feet. All of &rsquo;em would have gone
+through one waggon-tilt. It was beautiful,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;It was too
+good.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if the boys were right. My Laughtite is too
+mathematically uniform in propelling power. Yes; she was too good for this
+refractory fool of a country. The training gear was broke, too, and we had to
+swivel her around by the trail. But I&rsquo;ll build my next Zigler fifteen
+hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor under the axles. I must
+think that up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Well, gentlemen,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;I&rsquo;d hate to have
+been the death of any of you; and if a prisoner can deed away his property,
+I&rsquo;d love to present the Captain here with what he&rsquo;s seen fit to
+leave of my Zigler.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Thanks awf&rsquo;ly,&rsquo; says my Captain. &lsquo;I&rsquo;d
+like her very much. She&rsquo;d look fine in the mess at Woolwich. That is, if
+you don&rsquo;t mind, Mr. Zigler.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Go right ahead,&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve come out of all
+the mess I&rsquo;ve any use for; but she&rsquo;ll do to spread the light among
+the Royal British Artillery.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tell you, Sir, there&rsquo;s not much of anything the matter with the
+Royal British Artillery. They&rsquo;re brainy men languishing under an effete
+system which, when you take good holt of it, is England&mdash;just all England.
+&lsquo;Times I&rsquo;d feel I was talking with real live citizens, and times
+I&rsquo;d feel I&rsquo;d struck the Beef Eaters in the Tower.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How? Well, this way. I was telling my Captain Mankeltow what Van Zyl had
+said about the British being all Chamberlains when the old man saw him back
+from hospital four days ahead of time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Oh, damn it all!&rsquo; he says, as serious as the Supreme Court.
+&lsquo;It&rsquo;s too bad,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;Johanna must have
+misunderstood me, or else I&rsquo;ve got the wrong Dutch word for these
+blarsted days of the week. I told Johanna I&rsquo;d be out on Friday. The
+woman&rsquo;s a fool. Oah, da-am it all!&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;I
+wouldn&rsquo;t have sold old Van Zyl a pup like that,&rsquo; he says.
+&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll hunt him up and apologise.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He must have fixed it all right, for when we sailed over to the
+General&rsquo;s dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and
+bitters, as happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and treated him
+like their prodigal father. He&rsquo;d been hit on the collarbone by a wad of
+shrapnel, and his arm was tied up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the General was the peach. I presume you&rsquo;re acquainted with
+the average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his left
+hand, and he talked like&mdash;like the <i>Ladies&rsquo; Home Journal</i>.
+J&rsquo;ever read that paper? It&rsquo;s refined, Sir&mdash;and innocuous, and
+full of nickel-plated sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He
+began by a Lydia Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped the
+boys had done me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their midst. Then he
+thanked me for the interesting and valuable lessons that I&rsquo;d given his
+crowd&mdash;specially in the matter of placing artillery and rearguard attacks.
+He&rsquo;d wipe his long thin moustache between drinks&mdash;lime-juice and
+water he used&mdash;and blat off into a long &lsquo;a-aah,&rsquo; and ladle
+out more taffy for me or old man Van Zyl on his right. I told him how I&rsquo;d
+had my first Pisgah-sight of the principles of the Zigler when I was a
+fourth-class postmaster on a star-route in Arkansas. I told him how I&rsquo;d
+worked it up by instalments when I was machinist in Waterbury, where the
+dollar-watches come from. He had one on his wrist then. I told him how
+I&rsquo;d met Zalinski (he&rsquo;d never heard of Zalinski!) when I was an
+extra clerk in the Naval Construction Bureau at Washington. I told him how my
+uncle, who was a truck-farmer in Noo Jersey (he loaned money on mortgage too,
+for ten acres ain&rsquo;t enough now in Noo Jersey), how he&rsquo;d willed me a
+quarter of a million dollars, because I was the only one of our kin that called
+him down when he used to come home with a hard-cider jag on him and heave
+ox-bows at his nieces. I told him how I&rsquo;d turned in every red cent on the
+Zigler, and I told him the whole circus of my coming out with her, and so on,
+and so following; and every forty seconds he&rsquo;d wipe his moustache and
+blat, &lsquo;How interesting. Really, now? How interesting.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was like being in an old English book, Sir. Like <i>Bracebridge
+Hall</i>. But an American wrote <i>that!</i> I kept peeking around for the
+Boar&rsquo;s Head and the Rosemary and Magna Charta and the Cricket on the
+Hearth, and the rest of the outfit. Then Van Zyl whirled in. He was no ways
+jagged, but thawed&mdash;thawed, Sir, and among friends. They began discussing
+previous scraps all along the old man&rsquo;s beat&mdash;about sixty of
+&rsquo;em&mdash;as well as side-shows with other generals and columns. Van Zyl
+told &rsquo;im of a big beat he&rsquo;d worked on a column a week or so before
+I&rsquo;d joined him. He demonstrated his strategy with forks on the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;There!&rsquo; said the General, when he&rsquo;d finished.
+&lsquo;That proves my contention to the hilt. Maybe I&rsquo;m a bit of a
+pro-Boer, but I stick to it,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;that under proper officers,
+with due regard to his race prejudices, the Boer&rsquo;ud make the finest
+mounted infantry in the Empire. Adrian,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;you&rsquo;re
+simply squandered on a cattle-run. You ought to be at the Staff College with De
+Wet.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;You catch De Wet and I come to your Staff
+College&mdash;eh,&rsquo; says Adrian, laughing. &lsquo;But you are so slow,
+Generaal. Why are you so slow? For a month,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;you do so
+well and strong that we say we shall hands-up and come back to our farms. Then
+you send to England and make us a present of two&mdash;three&mdash;six hundred
+young men, with rifles and wagons and rum and tobacco, and such a great lot of
+cartridges, that our young men put up their tails and start all over again. If
+you hold an ox by the horn and hit him by the bottom he runs round and round.
+He never goes anywhere. So, too, this war goes round and round. You know that,
+Generaal!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Quite right, Adrian,&rsquo; says the General; &lsquo;but you must
+believe your Bible.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Hooh!&rsquo; says Adrian, and reaches for the whisky.
+&lsquo;I&rsquo;ve never known a Dutchman a professing Atheist, but some few
+have been rather active Agnostics since the British sat down in Pretoria. Old
+man Van Zyl&mdash;he told me&mdash;had soured on religion after Bloemfontein
+surrendered. He was a Free Stater for one thing.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;He that believeth,&rsquo; says the General, &lsquo;shall not make
+haste. That&rsquo;s in Isaiah. We believe we&rsquo;re going to win, and so we
+don&rsquo;t make haste. As far as I&rsquo;m concerned I&rsquo;d like this war
+to last another five years. We&rsquo;d have an army then. It&rsquo;s just this
+way, Mr. Zigler,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;our people are brimfull of patriotism,
+but they&rsquo;ve been born and brought up between houses, and England
+ain&rsquo;t big enough to train &rsquo;em&mdash;not if you expect to
+preserve.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Preserve what?&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;England?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No. The game,&rsquo; he says; &lsquo;and that reminds me,
+gentlemen, we haven&rsquo;t drunk the King and Fox-hunting.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So they drank the King and Fox-hunting. I drank the King because
+there&rsquo;s something about Edward that tickles me (he&rsquo;s so blame
+British); but I rather stood out on the Fox-hunting. I&rsquo;ve ridden wolves
+in the cattle-country, and needed a drink pretty bad afterwards, but it never
+struck me as I ought to drink about it&mdash;he-red-it-arily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No, as I was saying, Mr. Zigler,&rsquo; he goes on, &lsquo;we
+have to train our men in the field to shoot and ride. I allow six months for
+it; but many column-commanders&mdash;not that I ought to say a word against
+&rsquo;em, for they&rsquo;re the best fellows that ever stepped, and most of
+&rsquo;em are my dearest friends&mdash;seem to think that if they have men and
+horses and guns they can take tea with the Boers. It&rsquo;s generally the
+other way about, ain&rsquo;t it, Mr. Zigler?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;To some extent, Sir,&rsquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I&rsquo;m <i>so</i> glad you agree with me,&rsquo; he says.
+&lsquo;My command here I regard as a training depot, and you, if I may say so,
+have been one of my most efficient instructors. I mature my men slowly but
+thoroughly. First I put &rsquo;em in a town which is liable to be attacked by
+night, where they can attend riding-school in the day. Then I use &rsquo;em
+with a convoy, and last I put &rsquo;em into a column. It takes time,&rsquo; he
+says, &lsquo;but I flatter myself that any men who have worked under me are at
+least grounded in the rudiments of their profession. Adrian,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;was there anything wrong with the men who upset Van Bester&rsquo;s
+applecart last month when he was trying to cross the line to join Piper with
+those horses he&rsquo;d stole from Gabbitas?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No, Generaal,&rsquo; says Van Zyl. &lsquo;Your men got the horses
+back and eleven dead; and Van Besters, he ran to Delarey in his shirt. They was
+very good, those men. They shoot hard.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>&lsquo;So</i> pleased to hear you say so. I laid &rsquo;em down at
+the beginning of this century&mdash;a 1900 vintage. <i>You</i> remember
+&rsquo;em, Mankeltow?&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;The Central Middlesex Buncho
+Busters&mdash;clerks and floorwalkers mostly,&rsquo; and he wiped his
+moustache. &lsquo;It was just the same with the Liverpool Buckjumpers, but they
+were stevedores. Let&rsquo;s see&mdash;they were a last-century draft,
+weren&rsquo;t they? They did well after nine months. <i>You</i> know &rsquo;em,
+Van Zyl? You didn&rsquo;t get much change out of &rsquo;em at
+Pootfontein?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No,&rsquo; says Van Zyl. &lsquo;At Pootfontein I lost my son
+Andries.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I beg your pardon, Commandant,&rsquo; says the General; and the
+rest of the crowd sort of cooed over Adrian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Excoose,&rsquo; says Adrian. &lsquo;It was all right. They were
+good men those, but it is just what I say. Some are so dam good we want to
+hands-up, and some are so dam bad, we say, &ldquo;Take the Vierkleur into Cape
+Town.&rdquo; It is not upright of you, Generaal. It is not upright of you at
+all. I do not think you ever wish this war to finish.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;It&rsquo;s a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,&rsquo; says
+the General. &lsquo;With luck, we ought to run half a million men through the
+mill. Why, we might even be able to give our Native Army a look in. Oh, not
+here, of course, Adrian, but down in the Colony&mdash;say a camp-of-exercise at
+Worcester. You mustn&rsquo;t be prejudiced, Adrian. I&rsquo;ve commanded a
+district in India, and I give you my word the native troops are splendid
+men.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Oh, I should not mind them at Worcester,&rsquo; says Adrian.
+&lsquo;I would sell you forage for them at Worcester&mdash;yes, and Paarl and
+Stellenbosch; but Almighty!&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;must I stay with Cronje till
+you have taught half a million of these stupid boys to ride? I shall be an old
+man.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Sir, then and there they began arguing whether St. Helena would
+suit Adrian&rsquo;s health as well as some other places they knew about, and
+fixing up letters of introduction to Dukes and Lords of their acquaintance,
+so&rsquo;s Van Zyl should be well looked after. We own a fair-sized block of
+real estate&mdash;America does&mdash;but it made me sickish to hear this crowd
+fluttering round the Atlas (oh yes, they had an Atlas), and choosing stray
+continents for Adrian to drink his coffee in. The old man allowed he
+didn&rsquo;t want to roost with Cronje, because one of Cronje&rsquo;s kin had
+jumped one of his farms after Paardeberg. I forget the rights of the case, but
+it was interesting. They decided on a place called Umballa in India, because
+there was a first-class doctor there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So Adrian was fixed to drink the King and Foxhunting, and study up the
+Native Army in India (I&rsquo;d like to see &rsquo;em myself), till the British
+General had taught the male white citizens of Great Britain how to ride.
+Don&rsquo;t misunderstand me, Sir. I loved that General. After ten minutes I
+loved him, and I wanted to laugh at him; but at the same time, sitting there
+and hearing him talk about the centuries, I tell you, Sir, it scared me. It
+scared me cold! He admitted everything&mdash;he acknowledged the corn before
+you spoke&mdash;he was more pleased to hear that his men had been used to wipe
+the geldt with than I was when I knocked out Tom Reed&rsquo;s two
+lead-horses&mdash;and he sat back and blew smoke through his nose and matured
+his men like cigars and&mdash;he talked of the everlastin&rsquo; centuries!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I went to bed nearer nervous prostration than I&rsquo;d come in a long
+time. Next morning me and Captain Mankeltow fixed up what his shrapnel had left
+of my Zigler for transport to the railroad. She went in on her own wheels, and
+I stencilled her &lsquo;Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,&rsquo; on the muzzle,
+and he said he&rsquo;d be grateful if I&rsquo;d take charge of her to Cape
+Town, and hand her over to a man in the Ordnance there. &lsquo;How are you
+fixed financially? You&rsquo;ll need some money on the way home,&rsquo; he says
+at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;For one thing, Cap,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not a poor
+man, and for another I&rsquo;m not going home. I am the captive of your bow and
+spear. I decline to resign office.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Skittles!&rsquo; he says (that was a great word of his),
+&lsquo;you&rsquo;ll take parole, and go back to America and invent another
+Zigler, a trifle heavier in the working parts&mdash;I would. We&rsquo;ve got
+more prisoners than we know what to do with as it is,&rsquo; he says.
+&lsquo;You&rsquo;ll only be an additional expense to me as a taxpayer. Think of
+Schedule D,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;and take parole.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything about your tariffs,&rsquo; I said,
+&lsquo;but when I get to Cape Town I write home for money, and I turn in every
+cent my board&rsquo;ll cost your country to any ten-century-old department
+that&rsquo;s been ordained to take it since William the Conqueror came
+along.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;But, confound you for a thick-headed mule,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;this war ain&rsquo;t any more than just started! Do you mean to tell me
+you&rsquo;re going to play prisoner till it&rsquo;s over?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;That&rsquo;s about the size of it,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;if an
+Englishman and an American could ever understand each other.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;But, in Heaven&rsquo;s Holy Name, why?&rsquo; he says, sitting
+down of a heap on an anthill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Well, Cap,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t pretend to follow
+your ways of thought, and I can&rsquo;t see why you abuse your position to
+persecute a poor prisoner o&rsquo; war on <i>his!</i>&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;My dear fellow,&rsquo; he began, throwing up his hands and
+blushing, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll apologise.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;But if you insist,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;there are just one and a
+half things in this world I can&rsquo;t do. The odd half don&rsquo;t matter
+here; but taking parole, and going home, and being interviewed by the boys, and
+giving lectures on my single-handed campaign against the hereditary enemies of
+my beloved country happens to be the one. We&rsquo;ll let it go at that,
+Cap.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;But it&rsquo;ll bore you to death,&rsquo; he says. The British
+are a heap more afraid of what they call being bored than of dying, I&rsquo;ve
+noticed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I&rsquo;ll survive,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;I ain&rsquo;t British.
+I can think,&rsquo; I says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;By God,&rsquo; he says, coming up to me, and extending the right
+hand of fellowship, &lsquo;you ought to be English, Zigler!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no good getting mad at a compliment like that. The English
+all do it. They&rsquo;re a crazy breed. When they don&rsquo;t know you they
+freeze up tighter&rsquo;n the St. Lawrence. When they <i>do</i>, they go out
+like an ice-jam in April. Up till we prisoners left&mdash;four days&mdash;my
+Captain Mankeltow told me pretty much all about himself there was; his mother
+and sisters, and his bad brother that was a trooper in some Colonial corps, and
+how his father didn&rsquo;t get on with him, and&mdash;well, everything, as
+I&rsquo;ve said. They&rsquo;re undomesticated, the British, compared with us.
+They talk about their own family affairs as if they belonged to someone else.
+&rsquo;Taint as if they hadn&rsquo;t any shame, but it sounds like it. I guess
+they talk out loud what we think, and we talk out loud what they think.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I liked my Captain Mankeltow. I liked him as well as any man I&rsquo;d
+ever struck. He was white. He gave me his silver drinking-flask, and I gave him
+the formula of my Laughtite. That&rsquo;s a hundred and fifty thousand dollars
+in his vest-pocket, on the lowest count, if he has the knowledge to use it. No,
+I didn&rsquo;t tell him the money-value. He was English. He&rsquo;d send his
+valet to find out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, me and Adrian and a crowd of dam Dutchmen was sent down the road
+to Cape Town in first-class carriages under escort. (What did I think of your
+enlisted men? They are largely different from ours, Sir: very largely.) As I
+was saying, we slid down south, with Adrian looking out of the car-window and
+crying. Dutchmen cry mighty easy for a breed that fights as they do; but I
+never understood how a Dutchman could curse till we crossed into the Orange
+Free State Colony, and he lifted up his hand and cursed Steyn for a solid ten
+minutes. Then we got into the Colony, and the rebs&mdash;ministers mostly and
+schoolmasters&mdash;came round the cars with fruit and sympathy and texts. Van
+Zyl talked to &rsquo;em in Dutch, and one man, a big red-bearded minister, at
+Beaufort West, I remember, he jest wilted on the platform.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Keep your prayers for yourself,&rsquo; says Van Zyl, throwing
+back a bunch of grapes. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll need &rsquo;em, and you&rsquo;ll
+need the fruit too, when the war comes down here. <i>You</i> done it,&rsquo; he
+says. &lsquo;You and your picayune Church that&rsquo;s deader than
+Cronje&rsquo;s dead horses! What sort of a God have you been unloading on us,
+you black <i>aas vogels</i>? The British came, and we beat &rsquo;em,&rsquo; he
+says, &lsquo;and you sat still and prayed. The British beat us, and you sat
+still,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;You told us to hang on, and we hung on, and our
+farms was burned, and you sat still&mdash;you and your God. See here,&rsquo; he
+says, &lsquo;I shot my Bible full of bullets after Bloemfontein went, and you
+and God didn&rsquo;t say anything. Take it and pray over it before we Federals
+help the British to knock hell out of you rebels.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I hauled him back into the car. I judged he&rsquo;d had a fit. But
+life&rsquo;s curious&mdash;and sudden&mdash;and mixed. I hadn&rsquo;t any more
+use for a reb than Van Zyl, and I knew something of the lies they&rsquo;d fed
+us up with from the Colony for a year and more. I told the minister to pull his
+freight out of that, and went on with my lunch, when another man come along and
+shook hands with Van Zyl. He&rsquo;d known him at close range in the Kimberley
+seige and before. Van Zyl was well seen by his neighbours, I judge. As soon as
+this other man opened his mouth I said, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re Kentucky,
+ain&rsquo;t you?&rsquo; &lsquo;I am,&rsquo; he says; &lsquo;and what may you
+be?&rsquo; I told him right off, for I was pleased to hear good United States
+in any man&rsquo;s mouth; but he whipped his hands behind him and said,
+&lsquo;I&rsquo;m not knowing any man that fights for a Tammany Dutchman. But I
+presoom you&rsquo;ve been well paid, you dam gun-runnin&rsquo; Yank.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Sir, I wasn&rsquo;t looking for that, and it near knocked me over,
+while old man Van Zyl started in to explain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you waste your breath, Mister Van Zyl,&rsquo; the man
+says. &lsquo;I know this breed. The South&rsquo;s full of &rsquo;em.&rsquo;
+Then he whirls round on me and says, &lsquo;Look at here, you Yank. A little
+thing like a King&rsquo;s neither here nor there, but what <i>you&rsquo;ve</i>
+done,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;is to go back on the White Man in six places at
+once&mdash;two hemispheres and four continents&mdash;America, England, Canada,
+Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Don&rsquo;t open your head,&rsquo; he
+says. &lsquo;You know well if you&rsquo;d been caught at this game in our
+country you&rsquo;d have been jiggling in the bight of a lariat before you
+could reach for your naturalisation papers. Go on and prosper,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;and you&rsquo;ll fetch up by fighting for niggers, as the North
+did.&rsquo; And he threw me half-a-crown&mdash;English money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir, I do not regard the proposition in that light, but I guess I must
+have been somewhat shook by the explosion. They told me at Cape Town one rib
+was driven in on to my lungs. I am not adducing this as an excuse, but the cold
+God&rsquo;s truth of the matter is&mdash;the money on the floor did it…. I give
+up and cried. Put my head down and cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I dream about this still sometimes. He didn&rsquo;t know the
+circumstances, but I dream about it. And it&rsquo;s Hell!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you regard the proposition&mdash;as a Brother? If you&rsquo;d
+invented your own gun, and spent fifty-seven thousand dollars on her&mdash;and
+had paid your own expenses from the word &lsquo;go&rsquo;? An American citizen
+has a right to choose his own side in an unpleasantness, and Van Zyl
+wasn&rsquo;t any Krugerite … and I&rsquo;d risked my hide at my own expense. I
+got that man&rsquo;s address from Van Zyl; he was a mining man at Kimberley,
+and I wrote him the facts. But he never answered. Guess he thought I lied….
+Damned Southern rebel!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, say. Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord
+in Cape Town, and he fixed things so&rsquo;s I could lie up a piece in his
+house? I was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged
+into the lung&mdash;here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of
+the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any American.
+He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He said the British
+soldier had failed in every point except courage. He said England needed a
+Monroe Doctrine worse than America&mdash;a new doctrine, barring out all the
+Continent, and strictly devoting herself to developing her own Colonies. He
+said he&rsquo;d abolish half the Foreign Office, and take all the old
+hereditary families clean out of it, because, he said, they was expressly
+trained to fool around with continental diplomats, and to despise the Colonies.
+His own family wasn&rsquo;t more than six hundred years old. He was a very
+brainy man, and a good citizen. We talked politics and inventions together when
+my lung let up on me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he know my General? Yes. He knew &rsquo;em all. Called &rsquo;em
+Teddie and Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his
+dearest friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of &rsquo;em fit
+to command a column in the field. He said they were too fond of advertising.
+Generals don&rsquo;t seem very different from actors or doctors or&mdash;yes,
+Sir&mdash;inventors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort of
+pull&mdash;even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless lunatic; but
+after a while I got &rsquo;em to let me keep some of their books. If I was left
+alone in the world with the British system of bookkeeping, I&rsquo;d
+reconstruct the whole British Empire&mdash;beginning with the Army. Yes,
+I&rsquo;m one of their most trusted accountants, and I&rsquo;m paid for it. As
+much as a dollar a day. I keep that. I&rsquo;ve earned it, and I deduct it from
+the cost of my board. When the war&rsquo;s over I&rsquo;m going to pay up the
+balance to the British Government. Yes, Sir, that&rsquo;s how I regard the
+proposition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was
+going to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn&rsquo;t end in a
+year. &rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if
+Adrian ever meets up with Steyn there&rsquo;ll be an exception to the rule.
+Ye&mdash;es, when the war&rsquo;s over it&rsquo;ll take some of the British
+Army to protect Steyn from his fellow-patriots. But the war won&rsquo;t be over
+yet awhile. He that believeth don&rsquo;t hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers
+and the school-teachers and the rebs&rsquo;ll have a war all to themselves long
+after the north is quiet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pleased with this country&mdash;it&rsquo;s big. Not so many
+folk on the ground as in America. There&rsquo;s a boom coming sure. I&rsquo;ve
+talked it over with Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near
+Bloemfontein and start in cattle-raising. It&rsquo;s big and peaceful&mdash;a
+ten-thousand-acre farm. I could go on inventing there, too. I&rsquo;ll sell my
+Zigler, I guess. I&rsquo;ll offer the patent rights to the British Government;
+and if they do the &lsquo;reelly-now-how-interesting&rsquo; act over her,
+I&rsquo;ll turn her over to Captain Mankeltow and his friend the Lord.
+They&rsquo;ll pretty quick find some Gussie, or Teddie, or Algie who can get
+her accepted in the proper quarters. I&rsquo;m beginning to know my English.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now I&rsquo;ll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I
+haven&rsquo;t had such a good time since Willie died.&rdquo; He pulled the blue
+shirt over his head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and,
+speaking through the folds, added:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole
+proposition to America for ninety-nine years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>POSEIDON&rsquo;S LAW</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea<br/>
+His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, &ldquo;Mariner,&rdquo; said he,<br/>
+&ldquo;Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,<br/>
+That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt<br/>
+At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,<br/>
+But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test&mdash;the immediate gulfs condemn&mdash;<br/>
+Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path<br/>
+The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria&rsquo;s white-lipped wrath;<br/>
+Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;<br/>
+Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,<br/>
+A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts&mdash;<br/>
+The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,<br/>
+The soul that cannot tell a lie&mdash;except upon the land!&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+In dromond and in catafract&mdash;wet, wakeful, windward-eyed&mdash;<br/>
+He kept Poseidon&rsquo;s Law intact (his ship and freight beside),<br/>
+But, once discharged the dromond&rsquo;s hold, the bireme beached once more,<br/>
+Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="poem">
+The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,<br/>
+And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:<br/>
+The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,<br/>
+But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!<br/>
+<br/>
+From Punt returned, from Phormio&rsquo;s Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,<br/>
+He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,<br/>
+And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,<br/>
+Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE</h2>
+
+<p>
+As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance, armament,
+turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British Navy&mdash;the
+whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches the matter with
+pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the Gaul, ever an artist,
+breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present day, of the British
+sailorman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur,
+though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on that
+amateur&rsquo;s hard-won information. There exists&mdash;unlike some other
+publication, it is not bound in lead boards&mdash;a work by one &ldquo;M. de
+C.,&rdquo; based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our
+well-known <i>Acolyte</i> type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not
+happen. It covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large
+type exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the
+average Dumas novel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue&mdash;it is the
+disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable of
+writing one page of lyric prose&mdash;to the eloquent, the joyful, the
+impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this sort
+of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at the mercy
+of his agent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;M. de C.,&rdquo; I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of
+her boats what time H.M.S. <i>Archimandrite</i> lay off Funchal. &ldquo;M. de
+C.&rdquo; was, always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing
+from the conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him
+assist the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his
+histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the rank of
+&ldquo;supernumerary captain&rsquo;s servant&rdquo;&mdash;a &ldquo;post
+which,&rdquo; I give his words, &ldquo;I flatter myself, was created for me
+alone, and furnished me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which one
+word malapropos would have been my destruction.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like to
+those &ldquo;M. de C.&rdquo; had &ldquo;envisaged&rdquo;&mdash;if I translate
+him correctly. It became clear to me that &ldquo;M. de C.&rdquo; was either a
+pyramidal liar, or…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the
+<i>Archimandrite</i>; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a
+third-class ticket to Plymouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman-gunners,
+and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my feet on the right
+path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to a public-house not
+fifty yards from the water. We drank with the proprietor, a huge, yellowish man
+called Tom Wessels; and when my guides had departed, I asked if he could
+produce any warrant or petty officer of the <i>Archimandrite</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>Bedlamite</i>, d&rsquo;you mean&mdash;&rsquo;er last commission,
+when they all went crazy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t wonder,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;Fetch me a sample and
+I&rsquo;ll see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll excuse me, o&rsquo; course, but&mdash;what d&rsquo;you want
+&rsquo;im <i>for?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk&mdash;if you like. I
+want to make him drunk here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spoke very &rsquo;andsome. I&rsquo;ll do what I can.&rdquo; He went out
+towards the water that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the
+pot-boy that he was a person of influence beyond Admirals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of Mr.
+Wessels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;E only wants to make you drunk at &rsquo;is expense. Dessay
+&rsquo;e&rsquo;ll stand you all a drink. Come up an&rsquo; look at &rsquo;im.
+&rsquo;E don&rsquo;t bite.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large
+bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;E&rsquo;s the only one I could get. Transferred to the
+<i>Postulant</i> six months back. I found &rsquo;im quite accidental.&rdquo;
+Mr. Wessels beamed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in charge o&rsquo; the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin&rsquo; on
+the beach <i>en masse</i>. They won&rsquo;t be home till mornin&rsquo;,&rdquo;
+said the square man with the remarkable eyes. &ldquo;Are you an
+<i>Archimandrite?</i>&rdquo; I demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s me. I was, as you might say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold on. I&rsquo;m a <i>Archimandrite.</i>&rdquo; A Red Marine with
+moist eyes tried to climb on the table. &ldquo;Was you lookin&rsquo; for a
+<i>Bedlamite?</i> I&rsquo;ve&mdash;I&rsquo;ve been invalided, an&rsquo; what
+with that, an&rsquo; visitin&rsquo; my family &rsquo;ome at Lewes,
+per&rsquo;aps I&rsquo;ve come late. &rsquo;Ave I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve &rsquo;ad all that&rsquo;s good for you,&rdquo; said Tom
+Wessels, as the Red Marine sat cross-legged on the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are those &rsquo;oo haven&rsquo;t &rsquo;ad a thing yet!&rdquo;
+cried a voice by the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will take this <i>Archimandrite</i>,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and this
+Marine. Will you please give the boat&rsquo;s crew a drink now, and another in
+half an hour if&mdash;if Mr.&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pyecroft,&rdquo; said the square man. &ldquo;Emanuel Pyecroft,
+second-class petty-officer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&mdash;Mr. Pyecroft doesn&rsquo;t object?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He don&rsquo;t. Clear out. Goldin&rsquo;, you picket the hill by
+yourself, throwin&rsquo; out a skirmishin&rsquo;-line in ample time to let me
+know when Number One&rsquo;s comin&rsquo; down from his vittles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red Marine
+zealously leading the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an&rsquo; sugar an&rsquo;
+per&rsquo;aps a lemon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mine&rsquo;s beer,&rdquo; said the Marine. &ldquo;It always was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look &rsquo;ere, Glass. You take an&rsquo; go to sleep. The
+picket&rsquo;ll be comin&rsquo; for you in a little time, an&rsquo;
+per&rsquo;aps you&rsquo;ll &rsquo;ave slep&rsquo; it off by then. What&rsquo;s
+your ship, now?&rdquo; said Mr. Wessels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Ship o&rsquo; State&mdash;most important?&rdquo; said the Red Marine
+magnificently, and shut his eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s safest
+where he is. An&rsquo; now&mdash;here&rsquo;s santy to us all!&mdash;what
+d&rsquo;you want o&rsquo; me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to read you something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tracts, again!&rdquo; said the Marine, never opening his eyes.
+&ldquo;Well. I&rsquo;m game…. A little more &rsquo;ead to it, miss,
+please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He thinks &rsquo;e&rsquo;s drinkin&rsquo;&mdash;lucky beggar!&rdquo;
+said Mr. Pyecroft. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m agreeable to be read to.
+&rsquo;Twon&rsquo;t alter my convictions. I may as well tell you beforehand
+I&rsquo;m a Plymouth Brother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist&rsquo;s chair, and I
+began at the third page of &ldquo;M. de C.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under
+the boat&rsquo;s cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed
+with empress</i>&rsquo;&mdash;coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. &lsquo;<i>By this
+time I judged the vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors
+extricated me amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I
+responded that I named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from
+the Portuguese conscription</i>.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ho!&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance
+changed. Then pensively: &ldquo;Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand
+there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the story of Antonio&mdash;a stowaway in the
+<i>Archimandrite&rsquo;s</i> cutter. A French spy when he&rsquo;s at home, I
+fancy. What do <i>you</i> know about it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; I thought it was tracts! An&rsquo; yet some&rsquo;ow I
+didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo; Mr. Pyecroft nodded his head wonderingly. &ldquo;Our old
+man was quite right&mdash;so was &rsquo;Op&mdash;so was I. &rsquo;Ere,
+Glass!&rdquo; He kicked the Marine. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s our Antonio &rsquo;as
+written a impromptu book! He <i>was</i> a spy all right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the
+half-drunk. &ldquo;&rsquo;As &rsquo;e got any-thin&rsquo; in about my
+&rsquo;orrible death an&rsquo; execution? Ex<i>cuse</i> me, but if I open my
+eyes, I shan&rsquo;t be well. That&rsquo;s where I&rsquo;m different from
+<i>all</i> other men. Ahem!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What about Glass&rsquo;s execution?&rdquo; demanded Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The book&rsquo;s in French,&rdquo; I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it&rsquo;s no good to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened.
+I&rsquo;ll check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged
+out of the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the other
+things, because they&rsquo;re unusual.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were,&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. &ldquo;Lookin&rsquo;
+back on it as I set here more an&rsquo; more I see what an &rsquo;ighly unusual
+affair it was. But it happened. It transpired in the
+<i>Archimandrite</i>&mdash;the ship you can trust… Antonio! Ther beggar!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take your time, Mr. Pyecroft.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few moments we came to it thus&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old man was displeased. I don&rsquo;t deny he was quite a little
+displeased. With the mail-boats trottin&rsquo; into Madeira every twenty
+minutes, he didn&rsquo;t see why a lop-eared Portugee had to take liberties
+with a man-o&rsquo;-war&rsquo;s first cutter. Any&rsquo;ow, we couldn&rsquo;t
+turn ship round for him. We drew him out and took him out to Number One.
+&lsquo;Drown &rsquo;im,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says. &lsquo;Drown &rsquo;im before
+&rsquo;e dirties my fine new decks.&rsquo; But our owner was tenderhearted.
+&lsquo;Take him to the galley,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says. &lsquo;Boil &rsquo;im!
+Skin &rsquo;im! Cook &rsquo;im! Cut &rsquo;is bloomin&rsquo; hair? Take
+&rsquo;is bloomin&rsquo; number! We&rsquo;ll have him executed at
+Ascension.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Retallick, our chief cook, an&rsquo; a Carth&rsquo;lic, was the
+on&rsquo;y one any way near grateful; bein&rsquo; short-&rsquo;anded in the
+galley. He annexes the blighter by the left ear an&rsquo; right foot an&rsquo;
+sets him to work peelin&rsquo; potatoes. So then, this Antonio that was
+avoidin&rsquo; the conscription&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Sub</i>scription, you pink-eyed matlow!&rdquo; said the Marine, with
+the face of a stone Buddha, and whimpered sadly: &ldquo;Pye don&rsquo;t see any
+fun in it at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Con</i>scription&mdash;come to his illegitimate sphere in Her
+Majesty&rsquo;s Navy, an&rsquo; it was just then that Old &rsquo;Op, our Yeoman
+of Signals, an&rsquo; a fastidious joker, made remarks to me about &rsquo;is
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Those &rsquo;ands,&rsquo; says &rsquo;Op, &lsquo;properly
+considered, never done a day&rsquo;s honest labour in their life. Tell me those
+hands belong to a blighted Portugee manual labourist and I won&rsquo;t call you
+a liar, but I&rsquo;ll say you an&rsquo; the Admiralty are pretty much unique
+in your statements.&rsquo; &rsquo;Op was always a fastidious joker&mdash;in his
+language as much as anything else. He pursued &rsquo;is investigations with the
+eye of an &rsquo;awk outside the galley. He knew better than to advance
+line-head against Retallick, so he attacked <i>ong eshlong</i>, speakin&rsquo;
+his remarks as much as possible into the breech of the starboard four point
+seven, an&rsquo; &rsquo;ummin&rsquo; to &rsquo;imself. Our chief cook
+&rsquo;ated &rsquo;ummin&rsquo;. &lsquo;What&rsquo;s the matter of your
+bowels?&rsquo; he says at last, fistin&rsquo; out the mess-pork agitated like.
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t mind me,&rsquo; says &rsquo;Op. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m only
+a mildewed buntin&rsquo;-tosser,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says: &lsquo;but
+speakin&rsquo; for my mess, I do hope,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, &lsquo;you
+ain&rsquo;t goin&rsquo; to boil your Portugee friend&rsquo;s boots along
+o&rsquo; that pork you&rsquo;re smellin&rsquo; so gay!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Boots! Boots! Boots!&rsquo; says Retallick, an&rsquo; he run
+round like a earwig in a alder-stalk. &lsquo;Boots in the galley,&rsquo;
+&rsquo;e says. &lsquo;Cook&rsquo;s mate, cast out an&rsquo; abolish this
+cutter-cuddlin&rsquo; abori<i>gine&rsquo;s</i> boots!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They was hove overboard in quick time, an&rsquo; that was what &rsquo;Op
+was lyin&rsquo; to for. As subsequently transpired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Fine Arab arch to that cutter-cuddler&rsquo;s hinstep,&rsquo; he
+says to me. &lsquo;Run your eye over it, Pye,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says.
+&lsquo;Nails all present an&rsquo; correct,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says. &lsquo;Bunion
+on the little toe, too,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says; &lsquo;which comes from
+wearin&rsquo; a tight boot. What do <i>you</i> think?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Dook in trouble, per&rsquo;aps,&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;He
+ain&rsquo;t got the hang of spud-skinnin&rsquo;.&rsquo; No more he &rsquo;ad.
+&rsquo;E was simply cannibalisin&rsquo; &rsquo;em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I want to know what &rsquo;e &rsquo;as got the &rsquo;ang
+of,&rsquo; says &rsquo;Op, obstructed-like. &lsquo;Watch &rsquo;im,&rsquo;
+&rsquo;e says. &lsquo;These shoulders were foreign-drilled somewhere.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&lsquo;&ldquo;When it comes to &ldquo;Down &rsquo;ammicks!&rdquo; which is our
+naval way o&rsquo; goin&rsquo; to bye-bye, I took particular trouble over
+Antonio, &rsquo;oo had &rsquo;is &rsquo;ammick &rsquo;ove at &rsquo;im with
+general instructions to sling it an&rsquo; be sugared. In the ensuin&rsquo;
+melly I pioneered him to the after-&rsquo;atch, which is a orifice
+communicatin&rsquo; with the after-flat an&rsquo; similar suites of apartments.
+He havin&rsquo; navigated at three fifths power immejit ahead o&rsquo; me,
+<i>I</i> wasn&rsquo;t goin&rsquo; to volunteer any assistance, nor he
+didn&rsquo;t need it.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Mong Jew!&rsquo; says &rsquo;e, sniffin&rsquo; round. An&rsquo;
+twice more &lsquo;Mong Jew!&rsquo;&mdash;which is pure French. Then he slings
+&rsquo;is &rsquo;ammick, nips in, an&rsquo; coils down. &lsquo;Not bad for a
+Portugee conscript,&rsquo; I says to myself, casts off the tow, abandons him,
+and reports to &rsquo;Op.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About three minutes later I&rsquo;m over&rsquo;auled by our
+sub-lootenant, navigatin&rsquo; under forced draught, with his bearin&rsquo;s
+&rsquo;eated. &rsquo;E had the temerity to say I&rsquo;d instructed our Antonio
+to sling his carcass in the alleyway, an&rsquo; &rsquo;e was peevish about it.
+O&rsquo; course, I prevaricated like &rsquo;ell. You get to do that in the
+service. Nevertheless, to oblige Mr. Ducane, I went an&rsquo; readjusted
+Antonio. You may not &rsquo;ave ascertained that there are two ways o&rsquo;
+comin&rsquo; out of an &rsquo;ammick when it&rsquo;s cut down. Antonio came out
+t&rsquo;other way&mdash;slidin&rsquo; &rsquo;andsome to his feet. That showed
+me two things. First, &rsquo;e had been in an &rsquo;ammick before, an&rsquo;
+next, he hadn&rsquo;t been asleep. Then I reproached &rsquo;im for goin&rsquo;
+to bed where &rsquo;e&rsquo;d been told to go, instead o&rsquo; standin&rsquo;
+by till some one gave him entirely contradictory orders. Which is the essence
+o&rsquo; naval discipline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the middle o&rsquo; this argument the gunner protrudes his ram-bow
+from &rsquo;is cabin, an&rsquo; brings it all to an &rsquo;urried conclusion
+with some remarks suitable to &rsquo;is piebald warrant-rank. Navigatin&rsquo;
+thence under easy steam, an&rsquo; leavin&rsquo; Antonio to re-sling his little
+foreign self, my large flat foot comes in detonatin&rsquo; contact with a small
+objec&rsquo; on the deck. Not &rsquo;altin&rsquo; for the obstacle, nor
+changin&rsquo; step, I shuffles it along under the ball of the big toe to the
+foot o&rsquo; the hatchway, when, lightly stoopin&rsquo;, I catch it in my
+right hand and continue my evolutions in rapid time till I eventuates under
+&rsquo;Op&rsquo;s lee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a small moroccer-bound pocket-book, full of indelible
+pencil-writin&rsquo;&mdash;in French, for I could plainly discern the
+<i>doodeladays</i>, which is about as far as my education runs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Op fists it open and peruses. &rsquo;E&rsquo;d known an
+&rsquo;arf-caste Frenchwoman pretty intricate before he was married; when he
+was trained man in a stinkin&rsquo; gunboat up the Saigon River. He understood
+a lot o&rsquo; French&mdash;domestic brands chiefly&mdash;the kind that
+isn&rsquo;t in print.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Pye,&rsquo; he says to me, &lsquo;you&rsquo;re a tattician
+o&rsquo; no mean value. I am a trifle shady about the precise bearin&rsquo;
+an&rsquo; import&rsquo; o&rsquo; this beggar&rsquo;s private log here,&rsquo;
+&rsquo;e says, &lsquo;but it&rsquo;s evidently a case for the owner.
+You&rsquo;ll &rsquo;ave your share o&rsquo; the credit,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Nay, nay, Pauline,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t catch
+Emanuel Pyecroft mine-droppin&rsquo; under any post-captain&rsquo;s
+bows,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;in search of honour,&rsquo; I says.
+&lsquo;I&rsquo;ve been there oft.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Well, if you must, you must,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, takin&rsquo;
+me up quick. &lsquo;But I&rsquo;ll speak a good word for you, Pye.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;You&rsquo;ll shut your mouth, &rsquo;Op,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;or
+you an&rsquo; me&rsquo;ll part brass-rags. The owner has his duties, an&rsquo;
+I have mine. We will keep station,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;nor seek to
+deviate.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Deviate to blazes!&rsquo; says &rsquo;Op. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m
+goin&rsquo; to deviate to the owner&rsquo;s comfortable cabin direct.&rsquo; So
+he deviated.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward and dealt the Marine a large pattern Navy kick.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Ere, Glass! You was sentry when &rsquo;Op went to the old
+man&mdash;the first time, with Antonio&rsquo;s washin&rsquo;-book. Tell us what
+transpired. You&rsquo;re sober. You don&rsquo;t know how sober you are!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Marine cautiously raised his head a few inches. As Mr. Pyecroft said, he
+was sober&mdash;after some R.M.L.I. fashion of his own devising.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Op bounds in like a startled anteloper, carryin&rsquo; &rsquo;is
+signal-slate at the ready. The old man was settin&rsquo; down to &rsquo;is
+bountiful platter&mdash;not like you an&rsquo; me, without anythin&rsquo; more
+in sight for an &rsquo;ole night an&rsquo; &rsquo;arf a day. Talkin&rsquo;
+about food&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! No! No!&rdquo; cried Pyecroft, kicking again. &ldquo;What about
+&rsquo;Op?&rdquo; I thought the Marine&rsquo;s ribs would have snapped, but he
+merely hiccuped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, &rsquo;im! &rsquo;E &rsquo;ad it written all down on &rsquo;is
+little slate&mdash;I think&mdash;an&rsquo; &rsquo;e shoves it under the old
+man&rsquo;s nose. &lsquo;Shut the door,&rsquo; says &rsquo;Op. &lsquo;For
+&rsquo;Eavin&rsquo;s sake shut the cabin door!&rsquo; Then the old man must
+ha&rsquo; said somethin&rsquo; &rsquo;bout irons. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll put
+&rsquo;em on, Sir, in your very presence,&rsquo; says &rsquo;Op, &lsquo;only
+&rsquo;ear my prayer,&rsquo; or&mdash;words to that &rsquo;fect…. It was
+jus&rsquo; the same with me when I called our Sergeant a bladder-bellied,
+lard-&rsquo;eaded, perspirin&rsquo; pension-cheater. They on&rsquo;y put on the
+charge-sheet &lsquo;words to that effect.&rsquo; Spoiled the &rsquo;ole
+&rsquo;fect.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Op! &rsquo;Op! &rsquo;Op! What about &rsquo;Op?&rdquo; thundered
+Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Op? Oh, shame thing. Words t&rsquo; that &rsquo;fect. Door shut.
+Nushin&rsquo; more transphired till &rsquo;Op comes out&mdash;nose exshtreme
+angle plungin&rsquo; fire or&mdash;or words &lsquo;that effect. Proud&rsquo;s
+parrot. &lsquo;Oh, you prou&rsquo; old parrot,&rsquo; I says.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Glass seemed to slumber again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lord! How a little moisture disintegrates, don&rsquo;t it? When we had
+ship&rsquo;s theatricals off Vigo, Glass &rsquo;ere played Dick Deadeye to the
+moral, though of course the lower deck wasn&rsquo;t pleased to see a
+leatherneck interpretin&rsquo; a strictly maritime part, as you might say.
+It&rsquo;s only his repartees, which &rsquo;e can&rsquo;t contain, that
+conquers him. Shall I resume my narrative?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another drink was brought on this hint, and Mr. Pyecroft resumed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The essence o&rsquo; strategy bein&rsquo; forethought, the essence
+o&rsquo; tattics is surprise. Per&rsquo;aps you didn&rsquo;t know that? My
+forethought &rsquo;avin&rsquo; secured the initial advantage in attack, it
+remained for the old man to ladle out the surprise-packets. &rsquo;Eavens! What
+surprises! That night he dines with the wardroom, bein&rsquo; of the
+kind&mdash;I&rsquo;ve told you as we were a &rsquo;appy ship?&mdash;that likes
+it, and the wardroom liked it too. This ain&rsquo;t common in the service. They
+had up the new Madeira&mdash;awful undisciplined stuff which gives you a
+cordite mouth next morning. They told the mess-men to navigate towards the
+extreme an&rsquo; remote &rsquo;orizon, an&rsquo; they abrogated the sentry
+about fifteen paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner, the
+Bo&rsquo;sun, an&rsquo; the Carpenter, an&rsquo; stood them large round drinks.
+It all come out later&mdash;wardroom joints bein&rsquo; lower-deck hash, as the
+sayin&rsquo; is&mdash;that our Number One stuck to it that &rsquo;e
+couldn&rsquo;t trust the ship for the job. The old man swore &rsquo;e could,
+&rsquo;avin&rsquo; commanded &rsquo;er over two years. He was right. There
+wasn&rsquo;t a ship, I don&rsquo;t care in what fleet, could come near the
+<i>Archimandrites</i> when we give our mind to a thing. We held the cruiser
+big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig) championship, an&rsquo; the
+challenge-cup row round the fleet. We &rsquo;ad the best nigger-minstrels, the
+best football an&rsquo; cricket teams, an&rsquo; the best squee-jee band of
+anything that ever pushed in front of a brace o&rsquo; screws. An&rsquo;
+<i>yet</i> our Number One mistrusted us! &rsquo;E said we&rsquo;d be a
+floatin&rsquo; hell in a week, an&rsquo; it &rsquo;ud take the rest o&rsquo;
+the commission to stop our way. They was arguin&rsquo; it in the wardroom when
+the bridge reports a light three points off the port bow. We overtakes her,
+switches on our search-light, an&rsquo; she discloses herself as a collier
+o&rsquo; no mean reputation, makin&rsquo; about seven knots on &rsquo;er lawful
+occasions&mdash;to the Cape most like.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then the owner&mdash;so we &rsquo;eard in good time&mdash;broke the
+boom, springin&rsquo; all mines together at close interval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Look &rsquo;ere, my jokers,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says (I&rsquo;m
+givin&rsquo; the grist of &rsquo;is arguments, remember), &lsquo;Number One
+says we can&rsquo;t enlighten this cutter-cuddlin&rsquo; Gaulish lootenant on
+the manners an&rsquo; customs o&rsquo; the Navy without makin&rsquo; the ship a
+market-garden. There&rsquo;s a lot in that,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says,
+&lsquo;specially if we kept it up lavish, till we reached Ascension.
+But,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, &lsquo;the appearance o&rsquo; this strange sail has
+put a totally new aspect on the game. We can run to just one day&rsquo;s
+amusement for our friend, or else what&rsquo;s the good o&rsquo; discipline?
+An&rsquo; then we can turn &rsquo;im over to our presumably short-&rsquo;anded
+fellow-subject in the small-coal line out yonder. He&rsquo;ll be
+pleased,&rsquo; says the old man, &lsquo;an&rsquo; so will Antonio.
+M&rsquo;rover,&rsquo; he says to Number One, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll lay you a dozen
+o&rsquo; liquorice an&rsquo; ink&rsquo;&mdash;it must ha&rsquo; been that new
+tawny port&mdash;&lsquo;that I&rsquo;ve got a ship I can trust&mdash;for one
+day,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says. &lsquo;Wherefore,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;will you
+have the extreme goodness to reduce speed as requisite for keepin&rsquo; a
+proper distance behind this providential tramp till further orders?&rsquo; Now,
+that&rsquo;s what I call tattics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The other manœuvres developed next day, strictly in accordance with the
+plans as laid down in the wardroom, where they sat long an&rsquo; steady.
+&rsquo;Op whispers to me that Antonio was a Number One spy when &rsquo;e was in
+commission, and a French lootenant when &rsquo;e was paid off, so I navigated
+at three &rsquo;undred and ninety six revolutions to the galley, never
+&rsquo;avin&rsquo; kicked a lootenant up to date. I may as well say that I did
+not manœuvre against &rsquo;im as a Frenchman, because I like Frenchmen, but
+stric&rsquo;ly on &rsquo;is rank an&rsquo; ratin&rsquo; in &rsquo;is own navy.
+I inquired after &rsquo;is health from Retallick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Don&rsquo;t ask me,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, sneerin&rsquo;
+be&rsquo;ind his silver spectacles. &lsquo;&rsquo;E&rsquo;s promoted to be
+captain&rsquo;s second supernumerary servant, to be dressed and addressed as
+such. If &rsquo;e does &rsquo;is dooties same as he skinned the spuds, <i>I</i>
+ain&rsquo;t for changin&rsquo; with the old man.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the balmy dawnin&rsquo; it was given out, all among the
+&rsquo;olystones, by our sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil,
+that all orders after eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the
+cube o&rsquo; the velocity. &lsquo;The reg&rsquo;lar routine,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;was arrogated for reasons o&rsquo; state an&rsquo; policy, an&rsquo; any
+flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise, annoyance, or amusement, would be
+slightly but firmly reproached.&rsquo; Then the Gunner mops up a heathenish
+large detail for some hanky-panky in the magazines, an&rsquo; led &rsquo;em off
+along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say, our Gunnery Lootenant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That put us on the <i>viva voce</i>&mdash;particularly when we
+understood how the owner was navigatin&rsquo; abroad in his sword-belt
+trustin&rsquo; us like brothers. We shifts into the dress o&rsquo; the day,
+an&rsquo; we musters <i>an&rsquo;</i> we prays <i>ong reggle</i>, an&rsquo; we
+carries on anticipatory to bafflin&rsquo; Antonio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin&rsquo; his &rsquo;ands
+an&rsquo; weepin&rsquo;. &rsquo;E&rsquo;d been talkin&rsquo; to the
+sub-lootenant, an&rsquo; it looked like as if his upper-works were
+collapsin&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I want a guarantee,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, wringin&rsquo;
+&rsquo;is &rsquo;ands like this. &lsquo;<i>I</i> &rsquo;aven&rsquo;t &rsquo;ad
+sunstroke slave-dhowin&rsquo; in Tajurrah Bay, an&rsquo; been compelled to live
+on quinine an&rsquo; chlorodyne ever since. <i>I</i> don&rsquo;t get the
+horrors off glasses o&rsquo; brown sherry.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;What &rsquo;ave you got now?&rsquo; I says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>I</i> ain&rsquo;t an officer,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says.
+&lsquo;<i>My</i> sword won&rsquo;t be handed back to me at the end o&rsquo; the
+court-martial on account o&rsquo; my little weaknesses, an&rsquo; no stain on
+my character. I&rsquo;m only a pore beggar of a Red Marine with eighteen
+years&rsquo; service, an&rsquo; why for,&rsquo; says he, wringin&rsquo;
+&rsquo;is hands like this all the time, &lsquo;must I chuck away my pension,
+sub-lootenant or no sub-lootenant? Look at &rsquo;em,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;only look at &rsquo;em. Marines fallin&rsquo; in for small-arm
+drill!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The leathernecks was layin&rsquo; aft at the double, an&rsquo; a more
+insanitary set of accidents I never wish to behold. Most of &rsquo;em was in
+their shirts. They had their trousers on, of course&mdash;rolled up nearly to
+the knee, but what I mean is belts over shirts. Three or four &rsquo;ad
+<i>our</i> caps, an&rsquo; them that had drawn helmets wore their chin-straps
+like Portugee earrings. Oh, yes; an&rsquo; three of &rsquo;em &rsquo;ad only
+one boot! I knew what our bafflin&rsquo; tattics was goin&rsquo; to be, but
+even I was mildly surprised when this gay fantasia of Brazee drummers halted
+under the poop, because of an &rsquo;ammick in charge of our Navigator,
+an&rsquo; a small but &rsquo;ighly efficient landin&rsquo;-party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;&rsquo;Ard astern both screws!&rsquo; says the Navigator.
+&lsquo;Room for the captain&rsquo;s &rsquo;ammick!&rsquo; The captain&rsquo;s
+servant&mdash;Cockburn &rsquo;is name was&mdash;had one end, an&rsquo; our
+newly promoted Antonio, in a blue slop rig, &rsquo;ad the other. They slung it
+from the muzzle of the port poop quick-firer thort-ships to a stanchion. Then
+the old man flickered up, smokin&rsquo; a cigarette, an&rsquo; brought
+&rsquo;is stern to an anchor slow an&rsquo; oriental.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;What a blessin&rsquo; it is, Mr. Ducane,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says to
+our sub-lootenant, &lsquo;to be out o&rsquo; sight o&rsquo; the &rsquo;ole pack
+o&rsquo; blighted admirals! What&rsquo;s an admiral after all?&rsquo; &rsquo;e
+says. &lsquo;Why, &rsquo;e&rsquo;s only a post-captain with the pip, Mr.
+Ducane. The drill will now proceed. What O! Antonio, <i>descendez</i> an&rsquo;
+get me a split.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When Antonio came back with the whisky-an&rsquo;-soda, he was told off
+to swing the &rsquo;ammick in slow time, an&rsquo; that massacritin&rsquo;
+small-arm party went on with their oratorio. The Sergeant had been kindly
+excused from participating an&rsquo; he was jumpin&rsquo; round on the
+poop-ladder, stretchin&rsquo; &rsquo;is leather neck to see the
+disgustin&rsquo; exhibition an&rsquo; cluckin&rsquo; like a ash-hoist. A lot of
+us went on the fore an&rsquo; aft bridge an&rsquo; watched &rsquo;em like
+&lsquo;Listen to the Band in the Park.&rsquo; All these evolutions, I may as
+well tell you, are highly unusual in the Navy. After ten minutes o&rsquo;
+muckin&rsquo; about, Glass &rsquo;ere&mdash;pity &rsquo;e&rsquo;s so
+drunk!&mdash;says that &rsquo;e&rsquo;d had enough exercise for &rsquo;is
+simple needs an&rsquo; he wants to go &rsquo;ome. Mr. Ducane catches him a
+sanakatowzer of a smite over the &rsquo;ead with the flat of his sword. Down
+comes Glass&rsquo;s rifle with language to correspond, and he fiddles with the
+bolt. Up jumps Maclean&mdash;&rsquo;oo was a Gosport
+&rsquo;ighlander&mdash;an&rsquo; lands on Glass&rsquo;s neck, thus
+bringin&rsquo; him to the deck, fully extended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old man makes a great show o&rsquo; wakin&rsquo; up from sweet
+slumbers. &lsquo;Mistah Ducane,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;what is this painful
+interregnum?&rsquo; or words to that effect. Ducane takes one step to the
+front, an&rsquo; salutes: &lsquo;Only &rsquo;nother case of attempted
+assassination, Sir,&rsquo; he says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Is that all?&rsquo; says the old man, while Maclean sits on
+Glass&rsquo;s collar button. &lsquo;Take him away,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says,
+&lsquo;he knows the penalty.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! I suppose that is the &lsquo;invincible <i>morgue</i> Britannic in
+the presence of brutally provoked mutiny,&rsquo;&rdquo; I muttered, as I turned
+over the pages of M. de C.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, Glass, &rsquo;e was led off kickin&rsquo; an&rsquo; squealin&rsquo;,
+an&rsquo; hove down the ladder into &rsquo;is Sergeant&rsquo;s volupshus arms.
+&rsquo;E run Glass forward, an&rsquo; was all for puttin&rsquo; &rsquo;im in
+irons as a maniac.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;You refill your waterjacket and cool off!&rsquo; says Glass,
+sittin&rsquo; down rather winded. &lsquo;The trouble with you is you
+haven&rsquo;t any imagination.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Haven&rsquo;t I? I&rsquo;ve got the remnants of a little poor
+authority though,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, lookin&rsquo; pretty vicious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;You &rsquo;ave?&rsquo; says Glass. &lsquo;Then for pity&rsquo;s
+sake &rsquo;ave some proper feelin&rsquo; too. I&rsquo;m goin&rsquo; to be shot
+this evenin&rsquo;. You&rsquo;ll take charge o&rsquo; the
+firin&rsquo;-party.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some&rsquo;ow or other, that made the Sergeant froth at the mouth.
+&rsquo;E &rsquo;ad no more play to his intellects than a spit-kid. &rsquo;E
+just took everything as it come. Well, that was about all, I think…. Unless
+you&rsquo;d care to have me resume my narrative.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We resumed on the old terms, but with rather less hot water. The marine on the
+floor breathed evenly, and Mr. Pyecroft nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may have omitted to inform you that our Number One took a general row
+round the situation while the small-arm party was at work, an&rsquo; o&rsquo;
+course he supplied the outlines; but the details we coloured in by ourselves.
+These were our tattics to baffle Antonio. It occurs to the Carpenter to
+&rsquo;ave the steam-cutter down for repairs. &rsquo;E gets &rsquo;is
+cheero-party together, an&rsquo; down she comes. You&rsquo;ve never seen a
+steam-cutter let down on the deck, &rsquo;ave you? It&rsquo;s not usual,
+an&rsquo; she takes a lot o&rsquo; humourin&rsquo;. Thus we &rsquo;ave the
+starboard side completely blocked an&rsquo; the general traffic tricklin&rsquo;
+over&rsquo;ead along the fore-an&rsquo;-aft bridge. Then Chips gets into her
+an&rsquo; begins balin&rsquo; out a mess o&rsquo; small reckonin&rsquo;s on the
+deck. Simultaneous there come up three o&rsquo; those dirty engine-room objects
+which we call &lsquo;tiffies,&rsquo; an&rsquo; a stoker or two with orders to
+repair her steamin&rsquo;-gadgets. <i>They</i> get into her an&rsquo; bale out
+another young Christmas-treeful of small reckonin&rsquo;s&mdash;brass mostly.
+Simultaneous it hits the Pusser that &rsquo;e&rsquo;d better serve out mess
+pork for the poor matlow. These things half shifted Retallick, our chief cook,
+off &rsquo;is bed-plate. Yes, you might say they broke &rsquo;im wide open.
+&rsquo;E wasn&rsquo;t at all used to &rsquo;em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Number One tells off five or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to
+the pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, &rsquo;ave
+you? Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now&rsquo;s the day an&rsquo;
+now&rsquo;s the hour for a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they
+all give way together, and the general effect was <i>non plus ultra</i>. There
+was the cutter&rsquo;s innards spread out like a Fratton pawnbroker&rsquo;s
+shop; there was the &lsquo;tiffies&rsquo; hammerin&rsquo; in the stern of
+&rsquo;er, an&rsquo; <i>they</i> ain&rsquo;t antiseptic; there was the Maxim
+class in light skirmishin&rsquo; order among the pork, an&rsquo; forrard the
+blacksmith had &rsquo;is forge in full blast, makin&rsquo; &rsquo;orse-shoes, I
+suppose. Well, that accounts for the starboard side. The on&rsquo;y warrant
+officer &rsquo;oo hadn&rsquo;t a look in so far was the Bosun. So &rsquo;e
+stated, all out of &rsquo;is own &rsquo;ead, that Chips&rsquo;s reserve
+o&rsquo; wood an&rsquo; timber, which Chips &rsquo;ad stole at our last refit,
+needed restowin&rsquo;. It was on the port booms&mdash;a young an&rsquo;
+healthy forest of it, for Charley Peace wasn&rsquo;t to be named
+&rsquo;longside o&rsquo; Chips for burglary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;All right,&rsquo; says our Number One. &lsquo;You can &rsquo;ave
+the whole port watch if you like. Hell&rsquo;s Hell,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says,
+&rsquo;an when there study to improve.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jarvis was our Bosun&rsquo;s name. He hunted up the &rsquo;ole of the
+port watch by hand, as you might say, callin&rsquo; &rsquo;em by name loud
+an&rsquo; lovin&rsquo;, which is not precisely Navy makee-pigeon. They
+&lsquo;ad that timber-loft off the booms, an&rsquo; they dragged it up and down
+like so many sweatin&rsquo; little beavers. But Jarvis was jealous o&rsquo;
+Chips an&rsquo; went round the starboard side to envy at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t enough,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, when he had climbed
+back. &lsquo;Chips &rsquo;as got his bazaar lookin&rsquo; like a coal-hulk in a
+cyclone. We must adop&rsquo; more drastic measures.&rsquo; Off &rsquo;e goes to
+Number One and communicates with &rsquo;im. Number One got the old man&rsquo;s
+leave, on account of our goin&rsquo; so slow (we were keepin&rsquo;
+be&rsquo;ind the tramp), to fit the ship with a full set of patent
+supernumerary sails. Four trysails&mdash;yes, you might call &rsquo;em
+trysails&mdash;was our Admiralty allowance in the un&rsquo;eard of event of a
+cruiser breakin&rsquo; down, but we had our awnin&rsquo;s as well. They was all
+extricated from the various flats an&rsquo; &rsquo;oles where they was stored,
+an&rsquo; at the end o&rsquo; two hours&rsquo; hard work Number One &rsquo;e
+made out eleven sails o&rsquo; different sorts and sizes. I don&rsquo;t know
+what exact nature of sail you&rsquo;d call
+&rsquo;em&mdash;pyjama-stun&rsquo;sles with a touch of Sarah&rsquo;s shimmy,
+per&rsquo;aps&mdash;but the riggin&rsquo; of &rsquo;em an&rsquo; all the
+supernumerary details, as you might say, bein&rsquo; carried on through
+an&rsquo; over an&rsquo; between the cutter an&rsquo; the forge an&rsquo; the
+pork an&rsquo; cleanin&rsquo; guns, an&rsquo; the Maxim class an&rsquo; the
+Bosun&rsquo;s calaboose <i>and</i> the paintwork, was sublime. There&rsquo;s no
+other word for it. Sub-lime!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old man keeps swimmin&rsquo; up an&rsquo; down through it all with
+the faithful Antonio at &rsquo;is side, fetchin&rsquo; him numerous splits.
+&rsquo;E had eight that mornin&rsquo;, an&rsquo; when Antonio was detached to
+get &rsquo;is spy-glass, or his gloves, or his lily-white &rsquo;andkerchief,
+the old man would waste &rsquo;em down a ventilator. Antonio must ha&rsquo;
+learned a lot about our Navy thirst.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin&rsquo; to the precise page indicated
+an&rsquo; givin&rsquo; me a <i>résumé</i> of &rsquo;is tattics?&rdquo; said Mr.
+Pyecroft, drinking deeply. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to know &rsquo;ow it looked
+from &rsquo;is side o&rsquo; the deck.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How will this do?&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;&lsquo;<i>Once clear of the
+land, like Voltaire&rsquo;s Habakkuk</i>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One o&rsquo; their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose,&rdquo; Mr.
+Pyecroft interjected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;&mdash;<i>each man seemed veritably capable of all&mdash;to do
+according to his will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the
+planking. One cries &ldquo;Aid me!&rdquo; flourishing at the same time the
+weapons of his business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of
+zeal misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a
+hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the utensil,
+colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in the stern of the
+boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the ironwork which impedes their
+brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches from on high wood, canvas, iron bolts,
+coal-dust&mdash;what do I know</i>?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s where &rsquo;e&rsquo;s comin&rsquo; the bloomin&rsquo;
+<i>onjenew</i>. &rsquo;E knows a lot, reely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle
+cannot reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have
+well and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me
+also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They ask
+orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the vessel and
+chants interminably the lugubrious &ldquo;Roule Britannia&rdquo;&mdash;to
+endure how lomg</i>?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was me! On&rsquo;y &rsquo;twas &lsquo;A Life on the Ocean
+Wave&rsquo;&mdash;which I hate more than any stinkin&rsquo; tune I know,
+havin&rsquo; dragged too many nasty little guns to it. Yes, Number One told me
+off to that for ten minutes; an&rsquo; I ain&rsquo;t musical, you might
+say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>&lsquo;Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this
+&ldquo;tohu-bohu</i>&rdquo;&rsquo; (that&rsquo;s one of his names for the
+<i>Archimandrite</i>, Mr. Pyecroft), &lsquo;<i>for a place whence they shall
+not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with drink, rolls himself from his
+hammock. He would have his people fire the Maxims. They demand which Maxim.
+That to him is equal. The breech-lock indispensable is not there. They demand
+it of one who opens a barrel of pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He
+refers them to the cook, yesterday my master</i>&mdash;&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, an&rsquo; Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an&rsquo;
+observin&rsquo; little Antonio we &rsquo;ave!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do
+not rebuke him, that he has found it by hazard</i>.&rsquo; I&rsquo;m afraid I
+haven&rsquo;t translated quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I&rsquo;ve done my
+best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s beautiful&mdash;you ought to be a Frenchman&mdash;you
+ought. You don&rsquo;t want anything o&rsquo; <i>me</i>. You&rsquo;ve got it
+all there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here&rsquo;s a little
+thing I can&rsquo;t quite see the end of. Listen! &lsquo;<i>Of the domain which
+Britannia rules by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his
+Navigator, if possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the
+indeterminate chaos of the grand deck, I ascended&mdash;always with a
+whisky-and-soda in my hands&mdash;to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain
+in plain sea, at issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the
+enormous quantity of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for
+him the ocean with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment,
+menaced by the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of
+the Hesperides beneath his keel&mdash;vigias innumerable.&rsquo;</i> I
+don&rsquo;t know what a vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. <i>&lsquo;He creates shoals sad
+and far-reaching of the mid-Atlantic!&rsquo;</i> What was that, now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw &rsquo;is
+cap down an&rsquo; danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They &rsquo;ad a
+tea-party on the bridge. It was the old man&rsquo;s contribution. Does he say
+anything about the leadsmen?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this it? <i>&lsquo;Overborne by his superior&rsquo;s causeless
+suspicion, the Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the
+feet of my captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation
+followed. The argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel,
+crapulous&rsquo;</i> (that means drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft),
+<i>&lsquo;shouting. It appeared that my captain would chenaler&rsquo;</i> (I
+don&rsquo;t know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) <i>&lsquo;to the Cape. At the
+end, he placed a sailor with the sound&rsquo;</i> (that&rsquo;s the lead, I
+think) <i>&lsquo;in his hand, garnished with suet.&rsquo;</i> Was it garnished
+with suet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He put two leadsmen in the chains, o&rsquo; course! He didn&rsquo;t know
+that there mightn&rsquo;t be shoals there, &rsquo;e said. Morgan went an&rsquo;
+armed his lead, to enter into the spirit o&rsquo; the thing. They &rsquo;eaved
+it for twenty minutes, but there wasn&rsquo;t any suet&mdash;only tallow,
+o&rsquo; course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity.
+Decidedly the Britannic Navy is well guarded</i>.&rsquo; Well, that&rsquo;s all
+right, Mr. Pyecroft. Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that
+happened?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a good deal, one way an&rsquo; another. I&rsquo;d like to know
+what this Antonio thought of our sails.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He merely says that &lsquo;<i>the engines having broken down, an officer
+extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails</i>.&rsquo; Oh, yes! he
+says that some of them looked like &lsquo;<i>bonnets in a
+needlecase</i>,&rsquo; I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun&rsquo;sles. That shows the
+beggar&rsquo;s no sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I
+thought he was a sailorman, an&rsquo; &rsquo;e hasn&rsquo;t sense enough to see
+what extemporisin&rsquo; eleven good an&rsquo; drawin&rsquo; sails out o&rsquo;
+four trys&rsquo;les an&rsquo; a few awnin&rsquo;s means. &rsquo;E must have
+been drunk!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and
+the execution.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As
+I told my crew&mdash;me bein&rsquo; captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though
+I&rsquo;m a torpedo man now&mdash;it just showed how you can work your gun
+under any discomforts. A shell&mdash;twenty six-inch
+shells&mdash;burstin&rsquo; inboard couldn&rsquo;t &rsquo;ave begun to make the
+varicose collection o&rsquo; tit-bits which we had spilled on our deck. It was
+a lather&mdash;a rich, creamy lather!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We took it very easy&mdash;that gun-practice. We did it in a
+complimentary &lsquo;Jenny-&rsquo;ave-another-cup-o&rsquo; tea&rsquo; style,
+an&rsquo; the crew was strictly ordered not to rupture &rsquo;emselves with
+unnecessary exertion. This isn&rsquo;t our custom in the Navy when we&rsquo;re
+<i>in puris naturalibus</i>, as you might say. But we wasn&rsquo;t so then. We
+was impromptu. An&rsquo; Antonio was busy fetchin&rsquo; splits for the old
+man, and the old man was wastin&rsquo; &rsquo;em down the ventilators. There
+must &rsquo;ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think&mdash;wardroom
+whisky-an&rsquo;-soda.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my
+<i>bundoop</i> go at fifteen &rsquo;undred&mdash;sightin&rsquo; very
+particular. There was a sort of &rsquo;appy little belch like&mdash;no more, I
+give you my word&mdash;an&rsquo; the shell trundled out maybe fifty feet
+an&rsquo; dropped into the deep Atlantic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Government powder, Sir!&rsquo; sings out our Gunnery Jack to the
+bridge, laughin&rsquo; horrid sarcastic; an&rsquo; then, of course, we all
+laughs, which we are not encouraged to do <i>in puris naturalibus</i>. Then, of
+course, I saw what our Gunnery Jack &rsquo;ad been after with his subcutaneous
+details in the magazines all the mornin&rsquo; watch. He had redooced the
+charges to a minimum, as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint
+an&rsquo; sickish notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time
+such transpired, our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin&rsquo; sarcastic
+about Government stores, an&rsquo; the old man fair howled. &rsquo;Op was on
+the bridge with &rsquo;im, an&rsquo; &rsquo;e told me&mdash;&rsquo;cause
+&rsquo;e&rsquo;s a free-knowledgeist an&rsquo; reads character&mdash;that
+Antonio&rsquo;s face was sweatin&rsquo; with pure joy. &rsquo;Op wanted to kick
+him. Does Antonio say anything about that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr.
+Pyecroft. He has put all the results into a sort of appendix&mdash;a table of
+shots. He says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What? Nothin&rsquo; about the way the crews flinched an&rsquo; hopped?
+Nothin&rsquo; about the little shells rumblin&rsquo; out o&rsquo; the guns so
+casual?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He
+says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of
+sight of land. Oh, yes! I&rsquo;ve forgotten. He says, <i>&lsquo;From the
+conversation of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small
+proportion of the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself
+in his pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below,
+who cried in a high voice: &ldquo;I hope, Sir, you are making something out of
+it. It is rather monotonous.&rdquo; This insult, so flagrant, albeit
+well-merited, was received with a smile of drunken
+bonhommy&rsquo;</i>&mdash;that&rsquo;s cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass
+is empty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Resumin&rsquo; afresh,&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered
+interval, &ldquo;I may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two
+hours, and then we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an&rsquo;
+three-quarters cleaned up the decks an&rsquo; mucked about as requisite,
+haulin&rsquo; down the patent awnin&rsquo; stun&rsquo;sles which Number One
+&rsquo;ad made. The old man was a shade doubtful of his course, &rsquo;cause I
+&rsquo;eard him say to Number One, &lsquo;You were right. A week o&rsquo; this
+would turn the ship into a Hayti bean-feast. But,&rsquo; he says pathetic,
+&lsquo;haven&rsquo;t they backed the band noble?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Oh! it&rsquo;s a picnic for them,&rsquo; says Number One.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;But when do we get rid o&rsquo; this whisky-peddlin&rsquo;
+blighter o&rsquo; yours, Sir?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;That&rsquo;s a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,&rsquo; says
+the old man. &ldquo;E&rsquo;s the bluest blood o&rsquo; France when he&rsquo;s
+at home,&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Which is the precise landfall I wish &rsquo;im to make,&rsquo;
+says Number One.&rsquo; It&rsquo;ll take all &rsquo;ands and the Captain of the
+Head to clean up after &rsquo;im.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;They won&rsquo;t grudge it,&rsquo; says the old man. &lsquo;Just
+as soon as it&rsquo;s dusk we&rsquo;ll overhaul our tramp friend an&rsquo; waft
+him over.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then a sno&mdash;midshipman&mdash;Moorshed was is name&mdash;come up
+an&rsquo; says somethin&rsquo; in a low voice. It fetches the old man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;You&rsquo;ll oblige me,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, &lsquo;by
+takin&rsquo; the wardroom poultry for <i>that</i>. I&rsquo;ve ear-marked every
+fowl we&rsquo;ve shipped at Madeira, so there can&rsquo;t be any possible
+mistake. M&rsquo;rover,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, &lsquo;tell &rsquo;em if they
+spill one drop of blood on the deck,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;they&rsquo;ll not
+be extenuated, but hung.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin&rsquo; unusual &rsquo;appy, even for
+him. The Marines was enjoyin&rsquo; a committee-meetin&rsquo; in their own
+flat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on the
+sea&mdash;an&rsquo; anythin&rsquo; more chronic than the <i>Archimandrite</i>
+I&rsquo;d trouble you to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a
+auction-room&mdash;yes, she almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We&rsquo;d
+picked up our tramp, an&rsquo; was about four mile be&rsquo;ind &rsquo;er. I
+noticed the wardroom as a class, you might say, was manoeuvrin&rsquo; <i>en
+masse</i>, an&rsquo; then come the order to cockbill the yards. We hadn&rsquo;t
+any yards except a couple o&rsquo; signallin&rsquo; sticks, but we cock-billed
+&rsquo;em. I hadn&rsquo;t seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the West
+Indies, when a post-captain died o&rsquo; yellow jack. It means a sign o&rsquo;
+mourning the yards bein&rsquo; canted opposite ways, to look drunk an&rsquo;
+disorderly. They do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;An&rsquo; what might our last giddy-go-round signify?&rsquo; I
+asks of &rsquo;Op.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Good &rsquo;Evins!&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, &lsquo;Are you in the
+habit o&rsquo; permittin&rsquo; leathernecks to assassinate lootenants every
+morning at drill without immejitly &rsquo;avin&rsquo; &rsquo;em shot on the
+foc&rsquo;sle in the horrid crawly-crawly twilight?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; I murmured over my dear book, &lsquo;<i>the
+infinitely lugubrious crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity
+unparalleled&mdash;hideous&mdash;cold-blooded, and yet touched with appalling
+grandeur</i>.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he &rsquo;ad
+feelin&rsquo;s. To resoom. Without anyone givin&rsquo; us orders to that
+effect, we began to creep about an&rsquo; whisper. Things got stiller and
+stiller, till they was as still as&mdash;mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the
+&lsquo;Dead March&rsquo; from the upper bridge. He done it to cover the remarks
+of a cock-bird bein&rsquo; killed forrard, but it came out paralysin&rsquo; in
+its <i>tout ensemble</i>. You never heard the &lsquo;Dead March&rsquo; on a
+bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin&rsquo; for both watches to attend public
+execution, an&rsquo; we came up like so many ghosts, the &rsquo;ole
+ship&rsquo;s company. Why, Mucky &rsquo;Arcourt, one o&rsquo; our boys, was
+that took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an&rsquo; was properly kicked
+down the ladder for so doin&rsquo;. Well, there we lay&mdash;engines stopped,
+rollin&rsquo; to the swell, all dark, yards cock-billed, an&rsquo; that merry
+tune yowlin&rsquo; from the upper bridge. We fell in on the foc&rsquo;sle,
+leavin&rsquo; a large open space by the capstan, where our sail-maker was
+sittin&rsquo; sewin&rsquo; broken firebars into the foot of an old
+&rsquo;ammick. &rsquo;E looked like a corpse, an&rsquo; Mucky had another fit
+o&rsquo; hysterics, an&rsquo; you could &rsquo;ear us breathin&rsquo;
+&rsquo;ard. It beat anythin&rsquo; in the theatrical line that even us
+<i>Archimandrites</i> had done&mdash;an&rsquo; we was the ship you could trust.
+Then come the doctor an&rsquo; lit a red lamp which he used for his
+photographic muckin&rsquo;s, an&rsquo; chocked it on the capstan. That was
+finally gashly!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then come twelve Marines guardin&rsquo; Glass &rsquo;ere. You
+wouldn&rsquo;t think to see &rsquo;im what a gratooitous an&rsquo;
+aboundin&rsquo; terror he was that evenin&rsquo;. &rsquo;E was in a white shirt
+&rsquo;e&rsquo;d stole from Cockburn, an&rsquo; his regulation trousers,
+barefooted. &rsquo;E&rsquo;d pipe-clayed &rsquo;is &rsquo;ands an&rsquo; face
+an&rsquo; feet an&rsquo; as much of his chest as the openin&rsquo; of his shirt
+showed. &rsquo;E marched under escort with a firm an&rsquo; undeviatin&rsquo;
+step to the capstan, an&rsquo; came to attention. The old man reinforced by an
+extra strong split&mdash;his seventeenth, an&rsquo; &rsquo;e didn&rsquo;t throw
+<i>that</i> down the ventilator&mdash;come up on the bridge an&rsquo; stood
+like a image. &rsquo;Op, &rsquo;oo was with &rsquo;im, says that &rsquo;e heard
+Antonio&rsquo;s teeth singin&rsquo;, not chatterin&rsquo;&mdash;singin&rsquo;
+like funnel-stays in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin&rsquo; æolian harp, &rsquo;Op
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;When you are ready, Sir, drop your &rsquo;andkerchief,&rsquo;
+Number One whispers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Good Lord!&rsquo; says the old man, with a jump. &lsquo;Eh! What?
+What a sight! What a sight!&rsquo; an&rsquo; he stood drinkin&rsquo; it in, I
+suppose, for quite two minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glass never says a word. &rsquo;E shoved aside an &rsquo;andkerchief
+which the sub-lootenant proffered &rsquo;im to bind &rsquo;is eyes
+with&mdash;quiet an&rsquo; collected; an&rsquo; if we &rsquo;adn&rsquo;t been
+feelin&rsquo; so very much as we did feel, his gestures would &rsquo;ave
+brought down the &rsquo;ouse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t open my eyes, or I&rsquo;ll be sick,&rdquo; said the
+Marine with appalling clearness. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty far gone&mdash;I know
+it&mdash;but there wasn&rsquo;t anyone could &rsquo;ave beaten Edwardo Glass,
+R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself nearly into the &rsquo;orrors. Go on,
+Pye. Glass is in support&mdash;as ever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then the old man drops &rsquo;is &rsquo;andkerchief, an&rsquo; the
+firin&rsquo;-party fires like one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin&rsquo;
+an&rsquo; &rsquo;eavin&rsquo; horrid natural, into the shotted &rsquo;ammick
+all spread out before him, and the firin&rsquo; party closes in to guard the
+remains of the deceased while Sails is stitchin&rsquo; it up. An&rsquo; when
+they lifted that &rsquo;ammick it was one wringin&rsquo; mess of blood! They
+on&rsquo;y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too. Did you know poultry bled that
+extravagant? <i>I</i> never did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old man&mdash;so &rsquo;Op told me&mdash;stayed on the bridge,
+brought up on a dead centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser,
+impressed, but o&rsquo; course &rsquo;is duty was to think of &rsquo;is fine
+white decks an&rsquo; the blood. &rsquo;Arf a mo&rsquo;, Sir,&rsquo; he says,
+when the old man was for leavin&rsquo;. &lsquo;We have to wait for the burial,
+which I am informed takes place immejit.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;It&rsquo;s beyond me,&rsquo; says the owner. &lsquo;There was
+general instructions for an execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable
+push of mountebanks aboard,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m all cold up my
+back, still.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Marines carried the corpse below. Then the bugle give us some more
+&lsquo;Dead March,&rsquo; Then we &rsquo;eard a splash from a bow six-pounder
+port, an&rsquo; the bugle struck up a cheerful tune. The whole lower deck was
+complimentin&rsquo; Glass, &rsquo;oo took it very meek. &rsquo;E <i>is</i> a
+good actor, for all &rsquo;e&rsquo;s a leatherneck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Now,&rsquo; said the old man, &lsquo;we must turn over Antonio.
+He&rsquo;s in what I have &rsquo;eard called one perspirin&rsquo; funk.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, I&rsquo;m tellin&rsquo; it slow, but it all &rsquo;appened
+much quicker. We run down our trampo&mdash;without o&rsquo; course
+informin&rsquo; Antonio of &rsquo;is &rsquo;appy destiny&mdash;an&rsquo;
+inquired of &rsquo;er if she had any use for a free and gratis stowaway. Oh,
+yes? she said she&rsquo;d be highly grateful, but she seemed a shade puzzled at
+our generosity, as you might put it, an&rsquo; we lay by till she lowered a
+boat. Then Antonio&mdash;who was un&rsquo;appy, distinctly
+un&rsquo;appy&mdash;was politely requested to navigate elsewhere, which I
+don&rsquo;t think he looked for. &rsquo;Op was deputed to convey the
+information, an&rsquo; &rsquo;Op got in one sixteen-inch kick which
+&rsquo;oisted &rsquo;im all up the ladder. &rsquo;Op ain&rsquo;t really
+vindictive, an&rsquo; &rsquo;e&rsquo;s fond of the French, especially the
+women, but his chances o&rsquo; kicking lootenants was like the
+cartridge&mdash;reduced to a minimum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The boat &rsquo;adn&rsquo;t more than shoved off before a change, as you
+might say, came o&rsquo;er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like
+Elphinstone an&rsquo; Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy:
+&lsquo;Gentlemen,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;for gentlemen you have shown
+yourselves to be&mdash;from the bottom of my heart I thank you. The status
+an&rsquo; position of our late lamented shipmate made it obligato,&rsquo;
+&rsquo;e says, &lsquo;to take certain steps not strictly included in the
+regulations. An&rsquo; nobly,&rsquo; says &rsquo;e, &lsquo;have you assisted
+me. Now,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, &lsquo;you hold the false and felonious
+reputation of bein&rsquo; the smartest ship in the Service. Pigsties,&rsquo;
+&rsquo;e says, &lsquo;is plane trigonometry alongside our present
+disgustin&rsquo; state. Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,&rsquo; he
+says. &lsquo;Jump, you lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig
+out, you briny-eyed beggars!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The
+Bosun&rsquo;s mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the
+lower deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night &rsquo;fore
+we got &rsquo;er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever,
+and we resoomed. I&rsquo;ve thought it over a lot since; yes, an&rsquo;
+I&rsquo;ve thought a lot of Antonio trimmin&rsquo; coal in that tramp&rsquo;s
+bunkers. &rsquo;E must &rsquo;ave been highly surprised. Wasn&rsquo;t
+he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was, Mr. Pyecroft,&rdquo; I responded. &ldquo;But now we&rsquo;re
+talking of it, weren&rsquo;t you all a little surprised?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Pyecroft. &ldquo;We appreciated it as an easy way o&rsquo; workin&rsquo; for
+your country. But&mdash;the old man was right&mdash;a week o&rsquo; similar
+manœuvres would &rsquo;ave knocked our moral double-bottoms bung out. Now,
+couldn&rsquo;t you oblige with Antonio&rsquo;s account of Glass&rsquo;s
+execution?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of M.
+de C.&rsquo;s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye of
+the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His account
+of his descent from the side of the &ldquo;<i>infamous vessel consecrated to
+blood</i>&rdquo; in the &ldquo;<i>vast and gathering dusk of the trembling
+ocean</i>&rdquo; could only be matched by his description of the dishonoured
+hammock sinking unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played
+music &ldquo;<i>of an indefinable brutality</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass&rsquo;s funeral?&rdquo;
+I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Him? Oh! &rsquo;e played &lsquo;The Strict Q.T.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s a very
+old song. We &rsquo;ad it in Fratton nearly fifteen years back,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Pyecroft sleepily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and
+discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is that&mdash;minutely particularised person&mdash;Glass?&rdquo;
+said the sergeant of the picket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Ere!&rdquo; The marine rose to the strictest of attentions.
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; it&rsquo;s no good smelling of my breath, because I&rsquo;m
+strictly an&rsquo; ruinously sober.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! An&rsquo; what may you have been doin&rsquo; with yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listenin&rsquo; to tracts. You can look! I&rsquo;ve had the
+evenin&rsquo; of my little life. Lead on to the <i>Cornucopia&rsquo;s</i>
+midmost dunjing cell. There&rsquo;s a crowd of brass-&rsquo;atted blighters
+there which will say I&rsquo;ve been absent without leaf. Never mind. I forgive
+them before&rsquo;and. <i>The</i> evenin&rsquo; of my life, an&rsquo; please
+don&rsquo;t forget it.&rdquo; Then in a tone of most ingratiating apology to
+me: &ldquo;I soaked it all in be&rsquo;ind my shut eyes.
+&lsquo;I&rsquo;m&rdquo;&mdash;he jerked a contemptuous thumb towards Mr.
+Pyecroft&mdash;&ldquo;&rsquo;e&rsquo;s a flatfoot, a indigo-blue matlow.
+&rsquo;E never saw the fun from first to last. A mournful beggar&mdash;most
+depressin&rsquo;.&rdquo; Private Glass departed, leaning heavily on the
+escort&rsquo;s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought&mdash;the profound and far-reaching
+meditation that follows five glasses of hot whisky-and-water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t see anything comical&mdash;greatly&mdash;except here
+an&rsquo; there. Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do
+<i>you</i> see anything funny in it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for argument.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;It was a
+beautiful tale, and I thank you very much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>A SAHIBS&rsquo; WAR</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>THE RUNNERS</h2>
+
+<p>
+                                   <i>News!</i><br/>
+  What is the word that they tell now&mdash;now&mdash;now!<br/>
+  The little drums beating in the bazaars?<br/>
+      <i>They</i> beat (among the buyers and sellers)<br/>
+          <i>&ldquo;Nimrud&mdash;ah Nimrud!<br/>
+          God sends a gnat against Nimrud</i>!&rdquo;<br/>
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                                   <i>News!</i><br/>
+  At the edge of the crops&mdash;now&mdash;now&mdash;where the well-wheels are
+halted,<br/>
+  One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,<br/>
+      <i>They</i> beat (among the sowers and the reapers)<br/>
+          <i>&ldquo;Nimrud&mdash;ah Nimrud!<br/>
+          God prepares an ill day for Nimrud</i>!&rdquo;<br/>
+      Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                                   <i>News!</i><br/>
+  By the fires of the camps&mdash;now&mdash;now&mdash;where the travellers
+meet<br/>
+  Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,<br/>
+      <i>They</i> beat (among the packmen and the drivers)<br/>
+          <i>&ldquo;Nimrud&mdash;ah Nimrud!<br/>
+          Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud</i>!&rdquo;<br/>
+      Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                                   <i>News!</i><br/>
+  Under the shadow of the border-peels&mdash;now&mdash;now&mdash;now!<br/>
+  In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,<br/>
+      <i>They</i> beat (among the rifles and the riders)<br/>
+          <i>&ldquo;Nimrud&mdash;ah Nimrud!<br/>
+          Shall we go up against Nimrud</i>?&rdquo;<br/>
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                                   <i>News!</i><br/>
+  Bring out the heaps of grain&mdash;open the account-books again!<br/>
+  Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!<br/>
+  Eat and lie under the trees&mdash;pitch the police-guarded fair-grounds,<br/>
+      O dancers!<br/>
+  Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!<br/>
+      <i>They</i> beat (among all the peoples)<br/>
+          <i>&ldquo;Now&mdash;now&mdash;now!<br/>
+          God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!<br/>
+          God has given Victory to Nimrud!&rdquo;<br/>
+          Let us abide under Nimrud</i>!&rdquo;<br/>
+      O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>A SAHIBS&rsquo; WAR</h2>
+
+<p>
+Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the <i>rêl</i>
+from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be paid
+off, and whence I return to India. I am a&mdash;trooper of the Gurgaon Rissala
+(cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab Cavalry, Do not herd
+me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh&mdash;a trooper of the State. The
+Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there <i>any</i> Sahib on the
+train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon Rissala going about his
+business in this devil&rsquo;s devising of a country, where there is no flour,
+no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect paid to a Sikh? Is there no
+help?… God be thanked, here is such a Sahib! Protector of the Poor!
+Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that my name is Umr Singh; I
+am&mdash;I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I have a pass to go to
+Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him herd me with these black
+Kaffirs!… Yes, I will sit by this truck till the Heaven-born has explained the
+matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who does not understand our tongue.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go down to
+Eshtellenbosch by the next <i>terain</i>? Good! I go with the Heaven-born?
+Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born&rsquo;s servant. Will the
+Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty truck;
+I will spread my blanket over one corner thus&mdash;for the sun is hot, though
+not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will arrange
+this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a
+<i>terain</i> for Eshtellenbosch….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My village is
+north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big white house which
+was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen&rsquo;s by&mdash;by&mdash;I
+have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal Singh
+Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence know? Born
+and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different matter. The
+Sahib&rsquo;s nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That was a pity.
+She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout nurses. There is
+no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the Sikhs. Umr Singh is my
+name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after all these years? Ye-es. Look
+at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay&mdash;nay; the Sahib looks too closely.
+All marks of rank were picked off it long ago, but&mdash;but it is
+true&mdash;mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use for their coats,
+and&mdash;the Sahib has sharp eyes&mdash;that black mark is such a mark as a
+silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says that troopers
+do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the Arder of Beritish
+India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of the Punjab. I am not a
+trooper, but I have been a Sahib&rsquo;s servant for nearly a
+year&mdash;bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says that
+Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib&mdash;my
+Kurban Sahib&mdash;dead these three months!
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+Young&mdash;of a reddish face&mdash;with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on
+his feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father
+before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father&rsquo;s time
+when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. <i>My</i> father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of
+Sikhs&mdash;he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to
+his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban Sahib.
+Yes, I was a trooper first&mdash;nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I
+remember&mdash;and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that
+day; and <i>he</i> was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground
+with his ayah&mdash;all in white, Sahib&mdash;laughing at the end of our drill.
+And his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I
+dismounted, and the baba put his hand into
+mine&mdash;eighteen&mdash;twenty-five&mdash;twenty-seven years gone
+now&mdash;Kurban Sahib&mdash;my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were great friends after
+that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying is. He called me Big Umr
+Singh&mdash;Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak plain. He stood only this
+high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but he knew all our troopers by
+name&mdash;every one…. And he went to England, and he became a young man, and
+back he came, lilting a little in his walk, and cracking his
+finger-joints&mdash;back to his own regiment and to me. He had not forgotten
+either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart, Sahib. He was rich,
+open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen-eyed, jestful, and careless.
+<i>I</i> could tell tales about him in his first years. There was very little
+he hid from <i>me</i>. I was his Umr Singh, and when we were alone he called me
+Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that was how we spoke. We spoke freely
+together on everything&mdash;about war, and women, and money, and advancement,
+and such all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box-wallas,
+pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city of Yunasbagh
+(Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the Sahibs lay without
+weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big guns were hauled up and
+down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how a Sahib called Eger Sahib
+(Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log. The Sahib knows how we of Hind
+hear all that passes over the earth? There was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh
+that the echo did not come into Hind in a month. The Sahibs are very clever,
+but they forget their own cleverness has created the <i>dak</i> (the post), and
+that for an anna or two all things become known. We of Hind listened and heard
+and wondered; and when it was a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the
+vegetable-sellers, that the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log,
+certain among us asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the
+meaning of those signs. <i>Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the
+Tirah</i>! This Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said,
+&ldquo;There is no haste. Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all
+Hind in that country round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not
+agree? Quite so. It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye
+cannot in one place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere
+rule or everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked.
+True&mdash;true&mdash;true!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So did matters ripen&mdash;a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
+think&mdash;and the Sahib sees this, too?&mdash;that it is foolish to make an
+army and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the
+Tochi&mdash;the men of the Tirah&mdash;the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand
+times. <i>We</i> could have done it all so gently&mdash;so gently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, &ldquo;Ho, Dada, I am
+sick, and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months.&rdquo; And he
+winked, and I said, &ldquo;I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I
+bring my uniform?&rdquo; He said, &ldquo;Yes, and a sword for a sick man to
+lean on. We go to Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the
+Hubshis&rdquo; (niggers). Mark his cleverness! He was first of all our men
+among the native regiments to get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they
+will not let our officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to
+take part in this war-game upon the road. But <i>he</i> was clever. There was
+no whisper of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went
+to my Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am&mdash;I was&mdash;of that rank
+for which a chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, &ldquo;My
+child goes sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue, said,
+&ldquo;Yes, thou art truly <i>Sikh</i>&rdquo;; and he called me an old
+devil&mdash;jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my
+Kurban Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last
+he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe again. My
+Sahib back again&mdash;aie me!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black Water,
+Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead. Then I said
+to Kurban Sahib, &ldquo;What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give me the
+keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for dinner.&rdquo; Then
+I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson&rsquo;s Hotel, and that night I prepared
+Kurban Sahib&rsquo;s razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of the Khalsa, an
+unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my uniform while I did
+it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon the steamer, a room in
+all respects like to his own, and would have given me a servant. We spoke of
+many things on the way to this country; and Kurban Sahib told me what he
+perceived would be the conduct of the war. He said, &ldquo;They have taken men
+afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log
+because it is believed that they are white.&rdquo; He said, &ldquo;There is but
+one fault in this war, and that is that the Government have not employed
+<i>us</i>, but have made it altogether a Sahibs&rsquo; war. Very many men will
+thus be killed, and no vengeance will be taken.&rdquo; True talk&mdash;true
+talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban Sahib
+said, &ldquo;Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look for
+employment fit for a sick man.&rdquo; I put on the uniform of my rank and went
+to the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nihâl Seyn,<a href="#fn1" name="fnref1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>
+and I caused the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place&mdash;is
+it known to the Sahib?&mdash;which was already full of the swords and baggage
+of officers. It is fuller now&mdash;dead men&rsquo;s kit all! I was careful to
+secure a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back
+to the Punjab.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn1"></a> <a href="#fnref1">[1]</a>
+Mount Nelson?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew, and he
+said, &ldquo;We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to
+oversee the despatch of horses.&rdquo; Remember, Kurban Sahib was
+squadron-leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and <i>I</i> was Umr Singh. So I said,
+speaking as we do&mdash;we did&mdash;when none was near, &ldquo;Thou art a
+groom and I am a grass-cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?&rdquo; At this
+he laughed, saying, &ldquo;It is the way to better things. Have patience,
+Father.&rdquo; (Aye, he called me father when none were by.) &ldquo;This war
+ends not to-morrow nor the next day. I have seen the new Sahibs,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;and they are fathers of owls&mdash;all&mdash;all&mdash;all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing the
+service of servants in that business. And the whole business was managed
+without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had never seen a
+tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but empty of all
+knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those Pathans&mdash;they are
+just like those vultures up there, Sahib&mdash;they always follow slaughter.
+And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs&mdash;Muzbees, though&mdash;and
+some Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent horses. Jhind and
+Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent horses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with them,
+unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil: with both
+hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the command (what a
+command for me!) of certain woolly ones&mdash;<i>Hubshis</i>&mdash;whose touch
+and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on their bellies;
+laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were called Fingoes, and
+some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs&mdash;filth unspeakable.
+I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub down. Yes, I oversaw the
+work of sweepers&mdash;a <i>jemadar</i> of <i>mehtars</i> (headman of a
+refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five months. Evil
+months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men were slain and no
+vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with the weapons of magicians.
+Guns that slew at half a day&rsquo;s march, and men who, being new, walked
+blind into high grass and were driven off like cattle by the Boer-log! As to
+the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a Sahib&mdash;only a Sikh. I would have
+quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon Rissala in that city&mdash;one little
+troop&mdash;and I would have schooled that city till its men learned to kiss
+the shadow of a Government horse upon the ground. There are many <i>mullahs</i>
+(priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They preached the Jehad against us. This is
+true&mdash;all the camp knew it. And most of the houses were thatched! A war of
+fools indeed!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, &ldquo;The
+reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and, once
+away, I shall be too sick to return. Make ready the baggage.&rdquo; Thus we got
+away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new regiment that
+had come in a ship. The second day by <i>terain</i>, when we were watering at a
+desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped out from the
+horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a <i>jemadar</i> of <i>saises</i>
+(head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a Border
+regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but the Pathan put
+up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented and added him to
+our service. So there were three of us&mdash;Kurban Sahib, I, and Sikander
+Khan&mdash;Sahib, Sikh, and <i>Sag</i> (dog). But the man said truly, &ldquo;We
+be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we see the
+Indus again.&rdquo; I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander
+Khan&mdash;beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some
+swine&rsquo;s flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it
+is written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial
+obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of
+sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where there lay
+a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey gelding there. They
+let their horses stray too much, those new regiments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with <i>our</i> horses on
+the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and once or twice
+would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was wise, and I am not
+altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the front. Notably, there was
+one congregation of hard-bitten horse-thieves; tall, light Sahibs, who spoke
+through their noses for the most part, and upon all occasions they said,
+&ldquo;Oah Hell!&rdquo; which, in our tongue, signifies <i>Jehannum ko jao</i>.
+They bore each man a vine-leaf upon their uniforms, and they rode like Rajputs.
+Nay, they rode like Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs! The Ustrelyahs, whom
+we met later, also spoke through their noses not little, and they were tall,
+dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily eyelashed like camel&rsquo;s
+eyes&mdash;very proper men&mdash;a new brand of Sahib to me. They said on all
+occasions, &ldquo;No fee-ah,&rdquo; which in our tongue means <i>Durro mut</i>
+(&ldquo;Do not be afraid&rdquo;), so we called them the <i>Durro Muts</i>.
+Dark, tall men, most excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war <i>as</i>
+war, and drinking tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib.
+Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten
+generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a <i>Durro Mut</i> in regard
+to horse-lifting. The <i>Durro Muts</i> cannot walk on their feet at all. They
+are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very proper
+men, with a just lust for the war. Aah&mdash;&ldquo;No fee-ah,&rdquo; say the
+<i>Durro Muts</i>. <i>They</i> saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. <i>They</i> did
+not ask him to sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did
+substitute for one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day in a
+country full of little hills&mdash;like the mouth of the Khaibar; and when they
+returned in the evening, the <i>Durro Muts</i> said, &ldquo;Wallah! This is a
+man. Steal him!&rdquo; So they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen
+anything else that they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to
+Eshtellenbosch in his place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and Sikander
+Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs&rsquo; war, but
+there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride with their
+Sahib&mdash;and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up and down
+this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no flour, no oil, no
+spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw corn and a little cattle.
+There were no great battles as I saw it, but a plenty of gun-firing. When we
+were many, the Boer-log came out with coffee to greet us, and to show us
+<i>purwanas</i> (permits) from foolish English Generals who had gone that way
+before, certifying they were peaceful and well-disposed. When we were few, they
+hid behind stones and shot us. Now the order was that they were Sahibs, and
+this was a Sahibs&rsquo; war. Good! But, as I understand it, when a Sahib goes
+to war, he puts on the cloth of war, and only those who wear that cloth may
+take part in the war. Good! That also I understand. But these people were as
+they were in Burma, or as the Afridis are. They shot at their pleasure, and
+when pressed hid the gun and exhibited <i>purwanas</i>, or lay in a house and
+said they were farmers. Even such farmers as cut up the Madras troops at
+Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even such farmers as slew Cavagnari Sahib and the
+Guides at Kabul! We schooled <i>those</i> men, to be sure&mdash;fifteen, aye,
+twenty of a morning pushed off the verandah in front of the Bala Hissar. I
+looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib (the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered
+the old days; but&mdash;no. All the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued
+proclamations saying that he did not fight the people, but a certain army,
+which army, in truth, was all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear
+enough of uniform to make a loincloth. A fool&rsquo;s war from first to last;
+for it is manifest that he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in
+one hand and a <i>purwana</i> in the other, as did all these people. Yet we,
+when they had had their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and
+gave them permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and
+severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be done
+not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked much with
+Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, &ldquo;It is a Sahibs&rsquo; war. That is
+the order;&rdquo; and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond
+the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border, he
+hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his head. Then
+Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like a sick camel,
+talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered than I, and vowed he
+would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me Kurban Sahib said we should
+have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these people till they came in with
+their foreheads in the dust. For the war was not of that sort which they
+comprehended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white flag; but
+when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by Kaffir runners,
+and presently there was not quite so much firing. <i>No fee-ah</i>! All the
+Boer-log with whom we dealt had <i>purwanas</i> signed by mad Generals
+attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the roof. The
+women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they did not approach
+too near after the flames had taken good hold of the thatch, for fear of the
+bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log are very clever. They are more
+clever than the men. The Boer-log are clever? Never, never, no! It is the
+Sahibs who are fools. For their own honour&rsquo;s sake the Sahibs must say
+that the Boer-log are clever; but it is the Sahibs&rsquo; wonderful folly that
+has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs should have sent <i>us</i> into the game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the <i>Durro Muts</i> did well. They dealt faithfully with all that country
+thereabouts&mdash;not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but they were
+not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a ridge in the cold,
+I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for the sixth part of an hour
+and was obscured. Anon it appeared again thrice for the twelfth part of an
+hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib, for it was a house that had been
+spared&mdash;the people having many permits and swearing fidelity at our
+stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib, &ldquo;Send half a troop, Child, and
+finish that house. They signal to their brethren.&rdquo; And he laughed where
+he lay and said, &ldquo;If I listened to my bearer Umr Singh, there would not
+be left ten houses in all this land.&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;What need to leave
+one? This is as it was in Burma. They are farmers to-day and fighters
+to-morrow. Let us deal justly with them.&rdquo; He laughed and curled himself
+up in his blanket, and I watched the far light in the house till day. I have
+been on the border in eight wars, not counting Burma. The first Afghan War; the
+second Afghan War; two Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two Black Mountain
+wars, if I remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not count Burma, or
+some small things. <i>I</i> know when house signals to house!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, &ldquo;One of
+the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last night, lives
+in yonder house.&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;How dost thou know?&rdquo; He said,
+&ldquo;Because he rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse
+fought with him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out
+of the camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib&rsquo;s glasses, and from a
+little hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that
+house.&rdquo; I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib&rsquo;s glasses from his
+greasy hands and cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to
+their case. Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab
+valley to use glasses&mdash;whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the
+course of three months&rsquo; leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the land for
+our camp. The <i>Durro Muts</i> moved slowly at that time. They were weighted
+with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished to leave these all in
+some town and go on light to other business which pressed. So Kurban Sahib
+sought a short cut for them, a little off the line of march. We were twelve
+miles before the main body, and we came to a house under a high bushed hill,
+with a nullah, which they call a donga, behind it, and an old sangar of piled
+stones, which they call a kraal, before it. Two thorn bushes grew on either
+side of the door, like babul bushes, covered with a golden coloured bloom, and
+the roof was all of thatch. Before the house was a valley of stones that rose
+to another bush-covered hill. There was an old man in the verandah&mdash;an old
+man with a white beard and a wart upon the left side of his neck; and a fat
+woman with the eyes of a swine and the jowl of a swine; and a tall young man
+deprived of understanding. His head was hairless, no larger than an orange, and
+the pits of his nostrils were eaten away by a disease. He laughed and slavered
+and he sported sportively before Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the
+woman showed us <i>purwanas</i> from three General Sahibs, certifying that they
+were people of peace and goodwill. Here are the <i>purwanas</i>, Sahib. Does
+the Sahib know the Generals who signed them?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and swore
+it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the verandah with
+Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost scent. At last he took my
+arm and said, &ldquo;See yonder! There is the sun on the window of the house
+that signalled last night. This house can see that house from here,&rdquo; and
+he looked at the hill behind him all hairy with bushes, and sucked in his
+breath. Then the idiot with the shrivelled head danced by me and threw back
+that head, and regarded the roof and laughed like a hyena, and the fat woman
+talked loudly, as it were, to cover some noise. After this passed I to the back
+of the house on pretence to get water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung
+on the ground, and that the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs; and
+there had dropped in the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib called to me in
+our tongue, saying, &ldquo;Is this a good place to make tea?&rdquo; and I
+replied, knowing what he meant, &ldquo;There are over many cooks in the
+cook-house. Mount and go, Child.&rdquo; Then I returned, and he said, smiling
+to the woman, &ldquo;Prepare food, and when we have loosened our girths we will
+come in and eat;&rdquo; but to his men he said in a whisper, &ldquo;Ride
+away!&rdquo; No. He did not cover the old man or the fat woman with his rifle.
+That was not his custom. Some fool of the <i>Durro Muts</i>, being hungry,
+raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and before we were in our
+saddles many shots came from the roof&mdash;from rifles thrust through the
+thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones, and men fired at us from
+the nullah behind the house, and from the hill behind the nullah, as well as
+from the roof of the house&mdash;so many shots that it sounded like a drumming
+in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding low, said, &ldquo;This play is not for
+us alone, but for the rest of the <i>Durro Muts</i>,&rdquo; and I said,
+&ldquo;Be quiet. Keep place!&rdquo; for his place was behind me, and I rode
+behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through five men a-row! We
+were not hit&mdash;not one of us&mdash;and we reached the hill of rocks and
+scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his saddle and said,
+&ldquo;Look at the old man!&rdquo; He stood in the verandah firing swiftly with
+a gun, the woman beside him and the idiot also&mdash;both with guns. Kurban
+Sahib laughed, and I caught him by the wrist, but&mdash;his fate was written at
+that hour. The bullet passed under my arm-pit and struck him in the liver, and
+I pulled him backward between two great rocks atilt&mdash;Kurban Sahib, my
+Kurban Sahib! From the nullah behind the house and from the hills came our
+Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar Khan said,
+&ldquo;<i>Now</i> we see the meaning of last night&rsquo;s signal. Give me the
+rifle.&rdquo; He took Kurban Sahib&rsquo;s rifle&mdash;in this war of fools
+only the doctors carry swords&mdash;and lay belly-flat to the work, but Kurban
+Sahib turned where he lay and said, &ldquo;Be still. It is a Sahibs&rsquo;
+war,&rdquo; and Kurban Sahib put up his hand&mdash;thus; and then his eyes
+rolled on me, and I gave him water that he might pass the more quickly. And at
+the drinking his Spirit received permission….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus went our fight, Sahib. We <i>Durro Muts</i> were on a ridge working from
+the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log lay in a
+valley working from east to west. There were more than a hundred, and our men
+were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley while they swiftly passed
+along the ridge to the south. I saw three Boers drop in the open. Then they all
+hid again and fired heavily at the rocks that hid our men; but our men were
+clever and did not show, but moved away and away, always south; and the noise
+of the battle withdrew itself southward, where we could hear the sound of big
+guns. So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan found a deep old jackal&rsquo;s
+earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of Kurban Sahib upright. Sikandar
+Khan took his glasses, and I took his handkerchief and some letters and a
+certain thing which I knew hung round his neck, and Sikandar Khan is witness
+that I wrapped them all in the handkerchief. Then we took an oath together, and
+lay still and mourned for Kurban Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till
+daybreak&mdash;even he, a Pathan, a Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing
+to the southward, and when the dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in
+carts and on horses. They gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban
+Sahib&rsquo;s glasses, and the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed
+them, and preached the holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought
+coffee; and the idiot capered among them and kissed their horses. Presently
+they went away in haste; they went over the hills and were not; and a black
+slave came out and washed the door-sills with bright water. Sikandar Khan saw
+through the glasses that the stain was blood, and he laughed, saying,
+&ldquo;Wounded men lie there. We shall yet get vengeance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as a
+burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how to take a
+bearing across a hill, said, &ldquo;At last we have burned the house of the
+pumpkin-seller whence they signalled.&rdquo; And I said: &ldquo;What need now
+that they have slain my child? Let me mourn.&rdquo; It was a high smoke, and
+the old man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold it, and shook his
+clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight, foodless and without water,
+for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor to drink till we had accomplished the
+matter. I had a little opium left, of which I gave Sikandar Khan the half,
+because he loved Kurban Sahib. When it was full dark we sharpened our sabres
+upon a certain softish rock which, mixed with water, sharpens steel well, and
+we took off our boots and we went down to the house and looked through the
+windows very softly. The old man sat reading in a book, and the woman sat by
+the hearth; and the idiot lay on the floor with his head against her knee, and
+he counted his fingers and laughed, and she laughed again. So I knew they were
+mother and son, and I laughed, too, for I had suspected this when I claimed her
+life and her body from Sikandar Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we
+entered with bare swords…. Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel,
+for the old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan prevented
+him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down and held up his
+hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they should be silent. But
+the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room, and a door opened, and a
+man, bound about the head with rags, stood stupidly fumbling with a gun. His
+whole head fell inside the door, and none followed him. It was a very pretty
+stroke&mdash;for a Pathan. They then were silent, staring at the head upon the
+floor, and I said to Sikandar Khan, &ldquo;Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban
+Sahib&rsquo;s sake will I defile my sword.&rdquo; So he went to seek and
+returned with three long leather ones, and said, &ldquo;Four wounded lie
+within, and doubtless each has a permit from a General,&rdquo; and he stretched
+the ropes and laughed. Then I bound the old man&rsquo;s hands behind his back,
+and unwillingly&mdash;for he laughed in my face, and would have fingered my
+beard&mdash;the idiot&rsquo;s. At this the woman with the swine&rsquo;s eyes
+and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar Khan said, &ldquo;Shall I
+strike or bind? She was thy property on the division.&rdquo; And I said,
+&ldquo;Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her. Open the door.&rdquo; I pushed
+out the two across the verandah into the darker shade of the thorn-trees, and
+she followed upon her knees and lay along the ground, and pawed at my boots and
+howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was a butler and
+would light the table, and I looked for a branch that would bear fruit. But the
+woman hindered me not a little with her screechings and plungings, and spoke
+fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue, &ldquo;I am childless to-night
+because of thy perfidy, and <i>my</i> child was praised among men and loved
+among women. He would have begotten men&mdash;not animals. Thou hast more years
+to live than I, but my grief is the greater.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot&rsquo;s neck, and flung the end
+over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might well see.
+Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the spirit of
+Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even where the bullet had struck
+him, and the other he put forward thus, and said, &ldquo;No. It is a
+Sahibs&rsquo; war.&rdquo; And I said, &ldquo;Wait a while, Child, and thou
+shalt sleep.&rdquo; But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my eyes, and
+said, &ldquo;No. It is a Sahibs&rsquo; war.&rdquo; And Sikandar Khan said,
+&ldquo;Is it too heavy?&rdquo; and set down the lamp and came to me; and as he
+turned to tally on the rope, the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within
+arm&rsquo;s reach of us, and his face was very angry, and a third time he said,
+&ldquo;No. It is a Sahibs&rsquo; war.&rdquo; And a little wind blew out the
+lamp, and I heard Sikandar Khan&rsquo;s teeth chatter in his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while, for we
+could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his water-bottle and
+drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me and said, &ldquo;We are
+absolved from our vow.&rdquo; So I drank, and together we waited for the dawn
+in that place where we stood&mdash;the ropes in our hand. A little after third
+cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun wheels very far off, and so soon
+as the light came a shell burst on the threshold of the house, and the roof of
+the verandah that was thatched fell in and blazed before the windows. And I
+said, &ldquo;What of the wounded Boer-log within?&rdquo; And Sikandar Khan
+said, &ldquo;We have heard the order. It is a Sahibs&rsquo; war. Stand
+still.&rdquo; Then came a second shell&mdash;good line, but short&mdash;and
+scattered dust upon us where we stood; and then came ten of the little quick
+shells from the gun that speaks like a stammerer&mdash;yes, pompom the Sahibs
+call it&mdash;and the face of the house folded down like the nose and the chin
+of an old man mumbling, and the forefront of the house lay down. Then Sikandar
+Khan said, &ldquo;If it be the fate of the wounded to die in the fire, <i>I</i>
+shall not prevent it.&rdquo; And he passed to the back of the house and
+presently came back, and four wounded Boer-log came after him, of whom two
+could not walk upright. And I said, &ldquo;What hast thou done?&rdquo; And he
+said, &ldquo;I have neither spoken to them nor laid hand on them. They follow
+in hope of mercy.&rdquo; And I said, &ldquo;It is a Sahibs&rsquo; war. Let them
+wait the Sahibs&rsquo; mercy.&rdquo; So they lay still, the four men and the
+idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree, and the house burned furiously.
+Then began the known sound of cartouches in the roof&mdash;one or two at first;
+then a trill, and last of all one loud noise and the thatch blew here and
+there, and the captives would have crawled aside on account of the heat that
+was withering the thorn-trees, and on account of wood and bricks flying at
+random. But I said, &ldquo;Abide! Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a
+Sahibs&rsquo; war, O Sahibs. There is no order that ye should depart from this
+war.&rdquo; They did not understand my words. Yet they abode and they lived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib&rsquo;s command, and one I
+knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I told
+him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib would
+understand; and at the end I said, &ldquo;An order has reached us here from the
+dead that this is a Sahibs&rsquo; war. I take the soul of my Kurban Sahib to
+witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these Sahibs who have
+made me childless.&rdquo; Then I gave him the ropes and fell down senseless, my
+heart being very full, but my belly was empty, except for the little opium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
+understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and two
+nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban Sahib, saw no
+more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the <i>Durro
+Muts</i>&mdash;very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They
+buried my Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the ridge
+overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the faith, and Sikandar
+Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five signalling-candles, which have each
+three wicks, and lighted the grave as if it had been the grave of a saint on a
+Friday. He wept very bitterly all that night, and I wept with him, and he took
+hold of my feet and besought me to give him a remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So
+I divided equally with him one of Kurban Sahib&rsquo;s handkerchiefs&mdash;not
+the silk ones, for those were given him by a certain woman; and I also gave him
+a button from a coat, and a little steel ring of no value that Kurban Sahib
+used for his keys, and he kissed them and put them into his bosom. The rest I
+have here in that little bundle, and I must get the baggage from the hotel in
+Cape Town&mdash;some four shirts we sent to be washed, for which we could not
+wait when we went up-country&mdash;and I must give them all to my Colonel-Sahib
+at Sialkote in the Punjab. For my child is dead&mdash;my baba is dead!… I would
+have come away before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we
+were far from the rail, and the <i>Durro Muts</i> were as brothers to me, and I
+had come to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a
+horse and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
+what they called me&mdash;orderly, <i>chaprassi</i> (messenger), cook, sweeper,
+I did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month after
+wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went up to the
+grave, and a clever Sahib of the <i>Durro Muts</i> (we left a troop there for a
+week to school those people with <i>purwanas</i>) had cut an inscription upon a
+great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and it was a jest such as Kurban
+Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the inscription well copied here.
+Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the jests. There are two very good
+ones. Begin, Sahib:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+In Memory of<br/>
+WALTER DECIES CORBYN<br/>
+Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Treacherously shot near this place by<br/>
+The connivance of the late<br/>
+HENDRIK DIRK UYS<br/>
+A Minister of God<br/>
+Who thrice took the oath of neutrality<br/>
+And Piet his son,<br/>
+This little work
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Was accomplished in partial<br/>
+And inadequate recognition of their loss<br/>
+By some men who loved him
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Si monumentum requiris circumspice</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to behold a
+proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house. And, Sahib, the
+house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank which they call dams, nor
+the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There is nothing at all, Sahib, except
+the two trees withered by the fire. The rest is like the desert here&mdash;or
+my hand&mdash;or my heart. Empty, Sahib&mdash;all empty!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>&ldquo;THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS&rdquo;</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>THE WET LITANY</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+When the water&rsquo;s countenance<br/>
+Blurrs &rsquo;twixt glance and second glance;<br/>
+When the tattered smokes forerun<br/>
+Ashen &rsquo;neath a silvered sun;<br/>
+When the curtain of the haze<br/>
+Shuts upon our helpless ways&mdash;<br/>
+     Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;<br/>
+     <i>Libera nos domine</i>!<br/>
+<br/>
+When the engines&rsquo; bated pulse<br/>
+Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;<br/>
+When the wash along the side<br/>
+Sounds, a sudden, magnified<br/>
+When the intolerable blast<br/>
+Marks each blindfold minute passed.<br/>
+<br/>
+When the fog-buoy&rsquo;s squattering flight<br/>
+Guides us through the haggard night;<br/>
+When the warning bugle blows;<br/>
+When the lettered doorways close;<br/>
+When our brittle townships press,<br/>
+Impotent, on emptiness.<br/>
+<br/>
+When the unseen leadsmen lean<br/>
+Questioning a deep unseen;<br/>
+When their lessened count they tell<br/>
+To a bridge invisible;<br/>
+When the hid and perilous<br/>
+Cliffs return our cry to us.<br/>
+<br/>
+When the treble thickness spread<br/>
+Swallows up our next-ahead;<br/>
+When her siren&rsquo;s frightened whine<br/>
+Shows her sheering out of line;<br/>
+When, her passage undiscerned,<br/>
+We must turn where she has turned&mdash;<br/>
+     Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;<br/>
+     <i>Libera nos Domine</i>!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>&ldquo;THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;… And a security for such as pass on the seas upon   their lawful
+occasions.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Navy Prayer</i>.
+</p>
+
+<h3>PART I</h3>
+
+<p>
+Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is Gubbins,
+let a plain statement suffice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+H.M.S. <i>Caryatid</i> went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manœuvres. I
+travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
+friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. <i>Caryatid</i>, whose guest I was to
+have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous off
+the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red Fleet,
+my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with unstinted
+hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, in charge of
+three destroyers, <i>Wraith, Stiletto</i>, and <i>Kobbold</i>, due to depart at
+6 <small>P.M</small>. that evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot
+flagship, but I preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in H.M.S.
+<i>Pedantic</i> (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining aboard
+her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the battleships would go
+to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance from Blue to Red Fleet,
+whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no wrong. I truly intended to return
+to the <i>Pedantic</i> and help to fight Blue Fleet. All I needed was a new
+toothbrush, which I bought from a chemist in a side street at 9:15
+<small>P.M</small>. As I turned to go, one entered seeking alleviation of a
+gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster, a black silk hat three sizes too
+small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure brass spurs. These he managed painfully,
+stepping like a prisoner fresh from leg-irons. As he adjusted the
+pepper-plaster to the gum the light fell on his face, and I recognised Mr.
+Emanuel Pyecroft, late second-class petty officer of H.M.S.
+<i>Archimandrite</i>, an unforgettable man, met a year before under Tom
+Wessel&rsquo;s roof in Plymouth. It occurred to me that when a petty officer
+takes to spurs he may conceivably meditate desertion. For that reason I, though
+a taxpayer, made no sign. Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft, following me out of the
+shop, who said hollowly: &ldquo;What might you be doing here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going on manœuvres in the <i>Pedantic</i>,&rdquo; I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ho!&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft. &ldquo;An&rsquo; what manner o&rsquo;
+manœuvres d&rsquo;you expect to see in a blighted cathedral like the
+<i>Pedantic</i>? <i>I</i> know &rsquo;er. I knew her in Malta, when the
+<i>Vulcan</i> was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres! You won&rsquo;t see more
+than &lsquo;Man an&rsquo; arm watertight doors!&rsquo; in your little woollen
+undervest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry for that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like
+tuning-forks. &ldquo;War&rsquo;s declared at midnight. <i>Pedantics</i> be
+sugared! Buy an &rsquo;am an&rsquo; see life!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice, purposed that
+we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands of Dorset. The spurs
+troubled me, and I made bold to say as much. &ldquo;Them!&rdquo; he said,
+coming to an intricate halt. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re part of the <i>prima
+facie</i> evidence. But as for me&mdash;let me carry your bag&mdash;I&rsquo;m
+second in command, leadin&rsquo;-hand, cook, steward, an&rsquo; lavatory man,
+with a few incidentals for sixpence a day extra, on No. 267
+torpedo-boat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They wear spurs there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Mr. Peycroft, &ldquo;seein&rsquo; that Two Six Seven
+belongs to Blue Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are
+imperative. It transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral
+Master Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin&rsquo; Blue Fleet, can&rsquo;t be
+bothered with one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin&rsquo; in
+the Reserve four years, an&rsquo; what with the new kind o&rsquo; tiffy which
+cleans dynamos with brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won&rsquo;t
+render!), Two Six Seven&rsquo;s steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed
+done his painstakin&rsquo; best&mdash;it&rsquo;s his first command of a
+war-canoe, matoor age nineteen (down that alleyway, please!) but be that as it
+may, His Holiness Frankie is aware of us crabbin&rsquo; ourselves round the
+breakwater at five knots, an&rsquo; steerin&rsquo; <i>pari passu</i>, as the
+French say. (Up this alley-way, please!) If he&rsquo;d given Mr. Hinchcliffe,
+our chief engineer, a little time, it would never have transpired, for what
+Hinch can&rsquo;t drive he can coax; but the new port bein&rsquo; a trifle
+cloudy, an&rsquo; &rsquo;is joints tinglin&rsquo; after a post-captain dinner,
+Frankie come on the upper bridge seekin&rsquo; for a sacrifice. We,
+offerin&rsquo; a broadside target, got it. He told us what &rsquo;is
+grandmamma, &rsquo;oo was a lady an&rsquo; went to sea in stick- and
+string-batteaus, had told him about steam. He throwed in his own prayers for
+the &rsquo;ealth an&rsquo; safety of all steam-packets an&rsquo; their
+officers. Then he give us several distinct orders. The first few&mdash;I kept
+tally&mdash;was all about going to Hell; the next many was about not
+evolutin&rsquo; in his company, when there; an&rsquo; the last all was simply
+repeatin&rsquo; the motions in quick time. Knowin&rsquo; Frankie&rsquo;s
+groovin&rsquo; to be badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn&rsquo;t
+much panic; but our Mr. Moorshed, &rsquo;e took it a little to heart. Me
+an&rsquo; Mr. Hinchcliffe consoled &rsquo;im as well as service conditions
+permits of, an&rsquo; we had a <i>résumé</i>-supper at the back o&rsquo; the
+Camber&mdash;secluded <i>an&rsquo;</i> lugubrious! Then one thing leadin&rsquo;
+up to another, an&rsquo; our orders, except about anchorin&rsquo; where
+he&rsquo;s booked for, leavin&rsquo; us a clear &rsquo;orizon, Number Two Six
+Seven is now&mdash;mind the edge of the wharf&mdash;here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a narrow strip
+of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up into Weymouth town. A
+large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the round of her stern
+cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured, unkempt, two-funnelled
+craft of a type&mdash;but I am no expert&mdash;between the first-class
+torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic torpedo-tubes at
+the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she must have dated from the
+early nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with spurts of steam and fumes of hot
+oil, arose from her inside, and a figure in a striped jersey squatted on the
+engine-room gratings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She ain&rsquo;t much of a war-canoe, but you&rsquo;ll see more life in
+&rsquo;er than on an whole squadron of bleedin&rsquo; <i>Pedantics.&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But she&rsquo;s laid up here&mdash;and Blue Fleet have gone,&rdquo; I
+protested. &ldquo;Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie
+didn&rsquo;t put us out of action. Thus we&rsquo;re a non-neglectable
+fightin&rsquo; factor which you mightn&rsquo;t think from this elevation;
+<i>an&rsquo;</i> m&rsquo;rover, Red Fleet don&rsquo;t know we&rsquo;re
+&rsquo;ere. Most of us&rdquo;&mdash;he glanced proudly at his
+boots&mdash;&ldquo;didn&rsquo;t run to spurs, but we&rsquo;re disguised pretty
+devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser, when last seen, was a
+Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was naturally a German waiter,
+and me you behold as a squire of low degree; while yonder Levantine dragoman on
+the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was the second cutter&rsquo;s
+snotty&mdash;<i>my</i> snotty&mdash;on the <i>Archimandrite</i>&mdash;two
+years&mdash;Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin&rsquo;,
+an&rsquo; gettin&rsquo; the cutter stove in on small an&rsquo; unlikely bars,
+an&rsquo; manufacturin&rsquo; lies to correspond. What I don&rsquo;t know about
+Mr. Moorshed is precisely the same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don&rsquo;t know
+about me&mdash;half a millimetre, as you might say. He comes into awful
+opulence of his own when &rsquo;e&rsquo;s of age; an&rsquo; judgin&rsquo; from
+what passed between us when Frankie cursed &rsquo;im, I don&rsquo;t think
+&rsquo;e cares whether he&rsquo;s broke to-morrow or&mdash;the day after. Are
+you beginnin&rsquo; to follow our tattics? They&rsquo;ll be worth
+followin&rsquo;. Or <i>are</i> you goin&rsquo; back to your nice little cabin
+on the <i>Pedantic</i>&mdash;which I lay they&rsquo;ve just dismounted the
+third engineer out of&mdash;to eat four fat meals per diem, an&rsquo; smoke in
+the casement?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Sir,&rdquo; was Mr. Pyecroft&rsquo;s answer. &ldquo;I &rsquo;ave
+ascertained that <i>Stiletto, Wraith</i>, and <i>Kobbold</i> left at 6
+<small>P.M</small>. with the first division o&rsquo; Red Fleet&rsquo;s cruisers
+except <i>Devolotion</i> and <i>Cryptic</i>, which are delayed by engine-room
+defects.&rdquo; Then to me: &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed
+&rsquo;ud like some one to talk to. You buy an &rsquo;am an&rsquo; see
+life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower
+myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What d&rsquo;you want?&rdquo; said the striped jersey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to join Blue Fleet if I can,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+been left behind by&mdash;an accident.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
+you need?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want any ham, thank you. That&rsquo;s the way up the
+wharf. <i>Good</i>-night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-night!&rdquo; I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I
+found a shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
+salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop supplied me
+with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I, sweating, bore
+out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of a crane. It was a
+clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I laughed happily to myself.
+The adventure was preordained on the face of it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or
+barefoot, would have drawn me very far from the paths of circumspection. His
+advice to buy a ham and see life clinched it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft&mdash;I
+heard spurs clink&mdash;passed me. Then the jersey voice said: &ldquo;What the
+mischief&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Asn&rsquo;t the visitor come aboard, Sir? &rsquo;E told me
+he&rsquo;d purposely abandoned the <i>Pedantic</i> for the pleasure of the trip
+with us. Told me he was official correspondent for the <i>Times</i>; an&rsquo;
+I know he&rsquo;s littery by the way &rsquo;e tries to talk Navy-talk.
+Haven&rsquo;t you seen &rsquo;im, Sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; &ldquo;Pye,
+you are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It&rsquo;s marked with his
+name.&rdquo; There was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; in a
+tone which the listener might construe precisely as he pleased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>He</i> was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life&mdash;was
+he? If he goes back to the <i>Pedantic</i>&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then what possessed <i>you</i> to give it away to him, you owl?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got his bag. If &rsquo;e gives anything away, he&rsquo;ll
+have to go naked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the shadow of
+the crane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve bought the ham,&rdquo; I called sweetly. &ldquo;Have you
+still any objection to my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, if you&rsquo;re insured. Won&rsquo;t you come down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of all
+the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?&rdquo; said my host.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do <i>you</i> think of him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve left the <i>Pedantic</i>&mdash;her boat will be waiting for
+me at ten o&rsquo;clock, too&mdash;simply because I happened to meet
+him,&rdquo; I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right. If you&rsquo;ll come down below, we may get some
+grub.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve feet
+long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a swinging
+table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other furniture there was
+none.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t shave here, of course. We don&rsquo;t wash, and, as a
+rule, we eat with our fingers when we&rsquo;re at sea. D&rsquo;you mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me over
+from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but his smile
+drew the heart. &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t happen to hear what Frankie told me
+from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I&rsquo;ve logged them
+here in shorthand, were&rdquo;&mdash;he opened a neat
+pocket-book&mdash;&rdquo;<i>&lsquo;Get out of this and conduct your own damned
+manœuvres in your own damned tinker fashion! You&rsquo;re a disgrace to the
+Service, and your boat&rsquo;s offal.&rsquo;&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Awful?&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;offal&mdash;tripes&mdash;swipes&mdash;ullage.&rdquo; Mr.
+Pyecroft entered, in the costume of his calling, with the ham and an assortment
+of tin dishes, which he dealt out like cards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall take these as my orders,&rdquo; said Mr. Moorshed.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m chucking the Service at the end of the year, so it
+doesn&rsquo;t matter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with whisky, and
+then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an uninterrupted hammering
+and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s Mr. Hinchcliffe,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+what is called a first-class engine-room artificer. If you hand &rsquo;im a
+drum of oil an&rsquo; leave &rsquo;im alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do
+typewritin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a folded
+map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manœuvres, with the rules that
+regulate these wonderful things, below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string
+admiral,&rdquo; he said, yawning. &ldquo;Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr.
+Pyecroft?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a preparation for naval manœuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I
+followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big
+lumber-ship&rsquo;s side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No.
+267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels&mdash;soft, for they
+gave as I touched them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;More <i>prima facie</i> evidence. You runs a rope fore an&rsquo; aft,
+an&rsquo; you erects perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends
+with cane hoops, thus &rsquo;avin&rsquo; as many funnels as a destroyer. At the
+word o&rsquo; command, up they go like a pair of concertinas, an&rsquo;
+consequently collapses equally &rsquo;andy when requisite. Comin&rsquo; aft we
+shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish bathin&rsquo;-machine proprietor
+fittin&rsquo; on her bustle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at the
+stern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None of us who ain&rsquo;t built that way can be destroyers, but we can
+look as near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a
+Thorneycroft boat, which we are <i>not</i>, comes out in a pretty bulge,
+totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on the
+other &rsquo;and, <i>Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn</i>, and
+<i>A-frite</i>&mdash;Red Fleet dee-stroyers, with &rsquo;oom we hope to consort
+later on terms o&rsquo; perfect equality&mdash;<i>are</i> Thorneycrofts,
+an&rsquo; carry that Grecian bend which we are now adjustin&rsquo; to our
+<i>arriere-pensée</i>&mdash;as the French would put it&mdash;by means of
+painted canvas an&rsquo; iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an&rsquo; me
+an&rsquo; Frankie, we are the <i>Gnome</i>, now in the Fleet Reserve at
+Pompey&mdash;Portsmouth, I should say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The first sea will carry it all away,&rdquo; said Moorshed, leaning
+gloomily outboard, &ldquo;but it will do for the present.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve a lot of <i>prima facie</i> evidence about us,&rdquo; Mr.
+Pyecroft went on. &ldquo;A first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water
+than a destroyer. Hence we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas
+wash-streak to represent extra freeboard; <i>at</i> the same time paddin&rsquo;
+out the cover of the forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder,
+an&rsquo; variously fakin&rsquo; up the bows of &rsquo;er. As you might say,
+we&rsquo;ve took thought an&rsquo; added a cubic to our stature. It&rsquo;s our
+len&rsquo;th that sugars us. A &rsquo;undred an&rsquo; forty feet, which is our
+len&rsquo;th into two &rsquo;undred and ten, which is about the
+<i>Gnome&rsquo;s,</i> leaves seventy feet over, which we haven&rsquo;t
+got.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In spots, you might say&mdash;yes; though we all contributed to make up
+deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin&rsquo; for further Navy after
+what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the dickens are we going to do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we&rsquo;d wait till the
+sights came on, an&rsquo; then fire. Speakin&rsquo; as a torpedo-coxswain,
+L.T.O., T.I., M.D., etc., I presume we fall in&mdash;Number One in rear of the
+tube, etc., secure tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin&rsquo;-bar,
+release safety-pin from lockin-levers, an&rsquo; pray Heaven to look down on
+us. As second in command o&rsquo; 267, I say wait an&rsquo; see!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened? We&rsquo;re off,&rdquo; I said. The timber ship
+had slid away from us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are. Stern first, an&rsquo; broadside on! If we don&rsquo;t hit
+anything too hard, we&rsquo;ll do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on the bridge,&rdquo; said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell
+over some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next
+few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the science
+of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth Harbour, nor
+why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in what appeared to
+be surf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excuse me,&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, &ldquo;<i>I</i>
+don&rsquo;t mind rammin&rsquo; a bathin&rsquo;-machine; but if only <i>one</i>
+of them week-end Weymouth blighters has thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea
+here, we&rsquo;ll rip our plates open on it; 267 isn&rsquo;t the
+<i>Archimandrite&rsquo;s</i> old cutter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am hugging the shore,&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no actual &rsquo;arm in huggin&rsquo;, but it can come
+expensive if pursooed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-O!&rdquo; said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left
+those scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?&rdquo; said Moorshed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I merely wished to report that she is still continuin&rsquo; to go,
+Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d&rsquo;you think?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try, Sir; but we&rsquo;d prefer to have the engine-room hatch
+open&mdash;at first, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through the
+night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the narrow deck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large
+rock receives a shadow, &ldquo;represents the <i>Gnome</i> arrivin&rsquo;
+cautious from the direction o&rsquo; Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes opened to
+a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic
+about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and several
+millimetres too excited over the approachin&rsquo; war to keep a look-out
+inshore. Hence our tattics!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We wailed through our siren&mdash;a long, malignant, hyena-like howl&mdash;and
+a voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>Gnome</i>&mdash;Carteret-Jones&mdash;from Portsmouth, with
+orders&mdash;mm&mdash;mm&mdash;<i>Stiletto</i>,&rdquo; Moorshed answered
+through the megaphone in a high, whining voice, rather like a chaplain&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Who</i>?&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Carter&mdash;et&mdash;Jones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Lord!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Podgie,
+adrift on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another voice echoed, &ldquo;Podgie!&rdquo; and from its note I gathered that
+Mr. Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s your sub?&rdquo; said the first speaker, a shadow on the
+bridge of the <i>Dirk</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A gunner, at present, Sir. The <i>Stiletto</i>&mdash;broken
+down&mdash;turns over to us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When did the <i>Stiletto</i> break down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Off the Start, Sir; two hours after&mdash;after she left here this
+evening, I believe. My orders are to report to you for the manœuvre
+signal-codes, and join Commander Hignett&rsquo;s flotilla, which is in
+attendance on <i>Stiletto</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed&rsquo;s voice was high and
+uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: &ldquo;The amount o&rsquo; trouble me
+an&rsquo; my bright spurs &rsquo;ad fishin&rsquo; out that information from
+torpedo coxswains and similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would
+never believe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But has the <i>Stiletto</i> broken down?&rdquo; I asked weakly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How else are we to get Red Fleet&rsquo;s private signal-code? Any way,
+if she &rsquo;asn&rsquo;t now, she will before manœuvres are ended. It&rsquo;s
+only executin&rsquo; in anticipation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones.&rdquo;
+Water carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear
+the next sentence: &ldquo;They must have given him <i>one</i> intelligent
+keeper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s me,&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained
+dinghy&mdash;I did not foresee how well I should come to know her&mdash;was
+flung overside by three men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Havin&rsquo; bought an &rsquo;am, we will now see life.&rdquo; He
+stepped into the boat and was away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Podgie!&rdquo;&mdash;the speaker was in the last of the line of
+destroyers, as we thumped astern&mdash;&ldquo;aren&rsquo;t you lonely out
+there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t rag me!&rdquo; said Moorshed. &ldquo;Do you suppose
+I&rsquo;ll have to manœuvre with your flo-tilla?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, Podgie! I&rsquo;m pretty sure our commander will see you sifting
+cinders in Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two men laughed together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he&rsquo;s at home?&rdquo; I
+whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was with him in the <i>Britannia</i>. I didn&rsquo;t like him much,
+but I&rsquo;m grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They seemed to know him hereabouts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He rammed the <i>Caryatid</i> twice with her own steam-pinnace.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming across the
+dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel spurned it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Commander Fasset&rsquo;s compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the
+sooner he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at Portsmouth,
+the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there&rsquo;s a lot
+more&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it
+as we go. Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Day an&rsquo; night private signals of Red Fleet <i>com</i>plete,
+Sir!&rdquo; He handed a little paper to Moorshed. &ldquo;You see, Sir, the
+trouble was, that Mr. Carteret-Jones bein&rsquo;, so to say, a little new to
+his duties, &rsquo;ad forgot to give &rsquo;is gunner his Admiralty orders in
+writin&rsquo;, but, as I told Commander Fasset, Mr. Jones had been
+repeatin&rsquo; &rsquo;em to me, nervous-like, most of the way from Portsmouth,
+so I knew &rsquo;em by heart&mdash;an&rsquo; better. The Commander,
+recognisin&rsquo; in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a father an&rsquo;
+mother to Mr. Carteret-Jones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t he know you?&rdquo; I asked, thinking for the moment that
+there could be no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant
+commanding six thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? &rsquo;E seemed to
+cherish the &rsquo;ope that &rsquo;e might use the <i>Gnome</i> for &rsquo;is
+own &rsquo;orrible purposes; but what I told him about Mr. Jones&rsquo;s sad
+lack o&rsquo; nerve comin&rsquo; from Pompey, an&rsquo; going dead slow on
+account of the dark, short-circuited <i>that</i> connection.
+&lsquo;M&rsquo;rover,&rsquo; I says to him, &lsquo;our orders is explicit;
+<i>Stiletto&rsquo;s</i> reported broke down somewhere off the Start, an&rsquo;
+we&rsquo;ve been tryin&rsquo; to coil down a new stiff wire hawser all the
+evenin&rsquo;, so it looks like towin&rsquo; &rsquo;er back, don&rsquo;t
+it?&rsquo; I says. That more than ever jams his turrets, an&rsquo; makes him
+keen to get rid of us. &rsquo;E even hinted that Mr. Carteret-Jones
+passin&rsquo; hawsers an&rsquo; assistin&rsquo; the impotent in a sea-way might
+come pretty expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a disciplined way. I
+ain&rsquo;t proud. Gawd knows I ain&rsquo;t proud! But when I&rsquo;m really
+diggin&rsquo; out in the fancy line, I sometimes think that me in a copper
+punt, single-&rsquo;anded, &rsquo;ud beat a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in a
+row round the fleet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft&rsquo;s bosom, supported
+by his quivering arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267&rsquo;s
+bows snapped at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;You&rsquo;d better go on,&rsquo; says Commander Fassett,
+&lsquo;an&rsquo; do what you&rsquo;re told to do. I don&rsquo;t envy Hignett if
+he has to dry-nurse the <i>Gnome&rsquo;s</i> commander. But what d&rsquo;you
+want with signals?&rsquo; &rsquo;e says. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s criminal lunacy to
+trust Mr. Jones with anything that steams.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;May I make an observation, Sir?&rsquo; I says.
+&lsquo;Suppose,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;you was torpedo-gunner on the
+<i>Gnome</i>, an&rsquo; Mr. Carteret-Jones was your commandin&rsquo; officer,
+an&rsquo; you had your reputation <i>as</i> a second in command for the first
+time,&rsquo; I says, well knowin&rsquo; it was his first command of a flotilla,
+&lsquo;what &rsquo;ud you do, Sir?&rsquo; That gouged &rsquo;is unprotected
+ends open&mdash;clear back to the citadel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did he say?&rdquo; Moorshed jerked over his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to repeat
+it, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go ahead,&rdquo; I heard the boy chuckle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Do?&rsquo; &rsquo;e says. &lsquo;I&rsquo;d rub the young
+blighter&rsquo;s nose into it till I made a perishin&rsquo; man of him, or a
+perspirin&rsquo; pillow-case,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, &lsquo;which,&rsquo; he
+adds, &lsquo;is forty per cent, more than he is at present.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whilst he&rsquo;s gettin&rsquo; the private signals&mdash;they&rsquo;re
+rather particular ones&mdash;I went forrard to see the <i>Dirk&rsquo;s</i>
+gunner about borrowin&rsquo; a holdin&rsquo;-down bolt for our twelve-pounder.
+My open ears, while I was rovin&rsquo; over his packet, got the followin&rsquo;
+authentic particulars.&rdquo; I heard his voice change, and his feet shifted.
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s been a last council o&rsquo; war of destroyer-captains at
+the flagship, an&rsquo; a lot of things &rsquo;as come out. To begin with
+<i>Cryptic</i> and <i>Devolution</i>, Captain Panke and Captain
+Malan&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Cryptic</i> and <i>Devolution</i>, first-class cruisers,&rdquo; said
+Mr. Moorshed dreamily. &ldquo;Go on, Pyecroft.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&mdash;bein&rsquo; delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did
+<i>not</i>, as we know, accompany Red Fleet&rsquo;s first division of scouting
+cruisers, whose rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the
+Lizard. <i>Cryptic</i> an&rsquo; <i>Devolution</i> left at 9:30
+<small>P.M</small>. still reportin&rsquo; copious minor defects in engine-room.
+Admiral&rsquo;s final instructions was they was to put into Torbay, an&rsquo;
+mend themselves there. If they can do it in twenty-four hours, they&rsquo;re to
+come on and join the battle squadron at the first rendezvous, down Channel
+somewhere. (I couldn&rsquo;t get that, Sir.) If they can&rsquo;t, he&rsquo;ll
+think about sendin&rsquo; them some destroyers for escort. But his present
+intention is to go &rsquo;ammer and tongs down Channel, usin&rsquo; &rsquo;is
+destroyers for all they&rsquo;re worth, an&rsquo; thus keepin&rsquo; Blue Fleet
+too busy off the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let &rsquo;em out
+of Weymouth at all?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The tax-payer,&rdquo; said Mr. Moorshed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; newspapers,&rdquo; added Mr. Pyecroft. &ldquo;In Torbay
+they&rsquo;ll look as they was muckin&rsquo; about for strategical
+purposes&mdash;hammerin&rsquo; like blazes in the engine room all the weary
+day, an&rsquo; the skipper droppin&rsquo; questions down the engine-room hatch
+every two or three minutes. <i>I&rsquo;ve</i> been there. Now, Sir?&rdquo; I
+saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Hinchcliffe, what&rsquo;s her extreme economical radius?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can do,&rdquo; said Moorshed. &ldquo;By the way, have her revolutions
+any bearing on her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None that I can make out yet, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then slow to eight knots. We&rsquo;ll jog down to forty-nine,
+forty-five, or four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from
+Torbay by nine o&rsquo;clock to-morrow morning. We&rsquo;ll have to muck about
+till dusk before we run in and try our luck with the cruisers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin&rsquo; round them all
+night. It&rsquo;s considered good for the young gentlemen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo! War&rsquo;s declared! They&rsquo;re off!&rdquo; said Moorshed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swung 267&rsquo;s head round to get a better view. A few miles to our right
+the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while nearer ran a
+procession of tiny cigar ends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Red hot! Set &rsquo;em alight,&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft.
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the second destroyer flotilla diggin&rsquo; out for
+Commander Fassett&rsquo;s reputation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers&rsquo; funnels
+dwindled even as we watched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re going down Channel with lights out, thus showin&rsquo;
+their zeal an&rsquo; drivin&rsquo; all watch-officers crazy. Now, if
+you&rsquo;ll excuse me, I think I&rsquo;ll get you your pyjamas, an&rsquo;
+you&rsquo;ll turn in,&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung majestically over
+the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a coat with a monk&rsquo;s
+hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you fall over in these you&rsquo;ll be drowned. They&rsquo;re
+lammies. I&rsquo;ll chock you off with a pillow; but sleepin&rsquo; in a
+torpedo-boat&rsquo;s what you might call an acquired habit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering steel wall
+to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267&rsquo;s skin, worried me with
+importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed tackily to gather my
+attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and, on the eve of that
+portentous communication, retired up stage as a multitude whispering. Anon, I
+caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum of crowded cities awaiting the event,
+the single sob of a woman, and dry roaring of wild beasts. A dropped shovel
+clanging on the stokehold floor was, naturally enough, the unbarring of arena
+gates; our sucking uplift across the crest of some little swell, nothing less
+than the haling forth of new worlds; our half-turning descent into the hollow
+of its mate, the abysmal plunge of God-forgotten planets. Through all these
+phenomena and more&mdash;though I ran with wild horses over illimitable plains
+of rustling grass; though I crouched belly-flat under appalling fires of
+musketry; though I was Livingstone, painless, and incurious in the grip of his
+lion&mdash;my shut eyes saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the irregularly
+gliding patch of light on the steel ladder, and every elastic shadow in the
+corners of the frail angle-irons; while my body strove to accommodate itself to
+the infernal vibration of the machine. At the last I rolled limply on the
+floor, and woke to real life with a bruised nose and a great call to go on deck
+at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; said a voice in my booming ears.
+&ldquo;Morgan and Laughton are worse than you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two bundles beside
+a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller and a most able seaman.
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;d do better in a bigger sea,&rdquo; said Mr. Pyecroft.
+&ldquo;This lop is what fetches it up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down the
+Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round wind which
+runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good omen. It cleared
+the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to 267&rsquo;s heel and toe
+across the northerly set of the waves&mdash;such waves as I had often watched
+contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton liner. They shouldered our
+little hull sideways and passed, scalloped, and splayed out, toward the coast,
+carrying our white wake in loops along their hollow backs. In succession we
+looked down a lead-grey cutting of water for half a clear mile, were flung up
+on its ridge, beheld the Channel traffic&mdash;full-sailed to that fair
+breeze&mdash;all about us, and swung slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as
+a basket, into the next furrow. Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows
+to living, leaping opal, the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many sails
+to pearl, and the little steam-plume of our escape to an inconstant rainbow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!&rdquo; said Emanuel
+Pyecroft, throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was
+pitted with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes shone
+like a gull&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you you&rsquo;d see life. Think o&rsquo; the <i>Pedantic</i> now.
+Think o&rsquo; her Number One chasin&rsquo; the mobilised gobbies round the
+lower deck flats. Think o&rsquo; the pore little snotties now bein&rsquo;
+washed, fed, and taught, an&rsquo; the yeoman o&rsquo; signals with a pink eye
+wakin&rsquo; bright &rsquo;an brisk to another perishin&rsquo; day of five-flag
+hoists. Whereas <i>we</i> shall caulk an&rsquo; smoke cigarettes, same as the
+Spanish destroyers did for three weeks after war was declared.&rdquo; He
+dropped into the wardroom singing:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+If you&rsquo;re going to marry me, marry me, Bill,<br/>
+It&rsquo;s no use muckin&rsquo; about!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o&rsquo;-shanter, a
+pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a black sweater,
+was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava and a brown mackintosh
+with a flapping cape, hauled at our supplementary funnel guys, and a thing like
+a waiter from a Soho restaurant sat at the head of the engine-room ladder
+exhorting the unseen below. The following wind beat down our smoke and covered
+all things with an inch-thick layer of stokers, so that eyelids, teeth, and
+feet gritted in their motions. I began to see that my previous experiences
+among battleships and cruisers had been altogether beside the mark.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3><a name="chap09"></a>PART II</h3>
+
+<p class="poem">
+The wind went down with the sunset&mdash;<br/>
+    The fog came up with the tide,<br/>
+When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (<i>bis</i>)<br/>
+    With a little Blue Devil inside.<br/>
+&ldquo;Sink,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;or swim,&rdquo; she said,<br/>
+    &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all you will get from me.<br/>
+And that is the finish of him!&rdquo; she said,<br/>
+    And the Egg-shell went to sea.<br/>
+<br/>
+The wind got up with the morning,<br/>
+    And the fog blew off with the rain,<br/>
+When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell<br/>
+    And the little Blue Devil again.<br/>
+&ldquo;Did you swim?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Did you sink?&rdquo; she
+said,<br/>
+    And the little Blue Devil replied:<br/>
+&ldquo;For myself I swam, but I think,&rdquo; he said,<br/>
+    &ldquo;There&rsquo;s somebody sinking outside.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and might not
+alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all that priceless day.
+Moorshed, after breakfast&mdash;frizzled ham and a devil that Pyecroft made out
+of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard smashed together with a
+spanner&mdash;showed me his few and simple navigating tools, and took an
+observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the chamois leathers while he
+cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be better equipped with electricity than
+most of our class), that lived under a bulbous umbrella-cover amidship. Then
+Pyecroft and Morgan, standing easy, talked together of the King&rsquo;s Service
+as reformers and revolutionists, so notably, that were I not engaged on this
+tale I would, for its conclusion, substitute theirs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I would speak of Hinchcliffe&mdash;Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class
+engine-room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of having taken
+part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his daring, his skill, and his
+nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for an hour in the packed and dancing
+engine-room, when Moorshed suggested &ldquo;whacking her up&rdquo; to eighteen
+knots, to see if she would stand it. The floor was ankle-deep in a creamy
+batter of oil and water; each moving part flicking more oil in
+zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible for their dizzy chattering on the
+chattering steel bulkhead. Leading stoker Grant, said to be a bigamist, an
+ox-eyed man smothered in hair, took me to the stokehold and planted me between
+a searing white furnace and some hell-hot iron plate for fifteen minutes, while
+I listened to the drone of fans and the worry of the sea without, striving to
+wrench all that palpitating firepot wide open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed&mdash;revolving in his orbit from the
+canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room, conning-tower, and
+wheel, to the doll&rsquo;s house of a foc&rsquo;sle&mdash;learned in experience
+withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge, authoritative, entirely
+adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his play. <i>I</i> could not take ten
+steps along the crowded deck but I collided with some body or thing; but he and
+his satellites swung, passed, and returned on their vocations with the freedom
+and spaciousness of the well-poised stars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each dissolving
+picture inboard or overside&mdash;Hinchcliffe&rsquo;s white arm buried to the
+shoulder in a hornet&rsquo;s nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed&rsquo;s halt
+and jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft&rsquo;s back bent
+over the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men in expanding it
+swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a homeward-bound Chinaman not
+a hundred yards away, and her shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails bulging
+sideways like insolent cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on our decks,
+all iridescent under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled the shadows of
+our funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and dulling over of the
+short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell: the swell that crumbled up
+and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant, almost audible roll inward of
+wandering fog-walls that had been stalking us for two hours, and&mdash;welt
+upon welt, chill as the grave&mdash;the drive of the interminable main fog of
+the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than steerage-way and lay listening.
+Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred like a corncrake, and there rattled out
+of the mist a big ship literally above us. We could count the rivets in her
+plates as we scrooped by, and the little drops of dew gathered below them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wonder why they&rsquo;re always barks&mdash;always steel&mdash;always
+four-masted&mdash;an&rsquo; never less than two thousand tons. But they
+are,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. He was out on the turtle-backed bows of her;
+Moorshed was at the wheel, and another man worked the whistle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This fog is the best thing could ha&rsquo; happened to us,&rdquo; said
+Moorshed. &ldquo;It gives us our chance to run in on the quiet…. Hal-lo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a bowsprit
+surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially hooking itself into
+our forward rail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw Pyecroft&rsquo;s arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of the
+tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed&rsquo;s voice down the tube
+saying, &ldquo;Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!&rdquo; and
+Pyecroft&rsquo;s cry, &ldquo;Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our
+propeller, Sir, or we&rsquo;ll be wrapped up in the rope.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the downward-bearing
+bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc&rsquo;sle had already thrown
+out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible bulwark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive crunching
+of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler, her crew struck
+dumb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Any luck?&rdquo; said Moorshed politely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not till we met yeou,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;The Lard he saved us
+from they big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be&rsquo;e gwine tu
+with our fine new bobstay?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yah! You&rsquo;ve had time to splice it by now,&rdquo; said Pyecroft
+with contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aie; but we&rsquo;m all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin&rsquo;
+twenty-seven knots, us reckoned it. Didn&rsquo;t us, Albert?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Liker twenty-nine, an&rsquo; niver no whistle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?&rdquo; said
+Moorshed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing crew,
+braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a mere
+picket-boat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What for?&rdquo; said a puzzled voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For love; for nothing. You&rsquo;ll be abed in Brixham by
+midnight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yiss; but trawl&rsquo;s down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No hurry. I&rsquo;ll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when
+you&rsquo;re ready.&rdquo; A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they
+made it fast; we slid forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet
+of the wire rope running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of
+debate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog,&rdquo; said
+Moorshed listening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what in the world do you want him for?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;ll came in handy later.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was that your first collision?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aie! yeou little man-o&rsquo;-war!&rdquo; The voice rose muffled and
+wailing. &ldquo;After us&rsquo;ve upped trawl, us&rsquo;ll be glad of a tow.
+Leave line just slack abaout as &rsquo;tis now, and kip a good fine look-out
+be&rsquo;ind &rsquo;ee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s an accommodatin&rsquo; blighter for you!&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft. &ldquo;Where does he expect we&rsquo;ll be, with these currents
+evolutin&rsquo; like sailormen at the Agricultural Hall?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out and
+smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept it from
+fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The fog now thickened
+and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like the glare of intermittent
+flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision of a sick sun that leered and
+fled, or burying all a thousand fathom deep in gulfs of vapours. At no time
+could we see the trawler though we heard the click of her windlass, the jar of
+her trawl-beam, and the very flap of the fish on her deck. Forward was Pyecroft
+with the lead; on the bridge Moorshed pawed a Channel chart; aft sat I,
+listening to the whole of the British Mercantile Marine (never a keel less)
+returning to England, and watching the fog-dew run round the bight of the tow
+back to its mother-fog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aie! yeou little man-o&rsquo;-war! We&rsquo;m done with trawl. You can
+take us home if you know the road.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right O!&rdquo; said Moorshed. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll give the fishmonger a
+run for his money. Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be afraid, but
+more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of my neck) that any
+fear which would begin to do justice to the situation would, if yielded to,
+incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow of spread sails, deeper than
+the darkening twilight, brooding over us like the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft
+said she was a Swede), and, miraculously withdrawn, persuaded me that there was
+a working chance that I should reach the beach&mdash;any beach&mdash;alive, if
+not dry; and (this was when an economical tramp laved our port-rail with her
+condenser water) were I so spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added herself
+to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they, too, should melt
+in the general dissolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s that prevaricatin&rsquo; fishmonger?&rdquo; said Pyecroft,
+turning a lantern on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a
+stick to my left. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s doin&rsquo; some fancy steerin&rsquo; on
+his own. No wonder Mr. Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow&rsquo;s sheered off
+to starboard, Sir. He&rsquo;ll fair pull the stern out of us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aie! yeou little man-o&rsquo;-war!&rdquo; The voice butted through the
+fog with the monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep&rsquo;s. &ldquo;We
+don&rsquo;t all like the road you&rsquo;m takin&rsquo;. &rsquo;Tis no road to
+Brixham. You&rsquo;ll be buckled up under Prawle Point by&rsquo;mbye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you pretend to know where you are?&rdquo; the megaphone roared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Iss, I reckon; but there&rsquo;s no pretence to me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Peter!&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s hang him at &rsquo;is
+own gaff.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: &ldquo;Take another man with
+you. If you lose the tow, you&rsquo;re done. I&rsquo;ll slow her down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry &ldquo;Murder!&rdquo; Heard
+the rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my
+ear, Pyecroft&rsquo;s enormous and jubilant bellow astern: &ldquo;Why,
+he&rsquo;s here! Right atop of us! The blighter &rsquo;as pouched half the tow,
+like a shark!&rdquo; A long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then
+Pyecroft, <i>solo arpeggio</i>: &ldquo;Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come
+an&rsquo; try it, uncle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I lifted my face to where once God&rsquo;s sky had been, and besought The Trues
+I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles, but live at
+least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as happy as I was
+happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow&mdash;slow as the processes of
+evolution&mdash;till the boat-hook rasped again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not what you might call a scientific navigator,&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft, still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap.
+&ldquo;The lead&rsquo;s what &rsquo;e goes by mostly; rum is what he&rsquo;s
+come for; an&rsquo; Brixham is &rsquo;is &rsquo;ome. Lay on, Mucduff!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A white whiskered man in a frock-coat&mdash;as I live by bread, a
+frock-coat!&mdash;sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube into
+Moorshed&rsquo;s grip and vanished forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;E&rsquo;ll probably &rsquo;old three gallon (look sharp with that
+dinghy!); but &rsquo;is nephew, left in charge of the <i>Agatha</i>, wants two
+bottles command-allowance. You&rsquo;re a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that
+excessive?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lead there! Lead!&rdquo; rang out from forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I say &rsquo;e wouldn&rsquo;t understand compass
+deviations? Watch him close. It&rsquo;ll be worth it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: &ldquo;Let me zmell un!&rdquo;
+and to his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King&rsquo;s
+Navy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell &rsquo;ee where to goo, if yeou&rsquo;ll tell your
+donkey-man what to du. I&rsquo;m no hand wi&rsquo; steam.&rdquo; On these lines
+we proceeded miraculously, and, under Moorshed&rsquo;s orders&mdash;I was the
+fisherman&rsquo;s Ganymede, even as &ldquo;M. de C.&rdquo; had served the
+captain&mdash;I found both rum and curaçoa in a locker, and mixed them equal
+bulk in an enamelled iron cup.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now we&rsquo;m just abeam o&rsquo; where we should be,&rdquo; he said at
+last, &ldquo;an&rsquo; here we&rsquo;ll lay till she lifts. I&rsquo;d take
+&rsquo;e in for another bottle&mdash;and wan for my nevvy; but I reckon
+yeou&rsquo;m shart-allowanced for rum. That&rsquo;s nivver no Navy rum
+yeou&rsquo;m give me. Knowed &rsquo;ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them spring to
+vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet to port caught the
+panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar at gaze, for not far away
+an unmistakable ship&rsquo;s bell was ringing. It ceased, and another began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Them!&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;Anchored!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;More!&rdquo; said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The
+trawler astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk of his
+arm threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the back-sight was
+heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;they wouldn&rsquo;t have their picket-boats out in this
+weather, though they ought to.&rdquo; He returned the barrel to its crotch
+slowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be yeou gwine to anchor?&rdquo; said Macduff, smacking his lips,
+&ldquo;or be yeou gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell him what we&rsquo;re driving at. Get it into his head
+somehow,&rdquo; said Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me,
+enfolded the old man with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if you pull it off,&rdquo; said Moorshed at the last,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give you a fiver.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lard! What&rsquo;s fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes
+&rsquo;em; but I do cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day
+o&rsquo; God&rsquo;s good weeks. Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I
+tall &rsquo;ee, gentlemen, I hain&rsquo;t the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule
+yeou reckon I be. Before the mast I&rsquo;ve fared in my time; fisherman
+I&rsquo;ve been since I seed the unsense of sea-dangerin&rsquo;. Baccy and
+spirits&mdash;yiss, an&rsquo; cigars too, I&rsquo;ve run a plenty. I&rsquo;m no
+blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your forty-mile free towin&rsquo; and rum
+atop of all. There&rsquo;s none more sober to Brix&rsquo;am this tide, I
+don&rsquo;t care who &rsquo;tis&mdash;than me. <i>I</i> know&mdash;<i>I</i>
+know. Yander&rsquo;m two great King&rsquo;s ships. Yeou&rsquo;m wishful to
+sink, burn, and destroy they while us kips &rsquo;em busy sellin&rsquo; fish.
+No need tall me so twanty taime over. Us&rsquo;ll find they ships! Us&rsquo;ll
+find &rsquo;em, if us has to break our fine new bowsprit so close as
+Crump&rsquo;s bull&rsquo;s horn!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good egg!&rdquo; quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide
+shoulders with the smack of a beaver&rsquo;s tail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Us&rsquo;ll go look for they by hand. Us&rsquo;ll give they something to
+play upon; an&rsquo; do &rsquo;ee deal with them faithfully, an&rsquo; may the
+Lard have mercy on your sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fog was as dense as ever&mdash;we moved in the very womb of night&mdash;but
+I cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by
+the tow-rope, disappeared toward the <i>Agatha</i>, Pyecroft rowing. The bell
+began again on the starboard bow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re pretty near,&rdquo; said Moorshed, slowing down. &ldquo;Out
+with the Berthon. (<i>We&rsquo;ll</i> sell &rsquo;em fish, too.) And if any one
+rows Navy-stroke, I&rsquo;ll break his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe
+(this down the tube), &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll stay here in charge with Gregory and
+Shergold and the engine-room staff. Morgan stays, too, for signalling
+purposes.&rdquo; A deep groan broke from Morgan&rsquo;s chest, but he said
+nothing. &ldquo;If the fog thins and you&rsquo;re seen by any one,
+keep&rsquo;em quiet with the signals. I can&rsquo;t think of the precise lie
+just now, but <i>you</i> can, Morgan.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?&rdquo; I whispered, shivering with
+excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they&rsquo;ve been repairing minor defects all day, they won&rsquo;t
+have any one to spare from the engine-room, and &lsquo;Out nets!&rsquo; is a
+job for the whole ship&rsquo;s company. I expect they&rsquo;ve trusted to the
+fog&mdash;like us. Well, Pyecroft?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. &ldquo;&rsquo;Ad
+to see the first o&rsquo; the rum into the <i>Agathites</i>, Sir. They was a
+bit jealous o&rsquo; their commandin&rsquo; officer comin&rsquo; &rsquo;ome so
+richly lacquered, and at first the <i>conversazione</i> languished, as you
+might say. But they sprang to attention ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the
+bells, if any of &rsquo;em are sober enough to keep tally, will be the signal
+that our consort &rsquo;as cast off her tow an&rsquo; is manceuvrin&rsquo; on
+&rsquo;er own.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over
+quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into the
+Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved me in
+generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of the dinghy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want you for <i>prima facie</i> evidence, in case the vaccination
+don&rsquo;t take,&rdquo; said Pyecroft in my ear. &ldquo;Push off, Alf!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little tinkles
+from the <i>Agatha</i>, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of pans, and
+loose shouting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where be gwine tu? Port your &rsquo;ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the
+fairway, goo astern! Out boats! She&rsquo;ll sink us!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: &ldquo;Quiet! you gardeners
+there. This is the <i>Cryptic</i> at anchor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you for the range,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly.
+&ldquo;Feel well out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only
+Marconi installation.&rdquo; The voices resumed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bournemouth steamer he says she be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then where be Brixham Harbor?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Damme, I&rsquo;m a tax-payer tu. They&rsquo;ve no right to cruise about
+this way. I&rsquo;ll have the laa on &rsquo;ee if anything carries away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the man-of-war:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You&rsquo;ll get
+yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung. I
+passed one hand down Laughton&rsquo;s stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck
+and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I laid
+on broad, cold iron&mdash;even the flanks of H.M.S. <i>Cryptic</i>, which is
+twelve thousand tons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to
+shave, and I smelled paint. &ldquo;Drop aft a bit, Alf; we&rsquo;ll put a
+stencil under the stern six-inch casements.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall. Once,
+twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was renewed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Umpires are &rsquo;ard-&rsquo;earted blighters, but this ought to
+convince &rsquo;em…. Captain Panke&rsquo;s stern-walk is now above our
+defenceless &rsquo;eads. Repeat the evolution up the starboard side,
+Alf.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with life.
+Though my knowledge was all by touch&mdash;as, for example, when Pyecroft led
+my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson, or when my palm closed
+on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it timidly&mdash;yet I felt lonely and
+unprotected as the enormous, helpless ship was withdrawn, and we drifted away
+into the void where voices sang:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,<br/>
+All along, out along, down along lea!<br/>
+I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair<br/>
+With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,<br/>
+Old Uncle Tom Cobley an&rsquo; all!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s old Sinbad an&rsquo; &rsquo;is little lot from the
+<i>Agatha</i>! Give way, Alf! <i>You</i> might sing somethin&rsquo;,
+too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m no burnin&rsquo; Patti. Ain&rsquo;t there noise enough for
+you, Pye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but it&rsquo;s only amateurs. Give me the tones of &rsquo;earth and
+&rsquo;ome. Ha! List to the blighter on the &rsquo;orizon sayin&rsquo; his
+prayers, Navy-fashion. &rsquo;Eaven &rsquo;elp me argue that way when I&rsquo;m
+a warrant-officer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a fair-sized
+riot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; I&rsquo;ve &rsquo;eard the <i>Devolution</i> called a happy
+ship, too,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;Just shows &rsquo;ow a man&rsquo;s
+misled by prejudice. She&rsquo;s peevish&mdash;that&rsquo;s what she
+is&mdash;nasty-peevish. Prob&rsquo;ly all because the <i>Agathites</i> are
+scratching &rsquo;er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I&rsquo;ve got the
+lymph!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was
+speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower deck).
+He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced rates. Nobody
+wished to buy any fish. This ship was the <i>Devolution</i> at anchor, and
+desired no communication with shore boats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mark how the Navy &rsquo;olds it&rsquo;s own. He&rsquo;s sober. The
+<i>Agathites</i> are not, as you might say, an&rsquo; yet they can&rsquo;t live
+with &rsquo;im. It&rsquo;s the discipline that does it. &rsquo;Ark to the bald
+an&rsquo; unconvincin&rsquo; watch-officer chimin&rsquo; in. I wonder where Mr.
+Moorshed has got to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We drifted down the <i>Devolution&rsquo;s</i> side, as we had drifted down her
+sister&rsquo;s; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt with
+her sister.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whai! &rsquo;Tis a man-o&rsquo;-war, after all! I can see the
+captain&rsquo;s whisker all gilt at the edges! We took &rsquo;ee for the
+Bournemouth steamer. Three cheers for the real man-o&rsquo;-war!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That cry came from under the <i>Devolution&rsquo;s</i> stern. Pyecroft held
+something in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, &ldquo;Our Mister
+Moorshed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said a boy&rsquo;s voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from
+some valve: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t half like that cheer. If I&rsquo;d been the
+old man I&rsquo;d ha&rsquo; turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off.
+Aren&rsquo;t they rowing Navy-stroke, yonder?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to go &rsquo;ome when snotties begin to think. The
+fog&rsquo;s thinnin&rsquo;, too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel stand out
+darker than the darkness, disappear&mdash;it was then the dinghy shot away from
+it&mdash;and emerge once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo! what boat&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; said the voice suspiciously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, I do believe it&rsquo;s a real man-o&rsquo;-war, after all,&rdquo;
+said Pyecroft, and kicked Laughton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that for?&rdquo; Laughton was no dramatist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin&rsquo; opposite.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What boat&rsquo;s <i>thatt</i>?&rdquo; The hail was repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do yee say-ay?&rdquo; Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to
+me: &ldquo;Give us a hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s called the <i>Marietta</i>&mdash;F. J.
+Stokes&mdash;Torquay,&rdquo; I began, quaveringly. &ldquo;At least,
+that&rsquo;s the name on the name-board. I&rsquo;ve been dining&mdash;on a
+yacht.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see.&rdquo; The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with
+disgraceful ease.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yesh. Dining private yacht. <i>Eshmesheralda</i>. I belong to Torquay
+Yacht Club. <i>Are</i> you member Torquay Yacht Club?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d better go to bed, Sir. Good-night.&rdquo; We slid into the
+rapidly thinning fog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dig out, Alf. Put your <i>nix mangiare</i> back into it. The fog&rsquo;s
+peelin&rsquo; off like a petticoat. Where&rsquo;s Two Six Seven?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t see her,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;but there&rsquo;s a
+light low down ahead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>Agatha</i>!&rdquo; They rowed desperately through the uneasy
+dispersal of the fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler&rsquo;s bow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Emanuel means &lsquo;God with us&rsquo;&mdash;so far.&rdquo;
+Pyecroft wiped his brow, laid a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up
+to the trawler, I saw Moorshed&rsquo;s face, white as pearl in the thinning
+dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it all right?&rdquo; said he, over the bulwarks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vaccination ain&rsquo;t in it. She&rsquo;s took beautiful. But
+where&rsquo;s 267, Sir?&rdquo; Pyecroft replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the <i>Devolution</i> four.
+Was that you behind us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the <i>Devolution</i>. I gave the
+<i>Cryptic</i> nine, though. They&rsquo;re what you might call more or less
+vaccinated.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the
+<i>Agatha&rsquo;s</i> hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is the old man?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Still selling &rsquo;em fish, I suppose. He&rsquo;s a darling! But I
+wish I could get this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the
+<i>Cryptic</i> signalling?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was answered by a
+white pencil to the southward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Destroyer signalling with searchlight.&rdquo; Pyecroft leaped on the
+stern-rail. &ldquo;The first part is private signals. Ah! now she&rsquo;s
+Morsing against the fog. &lsquo;P-O-S-T&mdash;yes,
+&lsquo;postpone&rsquo;&mdash;&lsquo;D-E-P- (go on)!
+departure&mdash;till&mdash;further&mdash;orders&mdash;which&mdash;will&mdash;be
+com (he&rsquo;s dropped the other m) unicated&mdash;verbally. End,&rsquo;. He
+swung round. &ldquo;<i>Cryptic</i> is now answering:
+&lsquo;Ready&mdash;proceed&mdash;immediately.
+What&mdash;news&mdash;promised&mdash;destroyer&mdash;flotilla?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hallo!&rdquo; said Moorshed. &ldquo;Well, never mind, They&rsquo;ll come
+too late.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! That&rsquo;s some &rsquo;igh-born suckling on the destroyer.
+Destroyer signals: &lsquo;Care not. All will be known later.&rsquo; What merry
+beehive&rsquo;s broken loose now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What odds! We&rsquo;ve done our little job.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;it&rsquo;s Two Six Seven!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the
+<i>Agatha</i> with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over the
+stern, and fell into his subordinate&rsquo;s arms. I heard the guggle of
+engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards away, a
+cough, and Morgan&rsquo;s subdued hail. … So far as I remember, it was Laughton
+whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were Pyecroft and Moorshed,
+adrift among the fishy nets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the
+<i>Agatha&rsquo;s</i> side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for
+the common safety, because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat
+open by hand for the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like wild
+geese, and crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the
+<i>Agatha&rsquo;s</i> boat, returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled:
+&ldquo;Have &rsquo;ee done the trick? Have &rsquo;ee done the trick?&rdquo; and
+we could only shout hoarsely over the stern, guaranteeing them rum by the
+hold-full.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fog got patchy here at 12:27,&rdquo; said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe,
+growing clearer every instant in the dawn. &ldquo;Went down to Brixham Harbour
+to keep out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I had
+her up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet signals out
+of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was answered by three
+destroyers. Morgan signalled &rsquo;em by searchlight: &lsquo;Alter course to
+South Seventeen East, so as not to lose time.&rsquo; They came round quick. We
+kept well away&mdash;on their port beam&mdash;and Morgan gave &rsquo;em their
+orders.&rdquo; He looked at Morgan and coughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The signalman, acting as second in command,&rdquo; said Morgan,
+swelling, &ldquo;then informed destroyer flotilla that <i>Cryptic</i> and
+<i>Devolution</i> had made good defects, and, in obedience to Admiral&rsquo;s
+supplementary orders (I was afraid they might suspect that, but they
+didn&rsquo;t), had proceeded at seven knots at 11:23 <small>P.M</small>. to rendezvous near
+Channel Islands, seven miles N.N.W. the Casquet light. (I&rsquo;ve rendezvoused
+there myself, Sir.) Destroyer flotilla would therefore follow cruisers and
+catch up with them on their course. Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course
+indicated, all funnels sparking briskly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who were the destroyers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto</i>, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett,
+acting under Admiral&rsquo;s orders to escort cruisers received off the Dodman
+at 7 <small>P.M</small>. They&rsquo;d come slow on account of fog.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then who were you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We were the <i>Afrite</i>, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and
+there instructed by <i>Cryptic</i>, previous to her departure with
+<i>Devolution</i>) to inform Commander Hignett of change of plans.
+Lieutenant-Commander Hignett signalled that our meeting was quite providential.
+After this we returned to pick up our commanding officer, and being
+interrogated by <i>Cryptic</i>, marked time signalling as requisite, which you
+may have seen. The <i>Agatha</i> representing the last known
+rallying-point&mdash;or, as I should say, pivot-ship of the evolution&mdash;it
+was decided to repair to the <i>Agatha</i> at conclusion of manœuvre.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We breathed deeply, all of us, but no one spoke a word till Moorshed said:
+&ldquo;Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine big
+battleship?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can do, sir,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr.
+Moorshed and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker, we
+drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of stiff,
+treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other&rsquo;s face, and we nodded,
+bright-eyed, burning with bliss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a captain
+victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke over the
+green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our victory. There
+lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had made good their
+defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet long and sixty-six wide;
+they held close upon eight hundred men apiece, and they had cost, say, a
+million and a half the pair. And they were ours, and they did not know it.
+Indeed, the <i>Cryptic</i>, senior ship, was signalling vehement remarks to our
+address, which we did not notice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you take these glasses, you&rsquo;ll get the general run o&rsquo;
+last night&rsquo;s vaccination,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;Each one
+represents a torpedo got &rsquo;ome, as you might say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw on the <i>Cryptic&rsquo;s</i> port side, as she lay half a mile away
+across the glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in
+the centre.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are five more to starboard. &rsquo;Ere&rsquo;s the
+original!&rdquo; He handed me a paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet
+square, bearing in the centre the six-inch initials, &ldquo;G.M.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ten minutes ago I&rsquo;d ha&rsquo; eulogised about that little trick of
+ours, but Morgan&rsquo;s performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy,
+Morgan?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bustin&rsquo;,&rdquo; said the signalman briefly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen &rsquo;Enrietta said
+to the &rsquo;ousemaid, <i>I</i> never will. I&rsquo;d ha&rsquo; given a
+year&rsquo;s pay for ten minutes o&rsquo; your signallin&rsquo; work this
+mornin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t &rsquo;ave took it up,&rdquo; was the answer.
+&ldquo;Perishin&rsquo; &rsquo;Eavens above! Look at the
+<i>Devolution&rsquo;s</i> semaphore!&rdquo; Two black wooden arms waved from
+the junior ship&rsquo;s upper bridge. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve seen it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>The</i> mote <i>on</i> their neighbour&rsquo;s beam, of
+course,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, and read syllable by syllable:
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Captain Malan to Captain Panke. Is&mdash;sten&mdash;cilled frieze
+your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or your Number One&rsquo;s
+private expense?&rsquo; Now <i>Cryptic</i> is saying, &lsquo;Not
+understood.&rsquo; Poor old <i>Crippy</i>, the <i>Devolute&rsquo;s</i>
+raggin&rsquo; &rsquo;er sore. &lsquo;Who is G.M.?&rsquo; she says. That&rsquo;s
+fetched the <i>Cryptic</i>. She&rsquo;s answerin&rsquo;: &lsquo;You ought to
+know. Examine own paintwork.&rsquo; Oh, Lord! they&rsquo;re both on to it now.
+This is balm. This is beginning to be balm. I forgive you, Morgan!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into the
+water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose to the
+<i>Cryptic&rsquo;s</i> yardarm: &ldquo;Destroyer will close at once. Wish to
+speak by semaphore.&rdquo; Then on the bridge semaphore itself: &ldquo;Have
+been trying to attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding officer
+aboard at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our attention? After all the attention we&rsquo;ve given &rsquo;er,
+too,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;What a greedy old woman!&rdquo; To Moorshed:
+&ldquo;Signal from the <i>Cryptic</i>, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind that!&rdquo; said the boy, peering through his glasses.
+&ldquo;Our dinghy quick, or they&rsquo;ll paint our marks out. Come
+along!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft&rsquo;s bending
+back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed the
+<i>Cryptic&rsquo;s</i> ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler
+when we barged fairly into him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mind my paint!&rdquo; he yelled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You mind mine, snotty,&rdquo; said Moorshed. &ldquo;I was all night
+putting these little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave
+&rsquo;em alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We splashed past him to the <i>Devolution&rsquo;s</i> boat, where sat no one
+less than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the deuce is the meaning of this?&rdquo; he roared, with an
+accusing forefinger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re sunk, that&rsquo;s all. You&rsquo;ve been dead half a
+tide.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dead, am I? I&rsquo;ll show you whether I&rsquo;m dead or not,
+Sir!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you may be a survivor,&rdquo; said Moorshed ingratiatingly,
+&ldquo;though it isn&rsquo;t at all likely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern said, half
+aloud: &ldquo;Then I <i>was</i> right&mdash;last night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yesh,&rdquo; I gasped from the dinghy&rsquo;s coal-dust. &ldquo;Are you
+member Torquay Yacht Club?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hell!&rdquo; said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The
+<i>Cryptic&rsquo;s</i> boat was already at that cruiser&rsquo;s side, and
+semaphores flicked zealously from ship to ship. We floated, a minute speck,
+between the two hulls, while the pipes went for the captain&rsquo;s galley on
+the <i>Devolution</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; said Moorshed. &ldquo;Wait till the
+gangway&rsquo;s down and then board her decently. We oughtn&rsquo;t to be
+expected to climb up a ship we&rsquo;ve sunk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed,
+descended the <i>Devolution&rsquo;s</i> side. With due compliments&mdash;not
+acknowledged, I grieve to say&mdash;we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and
+at last, upon pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered
+gangway of the <i>Cryptic</i>. At the top stood as fine a constellation of
+marine stars as ever sang together of a morning on a King&rsquo;s ship. Every
+one who could get within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted
+eleven able seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four
+marines zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine
+midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks past
+all census.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I die o&rsquo; joy,&rdquo; said Pyecroft behind his hand,
+&ldquo;remember I died forgivin&rsquo; Morgan from the bottom of my
+&rsquo;eart, because, like Martha, we &rsquo;ave scoffed the better part.
+You&rsquo;d better try to come to attention, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge beam,
+and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and Captain Malan stood
+on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling hatch. Precisely over the
+flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her black petticoat half hitched up,
+meekly floating on the still sea. She looked like the pious Abigail who has
+just spoken her mind, and, with folded hands, sits thanking Heaven among the
+pieces. I could almost have sworn that she wore black worsted gloves and had a
+little dry cough. But it was Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He
+favoured us with a lecture on uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of
+answering signals from a senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of
+masquerading, that he loved discipline, and would be obliged by an explanation.
+And while he delivered himself deeper and more deeply into our hands, I saw
+Captain Malan wince. He was watching Moorshed&rsquo;s eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven,&rdquo; said
+Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. &ldquo;Have you such a thing as a
+frame-plan of the <i>Cryptic</i> aboard?&rdquo; He spoke with winning
+politeness as he opened a small and neatly folded paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have, sir.&rdquo; The little man&rsquo;s face was working with
+passion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were torpedoed
+last night in&rdquo;&mdash;he consulted the paper with one finely arched
+eyebrow&mdash;&ldquo;in nine places. And since the <i>Devolution</i> is, I
+understand, a sister ship&rdquo;&mdash;he bowed slightly toward Caplain
+Malan&mdash;&ldquo;the same plan&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement which
+seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan&rsquo;s eye turn
+from Moorshed and seek that of the <i>Cryptic&rsquo;s</i> commander. And he
+telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: &ldquo;My dear friend and
+brother officer, <i>I</i> know Panke; <i>you</i> know Panke; <i>we</i> know
+Panke&mdash;good little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds
+Panke will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things
+straight, unless you who are a man of tact and discernment&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Carry on.&rdquo; The Commander&rsquo;s order supplied the unspoken word.
+The cruiser boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers
+together, up to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan turn to his
+senior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come to my cabin!&rdquo; said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft
+and I stayed still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;They daren&rsquo;t
+leave us loose aboard for one revolution,&rdquo; and I knew that he had seen
+what I had seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You, too!&rdquo; said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the
+sentry between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that
+Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I winked
+at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass-fendered,
+tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was demonstrating before the
+frame-plan of H.M.S. <i>Cryptic</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&mdash;making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.,&rdquo; I heard
+him say. &ldquo;Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too,
+Sir&rdquo;&mdash;he bowed to Captain Malan yet again&mdash;&ldquo;one
+fourteen-inch Mark IV practice torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats,
+properly buoyed. I have sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and
+have requested them to judge on the facts as they&mdash;appear.&rdquo; He
+nodded through the large window to the stencilled <i>Devolution</i> awink with
+brass work in the morning sun, and ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and caught myself
+wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good God, Johnny!&rdquo; he said, dropping his lower lip like a child,
+&ldquo;this young pup says he has put us both out of action.
+Inconceivable&mdash;eh? My first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we
+do with him? What shall we do with him&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As far as I can see, there&rsquo;s no getting over the stencils,&rdquo;
+his companion answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t I have the nets down? Why didn&rsquo;t I have the nets
+down?&rdquo; The cry tore itself from Captain Panke&rsquo;s chest as he twisted
+his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose we&rsquo;d better wait and find out what the umpires will say.
+The Admiral won&rsquo;t be exactly pleased.&rdquo; Captain Malan spoke very
+soothingly. Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven.
+Pyecroft and I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had
+dropped into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for a lead.
+&ldquo;What&mdash;what are you going to do about it, Johnny&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if you don&rsquo;t want him, I&rsquo;m going to ask this young
+gentleman to breakfast, and then we&rsquo;ll make and mend clothes till the
+umpires have decided.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come with me,&rdquo; said Captain Malan. &ldquo;Your men had better go
+back in the dinghy to&mdash;their&mdash;own&mdash;ship.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I think so,&rdquo; said Moorshed, and passed out behind the
+captain. We followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended
+the ladder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: &ldquo;For
+Gawd&rsquo;s sake! &rsquo;Ere, come &rsquo;ere! For Gawd&rsquo;s sake!
+What&rsquo;s &rsquo;appened? Oh! come &rsquo;<i>ere</i> an&rsquo; tell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell? You?&rdquo; said Pyecroft. Neither man&rsquo;s lips moved, and the
+words were whispers: &ldquo;Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might
+begin to understand, not you&mdash;nor ever will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Captain Malan&rsquo;s galley away, Sir,&rdquo; cried a voice above; and
+one replied: &ldquo;Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the
+blue peter. We&rsquo;re out of action.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you do it, Sir?&rdquo; said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder.
+&ldquo;Do you think it is in the English language, or do you not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I can, but I&rsquo;ll try. If it takes me two years,
+I&rsquo;ll try.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I have, on
+the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of <i>opus alexandrinum</i>. My gold I
+have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with sepia of the sea,
+and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have substituted pale amethyst
+and mere jargoon. Because I would say again &ldquo;Disregarding the inventions
+of the Marine Captain whose other name is Gubbins, let a plain statement
+suffice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>THE KING&rsquo;S TASK</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,<br/>
+In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came.<br/>
+Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing,<br/>
+Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.<br/>
+<br/>
+Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde&mdash;<br/>
+Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword;<br/>
+Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood,<br/>
+And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred&rsquo;s Wood …<br/>
+<br/>
+They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,<br/>
+Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine;<br/>
+Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,<br/>
+The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.<br/>
+Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome<br/>
+Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.<br/>
+Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman&rsquo;s ire,<br/>
+Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.<br/>
+Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now<br/>
+If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER</h2>
+
+<p>
+Private Copper&rsquo;s father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper
+had studied under him. Five years&rsquo; army service had somewhat blunted
+Private Copper&rsquo;s pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory
+of the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one across
+turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger, or in this case
+an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet back-first advanced with
+caution, leaving his mates of the picket full a mile behind. The picket,
+concerned for its evening meal, did not protest. A year ago it would have been
+an officer&rsquo;s command, moving as such. To-day it paid casual allegiance to
+a Canadian, nominally a sergeant, actually a trooper of Irregular Horse,
+discovered convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and forthwith employed on odd
+jobs. Private Copper crawled up the side of a bluish rock-strewn hill thinly
+fringed with brush atop, and remembering how he had peered at Sussex conies
+through the edge of furze-clumps, cautiously parted the dry stems before his
+face. At the foot of the long slope sat three farmers smoking. To his natural
+lust for tobacco was added personal wrath because spiky plants were pricking
+his belly, and Private Copper slid the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good evening, Khaki. Please don&rsquo;t move,&rdquo; said a voice on his
+left, and as he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a
+well-kept Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn. Very few
+graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through the next ten
+seconds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen,&rdquo; said a young
+man in an obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of
+Private Copper&rsquo;s rifle. &ldquo;Thank <i>you</i>. We&rsquo;ve got a post
+of thirty-seven men out yonder. You&rsquo;ve eleven&mdash;eh? We don&rsquo;t
+want to kill &rsquo;em. We have no quarrel with poor uneducated Khakis, and we
+do not want prisoners we do not keep. It is demoralising to both
+sides&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Private Copper did not feel called upon to lay down the conduct of guerilla
+warfare. This dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed stranger was his first
+intimate enemy. He spoke, allowing for a clipped cadence that recalled to
+Copper vague memories of Umballa, in precisely the same offensive accent that
+the young squire of Wilmington had used fifteen years ago when he caught and
+kicked Alf Copper, a rabbit in each pocket, out of the ditches of Cuckmere. The
+enemy looked Copper up and down, folded and re-pocketed a copy of an English
+weekly which he had been reading, and said: &ldquo;You seem an inarticulate
+sort of swine&mdash;like the rest of them&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You,&rdquo; said Copper, thinking, somehow, of the crushing answers he
+had never given to the young squire, &ldquo;are a renegid. Why, you ain&rsquo;t
+Dutch. You&rsquo;re English, same as me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>No</i>, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow
+your head off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some six or
+eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain was working with
+a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience of Alf Copper. While he
+rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own jaws amazed him: &ldquo;If you did,
+&rsquo;twouldn&rsquo;t make you any less of a renegid.&rdquo; As a useful
+afterthought he added: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sprained my ankle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to rise, but,
+cross-legged under the rock, grunted: &ldquo;&rsquo;Ow much did old Krujer pay
+you for this? What was you wanted for at &rsquo;ome? Where did you desert
+from?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Khaki,&rdquo; said the young man, sitting down in his turn, &ldquo;you
+are a shade better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a
+yoke of oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant
+diseased beast like the rest of your people&mdash;eh? When you were at the
+Ragged Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy&mdash;&rsquo;istory I
+mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t need no schoolin&rsquo; to know a renegid,&rdquo; said
+Copper. He had made three yards down the hill&mdash;out of sight, unless they
+could see through rocks, of the enemy&rsquo;s smoking party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of
+&ldquo;True Affection.&rdquo; (Private Copper had not smoked a pipe for three
+weeks.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>You</i> don&rsquo;t get this&mdash;eh?&rdquo; said the young man.
+&ldquo;<i>We</i> do. We take it from the trains as we want it. You can keep the
+cake&mdash;you po-ah Tommee.&rdquo; Copper rammed the good stuff into his
+long-cold pipe and puffed luxuriously. Two years ago the sister of gunner-guard
+De Souza, East India Railway, had, at a dance given by the sergeants to the
+Allahabad Railway Volunteers, informed Copper that she could not think of
+waltzing with &ldquo;a poo-ah Tommee.&rdquo; Private Copper wondered why that
+memory should have returned at this hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to waste a little trouble on you before I send you back
+to your picket <i>quite</i> naked&mdash;eh? Then you can say how you were
+overpowered by twenty of us and fired off your last round&mdash;like the men we
+picked up at the drift playing cards at Stryden&rsquo;s farm&mdash;eh?
+What&rsquo;s your name&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Private Copper thought for a moment of a far-away housemaid who might still, if
+the local postman had not gone too far, be interested in his fate. On the other
+hand, he was, by temperament, economical of the truth. &ldquo;Pennycuik,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;John Pennycuik.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you. Well, Mr. John Pennycuik, I&rsquo;m going to teach you a
+little &rsquo;istory, as you&rsquo;d call it&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Ow!&rdquo; said Copper, stuffing his left hand in his mouth.
+&ldquo;So long since I&rsquo;ve smoked I&rsquo;ve burned my
+&rsquo;and&mdash;an&rsquo; the pipe&rsquo;s dropped too. No objection to my
+movin&rsquo; down to fetch it, is there&mdash;Sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got you covered,&rdquo; said the young man, graciously, and
+Private Copper, hopping on one leg, because of his sprain, recovered the pipe
+yet another three yards downhill and squatted under another rock slightly
+larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest for his captor,
+who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his rifle across his knee, his
+hand on the trigger-guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you were
+born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave country, England,
+sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie, to say that so long as the
+sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses the Transvaal would belong to
+England. Did you ever hear that, khaki&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh no, Sir,&rdquo; said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the
+rivers happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist of
+D Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war. Copper had
+thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and dry camps for
+intoning it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Of</i> course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen.&rdquo; He
+spat aside and cleared his throat. &ldquo;Because of that little promise, my
+father he moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm&mdash;a little place of
+twenty or thirty thousand acres, don&rsquo;t&mdash;you&mdash;know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured parody
+of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington squire&rsquo;s,
+and Copper found himself saying: &ldquo;I ought to. I&rsquo;ve &rsquo;elped
+burn some.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, you&rsquo;ll pay for that later. <i>And</i> he opened a
+store.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ho! Shopkeeper was he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The kind you call &ldquo;Sir&rdquo; and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik….
+You see, in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father
+did. <i>Then</i> the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat
+them six times running. You know <i>thatt</i>&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t what we&rsquo;ve come &rsquo;ere for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>But</i> my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the
+English. I suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that cheated
+him&mdash;eh? Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own country.
+<i>So</i>&mdash;you see&mdash;he was a little startled when he found himself
+handed over to the Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That&rsquo;s what it came
+to, Tommy&mdash;a prisoner of war. You know what that is&mdash;eh? England was
+too honourable and too gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms made
+for my father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So &rsquo;e made &rsquo;em &rsquo;imself. Useful old bird.&rdquo;
+Private Copper sliced up another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea
+of kopjes, through which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike
+quiet Cuckmere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man&rsquo;s face darkened. &ldquo;I think I shall sjambok you myself
+when I&rsquo;ve quite done with you. <i>No</i>, my father (he was a fool) made
+no terms for eight years&mdash;ninety-six months&mdash;and for every day of
+them the Transvaal made his life hell for my father and&mdash;his
+people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to hear that,&rdquo; said the impenitent Copper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you? You can think of it when I&rsquo;m taking the skin off your
+back&mdash;eh?… My father, he lost everything&mdash;everything down to his
+self-respect. You don&rsquo;t know what <i>thatt</i> means&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; said Copper. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m smokin&rsquo; baccy stole by a
+renegid. Why wouldn&rsquo;t I know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If it came to a flogging on that hillside there might be a chance of reprisals.
+Of course, he might be marched to the Boer camp in the next valley and there
+operated upon; but Army life teaches no man to cross bridges unnecessarily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, after eight years, my father, cheated by your bitch of a country,
+he found out who was the upper dog in South Africa.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s me,&rdquo; said Copper valiantly. &ldquo;If it takes
+another &rsquo;alf century, it&rsquo;s me an&rsquo; the likes of me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You? Heaven help you! You&rsquo;ll be screaming at a wagon-wheel in an
+hour…. Then it struck my father that he&rsquo;d like to shoot the people
+who&rsquo;d betrayed him. You&mdash;you&mdash;<i>you</i>! He told his son all
+about it. He told him never to trust the English. He told him to do them all
+the harm he could. Mann, I tell you, I don&rsquo;t want much telling. I was
+born in the Transvaal&mdash;I&rsquo;m a burgher. If my father didn&rsquo;t love
+the English, by the Lord, mann, I tell you, I hate them from the bottom of my
+soul.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voice quavered and ran high. Once more, for no conceivable reason, Private
+Copper found his inward eye turned upon Umballa cantonments of a dry dusty
+afternoon, when the saddle-coloured son of a local hotel-keeper came to the
+barracks to complain of a theft of fowls. He saw the dark face, the
+plover&rsquo;s-egg-tinted eyeballs, and the thin excited hands. Above all, he
+remembered the passionate, queerly-strung words. Slowly he returned to South
+Africa, using the very sentence his sergeant had used to the poultry man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on with your complaint. I&rsquo;m listenin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Complaint! Complaint about <i>you</i>, you ox! We strip and kick your
+sort by thousands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus deflected
+itself from the pit of Private Copper&rsquo;s stomach. His face was dusky with
+rage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yess, I&rsquo;m a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to
+find out how rotten you were. <i>We</i> know and you know it now. Your
+army&mdash;it is the laughing-stock of the Continent.&rdquo; He tapped the
+newspaper in his pocket. &ldquo;You think you&rsquo;re going to win, you poor
+fools. Your people&mdash;your own people&mdash;your silly rotten fools of
+people will crawl out of it as they did after Majuba. They are beginning now.
+Look what your own working classes, the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff
+that you come out of, are saying.&rdquo; He thrust the English weekly, doubled
+at the leading article, on Copper&rsquo;s knee. &ldquo;See what dirty dogs your
+masters are. They do not even back you in your dirty work. <i>We</i> cleared
+the country down to Ladysmith&mdash;to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to
+Colesberg.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we &rsquo;ad to clean up be&rsquo;ind you. Messy, I call it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve had to stop farm-burning because your people daren&rsquo;t
+do it. They were afraid. You daren&rsquo;t kill a spy. You daren&rsquo;t shoot
+a spy when you catch him in your own uniform. You daren&rsquo;t touch our
+loyall people in Cape Town! Your masters won&rsquo;t let you. You will feed our
+women and children till we are quite ready to take them back. <i>You</i>
+can&rsquo;t put your cowardly noses out of the towns you say you&rsquo;ve
+occupied. <i>You</i> daren&rsquo;t move a convoy twenty miles. You think
+you&rsquo;ve done something? You&rsquo;ve done nothing, and you&rsquo;ve taken
+a quarter of a million of men to do it! There isn&rsquo;t a nigger in South
+Africa that doesn&rsquo;t obey us if we lift our finger. You pay the stuff four
+pounds a month and they lie to you. <i>We</i> flog &rsquo;em, as I shall flog
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He clasped his hands together and leaned forward his out-thrust chin within two
+feet of Copper&rsquo;s left, or pipe hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yuss,&rdquo; said Copper, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a fair knock-out.&rdquo; The
+fist landed to a hair on the chin-point, the neck snicked like a gun-lock, and
+the back of the head crashed on the boulder behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Copper grabbed up both rifles, unshipped the cross-bandoliers, drew forth the
+English weekly, and picking up the lax hands, looked long and intently at the
+fingernails.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! Not a sign of it there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;&rsquo;Is nails are
+as clean as mine&mdash;but he talks just like &rsquo;em, though. And he&rsquo;s
+a landlord too! A landed proprietor! Shockin&rsquo;, I call it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The arms began to flap with returning consciousness. Private Copper rose up and
+whispered: &ldquo;If you open your head, I&rsquo;ll bash it.&rdquo; There was
+no suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. &ldquo;Now walk in front
+of me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I&rsquo;m only a third-class shot,
+so, if you don&rsquo;t object, I&rsquo;ll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly
+but firmly on your collar-button&mdash;coverin&rsquo; the serviceable
+vertebree. If your friends see us thus engaged, you
+pray&mdash;&rsquo;ard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of the
+afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of things I could say to you,&rdquo; Copper
+observed, at the close of the paroxysm, &ldquo;but it doesn&rsquo;t matter.
+Look &rsquo;ere, you call me &lsquo;pore Tommy&rsquo; again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The prisoner hesitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I ain&rsquo;t goin&rsquo; to do anythin&rsquo; <i>to</i> you.
+I&rsquo;m recon-noiterin&rsquo; in my own. Say &lsquo;pore Tommy&rsquo;
+&rsquo;alf-a-dozen times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The prisoner obeyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>That&rsquo;s</i> what&rsquo;s been puzzlin&rsquo; me since I
+&rsquo;ad the pleasure o&rsquo; meetin&rsquo; you,&rdquo; said Copper.
+&ldquo;You ain&rsquo;t &rsquo;alf-caste, but you talk
+<i>chee-chee</i>&mdash;<i>pukka</i> bazar chee-chee. <i>Pro</i>ceed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo,&rdquo; said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later,
+&ldquo;where did you round him up?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the top o&rsquo; yonder craggy mounting. There&rsquo;s a mob of
+&rsquo;em sitting round their Bibles seventeen &rsquo;undred yards (you said it
+was seventeen &rsquo;undred?) t&rsquo;other side&mdash;an&rsquo; I want some
+coffee.&rdquo; He sat down on the smoke-blackened stones by the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Ow did you get &rsquo;im?&rdquo; said McBride, professional
+humorist, quietly filching the English weekly from under Copper&rsquo;s armpit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the chin&mdash;while &rsquo;e was waggin&rsquo; it at me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is &rsquo;e? &rsquo;Nother Colonial rebel to be &rsquo;orribly
+disenfranchised, or a Cape Minister, or only a loyal farmer with dynamite in
+both boots. Tell us all about it, Burjer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You leave my prisoner alone,&rdquo; said Private Copper.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;E&rsquo;s &rsquo;ad losses an&rsquo; trouble; an&rsquo;
+it&rsquo;s in the family too. &rsquo;E thought I never read the papers, so
+&rsquo;e kindly lent me his very own <i>Jerrold&rsquo;s
+Weekly</i>&mdash;an&rsquo; &rsquo;e explained it to me as patronisin&rsquo; as
+a&mdash;as a militia subaltern doin&rsquo; Railway Staff Officer.
+&rsquo;E&rsquo;s a left-over from Majuba&mdash;one of the worst kind, an&rsquo;
+&rsquo;earin&rsquo; the evidence as I did, I don&rsquo;t exactly blame
+&rsquo;im. It was this way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life-history of
+his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an absolute fair
+rendering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin&rsquo; beggar,
+&rsquo;oo&rsquo;s people, on &rsquo;is own showin&rsquo;, couldn&rsquo;t
+&rsquo;ave been more than thirty or forty years in the coun&mdash;on this
+Gawd-forsaken dust-&rsquo;eap, comin&rsquo; the squire over me. They&rsquo;re
+all parsons&mdash;we know <i>that</i>, but parson <i>an&rsquo;</i> squire is a
+bit too thick for Alf Copper. Why, I caught &rsquo;im in the shameful act of
+tryin&rsquo; to start a aristocracy on a gun an&rsquo; a wagon an&rsquo; a
+<i>shambuk</i>! Yes; that&rsquo;s what it was: a bloomin&rsquo;
+aristocracy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it weren&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above
+the purloined weekly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re the aristocrat, Alf. Old
+<i>Jerrold&rsquo;s</i> givin&rsquo; it you &rsquo;ot. You&rsquo;re the
+uneducated &rsquo;ireling of a callous aristocracy which &rsquo;as sold itself
+to the &rsquo;Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky&rdquo;&mdash;he ran his finger
+down a column of assorted paragraphs&mdash;&ldquo;you&rsquo;re slakin&rsquo;
+your brutal instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin&rsquo; women an&rsquo;
+desolated &rsquo;omesteads is what you enjoy, Alf …, Halloa! What&rsquo;s a
+smokin&rsquo; &rsquo;ektacomb?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Ere! Let&rsquo;s look. &rsquo;Aven&rsquo;t seen a proper spicy
+paper for a year. Good old <i>Jerrold&rsquo;s!&rdquo;</i> Pinewood and Moppet,
+reservists, flung themselves on McBride&rsquo;s shoulders, pinning him to the
+ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lie over your own bloomin&rsquo; side of the bed, an&rsquo; we can all
+look,&rdquo; he protested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re only po-ah Tommies,&rdquo; said Copper, apologetically, to
+the prisoner. &ldquo;Po-ah unedicated Khakis. <i>They</i> don&rsquo;t know what
+they&rsquo;re fightin&rsquo; for. They&rsquo;re lookin&rsquo; for what the
+diseased, lying, drinkin&rsquo; white stuff that they come from is sayin&rsquo;
+about &rsquo;em!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the circle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t understand them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded sympathetically:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it comes to that, <i>we</i> don&rsquo;t in my country!… Say, boys,
+when you&rsquo;re through with your English mail you might&rsquo;s well provide
+an escort for your prisoner. He&rsquo;s waitin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arf a mo&rsquo;, Sergeant,&rdquo; said McBride, still reading.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Ere&rsquo;s Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of
+&rsquo;is lady friends, &rsquo;oo don&rsquo;t like concentration camps. Wish
+they&rsquo;d visit ours. Pinewood&rsquo;s a married man. He&rsquo;d know how to
+be&rsquo;ave!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I ain&rsquo;t goin&rsquo; to amuse my prisoner alone.
+&rsquo;E&rsquo;s gettin&rsquo; &rsquo;omesick,&rdquo; cried Copper. &ldquo;One
+of you thieves read out what&rsquo;s vexin&rsquo; Old Barbarity an&rsquo;
+&rsquo;is &rsquo;arem these days. You&rsquo;d better listen, Burjer, because,
+afterwards, I&rsquo;m goin&rsquo; to fall out an&rsquo; perpetrate those
+nameless barbarities all over you to keep up the reputation of the British
+Army.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff of
+Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did Pinewood of the
+Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the accredited leaders of
+His Majesty&rsquo;s Opposition. The night-picket arrived in the middle of it,
+but stayed entranced without paying any compliments, till Pinewood had entirely
+finished the leading article, and several occasional notes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen of the jury,&rdquo; said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had
+left to him of trousers&mdash;&ldquo;you&rsquo;ve &rsquo;eard what
+&rsquo;e&rsquo;s been fed up with. <i>Do</i> you blame the beggar? &rsquo;Cause
+I don&rsquo;t! … Leave &rsquo;im alone, McBride. He&rsquo;s my first and only
+cap-ture, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;m goin&rsquo; to walk &rsquo;ome with &rsquo;im,
+ain&rsquo;t I, Ducky? … Fall in, Burjer. It&rsquo;s Bermuda, or Umballa, or
+Ceylon for you&mdash;and I&rsquo;d give a month&rsquo;s pay to be in your
+little shoes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the
+prisoner&rsquo;s nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and
+began to struggle&mdash;kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all
+together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pore beggar&mdash;oh pore, <i>pore</i> beggar!&rdquo; said Alf, leaning
+in on one side of him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;E screams like a woman!&rdquo; said McBride. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll
+&rsquo;ear &rsquo;im five miles off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one or two ought to &rsquo;ear &rsquo;im&mdash;in
+England,&rdquo; said Copper, putting aside a wildly waving arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Married, ain&rsquo;t &rsquo;e?&rdquo; said Pinewood. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+seen &rsquo;em go like this before&mdash;just at the last. &rsquo;<i>Old</i>
+on, old man, No one&rsquo;s goin&rsquo; to &rsquo;urt you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the little,
+anxious, wriggling group.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quit that,&rdquo; said the Serjeant of a sudden. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+only making him worse. Hands <i>up</i>, prisoner! Now you get a holt of
+yourself, or this&rsquo;ll go off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man&rsquo;s panting chest seemed
+to act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between Copper
+and Pinewood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among the
+officers&rsquo; tents:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&rsquo;E sent us &rsquo;is blessin&rsquo; from London town,<br/>
+    (The beggar that kep&rsquo; the cordite down,)<br/>
+But what do we care if &rsquo;e smile or frown,<br/>
+    The beggar that kep&rsquo; the cordite down?<br/>
+The mildly nefarious<br/>
+Wildly barbarious<br/>
+    Beggar that kept the cordite down!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said a captain a mile away: &ldquo;Why are they singing <i>that?</i> We
+haven&rsquo;t had a mail for a month, have we?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An hour later the same captain said to his servant: &ldquo;Jenkins, I
+understand the picket have got a&mdash;got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day. I
+wish you could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the <i>Times</i>, I
+think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Sir. Copy of the <i>Times</i>, Sir,&rdquo; said Jenkins, without a
+quiver, and went forth to make his own arrangements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Copy of the <i>Times</i>,&rdquo; said the blameless Alf, from beneath
+his blanket. &ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t a member of the Soldier&rsquo;s Institoot. Go
+an&rsquo; look in the reg&rsquo;mental Readin&rsquo;-room&mdash;Veldt Row,
+Kopje Street, second turnin&rsquo; to the left between &rsquo;ere an&rsquo;
+Naauwport.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper need
+not be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But my particular copy of the <i>Times</i> is specially pro&rsquo;ibited
+by the censor from corruptin&rsquo; the morals of the Army. Get a written order
+from K. o&rsquo; K., properly countersigned, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll think about
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got all <i>you</i> want,&rdquo; said Jenkins.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Urry up. I want to &rsquo;ave a squint myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back smacking his
+lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. &rsquo;Ere you
+are, Jenkins. It&rsquo;s dirt cheap at a tot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>STEAM TACTICS</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>THE NECESSITARIAN</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+I know not in whose hands are laid<br/>
+    To empty upon earth<br/>
+From unsuspected ambuscade<br/>
+    The very Urns of Mirth:<br/>
+<br/>
+Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise<br/>
+    And cheer our solemn round&mdash;<br/>
+The Jest beheld with streaming eyes<br/>
+    And grovellings on the ground;<br/>
+<br/>
+Who joins the flats of Time and Chance<br/>
+    Behind the prey preferred,<br/>
+And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance<br/>
+    The Sacredly Absurd,<br/>
+<br/>
+Till Laughter, voiceless through excess.<br/>
+    Waves mute appeal and sore,<br/>
+Above the midriff&rsquo;s deep distress,<br/>
+    For breath to laugh once more.<br/>
+<br/>
+No creed hath dared to hail him Lord,<br/>
+    No raptured choirs proclaim,<br/>
+And Nature&rsquo;s strenuous Overword<br/>
+    Hath nowhere breathed his name.<br/>
+<br/>
+Yet, may it be, on wayside jape,<br/>
+    The selfsame Power bestows<br/>
+The selfsame power as went to shape<br/>
+    His Planet or His Rose.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>STEAM TACTICS</h2>
+
+<p>
+I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the narrow
+Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o&rsquo;clock, they were both asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference to his
+language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and specially of
+steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces of superior coachmen.
+Then he pulled slantwise across me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could be
+applied at pleasure….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cart was removed about a bowshot&rsquo;s length in seven and a quarter
+seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the next
+hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the tail-board.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The blighted egg-boiler has steam up,&rdquo; said Mr. Hinchcliffe,
+pausing to gather a large stone. &ldquo;Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till
+the sights come on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t leave my &rsquo;orse!&rdquo; roared the carrier;
+&ldquo;but bring &rsquo;em up &rsquo;ere, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll kill &rsquo;em
+all over again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft,&rdquo; I called cheerfully. &ldquo;Can I
+give you a lift anywhere?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The attack broke up round my forewheels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we <i>do</i> &rsquo;ave the knack o&rsquo; meeting <i>in puris
+naturalibus,</i> as I&rsquo;ve so often said.&rdquo; Mr. Pyecroft wrung my
+hand. &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m on leaf. So&rsquo;s Hinch. We&rsquo;re visiting
+friends among these kopjes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was still
+calling for corpses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s Agg. He&rsquo;s Hinch&rsquo;s cousin. You aren&rsquo;t
+fortunit in your family connections, Hinch. &rsquo;E&rsquo;s usin&rsquo;
+language in derogation of good manners. Go and abolish &rsquo;im.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his cousin. I
+recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the carrier&rsquo;s. It
+seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid throes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Ave it your own silly way, then,&rdquo; roared the carrier,
+&ldquo;an&rsquo; get into Linghurst on your own silly feet. I&rsquo;ve done
+with you two runagates.&rdquo; He lashed his horse and passed out of sight
+still rumbling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fleet&rsquo;s sailed,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, &ldquo;leavin&rsquo; us
+on the beach as before. Had you any particular port in your mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don&rsquo;t
+mind&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! that&rsquo;ll do as well as anything! We&rsquo;re on leaf, you
+see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;ll hardly hold four,&rdquo; said my engineer. I had broken him
+of the foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he walked
+in narrowing circles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s her speed?&rdquo; he demanded of the engineer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty-five,&rdquo; said that loyal man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Easy to run?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; very difficult,&rdquo; was the emphatic answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That just shows that you ain&rsquo;t fit for your rating. D&rsquo;you
+suppose that a man who earns his livin&rsquo; by runnin&rsquo; 30-knot
+destroyers for a parstime&mdash;for a parstime, mark you!&mdash;is going to lie
+down before any blighted land-crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked upward into
+pipes&mdash;petrol, steam, and water&mdash;with a keen and searching eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not&mdash;in&mdash;the&mdash;least,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;Steam
+gadgets always take him that way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green
+through his tryin&rsquo; to show a traction-engine haulin&rsquo; gipsy-wagons
+how to turn corners.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell him everything he wants to know,&rdquo; I said to the engineer, as
+I dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>He</i> don&rsquo;t want much showing,&rdquo; said the engineer. Now,
+the two men had not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been
+together more than three minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure
+of the hedge-foot, &ldquo;is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I
+shouldn&rsquo;t let too much o&rsquo; that hot muckings drop in my eyes. Your
+leaf&rsquo;s up in a fortnight, an&rsquo; you&rsquo;ll be wantin&rsquo;
+&rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here!&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer.
+&ldquo;Come here and show me the lead of this pipe.&rdquo; And the engineer lay
+down beside him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. &ldquo;But
+she&rsquo;s more of a bag of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure
+aft&rdquo;&mdash;he pointed to the back seat&mdash;&ldquo;and I&rsquo;ll have a
+look at the forced draught.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he had a
+brother an artificer in the Navy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They couple very well, those two,&rdquo; said Pyecroft critically, while
+Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay jets of
+steam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now take me up the road,&rdquo; he said. My man, for form&rsquo;s sake,
+looked at me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, take him,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s all right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not,&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe of a sudden&mdash;&ldquo;not
+if I&rsquo;m expected to judge my water out of a little shaving-glass.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right of the
+dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how
+you steer while you&rsquo;re doing it, or you&rsquo;ll get ditched!&rdquo; I
+cried, as the car ran down the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder!&rdquo; said Pyecroft, musing. &ldquo;But, after all,
+it&rsquo;s your steamin&rsquo; gadgets he&rsquo;s usin&rsquo; for his libretto,
+as you might put it. He said to me after breakfast only this mornin&rsquo;
+&rsquo;ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours, that he wouldn&rsquo;t see nor
+smell nor thumb a runnin&rsquo; bulgine till the nineteenth prox. Now look at
+him! Only look at &rsquo;im!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his seat
+to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge to hedge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What happens if he upsets?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How rambunkshus! And&rdquo;&mdash;Pyecroft blew a slow
+cloud&mdash;&ldquo;Agg&rsquo;s about three hoops up this mornin&rsquo;,
+too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that to do with us? He&rsquo;s gone down the road,&rdquo; I
+retorted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye&mdash;es, but we&rsquo;ll overtake him. He&rsquo;s a vindictive
+carrier. He and Hinch &rsquo;ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O&rsquo;
+course, Hinch don&rsquo;t know the elements o&rsquo; that evolution; but he
+fell back on &rsquo;is naval rank an&rsquo; office, an&rsquo; Agg grew peevish.
+I wasn&rsquo;t sorry to get out of the cart … Have you ever considered how,
+when you an&rsquo; I meet, so to say, there&rsquo;s nearly always a remarkable
+hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat returnin&rsquo;!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: &ldquo;In bow! Way
+&rsquo;nuff!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You be quiet!&rdquo; cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug,
+his dark face shining with joy. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s the Poetry o&rsquo; Motion!
+She&rsquo;s the Angel&rsquo;s Dream. She&rsquo;s&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; He
+shut off steam, and the slope being against her, the car slid soberly downhill
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this? I&rsquo;ve got the brake on!&rdquo; he yelled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t hold backwards,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Put her on the
+mid-link.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a nasty one for the chief engineer o&rsquo; the
+<i>Djinn</i>, 31-knot, T.B.D.,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;<i>Do</i> you know
+what the mid-link is, Hinch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the rug,
+Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she retired
+backwards into her own steam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Apparently &rsquo;e don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s he done now, Sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Reversed her. I&rsquo;ve done it myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he&rsquo;s an engineer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the third time the car manœuvred up the hill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you
+&rsquo;tiffies out all night!&rdquo; shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a
+quotation. Hinchcliffe&rsquo;s face grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly
+working on the throttle, the car buzzed twenty yards uphill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s enough. We&rsquo;ll take your word for it. The mountain
+will go to Ma&rsquo;ommed. Stand <i>fast</i>!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not as easy as it looks&mdash;eh, Hinch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is dead easy. I&rsquo;m going to drive her to Instead
+Wick&mdash;aren&rsquo;t I?&rdquo; said the first-class engine-room artificer. I
+thought of his performances with No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small
+privilege to accord to pure genius.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But my engineer will stand by&mdash;at first,&rdquo; I added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; you a family man, too,&rdquo; muttered Pyecroft, swinging
+himself into the right rear seat. &ldquo;Sure to be a remarkably hectic day
+when we meet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor, paved
+our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the engineer,
+and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had enjoyed the rack
+on which he voluntarily extended himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How cautious is the &rsquo;tiffy-bird!&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even in a destroyer,&rdquo; Hinch snapped over his shoulder, &ldquo;you
+ain&rsquo;t expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don&rsquo;t address any
+remarks to <i>me!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pump!&rdquo; said the engineer. &ldquo;Your water&rsquo;s
+droppin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>I</i> know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pass?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he found
+the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting all else,
+twisted it furiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching into a
+ditch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I was a burnin&rsquo; peacock, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my
+shinin&rsquo; tail, I&rsquo;d need &rsquo;em all on this job!&rdquo; said
+Hinch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t talk! Steer! This ain&rsquo;t the North Atlantic,&rdquo;
+Pyecroft replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blast my stokers! Why, the steam&rsquo;s dropped fifty pounds!&rdquo;
+Hinchcliffe cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fire&rsquo;s blown out,&rdquo; said the engineer. &ldquo;Stop
+her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does she do that often?&rdquo; said Hinch, descending.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sometimes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anytime?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Any time a cross-wind catches her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The engineer produced a match and stooped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit twice in
+the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and Pyecroft went out over
+the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow flame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen a mine explode at
+Bantry&mdash;once&mdash;prematoor,&rdquo; he volunteered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe, brushing down his
+singed beard with a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.)
+&ldquo;Has she any more little surprises up her dainty sleeve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She hasn&rsquo;t begun yet,&rdquo; said my engineer, with a scornful
+cough. &ldquo;Some one &rsquo;as opened the petrol-supply-valve too
+wide.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Change places with me, Pyecroft,&rdquo; I commanded, for I remembered
+that the petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all
+controlled from the right rear seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me? Why? There&rsquo;s a whole switchboard full o&rsquo; nickel-plated
+muckin&rsquo;s which I haven&rsquo;t begun to play with yet. The starboard
+side&rsquo;s crawlin&rsquo; with &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Change, or I&rsquo;ll kill you!&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe, and he looked
+like it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the &rsquo;tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame
+it on the lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! <i>I</i>
+won&rsquo;t help you any more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We navigated for a mile in dead silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Talkin&rsquo; o&rsquo; wakes&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; said Pyecroft
+suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We weren&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Hinchcliffe grunted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some wakes would break a snake&rsquo;s back; but this of
+yours, so to speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That&rsquo;s all I wish
+to observe, Hinch. … Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It&rsquo;s Agg!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier&rsquo;s
+cart at rest before the post-office.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s bung in the fairway. How&rsquo;m I to get past?&rdquo; said
+Hinchcliffe. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no room. Here, Pye, come and relieve the
+wheel!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, nay, Pauline. You&rsquo;ve made your own bed. You&rsquo;ve as good
+as left your happy home an&rsquo; family cart to steal it. Now you lie on
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ring your bell,&rdquo; I suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glory!&rdquo; said Pyecroft, falling forward into the nape of
+Hinchcliffe&rsquo;s neck as the car stopped dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get out o&rsquo; my back-hair! That must have been the brake I touched
+off,&rdquo; Hinchcliffe muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from the
+port-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered later that
+the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hinchcliffe wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the first
+vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t grip so hard,&rdquo; said my engineer. &ldquo;She
+steers as easy as a bicycle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an&rsquo; down my engine-room?&rdquo;
+was the answer. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve other things to think about. She&rsquo;s a
+terror. She&rsquo;s a whistlin&rsquo; lunatic. I&rsquo;d sooner run the old
+South-Easter at Simon&rsquo;s Town than her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One of the nice things they say about her,&rdquo; I interrupted,
+&ldquo;is that no engineer is needed to run this machine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. They&rsquo;d need about seven.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Common-sense only is needed,&rsquo;&rdquo; I quoted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common-sense,&rdquo; Pyecroft put in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll have to take in water. There
+isn&rsquo;t more than a couple of inches of water in the tank.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where d&rsquo;you get it from?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&mdash;cottages and such-like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but that being so, where does your much-advertised twenty-five
+miles an hour come in? Ain&rsquo;t a dung-cart more to the point?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you want to go anywhere, I suppose it would be,&rdquo; I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>I</i> don&rsquo;t want to go anywhere. I&rsquo;m thinkin&rsquo; of
+you who&rsquo;ve got to live with her. She&rsquo;ll burn her tubes if she loses
+her water?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never scorched yet, and I not beginnin&rsquo; now.&rdquo; He
+shut off steam firmly. &ldquo;Out you get, Pye, an&rsquo; shove her along by
+hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The nearest water-tank,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;And Sussex is a dry
+county.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She ought to have drag-ropes&mdash;little pipe-clayed ones,&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We got out and pushed under the hot sun for half-a-mile till we came to a
+cottage, sparsely inhabited by one child who wept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All out haymakin&rsquo;, o&rsquo; course,&rdquo; said Pyecroft,
+thrusting his head into the parlour for an instant. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the
+evolution now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Skirmish till we find a well,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hmm! But they wouldn&rsquo;t &rsquo;ave left that kid without a
+chaperon, so to say… I thought so! Where&rsquo;s a stick?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bluish and silent beast of the true old sheep-dog breed glided from behind an
+outhouse and without words fell to work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pyecroft kept him at bay with a rake-handle while our party, in
+rallying-square, retired along the box-bordered brick-path to the car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the garden gate the dumb devil halted, looked back on the child, and sat
+down to scratch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s his three-mile limit, thank Heaven!&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+&ldquo;Fall in, push-party, and proceed with land-transport o&rsquo; pinnace.
+I&rsquo;ll protect your flanks in case this sniffin&rsquo; flea-bag is tempted
+beyond &rsquo;is strength.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We pushed off in silence. The car weighed 1,200 lb., and even on ball-bearings
+was a powerful sudorific. From somewhere behind a hedge we heard a gross rustic
+laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Those are the beggars we lie awake for, patrollin&rsquo; the high seas.
+There ain&rsquo;t a port in China where we wouldn&rsquo;t be better treated.
+Yes, a Boxer &rsquo;ud be ashamed of it,&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A cloud of fine dust boomed down the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Some happy craft with a well-found engine-room! How different!&rdquo;
+panted Hinchcliffe, bent over the starboard mudguard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a claret-coloured petrol car, and it stopped courteously, as good cars
+will at sight of trouble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Water, only water,&rdquo; I answered in reply to offers of help.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They&rsquo;ll
+give you all you want. Say I sent you. Gregory&mdash;Michael Gregory.
+Good-bye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ought to &rsquo;ave been in the Service. Prob&rsquo;ly is,&rdquo; was
+Pyecroft&rsquo;s comment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not quote Mr.
+Hinchcliffe&rsquo;s remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber bucket with
+which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir Michael Gregory owned
+many acres, and that his park ran for miles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No objection to your going through it,&rdquo; said the lodge-keeper.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few miles
+farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had decreed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far,&rdquo; said
+Hinchcliffe (he was driving with greater freedom and less responsibility),
+&ldquo;and now we have to fill our bunkers. This is worse than the Channel
+Fleet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and lavishly
+oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our engineer on the
+grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely abreast of his work. To this
+I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in the language of the road, held up
+for a day and a half, and by most bitter experience I suspected that her time
+was very near. Therefore, three miles short of Linghurst, I was less surprised
+than any one, excepting always my engineer, when the engines set up a lunatic
+clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heaven forgive me all the harsh things I may have said about destroyers
+in my sinful time!&rdquo; wailed Hinchcliffe, snapping back the throttle.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s worryin&rsquo; Ada now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The forward eccentric-strap screw&rsquo;s dropped off,&rdquo; said the
+engineer, investigating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That all? I thought it was a propeller-blade.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must go an&rsquo; look for it. There isn&rsquo;t another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not me,&rdquo; said Pyecroft from his seat. &ldquo;Out pinnace, Hinch,
+an&rsquo; creep for it. It won&rsquo;t be more than five miles back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look like etymologists, don&rsquo;t they? Does she decant her innards
+often, so to speak?&rdquo; Pyecroft asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four miles
+along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was profoundly
+touched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor Hinch! Poor&mdash;poor Hinch!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And
+that&rsquo;s only one of her little games, is it? He&rsquo;ll be homesick for
+the Navy by night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was Hinchcliffe
+who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my engineer looked on
+admiringly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your boiler&rsquo;s only seated on four little paperclips,&rdquo; he
+said, crawling from beneath her. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a wicker-willow
+lunch-basket below. She&rsquo;s a runnin&rsquo; miracle. Have you had this
+combustible spirit-lamp long?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet you were afraid to come into the <i>Nightmare&rsquo;s</i>
+engine-room when we were runnin&rsquo; trials!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all a matter of taste,&rdquo; Pyecroft volunteered.
+&ldquo;But I will say for you, Hinch, you&rsquo;ve certainly got the hang of
+her steamin&rsquo; gadgets in quick time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and a
+tremor in his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She don&rsquo;t seem so answer her helm somehow,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of play to the steering-gear,&rdquo; said my
+engineer. &ldquo;We generally tighten it up every few miles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Like me to stop now? We&rsquo;ve run as much as one mile and a
+half without incident,&rdquo; he replied tartly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you&rsquo;re lucky,&rdquo; said my engineer, bristling in turn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;ll wreck the whole turret out o&rsquo; nasty professional
+spite in a minute,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the worst o&rsquo;
+machinery. Man dead ahead, Hinch&mdash;semaphorin&rsquo; like the flagship in a
+fit!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Amen!&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe. &ldquo;Shall I stop, or shall I cut him
+down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped, for full in the centre of the Linghurst Road stood a person in
+pepper-and-salt raiment (ready-made), with a brown telegraph envelope in his
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty-three and a half miles an hour,&rdquo; he began, weighing a small
+beam-engine of a Waterbury in one red paw. &ldquo;From the top of the hill over
+our measured quarter-mile&mdash;twenty-three and a half.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You manurial gardener&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; Hinchcliffe began. I prodded
+him warningly from behind, and laid the other hand on Pyecroft&rsquo;s
+stiffening knee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Also&mdash;on information received&mdash;drunk and disorderly in charge
+of a motor-car&mdash;to the common danger&mdash;two men like sailors in
+appearance,&rdquo; the man went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like sailors! … That&rsquo;s Agg&rsquo;s little <i>roose</i>. No wonder
+he smiled at us,&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been waiting for you some time,&rdquo; the man concluded,
+folding up the telegram.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the owner?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I indicated myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I want you as well as the two seafaring men. Drunk and disorderly
+can be treated summary. You come on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My relations with the Sussex constabulary have, so far, been of the best, but I
+could not love this person.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course you have your authority to show?&rdquo; I hinted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll show it you at Linghurst,&rdquo; he retorted
+hotly&mdash;&mdash;&ldquo;all the authority you want.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only want the badge, or warrant, or whatever it is a plain-clothes man
+has to show.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made as though to produce it, but checked himself, repeating less politely
+the invitation to Linghurst. The action and the tone confirmed my many-times
+tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing institutions are based on
+conformable strata of absolutely impervious inaccuracy. I reflected and became
+aware of a drumming on the back of the front seat that Pyecroft, bowed forward
+and relaxed, was tapping with his knuckles. The hardly-checked fury on
+Hinchcliffe&rsquo;s brow had given place to a greasy imbecility, and he nodded
+over the steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as laid down by the pious and
+immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, &ldquo;Sham drunk. Get him in the
+car.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stay here all day,&rdquo; said the constable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pyecroft raised his head. Then was seen with what majesty the British
+sailor-man envisages a new situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Met gennelman heavy sheeway,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Do tell me British
+gelman can&rsquo;t give &rsquo;ole Brish Navy lif&rsquo; own blighted
+ste&rsquo; cart. Have another drink!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know they were as drunk as all that when they stopped
+me,&rdquo; I explained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can say all that at Linghurst,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;Come
+on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite right,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;But the question is, if you take
+these two out on the road, they&rsquo;ll fall down or start killing you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;d call on you to assist me in the execution o&rsquo; my
+duty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I&rsquo;d see you further first. You&rsquo;d better come with us in
+the car. I&rsquo;ll turn this passenger out.&rdquo; (This was my engineer,
+sitting quite silent.) &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want him, and, anyhow, he&rsquo;d
+only be a witness for the defence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; said the constable. &ldquo;But it
+wouldn&rsquo;t make any odds&mdash;at Linghurst.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My engineer skipped into the bracken like a rabbit. I bade him cut across Sir
+Michael Gregory&rsquo;s park, and if he caught my friend, to tell him I should
+probably be rather late for lunch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t going to be driven by <i>him</i>.&rdquo; Our destined prey
+pointed at Hinchcliffe with apprehension.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course not. You take my seat and keep the big sailor in order.
+He&rsquo;s too drunk to do much. I&rsquo;ll change places with the other one.
+Only be quick; I want to pay my fine and get it over.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way to look at it,&rdquo; he said, dropping into the
+left rear seat. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re making quite a lot out o&rsquo; you motor
+gentry.&rdquo; He folded his arms judicially as the car gathered way under
+Hinchcliffe&rsquo;s stealthy hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But <i>you</i> aren&rsquo;t driving?&rdquo; he cried, half rising.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve noticed it?&rdquo; said Pyecroft, and embraced him with one
+anaconda-like left arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t kill him,&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe briefly. &ldquo;I want to
+show him what twenty-three and a quarter is.&rdquo; We were going a fair
+twelve, which was about the car&rsquo;s limit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our passenger swore something and then groaned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush, darling!&rdquo; said Pyecroft, &ldquo;or I&rsquo;ll have to hug
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running north to
+Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I want to see your authority.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The badge of your ratin&rsquo;?&rdquo; Pyecroft added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a constable,&rdquo; he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots
+would have bewrayed him across half a county&rsquo;s plough; but boots are not
+legal evidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want your authority,&rdquo; I repeated coldly; &ldquo;some evidence
+that you are not a common drunken tramp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had
+neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money and
+consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite trouble to
+supplement his deficiencies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t believe me, come to Linghurst,&rdquo; was the burden
+of his almost national anthem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I can&rsquo;t run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up
+and says he is a policeman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s quite close,&rdquo; he persisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twon&rsquo;t be&mdash;soon,&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, <i>they</i>
+was gentlemen,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;All I can say is, it may be very funny,
+but it ain&rsquo;t fair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten his
+badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub or barracks
+where he had left it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn&rsquo;t expect much
+more,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;Now, suppose I&rsquo;d been a lady in a
+delicate state o&rsquo; health&mdash;you&rsquo;d ha&rsquo; made me very ill
+with your doings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I &rsquo;ad. &rsquo;Ere! &rsquo;Elp! &rsquo;Elp! Hi!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane ran
+into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked her up that
+lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable came running
+heavily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform smiled as
+we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll know all about it in a little time,&rdquo; said our guest.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve only yourselves to thank for runnin&rsquo; your &rsquo;ead
+into a trap.&rdquo; And he whistled ostentatiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We made no answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that man &rsquo;ad chose, &rsquo;e could have identified me,&rdquo;
+he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still we were silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But &rsquo;e&rsquo;ll do it later, when you&rsquo;re caught.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not if you go on talking. &rsquo;E won&rsquo;t be able to,&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what traverse you think you&rsquo;re
+workin&rsquo;, but your duty till you&rsquo;re put in cells for a highway
+robber is to love, honour, an&rsquo; cherish <i>me</i> most
+special&mdash;performin&rsquo; all evolutions signalled in rapid time. I tell
+you this, in case o&rsquo; anything turnin&rsquo; up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you fret about things turnin&rsquo; up,&rdquo; was the
+reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set to
+work, when, without warning, the road&mdash;there are two or three in Sussex
+like it&mdash;turned down and ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Holy Muckins!&rdquo; he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless
+tyres slithered over wet grass and bracken&mdash;down and down into
+forest&mdash;early British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and that
+all should fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred our way. On the
+far side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits and fern, gently sloped
+upwards and away, but behind us was no hope. Forty horse-power would never have
+rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that verdurous cliff we had descended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m!&rdquo; Our guest coughed significantly. &ldquo;A great many
+cars thinks they can take this road; but they all come back. We walks after
+&rsquo;em at our convenience.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Meanin&rsquo; that the other jaunty is now pursuin&rsquo; us on his lily
+feet?&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Pre</i>cisely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; you think,&rdquo; said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the
+scorn of the words), &ldquo;<i>that&rsquo;ll</i> make any odds? Get out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man obeyed with alacrity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing.
+Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at the
+double.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a perfect
+understanding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down stream, laid aside after
+sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in the brook. Hinchcliffe
+rearranged these last to make some sort of causeway; I brought up the hurdles;
+and when Pyecroft and his subaltern had dropped a dozen hop-poles across the
+stream, laid them down over all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Talk o&rsquo; the Agricultur&rsquo;l Hall!&rdquo; he said, mopping his
+brow&mdash;&ldquo;&rsquo;tisn&rsquo;t in it with us. The approach to the bridge
+must now be paved with hurdles, owin&rsquo; to the squashy nature o&rsquo; the
+country. Yes, an&rsquo; we&rsquo;d better have one or two on the far side to
+lead her on to <i>terror fermior</i>. Now, Hinch! Give her full steam and
+&rsquo;op along. If she slips off, we&rsquo;re done. Shall I take the
+wheel?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. This is my job,&rdquo; said the first-class engine-room artificer.
+&ldquo;Get over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the
+uphill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken. Hinchcliffe
+gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her trial. There was a
+crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our arms fifty yards up the
+slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing her madly towards a patch of raw
+gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the bridge remained only a few wildly
+vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles which had been sunk in the mud of the
+approaches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&mdash;she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished
+with &rsquo;em,&rdquo; Hinchcliffe panted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the Agricultural Hall they would &rsquo;ave been fastened down with
+ribbons,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;But this ain&rsquo;t Olympia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don&rsquo;t you think I
+conned her like a cock-angel, Pye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>I</i> never saw anything like it,&rdquo; said our guest
+propitiatingly. &ldquo;And now, gentlemen, if you&rsquo;ll let me go back to
+Linghurst, I promise you you won&rsquo;t hear another word from me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get in,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road
+once more. &ldquo;We &rsquo;aven&rsquo;t begun on <i>you</i> yet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A joke&rsquo;s a joke,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind a
+little bit of a joke myself, but this is going beyond it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miles an&rsquo; miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We&rsquo;ll
+want water pretty soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our guest&rsquo;s countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me tell you,&rdquo; he said earnestly, &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t make
+any difference to you whatever happens. Barrin&rsquo; a dhow or two
+Tajurrah-way, prizes are scarce in the Navy. Hence we never abandon
+&rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Robert,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;have you a mother?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you a big brother?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; a little sister?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, Robert. I won&rsquo;t forget it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked for an explanation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o&rsquo;
+that cottage before faithful Fido turned up,&rdquo; Pyecroft whispered.
+&ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t you glad it&rsquo;s all in the family somehow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard&rsquo;s Forest,
+and, despite our increasing leakage, made shift to climb the ridge above
+Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final collapse would
+not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our guest well into the
+wilderness before that came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the roof of the world&mdash;a naked plateau clothed with young
+heather&mdash;she retired from active life in floods of tears. Her
+feed-water-heater (Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was
+leaking beyond hope of repair; she had shifted most of her packing, and her
+water-pump would not lift.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case
+an&rsquo; feed direct into the boiler. It &rsquo;ud knock down her speed, but
+we could get on,&rdquo; said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges
+that hove us above the panorama of Sussex. Northward we could see the London
+haze. Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the
+Channel&rsquo;s zinc-blue. But all our available population in that vast survey
+was one cow and a kestrel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by
+gravity,&rdquo; I said at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he&rsquo;ll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we
+take off &rsquo;is boots first,&rdquo; Pyecroft replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That,&rdquo; said our guest earnestly, &ldquo;would be theft atop of
+assault and very serious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, let&rsquo;s hang him an&rsquo; be done,&rdquo; Hinchcliffe grunted.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s evidently what he&rsquo;s sufferin&rsquo; for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to smoke in the
+heather, and presently out of the valley below came the thick beat of a
+petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it till I heard the roar of
+a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home Counties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the man I was going to lunch with!&rdquo; I cried.
+&ldquo;Hold on!&rdquo; and I ran down the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod; and it
+bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my own man, who for
+the first time in our acquaintance smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did they get you? What did you get? I was coming into Linghurst as
+witness to character&mdash;your man told me what happened&mdash;but I was
+stopped near Instead Wick myself,&rdquo; cried Kysh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leaving car unattended. An infernal swindle, when you think of the loose
+carts outside every pub in the county. I was jawing with the police for an
+hour, but it&rsquo;s no use. They&rsquo;ve got it all their own way, and
+we&rsquo;re helpless.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hereupon I told him my tale, and for proof, as we topped the hill, pointed out
+the little group round my car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All supreme emotion is dumb. Kysh put on the brake and hugged me to his bosom
+till I groaned. Then, as I remember, he crooned like a mother returned to her
+suckling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Divine! Divine!&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;Command me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take charge of the situation,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find a
+Mr. Pyecroft on the quarter-deck. I&rsquo;m altogether out of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He shall stay there. Who am I but the instrument of vengeance in the
+hands of an over-ruling Providence? (And I put in fresh sparking-plugs this
+morning.) Salmon, take that steam-kettle home, somehow. I would be
+alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leggat,&rdquo; I said to my man, &ldquo;help Salmon home with my
+car.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Home? Now? It&rsquo;s hard. It&rsquo;s cruel hard,&rdquo; said Leggat,
+almost with a sob.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hinchcliffe outlined my car&rsquo;s condition briefly to the two engineers. Mr.
+Pyecroft clung to our guest, who stared with affrighted eyes at the palpitating
+Octopod; and the free wind of high Sussex whimpered across the ling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am quite agreeable to walkin&rsquo; &rsquo;ome all the way on my
+feet,&rdquo; said our guest. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t go to any railway station.
+It &rsquo;ud be just the proper finish to our little joke.&rdquo; He laughed
+nervously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the evolution?&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;Do we turn over
+to the new cruiser?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I was in, he
+sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which controls the door.
+Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You drive?&rdquo; Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his
+chequered way through the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Steam only, and I&rsquo;ve about had my whack for to-day, thanks.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The long, low car slid forward and then dropped like a bullet down the descent
+our steam toy had so painfully climbed. Our guest&rsquo;s face blanched, and he
+clutched the back of the tonneau.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;New commander&rsquo;s evidently been trained on a destroyer,&rdquo; said
+Hinchcliffe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s &rsquo;is wonderful name?&rdquo; whispered Pyecroft.
+&ldquo;Ho! Well, I&rsquo;m glad it ain&rsquo;t Saul we&rsquo;ve run up
+against&mdash;nor Nimshi, for that matter. This is makin&rsquo; me feel
+religious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our impetus carried us half-way up the next slope, where we steadied to a
+resonant fifteen an hour against the collar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you think?&rdquo; I called to Hinchcliffe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Taint as sweet as steam, o&rsquo; course; but for power
+it&rsquo;s twice the <i>Furious</i> against half the <i>Jaseur</i> in a
+head-sea.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Volumes could not have touched it more exactly. His bright eyes were glued on
+Kysh&rsquo;s hands juggling with levers behind the discreet backward sloping
+dash.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; what sort of a brake might you use?&rdquo; he said politely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; Kysh replied, as the last of the hill shot up to one in
+eight. He let the car run back a few feet and caught her deftly on the brake,
+repeating the performance cup and ball fashion. It was like being daped above
+the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft held his breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It ain&rsquo;t fair! It ain&rsquo;t fair!&rdquo; our guest moaned.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re makin&rsquo; me sick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What an ungrateful blighter he is!&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;Money
+couldn&rsquo;t buy you a run like this … Do it well overboard!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I
+think,&rdquo; said Kysh. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a bit of good going
+hereabouts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He flung a careless knee over the low raking tiller that the ordinary expert
+puts under his armpit, and down four miles of yellow road, cut through barren
+waste, the Octopod sang like a six-inch shell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! But you know your job,&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re wasted here. I&rsquo;d give something to have you in my
+engine-room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s steering with &rsquo;is little hind-legs,&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft. &ldquo;Stand up and look at him, Robert. You&rsquo;ll never see such
+a sight again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor don&rsquo;t want to,&rdquo; was our guest&rsquo;s reply. &ldquo;Five
+&rsquo;undred pounds wouldn&rsquo;t begin to cover &rsquo;is fines even since
+I&rsquo;ve been with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Park Row is reached by one hill which drops three hundred feet in half a mile.
+Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but the manner in
+which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my few remaining hairs
+much nearer the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re in Surrey now; better look out,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind. I&rsquo;ll roll her into Kent for a bit. We&rsquo;ve lots of
+time; it&rsquo;s only three o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you want to fill your bunkers, or take water, or oil her
+up?&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t use water, and she&rsquo;s good for two hundred on one
+tank o&rsquo; petrol if she doesn&rsquo;t break down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two hundred miles from &rsquo;ome and mother <i>and</i> faithful Fido
+to-night, Robert,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, slapping our guest on the knee.
+&ldquo;Cheer up! Why, I&rsquo;ve known a destroyer do less.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We passed with some decency through some towns, till by way of the Hastings
+road we whirled into Cramberhurst, which is a deep pit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Kysh, &ldquo;we begin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Previous service not reckoned towards pension,&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+&ldquo;We are doin&rsquo; you lavish, Robert.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But when&rsquo;s this silly game to finish, any&rsquo;ow?&rdquo; our
+guest snarled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry about the <i>when</i> of it, Robert. The
+<i>where&rsquo;s</i> the interestin&rsquo; point for you just now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had seen Kysh drive before, and I thought I knew the Octopod, but that
+afternoon he and she were exalted beyond my knowledge. He improvised on the
+keys&mdash;the snapping levers and quivering accelerators&mdash;marvellous
+variations, so that our progress was sometimes a fugue and sometimes a
+barn-dance, varied on open greens by the weaving of fairy rings. When I
+protested, all that he would say was: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll hypnotise the fowl!
+I&rsquo;ll dazzle the rooster!&rdquo; or other words equally futile. And
+she&mdash;oh! that I could do her justice!&mdash;she turned her broad black
+bows to the westering light, and lifted us high upon hills that we might see
+and rejoice with her. She whooped into veiled hollows of elm and Sussex oak;
+she devoured infinite perspectives of park palings; she surged through
+forgotten hamlets, whose single streets gave back, reduplicated, the clatter of
+her exhaust, and, tireless, she repeated the motions. Over naked uplands she
+droned like a homing bee, her shadow lengthening in the sun that she chased to
+his lair. She nosed up unparochial byways and accommodation-roads of the least
+accommodation, and put old scarred turf or new-raised molehills under her most
+marvellous springs with never a jar. And since the King&rsquo;s highway is used
+for every purpose save traffic, in mid-career she stepped aside for, or flung
+amazing loops about, the brainless driver, the driverless horse, the drunken
+carrier, the engaged couple, the female student of the bicycle and her
+staggering instructor, the pig, the perambulator, and the infant school (where
+it disembogued yelping on cross-roads), with the grace of Nellie Farren (upon
+whom be the Peace) and the lithe abandon of all the Vokes family. But at heart
+she was ever Judic as I remember that Judic long ago&mdash;Judic clad in
+bourgeois black from wrist to ankle, achieving incredible improprieties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were silent&mdash;Hinchcliffe and Pyecroft through professional
+appreciation; I with a layman&rsquo;s delight in the expert; and our guest
+because of fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the edge of the evening she smelt the sea to southward and sheered thither
+like the strong-winged albatross, to circle enormously amid green flats fringed
+by martello towers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t that Eastbourne yonder?&rdquo; said our guest, reviving.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a aunt there&mdash;she&rsquo;s cook to a J.P.&mdash;could
+identify me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry her for a little thing like that,&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft; and ere he had ceased to praise family love, our unpaid judiciary,
+and domestic service, the Downs rose between us and the sea, and the Long Man
+of Hillingdon lay out upon the turf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trevington&mdash;up yonder&mdash;is a fairly isolated little
+dorp,&rdquo; I said, for I was beginning to feel hungry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Kysh. &ldquo;He&rsquo;d get a lift to the railway in no
+time…. Besides, I&rsquo;m enjoying myself…. Three pounds eighteen and sixpence.
+Infernal swindle!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I take it one of his more recent fines was rankling in Kysh&rsquo;s brain; but
+he drove like the Archangel of the Twilight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About the longitude of Cassocks, Hinchcliffe yawned. &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t we
+goin&rsquo; to maroon our Robert? I&rsquo;m hungry, too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The commodore wants his money back,&rdquo; I answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he drives like this habitual, there must be a tidyish little lump
+owin&rsquo; to him,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m
+agreeable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know it could be done. S&rsquo;welp me, I
+didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; our guest murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you will,&rdquo; said Kysh. And that was the first and last time he
+addressed the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We ran through Penfield Green, half stupefied with open air, drugged with the
+relentless boom of the Octopod, and extinct with famine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I used to shoot about here,&rdquo; said Kysh, a few miles further on.
+&ldquo;Open that gate, please,&rdquo; and he slowed as the sun touched the
+sky-line. At this point we left metalled roads and bucked vigorously amid
+ditches and under trees for twenty minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only cross-country car on the market,&rdquo; he said, as we wheeled into
+a straw-yard where a lone bull bellowed defiance to our growlings. &ldquo;Open
+that gate, please. I hope the cattle-bridge will stand up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve took a few risks in my time,&rdquo; said Pyecroft as timbers
+cracked beneath us and we entered between thickets, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m a babe
+to this man, Hinch.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t talk to me. Watch <i>him!</i> It&rsquo;s a liberal
+education, as Shakespeare says. Fallen tree on the port bow, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right! That&rsquo;s my mark. Sit tight!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She flung up her tail like a sounding whale and buried us in a fifteen-foot
+deep bridle-path buttressed with the exposed roots of enormous beeches. The
+wheels leaped from root to rounded boulder, and it was very dark in the shadow
+of the foliage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There ought to be a hammer-pond somewhere about here.&rdquo; Kysh was
+letting her down this chute in brakeful spasms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Water dead ahead, Sir. Stack o&rsquo; brushwood on the starboard beam,
+and&mdash;no road,&rdquo; sang Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cr-r-ri-key!&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe, as the car on a wild cant to the
+left went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung the
+pond. &ldquo;If she only had two propellers, I believe she&rsquo;d talk poetry.
+She can do everything else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re rather on our port wheels now,&rdquo; said Kysh; &ldquo;but
+I don&rsquo;t think she&rsquo;ll capsize. This road isn&rsquo;t used much by
+motors.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t say so,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;What a pity!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She bored through a mass of crackling brushwood, and emerged into an upward
+sloping fern-glade fenced with woods so virgin, so untouched, that William
+Rufus might have ridden off as we entered. We climbed out of the violet-purple
+shadows towards the upland where the last of the day lingered. I was filled to
+my moist eyes with the almost sacred beauty of sense and association that clad
+the landscape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does &rsquo;unger produce &rsquo;alluciations?&rdquo; said Pyecroft in a
+whisper. &ldquo;Because I&rsquo;ve just seen a sacred ibis walkin&rsquo; arm in
+arm with a British cock-pheasant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you panickin&rsquo; at?&rdquo; said Hinchcliffe.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been seein&rsquo; zebra for the last two minutes, but I
+&rsquo;aven&rsquo;t complained.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted zebra (Burchell&rsquo;s, I
+think), following our track with palpitating nostrils. The car stopped, and it
+fled away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a little pond in front of us from which rose a dome of irregular
+sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled beast that sat upon its haunches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it catching?&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I&rsquo;m seeing beaver,&rdquo; I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is here!&rdquo; said Kysh, with the air and gesture of Captain Nemo,
+and half turned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;no! For &rsquo;Eaven&rsquo;s sake&mdash;not
+&rsquo;ere!&rdquo; Our guest gasped like a sea-bathed child, as four efficient
+hands swung him far out-board on to the turf. The car ran back noiselessly down
+the slope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look! Look! It&rsquo;s sorcery!&rdquo; cried Hinchcliffe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver dived from the roof of his
+lodge, but we watched our guest. He was on his knees, praying to kangaroos.
+Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos&mdash;gigantic, erect,
+silhouetted against the light&mdash;four buck-kangaroos in the heart of Sussex!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our hind-wheels struck
+well-rolled gravel, leading us to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour later,
+the &ldquo;Grapnel Inn&rdquo; at Horsham.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings in honour of
+Kysh, who received our homage graciously, and, by the way, explained a few
+things in the natural history line that had puzzled us. England is a most
+marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows the eccentricities of large
+land-owners, trained to accept kangaroos, zebras, or beavers as part of its
+landscape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we went to bed Pyecroft pressed my hand, his voice thick with emotion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We owe it to you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We owe it all to you.
+Didn&rsquo;t I say we never met in <i>pup-pup-puris naturalibus</i>, if I may
+so put it, without a remarkably hectic day ahead of us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Mind the candle.&rdquo; He
+was tracing smoke-patterns on the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what I want to know is whether we&rsquo;ll succeed in
+acclimatisin&rsquo; the blighter, or whether Sir William Gardner&rsquo;s
+keepers &rsquo;ll kill &rsquo;im before &rsquo;e gets accustomed to &rsquo;is
+surroundin&rsquo;s?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some day, I think, we must go up the Linghurst Road and find out.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>&ldquo;WIRELESS&rdquo;</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>KASPAR&rsquo;S SONG IN VARDA</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+(<i>From the Swedish of Stagnelius</i>.)
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+    Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,<br/>
+    The children follow where Psyche flies,<br/>
+And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,<br/>
+    Slash with a net at the empty skies.<br/>
+<br/>
+So it goes they fall amid brambles,<br/>
+    And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,<br/>
+Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles<br/>
+    They wipe their brows, and the hunting stops.<br/>
+<br/>
+Then to quiet them comes their father<br/>
+    And stills the riot of pain and grief,<br/>
+Saying, &ldquo;Little ones, go and gather<br/>
+    Out of my garden a cabbage leaf.<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;You will find on it whorls and clots of<br/>
+    Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,<br/>
+Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of<br/>
+    Radiant Psyches raised from the dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,&rdquo;<br/>
+    The three-dimensioned preacher saith,<br/>
+So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie<br/>
+    For Psyche&rsquo;s birth … And that is our death!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>&ldquo;WIRELESS&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a funny thing, this Marconi business, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+said Mr. Shaynor, coughing heavily. &ldquo;Nothing seems to make any
+difference, by what they tell me&mdash;storms, hills, or anything; but if
+that&rsquo;s true we shall know before morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course it&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; I answered, stepping behind the
+counter. &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s old Mr. Cashell?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s had to go to bed on account of his influenza. He said
+you&rsquo;d very likely drop in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s his nephew?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Inside, getting the things ready. He told me that the last time they
+experimented they put the pole on the roof of one of the big hotels here, and
+the batteries electrified all the water-supply, and&rdquo;&mdash;he
+giggled&mdash;&ldquo;the ladies got shocks when they took their baths.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never heard of that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The hotel wouldn&rsquo;t exactly advertise it, would it? Just now, by
+what Mr. Cashell tells me, they&rsquo;re trying to signal from here to Poole,
+and they&rsquo;re using stronger batteries than ever. But, you see, he being
+the guvnor&rsquo;s nephew and all that (and it will be in the papers too), it
+doesn&rsquo;t matter how they electrify things in this house. Are you going to
+watch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very much. I&rsquo;ve never seen this game. Aren&rsquo;t you going to
+bed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t close till ten on Saturdays. There&rsquo;s a good deal of
+influenza in town, too, and there&rsquo;ll be a dozen prescriptions coming in
+before morning. I generally sleep in the chair here. It&rsquo;s warmer than
+jumping out of bed every time. Bitter cold, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Freezing hard. I&rsquo;m sorry your cough&rsquo;s worse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you. I don&rsquo;t mind cold so much. It&rsquo;s this wind that
+fair cuts me to pieces.&rdquo; He coughed again hard and hackingly, as an old
+lady came in for ammoniated quinine. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve just run out of it in
+bottles, madam,&rdquo; said Mr. Shaynor, returning to the professional tone,
+&ldquo;but if you will wait two minutes, I&rsquo;ll make it up for you,
+madam.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had used the shop for some time, and my acquaintance with the proprietor had
+ripened into friendship. It was Mr. Cashell who revealed to me the purpose and
+power of Apothecaries&rsquo; Hall what time a fellow-chemist had made an error
+in a prescription of mine, had lied to cover his sloth, and when error and lie
+were brought home to him had written vain letters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A disgrace to our profession,&rdquo; said the thin, mild-eyed man,
+hotly, after studying the evidence. &ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t do a better
+service to the profession than report him to Apothecaries&rsquo; Hall.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did so, not knowing what djinns I should evoke; and the result was such an
+apology as one might make who had spent a night on the rack. I conceived great
+respect for Apothecaries&rsquo; Hall, and esteem for Mr. Cashell, a zealous
+craftsman who magnified his calling. Until Mr. Shaynor came down from the North
+his assistants had by no means agreed with Mr. Cashell. &ldquo;They
+forget,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that, first and foremost, the compounder is a
+medicine-man. On him depends the physician&rsquo;s reputation. He holds it
+literally in the hollow of his hand, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Shaynor&rsquo;s manners had not, perhaps, the polish of the grocery and
+Italian warehouse next door, but he knew and loved his dispensary work in every
+detail. For relaxation he seemed to go no farther afield than the romance of
+drugs&mdash;their discovery, preparation packing, and export&mdash;but it led
+him to the ends of the earth, and on this subject, and the Pharmaceutical
+Formulary, and Nicholas Culpepper, most confident of physicians, we met.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Little by little I grew to know something of his beginnings and his
+hopes&mdash;of his mother, who had been a school-teacher in one of the northern
+counties, and of his red-headed father, a small job-master at Kirby Moors, who
+died when he was a child; of the examinations he had passed and of their
+exceeding and increasing difficulty; of his dreams of a shop in London; of his
+hate for the price-cutting Co-operative stores; and, most interesting, of his
+mental attitude towards customers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a way you get into,&rdquo; he told me, &ldquo;of serving
+them carefully, and I hope, politely, without stopping your own thinking.
+I&rsquo;ve been reading Christie&rsquo;s <i>New Commercial Plants</i> all this
+autumn, and that needs keeping your mind on it, I can tell you. So long as it
+isn&rsquo;t a prescription, of course, I can carry as much as half a page of
+Christie in my head, and at the same time I could sell out all that window
+twice over, and not a penny wrong at the end. As to prescriptions, I think I
+could make up the general run of &rsquo;em in my sleep, almost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For reasons of my own, I was deeply interested in Marconi experiments at their
+outset in England; and it was of a piece with Mr. Cashell&rsquo;s unvarying
+thoughtfulness that, when his nephew the electrician appropriated the house for
+a long-range installation, he should, as I have said, invite me to see the
+result.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old lady went away with her medicine, and Mr. Shaynor and I stamped on the
+tiled floor behind the counter to keep ourselves warm. The shop, by the light
+of the many electrics, looked like a Paris-diamond mine, for Mr. Cashell
+believed in all the ritual of his craft. Three superb glass jars&mdash;red,
+green, and blue&mdash;of the sort that led Rosamund to parting with her
+shoes&mdash;blazed in the broad plate-glass windows, and there was a confused
+smell of orris, Kodak films, vulcanite, tooth-powder, sachets, and almond-cream
+in the air. Mr. Shaynor fed the dispensary stove, and we sucked cayenne-pepper
+jujubes and menthol lozenges. The brutal east wind had cleared the streets, and
+the few passers-by were muffled to their puckered eyes. In the Italian
+warehouse next door some gay feathered birds and game, hung upon hooks, sagged
+to the wind across the left edge of our window-frame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They ought to take these poultry in&mdash;all knocked about like
+that,&rdquo; said Mr. Shaynor. &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t it make you feel fair
+perishing? See that old hare! The wind&rsquo;s nearly blowing the fur off
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw the belly-fur of the dead beast blown apart in ridges and streaks as the
+wind caught it, showing bluish skin underneath. &ldquo;Bitter cold,&rdquo; said
+Mr. Shaynor, shuddering. &ldquo;Fancy going out on a night like this! Oh,
+here&rsquo;s young Mr. Cashell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door of the inner office behind the dispensary opened, and an energetic,
+spade-bearded man stepped forth, rubbing his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want a bit of tin-foil, Shaynor,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good-evening.
+My uncle told me you might be coming.&rdquo; This to me, as I began the first
+of a hundred questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve everything in order,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re
+only waiting until Poole calls us up. Excuse me a minute. You can come in
+whenever you like&mdash;but I&rsquo;d better be with the instruments. Give me
+that tin-foil. Thanks.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While we were talking, a girl&mdash;evidently no customer&mdash;had come into
+the shop, and the face and bearing of Mr. Shaynor changed. She leaned
+confidently across the counter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; I heard him whisper uneasily&mdash;the flush
+on his cheek was dull red, and his eyes shone like a drugged moth&rsquo;s.
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t. I tell you I&rsquo;m alone in the place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, you aren&rsquo;t. Who&rsquo;s <i>that</i>? Let him look after it for
+half an hour. A brisk walk will do you good. Ah, come now, John.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he isn&rsquo;t&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care. I want you to; we&rsquo;ll only go round by St.
+Agnes. If you don&rsquo;t&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He crossed to where I stood in the shadow of the dispensary counter, and began
+some sort of broken apology about a lady-friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she interrupted. &ldquo;You take the shop for half an
+hour&mdash;to oblige <i>me</i>, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had a singularly rich and promising voice that well matched her outline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do it&mdash;but you&rsquo;d
+better wrap yourself up, Mr. Shaynor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, a brisk walk ought to help me. We&rsquo;re only going round by the
+church.&rdquo; I heard him cough grievously as they went out together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I refilled the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell&rsquo;s
+coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the glass-knobbed
+drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting drugs, and, by the aid
+of a few cardamoms, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and dilute alcohol,
+manufactured a new and wildish drink, of which I bore a glassful to young Mr.
+Cashell, busy in the back office. He laughed shortly when I told him that Mr.
+Shaynor had stepped out&mdash;but a frail coil of wire held all his attention,
+and he had no word for me bewildered among the batteries and rods. The noise of
+the sea on the beach began to make itself heard as the traffic in the street
+ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly, he gave me the names and uses of the
+mechanism that crowded the tables and the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When do you expect to get the message from Poole?&rdquo; I demanded,
+sipping my liquor out of a graduated glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About midnight, if everything is in order. We&rsquo;ve got our
+installation-pole fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn&rsquo;t advise you
+to turn on a tap or anything tonight. We&rsquo;ve connected up with the
+plumbing, and all the water will be electrified.&rdquo; He repeated to me the
+history of the agitated ladies at the hotel at the time of the first
+installation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what <i>is</i> it?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Electricity is out of my
+beat altogether.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, if you knew <i>that</i> you&rsquo;d know something nobody knows.
+It&rsquo;s just It&mdash;what we call Electricity, but the magic&mdash;the
+manifestations&mdash;the Hertzian waves&mdash;are all revealed by <i>this</i>.
+The coherer, we call it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in which, almost
+touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an infinitesimal pinch
+of metallic dust. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all,&rdquo; he said, proudly, as though
+himself responsible for the wonder. &ldquo;That is the thing that will reveal
+to us the Powers&mdash;whatever the Powers may be&mdash;at work&mdash;through
+space&mdash;a long distance away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then Mr. Shaynor returned alone and stood coughing his heart out on the
+mat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Serves you right for being such a fool,&rdquo; said young Mr. Cashell,
+as annoyed as myself at the interruption. &ldquo;Never mind&mdash;we&rsquo;ve
+all the night before us to see wonders.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shaynor clutched the counter, his handkerchief to his lips. When he brought it
+away I saw two bright red stains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got a bit of a rasped throat from smoking
+cigarettes,&rdquo; he panted. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll try a cubeb.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Better take some of this. I&rsquo;ve been compounding while you&rsquo;ve
+been away.&rdquo; I handed him the brew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twon&rsquo;t make me drunk, will it? I&rsquo;m almost a
+teetotaller. My word! That&rsquo;s grateful and comforting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat down the empty glass to cough afresh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Brr! But it was cold out there! I shouldn&rsquo;t care to be lying in my
+grave a night like this. Don&rsquo;t <i>you</i> ever have a sore throat from
+smoking?&rdquo; He pocketed the handkerchief after a furtive peep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes, sometimes,&rdquo; I replied, wondering, while I spoke, into
+what agonies of terror I should fall if ever I saw those bright-red
+danger-signals under my nose. Young Mr. Cashell among the batteries coughed
+slightly to show that he was quite ready to continue his scientific
+explanations, but I was thinking still of the girl with the rich voice and the
+significantly cut mouth, at whose command I had taken charge of the shop. It
+flashed across me that she distantly resembled the seductive shape on a
+gold-framed toilet-water advertisement whose charms were unholily heightened by
+the glare from the red bottle in the window. Turning to make sure, I saw Mr.
+Shaynor&rsquo;s eyes bent in the same direction, and by instinct recognised
+that the flamboyant thing was to him a shrine. &ldquo;What do you take for
+your&mdash;cough?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m the wrong side of the counter to believe much in patent
+medicines. But there are asthma cigarettes and there are pastilles. To tell you
+the truth, if you don&rsquo;t object to the smell, which is very like incense,
+I believe, though I&rsquo;m not a Roman Catholic, Blaudett&rsquo;s Cathedral
+Pastilles relieve me as much as anything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s try.&rdquo; I had never raided a chemist&rsquo;s shop
+before, so I was thorough. We unearthed the pastilles&mdash;brown, gummy cones
+of benzoin&mdash;and set them alight under the toilet-water advertisement,
+where they fumed in thin blue spirals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said Mr. Shaynor, to my question, &ldquo;what one uses
+in the shop for one&rsquo;s self comes out of one&rsquo;s pocket. Why,
+stock-taking in our business is nearly the same as with jewellers&mdash;and I
+can&rsquo;t say more than that. But one gets them&rdquo;&mdash;he pointed to
+the pastille-box&mdash;&ldquo;at trade prices.&rdquo; Evidently the censing of
+the gay, seven-tinted wench with the teeth was an established ritual which cost
+something.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And when do we shut up shop?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We stay like this all night. The gov&mdash;old Mr.
+Cashell&mdash;doesn&rsquo;t believe in locks and shutters as compared with
+electric light. Besides it brings trade. I&rsquo;ll just sit here in the chair
+by the stove and write a letter, if you don&rsquo;t mind. Electricity
+isn&rsquo;t my prescription.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The energetic young Mr. Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled himself up
+in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black, and yellow Austrian
+jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast about, amid patent medicine
+pamphlets, for something to read, but finding little, returned to the
+manufacture of the new drink. The Italian warehouse took down its game and went
+to bed. Across the street blank shutters flung back the gaslight in cold
+smears; the dried pavement seemed to rough up in goose-flesh under the scouring
+of the savage wind, and we could hear, long ere he passed, the policeman
+flapping his arms to keep himself warm. Within, the flavours of cardamoms and
+chloric-ether disputed those of the pastilles and a score of drugs and perfume
+and soap scents. Our electric lights, set low down in the windows before the
+tun-bellied Rosamund jars, flung inward three monstrous daubs of red, blue, and
+green, that broke into kaleidoscopic lights on the facetted knobs of the
+drug-drawers, the cut-glass scent flagons, and the bulbs of the sparklet
+bottles. They flushed the white-tiled floor in gorgeous patches; splashed along
+the nickel-silver counter-rails, and turned the polished mahogany
+counter-panels to the likeness of intricate grained marbles&mdash;slabs of
+porphyry and malachite. Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and ere he began to
+write, took out a meagre bundle of letters. From my place by the stove, I could
+see the scalloped edges of the paper with a flaring monogram in the corner and
+could even smell the reek of chypre. At each page he turned toward the
+toilet-water lady of the advertisement and devoured her with over-luminous
+eyes. He had drawn the Austrian blanket over his shoulders, and among those
+warring lights he looked more than ever the incarnation of a drugged
+moth&mdash;a tiger-moth as I thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put his letter into an envelope, stamped it with stiff mechanical movements,
+and dropped it in the drawer. Then I became aware of the silence of a great
+city asleep&mdash;the silence that underlaid the even voice of the breakers
+along the sea-front&mdash;a thick, tingling quiet of warm life stilled down for
+its appointed time, and unconsciously I moved about the glittering shop as one
+moves in a sick-room. Young Mr. Cashell was adjusting some wire that crackled
+from time to time with the tense, knuckle-stretching sound of the electric
+spark. Upstairs, where a door shut and opened swiftly, I could hear his uncle
+coughing abed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; I said, when the drink was properly warmed, &ldquo;take
+some of this, Mr. Shaynor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He jerked in his chair with a start and a wrench, and held out his hand for the
+glass. The mixture, of a rich port-wine colour, frothed at the top.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It looks,&rdquo; he said, suddenly, &ldquo;it looks&mdash;those
+bubbles&mdash;like a string of pearls winking at you&mdash;rather like the
+pearls round that young lady&rsquo;s neck.&rdquo; He turned again to the
+advertisement where the female in the dove-coloured corset had seen fit to put
+on all her pearls before she cleaned her teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not bad, is it?&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rolled his eyes heavily full on me, and, as I stared, I beheld all meaning
+and consciousness die out of the swiftly dilating pupils. His figure lost its
+stark rigidity, softened into the chair, and, chin on chest, hands dropped
+before him, he rested open-eyed, absolutely still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I&rsquo;ve rather cooked Shaynor&rsquo;s goose,&rdquo;
+I said, bearing the fresh drink to young Mr. Cashell. &ldquo;Perhaps it was the
+chloric-ether.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s all right.&rdquo; The spade-bearded man glanced at him
+pityingly. &ldquo;Consumptives go off in those sort of doses very often.
+It&rsquo;s exhaustion… I don&rsquo;t wonder. I dare say the liquor will do him
+good. It&rsquo;s grand stuff,&rdquo; he finished his share appreciatively.
+&ldquo;Well, as I was saying&mdash;before he interrupted&mdash;about this
+little coherer. The pinch of dust, you see, is nickel-filings. The Hertzian
+waves, you see, come out of space from the station that despatches &rsquo;em,
+and all these little particles are attracted together&mdash;cohere, we call
+it&mdash;for just so long as the current passes through them. Now, it&rsquo;s
+important to remember that the current is an induced current. There are a good
+many kinds of induction&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but what <i>is</i> induction?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s rather hard to explain untechnically. But the long and the
+short of it is that when a current of electricity passes through a wire
+there&rsquo;s a lot of magnetism present round that wire; and if you put
+another wire parallel to, and within what we call its magnetic field&mdash;why
+then, the second wire will also become charged with electricity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On its own account?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On its own account.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then let&rsquo;s see if I&rsquo;ve got it correctly. Miles off, at
+Poole, or wherever it is&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be anywhere in ten years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got a charged wire&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Charged with Hertzian waves which vibrate, say, two hundred and thirty
+million times a second.&rdquo; Mr. Cashell snaked his forefinger rapidly
+through the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right&mdash;a charged wire at Poole, giving out these waves into
+space. Then this wire of yours sticking out into space&mdash;on the roof of the
+house&mdash;in some mysterious way gets charged with those waves from
+Poole&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or anywhere&mdash;it only happens to be Poole tonight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And those waves set the coherer at work, just like an ordinary
+telegraph-office ticker?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! That&rsquo;s where so many people make the mistake. The Hertzian
+waves wouldn&rsquo;t be strong enough to work a great heavy Morse instrument
+like ours. They can only just make that dust cohere, and while it coheres (a
+little while for a dot and a longer while for a dash) the current from this
+battery&mdash;the home battery&rdquo;&mdash;he laid his hand on the
+thing&mdash;&ldquo;can get through to the Morse printing-machine to record the
+dot or dash. Let me make it clearer. Do you know anything about steam?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very little. But go on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, the coherer is like a steam-valve. Any child can open a valve and
+start a steamer&rsquo;s engines, because a turn of the hand lets in the main
+steam, doesn&rsquo;t it? Now, this home battery here ready to print is the main
+steam. The coherer is the valve, always ready to be turned on. The Hertzian
+wave is the child&rsquo;s hand that turns it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see. That&rsquo;s marvellous.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Marvellous, isn&rsquo;t it? And, remember, we&rsquo;re only at the
+beginning. There&rsquo;s nothing we sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be able to do in ten
+years. I want to live&mdash;my God, how I want to live, and see it
+develop!&rdquo; He looked through the door at Shaynor breathing lightly in his
+chair. &ldquo;Poor beast! And he wants to keep company with Fanny Brand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fanny <i>who</i>?&rdquo; I said, for the name struck an obscurely
+familiar chord in my brain&mdash;something connected with a stained
+handkerchief, and the word &ldquo;arterial.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fanny Brand&mdash;the girl you kept shop for.&rdquo; He laughed,
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all I know about her, and for the life of me I can&rsquo;t
+see what Shaynor sees in her, or she in him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Can&rsquo;t</i> you see what he sees in her?&rdquo; I insisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes, if <i>that&rsquo;s</i> what you mean. She&rsquo;s a great, big,
+fat lump of a girl, and so on. I suppose that&rsquo;s why he&rsquo;s so crazy
+after her. She isn&rsquo;t his sort. Well, it doesn&rsquo;t matter. My uncle
+says he&rsquo;s bound to die before the year&rsquo;s out. Your drink&rsquo;s
+given him a good sleep, at any rate.&rdquo; Young Mr. Cashell could not catch
+Mr. Shaynor&rsquo;s face, which was half turned to the advertisement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stoked the stove anew, for the room was growing cold, and lighted another
+pastille. Mr. Shaynor in his chair, never moving, looked through and over me
+with eyes as wide and lustreless as those of a dead hare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poole&rsquo;s late,&rdquo; said young Mr. Cashell, when I stepped back.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just send them a call.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pressed a key in the semi-darkness, and with a rending crackle there leaped
+between two brass knobs a spark, streams of sparks, and sparks again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Grand, isn&rsquo;t it? <i>That&rsquo;s</i> the Power&mdash;our unknown
+Power&mdash;kicking and fighting to be let loose,&rdquo; said young Mr.
+Cashell. &ldquo;There she goes&mdash;kick&mdash;kick&mdash;kick into space. I
+never get over the strangeness of it when I work a sending-machine&mdash;waves
+going into space, you know. T.R. is our call. Poole ought to answer with
+L.L.L.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom of the
+tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear
+&ldquo;<i>kiss&mdash;kiss&mdash;kiss</i>&rdquo; of the halliards on the roof,
+as they were blown against the installation-pole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poole is not ready. I&rsquo;ll stay here and call you when he is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I returned to the shop, and set down my glass on a marble slab with a careless
+clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed once more on the
+advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the light from the red jar
+simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved without cessation. I stepped
+nearer to listen. &ldquo;And threw&mdash;and threw&mdash;and threw,&rdquo; he
+repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words&mdash;delivered
+roundly and clearly. These:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine&rsquo;s young breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his place,
+rubbing his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading and
+prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read Keats, or could
+quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a certain stained-glass
+effect of light on the high bosom of the highly-polished picture which might,
+by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a vile chromo recalls some incomparable
+canvas, the line he had spoken. Night, my drink, and solitude were evidently
+turning Mr. Shaynor into a poet. He sat down again and wrote swiftly on his
+villainous note-paper, his lips quivering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made no sign
+that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read, amid half-formed
+words, sentences, and wild scratches:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&mdash;Very cold it was. Very cold<br/>
+The hare&mdash;the hare&mdash;the hare&mdash;<br/>
+The birds&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of the
+poulterer&rsquo;s shop where they jutted out against our window. Then one clear
+line came:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where the
+Blaudett&rsquo;s Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and went
+on:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Incense in a censer&mdash;<br/>
+Before her darling picture framed in gold&mdash;<br/>
+Maiden&rsquo;s picture&mdash;angel&rsquo;s portrait&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hsh!&rdquo; said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though
+in the presence of spirits. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s something coming through from
+somewhere; but it isn&rsquo;t Poole.&rdquo; I heard the crackle of sparks as he
+depressed the keys of the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something
+crackled, or it might have been the hair on my head. Then I heard my own voice,
+in a harsh whisper: &ldquo;Mr. Cashell, there is something coming through here,
+too. Leave me alone till I tell you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I thought you&rsquo;d come to see this wonderful
+thing&mdash;Sir,&rdquo; indignantly at the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I watched&mdash;I waited. Under the blue-veined hand&mdash;the dry hand of the
+consumptive&mdash;came away clear, without erasure:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+And my weak spirit fails<br/>
+To think how the dead must freeze&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+he shivered as he wrote&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Beneath the churchyard mould.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
+rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most dispassionately
+considered my own soul as that fought with an over-mastering fear. Then I smelt
+the strong smell of cigarettes from Mr. Shaynor&rsquo;s clothing, and heard, as
+though it had been the rending of trumpets, the rattle of his breathing. I was
+still in my place of observation, much as one would watch a rifle-shot at the
+butts, half-bent, hands on my knees, and head within a few inches of the black,
+red, and yellow blanket of his shoulder. I was whispering encouragement,
+evidently to my other self, sounding sentences, such as men pronounce in
+dreams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn&rsquo;t&mdash;like
+causes <i>must</i> beget like effects. There is no escape from this law.
+<i>You</i> ought to be grateful that you know &lsquo;St. Agnes Eve&rsquo;
+without the book; because, given the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is
+the key of the enigma, and approximately represents the latitude and longitude
+of Fanny Brawne; allowing also for the bright red colour of the arterial blood
+upon the handkerchief, which was just what you were puzzling over in the shop
+just now; and counting the effect of the professional environment, here almost
+perfectly duplicated&mdash;the result is logical and inevitable. As inevitable
+as induction.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was cowering in
+some minute and inadequate corner&mdash;at an immense distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my knees,
+and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers accept and
+explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of the dead, with
+excerpts from the evening hymn or the multiplication-table, so I had accepted
+the facts, whatever they might be, that I should witness, and had devised a
+theory, sane and plausible to my mind, that explained them all. Nay, I was even
+in advance of my facts, walking hurriedly before them, assured that they would
+fit my theory. And all that I now recall of that epoch-making theory are the
+lofty words: &ldquo;If he has read Keats it&rsquo;s the chloric-ether. If he
+hasn&rsquo;t, it&rsquo;s the identical bacillus, or Hertzian wave of
+tuberculosis, <i>plus</i> Fanny Brand and the professional status which, in
+conjunction with the main-stream of subconscious thought common to all mankind,
+has thrown up temporarily an induced Keats.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with
+swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote, muttering:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+The little smoke of a candle that goes out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Little smoke&mdash;little
+smoke&mdash;little smoke. What else?&rdquo; He thrust his chin forward toward
+the advertisement, whereunder the last of the Blaudett&rsquo;s Cathedral
+pastilles fumed in its holder. &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; Then with relief:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote and
+rewrote &ldquo;gold&mdash;cold&mdash;mould&rdquo; many times. Again he sought
+inspiration from the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I
+had overheard:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine&rsquo;s young breast.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+As I remembered the original it is &ldquo;fair&rdquo;&mdash;a trite
+word&mdash;instead of &ldquo;young,&rdquo; and I found myself nodding approval,
+though I admitted that the attempt to reproduce &ldquo;its little smoke in
+pallid moonlight died&rdquo; was a failure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose&mdash;the naked
+soul&rsquo;s confession of its physical yearning for its beloved&mdash;unclean
+as we count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw
+material, so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence Keats wove
+the twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem. Shame I had none in
+overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone with the smoke of the
+pastille.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s it,&rdquo; I murmured. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s how it&rsquo;s
+blocked out. Go on! Ink it in, man. Ink it in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein &ldquo;loveliness&rdquo; was made
+to rhyme with a desire to look upon &ldquo;her empty dress.&rdquo; He picked up
+a fold of the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with
+infinite tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I could not
+decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped the stuff. Here I
+found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I do now) in what manner a
+red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket coloured his dreams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the shop
+with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket, rose, passed
+along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the labels aloud.
+Returning, he took from his desk Christie&rsquo;s <i>New Commercial Plants</i>
+and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them side by side
+with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face, read first in one
+and then in the other, and paused with pen behind his ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What wonder of Heaven&rsquo;s coming now?&rdquo; I thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Manna&mdash;manna&mdash;manna,&rdquo; he said at last, under wrinkled
+brows. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good!
+Oh, by God, that&rsquo;s good!&rdquo; His voice rose and he spoke rightly and
+fully without a falter:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,<br/>
+And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,<br/>
+And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,<br/>
+Manna and dates in Argosy transferred<br/>
+From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one<br/>
+From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He repeated it once more, using &ldquo;blander&rdquo; for
+&ldquo;smoother&rdquo; in the second line; then wrote it down without erasure,
+but this time (my set eyes missed no stroke of any word) he substituted
+&ldquo;soother&rdquo; for his atrocious second thought, so that it came away
+under his hand as it is written in the book&mdash;as it is written in the book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind followed a
+spurt and rattle of rain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a smiling pause&mdash;and good right had he to smile&mdash;he began anew,
+always tossing the last sheet over his shoulder:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;The sharp rain falling on the window-pane,<br/>
+Rattling sleet&mdash;the wind-blown sleet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then prose: &ldquo;It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and
+sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and thought of
+you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we could both run away
+like two lovers into the storm and get that little cottage by the sea which we
+are always thinking about, my own dear darling. We could sit and watch the sea
+beneath our windows. It would be a fairyland all of our own&mdash;a fairy
+sea&mdash;a fairy sea….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the Channel
+along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up a note to the
+sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to flood. It beat in like
+the change of step throughout an army&mdash;this renewed pulse of the
+sea&mdash;and filled our ears till they, accepting it, marked it no longer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;A fairyland for you and me<br/>
+Across the foam&mdash;beyond …<br/>
+A magic foam, a perilous sea.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but I dared
+not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was drawing him
+nearer and nearer to the high-water mark but two of the sons of Adam have
+reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted there are no more than
+five&mdash;five little lines&mdash;of which one can say: &ldquo;These are the
+pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry.&rdquo; And Mr.
+Shaynor was playing hot and cold with two of them!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold soul, and
+pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and re-repeating:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+A savage spot as holy and enchanted<br/>
+As e&rsquo;er beneath a waning moon was haunted<br/>
+By woman wailing for her demon lover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon the
+writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals and
+cigarette-smoke.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+(he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Our open casements facing desolate seas<br/>
+Forlorn&mdash;forlorn&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I had first
+seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was tenfold keener.
+As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It lighted his face from
+within till I thought the visibly scourged soul must leap forth naked between
+his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of sweat trickled from my forehead down my
+nose and splashed on the back of my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Our windows facing on the desolate seas<br/>
+And pearly foam of magic fairyland&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not yet&mdash;not yet,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;wait a minute.
+<i>Please</i> wait a minute. I shall get it then&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Our magic windows fronting on the sea,<br/>
+The dangerous foam of desolate seas …<br/>
+For aye.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<i>Ouh</i>, my God!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From head to heel he shook&mdash;shook from the marrow of his bones
+outwards&mdash;then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair
+screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind and fell
+with a jar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had a bit of a doze,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How did I come to
+knock the chair over? You look rather&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The chair startled me,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It was so sudden in
+this quiet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose I must have been dreaming,&rdquo; said Mr. Shaynor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose you must,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Talking of
+dreams&mdash;I&mdash;I noticed you writing&mdash;before&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He flushed consciously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I meant to ask you if you&rsquo;ve ever read anything written by a man
+called Keats.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! I haven&rsquo;t much time to read poetry, and I can&rsquo;t say that
+I remember the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Middling. I thought you might know him because he&rsquo;s the only poet
+who was ever a druggist. And he&rsquo;s rather what&rsquo;s called the
+lover&rsquo;s poet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A lot of things. Here&rsquo;s a sample that may interest you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and once
+written not ten minutes ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah. Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the
+tinctures and syrups. It&rsquo;s a fine tribute to our profession.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness,
+opening the door one half-inch, &ldquo;if you still happen to be interested in
+our trifling experiments. But, should such be the case&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I drew him aside, whispering, &ldquo;Shaynor seemed going off into some sort of
+fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of being rude, it
+wouldn&rsquo;t do to take you off your instruments just as the call was coming
+through. Don&rsquo;t you see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Granted&mdash;granted as soon as asked,&rdquo; he said unbending.
+&ldquo;I <i>did</i> think it a shade odd at the time. So that was why he
+knocked the chair down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope I haven&rsquo;t missed anything,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+afraid I can&rsquo;t say that, but you&rsquo;re just in time for the end of a
+rather curious performance. You can come in, too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen, while I
+read it off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted:
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals</i>.&rsquo;&rdquo; A
+pause. &ldquo;&lsquo;<i>M.M.V. M.M.V. Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor
+Sandown Bay. Examine instruments to-morrow.&rsquo;</i> Do you know what that
+means? It&rsquo;s a couple of men-o&rsquo;-war working Marconi signals off the
+Isle of Wight. They are trying to talk to each other. Neither can read the
+other&rsquo;s messages, but all their messages are being taken in by our
+receiver here. They&rsquo;ve been going on for ever so long. I wish you could
+have heard it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How wonderful!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Do you mean we&rsquo;re overhearing
+Portsmouth ships trying to talk to each other&mdash;that we&rsquo;re
+eavesdropping across half South England?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are out
+of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing clear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why is that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God knows&mdash;and Science will know to-morrow. Perhaps the induction
+is faulty; perhaps the receivers aren&rsquo;t tuned to receive just the number
+of vibrations per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here and
+there. Just enough to tantalise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again the Morse sprang to life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s one of &rsquo;em complaining now. Listen:
+&lsquo;<i>Disheartening&mdash;most disheartening</i>.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s quite
+pathetic. Have you ever seen a spiritualistic seance? It reminds me of that
+sometimes&mdash;odds and ends of messages coming out of nowhere&mdash;a word
+here and there&mdash;no good at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But mediums are all impostors,&rdquo; said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway,
+lighting an asthma-cigarette. &ldquo;They only do it for the money they can
+make. I&rsquo;ve seen &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s Poole, at last&mdash;clear as a bell. L.L.L. <i>Now</i> we
+sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be long.&rdquo; Mr. Cashell rattled the keys merrily.
+&ldquo;Anything you&rsquo;d like to tell &rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t think so,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go home and
+get to bed. I&rsquo;m feeling a little tired.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>THE ARMY OF A DREAM</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>SONG OF THE OLD GUARD</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work shall the
+candlestick be made: his shaft and its branches, his bowls, his knops, and his
+flowers, shall be the same.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop
+under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same,
+according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick. Their knops
+and their branches shall be the same.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Exodus.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+    &ldquo;Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear<br/>
+    And all the clouds are gone&mdash;<br/>
+The Proper Sort shall flourish now,<br/>
+    Good times are coming on&rdquo;&mdash;<br/>
+The evil that was threatened late<br/>
+    To all of our degree,<br/>
+Hath passed in discord and debate,<br/>
+    And, <i>Hey then up go we!</i><br/>
+<br/>
+A common people strove in vain<br/>
+    To shame us unto toil,<br/>
+But they are spent and we remain,<br/>
+    And we shall share the spoil<br/>
+According to our several needs<br/>
+    As Beauty shall decree,<br/>
+As Age ordains or Birth concedes,<br/>
+    And, <i>Hey then up go we!</i><br/>
+<br/>
+And they that with accursed zeal<br/>
+    Our Service would amend,<br/>
+Shall own the odds and come to heel<br/>
+    Ere worse befall their end<br/>
+For though no naked word be wrote<br/>
+    Yet plainly shall they see<br/>
+What pinneth Orders to their coat,<br/>
+    And, <i>Hey then up go we!</i><br/>
+<br/>
+Our doorways that, in time of fear,<br/>
+    We opened overwide<br/>
+Shall softly close from year to year<br/>
+    Till all be purified;<br/>
+For though no fluttering fan be heard<br/>
+    Nor chaff be seen to flee&mdash;<br/>
+The Lord shall winnow the Lord&rsquo;s Preferred&mdash;<br/>
+    And, <i>Hey then up go we!</i><br/>
+<br/>
+Our altars which the heathen brake<br/>
+    Shall rankly smoke anew,<br/>
+And anise, mint, and cummin take<br/>
+    Their dread and sovereign due,<br/>
+Whereby the buttons of our trade<br/>
+    Shall all restored be<br/>
+With curious work in gilt and braid,<br/>
+    And, <i>Hey then up go we!</i><br/>
+<br/>
+Then come, my brethren, and prepare<br/>
+    The candlesticks and bells,<br/>
+The scarlet, brass, and badger&rsquo;s hair<br/>
+    Wherein our Honour dwells,<br/>
+And straitly fence and strictly keep<br/>
+    The Ark&rsquo;s integrity<br/>
+Till Armageddon break our sleep …<br/>
+    And, <i>Hey then up go we!</i>
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>THE ARMY OF A DREAM</h2>
+
+<h3>PART I</h3>
+
+<p>
+I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+It was entirely natural that I should be talking to &ldquo;Boy&rdquo; Bayley.
+We had met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside
+Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount Nelson
+Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half the night. Boy
+Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think he stayed a long, long
+time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now he had come back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you still a Tynesider?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my
+son,&rdquo; he replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guard which? They&rsquo;ve been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don&rsquo;t
+pull my leg, Boy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said Guard, not Guard-<i>s</i>. The I. G. Battalion of the
+Tail-twisters. Does that make it any clearer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not in the least.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren&rsquo;t a step
+from barracks. Keep on my right side. I&rsquo;m&mdash;I&rsquo;m a bit deaf on
+the near.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied pile,
+which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I could see no
+sentry at the gates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There ain&rsquo;t any,&rdquo; said the Boy lightly. He led me into a
+many-tabled restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of
+the room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These
+are our chaps&mdash;but what am I thinking of? You must know most of &rsquo;em.
+Devine&rsquo;s my second in command now. There&rsquo;s old
+Luttrell&mdash;remember him at Cherat?&mdash;Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at
+school with him), Harrison, Pigeon, and Kyd.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember that
+they had all been Tynesiders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen this sort of place,&rdquo; I said, looking round.
+&ldquo;Half the men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and
+children doing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eating, I hope,&rdquo; Boy Bayley answered. &ldquo;Our canteens would
+never pay if it wasn&rsquo;t for the Line and Militia trade. When they were
+first started people looked on &rsquo;em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a
+duchess or two to lunch in &rsquo;em, and they&rsquo;ve been grossly
+fashionable since.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I see,&rdquo; I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the
+Stores came up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of
+the corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three other
+uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I give it up,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;This is guilty splendour that I
+don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite simple,&rdquo; said Burgard across the table. &ldquo;The barrack
+supplies breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard
+(which we call I. G.) when it&rsquo;s in barracks as well as to the Line and
+Militia. They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for them.
+That&rsquo;s where we make our profits. Look!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in the
+raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to jest with the
+uniforms about them; and when one o&rsquo;clock clanged from a big half-built
+block of flats across the street, filed out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Those,&rdquo; Devine explained, &ldquo;are either our Line or
+Militiamen, as such entitled to the regulation whack at regulation cost.
+It&rsquo;s cheaper than they could buy it; an&rsquo; they meet their friends
+too. A man&rsquo;ll walk a mile in his dinner hour to mess with his own
+lot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a minute,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;Will you tell me what those
+plumbers and plasterers and bricklayers that I saw go out just now have to do
+with what I was taught to call the Line?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell him,&rdquo; said the Boy over his shoulder to Burgard. He was busy
+talking with the large Verschoyle, my old schoolmate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Line comes next to the Guard. The Linesman&rsquo;s generally a
+town-bird who can&rsquo;t afford to be a Volunteer. He has to go into camp in
+an Area for two months his first year, six weeks his second, and a month the
+third. He gets about five bob a week the year round for that and for being on
+duty two days of the week, and for being liable to be ordered out to help the
+Guard in a row. He needn&rsquo;t live in barracks unless he wants to, and he
+and his family can feed at the regimental canteen at usual rates. The women
+like it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All this,&rdquo; I said politely, but intensely, &ldquo;is the raving of
+delirium. Where may your precious recruit who needn&rsquo;t live in barracks
+learn his drill?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At his precious school, my child, like the rest of us. The notion of
+allowing a human being to reach his twentieth year before asking him to put his
+feet in the first position <i>was</i> raving lunacy if you like!&rdquo; Boy
+Bayley dived back into the conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; I said meekly. &ldquo;I accept the virtuous plumber
+who puts in two months of his valuable time at Aldershot&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aldershot!&rdquo; The table exploded. I felt a little annoyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A camp in an Area is not exactly Aldershot,&rdquo; said Burgard.
+&ldquo;The Line isn&rsquo;t exactly what you fancy. Some of them even come to
+<i>us</i>!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You recruit from &rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said Devine with mock solemnity. &ldquo;The
+Guard doesn&rsquo;t recruit. It selects.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;with a Spiers and Pond restaurant;
+pretty girls to play with; and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A room apiece, four bob a day and all found,&rdquo; said Verschoyle.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t forget that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It probably beats off recruits with a
+club.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, with the ballot-box,&rdquo; said Verschoyle, laughing. &ldquo;At
+least in all R.C. companies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know Roman Catholics were so particular,&rdquo; I
+ventured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They grinned. &ldquo;R.C. companies,&rdquo; said the Boy, &ldquo;mean Right of
+Choice. When a company has been very good and pious for a long time it may, if
+the C.O. thinks fit, choose its own men&mdash;all same one-piecee club. All our
+companies are R.C.&rsquo;s, and as the battalion is making up a few vacancies
+ere starting once more on the wild and trackless &lsquo;heef&rsquo; into the
+Areas, the Linesman is here in force to-day sucking up to our non-coms.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would some one mind explaining to me the meaning of every other word
+you&rsquo;ve used,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s a trackless
+&lsquo;heef&rsquo;? What&rsquo;s an Area? What&rsquo;s everything
+generally?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, &lsquo;heef&rsquo;s&rsquo; part of the British Constitution,&rdquo;
+said the Boy. &ldquo;It began long ago when they&rsquo;d first mapped out the
+big military manoeuvring grounds&mdash;we call &rsquo;em Areas for
+short&mdash;where the I. G. spend two-thirds of their time and the other
+regiments get their training. It was slang originally for beef on the hoof,
+because in the Military Areas two-thirds of your meat-rations at least are
+handed over to you on the hoof, and you make your own arrangements. The word
+&lsquo;heef&rsquo; became a parable for camping in the Military Areas and all
+its miseries. There are two Areas in Ireland, one in Wales for hill-work, a
+couple in Scotland, and a sort of parade-ground in the Lake District; but the
+real working Areas are in India, Africa, and Australia, and so on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what do you do there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We &lsquo;heef&rsquo; under service conditions, which are rather like
+hard work. We &lsquo;heef&rsquo; in an English Area for about a year, coming
+into barracks for one month to make up wastage. Then we may &lsquo;heef&rsquo;
+foreign for another year or eighteen months. Then we do sea-time in the war
+boats&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>What-t?</i>&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sea-time,&rdquo; Bayley repeated. &ldquo;Just like Marines, to learn
+about the big guns and how to embark and disembark quick. Then we come back to
+our territorial headquarters for six months, to educate the Line and Volunteer
+camps, to go to Hythe, to keep abreast of any new ideas, and then we fill up
+vacancies. We call those six months &lsquo;Schools.&rsquo; Then we begin all
+over again, thus: Home &lsquo;heef,&rsquo; foreign &lsquo;heef,&rsquo;
+sea-time, schools. &lsquo;Heefing&rsquo; isn&rsquo;t precisely luxurious, but
+it&rsquo;s on &lsquo;heef&rsquo; that we make our head-money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or lose it,&rdquo; said the sallow Pigeon, and all laughed, as men will,
+at regimental jokes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Dove never lets me forget that,&rdquo; said Boy Bayley. &ldquo;It
+happened last March. We were out in the Second Northern Area at the top end of
+Scotland where a lot of those silly deer forests used to be. I&rsquo;d sooner
+&lsquo;heef&rsquo; in the middle of Australia myself&mdash;or Athabasca, with
+all respect to the Dove&mdash;he&rsquo;s a native of those parts. We were
+camped somewhere near Caithness, and the Armity (that&rsquo;s the combined Navy
+and Army board that runs our show) sent us about eight hundred raw remounts to
+break in to keep us warm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why horses for a foot regiment?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I. G.&rsquo;s don&rsquo;t foot it unless they&rsquo;re obliged to. No
+have gee-gee how can move? I&rsquo;ll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we
+broke those beasts in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we
+started across Scotland to Applecross to hand &rsquo;em over to a horse-depot
+there. It was snowing cruel, and we didn&rsquo;t know the country overmuch. You
+remember the 30th&mdash;the old East Lancashire&mdash;at Mian Mir?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Their Guard Battalion had been &lsquo;heefing&rsquo; round those parts
+for six months. We thought they&rsquo;d be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but
+Burden, their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to
+Eschol.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Confound him,&rdquo; said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking.
+&ldquo;I entertained one of &rsquo;em&mdash;in a red worsted
+comforter&mdash;under Bean Derig. He said he was a crofter. &lsquo;Gave him a
+drink too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind admitting,&rdquo; said the Boy, &ldquo;that, what
+with the cold and the remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden
+bottled us under Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut
+off a lot of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the
+dirt.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he allowed to do that?&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is no peace in a Military Area. If we&rsquo;d beaten him off or
+got away without losing anyone, we&rsquo;d have been entitled to a day&rsquo;s
+pay from every man engaged against us. But we didn&rsquo;t. He cut off fifty of
+ours, held &rsquo;em as prisoners for the regulation three days, and then sent
+in his bill&mdash;three days&rsquo; pay for each man taken. Fifty men at twelve
+bob a head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured officer, and Kyd here,
+his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden &amp; Co. They crowed over
+us horrid.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t you have appealed to an umpire or&mdash;or
+something?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and look
+happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr Mohr. I spent
+three days huntin&rsquo; &rsquo;em in the snow, but they went off on our
+remounts about twenty mile that night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you always do this sham-fight business?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that a
+fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week&rsquo;s pay
+isn&rsquo;t so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the long
+run, it&rsquo;s like whist on a P. &amp; O. It comes out fairly level if you
+play long enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present&mdash;say, when a
+Line regiment&rsquo;s out on the &lsquo;heef,&rsquo; and signifies that
+it&rsquo;s ready to abide by the rules of the game. You mustn&rsquo;t take
+head-money from a Line regiment in an Area unless it says that it&rsquo;ll play
+you; but, after a week or two, those clever Linesmen always think they see a
+chance of making a pot, and send in their compliments to the nearest I. G. Then
+the fun begins. We caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years ago in
+Ireland&mdash;caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had just moved
+in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march in fourteen hours,
+and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to ground like a
+badger&mdash;I <i>will</i> say those Line regiments can dig&mdash;but we got
+out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to get its
+baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that some Sappers had
+made for experimental purposes (<i>they</i> were rather stuffy about it) on its
+line of retreat, while we lay up in the mountains and signalled for the A.C. of
+those parts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s an A.C.?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Adjustment Committee&mdash;the umpires of the Military Areas.
+They&rsquo;re a set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the
+purpose, but they occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our
+dispositions, and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and that we
+were entitled to our full pound of flesh&mdash;head-money for one whole
+regiment, with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line rates this
+worked out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not bad!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their patent
+bridge to pieces,&rdquo; Devine interpolated. &ldquo;That was a swindle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; the Boy went on, &ldquo;but the Adjustment
+Committee gave our helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred
+to hear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But isn&rsquo;t there a lot of unfairness in this head-money
+system?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t have everything perfect,&rdquo; said the Boy.
+&ldquo;Head-money is an attempt at payment by results, and it gives the men a
+direct interest in their job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C.
+will disallow both sides&rsquo; claim, but there&rsquo;s always the chance of
+bringing off a coup.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do all regiments do it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence, not
+to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It isn&rsquo;t
+supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than anyone. Why,
+the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at Aldershot or
+Salisbury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Head-money&rsquo;s a national institution&mdash;like betting,&rdquo;
+said Burgard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should say it was,&rdquo; said Pigeon suddenly. &ldquo;I was roped in
+the other day as an Adjustment Committee by the Kemptown Board School. I was
+riding under the Brighton racecourse, and I heard the whistle goin&rsquo; for
+umpire&mdash;the regulation, two longs and two shorts. I didn&rsquo;t take any
+notice till an infant about a yard high jumped up from a furze-patch and
+shouted: &lsquo;Guard! Guard! Come &rsquo;ere! I want you
+<i>per</i>fessionally. Alf says &rsquo;e ain&rsquo;t outflanked. Ain&rsquo;t
+&rsquo;e a liar? Come an&rsquo; look &rsquo;ow I&rsquo;ve posted my men.&rsquo;
+You bet I looked. The young demon trotted by my stirrup and showed me his whole
+army (twenty of &rsquo;em) laid out under cover as nicely as you please round a
+cowhouse in a hollow. He kept on shouting: &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve drew Alf into
+there. &rsquo;Is persition ain&rsquo;t tenable. Say it ain&rsquo;t tenable,
+Guard!&rsquo; I rode round the position, and Alf with his army came out of his
+cowhouse an&rsquo; sat on the roof and protested like a&mdash;like a Militia
+Colonel; but the facts were in favour of my friend and I umpired according.
+Well, Alf abode by my decision. I explained it to him at length, and he
+solemnly paid up his head-money&mdash;farthing points if you please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did they pay you umpire&rsquo;s fee?&rdquo; said Kyd. &ldquo;I umpired a
+whole afternoon once for a village school at home, and they stood me a bottle
+of hot ginger beer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I compromised on a halfpenny&mdash;a sticky one&mdash;or I&rsquo;d have
+hurt their feelings,&rdquo; said Pigeon gravely. &ldquo;But I gave &rsquo;em
+sixpence back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How were they manoeuvring and what with?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, by whistle and hand-signal. They had the dummy Board School guns and
+flags for positions, but they were rushing their attack much too quick for that
+open country. I told &rsquo;em so, and they admitted it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But who taught &rsquo;em?&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They had learned in their schools, of course, like the rest of us. They
+were all of &rsquo;em over ten; and squad-drill begins when they&rsquo;re
+eight. They knew their company-drill a heap better than they knew their
+King&rsquo;s English.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much drill do the boys put in?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All boys begin physical drill to music in the Board Schools when
+they&rsquo;re six; squad-drill, one hour a week, when they&rsquo;re eight;
+company-drill when they&rsquo;re ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between
+ten and twelve they get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle at
+twelve and record their first target-score at thirteen. That&rsquo;s what the
+Code lays down. But it&rsquo;s worked very loosely so long as a boy comes up to
+the standard of his age.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In Canada we don&rsquo;t need your physical drill. We&rsquo;re born
+fit,&rdquo; said Pigeon, &ldquo;and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of
+your twelve-year-olds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may as well explain,&rdquo; said the Boy, &ldquo;that the Dove is our
+&lsquo;swop&rsquo; officer. He&rsquo;s an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when
+he&rsquo;s at home. An I. G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a
+Canadian or Australian or African Guard Corps. We&rsquo;ve had a year of our
+Dove, an&rsquo; we shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride.
+Meantime, Morten, our &lsquo;swop&rsquo; in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck
+humble. When Pij. goes we shall swop Kyd, who&rsquo;s next on the roster, for a
+Cornstalk or a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can&rsquo;t attend
+First Camp, as we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First
+Musketry certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and the boys
+usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they&rsquo;ve been to
+their little private camps and Boys&rsquo; Fresh Air Camps and public school
+picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the young drafts all
+meet&mdash;generally at Aldershot in this part of the world. First Camp lasts a
+week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for vaccination and worked
+lightly in brigades with lots of blank cartridge. Second
+Camp&mdash;that&rsquo;s for the fifteen to eighteen-year-olds&mdash;lasts ten
+days or a fortnight, and that includes a final medical examination. Men
+don&rsquo;t like to be chucked out on medical certificates much&mdash;nowadays.
+I assure you Second Camp, at Salisbury, say, is an experience for a young I. G.
+officer. We&rsquo;re told off to &rsquo;em in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys
+isn&rsquo;t in it. The kids are apt to think &rsquo;emselves soldiers, and we
+have to take the edge off &rsquo;em with lots of picquet-work and night
+attacks.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what happens after Second Camp?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically,
+the boys needn&rsquo;t show up for the next three or four years after Second
+Camp. They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the young
+doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that sticks to the
+minimum of camp&mdash;ten days per annum. That gives him a holiday in the open
+air, and now that men have taken to endowing their Volunteer drill-halls with
+baths and libraries, he finds, if he can&rsquo;t run to a club, that his own
+drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He meets men there who&rsquo;ll be
+useful to him later, and he keeps himself in touch with what&rsquo;s going on
+while he&rsquo;s studying for his profession. The town-birds&mdash;such as the
+chemist&rsquo;s assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic, electrician, and so
+forth&mdash;generally put in for their town Volunteer corps as soon as they
+begin to walk out with the girls. They like takin&rsquo; their true-loves to
+our restaurants. Look yonder!&rdquo; I followed his gaze, and saw across the
+room a man and a maid at a far table, forgetting in each other&rsquo;s eyes the
+good food on their plates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So it is,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Go ahead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out to
+attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of &rsquo;em on
+condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their county. Under
+the new county qualifications&mdash;birth or three years&rsquo;
+residence&mdash;that means a great deal in League matches, and the same in
+County cricket.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove, that&rsquo;s a good notion,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Who invented
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;C. B. Fry&mdash;long ago. He said in his paper, that County cricket and
+County volunteering ought to be on the same footing&mdash;unpaid and genuine.
+&lsquo;No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer&rsquo; was his watchword.
+There was a row among the pro&rsquo;s at first, but C. B. won, and later the
+League had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when
+County matches began to be <i>pukka</i> county, <i>plus</i> inter-regimental,
+affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the regiments
+supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in cash. It&rsquo;s all
+unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call &rsquo;em, can take their
+pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten guineas entrance-fee, and get it
+too, from the young bloods that want to shine in the arena. I told you we
+catered for all tastes. Now, as regards the Line proper, I believe the young
+artisan and mechanic puts in for that before he marries. He likes the
+two-months&rsquo; &lsquo;heef&rsquo; in his first year, and five bob a week is
+something to go on with between times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do they follow their trade while they&rsquo;re in the Line?&rdquo; I
+demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not? How many well-paid artisans work more than four days a week
+anyhow? Remember a Linesman hasn&rsquo;t to be drilled in your sense of the
+word. He must have had at least eight years&rsquo; grounding in that, as well
+as two or three years in his Volunteer battalion. He can sleep where he
+pleases. He can&rsquo;t leave town-limits without reporting himself, of course,
+but he can get leave if he wants it. He&rsquo;s on duty two days in the week as
+a rule, and he&rsquo;s liable to be invited out for garrison duty down the
+Mediterranean, but his benefit societies will insure him against that.
+I&rsquo;ll tell you about that later. If it&rsquo;s a hard winter and
+trade&rsquo;s slack, a lot of the bachelors are taken into the I. G. barracks
+(while the I. G. is out on the heef) for theoretical instruction. Oh, I assure
+you the Line hasn&rsquo;t half a bad time of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Amazing!&rdquo; I murmured. &ldquo;And what about the others?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Volunteers? Observe the beauty of our system. We&rsquo;re a free
+people. We get up and slay the man who says we aren&rsquo;t. But as a little
+detail we never mention, if we don&rsquo;t volunteer in some corps or
+another&mdash;as combatants if we&rsquo;re fit, as non-combatants, if we
+ain&rsquo;t&mdash;till we&rsquo;re thirty-five we don&rsquo;t vote, and we
+don&rsquo;t get poor-relief, and the women don&rsquo;t love us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that&rsquo;s the compulsion of it?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bayley inclined his head gravely. &ldquo;That, Sir, is the compulsion. We voted
+the legal part of it ourselves in a fit of panic, and we have not yet rescinded
+our resolution. The women attend to the unofficial penalties. But being free
+British citizens&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>And</i> snobs,&rdquo; put in Pigeon. &ldquo;The point is well taken,
+Pij&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;we have supplied ourselves with every sort and shape
+and make of Volunteer corps that you can imagine, and we&rsquo;ve mixed the
+whole show up with our Odd Fellows and our I.O.G.T.&rsquo;s and our Buffaloes,
+and our Burkes and our Debretts, not to mention Leagues and Athletic Clubs,
+till you can&rsquo;t tell t&rsquo;other from which. You remember the young pup
+who used to look on soldiering as a favour done to his ungrateful
+country&mdash;the gun-poking, ferret-pettin&rsquo;, landed gentleman&rsquo;s
+offspring&mdash;the suckin&rsquo; Facey Romford? Well, he generally joins a
+Foreign Service Corps when he leaves college.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can Volunteers go foreign, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t they just, if their C.O. <i>or</i> his wife has influence!
+The Armity will always send a well-connected F.S. corps out to help a guard
+battalion in a small campaign. Otherwise F.S. corps make their own arrangements
+about camps. You see, the Military Areas are always open. They can
+&lsquo;heef&rsquo; there (and gamble on head-money) as long as their finances
+run to it; or they can apply to do sea-time in the ships. It&rsquo;s a cheap
+way for a young man to see the world, and if he&rsquo;s any good he can try to
+get into the Guard later.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The main point,&rdquo; said Pigeon, &ldquo;is that F.S. corps are
+&lsquo;swagger&rsquo;&mdash;the correct thing. It &rsquo;ud never do to be
+drawn for the Militia, don&rsquo;t you know,&rdquo; he drawled, trying to
+render the English voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what happens to a chap who doesn&rsquo;t volunteer,&rdquo;
+said Bayley. &ldquo;Well, after the F.S. corps (we&rsquo;ve about forty of
+&rsquo;em) come our territorial Volunteer battalions, and a man who can&rsquo;t
+suit himself somewhere among &rsquo;em must be a shade difficult. We&rsquo;ve
+got those &lsquo;League&rsquo; corps I was talking about; and those studious
+corps that just scrape through their ten days&rsquo; camp; and we&rsquo;ve
+crack corps of highly-paid mechanics who can afford a two months&rsquo;
+&lsquo;heef&rsquo; in an interesting Area every other year; and we&rsquo;ve
+senior and junior scientific corps of earnest boilermakers and fitters and
+engineers who read papers on high explosives, and do their
+&lsquo;heefing&rsquo; in a wet picket-boat&mdash;mine-droppin&rsquo;&mdash;at
+the ports. Then we&rsquo;ve heavy artillery&mdash;recruited from the big
+manufacturing towns and ship-building yards&mdash;and ferocious
+hard-ridin&rsquo; Yeomanry (they <i>can</i> ride&mdash;now), genteel,
+semi-genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till you come to the
+Home Defence Establishment&mdash;the young chaps knocked out under medical
+certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit behind hedges or clean
+up camp, and the old was-birds who&rsquo;ve served their time but don&rsquo;t
+care to drop out of the fun of the yearly camps and the halls. They call
+&rsquo;emselves veterans and do fancy-shooting at Bisley, but, between you and
+me, they&rsquo;re mostly Fresh Air Benefit Clubs. They contribute to the
+Volunteer journals and tell the Guard that it&rsquo;s no good. But I like
+&rsquo;em. I shall be one of &rsquo;em some day&mdash;a copper-nosed was-bird!
+… So you see we&rsquo;re mixed to a degree on the Volunteer side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It sounds that way,&rdquo; I ventured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve overdone it, Bayley,&rdquo; said Devine.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve missed our one strong point.&rdquo; He turned to me and
+continued: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s embarkation. The Volunteers may be as mixed as the
+Colonel says, but they <i>are</i> trained to go down to the sea in ships. You
+ought to see a big Bank-Holiday roll-out. We suspend most of the usual railway
+traffic and turn on the military time-table&mdash;say on Friday at midnight. By
+4 <small>A.M</small>. the trains are running from every big centre in England
+to the nearest port at two-minute intervals. As a rule, the Armity meets us at
+the other end with shipping of sorts&mdash;fleet reserves or regular men of war
+or hulks&mdash;anything you can stick a gang-plank to. We pile the men on to
+the troop-decks, stack the rifles in the racks, send down the sea-kit, steam
+about for a few hours, and land &rsquo;em somewhere. It&rsquo;s a good notion,
+because our army to be any use <i>must</i> be an army of embarkation. Why, last
+Whit Monday we had&mdash;how many were down at the dock-edge in the first eight
+hours? Kyd, you&rsquo;re the Volunteer enthusiast last from school.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the first ten hours over a hundred and eighteen thousand,&rdquo; said
+Kyd across the table, &ldquo;with thirty-six thousand actually put in and taken
+out of ship. In the whole thirty-six hours we had close on ninety thousand men
+on the water and a hundred and thirty-three thousand on the quays fallen in
+with their sea-kit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That must have been a sight,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One didn&rsquo;t notice it much. It was scattered between Chatham,
+Dover, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, and so on, merely to give the
+inland men a chance to get rid of their breakfasts. We don&rsquo;t like to
+concentrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the Continent
+jumpy. Otherwise,&rdquo; said Kyd, &ldquo;I believe we could get two hundred
+thousand men, with their kits, away on one tide.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What d&rsquo;you want with so many?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>We</i> don&rsquo;t want one of &rsquo;em; but the Continent used to
+point out, every time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier
+than to raid England if they got command of the sea for a week. After a few
+years some genius discovered that it cut both ways, an&rsquo; there was no
+reason why we, who are supposed to command the sea and own a few ships, should
+not organise our little raids in case of need. The notion caught on among the
+Volunteers&mdash;they were getting rather sick of manœuvres on dry
+land&mdash;and since then we haven&rsquo;t heard so much about raids from the
+Continent,&rdquo; said Bayley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the offensive-defensive,&rdquo; said Verschoyle, &ldquo;that
+they talk so much about. We learned it <i>all</i> from the
+Continent&mdash;bless &rsquo;em! They insisted on it so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, we learned it from the Fleet,&rdquo; said Devine. &ldquo;The
+Mediterranean Fleet landed ten thousand marines and sailors, with guns, in
+twenty minutes once at manœuvres. That was long ago. I&rsquo;ve seen the Fleet
+Reserve and a few paddle-steamers, hired for the day, land twenty-five thousand
+Volunteers at Bantry in four hours&mdash;half the men sea-sick too.
+You&rsquo;ve no notion what a difference that sort of manœuvre makes in the
+calculations of our friends on the mainland. The Continent knows what invasion
+means. It&rsquo;s like dealing with a man whose nerve has been shaken. It
+doesn&rsquo;t cost much after all, and it makes us better friends with the
+great European family. We&rsquo;re now as thick as thieves.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where does the Imperial Guard come in in all this gorgeousness?&rdquo; I
+asked. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re unusual modest about yourselves.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As a matter of fact, we&rsquo;re supposed to go out and stay out.
+We&rsquo;re the permanently mobilised lot. I don&rsquo;t think there are more
+than eight I. G. battalions in England now. We&rsquo;re a hundred battalions
+all told. Mostly on the &lsquo;heef&rsquo; in India, Africa and so
+forth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A hundred thousand. Isn&rsquo;t that small allowance?&rdquo; I
+suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think so? One hundred thousand <i>men</i>, without a single case of
+venereal, and an average sick list of two per cent, permanently on a war
+footing? Well, perhaps you&rsquo;re right, but it&rsquo;s a useful little force
+to begin with while the others are getting ready. There&rsquo;s the native
+Indian Army also, which isn&rsquo;t a broken reed, and, since &lsquo;no
+Volunteer no Vote&rsquo; is the rule throughout the Empire, you will find a few
+men in Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, that are fairly hefty in their
+class.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But a hundred thousand isn&rsquo;t enough for garrison duty,&rdquo; I
+persisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A hundred thousand <i>sound</i> men, not sick boys, go quite a
+way,&rdquo; said Pigeon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We expect the Line to garrison the Mediterranean Ports and
+thereabouts,&rdquo; said Bayley. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t sneer at the mechanic.
+He&rsquo;s deuced good stuff. He isn&rsquo;t rudely ordered out, because this
+ain&rsquo;t a military despotism, and we have to consider people&rsquo;s
+feelings. The Armity usually brackets three Line regiments together, and calls
+for men for six months or a year for Malta, Gib, or elsewhere, at a bob a day.
+Three battalions will give you nearly a whole battalion of bachelors between
+&rsquo;em. You fill up deficiencies with a call on the territorial Volunteer
+battalion, and away you go with what we call a Ports battalion. What&rsquo;s
+astonishing in that? Remember that in this country, where fifty per cent of the
+able-bodied males have got a pretty fair notion of soldiering, and, which is
+more, have all camped out in the open, you wake up the spirit of adventure in
+the young.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not much adventure at Malta, Gib, or Cyprus,&rdquo; I retorted.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t they get sick of it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t realise that we treat &rsquo;em rather differently
+from the soldier of the past. You ought to go and see a Ports battalion drawn
+from a manufacturing centre growin&rsquo; vines in Cyprus in its shirt sleeves;
+and at Gib, and Malta, of course, the battalions are working with the Fleet
+half the time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems to me,&rdquo; I said angrily, &ldquo;you are knocking <i>esprit
+de corps</i> on the head with all this Army-Navy jumble. It&rsquo;s as bad
+as&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what you&rsquo;re going to say. As bad as what Kitchener used to
+do when he believed that a thousand details picked up on the veldt were as good
+as a column of two regiments. In the old days, when drill was a sort of holy
+sacred art learned in old age, you&rsquo;d be quite right. But remember
+<i>our</i> chaps are broke to drill from childhood, and the theory we work on
+is that a thousand trained Englishmen ought to be about as good as another
+thousand trained Englishmen. We&rsquo;ve enlarged our horizon, that&rsquo;s
+all. Some day the Army and the Navy will be interchangeable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve enlarged it enough to fall out of, I think. Now where in
+all this mess of compulsory Volunteers&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear boy, there&rsquo;s no compulsion. You&rsquo;ve <i>got</i> to be
+drilled when you&rsquo;re a child, same as you&rsquo;ve got to learn to read,
+and if you don&rsquo;t pretend to serve in some corps or other till
+you&rsquo;re thirty-five or medically chucked you rank with lunatics, women,
+and minors. That&rsquo;s fair enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Compulsory conscripts,&rdquo; I continued. &ldquo;Where, as I was going
+to say, does the Militia come in?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As I have said&mdash;for the men who can&rsquo;t afford volunteering.
+The Militia is recruited by ballot&mdash;pretty comprehensively too. Volunteers
+are exempt, but most men not otherwise accounted for are bagged by the Militia.
+They have to put in a minimum three weeks&rsquo; camp every other year, and
+they get fifteen bob a week and their keep when they&rsquo;re at it, and some
+sort of a yearly fee, I&rsquo;ve forgotten how much. &rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t a
+showy service, but it&rsquo;s very useful. It keeps the mass of the men between
+twenty-five, say, and thirty-five moderately fit, and gives the Armity an
+excuse for having more equipment ready&mdash;in case of emergencies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re quite fair on the Militia,&rdquo;
+drawled Verschoyle. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re better than we give &rsquo;em credit
+for. Don&rsquo;t you remember the Middle Moor Collieries&rsquo; strike?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; I said quickly. Evidently the others knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We-ell, it was no end of a pitman&rsquo;s strike about eight years ago.
+There were twenty-five thousand men involved&mdash;Militia, of course. At the
+end of the first month&mdash;October&mdash;when things were looking rather
+blue, one of those clever Labour leaders got hold of the Militia Act and
+discovered that any Militia regiment could, by a two-thirds vote, go on
+&lsquo;heef&rsquo; in a Military Area in addition to its usual biennial camp.
+Two-and-twenty battalions of Geordies solemnly applied, and they were turned
+loose into the Irish and Scotch Areas under an I. G. Brigadier who had private
+instructions to knock clinkers out of &rsquo;em. But the pitman is a strong and
+agile bird. He throve on snowdrifts and entrenching and draggin&rsquo; guns
+through heather. <i>He</i> was being fed and clothed for nothing, besides
+having a chance of making head-money, and his strike-pay was going clear to his
+wife and family. You see? Wily man. But wachtabittje! When that
+&lsquo;heef&rsquo; finished in December the strike was still on. <i>Then</i>
+that same Labour leader found out, from the same Act, that if at any time more
+than thirty or forty men of a Militia regiment wished to volunteer to do
+sea-time and study big guns in the Fleet they were in no wise to be
+discouraged, but were to be taken on as opportunity offered and paid a bob a
+day. Accordingly, about January, Geordie began volunteering for
+sea-time&mdash;seven and eight hundred men out of each regiment. Anyhow, it
+made up seventeen thousand men! It was a splendid chance and the Armity jumped
+at it. The Home and Channel Fleets and the North Sea and Cruiser Squadrons were
+strengthened with lame ducks from the Fleet Reserve, and between &rsquo;em with
+a little stretching and pushing they accommodated all of that young
+division.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but you&rsquo;ve forgotten how we lied to the Continent about it.
+All Europe wanted to know what the dooce we were at,&rdquo; said Boy Bayley,
+&ldquo;and the wretched Cabinet had to stump the country in the depths of
+winter explaining our new system of poor-relief. I beg your pardon,
+Verschoyle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Armity improvised naval manœuvres between Gib and Land&rsquo;s End,
+with frequent coalings and landings; ending in a cruise round England that
+fairly paralysed the pitmen. The first day out they wanted the fleet stopped
+while they went ashore and killed their Labour leader, but they couldn&rsquo;t
+be obliged. Then they wanted to mutiny over the coaling&mdash;it was too like
+their own job. Oh, they had a lordly time! They came back&mdash;the combined
+Fleets anchored off Hull&mdash;with a nautical hitch to their breeches.
+They&rsquo;d had a free fight at Gib with the Ports battalion there; they
+cleared out the town of Lagos; and they&rsquo;d fought a pitched battle with
+the dockyard-mateys at Devonport. So they&rsquo;d done &rsquo;emselves well,
+but they didn&rsquo;t want any more military life for a bit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the strike?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That ended, all right enough, when the strike-money came to an end. The
+pit-owners were furious. They said the Armity had wilfully prolonged the
+strike, and asked questions in the House. The Armity said that they had taken
+advantage of the crisis to put a six months&rsquo; polish on fifteen thousand
+fine young men, and if the masters cared to come out on the same terms
+they&rsquo;d be happy to do the same by them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Palaver done set,&rdquo; said Bayley. &ldquo;Everybody laughed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t quite understand about this sea-time business,&rdquo; I
+said. &ldquo;Is the Fleet open to take any regiment aboard?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather. The I. G. must, the Line can, the Militia may, and the
+Volunteers do put in sea-time. The Coast Volunteers began it, and the fashion
+is spreading inland. Under certain circumstances, as Verschoyle told you, a
+Volunteer or Militia regiment can vote whether it &lsquo;heefs&rsquo; wet or
+dry. If it votes wet and has influence (like some F.S. corps), it can sneak
+into the Channel or the Home Fleet and do a cruise round England or to Madeira
+or the North Sea. The regiment, of course, is distributed among the ships, and
+the Fleet dry nurse &rsquo;em. It rather breaks up shore discipline, but it
+gives the inland men a bit of experience, and, of course, it gives us a fairish
+supply of men behind the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet. Some coast
+corps make a specialty of it, and compete for embarking and disembarking
+records. I believe some of the Tyneside engineerin&rsquo; corps put ten per
+cent of their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there&rsquo;s no need to
+stay talking here all the afternoon. Come and see the I. G. in his
+lair&mdash;the miserable conscript driven up to the colours at the point of the
+bayonet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3><a name="chap18"></a>PART II</h3>
+
+<p>
+The great hall was emptying apace as the clocks struck two, and we passed out
+through double doors into a huge reading and smoking room, blue with tobacco
+and buzzing with voices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re quieter as a rule,&rdquo; said the Boy. &ldquo;But
+we&rsquo;re filling up vacancies to-day. Hence the anxious faces of the Line
+and Militia. Look!&rdquo; There were four tables against the walls, and at each
+stood a crowd of uniforms. The centres of disturbance were noncommissioned
+officers who, seated, growled and wrote down names.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come to my table,&rdquo; said Burgard. &ldquo;Well, Purvis, have you
+ear-marked our little lot?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been tellin&rsquo; &rsquo;em for the last hour we&rsquo;ve
+only twenty-three vacancies,&rdquo; was the sergeant&rsquo;s answer.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve taken nearly fifty for Trials, and this is what&rsquo;s
+left.&rdquo; Burgard smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry,&rdquo; he said to the crowd, &ldquo;but C
+Company&rsquo;s full.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excuse me, Sir,&rdquo; said a man, &ldquo;but wouldn&rsquo;t sea-time
+count in my favour? I&rsquo;ve put in three months with the Fleet. Small
+quick-firers, Sir? Company guns? Any sort of light machinery?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come away,&rdquo; said a voice behind. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve chucked the
+best farrier between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they&rsquo;ll take <i>you</i>
+an&rsquo; your potty quick-firers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The speaker turned on his heel and swore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, damn the Guard, by all means!&rdquo; said Sergeant Purvis,
+collecting his papers. &ldquo;D&rsquo;you suppose it&rsquo;s any pleasure to
+<i>me</i> to reject chaps of your build and make? Vote us a second Guard
+battalion and we&rsquo;ll accommodate you. Now, you can come into Schools and
+watch Trials if you like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily. I
+followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a riding-school,
+under whose roof the voices of the few hundred assembled wandered in lost
+echoes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll leave you, if you don&rsquo;t mind,&rdquo; said Burgard.
+&ldquo;Company officers aren&rsquo;t supposed to assist at these games. Here,
+Matthews!&rdquo; He called to a private and put me in his charge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of stripped
+men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are our crowd,&rdquo; said Matthews. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been
+vetted, an&rsquo; we&rsquo;re putting &rsquo;em through their paces.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They don&rsquo;t look a bit like raw material,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, we don&rsquo;t use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the
+Guard,&rdquo; Matthews replied. &ldquo;Life&rsquo;s too short.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was physical
+drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his hand over some
+man&rsquo;s heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Six or seven, I noticed, were sent back at this stage of the game. Then a cry
+went up from a group of privates standing near the line of contorted figures.
+&ldquo;White, Purvis, white! Number Nine is spitting white!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; said Purvis. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you worry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Unfair!&rdquo; murmured the man who understood quick-firers. &ldquo;If I
+couldn&rsquo;t shape better than that I&rsquo;d hire myself out to wheel a
+perambulator. He&rsquo;s cooked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nah,&rdquo; said the intent Matthews. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll answer to a
+month&rsquo;s training like a horse. It&rsquo;s only suet. <i>You&rsquo;ve</i>
+been training for this, haven&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look at me,&rdquo; said the man simply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. You&rsquo;re overtrained,&rdquo; was Matthews&rsquo; comment.
+&ldquo;The Guard isn&rsquo;t a circus.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guns!&rdquo; roared Purvis, as the men broke off and panted.
+&ldquo;Number off from the right. Fourteen is one, three is two, eleven&rsquo;s
+three, twenty and thirty-nine are four and five, and five is six.&rdquo; He was
+giving them their numbers at the guns as they struggled into their uniforms. In
+like manner he told off three other guncrews, and the remainder left at the
+double, to return through the further doors with four light quick-firers
+jerking at the end of man-ropes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Knock down and assemble against time!&rdquo; Purvis called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The audience closed in a little as the crews flung themselves on the guns,
+which melted, wheel by wheel, beneath their touch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen anything like this,&rdquo; I whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Huh!&rdquo; said Matthews scornfully. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re always
+doin&rsquo; it in the Line and Militia drill-halls. It&rsquo;s only
+circus-work.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guns were assembled again and some one called the time. Then followed ten
+minutes of the quickest firing and feeding with dummy cartridges that was ever
+given man to behold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They look as if they might amount to something&mdash;this draft,&rdquo;
+said Matthews softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What might you teach &rsquo;em after this, then?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be Guard,&rdquo; said Matthews.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spurs,&rdquo; cried Purvis, as the guns disappeared through the doors
+into the stables. Each man plucked at his sleeve, and drew up first one heel
+and then the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the deuce are they doing?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This,&rdquo; said Matthews. He put his hand to a ticket-pocket inside
+his regulation cuff, showed me two very small black box-spurs: drawing up a
+gaitered foot, he snapped them into the box in the heel, and when I had
+inspected snapped them out again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all the spur you really need,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then horses were trotted out into the school barebacked, and the neophytes were
+told to ride.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Evidently the beasts knew the game and enjoyed it, for they would not make it
+easy for the men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A heap of saddlery was thrown in a corner, and from this each man, as he
+captured his mount, made shift to draw proper equipment, while the audience
+laughed, derided, or called the horses towards them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was, most literally, wild horseplay, and by the time it was finished the
+recruits and the company were weak with fatigue and laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;ll do,&rdquo; said Purvis, while the men rocked in their
+saddles. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see any particular odds between any of you. C
+Company! Does anybody here know anything against any of these men?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a bit of the Regulations,&rdquo; Matthews whispered.
+&ldquo;Just like forbiddin&rsquo; the banns in church. Really, it was all
+settled long ago when the names first came up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll take &rsquo;em as they stand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a grunt of assent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good. There&rsquo;s forty men for twenty-three billets.&rdquo; He
+turned to the sweating horsemen. &ldquo;I must put you into the Hat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not follow, an
+enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which numbers and blanks were
+dropped, and the whole was handed round to the riders by a private, evidently
+the joker of C Company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished receptacle
+(sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the final drawing. He was
+telling me how his company had once stolen the Sacred Article used by D Company
+for this purpose and of the riot that followed, when through the west door of
+the schools entered a fresh detachment of stripped men, and the arena was
+flooded with another company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said Matthews as we withdrew, &ldquo;Each company does Trials their own way. B
+Company is all for teaching men how to cook and camp. D Company keeps &rsquo;em
+to horse-work mostly. We call D the circus-riders and B the cooks. They call us
+the Gunners.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; you&rsquo;ve rejected <i>me</i>,&rdquo; said the man who had
+done sea-time, pushing out before us. &ldquo;The Army&rsquo;s goin&rsquo; to
+the dogs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stood in the corridor looking for Burgard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come up to my room and have a smoke,&rdquo; said Matthews, private of
+the Imperial Guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We climbed two flights of stone stairs ere we reached an immense landing
+flanked with numbered doors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Matthews pressed a spring-latch and led me into a little cabin-like room. The
+cot was a standing bunk, with drawers beneath. On the bed lay a brilliant
+blanket; by the bed head was an electric light and a shelf of books: a writing
+table stood in the window, and I dropped into a low wicker chair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is a cut above subaltern&rsquo;s quarters,&rdquo; I said, surveying
+the photos, the dhurri on the floor, the rifle in its rack, the field-kit hung
+up behind the door, and the knicknacks on the walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Line bachelors use &rsquo;em while we&rsquo;re away; but
+they&rsquo;re nice to come back to after &lsquo;heef.&rsquo;&rdquo; Matthews
+passed me his cigarette-case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where have you &lsquo;heefed&rsquo;?&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In Scotland, Central Australia, and North-Eastern Rhodesia and the
+North-West Indian front.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s your service?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Four years. I&rsquo;ll have to go in a year. I got in when I was
+twenty-two&mdash;by a fluke&mdash;from the Militia direct&mdash;on
+Trials.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trials like those we just saw?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not so severe. There was less competition then. I hoped to get my
+stripes, but there&rsquo;s no chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the knack of handling men. Purvis let me have a
+half-company for a month in Rhodesia&mdash;over towards Lake N&rsquo;Garni. I
+couldn&rsquo;t work &rsquo;em properly. It&rsquo;s a gift.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do colour-sergeants handle half-companies with you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They can command &rsquo;em on the &lsquo;heef.&rsquo; We&rsquo;ve only
+four company officers&mdash;Burgard, Luttrell, Kyd, and Harrison.
+Pigeon&rsquo;s our swop, and he&rsquo;s in charge of the ponies. Burgard got
+his company on the &lsquo;heef.&rsquo; You see Burgard had been a lieutenant in
+the Line, but he came into the Guards on Trials like the men. <i>He</i> could
+command. They tried him in India with a wing of the battalion for three months.
+He did well so he got his company. That&rsquo;s what made me hopeful. But
+it&rsquo;s a gift, you see&mdash;managing men&mdash;and so I&rsquo;m only a
+senior private. They let ten per cent of us stay on for two years extra after
+our three are finished&mdash;to polish the others.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you even a corporal?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t corporals, or lances for that matter, in the Guard. As
+a senior private I&rsquo;d take twenty men into action; but one Guard
+don&rsquo;t tell another how to clean himself. You&rsquo;ve learned that before
+you apply. … Come in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a knock at the door, and Burgard entered, removing his cap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you&rsquo;d be here,&rdquo; he said, as Matthews vacated the
+other chair and sat on the bed. &ldquo;Well, has Matthews told you all about
+it? How did our Trials go, Matthews?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forty names in the Hat, Sir, at the finish. They&rsquo;ll make a fairish
+lot. Their gun-tricks weren&rsquo;t bad; but D company has taken the best
+horsemen&mdash;as usual.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ll attend to that on &lsquo;heef.&rsquo; Give me a man who
+can handle company-guns and I&rsquo;ll engage to make him a horse-master. D
+company will end by thinkin&rsquo; &rsquo;emselves Captain Pigeon&rsquo;s
+private cavalry some day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had never heard a private and a captain talking after this fashion, and my
+face must have betrayed my astonishment, for Burgard said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are not our parade manners. In our rooms, as we say in the Guard,
+all men are men. Outside we are officers and men.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I begin to see,&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;Matthews was telling me that
+sergeants handled half-companies and rose from the ranks&mdash;and I
+don&rsquo;t see that there are any lieutenants&mdash;and your companies appear
+to be two hundred and fifty strong. It&rsquo;s a shade confusing to the
+layman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Burgard leaned forward didactically. &ldquo;The Regulations lay down that every
+man&rsquo;s capacity for command must be tested to the uttermost. We construe
+that very literally when we&rsquo;re on the &lsquo;heef.&rsquo; F&rsquo;r
+instance, any man can apply to take the command next above him, and if a
+man&rsquo;s too shy to ask, his company officer must see that he gets his
+chance. A sergeant is given a wing of the battalion to play with for three
+weeks&mdash;a month, or six weeks&mdash;according to his capacity, and turned
+adrift in an Area to make his own arrangements. That&rsquo;s what Areas are
+for&mdash;and to experiment in. A good gunner&mdash;a private very
+often&mdash;has all four company-guns to handle through a week&rsquo;s fight,
+acting for the time as the major. Majors of Guard battalions
+(Verschoyle&rsquo;s our major) are supposed to be responsible for the guns, by
+the way. There&rsquo;s nothing to prevent any man who has the gift working his
+way up to the experimental command of the battalion on &lsquo;heef.&rsquo;
+Purvis, my colour-sergeant, commanded the battalion for three months at the
+back of Coolgardie, an&rsquo; very well he did it. Bayley &rsquo;verted to
+company officer for the time being an&rsquo; took Harrison&rsquo;s company, and
+Harrison came over to me as my colour-sergeant. D&rsquo;you see? Well, Purvis
+is down for a commission when there&rsquo;s a vacancy. He&rsquo;s been
+thoroughly tested, and we all like him. Two other sergeants have passed that
+three months&rsquo; trial in the same way (just as second mates go up for extra
+master&rsquo;s certificate). They have E.C. after their names in the Army List.
+That shows they&rsquo;re capable of taking command in event of war. The result
+of our system is that you could knock out every single officer of a Guard
+battalion early in the day, and the wheels &rsquo;ud still go forward,
+<i>not</i> merely round. We&rsquo;re allowed to fill up half our commissioned
+list from the ranks direct. <i>Now</i> d&rsquo;you see why there&rsquo;s such a
+rush to get into a Guard battalion?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed I do. Have you commanded the regiment experimentally?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, time and again,&rdquo; Burgard laughed. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve all had
+our E.C. turn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t the chopping and changing upset the men?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It takes something to upset the Guard. Besides, they&rsquo;re all in the
+game together. They give each other a fair show you may be sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; said Matthews. &ldquo;When I went to
+N&rsquo;Gami with my&mdash;with the half-company,&rdquo; he sighed, &ldquo;they
+helped me all they knew. But it&rsquo;s a gift&mdash;handling men. I found
+<i>that</i> out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know you did,&rdquo; said Burgard softly. &ldquo;But you found it out
+in time, which is the great thing. You see,&rdquo; he turned to me, &ldquo;with
+our limited strength we can&rsquo;t afford to have a single man who isn&rsquo;t
+more than up to any duty&mdash;in reason. Don&rsquo;t you be led away by what
+you saw at Trials just now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the
+monkey-tricks of the trade&mdash;such as mounting and dismounting guns, and
+making fancy scores and doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up
+before they can pull their weight in the boat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it and
+smiled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bayley wants to know if you&rsquo;d care to come with us to the Park and
+see the kids. It&rsquo;s only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the
+taxpayer…. Very good. If you&rsquo;ll press the button we&rsquo;ll try to do
+the rest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a platform,
+not unlike a ship&rsquo;s bridge, immediately above the barrelled glass roof of
+the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could see B Company far below
+watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard unlocked a glass-fronted fire-alarm
+arrangement flanked with dials and speaking-tubes, and bade me press the centre
+button.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he had not
+caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the multiplied
+purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished like minnows before a
+shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on staircases I heard the neighing
+of many horses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What in the world have I done?&rdquo; I gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Turned out the Guard&mdash;horse, foot, and guns!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Sir…. <i>What</i>, Sir?… I never heard they said that,&rdquo; he
+laughed, &ldquo;but it would be just like &rsquo;em. In an hour and a half?
+Yes, Sir. Opposite the Statue? Yes, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bayley&rsquo;s playing up for you. Now you&rsquo;ll see some fun.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s going to catch it?&rdquo; I demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that
+it&rsquo;s <i>en état de partir</i>, and Bayley&rsquo;s going to take him at
+his word and have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell
+their drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the mansard
+roof!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the building to
+the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the flagstaff that crowned
+it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black storm-cone followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir,&rdquo; said Burgard down
+the telephone. &ldquo;Now we&rsquo;d better go to the riding-school. The
+battalion falls in there. I have to change, but you&rsquo;re free of the corps.
+Go anywhere. Ask anything. In another ten minutes we&rsquo;re off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of houses and
+the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open windows of this
+dial-dotted eyrie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I descended the halls and corridors were as hushed as they had been noisy,
+and my feet echoed down the broad tiled staircases. On the third floor,
+Matthews, gaitered and armed, overtook me smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you might want a guide,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve
+five minutes yet,&rdquo; and piloted me to the sunsplashed gloom of the
+riding-school. Three companies were in close order on the tan. They moved out
+at a whistle, and as I followed in their rear I was overtaken by Pigeon on a
+rough black mare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a bit,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;till the horses are all out of
+stables, and come with us. D Company is the only one mounted just now. We do it
+to amuse the taxpayer,&rdquo; he explained, above the noise of horses on the
+tan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are the guns?&rdquo; I asked, as the mare lipped my coat-collar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gone ahead long ago. They come out of their own door at the back of
+barracks. We don&rsquo;t haul guns through traffic more than we can help…. If
+Belinda breathes down your neck smack her. She&rsquo;ll be quiet in the
+streets. She loves lookin&rsquo; into the shop-windows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mounted company clattered through vaulted concrete corridors in the wake of
+the main body, and filed out into the crowded streets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I looked at the townsfolk on the pavement, or in the double-decked trams,
+I saw that the bulk of them saluted, not grudgingly or of necessity, but in a
+light-hearted, even flippant fashion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Those are Line and Militia men,&rdquo; said Pigeon. &ldquo;That old chap
+in the top-hat by the lamp-post is an ex-Guardee. That&rsquo;s why he&rsquo;s
+saluting in slow-time. No, there&rsquo;s no regulation governing these things,
+but we&rsquo;ve all fallen into the way of it somehow. Steady, mare!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether I care about this aggressive
+militarism,&rdquo; I began, when the company halted, and Belinda almost knocked
+me down. Looking forward I saw the badged cuff of a policeman upraised at a
+crossing, his back towards us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Horrid aggressive, ain&rsquo;t we?&rdquo; said Pigeon with a chuckle
+when we moved on again and overtook the main body. Here I caught the strains of
+the band, which Pigeon told me did not accompany the battalion on
+&lsquo;heef,&rsquo; but lived in barracks and made much money by playing at
+parties in town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we want anything more than drums and fifes on &lsquo;heef&rsquo; we
+sing,&rdquo; said Pigeon. &ldquo;Singin&rsquo; helps the wind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I rejoiced to the marrow of my bones thus to be borne along on billows of
+surging music among magnificent men, in sunlight, through a crowded town whose
+people, I could feel, regarded us with comradeship, affection&mdash;and more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove,&rdquo; I said at last, watching the eyes about us, &ldquo;these
+people are looking us over as if we were horses.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not? They know the game.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The eyes on the pavement, in the trams, the cabs, at the upper windows, swept
+our lines back and forth with a weighed intensity of regard which at first
+seemed altogether new to me, till I recalled just such eyes, a thousand of
+them, at manœuvres in the Channel when one crowded battleship drew past its
+sister at biscuit-toss range. Then I stared at the ground, overborne by those
+considering eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the music changed to the wail of the Dead March in &ldquo;Saul,&rdquo;
+and once more&mdash;we were crossing a large square&mdash;the regiment halted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Damn!&rdquo; said Pigeon, glancing behind him at the mounted company.
+&ldquo;I believe they save up their Saturday corpses on purpose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A dead Volunteer. We must play him through.&rdquo; Again I looked
+forward and saw the top of a hearse, followed by two mourning-coaches, boring
+directly up the halted regiment, which opened out company by company to let it
+through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But they&rsquo;ve got the whole blessed square to funeralise in!&rdquo;
+I exclaimed. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t they go round?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not so!&rdquo; Pigeon replied. &ldquo;In this city it&rsquo;s the
+Volunteer&rsquo;s perquisite to be played through by any corps he happens to
+meet on his way to the cemetery. And they make the most of it. You&rsquo;ll
+see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard the order, &ldquo;Rest on your arms,&rdquo; run before the poor little
+procession as the men opened out. The driver pulled the black Flanders beasts
+into a more than funeral crawl, and in the first mourning-coach I saw the
+tearful face of a fat woman (his mother, doubtless), a handkerchief pressed to
+one eye, but the other rolling vigilantly, alight with proper pride. Last came
+a knot of uniformed men&mdash;privates, I took it&mdash;of the dead one&rsquo;s
+corps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said a man in the crowd beside us to the girl on his arm, &ldquo;There, Jenny!
+That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ll get if I &rsquo;ave the luck to meet &rsquo;em
+when my time comes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You an&rsquo; your luck,&rdquo; she snapped. &ldquo;&rsquo;Ow can you
+talk such silly nonsense?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Played through by the Guard,&rdquo; he repeated slowly. &ldquo;The
+undertaker &rsquo;oo could guarantee <i>that</i>, mark you, for all his
+customers&mdash;well, &rsquo;e&rsquo;d monopolise the trade, is all I can say.
+See the horses passagin&rsquo; sideways!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She done it a purpose,&rdquo; said the woman with a sniff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; I only hope you&rsquo;ll follow her example. Just as long as
+you think I&rsquo;ll keep, too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We reclosed when the funeral had left us twenty paces behind. A small boy stuck
+his head out of a carriage and watched us jealously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Amazing! Amazing!&rdquo; I murmured. &ldquo;Is it regulation?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Town-custom. It varies a little in different cities, but the people
+value being played through more than most things, I imagine. Duddell, the big
+Ipswich manufacturer&mdash;he&rsquo;s a Quaker&mdash;tried to bring in a bill
+to suppress it as unchristian.&rdquo; Pigeon laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It cost him his seat next election. You see, we&rsquo;re all in the
+game.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We reached the Park without further adventure, and found the four company-guns
+with their spike teams and single drivers waiting for us. Many people were
+gathered here, and we were halted, so far as I could see, that they might talk
+with the men in the ranks. The officers broke into groups.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why on earth didn&rsquo;t you come along with me?&rdquo; said Boy Bayley
+at my side. &ldquo;I was expecting you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I had a delicacy about brigading myself with a colonel at the head
+of his regiment, so I stayed with the rear company and the horses. It&rsquo;s
+all too wonderful for any words. What&rsquo;s going to happen next?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve handed over to Verschoyle, who will amuse and edify the
+school children while I take you round our kindergarten. Don&rsquo;t kill any
+one, Vee. Are you goin&rsquo; to charge &rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used to do
+at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now!&rdquo; Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding
+road towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park)
+perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the encircling rails
+leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women&mdash;the women outnumbering
+the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road flanking the common and
+disappear behind the trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the ground inside
+the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform, armed and unarmed. I
+saw squads here, half-companies there; then three companies in an open space,
+wheeling with stately steps; a knot of drums and fifes near the railings
+unconcernedly slashing their way across popular airs; and a batch of gamins
+labouring through some extended attack destined to be swept aside by a corps
+crossing the ground at the double. They broke out of furze bushes, ducked over
+hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from hillocks and rough sandbanks till
+the eye wearied of their busy legs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of a
+freckled twelve-year-old near by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s your corps?&rdquo; said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard
+battalion to that child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren&rsquo;t out
+to-day.&rdquo; Then, with a twinkle, &ldquo;I go to First Camp next
+year.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are those boys yonder&mdash;that squad at the double?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that full company extending behind the three elms to the
+south-west?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you come with us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the raw material at the beginning of the process,&rdquo;
+said Bayley to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We strolled on towards the strains of &ldquo;A Bicycle Built for Two,&rdquo;
+breathed jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some dozen
+infants with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging through the
+extension movements which that tune calls for. A stunted hawthorn overhung the
+little group, and from a branch a dirty white handkerchief flapped in the
+breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve as
+we came up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re all waiting for our big bruvvers,&rdquo; piped up one bold
+person in blue breeches&mdash;seven if he was a day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It keeps &rsquo;em quieter, Sir,&rdquo; the maiden lisped. &ldquo;The
+others are with the regiments.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yeth, and they&rsquo;ve all lots of blank for <i>you</i>,&rdquo; said
+the gentleman in blue breeches ferociously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Artie! &rsquo;Ush!&rdquo; the girl cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But why have they lots of blank for <i>us</i>?&rdquo; Bayley asked. Blue
+Breeches stood firm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Cause&mdash;&rsquo;cause the Guard&rsquo;s goin&rsquo; to fight
+the Schools this afternoon; but my big bruvver says they&rsquo;ll be dam-well
+surprised.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Artie!</i>&rdquo; The girl leaped towards him. &ldquo;You know your
+ma said I was to smack&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t. Please don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Bayley, pink with
+suppressed mirth. &ldquo;It was all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this.
+I&rsquo;ve surprised his plan out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What plan?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he told
+me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they&rsquo;re on to him
+already. He&rsquo;ll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to weep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t tell,&rdquo; he roared. &ldquo;My big bruvver <i>he</i>
+knew when he saw them go up the road…&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind! Never mind, old man,&rdquo; said Bayley soothingly.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not fighting to-day. It&rsquo;s all right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at feud
+over the spoil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist,&rdquo; he chuckled. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll pull
+Vee&rsquo;s leg to-night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground,&rdquo; Bayley
+demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for certain, Sir, but we&rsquo;re preparin&rsquo; for the
+worst,&rdquo; he answered with a cheerful grin. &ldquo;They allow the Schools a
+little blank ammunition after we&rsquo;ve passed the third standard; and we
+nearly always bring it on to the ground of Saturdays.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The deuce you do! Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They&rsquo;re always
+experimentin&rsquo; upon us, Sir, comin&rsquo; over from their ground an&rsquo;
+developin&rsquo; attacks on our flanks. Oh, it&rsquo;s chronic &rsquo;ere of a
+Saturday sometimes, unless you flag yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife band
+and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a four-inch
+gun which they were feeding at express rates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The attacks don&rsquo;t interfere with you if you flag yourself,
+Sir,&rdquo; the boy explained. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a Second Camp team from the
+Technical Schools loading against time for a bet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was not
+etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the twenty-five pounder
+were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly finished hoist and
+shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe distance, when I became aware
+of a change among the scattered boys on the common, who disappeared among the
+hillocks to an accompaniment of querulous whistles. A boy or two on bicycles
+dashed from corps to corps, and on their arrival each corps seemed to fade
+away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round them,
+nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley exploded afresh.
+&ldquo;The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I wonder who&rsquo;s
+directin&rsquo; &rsquo;em. Do <i>you</i> know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the
+road. &rsquo;E&rsquo;s our &rsquo;ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of
+the Sixth District, is actin&rsquo; as senior officer on the ground this
+Saturday. Most likely Mr. Levitt is commandin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many corps are there here?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, bits of lots of &rsquo;em&mdash;thirty or forty,
+p&rsquo;r&rsquo;aps, Sir. But the whistles says they&rsquo;ve all got to rally
+on the Board Schools. &rsquo;Ark! There&rsquo;s the whistle for the Private
+Schools! They&rsquo;ve been called up the ground at the double.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped
+beside the breech wiping their brows and panting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo! there&rsquo;s some attack on the Schools,&rdquo; said one.
+&ldquo;Well, Marden, you owe me three half-crowns. I&rsquo;ve beaten your
+record. Pay up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions melting
+among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets without once looking
+up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that I could
+not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of blank in the
+distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Saturday allowance,&rdquo; murmured Bayley. &ldquo;War&rsquo;s
+begun, but it wouldn&rsquo;t be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you
+saying, my child?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothin&rsquo;, Sir, only&mdash;only I don&rsquo;t think the Guard will
+be able to come through on so narrer a front, Sir. They&rsquo;ll all be jammed
+up be&rsquo;ind the ridge if <i>we</i>&rsquo;ve got there in time. It&rsquo;s
+awful sticky for guns at the end of our ground, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m inclined to think you&rsquo;re right, Moltke. The Guard is
+hung up: distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a
+pernicious amount of blank the kids seem to have!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the hillocks for
+ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the &ldquo;Cease
+Fire&rdquo; over the ridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve sent for the Umpires,&rdquo; the Board School boy
+squeaked, dancing on one foot. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been hung up, Sir. I&mdash;I
+thought the sand-pits &rsquo;ud stop you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat:
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s enough for this afternoon. I&rsquo;m off,&rdquo; and
+moved to the railings without even glancing towards the fray.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I anticipate the worst,&rdquo; said Bayley with gravity after a few
+minutes. &ldquo;Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Guard was pouring over the ridge&mdash;a disorderly mob&mdash;horse, foot,
+and guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys
+cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the railings, and
+spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and waved handkerchiefs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. &ldquo;We
+got &rsquo;em! We got &rsquo;em!&rdquo; he squealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into shape,
+coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vee, Vee,&rdquo; said Bayley. &ldquo;Give me back my legions. Well, I
+hope you&rsquo;re proud of yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too,&rdquo;
+Verschoyle replied. &ldquo;I wish you&rsquo;d seen that first attack on our
+flank. Rather impressive. Who warned &rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush
+breeches. Did they do well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very decently indeed. I&rsquo;ve complimented their C.O. and buttered
+the whole boiling.&rdquo; He lowered his voice. &ldquo;As a matter o&rsquo;
+fact, I halted five good minutes to give &rsquo;em time to get into
+position.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We
+sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t need the men for an hour, Vee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!&rdquo; cried Verschoyle, raising his
+voice, and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers left
+their men, people began to climb over the railings, and the regiment dissolved
+among the spectators and the school corps of the city.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No sense keeping men standing when you don&rsquo;t need
+&rsquo;em,&rdquo; said Bayley. &ldquo;Besides, the Schools learn more from our
+chaps in an afternoon than they can pick up in a month&rsquo;s drill. Look at
+those Board-schoolmaster captains buttonholing old Purvis on the art of
+war!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wonder what the evening papers&rsquo;ll say about this,&rdquo; said
+Pigeon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll know in half an hour,&rdquo; Burgard laughed. &ldquo;What
+possessed you to take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pride. Silly pride,&rdquo; said the Canadian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a statue
+of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with pretty women,
+and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats. &ldquo;This is
+distinctly social,&rdquo; I suggested to Kyd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley&rsquo;ll
+sweat &rsquo;em all the same.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long sausage-shaped
+kit-bags. A band welcomed us with &ldquo;A Life on the Ocean Wave.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What cheek!&rdquo; muttered Verschoyle. &ldquo;Give &rsquo;em beans,
+Bayley.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I intend to,&rdquo; said the Colonel, grimly. &ldquo;Will each of you
+fellows take a company, please, and inspect &rsquo;em faithfully. &lsquo;<i>En
+état de partir</i>&rsquo; is their little boast, remember. When you&rsquo;ve
+finished you can give &rsquo;em a little pillow-fighting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does the single cannon on those men&rsquo;s sleeves mean?&rdquo; I
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That they&rsquo;re big gun-men, who&rsquo;ve done time with the
+Fleet,&rdquo; Bayley returned. &ldquo;Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per
+cent big-gun men thinks itself entitled to play &lsquo;A Life on the Ocean
+Wave&rsquo;&mdash;when it&rsquo;s out of hearing of the Navy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What beautiful stuff they are! What&rsquo;s their regimental
+average?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and twenty-four
+years, age. What is it?&rdquo; Bayley asked of a Private.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half,&rdquo; was
+the reply, and he added insolently, &ldquo;<i>En état de partir</i>.&rdquo;
+Evidently that F.S. corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What about their musketry average?&rdquo; I went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not my pidgin,&rdquo; said Bayley. &ldquo;But they wouldn&rsquo;t be in
+the corps a day if they couldn&rsquo;t shoot; I know <i>that</i> much. Now
+I&rsquo;m going to go through &rsquo;em for socks and slippers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from company
+to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per cent, at least,
+of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone through in detail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have they got jumpers and ducks for?&rdquo; I asked of Harrison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For Fleet work, of course. <i>En état de partir</i> with an F. S. corps
+means they are amphibious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who gives &rsquo;em their kit&mdash;Government?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It&rsquo;s
+the same as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one&rsquo;s
+pockets. How much does your kit cost you?&rdquo;&mdash;this to the private in
+front of us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose,&rdquo; was the
+answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good. Pack your bag&mdash;quick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag, lashed
+and tied it, and fell back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Arms,&rdquo; said Harrison. &ldquo;Strip and show ammunition.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one
+wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate of the
+rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to Harrison with one
+hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded belt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What baby cartridges!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;No bigger than
+bulletted breech-caps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re the regulation .256,&rdquo; said Harrison. &ldquo;No one
+has complained of &rsquo;em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive…. Empty
+your bottle, please, and show your rations.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency tin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in which the
+man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles, asking no help from
+either side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?&rdquo; I asked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes,&rdquo; he smiled.
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the
+Club.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Weren&rsquo;t a good many of you out of town?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not <i>this</i> Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull
+through the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for foreign
+service…. You&rsquo;d better stand back. We&rsquo;re going to
+pillow-fight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them variously,
+piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder to shoulder like
+buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the idea?&rdquo; I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded
+behind him, was controlling the display. Many women had descended from the
+carriages, and were pressing in about us admiringly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For one thing, it&rsquo;s a fair test of wind and muscle, and for
+another it saves time at the docks. We&rsquo;ll suppose this first company to
+be drawn up on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train.
+How would you get their kit into the ship?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fall &rsquo;em all in on the platform, march &rsquo;em to the
+gangways,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to
+gather the baggage and drunks in later.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know <i>that</i>
+game,&rdquo; Verschoyle drawled. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t play it any more.
+Look!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and breathing
+hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing his sixty-pound
+bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pack away,&rdquo; cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can
+compare it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed along
+either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who passed, stacked,
+and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by the rifles, belts,
+greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five minutes the regiment stood,
+as it were, stripped clean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course on a trooper there&rsquo;d be a company below stacking the kit
+away,&rdquo; said Verschoyle, &ldquo;but that wasn&rsquo;t so bad.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bad!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;It was miraculous!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Circus-work&mdash;all circus-work!&rdquo; said Pigeon. &ldquo;It
+won&rsquo;t prevent &rsquo;em bein&rsquo; sick as dogs when the ship
+rolls.&rdquo; The crowd round us applauded, while the men looked meekly down
+their self-conscious noses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have we made good, Bayley?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Are we <i>en état de
+partir</i>?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I shall report,&rdquo; said Bayley, smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought my bit o&rsquo; French &rsquo;ud draw you,&rdquo; said the
+little man, rubbing his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is he?&rdquo; I whispered to Pigeon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ramsay&mdash;their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They
+say he spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns
+till he came into his property.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take &rsquo;em home an&rsquo; make &rsquo;em drunk,&rdquo; I heard
+Bayley say. &ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ll have a dinner to celebrate. But you
+may as well tell the officers of E company that I don&rsquo;t think much of
+them. I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t report it, but their men were all over the
+shop.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;re young, you see,&rdquo; Colonel Ramsay began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re quite right. Send &rsquo;em to me and I&rsquo;ll talk to
+&rsquo;em. Youth is the time to learn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Six hundred a year,&rdquo; I repeated to Pigeon. &ldquo;That must be an
+awful tax on a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s where you make your mistake,&rdquo; said Verschoyle.
+&ldquo;In the old days a man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill
+because they weren&rsquo;t the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made
+a favour of putting in drills, didn&rsquo;t they? And they were, most of
+&rsquo;em, the children we have to take over at Second Camp, weren&rsquo;t
+they? Well, now that a C. O. is sure of his <i>men</i>, now that he
+hasn&rsquo;t to waste himself in conciliating an&rsquo; bribin&rsquo;,
+an&rsquo; beerin&rsquo; <i>kids</i>, he doesn&rsquo;t care what he spends on
+his corps, because every pound tells. Do you understand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material
+guaranteed&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And trained material at that,&rdquo; Pigeon put in. &ldquo;Eight years
+in the schools, remember, as well as&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That&rsquo;s as it should
+be,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bayly&rsquo;s saying the very same to those F. S. pups,&rdquo; said
+Verschoyle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the shoulder
+of each.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s all doocid interesting,&rdquo; he growled paternally.
+&ldquo;But you forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve,
+you&rsquo;re trebly bound to put a polish on &rsquo;em. You&rsquo;ve let your
+company simply go to seed. Don&rsquo;t try and explain. I&rsquo;ve told all
+those lies myself in my time. It&rsquo;s only idleness. <i>I</i> know. Come and
+lunch with me to-morrow and I&rsquo;ll give you a wrinkle or two in
+barracks.&rdquo; He turned to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Suppose we pick up Vee&rsquo;s defeated legion and go home. You&rsquo;ll
+dine with us to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you&rsquo;re <i>en état de
+partir</i>, right enough. You&rsquo;d better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the
+Armity if you want the corps sent foreign. I&rsquo;m no politician.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with sceptre, orb,
+and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the common, where the
+Guard battalion walked with the female of its species and the children of all
+its relatives. At sight of the officers the uniforms began to detach themselves
+and gather in companies. A Board School corps was moving off the ground, headed
+by its drums and fifes, which it assisted with song. As we drew nearer we
+caught the words, for they were launched with intention:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&rsquo;Oo is it mashes the country nurse?<br/>
+    The Guardsman!<br/>
+&rsquo;Oo is it takes the lydy&rsquo;s purse?<br/>
+    The Guardsman!<br/>
+Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,<br/>
+Batters a sovereign down on the bar,<br/>
+Collars the change and says &ldquo;Ta-ta!&rdquo;<br/>
+    The Guardsman!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s one of old Jemmy Fawne&rsquo;s songs. I haven&rsquo;t
+heard it in ages,&rdquo; I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Little devils!&rdquo; said Pigeon. &ldquo;Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports
+Edition!&rdquo; a newsboy cried. &ldquo;&rsquo;Ere y&rsquo;are, Captain. Defeat
+o&rsquo; the Guard!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll buy a copy,&rdquo; said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed
+wrathfully. &ldquo;I must, to see how the Dove lost his mounted company.&rdquo;
+He unfolded the flapping sheet and we crowded round it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>Complete Rout of the Guard,</i>&rsquo;&rdquo; he read.
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>Too Narrow a Front.</i>&rsquo; That&rsquo;s one for you, Vee!
+&lsquo;<i>Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A.</i>&rsquo; Aha! &lsquo;<i>The
+Schools Stand Fast.</i>&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s another version,&rdquo; said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet.
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>To your tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted
+Troops.</i>&rsquo; Pij, were you scuppered by Jewboys?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,</i>&rsquo;&rdquo; Bayley
+went on. &ldquo;By Jove, there&rsquo;ll have to be an inquiry into this
+regrettable incident, Vee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll never try to amuse the kids again,&rdquo; said the baited
+Verschoyle. &ldquo;Children and newspapers are low things…. And I was hit on
+the nose by a wad, too! They oughtn&rsquo;t to be allowed blank
+ammunition!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the
+battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken over.
+The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum of a camped
+army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent above them,
+brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago, when Verschoyle
+and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A regular Sanna&rsquo;s Post, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; I said at last.
+&ldquo;D&rsquo;you remember, Vee&mdash;by the market-square&mdash;that night
+when the wagons went out?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we had
+waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee himself
+had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the papers
+continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly, revealed to me the three-day old
+wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw Pigeon fling
+up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of shrapnel, and
+Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all in one jointless
+piece. Only old Vee&rsquo;s honest face held steady for awhile against the
+darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then his jaw dropped
+and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore the puffed and
+scornful nostril.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the
+evening papers on the table.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>&ldquo;THEY&rdquo;</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs&rsquo; dove-winged races&mdash;<br/>
+Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome;<br/>
+Plucking the radiant robes of the passers by, and with pitiful faces<br/>
+Begging what Princes and Powers refused:&mdash;&ldquo;Ah, please will you let us go home?&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,<br/>
+Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway&mdash;<br/>
+Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.<br/>
+Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed them straightway.<br/>
+<br/>
+Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: &ldquo;On the night that I bore Thee<br/>
+What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my arm?<br/>
+Didst Thou push from the nipple, O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?<br/>
+When we two lay in the breath of the kine?&rdquo; And He said:&mdash;&ldquo;Thou hast done no harm.&rdquo;<br/>
+<br/>
+So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,<br/>
+Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still;<br/>
+And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command.<br/>
+&ldquo;Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against their will?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>&ldquo;THEY&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the
+county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping forward
+of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels. The orchid-studded flats of
+the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and grey grass of the Downs; these again
+to the rich cornland and fig-trees of the lower coast, where you carry the beat
+of the tide on your left hand for fifteen level miles; and when at last I
+turned inland through a huddle of rounded hills and woods I had run myself
+clean out of my known marks. Beyond that precise hamlet which stands godmother
+to the capital of the United States, I found hidden villages where bees, the
+only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman
+churches; miraculous brooks diving under stone bridges built for heavier
+traffic than would ever vex them again; tithe-barns larger than their churches,
+and an old smithy that cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the
+Knights of the Temple. Gipsies I found on a common where the gorse, bracken,
+and heath fought it out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little farther
+on I disturbed a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the bearings
+of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty miles across the
+low countries. I judged that the lie of the country would bring me across some
+westward running road that went to his feet, but I did not allow for the
+confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn plunged me first into a green
+cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next into a gloomy tunnel where last
+year&rsquo;s dead leaves whispered and scuffled about my tyres. The strong
+hazel stuff meeting overhead had not been cut for a couple of generations at
+least, nor had any axe helped the moss-cankered oak and beech to spring above
+them. Here the road changed frankly into a carpetted ride on whose brown velvet
+spent primrose-clumps showed like jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked
+bluebells nodded together. As the slope favoured I shut off the power and slid
+over the whirled leaves, expecting every moment to meet a keeper; but I only
+heard a jay, far off, arguing against the silence under the twilight of the
+trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working my way
+back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw sunshine through
+the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my fore-wheels took
+the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang horsemen ten feet high with
+levelled lances, monstrous peacocks, and sleek round-headed maids of
+honour&mdash;blue, black, and glistening&mdash;all of clipped yew. Across the
+lawn&mdash;the marshalled woods besieged it on three sides&mdash;stood an
+ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with mullioned windows and
+roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by semi-circular walls, also rose-red,
+that closed the lawn on the fourth side, and at their feet a box hedge grew
+man-high. There were doves on the roof about the slim brick chimneys, and I
+caught a glimpse of an octagonal dove-house behind the screening wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, then, I stayed; a horseman&rsquo;s green spear laid at my breast; held by
+the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I am not packed off for a trespasser, or if this knight does not ride
+a wallop at me,&rdquo; thought I, &ldquo;Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at
+least must come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing waved a
+friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently another bright
+head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the yew-peacocks, and turning to make
+sure (till then I had been watching the house only) I saw the silver of a
+fountain behind a hedge thrown up against the sun. The doves on the roof cooed
+to the cooing water; but between the two notes I caught the utterly happy
+chuckle of a child absorbed in some light mischief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The garden door&mdash;heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the
+wall&mdash;opened further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on
+the time-hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was
+forming some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was blind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that a motor
+car?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I&rsquo;ve made a mistake in my road. I should have
+turned off up above&mdash;I never dreamed&rdquo;&mdash;I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It
+will be such a treat&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; She turned and made as though looking
+about her. &ldquo;You&mdash;you haven&rsquo;t seen any one have
+you&mdash;perhaps?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a
+distance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little
+chap in the grounds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, lucky you!&rdquo; she cried, and her face brightened. &ldquo;I hear
+them, of course, but that&rsquo;s all. You&rsquo;ve seen them and heard
+them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;And if I know anything of children one of
+them&rsquo;s having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should
+imagine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re fond of children?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course, of course,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Then you understand. Then
+you won&rsquo;t think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the
+gardens, once or twice&mdash;quite slowly. I&rsquo;m sure they&rsquo;d like to
+see it. They see so little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant,
+but&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she threw out her hands towards the woods.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re so out of the world here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That will be splendid,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;But I can&rsquo;t cut up
+your grass.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She faced to the right. &ldquo;Wait a minute,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re at the South gate, aren&rsquo;t we? Behind those peacocks
+there&rsquo;s a flagged path. We call it the Peacock&rsquo;s Walk. You
+can&rsquo;t see it from here, they tell me, but if you squeeze along by the
+edge of the wood you can turn at the first peacock and get on to the
+flags.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of
+machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the edge of the
+wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the fountain-basin lay like
+one star-sapphire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May I come too?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;No, please don&rsquo;t help me.
+They&rsquo;ll like it better if they see me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on the step
+she called: &ldquo;Children, oh, children! Look and see what&rsquo;s going to
+happen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning that
+underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an answering shout
+behind the yews. It must have been the child by the fountain, but he fled at
+our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the water. I saw the glint of his
+blue blouse among the still horsemen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request backed
+again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but stood far off
+and doubting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The little fellow&rsquo;s watching us,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I wonder if
+he&rsquo;d like a ride.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to
+see them! Let&rsquo;s listen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the scent of
+box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener was clipping; a
+mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been the doves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, unkind!&rdquo; she said weariedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps they&rsquo;re only shy of the motor. The little maid at the
+window looks tremendously interested.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; She raised her head. &ldquo;It was wrong of me to say that.
+They are really fond of me. It&rsquo;s the only thing that makes life worth
+living&mdash;when they&rsquo;re fond of you, isn&rsquo;t it? I daren&rsquo;t
+think what the place would be without them. By the way, is it beautiful?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn&rsquo;t
+quite the same thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then have you never&mdash;-?&rdquo; I began, but stopped abashed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old,
+they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream about
+colours. I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see <i>them</i>. I
+only hear them just as I do when I&rsquo;m awake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most
+of us haven&rsquo;t the gift,&rdquo; I went on, looking up at the window where
+the child stood all but hidden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard that too,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And they tell me that
+one never sees a dead person&rsquo;s face in a dream. Is that true?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe it is&mdash;now I come to think of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how is it with yourself&mdash;yourself?&rdquo; The blind eyes turned
+towards me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream,&rdquo; I answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it must be as bad as being blind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing the
+insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top of a
+glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft black. The house,
+accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an hundred thousand gone,
+seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the shadows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you ever wanted to?&rdquo; she said after the silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very much sometimes,&rdquo; I replied. The child had left the window as
+the shadows closed upon it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! So&rsquo;ve I, but I don&rsquo;t suppose it&rsquo;s allowed. … Where
+d&rsquo;you live?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite the other side of the county&mdash;sixty miles and more, and I
+must be going back. I&rsquo;ve come without my big lamp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s not dark yet. I can feel it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me
+someone to set me on my road at first? I&rsquo;ve utterly lost myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the
+world, I don&rsquo;t wonder you were lost! I&rsquo;ll guide you round to the
+front of the house; but you will go slowly, won&rsquo;t you, till you&rsquo;re
+out of the grounds? It isn&rsquo;t foolish, do you think?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I promise you I&rsquo;ll go like this,&rdquo; I said, and let the car
+start herself down the flagged path.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead guttering
+alone was worth a day&rsquo;s journey; passed under a great rose-grown gate in
+the red wall, and so round to the high front of the house which in beauty and
+stateliness as much excelled the back as that all others I had seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it so very beautiful?&rdquo; she said wistfully when she heard my
+raptures. &ldquo;And you like the lead-figures too? There&rsquo;s the old
+azalea garden behind. They say that this place must have been made for
+children. Will you help me out, please? I should like to come with you as far
+as the cross-roads, but I mustn&rsquo;t leave them. Is that you, Madden? I want
+you to show this gentleman the way to the cross-roads. He has lost his way
+but&mdash;he has seen them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be called the
+front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood looking at me with
+open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the first time that she was
+beautiful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; she said quietly, &ldquo;if you are fond of them you
+will come again,&rdquo; and disappeared within the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge gates,
+where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I swerved amply lest
+the devil that leads little boys to play should drag me into child-murder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excuse me,&rdquo; he asked of a sudden, &ldquo;but why did you do that,
+Sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The child yonder.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our young gentleman in blue?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Sir. And did you &rsquo;appen to see them upstairs too?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the upper window? Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little before that. Why d&rsquo;you want to know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused a little. &ldquo;Only to make sure that&mdash;that they had seen the
+car, Sir, because with children running about, though I&rsquo;m sure
+you&rsquo;re driving particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was
+all, Sir. Here are the cross-roads. You can&rsquo;t miss your way from now on.
+Thank you, Sir, but that isn&rsquo;t <i>our</i> custom, not
+with&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I said, and thrust away the British silver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s quite right with the rest of &rsquo;em as a rule.
+Goodbye, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked away.
+Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and interested,
+probably through a maid, in the nursery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the crumpled
+hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the house had lain.
+When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the fat woman who sold
+sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people with motor cars had small
+right to live&mdash;much less to &ldquo;go about talking like carriage
+folk.&rdquo; They were not a pleasant-mannered community.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser.
+Hawkin&rsquo;s Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the
+old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big house
+of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian
+embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my
+difficulty to a neighbour&mdash;a deep-rooted tree of that soil&mdash;and he
+gave me a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A month or so later&mdash;I went again, or it may have been that my car took
+the road of her own volition. She over-ran the fruitless Downs, threaded every
+turn of the maze of lanes below the hills, drew through the high-walled woods,
+impenetrable in their full leaf, came out at the cross roads where the butler
+had left me, and a little further on developed an internal trouble which forced
+me to turn her in on a grass way-waste that cut into a summer-silent hazel
+wood. So far as I could make sure by the sun and a six-inch Ordnance map, this
+should be the road flank of that wood which I had first explored from the
+heights above. I made a mighty serious business of my repairs and a glittering
+shop of my repair kit, spanners, pump, and the like, which I spread out orderly
+upon a rug. It was a trap to catch all childhood, for on such a day, I argued,
+the children would not be far off. When I paused in my work I listened, but the
+wood was so full of the noises of summer (though the birds had mated) that I
+could not at first distinguish these from the tread of small cautious feet
+stealing across the dead leaves. I rang my bell in an alluring manner, but the
+feet fled, and I repented, for to a child a sudden noise is very real terror. I
+must have been at work half an hour when I heard in the wood the voice of the
+blind woman crying: &ldquo;Children, oh children, where are you?&rdquo; and the
+stillness made slow to close on the perfection of that cry. She came towards
+me, half feeling her way between the tree boles, and though a child it seemed
+clung to her skirt, it swerved into the leafage like a rabbit as she drew
+nearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that you?&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;from the other side of the
+county?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s me from the other side of the county.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why didn&rsquo;t you come through the upper woods? They were there
+just now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were here a few minutes ago. I expect they knew my car had broken
+down, and came to see the fun.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She laughed merrily at the tiny joke, cooed with delicious laughter, and pushed
+her hat back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me hear,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a moment,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ll get you a
+cushion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She set her foot on the rug all covered with spare parts, and stooped above it
+eagerly. &ldquo;What delightful things!&rdquo; The hands through which she saw
+glanced in the chequered sunlight. &ldquo;A box here&mdash;another box! Why
+you&rsquo;ve arranged them like playing shop!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I confess now that I put it out to attract them. I don&rsquo;t need half
+those things really.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How nice of you! I heard your bell in the upper wood. You say they were
+here before that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure of it. Why are they so shy? That little fellow in blue
+who was with you just now ought to have got over his fright. He&rsquo;s been
+watching me like a Red Indian.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It must have been your bell,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I heard one of them
+go past me in trouble when I was coming down. They&rsquo;re shy&mdash;so shy
+even with me.&rdquo; She turned her face over her shoulder and cried again:
+&ldquo;Children! Oh, children! Look and see!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They must have gone off together on their own affairs,&rdquo; I
+suggested, for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by the
+sudden squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and she
+leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many are they?&rdquo; I said at last. The work was finished, but I
+saw no reason to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her forehead puckered a little in thought. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t quite
+know,&rdquo; she said simply. &ldquo;Sometimes more&mdash;sometimes less. They
+come and stay with me because I love them, you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That must be very jolly,&rdquo; I said, replacing a drawer, and as I
+spoke I heard the inanity of my answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&mdash;you aren&rsquo;t laughing at me,&rdquo; she cried.
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t any of my own. I never married. People laugh at
+me sometimes about them because&mdash;because&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because they&rsquo;re savages,&rdquo; I returned. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+nothing to fret for. That sort laugh at everything that isn&rsquo;t in their
+own fat lives.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. How should I? I only don&rsquo;t like being laughed
+at about <i>them</i>. It hurts; and when one can&rsquo;t see…. I don&rsquo;t
+want to seem silly,&rdquo; her chin quivered like a child&rsquo;s as she spoke,
+&ldquo;but we blindies have only one skin, I think. Everything outside hits
+straight at our souls. It&rsquo;s different with you. You&rsquo;ve such good
+defences in your eyes&mdash;looking out&mdash;before anyone can really pain you
+in your soul. People forget that with us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter&mdash;the more than inherited
+(since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the Christian peoples, beside
+which the mere heathendom of the West Coast nigger is clean and restrained. It
+led me a long distance into myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do that!&rdquo; she said of a sudden, putting her hands
+before her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made a gesture with her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That! It&rsquo;s&mdash;it&rsquo;s all purple and black. Don&rsquo;t!
+That colour hurts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, how in the world do you know about colours?&rdquo; I exclaimed, for
+here was a revelation indeed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Colours as colours?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. <i>Those</i> Colours which you saw just now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know as well as I do,&rdquo; she laughed, &ldquo;else you
+wouldn&rsquo;t have asked that question. They aren&rsquo;t in the world at all.
+They&rsquo;re in <i>you</i>&mdash;when you went so angry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;D&rsquo;you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with
+ink?&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren&rsquo;t
+mixed. They are separate&mdash;all separate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She nodded. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;if they are like this,&rdquo; and zigzagged her
+finger again, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s more red than purple&mdash;that bad
+colour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what are the colours at the top of the&mdash;whatever you
+see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see them so,&rdquo; she said, pointing with a grass stem,
+&ldquo;white, green, yellow, red, purple, and when people are angry or bad,
+black across the red&mdash;as you were just now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who told you anything about it&mdash;in the beginning?&rdquo; I
+demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About the colours? No one. I used to ask what colours were when I was
+little&mdash;in table-covers and curtains and carpets, you see&mdash;because
+some colours hurt me and some made me happy. People told me; and when I got
+older that was how I saw people.&rdquo; Again she traced the outline of the Egg
+which it is given to very few of us to see.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All by yourself?&rdquo; I repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All by myself. There wasn&rsquo;t anyone else. I only found out
+afterwards that other people did not see the Colours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She leaned against the tree-hole plaiting and unplaiting chance-plucked grass
+stems. The children in the wood had drawn nearer. I could see them with the
+tail of my eye frolicking like squirrels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now I am sure you will never laugh at me,&rdquo; she went on after a
+long silence. &ldquo;Nor at <i>them</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Goodness! No!&rdquo; I cried, jolted out of my train of thought.
+&ldquo;A man who laughs at a child&mdash;unless the child is laughing
+too&mdash;is a heathen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mean that of course. You&rsquo;d never laugh <i>at</i>
+children, but I thought&mdash;I used to think&mdash;that perhaps you might
+laugh about <i>them</i>. So now I beg your pardon…. What are you going to laugh
+at?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had made no sound, but she knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the notion of your begging my pardon. If you had done your duty as a
+pillar of the state and a landed proprietress you ought to have summoned me for
+trespass when I barged through your woods the other day. It was disgraceful of
+me&mdash;inexcusable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at me, her head against the tree trunk&mdash;long and
+steadfastly&mdash;this woman who could see the naked soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How curious,&rdquo; she half whispered. &ldquo;How very curious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, what have I done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t understand … and yet you understood about the Colours.
+Don&rsquo;t you understand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She spoke with a passion that nothing had justified, and I faced her
+bewilderedly as she rose. The children had gathered themselves in a roundel
+behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent over something smaller, and the set
+of the little shoulders told me that fingers were on lips. They, too, had some
+child&rsquo;s tremendous secret. I alone was hopelessly astray there in the
+broad sunlight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said, and shook my head as though the dead eyes could note.
+&ldquo;Whatever it is, I don&rsquo;t understand yet. Perhaps I shall
+later&mdash;if you&rsquo;ll let me come again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will come again,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;You will surely come
+again and walk in the wood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps the children will know me well enough by that time to let me
+play with them&mdash;as a favour. You know what children are like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t a matter of favour but of right,&rdquo; she replied, and
+while I wondered what she meant, a dishevelled woman plunged round the bend of
+the road, loose-haired, purple, almost lowing with agony as she ran. It was my
+rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard and stepped
+forward. &ldquo;What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the dust,
+crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local doctor was away
+fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and so forth, with
+repetitions and bellowings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the next nearest doctor?&rdquo; I asked between paroxysms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you.
+I&rsquo;ll attend to this. Be quick!&rdquo; She half-supported the fat woman
+into the shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under the
+front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to the crisis
+like a butler and a man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles away.
+Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in motors, at the
+door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to await the verdict.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Useful things cars,&rdquo; said Madden, all man and no butler. &ldquo;If
+I&rsquo;d had one when mine took sick she wouldn&rsquo;t have died.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How was it?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight miles
+in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back. This car
+&rsquo;d ha&rsquo; saved her. She&rsquo;d have been close on ten now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I thought you were rather fond of
+children from what you told me going to the cross-roads the other day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you seen &rsquo;em again, Sir&mdash;this mornin&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but they&rsquo;re well broke to cars. I couldn&rsquo;t get any of
+them within twenty yards of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger&mdash;not as a menial
+should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder why,&rdquo; he said just above the breath that he drew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long lines of
+the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with summer dust, rose and
+bowed in sallow waves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
+sweetmeat shop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve be&rsquo;n listenin&rsquo; in de back-yard,&rdquo; she said
+cheerily. &ldquo;He says Arthur&rsquo;s unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him
+shruck just now? Unaccountable bad. I reckon t&rsquo;will come Jenny&rsquo;s
+turn to walk in de wood nex&rsquo; week along, Mr. Madden.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping,&rdquo; said Madden
+deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does she mean by &lsquo;walking in the wood&rsquo;?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I&rsquo;m from Norfolk
+myself,&rdquo; said Madden. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re an independent lot in this
+county. She took you for a chauffeur, Sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed wench who
+clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with Death. &ldquo;Dat
+sort,&rdquo; she wailed&mdash;&ldquo;dey&rsquo;re just as much to us dat has
+&rsquo;em as if dey was lawful born. Just as much&mdash;just as much! An&rsquo;
+God he&rsquo;d be just as pleased if you saved &rsquo;un, Doctor. Don&rsquo;t
+take it from me. Miss Florence will tell ye de very same. Don&rsquo;t leave
+&rsquo;im, Doctor!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know. I know,&rdquo; said the man, &ldquo;but he&rsquo;ll be quiet for
+a while now. We&rsquo;ll get the nurse and the medicine as fast as we
+can.&rdquo; He signalled me to come forward with the car, and I strove not to
+be privy to what followed; but I saw the girl&rsquo;s face, blotched and frozen
+with grief, and I felt the hand without a ring clutching at my knees when we
+moved away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Doctor was a man of some humour, for I remember he claimed my car under the
+Oath of Æsculapius, and used it and me without mercy. First we convoyed Mrs.
+Madehurst and the blind woman to wait by the sick bed till the nurse should
+come. Next we invaded a neat county town for prescriptions (the Doctor said the
+trouble was cerebro-spinal meningitis), and when the County Institute, banked
+and flanked with scared market cattle, reported itself out of nurses for the
+moment we literally flung ourselves loose upon the county. We conferred with
+the owners of great houses&mdash;magnates at the ends of overarching avenues
+whose big-boned womenfolk strode away from their tea-tables to listen to the
+imperious Doctor. At last a white-haired lady sitting under a cedar of Lebanon
+and surrounded by a court of magnificent Borzois&mdash;all hostile to
+motors&mdash;gave the Doctor, who received them as from a princess, written
+orders which we bore many miles at top speed, through a park, to a French
+nunnery, where we took over in exchange a pallid-faced and trembling Sister.
+She knelt at the bottom of the tonneau telling her beads without pause till, by
+short cuts of the Doctor&rsquo;s invention, we had her to the sweetmeat shop
+once more. It was a long afternoon crowded with mad episodes that rose and
+dissolved like the dust of our wheels; cross-sections of remote and
+incomprehensible lives through which we raced at right angles; and I went home
+in the dusk, wearied out, to dream of the clashing horns of cattle; round-eyed
+nuns walking in a garden of graves; pleasant tea-parties beneath shaded trees;
+the carbolic-scented, grey-painted corridors of the County Institute; the steps
+of shy children in the wood, and the hands that clung to my knees as the motor
+began to move.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+I had intended to return in a day or two, but it pleased Fate to hold me from
+that side of the county, on many pretexts, till the elder and the wild rose had
+fruited. There came at last a brilliant day, swept clear from the south-west,
+that brought the hills within hand&rsquo;s reach&mdash;a day of unstable airs
+and high filmy clouds. Through no merit of my own I was free, and set the car
+for the third time on that known road. As I reached the crest of the Downs I
+felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the sun; and, looking down at the
+sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the Channel turn through polished
+silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A laden collier hugging the coast
+steered outward for deeper water and, across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails
+rise one by one on the anchored fishing-fleet. In a deep dene behind me an eddy
+of sudden wind drummed through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the first day
+sample of autumn leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog fumed over
+the brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groins of the gale beyond
+Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in chill grey. We were
+again the shut island of the North, all the ships of the world bellowing at our
+perilous gates; and between their outcries ran the piping of bewildered gulls.
+My cap dripped moisture, the folds of the rug held it in pools or sluiced it
+away in runnels, and the salt-rime stuck to my lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Inland the smell of autumn loaded the thickened fog among the trees, and the
+drip became a continuous shower. Yet the late flowers&mdash;mallow of the
+wayside, scabious of the field, and dahlia of the garden&mdash;showed gay in
+the mist, and beyond the sea&rsquo;s breath there was little sign of decay in
+the leaf. Yet in the villages the house doors were all open, and bare-legged,
+bare-headed children sat at ease on the damp doorsteps to shout
+&ldquo;pip-pip&rdquo; at the stranger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made bold to call at the sweetmeat shop, where Mrs. Madehurst met me with a
+fat woman&rsquo;s hospitable tears. Jenny&rsquo;s child, she said, had died two
+days after the nun had come. It was, she felt, best out of the way, even though
+insurance offices, for reasons which she did not pretend to follow, would not
+willingly insure such stray lives. &ldquo;Not but what Jenny didn&rsquo;t tend
+to Arthur as though he&rsquo;d come all proper at de end of de first
+year&mdash;like Jenny herself.&rdquo; Thanks to Miss Florence, the child had
+been buried with a pomp which, in Mrs. Madehurst&rsquo;s opinion, more than
+covered the small irregularity of its birth. She described the coffin, within
+and without, the glass hearse, and the evergreen lining of the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how&rsquo;s the mother?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jenny? Oh, she&rsquo;ll get over it. I&rsquo;ve felt dat way with one or
+two o&rsquo; my own. She&rsquo;ll get over. She&rsquo;s walkin&rsquo; in de
+wood now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In this weather?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Madehurst looked at me with narrowed eyes across the counter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I dunno but it opens de &rsquo;eart like. Yes, it opens de &rsquo;eart.
+Dat&rsquo;s where losin&rsquo; and bearin&rsquo; comes so alike in de long run,
+we do say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the wisdom of the old wives is greater than that of all the Fathers, and
+this last oracle sent me thinking so extendedly as I went up the road, that I
+nearly ran over a woman and a child at the wooded corner by the lodge gates of
+the House Beautiful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Awful weather!&rdquo; I cried, as I slowed dead for the turn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not so bad,&rdquo; she answered placidly out of the fog.
+&ldquo;Mine&rsquo;s used to &rsquo;un. You&rsquo;ll find yours indoors, I
+reckon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indoors, Madden received me with professional courtesy, and kind inquiries for
+the health of the motor, which he would put under cover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I waited in a still, nut-brown hall, pleasant with late flowers and warmed with
+a delicious wood fire&mdash;a place of good influence and great peace. (Men and
+women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable lie; but the
+house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the truth of those who
+have lived in it.) A child&rsquo;s cart and a doll lay on the black-and-white
+floor, where a rug had been kicked back. I felt that the children had only just
+hurried away&mdash;to hide themselves, most like&mdash;in the many turns of the
+great adzed staircase that climbed statelily out of the hall, or to crouch at
+gaze behind the lions and roses of the carven gallery above. Then I heard her
+voice above me, singing as the blind sing&mdash;from the soul:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+In the pleasant orchard-closes.
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+And all my early summer came back at the call.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+In the pleasant orchard-closes,<br/>
+God bless all our gains say we&mdash;<br/>
+But may God bless all our losses,<br/>
+Better suits with our degree,
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+She dropped the marring fifth line, and repeated&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Better suits with our degree!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw her lean over the gallery, her linked hands white as pearl against the
+oak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that you&mdash;from the other side of the county?&rdquo; she called.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, me&mdash;from the other side of the county,&rdquo; I answered
+laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What a long time before you had to come here again.&rdquo; She ran down
+the stairs, one hand lightly touching the broad rail. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s two
+months and four days. Summer&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I meant to come before, but Fate prevented.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I knew it. Please do something to that fire. They won&rsquo;t let me
+play with it, but I can feel it&rsquo;s behaving badly. Hit it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a half-charred
+hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It never goes out, day or night,&rdquo; she said, as though explaining.
+&ldquo;In case any one comes in with cold toes, you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s even lovelier inside than it was out,&rdquo; I murmured. The
+red light poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor
+roses and lions of the gallery took colour and motion. An old eagle-topped
+convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart, distorting afresh
+the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines into the curves of a ship.
+The day was shutting down in half a gale as the fog turned to stringy scud.
+Through the uncurtained mullions of the broad window I could see valiant
+horsemen of the lawn rear and recover against the wind that taunted them with
+legions of dead leaves. &ldquo;Yes, it must be beautiful,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;Would you like to go over it? There&rsquo;s still light enough
+upstairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I followed her up the unflinching, wagon-wide staircase to the gallery whence
+opened the thin fluted Elizabethan doors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Feel how they put the latch low down for the sake of the
+children.&rdquo; She swung a light door inward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the way, where are they?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t even
+heard them to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not answer at once. Then, &ldquo;I can only hear them,&rdquo; she
+replied softly. &ldquo;This is one of their rooms&mdash;everything ready, you
+see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She pointed into a heavily-timbered room. There were little low gate tables and
+children&rsquo;s chairs. A doll&rsquo;s house, its hooked front half open,
+faced a great dappled rocking-horse, from whose padded saddle it was but a
+child&rsquo;s scramble to the broad window-seat overlooking the lawn. A toy gun
+lay in a corner beside a gilt wooden cannon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely they&rsquo;ve only just gone,&rdquo; I whispered. In the failing
+light a door creaked cautiously. I heard the rustle of a frock and the patter
+of feet&mdash;quick feet through a room beyond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard that,&rdquo; she cried triumphantly. &ldquo;Did you? Children, O
+children, where are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voice filled the walls that held it lovingly to the last perfect note, but
+there came no answering shout such as I had heard in the garden. We hurried on
+from room to oak-floored room; up a step here, down three steps there; among a
+maze of passages; always mocked by our quarry. One might as well have tried to
+work an unstopped warren with a single ferret. There were bolt-holes
+innumerable&mdash;recesses in walls, embrasures of deep slitten windows now
+darkened, whence they could start up behind us; and abandoned fireplaces, six
+feet deep in the masonry, as well as the tangle of communicating doors. Above
+all, they had the twilight for their helper in our game. I had caught one or
+two joyous chuckles of evasion, and once or twice had seen the silhouette of a
+child&rsquo;s frock against some darkening window at the end of a passage; but
+we returned empty-handed to the gallery, just as a middle-aged woman was
+setting a lamp in its niche.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I haven&rsquo;t seen her either this evening, Miss Florence,&rdquo;
+I heard her say, &ldquo;but that Turpin he says he wants to see you about his
+shed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Mr. Turpin must want to see me very badly. Tell him to come to the
+hall, Mrs. Madden.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked down into the hall whose only light was the dulled fire, and deep in
+the shadow I saw them at last. They must have slipped down while we were in the
+passages, and now thought themselves perfectly hidden behind an old gilt
+leather screen. By child&rsquo;s law, my fruitless chase was as good as an
+introduction, but since I had taken so much trouble I resolved to force them to
+come forward later by the simple trick, which children detest, of pretending
+not to notice them. They lay close, in a little huddle, no more than shadows
+except when a quick flame betrayed an outline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now we&rsquo;ll have some tea,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I believe I
+ought to have offered it you at first, but one doesn&rsquo;t arrive at manners
+somehow when one lives alone and is
+considered&mdash;h&rsquo;m&mdash;peculiar.&rdquo; Then with very pretty scorn,
+&ldquo;would you like a lamp to see to eat by?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The firelight&rsquo;s much pleasanter, I think.&rdquo; We descended into
+that delicious gloom and Madden brought tea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took my chair in the direction of the screen ready to surprise or be
+surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth is
+always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?&rdquo; I asked
+idly. &ldquo;Why, they are tallies!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;As I can&rsquo;t read or write
+I&rsquo;m driven back on the early English tally for my accounts. Give me one
+and I&rsquo;ll tell you what it meant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I passed her an unburned hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran her thumb
+down the nicks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last
+year, in gallons,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I should have
+done without tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It&rsquo;s
+out of date now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of
+them&rsquo;s coming now to see me. Oh, it doesn&rsquo;t matter. He has no
+business here out of office hours. He&rsquo;s a greedy, ignorant man&mdash;very
+greedy or&mdash;he wouldn&rsquo;t come here after dark.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you much land then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six
+hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this Turpin
+is quite a new man&mdash;and a highway robber.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But are you sure I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn&rsquo;t any children.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, the children!&rdquo; I said, and slid my low chair back till it
+nearly touched the screen that hid them. &ldquo;I wonder whether they&rsquo;ll
+come out for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a murmur of voices&mdash;Madden&rsquo;s and a deeper note&mdash;at
+the low, dark side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the
+unmistakable tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If&mdash;if you please, Miss, I&rsquo;ll&mdash;I&rsquo;ll be quite as
+well by the door.&rdquo; He clung to the latch as he spoke like a frightened
+child. Of a sudden I realised that he was in the grip of some almost
+overpowering fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About that new shed for the young stock&mdash;that was all. These first
+autumn storms settin&rsquo; in … but I&rsquo;ll come again, Miss.&rdquo; His
+teeth did not chatter much more than the door latch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think not,&rdquo; she answered levelly. &ldquo;The new
+shed&mdash;m&rsquo;m. What did my agent write you on the 15th?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;fancied p&rsquo;raps that if I came to see
+you&mdash;ma&mdash;man to man like, Miss. But&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His eyes rolled into every corner of the room wide with horror. He half opened
+the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut again&mdash;from
+without and firmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He wrote what I told him,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;You are overstocked
+already. Dunnett&rsquo;s Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks&mdash;even
+in Mr. Wright&rsquo;s time. And <i>he</i> used cake. You&rsquo;ve sixty-seven
+and you don&rsquo;t cake. You&rsquo;ve broken the lease in that respect.
+You&rsquo;re dragging the heart out of the farm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m&mdash;I&rsquo;m getting some
+minerals&mdash;superphosphates&mdash;next week. I&rsquo;ve as good as ordered a
+truck-load already. I&rsquo;ll go down to the station to-morrow about
+&rsquo;em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the daylight….
+That gentleman&rsquo;s not going away, is he?&rdquo; He almost shrieked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had only slid the chair a little further back, reaching behind me to tap on
+the leather of the screen, but he jumped like a rat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Please attend to me, Mr. Turpin.&rdquo; She turned in her chair and
+faced him with his back to the door. It was an old and sordid little piece of
+scheming that she forced from him&mdash;his plea for the new cowshed at his
+landlady&rsquo;s expense, that he might with the covered manure pay his next
+year&rsquo;s rent out of the valuation after, as she made clear, he had bled
+the enriched pastures to the bone. I could not but admire the intensity of his
+greed, when I saw him out-facing for its sake whatever terror it was that ran
+wet on his forehead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I ceased to tap the leather&mdash;was, indeed, calculating the cost of the
+shed&mdash;when I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the soft
+hands of a child. So at last I had triumphed. In a moment I would turn and
+acquaint myself with those quick-footed wanderers….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm&mdash;as a gift on which
+the fingers were, once, expected to close: as the all faithful half-reproachful
+signal of a waiting child not used to neglect even when grown-ups were
+busiest&mdash;a fragment of the mute code devised very long ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I knew. And it was as though I had known from the first day when I looked
+across the lawn at the high window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard the door shut. The woman turned to me in silence, and I felt that she
+knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a log,
+and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place in the chair
+very close to the screen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now you understand,&rdquo; she whispered, across the packed shadows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I understand&mdash;now. Thank you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I only hear them.&rdquo; She bowed her head in her hands.
+&ldquo;I have no right, you know&mdash;no other right. I have neither borne nor
+lost&mdash;neither borne nor lost!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be very glad then,&rdquo; said I, for my soul was torn open within me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forgive me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was because I loved them so,&rdquo; she said at last, brokenly.
+&ldquo;<i>That</i> was why it was, even from the first&mdash;even before I knew
+that they&mdash;they were all I should ever have. And I loved them so!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the shadow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They came because I loved them&mdash;because I needed them. I&mdash;I
+must have made them come. Was that wrong, think you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;no.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;I grant you that the toys and&mdash;and all that sort of thing
+were nonsense, but&mdash;but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
+little.&rdquo; She pointed to the gallery. &ldquo;And the passages all empty. …
+And how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t! For pity&rsquo;s sake, don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; I cried. The
+twilight had brought a cold rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded
+windows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. <i>I</i>
+don&rsquo;t think it so foolish&mdash;do you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked at the broad brick hearth, saw, through tears I believe, that there
+was no unpassable iron on or near it, and bowed my head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did all that and lots of other things&mdash;just to make believe. Then
+they came. I heard them, but I didn&rsquo;t know that they were not mine by
+right till Mrs. Madden told me&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The butler&rsquo;s wife? What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One of them&mdash;I heard&mdash;she saw. And knew. Hers! <i>Not</i> for
+me. I didn&rsquo;t know at first. Perhaps I was jealous. Afterwards, I began to
+understand that it was only because I loved them, not because&mdash;&mdash;…
+Oh, you <i>must</i> bear or lose,&rdquo; she said piteously. &ldquo;There is no
+other way&mdash;and yet they love me. They must! Don&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no sound in the room except the lapping voices of the fire, but we
+two listened intently, and she at least took comfort from what she heard. She
+recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair by the screen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think me a wretch to whine about myself like this,
+but&mdash;but I&rsquo;m all in the dark, you know, and <i>you</i> can
+see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though that was
+like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer I would stay
+since it was the last time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think it is wrong, then?&rdquo; she cried sharply, though I had said
+nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right…. I am grateful to
+you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; she said, but passed her hand before her face as she had
+done at our second meeting in the wood. &ldquo;Oh, I see,&rdquo; she went on
+simply as a child. &ldquo;For you it would be wrong.&rdquo; Then with a little
+indrawn laugh, &ldquo;and, d&rsquo;you remember, I called you
+lucky&mdash;once&mdash;at first. You who must never come here again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She left me to sit a little longer by the screen, and I heard the sound of her
+feet die out along the gallery above.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>MRS. BATHURST</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>FROM LYDEN&rsquo;S &ldquo;IRENIUS&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+ACT III. Sc. II.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GOW.&mdash;Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose
+there&rsquo;s not an astrologer of the city&mdash;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PRINCE.&mdash;Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GOW.&mdash;So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would
+ha&rsquo; sworn he&rsquo;d foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when
+Vulcan caught her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since
+&rsquo;tis Jack of the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on
+their tablets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PRINCE.&mdash;Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the poor fool
+come by it?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GOW.&mdash;<i>Simpliciter</i> thus. She that damned him to death knew not that
+she did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He that
+hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than &ldquo;Where
+is the rope?&rdquo; The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works God&rsquo;s
+will, in which holy employ he&rsquo;s not to be questioned. We have then left
+upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of Destiny in
+Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on a sunny wall. Whuff! Soh!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PRINCE.&mdash;Your cloak, Ferdinand. I&rsquo;ll sleep now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FERDINAND.&mdash;Sleep, then… He too, loved his life?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GOW.&mdash;He was born of woman … but at the end threw life from him, like your
+Prince, for a little sleep … &ldquo;Have I any look of a King?&rdquo; said he,
+clanking his chain&mdash;&ldquo;to be so baited on all sides by Fortune, that I
+must e&rsquo;en die now to live with myself one day longer?&rdquo; I left him
+railing at Fortune and woman&rsquo;s love.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FERDINAND.&mdash;Ah, woman&rsquo;s love!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>(Aside)</i> Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones, Stealing from
+feasts as rare to coneycatch, Privily in the hedgerows for a clown With that
+same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one hammer and
+lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed Yesterday
+&rsquo;gainst some King.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>MRS. BATHURST</h2>
+
+<p>
+The day that I chose to visit H.M.S. <i>Peridot</i> in Simon&rsquo;s Bay was
+the day that the Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. She was just
+steaming out to sea as my train came in, and since the rest of the Fleet were
+either coaling or busy at the rifle-ranges a thousand feet up the hill, I found
+myself stranded, lunchless, on the sea-front with no hope of return to Cape
+Town before five <small>P.M</small>. At this crisis I had the luck to come
+across my friend Inspector Hooper, Cape Government Railways, in command of an
+engine and a brake-van chalked for repair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you get something to eat,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll run you
+down to Glengariff siding till the goods comes along. It&rsquo;s cooler there
+than here, you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price, and the
+engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of drifted sand and a
+plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred yards from the edge of the
+surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow, rolled far inland up a brown and
+purple valley of splintered rocks and dry scrub. A crowd of Malays hauled at a
+net beside two blue and green boats on the beach; a picnic party danced and
+shouted barefoot where a tiny river trickled across the flat, and a circle of
+dry hills, whose feet were set in sands of silver, locked us in against a
+seven-coloured sea. At either horn of the bay the railway line, cut just above
+high water-mark, ran round a shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see there&rsquo;s always a breeze here,&rdquo; said Hooper, opening
+the door as the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong
+south-easter buffeting under Elsie&rsquo;s Peak dusted sand into our tickey
+beer. Presently he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had returned
+from a long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on damaged
+rolling-stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland wind on my
+eyelids; the song of it under the car roof, and high up among the rocks; the
+drift of fine grains chasing each other musically ashore; the tramp of the
+surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle of Hooper&rsquo;s file, and the
+presence of the assured sun, joined with the beer to cast me into magical
+slumber. The hills of False Bay were just dissolving into those of fairyland
+when I heard footsteps on the sand outside, and the clink of our couplings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop that!&rdquo; snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his
+work. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they&rsquo;re
+always playing with the trucks….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be hard on &rsquo;em. The railway&rsquo;s a general refuge
+in Africa,&rdquo; I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis&mdash;up-country at any rate. That reminds me,&rdquo; he felt
+in his waistcoat-pocket, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a curiosity for you from
+Wankies&mdash;beyond Buluwayo. It&rsquo;s more of a souvenir perhaps
+than&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old hotel&rsquo;s inhabited,&rdquo; cried a voice. &ldquo;White men
+from the language. Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here&rsquo;s your
+Belmont. Wha&mdash;i&mdash;i!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last word dragged like a rope as Mr. Pyecroft ran round to the open door,
+and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous Sergeant of Marines
+trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the sand nervously from his
+fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;I thought the
+<i>Hierophant</i> was down the coast?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We came in last Tuesday&mdash;from Tristan D&rsquo;Acunha&mdash;for
+overhaul, and we shall be in dockyard &rsquo;ands for two months, with
+boiler-seatings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come and sit down,&rdquo; Hooper put away the file.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is Mr. Hooper of the Railway,&rdquo; I exclaimed, as Pyecroft
+turned to haul up the black-moustached sergeant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the <i>Agaric</i>, an old
+shipmate,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We were strollin&rsquo; on the beach.&rdquo;
+The monster blushed and nodded. He filled up one side of the van when he sat
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And this is my friend, Mr. Pyecroft,&rdquo; I added to Hooper, already
+busy with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Moi aussi</i>&rdquo; quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a
+labelled quart bottle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s Bass,&rdquo; cried Hooper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was Pritchard,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;They can&rsquo;t resist
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not so,&rdquo; said Pritchard, mildly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not <i>verbatim</i> per&rsquo;aps, but the look in the eye came to the
+same thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where was it?&rdquo; I demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just on beyond here&mdash;at Kalk Bay. She was slappin&rsquo; a rug in a
+back verandah. Pritch hadn&rsquo;t more than brought his batteries to bear,
+before she stepped indoors an&rsquo; sent it flyin&rsquo; over the wall.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was all a mistake,&rdquo; said Pritchard. &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t
+wonder if she mistook me for Maclean. We&rsquo;re about of a size.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James&rsquo;s, and Kalk Bay
+complain of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the seaside, and
+I began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent Bass, and I too
+drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the uniform that fetches &rsquo;em, an&rsquo; they fetch
+it,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;My simple navy blue is respectable, but not
+fascinatin&rsquo;. Now Pritch in &rsquo;is Number One rig is always &lsquo;purr
+Mary, on the terrace&rsquo;&mdash;<i>ex officio</i> as you might say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She took me for Maclean, I tell you,&rdquo; Pritchard insisted.
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;to listen to him you wouldn&rsquo;t think that only
+yesterday&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pritch,&rdquo; said Pyecroft, &ldquo;be warned in time. If we begin
+tellin&rsquo; what we know about each other we&rsquo;ll be turned out of the
+pub. Not to mention aggravated desertion on several
+occasions&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never anything more than absence without leaf&mdash;I defy you to prove
+it,&rdquo; said the Sergeant hotly. &ldquo;An&rsquo; if it comes to that how
+about Vancouver in &rsquo;87?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
+Niven…?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely you were court martialled for that?&rdquo; I said. The story of
+Boy Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
+woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we were court-martialled to rights,&rdquo; said Pritchard,
+&ldquo;but we should have been tried for murder if Boy Niven &rsquo;adn&rsquo;t
+been unusually tough. He told us he had an uncle &rsquo;oo&rsquo;d give us land
+to farm. &rsquo;E said he was born at the back o&rsquo; Vancouver Island, and
+<i>all</i> the time the beggar was a balmy Barnado Orphan!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>But</i> we believed him,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;I did&mdash;you
+did&mdash;Paterson did&mdash;an&rsquo; &rsquo;oo was the Marine that married
+the cocoanut-woman afterwards&mdash;him with the mouth?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I &rsquo;aven&rsquo;t thought of &rsquo;im in
+years,&rdquo; said Pritchard. &ldquo;Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an&rsquo;
+George Anstey and Moon. We were very young an&rsquo; very curious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>But</i> lovin&rsquo; an&rsquo; trustful to a degree,&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Remember when &rsquo;e told us to walk in single file for fear o&rsquo;
+bears? &lsquo;Remember, Pye, when &rsquo;e &rsquo;opped about in that bog full
+o&rsquo; ferns an&rsquo; sniffed an&rsquo; said &rsquo;e could smell the smoke
+of &rsquo;is uncle&rsquo;s farm? An&rsquo; <i>all</i> the time it was a dirty
+little out-lyin&rsquo; uninhabited island. We walked round it in a day,
+an&rsquo; come back to our boat lyin&rsquo; on the beach. A whole day Boy Niven
+kept us walkin&rsquo; in circles lookin&rsquo; for &rsquo;is uncle&rsquo;s
+farm! He said his uncle was compelled by the law of the land to give us a
+farm!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t get hot, Pritch. We believed,&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;d been readin&rsquo; books. He only did it to get a run ashore
+an&rsquo; have himself talked of. A day an&rsquo; a night&mdash;eight of
+us&mdash;followin&rsquo; Boy Niven round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver
+archipelago! Then the picket came for us an&rsquo; a nice pack o&rsquo; idiots
+we looked!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did you get for it?&rdquo; Hooper asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter
+sleet-squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till conclusion
+o&rsquo; cruise,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;It was only what we expected, but
+what we felt, an&rsquo; I assure you, Mr. Hooper, even a sailor-man has a heart
+to break, was bein&rsquo; told that we able seamen an&rsquo; promisin&rsquo;
+marines &rsquo;ad misled Boy Niven. Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was
+supposed to &rsquo;ave misled him! He rounded on us, o&rsquo; course, an&rsquo;
+got off easy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excep&rsquo; for what we gave him in the steerin&rsquo;-flat when we
+came out o&rsquo; cells. &rsquo;Eard anything of &rsquo;im lately, Pye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Signal Boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe&mdash;Mr. L.L. Niven
+is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; Anstey died o&rsquo; fever in Benin,&rdquo; Pritchard mused.
+&ldquo;What come to Moon? Spit-Kid we know about.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moon&mdash;Moon! Now where did I last…? Oh yes, when I was in the
+<i>Palladium</i>! I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon &rsquo;ad
+run when the <i>Astrild</i> sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years
+back. He always showed signs o&rsquo; bein&rsquo; a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he
+slipped off quietly an&rsquo; they &rsquo;adn&rsquo;t time to chase &rsquo;im
+round the islands even if the navigatin&rsquo; officer &rsquo;ad been equal to
+the job.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo; said Hooper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not so. Accordin&rsquo; to Quigley the <i>Astrild</i> spent half her
+commission rompin&rsquo; up the beach like a she-turtle, an&rsquo; the other
+half hatching turtles&rsquo; eggs on the top o&rsquo; numerous reefs. When she
+was docked at Sydney her copper looked like Aunt Maria&rsquo;s washing on the
+line&mdash;an&rsquo; her &rsquo;midship frames was sprung. The commander swore
+the dockyard &rsquo;ad done it haulin&rsquo; the pore thing on to the slips.
+They <i>do</i> do strange things at sea, Mr. Hooper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! I&rsquo;m not a tax-payer,&rdquo; said Hooper, and opened a fresh
+bottle. The Sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping
+subjects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How it all comes back, don&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Why Moon
+must &rsquo;ave &rsquo;ad sixteen years&rsquo; service before he ran.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It takes &rsquo;em at all ages. Look at&mdash;you know,&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party
+you&rsquo;re thinkin&rsquo; of,&rdquo; said Pritchard. &ldquo;A warrant
+&rsquo;oose name begins with a V., isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, in a way o&rsquo; puttin&rsquo; it, we can&rsquo;t say that he
+actually did desert,&rdquo; Pyecroft suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; said Pritchard. &ldquo;It was only permanent absence up
+country without leaf. That was all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Up country?&rdquo; said Hooper. &ldquo;Did they circulate his
+description?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What for?&rdquo; said Pritchard, most impolitely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don&rsquo;t move
+away from the line, you see. I&rsquo;ve known a chap caught at Salisbury that
+way tryin&rsquo; to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o&rsquo; course I
+don&rsquo;t know, that they don&rsquo;t ask questions on the Nyassa Lake
+Flotilla up there. I&rsquo;ve heard of a P. and O. quartermaster in full
+command of an armed launch there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think Click &rsquo;ud ha&rsquo; gone up that way?&rdquo;
+Pritchard asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over
+some Navy ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it into
+the trucks. Then there was no more Click&mdash;then or thereafter. Four months
+ago it transpired, and thus the <i>casus belli</i> stands at present,&rdquo;
+said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What were his marks?&rdquo; said Hooper again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Does the Railway get a reward for returnin&rsquo; &rsquo;em,
+then?&rdquo; said Pritchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I did d&rsquo;you suppose I&rsquo;d talk about it?&rdquo; Hooper
+retorted angrily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You seemed so very interested,&rdquo; said Pritchard with equal
+crispness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why was he called Click?&rdquo; I asked to tide over an uneasy little
+break in the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very fixedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because of an ammunition hoist carryin&rsquo; away,&rdquo; said
+Pyecroft. &ldquo;And it carried away four of &rsquo;is teeth&mdash;on the lower
+port side, wasn&rsquo;t it, Pritch? The substitutes which he bought
+weren&rsquo;t screwed home in a manner o&rsquo; sayin&rsquo;. When he talked
+fast they used to lift a little on the bed plate. &rsquo;Ence,
+&lsquo;Click.&rsquo; They called &rsquo;im a superior man which is what
+we&rsquo;d call a long, black-&rsquo;aired, genteely speakin&rsquo;,
+&rsquo;alf-bred beggar on the lower deck.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Four false teeth on the lower left jaw,&rdquo; said Hooper, his hand in
+his waistcoat pocket. &ldquo;What tattoo marks?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; began Pritchard, half rising. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure
+we&rsquo;re very grateful to you as a gentleman for your &rsquo;orspitality,
+but per&rsquo;aps we may &rsquo;ave made an error in&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked at Pyecroft for aid, Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If the fat marine now occupying the foc&rsquo;sle will kindly bring
+&rsquo;is <i>status quo</i> to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk
+like gentlemen&mdash;not to say friends,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;He
+regards you, Mr. Hooper, as a emissary of the Law.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar,
+or I should rather say, such a <i>bloomin&rsquo;</i> curiosity in
+identification marks as our friend here&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Pritchard,&rdquo; I interposed, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take all the
+responsibility for Mr. Hooper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; <i>you</i>&rsquo;ll apologise all round,&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a rude little man, Pritch.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how was I&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; he began, wavering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know an&rsquo; I don&rsquo;t care. Apologise!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his vast grip,
+one by one. &ldquo;I was wrong,&rdquo; he said meekly as a sheep. &ldquo;My
+suspicions was unfounded. Mr. Hooper, I apologise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You did quite right to look out for your own end o&rsquo; the
+line,&rdquo; said Hooper. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d ha&rsquo; done the same with a
+gentleman I didn&rsquo;t know, you see. If you don&rsquo;t mind I&rsquo;d like
+to hear a little more o&rsquo; your Mr. Vickery. It&rsquo;s safe with me, you
+see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did Vickery run,&rdquo; I began, but Pyecroft&rsquo;s smile made me
+turn my question to &ldquo;Who was she?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She kep&rsquo; a little hotel at Hauraki&mdash;near Auckland,&rdquo;
+said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Gawd!&rdquo; roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg.
+&ldquo;Not Mrs. Bathurst!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of darkness to
+witness his bewilderment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But Click was married,&rdquo; cried Pritchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; &rsquo;ad a fifteen year old daughter. &rsquo;E&rsquo;s shown
+me her photograph. Settin&rsquo; that aside, so to say, &rsquo;ave you ever
+found these little things make much difference? Because I haven&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good Lord Alive an&rsquo; Watchin&rsquo;!… Mrs. Bathurst….&rdquo; Then
+with another roar: &ldquo;You can say what you please, Pye, but you don&rsquo;t
+make me believe it was any of &rsquo;er fault. She wasn&rsquo;t
+<i>that!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I was going to say what I please, I&rsquo;d begin by callin&rsquo;
+you a silly ox an&rsquo; work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I&rsquo;m
+trying to say solely what transpired. M&rsquo;rover, for once you&rsquo;re
+right. It wasn&rsquo;t her fault.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;t &rsquo;aven&rsquo;t made me believe it if it
+&rsquo;ad been,&rdquo; was the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. &ldquo;Never mind
+about that,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Tell me what she was like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was a widow,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;Left so very young and
+never re-spliced. She kep&rsquo; a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close
+to Auckland, an&rsquo; she always wore black silk, and &rsquo;er
+neck&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You ask what she was like,&rdquo; Pritchard broke in. &ldquo;Let me give
+you an instance. I was at Auckland first in &rsquo;97, at the end o&rsquo; the
+<i>Marroquin&rsquo;s</i> commission, an&rsquo; as I&rsquo;d been promoted I
+went up with the others. She used to look after us all, an&rsquo; she never
+lost by it&mdash;not a penny! &lsquo;Pay me now,&rsquo; she&rsquo;d say,
+&lsquo;or settle later. I know you won&rsquo;t let me suffer. Send the money
+from home if you like,&rsquo; Why, gentlemen all, I tell you I&rsquo;ve seen
+that lady take her own gold watch an&rsquo; chain off her neck in the bar
+an&rsquo; pass it to a bosun &rsquo;oo&rsquo;d come ashore without &rsquo;is
+ticker an&rsquo; &rsquo;ad to catch the last boat. &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know
+your name,&rsquo; she said, &lsquo;but when you&rsquo;ve done with it,
+you&rsquo;ll find plenty that know me on the front. Send it back by one
+o&rsquo; them.&rsquo; And it was worth thirty pounds if it was worth &rsquo;arf
+a crown. The little gold watch, Pye, with the blue monogram at the back. But,
+as I was sayin&rsquo;, in those days she kep&rsquo; a beer that agreed with
+me&mdash;Slits it was called. One way an&rsquo; another I must &rsquo;ave
+punished a good few bottles of it while we was in the bay&mdash;comin&rsquo;
+ashore every night or so. Chaffin across the bar like, once when we were alone,
+&lsquo;Mrs. B.,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;when next I call I want you to remember
+that this is my particular&mdash;just as you&rsquo;re my particular?&rsquo;
+(She&rsquo;d let you go <i>that</i> far!) &lsquo;Just as you&rsquo;re my
+particular,&rsquo; I said. &lsquo;Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,&rsquo; she
+says, an&rsquo; put &rsquo;er hand up to the curl be&rsquo;ind &rsquo;er ear.
+Remember that way she had, Pye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think so,&rdquo; said the sailor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, &lsquo;Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,&rsquo; she says. &lsquo;The
+least I can do is to mark it for you in case you change your mind.
+There&rsquo;s no great demand for it in the Fleet,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;but
+to make sure I&rsquo;ll put it at the back o&rsquo; the shelf,&rsquo; an&rsquo;
+she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon with that old dolphin cigar cutter
+on the bar&mdash;remember it, Pye?&mdash;an&rsquo; she tied a bow round what
+was left&mdash;just four bottles. That was &rsquo;97&mdash;no, &rsquo;96. In
+&rsquo;98 I was in the <i>Resiliant</i>&mdash;China station&mdash;full
+commission. In Nineteen One, mark you, I was in the <i>Carthusian</i>, back in
+Auckland Bay again. Of course I went up to Mrs. B.&rsquo;s with the rest of us
+to see how things were goin&rsquo;. They were the same as ever. (Remember the
+big tree on the pavement by the side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin&rsquo; in
+special (there was too many of us talkin&rsquo; to her), but she saw me at
+once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That wasn&rsquo;t difficult?&rdquo; I ventured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but wait. I was comin&rsquo; up to the bar, when, &lsquo;Ada,&rsquo;
+she says to her niece, &lsquo;get me Sergeant Pritchard&rsquo;s
+particular,&rsquo; and, gentlemen all, I tell you before I could shake
+&rsquo;ands with the lady, there were those four bottles o&rsquo; Slits, with
+&rsquo;er &rsquo;air ribbon in a bow round each o&rsquo; their necks, set down
+in front o&rsquo; me, an&rsquo; as she drew the cork she looked at me under her
+eyebrows in that blindish way she had o&rsquo; lookin&rsquo;, an&rsquo;,
+&lsquo;Sergeant Pritchard,&rsquo; she says, &lsquo;I do &rsquo;ope you
+&rsquo;aven&rsquo;t changed your mind about your particulars.&rsquo;
+That&rsquo;s the kind o&rsquo; woman she was&mdash;after five years!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t <i>see</i> her yet somehow,&rdquo; said Hooper, but with
+sympathy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&mdash;she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set &rsquo;er foot
+on a scorpion at any time of &rsquo;er life,&rdquo; Pritchard added valiantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That don&rsquo;t help me either. My mother&rsquo;s like that for
+one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof. Said
+Pyecroft suddenly:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many women have you been intimate with all over the world,
+Pritch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch neck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Undreds,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;So&rsquo;ve I. How many of
+&rsquo;em can you remember in your own mind, settin&rsquo; aside the
+first&mdash;an&rsquo; per&rsquo;aps the last&mdash;<i>and one more</i>?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself,&rdquo; said Sergeant Pritchard,
+relievedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; how many times might you &rsquo;ave been at Aukland?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One&mdash;two,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;Why, I can&rsquo;t make it more
+than three times in ten years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw
+Mrs. B.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So can I&mdash;an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ve only been to Auckland
+twice&mdash;how she stood an&rsquo; what she was sayin&rsquo; an&rsquo; what
+she looked like. That&rsquo;s the secret. &rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t beauty, so to
+speak, nor good talk necessarily. It&rsquo;s just It. Some women&rsquo;ll stay
+in a man&rsquo;s memory if they once walked down a street, but most of
+&rsquo;em you can live with a month on end, an&rsquo; next commission
+you&rsquo;d be put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not,
+as one might say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Hooper. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s more the idea. I&rsquo;ve
+known just two women of that nature.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; it was no fault o&rsquo; theirs?&rdquo; asked Pritchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None whatever. I know that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An&rsquo; if a man gets struck with that kind o&rsquo; woman, Mr.
+Hooper?&rdquo; Pritchard went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He goes crazy&mdash;or just saves himself,&rdquo; was the slow answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve hit it,&rdquo; said the Sergeant. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve seen
+an&rsquo; known somethin&rsquo; in the course o&rsquo; your life, Mr. Hooper.
+I&rsquo;m lookin&rsquo; at you!&rdquo; He set down his bottle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how often had Vickery seen her?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the dark an&rsquo; bloody mystery,&rdquo; Pyecroft
+answered. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d never come across him till I come out in the
+<i>Hierophant</i> just now, an&rsquo; there wasn&rsquo;t any one in the ship
+who knew much about him. You see, he was what you call a superior man. &rsquo;E
+spoke to me once or twice about Auckland and Mrs. B. on the voyage out. I
+called that to mind subsequently. There must &rsquo;ave been a good deal
+between &rsquo;em, to my way o&rsquo; thinkin&rsquo;. Mind you I&rsquo;m only
+giving you my <i>sum</i> of it all, because all I know is second-hand so to
+speak, or rather I should say more than second-&rsquo;and.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How?&rdquo; said Hooper peremptorily. &ldquo;You must have seen it or
+heard it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;I used to think seein&rsquo; and
+hearin&rsquo; was the only regulation aids to ascertainin&rsquo; facts, but as
+we get older we get more accommodatin&rsquo;. The cylinders work easier, I
+suppose…. Were you in Cape Town last December when Phyllis&rsquo;s Circus
+came?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;up country,&rdquo; said Hooper, a little nettled at the change
+of venue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called
+&lsquo;Home and Friends for a Tickey.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, you mean the cinematograph&mdash;the pictures of prize-fights and
+steamers. I&rsquo;ve seen &rsquo;em up country.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin&rsquo; to. London
+Bridge with the omnibuses&mdash;a troopship goin&rsquo; to the
+war&mdash;marines on parade at Portsmouth an&rsquo; the Plymouth Express
+arrivin&rsquo; at Paddin&rsquo;ton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seen &rsquo;em all. Seen &rsquo;em all,&rdquo; said Hooper impatiently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We <i>Hierophants</i> came in just before Christmas week an&rsquo; leaf
+was easy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on
+the station. Why, even Durban&rsquo;s more like Nature. We was there for
+Christmas,&rdquo; Pritchard put in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not bein&rsquo; a devotee of Indian <i>peeris</i>, as our Doctor said to
+the Pusser, I can&rsquo;t exactly say. Phyllis&rsquo;s was good enough after
+musketry practice at Mozambique. I couldn&rsquo;t get off the first two or
+three nights on account of what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo
+Lieutenant in the submerged flat, where some pride of the West country had
+sugared up a gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our Carpenter
+Rigdon&mdash;old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus never left
+&rsquo;is ship unless an&rsquo; until he was &rsquo;oisted out with a winch,
+but <i>when</i> &rsquo;e went &rsquo;e would return noddin&rsquo; like a lily
+gemmed with dew. We smothered him down below that night, but the things
+&rsquo;e said about Vickery as a fittin&rsquo; playmate for a Warrant Officer
+of &rsquo;is cubic capacity, before we got him quiet, was what I should call
+pointed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been with Crocus&mdash;in the <i>Redoubtable</i>,&rdquo; said
+the Sergeant. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a character if there is one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at the
+door of the Circus I came across Vickery. &lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;you&rsquo;re the man I&rsquo;m looking for. Come and sit next me. This
+way to the shillin&rsquo; places!&rsquo; I went astern at once,
+protestin&rsquo; because tickey seats better suited my so-called finances.
+&lsquo;Come on,&rsquo; says Vickery, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m payin&rsquo;.&rsquo;
+Naturally I abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o&rsquo; drinks to match
+the seats. &lsquo;No,&rsquo; he says, when this was
+&rsquo;inted&mdash;&lsquo;not now. Not now. As many as you please afterwards,
+but I want you sober for the occasion.&rsquo; I caught &rsquo;is face under a
+lamp just then, an&rsquo; the appearance of it quite cured me of my thirsts.
+Don&rsquo;t mistake. It didn&rsquo;t frighten me. It made me anxious. I
+can&rsquo;t tell you what it was like, but that was the effect which it
+&rsquo;ad on me. If you want to know, it reminded me of those things in bottles
+in those herbalistic shops at Plymouth&mdash;preserved in spirits of wine.
+White an&rsquo; crumply things&mdash;previous to birth as you might say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You &rsquo;ave a beastial mind, Pye,&rdquo; said the Sergeant,
+relighting his pipe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps. We were in the front row, an&rsquo; &lsquo;Home an&rsquo;
+Friends&rsquo; came on early. Vickery touched me on the knee when the number
+went up. &lsquo;If you see anything that strikes you,&rsquo; he says,
+&lsquo;drop me a hint&rsquo;; then he went on clicking. We saw London Bridge
+an&rsquo; so forth an&rsquo; so on, an&rsquo; it was most interestin&rsquo;.
+I&rsquo;d never seen it before. You &rsquo;eard a little dynamo like
+buzzin&rsquo;, but the pictures were the real thing&mdash;alive an&rsquo;
+movin&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen &rsquo;em,&rdquo; said Hooper. &ldquo;Of course they are
+taken from the very thing itself&mdash;you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin&rsquo;ton on the big magic
+lantern sheet. First we saw the platform empty an&rsquo; the porters
+standin&rsquo; by. Then the engine come in, head on, an&rsquo; the women in the
+front row jumped: she headed so straight. Then the doors opened and the
+passengers came out and the porters got the luggage&mdash;just like life.
+Only&mdash;only when any one came down too far towards us that was
+watchin&rsquo;, they walked right out o&rsquo; the picture, so to speak. I was
+&rsquo;ighly interested, I can tell you. So were all of us. I watched an old
+man with a rug &rsquo;oo&rsquo;d dropped a book an&rsquo; was tryin&rsquo; to
+pick it up, when quite slowly, from be&rsquo;ind two
+porters&mdash;carryin&rsquo; a little reticule an&rsquo; lookin&rsquo; from
+side to side&mdash;comes out Mrs. Bathurst. There was no mistakin&rsquo; the
+walk in a hundred thousand. She come forward&mdash;right forward&mdash;she
+looked out straight at us with that blindish look which Pritch alluded to. She
+walked on and on till she melted out of the picture&mdash;like&mdash;like a
+shadow jumpin&rsquo; over a candle, an&rsquo; as she went I &rsquo;eard Dawson
+in the ticky seats be&rsquo;ind sing out: &lsquo;Christ! There&rsquo;s Mrs.
+B.!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hooper swallowed his spittle and leaned forward intently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vickery touched me on the knee again. He was clickin&rsquo; his four
+false teeth with his jaw down like an enteric at the last kick. &lsquo;Are you
+sure?&rsquo; says he. &lsquo;Sure,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;didn&rsquo;t you
+&rsquo;ear Dawson give tongue? Why, it&rsquo;s the woman herself.&rsquo;
+&lsquo;I was sure before,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;but I brought you to make
+sure. Will you come again with me to-morrow?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Willingly,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s like meetin&rsquo;
+old friends.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he says, openin&rsquo; his watch, &lsquo;very like.
+It will be four-and-twenty hours less four minutes before I see her again. Come
+and have a drink,&rsquo; he says. &lsquo;It may amuse you, but it&rsquo;s no
+sort of earthly use to me.&rsquo; He went out shaking his head an&rsquo;
+stumblin&rsquo; over people&rsquo;s feet as if he was drunk already. I
+anticipated a swift drink an&rsquo; a speedy return, because I wanted to see
+the performin&rsquo; elephants. Instead o&rsquo; which Vickery began to
+navigate the town at the rate o&rsquo; knots, lookin&rsquo; in at a bar every
+three minutes approximate Greenwich time. I&rsquo;m not a drinkin&rsquo; man,
+though there are those present&rdquo;&mdash;he cocked his unforgetable eye at
+me&mdash;&ldquo;who may have seen me more or less imbued with the fragrant
+spirit. None the less, when I drink I like to do it at anchor an&rsquo; not at
+an average speed of eighteen knots on the measured mile. There&rsquo;s a tank
+as you might say at the back o&rsquo; that big hotel up the hill&mdash;what do
+they call it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Molteno Reservoir,&rdquo; I suggested, and Hooper nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was his limit o&rsquo; drift. We walked there an&rsquo; we come
+down through the Gardens&mdash;there was a South-Easter
+blowin&rsquo;&mdash;an&rsquo; we finished up by the Docks. Then we bore up the
+road to Salt River, and wherever there was a pub Vickery put in sweatin&rsquo;.
+He didn&rsquo;t look at what he drunk&mdash;he didn&rsquo;t look at the change.
+He walked an&rsquo; he drunk an&rsquo; he perspired in rivers. I understood why
+old Crocus &rsquo;ad come back in the condition &rsquo;e did, because Vickery
+an&rsquo; I &rsquo;ad two an&rsquo; a half hours o&rsquo; this gipsy manœuvre
+an&rsquo; when we got back to the station there wasn&rsquo;t a dry atom on or
+in me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he say anything?&rdquo; Pritchard asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The sum total of &rsquo;is conversation from 7.45 <small>P.M</small>.
+till 11.15 <small>P.M</small>. was &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s have another.&rsquo; Thus
+the mornin&rsquo; an&rsquo; the evenin&rsquo; were the first day, as Scripture
+says…. To abbreviate a lengthy narrative, I went into Cape Town for five
+consecutive nights with Master Vickery, and in that time I must &rsquo;ave
+logged about fifty knots over the ground an&rsquo; taken in two gallon o&rsquo;
+all the worst spirits south the Equator. The evolution never varied. Two
+shilling seats for us two; five minutes o&rsquo; the pictures, an&rsquo;
+perhaps forty-five seconds o&rsquo; Mrs. B. walking down towards us with that
+blindish look in her eyes an&rsquo; the reticule in her hand. Then out
+walk&mdash;and drink till train time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did you think?&rdquo; said Hooper, his hand fingering his waistcoat
+pocket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Several things,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I
+aren&rsquo;t quite done thinkin&rsquo; about it yet. Mad? The man was a dumb
+lunatic&mdash;must &rsquo;ave been for months&mdash;years p&rsquo;raps. I know
+somethin&rsquo; o&rsquo; maniacs, as every man in the Service must. I&rsquo;ve
+been shipmates with a mad skipper&mdash;an&rsquo; a lunatic Number One, but
+never both together I thank &rsquo;Eaven. I could give you the names o&rsquo;
+three captains now &rsquo;oo ought to be in an asylum, but you don&rsquo;t find
+me interferin&rsquo; with the mentally afflicted till they begin to lay about
+&rsquo;em with rammers an&rsquo; winch-handles. Only once I crept up a little
+into the wind towards Master Vickery. &lsquo;I wonder what she&rsquo;s
+doin&rsquo; in England,&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t it seem to you
+she&rsquo;s lookin&rsquo; for somebody?&rsquo; That was in the Gardens again,
+with the South-Easter blowin&rsquo; as we were makin&rsquo; our desperate
+round. &lsquo;She&rsquo;s lookin&rsquo; for me,&rsquo; he says, stoppin&rsquo;
+dead under a lamp an&rsquo; clickin&rsquo;. When he wasn&rsquo;t
+drinkin&rsquo;, in which case all &rsquo;is teeth clicked on the glass,
+&rsquo;e was clickin&rsquo; &rsquo;is four false teeth like a Marconi ticker.
+&lsquo;Yes! lookin&rsquo; for me,&rsquo; he said, an&rsquo; he went on very
+softly an&rsquo; as you might say affectionately. &lsquo;<i>But</i>, he went
+on, &lsquo;in future, Mr. Pyecroft, I should take it kindly of you if
+you&rsquo;d confine your remarks to the drinks set before you.
+Otherwise,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;with the best will in the world towards you,
+I may find myself guilty of murder! Do you understand?&rsquo; he says.
+&lsquo;Perfectly,&rsquo; I says, &lsquo;but would it at all soothe you to know
+that in such a case the chances o&rsquo; your being killed are precisely
+equivalent to the chances o&rsquo; me being outed.&rsquo; &lsquo;Why,
+no,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m almost afraid that &rsquo;ud be a
+temptation,&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I said&mdash;we was right under the lamp by that arch at the end
+o&rsquo; the Gardens where the trams came round&mdash;&lsquo;Assumin&rsquo;
+murder was done&mdash;or attempted murder&mdash;I put it to you that you would
+still be left so badly crippled, as one might say, that your subsequent capture
+by the police&mdash;to &rsquo;oom you would &rsquo;ave to explain&mdash;would
+be largely inevitable.&rsquo; &lsquo;That&rsquo;s better,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says,
+passin&rsquo; &rsquo;is hands over his forehead. &lsquo;That&rsquo;s much
+better, because,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;do you know, as I am now, Pye,
+I&rsquo;m not so sure if I could explain anything much.&rsquo; Those were the
+only particular words I had with &rsquo;im in our walks as I remember.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What walks!&rdquo; said Hooper. &ldquo;Oh my soul, what walks!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were chronic,&rdquo; said Pyecroft gravely, &ldquo;but I
+didn&rsquo;t anticipate any danger till the Circus left. Then I anticipated
+that, bein&rsquo; deprived of &rsquo;is stimulant, he might react on me, so to
+say, with a hatchet. Consequently, after the final performance an&rsquo; the
+ensuin&rsquo; wet walk, I kep&rsquo; myself aloof from my superior officer on
+board in the execution of &rsquo;is duty as you might put it. Consequently, I
+was interested when the sentry informs me while I was passin&rsquo; on my
+lawful occasions that Click had asked to see the captain. As a general rule
+warrant officers don&rsquo;t dissipate much of the owner&rsquo;s time, but
+Click put in an hour and more be&rsquo;ind that door. My duties kep&rsquo; me
+within eyeshot of it. Vickery came out first, an&rsquo; &rsquo;e actually
+nodded at me an&rsquo; smiled. This knocked me out o&rsquo; the boat, because,
+havin&rsquo; seen &rsquo;is face for five consecutive nights, I didn&rsquo;t
+anticipate any change there more than a condenser in hell, so to speak. The
+owner emerged later. His face didn&rsquo;t read off at all, so I fell back on
+his cox, &rsquo;oo&rsquo;d been eight years with him and knew him better than
+boat signals. Lamson&mdash;that was the cox&rsquo;s name&mdash;crossed
+&rsquo;is bows once or twice at low speeds an&rsquo; dropped down to me visibly
+concerned. &lsquo;He&rsquo;s shipped &rsquo;is court-martial face,&rsquo; says
+Lamson. &lsquo;Some one&rsquo;s goin&rsquo; to be &rsquo;ung. I&rsquo;ve never
+seen that look but once before when they chucked the gun-sights overboard in
+the <i>Fantastic</i>.&rsquo; Throwin&rsquo; gun-sights overboard, Mr. Hooper,
+is the equivalent for mutiny in these degenerate days. It&rsquo;s done to
+attract the notice of the authorities an&rsquo; the <i>Western Mornin&rsquo;
+News</i>&mdash;generally by a stoker. Naturally, word went round the lower deck
+an&rsquo; we had a private over&rsquo;aul of our little consciences. But,
+barrin&rsquo; a shirt which a second-class stoker said &rsquo;ad walked into
+&rsquo;is bag from the marines flat by itself, nothin&rsquo; vital transpired.
+The owner went about flyin&rsquo; the signal for &lsquo;attend public
+execution,&rsquo; so to say, but there was no corpse at the yardarm. &rsquo;E
+lunched on the beach an&rsquo; &rsquo;e returned with &rsquo;is regulation
+harbour-routine face about 3 <small>P.M</small>. Thus Lamson lost prestige for
+raising false alarms. The only person &rsquo;oo might &rsquo;ave connected the
+epicycloidal gears correctly was one Pyecroft, when he was told that Mr.
+Vickery would go up country that same evening to take over certain naval
+ammunition left after the war in Bloemfontein Fort. No details was ordered to
+accompany Master Vickery. He was told off first person singular&mdash;as a
+unit&mdash;-by himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The marine whistled penetratingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I thought,&rdquo; said Pyecroft. &ldquo;I went ashore
+with him in the cutter an&rsquo; &rsquo;e asked me to walk through the station.
+He was clickin&rsquo; audibly, but otherwise seemed happy-ish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;You might like to know,&rsquo; he says, stoppin&rsquo; just
+opposite the Admiral&rsquo;s front gate, &lsquo;that Phyllis&rsquo;s Circus
+will be performin&rsquo; at Worcester to-morrow night. So I shall see &rsquo;er
+yet once again. You&rsquo;ve been very patient with me,&rsquo; he says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Look here, Vickery,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;this thing&rsquo;s come
+to be just as much as I can stand. Consume your own smoke. I don&rsquo;t want
+to know any more.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;You!&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;What have you got to complain
+of?&mdash;you&rsquo;ve only &rsquo;ad to watch. I&rsquo;m <i>it</i>,&rsquo; he
+says, &lsquo;but that&rsquo;s neither here nor there,&rsquo; he says.
+&lsquo;I&rsquo;ve one thing to say before shakin&rsquo; &rsquo;ands.
+Remember,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says&mdash;we were just by the Admiral&rsquo;s
+garden-gate then&mdash;&lsquo;remember, that I am <i>not</i> a murderer,
+because my lawful wife died in childbed six weeks after I came out. That much
+at least I am clear of,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Then what have you done that signifies?&rsquo; I said.
+&lsquo;What&rsquo;s the rest of it?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;The rest,&rsquo; &rsquo;e says, &lsquo;is silence,&rsquo;
+an&rsquo; he shook &rsquo;ands and went clickin&rsquo; into Simons Town
+station.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he stop to see Mrs. Bathurst at Worcester?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not known. He reported at Bloemfontein, saw the ammunition
+into the trucks, and then &rsquo;e disappeared. Went out&mdash;deserted, if you
+care to put it so&mdash;within eighteen months of his pension, an&rsquo; if
+what &rsquo;e said about &rsquo;is wife was true he was a free man as &rsquo;e
+then stood. How do you read it off?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor devil!&rdquo; said Hooper. &ldquo;To see her that way every night!
+I wonder what it was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve made my &rsquo;ead ache in that direction many a long
+night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll swear Mrs. B. &rsquo;ad no &rsquo;and in it,&rdquo; said
+the Sergeant unshaken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Whatever the wrong or deceit was, he did it, I&rsquo;m sure o&rsquo;
+that. I &rsquo;ad to look at &rsquo;is face for five consecutive nights.
+I&rsquo;m not so fond o&rsquo; navigatin&rsquo; about Cape Town with a
+South-Easter blowin&rsquo; these days. I can hear those teeth click, so to
+say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, those teeth,&rdquo; said Hooper, and his hand went to his waistcoat
+pocket once more. &ldquo;Permanent things false teeth are. You read about
+&rsquo;em in all the murder trials.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What d&rsquo;you suppose the captain knew&mdash;or did?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never turned my searchlight that way,&rdquo; Pyecroft answered
+unblushingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We all reflected together, and drummed on empty beer bottles as the
+picnic-party, sunburned, wet, and sandy, passed our door singing &ldquo;The
+Honeysuckle and the Bee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pretty girl under that kapje,&rdquo; said Pyecroft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They never circulated his description?&rdquo; said Pritchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was askin&rsquo; you before these gentlemen came,&rdquo; said Hooper
+to me, &ldquo;whether you knew Wankies&mdash;on the way to the
+Zambesi&mdash;beyond Buluwayo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would he pass there&mdash;tryin&rsquo; to get to that Lake what&rsquo;s
+&rsquo;is name?&rdquo; said Pritchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hooper shook his head and went on: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a curious bit o&rsquo;
+line there, you see. It runs through solid teak forest&mdash;a sort o&rsquo;
+mahogany really&mdash;seventy-two miles without a curve. I&rsquo;ve had a train
+derailed there twenty-three times in forty miles. I was up there a month ago
+relievin&rsquo; a sick inspector, you see. He told me to look out for a couple
+of tramps in the teak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two?&rdquo; Pyecroft said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t envy that other man
+if&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We get heaps of tramps up there since the war. The inspector told me
+I&rsquo;d find &rsquo;em at M&rsquo;Bindwe siding waiting to go North.
+He&rsquo;d given &rsquo;em some grub and quinine, you see. I went up on a
+construction train. I looked out for &rsquo;em. I saw them miles ahead along
+the straight, waiting in the teak. One of &rsquo;em was standin&rsquo; up by
+the dead-end of the siding an&rsquo; the other was squattin&rsquo; down
+lookin&rsquo; up at &rsquo;im, you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did you do for &rsquo;em?&rdquo; said Pritchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t much I could do, except bury &rsquo;em. There&rsquo;d
+been a bit of a thunderstorm in the teak, you see, and they were both stone
+dead and as black as charcoal. That&rsquo;s what they really were, you
+see&mdash;charcoal. They fell to bits when we tried to shift &rsquo;em. The man
+who was standin&rsquo; up had the false teeth. I saw &rsquo;em shinin&rsquo;
+against the black. Fell to bits he did too, like his mate squatting down
+an&rsquo; watchin&rsquo; him, both of &rsquo;em all wet in the rain. Both
+burned to charcoal, you see. And&mdash;that&rsquo;s what made me ask about
+marks just now&mdash;the false-toother was tattooed on the arms and
+chest&mdash;a crown and foul anchor with M.V. above.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen that,&rdquo; said Pyecroft quickly. &ldquo;It was
+so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if he was all charcoal-like?&rdquo; said Pritchard, shuddering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know how writing shows up white on a burned letter? Well, it was
+like that, you see. We buried &rsquo;em in the teak and I kept… But he was a
+friend of you two gentlemen, you see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Hooper brought his hand away from his waistcoat-pocket&mdash;empty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pritchard covered his face with his hands for a moment, like a child shutting
+out an ugliness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to think of her at Hauraki!&rdquo; he murmured&mdash;&ldquo;with
+&rsquo;er &rsquo;air-ribbon on my beer. &lsquo;Ada,&rsquo; she said to her
+niece… Oh, my Gawd!&rdquo;…
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;On a summer afternoon, when the honeysuckle blooms,<br/>
+    And all Nature seems at rest,<br/>
+Underneath the bower, &rsquo;mid the perfume of the flower,<br/>
+    Sat a maiden with the one she loves the best&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+sang the picnic-party waiting for their train at Glengariff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know how you feel about it,&rdquo; said Pyecroft,
+&ldquo;but &rsquo;avin&rsquo; seen &rsquo;is face for five consecutive nights
+on end, I&rsquo;m inclined to finish what&rsquo;s left of the beer an&rsquo;
+thank Gawd he&rsquo;s dead!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>BELOW THE MILL DAM</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>&ldquo;OUR FATHERS ALSO&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+By&mdash;they are by with mirth and tears,<br/>
+    Wit or the works of Desire&mdash;<br/>
+Cushioned about on the kindly years<br/>
+    Between the wall and the fire.<br/>
+<br/>
+The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked&mdash;<br/>
+    Standeth no more to glean;<br/>
+For the Gates of Love and Learning locked<br/>
+    When they went out between.<br/>
+<br/>
+All lore our Lady Venus bares<br/>
+    Signalled it was or told<br/>
+By the dear lips long given to theirs<br/>
+    And longer to the mould.<br/>
+<br/>
+All Profit, all Device, all Truth<br/>
+    Written it was or said<br/>
+By the mighty men of their mighty youth.<br/>
+    Which is mighty being dead.<br/>
+<br/>
+The film that floats before their eyes<br/>
+    The Temple&rsquo;s Veil they call;<br/>
+And the dust that on the Shewbread lies<br/>
+    Is holy over all.<br/>
+<br/>
+Warn them of seas that slip our yoke<br/>
+    Of slow conspiring stars&mdash;<br/>
+The ancient Front of Things unbroke<br/>
+    But heavy with new wars?<br/>
+<br/>
+By&mdash;they are by with mirth and tears.<br/>
+    Wit or the waste of Desire&mdash;<br/>
+Cushioned about on the kindly years<br/>
+    Between the wall and the fire.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>BELOW THE MILL DAM</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Book&mdash;Book&mdash;Domesday Book!&rdquo; They were letting in the
+water for the evening stint at Robert&rsquo;s Mill, and the wooden Wheel where
+lived the Spirit of the Mill settled to its nine hundred year old song:
+&ldquo;Here Azor, a freeman, held one rod, but it never paid geld.
+<i>Nun-nun-nunquam geldavit</i>. Here Reinbert has one villein and four cottars
+with one plough&mdash;and wood for six hogs and two fisheries of sixpence and a
+mill of ten shillings&mdash;<i>unum molinum</i>&mdash;one mill.
+Reinbert&rsquo;s mill&mdash;Robert&rsquo;s Mill. Then and afterwards and
+now&mdash;<i>tunc et post et modo</i>&mdash;Robert&rsquo;s Mill.
+Book&mdash;Book&mdash;Domesday Book!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I confess,&rdquo; said the Black Rat on the crossbeam, luxuriously
+trimming his whiskers&mdash;&ldquo;I confess I am not above appreciating my
+position and all it means.&rdquo; He was a genuine old English black rat, a
+breed which, report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the
+brown variety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Appreciation is the surest sign of inadequacy,&rdquo; said the Grey Cat,
+coiled up on a piece of sacking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I know what you mean,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;To sit by right at
+the heart of things&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy
+stones thuttered on the grist. &ldquo;To possess&mdash;er&mdash;all this
+environment as an integral part of one&rsquo;s daily life must insensibly of
+course … You see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I feel,&rdquo; said the Grey Cat. &ldquo;Indeed, if <i>we</i> are not
+saturated with the spirit of the Mill, who should be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Book&mdash;Book&mdash;Domesday Book!&rdquo; the Wheel, set to his work,
+was running off the tenure of the whole rape, for he knew Domesday Book
+backwards and forwards: &ldquo;<i>In Ferle tenuit Abbatia de Wiltuna unam hidam
+et unam virgam et dimidiam. Nunquam geldavit</i>. And Agemond, a freeman, has
+half a hide and one rod. I remember Agemond well. Charmin&rsquo;
+fellow&mdash;friend of mine. He married a Norman girl in the days when we
+rather looked down on the Normans as upstarts. An&rsquo; Agemond&rsquo;s dead?
+So he is. Eh, dearie me! dearie me! I remember the wolves howling outside his
+door in the big frost of Ten Fifty-Nine…. <i>Essewelde hundredum nunquam geldum
+reddidit</i>. Book! Book! Domesday Book!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After all,&rdquo; the Grey Cat continued, &ldquo;atmospere is life. It
+is the influences under which we live that count in the long run. Now,
+outside&rdquo;&mdash;she cocked one ear towards the half-opened
+door&mdash;&ldquo;there is an absurd convention that rats and cats are, I
+won&rsquo;t go so far as to say natural enemies, but opposed forces. Some such
+ruling may be crudely effective&mdash;I don&rsquo;t for a minute presume to set
+up my standards as final&mdash;among the ditches; but from the larger point of
+view that one gains by living at the heart of things, it seems for a rule of
+life a little overstrained. Why, because some of your associates have, shall I
+say, liberal views on the ultimate destination of a sack
+of&mdash;er&mdash;middlings don&rsquo;t they call them&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something of that sort,&rdquo; said the Black Rat, a most sharp and
+sweet-toothed judge of everything ground in the mill for the last three years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks&mdash;middlings be it. <i>Why</i>, as I was saying, must I
+disarrange my fur and my digestion to chase you round the dusty arena whenever
+we happen to meet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As little reason,&rdquo; said the Black Rat, &ldquo;as there is for me,
+who, I trust, am a person of ordinarily decent instincts, to wait till you have
+gone on a round of calls, and then to assassinate your very charming
+children.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly! It has its humorous side though.&rdquo; The Grey Cat yawned.
+&ldquo;The miller seems afflicted by it. He shouted large and vague threats to
+my address, last night at tea, that he wasn&rsquo;t going to keep cats who
+&lsquo;caught no mice.&rsquo; Those were his words. I remember the grammar
+sticking in my throat like a herring-bone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what did you do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does one do when a barbarian utters? One ceases to utter and
+removes. I removed&mdash;towards his pantry. It was a <i>riposte</i> he might
+appreciate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Really those people grow absolutely insufferable,&rdquo; said the Black
+Rat. &ldquo;There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles&mdash;a
+builder&mdash;who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the
+Wheel for the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick
+where those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used to stand. Have you
+noticed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There has been much misdirected activity of late among the humans. They
+jabber inordinately. I haven&rsquo;t yet been able to arrive at their reason
+for existence.&rdquo; The Cat yawned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A couple of them came in here last week with wires, and fixed them all
+about the walls. Wires protected by some abominable composition, ending in iron
+brackets with glass bulbs. Utterly useless for any purpose and artistically
+absolutely hideous. What do they mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aaah! I have known <i>four</i>-and-twenty leaders of revolt in
+Faenza,&rdquo; said the Cat, who kept good company with the boarders spending a
+summer at the Mill Farm. &ldquo;It means nothing except that humans
+occasionally bring their dogs with them. I object to dogs in all forms.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t object to dogs,&rdquo; said the Wheel sleepily….
+&ldquo;The Abbot of Wilton kept the best pack in the county. He enclosed all
+the Harryngton Woods to Sturt Common. Aluric, a freeman, was dispossessed of
+his holding. They tried the case at Lewes, but he got no change out of William
+de Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric eight and fourpence
+for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for blasphemy. Aluric
+was no sportsman. Then the Abbot&rsquo;s brother married … I&rsquo;ve forgotten
+her name, but she was a charmin&rsquo; little woman. The Lady Philippa was her
+daughter. That was after the barony was conferred. She rode devilish straight
+to hounds. They were a bit throatier than we breed now, but a good pack: one of
+the best. The Abbot kept &rsquo;em in splendid shape. Now, who was the woman
+the Abbot kept? Book&mdash;Book! I shall have to go right back to Domesday and
+work up the centuries: <i>Modo per omnia reddit burgum
+tunc&mdash;tunc&mdash;tunc</i>! Was it <i>burgum</i> or <i>hundredum</i>? I
+shall remember in a minute. There&rsquo;s no hurry.&rdquo; He paused as he
+turned over silvered with showering drops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This won&rsquo;t do,&rdquo; said the Waters in the sluice. &ldquo;Keep
+moving.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Wheel swung forward; the Waters roared on the buckets and dropped down to
+the darkness below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Noisier than usual,&rdquo; said the Black Rat. &ldquo;It must have been
+raining up the valley.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Floods maybe,&rdquo; said the Wheel dreamily. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t the
+proper season, but they can come without warning. I shall never forget the big
+one&mdash;when the Miller went to sleep and forgot to open the hatches. More
+than two hundred years ago it was, but I recall it distinctly. Most
+unsettling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We lifted that wheel off his bearings,&rdquo; cried the Waters.
+&ldquo;We said, &lsquo;Take away that bauble!&rsquo; And in the morning he was
+five mile down the valley&mdash;hung up in a tree.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Vulgar!&rdquo; said the Cat. &ldquo;But I am sure he never lost his
+dignity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know. He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had
+finished with him…. Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! Get over!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why on this day more than any other,&rdquo; said the Wheel
+statelily. &ldquo;I am not aware that my department requires the stimulus of
+external pressure to keep it up to its duties. I trust I have the elementary
+instincts of a gentleman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe,&rdquo; the Waters answered together, leaping down on the buckets.
+&ldquo;We only know that you are very stiff on your bearings. Over, get
+over!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Wheel creaked and groaned. There was certainly greater pressure upon him
+than he had ever felt, and his revolutions had increased from six and
+three-quarters to eight and a third per minute. But the uproar between the
+narrow, weed-hung walls annoyed the Grey Cat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it almost time,&rdquo; she said plaintively, &ldquo;that the
+person who is paid to understand these things shuts off those vehement
+drippings with that screw-thing on the top of that box-thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;ll be shut off at eight o&rsquo;clock as usual,&rdquo; said
+Rat; &ldquo;then we can go to dinner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we shan&rsquo;t be shut off till ever so late,&rdquo; said the
+Waters gaily. &ldquo;We shall keep it up all night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for by
+its eternal hopefulness,&rdquo; said the Cat. &ldquo;Our dam is not, I am glad
+to say, designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time. Reserve
+is Life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank goodness!&rdquo; said the Black Rat. &ldquo;Then they can return
+to their native ditches.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ditches!&rdquo; cried the Waters; &ldquo;Raven&rsquo;s Gill Brook is no
+ditch. It is almost navigable, and <i>we</i> come from there away.&rdquo; They
+slid over solid and compact till the Wheel thudded under their weight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Raven&rsquo;s Gill Brook,&rdquo; said the Rat. &ldquo;<i>I</i> never
+heard of Raven&rsquo;s Gill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are the waters of Harpenden Brook&mdash;down from under Callton Rise.
+Phew! how the race stinks compared with the heather country.&rdquo; Another
+five foot of water flung itself against the Wheel, broke, roared, gurgled, and
+was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said the Grey Cat, &ldquo;I am sorry to tell you that
+Raven&rsquo;s Gill Brook is cut off from this valley by an absolutely
+impassable range of mountains, and Callton Rise is more than nine miles away.
+It belongs to another system entirely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah yes,&rdquo; said the Rat, grinning, &ldquo;but we forget that, for
+the young, water always runs uphill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, hopeless! hopeless! hopeless!&rdquo; cried the Waters, descending
+open-palmed upon the Wheel &ldquo;There is nothing between here and
+Raven&rsquo;s Gill Brook that a hundred yards of channelling and a few square
+feet of concrete could not remove; and hasn&rsquo;t removed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Harpenden Brook is north of Raven&rsquo;s Gill and runs into
+Raven&rsquo;s Gill at the foot of Callton Rise, where ilex trees are, and
+<i>we</i> come from there!&rdquo; These were the glassy, clear waters of the
+high chalk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And Batten&rsquo;s Ponds, that are fed by springs, have been led through
+Trott&rsquo;s Wood, taking the spare water from the old Witches&rsquo; Spring
+under Churt Haw, and we&mdash;we&mdash;<i>we</i> are their combined
+waters!&rdquo; Those were the Waters from the upland bogs and moors&mdash;a
+porter-coloured, dusky, and foam-flecked flood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all very interesting,&rdquo; purred the Cat to the sliding
+waters, &ldquo;and I have no doubt that Trott&rsquo;s Woods and Bott&rsquo;s
+Woods are tremendously important places; but if you could manage to do your
+work&mdash;whose value I don&rsquo;t in the least dispute&mdash;a little more
+soberly, I, for one, should be grateful.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Book&mdash;book&mdash;book&mdash;book&mdash;book&mdash;Domesday
+Book!&rdquo; The urged Wheel was fairly clattering now: &ldquo;In
+Burgelstaltone a monk holds of Earl Godwin one hide and a half with eight
+villeins. There is a church&mdash;and a monk…. I remember that monk. Blessed if
+he could rattle his rosary off any quicker than I am doing now … and wood for
+seven hogs. I must be running twelve to the minute … almost as fast as Steam.
+Damnable invention, Steam! … Surely it&rsquo;s time we went to dinner or
+prayers&mdash;or something. Can&rsquo;t keep up this pressure, day in and day
+out, and not feel it. I don&rsquo;t mind for myself, of course. <i>Noblesse
+oblige</i>, you know. I&rsquo;m only thinking of the Upper and the Nether
+Millstones. They came out of the common rock. They can&rsquo;t be expected
+to&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry on our account, please,&rdquo; said the Millstones
+huskily. &ldquo;So long as you supply the power we&rsquo;ll supply the weight
+and the bite.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this
+way?&rdquo; grunted the Wheel. &ldquo;I seem to remember something about the
+Mills of God grinding &lsquo;slowly.&rsquo; <i>Slowly</i> was the word!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we are not the Mills of God. We&rsquo;re only the Upper and the
+Nether Millstones. We have received no instructions to be anything else. We are
+actuated by power transmitted through you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but let us be merciful as we are strong. Think of all the beautiful
+little plants that grow on my woodwork. There are five varieties of rare moss
+within less than one square yard&mdash;and all these delicate jewels of nature
+are being grievously knocked about by this excessive rush of the water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Umph!&rdquo; growled the Millstones. &ldquo;What with your religious
+scruples and your taste for botany we&rsquo;d hardly know you for the Wheel
+that put the carter&rsquo;s son under last autumn. You never worried about
+<i>him</i>!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He ought to have known better.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So ought your jewels of nature. Tell &rsquo;em to grow where it&rsquo;s
+safe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How a purely mercantile life debases and brutalises!&rdquo; said the Cat
+to the Rat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were such beautiful little plants too,&rdquo; said the Rat
+tenderly. &ldquo;Maiden&rsquo;s-tongue and hart&rsquo;s-hair fern trellising
+all over the wall just as they do on the sides of churches in the Downs. Think
+what a joy the sight of them must be to our sturdy peasants pulling hay!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Golly!&rdquo; said the Millstones. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing like
+coming to the heart of things for information&rdquo;; and they returned to the
+song that all English water-mills have sung from time beyond telling:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+There was a jovial miller once<br/>
+    Lived on the River Dee,<br/>
+And this the burden of his song<br/>
+    For ever used to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, as fresh grist poured in and dulled the note:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+I care for nobody&mdash;no not I,<br/>
+    And nobody cares for me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even these stones have absorbed something of our atmosphere,&rdquo; said
+the Grey Cat. &ldquo;Nine-tenths of the trouble in this world comes from lack
+of detachment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One of your people died from forgetting that, didn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;
+said the Rat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One only. The example has sufficed us for generations.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! but what happened to Don&rsquo;t Care?&rdquo; the Waters demanded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Brutal riding to death of the casual analogy is another mark of
+provincialism!&rdquo; The Grey Cat raised her tufted chin. &ldquo;I am going to
+sleep. With my social obligations I must snatch rest when I can; but, as our
+old friend here says, <i>Noblesse oblige</i>…. Pity me! Three functions
+to-night in the village, and a barn dance across the valley!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no chance, I suppose, of your looking in on the loft about
+two. Some of our young people are going to amuse themselves with a new
+sacque-dance&mdash;best white flour only,&rdquo; said the Black Rat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I am officially supposed not to countenance that sort of
+thing, but youth is youth.… By the way, the humans set my milk-bowl in the
+loft these days; I hope your youngsters respect it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear lady,&rdquo; said the Black Rat, bowing, &ldquo;you grieve me.
+You hurt me inexpressibly. After all these years, too!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A general crush is so mixed&mdash;highways and hedges&mdash;all that
+sort of thing&mdash;and no one can answer for one&rsquo;s best friends.
+<i>I</i> never try. So long as mine are amusin&rsquo; and in full voice, and
+can hold their own at a tile-party, I&rsquo;m as catholic as these mixed waters
+in the dam here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We aren&rsquo;t mixed. We <i>have</i> mixed. We are one now,&rdquo; said
+the Waters sulkily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Still uttering?&rdquo; said the Cat. &ldquo;Never mind, here&rsquo;s the
+Miller coming to shut you off. Ye-es, I have known&mdash;<i>four</i>&mdash;or
+five is it?&mdash;and twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza…. A little more babble
+in the dam, a little more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the
+wheel, and then&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They will find that nothing has occurred,&rdquo; said the Black Rat.
+&ldquo;The old things persist and survive and are recognised&mdash;our old
+friend here first of all. By the way,&rdquo; he turned toward the Wheel,
+&ldquo;I believe we have to congratulate you on your latest honour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Profoundly well deserved&mdash;even if he had never&mdash;as he
+has&mdash;-laboured strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of
+millkind,&rdquo; said the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse
+committees. &ldquo;Doubly deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified
+rebuke his existence offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands
+of&mdash;er&mdash;some people. What form did the honour take?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was,&rdquo; said the Wheel bashfully, &ldquo;a machine-moulded
+pinion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!&rdquo; the Black Rat sighed. &ldquo;I never
+see a bat without wishing for wings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not exactly that sort of pinion,&rdquo; said the Wheel, &ldquo;but a
+really ornate circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying.
+Mr. Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally&mdash;on my
+left rim&mdash;the side that you can&rsquo;t see from the mill. I hadn&rsquo;t
+meant to say anything about it&mdash;or the new steel straps round my
+axles&mdash;bright red, you know&mdash;to be worn on all occasions&mdash;but,
+without false modesty, I assure you that the recognition cheered me not a
+little.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How intensely gratifying!&rdquo; said the Black Rat. &ldquo;I must
+really steal an hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on
+your left side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr.
+Mangles?&rdquo; the Grey Cat asked. &ldquo;He seems to be building small houses
+on the far side of the tail-race. Believe me, I don&rsquo;t ask from any vulgar
+curiosity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It affects our Order,&rdquo; said the Black Rat simply but firmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said the Wheel. &ldquo;Let me see if I can tabulate it
+properly. Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On
+the side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now was
+a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and two carts of
+two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards and a half, and one
+roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and afterwards beer in large
+tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three villeins and one very great cart,
+deposits on it one engine of iron and brass and a small iron mill of four feet,
+and a broad strap of leather. And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins,
+constructs the floor for the same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the
+small mill. There are there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number
+fifty-seven. The whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four pounds….
+I&rsquo;m sorry I can&rsquo;t make myself clearer, but you can see for
+yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Amazingly lucid,&rdquo; said the Cat. She was the more to be admired
+because the language of Domesday Book is not, perhaps, the clearest medium
+wherein to describe a small but complete electric-light installation, deriving
+its power from a water-wheel by means of cogs and gearing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See for yourself&mdash;by all means, see for yourself,&rdquo; said the
+Waters, spluttering and choking with mirth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my word,&rdquo; said the Black Rat furiously, &ldquo;I may be at
+fault, but I wholly fail to perceive where these offensive
+eavesdroppers&mdash;er&mdash;come in. We were discussing a matter that solely
+affected our Order.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly they heard, as they had heard many times before, the Miller shutting
+off the water. To the rattle and rumble of the labouring stones succeeded thick
+silence, punctuated with little drops from the stayed wheel. Then some
+water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as she slid to her nest, and the plop
+of a water-rat sounded like the fall of a log in the water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is all over&mdash;it always is all over at just this time. Listen,
+the Miller is going to bed&mdash;as usual. Nothing has occurred,&rdquo; said
+the Cat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something creaked in the house where the pig-styes had stood, as metal engaged
+on metal with a clink and a burr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I turn her on?&rdquo; cried the Miller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said the voice from the dynamo-house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A human in Mangles&rsquo; new house!&rdquo; the Rat squeaked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What of it?&rdquo; said the Grey Cat. &ldquo;Even supposing Mr.
+Mangles&rsquo; cats&rsquo;-meat-coloured hovel ululated with humans,
+can&rsquo;t you see for yourself&mdash;that&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a solid crash of released waters leaping upon the wheel more
+furiously than ever, a grinding of cogs, a hum like the hum of a hornet, and
+then the unvisited darkness of the old mill was scattered by intolerable white
+light. It threw up every cobweb, every burl and knot in the beams and the
+floor; till the shadows behind the flakes of rough plaster on the wall lay
+clear-cut as shadows of mountains on the photographed moon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See! See! See!&rdquo; hissed the Waters in full flood. &ldquo;Yes, see
+for yourselves. Nothing has occurred. Can&rsquo;t you see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Rat, amazed, had fallen from his foothold and lay half-stunned on the
+floor. The Cat, following her instinct, leaped nigh to the ceiling, and with
+flattened ears and bared teeth backed in a corner ready to fight whatever
+terror might be loosed on her. But nothing happened. Through the long aching
+minutes nothing whatever happened, and her wire-brush tail returned slowly to
+its proper shape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whatever it is,&rdquo; she said at last, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s overdone.
+They can never keep it up, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Much you know,&rdquo; said the Waters. &ldquo;Over you go, old man. You
+can take the full head of us now. Those new steel axle-straps of yours can
+stand anything. Come along, Raven&rsquo;s Gill, Harpenden, Callton Rise,
+Batten&rsquo;s Ponds, Witches&rsquo; Spring, all together! Let&rsquo;s show
+these gentlemen how to work!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;but&mdash;I thought it was a decoration.
+Why&mdash;why&mdash;why&mdash;it only means more work for <i>me</i>!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Exactly. You&rsquo;re to supply about sixty eight-candle lights when
+required. But they won&rsquo;t be all in use at once&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! I thought as much,&rdquo; said the Cat. &ldquo;The reaction is bound
+to come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>And</i>,&rdquo; said the Waters, &ldquo;you will do the ordinary work
+of the mill as well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; the old Wheel quivered as it drove. &ldquo;Aluric
+never did it&mdash;nor Azor, nor Reinbert. Not even William de Warrenne or the
+Papal Legate. There&rsquo;s no precedent for it. I tell you there&rsquo;s no
+precedent for working a wheel like this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a while! We&rsquo;re making one as fast as we can. Aluric and Co.
+are dead. So&rsquo;s the Papal Legate. You&rsquo;ve no notion how dead they
+are, but we&rsquo;re here&mdash;the Waters of Five Separate Systems.
+We&rsquo;re just as interesting as Domesday Book. Would you like to hear about
+the land-tenure in Trott&rsquo;s Wood? It&rsquo;s squat-right, chiefly.&rdquo;
+The mocking Waters leaped one over the other, chuckling and chattering
+profanely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In that hundred Jenkins, a tinker, with one dog&mdash;<i>unis
+canis</i>&mdash;holds, by the Grace of God and a habit he has of working hard,
+<i>unam hidam</i>&mdash;a large potato patch. Charmin&rsquo; fellow, Jenkins.
+Friend of ours. Now, who the dooce did Jenkins keep? … In the hundred of
+Callton is one charcoal-burner <i>irreligiosissimus homo</i>&mdash;a bit of a
+rip&mdash;but a thorough sportsman. <i>Ibi est ecclesia. Non multum</i>. Not
+much of a church, <i>quia</i> because, <i>episcopus</i> the Vicar irritated the
+Nonconformists <i>tunc et post et modo</i>&mdash;then and afterwards and
+now&mdash;until they built a cut-stone Congregational chapel with red brick
+facings that did not return itself&mdash;<i>defendebat se</i>&mdash;at four
+thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Charcoal-burners, vicars, schismatics, and red brick facings,&rdquo;
+groaned the Wheel. &ldquo;But this is sheer blasphemy. What waters have they
+let in upon me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Floods from the gutters. Faugh, this light is positively
+sickening!&rdquo; said the Cat, rearranging her fur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We come down from the clouds or up from the springs, exactly like all
+other waters everywhere. Is that what&rsquo;s surprising you?&rdquo; sang the
+Waters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course not. I know my work if you don&rsquo;t. What I complain of is
+your lack of reverence and repose. You&rsquo;ve no instinct of deference
+towards your betters&mdash;your heartless parody of the Sacred volume (the
+Wheel meant Domesday Book)&mdash;proves it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our betters?&rdquo; said the Waters most solemnly. &ldquo;What is there
+in all this dammed race that hasn&rsquo;t come down from the clouds,
+or&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spare me that talk, please,&rdquo; the Wheel persisted.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;d <i>never</i> understand. It&rsquo;s the tone&mdash;your tone
+that we object to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. It&rsquo;s your tone,&rdquo; said the Black Rat, picking himself up
+limb by limb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you thought a trifle more about the work you&rsquo;re supposed to do,
+and a trifle less about your precious feelings, you&rsquo;d render a little
+more duty in return for the power vested in you&mdash;we mean wasted on
+you,&rdquo; the Waters replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been some hundreds of years laboriously acquiring the knowledge
+which you see fit to challenge so light-heartedly,&rdquo; the Wheel jarred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Challenge him! Challenge him!&rdquo; clamoured the little waves riddling
+down through the tail-race. &ldquo;As well now as later. Take him up!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The main mass of the Waters plunging on the Wheel shocked that well-bolted
+structure almost into box-lids by saying: &ldquo;Very good. Tell us what you
+suppose yourself to be doing at the present moment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Waiving the offensive form of your question, I answer, purely as a
+matter of courtesy, that I am engaged in the trituration of farinaceous
+substances whose ultimate destination it would be a breach of the trust reposed
+in me to reveal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fiddle!&rdquo; said the Waters. &ldquo;We knew it all along! The first
+direct question shows his ignorance of his own job. Listen, old thing. Thanks
+to us, you are now actuating a machine of whose construction you know nothing,
+that that machine may, over wires of whose ramifications you are, by your very
+position, profoundly ignorant, deliver a power which you can never realise, to
+localities beyond the extreme limits of your mental horizon, with the object of
+producing phenomena which in your wildest dreams (if you ever dream) you could
+never comprehend. Is that clear, or would you like it all in words of four
+syllables?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your assumptions are deliciously sweeping, but may I point out that a
+decent and&mdash;the dear old Abbot of Wilton would have put it in his resonant
+monkish Latin much better than I can&mdash;a scholarly reserve, does not
+necessarily connote blank vacuity of mind on all subjects.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, the dear old Abbot of Wilton,&rdquo; said the Rat sympathetically,
+as one nursed in that bosom. &ldquo;Charmin&rsquo; fellow&mdash;thorough
+scholar and gentleman. Such a pity!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Sacred Fountains!&rdquo; the Waters were fairly boiling. &ldquo;He
+goes out of his way to expose his ignorance by triple bucketfuls. He creaks to
+high Heaven that he is hopelessly behind the common order of things! He invites
+the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal incompetence, and
+then he talks as though there were untold reserves of knowledge behind him that
+he is too modest to bring forward. For a bland, circular, absolutely sincere
+impostor, you&rsquo;re a miracle, O Wheel!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not pretend to be anything more than an integral portion of an
+accepted and not altogether mushroom institution.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; said the Waters. &ldquo;Then go
+round&mdash;hard&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To what end?&rdquo; asked the Wheel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and
+fume&mdash;gassing is the proper word.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would be,&rdquo; said the Cat, sniffing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That will show that your accumulators are full. When the accumulators
+are exhausted, and the lights burn badly, you will find us whacking you round
+and round again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The end of life as decreed by Mangles and his creatures is to go
+whacking round and round for ever,&rdquo; said the Cat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In order,&rdquo; the Rat said, &ldquo;that you may throw raw and
+unnecessary illumination upon all the unloveliness in the world. Unloveliness
+which we shall&mdash;er&mdash;have always with us. At the same time you will
+riotously neglect the so-called little but vital graces that make up
+Life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Life,&rdquo; said the Cat, &ldquo;with its dim delicious half-tones
+and veiled indeterminate distances. Its surprisals, escapes, encounters, and
+dizzying leaps&mdash;its full-throated choruses in honour of the morning star,
+and its melting reveries beneath the sun-warmed wall.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, you can go on the tiles, Pussalina, just the same as usual,&rdquo;
+said the laughing Waters. &ldquo;<i>We</i> sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t interfere with
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the tiles, forsooth!&rdquo; hissed the Cat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s what it amounts to,&rdquo; persisted the Waters.
+&ldquo;We see a good deal of the minor graces of life on our way down to our
+job.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And&mdash;but I fear I speak to deaf ears&mdash;do they never impress
+you?&rdquo; said the Wheel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enormously,&rdquo; said the Waters. &ldquo;We have already learned six
+refined synonyms for loafing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But (here again I feel as though preaching in the wilderness) it never
+occurs to you that there may exist some small difference between the wholly
+animal&mdash;ah&mdash;rumination of bovine minds and the discerning,
+well-apportioned leisure of the finer type of intellect?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes. The bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no bones
+about it when it&rsquo;s shouted at. We&rsquo;ve seen <i>that</i>&mdash;in
+haying-time&mdash;all along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough to
+fudge up excuses for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when its excuses
+aren&rsquo;t accepted. Turn over!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my good people, no gentleman gets stuffy as you call it. A certain
+proper pride, to put it no higher, forbids&mdash;-&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing that he wants to do if he really wants to do it. Get along! What
+are you giving us? D&rsquo;you suppose we&rsquo;ve scoured half heaven in the
+clouds, and half earth in the mists, to be taken in at this time of the day by
+a bone-idle, old hand-quern of your type?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not for me to bandy personalities with you. I can only say that I
+simply decline to accept the situation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Decline away. It doesn&rsquo;t make any odds. They&rsquo;ll probably put
+in a turbine if you decline too much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s a turbine?&rdquo; said the Wheel, quickly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little thing you don&rsquo;t see, that performs surprising
+revolutions. But you won&rsquo;t decline. You&rsquo;ll hang on to your two nice
+red-strapped axles and your new machine-moulded pinions like&mdash;a&mdash;like
+a leech on a lily stem! There&rsquo;s centuries of work in your old bones if
+you&rsquo;d only apply yourself to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel
+with this head of water is about as efficient as a turbine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So in future I am to be considered mechanically? I have been painted by
+at least five Royal Academicians.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, you can be painted by five hundred when you aren&rsquo;t at work, of
+course. But while you are at work you&rsquo;ll work. You won&rsquo;t half-stop
+and think and talk about rare plants and dicky-birds and farinaceous fiduciary
+interests. You&rsquo;ll continue to revolve, and this new head of water will
+see that you do so continue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a matter on which it would be exceedingly ill-advised to form a
+hasty or a premature conclusion. I will give it my most careful
+consideration,&rdquo; said the Wheel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Please do,&rdquo; said the Waters gravely. &ldquo;Hullo! Here&rsquo;s
+the Miller again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Cat coiled herself in a picturesque attitude on the softest corner of a
+sack, and the Rat without haste, yet certainly without rest, slipped behind the
+sacking as though an appointment had just occurred to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the doorway, with the young Engineer, stood the Miller grinning amazedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;well&mdash;well! &rsquo;tis true-ly won&rsquo;erful.
+An&rsquo; what a power o&rsquo; dirt! It come over me now looking at these
+lights, that I&rsquo;ve never rightly seen my own mill before. She needs a lot
+bein&rsquo; done to her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! I suppose one must make oneself moderately agreeable to the baser
+sort. They have their uses. This thing controls the dairy.&rdquo; The Cat,
+pincing on her toes, came forward and rubbed her head against the
+Miller&rsquo;s knee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, you pretty puss,&rdquo; he said, stooping. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re as
+big a cheat as the rest of &rsquo;em that catch no mice about me. A
+won&rsquo;erful smooth-skinned, rough-tongued cheat you be. I&rsquo;ve more
+than half a mind&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She does her work well,&rdquo; said the Engineer, pointing to where the
+Rat&rsquo;s beady eyes showed behind the sacking. &ldquo;Cats and Rats
+livin&rsquo; together&mdash;see?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Too much they do&mdash;too long they&rsquo;ve done. I&rsquo;m sick and
+tired of it. Go and take a swim and larn to find your own vittles honest when
+you come out, Pussy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My word!&rdquo; said the Waters, as a sprawling Cat landed all
+unannounced in the centre of the tail-race. &ldquo;Is that you, Mewsalina? You
+seem to have been quarrelling with your best friend. Get over to the left.
+It&rsquo;s shallowest there. Up on that alder-root with all four paws.
+Good-night!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll never get any they rats,&rdquo; said the Miller, as the
+young Engineer struck wrathfully with his stick at the sacking.
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re not the common sort. They&rsquo;re the old black English
+sort.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are they, by Jove? I must catch one to stuff, some day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+Six months later, in the chill of a January afternoon, they were letting in the
+Waters as usual.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come along! It&rsquo;s both gears this evening,&rdquo; said the Wheel,
+kicking joyously in the first rush of the icy stream. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a
+heavy load of grist just in from Lamber&rsquo;s Wood. Eleven miles it came in
+an hour and a half in our new motor-lorry, and the Miller&rsquo;s rigged five
+new five-candle lights in his cow-stables. I&rsquo;m feeding &rsquo;em
+to-night. There&rsquo;s a cow due to calve. Oh, while I think of it,
+what&rsquo;s the news from Callton Rise?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The waters are finding their level as usual&mdash;but why do you
+ask?&rdquo; said the deep outpouring Waters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because Mangles and Felden and the Miller are talking of increasing the
+plant here and running a saw-mill by electricity. I was wondering whether
+we&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said the Waters chuckling. &ldquo;<i>What</i>
+did you say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whether <i>we</i>, of course, had power enough for the job. It will be a
+biggish contract. There&rsquo;s all Harpenden Brook to be considered and
+Batten&rsquo;s Ponds as well, and Witches&rsquo; Fountain, and the
+Churt&rsquo;s Hawd system.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve power enough for anything in the world,&rdquo; said the
+Waters. &ldquo;The only question is whether you could stand the strain if we
+came down on you full head.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I can,&rdquo; said the Wheel. &ldquo;Mangles is going to turn
+me into a set of turbines&mdash;beauties.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;er&mdash;I suppose it&rsquo;s the frost that has made us a
+little thick-headed, but to whom are we talking?&rdquo; asked the amazed
+Waters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To me&mdash;the Spirit of the Mill, of course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not to the old Wheel, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I happen to be living in the old Wheel just at present. When the
+turbines are installed I shall go and live in them. What earthly difference
+does it make?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Absolutely none,&rdquo; said the Waters, &ldquo;in the earth or in the
+waters under the earth. But we thought turbines didn&rsquo;t appeal to
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not like turbines? Me? My dear fellows, turbines are good for fifteen
+hundred revolutions a minute&mdash;and with our power we can drive &rsquo;em at
+full speed. Why, there&rsquo;s nothing we couldn&rsquo;t grind or saw or
+illuminate or heat with a set of turbines! That&rsquo;s to say if all the Five
+Watersheds are agreeable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;ve been agreeable for ever so long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why didn&rsquo;t you tell me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know. Suppose it slipped our memory.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Waters were holding themselves in for fear of bursting with mirth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How careless of you! You should keep abreast of the age, my dear
+fellows. We might have settled it long ago, if you&rsquo;d only spoken. Yes,
+four good turbines and a neat brick penstock&mdash;eh? This old Wheel&rsquo;s
+absurdly out of date.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the Cat, who after a little proud seclusion had
+returned to her place impenitent as ever. &ldquo;Praised be Pasht and the Old
+Gods, that whatever may have happened <i>I</i>, at least, have preserved the
+Spirit of the Mill!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked round as expecting her faithful ally, the Black Rat; but that very
+week the Engineer had caught and stuffed him, and had put him in a glass case;
+he being a genuine old English black rat. That breed, the report says, is
+rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown variety.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***</div>
+<div style='text-align:left'>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Updated editions will replace the previous one&#8212;the old editions will
+be renamed.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law 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&#8482; electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG&#8482;
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br />
+<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br />
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+To protect the Project Gutenberg&#8482; 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 &#8220;Project
+Gutenberg&#8221;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+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&#8482; electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; 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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.B. &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; 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&#8482; 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&#8482; electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&#8220;the
+Foundation&#8221; or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law 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&#8482; mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; 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&#8482; License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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&#8482; work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work (any work
+on which the phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; appears, or with which the
+phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+  <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+    other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
+    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
+  </div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (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 &#8220;Project
+Gutenberg&#8221; 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&#8482;
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; 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&#8482; License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg&#8482;.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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&#8482; License.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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&#8482; work in a format
+other than &#8220;Plain Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg&#8482; website
+(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 &#8220;Plain
+Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg&#8482; works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+provided that:
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'>
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &#8226; You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+        the use of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works calculated using the method
+        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg&#8482; 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, &#8220;Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+        Literary Archive Foundation.&#8221;
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &#8226; 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&#8482;
+        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&#8482;
+        works.
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &#8226; 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.
+    </div>
+
+    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
+        &#8226; You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+        distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works.
+    </div>
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain &#8220;Defects,&#8221; 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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &#8220;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&#8221; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; 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 1.F.3. 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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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 &#8216;AS-IS&#8217;, WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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&#8482; electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+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&#8482; work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; 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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg&#8482;&#8217;s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg&#8482; 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&#8482; 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 information page at www.gutenberg.org.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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&#8217;s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state&#8217;s laws.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+The Foundation&#8217;s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation&#8217;s website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
+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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg&#8482; concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
+</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg&#8482;,
+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.
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+</body>
+
+</html>
+
+
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..76dc03a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #9790 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9790)
diff --git a/old/7tdsc10.txt b/old/7tdsc10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d8a1bf4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7tdsc10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11349 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Traffics and Discoveries, by Kipling
+#26 in our series by Rudyard Kipling
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Traffics and Discoveries
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9790]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 17, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES
+
+
+By Rudyard Kipling
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+_from the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed(Wahabi)_
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+_Poseidon'S Law_
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+_The Runners_
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+_The Wet Litany_
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART I.
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART II.
+
+_The King's Task_
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COOPER
+
+_The Necessitarian_
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+_Kaspar's Song in "Varda"_
+
+"WIRELESS"
+
+_Song of the Old Guard_
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART I.
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART II.
+
+_The Return of the Children_
+
+"THEY"
+
+_From Lyden's "Irenius_"
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+     "_Our Fathers Also_"
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+FROM THE MASJID-AL-AQSA OF SAYYID AHMED (WAHABI)
+
+  Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
+  He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
+  When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
+  He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
+  Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
+  Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.
+  Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow
+  Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,
+  Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,
+  Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.
+  Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story;
+  And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory
+  Embroidered with names of the Djinns--a miraculous weaving--
+  But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.
+  So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture--
+  Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture--
+  Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed;
+  But on him be the Peace and the Blessing: for he was great-hearted!
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+"He that believeth shall not make haste."--_Isaiah_.
+
+The guard-boat lay across the mouth of the bathing-pool, her crew idly
+spanking the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated militia-man,
+rifle in hand, sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the stern. Between
+the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, honey-coloured rocks on the
+beach the green water was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war
+bathing. Behind their orderly tin camp and the electric-light poles rose
+those stone-dotted spurs that throw heat on Simonstown. Beneath them the
+little _Barracouta_ nodded to the big _Gibraltar_, and the old _Penelope_,
+that in ten years has been bachelors' club, natural history museum,
+kindergarten, and prison, rooted and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a
+three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in
+from the deep sea.
+
+Said the sentry, assured of the visitor's good faith, "Talk to 'em? You
+can, to any that speak English. You'll find a lot that do."
+
+Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch
+Reformed Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority
+preferred their bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused the
+visitor that day to receive two weeks' delayed mails in one from a casual
+postman, and the whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a strap, he
+dangled as bait. At the edge of the beach, cross-legged, undressed to his
+sky-blue army shirt, sat a lean, ginger-haired man, on guard over a dozen
+heaps of clothing. His eyes followed the incoming Atlantic boat.
+
+"Excuse me, Mister," he said, without turning (and the speech betrayed his
+nationality), "would you mind keeping away from these garments? I've been
+elected janitor--on the Dutch vote."
+
+The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to his
+mail. At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured man
+turned quickly, the hunger of a press-ridden people in his close-set iron-
+grey eyes.
+
+"Have you any use for papers?" said the visitor.
+
+"Have I any use?" A quick, curved forefinger was already snicking off the
+outer covers. "Why, that's the New York postmark! Give me the ads. at the
+back of _Harper's_ and _M'Clure's_ and I'm in touch with God's Country
+again! Did you know how I was aching for papers?"
+
+The visitor told the tale of the casual postman.
+
+"Providential!" said the ginger-coloured man, keen as a terrier on his
+task; "both in time and matter. Yes! ... The _Scientific American_ yet
+once more! Oh, it's good! it's good!" His voice broke as he pressed his
+hawk-like nose against the heavily-inked patent-specifications at the end.
+"Can I keep it? I thank you--I thank you! Why--why--well--well! The
+_American Tyler_ of all things created! Do you subscribe to that?"
+
+"I'm on the free list," said the visitor, nodding.
+
+He extended his blue-tanned hand with that air of Oriental spaciousness
+which distinguishes the native-born American, and met the visitor's grasp
+expertly. "I can only say that you have treated me like a Brother (yes,
+I'll take every last one you can spare), and if ever--" He plucked at the
+bosom of his shirt. "Psha! I forgot I'd no card on me; but my name's
+Zigler--Laughton G. Zigler. An American? If Ohio's still in the Union, I
+am, Sir. But I'm no extreme States'-rights man. I've used all of my native
+country and a few others as I have found occasion, and now I am the
+captive of your bow and spear. I'm not kicking at that. I am not a coerced
+alien, nor a naturalised Texas mule-tender, nor an adventurer on the
+instalment plan. _I_ don't tag after our consul when he comes around,
+expecting the American Eagle to lift me out o' this by the slack of my
+pants. No, sir! If a Britisher went into Indian Territory and shot up his
+surroundings with a Colt automatic (not that _she's_ any sort of weapon,
+but I take her for an illustration), he'd be strung up quicker'n a
+snowflake 'ud melt in hell. No ambassador of yours 'ud save him. I'm my
+neck ahead on this game, anyway. That's how I regard the proposition.
+
+"Have I gone gunning against the British? To a certain extent, I presume
+you never heard tell of the Laughton-Zigler automatic two-inch field-gun,
+with self-feeding hopper, single oil-cylinder recoil, and ballbearing gear
+throughout? Or Laughtite, the new explosive? Absolutely uniform in effect,
+and one-ninth the bulk of any present effete charge--flake, cannonite,
+cordite, troisdorf, cellulose, cocoa, cord, or prism--I don't care what it
+is. Laughtite's immense; so's the Zigler automatic. It's me. It's fifteen
+years of me. You are not a gun-sharp? I am sorry. I could have surprised
+you. Apart from my gun, my tale don't amount to much of anything. I thank
+you, but I don't use any tobacco you'd be likely to carry... Bull Durham?
+_Bull Durham!_ I take it all back--every last word. Bull Durham--here! If
+ever you strike Akron, Ohio, when this fool-war's over, remember you've
+Laughton O. Zigler in your vest pocket. Including the city of Akron. We've
+a little club there.... Hell! What's the sense of talking Akron with no
+pants?
+
+"My gun? ... For two cents I'd have shipped her to our Filipeens. 'Came
+mighty near it too; but from what I'd read in the papers, you can't trust
+Aguinaldo's crowd on scientific matters. Why don't I offer it to our army?
+Well, you've an effete aristocracy running yours, and we've a crowd of
+politicians. The results are practically identical. I am not taking any
+U.S. Army in mine.
+
+"I went to Amsterdam with her--to this Dutch junta that supposes it's
+bossing the war. I wasn't brought up to love the British for one thing,
+and for another I knew that if she got in her fine work (my gun) I'd stand
+more chance of receiving an unbiassed report from a crowd of dam-fool
+British officers than from a hatful of politicians' nephews doing duty as
+commissaries and ordnance sharps. As I said, I put the brown man out of
+the question. That's the way _I_ regarded the proposition.
+
+"The Dutch in Holland don't amount to a row of pins. Maybe I misjudge 'em.
+Maybe they've been swindled too often by self-seeking adventurers to know
+a enthusiast when they see him. Anyway, they're slower than the Wrath o'
+God. But on delusions--as to their winning out next Thursday week at 9
+A.M.--they are--if I may say so--quite British.
+
+"I'll tell you a curious thing, too. I fought 'em for ten days before I
+could get the financial side of my game fixed to my liking. I knew they
+didn't believe in the Zigler, but they'd no call to be crazy-mean. I fixed
+it--free passage and freight for me and the gun to Delagoa Bay, and beyond
+by steam and rail. Then I went aboard to see her crated, and there I
+struck my fellow-passengers--all deadheads, same as me. Well, Sir, I
+turned in my tracks where I stood and besieged the ticket-office, and I
+said, 'Look at here, Van Dunk. I'm paying for my passage and her room in
+the hold--every square and cubic foot.' 'Guess he knocked down the fare to
+himself; but I paid. I paid. I wasn't going to deadhead along o' _that_
+crowd of Pentecostal sweepings. 'Twould have hoodooed my gun for all time.
+That was the way I regarded the proposition. No, Sir, they were not pretty
+company.
+
+"When we struck Pretoria I had a hell-and-a-half of a time trying to
+interest the Dutch vote in my gun an' her potentialities. The bottom was
+out of things rather much just about that time. Kruger was praying some
+and stealing some, and the Hollander lot was singing, 'If you haven't any
+money you needn't come round,' Nobody was spending his dough on anything
+except tickets to Europe. We were both grossly neglected. When I think how
+I used to give performances in the public streets with dummy cartridges,
+filling the hopper and turning the handle till the sweat dropped off me, I
+blush, Sir. I've made her to do her stunts before Kaffirs--naked sons of
+Ham--in Commissioner Street, trying to get a holt somewhere.
+
+"Did I talk? I despise exaggeration--'tain't American or scientific--but
+as true as I'm sitting here like a blue-ended baboon in a kloof, Teddy
+Roosevelt's Western tour was a maiden's sigh compared to my advertising
+work.
+
+"'Long in the spring I was rescued by a commandant called Van Zyl--a big,
+fleshy man with a lame leg. Take away his hair and his gun and he'd make a
+first-class Schenectady bar-keep. He found me and the Zigler on the veldt
+(Pretoria wasn't wholesome at that time), and he annexed me in a
+somnambulistic sort o' way. He was dead against the war from the start,
+but, being a Dutchman, he fought a sight better than the rest of that 'God
+and the Mauser' outfit. Adrian Van Zyl. Slept a heap in the daytime--and
+didn't love niggers. I liked him. I was the only foreigner in his
+commando. The rest was Georgia Crackers and Pennsylvania Dutch--with a
+dash o' Philadelphia lawyer. I could tell you things about them would
+surprise you. Religion for one thing; women for another; but I don't know
+as their notions o' geography weren't the craziest. 'Guess that must be
+some sort of automatic compensation. There wasn't one blamed ant-hill in
+their district they didn't know _and_ use; but the world was flat, they
+said, and England was a day's trek from Cape Town.
+
+"They could fight in their own way, and don't you forget it. But I guess
+you will not. They fought to kill, and, by what I could make out, the
+British fought to be killed. So both parties were accommodated.
+
+"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir. The position has its
+obligations--on both sides. You could not be offensive or partisan to me.
+I cannot, for the same reason, be offensive to you. Therefore I will not
+give you my opinions on the conduct of your war.
+
+"Anyway, I didn't take the field as an offensive partisan, but as an
+inventor. It was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. (Yes,
+Sir, I'm a Democrat by conviction, and that was one of the best things
+Grover Cleveland ever got off.)
+
+"After three months' trek, old man Van Zyl had his commando in good shape
+and refitted off the British, and he reckoned he'd wait on a British
+General of his acquaintance that did business on a circuit between
+Stompiesneuk, Jackhalputs, Vrelegen, and Odendaalstroom, year in and year
+out. He was a fixture in that section.
+
+"'He's a dam' good man,' says Van Zyl. 'He's a friend of mine. He sent in
+a fine doctor when I was wounded and our Hollander doc. wanted to cut my
+leg off. Ya, I'll guess we'll stay with him.' Up to date, me and my Zigler
+had lived in innocuous desuetude owing to little odds and ends riding out
+of gear. How in thunder was I to know there wasn't the ghost of any road
+in the country? But raw hide's cheap and lastin'. I guess I'll make my
+next gun a thousand pounds heavier, though.
+
+"Well, Sir, we struck the General on his beat--Vrelegen it was--and our
+crowd opened with the usual compliments at two thousand yards. Van Zyl
+shook himself into his greasy old saddle and says, 'Now we shall be quite
+happy, Mr. Zigler. No more trekking. Joost twelve miles a day till the
+apricots are ripe.'
+
+"Then we hitched on to his outposts, and vedettes, and cossack-picquets,
+or whatever they was called, and we wandered around the veldt arm in arm
+like brothers.
+
+"The way we worked lodge was this way. The General, he had his breakfast
+at 8:45 A.M. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island commuter. At
+8:42 A.M. I'd go down to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry to meet him--I
+mean I'd see the Zigler into position at two thousand (I began at three
+thousand, but that was cold and distant)--and blow him off to two full
+hoppers--eighteen rounds--just as they were bringing in his coffee. If his
+crowd was busy celebrating the anniversary of Waterloo or the last royal
+kid's birthday, they'd open on me with two guns (I'll tell you about them
+later on), but if they were disengaged they'd all stand to their horses
+and pile on the ironmongery, and washers, and typewriters, and five weeks'
+grub, and in half an hour they'd sail out after me and the rest of Van
+Zyl's boys; lying down and firing till 11:45 A.M. or maybe high noon. Then
+we'd go from labour to refreshment, resooming at 2 P.M. and battling till
+tea-time. Tuesday and Friday was the General's moving days. He'd trek
+ahead ten or twelve miles, and we'd loaf around his flankers and exercise
+the ponies a piece. Sometimes he'd get hung up in a drift--stalled
+crossin' a crick--and we'd make playful snatches at his wagons. First time
+that happened I turned the Zigler loose with high hopes, Sir; but the old
+man was well posted on rearguards with a gun to 'em, and I had to haul her
+out with three mules instead of six. I was pretty mad. I wasn't looking
+for any experts back of the Royal British Artillery. Otherwise, the game
+was mostly even. He'd lay out three or four of our commando, and we'd
+gather in four or five of his once a week or thereon. One time, I
+remember, long towards dusk we saw 'em burying five of their boys. They
+stood pretty thick around the graves. We wasn't more than fifteen hundred
+yards off, but old Van Zyl wouldn't fire. He just took off his hat at the
+proper time. He said if you stretched a man at his prayers you'd have to
+hump his bad luck before the Throne as well as your own. I am inclined to
+agree with him. So we browsed along week in and week out. A war-sharp
+might have judged it sort of docile, but for an inventor needing practice
+one day and peace the next for checking his theories, it suited Laughton
+O. Zigler.
+
+"And friendly? Friendly was no word for it. We was brothers in arms.
+
+"Why, I knew those two guns of the Royal British Artillery as well as I
+used to know the old Fifth Avenoo stages. _They_ might have been brothers
+too.
+
+"They'd jolt into action, and wiggle around and skid and spit and cough
+and prize 'emselves back again during our hours of bloody battle till I
+could have wept, Sir, at the spectacle of modern white men chained up to
+these old hand-power, back-number, flint-and-steel reaping machines. One
+of 'em--I called her Baldy--she'd a long white scar all along her barrel--
+I'd made sure of twenty times. I knew her crew by sight, but she'd come
+switching and teturing out of the dust of my shells like--like a hen from
+under a buggy--and she'd dip into a gully, and next thing I'd know 'ud be
+her old nose peeking over the ridge sniffin' for us. Her runnin' mate had
+two grey mules in the lead, and a natural wood wheel repainted, and a
+whole raft of rope-ends trailin' around. 'Jever see Tom Reed with his vest
+off, steerin' Congress through a heat-wave? I've been to Washington often
+--too often--filin' my patents. I called her Tom Reed. We three 'ud play
+pussy-wants-a-corner all round the outposts on off-days--cross-lots
+through the sage and along the mezas till we was short-circuited by
+canons. O, it was great for me and Baldy and Tom Reed! I don't know as we
+didn't neglect the legitimate interests of our respective commanders
+sometimes for this ball-play. I know _I_ did.
+
+"'Long towards the fall the Royal British Artillery grew shy--hung back in
+their breeching sort of--and their shooting was way--way off. I observed
+they wasn't taking any chances, not though I acted kitten almost
+underneath 'em.
+
+"I mentioned it to Van Zyl, because it struck me I had about knocked their
+Royal British moral endways.
+
+"'No,' says he, rocking as usual on his pony. 'My Captain Mankeltow he is
+sick. That is all.'
+
+"'So's your Captain Mankeltow's guns,' I said. 'But I'm going to make 'em
+a heap sicker before he gets well.'
+
+"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'He has had the enteric a little. Now he is better,
+and he was let out from hospital at Jackhalputs. Ah, that Mankeltow! He
+always makes me laugh so. I told him--long back--at Colesberg, I had a
+little home for him at Nooitgedacht. But he would not come--no! He has
+been sick, and I am sorry.'
+
+"'How d'you know that?' I says.
+
+"'Why, only to-day he sends back his love by Johanna Van der Merwe, that
+goes to their doctor for her sick baby's eyes. He sends his love, that
+Mankeltow, and he tells her tell me he has a little garden of roses all
+ready for me in the Dutch Indies--Umballa. He is very funny, my Captain
+Mankeltow.'
+
+"The Dutch and the English ought to fraternise, Sir. They've the same
+notions of humour, to my thinking.'
+
+"'When he gets well,' says Van Zyl, 'you look out, Mr. Americaan. He comes
+back to his guns next Tuesday. Then they shoot better.'
+
+"I wasn't so well acquainted with the Royal British Artillery as old man
+Van Zyl. I knew this Captain Mankeltow by sight, of course, and,
+considering what sort of a man with the hoe he was, I thought he'd done
+right well against my Zigler. But nothing epoch-making.
+
+"Next morning at the usual hour I waited on the General, and old Van Zyl
+come along with some of the boys. Van Zyl didn't hang round the Zigler
+much as a rule, but this was his luck that day.
+
+"He was peeking through his glasses at the camp, and I was helping pepper,
+the General's sow-belly--just as usual--when he turns to me quick and
+says, 'Almighty! How all these Englishmen are liars! You cannot trust
+one,' he says. 'Captain Mankeltow tells our Johanna he comes not back till
+Tuesday, and to-day is Friday, and there he is! Almighty! The English are
+all Chamberlains!'
+
+"If the old man hadn't stopped to make political speeches he'd have had
+his supper in laager that night, I guess. I was busy attending to Tom Reed
+at two thousand when Baldy got in her fine work on me. I saw one sheet of
+white flame wrapped round the hopper, and in the middle of it there was
+one o' my mules straight on end. Nothing out of the way in a mule on end,
+but this mule hadn't any head. I remember it struck me as incongruous at
+the time, and when I'd ciphered it out I was doing the Santos-Dumont act
+without any balloon and my motor out of gear. Then I got to thinking about
+Santos-Dumont and how much better my new way was. Then I thought about
+Professor Langley and the Smithsonian, and wishing I hadn't lied so
+extravagantly in some of my specifications at Washington. Then I quit
+thinking for quite a while, and when I resumed my train of thought I was
+nude, Sir, in a very stale stretcher, and my mouth was full of fine dirt
+all flavoured with Laughtite.
+
+"I coughed up that dirt.
+
+"'Hullo!' says a man walking beside me. 'You've spoke almost in time. Have
+a drink?'
+
+"I don't use rum as a rule, but I did then, because I needed it.
+
+"'What hit us?'I said.
+
+"'Me,' he said. 'I got you fair on the hopper as you pulled out of that
+donga; but I'm sorry to say every last round in the hopper's exploded and
+your gun's in a shocking state. I'm real sorry,' he says. 'I admire your
+gun, Sir.'
+
+"'Are you Captain Mankeltow?' I says.
+
+"'Yes,' he says. 'I presoom you're Mister Zigler. Your commanding officer
+told me about you.'
+
+"'Have you gathered in old man Van Zyl?' I said.
+
+"'Commandant Van Zyl,' he says very stiff, 'was most unfortunately
+wounded, but I am glad to say it's not serious. We hope he'll be able to
+dine with us to-night; and I feel sure,' he says, 'the General would be
+delighted to see you too, though he didn't expect,' he says, 'and no one
+else either, by Jove!' he says, and blushed like the British do when
+they're embarrassed.
+
+"I saw him slide an Episcopalian Prayer-book up his sleeve, and when I
+looked over the edge of the stretcher there was half-a-dozen enlisted men
+--privates--had just quit digging and was standing to attention by their
+spades. I guess he was right on the General not expecting me to dinner;
+but it was all of a piece with their sloppy British way of doing business.
+Any God's quantity of fuss and flubdub to bury a man, and not an ounce of
+forehandedness in the whole outfit to find out whether he was rightly
+dead. And I am a Congregationalist anyway!
+
+"Well, Sir, that was my introduction to the British Army. I'd write a book
+about it if anyone would believe me. This Captain Mankeltow, Royal British
+Artillery, turned the doctor on me (I could write another book about
+_him_) and fixed me up with a suit of his own clothes, and fed me canned
+beef and biscuits, and give me a cigar--a Henry Clay and a whisky-and-
+sparklet. He was a white man.
+
+"'Ye-es, by Jove,' he said, dragging out his words like a twist of
+molasses, 'we've all admired your gun and the way you've worked it. Some
+of us betted you was a British deserter. I won a sovereign on that from a
+yeoman. And, by the way,' he says, 'you've disappointed me groom pretty
+bad.'
+
+"'Where does your groom come in?' I said.
+
+"'Oh, he was the yeoman. He's a dam poor groom,' says my captain, 'but
+he's a way-up barrister when he's at home. He's been running around the
+camp with his tongue out, waiting for the chance of defending you at the
+court-martial.'
+
+"'What court-martial?' I says.
+
+"'On you as a deserter from the Artillery. You'd have had a good run for
+your money. Anyway, you'd never have been hung after the way you worked
+your gun. Deserter ten times over,' he says, 'I'd have stuck out for
+shooting you like a gentleman.'
+
+"Well, Sir, right there it struck me at the pit of my stomach--sort of
+sickish, sweetish feeling--that my position needed regularising pretty
+bad. I ought to have been a naturalised burgher of a year's standing; but
+Ohio's my State, and I wouldn't have gone back on her for a desertful of
+Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led me to the
+existing crisis; but I couldn't expect this Captain Mankeltow to regard
+the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of
+unreconstructed American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at the
+British Army for months on end. I tell _you_, Sir, I wished I was in
+Cincinnatah that summer evening. I'd have compromised on Brooklyn.
+
+"'What d'you do about aliens?' I said, and the dirt I'd coughed up seemed
+all back of my tongue again.
+
+"'Oh,' says he, 'we don't do much of anything. They're about all the
+society we get. I'm a bit of a pro-Boer myself,' he says, 'but between you
+and me the average Boer ain't over and above intellectual. You're the
+first American we've met up with, but of course you're a burgher.'
+
+"It was what I ought to have been if I'd had the sense of a common tick,
+but the way he drawled it out made me mad.
+
+"'Of course I am not,' I says. 'Would _you_ be a naturalised Boer?'
+
+"'I'm fighting against 'em,' he says, lighting a cigarette, 'but it's all
+a matter of opinion.'
+
+"'Well,' I says, 'you can hold any blame opinion you choose, but I'm a
+white man, and my present intention is to die in that colour.'
+
+"He laughed one of those big, thick-ended, British laughs that don't lead
+anywhere, and whacked up some sort of compliment about America that made
+me mad all through.
+
+"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir, but I do not understand the
+alleged British joke. It is depressing.
+
+"I was introdooced to five or six officers that evening, and every blame
+one of 'em grinned and asked me why I wasn't in the Filipeens suppressing
+our war! And that was British humour! They all had to get it off their
+chests before they'd talk sense. But they was sound on the Zigler. They
+had all admired her. I made out a fairy-story of me being wearied of the
+war, and having pushed the gun at them these last three months in the hope
+they'd capture it and let me go home. That tickled 'em to death. They made
+me say it three times over, and laughed like kids each time. But half the
+British _are_ kids; specially the older men. My Captain Mankeltow was less
+of it than the others. He talked about the Zigler like a lover, Sir, and I
+drew him diagrams of the hopper-feed and recoil-cylinder in his note-book.
+He asked the one British question I was waiting for, 'Hadn't I made my
+working-parts too light?' The British think weight's strength.
+
+"At last--I'd been shy of opening the subject before--at last I said,
+'Gentlemen, you are the unprejudiced tribunal I've been hunting after. I
+guess you ain't interested in any other gun-factory, and politics don't
+weigh with you. How did it feel your end of the game? What's my gun done,
+anyway?'
+
+"'I hate to disappoint you,' says Captain Mankeltow, 'because I know you
+feel as an inventor.' I wasn't feeling like an inventor just then. I felt
+friendly, but the British haven't more tact than you can pick up with a
+knife out of a plate of soup.
+
+"'The honest truth,' he says, 'is that you've wounded about ten of us one
+way and another, killed two battery horses and four mules, and--oh, yes,'
+he said, 'you've bagged five Kaffirs. But, buck up,' he said, 'we've all
+had mighty close calls'--shaves, he called 'em, I remember. 'Look at my
+pants.'
+
+"They was repaired right across the seat with Minneapolis flour-bagging. I
+could see the stencil.
+
+"'I ain't bluffing,' he says. 'Get the hospital returns, Doc.'
+
+"The doctor gets 'em and reads 'em out under the proper dates. That doctor
+alone was worth the price of admission.
+
+"I was right pleased right through that I hadn't killed any of these
+cheerful kids; but none the less I couldn't help thinking that a few more
+Kaffirs would have served me just as well for advertising purposes as
+white men. No, sir. Anywhichway you regard the proposition, twenty-one
+casualties after months of close friendship like ours was--paltry.
+
+"They gave me taffy about the gun--the British use taffy where we use
+sugar. It's cheaper, and gets there just the same. They sat around and
+proved to me that my gun was too good, too uniform--shot as close as a
+Mannlicher rifle.
+
+"Says one kid chewing a bit of grass: 'I counted eight of your shells,
+Sir, burst in a radius of ten feet. All of 'em would have gone through one
+waggon-tilt. It was beautiful,' he says. 'It was too good.'
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if the boys were right. My Laughtite is too
+mathematically uniform in propelling power. Yes; she was too good for this
+refractory fool of a country. The training gear was broke, too, and we had
+to swivel her around by the trail. But I'll build my next Zigler fifteen
+hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor under the axles. I
+must think that up.
+
+"'Well, gentlemen,' I said, 'I'd hate to have been the death of any of
+you; and if a prisoner can deed away his property, I'd love to present the
+Captain here with what he's seen fit to leave of my Zigler.'
+
+"'Thanks awf'ly,' says my Captain. 'I'd like her very much. She'd look
+fine in the mess at Woolwich. That is, if you don't mind, Mr. Zigler.'
+
+"'Go right ahead,' I says. 'I've come out of all the mess I've any use
+for; but she'll do to spread the light among the Royal British Artillery.'
+
+"I tell you, Sir, there's not much of anything the matter with the Royal
+British Artillery. They're brainy men languishing under an effete system
+which, when you take good holt of it, is England--just all England. 'Times
+I'd feel I was talking with real live citizens, and times I'd feel I'd
+struck the Beef Eaters in the Tower.
+
+"How? Well, this way. I was telling my Captain Mankeltow what Van Zyl had
+said about the British being all Chamberlains when the old man saw him
+back from hospital four days ahead of time.
+
+"'Oh, damn it all!' he says, as serious as the Supreme Court. 'It's too
+bad,' he says. 'Johanna must have misunderstood me, or else I've got the
+wrong Dutch word for these blarsted days of the week. I told Johanna I'd
+be out on Friday. The woman's a fool. Oah, da-am it all!' he says. 'I
+wouldn't have sold old Van Zyl a pup like that,' he says. 'I'll hunt him
+up and apologise.'
+
+"He must have fixed it all right, for when we sailed over to the General's
+dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and bitters, as
+happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and treated him like
+their prodigal father. He'd been hit on the collarbone by a wad of
+shrapnel, and his arm was tied up.
+
+"But the General was the peach. I presume you're acquainted with the
+average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his left
+hand, and he talked like--like the _Ladies' Home Journal_. J'ever read
+that paper? It's refined, Sir--and innocuous, and full of nickel-plated
+sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He began by a Lydia
+Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped the boys had done
+me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their midst. Then he thanked
+me for the interesting and valuable lessons that I'd given his crowd--
+specially in the matter of placing artillery and rearguard attacks. He'd
+wipe his long thin moustache between drinks--lime-juice and water he used
+--and blat off into a long 'a-aah,' and ladle out more taffy for me or old
+man Van Zyl on his right. I told him how I'd had my first Pisgah-sight of
+the principles of the Zigler when I was a fourth-class postmaster on a
+star-route in Arkansas. I told him how I'd worked it up by instalments
+when I was machinist in Waterbury, where the dollar-watches come from. He
+had one on his wrist then. I told him how I'd met Zalinski (he'd never
+heard of Zalinski!) when I was an extra clerk in the Naval Construction
+Bureau at Washington. I told him how my uncle, who was a truck-farmer in
+Noo Jersey (he loaned money on mortgage too, for ten acres ain't enough
+now in Noo Jersey), how he'd willed me a quarter of a million dollars,
+because I was the only one of our kin that called him down when he used to
+come home with a hard-cider jag on him and heave ox-bows at his nieces. I
+told him how I'd turned in every red cent on the Zigler, and I told him
+the whole circus of my coming out with her, and so on, and so following;
+and every forty seconds he'd wipe his moustache and blat, 'How
+interesting. Really, now? How interesting.'
+
+"It was like being in an old English book, Sir. Like _Bracebridge Hall_.
+But an American wrote _that!_ I kept peeking around for the Boar's Head
+and the Rosemary and Magna Charta and the Cricket on the Hearth, and the
+rest of the outfit. Then Van Zyl whirled in. He was no ways jagged, but
+thawed--thawed, Sir, and among friends. They began discussing previous
+scraps all along the old man's beat--about sixty of 'em--as well as side-
+shows with other generals and columns. Van Zyl told 'im of a big beat he'd
+worked on a column a week or so before I'd joined him. He demonstrated his
+strategy with forks on the table.
+
+"'There!' said the General, when he'd finished. 'That proves my contention
+to the hilt. Maybe I'm a bit of a pro-Boer, but I stick to it,' he says,
+'that under proper officers, with due regard to his race prejudices, the
+Boer'ud make the finest mounted infantry in the Empire. Adrian,' he says,
+'you're simply squandered on a cattle-run. You ought to be at the Staff
+College with De Wet.'
+
+"'You catch De Wet and I come to your Staff College--eh,' says Adrian,
+laughing. 'But you are so slow, Generaal. Why are you so slow? For a
+month,' he says, 'you do so well and strong that we say we shall hands-up
+and come back to our farms. Then you send to England and make us a present
+of two--three--six hundred young men, with rifles and wagons and rum and
+tobacco, and such a great lot of cartridges, that our young men put up
+their tails and start all over again. If you hold an ox by the horn and
+hit him by the bottom he runs round and round. He never goes anywhere. So,
+too, this war goes round and round. You know that, Generaal!'
+
+"'Quite right, Adrian,' says the General; 'but you must believe your
+Bible.'
+
+"'Hooh!' says Adrian, and reaches for the whisky. 'I've never known a
+Dutchman a professing Atheist, but some few have been rather active
+Agnostics since the British sat down in Pretoria. Old man Van Zyl--he told
+me--had soured on religion after Bloemfontein surrendered. He was a Free
+Stater for one thing.'
+
+"'He that believeth,' says the General, 'shall not make haste. That's in
+Isaiah. We believe we're going to win, and so we don't make haste. As far
+as I'm concerned I'd like this war to last another five years. We'd have
+an army then. It's just this way, Mr. Zigler,' he says, 'our people are
+brimfull of patriotism, but they've been born and brought up between
+houses, and England ain't big enough to train 'em--not if you expect to
+preserve.'
+
+"'Preserve what?' I says. 'England?'
+
+"'No. The game,' he says; 'and that reminds me, gentlemen, we haven't
+drunk the King and Foxhunting.'
+
+"So they drank the King and Fox-hunting. I drank the King because there's
+something about Edward that tickles me (he's so blame British); but I
+rather stood out on the Fox-hunting. I've ridden wolves in the cattle-
+country, and needed a drink pretty bad afterwards, but it never struck me
+as I ought to drink about it--he-red-it-arily.
+
+"'No, as I was saying, Mr. Zigler,' he goes on, 'we have to train our men
+in the field to shoot and ride. I allow six months for it; but many
+column-commanders--not that I ought to say a word against 'em, for they're
+the best fellows that ever stepped, and most of 'em are my dearest
+friends--seem to think that if they have men and horses and guns they can
+take tea with the Boers. It's generally the other way about, ain't it, Mr.
+Zigler?'
+
+"'To some extent, Sir,' I said.
+
+"'I'm _so_ glad you agree with me,' he says. 'My command here I regard as
+a training depot, and you, if I may say so, have been one of my most
+efficient instructors. I mature my men slowly but thoroughly. First I put
+'em in a town which is liable to be attacked by night, where they can
+attend riding-school in the day. Then I use 'em with a convoy, and last I
+put 'em into a column. It takes time,' he says, 'but I flatter myself that
+any men who have worked under me are at least grounded in the rudiments of
+their profession. Adrian,' he says, 'was there anything wrong with the men
+who upset Van Bester's applecart last month when he was trying to cross
+the line to join Piper with those horses he'd stole from Gabbitas?'
+
+"'No, Generaal,' says Van Zyl. 'Your men got the horses back and eleven
+dead; and Van Besters, he ran to Delarey in his shirt. They was very good,
+those men. They shoot hard.'
+
+"_'So_ pleased to hear you say so. I laid 'em down at the beginning of
+this century--a 1900 vintage. _You_ remember 'em, Mankeltow?' he says.
+'The Central Middlesex Buncho Busters--clerks and floorwalkers mostly,'
+and he wiped his moustache. 'It was just the same with the Liverpool
+Buckjumpers, but they were stevedores. Let's see--they were a last-century
+draft, weren't they? They did well after nine months. _You_ know 'em, Van
+Zyl? You didn't get much change out of 'em at Pootfontein?'
+
+"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'At Pootfontein I lost my son Andries.'
+
+"'I beg your pardon, Commandant,' says the General; and the rest of the
+crowd sort of cooed over Adrian.
+
+"'Excoose,' says Adrian. 'It was all right. They were good men those, but
+it is just what I say. Some are so dam good we want to hands-up, and some
+are so dam bad, we say, "Take the Vierkleur into Cape Town." It is not
+upright of you, Generaal. It is not upright of you at all. I do not think
+you ever wish this war to finish.'
+
+"'It's a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,' says the General. 'With
+luck, we ought to run half a million men through the mill. Why, we might
+even be able to give our Native Army a look in. Oh, not here, of course,
+Adrian, but down in the Colony--say a camp-of-exercise at Worcester. You
+mustn't be prejudiced, Adrian. I've commanded a district in India, and I
+give you my word the native troops are splendid men.'
+
+"'Oh, I should not mind them at Worcester,' says Adrian. 'I would sell you
+forage for them at Worcester--yes, and Paarl and Stellenbosch; but
+Almighty!' he says, 'must I stay with Cronje till you have taught half a
+million of these stupid boys to ride? I shall be an old man.'
+
+"Well, Sir, then and there they began arguing whether St. Helena would
+suit Adrian's health as well as some other places they knew about, and
+fixing up letters of introduction to Dukes and Lords of their
+acquaintance, so's Van Zyl should be well looked after. We own a fair-
+sized block of real estate--America does--but it made me sickish to hear
+this crowd fluttering round the Atlas (oh yes, they had an Atlas), and
+choosing stray continents for Adrian to drink his coffee in. The old man
+allowed he didn't want to roost with Cronje, because one of Cronje's kin
+had jumped one of his farms after Paardeberg. I forget the rights of the
+case, but it was interesting. They decided on a place called Umballa in
+India, because there was a first-class doctor there.
+
+"So Adrian was fixed to drink the King and Foxhunting, and study up the
+Native Army in India (I'd like to see 'em myself), till the British
+General had taught the male white citizens of Great Britain how to ride.
+Don't misunderstand me, Sir. I loved that General. After ten minutes I
+loved him, and I wanted to laugh at him; but at the same time, sitting
+there and hearing him talk about the centuries, I tell you, Sir, it scared
+me. It scared me cold! He admitted everything--he acknowledged the corn
+before you spoke--he was more pleased to hear that his men had been used
+to wipe the geldt with than I was when I knocked out Tom Reed's two lead-
+horses--and he sat back and blew smoke through his nose and matured his
+men like cigars and--he talked of the everlastin' centuries!
+
+"I went to bed nearer nervous prostration than I'd come in a long time.
+Next morning me and Captain Mankeltow fixed up what his shrapnel had left
+of my Zigler for transport to the railroad. She went in on her own wheels,
+and I stencilled her 'Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,' on the muzzle, and
+he said he'd be grateful if I'd take charge of her to Cape Town, and hand
+her over to a man in the Ordnance there. 'How are you fixed financially?
+You'll need some money on the way home,' he says at last.
+
+"'For one thing, Cap,' I said, 'I'm not a poor man, and for another I'm
+not going home. I am the captive of your bow and spear. I decline to
+resign office.'
+
+"'Skittles!' he says (that was a great word of his), 'you'll take parole,
+and go back to America and invent another Zigler, a trifle heavier in the
+working parts--I would. We've got more prisoners than we know what to do
+with as it is,' he says. 'You'll only be an additional expense to me as a
+taxpayer. Think of Schedule D,' he says, 'and take parole.'
+
+"'I don't know anything about your tariffs,' I said, 'but when I get to
+Cape Town I write home for money, and I turn in every cent my board'll
+cost your country to any ten-century-old department that's been ordained
+to take it since William the Conqueror came along.'
+
+"'But, confound you for a thick-headed mule,' he says, 'this war ain't any
+more than just started! Do you mean to tell me you're going to play
+prisoner till it's over?'
+
+"'That's about the size of it,' I says, 'if an Englishman and an American
+could ever understand each other.'
+
+"'But, in Heaven's Holy Name, why?' he says, sitting down of a heap on an
+anthill.
+
+"'Well, Cap,' I says, 'I don't pretend to follow your ways of thought, and
+I can't see why you abuse your position to persecute a poor prisoner o'
+war on _his!_'
+
+"'My dear fellow,' he began, throwing up his hands and blushing, 'I'll
+apologise.'
+
+"'But if you insist,' I says, 'there are just one and a half things in
+this world I can't do. The odd half don't matter here; but taking parole,
+and going home, and being interviewed by the boys, and giving lectures on
+my single-handed campaign against the hereditary enemies of my beloved
+country happens to be the one. We'll let it go at that, Cap.'
+
+"'But it'll bore you to death,' he says. The British are a heap more
+afraid of what they call being bored than of dying, I've noticed.
+
+"'I'll survive,' I says, 'I ain't British. I can think,' I says.
+
+"'By God,' he says, coming up to me, and extending the right hand of
+fellowship, 'you ought to be English, Zigler!'
+
+"It's no good getting mad at a compliment like that. The English all do
+it. They're a crazy breed. When they don't know you they freeze up
+tighter'n the St. Lawrence. When they _do_, they go out like an ice-jam in
+April. Up till we prisoners left--four days--my Captain Mankeltow told me
+pretty much all about himself there was; his mother and sisters, and his
+bad brother that was a trooper in some Colonial corps, and how his father
+didn't get on with him, and--well, everything, as I've said. They're
+undomesticated, the British, compared with us. They talk about their own
+family affairs as if they belonged to someone else. 'Taint as if they
+hadn't any shame, but it sounds like it. I guess they talk out loud what
+we think, and we talk out loud what they think.
+
+"I liked my Captain Mankeltow. I liked him as well as any man I'd ever
+struck. He was white. He gave me his silver drinking-flask, and I gave him
+the formula of my Laughtite. That's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars
+in his vest-pocket, on the lowest count, if he has the knowledge to use
+it. No, I didn't tell him the money-value. He was English. He'd send his
+valet to find out.
+
+"Well, me and Adrian and a crowd of dam Dutchmen was sent down the road to
+Cape Town in first-class carriages under escort. (What did I think of your
+enlisted men? They are largely different from ours, Sir: very largely.) As
+I was saying, we slid down south, with Adrian looking out of the car-
+window and crying. Dutchmen cry mighty easy for a breed that fights as
+they do; but I never understood how a Dutchman could curse till we crossed
+into the Orange Free State Colony, and he lifted up his hand and cursed
+Steyn for a solid ten minutes. Then we got into the Colony, and the rebs--
+ministers mostly and schoolmasters--came round the cars with fruit and
+sympathy and texts. Van Zyl talked to 'em in Dutch, and one man, a big
+red-bearded minister, at Beaufort West, I remember, he jest wilted on the
+platform.
+
+"'Keep your prayers for yourself,' says Van Zyl, throwing back a bunch of
+grapes. 'You'll need 'em, and you'll need the fruit too, when the war
+comes down here. _You_ done it,' he says. 'You and your picayune Church
+that's deader than Cronje's dead horses! What sort of a God have you been
+unloading on us, you black _aas vogels_? The British came, and we beat
+'em,' he says, 'and you sat still and prayed. The British beat us, and you
+sat still,' he says. 'You told us to hang on, and we hung on, and our
+farms was burned, and you sat still--you and your God. See here,' he says,
+'I shot my Bible full of bullets after Bloemfontein went, and you and God
+didn't say anything. Take it and pray over it before we Federals help the
+British to knock hell out of you rebels.'
+
+"Then I hauled him back into the car. I judged he'd had a fit. But life's
+curious--and sudden--and mixed. I hadn't any more use for a reb than Van
+Zyl, and I knew something of the lies they'd fed us up with from the
+Colony for a year and more. I told the minister to pull his freight out of
+that, and went on with my lunch, when another man come along and shook
+hands with Van Zyl. He'd known him at close range in the Kimberley seige
+and before. Van Zyl was well seen by his neighbours, I judge. As soon as
+this other man opened his mouth I said, 'You're Kentucky, ain't you?' 'I
+am,' he says; 'and what may you be?' I told him right off, for I was
+pleased to hear good United States in any man's mouth; but he whipped his
+hands behind him and said, 'I'm not knowing any man that fights for a
+Tammany Dutchman. But I presoom you've been well paid, you dam gun-runnin'
+Yank.'
+
+"Well, Sir, I wasn't looking for that, and it near knocked me over, while
+old man Van Zyl started in to explain.
+
+"'Don't you waste your breath, Mister Van Zyl,' the man says. 'I know this
+breed. The South's full of 'em.' Then he whirls round on me and says,
+'Look at here, you Yank. A little thing like a King's neither here nor
+there, but what _you've_ done,' he says, 'is to go back on the White Man
+in six places at once--two hemispheres and four continents--America,
+England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Don't open your
+head,' he says. 'You know well if you'd been caught at this game in our
+country you'd have been jiggling in the bight of a lariat before you could
+reach for your naturalisation papers. Go on and prosper,' he says, 'and
+you'll fetch up by fighting for niggers, as the North did.' And he threw
+me half-a-crown--English money.
+
+"Sir, I do not regard the proposition in that light, but I guess I must
+have been somewhat shook by the explosion. They told me at Cape Town one
+rib was driven in on to my lungs. I am not adducing this as an excuse, but
+the cold God's truth of the matter is--the money on the floor did it.... I
+give up and cried. Put my head down and cried.
+
+"I dream about this still sometimes. He didn't know the circumstances, but
+I dream about it. And it's Hell!
+
+"How do you regard the proposition--as a Brother? If you'd invented your
+own gun, and spent fifty-seven thousand dollars on her--and had paid your
+own expenses from the word 'go'? An American citizen has a right to choose
+his own side in an unpleasantness, and Van Zyl wasn't any Krugerite ...
+and I'd risked my hide at my own expense. I got that man's address from
+Van Zyl; he was a mining man at Kimberley, and I wrote him the facts. But
+he never answered. Guess he thought I lied.... Damned Southern rebel!
+
+"Oh, say. Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord in
+Cape Town, and he fixed things so's I could lie up a piece in his house? I
+was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged
+into the lung--here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of
+the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any
+American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He
+said the British soldier had failed in every point except courage. He said
+England needed a Monroe Doctrine worse than America--a new doctrine,
+barring out all the Continent, and strictly devoting herself to developing
+her own Colonies. He said he'd abolish half the Foreign Office, and take
+all the old hereditary families clean out of it, because, he said, they
+was expressly trained to fool around with continental diplomats, and to
+despise the Colonies. His own family wasn't more than six hundred years
+old. He was a very brainy man, and a good citizen. We talked politics and
+inventions together when my lung let up on me.
+
+"Did he know my General? Yes. He knew 'em all. Called 'em Teddie and
+Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his dearest
+friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of 'em fit to command
+a column in the field. He said they were too fond of advertising. Generals
+don't seem very different from actors or doctors or--yes, Sir--inventors.
+
+"He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort of
+pull--even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless lunatic; but
+after a while I got 'em to let me keep some of their books. If I was left
+alone in the world with the British system of bookkeeping, I'd reconstruct
+the whole British Empire--beginning with the Army. Yes, I'm one of their
+most trusted accountants, and I'm paid for it. As much as a dollar a day.
+I keep that. I've earned it, and I deduct it from the cost of my board.
+When the war's over I'm going to pay up the balance to the British
+Government. Yes, Sir, that's how I regard the proposition.
+
+"Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was going
+to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn't end in a year.
+'Tisn't in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if Adrian ever
+meets up with Steyn there'll be an exception to the rule. Ye--es, when the
+war's over it'll take some of the British Army to protect Steyn from his
+fellow-patriots. But the war won't be over yet awhile. He that believeth
+don't hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers and the school-teachers and the
+rebs'll have a war all to themselves long after the north is quiet.
+
+"I'm pleased with this country--it's big. Not so many folk on the ground
+as in America. There's a boom coming sure. I've talked it over with
+Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near Bloemfontein and
+start in cattle-raising. It's big and peaceful--a ten-thousand-acre farm.
+I could go on inventing there, too. I'll sell my Zigler, I guess. I'll
+offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do the
+'reelly-now-how-interesting' act over her, I'll turn her over to Captain
+Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They'll pretty quick find some Gussie,
+or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper quarters. I'm
+beginning to know my English.
+
+"And now I'll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I haven't
+had such a good time since Willie died." He pulled the blue shirt over his
+head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and, speaking
+through the folds, added:
+
+"But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole
+proposition to America for ninety-nine years."
+
+
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+POSEIDON'S LAW
+
+  When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea
+  His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, "Mariner," said he,
+  "Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
+  That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
+
+  "Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
+  At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
+  But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test--the immediate gulfs condemn--
+  Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.
+
+  "Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
+  The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath;
+  Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
+  Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.
+
+  "Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,
+  A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts--
+  The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,
+  The soul that cannot tell a lie--except upon the land!"
+
+  In dromond and in catafract--wet, wakeful, windward-eyed--
+  He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
+  But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more,
+  Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
+  And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:
+  The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,
+  But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!
+
+  From Punt returned, from Phormio's Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
+  He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
+  And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
+  Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance,
+armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British
+Navy--the  whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches
+the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the
+Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present
+day, of the British sailorman.
+
+In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur,
+though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on
+that amateur's hard-won information. There exists--unlike some other
+publication, it is not bound in lead boards--a work by one "M. de C.,"
+based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known
+_Acolyte_ type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It
+covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type
+exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the
+average Dumas novel.
+
+I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue--it is the
+disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable
+of writing one page of lyric prose--to the eloquent, the joyful, the
+impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this
+sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at
+the mercy of his agent.
+
+"M. de C.," I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her
+boats what time H.M.S. _Archimandrite_ lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was,
+always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the
+conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist
+the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his
+histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the
+rank of "supernumerary captain's servant"--a "post which," I give his
+words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with
+opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would
+have been my destruction."
+
+From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like
+to those "M. de C." had "envisaged"--if I translate him correctly. It
+became clear to me that "M. de C." was either a pyramidal liar, or...
+
+I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the
+_Archimandrite_; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a
+third-class ticket to Plymouth.
+
+I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman-
+gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my
+feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to
+a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the
+proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides
+had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of
+the _Archimandrite_.
+
+"The _Bedlamite_, d'you mean--'er last commission, when they all went
+crazy?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," I replied. "Fetch me a sample and I'll see."
+
+"You'll excuse me, o' course, but--what d'you want 'im _for?_"
+
+"I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk--if you like. I want
+to make him drunk here."
+
+"Spoke very 'andsome. I'll do what I can." He went out towards the water
+that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he
+was a person of influence beyond Admirals.
+
+In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of
+Mr. Wessels.
+
+"'E only wants to make you drunk at 'is expense. Dessay 'e'll stand you
+all a drink. Come up an' look at 'im. 'E don't bite."
+
+A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large
+bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.
+
+"'E's the only one I could get. Transferred to the _Postulant_ six months
+back. I found 'im quite accidental." Mr. Wessels beamed.
+
+"I'm in charge o' the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin' on the beach _en
+masse_. They won't be home till mornin'," said the square man with the
+remarkable eyes.  "Are you an _Archimandrite?_" I demanded.
+
+"That's me. I was, as you might say."
+
+"Hold on. I'm a _Archimandrite._" A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to
+climb on the table. "Was you lookin' for a _Bedlamite?_ I've--I've been
+invalided, an' what with that, an' visitin' my family 'ome at Lewes,
+per'aps I've come late. 'Ave I?"
+
+"You've 'ad all that's good for you," said Tom Wessels, as the Red Marine
+sat cross-legged on the floor.
+
+"There are those 'oo haven't 'ad a thing yet!" cried a voice by the door.
+
+"I will take this _Archimandrite_" I said, "and this Marine. Will you
+please give the boat's crew a drink now, and another in half an hour if--
+if Mr.----"
+
+"Pyecroft," said the square man. "Emanuel Pyecroft, second-class petty-
+officer."
+
+"--Mr. Pyecroft doesn't object?"
+
+"He don't. Clear out. Goldin', you picket the hill by yourself, throwin'
+out a skirmishin'-line in ample time to let me know when Number One's
+comin' down from his vittles."
+
+The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red
+Marine zealously leading the way.
+
+"And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?" I said.
+
+"Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an' sugar an' per'aps a
+lemon."
+
+"Mine's beer," said the Marine. "It always was."
+
+"Look 'ere, Glass. You take an' go to sleep. The picket'll be comin' for
+you in a little time, an' per'aps you'll 'ave slep' it off by then. What's
+your ship, now?" said Mr. Wessels.
+
+"The Ship o' State--most important?" said the Red Marine magnificently,
+and shut his eyes.
+
+"That's right," said Mr. Pyecroft. "He's safest where he is. An' now--
+here's santy to us all!--what d'you want o' me?"
+
+"I want to read you something."
+
+"Tracts, again!" said the Marine, never opening his eyes. "Well. I'm
+game.... A little more 'ead to it, miss, please."
+
+"He thinks 'e's drinkin'--lucky beggar!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "I'm agreeable
+to be read to. 'Twon't alter my convictions. I may as well tell you
+beforehand I'm a Plymouth Brother."
+
+He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist's chair, and I
+began at the third page of "M. de C."
+
+"'_At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat's
+cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with
+empress_'--coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. '_By this time I judged the
+vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me
+amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded that I
+named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from the Portuguese
+conscription_.'
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed. Then
+pensively: "Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?"
+
+"It's the story of Antonio--a stowaway in the _Archimandrite's_ cutter. A
+French spy when he's at home, I fancy. What do _you_ know about it?"
+
+"An' I thought it was tracts! An' yet some'ow I didn't." Mr. Pyecroft
+nodded his head wonderingly. "Our old man was quite right--so was 'Op--so
+was I. 'Ere, Glass!" He kicked the Marine. "Here's our Antonio 'as written
+a impromptu book! He _was_ a spy all right."
+
+The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the
+half-drunk. "'As 'e got any-thin' in about my 'orrible death an'
+execution? Ex_cuse_ me, but if I open my eyes, I shan't be well. That's
+where I'm different from _all_ other men. Ahem!"
+
+"What about Glass's execution?" demanded Pyecroft.
+
+"The book's in French," I replied.
+
+"Then it's no good to me."
+
+"Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened. I'll
+check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged out of
+the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the other
+things, because they're unusual."
+
+"They were," said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. "Lookin' back on it as I set
+here more an' more I see what an 'ighly unusual affair it was. But it
+happened. It transpired in the _Archimandrite_--the ship you can trust...
+Antonio! Ther beggar!"
+
+"Take your time, Mr. Pyecroft."
+
+In a few moments we came to it thus--
+
+"The old man was displeased. I don't deny he was quite a little
+displeased. With the mail-boats trottin' into Madeira every twenty
+minutes, he didn't see why a lop-eared Portugee had to take liberties with
+a man-o'-war's first cutter. Any'ow, we couldn't turn ship round for him.
+We drew him out and took him out to Number One. 'Drown 'im,' 'e says.
+'Drown 'im before 'e dirties my fine new decks.' But our owner was
+tenderhearted. 'Take him to the galley,' 'e says. 'Boil 'im! Skin 'im!
+Cook 'im! Cut 'is bloomin' hair? Take 'is bloomin' number! We'll have him
+executed at Ascension.'
+
+"Retallick, our chief cook, an' a Carth'lic, was the on'y one any way near
+grateful; bein' short-'anded in the galley. He annexes the blighter by the
+left ear an' right foot an' sets him to work peelin' potatoes. So then,
+this Antonio that was avoidin' the conscription--"
+
+"_Sub_scription, you pink-eyed matlow!" said the Marine, with the face of
+a stone Buddha, and whimpered sadly: "Pye don't see any fun in it at all."
+
+"_Con_scription--come to his illegitimate sphere in Her Majesty's Navy,
+an' it was just then that Old 'Op, our Yeoman of Signals, an' a fastidious
+joker, made remarks to me about 'is hands.
+
+"'Those 'ands,' says 'Op, 'properly considered, never done a day's honest
+labour in their life. Tell me those hands belong to a blighted Portugee
+manual labourist and I won't call you a liar, but I'll say you an' the
+Admiralty are pretty much unique in your statements.' 'Op was always a
+fastidious joker--in his language as much as anything else. He pursued 'is
+investigations with the eye of an 'awk outside the galley. He knew better
+than to advance line-head against Retallick, so he attacked _ong eshlong_,
+speakin' his remarks as much as possible into the breech of the starboard
+four point seven, an' 'ummin' to 'imself. Our chief cook 'ated 'ummin'.
+'What's the matter of your bowels?' he says at last, fistin' out the mess-
+pork agitated like. "'Don't mind me,' says 'Op. 'I'm only a mildewed
+buntin'-tosser,' 'e says: 'but speakin' for my mess, I do hope,' 'e says,
+'you ain't goin' to boil your Portugee friend's boots along o' that pork
+you're smellin' so gay!'
+
+"'Boots! Boots! Boots!' says Retallick, an' he run round like a earwig in
+a alder-stalk. 'Boots in the galley,' 'e says. 'Cook's mate, cast out an'
+abolish this cutter-cuddlin' abori_gine's_ boots!'"
+
+"They was hove overboard in quick time, an' that was what 'Op was lyin' to
+for. As subsequently transpired.
+
+"'Fine Arab arch to that cutter-cuddler's hinstep,' he says to me. 'Run
+your eye over it, Pye,' 'e says. 'Nails all present an' correct,' 'e says.
+'Bunion on the little toe, too,' 'e says; 'which comes from wearin' a
+tight boot. What do _you_ think?'
+
+"'Dook in trouble, per'aps,' I says. 'He ain't got the hang of spud-
+skinnin'.' No more he 'ad. 'E was simply cannibalisin' 'em.
+
+"'I want to know what 'e 'as got the 'ang of,' says 'Op, obstructed-like.
+'Watch 'im,' 'e says. 'These shoulders were foreign-drilled somewhere.'
+
+'"When it comes to "Down 'ammicks!" which is our naval way o' goin' to
+bye-bye, I took particular trouble over Antonio, 'oo had 'is 'ammick 'ove
+at 'im with general instructions to sling it an' be sugared. In the
+ensuin' melly I pioneered him to the after-'atch, which is a orifice
+communicatin' with the after-flat an' similar suites of apartments. He
+havin' navigated at three fifths power immejit ahead o' me, _I_ wasn't
+goin' to volunteer any assistance, nor he didn't need it.'
+
+"'Mong Jew!' says 'e, sniffin' round. An' twice more 'Mong Jew!'--which is
+pure French. Then he slings 'is 'ammick, nips in, an' coils down. 'Not bad
+for a Portugee conscript,' I says to myself, casts off the tow, abandons
+him, and reports to 'Op.
+
+"About three minutes later I'm over'auled by our sub-lootenant, navigatin'
+under forced draught, with his bearin's 'eated. 'E had the temerity to say
+I'd instructed our Antonio to sling his carcass in the alleyway, an' 'e
+was peevish about it. O' course, I prevaricated like 'ell. You get to do
+that in the service. Nevertheless, to oblige Mr. Ducane, I went an'
+readjusted Antonio. You may not 'ave ascertained that there are two ways
+o' comin' out of an 'ammick when it's cut down. Antonio came out t'other
+way--slidin' 'andsome to his feet. That showed me two things. First, 'e
+had been in an 'ammick before, an' next, he hadn't been asleep. Then I
+reproached 'im for goin' to bed where 'e'd been told to go, instead o'
+standin' by till some one gave him entirely contradictory orders. Which is
+the essence o' naval discipline.
+
+"In the middle o' this argument the gunner protrudes his ram-bow from 'is
+cabin, an' brings it all to an 'urried conclusion with some remarks
+suitable to 'is piebald warrant-rank. Navigatin' thence under easy steam,
+an' leavin' Antonio to re-sling his little foreign self, my large flat
+foot comes in detonatin' contact with a small objec' on the deck. Not
+'altin' for the obstacle, nor changin' step, I shuffles it along under the
+ball of the big toe to the foot o' the hatchway, when, lightly stoopin', I
+catch it in my right hand and continue my evolutions in rapid time till I
+eventuates under 'Op's lee.
+
+"It was a small moroccer-bound pocket-book, full of indelible pencil-
+writin'--in French, for I could plainly discern the _doodeladays_, which
+is about as far as my education runs.
+
+"'Op fists it open and peruses. 'E'd known an 'arf-caste Frenchwoman
+pretty intricate before he was married; when he was trained man in a
+stinkin' gunboat up the Saigon River. He understood a lot o' French--
+domestic brands chiefly--the kind that isn't in print.
+
+"'Pye,' he says to me, 'you're a tattician o' no mean value. I am a trifle
+shady about the precise bearin' an' import' o' this beggar's private log
+here,' 'e says, 'but it's evidently a case for the owner. You'll 'ave your
+share o' the credit,' 'e says.
+
+"'Nay, nay, Pauline,' I says, 'You don't catch Emanuel Pyecroft mine-
+droppin' under any post-captain's bows,' I says, 'in search of honour,' I
+says. 'I've been there oft.'
+
+"'Well, if you must, you must,' 'e says, takin' me up quick. 'But I'll
+speak a good word for you, Pye.'
+
+"'You'll shut your mouth, 'Op,' I says, 'or you an' me'll part brass-rags.
+The owner has his duties, an' I have mine. We will keep station,' I says,
+'nor seek to deviate.'
+
+"'Deviate to blazes!' says 'Op. 'I'm goin' to deviate to the owner's
+comfortable cabin direct.' So he deviated."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward and dealt the Marine a large pattern Navy
+kick. "'Ere, Glass! You was sentry when 'Op went to the old man--the first
+time, with Antonio's washin'-book. Tell us what transpired. You're sober.
+You don't know how sober you are!"
+
+The Marine cautiously raised his head a few inches. As Mr. Pyecroft said,
+he was sober--after some R.M.L.I. fashion of his own devising. "'Op bounds
+in like a startled anteloper, carryin' 'is signal-slate at the ready. The
+old man was settin' down to 'is bountiful platter--not like you an' me,
+without anythin' more in sight for an 'ole night an' 'arf a day. Talkin'
+about food--"
+
+"No! No! No!" cried Pyecroft, kicking again. "What about 'Op?" I thought
+the Marine's ribs would have snapped, but he merely hiccuped.
+
+"Oh, 'im! 'E 'ad it written all down on 'is little slate--I think--an' 'e
+shoves it under the old man's nose. 'Shut the door,' says 'Op. 'For
+'Eavin's sake shut the cabin door!' Then the old man must ha' said
+somethin' 'bout irons. 'I'll put 'em on, Sir, in your very presence,' says
+'Op, 'only 'ear my prayer,' or--words to that 'fect.... It was jus' the
+same with me when I called our Sergeant a bladder-bellied, lard-'eaded,
+perspirin' pension-cheater. They on'y put on the charge-sheet 'words to
+that effect,' Spoiled the 'ole 'fect."
+
+"'Op! 'Op! 'Op! What about 'Op?" thundered Pyecroft.
+
+"'Op? Oh, shame thing. Words t' that 'fect. Door shut. Nushin' more
+transphired till 'Op comes out--nose exshtreme angle plungin' fire or--or
+words 'that effect. Proud's parrot. 'Oh, you prou' old parrot,' I says."
+
+Mr. Glass seemed to slumber again.
+
+"Lord! How a little moisture disintegrates, don't it? When we had ship's
+theatricals off Vigo, Glass 'ere played Dick Deadeye to the moral, though
+of course the lower deck wasn't pleased to see a leatherneck interpretin'
+a strictly maritime part, as you might say. It's only his repartees, which
+'e can't contain, that conquers him. Shall I resume my narrative?"
+
+Another drink was brought on this hint, and Mr. Pyecroft resumed.
+
+"The essence o' strategy bein' forethought, the essence o' tattics is
+surprise. Per'aps you didn't know that? My forethought 'avin' secured the
+initial advantage in attack, it remained for the old man to ladle out the
+surprise-packets. 'Eavens! What surprises! That night he dines with the
+wardroom, bein' of the kind--I've told you as we were a 'appy ship?--that
+likes it, and the wardroom liked it too. This ain't common in the service.
+They had up the new Madeira--awful undisciplined stuff which gives you a
+cordite mouth next morning. They told the mess-men to navigate towards the
+extreme an' remote 'orizon, an' they abrogated the sentry about fifteen
+paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner, the Bo'sun, an' the
+Carpenter, an' stood them large round drinks. It all come out later--
+wardroom joints bein' lower-deck hash, as the sayin' is--that our Number
+One stuck to it that 'e couldn't trust the ship for the job. The old man
+swore 'e could, 'avin' commanded 'er over two years. He was right. There
+wasn't a ship, I don't care in what fleet, could come near the
+_Archimandrites_ when we give our mind to a thing. We held the cruiser
+big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig) championship, an' the
+challenge-cup row round the fleet. We 'ad the best nigger-minstrels, the
+best football an' cricket teams, an' the best squee-jee band of anything
+that ever pushed in front of a brace o' screws. An' _yet_ our Number One
+mistrusted us! 'E said we'd be a floatin' hell in a week, an' it 'ud take
+the rest o' the commission to stop our way. They was arguin' it in the
+wardroom when the bridge reports a light three points off the port bow. We
+overtakes her, switches on our search-light, an' she discloses herself as
+a collier o' no mean reputation, makin' about seven knots on 'er lawful
+occasions--to the Cape most like.
+
+"Then the owner--so we 'eard in good time--broke the boom, springin' all
+mines together at close interval.
+
+"'Look 'ere, my jokers,' 'e says (I'm givin' the grist of 'is arguments,
+remember), 'Number One says we can't enlighten this cutter-cuddlin Gaulish
+lootenant on the manners an' customs o' the Navy without makin' the ship a
+market-garden. There's a lot in that,' 'e says, 'specially if we kept it
+up lavish, till we reached Ascension. But,' 'e says, 'the appearance o'
+this strange sail has put a totally new aspect on the game. We can run to
+just one day's amusement for our friend, or else what's the good o'
+discipline? An' then we can turn 'im over to our presumably short-'anded
+fellow-subject in the small-coal line out yonder. He'll be pleased,' says
+the old man, 'an' so will Antonio. M'rover,' he says to Number One, 'I'll
+lay you a dozen o' liquorice an' ink'--it must ha' been that new tawny
+port--'that I've got a ship I can trust--for one day,' 'e says.
+'Wherefore,' he says, 'will you have the extreme goodness to reduce speed
+as requisite for keepin' a proper distance behind this providential tramp
+till further orders?' Now, that's what I call tattics.
+
+"The other manoeuvres developed next day, strictly in accordance with the
+plans as laid down in the wardroom, where they sat long an' steady. 'Op
+whispers to me that Antonio was a Number One spy when 'e was in
+commission, and a French lootenant when 'e was paid off, so I navigated at
+three 'undred and ninety six revolutions to the galley, never 'avin'
+kicked a lootenant up to date. I may as well say that I did not manoeuvre
+against 'im as a Frenchman, because I like Frenchmen, but stric'ly on 'is
+rank an' ratin' in 'is own navy. I inquired after 'is health from
+Retallick.
+
+"'Don't ask me,' 'e says, sneerin' be'ind his silver spectacles. ''E's
+promoted to be captain's second supernumerary servant, to be dressed and
+addressed as such. If 'e does 'is dooties same as he skinned the spuds,
+_I_ ain't for changin' with the old man.'
+
+"In the balmy dawnin' it was given out, all among the 'olystones, by our
+sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil, that all orders after
+eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o' the
+velocity. 'The reg'lar routine,' he says, 'was arrogated for reasons o'
+state an' policy, an' any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise,
+annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly reproached.' Then
+the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some hanky-panky in the
+magazines, an' led 'em off along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say,
+our Gunnery Lootenant.
+
+"That put us on the _viva voce_--particularly when we understood how the
+owner was navigatin' abroad in his sword-belt trustin' us like brothers.
+We shifts into the dress o' the day, an' we musters _an'_ we prays _ong
+reggle_, an' we carries on anticipatory to bafflin' Antonio.
+
+"Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin' his 'ands an' weepin'.
+'E'd been talkin' to the sub-lootenant, an' it looked like as if his
+upper-works were collapsin'.
+
+"'I want a guarantee,' 'e says, wringin' 'is 'ands like this. '_I_ 'aven't
+'ad sunstroke slave-dhowin' in Tajurrah Bay, an' been compelled to live on
+quinine an' chlorodyne ever since. _I_ don't get the horrors off glasses
+o' brown sherry.'
+
+"'What 'ave you got now?' I says.
+
+"'_I_ ain't an officer,' 'e says. '_My_ sword won't be handed back to me
+at the end o' the court-martial on account o' my little weaknesses, an' no
+stain on my character. I'm only a pore beggar of a Red Marine with
+eighteen years' service, an' why for,' says he, wringin' 'is hands like
+this all the time, 'must I chuck away my pension, sub-lootenant or no
+sub-lootenant? Look at 'em,' he says, 'only look at 'em. Marines fallin'
+in for small-arm drill!'
+
+"The leathernecks was layin' aft at the double, an' a more insanitary set
+of accidents I never wish to behold. Most of 'em was in their shirts. They
+had their trousers on, of course--rolled up nearly to the knee, but what I
+mean is belts over shirts. Three or four 'ad _our_ caps, an' them that had
+drawn helmets wore their chin-straps like Portugee earrings. Oh, yes; an'
+three of 'em 'ad only one boot! I knew what our bafflin' tattics was goin'
+to be, but even I was mildly surprised when this gay fantasia of Brazee
+drummers halted under the poop, because of an 'ammick in charge of our
+Navigator, an' a small but 'ighly efficient landin'-party.
+
+"''Ard astern both screws!' says the Navigator. 'Room for the captain's
+'ammick!' The captain's servant--Cockburn 'is name was--had one end, an'
+our newly promoted Antonio, in a blue slop rig, 'ad the other. They slung
+it from the muzzle of the port poop quick-firer thort-ships to a
+stanchion. Then the old man flickered up, smokin' a cigarette, an' brought
+'is stern to an anchor slow an' oriental.
+
+"'What a blessin' it is, Mr. Ducane,' 'e says to our sub-lootenant, 'to be
+out o' sight o' the 'ole pack o' blighted admirals! What's an admiral
+after all?' 'e says. 'Why, 'e's only a post-captain with the pip, Mr.
+Ducane. The drill will now proceed. What O! Antonio, _descendez_ an' get
+me a split.'
+
+"When Antonio came back with the whisky-an'-soda, he was told off to swing
+the 'ammick in slow time, an' that massacritin' small-arm party went on
+with their oratorio. The Sergeant had been kindly excused from
+participating an' he was jumpin' round on the poop-ladder, stretchin' 'is
+leather neck to see the disgustin' exhibition an' cluckin' like a ash-
+hoist. A lot of us went on the fore an' aft bridge an' watched 'em like
+'Listen to the Band in the Park.' All these evolutions, I may as well tell
+you, are highly unusual in the Navy. After ten minutes o' muckin' about,
+Glass 'ere--pity 'e's so drunk!--says that 'e'd had enough exercise for
+'is simple needs an' he wants to go 'ome. Mr. Ducane catches him a
+sanakatowzer of a smite over the 'ead with the flat of his sword. Down
+comes Glass's rifle with language to correspond, and he fiddles with the
+bolt. Up jumps Maclean--'oo was a Gosport 'ighlander--an' lands on Glass's
+neck, thus bringin' him to the deck, fully extended.
+
+"The old man makes a great show o' wakin' up from sweet slumbers. 'Mistah
+Ducane,' he says, 'what is this painful interregnum?' or words to that
+effect. Ducane takes one step to the front, an' salutes: 'Only 'nother
+case of attempted assassination, Sir,' he says.
+
+"'Is that all?' says the old man, while Maclean sits on Glass's collar
+button. 'Take him away,' 'e says, 'he knows the penalty.'"
+
+"Ah! I suppose that is the 'invincible _morgue_ Britannic in the presence
+of brutally provoked mutiny,'" I muttered, as I turned over the pages of
+M. de C.
+
+"So, Glass, 'e was led off kickin' an' squealin', an' hove down the ladder
+into 'is Sergeant's volupshus arms. 'E run Glass forward, an' was all for
+puttin' 'im in irons as a maniac.
+
+"'You refill your waterjacket and cool off!' says Glass, sittin' down
+rather winded. 'The trouble with you is you haven't any imagination.'
+
+"'Haven't I? I've got the remnants of a little poor authority though,' 'e
+says, lookin' pretty vicious.
+
+"'You 'ave?' says Glass. 'Then for pity's sake 'ave some proper feelin'
+too. I'm goin' to be shot this evenin'. You'll take charge o' the firin'-
+party.'
+
+"Some'ow or other, that made the Sergeant froth at the mouth. 'E 'ad no
+more play to his intellects than a spit-kid. 'E just took everything as it
+come. Well, that was about all, I think.... Unless you'd care to have me
+resume my narrative."
+
+We resumed on the old terms, but with rather less hot water. The marine on
+the floor breathed evenly, and Mr. Pyecroft nodded.
+
+"I may have omitted to inform you that our Number One took a general row
+round the situation while the small-arm party was at work, an' o' course
+he supplied the outlines; but the details we coloured in by ourselves.
+These were our tattics to baffle Antonio. It occurs to the Carpenter to
+'ave the steam-cutter down for repairs. 'E gets 'is cheero-party together,
+an' down she comes. You've never seen a steam-cutter let down on the deck,
+'ave you? It's not usual, an' she takes a lot o' humourin'. Thus we 'ave
+the starboard side completely blocked an' the general traffic tricklin'
+over'ead along the fore-an'-aft bridge. Then Chips gets into her an'
+begins balin' out a mess o' small reckonin's on the deck. Simultaneous
+there come up three o' those dirty engine-room objects which we call
+'tiffies,' an' a stoker or two with orders to repair her steamin'-gadgets.
+_They_ get into her an' bale out another young Christmas-treeful of small
+reckonin's--brass mostly. Simultaneous it hits the Pusser that 'e'd better
+serve out mess pork for the poor matlow. These things half shifted
+Retallick, our chief cook, off 'is bed-plate. Yes, you might say they
+broke 'im wide open. 'E wasn't at all used to 'em.
+
+"Number One tells off five or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to the
+pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, 'ave you?
+Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now's the day an' now's the hour for
+a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they all give way
+together, and the general effect was _non plus ultra_. There was the
+cutter's innards spread out like a Fratton pawnbroker's shop; there was
+the 'tiffies' hammerin' in the stern of 'er, an' _they_ ain't antiseptic;
+there was the Maxim class in light skirmishin' order among the pork, an'
+forrard the blacksmith had 'is forge in full blast, makin' 'orse-shoes, I
+suppose. Well, that accounts for the starboard side. The on'y warrant
+officer 'oo hadn't a look in so far was the Bosun. So 'e stated, all out
+of 'is own 'ead, that Chips's reserve o' wood an' timber, which Chips 'ad
+stole at our last refit, needed restowin'. It was on the port booms--a
+young an' healthy forest of it, for Charley Peace wasn't to be named
+'longside o' Chips for burglary.
+
+"'All right,' says our Number One. 'You can 'ave the whole port watch if
+you like. Hell's Hell,' 'e says, 'an when there study to improve.'
+
+"Jarvis was our Bosun's name. He hunted up the 'ole of the port watch by
+hand, as you might say, callin' 'em by name loud an' lovin', which is not
+precisely Navy makee-pigeon. They 'ad that timber-loft off the booms, an'
+they dragged it up and down like so many sweatin' little beavers. But
+Jarvis was jealous o' Chips an' went round the starboard side to envy at
+him.
+
+"'Tain't enough,' 'e says, when he had climbed back. 'Chips 'as got his
+bazaar lookin' like a coal-hulk in a cyclone. We must adop' more drastic
+measures.' Off 'e goes to Number One and communicates with 'im. Number One
+got the old man's leave, on account of our goin' so slow (we were keepin'
+be'ind the tramp), to fit the ship with a full set of patent supernumerary
+sails. Four trysails--yes, you might call 'em trysails--was our Admiralty
+allowance in the un'eard of event of a cruiser breakin' down, but we had
+our awnin's as well. They was all extricated from the various flats an'
+'oles where they was stored, an' at the end o' two hours' hard work Number
+One 'e made out eleven sails o' different sorts and sizes. I don't know
+what exact nature of sail you'd call 'em--pyjama-stun'sles with a touch of
+Sarah's shimmy, per'aps--but the riggin' of 'em an' all the supernumerary
+details, as you might say, bein' carried on through an' over an' between
+the cutter an' the forge an' the pork an' cleanin' guns, an' the Maxim
+class an' the Bosun's calaboose _and_ the paintwork, was sublime. There's
+no other word for it. Sub-lime!
+
+"The old man keeps swimmin' up an' down through it all with the faithful
+Antonio at 'is side, fetchin' him numerous splits. 'E had eight that
+mornin', an' when Antonio was detached to get 'is spy-glass, or his
+gloves, or his lily-white 'andkerchief, the old man man would waste 'em
+down a ventilator. Antonio must ha' learned a lot about our Navy thirst."
+
+"He did."
+
+"Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin' to the precise page indicated an'
+givin' me a _resume_ of 'is tattics?" said Mr. Pyecroft, drinking deeply.
+"I'd like to know 'ow it looked from 'is side o' the deck."
+
+"How will this do?" I said. "'_Once clear of the land, like Voltaire's
+Habakkuk_------"'
+
+"One o' their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose," Mr. Pyecroft
+interjected.
+
+"'--_each man seemed veritably capable of all--to do according to his
+will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking.
+One cries "Aid me!" flourishing at the same time the weapons of his
+business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal
+misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a
+hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the
+utensil, colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in the
+stern of the boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the ironwork
+which impedes their brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches from on high
+wood, canvas, iron bolts, coal-dust--what do I know_?'"
+
+"That's where 'e's comin' the bloomin' _onjeuew_. 'E knows a lot, reely."
+
+"'_They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot
+reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have well
+and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me
+also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They
+ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the
+vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious "Roule Britannia"--to endure
+how lomg_?'"
+
+"That was me! On'y 'twas 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--which I hate more
+than any stinkin' tune I know, havin' dragged too many nasty little guns
+to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an' I ain't
+musical, you might say."
+
+"_'Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this "tohu-
+bohu_"' (that's one of his names for the _Archimandrite_, Mr. Pyecroft),
+'_for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with
+drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the
+Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him is equal. The breech-lock
+indispensable is not there. They demand it of one who opens a barrel of
+pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He refers them to the cook,
+yesterday my master_--'"
+
+"Yes, an' Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an' observin' little
+Antonio we 'ave!"
+
+"'_It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not rebuke
+him, that he has found it by hazard_.' I'm afraid I haven't translated
+quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I've done my best."
+
+"Why, it's beautiful--you ought to be a Frenchman--you ought. You don't
+want anything o' _me_. You've got it all there."
+
+"Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here's a little thing I
+can't quite see the end of. Listen! '_Of the domain which Britannia rules
+by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator, if
+possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the indeterminate
+chaos of the grand deck, I ascended--always with a whisky-and-soda in my
+hands--to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain in plain sea, at
+issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity
+of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean
+with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by
+the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the
+Hesperides beneath his keel--vigias innumerable.'_ I don't know what a
+vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. _'He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the
+mid-Atlantic!'_ What was that, now?"
+
+"Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw 'is cap down
+an' danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They 'ad a tea-party on the
+bridge. It was the old man's contribution. Does he say anything about the
+leadsmen?"
+
+"Is this it? _'Overborne by his superior's causeless suspicion, the
+Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of my
+captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation followed. The
+argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel, crapulous'_ (that means
+drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), _'shouting. It appeared that my captain
+would chenaler'_ (I don't know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) _'to the
+Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with the sound'_ (that's the lead, I
+think) _'in his hand, garnished with suet.'_ Was it garnished with suet?"
+
+"He put two leadsmen in the chains, o' course! He didn't know that there
+mightn't be shoals there, 'e said. Morgan went an' armed his lead, to
+enter into the spirit o' the thing. They 'eaved it for twenty minutes, but
+there wasn't any suet--only tallow, o' course."
+
+"'_Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly the
+Britannic Navy is well guarded_.' Well, that's all right, Mr. Pyecroft.
+Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that happened?"
+
+"There was a good deal, one way an' another. I'd like to know what this
+Antonio thought of our sails."
+
+"He merely says that '_the engines having broken down, an officer
+extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails_.' Oh, yes! he says
+that some of them looked like '_bonnets in a needlecase_,' I think."
+
+"Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun'sles. That shows the beggar's no
+sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was
+a sailorman, an' 'e hasn't sense enough to see what extemporisin' eleven
+good an' drawin' sails out o' four trys'les an' a few awnin's means. 'E
+must have been drunk!"
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and
+the execution."
+
+"Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I
+told my crew--me bein' captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I'm a
+torpedo man now--it just showed how you can work your gun under any
+discomforts. A shell--twenty six-inch shells--burstin' inboard couldn't
+'ave begun to make the varicose collection o' tit-bits which we had
+spilled on our deck. It was a lather--a rich, creamy lather!
+
+"We took it very easy--that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary
+'Jenny-'ave-another-cup-o' tea' style, an' the crew was strictly ordered
+not to rupture 'emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn't our custom
+in the Navy when we're _in puris naturalibus_, as you might say. But we
+wasn't so then. We was impromptu. An' Antonio was busy fetchin' splits for
+the old man, and the old man was wastin' 'em down the ventilators. There
+must 'ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think--wardroom whisky-
+an'-soda.
+
+"Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my
+_bundoop_ go at fifteen 'undred--sightin' very particular. There was a
+sort of 'appy little belch like--no more, I give you my word--an' the
+shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an' dropped into the deep Atlantic.
+
+"'Government powder, Sir!' sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge,
+laughin' horrid sarcastic; an' then, of course, we all laughs, which we
+are not encouraged to do _in puris naturalibus_. Then, of course, I saw
+what our Gunnery Jack 'ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the
+magazines all the mornin' watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum,
+as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an' sickish
+notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired,
+our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin' sarcastic about Government
+stores, an' the old man fair howled. 'Op was on the bridge with 'im, an'
+'e told me--'cause 'e's a free-knowledgeist an' reads character--that
+Antonio's face was sweatin' with pure joy. 'Op wanted to kick him. Does
+Antonio say anything about that?"
+
+"Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr. Pyecroft.
+He has put all the results into a sort of appendix--a table of shots. He
+says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words."
+
+"What? Nothin' about the way the crews flinched an' hopped? Nothin' about
+the little shells rumblin' out o' the guns so casual?"
+
+"There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He
+says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of
+sight of land. Oh, yes! I've forgotten. He says, _'From the conversation
+of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small proportion of
+the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself in his
+pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below,
+who cried in a high voice: "I hope, Sir, you are making something out of
+it. It is rather monotonous." This insult, so flagrant, albeit well-
+merited, was received with a smile of drunken bonhommy'_--that's
+cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty."
+
+"Resumin' afresh," said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered interval, "I
+may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two hours, and then
+we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an' three-quarters cleaned
+up the decks an' mucked about as requisite, haulin' down the patent awnin'
+stun'sles which Number One 'ad made. The old man was a shade doubtful of
+his course, 'cause I 'eard him say to Number One, 'You were right. A week
+o' this would turn the ship into a Hayti bean-feast. But,' he says
+pathetic, 'haven't they backed the band noble?'
+
+"'Oh! it's a picnic for them,' says Number One.
+
+"'But when do we get rid o' this whisky-peddlin' blighter o' yours, Sir?'
+
+"'That's a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,' says the old man. "E's
+the bluest blood o' France when he's at home,'
+
+"'Which is the precise landfall I wish 'im to make,' says Number One.'
+It'll take all 'ands and the Captain of the Head to clean up after 'im.'
+
+"'They won't grudge it,' says the old man. 'Just as soon as it's dusk
+we'll overhaul our tramp friend an' waft him over,'
+
+"Then a sno--midshipman--Moorshed was is name--come up an' says somethin'
+in a low voice. It fetches the old man.
+
+"'You'll oblige me,' 'e says, 'by takin' the wardroom poultry for _that_.
+I've ear-marked every fowl we've shipped at Madeira, so there can't be any
+possible mistake. M'rover,' 'e says, 'tell 'em if they spill one drop of
+blood on the deck,' he says, 'they'll not be extenuated, but hung.'
+
+"Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin' unusual 'appy, even for him. The
+Marines was enjoyin' a committee-meetin' in their own flat.
+
+"After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on the
+sea--an' any thin' more chronic than the _Archimandrite_ I'd trouble you
+to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a auction-room--yes, she
+almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We'd picked up our tramp, an' was
+about four mile be'ind 'er. I noticed the wardroom as a class, you might
+say, was manoeuvrin' _en masse_, an' then come the order to cockbill the
+yards. We hadn't any yards except a couple o' signallin' sticks, but we
+cock-billed 'em. I hadn't seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the
+West Indies, when a post-captain died o' yellow jack. It means a sign o'
+mourning the yards bein' canted opposite ways, to look drunk an'
+disorderly. They do.
+
+"'An' what might our last giddy-go-round signify?' I asks of 'Op.
+
+"'Good 'Evins!' 'e says, 'Are you in that habit o' permittin' leathernecks
+to assassinate lootenants every morning at drill without immejitly 'avin'
+'em shot on the foc'sle in the horrid crawly-crawly twilight?'"
+
+"'Yes,' I murmured over my dear book, '_the infinitely lugubrious
+crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity unparalleled--hideous--cold-blooded,
+and yet touched with appalling grandeur_.'"
+
+"Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he 'ad feelin's. To
+resoom. Without anyone givin' us orders to that effect, we began to creep
+about an' whisper. Things got stiller and stiller, till they was as still
+as--mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the 'Dead March' from the upper
+bridge. He done it to cover the remarks of a cock-bird bein' killed
+forrard, but it came out paralysin' in its _tout ensemble_. You never
+heard the 'Dead March' on a bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin' for both
+watches to attend public execution, an' we came up like so many ghosts,
+the 'ole ship's company. Why, Mucky 'Arcourt, one o' our boys, was that
+took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an' was properly kicked down the
+ladder for so doin'. Well, there we lay--engines stopped, rollin' to the
+swell, all dark, yards cock-billed, an' that merry tune yowlin' from the
+upper bridge. We fell in on the foc'sle, leavin' a large open space by the
+capstan, where our sail-maker was sittin' sewin' broken firebars into the
+foot of an old 'ammick. 'E looked like a corpse, an' Mucky had another fit
+o' hysterics, an' you could 'ear us breathin' 'ard. It beat anythin' in
+the theatrical line that even us _Archimandrites_ had done--an' we was the
+ship you could trust. Then come the doctor an' lit a red lamp which he
+used for his photographic muckin's, an' chocked it on the capstan. That
+was finally gashly!
+
+"Then come twelve Marines guardin' Glass 'ere. You wouldn't think to see
+'im what a gratooitous an' aboundin' terror he was that evenin'. 'E was in
+a white shirt 'e'd stole from Cockburn, an' his regulation trousers,
+barefooted. 'E'd pipe-clayed 'is 'ands an' face an' feet an' as much of
+his chest as the openin' of his shirt showed. 'E marched under escort with
+a firm an' undeviatin' step to the capstan, an' came to attention. The old
+man reinforced by an extra strong split--his seventeenth, an' 'e didn't
+throw _that_ down the ventilator--come up on the bridge an' stood like a
+image. 'Op, 'oo was with 'im, says that 'e heard Antonio's teeth singin',
+not chatterin'--singin' like funnel-stays in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin'
+aeolian harp, 'Op said.
+
+"'When you are ready, Sir, drop your 'andkerchief,' Number One whispers.
+
+"'Good Lord!' says the old man, with a jump. 'Eh! What? What a sight! What
+a sight!' an' he stood drinkin' it in, I suppose, for quite two minutes.
+
+"Glass never says a word. 'E shoved aside an 'andkerchief which the
+sub-lootenant proffered 'im to bind 'is eyes with--quiet an' collected;
+an' if we 'adn't been feelin' so very much as we did feel, his gestures
+would 'ave brought down the 'ouse." "I can't open my eyes, or I'll be
+sick," said the Marine with appalling clearness. "I'm pretty far gone--I
+know it--but there wasn't anyone could 'ave beaten Edwardo Glass,
+R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself nearly into the 'orrors. Go on,
+Pye. Glass is in support--as ever."
+
+"Then the old man drops 'is 'andkerchief, an' the firin'-party fires like
+one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin' an' 'eavin' horrid natural, into
+the shotted 'ammick all spread out before him, and the firin' party closes
+in to guard the remains of the deceased while Sails is stitchin' it up.
+An' when they lifted that 'ammick it was one wringin' mess of blood! They
+on'y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too. Did you know poultry bled that
+extravagant? _I_ never did.
+
+"The old man--so 'Op told me--stayed on the bridge, brought up on a dead
+centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser, impressed, but o' course
+'is duty was to think of 'is fine white decks an' the blood. 'Arf a mo',
+Sir,' he says, when the old man was for leavin'. 'We have to wait for the
+burial, which I am informed takes place immejit.'
+
+"'It's beyond me,' says the owner. 'There was general instructions for an
+execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of mountebanks
+aboard,' he says. 'I'm all cold up my back, still.'
+
+"The Marines carried the corpse below. Then the bugle give us some more
+'Dead March,' Then we 'eard a splash from a bow six-pounder port, an' the
+bugle struck up a cheerful tune. The whole lower deck was complimentin'
+Glass, 'oo took it very meek. 'E _is_ a good actor, for all 'e's a
+leatherneck.
+
+"'Now,' said the old man, 'we must turn over Antonio. He's in what I have
+'eard called one perspirin' funk.'
+
+"Of course, I'm tellin' it slow, but it all 'appened much quicker. We run
+down our trampo--without o' course informin' Antonio of 'is 'appy destiny
+--an' inquired of 'er if she had any use for a free and gratis stowaway.
+Oh, yes? she said she'd be highly grateful, but she seemed a shade puzzled
+at our generosity, as you might put it, an' we lay by till she lowered a
+boat. Then Antonio--who was un'appy, distinctly un'appy--was politely
+requested to navigate elsewhere, which I don't think he looked for. 'Op
+was deputed to convey the information, an' 'Op got in one sixteen-inch
+kick which 'oisted 'im all up the ladder. 'Op ain't really vindictive, an'
+'e's fond of the French, especially the women, but his chances o' kicking
+lootenants was like the cartridge--reduced to a minimum.
+
+"The boat 'adn't more than shoved off before a change, as you might say,
+came o'er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like Elphinstone an'
+Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy: 'Gentlemen,' he says,
+'for gentlemen you have shown yourselves to be--from the bottom of my
+heart I thank you. The status an' position of our late lamented shipmate
+made it obligate,' 'e says, 'to take certain steps not strictly included
+in the regulations. An' nobly,' says 'e, 'have you assisted me. Now,' 'e
+says, 'you hold the false and felonious reputation of bein' the smartest
+ship in the Service. Pigsties,' 'e says,' is plane trigonometry alongside
+our present disgustin' state. Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,'
+he says. 'Jump, you lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig
+out, you briny-eyed beggars!'"
+
+"Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
+
+"I've told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The Bosun's
+mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the lower
+deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night 'fore we got
+'er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever, and we
+resoomed. I've thought it over a lot since; yes, an' I've thought a lot of
+Antonio trimmin' coal in that tramp's bunkers. 'E must 'ave been highly
+surprised. Wasn't he?"
+
+"He was, Mr. Pyecroft," I responded. "But now we're talking of it, weren't
+you all a little surprised?"
+
+"It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+"We appreciated it as an easy way o' workin' for your country. But--the
+old man was right--a week o' similar manoeuvres would 'ave knocked our
+moral double-bottoms bung out. Now, couldn't you oblige with Antonio's
+account of Glass's execution?"
+
+I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of
+M. de C.'s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye
+of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His
+account of his descent from the side of the "_infamous vessel consecrated
+to blood_" in the "_vast and gathering dusk of the trembling ocean_" could
+only be matched by his description of the dishonoured hammock sinking
+unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played music "_of
+an indefinable brutality_"
+
+"By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass's funeral?" I asked.
+
+"Him? Oh! 'e played 'The Strict Q.T.' It's a very old song. We 'ad it in
+Fratton nearly fifteen years back," said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily.
+
+I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and
+discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.
+
+"Where is that--minutely particularised person--Glass?" said the sergeant
+of the picket.
+
+"'Ere!" The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. "An' it's no good
+smelling of my breath, because I'm strictly an' ruinously sober."
+
+"Oh! An' what may you have been doin' with yourself?"
+
+"Listenin' to tracts. You can look! I've had the evenin' of my little
+life. Lead on to the _Cornucopia's_ midmost dunjing cell. There's a crowd
+of brass-'atted blighters there which will say I've been absent without
+leaf. Never mind. I forgive them before'and. _The_ evenin' of my life, an'
+please don't forget it." Then in a tone of most ingratiating apology to
+me: "I soaked it all in be'ind my shut eyes. 'I'm"--he jerked a
+contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft--"'e's a flatfoot, a indigo-blue
+matlow. 'E never saw the fun from first to last. A mournful beggar--most
+depressin'." Private Glass departed, leaning heavily on the escort's arm.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought--the profound and far-reaching
+meditation that follows five glasses of hot whisky-and-water.
+
+"Well, I don't see anything comical--greatly--except here an' there.
+Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do _you_ see anything
+funny in it?"
+
+There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for
+argument.
+
+"No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don't," I replied. "It was a beautiful tale, and I
+thank you very much."
+
+
+
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+THE RUNNERS
+
+                                   _News!_
+  What is the word that they tell now--now--now!
+  The little drums beating in the bazaars?
+      _They_ beat (among the buyers and sellers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          God sends a gnat against Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  At the edge of the crops--now--now--where the well-wheels are halted,
+  One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
+      _They_ beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          God prepares an ill day for Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.
+
+                                   _News!_
+  By the fires of the camps--now--now--where the travellers meet
+  Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
+      _They_ beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Under the shadow of the border-peels--now--now--now!
+  In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
+      _They_ beat (among the rifles and the riders)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          Shall we go up against Nimrud_?"
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Bring out the heaps of grain--open the account-books again!
+  Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
+  Eat and lie under the trees--pitch the police-guarded  fair-grounds,
+      O dancers!
+  Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
+      _They_ beat (among all the peoples)
+          _"Now--now--now!
+          God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
+          God has given Victory to Nimrud!"
+          Let us abide under Nimrud_!"
+      O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!
+
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the _rel_
+from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be
+paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a--trooper of the Gurgaon
+Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab
+Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh--a trooper
+of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there
+_any_ Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon
+Rissala going about his business in this devil's devising of a country,
+where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect
+paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?... God be thanked, here is such a Sahib!
+Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that
+my name is Umr Singh; I am--I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I
+have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him
+herd me with these black Kaffirs!... Yes,  I will sit by this truck till
+the Heaven-born has explained the matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who
+does not understand our tongue.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go
+down to Eshtellenbosch by the next _terain_? Good! I go with the Heaven-
+born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born's servant. Will the
+Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty
+truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus--for the sun is hot,
+though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will
+arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a
+_terain_ for Eshtellenbosch....
+
+The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My
+village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big
+white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen's by
+--by--I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal
+Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence
+know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different
+matter. The Sahib's nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That
+was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout
+nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the
+Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after
+all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay--nay;
+the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank were picked off it long
+ago, but--but it is true--mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use
+for their coats, and--the Sahib has sharp eyes--that black mark is such a
+mark as a silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says
+that troopers do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the
+Arder of Beritish India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of
+the Punjab. I am not a trooper, but I have been a Sahib's servant for
+nearly a year--bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says
+that Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib--
+my Kurban Sahib--dead these three months!
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Young--of a reddish face--with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his
+feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father
+before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father's time
+when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. _My_ father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of
+Sikhs--he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to
+his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban
+Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first--nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I
+remember--and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that
+day; and _he_ was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground
+with his ayah--all in white, Sahib--laughing at the end of our drill. And
+his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I
+dismounted, and the baba put his hand into mine--eighteen--twenty-five--
+twenty-seven years gone now--Kurban Sahib--my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were
+great friends after that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying
+is. He called me Big Umr Singh--Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak
+plain. He stood only this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but
+he knew all our troopers by name--every one.... And he went to England,
+and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk,
+and cracking his finger-joints--back to his own regiment and to me. He had
+not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart,
+Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen-
+eyed, jestful, and careless. _I_ could tell tales about him in his first
+years. There was very little he hid from _me_. I was his Umr Singh, and
+when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that
+was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on everything--about war, and
+women, and money, and advancement, and such all.
+
+We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box-
+wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city
+of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the
+Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big
+guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how
+a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log.
+The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes over the earth? There
+was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo did not come into Hind in
+a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they forget their own cleverness
+has created the _dak_ (the post), and that for an anna or two all things
+become known. We of Hind listened and heard and wondered; and when it was
+a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that
+the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us
+asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of
+those signs. _Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah_! This
+Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said, "There is no haste.
+Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all Hind in that country
+round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so.
+It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one
+place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or
+everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True--true--
+true!"
+
+So did matters ripen--a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
+think--and the Sahib sees this, too?--that it is foolish to make an army
+and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the
+Tochi--the men of the Tirah--the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand times.
+_We_ could have done it all so gently--so gently.
+
+Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, "Ho, Dada, I am sick,
+and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months." And he winked, and
+I said, "I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I bring my
+uniform?" He said, "Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean on. We go to
+Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis" (niggers). Mark
+his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the native regiments to
+get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they will not let our
+officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to take part
+in this war-game upon the road. But _he_ was clever. There was no whisper
+of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went to my
+Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am--I was--of that rank for which a
+chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, "My child goes
+sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also."
+
+And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue,
+said, "Yes, thou art truly _Sikh_"; and he called me an old devil--
+jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my Kurban
+Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last
+he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe
+again. My Sahib back again--aie me!
+
+So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black
+Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead.
+Then I said to Kurban Sahib, "What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give
+me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for
+dinner." Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson's Hotel, and that
+night I prepared Kurban Sahib's razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of
+the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my
+uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon
+the steamer, a room in all respects like to his own, and would have given
+me a servant. We spoke of many things on the way to this country; and
+Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would be the conduct of the war. He
+said, "They have taken men afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will
+foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log because it is believed that they
+are white." He said, "There is but one fault in this war, and that is that
+the Government have not employed _us_, but have made it altogether a
+Sahibs' war. Very many men will thus be killed, and no vengeance will be
+taken." True talk--true talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.
+
+And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban
+Sahib said, "Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look for
+employment fit for a sick man." I put on the uniform of my rank and went to
+the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nihal Seyn, [Footnote: Mount Nelson?]
+and I caused the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place--is
+it known to the Sahib?--which was already full of the swords and baggage
+of officers. It is fuller now--dead men's kit all! I was careful to secure
+a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back to
+the Punjab.
+
+Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew,
+and he said, "We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to
+oversee the despatch of horses." Remember, Kurban Sahib was squadron-
+leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and _I_ was Umr Singh. So I said, speaking
+as we do--we did--when none was near, "Thou art a groom and I am a grass-
+cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?" At this he laughed, saying,
+"It is the way to better things. Have patience, Father." (Aye, he called me
+father when none were by.) "This war ends not to-morrow nor the next day.
+I have seen the new Sahibs," he said, "and they are fathers of owls--all--
+all--all!"
+
+So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing the
+service of servants in that business. And the whole business was managed
+without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had never seen
+a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but empty of all
+knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those Pathans--they are
+just like those vultures up there, Sahib--they always follow slaughter.
+And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs--Muzbees, though--and some
+Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent horses. Jhind and
+Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent horses.
+
+All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with
+them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil:
+with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the
+command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly ones--_Hubshis_--whose
+touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on
+their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were
+called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs
+--filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub
+down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers--a _jemadar_ of _mehtars_
+(headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five
+months. Evil months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men
+were slain and no vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with
+the weapons of magicians. Guns that slew at half a day's march, and men
+who, being new, walked blind into high grass and were driven off like
+cattle by the Boer-log! As to the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a
+Sahib--only a Sikh. I would have quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon
+Rissala in that city--one little troop--and I would have schooled that
+city till its men learned to kiss the shadow of a Government horse upon
+the ground. There are many _mullahs_ (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They
+preached the Jehad against us. This is true--all the camp knew it. And
+most of the houses were thatched! A war of fools indeed!
+
+At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, "The
+reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and,
+once away, I shall be too sick so return. Make ready the baggage." Thus we
+got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new
+regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by _terain_, when we were
+watering at a desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped
+out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a _jemadar_ of
+_saises_ (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a
+Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but
+the Pathan put up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented
+and added him to our service. So there were three of us--Kurban Sahib, I,
+and Sikander Khan--Sahib, Sikh, and _Sag_ (dog). But the man said truly,
+"We be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we
+see the Indus again." I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan--
+beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine's
+flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is
+written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial
+obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of
+sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where
+there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey
+gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new regiments.
+
+Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with _our_ horses on
+the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and once or
+twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was wise, and I am
+not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the front. Notably,
+there was one congregation of hard-bitten horse-thieves; tall, light
+Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for the most part, and upon all
+occasions they said, "Oah Hell!" which, in our tongue, signifies _Jehannum
+ko jao_. They bore each man a vine-leaf upon their uniforms, and they rode
+like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs!
+The Ustrelyahs, whom we met later, also spoke through their noses not
+little, and they were tall, dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily
+eyelashed like camel's eyes--very proper men--a new brand of Sahib to me.
+They said on all occasions, "No fee-ah," which in our tongue means _Durro
+mut_ ("Do not be afraid"), so we called them the _Durro Muts_. Dark, tall
+men, most excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war _as_ war, and
+drinking tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib.
+Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten
+generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a _Durro Mut_ in regard
+to horse-lifting. The _Durro Muts_ cannot walk on their feet at all. They
+are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very
+proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah--"No fee-ah," say the _Durro
+Muts_. _They_ saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. _They_ did not ask him to
+sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did substitute for
+one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day in a country full
+of little hills--like the mouth of the Khaibar; and when they returned in
+the evening, the _Durro Muts_ said, "Wallah! This is a man. Steal him!" So
+they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen anything else that
+they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to Eshtellenbosch in his
+place.
+
+Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and
+Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs'
+war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride with
+their Sahib--and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up and
+down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no flour,
+no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw corn and a
+little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but a plenty of
+gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with coffee to greet
+us, and to show us _purwanas_ (permits) from foolish English Generals who
+had gone that way before, certifying they were peaceful and well-disposed.
+When we were few, they hid behind stones and shot us. Now the order was
+that they were Sahibs, and this was a Sahibs' war. Good! But, as I
+understand it, when a Sahib goes to war, he puts on the cloth of war, and
+only those who wear that cloth may take part in the war. Good! That also I
+understand. But these people were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis
+are. They shot at their pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and
+exhibited _purwanas_, or lay in a house and said they were farmers. Even
+such farmers as cut up the Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even
+such farmers as slew Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled
+_those_ men, to be sure--fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the
+verandah in front of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib
+(the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but--no. All
+the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that
+he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth, was
+all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform to
+make a loincloth. A fool's war from first to last; for it is manifest that
+he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in one hand and a
+_purwana_ in the other, as did all these people. Yet we, when they had had
+their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and gave them
+permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and
+severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be
+done not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked
+much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, "It is a Sahibs' war. That is
+the order;" and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond
+the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border,
+he hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his
+head. Then Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like
+a sick camel, talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered
+than I, and vowed he would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me
+Kurban Sahib said we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these
+people till they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was
+not of that sort which they comprehended.
+
+They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white
+flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by
+Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. _No fee-
+ah_! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had _purwanas_ signed by mad
+Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.
+
+They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the
+roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they did
+not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the thatch,
+for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log are very
+clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are clever? Never,
+never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools. For their own honour's sake the
+Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it is the Sahibs'
+wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs should have sent
+_us_ into the game.
+
+But the _Durro Muts_ did well. They dealt faithfully with all that country
+thereabouts--not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but they were
+not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a ridge in the
+cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for the sixth part
+of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again thrice for the twelfth
+part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib, for it was a house that
+had been spared--the people having many permits and swearing fidelity at
+our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib, "Send half a troop, Child,
+and finish that house. They signal to their brethren." And he laughed
+where he lay and said, "If I listened to my bearer Umr Singh, there would
+not be left ten houses in all this land." I said, "What need to leave one?
+This is as it was in Burma. They are farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow.
+Let us deal justly with them." He laughed and curled himself up in
+his blanket, and I watched the far light in the house till day. I have
+been on the border in eight wars, not counting Burma. The first Afghan
+War; the second Afghan War; two Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two
+Black Mountain wars, if I remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not
+count Burma, or some small things. _I_ know when house signals to house!
+
+I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, "One of
+the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last night,
+lives in yonder house." I said, "How dost thou know?" He said, "Because he
+rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse fought with
+him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out of the
+camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib's glasses, and from a little
+hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house."
+I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib's glasses from his greasy hands and
+cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to their case.
+Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley
+to use glasses--whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course
+of three months' leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
+
+That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the land
+for our camp. The _Durro Muts_ moved slowly at that time. They were
+weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished to leave
+these all in some town and go on light to other business which pressed. So
+Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the line of march.
+We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came to a house under a
+high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a donga, behind it, and
+an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a kraal, before it. Two
+thorn bushes grew on either side of the door, like babul bushes, covered
+with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof was all of thatch. Before the
+house was a valley of stones that rose to another bush-covered hill. There
+was an old man in the verandah--an old man with a white beard and a wart
+upon the left side of his neck; and a fat woman with the eyes of a swine
+and the jowl of a swine; and a tall young man deprived of understanding.
+His head was hairless, no larger than an orange, and the pits of his
+nostrils were eaten away by a disease. He laughed and slavered and he
+sported sportively before Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the
+woman showed us _purwanas_ from three General Sahibs, certifying that they
+were people of peace and goodwill. Here are the _purwanas_, Sahib. Does
+the Sahib know the Generals who signed them?
+
+They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and
+swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the
+verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost scent.
+At last he took my arm and said, "See yonder! There is the sun on the
+window of the house that signalled last night. This house can see that
+house from here," and he looked at the hill behind him all hairy with
+bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the shrivelled head
+danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the roof and laughed
+like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it were, to cover some
+noise. After this passed I to the back of the house on pretence to get
+water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on the ground, and that
+the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs; and there had dropped in
+the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib called to me in our tongue,
+saying, "Is this a good place to make tea?" and I replied, knowing what he
+meant, "There are over many cooks in the cook-house. Mount and go, Child."
+Then I returned, and he said, smiling to the woman, "Prepare food, and
+when we have loosened our girths we will come in and eat;" but to his men
+he said in a whisper, "Ride away!" No. He did not cover the old man or the
+fat woman with his rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the _Durro
+Muts_, being hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and
+before we were in our saddles many shots came from the roof--from rifles
+thrust through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones,
+and men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill
+behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house--so many shots
+that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding
+low, said, "This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of the _Durro
+Muts_," and I said, "Be quiet. Keep place!" for his place was behind me,
+and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through
+five men arow! We were not hit--not one of us--and we reached the hill of
+rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his
+saddle and said, "Look at the old man!" He stood in the verandah firing
+swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the idiot also--both with
+guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by the wrist, but--his fate
+was written at that hour. The bullet passed under my arm-pit and struck
+him in the liver, and I pulled him backward between two great rocks atilt
+--Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the nullah behind the house and from
+the hills came our Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar
+Khan said, "_Now_ we see the meaning of last night's signal. Give me the
+rifle." He took Kurban Sahib's rifle--in this war of fools only the
+doctors carry swords--and lay belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib
+turned where he lay and said, "Be still. It is a Sahibs' war," and Kurban
+Sahib put up his hand--thus; and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave
+him water that he might pass the more quickly. And at the drinking his
+Spirit received permission....
+
+Thus went our fight, Sahib. We _Durro Muts_ were on a ridge working from
+the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log lay in a
+valley working from east to west. There were more than a hundred, and our
+men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley while they swiftly
+passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three Boers drop in the open.
+Then they all hid again and fired heavily at the rocks that hid our men;
+but our men were clever and did not show, but moved away and away, always
+south; and the noise of the battle withdrew itself southward, where we
+could hear the sound of big guns. So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan
+found a deep old jackal's earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of
+Kurban Sahib upright. Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his
+handkerchief and some letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round
+his neck, and Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the
+handkerchief. Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for
+Kurban Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak--even he, a Pathan, a
+Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when the
+dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses. They
+gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib's glasses, and
+the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them, and preached the
+holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought coffee; and the idiot
+capered among them and kissed their horses. Presently they went away in
+haste; they went over the hills and were not; and a black slave came out
+and washed the door-sills with bright water. Sikandar Khan saw through the
+glasses that the stain was blood, and he laughed, saying, "Wounded men lie
+there. We shall yet get vengeance."
+
+About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as a
+burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how to
+take a bearing across a hill, said, "At last we have burned the house of
+the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled." And I said: "What need now that
+they have slain my child? Let me mourn." It was a high smoke, and the old
+man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold it, and shook his
+clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight, foodless and without
+water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor to drink till we had
+accomplished the matter. I had a little opium left, of which I gave
+Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban Sahib. When it was full
+dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain softish rock which, mixed with
+water, sharpens steel well, and we took off our boots and we went down to
+the house and looked through the windows very softly. The old man sat
+reading in a book, and the woman sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on
+the floor with his head against her knee, and he counted his fingers and
+laughed, and she laughed again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I
+laughed, too, for I had suspected this when I claimed her life and her
+body from Sikandar Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered
+with bare swords.... Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel,
+for the old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan
+prevented him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down
+and held up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they
+should be silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room,
+and a door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood
+stupidly fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and
+none followed him. It was a very pretty stroke--for a Pathan. They then
+were silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar
+Khan, "Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib's sake will I defile my
+sword." So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones, and
+said, "Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit from a
+General," and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound the old
+man's hands behind his back, and unwillingly--for he laughed in my face,
+and would have fingered my beard--the idiot's. At this the woman with the
+swine's eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar Khan said,
+"Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on the division." And I
+said, "Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her. Open the door." I pushed
+out the two across the verandah into the darker shade of the thorn-trees,
+and she followed upon her knees and lay along the ground, and pawed at my
+boots and howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was
+a butler and would light the table, and I looked for a branch that would
+bear fruit. But the woman hindered me not a little with her screechings
+and plungings, and spoke fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue,
+"I am childless to-night because of thy perfidy, and _my_ child was
+praised among men and loved among women. He would have begotten men--not
+animals. Thou hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the
+greater."
+
+I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot's neck, and flung the end
+over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might well
+see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the
+spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even where the
+bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and said, "No.
+It is a Sahibs' war." And I said, "Wait a while, Child, and thou shalt
+sleep." But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my eyes, and said,
+"No. It is a Sahibs' war." And Sikandar Khan said, "Is it too heavy?" and
+set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned to tally on the rope,
+the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm's reach of us, and his face
+was very angry, and a third time he said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And a
+little wind blew out the lamp, and I heard Sikandar Khan's teeth chatter
+in his head.
+
+So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while, for
+we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his water-
+bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me and said,
+"We are absolved from our vow." So I drank, and together we waited for the
+dawn in that place where we stood--the ropes in our hand. A little after
+third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun wheels very far off,
+and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the threshold of the house,
+and the roof of the verandah that was thatched fell in and blazed before
+the windows. And I said, "What of the wounded Boer-log within?" And
+Sikandar Khan said, "We have heard the order. It is a Sahibs' war. Stand
+still." Then came a second shell--good line, but short--and scattered dust
+upon us where we stood; and then came ten of the little quick shells from
+the gun that speaks like a stammerer--yes, pompom the Sahibs call it--and
+the face of the house folded down like the nose and the chin of an old man
+mumbling, and the forefront of the house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan
+said, "If it be the fate of the wounded to die in the fire, _I_ shall not
+prevent it." And he passed to the back of the house and presently came
+back, and four wounded Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk
+upright. And I said, "What hast thou done?" And he said, "I have neither
+spoken to them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy." And I
+said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay
+still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree,
+and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches
+in the roof--one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud
+noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have
+crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees,
+and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide!
+Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' war, O Sahibs. There is no
+order that ye should depart from this war." They did not understand my
+words. Yet they abode and they lived.
+
+Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib's command, and one I
+knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I
+told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib would
+understand; and at the end I said, "An order has reached us here from the
+dead that this is a Sahibs' war. I take the soul of my Kurban Sahib to
+witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these Sahibs who
+have made me childless." Then I gave him the ropes and fell down
+senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty, except for
+the little opium.
+
+They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
+understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and two
+nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban Sahib,
+saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the _Durro Muts_--
+very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They buried my
+Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the ridge
+overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the faith, and
+Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five signalling-candles,
+which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave as if it had been the
+grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very bitterly all that night, and I
+wept with him, and he took hold of my feet and besought me to give him a
+remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I divided equally with him one of Kurban
+Sahib's handkerchiefs--not the silk ones, for those were given him by a
+certain woman; and I also gave him a button from a coat, and a little
+steel ring of no value that Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed
+them and put them into his bosom. The rest I have here in that little
+bundle, and I must get the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town--some four
+shirts we sent to be washed, for which we could not wait when we went
+up-country--and I must give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the
+Punjab. For my child is dead--my baba is dead!... I would have come away
+before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far
+from the rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come
+to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
+and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
+what they called me--orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
+did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
+after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went
+up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a troop
+there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut an
+inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and is was a
+jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the
+inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the
+jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:--
+
+  In Memory of
+  WALTER DECIES CORBYN
+  Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
+
+  The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
+
+  Treacherously shot near this place by
+  The connivance of the late
+  HENDRIK DIRK UYS
+  A Minister of God
+  Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
+  And Piet his son,
+  This little work
+
+Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
+
+
+  Was accomplished in partial
+  And inadequate recognition of their loss
+  By some men who loved him
+
+  _Si monumentum requiris circumspice_
+
+That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to
+behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house. And,
+Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank which they
+call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There is nothing
+at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire. The rest is
+like the desert here--or my hand--or my heart. Empty, Sahib--all empty!
+
+
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
+
+THE WET LITANY
+
+  When the water's countenance
+  Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance;
+  When the tattered smokes forerun
+  Ashen 'neath a silvered sun;
+  When the curtain of the haze
+  Shuts upon our helpless ways--
+       Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+       _Libera nos domine_!
+
+  When the engines' bated pulse
+  Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
+  When the wash along the side
+  Sounds, a sudden, magnified
+  When the intolerable blast
+  Marks each blindfold minute passed.
+
+  When the fog-buoy's squattering flight
+  Guides us through the haggard night;
+  When the warning bugle blows;
+  When the lettered doorways close;
+  When our brittle townships press,
+  Impotent, on emptiness.
+
+  When the unseen leadsmen lean
+  Questioning a deep unseen;
+  When their lessened count they tell
+  To a bridge invisible;
+  When the hid and perilous
+  Cliffs return our cry to us.
+
+  When the treble thickness spread
+  Swallows up our next-ahead;
+  When her siren's frightened whine
+  Shows her sheering out of line;
+  When, her passage undiscerned,
+  We must turn where she has turned--
+       Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+       _Libera nos Domine_!
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
+
+PART I
+
+  ... "And a security for such as pass on the seas upon
+  their lawful occasions."--_Navy Prayer_.
+
+Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is
+Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.
+
+H.M.S. _Caryatid_ went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manoeuvres. I
+travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
+friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. _Caryatid_, whose guest I was to
+have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous
+off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red
+Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with
+unstinted hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A.L. Hignett, in
+charge of three destroyers, _Wraith, Stiletto_, and _Kobbold_, due to
+depart at 6 P.M. that evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot
+flagship, but I preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in
+H.M.S. _Pedantic_ (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining
+aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the
+battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance
+from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no
+wrong. I truly intended to return to the _Pedantic_ and help to fight Blue
+Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a chemist in
+a side street at 9:15 P. M. As I turned to go, one entered seeking
+alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster, a black
+silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure brass
+spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh from
+leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light fell on
+his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late second-class petty
+officer of H.M.S. _Archimandrite_, an unforgettable man, met a year before
+under Tom Wessel's roof in Plymouth. It occurred to me that when a petty
+officer takes to spurs he may conceivably meditate desertion. For that
+reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign. Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft,
+following me out of the shop, who said hollowly: "What might you be doing
+here?"
+
+"I'm going on manoeuvres in the _Pedantic_," I replied.
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "An' what manner o' manoeuvres d'you expect to
+see in a blighted cathedral like the _Pedantic_? _I_ know 'er. I knew her
+in Malta, when the _Vulcan_ was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres! You
+won't see more than 'Man an' arm watertight doors!' in your little woollen
+undervest."
+
+"I'm sorry for that."
+
+"Why?" He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like tuning-
+forks. "War's declared at midnight. _Pedantics_ be sugared! Buy an 'am an'
+see life!"
+
+For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice, purposed
+that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands of Dorset.
+The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much. "Them!" he said,
+coming to an intricate halt. "They're part of the _prima facie_ evidence.
+But as for me--let me carry your bag--I'm second in command, leadin'-hand,
+cook, steward, an' lavatory man, with a few incidentals for sixpence a day
+extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat."
+
+"They wear spurs there?"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Peycroft, "seein' that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue
+Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative. It
+transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral Master
+Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin' Blue Fleet, can't be bothered with
+one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin' in the Reserve four
+years, an' what with the new kind o' tiffy which cleans dynamos with
+brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won't render!), Two Six
+Seven's steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed done his painstakin'
+best--it's his first command of a war-canoe, matoor age nineteen (down
+that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His Holiness Frankie is
+aware of us crabbin' ourselves round the breakwater at five knots, an'
+steerin' _pari passu_, as the French say. (Up this alley-way, please!) If
+he'd given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer, a little time, it would
+never have transpired, for what Hinch can't drive he can coax; but the new
+port bein' a trifle cloudy, an' 'is joints tinglin' after a post-captain
+dinner, Frankie come on the upper bridge seekin' for a sacrifice. We,
+offerin' a broadside target, got it. He told us what 'is grandmamma, 'oo
+was a lady an' went to sea in stick-and string-batteaus, had told him
+about steam. He throwed in his own prayers for the 'ealth an' safety of
+all steam-packets an' their officers. Then he give us several distinct
+orders. The first few--I kept tally--was all about going to Hell; the next
+many was about not evolutin' in his company, when there; an' the last all
+was simply repeatin' the motions in quick time. Knowin' Frankie's groovin'
+to be badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn't much panic; but
+our Mr. Moorshed, 'e took it a little to heart. Me an' Mr. Hinchcliffe
+consoled 'im as well as service conditions permits of, an' we had a
+_resume_-supper at the back o' the Camber--secluded _an'_ lugubrious! Then
+one thing leadin' up to another, an' our orders, except about anchorin'
+where he's booked for, leavin' us a clear 'orizon, Number Two Six Seven is
+now--mind the edge of the wharf--here!"
+
+By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a narrow
+strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up into
+Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the
+round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured,
+unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type--but I am no expert--between the
+first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic
+torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she
+must have dated from the early nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with
+spurts of steam and fumes of hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure
+in a striped jersey squatted on the engine-room gratings.
+
+"She ain't much of a war-canoe, but you'll see more life in 'er than on an
+whole squadron of bleedin' _Pedantics."_
+
+"But she's laid up here--and Blue Fleet have gone," I protested.
+"Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn't put us out of
+action. Thus we're a non-neglectable fightin' factor which you mightn't
+think from this elevation; _an'_ m'rover, Red Fleet don't know we're 'ere.
+Most of us"--he glanced proudly at his boots--"didn't run to spurs, but
+we're disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser,
+when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was
+naturally a German waiter, and me you behold as a squire of low degree;
+while yonder Levantine dragoman on the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was
+the second cutter's snotty--_my_ snotty--on the _Archimandrite_--two
+years--Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin', an'
+gettin' the cutter stove in on small an' unlikely bars, an' manufacturin'
+lies to correspond. What I don't know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the
+same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don't know about me--half a millimetre, as
+you might say. He comes into awful opulence of his own when 'e's of age;
+an' judgin' from what passed between us when Frankie cursed 'im, I don't
+think 'e cares whether he's broke to-morrow or--the day after. Are you
+beginnin' to follow our tatties? They'll be worth followin'. Or _are_ you
+goin' back to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_--which I lay
+they've just dismounted the third engineer out of--to eat four fat meals
+per diem, an' smoke in the casement?"
+
+The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.
+
+"Yes, Sir," was Mr. Pyecroft's answer. "I 'ave ascertained that _Stiletto,
+Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P. M. with the first division o' Red
+Fleet's cruisers except _Devulotion_ and _Cryptic_, which are delayed by
+engine-room defects." Then to me: "Won't you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed 'ud
+like some one to talk to. You buy an 'am an see life."
+
+At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower
+myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267.
+
+"What d'you want?" said the striped jersey.
+
+"I want to join Blue Fleet if I can," I replied. "I've been left behind
+by--an accident.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
+you need?"
+
+"I don't want any ham, thank you. That's the way up the wharf. _Good_-
+night."
+
+"Good-night!" I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a
+shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
+salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop
+supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I,
+sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of
+a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I
+laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the face of
+it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me very far from
+the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched
+it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft--I heard spurs clink--passed me. Then the
+jersey voice said: "What the mischief's that?"
+
+"'Asn't the visitor come aboard, Sir? 'E told me he'd purposely abandoned
+the _Pedantic_ for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me he was
+official correspondent for the _Times_; an' I know he's littery by the way
+'e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven't you seen 'im, Sir?"
+
+Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; "Pye, you
+are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!"
+
+"Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It's marked with his name." There
+was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said "Oh!" in a tone which the listener
+might construe precisely as he pleased.
+
+"_He_ was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life--was he? If he
+goes back to the _Pedantic_--"
+
+"Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir."
+
+"Then what possessed _you_ to give it away to him, you owl?"
+
+"I've got his bag. If 'e gives anything away, he'll have to go naked."
+
+At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the
+shadow of the crane.
+
+"I've bought the ham," I called sweetly. "Have you still any objection to
+my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?"
+
+"All right, if you're insured. Won't you come down?"
+
+I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of
+all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.
+
+"Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?" said my host.
+
+"Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?"
+
+"What do _you_ think of him?"
+
+"I've left the _Pedantic_--her boat will be waiting for me at ten o'clock,
+too--simply because I happened to meet him," I replied.
+
+"That's all right. If you'll come down below, we may get some grub."
+
+We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve
+feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a
+swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other
+furniture there was none.
+
+"You can't shave here, of course. We don't wash, and, as a rule, we eat
+with our fingers when we're at sea. D'you mind?"
+
+Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me
+over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but
+his smile drew the heart. "You didn't happen to hear what Frankie told me
+from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I've logged them
+here in shorthand, were"--he opened a neat pocket-book--"_'Get out of this
+and conduct your own damned manoeuvres in your own damned tinker fashion!
+You're a disgrace to the Service, and your boat's offal.'"_
+
+"Awful?" I said.
+
+"No--offal--tripes--swipes--ullage." Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume
+of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he
+dealt out like cards.
+
+"I shall take these as my orders," said Mr. Moorshed. "I'm chucking the
+Service at the end of the year, so it doesn't matter."
+
+We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with
+whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an
+uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.
+
+"That's Mr. Hinchcliffe," said Pyecroft. "He's what is called a first-
+class engine-room artificer. If you hand 'im a drum of oil an' leave 'im
+alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin'."
+
+Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a
+folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manoeuvres, with the
+rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.
+
+"Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral,"
+he said, yawning. "Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?"
+
+As a preparation for naval manoeuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I
+followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big
+lumber-ship's side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No.
+267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels--soft, for they
+gave as I touched them.
+
+"More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an' aft, an' you erects
+perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops,
+thus 'avin' as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o' command, up
+they go like a pair of concertinas, an' consequently collapses equally
+'andy when requisite. Comin' aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish
+bathin'-machine proprietor fittin' on her bustle."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at
+the stern.
+
+"None of us who ain't built that way can be destroyers, but we can look as
+near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a
+Thorneycroft boat, which we are _not_, comes out in a pretty bulge,
+totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on
+the other 'and, _Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn_, and _A-frite_--Red
+Fleet dee-stroyers, with 'oom we hope to consort later on terms o' perfect
+equality--_are_ Thorneycrofts, an' carry that Grecian bend which we are
+now adjustin' to our _arriere-pensee_--as the French would put it--by
+means of painted canvas an' iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an'
+me an' Frankie, we are the _Gnome_, now in the Fleet Reserve at Pompey--
+Portsmouth, I should say."
+
+"The first sea will carry it all away," said Moorshed, leaning gloomily
+outboard, "but it will do for the present."
+
+"We've a lot of _prima facie_ evidence about us," Mr. Pyecroft went on. "A
+first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer. Hence
+we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak to
+represent extra freeboard; _at_ the same time paddin' out the cover of the
+forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an' variously
+fakin' up the bows of 'er. As you might say, we've took thought an' added
+a cubic to our stature. It's our len'th that sugars us. A 'undred an'
+forty feet, which is our len'th into two 'undred and ten, which is about
+the _Gnome's,_ leaves seventy feet over, which we haven't got."
+
+"Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
+
+"In spots, you might say--yes; though we all contributed to make up
+deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin' for further Navy after
+what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity."
+
+"What the dickens are we going to do?"
+
+"Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we'd wait till the sights came
+on, an' then fire. Speakin' as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I., M.D.,
+etc., I presume we fall in--Number One in rear of the tube, etc., secure
+tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin'-bar, release safety-pin
+from lockin-levers, an' pray Heaven to look down on us. As second in
+command o' 267, I say wait an' see!"
+
+"What's happened? We're off," I said. The timber ship had slid away from
+us.
+
+"We are. Stern first, an' broadside on! If we don't hit anything too hard,
+we'll do."
+
+"Come on the bridge," said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over
+some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next
+few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the
+science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth
+Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in
+what appeared to be surf.
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, "_I_ don't mind rammin' a
+bathin'-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters has
+thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we'll rip our plates open on
+it; 267 isn't the _Archimandrite's_ old cutter."
+
+"I am hugging the shore," was the answer.
+
+"There's no actual 'arm in huggin', but it can come expensive if
+pursooed."
+
+"Right-O!" said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those
+scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.
+
+A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.
+
+"Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?" said Moorshed.
+
+"I merely wished to report that she is still continuin' to go, Sir."
+
+"Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d'you think?"
+
+"I'll try, Sir; but we'd prefer to have the engine-room hatch open--at
+first, Sir."
+
+Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through
+the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the
+narrow deck.
+
+"This," said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock
+receives a shadow, "represents the _Gnome_ arrivin' cautious from the
+direction o' Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders."
+
+He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes
+opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.
+
+"Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic
+about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and
+several millimetres too excited over the approachin' war to keep a look-
+out inshore. Hence our tattics!"
+
+We wailed through our siren--a long, malignant, hyena-like howl--and a
+voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.
+
+"The _Gnome_--Carteret-Jones--from Portsmouth, with orders--mm--mm--
+_Stiletto_," Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a high, whining
+voice, rather like a chaplain's.
+
+"_Who_?" was the answer.
+
+"Carter--et--Jones."
+
+"Oh, Lord!"
+
+There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, "It's Podgie, adrift
+on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!"
+
+Another voice echoed, "Podgie!" and from its note I gathered that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.
+
+"Who's your sub?" said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the
+_Dirk_.
+
+"A gunner, at present, Sir. The _Stiletto_--broken down--turns over to
+us."
+
+"When did the _Stiletto_ break down?"
+
+"Off the Start, Sir; two hours after--after she left here this evening, I
+believe. My orders are to report to you for the manoeuvre signal-codes,
+and join Commander Hignett's flotilla, which is in attendance on
+_Stiletto_."
+
+A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed's voice was high and
+uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: "The amount o' trouble me an' my
+bright spurs 'ad fishin' out that information from torpedo coxswains and
+similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never believe."
+
+"But has the _Stiletto_ broken down?" I asked weakly.
+
+"How else are we to get Red Fleet's private signal-code? Any way, if she
+'asn't now, she will before manoeuvres are ended. It's only executin' in
+anticipation."
+
+"Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones." Water
+carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear the
+next sentence: "They must have given him _one_ intelligent keeper."
+
+"That's me," said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy--I did
+not foresee how well I should come to know her--was flung overside by
+three men.
+
+"Havin' bought an 'am, we will now see life." He stepped into the boat and
+was away.
+
+"I say, Podgie!"--the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers,
+as we thumped astern--"aren't you lonely out there?"
+
+"Oh, don't rag me!" said Moorshed. "Do you suppose I'll have to manoeuvre
+with your flo-tilla?"
+
+"No, Podgie! I'm pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders in
+Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla."
+
+"Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds."
+
+Two men laughed together.
+
+"By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he's at home?" I whispered.
+
+"I was with him in the _Britannia_. I didn't like him much, but I'm
+grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day."
+
+"They seemed to know him hereabouts."
+
+"He rammed the _Caryatid_ twice with her own steam-pinnace."
+
+Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming across
+the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel spurned it.
+
+"Commander Fasset's compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the sooner
+he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at Portsmouth,
+the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there's a lot more----"
+
+"Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it as
+we go. Well?"
+
+Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.
+
+"Day an' night private signals of Red Fleet _com_plete, Sir!" He handed a
+little paper to Moorshed. "You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones bein', so to say, a little new to his duties, 'ad forgot to
+give 'is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin', but, as I told Commander
+Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin' 'em to me, nervous-like, most of the
+way from Portsmouth, so I knew 'em by heart--an' better. The Commander,
+recognisin' in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a father an' mother
+to Mr. Carteret-Jones."
+
+"Didn't he know you?" I asked, thinking for the moment that there could be
+no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.
+
+"What's a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding six
+thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? 'E seemed to cherish the 'ope
+that 'e might use the _Gnome_ for 'is own 'orrible purposes; but what I
+told him about Mr. Jones's sad lack o' nerve comin' from Pompey, an' going
+dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited _that_ connection.
+'M'rover,' I says to him, 'our orders is explicit; _Stiletto's_ reported
+broke down somewhere off the Start, an' we've been tryin' to coil down a
+new stiff wire hawser all the evenin', so it looks like towin' 'er back,
+don't it?' I says. That more than ever jams his turrets, an' makes him
+keen to get rid of us. 'E even hinted that Mr. Carteret-Jones passin'
+hawsers an' assistin' the impotent in a sea-way might come pretty
+expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a disciplined way. I ain't proud.
+Gawd knows I ain't proud! But when I'm really diggin' out in the fancy
+line, I sometimes think that me in a copper punt, single-'anded, 'ud beat
+a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in a row round the fleet."
+
+At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft's bosom, supported
+by his quivering arm.
+
+"Well?" said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267's bows snapped
+at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed together.
+
+"'You'd better go on,' says Commander Fassett, 'an' do what you're told to
+do. I don't envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the _Gnome's_ commander.
+But what d'you want with signals?' 'e says. 'It's criminal lunacy to trust
+Mr. Jones with anything that steams.'
+
+"'May I make an observation, Sir?' I says. 'Suppose,' I says, 'you was
+torpedo-gunner on the _Gnome_, an' Mr. Carteret-Jones was your commandin'
+officer, an' you had your reputation _as_ a second in command for the
+first time,' I says, well knowin' it was his first command of a flotilla,
+'what 'ud you do, Sir?' That gouged 'is unprotected ends open--clear back
+to the citadel."
+
+"What did he say?" Moorshed jerked over is shoulder.
+
+"If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to repeat
+it, Sir."
+
+"Go ahead," I heard the boy chuckle.
+
+"'Do?' 'e says. 'I'd rub the young blighter's nose into it till I made a
+perishin' man of him, or a perspirin' pillow-case,' 'e says, 'which,' he
+adds, 'is forty per cent, more than he is at present.'
+
+"Whilst he's gettin' the private signals--they're rather particular ones--
+I went forrard to see the _Dirk's_ gunner about borrowin' a holdin'-down
+bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was rovin' over his
+packet, got the followin' authentic particulars." I heard his voice
+change, and his feet shifted. "There's been a last council o' war of
+destroyer-captains at the flagship, an' a lot of things 'as come out. To
+begin with _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, Captain Panke and Captain Malan--"
+
+"_Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, first-class cruisers," said Mr. Moorshed
+dreamily. "Go on, Pyecroft."
+
+"--bein' delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did _not_, as we know,
+accompany Red Fleet's first division of scouting cruisers, whose
+rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard.
+_Cryptic_ an' _Devolution_ left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin' copious minor
+defects in engine-room. Admiral's final instructions was they was to put
+into Torbay, an' mend themselves there. If they can do it in twenty-four
+hours, they're to come on and join the battle squadron at the first
+rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn't get that, Sir.) If they
+can't, he'll think about sendin' them some destroyers for escort. But his
+present intention is to go 'ammer and tongs down Channel, usin' 'is
+destroyers for all they're worth, an' thus keepin' Blue Fleet too busy off
+the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries."
+
+"But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let 'em out of
+Weymouth at all?" I asked.
+
+"The tax-payer," said Mr. Moorshed.
+
+"An' newspapers," added Mr. Pyecroft. "In Torbay they'll look as they was
+muckin' about for strategical purposes--hanamerin' like blazes in the
+engine room all the weary day, an' the skipper droppin' questions down the
+engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. _I've_ been there. Now,
+Sir?" I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.
+
+The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.
+
+"Mr. Hinchcliffe, what's her extreme economical radius?"
+
+"Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers."
+
+"Can do," said Moorshed. "By the way, have her revolutions any bearing on
+her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
+
+"None that I can make out yet, Sir."
+
+"Then slow to eight knots. We'll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or
+four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by
+nine o'clock to-morrow morning. We'll have to muck about till dusk before
+we run in and try our luck with the cruisers."
+
+"Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin' round them all night. It's
+considered good for the young gentlemen."
+
+"Hallo! War's declared! They're off!" said Moorshed.
+
+He swung 267's head round to get a better view. A few miles to our right
+the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while nearer ran a
+procession of tiny cigar ends.
+
+"Red hot! Set 'em alight," said Mr. Pyecroft. "That's the second destroyer
+flotilla diggin' out for Commander Fassett's reputation."
+
+The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers' funnels
+dwindled even as we watched.
+
+"They're going down Channel with lights out, thus showin' their zeal an'
+drivin' all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll
+get you your pyjamas, an' you'll turn in," said Pyecroft.
+
+He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung majestically
+over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a coat with a monk's
+hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.
+
+"If you fall over in these you'll be drowned. They're lammies. I'll chock
+you off with a pillow; but sleepin' in a torpedo-boat's what you might
+call an acquired habit."
+
+I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering steel
+wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267's skin, worried me
+with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed tackily to gather my
+attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and, on the eve of that
+portentous communication, retired up stage as a multitude whispering.
+Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum of crowded cities
+awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and dry roaring of wild
+beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold floor was, naturally
+enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking uplift across the crest
+of some little swell, nothing less than the haling forth of new worlds;
+our half-turning descent into the hollow of its mate, the abysmal plunge
+of God-forgotten planets. Through all these phenomena and more--though I
+ran with wild horses over illimitable plains of rustling grass; though I
+crouched belly-flat under appalling fires of musketry; though I was
+Livingstone, painless, and incurious in the grip of his lion--my shut eyes
+saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the irregularly gliding patch of
+light on the steel ladder, and every elastic shadow in the corners of the
+frail angle-irons; while my body strove to accommodate itself to the
+infernal vibration of the machine. At the last I rolled limply on the
+floor, and woke to real life with a bruised nose and a great call to go on
+deck at once.
+
+"It's all right," said a voice in my booming ears. "Morgan and Laughton
+are worse than you!"
+
+I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two bundles
+beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller and a most
+able seaman. "She'd do better in a bigger sea," said Mr. Pyecroft. "This
+lop is what fetches it up."
+
+The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down
+the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round
+wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good
+omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to
+267's heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves--such waves as I
+had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton
+liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped, and
+splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops along
+their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey cutting of
+water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge, beheld the
+Channel traffic--full-sailed to that fair breeze--all about us, and swung
+slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into the next furrow.
+Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to living, leaping opal,
+the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many sails to pearl, and the
+little steam-plume of our escape to an inconstant rainbow.
+
+"A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!" said Emanuel Pyecroft,
+throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was pitted
+with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes shone
+like a gull's.
+
+"I told you you'd see life. Think o' the _Pedantic_ now. Think o' her
+Number One chasin' the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats. Think
+o' the pore little snotties now bein' washed, fed, and taught, an' the
+yeoman o' signals with a pink eye wakin' bright 'an brisk to another
+perishin' day of five-flag hoists. Whereas _we_ shall caulk an' smoke
+cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks after war
+was declared." He dropped into the wardroom singing:--
+
+If you're going to marry me, marry me, Bill, It's no use muckin' about!
+
+The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o'-shanter, a
+pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a black
+sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava and a
+brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our supplementary funnel
+guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho restaurant sat at the head of
+the engine-room ladder exhorting the unseen below. The following wind beat
+down our smoke and covered all things with an inch-thick layer of stokers,
+so that eyelids, teeth, and feet gritted in their motions. I began to see
+that my previous experiences among battleships and cruisers had been
+altogether beside the mark.
+
+
+PART II
+
+  The wind went down with the sunset--
+    The fog came up with the tide,
+  When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (_bis_)
+    With a little Blue Devil inside.
+  "Sink," she said, "or swim," she said,
+    "It's all you will get from me.
+  And that is the finish of him!" she said,
+    And the Egg-shell went to sea.
+
+  The wind got up with the morning,
+    And the fog blew off with the rain,
+  When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
+    And the little Blue Devil again.
+  "Did you swim?" she said. "Did you sink?" she said,
+    And the little Blue Devil replied:
+  "For myself I swam, but I think," he said,
+    "There's somebody sinking outside."
+
+But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and might
+not alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all that
+priceless day. Moorshed, after breakfast--frizzled ham and a devil that
+Pyecroft made out of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard smashed
+together with a spanner--showed me his few and simple navigating tools,
+and took an observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the chamois
+leathers while he cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be better equipped
+with electricity than most of our class), that lived under a bulbous
+umbrella-cover amidship. Then Pyecroft and Morgan, standing easy, talked
+together of the King's Service as reformers and revolutionists, so
+notably, that were I not engaged on this tale I would, for its conclusion,
+substitute theirs.
+
+I would speak of Hinchcliffe--Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class engine-
+room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of having taken
+part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his daring, his skill,
+and his nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for an hour in the packed
+and dancing engine-room, when Moorshed suggested "whacking her up" to
+eighteen knots, to see if she would stand it. The floor was ankle-deep in
+a creamy batter of oil and water; each moving part flicking more oil in
+zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible for their dizzy chattering on
+the chattering steel bulkhead. Leading stoker Grant, said to be a
+bigamist, an ox-eyed man smothered in hair, took me to the stokehold and
+planted me between a searing white furnace and some hell-hot iron plate
+for fifteen minutes, while I listened to the drone of fans and the worry
+of the sea without, striving to wrench all that palpitating firepot wide
+open.
+
+Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed--revolving in his orbit from the
+canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room, conning-tower,
+and wheel, to the doll's house of a foc'sle--learned in experience
+withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge, authoritative,
+entirely adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his play. _I_ could not
+take ten steps along the crowded deck but I collided with some body or
+thing; but he and his satellites swung, passed, and returned on their
+vocations with the freedom and spaciousness of the well-poised stars.
+
+Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each dissolving
+picture inboard or overside--Hinchcliffe's white arm buried to the
+shoulder in a hornet's nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed's halt and
+jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft's back bent over
+the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men in expanding it
+swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a homeward-bound Chinaman
+not a hundred yards away, and her shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails
+bulging sideways like insolent cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on
+our decks, all iridescent under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled
+the shadows of our funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and
+dulling over of the short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell:
+the swell that crumbled up and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant,
+almost audible roll inward of wandering fog-walls that had been stalking
+us for two hours, and--welt upon welt, chill as the grave--the drive of
+the interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than
+steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred
+like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship literally
+above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we scrooped by, and
+the little drops of dew gathered below them.
+
+"Wonder why they're always barks--always steel--always four-masted--an'
+never less than two thousand tons. But they are," said Pyecroft. He was
+out on the turtle-backed bows of her; Moorshed was at the wheel, and
+another man worked the whistle.
+
+"This fog is the best thing could ha' happened to us," said Moorshed. "It
+gives us our chance to run in on the quiet.... Hal-lo!"
+
+A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a
+bowsprit surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially hooking
+itself into our forward rail.
+
+I saw Pyecroft's arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of the
+tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed's voice down the tube
+saying, "Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!" and Pyecroft's cry,
+"Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our propeller, Sir, or we'll be
+wrapped up in the rope."
+
+267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the downward-bearing
+bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc'sle had already thrown
+out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible bulwark.
+
+Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive
+crunching of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler, her
+crew struck dumb.
+
+"Any luck?" said Moorshed politely.
+
+"Not till we met yeou," was the answer. "The Lard he saved us from they
+big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be'e gwine tu with our
+fine new bobstay?"
+
+"Yah! You've had time to splice it by now," said Pyecroft with contempt.
+
+"Aie; but we'm all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin' twenty-seven
+knots, us reckoned it. Didn't us, Albert?"
+
+"Liker twenty-nine, an' niver no whistle."
+
+"Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?" said Moorshed.
+
+A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.
+
+We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing
+crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a
+mere picket-boat.
+
+"What for?" said a puzzled voice.
+
+"For love; for nothing. You'll be abed in Brixham by midnight."
+
+"Yiss; but trawl's down."
+
+"No hurry. I'll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when you're ready."
+A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they made it fast; we slid
+forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet of the wire rope
+running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of debate.
+
+"Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog," said Moorshed
+listening.
+
+"But what in the world do you want him for?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, he'll came in handy later."
+
+"Was that your first collision?"
+
+"Yes." I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice rose muffled and wailing. "After
+us've upped trawl, us'll be glad of a tow. Leave line just slack abaout as
+'tis now, and kip a good fine look-out be'ind 'ee."
+
+"There's an accommodatin' blighter for you!" said Pyecroft. "Where does he
+expect we'll be, with these currents evolutin' like sailormen at the
+Agricultural Hall?"
+
+I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out and
+smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept it from
+fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The fog now
+thickened and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like the glare of
+intermittent flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision of a sick sun
+that leered and fled, or burying all a thousand fathom deep in gulfs of
+vapours. At no time could we see the trawler though we heard the click of
+her windlass, the jar of her trawl-beam, and the very flap of the fish on
+her deck. Forward was Pyecroft with the lead; on the bridge Moorshed pawed
+a Channel chart; aft sat I, listening to the whole of the British
+Mercantile Marine (never a keel less) returning to England, and watching
+the fog-dew run round the bight of the tow back to its mother-fog.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war! We'm done with trawl. You can take us home
+if you know the road."
+
+"Right O!" said Moorshed. "We'll give the fishmonger a run for his money.
+Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe."
+
+The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be
+afraid, but more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of my
+neck) that any fear which would begin to do justice to the situation
+would, if yielded to, incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow of
+spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us like
+the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and, miraculously
+withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance that I should
+reach the beach--any beach--alive, if not dry; and (this was when an
+economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser water) were I so
+spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.
+
+Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added
+herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they, too,
+should melt in the general dissolution.
+
+"Where's that prevaricatin' fishmonger?" said Pyecroft, turning a lantern
+on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a stick to my
+left. "He's doin' some fancy steerin' on his own. No wonder Mr.
+Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow's sheered off to starboard, Sir.
+He'll fair pull the stern out of us."
+
+Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice butted through the fog with the
+monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep's. "We don't all like the road
+you'm takin'. 'Tis no road to Brixham. You'll be buckled up under Prawle
+Point by'mbye."
+
+"Do you pretend to know where you are?" the megaphone roared.
+
+"Iss, I reckon; but there's no pretence to me!"
+
+"O Peter!" said Pyecroft. "Let's hang him at 'is own gaff."
+
+I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: "Take another man with
+you. If you lose the tow, you're done. I'll slow her down."
+
+I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry "Murder!" Heard the
+rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my
+ear, Pyecroft's enormous and jubilant bellow astern: "Why, he's here!
+Right atop of us! The blighter 'as pouched half the tow, like a shark!" A
+long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then Pyecroft, _solo
+arpeggie_: "Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come an' try it, uncle."
+
+I lifted my face to where once God's sky had been, and besought The Trues
+I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles, but live at
+least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as happy as I was
+happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow--slow as the processes of
+evolution--till the boat-hook rasped again.
+
+"He's not what you might call a scientific navigator," said Pyecroft,
+still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap. "The
+lead's what 'e goes by mostly; rum is what he's come for; an' Brixham is
+'is 'ome. Lay on, Mucduff!"
+
+A white whiskered man in a frock-coat--as I live by bread, a frock-coat!--
+sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube into Moorshed's
+grip and vanished forward.
+
+"'E'll probably 'old three gallon (look sharp with that dinghy!); but 'is
+nephew, left in charge of the _Agatha_, wants two bottles command-
+allowance. You're a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that excessive?"
+
+"Lead there! Lead!" rang out from forward.
+
+"Didn't I say 'e wouldn't understand compass deviations? Watch him close.
+It'll be worth it!"
+
+As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: "Let me zmell un!" and to
+his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King's Navy.
+
+"I'll tell 'ee where to goo, if yeou'll tell your donkey-man what to du.
+I'm no hand wi' steam." On these lines we proceeded miraculously, and,
+under Moorshed's orders--I was the fisherman's Ganymede, even as
+"M. de C." had served the captain--I found both rum and curacoa in
+a locker, and mixed them equal bulk in an enamelled iron cup.
+
+"Now we'm just abeam o' where we should be," he said at last, "an' here
+we'll lay till she lifts. I'd take 'e in for another bottle--and wan for
+my nevvy; but I reckon yeou'm shart-allowanced for rum. That's nivver no
+Navy rum yeou'm give me. Knowed 'ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!"
+
+I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them spring
+to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet to port
+caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar at gaze,
+for not far away an unmistakable ship's bell was ringing. It ceased, and
+another began.
+
+"Them!" said Pyecroft. "Anchored!"
+
+"More!" said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The trawler
+astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk of his arm
+threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the back-sight was
+heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.
+
+"No--they wouldn't have their picket-boats out in this weather, though
+they ought to." He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.
+
+"Be yeou gwine to anchor?" said Macduff, smacking his lips, "or be yeou
+gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?"
+
+"Tell him what we're driving at. Get it into his head somehow," said
+Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man
+with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.
+
+"And if you pull it off," said Moorshed at the last, "I'll give you a
+fiver."
+
+"Lard! What's fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes 'em; but I do
+cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o' God's good weeks.
+Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall 'ee, gentlemen, I hain't
+the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before the mast
+I've fared in my time; fisherman I've been since I seed the unsense of
+sea-dangerin'. Baccy and spirits--yiss, an' cigars too, I've run a plenty.
+I'm no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your forty-mile free towin'
+and rum atop of all. There's none more sober to Brix'am this tide, I don't
+care who 'tis--than me. _I_ know--_I_ know. Yander'm two great King's
+ships. Yeou'm wishful to sink, burn, and destroy they while us kips 'em
+busy sellin' fish. No need tall me so twanty taime over. Us'll find they
+ships! Us'll find 'em, if us has to break our fine new bowsprit so close
+as Crump's bull's horn!"
+
+"Good egg!" quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide
+shoulders with the smack of a beaver's tail.
+
+"Us'll go look for they by hand. Us'll give they something to play upon;
+an' do 'ee deal with them faithfully, an' may the Lard have mercy on your
+sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again."
+
+The fog was as dense as ever--we moved in the very womb of night--but I
+cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by
+the tow-rope, disappeared toward the _Agatha_, Pyecroft rowing. The bell
+began again on the starboard bow.
+
+"We're pretty near," said Moorshed, slowing down. "Out with the Berthon.
+(_We'll_ sell 'em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke, I'll break
+his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the tube), "you'll
+stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the engine-room staff.
+Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes." A deep groan broke from
+Morgan's chest, but he said nothing. "If the fog thins and you're seen by
+any one, keep'em quiet with the signals. I can't think of the precise lie
+just now, but _you_ can, Morgan."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?" I whispered, shivering with
+excitement.
+
+"If they've been repairing minor defects all day, they won't have any one
+to spare from the engine-room, and 'Out nets!' is a job for the whole
+ship's company. I expect they've trusted to the fog--like us. Well,
+Pyecroft?"
+
+That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. "'Ad to see
+the first o' the rum into the _Agathites_, Sir. They was a bit jealous o'
+their commandin' officer comin' 'ome so richly lacquered, and at first the
+_conversazione_ languished, as you might say. But they sprang to attention
+ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any of 'em are sober enough
+to keep tally, will be the signal that our consort 'as cast off her tow
+an' is manceuvrin' on 'er own."
+
+"Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over
+quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
+
+I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into the
+Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved me in
+generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of the dinghy.
+
+"I want you for _prima facie_ evidence, in case the vaccination don't
+take," said Pyecroft in my ear. "Push off, Alf!"
+
+The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little
+tinkles from the _Agatha_, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of
+pans, and loose shouting.
+
+"Where be gwine tu? Port your 'ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the fairway,
+goo astern! Out boats! She'll sink us!"
+
+A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: "Quiet! you gardeners
+there. This is the _Cryptic_ at anchor."
+
+"Thank you for the range," said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. "Feel well
+out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only Marconi
+installation." The voices resumed:
+
+"Bournemouth steamer he says she be."
+
+"Then where be Brixham Harbor?"
+
+"Damme, I'm a tax-payer tu. They've no right to cruise about this way.
+I'll have the laa on 'ee if anything carries away."
+
+Then the man-of-war:
+
+"Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You'll get
+yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift."
+
+The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung.
+I passed one hand down Laughton's stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck
+and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I
+laid on broad, cold iron--even the flanks of H.M.S. _Cryptic_, which is
+twelve thousand tons.
+
+I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to
+shave, and I smelled paint. "Drop aft a bit, Alf; we'll put a stencil
+under the stern six-inch casements."
+
+Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall.
+Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was
+renewed.
+
+"Umpires are 'ard-'earted blighters, but this ought to convince 'em....
+Captain Panke's stern-walk is now above our defenceless 'eads. Repeat the
+evolution up the starboard side, Alf."
+
+I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with
+life. Though my knowledge was all by touch--as, for example, when Pyecroft
+led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson, or when my
+palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it timidly--yet I
+felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless ship was withdrawn,
+and we drifted away into the void where voices sang:
+
+
+  Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,
+  All along, out along, down along lea!
+  I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair
+  With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,
+  Old Uncle Tom Cobley an' all!
+
+"That's old Sinbad an' 'is little lot from the _Agatha_! Give way, Alf!
+_You_ might sing somethin', too."
+
+"I'm no burnin' Patti. Ain't there noise enough for you, Pye?"
+
+"Yes, but it's only amateurs. Give me the tones of 'earth and 'ome. Ha!
+List to the blighter on the 'orizon sayin' his prayers, Navy-fashion.
+'Eaven 'elp me argue that way when I'm a warrant-officer!"
+
+We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a fair-
+sized riot.
+
+"An' I've 'eard the _Devolution_ called a happy ship, too," said Pyecroft.
+"Just shows 'ow a man's misled by prejudice. She's peevish--that's what
+she is--nasty-peevish. Prob'ly all because the _Agathites_ are scratching
+'er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I've got the lymph!"
+
+A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was
+speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower
+deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced
+rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the _Devolution_ at
+anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.
+
+"Mark how the Navy 'olds it's own. He's sober. The _Agathites_ are not, as
+you might say, an' yet they can't live with 'im. It's the discipline that
+does it. 'Ark to the bald an' unconvincin' watch-officer chimin' in. I
+wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?"
+
+We drifted down the _Devolution's_ side, as we had drifted down her
+sister's; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt with
+her sister.
+
+"Whai! 'Tis a man-o'-war, after all! I can see the captain's whisker all
+gilt at the edges! We took 'ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three cheers
+for the real man-o'-war!"
+
+That cry came from under the _Devolution's_ stern. Pyecroft held something
+in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, "Our Mister Moorshed!"
+
+Said a boy's voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from
+some valve: "I don't half like that cheer. If I'd been the old man I'd ha'
+turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren't they rowing
+Navy-stroke, yonder?"
+
+"True," said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. "It's time to go 'ome
+when snotties begin to think. The fog's thinnin', too."
+
+I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel
+stand out darker than the darkness, disappear--it was then the dinghy shot
+away from it--and emerge once more.
+
+"Hallo! what boat's that?" said the voice suspiciously.
+
+"Why, I do believe it's a real man-o'-war, after all," said Pyecroft, and
+kicked Laughton.
+
+"What's that for?" Laughton was no dramatist.
+
+"Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin' opposite."
+
+"What boat's _thatt_?" The hail was repeated.
+
+"What do yee say-ay?" Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me:
+"Give us a hand."
+
+"It's called the _Marietta_--F. J. Stokes--Torquay," I began, quaveringly.
+"At least, that's the name on the name-board. I've been dining--on a
+yacht."
+
+"I see." The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with
+disgraceful ease.
+
+"Yesh. Dining private yacht. _Eshmesheralda_. I belong to Torquay Yacht
+Club. _Are_ you member Torquay Yacht Club?"
+
+"You'd better go to bed, Sir. Good-night." We slid into the rapidly
+thinning fog.
+
+"Dig out, Alf. Put your _nix mangiare_ back into it. The fog's peelin'
+off like a petticoat. Where's Two Six Seven?"
+
+"I can't see her," I replied, "but there's a light low down ahead."
+
+"The _Agatha_!" They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of the
+fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler's bow.
+
+"Well, Emanuel means 'God with us'--so far." Pyecroft wiped his brow, laid
+a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I saw
+Moorshed's face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.
+
+"Was it all right?" said he, over the bulwarks.
+
+"Vaccination ain't in it. She's took beautiful. But where's 267, Sir?"
+Pyecroft replied.
+
+"Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the _Devolution_ four. Was
+that you behind us?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the _Devolution_. I gave the
+_Cryptic_ nine, though. They're what you might call more or less
+vaccinated."
+
+He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the
+_Agatha's_ hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.
+
+"Where is the old man?" I asked.
+
+"Still selling 'em fish, I suppose. He's a darling! But I wish I could get
+this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the _Cryptic_
+signalling?"
+
+A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was answered
+by a white pencil to the southward.
+
+"Destroyer signalling with searchlight." Pyecroft leaped on the stern-
+rail. "The first part is private signals. Ah! now she's Morsing against
+the fog. 'P-O-S-T'--yes, 'postpone'--'D-E-P-' (go on)! 'departure--till--
+further--orders--which--will--be com" (he's dropped the other m)
+"'unicated--verbally. End,'." He swung round. "_Cryptic_ is now answering:
+'Ready--proceed--immediately. What--news--promised--destroyer--
+flotilla?'"
+
+"Hallo!" said Moorshed. "Well, never mind, They'll come too late."
+
+"Whew! That's some 'igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer signals:
+'Care not. All will be known later.' What merry beehive's broken loose
+now?"
+
+"What odds! We've done our little job."
+
+"Why--why--it's Two Six Seven!"
+
+Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the
+_Agatha_ with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over the
+stern, and fell into his subordinate's arms. I heard the guggle of
+engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards
+away, a cough, and Morgan's subdued hail. ... So far as I remember, it was
+Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were Pyecroft and
+Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.
+
+There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the _Agatha's_
+side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common safety,
+because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open by hand for
+the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like wild geese, and
+crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the _Agatha's_ boat,
+returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: "Have 'ee done the trick?
+Have 'ee done the trick?" and we could only shout hoarsely over the stern,
+guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.
+
+"Fog got patchy here at 12:27," said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing
+clearer every instant in the dawn. "Went down to Brixham Harbour to keep
+out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I had her
+up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet signals out
+of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was answered by three
+destroyers. Morgan signalled 'em by searchlight: 'Alter course to South
+Seventeen East, so as not to lose time,' They came round quick. We kept
+well away--on their port beam--and Morgan gave 'em their orders." He
+looked at Morgan and coughed.
+
+"The signalman, acting as second in command," said Morgan, swelling, "then
+informed destroyer flotilla that _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_ had made good
+defects, and, in obedience to Admiral's supplementary orders (I was afraid
+they might suspect that, but they didn't), had proceeded at seven knots at
+11:23 p. M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven miles N.N.W. the
+Casquet light. (I've rendezvoused there myself, Sir.) Destroyer flotilla
+would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with them on their course.
+Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course indicated, all funnels sparking
+briskly."
+
+"Who were the destroyers?"
+
+"_Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto_, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, acting
+under Admiral's orders to escort cruisers received off the Dodman at 7 P.
+M. They'd come slow on account of fog."
+
+"Then who were you?"
+
+"We were the _Afrite_, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and there
+instructed by _Cryptic_, previous to her departure with _Devolution_) to
+inform Commander Hignett of change of plans. Lieutenant-Commander Hignett
+signalled that our meeting was quite providential. After this we returned
+to pick up our commanding officer, and being interrogated by _Cryptic_,
+marked time signalling as requisite, which you may have seen. The _Agatha_
+representing the last known rallying-point--or, as I should say, pivot-
+ship of the evolution--it was decided to repair to the _Agatha_ at
+conclusion of manoeuvre."
+
+"Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine big
+battleship?" "Can do, sir," said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr.
+Moorshed and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker,
+we drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of
+stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other's face, and we
+nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.
+
+Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a
+captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke
+over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our
+victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had
+made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet long
+and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece, and
+they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were ours, and
+they did not know it. Indeed, the _Cryptic_, senior ship, was signalling
+vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.
+
+"If you take these glasses, you'll get the general run o' last night's
+vaccination," said Pyecroft. "Each one represents a torpedo got 'ome, as
+you might say."
+
+I saw on the _Cryptic's_ port side, as she lay half a mile away across the
+glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in the
+centre.
+
+"There are five more to starboard. 'Ere's the original!" He handed me a
+paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the centre
+the six-inch initials, "G.M."
+
+"Ten minutes ago I'd ha' eulogised about that little trick of ours, but
+Morgan's performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?"
+
+"Bustin'," said the signalman briefly.
+
+"You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen 'Enrietta said to the
+'ousemaid, _I_ never will. I'd ha' given a year's pay for ten minutes o'
+your signallin' work this mornin'."
+
+"I wouldn't 'ave took it up," was the answer. "Perishin' 'Eavens above!
+Look at the _Devolution's_ semaphore!" Two black wooden arms waved from
+the junior ship's upper bridge. "They've seen it."
+
+"_The_ mote _on_ their neighbour's beam, of course," said Pyecroft, and
+read syllable by syllable: "'Captain Malan to Captain Panke. Is--sten--
+cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or your Number
+One's private expense?' Now _Cryptic_ is saying, 'Not understood.' Poor
+old _Crippy_, the _Devolute's_ raggin' 'er sore. 'Who is G.M.?' she says.
+That's fetched the _Cryptic_. She's answerin': 'You ought to know. Examine
+own paintwork.' Oh, Lord! they're both on to it now. This is balm. This is
+beginning to be balm. I forgive you, Morgan!"
+
+Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into the
+water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose to the
+_Cryptic's_ yardarm: "Destroyer will close at once. Wish to speak by
+semaphore." Then on the bridge semaphore itself: "Have been trying to
+attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding officer aboard at
+once."
+
+"Our attention? After all the attention we've given 'er, too," said
+Pyecroft. "What a greedy old woman!" To Moorshed: "Signal from the
+_Cryptic_, Sir."
+
+"Never mind that!" said the boy, peering through his glasses. "Our dinghy
+quick, or they'll paint our marks out. Come along!"
+
+By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft's bending
+back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed
+the _Cryptic's_ ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler
+when we barged fairly into him.
+
+"Mind my paint!" he yelled.
+
+"You mind mine, snotty," said Moorshed. "I was all night putting these
+little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave 'em alone."
+
+We splashed past him to the _Devolution's_ boat, where sat no one less
+than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.
+
+"What the deuce is the meaning of this?" he roared, with an accusing
+forefinger.
+
+"You're sunk, that's all. You've been dead half a tide."
+
+"Dead, am I? I'll show you whether I'm dead or not, Sir!"
+
+"Well, you may be a survivor," said Moorshed ingratiatingly, "though it
+isn't at all likely."
+
+The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern said,
+half aloud: "Then I _was_ right--last night."
+
+"Yesh," I gasped from the dinghy's coal-dust. "Are you member Torquay
+Yacht Club?"
+
+"Hell!" said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The _Cryptic's_ boat was
+already at that cruiser's side, and semaphores flicked zealously from ship
+to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls, while the
+pipes went for the captain's galley on the _Devolution_.
+
+"That's all right," said Moorshed. "Wait till the gangway's down and then
+board her decently. We oughtn't to be expected to climb up a ship we've
+sunk."
+
+Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed,
+descended the _Devolution's_ side. With due compliments--not acknowledged,
+I grieve to say--we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and at last, upon
+pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of
+the _Cryptic_. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as
+ever sang together of a morning on a King's ship. Every one who could get
+within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able
+seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines
+zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine
+midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks
+past all census.
+
+"If I die o' joy," said Pyecroft behind his hand, "remember I died
+forgivin' Morgan from the bottom of my 'eart, because, like Martha, we
+'ave scoffed the better part. You'd better try to come to attention, Sir."
+
+Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge
+beam, and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and Captain
+Malan stood on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling hatch.
+Precisely over the flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her black
+petticoat half hitched up, meekly floating on the still sea. She looked
+like the pious Abigail who has just spoken her mind, and, with folded
+hands, sits thanking Heaven among the pieces. I could almost have sworn
+that she wore black worsted gloves and had a little dry cough. But it was
+Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He favoured us with a lecture on
+uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of answering signals from a
+senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of masquerading, that he loved
+discipline, and would be obliged by an explanation. And while he delivered
+himself deeper and more deeply into our hands, I saw Captain Malan wince.
+He was watching Moorshed's eye.
+
+"I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven," said
+Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. "Have you such a thing as a frame-
+plan of the _Cryptic_ aboard?" He spoke with winning politeness as he
+opened a small and neatly folded paper.
+
+"I have, sir." The little man's face was working with passion.
+
+"Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were torpedoed
+last night in"--he consulted the paper with one finely arched eyebrow--"in
+nine places. And since the _Devolution_ is, I understand, a sister ship"--
+he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan--"the same plan----"
+
+I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement
+which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan's eye
+turn from Moorshed and seek that of the _Cryptic's_ commander. And he
+telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: "My dear friend and
+brother officer, _I_ know Panke; _you_ know Panke; _we_ know Panke--good
+little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will
+make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight,
+unless you who are a man of tact and discernment----"
+
+"Carry on." The Commander's order supplied the unspoken word. The cruiser
+boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers together, up
+to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan turn to his senior.
+
+"Come to my cabin!" said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and I
+stayed still.
+
+"It's all right," said Pyecroft. "They daren't leave us loose aboard for
+one revolution," and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.
+
+"You, too!" said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the sentry
+between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that
+Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I
+winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass-
+fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was
+demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S. _Cryptic_.
+
+"--making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.," I heard him say.
+"Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir"--he
+bowed to Captain Malan yet again--"one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice
+torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I have
+sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have requested them
+to judge on the facts as they--appear." He nodded through the large window
+to the stencilled _Devolution_ awink with brass work in the morning sun,
+and ceased.
+
+Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and caught
+myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.
+
+"Good God, Johnny!" he said, dropping his lower lip like a child, "this
+young pup says he has put us both out of action. Inconceivable--eh? My
+first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we do with him? What
+shall we do with him--eh?"
+
+"As far as I can see, there's no getting over the stencils," his companion
+answered.
+
+"Why didn't I have the nets down? Why didn't I have the nets down?" The
+cry tore itself from Captain Panke's chest as he twisted his hands.
+
+"I suppose we'd better wait and find out what the umpires will say. The
+Admiral won't be exactly pleased." Captain Malan spoke very soothingly.
+Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven. Pyecroft and
+I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had dropped
+into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.
+
+Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for a
+lead. "What--what are you going to do about it, Johnny--eh?"
+
+"Well, if you don't want him, I'm going to ask this young gentleman to
+breakfast, and then we'll make and mend clothes till the umpires have
+decided."
+
+Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.
+
+"Come with me," said Captain Malan. "Your men had better go back in the
+dinghy to--their--own--ship."
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Moorshed, and passed out behind the captain. We
+followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended the
+ladder.
+
+Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: "For Gawd's
+sake! 'Ere, come 'ere! For Gawd's sake! What's 'appened? Oh! come '_ere_
+an' tell."
+
+"Tell? You?" said Pyecroft. Neither man's lips moved, and the words were
+whispers: "Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might begin to
+understand, not you--nor ever will."
+
+"Captain Malan's galley away, Sir," cried a voice above; and one replied:
+"Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the blue peter.
+We're out of action."
+
+"Can you do it, Sir?" said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder. "Do you
+think it is in the English language, or do you not?"
+
+"I don't think I can, but I'll try. If it takes me two years, I'll try."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I have,
+on the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of _opus alexandrinum_. My gold
+I have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with sepia of
+the sea, and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have substituted
+pale amethyst and mere jargoon. Because I would say again "Disregarding
+the inventions of the Marine Captain whose other name is Gubbins, let a
+plain statement suffice."
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+THE KING'S TASK
+
+  After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
+  In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came.
+  Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing,
+  Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.
+
+  Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde--
+  Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword;
+  Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood,
+  And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood ...
+
+  They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,
+  Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine;
+  Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,
+  The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
+  Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome
+  Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
+  Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman's ire,
+  Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.
+  Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now
+  If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+Private Copper's father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper
+had studied under him. Five years' army service had somewhat blunted
+Private Copper's pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory of
+the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one across
+turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger, or in this
+case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet back-first advanced
+with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full a mile behind. The
+picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not protest. A year ago it
+would have been an officer's command, moving as such. To-day it paid
+casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a sergeant, actually a trooper
+of Irregular Horse, discovered convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and
+forthwith employed on odd jobs. Private Copper crawled up the side of a
+bluish rock-strewn hill thinly fringed with brush atop, and remembering
+how he had peered at Sussex conies through the edge of furze-clumps,
+cautiously parted the dry stems before his face. At the foot of the long
+slope sat three farmers smoking. To his natural lust for tobacco was added
+personal wrath because spiky plants were pricking his belly, and Private
+Copper slid the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards....
+
+"Good evening, Khaki. Please don't move," said a voice on his left, and as
+he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a well-kept
+Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn. Very few
+graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through the next ten
+seconds.
+
+"It's nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen," said a young man in an
+obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of Private
+Copper's rifle. "Thank _you_. We've got a post of thirty-seven men out
+yonder. You've eleven--eh? We don't want to kill 'em. We have no quarrel
+with poor uneducated Khakis, and we do not want prisoners we do not keep.
+It is demoralising to both sides--eh?"
+
+Private Cooper did not feel called upon to lay down the conduct of
+guerilla warfare. This dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed stranger
+was his first intimate enemy. He spoke, allowing for a clipped cadence
+that recalled to Copper vague memories of Umballa, in precisely the same
+offensive accent that the young squire of Wilmington had used fifteen
+years ago when he caught and kicked Alf Copper, a rabbit in each pocket,
+out of the ditches of Cuckmere. The enemy looked Copper up and down,
+folded and re-pocketed a copy of an English weekly which he had been
+reading, and said: "You seem an inarticulate sort of swine--like the rest
+of them--eh?"
+
+"You," said Copper, thinking, somehow, of the crushing answers he had
+never given to the young squire, "are a renegid. Why, you ain't Dutch.
+You're English, same as me."
+
+"_No_, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow your
+head off."
+
+Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some six
+or eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain was
+working with a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience of Alf
+Copper. While he rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own jaws amazed
+him: "If you did, 'twouldn't make you any less of a renegid." As a useful
+afterthought he added: "I've sprained my ankle."
+
+The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to rise,
+but, cross-legged under the rock, grunted: "'Ow much did old Krujer pay
+you for this? What was you wanted for at 'ome? Where did you desert from?"
+
+"Khaki," said the young man, sitting down in his turn, "you are a shade
+better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a yoke of
+oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant diseased
+beast like the rest of your people--eh? When you were at the Ragged
+Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy--'istory I mean?"
+
+"Don't need no schoolin' to know a renegid," said Copper. He had made
+three yards down the hill--out of sight, unless they could see through
+rocks, of the enemy's smoking party.
+
+The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of
+"True Affection." (Private Copper had not smoked a pipe for three weeks.)
+
+"_You_ don't get this--eh?" said the young man. "_We_ do. We take it from
+the trains as we want it. You can keep the cake--you po-ah Tommee." Copper
+rammed the good stuff into his long-cold pipe and puffed luxuriously. Two
+years ago the sister of gunner-guard De Souza, East India Railway, had, at
+a dance given by the sergeants to the Allahabad Railway Volunteers,
+informed Copper that she could not think of waltzing with "a poo-ah
+Tommee." Private Copper wondered why that memory should have returned at
+this hour.
+
+"I'm going to waste a little trouble on you before I send you back to your
+picket _quite_ naked--eh? Then you can say how you were overpowered by
+twenty of us and fired off your last round--like the men we picked up at
+the drift playing cards at Stryden's farm--eh? What's your name--eh?"
+
+Private Copper thought for a moment of a far-away housemaid who might
+still, if the local postman had not gone too far, be interested in his
+fate. On the other hand, he was, by temperament, economical of the truth.
+"Pennycuik," he said, "John Pennycuik."
+
+"Thank you. Well, Mr. John Pennycuik, I'm going to teach you a little
+'istory, as you'd call it--eh?"
+
+"'Ow!" said Copper, stuffing his left hand in his mouth. "So long since
+I've smoked I've burned my 'and--an' the pipe's dropped too. No objection
+to my movin' down to fetch it, is there--Sir?"
+
+"I've got you covered," said the young man, graciously, and Private
+Copper, hopping on one leg, because of his sprain, recovered the pipe yet
+another three yards downhill and squatted under another rock slightly
+larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest for his
+captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his rifle across
+his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard.
+
+"Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you were
+born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave country,
+England, sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie, to say that
+so long as the sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses the Transvaal
+would belong to England. Did you ever hear that, khaki--eh?"
+
+"Oh no, Sir," said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the rivers
+happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist of D
+Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war. Copper had
+thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and dry camps for
+intoning it.
+
+"_Of_ course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen." He spat aside
+and cleared his throat. "Because of that little promise, my father he
+moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm--a little place of twenty or
+thirty thousand acres, don't--you--know."
+
+The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured
+parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington
+squire's, and Copper found himself saying: "I ought to. I've 'elped burn
+some."
+
+"Yes, you'll pay for that later. _And_ he opened a store."
+
+"Ho! Shopkeeper was he?"
+
+"The kind you call "Sir" and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik.... You see,
+in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father
+did. _Then_ the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat
+them six times running. You know _thatt_--eh?"
+
+"Isn't what we've come 'ere for."
+
+"_But_ my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the English. I
+suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that cheated him--eh?
+Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own country. _So_--you
+see--he was a little startled when he found himself handed over to the
+Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That's what it came to, Tommy--a prisoner
+of war. You know what that is--eh? England was too honourable and too
+gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms made for my father."
+
+"So 'e made 'em 'imself. Useful old bird." Private Copper sliced up
+another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea of kopjes, through
+which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike quiet Cuckmere.
+
+The young man's face darkened. "I think I shall sjambok you myself when
+I've quite done with you. _No_, my father (he was a fool) made no terms
+for eight years--ninety-six months--and for every day of them the
+Transvaal made his life hell for my father and--his people."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," said the impenitent Copper.
+
+"Are you? You can think of it when I'm taking the skin off your back--
+eh?... My father, he lost everything--everything down to his self-respect.
+You don't know what _thatt_ means--eh?"
+
+"Why?" said Copper. "I'm smokin' baccy stole by a renegid. Why wouldn't I
+know?"
+
+If it came to a flogging on that hillside there might be a chance of
+reprisals. Of course, he might be marched to the Boer camp in the next
+valley and there operated upon; but Army life teaches no man to cross
+bridges unnecessarily.
+
+"Yes, after eight years, my father, cheated by your bitch of a country, he
+found out who was the upper dog in South Africa."
+
+"That's me," said Copper valiantly. "If it takes another 'alf century,
+it's me an' the likes of me."
+
+"You? Heaven help you! You'll be screaming at a wagon-wheel in an hour....
+Then it struck my father that he'd like to shoot the people who'd betrayed
+him. You--you--_you_! He told his son all about it. He told him never to
+trust the English. He told him to do them all the harm he could. Mann, I
+tell you, I don't want much telling. I was born in the Transvaal--I'm a
+burgher. If my father didn't love the English, by the Lord, mann, I tell
+you, I hate them from the bottom of my soul."
+
+The voice quavered and ran high. Once more, for no conceivable reason,
+Private Copper found his inward eye turned upon Umballa cantonments of a
+dry dusty afternoon, when the saddle-coloured son of a local hotel-keeper
+came to the barracks to complain of a theft of fowls. He saw the dark
+face, the plover's-egg-tinted eyeballs, and the thin excited hands. Above
+all, he remembered the passionate, queerly-strung words. Slowly he
+returned to South Africa, using the very sentence his sergeant had used to
+the poultry man.
+
+"Go on with your complaint. I'm listenin'."
+
+"Complaint! Complaint about _you_, you ox! We strip and kick your sort by
+thousands."
+
+The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus
+deflected itself from the pit of Private Copper's stomach. His face was
+dusky with rage.
+
+"Yess, I'm a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to find out
+how rotten you were. _We_ know and you know it now. Your army--it is the
+laughing-stock of the Continent." He tapped the newspaper in his pocket,
+"You think you're going to win, you poor fools. Your people--your own
+people--your silly rotten fools of people will crawl out of it as they did
+after Majuba. They are beginning now. Look what your own working classes,
+the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff that you come out of, are
+saying." He thrust the English weekly, doubled at the leading article, on
+Copper's knee. "See what dirty dogs your masters are. They do not even
+back you in your dirty work. _We_ cleared the country down to Ladysmith--
+to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to Colesberg."
+
+"Yes, we 'ad to clean up be'ind you. Messy, I call it."
+
+"You've had to stop farm-burning because your people daren't do it. They
+were afraid. You daren't kill a spy. You daren't shoot a spy when you
+catch him in your own uniform. You daren't touch our loyall people in Cape
+Town! Your masters wont let you. You will feed our women and children till
+we are quite ready to take them back. _You_ can't put your cowardly noses
+out of the towns you say you've occupied. _You_ daren't move a convoy
+twenty miles. You think you've done something? You've done nothing, and
+you've taken a quarter of a million of men to do it! There isn't a nigger
+in South Africa that doesn't obey us if we lift our finger. You pay the
+stuff four pounds a month and they lie to you. _We_ flog 'em, as I shall
+flog you."
+
+He clasped his hands together and leaned forward his out-thrust chin
+within two feet of Copper's left, or pipe hand.
+
+"Yuss," said Copper, "it's a fair knock-out." The fist landed to a hair on
+the chin-point, the neck snicked like a gun-lock, and the back of the head
+crashed on the boulder behind.
+
+Copper grabbed up both rifles, unshipped the cross-bandoliers, drew forth
+the English weekly, and picking up the lax hands, looked long and intently
+at the fingernails.
+
+"No! Not a sign of it there," he said. "'Is nails are as clean as mine--
+but he talks just like 'em, though. And he's a landlord too! A landed
+proprietor! Shockin', I call it."
+
+The arms began to flap with returning consciousness. Private Copper rose
+up and whispered: "If you open your head, I'll bash it." There was no
+suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. "Now walk in front of
+me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I'm only a third-class shot, so,
+if you don't object, I'll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly but firmly
+on your collar-button--coverin' the serviceable vertebree. If your friends
+see us thus engaged, you pray--'ard."
+
+Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of the
+afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.
+
+"There's a lot of things I could say to you," Copper observed, at the
+close of the paroxysm, "but it doesn't matter. Look 'ere, you call me
+'pore Tommy' again."
+
+The prisoner hesitated.
+
+"Oh, I ain't goin' to do anythin' _to_ you. I'm recon-noiterin' in my own.
+Say 'pore Tommy' 'alf-a-dozen times."
+
+The prisoner obeyed.
+
+"_That's_ what's been puzzlin' me since I 'ad the pleasure o' meetin'
+you," said Copper. "You ain't 'alf-caste, but you talk _chee-chee_--
+_pukka_ bazar chee-chee. Proceed."
+
+"Hullo," said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later, "where did
+you round him up?"
+
+"On the top o' yonder craggy mounting. There's a mob of 'em sitting round
+their Bibles seventeen 'undred yards (you said it was seventeen 'undred?)
+t'other side--an' I want some coffee." He sat down on the smoke-blackened
+stones by the fire.
+
+"'Ow did you get 'im?" said McBride, professional humorist, quietly
+filching the English weekly from under Copper's armpit.
+
+"On the chin--while 'e was waggin' it at me."
+
+"What is 'e? 'Nother Colonial rebel to be 'orribly disenfranchised, or a
+Cape Minister, or only a loyal farmer with dynamite in both boots. Tell us
+all about it, Burjer!"
+
+"You leave my prisoner alone," said Private Copper. "'E's 'ad losses an'
+trouble; an' it's in the family too. 'E thought I never read the papers,
+so 'e kindly lent me his very own _Jerrold's Weekly_--an' 'e explained it
+to me as patronisin' as a--as a militia subaltern doin' Railway Staff
+Officer. 'E's a left-over from Majuba--one of the worst kind, an' 'earin'
+the evidence as I did, I don't exactly blame 'im. It was this way."
+
+To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life-
+history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an
+absolute fair rendering.
+
+"But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin' beggar, 'oo's people, on 'is
+own showin', couldn't 'ave been more than thirty or forty years in the
+coun--on this Gawd-forsaken dust-'eap, comin' the squire over me. They're
+all parsons--we know _that_, but parson _an'_ squire is a bit too thick
+for Alf Copper. Why, I caught 'im in the shameful act of tryin' to start a
+aristocracy on a gun an' a wagon an' a _shambuk_! Yes; that's what it was:
+a bloomin' aristocracy."
+
+"No, it weren't," said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the
+purloined weekly. "You're the aristocrat, Alf. Old _Jerrold's_ givin' it
+you 'ot. You're the uneducated 'ireling of a callous aristocracy which 'as
+sold itself to the 'Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky"--he ran his finger
+down a column of assorted paragraphs--"you're slakin' your brutal
+instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin' women an' desolated 'omesteads is
+what you enjoy, Alf ..., Halloa! What's a smokin' 'ektacomb?"
+
+"'Ere! Let's look. 'Aven't seen a proper spicy paper for a year. Good old
+_Jerrold's!"_ Pinewood and Moppet, reservists, flung themselves on
+McBride's shoulders, pinning him to the ground.
+
+"Lie over your own bloomin' side of the bed, an' we can all look," he
+protested.
+
+"They're only po-ah Tommies," said Copper, apologetically, to the
+prisoner. "Po-ah unedicated Khakis. _They_ don't know what they're
+fightin' for. They're lookin' for what the diseased, lying, drinkin' white
+stuff that they come from is sayin' about 'em!"
+
+The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the
+circle.
+
+"I--I don't understand them."
+
+The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded
+sympathetically:
+
+"If it comes to that, _we_ don't in my country!... Say, boys, when you're
+through with your English mail you might's well provide an escort for your
+prisoner. He's waitin'."
+
+"Arf a mo', Sergeant," said McBride, still reading.
+
+"'Ere's Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of 'is lady friends, 'oo
+don't like concentration camps. Wish they'd visit ours. Pinewood's a
+married man. He'd know how to be'ave!"
+
+"Well, I ain't goin' to amuse my prisoner alone. 'E's gettin' 'omesick,"
+cried Copper. "One of you thieves read out what's vexin' Old Barbarity an'
+'is 'arem these days. You'd better listen, Burjer, because, afterwards,
+I'm goin' to fall out an' perpetrate those nameless barbarities all over
+you to keep up the reputation of the British Army."
+
+From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff of
+Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did Pinewood of
+the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the accredited
+leaders of His Majesty's Opposition. The night-picket arrived in the
+middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any compliments, till
+Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article, and several occasional
+notes.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury," said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left to
+him of trousers--"you've 'eard what 'e's been fed up with. _Do_ you blame
+the beggar? 'Cause I don't! ... Leave 'im alone, McBride. He's my first
+and only cap-ture, an' I'm goin' to walk 'ome with 'im, ain't I, Ducky?
+... Fall in, Burjer. It's Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for you--and I'd
+give a month's pay to be in your little shoes."
+
+As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the
+prisoner's nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and
+began to struggle--kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all
+together.
+
+"Pore beggar--oh pore, _pore_ beggar!" said Alf, leaning in on one side of
+him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.
+
+"Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go----"
+
+"'E screams like a woman!" said McBride. "They'll 'ear 'im five miles
+off."
+
+"There's one or two ought to 'ear 'im--in England," said Copper, putting
+aside a wildly waving arm.
+
+"Married, ain't 'e?" said Pinewood. "I've seen 'em go like this before--
+just at the last. '_Old_ on, old man, No one's goin' to 'urt you."
+
+The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the little,
+anxious, wriggling group.
+
+"Quit that," said the Serjeant of a sudden. "You're only making him worse.
+Hands _up_, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this'll go off."
+
+And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man's panting chest seemed to
+act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between Copper
+and Pinewood.
+
+As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among the
+officers' tents:
+
+  'E sent us 'is blessin' from London town,
+    (The beggar that kep' the cordite down,)
+  But what do we care if 'e smile or frown,
+    The beggar that kep' the cordite down?
+  The mildly nefarious
+  Wildly barbarious
+    Beggar that kept the cordite down!
+
+Said a captain a mile away: "Why are they singing _that?_ We haven't had a
+mail for a month, have we?"
+
+An hour later the same captain said to his servant: "Jenkins, I understand
+the picket have got a--got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day. I wish you
+could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the _Times_, I think."
+
+"Yes, Sir. Copy of the _Times_, Sir," said Jenkins, without a quiver, and
+went forth to make his own arrangements.
+
+"Copy of the _Times_" said the blameless Alf, from beneath his blanket. "I
+ain't a member of the Soldier's Institoot. Go an' look in the reg'mental
+Readin'-room--Veldt Row, Kopje Street, second turnin' to the left between
+'ere an' Naauwport."
+
+Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper
+need not be.
+
+"But my particular copy of the _Times_ is specially pro'ibited by the
+censor from corruptin' the morals of the Army. Get a written order from K.
+o' K., properly countersigned, an' I'll think about it."
+
+"I've got all _you_ want," said Jenkins. "'Urry up. I want to 'ave a
+squint myself."
+
+Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back smacking
+his lips.
+
+"Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. 'Ere you are,
+Jenkins. It's dirt cheap at a tot."
+
+
+
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+
+THE NECESSITARIAN
+
+  I know not in whose hands are laid
+    To empty upon earth
+  From unsuspected ambuscade
+    The very Urns of Mirth:
+
+  Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
+    And cheer our solemn round--
+  The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
+    And grovellings on the ground;
+
+  Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
+    Behind the prey preferred,
+  And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
+    The Sacredly Absurd,
+
+  Till Laughter, voiceless through excess.
+    Waves mute appeal and sore,
+  Above the midriff's deep distress,
+    For breath to laugh once more.
+
+  No creed hath dared to hail him Lord,
+    No raptured choirs proclaim,
+  And Nature's strenuous Overword
+    Hath nowhere breathed his name.
+
+  Yet, may it be, on wayside jape,
+    The selfsame Power bestows
+  The selfsame power as went to shape
+    His Planet or His Rose.
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the narrow
+Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o'clock, they were both asleep.
+
+That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference to
+his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and
+specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces of
+superior coachmen. Then he pulled slantwise across me.
+
+There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could be
+applied at pleasure....
+
+The cart was removed about a bowshot's length in seven and a quarter
+seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the
+next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the tail-board.
+
+My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.
+
+"The blighted egg-boiler has steam up," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, pausing to
+gather a large stone. "Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the sights
+come on!"
+
+"I can't leave my 'orse!" roared the carrier; "but bring 'em up 'ere, an'
+I'll kill 'em all over again."
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft," I called cheerfully. "Can I give you a lift
+anywhere?"
+
+The attack broke up round my forewheels.
+
+"Well, we _do_ 'ave the knack o' meeting _in puris naturalibus,_ as I've
+so often said." Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. "Yes, I'm on leaf. So's Hinch.
+We're visiting friends among these kopjes."
+
+A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was still
+calling for corpses.
+
+"That's Agg. He's Hinch's cousin. You aren't fortunit in your family
+connections, Hinch. 'E's usin' language in derogation of good manners. Go
+and abolish 'im."
+
+Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his cousin. I
+recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the carrier's. It
+seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid throes.
+
+"'Ave it your own silly way, then," roared the carrier, "an' get into
+Linghurst on your own silly feet. I've done with you two runagates." He
+lashed his horse and passed out of sight still rumbling.
+
+"The fleet's sailed," said Pyecroft, "leavin' us on the beach as before.
+Had you any particular port in your mind?"
+
+"Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don't mind--"
+
+"Oh! that'll do as well as anything! We're on leaf, you see."
+
+"She'll hardly hold four," said my engineer. I had broken him of the
+foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.
+
+Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he
+walked in narrowing circles.
+
+"What's her speed?" he demanded of the engineer.
+
+"Twenty-five," said that loyal man.
+
+"Easy to run?"
+
+"No; very difficult," was the emphatic answer.
+
+"That just shows that you ain't fit for your rating. D'you suppose that a
+man who earns his livin' by runnin' 30-knot destroyers for a parstime--for
+a parstime, mark you!--is going to lie down before any blighted land-
+crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?"
+
+Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked upward
+into pipes--petrol, steam, and water--with a keen and searching eye.
+
+I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.
+
+"Not--in--the--least," was the answer. "Steam gadgets always take him that
+way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through his tryin' to show a
+traction-engine haulin' gipsy-wagons how to turn corners."
+
+"Tell him everything he wants to know," I said to the engineer, as I
+dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.
+
+"_He_ don't want much showing," said the engineer. Now, the two men had
+not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more than
+three minutes.
+
+"This," said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure of the
+hedge-foot, "is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn't let too much
+o' that hot muckings drop in my eyes, Your leaf's up in a fortnight, an'
+you'll be wantin' 'em."
+
+"Here!" said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. "Come here
+and show me the lead of this pipe." And the engineer lay down beside him.
+
+"That's all right," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. "But she's more of a bag
+of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft"--he pointed to
+the back seat--"and I'll have a look at the forced draught."
+
+The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he
+had a brother an artificer in the Navy.
+
+"They couple very well, those two," said Pyecroft critically, while
+Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay
+jets of steam.
+
+"Now take me up the road," he said. My man, for form's sake, looked at me.
+
+"Yes, take him," I said. "He's all right."
+
+"No, I'm not," said Hinchcliffe of a sudden--"not if I'm expected to judge
+my water out of a little shaving-glass."
+
+The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right
+of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.
+
+"Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how
+you steer while you're doing it, or you'll get ditched!" I cried, as the
+car ran down the road.
+
+"I wonder!" said Pyecroft, musing. "But, after all, it's your steamin'
+gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me
+after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours,
+that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a runnin' bulgine till the
+nineteenth prox. Now look at him Only look at 'im!"
+
+We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his
+seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge to
+hedge.
+
+"What happens if he upsets?"
+
+"The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up."
+
+"How rambunkshus! And"--Pyecroft blew a slow cloud--"Agg's about three
+hoops up this mornin', too."
+
+"What's that to do with us? He's gone down the road," I retorted.
+
+"Ye--es, but we'll overtake him. He's a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch
+'ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O' course, Hinch don't know the
+elements o' that evolution; but he fell back on 'is naval rank an' office,
+an' Agg grew peevish. I wasn't sorry to get out of the cart ... Have you
+ever considered how, when you an' I meet, so to say, there's nearly always
+a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat
+returnin'!"
+
+He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: "In bow! Way 'nuff!"
+
+"You be quiet!" cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his dark
+face shining with joy. "She's the Poetry o' Motion! She's the Angel's
+Dream. She's------" He shut off steam, and the slope being against her,
+the car slid soberly downhill again.
+
+"What's this? I've got the brake on!" he yelled.
+
+"It doesn't hold backwards," I said. "Put her on the mid-link."
+
+"That's a nasty one for the chief engineer o' the _Djinn_, 31-knot,
+T.B.D.," said Pyecroft. "_Do_ you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?"
+
+Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the
+rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she
+retired backwards into her own steam.
+
+"Apparently 'e don't," said Pyecroft. "What's he done now, Sir?"
+
+"Reversed her. I've done it myself."
+
+"But he's an engineer."
+
+For the third time the car manoeuvred up the hill.
+
+"I'll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you 'tiffies out all
+night!" shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation. Hinchcliffe's face
+grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working on the throttle, the
+car buzzed twenty yards uphill.
+
+"That's enough. We'll take your word for it. The mountain will go to
+Ma'ommed. Stand _fast_!"
+
+Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed
+together.
+
+"Not as easy as it looks--eh, Hinch?"
+
+"It is dead easy. I'm going to drive her to Instead Wick--aren't I?" said
+the first-class engine-room artificer. I thought of his performances with
+No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small privilege to accord to pure
+genius.
+
+"But my engineer will stand by--at first," I added.
+
+"An' you a family man, too," muttered Pyecroft, swinging himself into the
+right rear seat. "Sure to be a remarkably hectic day when we meet."
+
+We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor,
+paved our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.
+
+Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the
+engineer, and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had
+enjoyed the rack on which he voluntarily extended himself.
+
+And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.
+
+"How cautious is the 'tiffy-bird!" said Pyecroft.
+
+"Even in a destroyer," Hinch snapped over his shoulder, "you ain't
+expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don't address any remarks to
+_me!_"
+
+"Pump!" said the engineer. "Your water's droppin'."
+
+"_I_ know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pass?"
+
+He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he
+found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting
+all else, twisted it furiously.
+
+My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching into
+a ditch.
+
+"If I was a burnin' peacock, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my shinin'
+tail, I'd need 'em all on this job!" said Hinch.
+
+"Don't talk! Steer! This ain't the North Atlantic," Pyecroft replied.
+
+"Blast my stokers! Why, the steam's dropped fifty pounds!" Hinchcliffe
+cried.
+
+"Fire's blown out," said the engineer. "Stop her!"
+
+"Does she do that often?" said Hinch, descending.
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Anytime?"
+
+"Any time a cross-wind catches her."
+
+The engineer produced a match and stooped.
+
+That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit twice
+in the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and Pyecroft went
+out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow flame.
+
+"I've seen a mine explode at Bantry--once--prematoor," he volunteered.
+
+"That's all right," said Hinchcliffe, brushing down his singed beard with
+a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.) "Has she any more
+little surprises up her dainty sleeve?"
+
+"She hasn't begun yet," said my engineer, with a scornful cough. "Some one
+'as opened the petrol-supply-valve too wide."
+
+"Change places with me, Pyecroft," I commanded, for I remembered that the
+petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all controlled
+from the right rear seat.
+
+"Me? Why? There's a whole switchboard full o' nickel-plated muckin's which
+I haven't begun to play with yet. The starboard side's crawlin' with 'em."
+
+"Change, or I'll kill you!" said Hinchcliffe, and he looked like it.
+
+"That's the 'tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame it on the
+lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! _I_ won't help you any
+more."
+
+We navigated for a mile in dead silence.
+
+"Talkin' o' wakes----" said Pyecroft suddenly.
+
+"We weren't," Hinchcliffe grunted.
+
+"There's some wakes would break a snake's back; but this of yours, so to
+speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That's all I wish to observe,
+Hinch. ... Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It's Agg!"
+
+Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier's
+cart at rest before the post-office.
+
+"He's bung in the fairway. How'm I to get past?" said Hinchcliffe.
+"There's no room. Here, Pye, come and relieve the wheel!"
+
+"Nay, nay, Pauline. You've made your own bed. You've as good as left your
+happy home an' family cart to steal it. Now you lie on it."
+
+"Ring your bell," I suggested.
+
+"Glory!" said Pyecroft, falling forward into the nape of Hinchcliffe's
+neck as the car stopped dead.
+
+"Get out o' my back-hair! That must have been the brake I touched off,"
+Hinchcliffe muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.
+
+We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from the
+port-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered later
+that the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.
+
+Hinchcliffe wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the
+first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.
+
+"You needn't grip so hard," said my engineer. "She steers as easy as a
+bicycle."
+
+"Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an' down my engine-room?" was the
+answer. "I've other things to think about. She's a terror. She's a
+whistlin' lunatic. I'd sooner run the old South-Easter at Simon's Town
+than her!"
+
+"One of the nice things they say about her," I interrupted, "is that no
+engineer is needed to run this machine."
+
+"No. They'd need about seven."
+
+"'Common-sense only is needed,'" I quoted.
+
+"Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common-sense," Pyecroft put in.
+
+"And now," I said, "we'll have to take in water. There isn't more than a
+couple of inches of water in the tank."
+
+"Where d'you get it from?"
+
+"Oh!--cottages and such-like."
+
+"Yes, but that being so, where does your much-advertised twenty-five miles
+an hour come in? Ain't a dung-cart more to the point?"
+
+"If you want to go anywhere, I suppose it would be," I replied.
+
+"_I_ don't want to go anywhere. I'm thinkin' of you who've got to live
+with her. She'll burn her tubes if she loses her water?"
+
+"She will."
+
+"I've never scorched yet, and I not beginnin' now." He shut off steam
+firmly. "Out you get, Pye, an' shove her along by hand."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"The nearest water-tank," was the reply. "And Sussex is a dry county."
+
+"She ought to have drag-ropes--little pipe-clayed ones," said Pyecroft.
+
+We got out and pushed under the hot sun for half-a-mile till we came to a
+cottage, sparsely inhabited by one child who wept.
+
+"All out haymakin', o' course," said Pyecroft, thrusting his head into the
+parlour for an instant. "What's the evolution now?"
+
+"Skirmish till we find a well," I said.
+
+"Hmm! But they wouldn't 'ave left that kid without a chaperon, so to
+say... I thought so! Where's a stick?"
+
+A bluish and silent beast of the true old sheep-dog breed glided from
+behind an outhouse and without words fell to work.
+
+Pyecroft kept him at bay with a rake-handle while our party, in rallying-
+square, retired along the box-bordered brick-path to the car.
+
+At the garden gate the dumb devil halted, looked back on the child, and
+sat down to scratch.
+
+"That's his three-mile limit, thank Heaven!" said Pyecroft. "Fall in,
+push-party, and proceed with land-transport o' pinnace. I'll protect your
+flanks in case this sniffin' flea-bag is tempted beyond 'is strength."
+
+We pushed off in silence. The car weighed 1,200 lb., and even on
+ball-bearings was a powerful sudorific. From somewhere behind a hedge we
+heard a gross rustic laugh.
+
+"Those are the beggars we lie awake for, patrollin' the high seas. There
+ain't a port in China where we wouldn't be better treated. Yes, a Boxer
+'ud be ashamed of it," said Pyecroft.
+
+A cloud of fine dust boomed down the road.
+
+"Some happy craft with a well-found engine-room! How different!" panted
+Hinchcliffe, bent over the starboard mudguard.
+
+It was a claret-coloured petrol car, and it stopped courteously, as good
+cars will at sight of trouble.
+
+"Water, only water," I answered in reply to offers of help.
+
+"There's a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They'll give you all you
+want. Say I sent you. Gregory--Michael Gregory. Good-bye!"
+
+"Ought to 'ave been in the Service. Prob'ly is," was Pyecroft's comment.
+
+At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not quote
+Mr. Hinchcliffe's remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber bucket with
+which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir Michael Gregory
+owned many acres, and that his park ran for miles.
+
+"No objection to your going through it," said the lodge-keeper. "It'll
+save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick."
+
+But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few miles
+farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had decreed.
+
+"We've come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far," said Hinchcliffe
+(he was driving with greater freedom and less responsibility), "and now we
+have to fill our bunkers. This is worse than the Channel Fleet."
+
+At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and lavishly
+oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our engineer on the
+grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely abreast of his work. To
+this I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in the language of the road,
+held up for a day and a half, and by most bitter experience I suspected
+that her time was very near. Therefore, three miles short of Linghurst, I
+was less surprised than any one, excepting always my engineer, when the
+engines set up a lunatic clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.
+
+"Heaven forgive me all the harsh things I may have said about destroyers
+in my sinful time!" wailed Hinchcliffe, snapping back the throttle.
+"What's worryin' Ada now?"
+
+"The forward eccentric-strap screw's dropped off," said the engineer,
+investigating.
+
+"That all? I thought it was a propeller-blade."
+
+"We must go an' look for it. There isn't another."
+
+"Not me," said Pyecroft from his seat. "Out pinnace, Hinch, an' creep for
+it. It won't be more than five miles back."
+
+The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road.
+
+"Look like etymologists, don't they? Does she decant her innards often, so
+to speak?" Pyecroft asked.
+
+I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four miles
+along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was profoundly
+touched.
+
+"Poor Hinch! Poor--poor Hinch!" he said. "And that's only one of her
+little games, is it? He'll be homesick for the Navy by night."
+
+When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was
+Hinchcliffe who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my engineer
+looked on admiringly.
+
+"Your boiler's only seated on four little paperclips," he said, crawling
+from beneath her. "She's a wicker-willow lunch-basket below. She's a
+runnin' miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp long?"
+
+I told him.
+
+"And yet you were afraid to come into the _Nightmare's_ engine-room when
+we were runnin' trials!"
+
+"It's all a matter of taste," Pyecroft volunteered. "But I will say for
+you, Hinch, you've certainly got the hang of her steamin' gadgets in quick
+time."
+
+He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and a
+tremor in his arm.
+
+"She don't seem so answer her helm somehow," he said.
+
+"There's a lot of play to the steering-gear," said my engineer. "We
+generally tighten it up every few miles."
+
+"'Like me to stop now? We've run as much as one mile and a half without
+incident," he replied tartly.
+
+"Then you're lucky," said my engineer, bristling in turn.
+
+"They'll wreck the whole turret out o' nasty professional spite in a
+minute," said Pyecroft. "That's the worst o' machinery. Man dead ahead,
+Hinch--semaphorin' like the flagship in a fit!"
+
+"Amen!" said Hinchcliffe. "Shall I stop, or shall I cut him down?"
+
+He stopped, for full in the centre of the Linghurst Road stood a person in
+pepper-and-salt raiment (ready-made), with a brown telegraph envelope in
+his hands.
+
+"Twenty-three and a half miles an hour," he began, weighing a small beam-
+engine of a Waterbury in one red paw. "From the top of the hill over our
+measured quarter-mile--twenty-three and a half."
+
+"You manurial gardener----" Hinchcliffe began. I prodded him warningly
+from behind, and laid the other hand on Pyecroft's stiffening knee.
+
+"Also--on information received--drunk and disorderly in charge of a
+motor-car--to the common danger--two men like sailors in appearance,"
+the man went on.
+
+"Like sailors! ... That's Agg's little _roose_. No wonder he smiled at
+us," said Pyecroft.
+
+"I've been waiting for you some time," the man concluded, folding up the
+telegram.
+
+"Who's the owner?"
+
+I indicated myself.
+
+"Then I want you as well as the two seafaring men. Drunk and disorderly
+can be treated summary. You come on."
+
+My relations with the Sussex constabulary have, so far, been of the best,
+but I could not love this person.
+
+"Of course you have your authority to show?" I hinted.
+
+"I'll show it you at Linghurst," he retorted hotly----"all the authority
+you want."
+
+"I only want the badge, or warrant, or whatever it is a plain-clothes man
+has to show."
+
+He made as though to produce it, but checked himself, repeating less
+politely the invitation to Linghurst. The action and the tone confirmed my
+many-times tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing institutions
+are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious inaccuracy. I
+reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of the front seat
+that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping with his knuckles.
+The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe's brow had given place to a greasy
+imbecility, and he nodded over the steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as
+laid down by the pious and immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, "Sham
+drunk. Get him in the car."
+
+"I can't stay here all day," said the constable.
+
+Pyecroft raised his head. Then was seen with what majesty the British
+sailor-man envisages a new situation.
+
+"Met gennelman heavy sheeway," said he. "Do tell me British gelman can't
+give 'ole Brish Navy lif' own blighted ste' cart. Have another drink!"
+
+"I didn't know they were as drunk as all that when they stopped me," I
+explained.
+
+"You can say all that at Linghurst," was the answer. "Come on."
+
+"Quite right," I said. "But the question is, if you take these two out on
+the road, they'll fall down or start killing you."
+
+"Then I'd call on you to assist me in the execution o' my duty."
+
+"But I'd see you further first. You'd better come with us in the car. I'll
+turn this passenger out." (This was my engineer, sitting quite silent.)
+"You don't want him, and, anyhow, he'd only be a witness for the defence."
+
+"That's true," said the constable. "But it wouldn't make any odds--at
+Linghurst."
+
+My engineer skipped into the bracken like a rabbit. I bade him cut across
+Sir Michael Gregory's park, and if he caught my friend, to tell him I
+should probably be rather late for lunch.
+
+"I ain't going to be driven by _him_." Our destined prey pointed at
+Hinchcliffe with apprehension.
+
+"Of course not. You sake my seat and keep the big sailor in order. He's
+too drunk to do much. I'll change places with the other one. Only be
+quick; I want to pay my fine and get it over."
+
+"That's the way to look at it," he said, dropping into the left rear seat.
+"We're making quite a lot out o' you motor gentry." He folded his arms
+judicially as the car gathered way under Hinchcliffe's stealthy hand.
+
+"But _you_ aren't driving?" he cried, half rising.
+
+"You've noticed it?" said Pyecroft, and embraced him with one anaconda-
+like left arm.
+
+"Don't kill him," said Hinchcliffe briefly. "I want to show him what
+twenty-three and a quarter is." We were going a fair twelve, which was
+about the car's limit.
+
+Our passenger swore something and then groaned.
+
+"Hush, darling!" said Pyecroft, "or I'll have to hug you."
+
+The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running
+north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.
+
+"And now," said I, "I want to see your authority."
+
+"The badge of your ratin'?" Pyecroft added.
+
+"I'm a constable," he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have
+bewrayed him across half a county's plough; but boots are not legal
+evidence.
+
+"I want your authority," I repeated coldly; "some evidence that you are
+not a common drunken tramp."
+
+It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had
+neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money
+and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite
+trouble to supplement his deficiencies.
+
+"If you don't believe me, come to Linghurst," was the burden of his almost
+national anthem.
+
+"But I can't run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up and
+says he is a policeman."
+
+"Why, it's quite close," he persisted.
+
+"'Twon't be--soon," said Hinchcliffe.
+
+"None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, _they_ was
+gentlemen," he cried. "All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it
+ain't fair."
+
+I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten his
+badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub or
+barracks where he had left it.
+
+Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.
+
+"If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn't expect much more," he
+observed. "Now, suppose I'd been a lady in a delicate state o' health--
+you'd ha' made me very ill with your doings."
+
+"I wish I 'ad. 'Ere! 'Elp! 'Elp! Hi!"
+
+The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane
+ran into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked
+her up that lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable
+came running heavily.
+
+It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform
+smiled as we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.
+
+"You'll know all about it in a little time," said our guest. "You've only
+yourselves to thank for runnin' your 'ead into a trap." And he whistled
+ostentatiously.
+
+We made no answer.
+
+"If that man 'ad chose, 'e could have identified me," he said.
+
+Still we were silent.
+
+"But 'e'll do it later, when you're caught."
+
+"Not if you go on talking. 'E won't be able to," said Pyecroft. "I don't
+know what traverse you think you're workin', but your duty till you're put
+in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an' cherish _me_ most
+special--performin' all evolutions signalled in rapid time. I tell you
+this, in case o' anything turnin' up."
+
+"Don't you fret about things turnin' up," was the reply.
+
+Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set to
+work, when, without warning, the road--there are two or three in Sussex
+like it--turned down and ceased.
+
+"Holy Muckins!" he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless tyres
+slithered over wet grass and bracken--down and down into forest--early
+British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and that all should
+fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred our way. On the far
+side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits and fern, gently sloped
+upwards and away, but behind us was no hope. Forty horse-power would never
+have rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that verdurous cliff we had descended.
+
+"H'm!" Our guest coughed significantly. "A great many cars thinks they can
+take this road; but they all come back. We walks after 'em at our
+convenience."
+
+"Meanin' that the other jaunty is now pursuin' us on his lily feet?" said
+Pyecroft.
+
+"_Pre_cisely."
+
+"An' you think," said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of the
+words), "_that'll_ make any odds? Get out!"
+
+The man obeyed with alacrity.
+
+"See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing.
+Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at the
+double."
+
+And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a perfect
+understanding.
+
+There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down
+
+stream, laid aside after sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in
+the brook. Hinchcliffe rearranged these last to make some sort of
+causeway; I brought up the hurdles; and when Pyecroft and his subaltern
+had dropped a dozen hop-poles across the stream, laid them down over all.
+
+"Talk o' the Agricultur'l Hall!" he said, mopping his brow--"'tisn't in it
+with us. The approach to the bridge must now be paved with hurdles, owin'
+to the squashy nature o' the country. Yes, an' we'd better have one or two
+on the far side to lead her on to _terror fermior_. Now, Hinch! Give her
+full steam and 'op along. If she slips off, we're done. Shall I take the
+wheel?"
+
+"No. This is my job," said the first-class engine-room artificer. "Get
+over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the uphill."
+
+We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken.
+Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her
+trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our
+arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing her
+madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the
+bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles
+which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.
+
+"She--she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished with
+'em," Hinchcliffe panted.
+
+"At the Agricultural Hall they would 'ave been fastened down with
+ribbons," said Pyecroft. "But this ain't Olympia."
+
+"She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don't you think I conned
+her like a cock-angel, Pye?"
+
+"_I_ never saw anything like it," said our guest propitiatingly. "And now,
+gentlemen, if you'll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you you won't
+hear another word from me."
+
+"Get in," said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once more.
+"We 'aven't begun on _you_ yet."
+
+"A joke's a joke," he replied. "I don't mind a little bit of a joke
+myself, but this is going beyond it."
+
+"Miles an' miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We'll want water
+pretty soon."
+
+Our guest's countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.
+
+"Let me tell you," he said earnestly, "I won't make any difference to you
+whatever happens. Barrin' a dhow or two Tajurrah-way, prizes are scarce in
+the Navy. Hence we never abandon 'em."
+
+There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.
+
+"Robert," he said, "have you a mother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you a big brother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An' a little sister?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"All right, Robert. I won't forget it."
+
+I looked for an explanation.
+
+"I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o' that
+cottage before faithful Fido turned up," Pyecroft whispered. "Ain't you
+glad it's all in the family somehow?"
+
+We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard's Forest,
+and, despite our increasing leakage, made shift to climb the ridge above
+Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final collapse
+would not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our guest well into
+the wilderness before that came.
+
+On the roof of the world--a naked plateau clothed with young heather--she
+retired from active life in floods of tears. Her feed-water-heater
+(Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was leaking
+beyond hope of repair; she had shifted most of her packing, and her water-
+pump would not lift.
+
+"If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case an'
+feed direct into the boiler. It 'ud knock down her speed, but we could get
+on," said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges that hove us
+above the panorama of Sussex. Northward we could see the London haze.
+Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the Channel's zinc-
+blue. But all our available population in that vast survey was one cow and
+a kestrel.
+
+"It's down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by gravity," I said
+at last.
+
+"Then he'll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we take
+off 'is boots first," Pyecroft replied.
+
+"That," said our guest earnestly, "would be theft atop of assault and very
+serious."
+
+"Oh, let's hang him an' be done," Hinchcliffe grunted. "It's evidently
+what he's sufferin' for."
+
+Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to smoke
+in the heather, and presently out of the valley below came the thick beat
+of a petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it till I heard
+the roar of a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home Counties.
+
+"That's the man I was going to lunch with!" I cried. "Hold on!" and I ran
+down the road.
+
+It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod;
+and it bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my own
+man, who for the first time in our acquaintance smiled.
+
+"Did they get you? What did you get? I was coming into Linghurst as
+witness to character--your man told me what happened--but I was stopped
+near Instead Wick myself," cried Kysh.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Leaving car unattended. An infernal swindle, when you think of the loose
+carts outside every pub in the county. I was jawing with the police for an
+hour, but it's no use. They've got it all their own way, and we're
+helpless."
+
+Hereupon I told him my tale, and for proof, as we topped the hill, pointed
+out the little group round my car.
+
+All supreme emotion is dumb. Kysh put on the brake and hugged me to his
+bosom till I groaned. Then, as I remember, he crooned like a mother
+returned to her suckling.
+
+"Divine! Divine!" he murmured. "Command me."
+
+"Take charge of the situation," I said. "You'll find a Mr. Pyecroft on the
+quarter-deck. I'm altogether out of it."
+
+"He shall stay there. Who am I but the instrument of vengeance in the
+hands of an over-ruling Providence? (And I put in fresh sparking-plugs
+this morning.) Salmon, take that steam-kettle home, somehow. I would be
+alone."
+
+"Leggat," I said to my man, "help Salmon home with my car."
+
+"Home? Now? It's hard. It's cruel hard," said Leggat, almost with a sob.
+
+Hinchcliffe outlined my car's condition briefly to the two engineers. Mr.
+Pyecroft clung to our guest, who stared with affrighted eyes at the
+palpitating Octopod; and the free wind of high Sussex whimpered across the
+ling.
+
+"I am quite agreeable to walkin' 'ome all the way on my feet," said our
+guest. "I wouldn't go to any railway station. It 'ud be just the proper
+finish to our little joke." He laughed nervously.
+
+"What's the evolution?" said Pyecroft. "Do we turn over to the new
+cruiser?"
+
+I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I was
+in, he sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which controls the
+door. Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh.
+
+"You drive?" Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his chequered way
+through the world.
+
+"Steam only, and I've about had my whack for to-day, thanks."
+
+"I see."
+
+The long, low car slid forward and then dropped like a bullet down the
+descent our steam toy had so painfully climbed. Our guest's face blanched,
+and he clutched the back of the tonneau.
+
+"New commander's evidently been trained on a destroyer," said Hinchcliffe.
+
+"What's 'is wonderful name?" whispered Pyecroft. "Ho! Well, I'm glad it
+ain't Saul we've run up against--nor Nimshi, for that matter. This is
+makin' me feel religious."
+
+Our impetus carried us half-way up the next slope, where we steadied to a
+resonant fifteen an hour against the collar.
+
+"What do you think?" I called to Hinchcliffe.
+
+"'Taint as sweet as steam, o' course; but for power it's twice the
+_Furious_ against half the _Jaseur_ in a head-sea."
+
+Volumes could not have touched it more exactly. His bright eyes were glued
+on Kysh's hands juggling with levers behind the discreet backward sloping
+dash.
+
+"An' what sort of a brake might you use?" he said politely.
+
+"This," Kysh replied, as the last of the hill shot up to one in eight. He
+let the car run back a few feet and caught her deftly on the brake,
+repeating the performance cup and ball fashion. It was like being daped
+above the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft held
+his breath.
+
+"It ain't fair! It ain't fair!" our guest moaned. "You're makin' me sick."
+
+"What an ungrateful blighter he is!" said Pyecroft. "Money couldn't buy
+you a run like this ... Do it well overboard!"
+
+"We'll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I think,"
+said Kysh. "There's a bit of good going hereabouts."
+
+He flung a careless knee over the low raking tiller that the ordinary
+expert puts under his armpit, and down four miles of yellow road, cut
+through barren waste, the Octopod sang like a six-inch shell.
+
+"Whew! But you know your job," said Hinchcliffe. "You're wasted here. I'd
+give something to have you in my engine-room."
+
+"He's steering with 'is little hind-legs," said Pyecroft. "Stand up and
+look at him, Robert. You'll never see such a sight again!"
+
+"Nor don't want to," was our guest's reply. "Five 'undred pounds wouldn't
+begin to cover 'is fines even since I've been with him."
+
+Park Row is reached by one hill which drops three hundred feet in half a
+mile. Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but the
+manner in which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my few
+remaining hairs much nearer the grave.
+
+"We're in Surrey now; better look out," I said.
+
+"Never mind. I'll roll her into Kent for a bit. We've lots of time; it's
+only three o'clock."
+
+"Won't you want to fill your bunkers, or take water, or oil her up?" said
+Hinchcliffe.
+
+"We don't use water, and she's good for two hundred on one tank o' petrol
+if she doesn't break down."
+
+"Two hundred miles from 'ome and mother _and_ faithful Fido to-night,
+Robert," said Pyecroft, slapping our guest on the knee. "Cheer up! Why,
+I've known a destroyer do less."
+
+We passed with some decency through some towns, till by way of the
+Hastings road we whirled into Cramberhurst, which is a deep pit.
+
+"Now," said Kysh, "we begin."
+
+"Previous service not reckoned towards pension," said Pyecroft. "We are
+doin' you lavish, Robert."
+
+"But when's this silly game to finish, any'ow?" our guest snarled.
+
+"Don't worry about the _when_ of it, Robert. The _where's_ the interestin'
+point for you just now."
+
+I had seen Kysh drive before, and I thought I knew the Octopod, but that
+afternoon he and she were exalted beyond my knowledge. He improvised on
+the keys--the snapping levers and quivering accelerators--marvellous
+variations, so that our progress was sometimes a fugue and sometimes a
+barn-dance, varied on open greens by the weaving of fairy rings. When I
+protested, all that he would say was: "I'll hypnotise the fowl! I'll
+dazzle the rooster!" or other words equally futile. And she--oh! that I
+could do her justice!--she turned her broad black bows to the westering
+light, and lifted us high upon hills that we might see and rejoice with
+her. She whooped into veiled hollows of elm and Sussex oak; she devoured
+infinite perspectives of park palings; she surged through forgotten
+hamlets, whose single streets gave back, reduplicated, the clatter of her
+exhaust, and, tireless, she repeated the motions. Over naked uplands she
+droned like a homing bee, her shadow lengthening in the sun that she
+chased to his lair. She nosed up unparochial byways and accommodation-
+roads of the least accommodation, and put old scarred turf or new-raised
+molehills under her most marvellous springs with never a jar. And since
+the King's highway is used for every purpose save traffic, in mid-career
+she stepped aside for, or flung amazing loops about, the brainless driver,
+the driverless horse, the drunken carrier, the engaged couple, the female
+student of the bicycle and her staggering instructor, the pig, the
+perambulator, and the infant school (where it disembogued yelping on
+cross-roads), with the grace of Nellie Farren (upon whom be the Peace) and
+the lithe abandon of all the Vokes family. But at heart she was ever Judic
+as I remember that Judic long ago--Judic clad in bourgeois black from
+wrist to ankle, achieving incredible improprieties.
+
+We were silent--Hinchcliffe and Pyecroft through professional
+appreciation; I with a layman's delight in the expert; and our guest
+because of fear.
+
+At the edge of the evening she smelt the sea to southward and sheered
+thither like the strong-winged albatross, to circle enormously amid green
+flats fringed by martello towers.
+
+"Ain't that Eastbourne yonder?" said our guest, reviving. "I've a aunt
+there--she's cook to a J.P.--could identify me."
+
+"Don't worry her for a little thing like that," said Pyecroft; and ere he
+had ceased to praise family love, our unpaid judiciary, and domestic
+service, the Downs rose between us and the sea, and the Long Man of
+Hillingdon lay out upon the turf.
+
+"Trevington--up yonder--is a fairly isolated little dorp," I said, for I
+was beginning to feel hungry.
+
+"No," said Kysh. "He'd get a lift to the railway in no time.... Besides,
+I'm enjoying myself.... Three pounds eighteen and sixpence. Infernal
+swindle!"
+
+I take it one of his more recent fines was rankling in Kysh's brain; but
+he drove like the Archangel of the Twilight.
+
+About the longitude of Cassocks, Hinchcliffe yawned. "Aren't we goin' to
+maroon our Robert? I'm hungry, too."
+
+"The commodore wants his money back," I answered.
+
+"If he drives like this habitual, there must be a tidyish little lump
+owin' to him," said Pyecroft. "Well, I'm agreeable."
+
+"I didn't know it could be done. S'welp me, I didn't," our guest murmured.
+
+"But you will," said Kysh. And that was the first and last time he
+addressed the man.
+
+We ran through Penfield Green, half stupefied with open air, drugged with
+the relentless boom of the Octopod, and extinct with famine.
+
+"I used to shoot about here," said Kysh, a few miles further on. "Open
+that gate, please," and he slowed as the sun touched the sky-line. At this
+point we left metalled roads and bucked vigorously amid ditches and under
+trees for twenty minutes.
+
+"Only cross-country car on the market," he said, as we wheeled into a
+straw-yard where a lone bull bellowed defiance to our growlings. "Open
+that gate, please. I hope the cattle-bridge will stand up."
+
+"I've took a few risks in my time," said Pyecroft as timbers cracked
+beneath us and we entered between thickets, "but I'm a babe to this man,
+Hinch."
+
+"Don't talk to me. Watch _him!_ It's a liberal education, as Shakespeare
+says. Fallen tree on the port bow, Sir."
+
+"Right! That's my mark. Sit tight!"
+
+She flung up her tail like a sounding whale and buried us in a fifteen-
+foot deep bridle-path buttressed with the exposed roots of enormous
+beeches. The wheels leaped from root to rounded boulder, and it was very
+dark in the shadow of the foliage.
+
+"There ought to be a hammer-pond somewhere about here." Kysh was letting
+her down this chute in brakeful spasms.
+
+"Water dead ahead, Sir. Stack o' brushwood on the starboard beam, and--no
+road," sang Pyecroft.
+
+"Cr-r-ri-key!" said Hinchcliffe, as the car on a wild cant to the left
+went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung the
+pond. "If she only had two propellers, I believe she'd talk poetry. She
+can do everything else."
+
+"We're rather on our port wheels now," said Kysh; "but I don't think
+she'll capsize. This road isn't used much by motors."
+
+"You don't say so," said Pyecroft. "What a pity!"
+
+She bored through a mass of crackling brushwood, and emerged into an
+upward sloping fern-glade fenced with woods so virgin, so untouched, that
+William Rufus might have ridden off as we entered. We climbed out of the
+violet-purple shadows towards the upland where the last of the day
+lingered. I was filled to my moist eyes with the almost sacred beauty of
+sense and association that clad the landscape.
+
+"Does 'unger produce 'alluciations?" said Pyecroft in a whisper. "Because
+I've just seen a sacred ibis walkin' arm in arm with a British cock-
+pheasant."
+
+"What are you panickin' at?" said Hinchcliffe. "I've been seein' zebra
+for the last two minutes, but I 'aven't complained."
+
+He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted zebra (Burchell's, I
+think), following our track with palpitating nostrils. The car stopped,
+and it fled away.
+
+There was a little pond in front of us from which rose a dome of irregular
+sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled beast that sat upon its haunches.
+
+"Is it catching?" said Pyecroft.
+
+"Yes. I'm seeing beaver," I replied.
+
+"It is here!" said Kysh, with the air and gesture of Captain Nemo, and
+half turned.
+
+"No--no--no! For 'Eaven's sake--not 'ere!" Our guest gasped like a sea-
+bathed child, as four efficient hands swung him far out-board on to the
+turf. The car ran back noiselessly down the slope.
+
+"Look! Look! It's sorcery!" cried Hinchcliffe.
+
+There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver dived from the roof of
+his lodge, but we watched our guest. He was on his knees, praying to
+kangaroos. Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos--gigantic,
+erect, silhouetted against the light--four buck-kangaroos in the heart of
+Sussex!
+
+And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our hind-wheels struck
+well-rolled gravel, leading us to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour
+later, the "Grapnel Inn" at Horsham.
+
+*        *        *        *        *
+
+After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings in honour
+of Kysh, who received our homage graciously, and, by the way, explained a
+few things in the natural history line that had puzzled us. England is a
+most marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows the eccentricities
+of large land-owners, trained to accept kangaroos, zebras, or beavers as
+part of its landscape.
+
+When we went to bed Pyecroft pressed my hand, his voice thick with
+emotion.
+
+"We owe it to you," he said. "We owe it all to you. Didn't I say we never
+met in _pup-pup-puris naturalibus_, if I may so put it, without a
+remarkably hectic day ahead of us?"
+
+"That's all right," I said. "Mind the candle." He was tracing smoke-
+patterns on the wall.
+
+"But what I want to know is whether we'll succeed in acclimatisin' the
+blighter, or whether Sir William Gardner's keepers 'll kill 'im before 'e
+gets accustomed to 'is surroundin's?"
+
+Some day, I think, we must go up the Linghurst Road and find out.
+
+
+
+
+"WIRELESS"
+
+
+KASPAR'S SONG IN VARDA
+
+(_From the Swedish of Stagnelius_.)
+
+  Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
+    The children follow where Psyche flies,
+  And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
+    Slash with a net at the empty skies.
+
+  So it goes they fall amid brambles,
+    And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
+  Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles
+    They wipe their brows, and the hunting stops.
+
+  Then to quiet them comes their father
+    And stills the riot of pain and grief,
+  Saying, "Little ones, go and gather
+    Out of my garden a cabbage leaf.
+
+  "You will find on it whorls and clots of
+    Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
+  Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
+    Radiant Psyches raised from the dead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"
+    The three-dimensioned preacher saith,
+  So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie
+    For Psyche's birth ... And that is our death!
+
+
+"WIRELESS"
+"It's a funny thing, this Marconi business, isn't it?" said Mr. Shaynor,
+coughing heavily. "Nothing seems to make any difference, by what they tell
+me--storms, hills, or anything; but if that's true we shall know before
+morning."
+
+"Of course it's true," I answered, stepping behind the counter. "Where's
+old Mr. Cashell?"
+
+"He's had to go to bed on account of his influenza. He said you'd very
+likely drop in."
+
+"Where's his nephew?"
+
+"Inside, getting the things ready. He told me that the last time they
+experimented they put the pole on the roof of one of the big hotels here,
+and the batteries electrified all the water-supply, and"--he giggled--"the
+ladies got shocks when they took their baths."
+
+"I never heard of that."
+
+"The hotel wouldn't exactly advertise it, would it? Just now, by what Mr.
+Cashell tells me, they're trying to signal from here to Poole, and they're
+using stronger batteries than ever. But, you see, he being the guvnor's
+nephew and all that (and it will be in the papers too), it doesn't matter
+how they electrify things in this house. Are you going to watch?"
+
+"Very much. I've never seen this game. Aren't you going to bed?"
+
+"We don't close till ten on Saturdays. There's a good deal of influenza in
+town, too, and there'll be a dozen prescriptions coming in before morning.
+I generally sleep in the chair here. It's warmer than jumping out of bed
+every time. Bitter cold, isn't it?"
+
+"Freezing hard. I'm sorry your cough's worse."
+
+"Thank you. I don't mind cold so much. It's this wind that fair cuts me to
+pieces." He coughed again hard and hackingly, as an old lady came in for
+ammoniated quinine. "We've just run out of it in bottles, madam," said Mr.
+Shaynor, returning to the professional tone, "but if you will wait two
+minutes, I'll make it up for you, madam."
+
+I had used the shop for some time, and my acquaintance with the proprietor
+had ripened into friendship. It was Mr. Cashell who revealed to me the
+purpose and power of Apothecaries' Hall what time a fellow-chemist had
+made an error in a prescription of mine, had lied to cover his sloth, and
+when error and lie were brought home to him had written vain letters.
+
+"A disgrace to our profession," said the thin, mild-eyed man, hotly, after
+studying the evidence. "You couldn't do a better service to the profession
+than report him to Apothecaries' Hall."
+
+I did so, not knowing what djinns I should evoke; and the result was such
+an apology as one might make who had spent a night on the rack. I
+conceived great respect for Apothecaries' Hall, and esteem for Mr.
+Cashell, a zealous craftsman who magnified his calling. Until Mr. Shaynor
+came down from the North his assistants had by no means agreed with Mr.
+Cashell. "They forget," said he, "that, first and foremost, the compounder
+is a medicine-man. On him depends the physician's reputation. He holds it
+literally in the hollow of his hand, Sir."
+
+Mr. Shaynor's manners had not, perhaps, the polish of the grocery and
+Italian warehouse next door, but he knew and loved his dispensary work in
+every detail. For relaxation he seemed to go no farther afield than the
+romance of drugs--their discovery, preparation packing, and export--but it
+led him to the ends of the earth, and on this subject, and the
+Pharmaceutical Formulary, and Nicholas Culpepper, most confident of
+physicians, we met.
+
+Little by little I grew to know something of his beginnings and his hopes
+--of his mother, who had been a school-teacher in one of the northern
+counties, and of his red-headed father, a small job-master at Kirby Moors,
+who died when he was a child; of the examinations he had passed and of
+their exceeding and increasing difficulty; of his dreams of a shop in
+London; of his hate for the price-cutting Co-operative stores; and, most
+interesting, of his mental attitude towards customers.
+
+"There's a way you get into," he told me, "of serving them carefully, and
+I hope, politely, without stopping your own thinking. I've been reading
+Christie's _New Commercial Plants_ all this autumn, and that needs keeping
+your mind on it, I can tell you. So long as it isn't a prescription, of
+course, I can carry as much as half a page of Christie in my head, and at
+the same time I could sell out all that window twice over, and not a penny
+wrong at the end. As to prescriptions, I think I could make up the general
+run of 'em in my sleep, almost."
+
+For reasons of my own, I was deeply interested in Marconi experiments at
+their outset in England; and it was of a piece with Mr. Cashell's
+unvarying thoughtfulness that, when his nephew the electrician
+appropriated the house for a long-range installation, he should, as I have
+said, invite me to see the result.
+
+The old lady went away with her medicine, and Mr. Shaynor and I stamped on
+the tiled floor behind the counter to keep ourselves warm. The shop, by
+the light of the many electrics, looked like a Paris-diamond mine, for Mr.
+Cashell believed in all the ritual of his craft. Three superb glass jars--
+red, green, and blue--of the sort that led Rosamund to parting with her
+shoes--blazed in the broad plate-glass windows, and there was a confused
+smell of orris, Kodak films, vulcanite, tooth-powder, sachets, and almond-
+cream in the air. Mr. Shaynor fed the dispensary stove, and we sucked
+cayenne-pepper jujubes and menthol lozenges. The brutal east wind had
+cleared the streets, and the few passers-by were muffled to their puckered
+eyes. In the Italian warehouse next door some gay feathered birds and
+game, hung upon hooks, sagged to the wind across the left edge of our
+window-frame.
+
+"They ought to take these poultry in--all knocked about like that," said
+Mr. Shaynor. "Doesn't it make you feel fair perishing? See that old hare!
+The wind's nearly blowing the fur off him."
+
+I saw the belly-fur of the dead beast blown apart in ridges and streaks as
+the wind caught it, showing bluish skin underneath. "Bitter cold," said
+Mr. Shaynor, shuddering. "Fancy going out on a night like this! Oh, here's
+young Mr. Cashell."
+
+The door of the inner office behind the dispensary opened, and an
+energetic, spade-bearded man stepped forth, rubbing his hands.
+
+"I want a bit of tin-foil, Shaynor," he said. "Good-evening. My uncle told
+me you might be coming." This to me, as I began the first of a hundred
+questions.
+
+"I've everything in order," he replied. "We're only waiting until Poole
+calls us up. Excuse me a minute. You can come in whenever you like--but
+I'd better be with the instruments. Give me that tin-foil. Thanks."
+
+While we were talking, a girl--evidently no customer--had come into the
+shop, and the face and bearing of Mr. Shaynor changed. She leaned
+confidently across the counter.
+
+"But I can't," I heard him whisper uneasily--the flush on his cheek was
+dull red, and his eyes shone like a drugged moth's. "I can't. I tell you
+I'm alone in the place."
+
+"No, you aren't. Who's _that_? Let him look after it for half an hour. A
+brisk walk will do you good. Ah, come now, John."
+
+"But he isn't----"
+
+"I don't care. I want you to; we'll only go round by St. Agnes. If you
+don't----"
+
+He crossed to where I stood in the shadow of the dispensary counter, and
+began some sort of broken apology about a lady-friend.
+
+"Yes," she interrupted. "You take the shop for half an hour--to oblige
+_me_, won't you?"
+
+She had a singularly rich and promising voice that well matched her
+outline.
+
+"All right," I said. "I'll do it--but you'd better wrap yourself up, Mr.
+Shaynor."
+
+"Oh, a brisk walk ought to help me. We're only going round by the church."
+I heard him cough grievously as they went out together.
+
+I refilled the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell's
+coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the glass-
+knobbed drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting drugs,
+and, by the aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and
+dilute alcohol, manufactured a new and wildish drink, of which I bore a
+glassful to young Mr. Cashell, busy in the back office. He laughed shortly
+when I told him that Mr. Shaynor had stepped out--but a frail coil of wire
+held all his attention, and he had no word for me bewildered among the
+batteries and rods. The noise of the sea on the beach began to make itself
+heard as the traffic in the street ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly,
+he gave me the names and uses of the mechanism that crowded the tables and
+the floor.
+
+"When do you expect to get the message from Poole?" I demanded, sipping my
+liquor out of a graduated glass.
+
+"About midnight, if everything is in order. We've got our installation-
+pole fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn't advise you to turn on a
+tap or anything tonight. We've connected up with the plumbing, and all the
+water will be electrified." He repeated to me the history of the agitated
+ladies at the hotel at the time of the first installation.
+
+"But what _is_ it?" I asked. "Electricity is out of my beat altogether."
+
+"Ah, if you knew _that_ you'd know something nobody knows. It's just It--
+what we call Electricity, but the magic--the manifestations--the Hertzian
+waves--are all revealed by _this_. The coherer, we call it."
+
+He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in which,
+almost touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an
+infinitesimal pinch of metallic dust. "That's all," he said, proudly, as
+though himself responsible for the wonder. "That is the thing that will
+reveal to us the Powers--whatever the Powers may be--at work--through
+space--a long distance away."
+
+Just then Mr. Shaynor returned alone and stood coughing his heart out on
+the mat.
+
+"Serves you right for being such a fool," said young Mr. Cashell, as
+annoyed as myself at the interruption. "Never mind--we've all the night
+before us to see wonders."
+
+Shaynor clutched the counter, his handkerchief to his lips. When he
+brought it away I saw two bright red stains.
+
+"I--I've got a bit of a rasped throat from smoking cigarettes," he panted.
+"I think I'll try a cubeb."
+
+"Better take some of this. I've been compounding while you've been away."
+I handed him the brew.
+
+"'Twon't make me drunk, will it? I'm almost a teetotaller. My word! That's
+grateful and comforting."
+
+He sat down the empty glass to cough afresh.
+
+"Brr! But it was cold out there! I shouldn't care to be lying in my grave
+a night like this. Don't _you_ ever have a sore throat from smoking?" He
+pocketed the handkerchief after a furtive peep.
+
+"Oh, yes, sometimes," I replied, wondering, while I spoke, into what
+agonies of terror I should fall if ever I saw those bright-red danger-
+signals under my nose. Young Mr. Cashell among the batteries coughed
+slightly to show that he was quite ready to continue his scientific
+explanations, but I was thinking still of the girl with the rich voice and
+the significantly cut mouth, at whose command I had taken charge of the
+shop. It flashed across me that she distantly resembled the seductive
+shape on a gold-framed toilet-water advertisement whose charms were
+unholily heightened by the glare from the red bottle in the window.
+Turning to make sure, I saw Mr. Shaynor's eyes bent in the same direction,
+and by instinct recognised that the flamboyant thing was to him a shrine.
+"What do you take for your--cough?" I asked.
+
+"Well, I'm the wrong side of the counter to believe much in patent
+medicines. But there are asthma cigarettes and there are pastilles. To
+tell you the truth, if you don't object to the smell, which is very like
+incense, I believe, though I'm not a Roman Catholic, Blaudett's Cathedral
+Pastilles relieve me as much as anything."
+
+"Let's try." I had never raided a chemist's shop before, so I was
+thorough. We unearthed the pastilles--brown, gummy cones of benzoin--and
+set them alight under the toilet-water advertisement, where they fumed in
+thin blue spirals.
+
+"Of course," said Mr. Shaynor, to my question, "what one uses in the shop
+for one's self comes out of one's pocket. Why, stock-taking in our
+business is nearly the same as with jewellers--and I can't say more than
+that. But one gets them"--he pointed to the pastille-box--"at trade
+prices." Evidently the censing of the gay, seven-tinted wench with the
+teeth was an established ritual which cost something.
+
+"And when do we shut up shop?"
+
+"We stay like this all night. The gov--old Mr. Cashell--doesn't believe
+in locks and shutters as compared with electric light. Besides it brings
+trade. I'll just sit here in the chair by the stove and write a letter,
+if you don't mind. Electricity isn't my prescription."
+
+The energetic young Mr. Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled
+himself up in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black, and
+yellow Austrian jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast about,
+amid patent medicine pamphlets, for something to read, but finding little,
+returned to the manufacture of the new drink. The Italian warehouse took
+down its game and went to bed. Across the street blank shutters flung back
+the gaslight in cold smears; the dried pavement seemed to rough up in
+goose-flesh under the scouring of the savage wind, and we could hear, long
+ere he passed, the policeman flapping his arms to keep himself warm.
+Within, the flavours of cardamoms and chloric-ether disputed those of the
+pastilles and a score of drugs and perfume and soap scents. Our electric
+lights, set low down in the windows before the tunbellied Rosamund jars,
+flung inward three monstrous daubs of red, blue, and green, that broke
+into kaleidoscopic lights on the facetted knobs of the drug-drawers, the
+cut-glass scent flagons, and the bulbs of the sparklet bottles. They
+flushed the white-tiled floor in gorgeous patches; splashed along the
+nickel-silver counter-rails, and turned the polished mahogany counter-
+panels to the likeness of intricate grained marbles--slabs of porphyry and
+malachite. Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and ere he began to write, took
+out a meagre bundle of letters. From my place by the stove, I could see
+the scalloped edges of the paper with a flaring monogram in the corner and
+could even smell the reek of chypre. At each page he turned toward the
+toilet-water lady of the advertisement and devoured her with over-luminous
+eyes. He had drawn the Austrian blanket over his shoulders, and among
+those warring lights he looked more than ever the incarnation of a drugged
+moth--a tiger-moth as I thought.
+
+He put his letter into an envelope, stamped it with stiff mechanical
+movements, and dropped it in the drawer. Then I became aware of the
+silence of a great city asleep--the silence that underlaid the even voice
+of the breakers along the sea-front--a thick, tingling quiet of warm life
+stilled down for its appointed time, and unconsciously I moved about the
+glittering shop as one moves in a sick-room. Young Mr. Cashell was
+adjusting some wire that crackled from time to time with the tense,
+knuckle-stretching sound of the electric spark. Upstairs, where a door
+shut and opened swiftly, I could hear his uncle coughing abed.
+
+"Here," I said, when the drink was properly warmed, "take some of this,
+Mr. Shaynor."
+
+He jerked in his chair with a start and a wrench, and held out his hand
+for the glass. The mixture, of a rich port-wine colour, frothed at the
+top.
+
+"It looks," he said, suddenly, "it looks--those bubbles--like a string of
+pearls winking at you--rather like the pearls round that young lady's
+neck." He turned again to the advertisement where the female in the dove-
+coloured corset had seen fit to put on all her pearls before she cleaned
+her teeth.
+
+"Not bad, is it?" I said.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+He rolled his eyes heavily full on me, and, as I stared, I beheld all
+meaning and consciousness die out of the swiftly dilating pupils. His
+figure lost its stark rigidity, softened into the chair, and, chin on
+chest, hands dropped before him, he rested open-eyed, absolutely still.
+
+"I'm afraid I've rather cooked Shaynor's goose," I said, bearing the fresh
+drink to young Mr. Cashell. "Perhaps it was the chloric-ether."
+
+"Oh, he's all right." The spade-bearded man glanced at him pityingly.
+"Consumptives go off in those sort of doses very often. It's exhaustion...
+I don't wonder. I dare say the liquor will do him good. It's grand stuff,"
+he finished his share appreciatively. "Well, as I was saying--before he
+interrupted--about this little coherer. The pinch of dust, you see, is
+nickel-filings. The Hertzian waves, you see, come out of space from the
+station that despatches 'em, and all these little particles are attracted
+together--cohere, we call it--for just so long as the current passes
+through them. Now, it's important to remember that the current is an
+induced current. There are a good many kinds of induction----"
+
+"Yes, but what _is_ induction?"
+
+"That's rather hard to explain untechnically. But the long and the short
+of it is that when a current of electricity passes through a wire there's
+a lot of magnetism present round that wire; and if you put another wire
+parallel to, and within what we call its magnetic field--why then, the
+second wire will also become charged with electricity."
+
+"On its own account?"
+
+"On its own account."
+
+"Then let's see if I've got it correctly. Miles off, at Poole, or wherever
+it is----"
+
+"It will be anywhere in ten years."
+
+"You've got a charged wire----"
+
+"Charged with Hertzian waves which vibrate, say, two hundred and thirty
+million times a second." Mr. Cashell snaked his forefinger rapidly through
+the air.
+
+"All right--a charged wire at Poole, giving out these waves into space.
+Then this wire of yours sticking out into space--on the roof of the house
+--in some mysterious way gets charged with those waves from Poole----"
+
+"Or anywhere--it only happens to be Poole tonight."
+
+"And those waves set the coherer at work, just like an ordinary telegraph-
+office ticker?"
+
+"No! That's where so many people make the mistake. The Hertzian waves
+wouldn't be strong enough to work a great heavy Morse instrument like
+ours. They can only just make that dust cohere, and while it coheres (a
+little while for a dot and a longer while for a dash) the current from
+this battery--the home battery"--he laid his hand on the thing--"can get
+through to the Morse printing-machine to record the dot or dash. Let me
+make it clearer. Do you know anything about steam?"
+
+"Very little. But go on."
+
+"Well, the coherer is like a steam-valve. Any child can open a valve and
+start a steamer's engines, because a turn of the hand lets in the main
+steam, doesn't it? Now, this home battery here ready to print is the main
+steam. The coherer is the valve, always ready to be turned on. The
+Hertzian wave is the child's hand that turns it."
+
+"I see. That's marvellous."
+
+"Marvellous, isn't it? And, remember, we're only at the beginning. There's
+nothing we sha'n't be able to do in ten years. I want to live--my God, how
+I want to live, and see it develop!" He looked through the door at Shaynor
+breathing lightly in his chair. "Poor beast! And he wants to keep company
+with Fanny Brand."
+
+"Fanny _who_?" I said, for the name struck an obscurely familiar chord in
+my brain--something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the word
+"arterial."
+
+"Fanny Brand--the girl you kept shop for." He laughed, "That's all I know
+about her, and for the life of me I can't see what Shaynor sees in her, or
+she in him."
+
+"_Can't_ you see what he sees in her?" I insisted.
+
+"Oh, yes, if _that's_ what you mean. She's a great, big, fat lump of a
+girl, and so on. I suppose that's why he's so crazy after her. She isn't
+his sort. Well, it doesn't matter. My uncle says he's bound to die before
+the year's out. Your drink's given him a good sleep, at any rate." Young
+Mr. Cashell could not catch Mr. Shaynor's face, which was half turned to
+the advertisement.
+
+I stoked the stove anew, for the room was growing cold, and lighted
+another pastille. Mr. Shaynor in his chair, never moving, looked through
+and over me with eyes as wide and lustreless as those of a dead hare.
+
+"Poole's late," said young Mr. Cashell, when I stepped back. "I'll just
+send them a call."
+
+He pressed a key in the semi-darkness, and with a rending crackle there
+leaped between two brass knobs a spark, streams of sparks, and sparks
+again.
+
+"Grand, isn't it? _That's_ the Power--our unknown Power--kicking and
+fighting to be let loose," said young Mr. Cashell. "There she goes--kick--
+kick--kick into space. I never get over the strangeness of it when I work
+a sending-machine--waves going into space, you know. T.R. is our call.
+Poole ought to answer with L.L.L."
+
+We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom of
+the tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear "_kiss--kiss--kiss_" of
+the halliards on the roof, as they were blown against the installation-
+pole.
+
+"Poole is not ready. I'll stay here and call you when he is."
+
+I returned to the shop, and set down my glass on a marble slab with a
+careless clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed once
+more on the advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the light from
+the red jar simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved without
+cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. "And threw--and threw--and threw,"
+he repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
+
+I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words--delivered
+roundly and clearly. These:--
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
+
+The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his
+place, rubbing his hands.
+
+It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading
+and prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read Keats,
+or could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a certain
+stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the highly-polished
+picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a vile chromo
+recalls some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken. Night, my drink,
+and solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a poet. He sat down
+again and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper, his lips quivering.
+
+I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made no
+sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read, amid
+half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:--
+
+  --Very cold it was. Very cold
+  The hare--the hare--the hare--
+  The birds----
+
+He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of the
+poulterer's shop where they jutted out against our window. Then one clear
+line came:--
+
+  The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.
+
+The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where
+the Blaudett's Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and went
+on:--
+
+  Incense in a censer--
+  Before her darling picture framed in gold--
+  Maiden's picture--angel's portrait--
+
+"Hsh!" said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though in the
+presence of spirits. "There's something coming through from somewhere; but
+it isn't Poole." I heard the crackle of sparks as he depressed the keys of
+the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something crackled, or it might
+have been the hair on my head. Then I heard my own voice, in a harsh
+whisper: "Mr. Cashell, there is something coming through here, too. Leave
+me alone till I tell you."
+
+"But I thought you'd come to see this wonderful thing--Sir," indignantly
+at the end.
+
+"Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet."
+
+I watched--I waited. Under the blue-veined hand--the dry hand of the
+consumptive--came away clear, without erasure:
+
+And my weak spirit fails To think how the dead must freeze--
+he shivered as he wrote--
+
+Beneath the churchyard mould.
+
+Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.
+
+For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
+rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most
+dispassionately considered my own soul as that fought with an over-
+mastering fear. Then I smelt the strong smell of cigarettes from Mr.
+Shaynor's clothing, and heard, as though it had been the rending of
+trumpets, the rattle of his breathing. I was still in my place of
+observation, much as one would watch a rifle-shot at the butts, half-bent,
+hands on my knees, and head within a few inches of the black, red, and
+yellow blanket of his shoulder. I was whispering encouragement, evidently
+to my other self, sounding sentences, such as men pronounce in dreams.
+
+"If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn't--like causes _must_
+beget like effects. There is no escape from this law. _You_ ought to be
+grateful that you know 'St. Agnes Eve' without the book; because, given
+the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is the key of the enigma, and
+approximately represents the latitude and longitude of Fanny Brawne;
+allowing also for the bright red colour of the arterial blood upon the
+handkerchief, which was just what you were puzzling over in the shop just
+now; and counting the effect of the professional environment, here almost
+perfectly duplicated--the result is logical and inevitable. As inevitable
+as induction."
+
+Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was cowering
+in some minute and inadequate corner--at an immense distance.
+
+Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my
+knees, and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers
+accept and explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of the
+dead, with excerpts from the evening hymn or the multiplication-table, so
+I had accepted the facts, whatever they might be, that I should witness,
+and had devised a theory, sane and plausible to my mind, that explained
+them all. Nay, I was even in advance of my facts, walking hurriedly before
+them, assured that they would fit my theory. And all that I now recall of
+that epoch-making theory are the lofty words: "If he has read Keats it's
+the chloric-ether. If he hasn't, it's the identical bacillus, or Hertzian
+wave of tuberculosis, _plus_ Fanny Brand and the professional status
+which, in conjunction with the main-stream of subconscious thought common
+to all mankind, has thrown up temporarily an induced Keats."
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with
+swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote,
+muttering:
+
+The little smoke of a candle that goes out.
+
+"No," he muttered. "Little smoke--little smoke--little smoke. What else?"
+He thrust his chin forward toward the advertisement, whereunder the last
+of the Blaudett's Cathedral pastilles fumed in its holder. "Ah!" Then with
+relief:--
+
+The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.
+
+Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote and
+rewrote "gold--cold--mould" many times. Again he sought inspiration from
+the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had
+overheard:
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
+
+As I remembered the original it is "fair"--a trite word--instead of
+"young," and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that the
+attempt to reproduce "its little smoke in pallid moonlight died" was a
+failure.
+
+Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose--the naked
+soul's confession of its physical yearning for its beloved--unclean as we
+count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw material,
+so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence Keats wove the
+twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem. Shame I had none in
+overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone with the smoke of the
+pastille.
+
+"That's it," I murmured. "That's how it's blocked out. Go on! Ink it in,
+man. Ink it in!"
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein "loveliness" was made to
+rhyme with a desire to look upon "her empty dress." He picked up a fold of
+the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with infinite
+tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I could not
+decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped the stuff.
+Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I do now) in
+what manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket coloured his dreams.
+
+In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the
+shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket,
+rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the
+labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie's _New Commercial
+Plants_ and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them
+side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face,
+read first in one and then in the other, and paused with pen behind his
+ear.
+
+"What wonder of Heaven's coming now?" I thought.
+
+"Manna--manna--manna," he said at last, under wrinkled brows. "That's what
+I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that's good!"
+His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:--
+
+  Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
+  And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
+  And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,
+  Manna and dates in Argosy transferred
+  From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
+  From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
+
+He repeated it once more, using "blander" for "smoother" in the second
+line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes
+missed no stroke of any word) he substituted "soother" for his atrocious
+second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is written in
+the book--as it is written in the book.
+
+A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind
+followed a spurt and rattle of rain.
+
+After a smiling pause--and good right had he to smile--he began anew,
+always tossing the last sheet over his shoulder:--
+
+  "The sharp rain falling on the window-pane,
+  Rattling sleet--the wind-blown sleet."
+
+Then prose: "It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and
+sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and thought
+of you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we could both run
+away like two lovers into the storm and get that little cottage by the
+sea which we are always thinking about, my own dear darling. We could sit
+and watch the sea beneath our windows. It would be a fairyland all of our
+own--a fairy sea--a fairy sea...."
+
+He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the
+Channel along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up a
+note to the sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to
+flood. It beat in like the change of step throughout an army--this
+renewed pulse of the sea--and filled our ears till they, accepting it,
+marked it no longer.
+
+  "A fairyland for you and me
+  Across the foam--beyond ...
+  A magic foam, a perilous sea."
+
+He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but I
+dared not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was
+drawing him nearer and nearer to the high-water mark but two of the sons
+of Adam have reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted there
+are no more than five--five little lines--of which one can say: "These
+are the pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry."
+And Mr. Shaynor was playing hot and cold with two of them!
+
+I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold
+soul, and pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and
+re-repeating:
+
+  A savage spot as holy and enchanted
+  As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
+  By woman wailing for her demon lover.
+
+But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon
+the writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals
+and cigarette-smoke.
+
+  Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,
+
+(he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then--
+
+  "Our open casements facing desolate seas
+  Forlorn--forlorn--"
+
+Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I had
+first seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was
+tenfold keener. As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It
+lighted his face from within till I thought the visibly scourged soul
+must leap forth naked between his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of sweat
+trickled from my forehead down my nose and splashed on the back of my
+hand.
+
+  "Our windows facing on the desolate seas
+  And pearly foam of magic fairyland--"
+
+  "Not yet--not yet," he muttered, "wait a minute.
+  _Please_ wait a minute. I shall get it then--"
+
+  Our magic windows fronting on the sea,
+  The dangerous foam of desolate seas ..
+  For aye.
+
+"_Ouh_, my God!"
+
+From head to heel he shook--shook from the marrow of his bones
+outwards--then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair
+screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind and
+fell with a jar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.
+
+As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.
+
+"I've had a bit of a doze," he said. "How did I come to knock the chair
+over? You look rather--"
+
+"The chair startled me," I answered. "It was so sudden in this quiet."
+
+Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.
+
+"I suppose I must have been dreaming," said Mr. Shaynor.
+
+"I suppose you must," I said. "Talking of dreams--I--I noticed you
+writing--before--"
+
+He flushed consciously.
+
+"I meant to ask you if you've ever read anything written by a man called
+Keats."
+
+"Oh! I haven't much time to read poetry, and I can't say that I remember
+the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?"
+
+"Middling. I thought you might know him because he's the only poet who
+was ever a druggist. And he's rather what's called the lover's poet."
+
+"Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?"
+
+"A lot of things. Here's a sample that may interest you."
+
+Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and
+once written not ten minutes ago.
+
+"Ah. Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the
+tinctures and syrups. It's a fine tribute to our profession."
+
+"I don't know," said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening the
+door one half-inch, "if you still happen to be interested in our trifling
+experiments. But, should such be the case----"
+
+I drew him aside, whispering, "Shaynor seemed going off into some sort of
+fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of being
+rude, it wouldn't do to take you off your instruments just as the call
+was coming through. Don't you see?"
+
+"Granted--granted as soon as asked," he said unbending. "I _did_ think it
+a shade odd at the time. So that was why he knocked the chair down?"
+
+"I hope I haven't missed anything," I said.
+"I'm afraid I can't say that, but you're just in time for the end of a
+rather curious performance. You can come in, too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen,
+while I read it off."
+
+The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted:
+"'_K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals_.'" A pause. "'_M.M.V. M.M.V.
+Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sandown Bay. Examine instruments
+to-morrow.'_ Do you know what that means? It's a couple of men-o'-war
+working Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight. They are trying to talk to
+each other. Neither can read the other's messages, but all their messages
+are being taken in by our receiver here. They've been going on for ever so
+long. I wish you could have heard it."
+
+"How wonderful!" I said. "Do you mean we're overhearing Portsmouth ships
+trying to talk to each other--that we're eavesdropping across half South
+England?"
+
+"Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are out
+of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing clear."
+
+"Why is that?"
+
+"God knows--and Science will know to-morrow. Perhaps the induction is
+faulty; perhaps the receivers aren't tuned to receive just the number of
+vibrations per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here and
+there. Just enough to tantalise."
+
+Again the Morse sprang to life.
+
+"That's one of 'em complaining now. Listen: '_Disheartening--most
+disheartening_.' It's quite pathetic. Have you ever seen a spiritualistic
+seance? It reminds me of that sometimes--odds and ends of messages coming
+out of nowhere--a word here and there--no good at all."
+
+"But mediums are all impostors," said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway,
+lighting an asthma-cigarette. "They only do it for the money they can
+make. I've seen 'em."
+
+"Here's Poole, at last--clear as a bell. L.L.L. _Now_ we sha'n't be long."
+Mr. Cashell rattled the keys merrily. "Anything you'd like to tell 'em?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," I said. "I'll go home and get to bed. I'm feeling
+a little tired."
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+SONG OF THE OLD GUARD
+
+"And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work shall the
+candlestick be made: his shaft and its branches, his bowls, his knops,
+and his flowers, shall be the same.
+
+"And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop
+under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the
+same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick.
+Their knops and their branches shall be the same."--_Exodus._
+
+  "Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
+    And all the clouds are gone--
+  The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
+    Good times are coming on"--
+  The evil that was threatened late
+    To all of our degree,
+  Hath passed in discord and debate,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  A common people strove in vain
+    To shame us unto toil,
+  But they are spent and we remain,
+    And we shall share the spoil
+  According to our several needs
+    As Beauty shall decree,
+  As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  And they that with accursed zeal
+    Our Service would amend,
+  Shall own the odds and come to heel
+    Ere worse befall their end
+  For though no naked word be wrote
+    Yet plainly shall they see
+  What pinneth Orders to their coat,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Our doorways that, in time of fear,
+    We opened overwide
+  Shall softly close from year to year
+    Till all be purified;
+  For though no fluttering fan be heard
+    Nor chaff be seen to flee--
+  The Lord shall winnow the Lord's Preferred--
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Our altars which the heathen brake
+    Shall rankly smoke anew,
+  And anise, mint, and cummin take
+    Their dread and sovereign due,
+  Whereby the buttons of our trade
+    Shall all restored be
+  With curious work in gilt and braid,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Then come, my brethren, and prepare
+    The candlesticks and bells,
+  The scarlet, brass, and badger's hair
+    Wherein our Honour dwells,
+  And straitly fence and strictly keep
+    The Ark's integrity
+  Till Armageddon break our sleep ...
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+PART I
+
+I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was entirely natural that I should be talking to "Boy" Bayley. We had
+met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside
+Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount
+Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half
+the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think
+he stayed a long, long time.
+
+But now he had come back.
+
+"Are you still a Tynesider?" I asked.
+
+"I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son," he
+replied.
+
+"Guard which? They've been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don't pull my leg,
+Boy."
+
+"I said Guard, not Guard-s. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters.
+Does that make it any clearer?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren't a step from
+barracks. Keep on my right side. I'm--I'm a bit deaf on the near."
+
+We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied
+pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I could
+see no sentry at the gates.
+
+"There ain't any," said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled
+restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the
+room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.
+
+"Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These
+are our chaps--but what am I thinking of? You must know most of 'em.
+Devine's my second in command now. There's old Luttrell--remember him at
+Cherat?--Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him), Harrison,
+Pigeon, and Kyd."
+
+With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember
+that they had all been Tynesiders.
+
+"I've never seen this sort of place," I said, looking round. "Half the
+men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children
+doing?"
+
+"Eating, I hope," Boy Bayley answered. "Our canteens would never pay if
+it wasn't for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started
+people looked on 'em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or
+two to lunch in 'em, and they've been grossly fashionable since."
+
+"So I see," I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores came
+up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of the
+corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three other
+uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.
+
+"I give it up," I said. "This is guilty splendour that I don't
+understand."
+
+"Quite simple," said Burgard across the table. "The barrack supplies
+breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard (which
+we call I. G.) when it's in barracks as well as to the Line and Militia.
+They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for them. That's
+where we make our profits. Look!"
+
+Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in
+the raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to jest
+with the uniforms about them; and when one o'clock clanged from a big
+half-built block of flats across the street, filed out.
+
+"Those," Devine explained, "are either our Line or Militiamen, as such
+entitled to the regulation whack at regulation cost. It's cheaper than
+they could buy it; an' they meet their friends too. A man'll walk a mile
+in his dinner hour to mess with his own lot."
+
+"Wait a minute," I pleaded. "Will you tell me what those plumbers and
+plasterers and bricklayers that I saw go out just now have to do with
+what I was taught to call the Line?"
+
+"Tell him," said the Boy over his shoulder to Burgard. He was busy
+talking with the large Verschoyle, my old schoolmate.
+
+"The Line comes next to the Guard. The Linesman's generally a town-bird
+who can't afford to be a Volunteer. He has to go into camp in an Area for
+two months his first year, six weeks his second, and a month the third.
+He gets about five bob a week the year round for that and for being on
+duty two days of the week, and for being liable to be ordered out to help
+the Guard in a row. He needn't live in barracks unless he wants to, and
+he and his family can feed at the regimental canteen at usual rates. The
+women like it."
+
+"All this," I said politely, but intensely, "is the raving of delirium.
+Where may your precious recruit who needn't live in barracks learn his
+drill?"
+
+"At his precious school, my child, like the rest of us. The notion of
+allowing a human being to reach his twentieth year before asking him to
+put his feet in the first position _was_ raving lunacy if you like!" Boy
+Bayley dived back into the conversation.
+
+"Very good," I said meekly. "I accept the virtuous plumber who puts in
+two months of his valuable time at Aldershot----"
+
+"Aldershot!" The table exploded. I felt a little annoyed.
+
+"A camp in an Area is not exactly Aldershot," said Burgard. "The Line
+isn't exactly what you fancy. Some of them even come to _us_!"
+
+"You recruit from 'em?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Devine with mock solemnity. "The Guard doesn't
+recruit. It selects."
+
+"It would," I said, "with a Spiers and Pond restaurant; pretty girls to
+play with; and----"
+
+"A room apiece, four bob a day and all found," said Verschoyle. "Don't
+forget that."
+
+"Of course!" I said. "It probably beats off recruits with a club."
+
+"No, with the ballot-box," said Verschoyle, laughing. "At least in all
+R.C. companies."
+
+"I didn't know Roman Catholics were so particular," I ventured.
+
+They grinned. "R.C. companies," said the Boy, "mean Right of Choice. When
+a company has been very good and pious for a long time it may, if the
+C.O. thinks fit, choose its own men--all same one-piecee club. All our
+companies are R.C.'s, and as the battalion is making up a few vacancies
+ere starting once more on the wild and trackless 'heef' into the Areas,
+the Linesman is here in force to-day sucking up to our non-coms."
+
+"Would some one mind explaining to me the meaning of every other word
+you've used," I said. "What's a trackless 'heef'? What's an Area? What's
+everything generally?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, 'heefs' part of the British Constitution," said the Boy. "It began
+long ago when they'd first mapped out the big military manoeuvring
+grounds--we call 'em Areas for short--where the I. G. spend two-thirds of
+their time and the other regiments get their training. It was slang
+originally for beef on the hoof, because in the Military Areas two-thirds
+of your meat-rations at least are handed over to you on the hoof, and you
+make your own arrangements. The word 'heef' became a parable for camping
+in the Military Areas and all its miseries. There are two Areas in
+Ireland, one in Wales for hill-work, a couple in Scotland, and a sort of
+parade-ground in the Lake District; but the real working Areas are in
+India, Africa, and Australia, and so on."
+
+"And what do you do there?"
+
+"We 'heef' under service conditions, which are rather like hard work. We
+'heef' in an English Area for about a year, coming into barracks for one
+month to make up wastage. Then we may 'heef' foreign for another year or
+eighteen months. Then we do sea-time in the war boats----"
+
+"_What-t?_" I said.
+
+"Sea-time," Bayley repeated. "Just like Marines,
+to learn about the big guns and how to embark and disembark quick. Then
+we come back to our territorial headquarters for six months, to educate
+the Line and Volunteer camps, to go to Hythe, to keep abreast of any new
+ideas, and then we fill up vacancies. We call those six months 'Schools,'
+Then we begin all over again, thus: Home 'heef,' foreign 'heef,'
+sea-time, schools. 'Heefing' isn't precisely luxurious, but it's on
+'heef' that we make our head-money."
+
+"Or lose it," said the sallow Pigeon, and all laughed, as men will, at
+regimental jokes.
+
+"The Dove never lets me forget that," said Boy Bayley. "It happened last
+March. We were out in the Second Northern Area at the top end of Scotland
+where a lot of those silly deer forests used to be. I'd sooner 'heef' in
+the middle of Australia myself--or Athabasca, with all respect to the
+Dove--he's a native of those parts. We were camped somewhere near
+Caithness, and the Armity (that's the combined Navy and Army board that
+runs our show) sent us about eight hundred raw remounts to break in to
+keep us warm."
+
+"Why horses for a foot regiment?"
+
+"I.G.'s don't foot it unless they're obliged to. No have gee-gee how can
+move? I'll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we broke those beasts
+in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we started across
+Scotland to Applecross to hand 'em over to a horse-depot there. It was
+snowing cruel, and we didn't know the country overmuch. You remember the
+30th--the old East Lancashire--at Mian Mir?
+
+"Their Guard Battalion had been 'heefing' round those parts for six
+months. We thought they'd be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but Burden,
+their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to Eschol."
+
+"Confound him," said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking. "I
+entertained one of 'em--in a red worsted comforter--under Bean Derig. He
+said he was a crofter. 'Gave him a drink too."
+
+"I don't mind admitting," said the Boy, "that, what with the cold and the
+remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden bottled us under
+Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut off a lot
+of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the dirt."
+
+"Was he allowed to do that?" I said.
+
+"There is no peace in a Military Area. If we'd
+beaten him off or got away without losing anyone, we'd have been entitled
+to a day's pay from every man engaged against us. But we didn't. He cut
+off fifty of ours, held 'em as prisoners for the regulation three days,
+and then sent in his bill--three days' pay for each man taken. Fifty men
+at twelve bob a head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured
+officer, and Kyd here, his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden
+& Co. They crowed over us horrid."
+
+"Couldn't you have appealed to an umpire or--or something?"
+
+"We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and look
+happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr Mohr. I
+spent three days huntin' 'em in the snow, but they went off on our
+remounts about twenty mile that night."
+
+"Do you always do this sham-fight business?" I asked.
+
+"Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that a
+fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week's pay isn't
+so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the long run,
+it's like whist on a P. & O. It comes out fairly level if you play long
+enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present--say, when a Line
+regiment's out on the 'heef,' and signifies that it's ready to abide by
+the rules of the game. You mustn't take head-money from a Line regiment
+in an Area unless it says that it'll play you; but, after a week or two,
+those clever Linesmen always think they see a chance of making a pot, and
+send in their compliments to the nearest I.G. Then the fun begins. We
+caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years ago in
+Ireland--caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had just
+moved in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march in
+fourteen hours, and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to
+ground like a badger--I _will_ say those Line regiments can dig--but we
+got out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to
+get its baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that
+some Sappers had made for experimental purposes (_they_ were rather
+stuffy about it) on its line of retreat, while we lay up in the mountains
+and signalled for the A.C. of those parts."
+
+"Who's an A.C.?" I asked.
+
+"The Adjustment Committee--the umpires of the Military Areas. They're a
+set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the purpose, but they
+occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our dispositions,
+and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and that we were
+entitled to our full pound of flesh--head-money for one whole regiment,
+with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line rates this worked
+out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not bad!"
+
+"But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their patent
+bridge to pieces," Devine interpolated. "That was a swindle."
+
+"That's true," the Boy went on, "but the Adjustment Committee gave our
+helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred to hear."
+
+"But isn't there a lot of unfairness in this head-money system?" I asked.
+
+"Can't have everything perfect," said the Boy. "Head-money is an attempt
+at payment by results, and it gives the men a direct interest in their
+job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C. will disallow both
+sides' claim, but there's always the chance of bringing off a coup."
+
+"Do all regiments do it?"
+
+"Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence, not
+to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It isn't
+supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than anyone.
+Why, the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at Aldershot or
+Salisbury."
+
+"Head-money's a national institution--like betting," said Burgard.
+
+"I should say it was," said Pigeon suddenly. "I was roped in the other
+day as an Adjustment Committee by the Kemptown Board School. I was riding
+under the Brighton racecourse, and I heard the whistle goin' for
+umpire--the regulation, two longs and two shorts. I didn't take any
+notice till an infant about a yard high jumped up from a furze-patch and
+shouted: 'Guard! Guard! Come 'ere! I want you _per_fessionally. Alf says
+'e ain't outflanked. Ain't 'e a liar? Come an' look 'ow I've posted my
+men.' You bet I looked. The young demon trotted by my stirrup and showed
+me his whole army (twenty of 'em) laid out under cover as nicely as you
+please round a cowhouse in a hollow. He kept on shouting: 'I've drew Alf
+into there. 'Is persition ain't tenable. Say it ain't tenable, Guard!' I
+rode round the position, and Alf with his army came out of his cowhouse
+an' sat on the roof and protested like a--like a Militia Colonel; but the
+facts were in favour of my friend and I umpired according. Well, Alf
+abode by my decision. I explained it to him at length, and he solemnly
+paid up his head-money--farthing points if you please."
+
+"Did they pay you umpire's fee?" said Kyd. "I
+umpired a whole afternoon once for a village school at home, and they
+stood me a bottle of hot ginger beer."
+
+"I compromised on a halfpenny--a sticky one--or I'd have hurt their
+feelings," said Pigeon gravely. "But I gave 'em sixpence back."
+
+"How were they manoeuvring and what with?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, by whistle and hand-signal. They had the dummy Board School guns and
+flags for positions, but they were rushing their attack much too quick
+for that open country. I told 'em so, and they admitted it."
+
+"But who taught 'em?" I said.
+
+"They had learned in their schools, of course, like the rest of us. They
+were all of 'em over ten; and squad-drill begins when they're eight. They
+knew their company-drill a heap better than they knew their King's
+English."
+
+"How much drill do the boys put in?" I asked.
+
+"All boys begin physical drill to music in the Board Schools when they're
+six; squad-drill, one hour a week, when they're eight; company-drill when
+they're ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between ten and twelve they
+get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle at twelve and record
+their first target-score at thirteen. That's what the Code lays down. But
+it's worked very loosely so long as a boy comes up to the standard of his
+age."
+
+"In Canada we don't need your physical drill. We're born fit," said
+Pigeon, "and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of your
+twelve-year-olds."
+
+"I may as well explain," said the Boy, "that the Dove is our 'swop'
+officer. He's an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when he's at home. An
+I. G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a Canadian or
+Australian or African Guard Corps. We've had a year of our Dove, an' we
+shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride. Meantime,
+Morten, our 'swop' in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck humble. When
+Pij. goes we shall swop Kyd, who's next on the roster, for a Cornstalk or
+a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can't attend First Camp, as
+we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First Musketry
+certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and the boys
+usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they've been to
+their little private camps and Boys' Fresh Air Camps and public school
+picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the young
+drafts all meet--generally at Aldershot in this part of the world. First
+Camp lasts a week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for
+vaccination and worked lightly in brigades with lots of blank cartridge.
+Second Camp--that's for the fifteen to eighteen-year-olds--lasts ten days
+or a fortnight, and that includes a final medical examination. Men don't
+like to be chucked out on medical certificates much--nowadays. I assure
+you Second Camp, at Salisbury, say, is an experience for a young I.G.
+officer. We're told off to 'em in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys isn't
+in it. The kids are apt to think 'emselves soldiers, and we have to take
+the edge off 'em with lots of picquet-work and night attacks."
+
+"And what happens after Second Camp?"
+
+"It's hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically, the
+boys needn't show up for the next three or four years after Second Camp.
+They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the young
+doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that sticks to
+the minimum of camp--ten days per annum. That gives him a holiday in the
+open air, and now that men have taken to endowing their Volunteer
+drill-halls with baths and libraries, he finds, if he can't run to a
+club, that his own drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He meets men
+there who'll be useful to him later, and he keeps himself in touch with
+what's going on while he's studying for his profession. The
+town-birds--such as the chemist's assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic,
+electrician, and so forth--generally put in for their town Volunteer
+corps as soon as they begin to walk out with the girls. They like takin'
+their true-loves to our restaurants. Look yonder!" I followed his gaze,
+and saw across the room a man and a maid at a far table, forgetting in
+each other's eyes the good food on their plates.
+
+"So it is," said I. "Go ahead."
+
+"Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out to
+attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of 'em on
+condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their county.
+Under the new county qualifications--birth or three years' residence--that
+means a great deal in League matches, and the same in County cricket."
+
+"By Jove, that's a good notion," I cried. "Who invented it?"
+
+"C. B. Fry--long ago. He said in his paper, that County cricket and
+County volunteering ought to be on the same footing--unpaid and genuine.
+'No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer' was his watchword. There
+was a row among the pro's at first, but C. B. won, and later the League
+had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when
+County matches began to be _pukka_ county, _plus_ inter-regimental,
+affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the
+regiments supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in cash.
+It's all unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call 'em, can
+take their pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten guineas
+entrance-fee, and get it too, from the young bloods that want to shine in
+the arena. I told you we catered for all tastes. Now, as regards the Line
+proper, I believe the young artisan and mechanic puts in for that before
+he marries. He likes the two-months' 'heef' in his first year, and five
+bob a week is something to go on with between times."
+
+"Do they follow their trade while they're in the Line?" I demanded.
+
+"Why not? How many well-paid artisans work more than four days a week
+anyhow? Remember a Linesman hasn't to be drilled in your sense of the
+word. He must have had at least eight years' grounding in that, as well
+as two or three years in his Volunteer battalion. He can sleep where he
+pleases. He can't leave town-limits without reporting himself, of course,
+but he can get leave if he wants it. He's on duty two days in the week as
+a rule, and he's liable to be invited out for garrison duty down the
+Mediterranean, but his benefit societies will insure him against that.
+I'll tell you about that later. If it's a hard winter and trade's slack,
+a lot of the bachelors are taken into the I. G. barracks (while the I. G.
+is out on the heef) for theoretical instruction. Oh, I assure you the
+Line hasn't half a bad time of it."
+
+"Amazing!" I murmured. "And what about the others?"
+
+"The Volunteers? Observe the beauty of our system. We're a free people.
+We get up and slay the man who says we aren't. But as a little detail we
+never mention, if we don't volunteer in some corps or another--as
+combatants if we're fit, as non-combatants, if we ain't--till we're
+thirty-five we don't vote, and we don't get poor-relief, and the women
+don't love us."
+
+"Oh, that's the compulsion of it?" said I.
+
+Bayley inclined his head gravely. "That, Sir, is the compulsion. We voted
+the legal part of it ourselves in a fit of panic, and we have not yet
+rescinded our resolution. The women attend to the unofficial penalties.
+But being free British citizens----"
+
+"_And_ snobs," put in Pigeon.
+"The point is well taken, Pij------we have supplied ourselves with every
+sort and shape and make of Volunteer corps that you can imagine, and we've
+mixed the whole show up with our Odd Fellows and our I.O.G.T.'s and our
+Buffaloes, and our Burkes and our Debretts, not to mention Leagues and
+Athletic Clubs, till you can't tell t'other from which. You remember the
+young pup who used to look on soldiering as a favour done to his
+ungrateful country--the gun-poking, ferret-pettin', landed gentleman's
+offspring--the suckin' Facey Romford? Well, he generally joins a Foreign
+Service Corps when he leaves college."
+
+"Can Volunteers go foreign, then?"
+
+"Can't they just, if their C.O. _or_ his wife has influence! The Armity
+will always send a well-connected F.S. corps out to help a guard battalion
+in a small campaign. Otherwise F.S. corps make their own arrangements
+about camps. You see, the Military Areas are always open. They can 'heef'
+there (and gamble on head-money) as long as their finances run to it; or
+they can apply to do sea-time in the ships. It's a cheap way for a young
+man to see the world, and if he's any good he can try to get into the
+Guard later."
+
+"The main point," said Pigeon, "is that F.S. corps are 'swagger'--the
+correct thing. It 'ud never do to be drawn for the Militia, don't you
+know," he drawled, trying to render the English voice.
+
+"That's what happens to a chap who doesn't volunteer," said Bayley. "Well,
+after the F.S. corps (we've about forty of 'em) come our territorial
+Volunteer battalions, and a man who can't suit himself somewhere among 'em
+must be a shade difficult. We've got those 'League' corps I was talking
+about; and those studious corps that just scrape through their ten days'
+camp; and we've crack corps of highly-paid mechanics who can afford a two
+months' 'heef' in an interesting Area every other year; and we've senior
+and junior scientific corps of earnest boilermakers and fitters and
+engineers who read papers on high explosives, and do their 'heefing' in a
+wet picket-boat--mine-droppin'--at the ports. Then we've heavy artillery--
+recruited from the big manufacturing towns and ship-building yards--and
+ferocious hard-ridin' Yeomanry (they _can_ ride--now), genteel, semi-
+genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till you come to the
+Home Defence Establishment--the young chaps knocked out under medical
+certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit behind hedges or
+clean up camp, and the old was-birds who've served their time but don't
+care to drop out of the fun of the yearly camps and the halls. They call
+'emselves veterans and do fancy-shooting at Bisley, but, between you and
+me, they're mostly Fresh Air Benefit Clubs. They contribute to the
+Volunteer journals and tell the Guard that it's no good. But I like 'em. I
+shall be one of 'em some day--a copper-nosed was-bird! ... So you see
+we're mixed to a degree on the Volunteer side."
+
+"It sounds that way," I ventured.
+
+"You've overdone it, Bayley," said Devine. "You've missed our one strong
+point." He turned to me and continued: "It's embarkation. The Volunteers
+may be as mixed as the Colonel says, but they _are_ trained to go down to
+the sea in ships. You ought to see a big Bank-Holiday roll-out. We suspend
+most of the usual railway traffic and turn on the military time-table--say
+on Friday at midnight. By 4 A.M. the trains are running from every big
+centre in England to the nearest port at two-minute intervals. As a rule,
+the Armity meets us at the other end with shipping of sorts--fleet
+reserves or regular men of war or hulks--anything you can stick a
+gang-plank to. We pile the men on to the troop-decks, stack the rifles in
+the racks, send down the sea-kit, steam about for a few hours, and land
+'em somewhere. It's a good notion, because our army to be any use _must_
+be an army of embarkation. Why, last Whit Monday we had--how many were
+down at the dock-edge in the first eight hours? Kyd, you're the Volunteer
+enthusiast last from school."
+
+"In the first ten hours over a hundred and eighteen thousand," said Kyd
+across the table, "with thirty-six thousand actually put in and taken out
+of ship. In the whole thirty-six hours we had close on ninety thousand men
+on the water and a hundred and thirty-three thousand on the quays fallen
+in with their sea-kit."
+
+"That must have been a sight," I said.
+
+"One didn't notice it much. It was scattered between Chatham, Dover,
+Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, and so on, merely to give the
+inland men a chance to get rid of their breakfasts. We don't like to
+concentrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the
+Continent jumpy. Otherwise," said Kyd, "I believe we could get two hundred
+thousand men, with their kits, away on one tide."
+
+"What d'you want with so many?" I asked.
+
+"_We_ don't want one of 'em; but the Continent used to point out, every
+time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier than to raid
+England if they got command of the sea for a week. After a few years some
+genius discovered that it cut both ways, an' there was no reason why we,
+who are supposed to command the sea and own a few ships, should not
+organise our little raids in case of need. The notion caught on among the
+Volunteers--they were getting rather sick of manoeuvres on dry land--and
+since then we haven't heard so much about raids from the Continent," said
+Bayley.
+
+"It's the offensive-defensive," said Verschoyle, "that they talk so much
+about. We learned it _all_ from the Continent--bless 'em! They insisted on
+it so."
+
+"No, we learned it from the Fleet," said Devine. "The Mediterranean Fleet
+landed ten thousand marines and sailors, with guns, in twenty minutes once
+at manoeuvres. That was long ago. I've seen the Fleet Reserve and a few
+paddle-steamers, hired for the day, land twenty-five thousand Volunteers
+at Bantry in four hours--half the men sea-sick too. You've no notion what
+a difference that sort of manoeuvre makes in the calculations of our
+friends on the mainland. The Continent knows what invasion means. It's
+like dealing with a man whose nerve has been shaken. It doesn't cost much
+after all, and it makes us better friends with the great European family.
+We're now as thick as thieves."
+
+"Where does the Imperial Guard come in in all this gorgeousness?" I asked.
+"You're unusual modest about yourselves."
+
+"As a matter of fact, we're supposed to go out and stay out. We're the
+permanently mobilised lot. I don't think there are more than eight I.G.
+battalions in England now. We're a hundred battalions all told. Mostly on
+the 'heef' in India, Africa and so forth."
+
+"A hundred thousand. Isn't that small allowance?" I suggested.
+
+"You think so? One hundred thousand _men_, without a single case of
+venereal, and an average sick list of two per cent, permanently on a war
+footing? Well, perhaps you're right, but it's a useful little force to
+begin with while the others are getting ready. There's the native Indian
+Army also, which isn't a broken reed, and, since 'no Volunteer no Vote' is
+the rule throughout the Empire, you will find a few men in Canada,
+Australia, and elsewhere, that are fairly hefty in their class."
+
+"But a hundred thousand isn't enough for garrison duty," I persisted.
+
+"A hundred thousand _sound_ men, not sick boys, go quite a way," said
+Pigeon.
+
+"We expect the Line to garrison the Mediterranean Ports and thereabouts,"
+said Bayley. "Don't sneer at the mechanic. He's deuced good stuff. He
+isn't rudely ordered out, because this ain't a military despotism, and we
+have to consider people's feelings. The Armity usually brackets three Line
+regiments together, and calls for men for six months or a year for Malta,
+Gib, or elsewhere, at a bob a day. Three battalions will give you nearly a
+whole battalion of bachelors between 'em. You fill up deficiencies with a
+call on the territorial Volunteer battalion, and away you go with what we
+call a Ports battalion. What's astonishing in that? Remember that in this
+country, where fifty per cent of the able-bodied males have got a pretty
+fair notion of soldiering, and, which is more, have all camped out in the
+open, you wake up the spirit of adventure in the young."
+
+"Not much adventure at Malta, Gib, or Cyprus," I retorted. "Don't they get
+sick of it?"
+
+"But you don't realise that we treat 'em rather differently from the
+soldier of the past. You ought to go and see a Ports battalion drawn from
+a manufacturing centre growin' vines in Cyprus in its shirt sleeves; and
+at Gib, and Malta, of course, the battalions are working with the Fleet
+half the time."
+
+"It seems to me," I said angrily, "you are knocking _esprit de corps_ on
+the head with all this Army-Navy jumble. It's as bad as----"
+
+"I know what you're going to say. As bad as what Kitchener used to do when
+he believed that a thousand details picked up on the veldt were as good as
+a column of two regiments. In the old days, when drill was a sort of holy
+sacred art learned in old age, you'd be quite right. But remember _our_
+chaps are broke to drill from childhood, and the theory we work on is that
+a thousand trained Englishmen ought to be about as good as another
+thousand trained Englishmen. We've enlarged our horizon, that's all. Some
+day the Army and the Navy will be interchangeable."
+
+"You've enlarged it enough to fall out of, I think. Now where in all this
+mess of compulsory Volunteers----?"
+
+"My dear boy, there's no compulsion. You've _got_ to be drilled when
+you're a child, same as you've got to learn to read, and if you don't
+pretend to serve in some corps or other till you're thirty-five or
+medically chucked you rank with lunatics, women, and minors. That's fair
+enough."
+
+"Compulsory conscripts," I continued. "Where, as I was going to say, does
+the Militia come in?"
+
+"As I have said--for the men who can't afford volunteering. The Militia is
+recruited by ballot--pretty comprehensively too. Volunteers are exempt,
+but most men not otherwise accounted for are bagged by the Militia. They
+have to put in a minimum three weeks' camp every other year, and they get
+fifteen bob a week and their keep when they're at it, and some sort of a
+yearly fee, I've forgotten how much. 'Tisn't a showy service, but it's
+very useful. It keeps the mass of the men between twenty-five, say, and
+thirty-five moderately fit, and gives the Armity an excuse for having more
+equipment ready--in case of emergencies."
+
+"I don't think you're quite fair on the Militia," drawled Verschoyle.
+"They're better than we give 'em credit for. Don't you remember the Middle
+Moor Collieries' strike?"
+
+"Tell me," I said quickly. Evidently the others knew.
+
+"We-ell, it was no end of a pitman's strike about eight years ago. There
+were twenty-five thousand men involved--Militia, of course. At the end of
+the first month--October--when things were looking rather blue, one of
+those clever Labour leaders got hold of the Militia Act and discovered
+that any Militia regiment could, by a two-thirds vote, go on 'heef' in a
+Military Area in addition to its usual biennial camp. Two-and-twenty
+battalions of Geordies solemnly applied, and they were turned loose into
+the Irish and Scotch Areas under an I.G. Brigadier who had private
+instructions to knock clinkers out of 'em. But the pitman is a strong and
+agile bird. He throve on snowdrifts and entrenching and draggin' guns
+through heather. _He_ was being fed and clothed for nothing, besides
+having a chance of making head-money, and his strike-pay was going clear
+to his wife and family. You see? Wily man. But wachtabittje! When that
+'heef' finished in December the strike was still on. _Then_ that same
+Labour leader found out, from the same Act, that if at any time more than
+thirty or forty men of a Militia regiment wished to volunteer to do
+sea-time and study big guns in the Fleet they were in no wise to be
+discouraged, but were to be taken on as opportunity offered and paid a bob
+a day. Accordingly, about January, Geordie began volunteering for sea-
+time--seven and eight hundred men out of each regiment. Anyhow, it made up
+seventeen thousand men! It was a splendid chance and the Armity jumped at
+it. The Home and Channel Fleets and the North Sea and Cruiser Squadrons
+were strengthened with lame ducks from the Fleet Reserve, and between 'em
+with a little stretching and pushing they accommodated all of that young
+division."
+
+"Yes, but you've forgotten how we lied to the Continent about it. All
+Europe wanted to know what the dooce we were at," said Boy Bayley, "and
+the wretched Cabinet had to stump the country in the depths of winter
+explaining our new system of poor-relief. I beg your pardon, Verschoyle."
+
+"The Armity improvised naval manoeuvres between Gib and Land's End, with
+frequent coalings and landings; ending in a cruise round England that
+fairly paralysed the pitmen. The first day out they wanted the fleet
+stopped while they went ashore and killed their Labour leader, but they
+couldn't be obliged. Then they wanted to mutiny over the coaling--it was
+too like their own job. Oh, they had a lordly timel They came back--the
+combined Fleets anchored off Hull--with a nautical hitch to their
+breeches. They'd had a free fight at Gib with the Ports battalion there;
+they cleared out the town of Lagos; and they'd fought a pitched battle
+with the dockyard-mateys at Devonport. So they'd done 'emselves well, but
+they didn't want any more military life for a bit."
+
+"And the strike?"
+
+"That ended, all right enough, when the strike-money came to an end. The
+pit-owners were furious. They said the Armity had wilfully prolonged the
+strike, and asked questions in the House. The Armity said that they had
+taken advantage of the crisis to put a six months' polish on fifteen
+thousand fine young men, and if the masters cared to come out on the same
+terms they'd be happy to do the same by them."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Palaver done set," said Bayley. "Everybody laughed."
+
+"I don't quite understand about this sea-time business," I said. "Is the
+Fleet open to take any regiment aboard?"
+
+"Rather. The I.G. must, the Line can, the Militia may, and the Volunteers
+do put in sea-time. The Coast Volunteers began it, and the fashion is
+spreading inland. Under certain circumstances, as Verschoyle told you, a
+Volunteer or Militia regiment can vote whether it 'heefs' wet or dry. If
+it votes wet and has influence (like some F.S. corps), it can sneak into
+the Channel or the Home Fleet and do a cruise round England or to Madeira
+or the North Sea. The regiment, of course, is distributed among the ships,
+and the Fleet dry nurse 'em. It rather breaks up shore discipline, but it
+gives the inland men a bit of experience, and, of course, it gives us a
+fairish supply of men behind the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet.
+Some coast corps make a specialty of it, and compete for embarking and
+disembarking records. I believe some of the Tyneside engineerin' corps put
+ten per cent of their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there's no
+need to stay talking here all the afternoon. Come and see the I.G. in his
+lair--the miserable conscript driven up to the colours at the point of the
+bayonet."
+
+PART II
+
+The great hall was emptying apace as the clocks struck two, and we passed
+out through double doors into a huge reading and smoking room, blue with
+tobacco and buzzing with voices.
+
+"We're quieter as a rule," said the Boy. "But we're filling up vacancies
+to-day. Hence the anxious faces of the Line and Militia. Look!" There were
+four tables against the walls, and at each stood a crowd of uniforms. The
+centres of disturbance were noncommissioned officers who, seated, growled
+and wrote down names.
+
+"Come to my table," said Burgard. "Well, Purvis, have you ear-marked our
+little lot?"
+
+"I've been tellin' 'em for the last hour we've only twenty-three
+vacancies," was the sergeant's answer. "I've taken nearly fifty for
+Trials, and this is what's left." Burgard smiled.
+
+"I'm very sorry," he said to the crowd, "but C Company's full."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir," said a man, "but wouldn't sea-time count in my favour?
+I've put in three months with the Fleet. Small quick-firers, Sir? Company
+guns? Any sort of light machinery?"
+
+"Come away," said a voice behind. "They've chucked the best farrier
+between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they'll take _you_ an' your potty quick-
+firers?"
+
+The speaker turned on his heel and swore.
+
+"Oh, damn the Guard, by all means!" said Sergeant Purvis, collecting his
+papers. "D'you suppose it's any pleasure to _me_ to reject chaps of your
+build and make? Vote us a second Guard battalion and we'll accommodate
+you. Now, you can come into Schools and watch Trials if you like."
+
+Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily. I
+followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a riding-
+school, under whose roof the voices of the few hundred assembled wandered
+in lost echoes.
+
+"I'll leave you, if you don't mind," said Burgard. "Company officers
+aren't supposed to assist at these games. Here, Matthews!" He called to a
+private and put me in his charge.
+
+In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of
+stripped men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.
+
+"These are our crowd," said Matthews. "They've been vetted, an' we're
+putting 'em through their paces."
+
+"They don't look a bit like raw material," I said.
+
+"No, we don't use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the
+Guard," Matthews replied. "Life's too short."
+
+Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was
+physical drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his hand
+over some man's heart.
+
+Six or seven, I noticed, were sent back at this stage of the game. Then a
+cry went up from a group of privates standing near the line of contorted
+figures. "White, Purvis, white! Number Nine is spitting white!"
+
+"I know it," said Purvis. "Don't you worry."
+
+"Unfair!" murmured the man who understood quick-firers. "If I couldn't
+shape better than that I'd hire myself out to wheel a perambulator. He's
+cooked."
+
+"Nah," said the intent Matthews. "He'll answer to a month's training like
+a horse. It's only suet. _You've_ been training for this, haven't you?"
+
+"Look at me," said the man simply.
+
+"Yes. You're overtrained," was Matthews' comment. "The Guard isn't a
+circus."
+
+"Guns!" roared Purvis, as the men broke off and panted. "Number off from
+the right. Fourteen is one, three is two, eleven's three, twenty and
+thirty-nine are four and five, and five is six." He was giving them their
+numbers at the guns as they struggled into their uniforms. In like manner
+he told off three other guncrews, and the remainder left at the double, to
+return through the further doors with four light quick-firers jerking at
+the end of man-ropes.
+
+"Knock down and assemble against time!" Purvis called.
+
+The audience closed in a little as the crews flung themselves on the guns,
+which melted, wheel by wheel, beneath their touch.
+
+"I've never seen anything like this," I whispered.
+
+"Huh!" said Matthews scornfully. "They're always doin' it in the Line and
+Militia drill-halls. It's only circus-work."
+
+The guns were assembled again and some one called the time. Then followed
+ten minutes of the quickest firing and feeding with dummy cartridges that
+was ever given man to behold.
+
+"They look as if they might amount to something--this draft," said
+Matthews softly.
+
+"What might you teach 'em after this, then?" I asked.
+
+"To be Guard," said Matthews.
+
+"Spurs," cried Purvis, as the guns disappeared through the doors into the
+stables. Each man plucked at his sleeve, and drew up first one heel and
+then the other.
+
+"What the deuce are they doing?" I asked.
+
+"This," said Matthews. He put his hand to a ticket-pocket inside his
+regulation cuff, showed me two very small black box-spurs: drawing up a
+gaitered foot, he snapped them into the box in the heel, and when I had
+inspected snapped them out again.
+
+"That's all the spur you really need," he said.
+
+Then horses were trotted out into the school barebacked, and the neophytes
+were told to ride.
+
+Evidently the beasts knew the game and enjoyed it, for they would not make
+it easy for the men.
+
+A heap of saddlery was thrown in a corner, and from this each man, as he
+captured his mount, made shift to draw proper equipment, while the
+audience laughed, derided, or called the horses towards them.
+
+It was, most literally, wild horseplay, and by the time it was finished
+the recruits and the company were weak with fatigue and laughter.
+
+"That'll do," said Purvis, while the men rocked in their saddles. "I don't
+see any particular odds between any of you. C Company! Does anybody here
+know anything against any of these men?"
+
+"That's a bit of the Regulations," Matthews whispered. "Just like
+forbiddin' the banns in church. Really, it was all settled long ago when
+the names first came up."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"You'll take 'em as they stand?"
+
+There was a grunt of assent.
+
+"Very good. There's forty men for twenty-three billets." He turned to the
+sweating horsemen. "I must put you into the Hat."
+
+With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not follow,
+an enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which numbers and
+blanks were dropped, and the whole was handed round to the riders by a
+private, evidently the joker of C Company.
+
+Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished
+receptacle (sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the final
+drawing. He was telling me how his company had once stolen the Sacred
+Article used by D Company for this purpose and of the riot that followed,
+when through the west door of the schools entered a fresh detachment of
+stripped men, and the arena was flooded with another company.
+
+Said Matthews as we withdrew, "Each company does Trials their own way. B
+Company is all for teaching men how to cook and camp. D Company keeps 'em
+to horse-work mostly. We call D the circus-riders and B the cooks. They
+call us the Gunners."
+
+"An' you've rejected _me_," said the man who had done sea-time, pushing
+out before us. "The Army's goin' to the dogs."
+
+I stood in the corridor looking for Burgard.
+
+"Come up to my room and have a smoke," said Matthews, private of the
+Imperial Guard.
+
+We climbed two flights of stone stairs ere we reached an immense landing
+flanked with numbered doors.
+
+Matthews pressed a spring-latch and led me into a little cabin-like room.
+The cot was a standing bunk, with drawers beneath. On the bed lay a
+brilliant blanket; by the bed head was an electric light and a shelf of
+books: a writing table stood in the window, and I dropped into a low
+wicker chair.
+
+"This is a cut above subaltern's quarters," I said, surveying the photos,
+the dhurri on the floor, the rifle in its rack, the field-kit hung up
+behind the door, and the knicknacks on the walls.
+
+"The Line bachelors use 'em while we're away; but they're nice to come
+back to after 'heef.'" Matthews passed me his cigarette-case.
+
+"Where have you 'heefed'?" I said.
+
+"In Scotland, Central Australia, and North-Eastern Rhodesia and the North-
+West Indian front."
+
+"What's your service?"
+
+"Four years. I'll have to go in a year. I got in when I was twenty-two--by
+a fluke--from the Militia direct--on Trials."
+
+"Trials like those we just saw?"
+
+"Not so severe. There was less competition then. I hoped to get my
+stripes, but there's no chance."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I haven't the knack of handling men. Purvis let me have a half-company
+for a month in Rhodesia--over towards Lake N'Garni. I couldn't work 'em
+properly. It's a gift."
+
+"Do colour-sergeants handle half-companies with you?"
+
+"They can command 'em on the 'heef.' We've only four company officers--
+Burgard, Luttrell, Kyd, and Harrison. Pigeon's our swop, and he's in
+charge of the ponies. Burgard got his company on the 'heef,' You see
+Burgard had been a lieutenant in the Line, but he came into the Guards on
+Trials like the men. _He_ could command. They tried him in India with a
+wing of the battalion for three months. He did well so he got his company.
+That's what made me hopeful. But it's a gift, you see--managing men--and
+so I'm only a senior private. They let ten per cent of us stay on for two
+years extra after our three are finished--to polish the others."
+
+"Aren't you even a corporal?"
+
+"We haven't corporals, or lances for that matter, in the Guard. As a
+senior private I'd take twenty men into action; but one Guard don't tell
+another how to clean himself. You've learned that before you apply. ...
+Come in!"
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Burgard entered, removing his cap.
+
+"I thought you'd be here," he said, as Matthews vacated the other chair
+and sat on the bed. "Well, has Matthews told you all about it? How did our
+Trials go, Matthews?"
+
+"Forty names in the Hat, Sir, at the finish. They'll make a fairish lot.
+Their gun-tricks weren't bad; but D company has taken the best horsemen--
+as usual."
+
+"Oh, I'll attend to that on 'heef.' Give me a man who can handle company-
+guns and I'll engage to make him a horse-master. D company will end by
+thinkin' 'emselves Captain Pigeon's private cavalry some day."
+
+I had never heard a private and a captain talking after this fashion, and
+my face must have betrayed my astonishment, for Burgard said:
+
+"These are not our parade manners. In our rooms, as we say in the Guard,
+all men are men. Outside we are officers and men."
+
+"I begin to see," I stammered. "Matthews was telling me that sergeants
+handled half-companies and rose from the ranks--and I don't see that there
+are any lieutenants--and your companies appear to be two hundred and fifty
+strong. It's a shade confusing to the layman."
+
+Burgard leaned forward didactically. "The Regulations lay down that every
+man's capacity for command must be tested to the uttermost. We construe
+that very literally when we're on the 'heef.' F'r instance, any man can
+apply to take the command next above him, and if a man's too shy to ask,
+his company officer must see that he gets his chance. A sergeant is given
+a wing of the battalion to play with for three weeks--a month, or six
+weeks--according to his capacity, and turned adrift in an Area to make his
+own arrangements. That's what Areas are for--and to experiment in. A good
+gunner--a private very often--has all four company-guns to handle through
+a week's fight, acting for the time as the major. Majors of Guard
+battalions (Verschoyle's our major) are supposed to be responsible for the
+guns, by the way. There's nothing to prevent any man who has the gift
+working his way up to the experimental command of the battalion on 'heef.'
+Purvis, my colour-sergeant, commanded the battalion for three months at
+the back of Coolgardie, an' very well he did it. Bayley 'verted to company
+officer for the time being an' took Harrison's company, and Harrison came
+over to me as my colour-sergeant. D'you see? Well, Purvis is down for a
+commission when there's a vacancy. He's been thoroughly tested, and we all
+like him. Two other sergeants have passed that three months' trial in the
+same way (just as second mates go up for extra master's certificate). They
+have E.C. after their names in the Army List. That shows they're capable
+of taking command in event of war. The result of our system is that you
+could knock out every single officer of a Guard battalion early in the
+day, and the wheels 'ud still go forward, _not_ merely round. We're
+allowed to fill up half our commissioned list from the ranks direct. _Now_
+d'you see why there's such a rush to get into a Guard battalion?"
+
+"Indeed I do. Have you commanded the regiment experimentally?"
+
+"Oh, time and again," Burgard laughed. "We've all had our E.C. turn."
+
+"Doesn't the chopping and changing upset the men?"
+
+"It takes something to upset the Guard. Besides, they're all in the game
+together. They give each other a fair show you may be sure."
+
+"That's true," said Matthews. "When I went to N'Gami with my--with the
+half-company," he sighed, "they helped me all they knew. But it's a gift--
+handling men. I found _that_ out,"
+
+"I know you did," said Burgard softly. "But you found it out in time,
+which is the great thing. You see," he turned to me, "with our limited
+strength we can't afford to have a single man who isn't more than up to
+any duty--in reason. Don't you be led away by what you saw at Trials just
+now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the monkey-tricks of the
+trade--such as mounting and dismounting guns, and making fancy scores and
+doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up before they can
+pull their weight in the boat."
+
+There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it and
+smiled.
+
+"Bayley wants to know if you'd care to come with us to the Park and see
+the kids. It's only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the
+taxpayer.... Very good. If you'll press the button we'll try to do the
+rest."
+
+He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a
+platform, not unlike a ship's bridge, immediately above the barrelled
+glass roof of the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could see B
+Company far below watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard unlocked a
+glass-fronted fire-alarm arrangement flanked with dials and speaking-
+tubes, and bade me press the centre button.
+
+Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he had
+not caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the
+multiplied purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished like
+minnows before a shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on staircases
+I heard the neighing of many horses.
+
+"What in the world have I done?" I gasped.
+
+"Turned out the Guard--horse, foot, and guns!"
+
+A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:
+
+"Yes, Sir.... _What_, Sir?... I never heard they said that," he laughed,
+"but it would be just like 'em. In an hour and a half? Yes, Sir. Opposite
+the Statue? Yes, Sir."
+
+He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.
+
+"Bayley's playing up for you. Now you'll see some fun."
+
+"Who's going to catch it?" I demanded.
+
+"Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that
+it's _en  tat de partir_, and Bayley's going to take him at his word and
+have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their
+drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the mansard
+roof!"
+
+He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the building
+to the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the flagstaff that
+crowned it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black storm-cone followed.
+
+"Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir," said Burgard down the
+telephone. "Now we'd better go to the riding-school. The battalion falls
+in there. I have to change, but you're free of the corps. Go anywhere. Ask
+anything. In another ten minutes we're off."
+
+I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of houses
+and the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open windows of
+this dial-dotted eyrie.
+
+When I descended the halls and corridors were as hushed as they had been
+noisy, and my feet echoed down the broad tiled staircases. On the third
+floor, Matthews, gaitered and armed, overtook me smiling.
+
+"I thought you might want a guide," said he. "We've five minutes yet," and
+piloted me to the sunsplashed gloom of the riding-school. Three companies
+were in close order on the tan. They moved out at a whistle, and as I
+followed in their rear I was overtaken by Pigeon on a rough black mare.
+
+"Wait a bit," he said, "till the horses are all out of stables, and come
+with us. D Company is the only one mounted just now. We do it to amuse the
+taxpayer," he explained, above the noise of horses on the tan.
+
+"Where are the guns?" I asked, as the mare lipped my coat-collar.
+
+"Gone ahead long ago. They come out of their own door at the back of
+barracks. We don't haul guns through traffic more than we can help.... If
+Belinda breathes down your neck smack her. She'll be quiet in the streets.
+She loves lookin' into the shop-windows."
+
+The mounted company clattered through vaulted concrete corridors in the
+wake of the main body, and filed out into the crowded streets.
+
+When I looked at the townsfolk on the pavement, or in the double-decked
+trams, I saw that the bulk of them saluted, not grudgingly or of
+necessity, but in a light-hearted, even flippant fashion.
+
+"Those are Line and Militia men," said Pigeon. "That old chap in the
+top-hat by the lamp-post is an ex-Guardee. That's why he's saluting in
+slow-time. No, there's no regulation governing these things, but we've all
+fallen into the way of it somehow. Steady, mare!"
+
+"I don't know whether I care about this aggressive militarism," I began,
+when the company halted, and Belinda almost knocked me down. Looking
+forward I saw the badged cuff of a policeman upraised at a crossing, his
+back towards us.
+
+"Horrid aggressive, ain't we?" said Pigeon with a chuckle when we moved on
+again and overtook the main body. Here I caught the strains of the band,
+which Pigeon told me did not accompany the battalion on 'heef,' but lived
+in barracks and made much money by playing at parties in town.
+
+"If we want anything more than drums and fifes on 'heef' we sing," said
+Pigeon. "Singin' helps the wind."
+
+I rejoiced to the marrow of my bones thus to be borne along on billows of
+surging music among magnificent men, in sunlight, through a crowded town
+whose people, I could feel, regarded us with comradeship, affection--and
+more.
+
+"By Jove," I said at last, watching the eyes about us, "these people are
+looking us over as if we were horses."
+
+"Why not? They know the game."
+
+The eyes on the pavement, in the trams, the cabs, at the upper windows,
+swept our lines back and forth with a weighed intensity of regard which at
+first seemed altogether new to me, till I recalled just such eyes, a
+thousand of them, at manoeuvres in the Channel when one crowded battleship
+drew past its sister at biscuit-toss range. Then I stared at the ground,
+overborne by those considering eyes.
+
+Suddenly the music changed to the wail of the Dead March in "Saul," and
+once more--we were crossing a large square--the regiment halted.
+
+"Damn!" said Pigeon, glancing behind him at the mounted company. "I
+believe they save up their Saturday corpses on purpose."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"A dead Volunteer. We must play him through." Again I looked forward and
+saw the top of a hearse, followed by two mourning-coaches, boring directly
+up the halted regiment, which opened out company by company to let it
+through.
+
+"But they've got the whole blessed square to funeralise in!" I exclaimed.
+"Why don't they go round?"
+
+"Not so!" Pigeon replied. "In this city it's the Volunteer's perquisite to
+be played through by any corps he happens to meet on his way to the
+cemetery. And they make the most of it. You'll see."
+
+I heard the order, "Rest on your arms," run before the poor little
+procession as the men opened out. The driver pulled the black Flanders
+beasts into a more than funeral crawl, and in the first mourning-coach I
+saw the tearful face of a fat woman (his mother, doubtless), a
+handkerchief pressed to one eye, but the other rolling vigilantly, alight
+with proper pride. Last came a knot of uniformed men--privates, I took it
+--of the dead one's corps.
+
+Said a man in the crowd beside us to the girl on his arm, "There, Jenny!
+That's what I'll get if I 'ave the luck to meet 'em when my time comes."
+
+"You an' your luck," she snapped. "'Ow can you talk such silly nonsense?"
+
+"Played through by the Guard," he repeated slowly. "The undertaker 'oo
+could guarantee _that_, mark you, for all his customers--well, 'e'd
+monopolise the trade, is all I can say. See the horses passagin'
+sideways!"
+
+"She done it a purpose," said the woman with a sniff.
+
+"An' I only hope you'll follow her example. Just as long as you think I'll
+keep, too."
+
+We reclosed when the funeral had left us twenty paces behind. A small boy
+stuck his head out of a carriage and watched us jealously.
+
+"Amazing! Amazing!" I murmured. "Is it regulation?"
+
+"No. Town-custom. It varies a little in different cities, but the people
+value being played through more than most things, I imagine. Duddell, the
+big Ipswich manufacturer--he's a Quaker--tried to bring in a bill to
+suppress it as unchristian." Pigeon laughed.
+
+"And?"
+
+"It cost him his seat next election. You see, we're all in the game."
+
+We reached the Park without further adventure, and found the four company-
+guns with their spike teams and single drivers waiting for us. Many people
+were gathered here, and we were halted, so far as I could see, that they
+might talk with the men in the ranks. The officers broke into groups.
+
+"Why on earth didn't you come along with me?" said Boy Bayley at my side.
+"I was expecting you."
+
+"Well, I had a delicacy about brigading myself with a colonel at the head
+of his regiment, so I stayed with the rear company and the horses. It's
+all too wonderful for any words. What's going to happen next?"
+
+"I've handed over to Verschoyle, who will amuse and edify the school
+children while I take you round our kindergarten. Don't kill any one, Vee.
+Are you goin' to charge 'em?"
+
+Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used to
+do at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn man.
+
+"Now!" Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding road
+towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park)
+perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the encircling
+rails leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women--the women
+outnumbering the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road flanking
+the common and disappear behind the trees.
+
+As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the ground
+inside the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform, armed and
+unarmed. I saw squads here, half-companies there; then three companies in
+an open space, wheeling with stately steps; a knot of drums and fifes near
+the railings unconcernedly slashing their way across popular airs; and a
+batch of gamins labouring through some extended attack destined to be
+swept aside by a corps crossing the ground at the double. They broke out
+of furze bushes, ducked over hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from
+hillocks and rough sandbanks till the eye wearied of their busy legs.
+
+Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of a
+freckled twelve-year-old near by.
+
+"What's your corps?" said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion to
+that child.
+
+"Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren't out
+to-day." Then, with a twinkle, "I go to First Camp next year."
+
+"What are those boys yonder--that squad at the double?"
+
+"Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir."
+
+"And that full company extending behind the three elms to the south-west?"
+
+"Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir."
+
+"Can you come with us?"
+
+"Certainly, Sir."
+
+"Here's the raw material at the beginning of the process," said Bayley to
+me.
+
+We strolled on towards the strains of "A Bicycle Built for Two," breathed
+jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some dozen infants
+with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging through the extension
+movements which that tune calls for. A stunted hawthorn overhung the
+little group, and from a branch a dirty white handkerchief flapped in the
+breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve
+as we came up.
+
+"We're all waiting for our big bruvvers," piped up one bold person in blue
+breeches--seven if he was a day.
+
+"It keeps 'em quieter, Sir," the maiden lisped. "The others are with the
+regiments."
+
+"Yeth, and they've all lots of blank for _you_," said the gentleman in
+blue breeches ferociously.
+
+"Oh, Artie! 'Ush!" the girl cried.
+
+"But why have they lots of blank for _us_?" Bayley asked. Blue Breeches
+stood firm.
+
+"'Cause--'cause the Guard's goin' to fight the Schools this afternoon; but
+my big bruvver says they'll be dam-well surprised."
+
+"_Artie!_" The girl leaped towards him. "You know your ma said I was to
+smack----"
+
+"Don't. Please don't," said Bayley, pink with suppressed mirth. "It was
+all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this. I've surprised his plan out
+of the mouths of babes and sucklings."
+
+"What plan?"
+
+"Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he told
+me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they're on to him
+already. He'll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!"
+
+Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to weep.
+
+"I didn't tell," he roared. "My big bruvver _he_ knew when he saw them go
+up the road..."
+
+"Never mind! Never mind, old man," said Bayley soothingly. "I'm not
+fighting to-day. It's all right."
+
+He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at
+feud over the spoil.
+
+"Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist," he chuckled. "We'll pull Vee's leg
+to-night."
+
+Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.
+
+"So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground," Bayley
+demanded.
+
+"Not for certain, Sir, but we're preparin' for the worst," he answered
+with a cheerful grin. "They allow the Schools a little blank ammunition
+after we've passed the third standard; and we nearly always bring it on to
+the ground of Saturdays."
+
+"The deuce you do! Why?"
+
+"On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They're always
+experimentin' upon us, Sir, comin' over from their ground an' developin'
+attacks on our flanks. Oh, it's chronic 'ere of a Saturday sometimes,
+unless you flag yourself."
+
+I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife
+band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a
+four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.
+
+"The attacks don't interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir," the boy
+explained. "That's a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools loading
+against time for a bet."
+
+We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was not
+etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the twenty-five
+pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly finished hoist
+and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe distance, when I
+became aware of a change among the scattered boys on the common, who
+disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of querulous whistles.
+A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to corps, and on their arrival
+each corps seemed to fade away.
+
+The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round
+them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley exploded
+afresh. "The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I wonder who's
+directin' 'em. Do _you_ know?"
+
+The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.
+
+"I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the
+road. 'E's our 'ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth
+District, is actin' as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most
+likely Mr. Levitt is commandin'."
+
+"How many corps are there here?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, bits of lots of 'em--thirty or forty, p'r'aps, Sir. But the whistles
+says they've all got to rally on the Board Schools. 'Ark! There's the
+whistle for the Private Schools! They've been called up the ground at the
+double."
+
+"Stop!" cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside the
+breech wiping their brows and panting.
+
+"Hullo! there's some attack on the Schools," said one. "Well, Marden, you
+owe me three half-crowns. I've beaten your record. Pay up."
+
+The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions
+melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets without
+once looking up.
+
+The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that I
+could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of blank
+in the distance.
+
+"The Saturday allowance," murmured Bayley. "War's begun, but it wouldn't
+be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my child?"
+
+"Nothin', Sir, only--only I don't think the Guard will be able to come
+through on so narrer a front, Sir. They'll all be jammed up be'ind the
+ridge if _we_'ve got there in time. It's awful sticky for guns at the end
+of our ground, Sir."
+
+"I'm inclined to think you're right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up:
+distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a pernicious
+amount of blank the kids seem to have!"
+
+It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the hillocks
+for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the "Cease Fire"
+over the ridge.
+
+"They've sent for the Umpires," the Board School boy squeaked, dancing on
+one foot. "You've been hung up, Sir. I--I thought the sand-pits 'ud stop
+you."
+
+Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat:
+"Well, that's enough for this afternoon. I'm off," and moved to the
+railings without even glancing towards the fray.
+
+"I anticipate the worst," said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.
+"Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!"
+
+The Guard was pouring over the ridge--a disorderly mob--horse, foot, and
+guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys
+cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the railings,
+and spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and waved
+handkerchiefs.
+
+Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. "We
+got 'em! We got 'em!" he squealed.
+
+The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into
+shape, coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.
+
+"Vee, Vee," said Bayley. "Give me back my legions. Well, I hope you're
+proud of yourself?"
+
+"The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too," Verschoyle
+replied. "I wish you'd seen that first attack on our flank. Rather
+impressive. Who warned 'em?"
+
+"I don't know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush breeches.
+Did they do well?"
+
+"Very decently indeed. I've complimented their C.O. and buttered the whole
+boiling." He lowered his voice. "As a matter o' fact, I halted five good
+minutes to give 'em time to get into position."
+
+"Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We sha'n't need the
+men for an hour, Vee."
+
+"Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!" cried Verschoyle, raising his voice,
+and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers left their
+men, people began to climb over the railings, and the regiment dissolved
+among the spectators and the school corps of the city.
+
+"No sense keeping men standing when you don't need 'em," said Bayley.
+"Besides, the Schools learn more from our chaps in an afternoon than they
+can pick up in a month's drill. Look at those Board-schoolmaster captains
+buttonholing old Purvis on the art of war!"
+
+"Wonder what the evening papers'll say about this," said Pigeon.
+
+"You'll know in half an hour," Burgard laughed. "What possessed you to
+take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?"
+
+"Pride. Silly pride," said the Canadian.
+
+We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a
+statue of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with
+pretty women, and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats.
+"This is distinctly social," I suggested to Kyd.
+
+"Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley'll sweat
+'em all the same."
+
+I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long sausage-
+shaped kit-bags. A band welcomed us with "A Life on the Ocean Wave."
+
+"What cheek!" muttered Verschoyle. "Give 'em beans, Bayley."
+
+"I intend to," said the Colonel, grimly. "Will each of you fellows take a
+company, please, and inspect 'em faithfully. '_En etat de partir_' is
+their little boast, remember. When you've finished you can give 'em a
+little pillow-fighting."
+
+"What does the single cannon on those men's sleeves mean?" I asked.
+
+"That they're big gun-men, who've done time with the Fleet," Bayley
+returned. "Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per cent big-gun men thinks
+itself entitled to play 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--when it's out of
+hearing of the Navy."
+
+"What beautiful stuff they are! What's their regimental average?"
+
+"It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and twenty-four
+years, age. What is it?" Bayley asked of a Private.
+
+"Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half," was the
+reply, and he added insolently, "_En  tat de partir_." Evidently that F.S.
+corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.
+
+"What about their musketry average?" I went on.
+
+"Not my pidgin," said Bayley. "But they wouldn't be in the corps a day if
+they couldn't shoot; I know _that_ much. Now I'm going to go through 'em
+for socks and slippers."
+
+The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from
+company to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per
+cent, at least, of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone
+through in detail.
+
+"What have they got jumpers and ducks for?" I asked of Harrison.
+
+"For Fleet work, of course. _En  tat de partir_ with an F. S. corps means
+they are amphibious."
+
+"Who gives 'em their kit--Government?"
+
+"There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It's the same
+as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one's pockets.
+How much does your kit cost you?"--this to the private in front of us.
+
+"About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose," was the answer.
+
+"Very good. Pack your bag--quick."
+
+The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag,
+lashed and tied it, and fell back.
+
+"Arms," said Harrison. "Strip and show ammunition."
+
+The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one
+wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate of
+the rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to Harrison with
+one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded belt.
+
+"What baby cartridges!" I exclaimed. "No bigger than bulletted breech-
+caps."
+
+"They're the regulation .256," said Harrison. "No one has complained of
+'em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive.... Empty your bottle, please,
+and show your rations."
+
+The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency tin.
+
+Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in which
+the man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles, asking no help
+from either side.
+
+"How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?" I asked him.
+
+"Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes," he smiled. "I didn't
+see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the Club."
+
+"Weren't a good many of you out of town?"
+
+"Not _this_ Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull through
+the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for foreign
+service.... You'd better stand back. We're going to pillow-fight."
+
+The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them
+variously, piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder to
+shoulder like buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.
+
+"What's the idea?" I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded behind him, was
+controlling the display. Many women had descended from the carriages, and
+were pressing in about us admiringly.
+
+"For one thing, it's a fair test of wind and muscle, and for another it
+saves time at the docks. We'll suppose this first company to be drawn up
+on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train. How would
+you get their kit into the ship?"
+
+"Fall 'em all in on the platform, march'em to the gangways," I answered,
+"and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the baggage and drunks
+in later."
+
+"Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know _that_
+game," Verschoyle drawled. "We don't play it any more. Look!"
+
+He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and breathing
+hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing his sixty-
+pound bag.
+
+"Pack away," cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can compare
+it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed along
+either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who passed,
+stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by the
+rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five minutes
+the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.
+
+"Of course on a trooper there'd be a company below stacking the kit away,"
+said Verschoyle, "but that wasn't so bad."
+
+"Bad!" I cried. "It was miraculous!"
+
+"Circus-work--all circus-work!" said Pigeon. "It won't prevent 'em bein'
+sick as dogs when the ship rolls." The crowd round us applauded, while the
+men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.
+
+A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.
+
+"Have we made good, Bayley?" he said. "Are we _en  tat de partir_?"
+
+"That's what I shall report," said Bayley, smiling.
+
+"I thought my bit o' French 'ud draw you," said the little man, rubbing
+his hands.
+
+"Who is he?" I whispered to Pigeon.
+
+"Ramsay--their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say he
+spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns till
+he came into his property."
+
+"Take 'em home an' make 'em drunk," I heard Bayley say. "I suppose you'll
+have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the officers of E
+company that I don't think much of them. I sha'n't report it, but their
+men were all over the shop."
+
+"Well, they're young, you see," Colonel Ramsay began.
+
+"You're quite right. Send 'em to me and I'll talk to 'em. Youth is the
+time to learn."
+
+"Six hundred a year," I repeated to Pigeon. "That must be an awful tax on
+a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days."
+
+"That's where you make your mistake," said Verschoyle. "In the old days a
+man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they weren't
+the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour of putting
+in drills, didn't they? And they were, most of 'em, the children we have
+to take over at Second Camp, weren't they? Well, now that a C. O. is sure
+of his _men_, now that he hasn't to waste himself in conciliating an'
+bribin', an' beerin' _kids_, he doesn't care what he spends on his corps,
+because every pound tells. Do you understand?"
+
+"I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed----"
+
+"And trained material at that," Pigeon put in. "Eight years in the
+schools, remember, as well as----"
+
+"Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That's as it should be," I
+said.
+
+"Bayly's saying the very same to those F. S. pups," said Verschoyle.
+
+The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the
+shoulder of each.
+
+"Yes, that's all doocid interesting," he growled paternally. "But you
+forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you're trebly bound
+to put a polish on 'em. You've let your company simply go to seed. Don't
+try and explain. I've told all those lies myself in my time. It's only
+idleness. _I_ know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow and I'll give you a
+wrinkle or two in barracks." He turned to me.
+
+"Suppose we pick up Vee's defeated legion and go home. You'll dine with us
+to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you're _en etat de partir_, right enough.
+You'd better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you want the corps
+sent foreign. I'm no politician."
+
+We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with sceptre,
+orb, and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the common,
+where the Guard battalion walked with the female of its species and the
+children of all its relatives. At sight of the officers the uniforms began
+to detach themselves and gather in companies. A Board School corps was
+moving off the ground, headed by its drums and fifes, which it assisted
+with song. As we drew nearer we caught the words, for they were launched
+with intention:--
+
+  'Oo is it mashes the country nurse?
+    The Guardsman!
+  'Oo is it takes the lydy's purse?
+    The Guardsman!
+  Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,
+  Batters a sovereign down on the bar,
+  Collars the change and says "Ta-ta!"
+    The Guardsman!
+
+"Why, that's one of old Jemmy Fawne's songs. I haven't heard it in ages,"
+I began.
+
+"Little devils!" said Pigeon.
+"Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports Edition!" a newsboy cried. "'Ere y'are,
+Captain. Defeat o' the Guard!"
+
+"I'll buy a copy," said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. "I must, to
+see how the Dove lost his mounted company." He unfolded the flapping sheet
+and we crowded round it.
+
+"'_Complete Rout of the Guard,_'" he read. "'_Too Narrow a Front._' That's
+one for you, Vee! '_Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._' Aha! '_The
+Schools Stand Fast._'"
+
+"Here's another version," said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. "'_To your
+tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._' Pij, were
+you scuppered by Jewboys?"
+
+"'_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_'" Bayley went on. "By Jove,
+there'll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!"
+
+"I'll never try to amuse the kids again," said the baited Verschoyle.
+"Children and newspapers are low things.... And I was hit on the nose by a
+wad, too! They oughtn't to be allowed blank ammunition!"
+
+So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the
+battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken
+over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum
+of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent
+above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago,
+when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.
+
+"A regular Sanna's Post, isn't it?" I said at last. "D'you remember, Vee--
+by the market-square--that night when the wagons went out?"
+
+Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we
+had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee
+himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the
+papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly, revealed to me the three-
+day old wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw
+Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of
+shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all
+in one jointless piece. Only old Vee's honest face held steady for awhile
+against the darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then
+his jaw dropped and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore
+the puffed and scornful nostril.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the
+evening papers on the table.
+
+
+
+
+"THEY"
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
+
+  Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged
+     races--
+  Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome;
+  Plucking the radiant robes of the passers by, and with pitiful faces
+  Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us
+     go home?"
+
+  Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
+  Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along
+     to the gateway--
+  Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
+  Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed
+     them straightway.
+
+  Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: "On the night that
+     I bore Thee
+  What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my
+     arm?
+  Didst Thou push from the nipple O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?
+  When we two lay in the breath of the kine?" And He said:--"Thou hast
+     done no harm."
+
+  So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,
+  Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood
+     still;
+  And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the
+     Command.
+  "Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against
+     their will?"
+
+
+"THEY"
+One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the
+county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping
+forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels. The orchid-
+studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and grey grass of
+the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees of the lower
+coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left hand for fifteen
+level miles; and when at last I turned inland through a huddle of rounded
+hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my known marks. Beyond that
+precise hamlet which stands godmother to the capital of the United States,
+I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in
+eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks
+diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex
+them again; tithe-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that
+cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple.
+Gipsies I found on a common where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it
+out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed
+a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.
+
+As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the
+bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty
+miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country would
+bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet, but I
+did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn plunged
+me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next into a
+gloomy tunnel where last year's dead leaves whispered and scuffled about
+my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had not been cut for a
+couple of generations at least, nor had any axe helped the moss-cankered
+oak and beech to spring above them. Here the road changed frankly into a
+carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent primrose-clumps showed like
+jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked bluebells nodded together. As the
+slope favoured I shut off the power and slid over the whirled leaves,
+expecting every moment to meet a keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off,
+arguing against the silence under the twilight of the trees.
+
+Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working my
+way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw
+sunshine through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.
+
+It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my fore-wheels
+took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang horsemen ten feet
+high with levelled lances, monstrous peacocks, and sleek round-headed
+maids of honour--blue, black, and glistening--all of clipped yew. Across
+the lawn--the marshalled woods besieged it on three sides--stood an
+ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with mullioned windows
+and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by semi-circular walls, also
+rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth side, and at their feet a box
+hedge grew man-high. There were doves on the roof about the slim brick
+chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an octagonal dove-house behind the
+screening wall.
+
+Here, then, I stayed; a horseman's green spear laid at my breast; held by
+the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.
+
+"If I am not packed off for a trespasser, or if this knight does not ride
+a wallop at me," thought I, "Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at least must
+come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea."
+
+A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing waved
+a friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently another
+bright head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the yew-peacocks, and
+turning to make sure (till then I had been watching the house only) I saw
+the silver of a fountain behind a hedge thrown up against the sun. The
+doves on the roof cooed to the cooing water; but between the two notes I
+caught the utterly happy chuckle of a child absorbed in some light
+mischief.
+
+The garden door--heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall--opened
+further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on the time-
+hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was forming
+some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was blind.
+
+"I heard you," she said. "Isn't that a motor car?"
+
+"I'm afraid I've made a mistake in my road. I should have turned off up
+above--I never dreamed"--I began.
+
+"But I'm very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It will be
+such a treat----" She turned and made as though looking about her. "You--
+you haven't seen any one have you--perhaps?"
+
+"No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a distance."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little
+chap in the grounds."
+
+"Oh, lucky you!" she cried, and her face brightened. "I hear them, of
+course, but that's all. You've seen them and heard them?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. "And if I know anything of children one of them's
+having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should
+imagine."
+
+"You're fond of children?"
+
+I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.
+
+"Of course, of course," she said. "Then you understand. Then you won't
+think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the gardens, once
+or twice--quite slowly. I'm sure they'd like to see it. They see so
+little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant, but----" she
+threw out her hands towards the woods. "We're so out of the world here."
+
+"That will be splendid," I said. "But I can't cut up your grass."
+
+She faced to the right. "Wait a minute," she said. "We're at the South
+gate, aren't we? Behind those peacocks there's a flagged path. We call it
+the Peacock's Walk. You can't see it from here, they tell me, but if you
+squeeze along by the edge of the wood you can turn at the first peacock
+and get on to the flags."
+
+It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of
+machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the edge
+of the wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the fountain-basin
+lay like one star-sapphire.
+
+"May I come too?" she cried. "No, please don't help me. They'll like it
+better if they see me."
+
+She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on the
+step she called: "Children, oh, children! Look and see what's going to
+happen!"
+
+The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning that
+underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an answering shout
+behind the yews. It must have been the child by the fountain, but he fled
+at our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the water. I saw the glint
+of his blue blouse among the still horsemen.
+
+Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request
+backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but
+stood far off and doubting.
+
+"The little fellow's watching us," I said. "I wonder if he'd like a ride."
+
+"They're very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see
+them! Let's listen."
+
+I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the
+scent of box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener was
+clipping; a mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been the
+doves.
+
+"Oh, unkind!" she said weariedly.
+
+"Perhaps they're only shy of the motor. The little maid at the window
+looks tremendously interested."
+
+"Yes?" She raised her head. "It was wrong of me to say that. They are
+really fond of me. It's the only thing that makes life worth living--when
+they're fond of you, isn't it? I daren't think what the place would be
+without them. By the way, is it beautiful?"
+
+"I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen."
+
+"So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn't quite the
+same thing."
+
+"Then have you never---?" I began, but stopped abashed.
+
+"Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old,
+they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream
+about colours. I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see
+_them_. I only hear them just as I do when I'm awake."
+
+"It's difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most of us
+haven't the gift," I went on, looking up at the window where the child
+stood all but hidden.
+
+"I've heard that too," she said. "And they tell me that one never sees a
+dead person's face in a dream. Is that true?"
+
+"I believe it is--now I come to think of it."
+
+"But how is it with yourself--yourself?" The blind eyes turned towards me.
+
+"I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream," I answered.
+
+"Then it must be as bad as being blind."
+
+The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing
+the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top of
+a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft black. The
+house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an hundred
+thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the shadows.
+
+"Have you ever wanted to?" she said after the silence.
+
+"Very much sometimes," I replied. The child had left the window as the
+shadows closed upon it.
+
+"Ah! So've I, but I don't suppose it's allowed. ... Where d'you live?"
+
+"Quite the other side of the county--sixty miles and more, and I must be
+going back. I've come without my big lamp."
+
+"But it's not dark yet. I can feel it."
+
+"I'm afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me someone
+to set me on my road at first? I've utterly lost myself."
+
+"I'll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the world,
+I don't wonder you were lost! I'll guide you round to the front of the
+house; but you will go slowly, won't you, till you're out of the grounds?
+It isn't foolish, do you think?"
+
+"I promise you I'll go like this," I said, and let the car start herself
+down the flagged path.
+
+We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead
+guttering alone was worth a day's journey; passed under a great rose-grown
+gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the house which in
+beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that all others I had
+seen.
+
+"Is it so very beautiful?" she said wistfully when she heard my raptures.
+"And you like the lead-figures too? There's the old azalea garden behind.
+They say that this place must have been made for children. Will you help
+me out, please? I should like to come with you as far as the cross-roads,
+but I mustn't leave them. Is that you, Madden? I want you to show this
+gentleman the way to the cross-roads. He has lost his way but--he has seen
+them."
+
+A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be
+called the front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood
+looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the
+first time that she was beautiful.
+
+"Remember," she said quietly, "if you are fond of them you will come
+again," and disappeared within the house.
+
+The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge gates,
+where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I swerved amply
+lest the devil that leads little boys to play should drag me into child-
+murder.
+
+"Excuse me," he asked of a sudden, "but why did you do that, Sir?"
+
+"The child yonder."
+
+"Our young gentleman in blue?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?"
+
+"Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?"
+
+"Yes, Sir. And did you 'appen to see them upstairs too?"
+
+"At the upper window? Yes."
+
+"Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?"
+
+"A little before that. Why d'you want to know?"
+
+He paused a little. "Only to make sure that--that they had seen the car,
+Sir, because with children running about, though I'm sure you're driving
+particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was all, Sir. Here
+are the cross-roads. You can't miss your way from now on. Thank you, Sir,
+but that isn't _our_ custom, not with----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, and thrust away the British silver.
+
+"Oh, it's quite right with the rest of 'em as a rule. Goodbye, Sir."
+
+He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked
+away. Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and
+interested, probably through a maid, in the nursery.
+
+Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the
+crumpled hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the
+house had lain. When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the fat
+woman who sold sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people with
+motor cars had small right to live--much less to "go about talking like
+carriage folk." They were not a pleasant-mannered community.
+
+When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser.
+Hawkin's Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the
+old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big
+house of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian
+embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my
+difficulty to a neighbour--a deep-rooted tree of that soil--and he gave me
+a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.
+
+A month or so later--I went again, or it may have been that my car took
+the road of her own volition. She over-ran the fruitless Downs, threaded
+every turn of the maze of lanes below the hills, drew through the high-
+walled woods, impenetrable in their full leaf, came out at the cross roads
+where the butler had left me, and a little further on developed an
+internal trouble which forced me to turn her in on a grass way-waste that
+cut into a summer-silent hazel wood. So far as I could make sure by the
+sun and a six-inch Ordnance map, this should be the road flank of that
+wood which I had first explored from the heights above. I made a mighty
+serious business of my repairs and a glittering shop of my repair kit,
+spanners, pump, and the like, which I spread out orderly upon a rug. It
+was a trap to catch all childhood, for on such a day, I argued, the
+children would not be far off. When I paused in my work I listened, but
+the wood was so full of the noises of summer (though the birds had mated)
+that I could not at first distinguish these from the tread of small
+cautious feet stealing across the dead leaves. I rang my bell in an
+alluring manner, but the feet fled, and I repented, for to a child a
+sudden noise is very real terror. I must have been at work half an hour
+when I heard in the wood the voice of the blind woman crying: "Children,
+oh children, where are you?" and the stillness made slow to close on the
+perfection of that cry. She came towards me, half feeling her way between
+the tree boles, and though a child it seemed clung to her skirt, it
+swerved into the leafage like a rabbit as she drew nearer.
+
+"Is that you?" she said, "from the other side of the county?"
+
+"Yes, it's me from the other side of the county."
+
+"Then why didn't you come through the upper woods? They were there just
+now."
+
+"They were here a few minutes ago. I expect they knew my car had broken
+down, and came to see the fun."
+
+"Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?"
+
+"In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first."
+
+She laughed merrily at the tiny joke, cooed with delicious laughter, and
+pushed her hat back.
+
+"Let me hear," she said.
+
+"Wait a moment," I cried, "and I'll get you a cushion."
+
+She set her foot on the rug all covered with spare parts, and stooped
+above it eagerly. "What delightful things!" The hands through which she
+saw glanced in the chequered sunlight. "A box here--another box! Why
+you've arranged them like playing shop!"
+
+"I confess now that I put it out to attract them. I don't need half those
+things really."
+
+"How nice of you! I heard your bell in the upper wood. You say they were
+here before that?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. Why are they so shy? That little fellow in blue who was
+with you just now ought to have got over his fright. He's been watching me
+like a Red Indian."
+
+"It must have been your bell," she said. "I heard one of them go past me
+in trouble when I was coming down. They're shy--so shy even with me." She
+turned her face over her shoulder and cried again: "Children! Oh,
+children! Look and see!"
+
+"They must have gone off together on their own affairs,"
+
+I suggested, for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by
+the sudden squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and
+she leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.
+
+"How many are they?" I said at last. The work was finished, but I saw no
+reason to go.
+
+Her forehead puckered a little in thought. "I don't quite know," she said
+simply. "Sometimes more--sometimes less. They come and stay with me
+because I love them, you see."
+
+"That must be very jolly," I said, replacing a drawer, and as I spoke I
+heard the inanity of my answer.
+
+"You--you aren't laughing at me," she cried. "I--I haven't any of my own.
+I never married. People laugh at me sometimes about them because--
+because------"
+
+"Because they're savages," I returned. "It's nothing to fret for. That
+sort laugh at everything that isn't in their own fat lives."
+
+"I don't know. How should I? I only don't like being laughed at about
+_them_. It hurts; and when one can't see.... I don't want to seem silly,"
+her chin quivered like a child's as she spoke, "but we blindies have only
+one skin, I think. Everything outside hits straight at our souls. It's
+different with you. You've such good defences in your eyes--looking out--
+before anyone can really pain you in your soul. People forget that with
+us."
+
+I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter--the more than inherited
+(since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the Christian peoples,
+beside which the mere heathendom of the West Coast nigger is clean and
+restrained. It led me a long distance into myself.
+
+"Don't do that!" she said of a sudden, putting her hands before her eyes.
+
+"What?"
+
+She made a gesture with her hand.
+
+"That! It's--it's all purple and black. Don't! That colour hurts."
+
+"But, how in the world do you know about colours?" I exclaimed, for here
+was a revelation indeed.
+
+"Colours as colours?" she asked.
+
+"No. _Those_ Colours which you saw just now."
+
+"You know as well as I do," she laughed, "else you wouldn't have asked
+that question. They aren't in the world at all. They're in _you_--when you
+went so angry."
+
+"D'you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with ink?" I said.
+
+"I've never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren't mixed. They are
+separate--all separate."
+
+"Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?"
+
+She nodded. "Yes--if they are like this," and zigzagged her finger again,
+"but it's more red than purple--that bad colour."
+
+"And what are the colours at the top of the--whatever you see?"
+
+Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg
+itself.
+
+"I see them so," she said, pointing with a grass stem, "white, green,
+yellow, red, purple, and when people are angry or bad, black across the
+red--as you were just now."
+
+"Who told you anything about it--in the beginning?" I demanded.
+
+"About the colours? No one. I used to ask what colours were when I was
+little--in table-covers and curtains and carpets, you see--because some
+colours hurt me and some made me happy. People told me; and when I got
+older that was how I saw people." Again she traced the outline of the Egg
+which it is given to very few of us to see.
+
+"All by yourself?" I repeated.
+
+"All by myself. There wasn't anyone else. I only found out afterwards that
+other people did not see the Colours."
+
+She leaned against the tree-hole plaiting and unplaiting chance-plucked
+grass stems. The children in the wood had drawn nearer. I could see them
+with the tail of my eye frolicking like squirrels.
+
+"Now I am sure you will never laugh at me," she went on after a long
+silence. "Nor at _them_."
+
+"Goodness! No!" I cried, jolted out of my train of thought. "A man who
+laughs at a child--unless the child is laughing too--is a heathen!"
+
+"I didn't mean that of course. You'd never laugh _at_ children, but I
+thought--I used to think--that perhaps you might laugh about _them_. So
+now I beg your pardon.... What are you going to laugh at?"
+
+I had made no sound, but she knew.
+
+"At the notion of your begging my pardon. If you had done your duty as a
+pillar of the state and a landed proprietress you ought to have summoned
+me for trespass when I barged through your woods the other day. It was
+disgraceful of me--inexcusable."
+
+She looked at me, her head against the tree trunk--long and steadfastly--
+this woman who could see the naked soul.
+
+"How curious," she half whispered. "How very curious."
+
+"Why, what have I done?"
+
+"You don't understand ... and yet you understood about the Colours. Don't
+you understand?"
+
+She spoke with a passion that nothing had justified, and I faced her
+bewilderedly as she rose. The children had gathered themselves in a
+roundel behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent over something smaller,
+and the set of the little shoulders told me that fingers were on lips.
+They, too, had some child's tremendous secret. I alone was hopelessly
+astray there in the broad sunlight.
+
+"No," I said, and shook my head as though the dead eyes could note.
+"Whatever it is, I don't understand yet. Perhaps I shall later--if you'll
+let me come again."
+
+"You will come again," she answered. "You will surely come again and walk
+in the wood."
+
+"Perhaps the children will know me well enough by that time to let me play
+with them--as a favour. You know what children are like."
+
+"It isn't a matter of favour but of right," she replied, and while I
+wondered what she meant, a dishevelled woman plunged round the bend of the
+road, loose-haired, purple, almost lowing with agony as she ran. It was my
+rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard and stepped
+forward. "What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?" she asked.
+
+The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the
+dust, crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local doctor
+was away fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and so forth,
+with repetitions and bellowings.
+
+"Where's the next nearest doctor?" I asked between paroxysms.
+
+"Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you. I'll
+attend to this. Be quick!" She half-supported the fat woman into the
+shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under the
+front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to the
+crisis like a butler and a man.
+
+A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles away.
+Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in motors, at
+the door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to await the verdict.
+
+"Useful things cars," said Madden, all man and no butler. "If I'd had one
+when mine took sick she wouldn't have died."
+
+"How was it?" I asked.
+
+"Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight miles
+in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back. This car
+'d ha' saved her. She'd have been close on ten now."
+
+"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought you were rather fond of children from what
+you told me going to the cross-roads the other day."
+
+"Have you seen 'em again, Sir--this mornin'?"
+
+"Yes, but they're well broke to cars. I couldn't get any of them within
+twenty yards of it."
+
+He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger--not as a menial
+should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.
+
+"I wonder why," he said just above the breath that he drew.
+
+We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long
+lines of the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with summer
+dust, rose and bowed in sallow waves.
+
+A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
+sweetmeat shop.
+
+"I've be'n listenin' in de back-yard," she said cheerily. "He says
+Arthur's unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him shruck just now? Unaccountable
+bad. I reckon t'will come Jenny's turn to walk in de wood nex' week along,
+Mr. Madden."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping," said Madden
+deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.
+
+"What does she mean by 'walking in the wood'?" I asked.
+
+"It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I'm from Norfolk myself,"
+said Madden. "They're an independent lot in this county. She took you for
+a chauffeur, Sir."
+
+I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed
+wench who clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with
+Death. "Dat sort," she wailed--"dey're just as much to us dat has 'em as
+if dey was lawful born. Just as much--just as much! An' God he'd be just
+as pleased if you saved 'un, Doctor. Don't take it from me. Miss Florence
+will tell ye de very same. Don't leave 'im, Doctor!"
+
+"I know. I know," said the man, "but he'll be quiet for a while now.
+We'll get the nurse and the medicine as fast as we can." He signalled me
+to come forward with the car, and I strove not to be privy to what
+followed; but I saw the girl's face, blotched and frozen with grief, and I
+felt the hand without a ring clutching at my knees when we moved away.
+
+The Doctor was a man of some humour, for I remember he claimed my car
+under the Oath of AEsculapius, and used it and me without mercy. First we
+convoyed Mrs. Madehurst and the blind woman to wait by the sick bed till
+the nurse should come. Next we invaded a neat county town for
+prescriptions (the Doctor said the trouble was cerebro-spinal meningitis),
+and when the County Institute, banked and flanked with scared market
+cattle, reported itself out of nurses for the moment we literally flung
+ourselves loose upon the county. We conferred with the owners of great
+houses--magnates at the ends of overarching avenues whose big-boned
+womenfolk strode away from their tea-tables to listen to the imperious
+Doctor. At last a white-haired lady sitting under a cedar of Lebanon and
+surrounded by a court of magnificent Borzois--all hostile to motors--gave
+the Doctor, who received them as from a princess, written orders which we
+bore many miles at top speed, through a park, to a French nunnery, where
+we took over in exchange a pallid-faced and trembling Sister. She knelt at
+the bottom of the tonneau telling her beads without pause till, by short
+cuts of the Doctor's invention, we had her to the sweetmeat shop once
+more. It was a long afternoon crowded with mad episodes that rose and
+dissolved like the dust of our wheels; cross-sections of remote and
+incomprehensible lives through which we raced at right angles; and I went
+home in the dusk, wearied out, to dream of the clashing horns of cattle;
+round-eyed nuns walking in a garden of graves; pleasant tea-parties
+beneath shaded trees; the carbolic-scented, grey-painted corridors of the
+County Institute; the steps of shy children in the wood, and the hands
+that clung to my knees as the motor began to move.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I had intended to return in a day or two, but it pleased Fate to hold me
+from that side of the county, on many pretexts, till the elder and the
+wild rose had fruited. There came at last a brilliant day, swept clear
+from the south-west, that brought the hills within hand's reach--a day of
+unstable airs and high filmy clouds. Through no merit of my own I was
+free, and set the car for the third time on that known road. As I reached
+the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the
+sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the
+Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A
+laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for deeper water and,
+across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails rise one by one on the anchored
+fishing-fleet. In a deep dene behind me an eddy of sudden wind drummed
+through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the first day sample of autumn
+leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog fumed over the
+brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groins of the gale beyond
+Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in chill grey. We
+were again the shut island of the North, all the ships of the world
+bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their outcries ran the piping
+of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped moisture, the folds of the rug held it
+in pools or sluiced it away in runnels, and the salt-rime stuck to my
+lips.
+
+Inland the smell of autumn loaded the thickened fog among the trees, and
+the drip became a continuous shower. Yet the late flowers--mallow of the
+wayside, scabious of the field, and dahlia of the garden--showed gay in
+the mist, and beyond the sea's breath there was little sign of decay in
+the leaf. Yet in the villages the house doors were all open, and bare-
+legged, bare-headed children sat at ease on the damp doorsteps to shout
+"pip-pip" at the stranger.
+
+I made bold to call at the sweetmeat shop, where Mrs. Madehurst met me
+with a fat woman's hospitable tears. Jenny's child, she said, had died two
+days after the nun had come. It was, she felt, best out of the way, even
+though insurance offices, for reasons which she did not pretend to follow,
+would not willingly insure such stray lives. "Not but what Jenny didn't
+tend to Arthur as though he'd come all proper at de end of de first year--
+like Jenny herself." Thanks to Miss Florence, the child had been buried
+with a pomp which, in Mrs. Madehurst's opinion, more than covered the
+small irregularity of its birth. She described the coffin, within and
+without, the glass hearse, and the evergreen lining of the grave.
+
+"But how's the mother?" I asked.
+
+"Jenny? Oh, she'll get over it. I've felt dat way with one or two o' my
+own. She'll get over. She's walkin' in de wood now."
+
+"In this weather?"
+
+Mrs. Madehurst looked at me with narrowed eyes across the counter.
+
+"I dunno but it opens de 'eart like. Yes, it opens de 'eart. Dat's where
+losin' and bearin' comes so alike in de long run, we do say."
+
+Now the wisdom of the old wives is greater than that of all the Fathers,
+and this last oracle sent me thinking so extendedly as I went up the road,
+that I nearly ran over a woman and a child at the wooded corner by the
+lodge gates of the House Beautiful.
+
+"Awful weather!" I cried, as I slowed dead for the turn.
+
+"Not so bad," she answered placidly out of the fog. "Mine's used to 'un.
+You'll find yours indoors, I reckon."
+
+Indoors, Madden received me with professional courtesy, and kind inquiries
+for the health of the motor, which he would put under cover.
+
+I waited in a still, nut-brown hall, pleasant with late flowers and warmed
+with a delicious wood fire--a place of good influence and great peace.
+(Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable
+lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the
+truth of those who have lived in it.) A child's cart and a doll lay on the
+black-and-white floor, where a rug had been kicked back. I felt that the
+children had only just hurried away--to hide themselves, most like--in the
+many turns of the great adzed staircase that climbed statelily out of the
+hall, or to crouch at gaze behind the lions and roses of the carven
+gallery above. Then I heard her voice above me, singing as the blind sing
+--from the soul:--
+
+
+  In the pleasant orchard-closes.
+
+And all my early summer came back at the call.
+
+  In the pleasant orchard-closes,
+  God bless all our gains say we--
+  But may God bless all our losses,
+  Better suits with our degree,
+
+She dropped the marring fifth line, and repeated--
+
+  Better suits with our degree!
+
+I saw her lean over the gallery, her linked hands white as pearl against
+the oak.
+
+"Is that you--from the other side of the county?" she called.
+
+"Yes, me--from the other side of the county," I answered laughing.
+
+"What a long time before you had to come here again." She ran down the
+stairs, one hand lightly touching the broad rail. "It's two months and
+four days. Summer's gone!"
+
+"I meant to come before, but Fate prevented."
+
+"I knew it. Please do something to that fire. They won't let me play with
+it, but I can feel it's behaving badly. Hit it!"
+
+I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a
+half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.
+
+"It never goes out, day or night," she said, as though explaining. "In
+case any one conies in with cold toes, you see."
+
+"It's even lovelier inside than it was out," I murmured. The red light
+poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor roses
+and lions of the gallery took colour and motion. An old eagle-topped
+convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart, distorting
+afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines into the
+curves of a ship. The day was shutting down in half a gale as the fog
+turned to stringy scud. Through the uncurtained mullions of the broad
+window I could see valiant horsemen of the lawn rear and recover against
+the wind that taunted them with legions of dead leaves.
+"Yes, it must be beautiful," she said. "Would you like to go over it?
+There's still light enough upstairs."
+
+I followed her up the unflinching, wagon-wide staircase to the gallery
+whence opened the thin fluted Elizabethan doors.
+
+"Feel how they put the latch low down for the sake of the children." She
+swung a light door inward.
+
+"By the way, where are they?" I asked. "I haven't even heard them to-day."
+
+She did not answer at once. Then, "I can only hear them," she replied
+softly. "This is one of their rooms--everything ready, you see."
+
+She pointed into a heavily-timbered room. There were little low gate
+tables and children's chairs. A doll's house, its hooked front half open,
+faced a great dappled rocking-horse, from whose padded saddle it was but a
+child's scramble to the broad window-seat overlooking the lawn. A toy gun
+lay in a corner beside a gilt wooden cannon.
+
+"Surely they've only just gone," I whispered. In the failing light a door
+creaked cautiously. I heard the rustle of a frock and the patter of feet--
+quick feet through a room beyond.
+
+"I heard that," she cried triumphantly. "Did you? Children, O children,
+where are you?"
+
+The voice filled the walls that held it lovingly to the last perfect note,
+but there came no answering shout such as I had heard in the garden. We
+hurried on from room to oak-floored room; up a step here, down three steps
+there; among a maze of passages; always mocked by our quarry. One might as
+well have tried to work an unstopped warren with a single ferret. There
+were bolt-holes innumerable--recesses in walls, embrasures of deep slitten
+windows now darkened, whence they could start up behind us; and abandoned
+fireplaces, six feet deep in the masonry, as well as the tangle of
+communicating doors. Above all, they had the twilight for their helper in
+our game. I had caught one or two joyous chuckles of evasion, and once or
+twice had seen the silhouette of a child's frock against some darkening
+window at the end of a passage; but we returned empty-handed to the
+gallery, just as a middle-aged woman was setting a lamp in its niche.
+
+"No, I haven't seen her either this evening, Miss Florence," I heard her
+say, "but that Turpin he says he wants to see you about his shed."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Turpin must want to see me very badly. Tell him to come to the
+hall, Mrs. Madden."
+
+I looked down into the hall whose only light was the dulled fire, and deep
+in the shadow I saw them at last. They must have slipped down while we
+were in the passages, and now thought themselves perfectly hidden behind
+an old gilt leather screen. By child's law, my fruitless chase was as good
+as an introduction, but since I had taken so much trouble I resolved to
+force them to come forward later by the simple trick, which children
+detest, of pretending not to notice them. They lay close, in a little
+huddle, no more than shadows except when a quick flame betrayed an
+outline.
+
+"And now we'll have some tea," she said. "I believe I ought to have
+offered it you at first, but one doesn't arrive at manners somehow when
+one lives alone and is considered--h'm--peculiar." Then with very pretty
+scorn, "would you like a lamp to see to eat by?" "The firelight's much
+pleasanter, I think." We descended into that delicious gloom and Madden
+brought tea.
+
+I took my chair in the direction of the screen ready to surprise or be
+surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth is
+always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.
+
+"Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?" I asked idly. "Why,
+they are tallies!"
+
+"Of course," she said. "As I can't read or write I'm driven back on the
+early English tally for my accounts. Give me one and I'll tell you what it
+meant."
+
+I passed her an unburned hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran her
+thumb down the nicks.
+
+"This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last
+year, in gallons," said she. "I don't know what I should have done without
+tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It's out of date
+now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of them's coming
+now to see me. Oh, it doesn't matter. He has no business here out of
+office hours. He's a greedy, ignorant man--very greedy or--he wouldn't
+come here after dark."
+
+"Have you much land then?"
+
+"Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six
+hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this
+Turpin is quite a new man--and a highway robber."
+
+"But are you sure I sha'n't be----?"
+
+"Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn't any children."
+
+"Ah, the children!" I said, and slid my low chair back till it nearly
+touched the screen that hid them. "I wonder whether they'll come out for
+me."
+
+There was a murmur of voices--Madden's and a deeper note--at the low, dark
+side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the unmistakable
+tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.
+
+"Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin," she said.
+
+"If--if you please, Miss, I'll--I'll be quite as well by the door." He
+clung to the latch as he spoke like a frightened child. Of a sudden I
+realised that he was in the grip of some almost overpowering fear.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"About that new shed for the young stock--that was all. These first autumn
+storms settin' in ... but I'll come again, Miss." His teeth did not
+chatter much more than the door latch.
+
+"I think not," she answered levelly. "The new shed--m'm. What did my agent
+write you on the 15th?"
+
+"I--fancied p'raps that if I came to see you--ma--man to man like, Miss.
+But----"
+
+His eyes rolled into every corner of the room wide with horror. He half
+opened the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut again
+--from without and firmly.
+
+"He wrote what I told him," she went on. "You are overstocked already.
+Dunnett's Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks--even in Mr.
+Wright's time. And _he_ used cake. You've sixty-seven and you don't cake.
+You've broken the lease in that respect. You're dragging the heart out of
+the farm."
+
+"I'm--I'm getting some minerals--superphosphates--next week. I've as good
+as ordered a truck-load already. I'll go down to the station to-morrow
+about 'em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the
+daylight.... That gentleman's not going away, is he?" He almost shrieked.
+
+I had only slid the chair a little further back, reaching behind me to tap
+on the leather of the screen, but he jumped like a rat.
+
+"No. Please attend to me, Mr. Turpin." She turned in her chair and faced
+him with his back to the door. It was an old and sordid little piece of
+scheming that she forced from him--his plea for the new cowshed at his
+landlady's expense, that he might with the covered manure pay his next
+year's rent out of the valuation after, as she made clear, he had bled the
+enriched pastures to the bone. I could not but admire the intensity of his
+greed, when I saw him out-facing for its sake whatever terror it was that
+ran wet on his forehead.
+
+I ceased to tap the leather--was, indeed, calculating the cost of the
+shed--when I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the soft
+hands of a child. So at last I had triumphed. In a moment I would turn and
+acquaint myself with those quick-footed wanderers....
+
+The little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm--as a gift on which
+the fingers were, once, expected to close: as the all faithful half-
+reproachful signal of a waiting child not used to neglect even when
+grown-ups were busiest--a fragment of the mute code devised very long ago.
+
+Then I knew. And it was as though I had known from the first day when I
+looked across the lawn at the high window.
+
+I heard the door shut. The woman turned to me in silence, and I felt that
+she knew.
+
+What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a
+log, and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place in
+the chair very close to the screen.
+
+"Now you understand," she whispered, across the packed shadows.
+
+"Yes, I understand--now. Thank you."
+
+"I--I only hear them." She bowed her head in her hands. "I have no right,
+you know--no other right. I have neither borne nor lost--neither borne nor
+lost!"
+
+"Be very glad then," said I, for my soul was torn open within me.
+
+"Forgive me!"
+
+She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.
+
+"It was because I loved them so," she said at last, brokenly. "_That_ was
+why it was, even from the first--even before I knew that they--they were
+all I should ever have. And I loved them so!"
+
+She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the
+shadow.
+
+"They came because I loved them--because I needed them. I--I must have
+made them come. Was that wrong, think you?"
+
+"No--no."
+
+"I--I grant you that the toys and--and all that sort of thing were
+nonsense, but--but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
+little." She pointed to the gallery. "And the passages all empty. ... And
+how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose----"
+
+"Don't! For pity's sake, don't!" I cried. The twilight had brought a cold
+rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded windows.
+
+"And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. _I_ don't think it
+so foolish--do you?"
+
+I looked at the broad brick hearth, saw, through tears I believe, that
+there was no unpassable iron on or near it, and bowed my head.
+
+"I did all that and lots of other things--just to make believe. Then they
+came. I heard them, but I didn't know that they were not mine by right
+till Mrs. Madden told me----"
+
+"The butler's wife? What?"
+
+"One of them--I heard--she saw. And knew. Hers! _Not_ for me. I didn't
+know at first. Perhaps I was jealous. Afterwards, I began to understand
+that it was only because I loved them, not because----... Oh, you _must_
+bear or lose," she said piteously. "There is no other way--and yet they
+love me. They must! Don't they?"
+
+There was no sound in the room except the lapping voices of the fire, but
+we two listened intently, and she at least took comfort from what she
+heard. She recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair by the
+screen.
+
+"Don't think me a wretch to whine about myself like this, but--but I'm all
+in the dark, you know, and _you_ can see."
+
+In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though
+that was like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer I
+would stay since it was the last time.
+
+"You think it is wrong, then?" she cried sharply, though I had said
+nothing.
+
+"Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right.... I am grateful
+to you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only...."
+
+"Why?" she said, but passed her hand before her face as she had done at
+our second meeting in the wood. "Oh, I see," she went on simply as a
+child. "For you it would be wrong." Then with a little indrawn laugh,
+"and, d'you remember, I called you lucky--once--at first. You who must
+never come here again!"
+
+She left me to sit a little longer by the screen, and I heard the sound of
+her feet die out along the gallery above.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+FROM LYDEN'S "IRENIUS"
+
+ACT III. Sc. II.
+
+Gow.--Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose
+there's not an astrologer of the city----
+
+PRINCE.--Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
+
+Gow.--So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha'
+sworn he'd foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught
+her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since 'tis Jack of
+the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their tablets.
+
+PRINCE.--Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the
+poor fool come by it?
+
+Gow.--_Simpliciter_ thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she
+did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He
+that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than
+"Where is the rope?" The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works God's
+will, in which holy employ he's not to be questioned. We have then left
+upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of
+Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on a sunny
+wall. Whuff! Soh!
+
+PRINCE.--Your cloak, Ferdinand. I'll sleep now.
+
+FERDINAND.--Sleep, then.. He too, loved his life?
+
+Gow.--He was born of woman ... but at the end threw life from
+him, like your Prince, for a little sleep ... "Have I any look of a
+King?" said he, clanking his chain--"to be so baited on all sides by
+Fortune, that I must e'en die now to live with myself one day longer?" I
+left him railing at Fortune and woman's love.
+
+FERDINAND.--Ah, woman's love!
+
+_(Aside)_ Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones, Stealing from
+feasts as rare to coneycatch, Privily in the hedgerows for a clown With
+that same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one
+hammer and lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
+Yesterday 'gainst some King.
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+The day that I chose to visit H.M.S. _Peridot_ in Simon's Bay was the day
+that the Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. She was just
+steaming out to sea as my train came in, and since the rest of the Fleet
+were either coaling or busy at the rifle-ranges a thousand feet up the
+hill, I found myself stranded, lunchless, on the sea-front with no hope of
+return to Cape Town before five P.M. At this crisis I had the luck to come
+across my friend Inspector Hooper, Cape Government Railways, in command of
+an engine and a brake-van chalked for repair.
+
+"If you get something to eat," he said, "I'll run you down to Glengariff
+siding till the goods comes along. It's cooler there than here, you see."
+
+I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price, and
+the engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of drifted
+sand and a plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred yards from the
+edge of the surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow, rolled far inland
+up a brown and purple valley of splintered rocks and dry scrub. A crowd of
+Malays hauled at a net beside two blue and green boats on the beach; a
+picnic party danced and shouted barefoot where a tiny river trickled
+across the flat, and a circle of dry hills, whose feet were set in sands
+of silver, locked us in against a seven-coloured sea. At either horn of
+the bay the railway line, cut just above high water-mark, ran round a
+shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.
+
+"You see there's always a breeze here," said Hooper, opening the door as
+the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong south-easter
+buffeting under Elsie's Peak dusted sand into our tickey beer. Presently
+he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had returned from a
+long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on damaged rolling-
+stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland wind on my
+eyelids; the song of it under the car roof, and high up among the rocks;
+the drift of fine grains chasing each other musically ashore; the tramp of
+the surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle of Hooper's file, and
+the presence of the assured sun, joined with the beer to cast me into
+magical slumber. The hills of False Bay were just dissolving into those of
+fairyland when I heard footsteps on the sand outside, and the clink of our
+couplings.
+
+"Stop that!" snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his work. "It's
+those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they're always playing with the
+trucks...."
+
+"Don't be hard on 'em. The railway's a general refuge in Africa," I
+replied.
+
+"'Tis--up-country at any rate. That reminds me," he felt in his waistcoat-
+pocket, "I've got a curiosity for you from Wankies--beyond Buluwayo. It's
+more of a souvenir perhaps than----"
+
+"The old hotel's inhabited," cried a voice. "White men from the language.
+Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here's your Belmont. Wha--i--i!"
+
+The last word dragged like a rope as Mr. Pyecroft ran round to the open
+door, and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous Sergeant
+of Marines trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the sand nervously
+from his fingers.
+
+"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought the _Hierophant_ was down
+the coast?"
+
+"We came in last Tuesday--from Tristan D'Acunha--for overhaul, and we
+shall be in dockyard 'ands for two months, with boiler-seatings."
+
+"Come and sit down," Hooper put away the file.
+
+"This is Mr. Hooper of the Railway," I exclaimed, as Pyecroft turned to
+haul up the black-moustached sergeant.
+
+"This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the _Agaric_, an old shipmate," said he.
+"We were strollin' on the beach." The monster blushed and nodded. He
+filled up one side of the van when he sat down.
+
+"And this is my friend, Mr. Pyecroft," I added to Hooper, already busy
+with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.
+
+"_Moi aussi_" quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a labelled
+quart bottle.
+
+"Why, it's Bass," cried Hooper.
+
+"It was Pritchard," said Pyecroft. "They can't resist him."
+
+"That's not so," said Pritchard, mildly.
+
+"Not _verbatim_ per'aps, but the look in the eye came to the same thing."
+
+"Where was it?" I demanded.
+
+"Just on beyond here--at Kalk Bay. She was slappin' a rug in a back
+verandah. Pritch hadn't more than brought his batteries to bear, before
+she stepped indoors an' sent it flyin' over the wall."
+
+Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
+
+"It was all a mistake," said Pritchard. "I shouldn't wonder if she mistook
+me for Maclean. We're about of a size."
+
+I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James's, and Kalk Bay complain
+of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the seaside, and I
+began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent Bass, and I too
+drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
+
+"It's the uniform that fetches 'em, an' they fetch it," said Pyecroft. "My
+simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin'. Now Pritch in 'is
+Number One rig is always 'purr Mary, on the terrace'--_ex officio_ as you
+might say."
+
+"She took me for Maclean, I tell you," Pritchard insisted. "Why--why--to
+listen to him you wouldn't think that only yesterday----"
+
+"Pritch," said Pyecroft, "be warned in time. If we begin tellin' what we
+know about each other we'll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention
+aggravated desertion on several occasions----"
+
+"Never anything more than absence without leaf--I defy you to prove it,"
+said the Sergeant hotly. "An' if it comes to that how about Vancouver in
+'87?"
+
+"How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
+Niven...?"
+
+"Surely you were court martialled for that?" I said. The story of Boy
+Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
+woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
+
+"Yes, we were court-martialled to rights," said Pritchard, "but we should
+have been tried for murder if Boy Niven 'adn't been unusually tough. He
+told us he had an uncle 'oo'd give us land to farm. 'E said he was born at
+the back o' Vancouver Island, and _all_ the time the beggar was a balmy
+Barnado Orphan!"
+
+"_But_ we believed him," said Pyecroft. "I did--you did--Paterson did--an'
+'oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards--him with
+the mouth?"
+
+"Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I 'aven't thought of 'im in years," said
+Pritchard. "Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an' George Anstey and Moon. We were
+very young an' very curious."
+
+"_But_ lovin' an' trustful to a degree," said Pyecroft.
+
+"Remember when 'e told us to walk in single file for fear o' bears?
+'Remember, Pye, when 'e 'opped about in that bog full o' ferns an' sniffed
+an' said 'e could smell the smoke of 'is uncle's farm? An' _all_ the time
+it was a dirty little out-lyin' uninhabited island. We walked round it in
+a day, an' come back to our boat lyin' on the beach. A whole day Boy Niven
+kept us walkin' in circles lookin' for 'is uncle's farm! He said his uncle
+was compelled by the law of the land to give us a farm!"
+
+"Don't get hot, Pritch. We believed," said Pyecroft.
+
+"He'd been readin' books. He only did it to get a run ashore an' have
+himself talked of. A day an' a night--eight of us--followin' Boy Niven
+round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the picket
+came for us an' a nice pack o' idiots we looked!"
+
+"What did you get for it?" Hooper asked.
+
+"Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter sleet-
+squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till conclusion o'
+cruise," said Pyecroft. "It was only what we expected, but what we felt,
+an' I assure you, Mr. Hooper, even a sailor-man has a heart to break, was
+bein' told that we able seamen an' promisin' marines 'ad misled Boy Niven.
+Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was supposed to 'ave misled him! He
+rounded on us, o' course, an' got off easy."
+
+"Excep' for what we gave him in the steerin'-flat when we came out o'
+cells. 'Eard anything of 'im lately, Pye?"
+
+"Signal Boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe--Mr. L.L. Niven is."
+
+"An' Anstey died o' fever in Benin," Pritchard mused. "What come to Moon?
+Spit-Kid we know about."
+
+"Moon--Moon! Now where did I last...? Oh yes, when I was in the
+_Palladium_! I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon 'ad run
+when the _Astrild_ sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years
+back. He always showed signs o' bein' a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he
+slipped off quietly an' they 'adn't time to chase 'im round the islands
+even if the navigatin' officer 'ad been equal to the job."
+
+"Wasn't he?" said Hooper.
+
+"Not so. Accordin' to Quigley the _Astrild_ spent half her commission
+rompin' up the beach like a she-turtle, an' the other half hatching
+turtles' eggs on the top o' numerous reefs. When she was docked at Sydney
+her copper looked like Aunt Maria's washing on the line--an' her 'midship
+frames was sprung. The commander swore the dockyard 'ad done it haulin'
+the pore thing on to the slips. They _do_ do strange things at sea, Mr.
+Hooper."
+
+"Ah! I'm not a tax-payer," said Hooper, and opened a fresh bottle. The
+Sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping subjects.
+
+"How it all comes back, don't it?" he said. "Why Moon must 'ave 'ad
+sixteen years' service before he ran."
+
+"It takes 'em at all ages. Look at--you know," said Pyecroft.
+
+"Who?" I asked.
+
+"A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party you're
+thinkin' of," said Pritchard. "A warrant 'oose name begins with a V.,
+isn't it?"
+
+"But, in a way o' puttin' it, we can't say that he actually did desert,"
+Pyecroft suggested.
+
+"Oh, no," said Pritchard. "It was only permanent absence up country
+without leaf. That was all."
+
+"Up country?" said Hooper. "Did they circulate his description?"
+
+"What for?" said Pritchard, most impolitely.
+
+"Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don't move away from
+the line, you see. I've known a chap caught at Salisbury that way tryin'
+to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o' course I don't know, that they
+don't ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I've heard of a
+P. and O. quartermaster in full command of an armed launch there."
+
+"Do you think Click 'ud ha' gone up that way?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"There's no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some Navy
+ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it into the
+trucks. Then there was no more Click--then or thereafter. Four months ago
+it transpired, and thus the _casus belli_ stands at present," said
+Pyecroft.
+
+"What were his marks?" said Hooper again.
+
+"Does the Railway get a reward for returnin' 'em, then?" said Pritchard.
+
+"If I did d'you suppose I'd talk about it?" Hooper retorted angrily.
+
+"You seemed so very interested," said Pritchard with equal crispness.
+
+"Why was he called Click?" I asked to tide over an uneasy little break in
+the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very fixedly.
+
+"Because of an ammunition hoist carryin' away," said Pyecroft. "And it
+carried away four of 'is teeth--on the lower port side, wasn't it, Pritch?
+The substitutes which he bought weren't screwed home in a manner o'
+sayin'. When he talked fast they used to lift a little on the bed plate.
+'Ence, 'Click.' They called 'im a superior man which is what we'd call a
+long, black-'aired, genteely speakin', 'alf-bred beggar on the lower
+deck."
+
+"Four false teeth on the lower left jaw," said Hooper, his hand in his
+waistcoat pocket. "What tattoo marks?"
+
+"Look here," began Pritchard, half rising. "I'm sure we're very grateful
+to you as a gentleman for your 'orspitality, but per'aps we may 'ave made
+an error in--"
+
+I looked at Pyecroft for aid, Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.
+
+"If the fat marine now occupying the foc'sle will kindly bring 'is _status
+quo_ to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk like gentlemen--
+not to say friends," said Pyecroft. "He regards you, Mr. Hooper, as a
+emissary of the Law."
+
+"I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar, or
+I should rather say, such a _bloomin'_ curiosity in identification marks
+as our friend here----"
+
+"Mr. Pritchard," I interposed, "I'll take all the responsibility for Mr.
+Hooper."
+
+"An' _you_'ll apologise all round," said Pyecroft. "You're a rude little
+man, Pritch."
+
+"But how was I----" he began, wavering.
+
+"I don't know an' I don't care. Apologise!"
+
+The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his vast
+grip, one by one. "I was wrong," he said meekly as a sheep. "My suspicions
+was unfounded. Mr. Hooper, I apologise."
+
+"You did quite right to look out for your own end o' the line," said
+Hooper. "I'd ha' done the same with a gentleman I didn't know, you see. If
+you don't mind I'd like to hear a little more o' your Mr. Vickery. It's
+safe with me, you see."
+
+"Why did Vickery run," I began, but Pyecroft's smile made me turn my
+question to "Who was she?"
+
+"She kep' a little hotel at Hauraki--near Auckland," said Pyecroft.
+
+"By Gawd!" roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. "Not Mrs.
+Bathurst!"
+
+Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of darkness
+to witness his bewilderment.
+
+"So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question."
+
+"But Click was married," cried Pritchard.
+
+"An' 'ad a fifteen year old daughter. 'E's shown me her photograph.
+Settin' that aside, so to say, 'ave you ever found these little things
+make much difference? Because I haven't."
+
+"Good Lord Alive an' Watchin'!... Mrs. Bathurst...." Then with another
+roar: "You can say what you please, Pye, but you don't make me believe it
+was any of 'er fault. She wasn't _that!_"
+
+"If I was going to say what I please, I'd begin by callin' you a silly ox
+an' work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I'm trying to say solely
+what transpired. M'rover, for once you're right. It wasn't her fault."
+
+"You couldn't 'aven't made me believe it if it 'ad been," was the answer.
+
+Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. "Never mind
+about that," I cried. "Tell me what she was like."
+
+"She was a widow," said Pyecroft. "Left so very young and never
+re-spliced. She kep' a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close to
+Auckland, an' she always wore black silk, and 'er neck--"
+
+"You ask what she was like," Pritchard broke in. "Let me give you an
+instance. I was at Auckland first in '97, at the end o' the _Marroquin's_
+commission, an' as I'd been promoted I went up with the others. She used
+to look after us all, an' she never lost by it--not a penny! 'Pay me now,'
+she'd say, 'or settle later. I know you won't let me suffer. Send the
+money from home if you like,' Why, gentlemen all, I tell you I've seen
+that lady take her own gold watch an' chain off her neck in the bar an'
+pass it to a bosun 'oo'd come ashore without 'is ticker an' 'ad to catch
+the last boat. 'I don't know your name,' she said, 'but when you've done
+with it, you'll find plenty that know me on the front. Send it back by one
+o' them.' And it was worth thirty pounds if it was worth 'arf a crown. The
+little gold watch, Pye, with the blue monogram at the back. But, as I was
+sayin', in those days she kep' a beer that agreed with me--Slits it was
+called. One way an' another I must 'ave punished a good few bottles of it
+while we was in the bay--comin' ashore every night or so. Chaffin across
+the bar like, once when we were alone, 'Mrs. B.,' I said, 'when next I
+call I want you to remember that this is my particular--just as you're my
+particular?' (She'd let you go _that_ far!) 'Just as you're my
+particular,' I said. 'Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says, an'
+put 'er hand up to the curl be'ind 'er ear. Remember that way she had,
+Pye?"
+
+"I think so," said the sailor.
+
+"Yes, 'Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says. 'The least I can do is to
+mark it for you in case you change your mind. There's no great demand for
+it in the Fleet,' she says, 'but to make sure I'll put it at the back o'
+the shelf,' an' she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon with that old
+dolphin cigar cutter on the bar--remember it, Pye?--an' she tied a bow
+round what was left--just four bottles. That was '97--no, '96. In '98 I
+was in the _Resiliant_--China station--full commission. In Nineteen One,
+mark you, I was in the _Carthusian_, back in Auckland Bay again. Of course
+I went up to Mrs. B.'s with the rest of us to see how things were goin'.
+They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree on the pavement by the
+side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin' in special (there was too many of us
+talkin' to her), but she saw me at once."
+
+"That wasn't difficult?" I ventured.
+
+"Ah, but wait. I was comin' up to the bar, when, 'Ada,' she says to her
+niece, 'get me Sergeant Pritchard's particular,' and, gentlemen all, I
+tell you before I could shake 'ands with the lady, there were those four
+bottles o' Slits, with 'er 'air ribbon in a bow round each o' their necks,
+set down in front o' me, an' as she drew the cork she looked at me under
+her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o' lookin', an', 'Sergeant
+Pritchard,' she says, 'I do 'ope you 'aven't changed your mind about your
+particulars.' That's the kind o' woman she was--after five years!"
+
+"I don't _see_ her yet somehow," said Hooper, but with sympathy.
+
+"She--she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set 'er foot on a scorpion
+at any time of 'er life," Pritchard added valiantly.
+
+"That don't help me either. My mother's like that for one."
+
+The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof.
+Said Pyecroft suddenly:--
+
+"How many women have you been intimate with all over the world, Pritch?"
+
+Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch
+neck.
+
+"'Undreds," said Pyecroft. "So've I. How many of 'em can you remember in
+your own mind, settin' aside the first--an' per'aps the last--_and one
+more_?"
+
+"Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself," said Sergeant Pritchard,
+relievedly.
+
+"An' how many times might you 'ave been at Aukland?"
+
+"One--two," he began. "Why, I can't make it more than three times in ten
+years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B."
+
+"So can I--an' I've only been to Auckland twice--how she stood an' what
+she was sayin' an' what she looked like. That's the secret. 'Tisn't
+beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some
+women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street, but
+most of 'em you can live with a month on end, an' next commission you'd be
+put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as one
+might say."
+
+"Ah," said Hooper. "That's more the idea. I've known just two women of
+that nature."
+
+"An' it was no fault o' theirs?" asked Pritchard.
+
+"None whatever. I know that!"
+
+"An' if a man gets struck with that kind o' woman, Mr. Hooper?" Pritchard
+went on.
+
+"He goes crazy--or just saves himself," was the slow answer.
+
+"You've hit it," said the Sergeant. "You've seen an' known somethin' in
+the course o' your life, Mr. Hooper. I'm lookin' at you!" He set down his
+bottle.
+
+"And how often had Vickery seen her?" I asked.
+
+"That's the dark an' bloody mystery," Pyecroft answered. "I'd never come
+across him till I come out in the _Hierophant_ just now, an' there wasn't
+any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was what you call
+a superior man. 'E spoke to me once or twice about Auckland and Mrs. B. on
+the voyage out. I called that to mind subsequently. There must 'ave been a
+good deal between 'em, to my way o' thinkin'. Mind you I'm only giving you
+my _sum_ of it all, because all I know is second-hand so to speak, or
+rather I should say more than second-'and."
+
+"How?" said Hooper peremptorily. "You must have seen it or heard it."
+
+"Yes," said Pyecroft. "I used to think seein' and hearin' was the only
+regulation aids to ascertainin' facts, but as we get older we get more
+accommodatin'. The cylinders work easier, I suppose.... Were you in Cape
+Town last December when Phyllis's Circus came?"
+
+"No--up country," said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue.
+
+"I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called 'Home and
+Friends for a Tickey.'"
+
+"Oh, you mean the cinematograph--the pictures of prize-fights and
+steamers. I've seen 'em up country."
+
+"Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin' to. London Bridge with
+the omnibuses--a troopship goin' to the war--marines on parade at
+Portsmouth an' the Plymouth Express arrivin' at Paddin'ton."
+
+"Seen 'em all. Seen 'em all," said Hooper impatiently.
+
+"We _Hierophants_ came in just before Christmas week an' leaf was easy."
+
+"I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on
+the station. Why, even Durban's more like Nature. We was there for
+Christmas," Pritchard put in.
+
+"Not bein' a devotee of Indian _peeris_, as our Doctor said to the Pusser,
+I can't exactly say. Phyllis's was good enough after musketry practice at
+Mozambique. I couldn't get off the first two or three nights on account of
+what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo Lieutenant in the
+submerged flat, where some pride of the West country had sugared up a
+gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our Carpenter Rigdon--
+old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus never left 'is ship
+unless an' until he was 'oisted out with a winch, but _when_ 'e went 'e
+would return noddin' like a lily gemmed with dew. We smothered him down
+below that night, but the things 'e said about Vickery as a fittin'
+playmate for a Warrant Officer of 'is cubic capacity, before we got him
+quiet, was what I should call pointed."
+
+"I've been with Crocus--in the _Redoubtable_," said the Sergeant. "He's a
+character if there is one."
+
+"Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at the
+door of the Circus I came across Vickery. 'Oh!' he says, 'you're the man
+I'm looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin' places!'
+I went astern at once, protestin' because tickey seats better suited my
+so-called finances. 'Come on,' says Vickery, 'I'm payin'.' Naturally I
+abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o' drinks to match the seats.
+'No,' he says, when this was 'inted--'not now. Not now. As many as you
+please afterwards, but I want you sober for the occasion.' I caught 'is
+face under a lamp just then, an' the appearance of it quite cured me of my
+thirsts. Don't mistake. It didn't frighten me. It made me anxious. I can't
+tell you what it was like, but that was the effect which it 'ad on me. If
+you want to know, it reminded me of those things in bottles in those
+herbalistic shops at Plymouth--preserved in spirits of wine. White an'
+crumply things--previous to birth as you might say."
+
+"You 'ave a beastial mind, Pye," said the Sergeant, relighting his pipe.
+
+"Perhaps. We were in the front row, an' 'Home an' Friends' came on early.
+Vickery touched me on the knee when the number went up. 'If you see
+anything that strikes you,' he says, 'drop me a hint'; then he went on
+clicking. We saw London Bridge an' so forth an' so on, an' it was most
+interestin'. I'd never seen it before. You 'eard a little dynamo like
+buzzin', but the pictures were the real thing--alive an' movin'."
+
+"I've seen 'em," said Hooper. "Of course they are taken from the very
+thing itself--you see."
+
+"Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin'ton on the big magic lantern
+sheet. First we saw the platform empty an' the porters standin' by. Then
+the engine come in, head on, an' the women in the front row jumped: she
+headed so straight. Then the doors opened and the passengers came out and
+the porters got the luggage--just like life. Only--only when any one came
+down too far towards us that was watchin', they walked right out o' the
+picture, so to speak. I was 'ighly interested, I can tell you. So were all
+of us. I watched an old man with a rug 'oo'd dropped a book an' was tryin'
+to pick it up, when quite slowly, from be'ind two porters--carryin' a
+little reticule an' lookin' from side to side--comes out Mrs. Bathurst.
+There was no mistakin' the walk in a hundred thousand. She come forward--
+right forward--she looked out straight at us with that blindish look which
+Pritch alluded to. She walked on and on till she melted out of the
+picture--like--like a shadow jumpin' over a candle, an' as she went I
+'eard Dawson in the ticky seats be'ind sing out: 'Christ! There's
+Mrs. B.!'"
+
+Hooper swallowed his spittle and leaned forward intently.
+
+"Vickery touched me on the knee again. He was clickin' his four false
+teeth with his jaw down like an enteric at the last kick. 'Are you sure?'
+says he. 'Sure,' I says, 'didn't you 'ear Dawson give tongue? Why, it's
+the woman herself.' 'I was sure before,' he says, 'but I brought you to
+make sure. Will you come again with me to-morrow?'
+
+"'Willingly,' I says, 'it's like meetin' old friends.'
+
+"'Yes,' he says, openin' his watch, 'very like. It will be four-and-twenty
+hours less four minutes before I see her again. Come and have a drink,' he
+says. 'It may amuse you, but it's no sort of earthly use to me.' He went
+out shaking his head an' stumblin' over people's feet as if he was drunk
+already. I anticipated a swift drink an' a speedy return, because I wanted
+to see the performin' elephants. Instead o' which Vickery began to
+navigate the town at the rate o' knots, lookin' in at a bar every three
+minutes approximate Greenwich time. I'm not a drinkin' man, though there
+are those present"--he cocked his unforgetable eye at me--"who may have
+seen me more or less imbued with the fragrant spirit. None the less, when
+I drink I like to do it at anchor an' not at an average speed of eighteen
+knots on the measured mile. There's a tank as you might say at the back o'
+that big hotel up the hill--what do they call it?"
+
+"The Molteno Reservoir," I suggested, and Hooper nodded.
+
+"That was his limit o' drift. We walked there an' we come down through the
+Gardens--there was a South-Easter blowin'--an' we finished up by the
+Docks. Then we bore up the road to Salt River, and wherever there was a
+pub Vickery put in sweatin'. He didn't look at what he drunk--he didn't
+look at the change. He walked an' he drunk an' he perspired in rivers. I
+understood why old Crocus 'ad come back in the condition 'e did, because
+Vickery an' I 'ad two an' a half hours o' this gipsy manoeuvre an' when we
+got back to the station there wasn't a dry atom on or in me."
+
+"Did he say anything?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"The sum total of 'is conversation from 7.45 P.M. till 11.15 P.M. was
+'Let's have another.' Thus the mornin' an' the evenin' were the first day,
+as Scripture says.... To abbreviate a lengthy narrative, I went into Cape
+Town for five consecutive nights with Master Vickery, and in that time I
+must 'ave logged about fifty knots over the ground an' taken in two gallon
+o' all the worst spirits south the Equator. The evolution never varied.
+Two shilling seats for us two; five minutes o' the pictures, an' perhaps
+forty-five seconds o' Mrs. B. walking down towards us with that blindish
+look in her eyes an' the reticule in her hand. Then out walk--and drink
+till train time."
+
+"What did you think?" said Hooper, his hand fingering his waistcoat
+pocket.
+
+"Several things," said Pyecroft. "To tell you the truth, I aren't quite
+done thinkin' about it yet. Mad? The man was a dumb lunatic--must 'ave
+been for months--years p'raps. I know somethin' o' maniacs, as every man
+in the Service must. I've been shipmates with a mad skipper--an' a lunatic
+Number One, but never both together I thank 'Eaven. I could give you the
+names o' three captains now 'oo ought to be in an asylum, but you don't
+find me interferin' with the mentally afflicted till they begin to lay
+about 'em with rammers an' winch-handles. Only once I crept up a little
+into the wind towards Master Vickery. 'I wonder what she's doin' in
+England,' I says. 'Don't it seem to you she's lookin' for somebody?' That
+was in the Gardens again, with the South-Easter blowin' as we were makin'
+our desperate round. 'She's lookin' for me,' he says, stoppin' dead under
+a lamp an' clickin'. When he wasn't drinkin', in which case all 'is teeth
+clicked on the glass, 'e was clickin' 'is four false teeth like a Marconi
+ticker. 'Yes! lookin' for me,' he said, an' he went on very softly an' as
+you might say affectionately. '_But?_ he went on, 'in future, Mr.
+Pyecroft, I should take it kindly of you if you'd confine your remarks to
+the drinks set before you. Otherwise,' he says, 'with the best will in the
+world towards you, I may find myself guilty of murder! Do you understand?'
+he says. 'Perfectly,' I says, 'but would it at all soothe you to know that
+in such a case the chances o' your being killed are precisely equivalent
+to the chances o' me being outed.' 'Why, no,' he says, 'I'm almost afraid
+that 'ud be a temptation,'
+
+"Then I said--we was right under the lamp by that arch at the end o' the
+Gardens where the trams came round--'Assumin' murder was done--or
+attempted murder--I put it to you that you would still be left so badly
+crippled, as one might say, that your subsequent capture by the police--to
+'oom you would 'ave to explain--would be largely inevitable.' 'That's
+better,' 'e says, passin' 'is hands over his forehead. 'That's much
+better, because,' he says, 'do you know, as I am now, Pye, I'm not so sure
+if I could explain anything much.' Those were the only particular words I
+had with 'im in our walks as I remember."
+
+"What walks!" said Hooper. "Oh my soul, what walks!"
+
+"They were chronic," said Pyecroft gravely, "but I didn't anticipate any
+danger till the Circus left. Then I anticipated that, bein' deprived of
+'is stimulant, he might react on me, so to say, with a hatchet.
+Consequently, after the final performance an' the ensuin' wet walk, I kep'
+myself aloof from my superior officer on board in the execution of 'is
+duty as you might put it. Consequently, I was interested when the sentry
+informs me while I was passin' on my lawful occasions that Click had asked
+to see the captain. As a general rule warrant officers don't dissipate
+much of the owner's time, but Click put in an hour and more be'ind that
+door. My duties kep' me within eyeshot of it. Vickery came out first, an'
+'e actually nodded at me an' smiled. This knocked me out o' the boat,
+because, havin' seen 'is face for five consecutive nights, I didn't
+anticipate any change there more than a condenser in hell, so to speak.
+The owner emerged later. His face didn't read off at all, so I fell back
+on his cox, 'oo'd been eight years with him and knew him better than boat
+signals. Lamson--that was the cox's name--crossed 'is bows once or twice
+at low speeds an' dropped down to me visibly concerned. 'He's shipped 'is
+court-martial face,' says Lamson. 'Some one's goin' to be 'ung. I've never
+seen that look but once before when they chucked the gun-sights overboard
+in the _Fantastic_.' Throwin' gun-sights overboard, Mr. Hooper, is the
+equivalent for mutiny in these degenerate days. It's done to attract the
+notice of the authorities an' the _Western Mornin' News_--generally by a
+stoker. Naturally, word went round the lower deck an' we had a private
+over'aul of our little consciences. But, barrin' a shirt which a second-
+class stoker said 'ad walked into 'is bag from the marines flat by itself,
+nothin' vital transpired. The owner went about flyin' the signal for
+'attend public execution,' so to say, but there was no corpse at the
+yardarm. 'E lunched on the beach an' 'e returned with 'is regulation
+harbour-routine face about 3 P. M. Thus Lamson lost prestige for raising
+false alarms. The only person 'oo might 'ave connected the epicycloidal
+gears correctly was one Pyecroft, when he was told that Mr. Vickery would
+go up country that same evening to take over certain naval ammunition left
+after the war in Bloemfontein Fort. No details was ordered to accompany
+Master Vickery. He was told off first person singular--as a unit---by
+himself."
+
+The marine whistled penetratingly.
+
+"That's what I thought," said Pyecroft. "I went ashore with him in the
+cutter an' 'e asked me to walk through the station. He was clickin'
+audibly, but otherwise seemed happy-ish.
+
+"'You might like to know,' he says, stoppin' just opposite the Admiral's
+front gate, 'that Phyllis's Circus will be performin' at Worcester
+to-morrow night. So I shall see 'er yet once again. You've been very
+patient with me,' he says.
+
+"'Look here, Vickery,' I said, 'this thing's come to be just as much as I
+can stand. Consume your own smoke. I don't want to know any more.'
+
+"'You!' he said. 'What have you got to complain of?--you've only 'ad to
+watch. I'm _it_,' he says, 'but that's neither here nor there,' he says.
+'I've one thing to say before shakin' 'ands. Remember,' 'e says--we were
+just by the Admiral's garden-gate then--'remember, that I am _not_ a
+murderer, because my lawful wife died in childbed six weeks after I came
+out. That much at least I am clear of,' 'e says.
+
+"'Then what have you done that signifies?' I said. 'What's the rest of
+it?'
+
+"'The rest,' 'e says, 'is silence,' an' he shook 'ands and went clickin'
+into Simons Town station."
+
+"Did he stop to see Mrs. Bathurst at Worcester?" I asked.
+
+"It's not known. He reported at Bloemfontein, saw the ammunition into the
+trucks, and then 'e disappeared. Went out--deserted, if you care to put it
+so--within eighteen months of his pension, an' if what 'e said about 'is
+wife was true he was a free man as 'e then stood. How do you read it off?"
+
+"Poor devil!" said Hooper. "To see her that way every night! I wonder what
+it was."
+
+"I've made my 'ead ache in that direction many a long night."
+
+"But I'll swear Mrs. B. 'ad no 'and in it," said the Sergeant unshaken.
+
+"No. Whatever the wrong or deceit was, he did it, I'm sure o' that. I 'ad
+to look at 'is face for five consecutive nights. I'm not so fond o'
+navigatin' about Cape Town with a South-Easter blowin' these days. I can
+hear those teeth click, so to say."
+
+"Ah, those teeth," said Hooper, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket
+once more. "Permanent things false teeth are. You read about 'em in all
+the murder trials."
+
+"What d'you suppose the captain knew--or did?" I asked.
+
+"I never turned my searchlight that way," Pyecroft answered unblushingly.
+
+We all reflected together, and drummed on empty beer bottles as the
+picnic-party, sunburned, wet, and sandy, passed our door singing "The
+Honeysuckle and the Bee."
+
+"Pretty girl under that kapje," said Pyecroft.
+
+"They never circulated his description?" said Pritchard.
+
+"I was askin' you before these gentlemen came," said Hooper to me,
+"whether you knew Wankies--on the way to the Zambesi--beyond Buluwayo?"
+
+"Would he pass there--tryin' to get to that Lake what's 'is name?" said
+Pritchard.
+
+Hooper shook his head and went on: "There's a curious bit o' line there,
+you see. It runs through solid teak forest--a sort o' mahogany really--
+seventy-two miles without a curve. I've had a train derailed there twenty-
+three times in forty miles. I was up there a month ago relievin' a sick
+inspector, you see. He told me to look out for a couple of tramps in the
+teak."
+
+"Two?" Pyecroft said. "I don't envy that other man if----"
+
+"We get heaps of tramps up there since the war. The inspector told me I'd
+find 'em at M'Bindwe siding waiting to go North. He'd given 'em some grub
+and quinine, you see. I went up on a construction train. I looked out for
+'em. I saw them miles ahead along the straight, waiting in the teak. One
+of 'em was standin' up by the dead-end of tke siding an' the other was
+squattin' down lookin' up at 'im, you see."
+
+"What did you do for 'em?" said Pritchard.
+
+"There wasn't much I could do, except bury 'em. There'd been a bit of a
+thunderstorm in the teak, you see, and they were both stone dead and as
+black as charcoal. That's what they really were, you see--charcoal. They
+fell to bits when we tried to shift 'em. The man who was standin' up had
+the false teeth. I saw 'em shinin' against the black. Fell to bits he did
+too, like his mate squatting down an' watchin' him, both of 'em all wet in
+the rain. Both burned to charcoal, you see. And--that's what made me ask
+about marks just now--the false-toother was tattooed on the arms and
+chest--a crown and foul anchor with M.V. above."
+
+"I've seen that," said Pyecroft quickly. "It was so."
+
+"But if he was all charcoal-like?" said Pritchard, shuddering.
+
+"You know how writing shows up white on a burned letter? Well, it was like
+that, you see. We buried 'em in the teak and I kept... But he was a friend
+of you two gentlemen, you see."
+
+Mr. Hooper brought his hand away from his waistcoat-pocket--empty.
+
+Pritchard covered his face with his hands for a moment, like a child
+shutting out an ugliness.
+
+"And to think of her at Hauraki!" he murmured--"with 'er 'air-ribbon on my
+beer. 'Ada,' she said to her niece... Oh, my Gawd!"...
+
+  "On a summer afternoon, when the honeysuckle blooms,
+  And all Nature seems at rest,
+  Underneath the bower, 'mid the perfume of the flower,
+  Sat a maiden with the one she loves the best----"
+
+sang the picnic-party waiting for their train at Glengariff.
+
+"Well, I don't know how you feel about it," said Pyecroft, "but 'avin'
+seen 'is face for five consecutive nights on end, I'm inclined to finish
+what's left of the beer an' thank Gawd he's dead!"
+
+
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+"OUR FATHERS ALSO"
+
+  By--they are by with mirth and tears,
+  Wit or the works of Desire--
+  Cushioned about on the kindly years
+  Between the wall and the fire.
+
+  The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked--
+  Standeth no more to glean;
+  For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
+  When they went out between.
+
+  All lore our Lady Venus bares
+  Signalled it was or told
+  By the dear lips long given to theirs
+  And longer to the mould.
+
+  All Profit, all Device, all Truth
+  Written it was or said
+  By the mighty men of their mighty youth.
+  Which is mighty being dead.
+
+  The film that floats before their eyes
+  The Temple's Veil they call;
+  And the dust that on the Shewbread lies
+  Is holy over all.
+
+  Warn them of seas that slip our yoke
+  Of slow conspiring stars--
+  The ancient Front of Things unbroke
+  But heavy with new wars?
+
+  By--they are by with mirth and tears.
+  Wit or the waste of Desire--
+  Cushioned about on the kindly years
+  Between the wall and the fire.
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" They were letting in the water for the evening
+stint at Robert's Mill, and the wooden Wheel where lived the Spirit of the
+Mill settled to its nine hundred year old song: "Here Azor, a freeman,
+held one rod, but it never paid geld. _Nun-nun-nunquam geldavit_. Here
+Reinbert has one villein and four cottars with one plough--and wood for
+six hogs and two fisheries of sixpence and a mill of ten shillings--_unum
+molinum_--one mill. Reinbert's mill--Robert's Mill. Then and afterwards
+and now--_tunc et post et modo_--Robert's Mill. Book--Book--Domesday
+Book!"
+
+"I confess," said the Black Rat on the crossbeam, luxuriously trimming his
+whiskers--"I confess I am not above appreciating my position and all it
+means." He was a genuine old English black rat, a breed which, report
+says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown variety.
+
+"Appreciation is the surest sign of inadequacy," said the Grey Cat, coiled
+up on a piece of sacking.
+
+"But I know what you mean," she added. "To sit by right at the heart of
+things--eh?"
+
+"Yes," said the Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy stones
+thuttered on the grist. "To possess--er--all this environment as an
+integral part of one's daily life must insensibly of course ... You see?"
+
+"I feel," said the Grey Cat. "Indeed, if _we_ are not saturated with the
+spirit of the Mill, who should be?"
+
+"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" the Wheel, set to his work, was running off
+the tenure of the whole rape, for he knew Domesday Book backwards and
+forwards: "_In Ferle tenuit Abbatia de Wiltuna unam hidam et unam virgam
+et dimidiam. Nunquam geldavit_. And Agemond, a freeman, has half a hide
+and one rod. I remember Agemond well. Charmin' fellow--friend of mine. He
+married a Norman girl in the days when we rather looked down on the
+Normans as upstarts. An' Agemond's dead? So he is. Eh, dearie me! dearie
+me! I remember the wolves howling outside his door in the big frost of Ten
+Fifty-Nine.... _Essewelde hundredum nunquam geldum reddidit_. Book! Book!
+Domesday Book!"
+
+"After all," the Grey Cat continued, "atmospere is life. It is the
+influences under which we live that count in the long run. Now, outside"--
+she cocked one ear towards the half-opened door--"there is an absurd
+convention that rats and cats are, I won't go so far as to say natural
+enemies, but opposed forces. Some such ruling may be crudely effective--I
+don't for a minute presume to set up my standards as final--among the
+ditches; but from the larger point of view that one gains by living at the
+heart of things, it seems for a rule of life a little overstrained. Why,
+because some of your associates have, shall I say, liberal views on the
+ultimate destination of a sack of--er--middlings don't they call them----"
+
+"Something of that sort," said the Black Rat, a most sharp and sweet-
+toothed judge of everything ground in the mill for the last three years.
+
+"Thanks--middlings be it. _Why_, as I was saying, must I disarrange my fur
+and my digestion to chase you round the dusty arena whenever we happen to
+meet?"
+
+"As little reason," said the Black Rat, "as there is for me, who, I trust,
+am a person of ordinarily decent instincts, to wait till you have gone on
+a round of calls, and then to assassinate your very charming children."
+
+"Exactly! It has its humorous side though." The Grey Cat yawned. "The
+miller seems afflicted by it. He shouted large and vague threats to my
+address, last night at tea, that he wasn't going to keep cats who 'caught
+no mice.' Those were his words. I remember the grammar sticking in my
+throat like a herring-bone."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"What does one do when a barbarian utters? One ceases to utter and
+removes. I removed--towards his pantry. It was a _riposte_ he might
+appreciate."
+
+"Really those people grow absolutely insufferable," said the Black Rat.
+"There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles--a builder--
+who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the Wheel for
+the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick where
+those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used to stand. Have you noticed?"
+
+"There has been much misdirected activity of late among the humans. They
+jabber inordinately. I haven't yet been able to arrive at their reason for
+existence." The Cat yawned.
+
+"A couple of them came in here last week with wires, and fixed them all
+about the walls. Wires protected by some abominable composition, ending in
+iron brackets with glass bulbs. Utterly useless for any purpose and
+artistically absolutely hideous. What do they mean?"
+
+"Aaah! I have known _four_-and-twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza," said
+the Cat, who kept good company with the boarders spending a summer at the
+Mill Farm. "It means nothing except that humans occasionally bring their
+dogs with them. I object to dogs in all forms."
+
+"Shouldn't object to dogs," said the Wheel sleepily.... "The Abbot of
+Wilton kept the best pack in the county. He enclosed all the Harryngton
+Woods to Sturt Common. Aluric, a freeman, was dispossessed of his holding.
+They tried the case at Lewes, but he got no change out of William de
+Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric eight and
+fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for
+blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot's brother married ...
+I've forgotten her name, but she was a charmin' little woman. The Lady
+Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was conferred. She
+rode devilish straight to hounds. They were a bit throatier than we breed
+now, but a good pack: one of the best. The Abbot kept 'em in splendid
+shape. Now, who was the woman the Abbot kept? Book--Book! I shall have to
+go right back to Domesday and work up the centuries: _Modo per omnia
+reddit burgum tunc--tunc--tunc_! Was it _burgum_ or _hundredum_? I shall
+remember in a minute. There's no hurry." He paused as he turned over
+silvered with showering drops.
+
+"This won't do," said the Waters in the sluice. "Keep moving."
+
+The Wheel swung forward; the Waters roared on the buckets and dropped down
+to the darkness below.
+
+"Noisier than usual," said the Black Rat. "It must have been raining up
+the valley."
+
+"Floods maybe," said the Wheel dreamily. "It isn't the proper season, but
+they can come without warning. I shall never forget the big one--when the
+Miller went to sleep and forgot to open the hatches. More than two hundred
+years ago it was, but I recall it distinctly. Most unsettling."
+
+"We lifted that wheel off his bearings," cried the Waters. "We said, 'Take
+away that bauble!' And in the morning he was five mile down the valley--
+hung up in a tree."
+
+"Vulgar!" said the Cat. "But I am sure he never lost his dignity."
+
+"We don't know. He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished
+with him.... Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! Get over!"
+
+"And why on this day more than any other," said the Wheel statelily. "I am
+not aware that my department requires the stimulus of external pressure to
+keep it up to its duties. I trust I have the elementary instincts of a
+gentleman."
+
+"Maybe," the Waters answered together, leaping down on the buckets. "We
+only know that you are very stiff on your bearings. Over, get over!"
+
+The Wheel creaked and groaned. There was certainly greater pressure upon
+him that he had ever felt, and his revolutions had increased from six and
+three-quarters to eight and a third per minute. But the uproar between the
+narrow, weed-hung walls annoyed the Grey Cat.
+
+"Isn't it almost time," she said plaintively, "that the person who is paid
+to understand these things shuts off those vehement drippings with that
+screw-thing on the top of that box-thing."
+
+"They'll be shut off at eight o'clock as usual," said Rat; "then we can go
+to dinner."
+
+"But we shan't be shut off till ever so late," said the Waters gaily. "We
+shall keep it up all night."
+
+"The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for by
+its eternal hopefulness," said the Cat. "Our dam is not, I am glad to say,
+designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time. Reserve is
+Life."
+
+"Thank goodness!" said the Black Rat. "Then they can return to their
+native ditches."
+
+"Ditches!" cried the Waters; "Raven's Gill Brook is no ditch. It is almost
+navigable, and _we_ come from there away." They slid over solid and
+compact till the Wheel thudded under their weight.
+
+"Raven's Gill Brook," said the Rat. "_I_ never heard of Raven's Gill."
+
+"We are the waters of Harpenden Brook--down from under Callton Rise. Phew!
+how the race stinks compared with the heather country." Another five foot
+of water flung itself against the Wheel, broke, roared, gurgled, and was
+gone.
+
+"Indeed," said the Grey Cat, "I am sorry to tell you that Raven's Gill
+Brook is cut off from this valley by an absolutely impassable range of
+mountains, and Callton Rise is more than nine miles away. It belongs to
+another system entirely."
+
+"Ah yes," said the Rat, grinning, "but we forget that, for the young,
+water always runs uphill."
+
+"Oh, hopeless! hopeless! hopeless!" cried the Waters, descending open-
+palmed upon the Wheel "There is nothing between here and Raven's Gill
+Brook that a hundred yards of channelling and a few square feet of
+concrete could not remove; and hasn't removed!"
+
+"And Harpenden Brook is north of Raven's Gill and runs into Raven's Gill
+at the foot of Callton Rise, where ilex trees are, and _we_ come from
+there!" These were the glassy, clear waters of the high chalk.
+
+"And Batten's Ponds, that are fed by springs, have been led through
+Trott's Wood, taking the spare water from the old Witches' Spring under
+Churt Haw, and we--we--_we_ are their combined waters!" Those were the
+Waters from the upland bogs and moors--a porter-coloured, dusky, and foam-
+flecked flood.
+
+"It's all very interesting," purred the Cat to the sliding waters, "and I
+have no doubt that Trott's Woods and Bott's Woods are tremendously
+important places; but if you could manage to do your work--whose value I
+don't in the least dispute--a little more soberly, I, for one, should be
+grateful."
+
+"Book--book--book--book--book--Domesday Book!" The urged Wheel was fairly
+clattering now: "In Burgelstaltone a monk holds of Earl Godwin one hide
+and a half with eight villeins. There is a church--and a monk.... I
+remember that monk. Blessed if he could rattle his rosary off any quicker
+than I am doing now ... and wood for seven hogs. I must be running twelve
+to the minute ... almost as fast as Steam. Damnable invention, Steam! ...
+Surely it's time we went to dinner or prayers--or something. Can't keep up
+this pressure, day in and day out, and not feel it. I don't mind for
+myself, of course. _Noblesse oblige_, you know. I'm only thinking of the
+Upper and the Nether Millstones. They came out of the common rock. They
+can't be expected to----"
+
+"Don't worry on our account, please," said the Millstones huskily. "So
+long as you supply the power we'll supply the weight and the bite."
+
+"Isn't it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this way?" grunted
+the Wheel. "I seem to remember something about the Mills of God grinding
+'slowly.' _Slowly_ was the word!"
+
+"But we are not the Mills of God. We're only the Upper and the Nether
+Millstones. We have received no instructions to be anything else. We are
+actuated by power transmitted through you."
+
+"Ah, but let us be merciful as we are strong. Think of all the beautiful
+little plants that grow on my woodwork. There are five varieties of rare
+moss within less than one square yard--and all these delicate jewels of
+nature are being grievously knocked about by this excessive rush of the
+water."
+
+"Umph!" growled the Millstones. "What with your religious scruples and
+your taste for botany we'd hardly know you for the Wheel that put the
+carter's son under last autumn. You never worried about _him_!"
+
+"He ought to have known better."
+
+"So ought your jewels of nature. Tell 'em to grow where it's safe."
+
+"How a purely mercantile life debases and brutalises!" said the Cat to the
+Rat.
+
+"They were such beautiful little plants too," said the Rat tenderly.
+"Maiden's-tongue and hart's-hair fern trellising all over the wall just as
+they do on the sides of churches in the Downs. Think what a joy the sight
+of them must be to our sturdy peasants pulling hay!"
+
+"Golly!" said the Millstones. "There's nothing like coming to the heart of
+things for information"; and they returned to the song that all English
+water-mills have sung from time beyond telling:
+
+  There was a jovial miller once
+  Lived on the River Dee,
+  And this the burden of his song
+  For ever used to be.
+
+Then, as fresh grist poured in and dulled the note:
+
+  I care for nobody--no not I,
+  And nobody cares for me.
+
+"Even these stones have absorbed something of our atmosphere," said the
+Grey Cat. "Nine-tenths of the trouble in this world comes from lack of
+detachment."
+
+"One of your people died from forgetting that, didn't she?" said the Rat.
+
+"One only. The example has sufficed us for generations."
+
+"Ah! but what happened to Don't Care?" the Waters demanded.
+
+"Brutal riding to death of the casual analogy is another mark of
+provincialism!" The Grey Cat raised her tufted chin. "I am going to sleep.
+With my social obligations I must snatch rest when I can; but, as our old
+friend here says, _Noblesse oblige_.... Pity me! Three functions to-night
+in the village, and a barn dance across the valley!"
+
+"There's no chance, I suppose, of your looking in on the loft about two.
+Some of our young people are going to amuse themselves with a new sacque-
+dance--best white flour only," said the Black Rat.
+
+"I believe I am officially supposed not to countenance that sort of thing,
+but youth is youth. ... By the way, the humans set my milk-bowl in the
+loft these days; I hope your youngsters respect it."
+
+"My dear lady," said the Black Rat, bowing, "you grieve me. You hurt me
+inexpressibly. After all these years, too!"
+
+"A general crush is so mixed--highways and hedges--all that sort of thing
+--and no one can answer for one's best friends. _I_ never try. So long as
+mine are amusin' and in full voice, and can hold their own at a tile-
+party, I'm as catholic as these mixed waters in the dam here!"
+
+"We aren't mixed. We _have_ mixed. We are one now," said the Waters
+sulkily.
+
+"Still uttering?" said the Cat. "Never mind, here's the Miller coming to
+shut you off. Ye-es, I have known--_four_--or five is it?--and twenty
+leaders of revolt in Faenza.... A little more babble in the dam, a little
+more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the wheel,
+and then----"
+
+"They will find that nothing has occurred," said the Black Rat. "The old
+things persist and survive and are recognised--our old friend here first
+of all. By the way," he turned toward the Wheel, "I believe we have to
+congratulate you on your latest honour."
+
+"Profoundly well deserved--even if he had never--as he has---laboured
+strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of millkind," said
+the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse committees. "Doubly
+deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified rebuke his existence
+offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands of--er--some people. What
+form did the honour take?"
+
+"It was," said the Wheel bashfully, "a machine-moulded pinion."
+
+"Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!" the Black Rat sighed. "I never see a bat
+without wishing for wings."
+
+"Not exactly that sort of pinion," said the Wheel, "but a really ornate
+circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying. Mr.
+Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally--on my left
+rim--the side that you can't see from the mill. I hadn't meant to say
+anything about it--or the new steel straps round my axles--bright red, you
+know--to be worn on all occasions--but, without false modesty, I assure
+you that the recognition cheered me not a little."
+
+"How intensely gratifying!" said the Black Rat. "I must really steal an
+hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on your left
+side."
+
+"By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr. Mangles?"
+the Grey Cat asked. "He seems to be building small houses on the far side
+of the tail-race. Believe me, I don't ask from any vulgar curiosity."
+
+"It affects our Order," said the Black Rat simply but firmly.
+
+"Thank you," said the Wheel. "Let me see if I can tabulate it properly.
+Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On the
+side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now
+was a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and two
+carts of two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards and a
+half, and one roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and
+afterwards beer in large tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three
+villeins and one very great cart, deposits on it one engine of iron and
+brass and a small iron mill of four feet, and a broad strap of leather.
+And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins, constructs the floor for the
+same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the small mill. There are
+there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number fifty-seven. The
+whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four pounds.... I'm sorry I
+can't make myself clearer, but you can see for yourself."
+
+"Amazingly lucid," said the Cat. She was the more to be admired because
+the language of Domesday Book is not, perhaps, the clearest medium wherein
+to describe a small but complete electric-light installation, deriving its
+power from a water-wheel by means of cogs and gearing.
+
+"See for yourself--by all means, see for yourself," said the Waters,
+spluttering and choking with mirth.
+
+"Upon my word," said the Black Rat furiously, "I may be at fault, but I
+wholly fail to perceive where these offensive eavesdroppers--er--come in.
+We were discussing a matter that solely affected our Order."
+
+Suddenly they heard, as they had heard many times before, the Miller
+shutting off the water. To the rattle and rumble of the labouring stones
+succeeded thick silence, punctuated with little drops from the stayed
+wheel. Then some water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as she slid to
+her nest, and the plop of a water-rat sounded like the fall of a log in
+the water.
+
+"It is all over--it always is all over at just this time. Listen, the
+Miller is going to bed--as usual. Nothing has occurred," said the Cat.
+
+Something creaked in the house where the pig-styes had stood, as metal
+engaged on metal with a clink and a burr.
+
+"Shall I turn her on?" cried the Miller.
+
+"Ay," said the voice from the dynamo-house.
+
+"A human in Mangles' new house!" the Rat squeaked.
+
+"What of it?" said the Grey Cat. "Even supposing Mr. Mangles' cats'-meat-
+coloured hovel ululated with humans, can't you see for yourself--that--?"
+
+There was a solid crash of released waters leaping upon the wheel more
+furiously than ever, a grinding of cogs, a hum like the hum of a hornet,
+and then the unvisited darkness of the old mill was scattered by
+intolerable white light. It threw up every cobweb, every burl and knot in
+the beams and the floor; till the shadows behind the flakes of rough
+plaster on the wall lay clear-cut as shadows of mountains on the
+photographed moon.
+
+"See! See! See!" hissed the Waters in full flood. "Yes, see for
+yourselves. Nothing has occurred. Can't you see?"
+
+The Rat, amazed, had fallen from his foothold and lay half-stunned on the
+floor. The Cat, following her instinct, leaped nigh to the ceiling, and
+with flattened ears and bared teeth backed in a corner ready to fight
+whatever terror might be loosed on her. But nothing happened. Through the
+long aching minutes nothing whatever happened, and her wire-brush tail
+returned slowly to its proper shape.
+
+"Whatever it is," she said at last, "it's overdone. They can never keep it
+up, you know."
+
+"Much you know," said the Waters. "Over you go, old man. You can take the
+full head of us now. Those new steel axle-straps of yours can stand
+anything. Come along, Raven's Gill, Harpenden, Callton Rise, Batten's
+Ponds, Witches' Spring, all together! Let's show these gentlemen how to
+work!"
+
+"But--but--I thought it was a decoration. Why--why--why--it only means
+more work for _me_!"
+
+"Exactly. You're to supply about sixty eight-candle lights when required.
+But they won't be all in use at once----"
+
+"Ah! I thought as much," said the Cat. "The reaction is bound to come."
+
+"_And_" said the Waters, "you will do the ordinary work of the mill as
+well."
+
+"Impossible!" the old Wheel quivered as it drove. "Aluric never did it--
+nor Azor, nor Reinbert. Not even William de Warrenne or the Papal Legate.
+There's no precedent for it. I tell you there's no precedent for working a
+wheel like this."
+
+"Wait a while! We're making one as fast as we can. Aluric and Co. are
+dead. So's the Papal Legate. You've no notion how dead they are, but we're
+here--the Waters of Five Separate Systems. We're just as interesting as
+Domesday Book. Would you like to hear about the land-tenure in Trott's
+Wood? It's squat-right, chiefly." The mocking Waters leaped one over the
+other, chuckling and chattering profanely.
+
+"In that hundred Jenkins, a tinker, with one dog--_unis canis_--holds, by
+the Grace of God and a habit he has of working hard, _unam hidam_--a large
+potato patch. Charmin' fellow, Jenkins. Friend of ours. Now, who the dooce
+did Jenkins keep? ... In the hundred of Callton is one charcoal-burner
+_irreligiosissimus homo_--a bit of a rip--but a thorough sportsman. _Ibi
+est ecclesia. Non multum_. Not much of a church, _quia_ because,
+_episcopus_ the Vicar irritated the Nonconformists _tunc et post et modo_
+--then and afterwards and now--until they built a cut-stone Congregational
+chapel with red brick facings that did not return itself--_defendebat se_
+--at four thousand pounds."
+
+"Charcoal-burners, vicars, schismatics, and red brick facings," groaned
+the Wheel. "But this is sheer blasphemy. What waters have they let in upon
+me?"
+
+"Floods from the gutters. Faugh, this light is positively sickening!" said
+the Cat, rearranging her fur.
+
+"We come down from the clouds or up from the springs, exactly like all
+other waters everywhere. Is that what's surprising you?" sang the Waters.
+
+"Of course not. I know my work if you don't. What I complain of is your
+lack of reverence and repose. You've no instinct of deference towards your
+betters--your heartless parody of the Sacred volume (the Wheel meant
+Domesday Book)--proves it."
+
+"Our betters?" said the Waters most solemnly. "What is there in all this
+dammed race that hasn't come down from the clouds, or----"
+
+"Spare me that talk, please," the Wheel persisted. "You'd _never_
+understand. It's the tone--your tone that we object to."
+
+"Yes. It's your tone," said the Black Rat, picking himself up limb by
+limb.
+
+"If you thought a trifle more about the work you're supposed to do, and a
+trifle less about your precious feelings, you'd render a little more duty
+in return for the power vested in you--we mean wasted on you," the Waters
+replied.
+
+"I have been some hundreds of years laboriously acquiring the knowledge
+which you see fit to challenge so light-heartedly," the Wheel jarred.
+
+"Challenge him! Challenge him!" clamoured the little waves riddling down
+through the tail-race. "As well now as later. Take him up!"
+
+The main mass of the Waters plunging on the Wheel shocked that well-bolted
+structure almost into box-lids by saying: "Very good. Tell us what you
+suppose yourself to be doing at the present moment."
+
+"Waiving the offensive form of your question, I answer, purely as a matter
+of courtesy, that I am engaged in the trituration of farinaceous
+substances whose ultimate destination it would be a breach of the trust
+reposed in me to reveal."
+
+"Fiddle!" said the Waters. "We knew it all along! The first direct
+question shows his ignorance of his own job. Listen, old thing. Thanks to
+us, you are now actuating a machine of whose construction you know
+nothing, that that machine may, over wires of whose ramifications you are,
+by your very position, profoundly ignorant, deliver a power which you can
+never realise, to localities beyond the extreme limits of your mental
+horizon, with the object of producing phenomena which in your wildest
+dreams (if you ever dream) you could never comprehend. Is that clear, or
+would you like it all in words of four syllables?"
+
+"Your assumptions are deliciously sweeping, but may I point out that a
+decent and--the dear old Abbot of Wilton would have put it in his resonant
+monkish Latin much better than I can--a scholarly reserve, does not
+necessarily connote blank vacuity of mind on all subjects."
+
+"Ah, the dear old Abbot of Wilton," said the Rat sympathetically, as one
+nursed in that bosom. "Charmin' fellow--thorough scholar and gentleman.
+Such a pity!"
+
+"Oh, Sacred Fountains!" the Waters were fairly boiling. "He goes out of
+his way to expose his ignorance by triple bucketfuls. He creaks to high
+Heaven that he is hopelessly behind the common order of things! He invites
+the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal
+incompetence, and then he talks as though there were untold reserves of
+knowledge behind him that he is too modest to bring forward. For a bland,
+circular, absolutely sincere impostor, you're a miracle, O Wheel!"
+
+"I do not pretend to be anything more than an integral portion of an
+accepted and not altogether mushroom institution."
+
+"Quite so," said the Waters. "Then go round--hard----"
+
+"To what end?" asked the Wheel.
+
+"Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and fume--gassing is
+the proper word."
+
+"It would be," said the Cat, sniffing.
+
+"That will show that your accumulators are full. When the accumulators are
+exhausted, and the lights burn badly, you will find us whacking you round
+and round again."
+
+"The end of life as decreed by Mangles and his creatures is to go whacking
+round and round for ever," said the Cat.
+
+"In order," the Rat said, "that you may throw raw and unnecessary
+illumination upon all the unloveliness in the world. Unloveliness which we
+shall--er--have always with us. At the same time you will riotously
+neglect the so-called little but vital graces that make up Life."
+
+"Yes, Life," said the Cat, "with its dim delicious half-tones and veiled
+indeterminate distances. Its surprisals, escapes, encounters, and dizzying
+leaps--its full-throated choruses in honour of the morning star, and its
+melting reveries beneath the sun-warmed wall."
+
+"Oh, you can go on the tiles, Pussalina, just the same as usual," said the
+laughing Waters. "_We_ sha'n't interfere with you."
+
+"On the tiles, forsooth!" hissed the Cat.
+
+"Well, that's what it amounts to," persisted the Waters. "We see a good
+deal of the minor graces of life on our way down to our job."
+
+"And--but I fear I speak to deaf ears--do they never impress you?" said
+the Wheel.
+
+"Enormously," said the Waters. "We have already learned six refined
+synonyms for loafing."
+
+"But (here again I feel as though preaching in the wilderness) it never
+occurs to you that there may exist some small difference between the
+wholly animal--ah--rumination of bovine minds and the discerning, well-
+apportioned leisure of the finer type of intellect?"
+
+"Oh, yes. The bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no bones
+about it when it's shouted at. We've seen _that_--in haying-time--all
+along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough to fudge up excuses
+for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when its excuses aren't
+accepted. Turn over!"
+
+"But, my good people, no gentleman gets stuffy as you call it. A certain
+proper pride, to put it no higher, forbids---"
+
+"Nothing that he wants to do if he really wants to do it. Get along! What
+are you giving us? D'you suppose we've scoured half heaven in the clouds,
+and half earth in the mists, to be taken in at this time of the day by a
+bone-idle, old hand-quern of your type?"
+
+"It is not for me to bandy personalities with you. I can only say that I
+simply decline to accept the situation."
+
+"Decline away. It doesn't make any odds. They'll probably put in a turbine
+if you decline too much."
+
+"What's a turbine?" said the Wheel, quickly.
+
+"A little thing you don't see, that performs surprising revolutions. But
+you won't decline. You'll hang on to your two nice red-strapped axles and
+your new machine-moulded pinions like--a--like a leech on a lily stem!
+There's centuries of work in your old bones if you'd only apply yourself
+to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel with this head of water is
+about as efficient as a turbine."
+
+"So in future I am to be considered mechanically? I have been painted by
+at least five Royal Academicians."
+
+"Oh, you can be painted by five hundred when you aren't at work, of
+course. But while you are at work you'll work. You won't half-stop and
+think and talk about rare plants and dicky-birds and farinaceous fiduciary
+interests. You'll continue to revolve, and this new head of water will see
+that you do so continue."
+
+"It is a matter on which it would be exceedingly ill-advised to form a
+hasty or a premature conclusion. I will give it my most careful
+consideration," said the Wheel.
+
+"Please do," said the Waters gravely. "Hullo! Here's the Miller again."
+
+The Cat coiled herself in a picturesque attitude on the softest corner of
+a sack, and the Rat without haste, yet certainly without rest, slipped
+behind the sacking as though an appointment had just occurred to him.
+
+In the doorway, with the young Engineer, stood the Miller grinning
+amazedly.
+
+"Well--well--well! 'tis true-ly won'erful. An' what a power o' dirt! It
+come over me now looking at these lights, that I've never rightly seen my
+own mill before. She needs a lot bein' done to her."
+
+"Ah! I suppose one must make oneself moderately agreeable to the baser
+sort. They have their uses. This thing controls the dairy." The Cat,
+pincing on her toes, came forward and rubbed her head against the Miller's
+knee.
+
+"Ay, you pretty puss," he said, stooping. "You're as big a cheat as the
+rest of 'em that catch no mice about me. A won'erful smooth-skinned,
+rough-tongued cheat you be. I've more than half a mind----"
+
+"She does her work well," said the Engineer, pointing to where the Rat's
+beady eyes showed behind the sacking. "Cats and Rats livin' together--
+see?"
+
+"Too much they do--too long they've done. I'm sick and tired of it. Go and
+take a swim and larn to find your own vittles honest when you come out,
+Pussy."
+
+"My word!" said the Waters, as a sprawling Cat landed all unannounced in
+the centre of the tail-race. "Is that you, Mewsalina? You seem to have
+been quarrelling with your best friend. Get over to the left. It's
+shallowest there. Up on that alder-root with all four paws. Good-night!"
+
+"You'll never get any they rats," said the Miller, as the young Engineer
+struck wrathfully with his stick at the sacking. "They're not the common
+sort. They're the old black English sort."
+
+"Are they, by Jove? I must catch one to stuff, some day."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Six months later, in the chill of a January afternoon, they were letting
+in the Waters as usual.
+
+"Come along! It's both gears this evening," said the Wheel, kicking
+joyously in the first rush of the icy stream. "There's a heavy load of
+grist just in from Lamber's Wood. Eleven miles it came in an hour and a
+half in our new motor-lorry, and the Miller's rigged five new five-candle
+lights in his cow-stables. I'm feeding 'em to-night. There's a cow due to
+calve. Oh, while I think of it, what's the news from Callton Rise?"
+
+"The waters are finding their level as usual--but why do you ask?" said
+the deep outpouring Waters.
+
+"Because Mangles and Felden and the Miller are talking of increasing the
+plant here and running a saw-mill by electricity. I was wondering whether
+we----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the Waters chuckling. "_What_ did you say?"
+
+"Whether _we_, of course, had power enough for the job. It will be a
+biggish contract. There's all Harpenden Brook to be considered and
+Batten's Ponds as well, and Witches' Fountain, and the Churt's Hawd
+system.
+
+"We've power enough for anything in the world," said the Waters. "The only
+question is whether you could stand the strain if we came down on you full
+head."
+
+"Of course I can," said the Wheel. "Mangles is going to turn me into a set
+of turbines--beauties."
+
+"Oh--er--I suppose it's the frost that has made us a little thick-headed,
+but to whom are we talking?" asked the amazed Waters.
+
+"To me--the Spirit of the Mill, of course."
+
+"Not to the old Wheel, then?"
+
+"I happen to be living in the old Wheel just at present. When the turbines
+are installed I shall go and live in them. What earthly difference does it
+make?"
+
+"Absolutely none," said the Waters, "in the earth or in the waters under
+the earth. But we thought turbines didn't appeal to you."
+
+"Not like turbines? Me? My dear fellows, turbines are good for fifteen
+hundred revolutions a minute--and with our power we can drive 'em at full
+speed. Why, there's nothing we couldn't grind or saw or illuminate or heat
+with a set of turbines! That's to say if all the Five Watersheds are
+agreeable."
+
+"Oh, we've been agreeable for ever so long."
+
+"Then why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Don't know. Suppose it slipped our memory."
+
+The Waters were holding themselves in for fear of bursting with mirth.
+
+"How careless of you! You should keep abreast of the age, my dear fellows.
+We might have settled it long ago, if you'd only spoken. Yes, four good
+turbines and a neat brick penstock--eh? This old Wheel's absurdly out of
+date."
+
+"Well," said the Cat, who after a little proud seclusion had returned to
+her place impenitent as ever. "Praised be Pasht and the Old Gods, that
+whatever may have happened _I_, at least, have preserved the Spirit of the
+Mill!"
+
+She looked round as expecting her faithful ally, the Black Rat; but that
+very week the Engineer had caught and stuffed him, and had put him in a
+glass case; he being a genuine old English black rat. That breed, the
+report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown
+variety.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+This file should be named 7tdsc10.txt or 7tdsc10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7tdsc11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7tdsc10a.txt
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+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:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+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.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 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:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+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:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[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*
+
diff --git a/old/7tdsc10.zip b/old/7tdsc10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2b6a11f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7tdsc10.zip
diff --git a/old/8tdsc10.txt b/old/8tdsc10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..76c356e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8tdsc10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11348 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Traffics and Discoveries, by Kipling
+#26 in our series by Rudyard Kipling
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Traffics and Discoveries
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9790]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 17, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES
+
+
+By Rudyard Kipling
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+_from the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed(Wahabi)_
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+_Poseidon'S Law_
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+_The Runners_
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+_The Wet Litany_
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART I.
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART II.
+
+_The King's Task_
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COOPER
+
+_The Necessitarian_
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+_Kaspar's Song in "Varda"_
+
+"WIRELESS"
+
+_Song of the Old Guard_
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART I.
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART II.
+
+_The Return of the Children_
+
+"THEY"
+
+_From Lyden's "Irenius_"
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+     "_Our Fathers Also_"
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+FROM THE MASJID-AL-AQSA OF SAYYID AHMED (WAHABI)
+
+  Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
+  He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
+  When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
+  He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
+  Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
+  Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.
+  Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow
+  Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,
+  Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,
+  Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.
+  Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story;
+  And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory
+  Embroidered with names of the Djinns--a miraculous weaving--
+  But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.
+  So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture--
+  Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture--
+  Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed;
+  But on him be the Peace and the Blessing: for he was great-hearted!
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+"He that believeth shall not make haste."--_Isaiah_.
+
+The guard-boat lay across the mouth of the bathing-pool, her crew idly
+spanking the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated militia-man,
+rifle in hand, sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the stern. Between
+the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, honey-coloured rocks on the
+beach the green water was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war
+bathing. Behind their orderly tin camp and the electric-light poles rose
+those stone-dotted spurs that throw heat on Simonstown. Beneath them the
+little _Barracouta_ nodded to the big _Gibraltar_, and the old _Penelope_,
+that in ten years has been bachelors' club, natural history museum,
+kindergarten, and prison, rooted and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a
+three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in
+from the deep sea.
+
+Said the sentry, assured of the visitor's good faith, "Talk to 'em? You
+can, to any that speak English. You'll find a lot that do."
+
+Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch
+Reformed Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority
+preferred their bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused the
+visitor that day to receive two weeks' delayed mails in one from a casual
+postman, and the whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a strap, he
+dangled as bait. At the edge of the beach, cross-legged, undressed to his
+sky-blue army shirt, sat a lean, ginger-haired man, on guard over a dozen
+heaps of clothing. His eyes followed the incoming Atlantic boat.
+
+"Excuse me, Mister," he said, without turning (and the speech betrayed his
+nationality), "would you mind keeping away from these garments? I've been
+elected janitor--on the Dutch vote."
+
+The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to his
+mail. At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured man
+turned quickly, the hunger of a press-ridden people in his close-set iron-
+grey eyes.
+
+"Have you any use for papers?" said the visitor.
+
+"Have I any use?" A quick, curved forefinger was already snicking off the
+outer covers. "Why, that's the New York postmark! Give me the ads. at the
+back of _Harper's_ and _M'Clure's_ and I'm in touch with God's Country
+again! Did you know how I was aching for papers?"
+
+The visitor told the tale of the casual postman.
+
+"Providential!" said the ginger-coloured man, keen as a terrier on his
+task; "both in time and matter. Yes! ... The _Scientific American_ yet
+once more! Oh, it's good! it's good!" His voice broke as he pressed his
+hawk-like nose against the heavily-inked patent-specifications at the end.
+"Can I keep it? I thank you--I thank you! Why--why--well--well! The
+_American Tyler_ of all things created! Do you subscribe to that?"
+
+"I'm on the free list," said the visitor, nodding.
+
+He extended his blue-tanned hand with that air of Oriental spaciousness
+which distinguishes the native-born American, and met the visitor's grasp
+expertly. "I can only say that you have treated me like a Brother (yes,
+I'll take every last one you can spare), and if ever--" He plucked at the
+bosom of his shirt. "Psha! I forgot I'd no card on me; but my name's
+Zigler--Laughton G. Zigler. An American? If Ohio's still in the Union, I
+am, Sir. But I'm no extreme States'-rights man. I've used all of my native
+country and a few others as I have found occasion, and now I am the
+captive of your bow and spear. I'm not kicking at that. I am not a coerced
+alien, nor a naturalised Texas mule-tender, nor an adventurer on the
+instalment plan. _I_ don't tag after our consul when he comes around,
+expecting the American Eagle to lift me out o' this by the slack of my
+pants. No, sir! If a Britisher went into Indian Territory and shot up his
+surroundings with a Colt automatic (not that _she's_ any sort of weapon,
+but I take her for an illustration), he'd be strung up quicker'n a
+snowflake 'ud melt in hell. No ambassador of yours 'ud save him. I'm my
+neck ahead on this game, anyway. That's how I regard the proposition.
+
+"Have I gone gunning against the British? To a certain extent, I presume
+you never heard tell of the Laughton-Zigler automatic two-inch field-gun,
+with self-feeding hopper, single oil-cylinder recoil, and ballbearing gear
+throughout? Or Laughtite, the new explosive? Absolutely uniform in effect,
+and one-ninth the bulk of any present effete charge--flake, cannonite,
+cordite, troisdorf, cellulose, cocoa, cord, or prism--I don't care what it
+is. Laughtite's immense; so's the Zigler automatic. It's me. It's fifteen
+years of me. You are not a gun-sharp? I am sorry. I could have surprised
+you. Apart from my gun, my tale don't amount to much of anything. I thank
+you, but I don't use any tobacco you'd be likely to carry... Bull Durham?
+_Bull Durham!_ I take it all back--every last word. Bull Durham--here! If
+ever you strike Akron, Ohio, when this fool-war's over, remember you've
+Laughton O. Zigler in your vest pocket. Including the city of Akron. We've
+a little club there.... Hell! What's the sense of talking Akron with no
+pants?
+
+"My gun? ... For two cents I'd have shipped her to our Filipeens. 'Came
+mighty near it too; but from what I'd read in the papers, you can't trust
+Aguinaldo's crowd on scientific matters. Why don't I offer it to our army?
+Well, you've an effete aristocracy running yours, and we've a crowd of
+politicians. The results are practically identical. I am not taking any
+U.S. Army in mine.
+
+"I went to Amsterdam with her--to this Dutch junta that supposes it's
+bossing the war. I wasn't brought up to love the British for one thing,
+and for another I knew that if she got in her fine work (my gun) I'd stand
+more chance of receiving an unbiassed report from a crowd of dam-fool
+British officers than from a hatful of politicians' nephews doing duty as
+commissaries and ordnance sharps. As I said, I put the brown man out of
+the question. That's the way _I_ regarded the proposition.
+
+"The Dutch in Holland don't amount to a row of pins. Maybe I misjudge 'em.
+Maybe they've been swindled too often by self-seeking adventurers to know
+a enthusiast when they see him. Anyway, they're slower than the Wrath o'
+God. But on delusions--as to their winning out next Thursday week at 9
+A.M.--they are--if I may say so--quite British.
+
+"I'll tell you a curious thing, too. I fought 'em for ten days before I
+could get the financial side of my game fixed to my liking. I knew they
+didn't believe in the Zigler, but they'd no call to be crazy-mean. I fixed
+it--free passage and freight for me and the gun to Delagoa Bay, and beyond
+by steam and rail. Then I went aboard to see her crated, and there I
+struck my fellow-passengers--all deadheads, same as me. Well, Sir, I
+turned in my tracks where I stood and besieged the ticket-office, and I
+said, 'Look at here, Van Dunk. I'm paying for my passage and her room in
+the hold--every square and cubic foot.' 'Guess he knocked down the fare to
+himself; but I paid. I paid. I wasn't going to deadhead along o' _that_
+crowd of Pentecostal sweepings. 'Twould have hoodooed my gun for all time.
+That was the way I regarded the proposition. No, Sir, they were not pretty
+company.
+
+"When we struck Pretoria I had a hell-and-a-half of a time trying to
+interest the Dutch vote in my gun an' her potentialities. The bottom was
+out of things rather much just about that time. Kruger was praying some
+and stealing some, and the Hollander lot was singing, 'If you haven't any
+money you needn't come round,' Nobody was spending his dough on anything
+except tickets to Europe. We were both grossly neglected. When I think how
+I used to give performances in the public streets with dummy cartridges,
+filling the hopper and turning the handle till the sweat dropped off me, I
+blush, Sir. I've made her to do her stunts before Kaffirs--naked sons of
+Ham--in Commissioner Street, trying to get a holt somewhere.
+
+"Did I talk? I despise exaggeration--'tain't American or scientific--but
+as true as I'm sitting here like a blue-ended baboon in a kloof, Teddy
+Roosevelt's Western tour was a maiden's sigh compared to my advertising
+work.
+
+"'Long in the spring I was rescued by a commandant called Van Zyl--a big,
+fleshy man with a lame leg. Take away his hair and his gun and he'd make a
+first-class Schenectady bar-keep. He found me and the Zigler on the veldt
+(Pretoria wasn't wholesome at that time), and he annexed me in a
+somnambulistic sort o' way. He was dead against the war from the start,
+but, being a Dutchman, he fought a sight better than the rest of that 'God
+and the Mauser' outfit. Adrian Van Zyl. Slept a heap in the daytime--and
+didn't love niggers. I liked him. I was the only foreigner in his
+commando. The rest was Georgia Crackers and Pennsylvania Dutch--with a
+dash o' Philadelphia lawyer. I could tell you things about them would
+surprise you. Religion for one thing; women for another; but I don't know
+as their notions o' geography weren't the craziest. 'Guess that must be
+some sort of automatic compensation. There wasn't one blamed ant-hill in
+their district they didn't know _and_ use; but the world was flat, they
+said, and England was a day's trek from Cape Town.
+
+"They could fight in their own way, and don't you forget it. But I guess
+you will not. They fought to kill, and, by what I could make out, the
+British fought to be killed. So both parties were accommodated.
+
+"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir. The position has its
+obligations--on both sides. You could not be offensive or partisan to me.
+I cannot, for the same reason, be offensive to you. Therefore I will not
+give you my opinions on the conduct of your war.
+
+"Anyway, I didn't take the field as an offensive partisan, but as an
+inventor. It was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. (Yes,
+Sir, I'm a Democrat by conviction, and that was one of the best things
+Grover Cleveland ever got off.)
+
+"After three months' trek, old man Van Zyl had his commando in good shape
+and refitted off the British, and he reckoned he'd wait on a British
+General of his acquaintance that did business on a circuit between
+Stompiesneuk, Jackhalputs, Vrelegen, and Odendaalstroom, year in and year
+out. He was a fixture in that section.
+
+"'He's a dam' good man,' says Van Zyl. 'He's a friend of mine. He sent in
+a fine doctor when I was wounded and our Hollander doc. wanted to cut my
+leg off. Ya, I'll guess we'll stay with him.' Up to date, me and my Zigler
+had lived in innocuous desuetude owing to little odds and ends riding out
+of gear. How in thunder was I to know there wasn't the ghost of any road
+in the country? But raw hide's cheap and lastin'. I guess I'll make my
+next gun a thousand pounds heavier, though.
+
+"Well, Sir, we struck the General on his beat--Vrelegen it was--and our
+crowd opened with the usual compliments at two thousand yards. Van Zyl
+shook himself into his greasy old saddle and says, 'Now we shall be quite
+happy, Mr. Zigler. No more trekking. Joost twelve miles a day till the
+apricots are ripe.'
+
+"Then we hitched on to his outposts, and vedettes, and cossack-picquets,
+or whatever they was called, and we wandered around the veldt arm in arm
+like brothers.
+
+"The way we worked lodge was this way. The General, he had his breakfast
+at 8:45 A.M. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island commuter. At
+8:42 A.M. I'd go down to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry to meet him--I
+mean I'd see the Zigler into position at two thousand (I began at three
+thousand, but that was cold and distant)--and blow him off to two full
+hoppers--eighteen rounds--just as they were bringing in his coffee. If his
+crowd was busy celebrating the anniversary of Waterloo or the last royal
+kid's birthday, they'd open on me with two guns (I'll tell you about them
+later on), but if they were disengaged they'd all stand to their horses
+and pile on the ironmongery, and washers, and typewriters, and five weeks'
+grub, and in half an hour they'd sail out after me and the rest of Van
+Zyl's boys; lying down and firing till 11:45 A.M. or maybe high noon. Then
+we'd go from labour to refreshment, resooming at 2 P.M. and battling till
+tea-time. Tuesday and Friday was the General's moving days. He'd trek
+ahead ten or twelve miles, and we'd loaf around his flankers and exercise
+the ponies a piece. Sometimes he'd get hung up in a drift--stalled
+crossin' a crick--and we'd make playful snatches at his wagons. First time
+that happened I turned the Zigler loose with high hopes, Sir; but the old
+man was well posted on rearguards with a gun to 'em, and I had to haul her
+out with three mules instead of six. I was pretty mad. I wasn't looking
+for any experts back of the Royal British Artillery. Otherwise, the game
+was mostly even. He'd lay out three or four of our commando, and we'd
+gather in four or five of his once a week or thereon. One time, I
+remember, long towards dusk we saw 'em burying five of their boys. They
+stood pretty thick around the graves. We wasn't more than fifteen hundred
+yards off, but old Van Zyl wouldn't fire. He just took off his hat at the
+proper time. He said if you stretched a man at his prayers you'd have to
+hump his bad luck before the Throne as well as your own. I am inclined to
+agree with him. So we browsed along week in and week out. A war-sharp
+might have judged it sort of docile, but for an inventor needing practice
+one day and peace the next for checking his theories, it suited Laughton
+O. Zigler.
+
+"And friendly? Friendly was no word for it. We was brothers in arms.
+
+"Why, I knew those two guns of the Royal British Artillery as well as I
+used to know the old Fifth Avenoo stages. _They_ might have been brothers
+too.
+
+"They'd jolt into action, and wiggle around and skid and spit and cough
+and prize 'emselves back again during our hours of bloody battle till I
+could have wept, Sir, at the spectacle of modern white men chained up to
+these old hand-power, back-number, flint-and-steel reaping machines. One
+of 'em--I called her Baldy--she'd a long white scar all along her barrel--
+I'd made sure of twenty times. I knew her crew by sight, but she'd come
+switching and teturing out of the dust of my shells like--like a hen from
+under a buggy--and she'd dip into a gully, and next thing I'd know 'ud be
+her old nose peeking over the ridge sniffin' for us. Her runnin' mate had
+two grey mules in the lead, and a natural wood wheel repainted, and a
+whole raft of rope-ends trailin' around. 'Jever see Tom Reed with his vest
+off, steerin' Congress through a heat-wave? I've been to Washington often
+--too often--filin' my patents. I called her Tom Reed. We three 'ud play
+pussy-wants-a-corner all round the outposts on off-days--cross-lots
+through the sage and along the mezas till we was short-circuited by
+canons. O, it was great for me and Baldy and Tom Reed! I don't know as we
+didn't neglect the legitimate interests of our respective commanders
+sometimes for this ball-play. I know _I_ did.
+
+"'Long towards the fall the Royal British Artillery grew shy--hung back in
+their breeching sort of--and their shooting was way--way off. I observed
+they wasn't taking any chances, not though I acted kitten almost
+underneath 'em.
+
+"I mentioned it to Van Zyl, because it struck me I had about knocked their
+Royal British moral endways.
+
+"'No,' says he, rocking as usual on his pony. 'My Captain Mankeltow he is
+sick. That is all.'
+
+"'So's your Captain Mankeltow's guns,' I said. 'But I'm going to make 'em
+a heap sicker before he gets well.'
+
+"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'He has had the enteric a little. Now he is better,
+and he was let out from hospital at Jackhalputs. Ah, that Mankeltow! He
+always makes me laugh so. I told him--long back--at Colesberg, I had a
+little home for him at Nooitgedacht. But he would not come--no! He has
+been sick, and I am sorry.'
+
+"'How d'you know that?' I says.
+
+"'Why, only to-day he sends back his love by Johanna Van der Merwe, that
+goes to their doctor for her sick baby's eyes. He sends his love, that
+Mankeltow, and he tells her tell me he has a little garden of roses all
+ready for me in the Dutch Indies--Umballa. He is very funny, my Captain
+Mankeltow.'
+
+"The Dutch and the English ought to fraternise, Sir. They've the same
+notions of humour, to my thinking.'
+
+"'When he gets well,' says Van Zyl, 'you look out, Mr. Americaan. He comes
+back to his guns next Tuesday. Then they shoot better.'
+
+"I wasn't so well acquainted with the Royal British Artillery as old man
+Van Zyl. I knew this Captain Mankeltow by sight, of course, and,
+considering what sort of a man with the hoe he was, I thought he'd done
+right well against my Zigler. But nothing epoch-making.
+
+"Next morning at the usual hour I waited on the General, and old Van Zyl
+come along with some of the boys. Van Zyl didn't hang round the Zigler
+much as a rule, but this was his luck that day.
+
+"He was peeking through his glasses at the camp, and I was helping pepper,
+the General's sow-belly--just as usual--when he turns to me quick and
+says, 'Almighty! How all these Englishmen are liars! You cannot trust
+one,' he says. 'Captain Mankeltow tells our Johanna he comes not back till
+Tuesday, and to-day is Friday, and there he is! Almighty! The English are
+all Chamberlains!'
+
+"If the old man hadn't stopped to make political speeches he'd have had
+his supper in laager that night, I guess. I was busy attending to Tom Reed
+at two thousand when Baldy got in her fine work on me. I saw one sheet of
+white flame wrapped round the hopper, and in the middle of it there was
+one o' my mules straight on end. Nothing out of the way in a mule on end,
+but this mule hadn't any head. I remember it struck me as incongruous at
+the time, and when I'd ciphered it out I was doing the Santos-Dumont act
+without any balloon and my motor out of gear. Then I got to thinking about
+Santos-Dumont and how much better my new way was. Then I thought about
+Professor Langley and the Smithsonian, and wishing I hadn't lied so
+extravagantly in some of my specifications at Washington. Then I quit
+thinking for quite a while, and when I resumed my train of thought I was
+nude, Sir, in a very stale stretcher, and my mouth was full of fine dirt
+all flavoured with Laughtite.
+
+"I coughed up that dirt.
+
+"'Hullo!' says a man walking beside me. 'You've spoke almost in time. Have
+a drink?'
+
+"I don't use rum as a rule, but I did then, because I needed it.
+
+"'What hit us?'I said.
+
+"'Me,' he said. 'I got you fair on the hopper as you pulled out of that
+donga; but I'm sorry to say every last round in the hopper's exploded and
+your gun's in a shocking state. I'm real sorry,' he says. 'I admire your
+gun, Sir.'
+
+"'Are you Captain Mankeltow?' I says.
+
+"'Yes,' he says. 'I presoom you're Mister Zigler. Your commanding officer
+told me about you.'
+
+"'Have you gathered in old man Van Zyl?' I said.
+
+"'Commandant Van Zyl,' he says very stiff, 'was most unfortunately
+wounded, but I am glad to say it's not serious. We hope he'll be able to
+dine with us to-night; and I feel sure,' he says, 'the General would be
+delighted to see you too, though he didn't expect,' he says, 'and no one
+else either, by Jove!' he says, and blushed like the British do when
+they're embarrassed.
+
+"I saw him slide an Episcopalian Prayer-book up his sleeve, and when I
+looked over the edge of the stretcher there was half-a-dozen enlisted men
+--privates--had just quit digging and was standing to attention by their
+spades. I guess he was right on the General not expecting me to dinner;
+but it was all of a piece with their sloppy British way of doing business.
+Any God's quantity of fuss and flubdub to bury a man, and not an ounce of
+forehandedness in the whole outfit to find out whether he was rightly
+dead. And I am a Congregationalist anyway!
+
+"Well, Sir, that was my introduction to the British Army. I'd write a book
+about it if anyone would believe me. This Captain Mankeltow, Royal British
+Artillery, turned the doctor on me (I could write another book about
+_him_) and fixed me up with a suit of his own clothes, and fed me canned
+beef and biscuits, and give me a cigar--a Henry Clay and a whisky-and-
+sparklet. He was a white man.
+
+"'Ye-es, by Jove,' he said, dragging out his words like a twist of
+molasses, 'we've all admired your gun and the way you've worked it. Some
+of us betted you was a British deserter. I won a sovereign on that from a
+yeoman. And, by the way,' he says, 'you've disappointed me groom pretty
+bad.'
+
+"'Where does your groom come in?' I said.
+
+"'Oh, he was the yeoman. He's a dam poor groom,' says my captain, 'but
+he's a way-up barrister when he's at home. He's been running around the
+camp with his tongue out, waiting for the chance of defending you at the
+court-martial.'
+
+"'What court-martial?' I says.
+
+"'On you as a deserter from the Artillery. You'd have had a good run for
+your money. Anyway, you'd never have been hung after the way you worked
+your gun. Deserter ten times over,' he says, 'I'd have stuck out for
+shooting you like a gentleman.'
+
+"Well, Sir, right there it struck me at the pit of my stomach--sort of
+sickish, sweetish feeling--that my position needed regularising pretty
+bad. I ought to have been a naturalised burgher of a year's standing; but
+Ohio's my State, and I wouldn't have gone back on her for a desertful of
+Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led me to the
+existing crisis; but I couldn't expect this Captain Mankeltow to regard
+the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of
+unreconstructed American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at the
+British Army for months on end. I tell _you_, Sir, I wished I was in
+Cincinnatah that summer evening. I'd have compromised on Brooklyn.
+
+"'What d'you do about aliens?' I said, and the dirt I'd coughed up seemed
+all back of my tongue again.
+
+"'Oh,' says he, 'we don't do much of anything. They're about all the
+society we get. I'm a bit of a pro-Boer myself,' he says, 'but between you
+and me the average Boer ain't over and above intellectual. You're the
+first American we've met up with, but of course you're a burgher.'
+
+"It was what I ought to have been if I'd had the sense of a common tick,
+but the way he drawled it out made me mad.
+
+"'Of course I am not,' I says. 'Would _you_ be a naturalised Boer?'
+
+"'I'm fighting against 'em,' he says, lighting a cigarette, 'but it's all
+a matter of opinion.'
+
+"'Well,' I says, 'you can hold any blame opinion you choose, but I'm a
+white man, and my present intention is to die in that colour.'
+
+"He laughed one of those big, thick-ended, British laughs that don't lead
+anywhere, and whacked up some sort of compliment about America that made
+me mad all through.
+
+"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir, but I do not understand the
+alleged British joke. It is depressing.
+
+"I was introdooced to five or six officers that evening, and every blame
+one of 'em grinned and asked me why I wasn't in the Filipeens suppressing
+our war! And that was British humour! They all had to get it off their
+chests before they'd talk sense. But they was sound on the Zigler. They
+had all admired her. I made out a fairy-story of me being wearied of the
+war, and having pushed the gun at them these last three months in the hope
+they'd capture it and let me go home. That tickled 'em to death. They made
+me say it three times over, and laughed like kids each time. But half the
+British _are_ kids; specially the older men. My Captain Mankeltow was less
+of it than the others. He talked about the Zigler like a lover, Sir, and I
+drew him diagrams of the hopper-feed and recoil-cylinder in his note-book.
+He asked the one British question I was waiting for, 'Hadn't I made my
+working-parts too light?' The British think weight's strength.
+
+"At last--I'd been shy of opening the subject before--at last I said,
+'Gentlemen, you are the unprejudiced tribunal I've been hunting after. I
+guess you ain't interested in any other gun-factory, and politics don't
+weigh with you. How did it feel your end of the game? What's my gun done,
+anyway?'
+
+"'I hate to disappoint you,' says Captain Mankeltow, 'because I know you
+feel as an inventor.' I wasn't feeling like an inventor just then. I felt
+friendly, but the British haven't more tact than you can pick up with a
+knife out of a plate of soup.
+
+"'The honest truth,' he says, 'is that you've wounded about ten of us one
+way and another, killed two battery horses and four mules, and--oh, yes,'
+he said, 'you've bagged five Kaffirs. But, buck up,' he said, 'we've all
+had mighty close calls'--shaves, he called 'em, I remember. 'Look at my
+pants.'
+
+"They was repaired right across the seat with Minneapolis flour-bagging. I
+could see the stencil.
+
+"'I ain't bluffing,' he says. 'Get the hospital returns, Doc.'
+
+"The doctor gets 'em and reads 'em out under the proper dates. That doctor
+alone was worth the price of admission.
+
+"I was right pleased right through that I hadn't killed any of these
+cheerful kids; but none the less I couldn't help thinking that a few more
+Kaffirs would have served me just as well for advertising purposes as
+white men. No, sir. Anywhichway you regard the proposition, twenty-one
+casualties after months of close friendship like ours was--paltry.
+
+"They gave me taffy about the gun--the British use taffy where we use
+sugar. It's cheaper, and gets there just the same. They sat around and
+proved to me that my gun was too good, too uniform--shot as close as a
+Mannlicher rifle.
+
+"Says one kid chewing a bit of grass: 'I counted eight of your shells,
+Sir, burst in a radius of ten feet. All of 'em would have gone through one
+waggon-tilt. It was beautiful,' he says. 'It was too good.'
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if the boys were right. My Laughtite is too
+mathematically uniform in propelling power. Yes; she was too good for this
+refractory fool of a country. The training gear was broke, too, and we had
+to swivel her around by the trail. But I'll build my next Zigler fifteen
+hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor under the axles. I
+must think that up.
+
+"'Well, gentlemen,' I said, 'I'd hate to have been the death of any of
+you; and if a prisoner can deed away his property, I'd love to present the
+Captain here with what he's seen fit to leave of my Zigler.'
+
+"'Thanks awf'ly,' says my Captain. 'I'd like her very much. She'd look
+fine in the mess at Woolwich. That is, if you don't mind, Mr. Zigler.'
+
+"'Go right ahead,' I says. 'I've come out of all the mess I've any use
+for; but she'll do to spread the light among the Royal British Artillery.'
+
+"I tell you, Sir, there's not much of anything the matter with the Royal
+British Artillery. They're brainy men languishing under an effete system
+which, when you take good holt of it, is England--just all England. 'Times
+I'd feel I was talking with real live citizens, and times I'd feel I'd
+struck the Beef Eaters in the Tower.
+
+"How? Well, this way. I was telling my Captain Mankeltow what Van Zyl had
+said about the British being all Chamberlains when the old man saw him
+back from hospital four days ahead of time.
+
+"'Oh, damn it all!' he says, as serious as the Supreme Court. 'It's too
+bad,' he says. 'Johanna must have misunderstood me, or else I've got the
+wrong Dutch word for these blarsted days of the week. I told Johanna I'd
+be out on Friday. The woman's a fool. Oah, da-am it all!' he says. 'I
+wouldn't have sold old Van Zyl a pup like that,' he says. 'I'll hunt him
+up and apologise.'
+
+"He must have fixed it all right, for when we sailed over to the General's
+dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and bitters, as
+happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and treated him like
+their prodigal father. He'd been hit on the collarbone by a wad of
+shrapnel, and his arm was tied up.
+
+"But the General was the peach. I presume you're acquainted with the
+average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his left
+hand, and he talked like--like the _Ladies' Home Journal_. J'ever read
+that paper? It's refined, Sir--and innocuous, and full of nickel-plated
+sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He began by a Lydia
+Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped the boys had done
+me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their midst. Then he thanked
+me for the interesting and valuable lessons that I'd given his crowd--
+specially in the matter of placing artillery and rearguard attacks. He'd
+wipe his long thin moustache between drinks--lime-juice and water he used
+--and blat off into a long 'a-aah,' and ladle out more taffy for me or old
+man Van Zyl on his right. I told him how I'd had my first Pisgah-sight of
+the principles of the Zigler when I was a fourth-class postmaster on a
+star-route in Arkansas. I told him how I'd worked it up by instalments
+when I was machinist in Waterbury, where the dollar-watches come from. He
+had one on his wrist then. I told him how I'd met Zalinski (he'd never
+heard of Zalinski!) when I was an extra clerk in the Naval Construction
+Bureau at Washington. I told him how my uncle, who was a truck-farmer in
+Noo Jersey (he loaned money on mortgage too, for ten acres ain't enough
+now in Noo Jersey), how he'd willed me a quarter of a million dollars,
+because I was the only one of our kin that called him down when he used to
+come home with a hard-cider jag on him and heave ox-bows at his nieces. I
+told him how I'd turned in every red cent on the Zigler, and I told him
+the whole circus of my coming out with her, and so on, and so following;
+and every forty seconds he'd wipe his moustache and blat, 'How
+interesting. Really, now? How interesting.'
+
+"It was like being in an old English book, Sir. Like _Bracebridge Hall_.
+But an American wrote _that!_ I kept peeking around for the Boar's Head
+and the Rosemary and Magna Charta and the Cricket on the Hearth, and the
+rest of the outfit. Then Van Zyl whirled in. He was no ways jagged, but
+thawed--thawed, Sir, and among friends. They began discussing previous
+scraps all along the old man's beat--about sixty of 'em--as well as side-
+shows with other generals and columns. Van Zyl told 'im of a big beat he'd
+worked on a column a week or so before I'd joined him. He demonstrated his
+strategy with forks on the table.
+
+"'There!' said the General, when he'd finished. 'That proves my contention
+to the hilt. Maybe I'm a bit of a pro-Boer, but I stick to it,' he says,
+'that under proper officers, with due regard to his race prejudices, the
+Boer'ud make the finest mounted infantry in the Empire. Adrian,' he says,
+'you're simply squandered on a cattle-run. You ought to be at the Staff
+College with De Wet.'
+
+"'You catch De Wet and I come to your Staff College--eh,' says Adrian,
+laughing. 'But you are so slow, Generaal. Why are you so slow? For a
+month,' he says, 'you do so well and strong that we say we shall hands-up
+and come back to our farms. Then you send to England and make us a present
+of two--three--six hundred young men, with rifles and wagons and rum and
+tobacco, and such a great lot of cartridges, that our young men put up
+their tails and start all over again. If you hold an ox by the horn and
+hit him by the bottom he runs round and round. He never goes anywhere. So,
+too, this war goes round and round. You know that, Generaal!'
+
+"'Quite right, Adrian,' says the General; 'but you must believe your
+Bible.'
+
+"'Hooh!' says Adrian, and reaches for the whisky. 'I've never known a
+Dutchman a professing Atheist, but some few have been rather active
+Agnostics since the British sat down in Pretoria. Old man Van Zyl--he told
+me--had soured on religion after Bloemfontein surrendered. He was a Free
+Stater for one thing.'
+
+"'He that believeth,' says the General, 'shall not make haste. That's in
+Isaiah. We believe we're going to win, and so we don't make haste. As far
+as I'm concerned I'd like this war to last another five years. We'd have
+an army then. It's just this way, Mr. Zigler,' he says, 'our people are
+brimfull of patriotism, but they've been born and brought up between
+houses, and England ain't big enough to train 'em--not if you expect to
+preserve.'
+
+"'Preserve what?' I says. 'England?'
+
+"'No. The game,' he says; 'and that reminds me, gentlemen, we haven't
+drunk the King and Foxhunting.'
+
+"So they drank the King and Fox-hunting. I drank the King because there's
+something about Edward that tickles me (he's so blame British); but I
+rather stood out on the Fox-hunting. I've ridden wolves in the cattle-
+country, and needed a drink pretty bad afterwards, but it never struck me
+as I ought to drink about it--he-red-it-arily.
+
+"'No, as I was saying, Mr. Zigler,' he goes on, 'we have to train our men
+in the field to shoot and ride. I allow six months for it; but many
+column-commanders--not that I ought to say a word against 'em, for they're
+the best fellows that ever stepped, and most of 'em are my dearest
+friends--seem to think that if they have men and horses and guns they can
+take tea with the Boers. It's generally the other way about, ain't it, Mr.
+Zigler?'
+
+"'To some extent, Sir,' I said.
+
+"'I'm _so_ glad you agree with me,' he says. 'My command here I regard as
+a training depot, and you, if I may say so, have been one of my most
+efficient instructors. I mature my men slowly but thoroughly. First I put
+'em in a town which is liable to be attacked by night, where they can
+attend riding-school in the day. Then I use 'em with a convoy, and last I
+put 'em into a column. It takes time,' he says, 'but I flatter myself that
+any men who have worked under me are at least grounded in the rudiments of
+their profession. Adrian,' he says, 'was there anything wrong with the men
+who upset Van Bester's applecart last month when he was trying to cross
+the line to join Piper with those horses he'd stole from Gabbitas?'
+
+"'No, Generaal,' says Van Zyl. 'Your men got the horses back and eleven
+dead; and Van Besters, he ran to Delarey in his shirt. They was very good,
+those men. They shoot hard.'
+
+"_'So_ pleased to hear you say so. I laid 'em down at the beginning of
+this century--a 1900 vintage. _You_ remember 'em, Mankeltow?' he says.
+'The Central Middlesex Buncho Busters--clerks and floorwalkers mostly,'
+and he wiped his moustache. 'It was just the same with the Liverpool
+Buckjumpers, but they were stevedores. Let's see--they were a last-century
+draft, weren't they? They did well after nine months. _You_ know 'em, Van
+Zyl? You didn't get much change out of 'em at Pootfontein?'
+
+"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'At Pootfontein I lost my son Andries.'
+
+"'I beg your pardon, Commandant,' says the General; and the rest of the
+crowd sort of cooed over Adrian.
+
+"'Excoose,' says Adrian. 'It was all right. They were good men those, but
+it is just what I say. Some are so dam good we want to hands-up, and some
+are so dam bad, we say, "Take the Vierkleur into Cape Town." It is not
+upright of you, Generaal. It is not upright of you at all. I do not think
+you ever wish this war to finish.'
+
+"'It's a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,' says the General. 'With
+luck, we ought to run half a million men through the mill. Why, we might
+even be able to give our Native Army a look in. Oh, not here, of course,
+Adrian, but down in the Colony--say a camp-of-exercise at Worcester. You
+mustn't be prejudiced, Adrian. I've commanded a district in India, and I
+give you my word the native troops are splendid men.'
+
+"'Oh, I should not mind them at Worcester,' says Adrian. 'I would sell you
+forage for them at Worcester--yes, and Paarl and Stellenbosch; but
+Almighty!' he says, 'must I stay with Cronje till you have taught half a
+million of these stupid boys to ride? I shall be an old man.'
+
+"Well, Sir, then and there they began arguing whether St. Helena would
+suit Adrian's health as well as some other places they knew about, and
+fixing up letters of introduction to Dukes and Lords of their
+acquaintance, so's Van Zyl should be well looked after. We own a fair-
+sized block of real estate--America does--but it made me sickish to hear
+this crowd fluttering round the Atlas (oh yes, they had an Atlas), and
+choosing stray continents for Adrian to drink his coffee in. The old man
+allowed he didn't want to roost with Cronje, because one of Cronje's kin
+had jumped one of his farms after Paardeberg. I forget the rights of the
+case, but it was interesting. They decided on a place called Umballa in
+India, because there was a first-class doctor there.
+
+"So Adrian was fixed to drink the King and Foxhunting, and study up the
+Native Army in India (I'd like to see 'em myself), till the British
+General had taught the male white citizens of Great Britain how to ride.
+Don't misunderstand me, Sir. I loved that General. After ten minutes I
+loved him, and I wanted to laugh at him; but at the same time, sitting
+there and hearing him talk about the centuries, I tell you, Sir, it scared
+me. It scared me cold! He admitted everything--he acknowledged the corn
+before you spoke--he was more pleased to hear that his men had been used
+to wipe the geldt with than I was when I knocked out Tom Reed's two lead-
+horses--and he sat back and blew smoke through his nose and matured his
+men like cigars and--he talked of the everlastin' centuries!
+
+"I went to bed nearer nervous prostration than I'd come in a long time.
+Next morning me and Captain Mankeltow fixed up what his shrapnel had left
+of my Zigler for transport to the railroad. She went in on her own wheels,
+and I stencilled her 'Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,' on the muzzle, and
+he said he'd be grateful if I'd take charge of her to Cape Town, and hand
+her over to a man in the Ordnance there. 'How are you fixed financially?
+You'll need some money on the way home,' he says at last.
+
+"'For one thing, Cap,' I said, 'I'm not a poor man, and for another I'm
+not going home. I am the captive of your bow and spear. I decline to
+resign office.'
+
+"'Skittles!' he says (that was a great word of his), 'you'll take parole,
+and go back to America and invent another Zigler, a trifle heavier in the
+working parts--I would. We've got more prisoners than we know what to do
+with as it is,' he says. 'You'll only be an additional expense to me as a
+taxpayer. Think of Schedule D,' he says, 'and take parole.'
+
+"'I don't know anything about your tariffs,' I said, 'but when I get to
+Cape Town I write home for money, and I turn in every cent my board'll
+cost your country to any ten-century-old department that's been ordained
+to take it since William the Conqueror came along.'
+
+"'But, confound you for a thick-headed mule,' he says, 'this war ain't any
+more than just started! Do you mean to tell me you're going to play
+prisoner till it's over?'
+
+"'That's about the size of it,' I says, 'if an Englishman and an American
+could ever understand each other.'
+
+"'But, in Heaven's Holy Name, why?' he says, sitting down of a heap on an
+anthill.
+
+"'Well, Cap,' I says, 'I don't pretend to follow your ways of thought, and
+I can't see why you abuse your position to persecute a poor prisoner o'
+war on _his!_'
+
+"'My dear fellow,' he began, throwing up his hands and blushing, 'I'll
+apologise.'
+
+"'But if you insist,' I says, 'there are just one and a half things in
+this world I can't do. The odd half don't matter here; but taking parole,
+and going home, and being interviewed by the boys, and giving lectures on
+my single-handed campaign against the hereditary enemies of my beloved
+country happens to be the one. We'll let it go at that, Cap.'
+
+"'But it'll bore you to death,' he says. The British are a heap more
+afraid of what they call being bored than of dying, I've noticed.
+
+"'I'll survive,' I says, 'I ain't British. I can think,' I says.
+
+"'By God,' he says, coming up to me, and extending the right hand of
+fellowship, 'you ought to be English, Zigler!'
+
+"It's no good getting mad at a compliment like that. The English all do
+it. They're a crazy breed. When they don't know you they freeze up
+tighter'n the St. Lawrence. When they _do_, they go out like an ice-jam in
+April. Up till we prisoners left--four days--my Captain Mankeltow told me
+pretty much all about himself there was; his mother and sisters, and his
+bad brother that was a trooper in some Colonial corps, and how his father
+didn't get on with him, and--well, everything, as I've said. They're
+undomesticated, the British, compared with us. They talk about their own
+family affairs as if they belonged to someone else. 'Taint as if they
+hadn't any shame, but it sounds like it. I guess they talk out loud what
+we think, and we talk out loud what they think.
+
+"I liked my Captain Mankeltow. I liked him as well as any man I'd ever
+struck. He was white. He gave me his silver drinking-flask, and I gave him
+the formula of my Laughtite. That's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars
+in his vest-pocket, on the lowest count, if he has the knowledge to use
+it. No, I didn't tell him the money-value. He was English. He'd send his
+valet to find out.
+
+"Well, me and Adrian and a crowd of dam Dutchmen was sent down the road to
+Cape Town in first-class carriages under escort. (What did I think of your
+enlisted men? They are largely different from ours, Sir: very largely.) As
+I was saying, we slid down south, with Adrian looking out of the car-
+window and crying. Dutchmen cry mighty easy for a breed that fights as
+they do; but I never understood how a Dutchman could curse till we crossed
+into the Orange Free State Colony, and he lifted up his hand and cursed
+Steyn for a solid ten minutes. Then we got into the Colony, and the rebs--
+ministers mostly and schoolmasters--came round the cars with fruit and
+sympathy and texts. Van Zyl talked to 'em in Dutch, and one man, a big
+red-bearded minister, at Beaufort West, I remember, he jest wilted on the
+platform.
+
+"'Keep your prayers for yourself,' says Van Zyl, throwing back a bunch of
+grapes. 'You'll need 'em, and you'll need the fruit too, when the war
+comes down here. _You_ done it,' he says. 'You and your picayune Church
+that's deader than Cronje's dead horses! What sort of a God have you been
+unloading on us, you black _aas vogels_? The British came, and we beat
+'em,' he says, 'and you sat still and prayed. The British beat us, and you
+sat still,' he says. 'You told us to hang on, and we hung on, and our
+farms was burned, and you sat still--you and your God. See here,' he says,
+'I shot my Bible full of bullets after Bloemfontein went, and you and God
+didn't say anything. Take it and pray over it before we Federals help the
+British to knock hell out of you rebels.'
+
+"Then I hauled him back into the car. I judged he'd had a fit. But life's
+curious--and sudden--and mixed. I hadn't any more use for a reb than Van
+Zyl, and I knew something of the lies they'd fed us up with from the
+Colony for a year and more. I told the minister to pull his freight out of
+that, and went on with my lunch, when another man come along and shook
+hands with Van Zyl. He'd known him at close range in the Kimberley seige
+and before. Van Zyl was well seen by his neighbours, I judge. As soon as
+this other man opened his mouth I said, 'You're Kentucky, ain't you?' 'I
+am,' he says; 'and what may you be?' I told him right off, for I was
+pleased to hear good United States in any man's mouth; but he whipped his
+hands behind him and said, 'I'm not knowing any man that fights for a
+Tammany Dutchman. But I presoom you've been well paid, you dam gun-runnin'
+Yank.'
+
+"Well, Sir, I wasn't looking for that, and it near knocked me over, while
+old man Van Zyl started in to explain.
+
+"'Don't you waste your breath, Mister Van Zyl,' the man says. 'I know this
+breed. The South's full of 'em.' Then he whirls round on me and says,
+'Look at here, you Yank. A little thing like a King's neither here nor
+there, but what _you've_ done,' he says, 'is to go back on the White Man
+in six places at once--two hemispheres and four continents--America,
+England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Don't open your
+head,' he says. 'You know well if you'd been caught at this game in our
+country you'd have been jiggling in the bight of a lariat before you could
+reach for your naturalisation papers. Go on and prosper,' he says, 'and
+you'll fetch up by fighting for niggers, as the North did.' And he threw
+me half-a-crown--English money.
+
+"Sir, I do not regard the proposition in that light, but I guess I must
+have been somewhat shook by the explosion. They told me at Cape Town one
+rib was driven in on to my lungs. I am not adducing this as an excuse, but
+the cold God's truth of the matter is--the money on the floor did it.... I
+give up and cried. Put my head down and cried.
+
+"I dream about this still sometimes. He didn't know the circumstances, but
+I dream about it. And it's Hell!
+
+"How do you regard the proposition--as a Brother? If you'd invented your
+own gun, and spent fifty-seven thousand dollars on her--and had paid your
+own expenses from the word 'go'? An American citizen has a right to choose
+his own side in an unpleasantness, and Van Zyl wasn't any Krugerite ...
+and I'd risked my hide at my own expense. I got that man's address from
+Van Zyl; he was a mining man at Kimberley, and I wrote him the facts. But
+he never answered. Guess he thought I lied.... Damned Southern rebel!
+
+"Oh, say. Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord in
+Cape Town, and he fixed things so's I could lie up a piece in his house? I
+was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged
+into the lung--here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of
+the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any
+American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He
+said the British soldier had failed in every point except courage. He said
+England needed a Monroe Doctrine worse than America--a new doctrine,
+barring out all the Continent, and strictly devoting herself to developing
+her own Colonies. He said he'd abolish half the Foreign Office, and take
+all the old hereditary families clean out of it, because, he said, they
+was expressly trained to fool around with continental diplomats, and to
+despise the Colonies. His own family wasn't more than six hundred years
+old. He was a very brainy man, and a good citizen. We talked politics and
+inventions together when my lung let up on me.
+
+"Did he know my General? Yes. He knew 'em all. Called 'em Teddie and
+Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his dearest
+friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of 'em fit to command
+a column in the field. He said they were too fond of advertising. Generals
+don't seem very different from actors or doctors or--yes, Sir--inventors.
+
+"He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort of
+pull--even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless lunatic; but
+after a while I got 'em to let me keep some of their books. If I was left
+alone in the world with the British system of bookkeeping, I'd reconstruct
+the whole British Empire--beginning with the Army. Yes, I'm one of their
+most trusted accountants, and I'm paid for it. As much as a dollar a day.
+I keep that. I've earned it, and I deduct it from the cost of my board.
+When the war's over I'm going to pay up the balance to the British
+Government. Yes, Sir, that's how I regard the proposition.
+
+"Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was going
+to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn't end in a year.
+'Tisn't in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if Adrian ever
+meets up with Steyn there'll be an exception to the rule. Ye--es, when the
+war's over it'll take some of the British Army to protect Steyn from his
+fellow-patriots. But the war won't be over yet awhile. He that believeth
+don't hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers and the school-teachers and the
+rebs'll have a war all to themselves long after the north is quiet.
+
+"I'm pleased with this country--it's big. Not so many folk on the ground
+as in America. There's a boom coming sure. I've talked it over with
+Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near Bloemfontein and
+start in cattle-raising. It's big and peaceful--a ten-thousand-acre farm.
+I could go on inventing there, too. I'll sell my Zigler, I guess. I'll
+offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do the
+'reelly-now-how-interesting' act over her, I'll turn her over to Captain
+Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They'll pretty quick find some Gussie,
+or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper quarters. I'm
+beginning to know my English.
+
+"And now I'll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I haven't
+had such a good time since Willie died." He pulled the blue shirt over his
+head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and, speaking
+through the folds, added:
+
+"But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole
+proposition to America for ninety-nine years."
+
+
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+POSEIDON'S LAW
+
+  When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea
+  His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, "Mariner," said he,
+  "Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
+  That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
+
+  "Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
+  At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
+  But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test--the immediate gulfs condemn--
+  Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.
+
+  "Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
+  The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath;
+  Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
+  Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.
+
+  "Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,
+  A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts--
+  The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,
+  The soul that cannot tell a lie--except upon the land!"
+
+  In dromond and in catafract--wet, wakeful, windward-eyed--
+  He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
+  But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more,
+  Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
+  And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:
+  The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,
+  But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!
+
+  From Punt returned, from Phormio's Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
+  He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
+  And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
+  Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance,
+armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British
+Navy--the  whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches
+the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the
+Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present
+day, of the British sailorman.
+
+In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur,
+though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on
+that amateur's hard-won information. There exists--unlike some other
+publication, it is not bound in lead boards--a work by one "M. de C.,"
+based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known
+_Acolyte_ type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It
+covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type
+exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the
+average Dumas novel.
+
+I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue--it is the
+disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable
+of writing one page of lyric prose--to the eloquent, the joyful, the
+impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this
+sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at
+the mercy of his agent.
+
+"M. de C.," I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her
+boats what time H.M.S. _Archimandrite_ lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was,
+always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the
+conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist
+the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his
+histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the
+rank of "supernumerary captain's servant"--a "post which," I give his
+words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with
+opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would
+have been my destruction."
+
+From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like
+to those "M. de C." had "envisaged"--if I translate him correctly. It
+became clear to me that "M. de C." was either a pyramidal liar, or...
+
+I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the
+_Archimandrite_; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a
+third-class ticket to Plymouth.
+
+I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman-
+gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my
+feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to
+a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the
+proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides
+had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of
+the _Archimandrite_.
+
+"The _Bedlamite_, d'you mean--'er last commission, when they all went
+crazy?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," I replied. "Fetch me a sample and I'll see."
+
+"You'll excuse me, o' course, but--what d'you want 'im _for?_"
+
+"I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk--if you like. I want
+to make him drunk here."
+
+"Spoke very 'andsome. I'll do what I can." He went out towards the water
+that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he
+was a person of influence beyond Admirals.
+
+In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of
+Mr. Wessels.
+
+"'E only wants to make you drunk at 'is expense. Dessay 'e'll stand you
+all a drink. Come up an' look at 'im. 'E don't bite."
+
+A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large
+bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.
+
+"'E's the only one I could get. Transferred to the _Postulant_ six months
+back. I found 'im quite accidental." Mr. Wessels beamed.
+
+"I'm in charge o' the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin' on the beach _en
+masse_. They won't be home till mornin'," said the square man with the
+remarkable eyes.  "Are you an _Archimandrite?_" I demanded.
+
+"That's me. I was, as you might say."
+
+"Hold on. I'm a _Archimandrite._" A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to
+climb on the table. "Was you lookin' for a _Bedlamite?_ I've--I've been
+invalided, an' what with that, an' visitin' my family 'ome at Lewes,
+per'aps I've come late. 'Ave I?"
+
+"You've 'ad all that's good for you," said Tom Wessels, as the Red Marine
+sat cross-legged on the floor.
+
+"There are those 'oo haven't 'ad a thing yet!" cried a voice by the door.
+
+"I will take this _Archimandrite_" I said, "and this Marine. Will you
+please give the boat's crew a drink now, and another in half an hour if--
+if Mr.----"
+
+"Pyecroft," said the square man. "Emanuel Pyecroft, second-class petty-
+officer."
+
+"--Mr. Pyecroft doesn't object?"
+
+"He don't. Clear out. Goldin', you picket the hill by yourself, throwin'
+out a skirmishin'-line in ample time to let me know when Number One's
+comin' down from his vittles."
+
+The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red
+Marine zealously leading the way.
+
+"And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?" I said.
+
+"Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an' sugar an' per'aps a
+lemon."
+
+"Mine's beer," said the Marine. "It always was."
+
+"Look 'ere, Glass. You take an' go to sleep. The picket'll be comin' for
+you in a little time, an' per'aps you'll 'ave slep' it off by then. What's
+your ship, now?" said Mr. Wessels.
+
+"The Ship o' State--most important?" said the Red Marine magnificently,
+and shut his eyes.
+
+"That's right," said Mr. Pyecroft. "He's safest where he is. An' now--
+here's santy to us all!--what d'you want o' me?"
+
+"I want to read you something."
+
+"Tracts, again!" said the Marine, never opening his eyes. "Well. I'm
+game.... A little more 'ead to it, miss, please."
+
+"He thinks 'e's drinkin'--lucky beggar!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "I'm agreeable
+to be read to. 'Twon't alter my convictions. I may as well tell you
+beforehand I'm a Plymouth Brother."
+
+He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist's chair, and I
+began at the third page of "M. de C."
+
+"'_At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat's
+cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with
+empress_'--coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. '_By this time I judged the
+vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me
+amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded that I
+named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from the Portuguese
+conscription_.'
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed. Then
+pensively: "Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?"
+
+"It's the story of Antonio--a stowaway in the _Archimandrite's_ cutter. A
+French spy when he's at home, I fancy. What do _you_ know about it?"
+
+"An' I thought it was tracts! An' yet some'ow I didn't." Mr. Pyecroft
+nodded his head wonderingly. "Our old man was quite right--so was 'Op--so
+was I. 'Ere, Glass!" He kicked the Marine. "Here's our Antonio 'as written
+a impromptu book! He _was_ a spy all right."
+
+The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the
+half-drunk. "'As 'e got any-thin' in about my 'orrible death an'
+execution? Ex_cuse_ me, but if I open my eyes, I shan't be well. That's
+where I'm different from _all_ other men. Ahem!"
+
+"What about Glass's execution?" demanded Pyecroft.
+
+"The book's in French," I replied.
+
+"Then it's no good to me."
+
+"Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened. I'll
+check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged out of
+the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the other
+things, because they're unusual."
+
+"They were," said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. "Lookin' back on it as I set
+here more an' more I see what an 'ighly unusual affair it was. But it
+happened. It transpired in the _Archimandrite_--the ship you can trust...
+Antonio! Ther beggar!"
+
+"Take your time, Mr. Pyecroft."
+
+In a few moments we came to it thus--
+
+"The old man was displeased. I don't deny he was quite a little
+displeased. With the mail-boats trottin' into Madeira every twenty
+minutes, he didn't see why a lop-eared Portugee had to take liberties with
+a man-o'-war's first cutter. Any'ow, we couldn't turn ship round for him.
+We drew him out and took him out to Number One. 'Drown 'im,' 'e says.
+'Drown 'im before 'e dirties my fine new decks.' But our owner was
+tenderhearted. 'Take him to the galley,' 'e says. 'Boil 'im! Skin 'im!
+Cook 'im! Cut 'is bloomin' hair? Take 'is bloomin' number! We'll have him
+executed at Ascension.'
+
+"Retallick, our chief cook, an' a Carth'lic, was the on'y one any way near
+grateful; bein' short-'anded in the galley. He annexes the blighter by the
+left ear an' right foot an' sets him to work peelin' potatoes. So then,
+this Antonio that was avoidin' the conscription--"
+
+"_Sub_scription, you pink-eyed matlow!" said the Marine, with the face of
+a stone Buddha, and whimpered sadly: "Pye don't see any fun in it at all."
+
+"_Con_scription--come to his illegitimate sphere in Her Majesty's Navy,
+an' it was just then that Old 'Op, our Yeoman of Signals, an' a fastidious
+joker, made remarks to me about 'is hands.
+
+"'Those 'ands,' says 'Op, 'properly considered, never done a day's honest
+labour in their life. Tell me those hands belong to a blighted Portugee
+manual labourist and I won't call you a liar, but I'll say you an' the
+Admiralty are pretty much unique in your statements.' 'Op was always a
+fastidious joker--in his language as much as anything else. He pursued 'is
+investigations with the eye of an 'awk outside the galley. He knew better
+than to advance line-head against Retallick, so he attacked _ong eshlong_,
+speakin' his remarks as much as possible into the breech of the starboard
+four point seven, an' 'ummin' to 'imself. Our chief cook 'ated 'ummin'.
+'What's the matter of your bowels?' he says at last, fistin' out the mess-
+pork agitated like. "'Don't mind me,' says 'Op. 'I'm only a mildewed
+buntin'-tosser,' 'e says: 'but speakin' for my mess, I do hope,' 'e says,
+'you ain't goin' to boil your Portugee friend's boots along o' that pork
+you're smellin' so gay!'
+
+"'Boots! Boots! Boots!' says Retallick, an' he run round like a earwig in
+a alder-stalk. 'Boots in the galley,' 'e says. 'Cook's mate, cast out an'
+abolish this cutter-cuddlin' abori_gine's_ boots!'"
+
+"They was hove overboard in quick time, an' that was what 'Op was lyin' to
+for. As subsequently transpired.
+
+"'Fine Arab arch to that cutter-cuddler's hinstep,' he says to me. 'Run
+your eye over it, Pye,' 'e says. 'Nails all present an' correct,' 'e says.
+'Bunion on the little toe, too,' 'e says; 'which comes from wearin' a
+tight boot. What do _you_ think?'
+
+"'Dook in trouble, per'aps,' I says. 'He ain't got the hang of spud-
+skinnin'.' No more he 'ad. 'E was simply cannibalisin' 'em.
+
+"'I want to know what 'e 'as got the 'ang of,' says 'Op, obstructed-like.
+'Watch 'im,' 'e says. 'These shoulders were foreign-drilled somewhere.'
+
+'"When it comes to "Down 'ammicks!" which is our naval way o' goin' to
+bye-bye, I took particular trouble over Antonio, 'oo had 'is 'ammick 'ove
+at 'im with general instructions to sling it an' be sugared. In the
+ensuin' melly I pioneered him to the after-'atch, which is a orifice
+communicatin' with the after-flat an' similar suites of apartments. He
+havin' navigated at three fifths power immejit ahead o' me, _I_ wasn't
+goin' to volunteer any assistance, nor he didn't need it.'
+
+"'Mong Jew!' says 'e, sniffin' round. An' twice more 'Mong Jew!'--which is
+pure French. Then he slings 'is 'ammick, nips in, an' coils down. 'Not bad
+for a Portugee conscript,' I says to myself, casts off the tow, abandons
+him, and reports to 'Op.
+
+"About three minutes later I'm over'auled by our sub-lootenant, navigatin'
+under forced draught, with his bearin's 'eated. 'E had the temerity to say
+I'd instructed our Antonio to sling his carcass in the alleyway, an' 'e
+was peevish about it. O' course, I prevaricated like 'ell. You get to do
+that in the service. Nevertheless, to oblige Mr. Ducane, I went an'
+readjusted Antonio. You may not 'ave ascertained that there are two ways
+o' comin' out of an 'ammick when it's cut down. Antonio came out t'other
+way--slidin' 'andsome to his feet. That showed me two things. First, 'e
+had been in an 'ammick before, an' next, he hadn't been asleep. Then I
+reproached 'im for goin' to bed where 'e'd been told to go, instead o'
+standin' by till some one gave him entirely contradictory orders. Which is
+the essence o' naval discipline.
+
+"In the middle o' this argument the gunner protrudes his ram-bow from 'is
+cabin, an' brings it all to an 'urried conclusion with some remarks
+suitable to 'is piebald warrant-rank. Navigatin' thence under easy steam,
+an' leavin' Antonio to re-sling his little foreign self, my large flat
+foot comes in detonatin' contact with a small objec' on the deck. Not
+'altin' for the obstacle, nor changin' step, I shuffles it along under the
+ball of the big toe to the foot o' the hatchway, when, lightly stoopin', I
+catch it in my right hand and continue my evolutions in rapid time till I
+eventuates under 'Op's lee.
+
+"It was a small moroccer-bound pocket-book, full of indelible pencil-
+writin'--in French, for I could plainly discern the _doodeladays_, which
+is about as far as my education runs.
+
+"'Op fists it open and peruses. 'E'd known an 'arf-caste Frenchwoman
+pretty intricate before he was married; when he was trained man in a
+stinkin' gunboat up the Saigon River. He understood a lot o' French--
+domestic brands chiefly--the kind that isn't in print.
+
+"'Pye,' he says to me, 'you're a tattician o' no mean value. I am a trifle
+shady about the precise bearin' an' import' o' this beggar's private log
+here,' 'e says, 'but it's evidently a case for the owner. You'll 'ave your
+share o' the credit,' 'e says.
+
+"'Nay, nay, Pauline,' I says, 'You don't catch Emanuel Pyecroft mine-
+droppin' under any post-captain's bows,' I says, 'in search of honour,' I
+says. 'I've been there oft.'
+
+"'Well, if you must, you must,' 'e says, takin' me up quick. 'But I'll
+speak a good word for you, Pye.'
+
+"'You'll shut your mouth, 'Op,' I says, 'or you an' me'll part brass-rags.
+The owner has his duties, an' I have mine. We will keep station,' I says,
+'nor seek to deviate.'
+
+"'Deviate to blazes!' says 'Op. 'I'm goin' to deviate to the owner's
+comfortable cabin direct.' So he deviated."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward and dealt the Marine a large pattern Navy
+kick. "'Ere, Glass! You was sentry when 'Op went to the old man--the first
+time, with Antonio's washin'-book. Tell us what transpired. You're sober.
+You don't know how sober you are!"
+
+The Marine cautiously raised his head a few inches. As Mr. Pyecroft said,
+he was sober--after some R.M.L.I. fashion of his own devising. "'Op bounds
+in like a startled anteloper, carryin' 'is signal-slate at the ready. The
+old man was settin' down to 'is bountiful platter--not like you an' me,
+without anythin' more in sight for an 'ole night an' 'arf a day. Talkin'
+about food--"
+
+"No! No! No!" cried Pyecroft, kicking again. "What about 'Op?" I thought
+the Marine's ribs would have snapped, but he merely hiccuped.
+
+"Oh, 'im! 'E 'ad it written all down on 'is little slate--I think--an' 'e
+shoves it under the old man's nose. 'Shut the door,' says 'Op. 'For
+'Eavin's sake shut the cabin door!' Then the old man must ha' said
+somethin' 'bout irons. 'I'll put 'em on, Sir, in your very presence,' says
+'Op, 'only 'ear my prayer,' or--words to that 'fect.... It was jus' the
+same with me when I called our Sergeant a bladder-bellied, lard-'eaded,
+perspirin' pension-cheater. They on'y put on the charge-sheet 'words to
+that effect,' Spoiled the 'ole 'fect."
+
+"'Op! 'Op! 'Op! What about 'Op?" thundered Pyecroft.
+
+"'Op? Oh, shame thing. Words t' that 'fect. Door shut. Nushin' more
+transphired till 'Op comes out--nose exshtreme angle plungin' fire or--or
+words 'that effect. Proud's parrot. 'Oh, you prou' old parrot,' I says."
+
+Mr. Glass seemed to slumber again.
+
+"Lord! How a little moisture disintegrates, don't it? When we had ship's
+theatricals off Vigo, Glass 'ere played Dick Deadeye to the moral, though
+of course the lower deck wasn't pleased to see a leatherneck interpretin'
+a strictly maritime part, as you might say. It's only his repartees, which
+'e can't contain, that conquers him. Shall I resume my narrative?"
+
+Another drink was brought on this hint, and Mr. Pyecroft resumed.
+
+"The essence o' strategy bein' forethought, the essence o' tattics is
+surprise. Per'aps you didn't know that? My forethought 'avin' secured the
+initial advantage in attack, it remained for the old man to ladle out the
+surprise-packets. 'Eavens! What surprises! That night he dines with the
+wardroom, bein' of the kind--I've told you as we were a 'appy ship?--that
+likes it, and the wardroom liked it too. This ain't common in the service.
+They had up the new Madeira--awful undisciplined stuff which gives you a
+cordite mouth next morning. They told the mess-men to navigate towards the
+extreme an' remote 'orizon, an' they abrogated the sentry about fifteen
+paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner, the Bo'sun, an' the
+Carpenter, an' stood them large round drinks. It all come out later--
+wardroom joints bein' lower-deck hash, as the sayin' is--that our Number
+One stuck to it that 'e couldn't trust the ship for the job. The old man
+swore 'e could, 'avin' commanded 'er over two years. He was right. There
+wasn't a ship, I don't care in what fleet, could come near the
+_Archimandrites_ when we give our mind to a thing. We held the cruiser
+big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig) championship, an' the
+challenge-cup row round the fleet. We 'ad the best nigger-minstrels, the
+best football an' cricket teams, an' the best squee-jee band of anything
+that ever pushed in front of a brace o' screws. An' _yet_ our Number One
+mistrusted us! 'E said we'd be a floatin' hell in a week, an' it 'ud take
+the rest o' the commission to stop our way. They was arguin' it in the
+wardroom when the bridge reports a light three points off the port bow. We
+overtakes her, switches on our search-light, an' she discloses herself as
+a collier o' no mean reputation, makin' about seven knots on 'er lawful
+occasions--to the Cape most like.
+
+"Then the owner--so we 'eard in good time--broke the boom, springin' all
+mines together at close interval.
+
+"'Look 'ere, my jokers,' 'e says (I'm givin' the grist of 'is arguments,
+remember), 'Number One says we can't enlighten this cutter-cuddlin Gaulish
+lootenant on the manners an' customs o' the Navy without makin' the ship a
+market-garden. There's a lot in that,' 'e says, 'specially if we kept it
+up lavish, till we reached Ascension. But,' 'e says, 'the appearance o'
+this strange sail has put a totally new aspect on the game. We can run to
+just one day's amusement for our friend, or else what's the good o'
+discipline? An' then we can turn 'im over to our presumably short-'anded
+fellow-subject in the small-coal line out yonder. He'll be pleased,' says
+the old man, 'an' so will Antonio. M'rover,' he says to Number One, 'I'll
+lay you a dozen o' liquorice an' ink'--it must ha' been that new tawny
+port--'that I've got a ship I can trust--for one day,' 'e says.
+'Wherefore,' he says, 'will you have the extreme goodness to reduce speed
+as requisite for keepin' a proper distance behind this providential tramp
+till further orders?' Now, that's what I call tattics.
+
+"The other manoeuvres developed next day, strictly in accordance with the
+plans as laid down in the wardroom, where they sat long an' steady. 'Op
+whispers to me that Antonio was a Number One spy when 'e was in
+commission, and a French lootenant when 'e was paid off, so I navigated at
+three 'undred and ninety six revolutions to the galley, never 'avin'
+kicked a lootenant up to date. I may as well say that I did not manoeuvre
+against 'im as a Frenchman, because I like Frenchmen, but stric'ly on 'is
+rank an' ratin' in 'is own navy. I inquired after 'is health from
+Retallick.
+
+"'Don't ask me,' 'e says, sneerin' be'ind his silver spectacles. ''E's
+promoted to be captain's second supernumerary servant, to be dressed and
+addressed as such. If 'e does 'is dooties same as he skinned the spuds,
+_I_ ain't for changin' with the old man.'
+
+"In the balmy dawnin' it was given out, all among the 'olystones, by our
+sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil, that all orders after
+eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o' the
+velocity. 'The reg'lar routine,' he says, 'was arrogated for reasons o'
+state an' policy, an' any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise,
+annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly reproached.' Then
+the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some hanky-panky in the
+magazines, an' led 'em off along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say,
+our Gunnery Lootenant.
+
+"That put us on the _viva voce_--particularly when we understood how the
+owner was navigatin' abroad in his sword-belt trustin' us like brothers.
+We shifts into the dress o' the day, an' we musters _an'_ we prays _ong
+reggle_, an' we carries on anticipatory to bafflin' Antonio.
+
+"Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin' his 'ands an' weepin'.
+'E'd been talkin' to the sub-lootenant, an' it looked like as if his
+upper-works were collapsin'.
+
+"'I want a guarantee,' 'e says, wringin' 'is 'ands like this. '_I_ 'aven't
+'ad sunstroke slave-dhowin' in Tajurrah Bay, an' been compelled to live on
+quinine an' chlorodyne ever since. _I_ don't get the horrors off glasses
+o' brown sherry.'
+
+"'What 'ave you got now?' I says.
+
+"'_I_ ain't an officer,' 'e says. '_My_ sword won't be handed back to me
+at the end o' the court-martial on account o' my little weaknesses, an' no
+stain on my character. I'm only a pore beggar of a Red Marine with
+eighteen years' service, an' why for,' says he, wringin' 'is hands like
+this all the time, 'must I chuck away my pension, sub-lootenant or no
+sub-lootenant? Look at 'em,' he says, 'only look at 'em. Marines fallin'
+in for small-arm drill!'
+
+"The leathernecks was layin' aft at the double, an' a more insanitary set
+of accidents I never wish to behold. Most of 'em was in their shirts. They
+had their trousers on, of course--rolled up nearly to the knee, but what I
+mean is belts over shirts. Three or four 'ad _our_ caps, an' them that had
+drawn helmets wore their chin-straps like Portugee earrings. Oh, yes; an'
+three of 'em 'ad only one boot! I knew what our bafflin' tattics was goin'
+to be, but even I was mildly surprised when this gay fantasia of Brazee
+drummers halted under the poop, because of an 'ammick in charge of our
+Navigator, an' a small but 'ighly efficient landin'-party.
+
+"''Ard astern both screws!' says the Navigator. 'Room for the captain's
+'ammick!' The captain's servant--Cockburn 'is name was--had one end, an'
+our newly promoted Antonio, in a blue slop rig, 'ad the other. They slung
+it from the muzzle of the port poop quick-firer thort-ships to a
+stanchion. Then the old man flickered up, smokin' a cigarette, an' brought
+'is stern to an anchor slow an' oriental.
+
+"'What a blessin' it is, Mr. Ducane,' 'e says to our sub-lootenant, 'to be
+out o' sight o' the 'ole pack o' blighted admirals! What's an admiral
+after all?' 'e says. 'Why, 'e's only a post-captain with the pip, Mr.
+Ducane. The drill will now proceed. What O! Antonio, _descendez_ an' get
+me a split.'
+
+"When Antonio came back with the whisky-an'-soda, he was told off to swing
+the 'ammick in slow time, an' that massacritin' small-arm party went on
+with their oratorio. The Sergeant had been kindly excused from
+participating an' he was jumpin' round on the poop-ladder, stretchin' 'is
+leather neck to see the disgustin' exhibition an' cluckin' like a ash-
+hoist. A lot of us went on the fore an' aft bridge an' watched 'em like
+'Listen to the Band in the Park.' All these evolutions, I may as well tell
+you, are highly unusual in the Navy. After ten minutes o' muckin' about,
+Glass 'ere--pity 'e's so drunk!--says that 'e'd had enough exercise for
+'is simple needs an' he wants to go 'ome. Mr. Ducane catches him a
+sanakatowzer of a smite over the 'ead with the flat of his sword. Down
+comes Glass's rifle with language to correspond, and he fiddles with the
+bolt. Up jumps Maclean--'oo was a Gosport 'ighlander--an' lands on Glass's
+neck, thus bringin' him to the deck, fully extended.
+
+"The old man makes a great show o' wakin' up from sweet slumbers. 'Mistah
+Ducane,' he says, 'what is this painful interregnum?' or words to that
+effect. Ducane takes one step to the front, an' salutes: 'Only 'nother
+case of attempted assassination, Sir,' he says.
+
+"'Is that all?' says the old man, while Maclean sits on Glass's collar
+button. 'Take him away,' 'e says, 'he knows the penalty.'"
+
+"Ah! I suppose that is the 'invincible _morgue_ Britannic in the presence
+of brutally provoked mutiny,'" I muttered, as I turned over the pages of
+M. de C.
+
+"So, Glass, 'e was led off kickin' an' squealin', an' hove down the ladder
+into 'is Sergeant's volupshus arms. 'E run Glass forward, an' was all for
+puttin' 'im in irons as a maniac.
+
+"'You refill your waterjacket and cool off!' says Glass, sittin' down
+rather winded. 'The trouble with you is you haven't any imagination.'
+
+"'Haven't I? I've got the remnants of a little poor authority though,' 'e
+says, lookin' pretty vicious.
+
+"'You 'ave?' says Glass. 'Then for pity's sake 'ave some proper feelin'
+too. I'm goin' to be shot this evenin'. You'll take charge o' the firin'-
+party.'
+
+"Some'ow or other, that made the Sergeant froth at the mouth. 'E 'ad no
+more play to his intellects than a spit-kid. 'E just took everything as it
+come. Well, that was about all, I think.... Unless you'd care to have me
+resume my narrative."
+
+We resumed on the old terms, but with rather less hot water. The marine on
+the floor breathed evenly, and Mr. Pyecroft nodded.
+
+"I may have omitted to inform you that our Number One took a general row
+round the situation while the small-arm party was at work, an' o' course
+he supplied the outlines; but the details we coloured in by ourselves.
+These were our tattics to baffle Antonio. It occurs to the Carpenter to
+'ave the steam-cutter down for repairs. 'E gets 'is cheero-party together,
+an' down she comes. You've never seen a steam-cutter let down on the deck,
+'ave you? It's not usual, an' she takes a lot o' humourin'. Thus we 'ave
+the starboard side completely blocked an' the general traffic tricklin'
+over'ead along the fore-an'-aft bridge. Then Chips gets into her an'
+begins balin' out a mess o' small reckonin's on the deck. Simultaneous
+there come up three o' those dirty engine-room objects which we call
+'tiffies,' an' a stoker or two with orders to repair her steamin'-gadgets.
+_They_ get into her an' bale out another young Christmas-treeful of small
+reckonin's--brass mostly. Simultaneous it hits the Pusser that 'e'd better
+serve out mess pork for the poor matlow. These things half shifted
+Retallick, our chief cook, off 'is bed-plate. Yes, you might say they
+broke 'im wide open. 'E wasn't at all used to 'em.
+
+"Number One tells off five or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to the
+pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, 'ave you?
+Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now's the day an' now's the hour for
+a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they all give way
+together, and the general effect was _non plus ultra_. There was the
+cutter's innards spread out like a Fratton pawnbroker's shop; there was
+the 'tiffies' hammerin' in the stern of 'er, an' _they_ ain't antiseptic;
+there was the Maxim class in light skirmishin' order among the pork, an'
+forrard the blacksmith had 'is forge in full blast, makin' 'orse-shoes, I
+suppose. Well, that accounts for the starboard side. The on'y warrant
+officer 'oo hadn't a look in so far was the Bosun. So 'e stated, all out
+of 'is own 'ead, that Chips's reserve o' wood an' timber, which Chips 'ad
+stole at our last refit, needed restowin'. It was on the port booms--a
+young an' healthy forest of it, for Charley Peace wasn't to be named
+'longside o' Chips for burglary.
+
+"'All right,' says our Number One. 'You can 'ave the whole port watch if
+you like. Hell's Hell,' 'e says, 'an when there study to improve.'
+
+"Jarvis was our Bosun's name. He hunted up the 'ole of the port watch by
+hand, as you might say, callin' 'em by name loud an' lovin', which is not
+precisely Navy makee-pigeon. They 'ad that timber-loft off the booms, an'
+they dragged it up and down like so many sweatin' little beavers. But
+Jarvis was jealous o' Chips an' went round the starboard side to envy at
+him.
+
+"'Tain't enough,' 'e says, when he had climbed back. 'Chips 'as got his
+bazaar lookin' like a coal-hulk in a cyclone. We must adop' more drastic
+measures.' Off 'e goes to Number One and communicates with 'im. Number One
+got the old man's leave, on account of our goin' so slow (we were keepin'
+be'ind the tramp), to fit the ship with a full set of patent supernumerary
+sails. Four trysails--yes, you might call 'em trysails--was our Admiralty
+allowance in the un'eard of event of a cruiser breakin' down, but we had
+our awnin's as well. They was all extricated from the various flats an'
+'oles where they was stored, an' at the end o' two hours' hard work Number
+One 'e made out eleven sails o' different sorts and sizes. I don't know
+what exact nature of sail you'd call 'em--pyjama-stun'sles with a touch of
+Sarah's shimmy, per'aps--but the riggin' of 'em an' all the supernumerary
+details, as you might say, bein' carried on through an' over an' between
+the cutter an' the forge an' the pork an' cleanin' guns, an' the Maxim
+class an' the Bosun's calaboose _and_ the paintwork, was sublime. There's
+no other word for it. Sub-lime!
+
+"The old man keeps swimmin' up an' down through it all with the faithful
+Antonio at 'is side, fetchin' him numerous splits. 'E had eight that
+mornin', an' when Antonio was detached to get 'is spy-glass, or his
+gloves, or his lily-white 'andkerchief, the old man man would waste 'em
+down a ventilator. Antonio must ha' learned a lot about our Navy thirst."
+
+"He did."
+
+"Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin' to the precise page indicated an'
+givin' me a _r�sum�_ of 'is tattics?" said Mr. Pyecroft, drinking deeply.
+"I'd like to know 'ow it looked from 'is side o' the deck."
+
+"How will this do?" I said. "'_Once clear of the land, like Voltaire's
+Habakkuk_------"'
+
+"One o' their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose," Mr. Pyecroft
+interjected.
+
+"'--_each man seemed veritably capable of all--to do according to his
+will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking.
+One cries "Aid me!" flourishing at the same time the weapons of his
+business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal
+misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a
+hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the
+utensil, colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in the
+stern of the boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the ironwork
+which impedes their brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches from on high
+wood, canvas, iron bolts, coal-dust--what do I know_?'"
+
+"That's where 'e's comin' the bloomin' _onjeuew_. 'E knows a lot, reely."
+
+"'_They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot
+reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have well
+and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me
+also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They
+ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the
+vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious "Roule Britannia"--to endure
+how lomg_?'"
+
+"That was me! On'y 'twas 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--which I hate more
+than any stinkin' tune I know, havin' dragged too many nasty little guns
+to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an' I ain't
+musical, you might say."
+
+"_'Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this "tohu-
+bohu_"' (that's one of his names for the _Archimandrite_, Mr. Pyecroft),
+'_for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with
+drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the
+Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him is equal. The breech-lock
+indispensable is not there. They demand it of one who opens a barrel of
+pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He refers them to the cook,
+yesterday my master_--'"
+
+"Yes, an' Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an' observin' little
+Antonio we 'ave!"
+
+"'_It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not rebuke
+him, that he has found it by hazard_.' I'm afraid I haven't translated
+quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I've done my best."
+
+"Why, it's beautiful--you ought to be a Frenchman--you ought. You don't
+want anything o' _me_. You've got it all there."
+
+"Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here's a little thing I
+can't quite see the end of. Listen! '_Of the domain which Britannia rules
+by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator, if
+possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the indeterminate
+chaos of the grand deck, I ascended--always with a whisky-and-soda in my
+hands--to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain in plain sea, at
+issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity
+of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean
+with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by
+the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the
+Hesperides beneath his keel--vigias innumerable.'_ I don't know what a
+vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. _'He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the
+mid-Atlantic!'_ What was that, now?"
+
+"Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw 'is cap down
+an' danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They 'ad a tea-party on the
+bridge. It was the old man's contribution. Does he say anything about the
+leadsmen?"
+
+"Is this it? _'Overborne by his superior's causeless suspicion, the
+Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of my
+captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation followed. The
+argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel, crapulous'_ (that means
+drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), _'shouting. It appeared that my captain
+would chenaler'_ (I don't know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) _'to the
+Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with the sound'_ (that's the lead, I
+think) _'in his hand, garnished with suet.'_ Was it garnished with suet?"
+
+"He put two leadsmen in the chains, o' course! He didn't know that there
+mightn't be shoals there, 'e said. Morgan went an' armed his lead, to
+enter into the spirit o' the thing. They 'eaved it for twenty minutes, but
+there wasn't any suet--only tallow, o' course."
+
+"'_Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly the
+Britannic Navy is well guarded_.' Well, that's all right, Mr. Pyecroft.
+Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that happened?"
+
+"There was a good deal, one way an' another. I'd like to know what this
+Antonio thought of our sails."
+
+"He merely says that '_the engines having broken down, an officer
+extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails_.' Oh, yes! he says
+that some of them looked like '_bonnets in a needlecase_,' I think."
+
+"Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun'sles. That shows the beggar's no
+sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was
+a sailorman, an' 'e hasn't sense enough to see what extemporisin' eleven
+good an' drawin' sails out o' four trys'les an' a few awnin's means. 'E
+must have been drunk!"
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and
+the execution."
+
+"Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I
+told my crew--me bein' captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I'm a
+torpedo man now--it just showed how you can work your gun under any
+discomforts. A shell--twenty six-inch shells--burstin' inboard couldn't
+'ave begun to make the varicose collection o' tit-bits which we had
+spilled on our deck. It was a lather--a rich, creamy lather!
+
+"We took it very easy--that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary
+'Jenny-'ave-another-cup-o' tea' style, an' the crew was strictly ordered
+not to rupture 'emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn't our custom
+in the Navy when we're _in puris naturalibus_, as you might say. But we
+wasn't so then. We was impromptu. An' Antonio was busy fetchin' splits for
+the old man, and the old man was wastin' 'em down the ventilators. There
+must 'ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think--wardroom whisky-
+an'-soda.
+
+"Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my
+_bundoop_ go at fifteen 'undred--sightin' very particular. There was a
+sort of 'appy little belch like--no more, I give you my word--an' the
+shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an' dropped into the deep Atlantic.
+
+"'Government powder, Sir!' sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge,
+laughin' horrid sarcastic; an' then, of course, we all laughs, which we
+are not encouraged to do _in puris naturalibus_. Then, of course, I saw
+what our Gunnery Jack 'ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the
+magazines all the mornin' watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum,
+as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an' sickish
+notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired,
+our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin' sarcastic about Government
+stores, an' the old man fair howled. 'Op was on the bridge with 'im, an'
+'e told me--'cause 'e's a free-knowledgeist an' reads character--that
+Antonio's face was sweatin' with pure joy. 'Op wanted to kick him. Does
+Antonio say anything about that?"
+
+"Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr. Pyecroft.
+He has put all the results into a sort of appendix--a table of shots. He
+says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words."
+
+"What? Nothin' about the way the crews flinched an' hopped? Nothin' about
+the little shells rumblin' out o' the guns so casual?"
+
+"There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He
+says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of
+sight of land. Oh, yes! I've forgotten. He says, _'From the conversation
+of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small proportion of
+the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself in his
+pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below,
+who cried in a high voice: "I hope, Sir, you are making something out of
+it. It is rather monotonous." This insult, so flagrant, albeit well-
+merited, was received with a smile of drunken bonhommy'_--that's
+cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty."
+
+"Resumin' afresh," said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered interval, "I
+may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two hours, and then
+we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an' three-quarters cleaned
+up the decks an' mucked about as requisite, haulin' down the patent awnin'
+stun'sles which Number One 'ad made. The old man was a shade doubtful of
+his course, 'cause I 'eard him say to Number One, 'You were right. A week
+o' this would turn the ship into a Hayti bean-feast. But,' he says
+pathetic, 'haven't they backed the band noble?'
+
+"'Oh! it's a picnic for them,' says Number One.
+
+"'But when do we get rid o' this whisky-peddlin' blighter o' yours, Sir?'
+
+"'That's a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,' says the old man. "E's
+the bluest blood o' France when he's at home,'
+
+"'Which is the precise landfall I wish 'im to make,' says Number One.'
+It'll take all 'ands and the Captain of the Head to clean up after 'im.'
+
+"'They won't grudge it,' says the old man. 'Just as soon as it's dusk
+we'll overhaul our tramp friend an' waft him over,'
+
+"Then a sno--midshipman--Moorshed was is name--come up an' says somethin'
+in a low voice. It fetches the old man.
+
+"'You'll oblige me,' 'e says, 'by takin' the wardroom poultry for _that_.
+I've ear-marked every fowl we've shipped at Madeira, so there can't be any
+possible mistake. M'rover,' 'e says, 'tell 'em if they spill one drop of
+blood on the deck,' he says, 'they'll not be extenuated, but hung.'
+
+"Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin' unusual 'appy, even for him. The
+Marines was enjoyin' a committee-meetin' in their own flat.
+
+"After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on the
+sea--an' any thin' more chronic than the _Archimandrite_ I'd trouble you
+to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a auction-room--yes, she
+almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We'd picked up our tramp, an' was
+about four mile be'ind 'er. I noticed the wardroom as a class, you might
+say, was manoeuvrin' _en masse_, an' then come the order to cockbill the
+yards. We hadn't any yards except a couple o' signallin' sticks, but we
+cock-billed 'em. I hadn't seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the
+West Indies, when a post-captain died o' yellow jack. It means a sign o'
+mourning the yards bein' canted opposite ways, to look drunk an'
+disorderly. They do.
+
+"'An' what might our last giddy-go-round signify?' I asks of 'Op.
+
+"'Good 'Evins!' 'e says, 'Are you in that habit o' permittin' leathernecks
+to assassinate lootenants every morning at drill without immejitly 'avin'
+'em shot on the foc'sle in the horrid crawly-crawly twilight?'"
+
+"'Yes,' I murmured over my dear book, '_the infinitely lugubrious
+crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity unparalleled--hideous--cold-blooded,
+and yet touched with appalling grandeur_.'"
+
+"Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he 'ad feelin's. To
+resoom. Without anyone givin' us orders to that effect, we began to creep
+about an' whisper. Things got stiller and stiller, till they was as still
+as--mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the 'Dead March' from the upper
+bridge. He done it to cover the remarks of a cock-bird bein' killed
+forrard, but it came out paralysin' in its _tout ensemble_. You never
+heard the 'Dead March' on a bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin' for both
+watches to attend public execution, an' we came up like so many ghosts,
+the 'ole ship's company. Why, Mucky 'Arcourt, one o' our boys, was that
+took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an' was properly kicked down the
+ladder for so doin'. Well, there we lay--engines stopped, rollin' to the
+swell, all dark, yards cock-billed, an' that merry tune yowlin' from the
+upper bridge. We fell in on the foc'sle, leavin' a large open space by the
+capstan, where our sail-maker was sittin' sewin' broken firebars into the
+foot of an old 'ammick. 'E looked like a corpse, an' Mucky had another fit
+o' hysterics, an' you could 'ear us breathin' 'ard. It beat anythin' in
+the theatrical line that even us _Archimandrites_ had done--an' we was the
+ship you could trust. Then come the doctor an' lit a red lamp which he
+used for his photographic muckin's, an' chocked it on the capstan. That
+was finally gashly!
+
+"Then come twelve Marines guardin' Glass 'ere. You wouldn't think to see
+'im what a gratooitous an' aboundin' terror he was that evenin'. 'E was in
+a white shirt 'e'd stole from Cockburn, an' his regulation trousers,
+barefooted. 'E'd pipe-clayed 'is 'ands an' face an' feet an' as much of
+his chest as the openin' of his shirt showed. 'E marched under escort with
+a firm an' undeviatin' step to the capstan, an' came to attention. The old
+man reinforced by an extra strong split--his seventeenth, an' 'e didn't
+throw _that_ down the ventilator--come up on the bridge an' stood like a
+image. 'Op, 'oo was with 'im, says that 'e heard Antonio's teeth singin',
+not chatterin'--singin' like funnel-stays in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin'
+�olian harp, 'Op said.
+
+"'When you are ready, Sir, drop your 'andkerchief,' Number One whispers.
+
+"'Good Lord!' says the old man, with a jump. 'Eh! What? What a sight! What
+a sight!' an' he stood drinkin' it in, I suppose, for quite two minutes.
+
+"Glass never says a word. 'E shoved aside an 'andkerchief which the
+sub-lootenant proffered 'im to bind 'is eyes with--quiet an' collected;
+an' if we 'adn't been feelin' so very much as we did feel, his gestures
+would 'ave brought down the 'ouse." "I can't open my eyes, or I'll be
+sick," said the Marine with appalling clearness. "I'm pretty far gone--I
+know it--but there wasn't anyone could 'ave beaten Edwardo Glass,
+R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself nearly into the 'orrors. Go on,
+Pye. Glass is in support--as ever."
+
+"Then the old man drops 'is 'andkerchief, an' the firin'-party fires like
+one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin' an' 'eavin' horrid natural, into
+the shotted 'ammick all spread out before him, and the firin' party closes
+in to guard the remains of the deceased while Sails is stitchin' it up.
+An' when they lifted that 'ammick it was one wringin' mess of blood! They
+on'y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too. Did you know poultry bled that
+extravagant? _I_ never did.
+
+"The old man--so 'Op told me--stayed on the bridge, brought up on a dead
+centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser, impressed, but o' course
+'is duty was to think of 'is fine white decks an' the blood. 'Arf a mo',
+Sir,' he says, when the old man was for leavin'. 'We have to wait for the
+burial, which I am informed takes place immejit.'
+
+"'It's beyond me,' says the owner. 'There was general instructions for an
+execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of mountebanks
+aboard,' he says. 'I'm all cold up my back, still.'
+
+"The Marines carried the corpse below. Then the bugle give us some more
+'Dead March,' Then we 'eard a splash from a bow six-pounder port, an' the
+bugle struck up a cheerful tune. The whole lower deck was complimentin'
+Glass, 'oo took it very meek. 'E _is_ a good actor, for all 'e's a
+leatherneck.
+
+"'Now,' said the old man, 'we must turn over Antonio. He's in what I have
+'eard called one perspirin' funk.'
+
+"Of course, I'm tellin' it slow, but it all 'appened much quicker. We run
+down our trampo--without o' course informin' Antonio of 'is 'appy destiny
+--an' inquired of 'er if she had any use for a free and gratis stowaway.
+Oh, yes? she said she'd be highly grateful, but she seemed a shade puzzled
+at our generosity, as you might put it, an' we lay by till she lowered a
+boat. Then Antonio--who was un'appy, distinctly un'appy--was politely
+requested to navigate elsewhere, which I don't think he looked for. 'Op
+was deputed to convey the information, an' 'Op got in one sixteen-inch
+kick which 'oisted 'im all up the ladder. 'Op ain't really vindictive, an'
+'e's fond of the French, especially the women, but his chances o' kicking
+lootenants was like the cartridge--reduced to a minimum.
+
+"The boat 'adn't more than shoved off before a change, as you might say,
+came o'er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like Elphinstone an'
+Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy: 'Gentlemen,' he says,
+'for gentlemen you have shown yourselves to be--from the bottom of my
+heart I thank you. The status an' position of our late lamented shipmate
+made it obligate,' 'e says, 'to take certain steps not strictly included
+in the regulations. An' nobly,' says 'e, 'have you assisted me. Now,' 'e
+says, 'you hold the false and felonious reputation of bein' the smartest
+ship in the Service. Pigsties,' 'e says,' is plane trigonometry alongside
+our present disgustin' state. Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,'
+he says. 'Jump, you lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig
+out, you briny-eyed beggars!'"
+
+"Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
+
+"I've told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The Bosun's
+mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the lower
+deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night 'fore we got
+'er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever, and we
+resoomed. I've thought it over a lot since; yes, an' I've thought a lot of
+Antonio trimmin' coal in that tramp's bunkers. 'E must 'ave been highly
+surprised. Wasn't he?"
+
+"He was, Mr. Pyecroft," I responded. "But now we're talking of it, weren't
+you all a little surprised?"
+
+"It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+"We appreciated it as an easy way o' workin' for your country. But--the
+old man was right--a week o' similar manoeuvres would 'ave knocked our
+moral double-bottoms bung out. Now, couldn't you oblige with Antonio's
+account of Glass's execution?"
+
+I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of
+M. de C.'s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye
+of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His
+account of his descent from the side of the "_infamous vessel consecrated
+to blood_" in the "_vast and gathering dusk of the trembling ocean_" could
+only be matched by his description of the dishonoured hammock sinking
+unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played music "_of
+an indefinable brutality_"
+
+"By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass's funeral?" I asked.
+
+"Him? Oh! 'e played 'The Strict Q.T.' It's a very old song. We 'ad it in
+Fratton nearly fifteen years back," said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily.
+
+I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and
+discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.
+
+"Where is that--minutely particularised person--Glass?" said the sergeant
+of the picket.
+
+"'Ere!" The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. "An' it's no good
+smelling of my breath, because I'm strictly an' ruinously sober."
+
+"Oh! An' what may you have been doin' with yourself?"
+
+"Listenin' to tracts. You can look! I've had the evenin' of my little
+life. Lead on to the _Cornucopia's_ midmost dunjing cell. There's a crowd
+of brass-'atted blighters there which will say I've been absent without
+leaf. Never mind. I forgive them before'and. _The_ evenin' of my life, an'
+please don't forget it." Then in a tone of most ingratiating apology to
+me: "I soaked it all in be'ind my shut eyes. 'I'm"--he jerked a
+contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft--"'e's a flatfoot, a indigo-blue
+matlow. 'E never saw the fun from first to last. A mournful beggar--most
+depressin'." Private Glass departed, leaning heavily on the escort's arm.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought--the profound and far-reaching
+meditation that follows five glasses of hot whisky-and-water.
+
+"Well, I don't see anything comical--greatly--except here an' there.
+Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do _you_ see anything
+funny in it?"
+
+There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for
+argument.
+
+"No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don't," I replied. "It was a beautiful tale, and I
+thank you very much."
+
+
+
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+THE RUNNERS
+
+                                   _News!_
+  What is the word that they tell now--now--now!
+  The little drums beating in the bazaars?
+      _They_ beat (among the buyers and sellers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          God sends a gnat against Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  At the edge of the crops--now--now--where the well-wheels are halted,
+  One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
+      _They_ beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          God prepares an ill day for Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.
+
+                                   _News!_
+  By the fires of the camps--now--now--where the travellers meet
+  Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
+      _They_ beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Under the shadow of the border-peels--now--now--now!
+  In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
+      _They_ beat (among the rifles and the riders)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          Shall we go up against Nimrud_?"
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Bring out the heaps of grain--open the account-books again!
+  Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
+  Eat and lie under the trees--pitch the police-guarded  fair-grounds,
+      O dancers!
+  Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
+      _They_ beat (among all the peoples)
+          _"Now--now--now!
+          God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
+          God has given Victory to Nimrud!"
+          Let us abide under Nimrud_!"
+      O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!
+
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the _r�l_
+from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be
+paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a--trooper of the Gurgaon
+Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab
+Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh--a trooper
+of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there
+_any_ Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon
+Rissala going about his business in this devil's devising of a country,
+where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect
+paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?... God be thanked, here is such a Sahib!
+Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that
+my name is Umr Singh; I am--I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I
+have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him
+herd me with these black Kaffirs!... Yes,  I will sit by this truck till
+the Heaven-born has explained the matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who
+does not understand our tongue.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go
+down to Eshtellenbosch by the next _terain_? Good! I go with the Heaven-
+born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born's servant. Will the
+Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty
+truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus--for the sun is hot,
+though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will
+arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a
+_terain_ for Eshtellenbosch....
+
+The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My
+village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big
+white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen's by
+--by--I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal
+Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence
+know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different
+matter. The Sahib's nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That
+was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout
+nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the
+Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after
+all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay--nay;
+the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank were picked off it long
+ago, but--but it is true--mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use
+for their coats, and--the Sahib has sharp eyes--that black mark is such a
+mark as a silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says
+that troopers do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the
+Arder of Beritish India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of
+the Punjab. I am not a trooper, but I have been a Sahib's servant for
+nearly a year--bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says
+that Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib--
+my Kurban Sahib--dead these three months!
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Young--of a reddish face--with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his
+feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father
+before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father's time
+when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. _My_ father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of
+Sikhs--he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to
+his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban
+Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first--nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I
+remember--and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that
+day; and _he_ was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground
+with his ayah--all in white, Sahib--laughing at the end of our drill. And
+his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I
+dismounted, and the baba put his hand into mine--eighteen--twenty-five--
+twenty-seven years gone now--Kurban Sahib--my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were
+great friends after that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying
+is. He called me Big Umr Singh--Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak
+plain. He stood only this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but
+he knew all our troopers by name--every one.... And he went to England,
+and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk,
+and cracking his finger-joints--back to his own regiment and to me. He had
+not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart,
+Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen-
+eyed, jestful, and careless. _I_ could tell tales about him in his first
+years. There was very little he hid from _me_. I was his Umr Singh, and
+when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that
+was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on everything--about war, and
+women, and money, and advancement, and such all.
+
+We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box-
+wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city
+of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the
+Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big
+guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how
+a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log.
+The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes over the earth? There
+was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo did not come into Hind in
+a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they forget their own cleverness
+has created the _dak_ (the post), and that for an anna or two all things
+become known. We of Hind listened and heard and wondered; and when it was
+a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that
+the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us
+asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of
+those signs. _Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah_! This
+Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said, "There is no haste.
+Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all Hind in that country
+round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so.
+It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one
+place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or
+everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True--true--
+true!"
+
+So did matters ripen--a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
+think--and the Sahib sees this, too?--that it is foolish to make an army
+and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the
+Tochi--the men of the Tirah--the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand times.
+_We_ could have done it all so gently--so gently.
+
+Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, "Ho, Dada, I am sick,
+and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months." And he winked, and
+I said, "I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I bring my
+uniform?" He said, "Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean on. We go to
+Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis" (niggers). Mark
+his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the native regiments to
+get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they will not let our
+officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to take part
+in this war-game upon the road. But _he_ was clever. There was no whisper
+of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went to my
+Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am--I was--of that rank for which a
+chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, "My child goes
+sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also."
+
+And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue,
+said, "Yes, thou art truly _Sikh_"; and he called me an old devil--
+jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my Kurban
+Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last
+he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe
+again. My Sahib back again--aie me!
+
+So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black
+Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead.
+Then I said to Kurban Sahib, "What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give
+me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for
+dinner." Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson's Hotel, and that
+night I prepared Kurban Sahib's razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of
+the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my
+uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon
+the steamer, a room in all respects like to his own, and would have given
+me a servant. We spoke of many things on the way to this country; and
+Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would be the conduct of the war. He
+said, "They have taken men afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will
+foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log because it is believed that they
+are white." He said, "There is but one fault in this war, and that is that
+the Government have not employed _us_, but have made it altogether a
+Sahibs' war. Very many men will thus be killed, and no vengeance will be
+taken." True talk--true talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.
+
+And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban
+Sahib said, "Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look for
+employment fit for a sick man." I put on the uniform of my rank and went to
+the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nih�l Seyn, [Footnote: Mount Nelson?]
+and I caused the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place--is
+it known to the Sahib?--which was already full of the swords and baggage
+of officers. It is fuller now--dead men's kit all! I was careful to secure
+a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back to
+the Punjab.
+
+Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew,
+and he said, "We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to
+oversee the despatch of horses." Remember, Kurban Sahib was squadron-
+leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and _I_ was Umr Singh. So I said, speaking
+as we do--we did--when none was near, "Thou art a groom and I am a grass-
+cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?" At this he laughed, saying,
+"It is the way to better things. Have patience, Father." (Aye, he called me
+father when none were by.) "This war ends not to-morrow nor the next day.
+I have seen the new Sahibs," he said, "and they are fathers of owls--all--
+all--all!"
+
+So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing the
+service of servants in that business. And the whole business was managed
+without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had never seen
+a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but empty of all
+knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those Pathans--they are
+just like those vultures up there, Sahib--they always follow slaughter.
+And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs--Muzbees, though--and some
+Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent horses. Jhind and
+Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent horses.
+
+All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with
+them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil:
+with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the
+command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly ones--_Hubshis_--whose
+touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on
+their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were
+called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs
+--filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub
+down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers--a _jemadar_ of _mehtars_
+(headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five
+months. Evil months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men
+were slain and no vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with
+the weapons of magicians. Guns that slew at half a day's march, and men
+who, being new, walked blind into high grass and were driven off like
+cattle by the Boer-log! As to the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a
+Sahib--only a Sikh. I would have quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon
+Rissala in that city--one little troop--and I would have schooled that
+city till its men learned to kiss the shadow of a Government horse upon
+the ground. There are many _mullahs_ (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They
+preached the Jehad against us. This is true--all the camp knew it. And
+most of the houses were thatched! A war of fools indeed!
+
+At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, "The
+reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and,
+once away, I shall be too sick so return. Make ready the baggage." Thus we
+got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new
+regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by _terain_, when we were
+watering at a desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped
+out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a _jemadar_ of
+_saises_ (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a
+Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but
+the Pathan put up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented
+and added him to our service. So there were three of us--Kurban Sahib, I,
+and Sikander Khan--Sahib, Sikh, and _Sag_ (dog). But the man said truly,
+"We be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we
+see the Indus again." I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan--
+beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine's
+flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is
+written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial
+obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of
+sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where
+there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey
+gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new regiments.
+
+Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with _our_ horses on
+the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and once or
+twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was wise, and I am
+not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the front. Notably,
+there was one congregation of hard-bitten horse-thieves; tall, light
+Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for the most part, and upon all
+occasions they said, "Oah Hell!" which, in our tongue, signifies _Jehannum
+ko jao_. They bore each man a vine-leaf upon their uniforms, and they rode
+like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs!
+The Ustrelyahs, whom we met later, also spoke through their noses not
+little, and they were tall, dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily
+eyelashed like camel's eyes--very proper men--a new brand of Sahib to me.
+They said on all occasions, "No fee-ah," which in our tongue means _Durro
+mut_ ("Do not be afraid"), so we called them the _Durro Muts_. Dark, tall
+men, most excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war _as_ war, and
+drinking tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib.
+Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten
+generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a _Durro Mut_ in regard
+to horse-lifting. The _Durro Muts_ cannot walk on their feet at all. They
+are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very
+proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah--"No fee-ah," say the _Durro
+Muts_. _They_ saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. _They_ did not ask him to
+sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did substitute for
+one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day in a country full
+of little hills--like the mouth of the Khaibar; and when they returned in
+the evening, the _Durro Muts_ said, "Wallah! This is a man. Steal him!" So
+they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen anything else that
+they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to Eshtellenbosch in his
+place.
+
+Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and
+Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs'
+war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride with
+their Sahib--and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up and
+down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no flour,
+no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw corn and a
+little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but a plenty of
+gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with coffee to greet
+us, and to show us _purwanas_ (permits) from foolish English Generals who
+had gone that way before, certifying they were peaceful and well-disposed.
+When we were few, they hid behind stones and shot us. Now the order was
+that they were Sahibs, and this was a Sahibs' war. Good! But, as I
+understand it, when a Sahib goes to war, he puts on the cloth of war, and
+only those who wear that cloth may take part in the war. Good! That also I
+understand. But these people were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis
+are. They shot at their pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and
+exhibited _purwanas_, or lay in a house and said they were farmers. Even
+such farmers as cut up the Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even
+such farmers as slew Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled
+_those_ men, to be sure--fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the
+verandah in front of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib
+(the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but--no. All
+the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that
+he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth, was
+all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform to
+make a loincloth. A fool's war from first to last; for it is manifest that
+he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in one hand and a
+_purwana_ in the other, as did all these people. Yet we, when they had had
+their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and gave them
+permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and
+severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be
+done not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked
+much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, "It is a Sahibs' war. That is
+the order;" and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond
+the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border,
+he hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his
+head. Then Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like
+a sick camel, talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered
+than I, and vowed he would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me
+Kurban Sahib said we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these
+people till they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was
+not of that sort which they comprehended.
+
+They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white
+flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by
+Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. _No fee-
+ah_! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had _purwanas_ signed by mad
+Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.
+
+They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the
+roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they did
+not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the thatch,
+for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log are very
+clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are clever? Never,
+never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools. For their own honour's sake the
+Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it is the Sahibs'
+wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs should have sent
+_us_ into the game.
+
+But the _Durro Muts_ did well. They dealt faithfully with all that country
+thereabouts--not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but they were
+not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a ridge in the
+cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for the sixth part
+of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again thrice for the twelfth
+part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib, for it was a house that
+had been spared--the people having many permits and swearing fidelity at
+our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib, "Send half a troop, Child,
+and finish that house. They signal to their brethren." And he laughed
+where he lay and said, "If I listened to my bearer Umr Singh, there would
+not be left ten houses in all this land." I said, "What need to leave one?
+This is as it was in Burma. They are farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow.
+Let us deal justly with them." He laughed and curled himself up in
+his blanket, and I watched the far light in the house till day. I have
+been on the border in eight wars, not counting Burma. The first Afghan
+War; the second Afghan War; two Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two
+Black Mountain wars, if I remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not
+count Burma, or some small things. _I_ know when house signals to house!
+
+I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, "One of
+the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last night,
+lives in yonder house." I said, "How dost thou know?" He said, "Because he
+rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse fought with
+him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out of the
+camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib's glasses, and from a little
+hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house."
+I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib's glasses from his greasy hands and
+cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to their case.
+Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley
+to use glasses--whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course
+of three months' leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
+
+That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the land
+for our camp. The _Durro Muts_ moved slowly at that time. They were
+weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished to leave
+these all in some town and go on light to other business which pressed. So
+Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the line of march.
+We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came to a house under a
+high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a donga, behind it, and
+an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a kraal, before it. Two
+thorn bushes grew on either side of the door, like babul bushes, covered
+with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof was all of thatch. Before the
+house was a valley of stones that rose to another bush-covered hill. There
+was an old man in the verandah--an old man with a white beard and a wart
+upon the left side of his neck; and a fat woman with the eyes of a swine
+and the jowl of a swine; and a tall young man deprived of understanding.
+His head was hairless, no larger than an orange, and the pits of his
+nostrils were eaten away by a disease. He laughed and slavered and he
+sported sportively before Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the
+woman showed us _purwanas_ from three General Sahibs, certifying that they
+were people of peace and goodwill. Here are the _purwanas_, Sahib. Does
+the Sahib know the Generals who signed them?
+
+They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and
+swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the
+verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost scent.
+At last he took my arm and said, "See yonder! There is the sun on the
+window of the house that signalled last night. This house can see that
+house from here," and he looked at the hill behind him all hairy with
+bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the shrivelled head
+danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the roof and laughed
+like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it were, to cover some
+noise. After this passed I to the back of the house on pretence to get
+water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on the ground, and that
+the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs; and there had dropped in
+the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib called to me in our tongue,
+saying, "Is this a good place to make tea?" and I replied, knowing what he
+meant, "There are over many cooks in the cook-house. Mount and go, Child."
+Then I returned, and he said, smiling to the woman, "Prepare food, and
+when we have loosened our girths we will come in and eat;" but to his men
+he said in a whisper, "Ride away!" No. He did not cover the old man or the
+fat woman with his rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the _Durro
+Muts_, being hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and
+before we were in our saddles many shots came from the roof--from rifles
+thrust through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones,
+and men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill
+behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house--so many shots
+that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding
+low, said, "This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of the _Durro
+Muts_," and I said, "Be quiet. Keep place!" for his place was behind me,
+and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through
+five men arow! We were not hit--not one of us--and we reached the hill of
+rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his
+saddle and said, "Look at the old man!" He stood in the verandah firing
+swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the idiot also--both with
+guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by the wrist, but--his fate
+was written at that hour. The bullet passed under my arm-pit and struck
+him in the liver, and I pulled him backward between two great rocks atilt
+--Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the nullah behind the house and from
+the hills came our Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar
+Khan said, "_Now_ we see the meaning of last night's signal. Give me the
+rifle." He took Kurban Sahib's rifle--in this war of fools only the
+doctors carry swords--and lay belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib
+turned where he lay and said, "Be still. It is a Sahibs' war," and Kurban
+Sahib put up his hand--thus; and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave
+him water that he might pass the more quickly. And at the drinking his
+Spirit received permission....
+
+Thus went our fight, Sahib. We _Durro Muts_ were on a ridge working from
+the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log lay in a
+valley working from east to west. There were more than a hundred, and our
+men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley while they swiftly
+passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three Boers drop in the open.
+Then they all hid again and fired heavily at the rocks that hid our men;
+but our men were clever and did not show, but moved away and away, always
+south; and the noise of the battle withdrew itself southward, where we
+could hear the sound of big guns. So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan
+found a deep old jackal's earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of
+Kurban Sahib upright. Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his
+handkerchief and some letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round
+his neck, and Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the
+handkerchief. Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for
+Kurban Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak--even he, a Pathan, a
+Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when the
+dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses. They
+gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib's glasses, and
+the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them, and preached the
+holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought coffee; and the idiot
+capered among them and kissed their horses. Presently they went away in
+haste; they went over the hills and were not; and a black slave came out
+and washed the door-sills with bright water. Sikandar Khan saw through the
+glasses that the stain was blood, and he laughed, saying, "Wounded men lie
+there. We shall yet get vengeance."
+
+About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as a
+burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how to
+take a bearing across a hill, said, "At last we have burned the house of
+the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled." And I said: "What need now that
+they have slain my child? Let me mourn." It was a high smoke, and the old
+man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold it, and shook his
+clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight, foodless and without
+water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor to drink till we had
+accomplished the matter. I had a little opium left, of which I gave
+Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban Sahib. When it was full
+dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain softish rock which, mixed with
+water, sharpens steel well, and we took off our boots and we went down to
+the house and looked through the windows very softly. The old man sat
+reading in a book, and the woman sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on
+the floor with his head against her knee, and he counted his fingers and
+laughed, and she laughed again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I
+laughed, too, for I had suspected this when I claimed her life and her
+body from Sikandar Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered
+with bare swords.... Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel,
+for the old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan
+prevented him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down
+and held up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they
+should be silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room,
+and a door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood
+stupidly fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and
+none followed him. It was a very pretty stroke--for a Pathan. They then
+were silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar
+Khan, "Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib's sake will I defile my
+sword." So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones, and
+said, "Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit from a
+General," and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound the old
+man's hands behind his back, and unwillingly--for he laughed in my face,
+and would have fingered my beard--the idiot's. At this the woman with the
+swine's eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar Khan said,
+"Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on the division." And I
+said, "Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her. Open the door." I pushed
+out the two across the verandah into the darker shade of the thorn-trees,
+and she followed upon her knees and lay along the ground, and pawed at my
+boots and howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was
+a butler and would light the table, and I looked for a branch that would
+bear fruit. But the woman hindered me not a little with her screechings
+and plungings, and spoke fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue,
+"I am childless to-night because of thy perfidy, and _my_ child was
+praised among men and loved among women. He would have begotten men--not
+animals. Thou hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the
+greater."
+
+I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot's neck, and flung the end
+over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might well
+see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the
+spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even where the
+bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and said, "No.
+It is a Sahibs' war." And I said, "Wait a while, Child, and thou shalt
+sleep." But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my eyes, and said,
+"No. It is a Sahibs' war." And Sikandar Khan said, "Is it too heavy?" and
+set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned to tally on the rope,
+the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm's reach of us, and his face
+was very angry, and a third time he said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And a
+little wind blew out the lamp, and I heard Sikandar Khan's teeth chatter
+in his head.
+
+So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while, for
+we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his water-
+bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me and said,
+"We are absolved from our vow." So I drank, and together we waited for the
+dawn in that place where we stood--the ropes in our hand. A little after
+third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun wheels very far off,
+and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the threshold of the house,
+and the roof of the verandah that was thatched fell in and blazed before
+the windows. And I said, "What of the wounded Boer-log within?" And
+Sikandar Khan said, "We have heard the order. It is a Sahibs' war. Stand
+still." Then came a second shell--good line, but short--and scattered dust
+upon us where we stood; and then came ten of the little quick shells from
+the gun that speaks like a stammerer--yes, pompom the Sahibs call it--and
+the face of the house folded down like the nose and the chin of an old man
+mumbling, and the forefront of the house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan
+said, "If it be the fate of the wounded to die in the fire, _I_ shall not
+prevent it." And he passed to the back of the house and presently came
+back, and four wounded Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk
+upright. And I said, "What hast thou done?" And he said, "I have neither
+spoken to them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy." And I
+said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay
+still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree,
+and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches
+in the roof--one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud
+noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have
+crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees,
+and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide!
+Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' war, O Sahibs. There is no
+order that ye should depart from this war." They did not understand my
+words. Yet they abode and they lived.
+
+Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib's command, and one I
+knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I
+told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib would
+understand; and at the end I said, "An order has reached us here from the
+dead that this is a Sahibs' war. I take the soul of my Kurban Sahib to
+witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these Sahibs who
+have made me childless." Then I gave him the ropes and fell down
+senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty, except for
+the little opium.
+
+They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
+understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and two
+nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban Sahib,
+saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the _Durro Muts_--
+very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They buried my
+Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the ridge
+overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the faith, and
+Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five signalling-candles,
+which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave as if it had been the
+grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very bitterly all that night, and I
+wept with him, and he took hold of my feet and besought me to give him a
+remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I divided equally with him one of Kurban
+Sahib's handkerchiefs--not the silk ones, for those were given him by a
+certain woman; and I also gave him a button from a coat, and a little
+steel ring of no value that Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed
+them and put them into his bosom. The rest I have here in that little
+bundle, and I must get the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town--some four
+shirts we sent to be washed, for which we could not wait when we went
+up-country--and I must give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the
+Punjab. For my child is dead--my baba is dead!... I would have come away
+before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far
+from the rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come
+to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
+and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
+what they called me--orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
+did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
+after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went
+up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a troop
+there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut an
+inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and is was a
+jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the
+inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the
+jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:--
+
+  In Memory of
+  WALTER DECIES CORBYN
+  Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
+
+  The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
+
+  Treacherously shot near this place by
+  The connivance of the late
+  HENDRIK DIRK UYS
+  A Minister of God
+  Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
+  And Piet his son,
+  This little work
+
+Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
+
+
+  Was accomplished in partial
+  And inadequate recognition of their loss
+  By some men who loved him
+
+  _Si monumentum requiris circumspice_
+
+That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to
+behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house. And,
+Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank which they
+call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There is nothing
+at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire. The rest is
+like the desert here--or my hand--or my heart. Empty, Sahib--all empty!
+
+
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
+
+THE WET LITANY
+
+  When the water's countenance
+  Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance;
+  When the tattered smokes forerun
+  Ashen 'neath a silvered sun;
+  When the curtain of the haze
+  Shuts upon our helpless ways--
+       Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+       _Libera nos domine_!
+
+  When the engines' bated pulse
+  Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
+  When the wash along the side
+  Sounds, a sudden, magnified
+  When the intolerable blast
+  Marks each blindfold minute passed.
+
+  When the fog-buoy's squattering flight
+  Guides us through the haggard night;
+  When the warning bugle blows;
+  When the lettered doorways close;
+  When our brittle townships press,
+  Impotent, on emptiness.
+
+  When the unseen leadsmen lean
+  Questioning a deep unseen;
+  When their lessened count they tell
+  To a bridge invisible;
+  When the hid and perilous
+  Cliffs return our cry to us.
+
+  When the treble thickness spread
+  Swallows up our next-ahead;
+  When her siren's frightened whine
+  Shows her sheering out of line;
+  When, her passage undiscerned,
+  We must turn where she has turned--
+       Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+       _Libera nos Domine_!
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
+
+PART I
+
+  ... "And a security for such as pass on the seas upon
+  their lawful occasions."--_Navy Prayer_.
+
+Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is
+Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.
+
+H.M.S. _Caryatid_ went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manoeuvres. I
+travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
+friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. _Caryatid_, whose guest I was to
+have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous
+off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red
+Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with
+unstinted hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A.L. Hignett, in
+charge of three destroyers, _Wraith, Stiletto_, and _Kobbold_, due to
+depart at 6 P.M. that evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot
+flagship, but I preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in
+H.M.S. _Pedantic_ (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining
+aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the
+battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance
+from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no
+wrong. I truly intended to return to the _Pedantic_ and help to fight Blue
+Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a chemist in
+a side street at 9:15 P. M. As I turned to go, one entered seeking
+alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster, a black
+silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure brass
+spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh from
+leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light fell on
+his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late second-class petty
+officer of H.M.S. _Archimandrite_, an unforgettable man, met a year before
+under Tom Wessel's roof in Plymouth. It occurred to me that when a petty
+officer takes to spurs he may conceivably meditate desertion. For that
+reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign. Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft,
+following me out of the shop, who said hollowly: "What might you be doing
+here?"
+
+"I'm going on manoeuvres in the _Pedantic_," I replied.
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "An' what manner o' manoeuvres d'you expect to
+see in a blighted cathedral like the _Pedantic_? _I_ know 'er. I knew her
+in Malta, when the _Vulcan_ was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres! You
+won't see more than 'Man an' arm watertight doors!' in your little woollen
+undervest."
+
+"I'm sorry for that."
+
+"Why?" He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like tuning-
+forks. "War's declared at midnight. _Pedantics_ be sugared! Buy an 'am an'
+see life!"
+
+For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice, purposed
+that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands of Dorset.
+The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much. "Them!" he said,
+coming to an intricate halt. "They're part of the _prima facie_ evidence.
+But as for me--let me carry your bag--I'm second in command, leadin'-hand,
+cook, steward, an' lavatory man, with a few incidentals for sixpence a day
+extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat."
+
+"They wear spurs there?"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Peycroft, "seein' that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue
+Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative. It
+transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral Master
+Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin' Blue Fleet, can't be bothered with
+one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin' in the Reserve four
+years, an' what with the new kind o' tiffy which cleans dynamos with
+brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won't render!), Two Six
+Seven's steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed done his painstakin'
+best--it's his first command of a war-canoe, matoor age nineteen (down
+that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His Holiness Frankie is
+aware of us crabbin' ourselves round the breakwater at five knots, an'
+steerin' _pari passu_, as the French say. (Up this alley-way, please!) If
+he'd given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer, a little time, it would
+never have transpired, for what Hinch can't drive he can coax; but the new
+port bein' a trifle cloudy, an' 'is joints tinglin' after a post-captain
+dinner, Frankie come on the upper bridge seekin' for a sacrifice. We,
+offerin' a broadside target, got it. He told us what 'is grandmamma, 'oo
+was a lady an' went to sea in stick-and string-batteaus, had told him
+about steam. He throwed in his own prayers for the 'ealth an' safety of
+all steam-packets an' their officers. Then he give us several distinct
+orders. The first few--I kept tally--was all about going to Hell; the next
+many was about not evolutin' in his company, when there; an' the last all
+was simply repeatin' the motions in quick time. Knowin' Frankie's groovin'
+to be badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn't much panic; but
+our Mr. Moorshed, 'e took it a little to heart. Me an' Mr. Hinchcliffe
+consoled 'im as well as service conditions permits of, an' we had a
+_r�sum�_-supper at the back o' the Camber--secluded _an'_ lugubrious! Then
+one thing leadin' up to another, an' our orders, except about anchorin'
+where he's booked for, leavin' us a clear 'orizon, Number Two Six Seven is
+now--mind the edge of the wharf--here!"
+
+By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a narrow
+strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up into
+Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the
+round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured,
+unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type--but I am no expert--between the
+first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic
+torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she
+must have dated from the early nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with
+spurts of steam and fumes of hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure
+in a striped jersey squatted on the engine-room gratings.
+
+"She ain't much of a war-canoe, but you'll see more life in 'er than on an
+whole squadron of bleedin' _Pedantics."_
+
+"But she's laid up here--and Blue Fleet have gone," I protested.
+"Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn't put us out of
+action. Thus we're a non-neglectable fightin' factor which you mightn't
+think from this elevation; _an'_ m'rover, Red Fleet don't know we're 'ere.
+Most of us"--he glanced proudly at his boots--"didn't run to spurs, but
+we're disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser,
+when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was
+naturally a German waiter, and me you behold as a squire of low degree;
+while yonder Levantine dragoman on the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was
+the second cutter's snotty--_my_ snotty--on the _Archimandrite_--two
+years--Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin', an'
+gettin' the cutter stove in on small an' unlikely bars, an' manufacturin'
+lies to correspond. What I don't know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the
+same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don't know about me--half a millimetre, as
+you might say. He comes into awful opulence of his own when 'e's of age;
+an' judgin' from what passed between us when Frankie cursed 'im, I don't
+think 'e cares whether he's broke to-morrow or--the day after. Are you
+beginnin' to follow our tatties? They'll be worth followin'. Or _are_ you
+goin' back to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_--which I lay
+they've just dismounted the third engineer out of--to eat four fat meals
+per diem, an' smoke in the casement?"
+
+The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.
+
+"Yes, Sir," was Mr. Pyecroft's answer. "I 'ave ascertained that _Stiletto,
+Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P. M. with the first division o' Red
+Fleet's cruisers except _Devulotion_ and _Cryptic_, which are delayed by
+engine-room defects." Then to me: "Won't you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed 'ud
+like some one to talk to. You buy an 'am an see life."
+
+At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower
+myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267.
+
+"What d'you want?" said the striped jersey.
+
+"I want to join Blue Fleet if I can," I replied. "I've been left behind
+by--an accident.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
+you need?"
+
+"I don't want any ham, thank you. That's the way up the wharf. _Good_-
+night."
+
+"Good-night!" I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a
+shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
+salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop
+supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I,
+sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of
+a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I
+laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the face of
+it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me very far from
+the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched
+it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft--I heard spurs clink--passed me. Then the
+jersey voice said: "What the mischief's that?"
+
+"'Asn't the visitor come aboard, Sir? 'E told me he'd purposely abandoned
+the _Pedantic_ for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me he was
+official correspondent for the _Times_; an' I know he's littery by the way
+'e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven't you seen 'im, Sir?"
+
+Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; "Pye, you
+are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!"
+
+"Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It's marked with his name." There
+was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said "Oh!" in a tone which the listener
+might construe precisely as he pleased.
+
+"_He_ was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life--was he? If he
+goes back to the _Pedantic_--"
+
+"Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir."
+
+"Then what possessed _you_ to give it away to him, you owl?"
+
+"I've got his bag. If 'e gives anything away, he'll have to go naked."
+
+At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the
+shadow of the crane.
+
+"I've bought the ham," I called sweetly. "Have you still any objection to
+my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?"
+
+"All right, if you're insured. Won't you come down?"
+
+I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of
+all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.
+
+"Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?" said my host.
+
+"Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?"
+
+"What do _you_ think of him?"
+
+"I've left the _Pedantic_--her boat will be waiting for me at ten o'clock,
+too--simply because I happened to meet him," I replied.
+
+"That's all right. If you'll come down below, we may get some grub."
+
+We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve
+feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a
+swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other
+furniture there was none.
+
+"You can't shave here, of course. We don't wash, and, as a rule, we eat
+with our fingers when we're at sea. D'you mind?"
+
+Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me
+over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but
+his smile drew the heart. "You didn't happen to hear what Frankie told me
+from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I've logged them
+here in shorthand, were"--he opened a neat pocket-book--"_'Get out of this
+and conduct your own damned manoeuvres in your own damned tinker fashion!
+You're a disgrace to the Service, and your boat's offal.'"_
+
+"Awful?" I said.
+
+"No--offal--tripes--swipes--ullage." Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume
+of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he
+dealt out like cards.
+
+"I shall take these as my orders," said Mr. Moorshed. "I'm chucking the
+Service at the end of the year, so it doesn't matter."
+
+We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with
+whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an
+uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.
+
+"That's Mr. Hinchcliffe," said Pyecroft. "He's what is called a first-
+class engine-room artificer. If you hand 'im a drum of oil an' leave 'im
+alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin'."
+
+Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a
+folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manoeuvres, with the
+rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.
+
+"Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral,"
+he said, yawning. "Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?"
+
+As a preparation for naval manoeuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I
+followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big
+lumber-ship's side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No.
+267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels--soft, for they
+gave as I touched them.
+
+"More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an' aft, an' you erects
+perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops,
+thus 'avin' as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o' command, up
+they go like a pair of concertinas, an' consequently collapses equally
+'andy when requisite. Comin' aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish
+bathin'-machine proprietor fittin' on her bustle."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at
+the stern.
+
+"None of us who ain't built that way can be destroyers, but we can look as
+near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a
+Thorneycroft boat, which we are _not_, comes out in a pretty bulge,
+totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on
+the other 'and, _Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn_, and _A-frite_--Red
+Fleet dee-stroyers, with 'oom we hope to consort later on terms o' perfect
+equality--_are_ Thorneycrofts, an' carry that Grecian bend which we are
+now adjustin' to our _arriere-pens�e_--as the French would put it--by
+means of painted canvas an' iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an'
+me an' Frankie, we are the _Gnome_, now in the Fleet Reserve at Pompey--
+Portsmouth, I should say."
+
+"The first sea will carry it all away," said Moorshed, leaning gloomily
+outboard, "but it will do for the present."
+
+"We've a lot of _prima facie_ evidence about us," Mr. Pyecroft went on. "A
+first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer. Hence
+we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak to
+represent extra freeboard; _at_ the same time paddin' out the cover of the
+forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an' variously
+fakin' up the bows of 'er. As you might say, we've took thought an' added
+a cubic to our stature. It's our len'th that sugars us. A 'undred an'
+forty feet, which is our len'th into two 'undred and ten, which is about
+the _Gnome's,_ leaves seventy feet over, which we haven't got."
+
+"Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
+
+"In spots, you might say--yes; though we all contributed to make up
+deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin' for further Navy after
+what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity."
+
+"What the dickens are we going to do?"
+
+"Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we'd wait till the sights came
+on, an' then fire. Speakin' as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I., M.D.,
+etc., I presume we fall in--Number One in rear of the tube, etc., secure
+tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin'-bar, release safety-pin
+from lockin-levers, an' pray Heaven to look down on us. As second in
+command o' 267, I say wait an' see!"
+
+"What's happened? We're off," I said. The timber ship had slid away from
+us.
+
+"We are. Stern first, an' broadside on! If we don't hit anything too hard,
+we'll do."
+
+"Come on the bridge," said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over
+some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next
+few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the
+science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth
+Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in
+what appeared to be surf.
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, "_I_ don't mind rammin' a
+bathin'-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters has
+thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we'll rip our plates open on
+it; 267 isn't the _Archimandrite's_ old cutter."
+
+"I am hugging the shore," was the answer.
+
+"There's no actual 'arm in huggin', but it can come expensive if
+pursooed."
+
+"Right-O!" said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those
+scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.
+
+A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.
+
+"Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?" said Moorshed.
+
+"I merely wished to report that she is still continuin' to go, Sir."
+
+"Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d'you think?"
+
+"I'll try, Sir; but we'd prefer to have the engine-room hatch open--at
+first, Sir."
+
+Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through
+the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the
+narrow deck.
+
+"This," said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock
+receives a shadow, "represents the _Gnome_ arrivin' cautious from the
+direction o' Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders."
+
+He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes
+opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.
+
+"Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic
+about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and
+several millimetres too excited over the approachin' war to keep a look-
+out inshore. Hence our tattics!"
+
+We wailed through our siren--a long, malignant, hyena-like howl--and a
+voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.
+
+"The _Gnome_--Carteret-Jones--from Portsmouth, with orders--mm--mm--
+_Stiletto_," Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a high, whining
+voice, rather like a chaplain's.
+
+"_Who_?" was the answer.
+
+"Carter--et--Jones."
+
+"Oh, Lord!"
+
+There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, "It's Podgie, adrift
+on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!"
+
+Another voice echoed, "Podgie!" and from its note I gathered that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.
+
+"Who's your sub?" said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the
+_Dirk_.
+
+"A gunner, at present, Sir. The _Stiletto_--broken down--turns over to
+us."
+
+"When did the _Stiletto_ break down?"
+
+"Off the Start, Sir; two hours after--after she left here this evening, I
+believe. My orders are to report to you for the manoeuvre signal-codes,
+and join Commander Hignett's flotilla, which is in attendance on
+_Stiletto_."
+
+A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed's voice was high and
+uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: "The amount o' trouble me an' my
+bright spurs 'ad fishin' out that information from torpedo coxswains and
+similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never believe."
+
+"But has the _Stiletto_ broken down?" I asked weakly.
+
+"How else are we to get Red Fleet's private signal-code? Any way, if she
+'asn't now, she will before manoeuvres are ended. It's only executin' in
+anticipation."
+
+"Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones." Water
+carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear the
+next sentence: "They must have given him _one_ intelligent keeper."
+
+"That's me," said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy--I did
+not foresee how well I should come to know her--was flung overside by
+three men.
+
+"Havin' bought an 'am, we will now see life." He stepped into the boat and
+was away.
+
+"I say, Podgie!"--the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers,
+as we thumped astern--"aren't you lonely out there?"
+
+"Oh, don't rag me!" said Moorshed. "Do you suppose I'll have to manoeuvre
+with your flo-tilla?"
+
+"No, Podgie! I'm pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders in
+Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla."
+
+"Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds."
+
+Two men laughed together.
+
+"By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he's at home?" I whispered.
+
+"I was with him in the _Britannia_. I didn't like him much, but I'm
+grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day."
+
+"They seemed to know him hereabouts."
+
+"He rammed the _Caryatid_ twice with her own steam-pinnace."
+
+Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming across
+the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel spurned it.
+
+"Commander Fasset's compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the sooner
+he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at Portsmouth,
+the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there's a lot more----"
+
+"Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it as
+we go. Well?"
+
+Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.
+
+"Day an' night private signals of Red Fleet _com_plete, Sir!" He handed a
+little paper to Moorshed. "You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones bein', so to say, a little new to his duties, 'ad forgot to
+give 'is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin', but, as I told Commander
+Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin' 'em to me, nervous-like, most of the
+way from Portsmouth, so I knew 'em by heart--an' better. The Commander,
+recognisin' in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a father an' mother
+to Mr. Carteret-Jones."
+
+"Didn't he know you?" I asked, thinking for the moment that there could be
+no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.
+
+"What's a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding six
+thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? 'E seemed to cherish the 'ope
+that 'e might use the _Gnome_ for 'is own 'orrible purposes; but what I
+told him about Mr. Jones's sad lack o' nerve comin' from Pompey, an' going
+dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited _that_ connection.
+'M'rover,' I says to him, 'our orders is explicit; _Stiletto's_ reported
+broke down somewhere off the Start, an' we've been tryin' to coil down a
+new stiff wire hawser all the evenin', so it looks like towin' 'er back,
+don't it?' I says. That more than ever jams his turrets, an' makes him
+keen to get rid of us. 'E even hinted that Mr. Carteret-Jones passin'
+hawsers an' assistin' the impotent in a sea-way might come pretty
+expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a disciplined way. I ain't proud.
+Gawd knows I ain't proud! But when I'm really diggin' out in the fancy
+line, I sometimes think that me in a copper punt, single-'anded, 'ud beat
+a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in a row round the fleet."
+
+At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft's bosom, supported
+by his quivering arm.
+
+"Well?" said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267's bows snapped
+at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed together.
+
+"'You'd better go on,' says Commander Fassett, 'an' do what you're told to
+do. I don't envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the _Gnome's_ commander.
+But what d'you want with signals?' 'e says. 'It's criminal lunacy to trust
+Mr. Jones with anything that steams.'
+
+"'May I make an observation, Sir?' I says. 'Suppose,' I says, 'you was
+torpedo-gunner on the _Gnome_, an' Mr. Carteret-Jones was your commandin'
+officer, an' you had your reputation _as_ a second in command for the
+first time,' I says, well knowin' it was his first command of a flotilla,
+'what 'ud you do, Sir?' That gouged 'is unprotected ends open--clear back
+to the citadel."
+
+"What did he say?" Moorshed jerked over is shoulder.
+
+"If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to repeat
+it, Sir."
+
+"Go ahead," I heard the boy chuckle.
+
+"'Do?' 'e says. 'I'd rub the young blighter's nose into it till I made a
+perishin' man of him, or a perspirin' pillow-case,' 'e says, 'which,' he
+adds, 'is forty per cent, more than he is at present.'
+
+"Whilst he's gettin' the private signals--they're rather particular ones--
+I went forrard to see the _Dirk's_ gunner about borrowin' a holdin'-down
+bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was rovin' over his
+packet, got the followin' authentic particulars." I heard his voice
+change, and his feet shifted. "There's been a last council o' war of
+destroyer-captains at the flagship, an' a lot of things 'as come out. To
+begin with _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, Captain Panke and Captain Malan--"
+
+"_Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, first-class cruisers," said Mr. Moorshed
+dreamily. "Go on, Pyecroft."
+
+"--bein' delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did _not_, as we know,
+accompany Red Fleet's first division of scouting cruisers, whose
+rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard.
+_Cryptic_ an' _Devolution_ left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin' copious minor
+defects in engine-room. Admiral's final instructions was they was to put
+into Torbay, an' mend themselves there. If they can do it in twenty-four
+hours, they're to come on and join the battle squadron at the first
+rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn't get that, Sir.) If they
+can't, he'll think about sendin' them some destroyers for escort. But his
+present intention is to go 'ammer and tongs down Channel, usin' 'is
+destroyers for all they're worth, an' thus keepin' Blue Fleet too busy off
+the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries."
+
+"But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let 'em out of
+Weymouth at all?" I asked.
+
+"The tax-payer," said Mr. Moorshed.
+
+"An' newspapers," added Mr. Pyecroft. "In Torbay they'll look as they was
+muckin' about for strategical purposes--hanamerin' like blazes in the
+engine room all the weary day, an' the skipper droppin' questions down the
+engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. _I've_ been there. Now,
+Sir?" I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.
+
+The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.
+
+"Mr. Hinchcliffe, what's her extreme economical radius?"
+
+"Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers."
+
+"Can do," said Moorshed. "By the way, have her revolutions any bearing on
+her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
+
+"None that I can make out yet, Sir."
+
+"Then slow to eight knots. We'll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or
+four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by
+nine o'clock to-morrow morning. We'll have to muck about till dusk before
+we run in and try our luck with the cruisers."
+
+"Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin' round them all night. It's
+considered good for the young gentlemen."
+
+"Hallo! War's declared! They're off!" said Moorshed.
+
+He swung 267's head round to get a better view. A few miles to our right
+the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while nearer ran a
+procession of tiny cigar ends.
+
+"Red hot! Set 'em alight," said Mr. Pyecroft. "That's the second destroyer
+flotilla diggin' out for Commander Fassett's reputation."
+
+The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers' funnels
+dwindled even as we watched.
+
+"They're going down Channel with lights out, thus showin' their zeal an'
+drivin' all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll
+get you your pyjamas, an' you'll turn in," said Pyecroft.
+
+He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung majestically
+over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a coat with a monk's
+hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.
+
+"If you fall over in these you'll be drowned. They're lammies. I'll chock
+you off with a pillow; but sleepin' in a torpedo-boat's what you might
+call an acquired habit."
+
+I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering steel
+wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267's skin, worried me
+with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed tackily to gather my
+attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and, on the eve of that
+portentous communication, retired up stage as a multitude whispering.
+Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum of crowded cities
+awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and dry roaring of wild
+beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold floor was, naturally
+enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking uplift across the crest
+of some little swell, nothing less than the haling forth of new worlds;
+our half-turning descent into the hollow of its mate, the abysmal plunge
+of God-forgotten planets. Through all these phenomena and more--though I
+ran with wild horses over illimitable plains of rustling grass; though I
+crouched belly-flat under appalling fires of musketry; though I was
+Livingstone, painless, and incurious in the grip of his lion--my shut eyes
+saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the irregularly gliding patch of
+light on the steel ladder, and every elastic shadow in the corners of the
+frail angle-irons; while my body strove to accommodate itself to the
+infernal vibration of the machine. At the last I rolled limply on the
+floor, and woke to real life with a bruised nose and a great call to go on
+deck at once.
+
+"It's all right," said a voice in my booming ears. "Morgan and Laughton
+are worse than you!"
+
+I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two bundles
+beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller and a most
+able seaman. "She'd do better in a bigger sea," said Mr. Pyecroft. "This
+lop is what fetches it up."
+
+The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down
+the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round
+wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good
+omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to
+267's heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves--such waves as I
+had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton
+liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped, and
+splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops along
+their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey cutting of
+water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge, beheld the
+Channel traffic--full-sailed to that fair breeze--all about us, and swung
+slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into the next furrow.
+Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to living, leaping opal,
+the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many sails to pearl, and the
+little steam-plume of our escape to an inconstant rainbow.
+
+"A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!" said Emanuel Pyecroft,
+throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was pitted
+with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes shone
+like a gull's.
+
+"I told you you'd see life. Think o' the _Pedantic_ now. Think o' her
+Number One chasin' the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats. Think
+o' the pore little snotties now bein' washed, fed, and taught, an' the
+yeoman o' signals with a pink eye wakin' bright 'an brisk to another
+perishin' day of five-flag hoists. Whereas _we_ shall caulk an' smoke
+cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks after war
+was declared." He dropped into the wardroom singing:--
+
+If you're going to marry me, marry me, Bill, It's no use muckin' about!
+
+The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o'-shanter, a
+pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a black
+sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava and a
+brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our supplementary funnel
+guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho restaurant sat at the head of
+the engine-room ladder exhorting the unseen below. The following wind beat
+down our smoke and covered all things with an inch-thick layer of stokers,
+so that eyelids, teeth, and feet gritted in their motions. I began to see
+that my previous experiences among battleships and cruisers had been
+altogether beside the mark.
+
+
+PART II
+
+  The wind went down with the sunset--
+    The fog came up with the tide,
+  When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (_bis_)
+    With a little Blue Devil inside.
+  "Sink," she said, "or swim," she said,
+    "It's all you will get from me.
+  And that is the finish of him!" she said,
+    And the Egg-shell went to sea.
+
+  The wind got up with the morning,
+    And the fog blew off with the rain,
+  When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
+    And the little Blue Devil again.
+  "Did you swim?" she said. "Did you sink?" she said,
+    And the little Blue Devil replied:
+  "For myself I swam, but I think," he said,
+    "There's somebody sinking outside."
+
+But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and might
+not alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all that
+priceless day. Moorshed, after breakfast--frizzled ham and a devil that
+Pyecroft made out of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard smashed
+together with a spanner--showed me his few and simple navigating tools,
+and took an observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the chamois
+leathers while he cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be better equipped
+with electricity than most of our class), that lived under a bulbous
+umbrella-cover amidship. Then Pyecroft and Morgan, standing easy, talked
+together of the King's Service as reformers and revolutionists, so
+notably, that were I not engaged on this tale I would, for its conclusion,
+substitute theirs.
+
+I would speak of Hinchcliffe--Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class engine-
+room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of having taken
+part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his daring, his skill,
+and his nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for an hour in the packed
+and dancing engine-room, when Moorshed suggested "whacking her up" to
+eighteen knots, to see if she would stand it. The floor was ankle-deep in
+a creamy batter of oil and water; each moving part flicking more oil in
+zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible for their dizzy chattering on
+the chattering steel bulkhead. Leading stoker Grant, said to be a
+bigamist, an ox-eyed man smothered in hair, took me to the stokehold and
+planted me between a searing white furnace and some hell-hot iron plate
+for fifteen minutes, while I listened to the drone of fans and the worry
+of the sea without, striving to wrench all that palpitating firepot wide
+open.
+
+Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed--revolving in his orbit from the
+canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room, conning-tower,
+and wheel, to the doll's house of a foc'sle--learned in experience
+withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge, authoritative,
+entirely adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his play. _I_ could not
+take ten steps along the crowded deck but I collided with some body or
+thing; but he and his satellites swung, passed, and returned on their
+vocations with the freedom and spaciousness of the well-poised stars.
+
+Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each dissolving
+picture inboard or overside--Hinchcliffe's white arm buried to the
+shoulder in a hornet's nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed's halt and
+jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft's back bent over
+the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men in expanding it
+swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a homeward-bound Chinaman
+not a hundred yards away, and her shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails
+bulging sideways like insolent cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on
+our decks, all iridescent under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled
+the shadows of our funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and
+dulling over of the short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell:
+the swell that crumbled up and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant,
+almost audible roll inward of wandering fog-walls that had been stalking
+us for two hours, and--welt upon welt, chill as the grave--the drive of
+the interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than
+steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred
+like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship literally
+above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we scrooped by, and
+the little drops of dew gathered below them.
+
+"Wonder why they're always barks--always steel--always four-masted--an'
+never less than two thousand tons. But they are," said Pyecroft. He was
+out on the turtle-backed bows of her; Moorshed was at the wheel, and
+another man worked the whistle.
+
+"This fog is the best thing could ha' happened to us," said Moorshed. "It
+gives us our chance to run in on the quiet.... Hal-lo!"
+
+A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a
+bowsprit surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially hooking
+itself into our forward rail.
+
+I saw Pyecroft's arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of the
+tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed's voice down the tube
+saying, "Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!" and Pyecroft's cry,
+"Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our propeller, Sir, or we'll be
+wrapped up in the rope."
+
+267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the downward-bearing
+bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc'sle had already thrown
+out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible bulwark.
+
+Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive
+crunching of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler, her
+crew struck dumb.
+
+"Any luck?" said Moorshed politely.
+
+"Not till we met yeou," was the answer. "The Lard he saved us from they
+big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be'e gwine tu with our
+fine new bobstay?"
+
+"Yah! You've had time to splice it by now," said Pyecroft with contempt.
+
+"Aie; but we'm all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin' twenty-seven
+knots, us reckoned it. Didn't us, Albert?"
+
+"Liker twenty-nine, an' niver no whistle."
+
+"Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?" said Moorshed.
+
+A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.
+
+We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing
+crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a
+mere picket-boat.
+
+"What for?" said a puzzled voice.
+
+"For love; for nothing. You'll be abed in Brixham by midnight."
+
+"Yiss; but trawl's down."
+
+"No hurry. I'll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when you're ready."
+A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they made it fast; we slid
+forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet of the wire rope
+running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of debate.
+
+"Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog," said Moorshed
+listening.
+
+"But what in the world do you want him for?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, he'll came in handy later."
+
+"Was that your first collision?"
+
+"Yes." I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice rose muffled and wailing. "After
+us've upped trawl, us'll be glad of a tow. Leave line just slack abaout as
+'tis now, and kip a good fine look-out be'ind 'ee."
+
+"There's an accommodatin' blighter for you!" said Pyecroft. "Where does he
+expect we'll be, with these currents evolutin' like sailormen at the
+Agricultural Hall?"
+
+I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out and
+smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept it from
+fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The fog now
+thickened and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like the glare of
+intermittent flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision of a sick sun
+that leered and fled, or burying all a thousand fathom deep in gulfs of
+vapours. At no time could we see the trawler though we heard the click of
+her windlass, the jar of her trawl-beam, and the very flap of the fish on
+her deck. Forward was Pyecroft with the lead; on the bridge Moorshed pawed
+a Channel chart; aft sat I, listening to the whole of the British
+Mercantile Marine (never a keel less) returning to England, and watching
+the fog-dew run round the bight of the tow back to its mother-fog.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war! We'm done with trawl. You can take us home
+if you know the road."
+
+"Right O!" said Moorshed. "We'll give the fishmonger a run for his money.
+Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe."
+
+The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be
+afraid, but more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of my
+neck) that any fear which would begin to do justice to the situation
+would, if yielded to, incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow of
+spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us like
+the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and, miraculously
+withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance that I should
+reach the beach--any beach--alive, if not dry; and (this was when an
+economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser water) were I so
+spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.
+
+Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added
+herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they, too,
+should melt in the general dissolution.
+
+"Where's that prevaricatin' fishmonger?" said Pyecroft, turning a lantern
+on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a stick to my
+left. "He's doin' some fancy steerin' on his own. No wonder Mr.
+Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow's sheered off to starboard, Sir.
+He'll fair pull the stern out of us."
+
+Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice butted through the fog with the
+monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep's. "We don't all like the road
+you'm takin'. 'Tis no road to Brixham. You'll be buckled up under Prawle
+Point by'mbye."
+
+"Do you pretend to know where you are?" the megaphone roared.
+
+"Iss, I reckon; but there's no pretence to me!"
+
+"O Peter!" said Pyecroft. "Let's hang him at 'is own gaff."
+
+I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: "Take another man with
+you. If you lose the tow, you're done. I'll slow her down."
+
+I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry "Murder!" Heard the
+rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my
+ear, Pyecroft's enormous and jubilant bellow astern: "Why, he's here!
+Right atop of us! The blighter 'as pouched half the tow, like a shark!" A
+long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then Pyecroft, _solo
+arpeggie_: "Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come an' try it, uncle."
+
+I lifted my face to where once God's sky had been, and besought The Trues
+I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles, but live at
+least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as happy as I was
+happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow--slow as the processes of
+evolution--till the boat-hook rasped again.
+
+"He's not what you might call a scientific navigator," said Pyecroft,
+still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap. "The
+lead's what 'e goes by mostly; rum is what he's come for; an' Brixham is
+'is 'ome. Lay on, Mucduff!"
+
+A white whiskered man in a frock-coat--as I live by bread, a frock-coat!--
+sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube into Moorshed's
+grip and vanished forward.
+
+"'E'll probably 'old three gallon (look sharp with that dinghy!); but 'is
+nephew, left in charge of the _Agatha_, wants two bottles command-
+allowance. You're a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that excessive?"
+
+"Lead there! Lead!" rang out from forward.
+
+"Didn't I say 'e wouldn't understand compass deviations? Watch him close.
+It'll be worth it!"
+
+As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: "Let me zmell un!" and to
+his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King's Navy.
+
+"I'll tell 'ee where to goo, if yeou'll tell your donkey-man what to du.
+I'm no hand wi' steam." On these lines we proceeded miraculously, and,
+under Moorshed's orders--I was the fisherman's Ganymede, even as
+"M. de C." had served the captain--I found both rum and cura�oa in
+a locker, and mixed them equal bulk in an enamelled iron cup.
+
+"Now we'm just abeam o' where we should be," he said at last, "an' here
+we'll lay till she lifts. I'd take 'e in for another bottle--and wan for
+my nevvy; but I reckon yeou'm shart-allowanced for rum. That's nivver no
+Navy rum yeou'm give me. Knowed 'ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!"
+
+I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them spring
+to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet to port
+caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar at gaze,
+for not far away an unmistakable ship's bell was ringing. It ceased, and
+another began.
+
+"Them!" said Pyecroft. "Anchored!"
+
+"More!" said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The trawler
+astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk of his arm
+threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the back-sight was
+heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.
+
+"No--they wouldn't have their picket-boats out in this weather, though
+they ought to." He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.
+
+"Be yeou gwine to anchor?" said Macduff, smacking his lips, "or be yeou
+gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?"
+
+"Tell him what we're driving at. Get it into his head somehow," said
+Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man
+with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.
+
+"And if you pull it off," said Moorshed at the last, "I'll give you a
+fiver."
+
+"Lard! What's fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes 'em; but I do
+cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o' God's good weeks.
+Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall 'ee, gentlemen, I hain't
+the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before the mast
+I've fared in my time; fisherman I've been since I seed the unsense of
+sea-dangerin'. Baccy and spirits--yiss, an' cigars too, I've run a plenty.
+I'm no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your forty-mile free towin'
+and rum atop of all. There's none more sober to Brix'am this tide, I don't
+care who 'tis--than me. _I_ know--_I_ know. Yander'm two great King's
+ships. Yeou'm wishful to sink, burn, and destroy they while us kips 'em
+busy sellin' fish. No need tall me so twanty taime over. Us'll find they
+ships! Us'll find 'em, if us has to break our fine new bowsprit so close
+as Crump's bull's horn!"
+
+"Good egg!" quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide
+shoulders with the smack of a beaver's tail.
+
+"Us'll go look for they by hand. Us'll give they something to play upon;
+an' do 'ee deal with them faithfully, an' may the Lard have mercy on your
+sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again."
+
+The fog was as dense as ever--we moved in the very womb of night--but I
+cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by
+the tow-rope, disappeared toward the _Agatha_, Pyecroft rowing. The bell
+began again on the starboard bow.
+
+"We're pretty near," said Moorshed, slowing down. "Out with the Berthon.
+(_We'll_ sell 'em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke, I'll break
+his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the tube), "you'll
+stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the engine-room staff.
+Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes." A deep groan broke from
+Morgan's chest, but he said nothing. "If the fog thins and you're seen by
+any one, keep'em quiet with the signals. I can't think of the precise lie
+just now, but _you_ can, Morgan."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?" I whispered, shivering with
+excitement.
+
+"If they've been repairing minor defects all day, they won't have any one
+to spare from the engine-room, and 'Out nets!' is a job for the whole
+ship's company. I expect they've trusted to the fog--like us. Well,
+Pyecroft?"
+
+That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. "'Ad to see
+the first o' the rum into the _Agathites_, Sir. They was a bit jealous o'
+their commandin' officer comin' 'ome so richly lacquered, and at first the
+_conversazione_ languished, as you might say. But they sprang to attention
+ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any of 'em are sober enough
+to keep tally, will be the signal that our consort 'as cast off her tow
+an' is manceuvrin' on 'er own."
+
+"Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over
+quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
+
+I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into the
+Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved me in
+generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of the dinghy.
+
+"I want you for _prima facie_ evidence, in case the vaccination don't
+take," said Pyecroft in my ear. "Push off, Alf!"
+
+The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little
+tinkles from the _Agatha_, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of
+pans, and loose shouting.
+
+"Where be gwine tu? Port your 'ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the fairway,
+goo astern! Out boats! She'll sink us!"
+
+A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: "Quiet! you gardeners
+there. This is the _Cryptic_ at anchor."
+
+"Thank you for the range," said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. "Feel well
+out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only Marconi
+installation." The voices resumed:
+
+"Bournemouth steamer he says she be."
+
+"Then where be Brixham Harbor?"
+
+"Damme, I'm a tax-payer tu. They've no right to cruise about this way.
+I'll have the laa on 'ee if anything carries away."
+
+Then the man-of-war:
+
+"Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You'll get
+yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift."
+
+The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung.
+I passed one hand down Laughton's stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck
+and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I
+laid on broad, cold iron--even the flanks of H.M.S. _Cryptic_, which is
+twelve thousand tons.
+
+I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to
+shave, and I smelled paint. "Drop aft a bit, Alf; we'll put a stencil
+under the stern six-inch casements."
+
+Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall.
+Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was
+renewed.
+
+"Umpires are 'ard-'earted blighters, but this ought to convince 'em....
+Captain Panke's stern-walk is now above our defenceless 'eads. Repeat the
+evolution up the starboard side, Alf."
+
+I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with
+life. Though my knowledge was all by touch--as, for example, when Pyecroft
+led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson, or when my
+palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it timidly--yet I
+felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless ship was withdrawn,
+and we drifted away into the void where voices sang:
+
+
+  Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,
+  All along, out along, down along lea!
+  I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair
+  With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,
+  Old Uncle Tom Cobley an' all!
+
+"That's old Sinbad an' 'is little lot from the _Agatha_! Give way, Alf!
+_You_ might sing somethin', too."
+
+"I'm no burnin' Patti. Ain't there noise enough for you, Pye?"
+
+"Yes, but it's only amateurs. Give me the tones of 'earth and 'ome. Ha!
+List to the blighter on the 'orizon sayin' his prayers, Navy-fashion.
+'Eaven 'elp me argue that way when I'm a warrant-officer!"
+
+We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a fair-
+sized riot.
+
+"An' I've 'eard the _Devolution_ called a happy ship, too," said Pyecroft.
+"Just shows 'ow a man's misled by prejudice. She's peevish--that's what
+she is--nasty-peevish. Prob'ly all because the _Agathites_ are scratching
+'er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I've got the lymph!"
+
+A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was
+speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower
+deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced
+rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the _Devolution_ at
+anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.
+
+"Mark how the Navy 'olds it's own. He's sober. The _Agathites_ are not, as
+you might say, an' yet they can't live with 'im. It's the discipline that
+does it. 'Ark to the bald an' unconvincin' watch-officer chimin' in. I
+wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?"
+
+We drifted down the _Devolution's_ side, as we had drifted down her
+sister's; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt with
+her sister.
+
+"Whai! 'Tis a man-o'-war, after all! I can see the captain's whisker all
+gilt at the edges! We took 'ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three cheers
+for the real man-o'-war!"
+
+That cry came from under the _Devolution's_ stern. Pyecroft held something
+in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, "Our Mister Moorshed!"
+
+Said a boy's voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from
+some valve: "I don't half like that cheer. If I'd been the old man I'd ha'
+turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren't they rowing
+Navy-stroke, yonder?"
+
+"True," said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. "It's time to go 'ome
+when snotties begin to think. The fog's thinnin', too."
+
+I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel
+stand out darker than the darkness, disappear--it was then the dinghy shot
+away from it--and emerge once more.
+
+"Hallo! what boat's that?" said the voice suspiciously.
+
+"Why, I do believe it's a real man-o'-war, after all," said Pyecroft, and
+kicked Laughton.
+
+"What's that for?" Laughton was no dramatist.
+
+"Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin' opposite."
+
+"What boat's _thatt_?" The hail was repeated.
+
+"What do yee say-ay?" Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me:
+"Give us a hand."
+
+"It's called the _Marietta_--F. J. Stokes--Torquay," I began, quaveringly.
+"At least, that's the name on the name-board. I've been dining--on a
+yacht."
+
+"I see." The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with
+disgraceful ease.
+
+"Yesh. Dining private yacht. _Eshmesheralda_. I belong to Torquay Yacht
+Club. _Are_ you member Torquay Yacht Club?"
+
+"You'd better go to bed, Sir. Good-night." We slid into the rapidly
+thinning fog.
+
+"Dig out, Alf. Put your _nix mangiare_ back into it. The fog's peelin'
+off like a petticoat. Where's Two Six Seven?"
+
+"I can't see her," I replied, "but there's a light low down ahead."
+
+"The _Agatha_!" They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of the
+fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler's bow.
+
+"Well, Emanuel means 'God with us'--so far." Pyecroft wiped his brow, laid
+a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I saw
+Moorshed's face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.
+
+"Was it all right?" said he, over the bulwarks.
+
+"Vaccination ain't in it. She's took beautiful. But where's 267, Sir?"
+Pyecroft replied.
+
+"Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the _Devolution_ four. Was
+that you behind us?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the _Devolution_. I gave the
+_Cryptic_ nine, though. They're what you might call more or less
+vaccinated."
+
+He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the
+_Agatha's_ hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.
+
+"Where is the old man?" I asked.
+
+"Still selling 'em fish, I suppose. He's a darling! But I wish I could get
+this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the _Cryptic_
+signalling?"
+
+A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was answered
+by a white pencil to the southward.
+
+"Destroyer signalling with searchlight." Pyecroft leaped on the stern-
+rail. "The first part is private signals. Ah! now she's Morsing against
+the fog. 'P-O-S-T'--yes, 'postpone'--'D-E-P-' (go on)! 'departure--till--
+further--orders--which--will--be com" (he's dropped the other m)
+"'unicated--verbally. End,'." He swung round. "_Cryptic_ is now answering:
+'Ready--proceed--immediately. What--news--promised--destroyer--
+flotilla?'"
+
+"Hallo!" said Moorshed. "Well, never mind, They'll come too late."
+
+"Whew! That's some 'igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer signals:
+'Care not. All will be known later.' What merry beehive's broken loose
+now?"
+
+"What odds! We've done our little job."
+
+"Why--why--it's Two Six Seven!"
+
+Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the
+_Agatha_ with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over the
+stern, and fell into his subordinate's arms. I heard the guggle of
+engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards
+away, a cough, and Morgan's subdued hail. ... So far as I remember, it was
+Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were Pyecroft and
+Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.
+
+There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the _Agatha's_
+side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common safety,
+because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open by hand for
+the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like wild geese, and
+crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the _Agatha's_ boat,
+returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: "Have 'ee done the trick?
+Have 'ee done the trick?" and we could only shout hoarsely over the stern,
+guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.
+
+"Fog got patchy here at 12:27," said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing
+clearer every instant in the dawn. "Went down to Brixham Harbour to keep
+out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I had her
+up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet signals out
+of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was answered by three
+destroyers. Morgan signalled 'em by searchlight: 'Alter course to South
+Seventeen East, so as not to lose time,' They came round quick. We kept
+well away--on their port beam--and Morgan gave 'em their orders." He
+looked at Morgan and coughed.
+
+"The signalman, acting as second in command," said Morgan, swelling, "then
+informed destroyer flotilla that _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_ had made good
+defects, and, in obedience to Admiral's supplementary orders (I was afraid
+they might suspect that, but they didn't), had proceeded at seven knots at
+11:23 p. M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven miles N.N.W. the
+Casquet light. (I've rendezvoused there myself, Sir.) Destroyer flotilla
+would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with them on their course.
+Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course indicated, all funnels sparking
+briskly."
+
+"Who were the destroyers?"
+
+"_Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto_, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, acting
+under Admiral's orders to escort cruisers received off the Dodman at 7 P.
+M. They'd come slow on account of fog."
+
+"Then who were you?"
+
+"We were the _Afrite_, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and there
+instructed by _Cryptic_, previous to her departure with _Devolution_) to
+inform Commander Hignett of change of plans. Lieutenant-Commander Hignett
+signalled that our meeting was quite providential. After this we returned
+to pick up our commanding officer, and being interrogated by _Cryptic_,
+marked time signalling as requisite, which you may have seen. The _Agatha_
+representing the last known rallying-point--or, as I should say, pivot-
+ship of the evolution--it was decided to repair to the _Agatha_ at
+conclusion of manoeuvre."
+
+"Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine big
+battleship?" "Can do, sir," said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr.
+Moorshed and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker,
+we drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of
+stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other's face, and we
+nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.
+
+Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a
+captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke
+over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our
+victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had
+made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet long
+and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece, and
+they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were ours, and
+they did not know it. Indeed, the _Cryptic_, senior ship, was signalling
+vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.
+
+"If you take these glasses, you'll get the general run o' last night's
+vaccination," said Pyecroft. "Each one represents a torpedo got 'ome, as
+you might say."
+
+I saw on the _Cryptic's_ port side, as she lay half a mile away across the
+glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in the
+centre.
+
+"There are five more to starboard. 'Ere's the original!" He handed me a
+paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the centre
+the six-inch initials, "G.M."
+
+"Ten minutes ago I'd ha' eulogised about that little trick of ours, but
+Morgan's performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?"
+
+"Bustin'," said the signalman briefly.
+
+"You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen 'Enrietta said to the
+'ousemaid, _I_ never will. I'd ha' given a year's pay for ten minutes o'
+your signallin' work this mornin'."
+
+"I wouldn't 'ave took it up," was the answer. "Perishin' 'Eavens above!
+Look at the _Devolution's_ semaphore!" Two black wooden arms waved from
+the junior ship's upper bridge. "They've seen it."
+
+"_The_ mote _on_ their neighbour's beam, of course," said Pyecroft, and
+read syllable by syllable: "'Captain Malan to Captain Panke. Is--sten--
+cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or your Number
+One's private expense?' Now _Cryptic_ is saying, 'Not understood.' Poor
+old _Crippy_, the _Devolute's_ raggin' 'er sore. 'Who is G.M.?' she says.
+That's fetched the _Cryptic_. She's answerin': 'You ought to know. Examine
+own paintwork.' Oh, Lord! they're both on to it now. This is balm. This is
+beginning to be balm. I forgive you, Morgan!"
+
+Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into the
+water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose to the
+_Cryptic's_ yardarm: "Destroyer will close at once. Wish to speak by
+semaphore." Then on the bridge semaphore itself: "Have been trying to
+attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding officer aboard at
+once."
+
+"Our attention? After all the attention we've given 'er, too," said
+Pyecroft. "What a greedy old woman!" To Moorshed: "Signal from the
+_Cryptic_, Sir."
+
+"Never mind that!" said the boy, peering through his glasses. "Our dinghy
+quick, or they'll paint our marks out. Come along!"
+
+By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft's bending
+back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed
+the _Cryptic's_ ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler
+when we barged fairly into him.
+
+"Mind my paint!" he yelled.
+
+"You mind mine, snotty," said Moorshed. "I was all night putting these
+little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave 'em alone."
+
+We splashed past him to the _Devolution's_ boat, where sat no one less
+than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.
+
+"What the deuce is the meaning of this?" he roared, with an accusing
+forefinger.
+
+"You're sunk, that's all. You've been dead half a tide."
+
+"Dead, am I? I'll show you whether I'm dead or not, Sir!"
+
+"Well, you may be a survivor," said Moorshed ingratiatingly, "though it
+isn't at all likely."
+
+The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern said,
+half aloud: "Then I _was_ right--last night."
+
+"Yesh," I gasped from the dinghy's coal-dust. "Are you member Torquay
+Yacht Club?"
+
+"Hell!" said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The _Cryptic's_ boat was
+already at that cruiser's side, and semaphores flicked zealously from ship
+to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls, while the
+pipes went for the captain's galley on the _Devolution_.
+
+"That's all right," said Moorshed. "Wait till the gangway's down and then
+board her decently. We oughtn't to be expected to climb up a ship we've
+sunk."
+
+Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed,
+descended the _Devolution's_ side. With due compliments--not acknowledged,
+I grieve to say--we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and at last, upon
+pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of
+the _Cryptic_. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as
+ever sang together of a morning on a King's ship. Every one who could get
+within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able
+seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines
+zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine
+midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks
+past all census.
+
+"If I die o' joy," said Pyecroft behind his hand, "remember I died
+forgivin' Morgan from the bottom of my 'eart, because, like Martha, we
+'ave scoffed the better part. You'd better try to come to attention, Sir."
+
+Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge
+beam, and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and Captain
+Malan stood on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling hatch.
+Precisely over the flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her black
+petticoat half hitched up, meekly floating on the still sea. She looked
+like the pious Abigail who has just spoken her mind, and, with folded
+hands, sits thanking Heaven among the pieces. I could almost have sworn
+that she wore black worsted gloves and had a little dry cough. But it was
+Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He favoured us with a lecture on
+uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of answering signals from a
+senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of masquerading, that he loved
+discipline, and would be obliged by an explanation. And while he delivered
+himself deeper and more deeply into our hands, I saw Captain Malan wince.
+He was watching Moorshed's eye.
+
+"I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven," said
+Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. "Have you such a thing as a frame-
+plan of the _Cryptic_ aboard?" He spoke with winning politeness as he
+opened a small and neatly folded paper.
+
+"I have, sir." The little man's face was working with passion.
+
+"Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were torpedoed
+last night in"--he consulted the paper with one finely arched eyebrow--"in
+nine places. And since the _Devolution_ is, I understand, a sister ship"--
+he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan--"the same plan----"
+
+I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement
+which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan's eye
+turn from Moorshed and seek that of the _Cryptic's_ commander. And he
+telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: "My dear friend and
+brother officer, _I_ know Panke; _you_ know Panke; _we_ know Panke--good
+little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will
+make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight,
+unless you who are a man of tact and discernment----"
+
+"Carry on." The Commander's order supplied the unspoken word. The cruiser
+boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers together, up
+to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan turn to his senior.
+
+"Come to my cabin!" said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and I
+stayed still.
+
+"It's all right," said Pyecroft. "They daren't leave us loose aboard for
+one revolution," and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.
+
+"You, too!" said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the sentry
+between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that
+Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I
+winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass-
+fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was
+demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S. _Cryptic_.
+
+"--making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.," I heard him say.
+"Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir"--he
+bowed to Captain Malan yet again--"one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice
+torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I have
+sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have requested them
+to judge on the facts as they--appear." He nodded through the large window
+to the stencilled _Devolution_ awink with brass work in the morning sun,
+and ceased.
+
+Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and caught
+myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.
+
+"Good God, Johnny!" he said, dropping his lower lip like a child, "this
+young pup says he has put us both out of action. Inconceivable--eh? My
+first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we do with him? What
+shall we do with him--eh?"
+
+"As far as I can see, there's no getting over the stencils," his companion
+answered.
+
+"Why didn't I have the nets down? Why didn't I have the nets down?" The
+cry tore itself from Captain Panke's chest as he twisted his hands.
+
+"I suppose we'd better wait and find out what the umpires will say. The
+Admiral won't be exactly pleased." Captain Malan spoke very soothingly.
+Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven. Pyecroft and
+I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had dropped
+into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.
+
+Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for a
+lead. "What--what are you going to do about it, Johnny--eh?"
+
+"Well, if you don't want him, I'm going to ask this young gentleman to
+breakfast, and then we'll make and mend clothes till the umpires have
+decided."
+
+Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.
+
+"Come with me," said Captain Malan. "Your men had better go back in the
+dinghy to--their--own--ship."
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Moorshed, and passed out behind the captain. We
+followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended the
+ladder.
+
+Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: "For Gawd's
+sake! 'Ere, come 'ere! For Gawd's sake! What's 'appened? Oh! come '_ere_
+an' tell."
+
+"Tell? You?" said Pyecroft. Neither man's lips moved, and the words were
+whispers: "Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might begin to
+understand, not you--nor ever will."
+
+"Captain Malan's galley away, Sir," cried a voice above; and one replied:
+"Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the blue peter.
+We're out of action."
+
+"Can you do it, Sir?" said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder. "Do you
+think it is in the English language, or do you not?"
+
+"I don't think I can, but I'll try. If it takes me two years, I'll try."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I have,
+on the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of _opus alexandrinum_. My gold
+I have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with sepia of
+the sea, and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have substituted
+pale amethyst and mere jargoon. Because I would say again "Disregarding
+the inventions of the Marine Captain whose other name is Gubbins, let a
+plain statement suffice."
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+THE KING'S TASK
+
+  After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
+  In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came.
+  Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing,
+  Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.
+
+  Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde--
+  Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword;
+  Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood,
+  And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood ...
+
+  They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,
+  Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine;
+  Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,
+  The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
+  Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome
+  Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
+  Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman's ire,
+  Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.
+  Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now
+  If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+Private Copper's father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper
+had studied under him. Five years' army service had somewhat blunted
+Private Copper's pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory of
+the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one across
+turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger, or in this
+case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet back-first advanced
+with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full a mile behind. The
+picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not protest. A year ago it
+would have been an officer's command, moving as such. To-day it paid
+casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a sergeant, actually a trooper
+of Irregular Horse, discovered convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and
+forthwith employed on odd jobs. Private Copper crawled up the side of a
+bluish rock-strewn hill thinly fringed with brush atop, and remembering
+how he had peered at Sussex conies through the edge of furze-clumps,
+cautiously parted the dry stems before his face. At the foot of the long
+slope sat three farmers smoking. To his natural lust for tobacco was added
+personal wrath because spiky plants were pricking his belly, and Private
+Copper slid the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards....
+
+"Good evening, Khaki. Please don't move," said a voice on his left, and as
+he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a well-kept
+Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn. Very few
+graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through the next ten
+seconds.
+
+"It's nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen," said a young man in an
+obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of Private
+Copper's rifle. "Thank _you_. We've got a post of thirty-seven men out
+yonder. You've eleven--eh? We don't want to kill 'em. We have no quarrel
+with poor uneducated Khakis, and we do not want prisoners we do not keep.
+It is demoralising to both sides--eh?"
+
+Private Cooper did not feel called upon to lay down the conduct of
+guerilla warfare. This dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed stranger
+was his first intimate enemy. He spoke, allowing for a clipped cadence
+that recalled to Copper vague memories of Umballa, in precisely the same
+offensive accent that the young squire of Wilmington had used fifteen
+years ago when he caught and kicked Alf Copper, a rabbit in each pocket,
+out of the ditches of Cuckmere. The enemy looked Copper up and down,
+folded and re-pocketed a copy of an English weekly which he had been
+reading, and said: "You seem an inarticulate sort of swine--like the rest
+of them--eh?"
+
+"You," said Copper, thinking, somehow, of the crushing answers he had
+never given to the young squire, "are a renegid. Why, you ain't Dutch.
+You're English, same as me."
+
+"_No_, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow your
+head off."
+
+Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some six
+or eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain was
+working with a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience of Alf
+Copper. While he rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own jaws amazed
+him: "If you did, 'twouldn't make you any less of a renegid." As a useful
+afterthought he added: "I've sprained my ankle."
+
+The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to rise,
+but, cross-legged under the rock, grunted: "'Ow much did old Krujer pay
+you for this? What was you wanted for at 'ome? Where did you desert from?"
+
+"Khaki," said the young man, sitting down in his turn, "you are a shade
+better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a yoke of
+oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant diseased
+beast like the rest of your people--eh? When you were at the Ragged
+Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy--'istory I mean?"
+
+"Don't need no schoolin' to know a renegid," said Copper. He had made
+three yards down the hill--out of sight, unless they could see through
+rocks, of the enemy's smoking party.
+
+The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of
+"True Affection." (Private Copper had not smoked a pipe for three weeks.)
+
+"_You_ don't get this--eh?" said the young man. "_We_ do. We take it from
+the trains as we want it. You can keep the cake--you po-ah Tommee." Copper
+rammed the good stuff into his long-cold pipe and puffed luxuriously. Two
+years ago the sister of gunner-guard De Souza, East India Railway, had, at
+a dance given by the sergeants to the Allahabad Railway Volunteers,
+informed Copper that she could not think of waltzing with "a poo-ah
+Tommee." Private Copper wondered why that memory should have returned at
+this hour.
+
+"I'm going to waste a little trouble on you before I send you back to your
+picket _quite_ naked--eh? Then you can say how you were overpowered by
+twenty of us and fired off your last round--like the men we picked up at
+the drift playing cards at Stryden's farm--eh? What's your name--eh?"
+
+Private Copper thought for a moment of a far-away housemaid who might
+still, if the local postman had not gone too far, be interested in his
+fate. On the other hand, he was, by temperament, economical of the truth.
+"Pennycuik," he said, "John Pennycuik."
+
+"Thank you. Well, Mr. John Pennycuik, I'm going to teach you a little
+'istory, as you'd call it--eh?"
+
+"'Ow!" said Copper, stuffing his left hand in his mouth. "So long since
+I've smoked I've burned my 'and--an' the pipe's dropped too. No objection
+to my movin' down to fetch it, is there--Sir?"
+
+"I've got you covered," said the young man, graciously, and Private
+Copper, hopping on one leg, because of his sprain, recovered the pipe yet
+another three yards downhill and squatted under another rock slightly
+larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest for his
+captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his rifle across
+his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard.
+
+"Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you were
+born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave country,
+England, sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie, to say that
+so long as the sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses the Transvaal
+would belong to England. Did you ever hear that, khaki--eh?"
+
+"Oh no, Sir," said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the rivers
+happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist of D
+Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war. Copper had
+thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and dry camps for
+intoning it.
+
+"_Of_ course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen." He spat aside
+and cleared his throat. "Because of that little promise, my father he
+moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm--a little place of twenty or
+thirty thousand acres, don't--you--know."
+
+The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured
+parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington
+squire's, and Copper found himself saying: "I ought to. I've 'elped burn
+some."
+
+"Yes, you'll pay for that later. _And_ he opened a store."
+
+"Ho! Shopkeeper was he?"
+
+"The kind you call "Sir" and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik.... You see,
+in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father
+did. _Then_ the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat
+them six times running. You know _thatt_--eh?"
+
+"Isn't what we've come 'ere for."
+
+"_But_ my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the English. I
+suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that cheated him--eh?
+Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own country. _So_--you
+see--he was a little startled when he found himself handed over to the
+Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That's what it came to, Tommy--a prisoner
+of war. You know what that is--eh? England was too honourable and too
+gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms made for my father."
+
+"So 'e made 'em 'imself. Useful old bird." Private Copper sliced up
+another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea of kopjes, through
+which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike quiet Cuckmere.
+
+The young man's face darkened. "I think I shall sjambok you myself when
+I've quite done with you. _No_, my father (he was a fool) made no terms
+for eight years--ninety-six months--and for every day of them the
+Transvaal made his life hell for my father and--his people."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," said the impenitent Copper.
+
+"Are you? You can think of it when I'm taking the skin off your back--
+eh?... My father, he lost everything--everything down to his self-respect.
+You don't know what _thatt_ means--eh?"
+
+"Why?" said Copper. "I'm smokin' baccy stole by a renegid. Why wouldn't I
+know?"
+
+If it came to a flogging on that hillside there might be a chance of
+reprisals. Of course, he might be marched to the Boer camp in the next
+valley and there operated upon; but Army life teaches no man to cross
+bridges unnecessarily.
+
+"Yes, after eight years, my father, cheated by your bitch of a country, he
+found out who was the upper dog in South Africa."
+
+"That's me," said Copper valiantly. "If it takes another 'alf century,
+it's me an' the likes of me."
+
+"You? Heaven help you! You'll be screaming at a wagon-wheel in an hour....
+Then it struck my father that he'd like to shoot the people who'd betrayed
+him. You--you--_you_! He told his son all about it. He told him never to
+trust the English. He told him to do them all the harm he could. Mann, I
+tell you, I don't want much telling. I was born in the Transvaal--I'm a
+burgher. If my father didn't love the English, by the Lord, mann, I tell
+you, I hate them from the bottom of my soul."
+
+The voice quavered and ran high. Once more, for no conceivable reason,
+Private Copper found his inward eye turned upon Umballa cantonments of a
+dry dusty afternoon, when the saddle-coloured son of a local hotel-keeper
+came to the barracks to complain of a theft of fowls. He saw the dark
+face, the plover's-egg-tinted eyeballs, and the thin excited hands. Above
+all, he remembered the passionate, queerly-strung words. Slowly he
+returned to South Africa, using the very sentence his sergeant had used to
+the poultry man.
+
+"Go on with your complaint. I'm listenin'."
+
+"Complaint! Complaint about _you_, you ox! We strip and kick your sort by
+thousands."
+
+The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus
+deflected itself from the pit of Private Copper's stomach. His face was
+dusky with rage.
+
+"Yess, I'm a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to find out
+how rotten you were. _We_ know and you know it now. Your army--it is the
+laughing-stock of the Continent." He tapped the newspaper in his pocket,
+"You think you're going to win, you poor fools. Your people--your own
+people--your silly rotten fools of people will crawl out of it as they did
+after Majuba. They are beginning now. Look what your own working classes,
+the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff that you come out of, are
+saying." He thrust the English weekly, doubled at the leading article, on
+Copper's knee. "See what dirty dogs your masters are. They do not even
+back you in your dirty work. _We_ cleared the country down to Ladysmith--
+to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to Colesberg."
+
+"Yes, we 'ad to clean up be'ind you. Messy, I call it."
+
+"You've had to stop farm-burning because your people daren't do it. They
+were afraid. You daren't kill a spy. You daren't shoot a spy when you
+catch him in your own uniform. You daren't touch our loyall people in Cape
+Town! Your masters wont let you. You will feed our women and children till
+we are quite ready to take them back. _You_ can't put your cowardly noses
+out of the towns you say you've occupied. _You_ daren't move a convoy
+twenty miles. You think you've done something? You've done nothing, and
+you've taken a quarter of a million of men to do it! There isn't a nigger
+in South Africa that doesn't obey us if we lift our finger. You pay the
+stuff four pounds a month and they lie to you. _We_ flog 'em, as I shall
+flog you."
+
+He clasped his hands together and leaned forward his out-thrust chin
+within two feet of Copper's left, or pipe hand.
+
+"Yuss," said Copper, "it's a fair knock-out." The fist landed to a hair on
+the chin-point, the neck snicked like a gun-lock, and the back of the head
+crashed on the boulder behind.
+
+Copper grabbed up both rifles, unshipped the cross-bandoliers, drew forth
+the English weekly, and picking up the lax hands, looked long and intently
+at the fingernails.
+
+"No! Not a sign of it there," he said. "'Is nails are as clean as mine--
+but he talks just like 'em, though. And he's a landlord too! A landed
+proprietor! Shockin', I call it."
+
+The arms began to flap with returning consciousness. Private Copper rose
+up and whispered: "If you open your head, I'll bash it." There was no
+suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. "Now walk in front of
+me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I'm only a third-class shot, so,
+if you don't object, I'll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly but firmly
+on your collar-button--coverin' the serviceable vertebree. If your friends
+see us thus engaged, you pray--'ard."
+
+Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of the
+afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.
+
+"There's a lot of things I could say to you," Copper observed, at the
+close of the paroxysm, "but it doesn't matter. Look 'ere, you call me
+'pore Tommy' again."
+
+The prisoner hesitated.
+
+"Oh, I ain't goin' to do anythin' _to_ you. I'm recon-noiterin' in my own.
+Say 'pore Tommy' 'alf-a-dozen times."
+
+The prisoner obeyed.
+
+"_That's_ what's been puzzlin' me since I 'ad the pleasure o' meetin'
+you," said Copper. "You ain't 'alf-caste, but you talk _chee-chee_--
+_pukka_ bazar chee-chee. Proceed."
+
+"Hullo," said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later, "where did
+you round him up?"
+
+"On the top o' yonder craggy mounting. There's a mob of 'em sitting round
+their Bibles seventeen 'undred yards (you said it was seventeen 'undred?)
+t'other side--an' I want some coffee." He sat down on the smoke-blackened
+stones by the fire.
+
+"'Ow did you get 'im?" said McBride, professional humorist, quietly
+filching the English weekly from under Copper's armpit.
+
+"On the chin--while 'e was waggin' it at me."
+
+"What is 'e? 'Nother Colonial rebel to be 'orribly disenfranchised, or a
+Cape Minister, or only a loyal farmer with dynamite in both boots. Tell us
+all about it, Burjer!"
+
+"You leave my prisoner alone," said Private Copper. "'E's 'ad losses an'
+trouble; an' it's in the family too. 'E thought I never read the papers,
+so 'e kindly lent me his very own _Jerrold's Weekly_--an' 'e explained it
+to me as patronisin' as a--as a militia subaltern doin' Railway Staff
+Officer. 'E's a left-over from Majuba--one of the worst kind, an' 'earin'
+the evidence as I did, I don't exactly blame 'im. It was this way."
+
+To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life-
+history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an
+absolute fair rendering.
+
+"But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin' beggar, 'oo's people, on 'is
+own showin', couldn't 'ave been more than thirty or forty years in the
+coun--on this Gawd-forsaken dust-'eap, comin' the squire over me. They're
+all parsons--we know _that_, but parson _an'_ squire is a bit too thick
+for Alf Copper. Why, I caught 'im in the shameful act of tryin' to start a
+aristocracy on a gun an' a wagon an' a _shambuk_! Yes; that's what it was:
+a bloomin' aristocracy."
+
+"No, it weren't," said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the
+purloined weekly. "You're the aristocrat, Alf. Old _Jerrold's_ givin' it
+you 'ot. You're the uneducated 'ireling of a callous aristocracy which 'as
+sold itself to the 'Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky"--he ran his finger
+down a column of assorted paragraphs--"you're slakin' your brutal
+instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin' women an' desolated 'omesteads is
+what you enjoy, Alf ..., Halloa! What's a smokin' 'ektacomb?"
+
+"'Ere! Let's look. 'Aven't seen a proper spicy paper for a year. Good old
+_Jerrold's!"_ Pinewood and Moppet, reservists, flung themselves on
+McBride's shoulders, pinning him to the ground.
+
+"Lie over your own bloomin' side of the bed, an' we can all look," he
+protested.
+
+"They're only po-ah Tommies," said Copper, apologetically, to the
+prisoner. "Po-ah unedicated Khakis. _They_ don't know what they're
+fightin' for. They're lookin' for what the diseased, lying, drinkin' white
+stuff that they come from is sayin' about 'em!"
+
+The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the
+circle.
+
+"I--I don't understand them."
+
+The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded
+sympathetically:
+
+"If it comes to that, _we_ don't in my country!... Say, boys, when you're
+through with your English mail you might's well provide an escort for your
+prisoner. He's waitin'."
+
+"Arf a mo', Sergeant," said McBride, still reading.
+
+"'Ere's Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of 'is lady friends, 'oo
+don't like concentration camps. Wish they'd visit ours. Pinewood's a
+married man. He'd know how to be'ave!"
+
+"Well, I ain't goin' to amuse my prisoner alone. 'E's gettin' 'omesick,"
+cried Copper. "One of you thieves read out what's vexin' Old Barbarity an'
+'is 'arem these days. You'd better listen, Burjer, because, afterwards,
+I'm goin' to fall out an' perpetrate those nameless barbarities all over
+you to keep up the reputation of the British Army."
+
+From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff of
+Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did Pinewood of
+the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the accredited
+leaders of His Majesty's Opposition. The night-picket arrived in the
+middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any compliments, till
+Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article, and several occasional
+notes.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury," said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left to
+him of trousers--"you've 'eard what 'e's been fed up with. _Do_ you blame
+the beggar? 'Cause I don't! ... Leave 'im alone, McBride. He's my first
+and only cap-ture, an' I'm goin' to walk 'ome with 'im, ain't I, Ducky?
+... Fall in, Burjer. It's Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for you--and I'd
+give a month's pay to be in your little shoes."
+
+As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the
+prisoner's nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and
+began to struggle--kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all
+together.
+
+"Pore beggar--oh pore, _pore_ beggar!" said Alf, leaning in on one side of
+him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.
+
+"Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go----"
+
+"'E screams like a woman!" said McBride. "They'll 'ear 'im five miles
+off."
+
+"There's one or two ought to 'ear 'im--in England," said Copper, putting
+aside a wildly waving arm.
+
+"Married, ain't 'e?" said Pinewood. "I've seen 'em go like this before--
+just at the last. '_Old_ on, old man, No one's goin' to 'urt you."
+
+The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the little,
+anxious, wriggling group.
+
+"Quit that," said the Serjeant of a sudden. "You're only making him worse.
+Hands _up_, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this'll go off."
+
+And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man's panting chest seemed to
+act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between Copper
+and Pinewood.
+
+As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among the
+officers' tents:
+
+  'E sent us 'is blessin' from London town,
+    (The beggar that kep' the cordite down,)
+  But what do we care if 'e smile or frown,
+    The beggar that kep' the cordite down?
+  The mildly nefarious
+  Wildly barbarious
+    Beggar that kept the cordite down!
+
+Said a captain a mile away: "Why are they singing _that?_ We haven't had a
+mail for a month, have we?"
+
+An hour later the same captain said to his servant: "Jenkins, I understand
+the picket have got a--got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day. I wish you
+could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the _Times_, I think."
+
+"Yes, Sir. Copy of the _Times_, Sir," said Jenkins, without a quiver, and
+went forth to make his own arrangements.
+
+"Copy of the _Times_" said the blameless Alf, from beneath his blanket. "I
+ain't a member of the Soldier's Institoot. Go an' look in the reg'mental
+Readin'-room--Veldt Row, Kopje Street, second turnin' to the left between
+'ere an' Naauwport."
+
+Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper
+need not be.
+
+"But my particular copy of the _Times_ is specially pro'ibited by the
+censor from corruptin' the morals of the Army. Get a written order from K.
+o' K., properly countersigned, an' I'll think about it."
+
+"I've got all _you_ want," said Jenkins. "'Urry up. I want to 'ave a
+squint myself."
+
+Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back smacking
+his lips.
+
+"Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. 'Ere you are,
+Jenkins. It's dirt cheap at a tot."
+
+
+
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+
+THE NECESSITARIAN
+
+  I know not in whose hands are laid
+    To empty upon earth
+  From unsuspected ambuscade
+    The very Urns of Mirth:
+
+  Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
+    And cheer our solemn round--
+  The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
+    And grovellings on the ground;
+
+  Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
+    Behind the prey preferred,
+  And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
+    The Sacredly Absurd,
+
+  Till Laughter, voiceless through excess.
+    Waves mute appeal and sore,
+  Above the midriff's deep distress,
+    For breath to laugh once more.
+
+  No creed hath dared to hail him Lord,
+    No raptured choirs proclaim,
+  And Nature's strenuous Overword
+    Hath nowhere breathed his name.
+
+  Yet, may it be, on wayside jape,
+    The selfsame Power bestows
+  The selfsame power as went to shape
+    His Planet or His Rose.
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the narrow
+Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o'clock, they were both asleep.
+
+That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference to
+his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and
+specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces of
+superior coachmen. Then he pulled slantwise across me.
+
+There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could be
+applied at pleasure....
+
+The cart was removed about a bowshot's length in seven and a quarter
+seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the
+next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the tail-board.
+
+My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.
+
+"The blighted egg-boiler has steam up," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, pausing to
+gather a large stone. "Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the sights
+come on!"
+
+"I can't leave my 'orse!" roared the carrier; "but bring 'em up 'ere, an'
+I'll kill 'em all over again."
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft," I called cheerfully. "Can I give you a lift
+anywhere?"
+
+The attack broke up round my forewheels.
+
+"Well, we _do_ 'ave the knack o' meeting _in puris naturalibus,_ as I've
+so often said." Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. "Yes, I'm on leaf. So's Hinch.
+We're visiting friends among these kopjes."
+
+A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was still
+calling for corpses.
+
+"That's Agg. He's Hinch's cousin. You aren't fortunit in your family
+connections, Hinch. 'E's usin' language in derogation of good manners. Go
+and abolish 'im."
+
+Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his cousin. I
+recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the carrier's. It
+seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid throes.
+
+"'Ave it your own silly way, then," roared the carrier, "an' get into
+Linghurst on your own silly feet. I've done with you two runagates." He
+lashed his horse and passed out of sight still rumbling.
+
+"The fleet's sailed," said Pyecroft, "leavin' us on the beach as before.
+Had you any particular port in your mind?"
+
+"Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don't mind--"
+
+"Oh! that'll do as well as anything! We're on leaf, you see."
+
+"She'll hardly hold four," said my engineer. I had broken him of the
+foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.
+
+Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he
+walked in narrowing circles.
+
+"What's her speed?" he demanded of the engineer.
+
+"Twenty-five," said that loyal man.
+
+"Easy to run?"
+
+"No; very difficult," was the emphatic answer.
+
+"That just shows that you ain't fit for your rating. D'you suppose that a
+man who earns his livin' by runnin' 30-knot destroyers for a parstime--for
+a parstime, mark you!--is going to lie down before any blighted land-
+crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?"
+
+Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked upward
+into pipes--petrol, steam, and water--with a keen and searching eye.
+
+I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.
+
+"Not--in--the--least," was the answer. "Steam gadgets always take him that
+way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through his tryin' to show a
+traction-engine haulin' gipsy-wagons how to turn corners."
+
+"Tell him everything he wants to know," I said to the engineer, as I
+dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.
+
+"_He_ don't want much showing," said the engineer. Now, the two men had
+not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more than
+three minutes.
+
+"This," said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure of the
+hedge-foot, "is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn't let too much
+o' that hot muckings drop in my eyes, Your leaf's up in a fortnight, an'
+you'll be wantin' 'em."
+
+"Here!" said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. "Come here
+and show me the lead of this pipe." And the engineer lay down beside him.
+
+"That's all right," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. "But she's more of a bag
+of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft"--he pointed to
+the back seat--"and I'll have a look at the forced draught."
+
+The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he
+had a brother an artificer in the Navy.
+
+"They couple very well, those two," said Pyecroft critically, while
+Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay
+jets of steam.
+
+"Now take me up the road," he said. My man, for form's sake, looked at me.
+
+"Yes, take him," I said. "He's all right."
+
+"No, I'm not," said Hinchcliffe of a sudden--"not if I'm expected to judge
+my water out of a little shaving-glass."
+
+The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right
+of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.
+
+"Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how
+you steer while you're doing it, or you'll get ditched!" I cried, as the
+car ran down the road.
+
+"I wonder!" said Pyecroft, musing. "But, after all, it's your steamin'
+gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me
+after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours,
+that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a runnin' bulgine till the
+nineteenth prox. Now look at him Only look at 'im!"
+
+We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his
+seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge to
+hedge.
+
+"What happens if he upsets?"
+
+"The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up."
+
+"How rambunkshus! And"--Pyecroft blew a slow cloud--"Agg's about three
+hoops up this mornin', too."
+
+"What's that to do with us? He's gone down the road," I retorted.
+
+"Ye--es, but we'll overtake him. He's a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch
+'ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O' course, Hinch don't know the
+elements o' that evolution; but he fell back on 'is naval rank an' office,
+an' Agg grew peevish. I wasn't sorry to get out of the cart ... Have you
+ever considered how, when you an' I meet, so to say, there's nearly always
+a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat
+returnin'!"
+
+He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: "In bow! Way 'nuff!"
+
+"You be quiet!" cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his dark
+face shining with joy. "She's the Poetry o' Motion! She's the Angel's
+Dream. She's------" He shut off steam, and the slope being against her,
+the car slid soberly downhill again.
+
+"What's this? I've got the brake on!" he yelled.
+
+"It doesn't hold backwards," I said. "Put her on the mid-link."
+
+"That's a nasty one for the chief engineer o' the _Djinn_, 31-knot,
+T.B.D.," said Pyecroft. "_Do_ you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?"
+
+Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the
+rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she
+retired backwards into her own steam.
+
+"Apparently 'e don't," said Pyecroft. "What's he done now, Sir?"
+
+"Reversed her. I've done it myself."
+
+"But he's an engineer."
+
+For the third time the car manoeuvred up the hill.
+
+"I'll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you 'tiffies out all
+night!" shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation. Hinchcliffe's face
+grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working on the throttle, the
+car buzzed twenty yards uphill.
+
+"That's enough. We'll take your word for it. The mountain will go to
+Ma'ommed. Stand _fast_!"
+
+Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed
+together.
+
+"Not as easy as it looks--eh, Hinch?"
+
+"It is dead easy. I'm going to drive her to Instead Wick--aren't I?" said
+the first-class engine-room artificer. I thought of his performances with
+No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small privilege to accord to pure
+genius.
+
+"But my engineer will stand by--at first," I added.
+
+"An' you a family man, too," muttered Pyecroft, swinging himself into the
+right rear seat. "Sure to be a remarkably hectic day when we meet."
+
+We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor,
+paved our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.
+
+Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the
+engineer, and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had
+enjoyed the rack on which he voluntarily extended himself.
+
+And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.
+
+"How cautious is the 'tiffy-bird!" said Pyecroft.
+
+"Even in a destroyer," Hinch snapped over his shoulder, "you ain't
+expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don't address any remarks to
+_me!_"
+
+"Pump!" said the engineer. "Your water's droppin'."
+
+"_I_ know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pass?"
+
+He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he
+found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting
+all else, twisted it furiously.
+
+My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching into
+a ditch.
+
+"If I was a burnin' peacock, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my shinin'
+tail, I'd need 'em all on this job!" said Hinch.
+
+"Don't talk! Steer! This ain't the North Atlantic," Pyecroft replied.
+
+"Blast my stokers! Why, the steam's dropped fifty pounds!" Hinchcliffe
+cried.
+
+"Fire's blown out," said the engineer. "Stop her!"
+
+"Does she do that often?" said Hinch, descending.
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Anytime?"
+
+"Any time a cross-wind catches her."
+
+The engineer produced a match and stooped.
+
+That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit twice
+in the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and Pyecroft went
+out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow flame.
+
+"I've seen a mine explode at Bantry--once--prematoor," he volunteered.
+
+"That's all right," said Hinchcliffe, brushing down his singed beard with
+a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.) "Has she any more
+little surprises up her dainty sleeve?"
+
+"She hasn't begun yet," said my engineer, with a scornful cough. "Some one
+'as opened the petrol-supply-valve too wide."
+
+"Change places with me, Pyecroft," I commanded, for I remembered that the
+petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all controlled
+from the right rear seat.
+
+"Me? Why? There's a whole switchboard full o' nickel-plated muckin's which
+I haven't begun to play with yet. The starboard side's crawlin' with 'em."
+
+"Change, or I'll kill you!" said Hinchcliffe, and he looked like it.
+
+"That's the 'tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame it on the
+lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! _I_ won't help you any
+more."
+
+We navigated for a mile in dead silence.
+
+"Talkin' o' wakes----" said Pyecroft suddenly.
+
+"We weren't," Hinchcliffe grunted.
+
+"There's some wakes would break a snake's back; but this of yours, so to
+speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That's all I wish to observe,
+Hinch. ... Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It's Agg!"
+
+Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier's
+cart at rest before the post-office.
+
+"He's bung in the fairway. How'm I to get past?" said Hinchcliffe.
+"There's no room. Here, Pye, come and relieve the wheel!"
+
+"Nay, nay, Pauline. You've made your own bed. You've as good as left your
+happy home an' family cart to steal it. Now you lie on it."
+
+"Ring your bell," I suggested.
+
+"Glory!" said Pyecroft, falling forward into the nape of Hinchcliffe's
+neck as the car stopped dead.
+
+"Get out o' my back-hair! That must have been the brake I touched off,"
+Hinchcliffe muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.
+
+We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from the
+port-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered later
+that the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.
+
+Hinchcliffe wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the
+first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.
+
+"You needn't grip so hard," said my engineer. "She steers as easy as a
+bicycle."
+
+"Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an' down my engine-room?" was the
+answer. "I've other things to think about. She's a terror. She's a
+whistlin' lunatic. I'd sooner run the old South-Easter at Simon's Town
+than her!"
+
+"One of the nice things they say about her," I interrupted, "is that no
+engineer is needed to run this machine."
+
+"No. They'd need about seven."
+
+"'Common-sense only is needed,'" I quoted.
+
+"Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common-sense," Pyecroft put in.
+
+"And now," I said, "we'll have to take in water. There isn't more than a
+couple of inches of water in the tank."
+
+"Where d'you get it from?"
+
+"Oh!--cottages and such-like."
+
+"Yes, but that being so, where does your much-advertised twenty-five miles
+an hour come in? Ain't a dung-cart more to the point?"
+
+"If you want to go anywhere, I suppose it would be," I replied.
+
+"_I_ don't want to go anywhere. I'm thinkin' of you who've got to live
+with her. She'll burn her tubes if she loses her water?"
+
+"She will."
+
+"I've never scorched yet, and I not beginnin' now." He shut off steam
+firmly. "Out you get, Pye, an' shove her along by hand."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"The nearest water-tank," was the reply. "And Sussex is a dry county."
+
+"She ought to have drag-ropes--little pipe-clayed ones," said Pyecroft.
+
+We got out and pushed under the hot sun for half-a-mile till we came to a
+cottage, sparsely inhabited by one child who wept.
+
+"All out haymakin', o' course," said Pyecroft, thrusting his head into the
+parlour for an instant. "What's the evolution now?"
+
+"Skirmish till we find a well," I said.
+
+"Hmm! But they wouldn't 'ave left that kid without a chaperon, so to
+say... I thought so! Where's a stick?"
+
+A bluish and silent beast of the true old sheep-dog breed glided from
+behind an outhouse and without words fell to work.
+
+Pyecroft kept him at bay with a rake-handle while our party, in rallying-
+square, retired along the box-bordered brick-path to the car.
+
+At the garden gate the dumb devil halted, looked back on the child, and
+sat down to scratch.
+
+"That's his three-mile limit, thank Heaven!" said Pyecroft. "Fall in,
+push-party, and proceed with land-transport o' pinnace. I'll protect your
+flanks in case this sniffin' flea-bag is tempted beyond 'is strength."
+
+We pushed off in silence. The car weighed 1,200 lb., and even on
+ball-bearings was a powerful sudorific. From somewhere behind a hedge we
+heard a gross rustic laugh.
+
+"Those are the beggars we lie awake for, patrollin' the high seas. There
+ain't a port in China where we wouldn't be better treated. Yes, a Boxer
+'ud be ashamed of it," said Pyecroft.
+
+A cloud of fine dust boomed down the road.
+
+"Some happy craft with a well-found engine-room! How different!" panted
+Hinchcliffe, bent over the starboard mudguard.
+
+It was a claret-coloured petrol car, and it stopped courteously, as good
+cars will at sight of trouble.
+
+"Water, only water," I answered in reply to offers of help.
+
+"There's a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They'll give you all you
+want. Say I sent you. Gregory--Michael Gregory. Good-bye!"
+
+"Ought to 'ave been in the Service. Prob'ly is," was Pyecroft's comment.
+
+At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not quote
+Mr. Hinchcliffe's remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber bucket with
+which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir Michael Gregory
+owned many acres, and that his park ran for miles.
+
+"No objection to your going through it," said the lodge-keeper. "It'll
+save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick."
+
+But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few miles
+farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had decreed.
+
+"We've come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far," said Hinchcliffe
+(he was driving with greater freedom and less responsibility), "and now we
+have to fill our bunkers. This is worse than the Channel Fleet."
+
+At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and lavishly
+oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our engineer on the
+grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely abreast of his work. To
+this I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in the language of the road,
+held up for a day and a half, and by most bitter experience I suspected
+that her time was very near. Therefore, three miles short of Linghurst, I
+was less surprised than any one, excepting always my engineer, when the
+engines set up a lunatic clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.
+
+"Heaven forgive me all the harsh things I may have said about destroyers
+in my sinful time!" wailed Hinchcliffe, snapping back the throttle.
+"What's worryin' Ada now?"
+
+"The forward eccentric-strap screw's dropped off," said the engineer,
+investigating.
+
+"That all? I thought it was a propeller-blade."
+
+"We must go an' look for it. There isn't another."
+
+"Not me," said Pyecroft from his seat. "Out pinnace, Hinch, an' creep for
+it. It won't be more than five miles back."
+
+The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road.
+
+"Look like etymologists, don't they? Does she decant her innards often, so
+to speak?" Pyecroft asked.
+
+I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four miles
+along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was profoundly
+touched.
+
+"Poor Hinch! Poor--poor Hinch!" he said. "And that's only one of her
+little games, is it? He'll be homesick for the Navy by night."
+
+When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was
+Hinchcliffe who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my engineer
+looked on admiringly.
+
+"Your boiler's only seated on four little paperclips," he said, crawling
+from beneath her. "She's a wicker-willow lunch-basket below. She's a
+runnin' miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp long?"
+
+I told him.
+
+"And yet you were afraid to come into the _Nightmare's_ engine-room when
+we were runnin' trials!"
+
+"It's all a matter of taste," Pyecroft volunteered. "But I will say for
+you, Hinch, you've certainly got the hang of her steamin' gadgets in quick
+time."
+
+He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and a
+tremor in his arm.
+
+"She don't seem so answer her helm somehow," he said.
+
+"There's a lot of play to the steering-gear," said my engineer. "We
+generally tighten it up every few miles."
+
+"'Like me to stop now? We've run as much as one mile and a half without
+incident," he replied tartly.
+
+"Then you're lucky," said my engineer, bristling in turn.
+
+"They'll wreck the whole turret out o' nasty professional spite in a
+minute," said Pyecroft. "That's the worst o' machinery. Man dead ahead,
+Hinch--semaphorin' like the flagship in a fit!"
+
+"Amen!" said Hinchcliffe. "Shall I stop, or shall I cut him down?"
+
+He stopped, for full in the centre of the Linghurst Road stood a person in
+pepper-and-salt raiment (ready-made), with a brown telegraph envelope in
+his hands.
+
+"Twenty-three and a half miles an hour," he began, weighing a small beam-
+engine of a Waterbury in one red paw. "From the top of the hill over our
+measured quarter-mile--twenty-three and a half."
+
+"You manurial gardener----" Hinchcliffe began. I prodded him warningly
+from behind, and laid the other hand on Pyecroft's stiffening knee.
+
+"Also--on information received--drunk and disorderly in charge of a
+motor-car--to the common danger--two men like sailors in appearance,"
+the man went on.
+
+"Like sailors! ... That's Agg's little _roose_. No wonder he smiled at
+us," said Pyecroft.
+
+"I've been waiting for you some time," the man concluded, folding up the
+telegram.
+
+"Who's the owner?"
+
+I indicated myself.
+
+"Then I want you as well as the two seafaring men. Drunk and disorderly
+can be treated summary. You come on."
+
+My relations with the Sussex constabulary have, so far, been of the best,
+but I could not love this person.
+
+"Of course you have your authority to show?" I hinted.
+
+"I'll show it you at Linghurst," he retorted hotly----"all the authority
+you want."
+
+"I only want the badge, or warrant, or whatever it is a plain-clothes man
+has to show."
+
+He made as though to produce it, but checked himself, repeating less
+politely the invitation to Linghurst. The action and the tone confirmed my
+many-times tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing institutions
+are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious inaccuracy. I
+reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of the front seat
+that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping with his knuckles.
+The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe's brow had given place to a greasy
+imbecility, and he nodded over the steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as
+laid down by the pious and immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, "Sham
+drunk. Get him in the car."
+
+"I can't stay here all day," said the constable.
+
+Pyecroft raised his head. Then was seen with what majesty the British
+sailor-man envisages a new situation.
+
+"Met gennelman heavy sheeway," said he. "Do tell me British gelman can't
+give 'ole Brish Navy lif' own blighted ste' cart. Have another drink!"
+
+"I didn't know they were as drunk as all that when they stopped me," I
+explained.
+
+"You can say all that at Linghurst," was the answer. "Come on."
+
+"Quite right," I said. "But the question is, if you take these two out on
+the road, they'll fall down or start killing you."
+
+"Then I'd call on you to assist me in the execution o' my duty."
+
+"But I'd see you further first. You'd better come with us in the car. I'll
+turn this passenger out." (This was my engineer, sitting quite silent.)
+"You don't want him, and, anyhow, he'd only be a witness for the defence."
+
+"That's true," said the constable. "But it wouldn't make any odds--at
+Linghurst."
+
+My engineer skipped into the bracken like a rabbit. I bade him cut across
+Sir Michael Gregory's park, and if he caught my friend, to tell him I
+should probably be rather late for lunch.
+
+"I ain't going to be driven by _him_." Our destined prey pointed at
+Hinchcliffe with apprehension.
+
+"Of course not. You sake my seat and keep the big sailor in order. He's
+too drunk to do much. I'll change places with the other one. Only be
+quick; I want to pay my fine and get it over."
+
+"That's the way to look at it," he said, dropping into the left rear seat.
+"We're making quite a lot out o' you motor gentry." He folded his arms
+judicially as the car gathered way under Hinchcliffe's stealthy hand.
+
+"But _you_ aren't driving?" he cried, half rising.
+
+"You've noticed it?" said Pyecroft, and embraced him with one anaconda-
+like left arm.
+
+"Don't kill him," said Hinchcliffe briefly. "I want to show him what
+twenty-three and a quarter is." We were going a fair twelve, which was
+about the car's limit.
+
+Our passenger swore something and then groaned.
+
+"Hush, darling!" said Pyecroft, "or I'll have to hug you."
+
+The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running
+north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.
+
+"And now," said I, "I want to see your authority."
+
+"The badge of your ratin'?" Pyecroft added.
+
+"I'm a constable," he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have
+bewrayed him across half a county's plough; but boots are not legal
+evidence.
+
+"I want your authority," I repeated coldly; "some evidence that you are
+not a common drunken tramp."
+
+It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had
+neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money
+and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite
+trouble to supplement his deficiencies.
+
+"If you don't believe me, come to Linghurst," was the burden of his almost
+national anthem.
+
+"But I can't run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up and
+says he is a policeman."
+
+"Why, it's quite close," he persisted.
+
+"'Twon't be--soon," said Hinchcliffe.
+
+"None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, _they_ was
+gentlemen," he cried. "All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it
+ain't fair."
+
+I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten his
+badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub or
+barracks where he had left it.
+
+Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.
+
+"If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn't expect much more," he
+observed. "Now, suppose I'd been a lady in a delicate state o' health--
+you'd ha' made me very ill with your doings."
+
+"I wish I 'ad. 'Ere! 'Elp! 'Elp! Hi!"
+
+The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane
+ran into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked
+her up that lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable
+came running heavily.
+
+It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform
+smiled as we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.
+
+"You'll know all about it in a little time," said our guest. "You've only
+yourselves to thank for runnin' your 'ead into a trap." And he whistled
+ostentatiously.
+
+We made no answer.
+
+"If that man 'ad chose, 'e could have identified me," he said.
+
+Still we were silent.
+
+"But 'e'll do it later, when you're caught."
+
+"Not if you go on talking. 'E won't be able to," said Pyecroft. "I don't
+know what traverse you think you're workin', but your duty till you're put
+in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an' cherish _me_ most
+special--performin' all evolutions signalled in rapid time. I tell you
+this, in case o' anything turnin' up."
+
+"Don't you fret about things turnin' up," was the reply.
+
+Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set to
+work, when, without warning, the road--there are two or three in Sussex
+like it--turned down and ceased.
+
+"Holy Muckins!" he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless tyres
+slithered over wet grass and bracken--down and down into forest--early
+British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and that all should
+fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred our way. On the far
+side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits and fern, gently sloped
+upwards and away, but behind us was no hope. Forty horse-power would never
+have rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that verdurous cliff we had descended.
+
+"H'm!" Our guest coughed significantly. "A great many cars thinks they can
+take this road; but they all come back. We walks after 'em at our
+convenience."
+
+"Meanin' that the other jaunty is now pursuin' us on his lily feet?" said
+Pyecroft.
+
+"_Pre_cisely."
+
+"An' you think," said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of the
+words), "_that'll_ make any odds? Get out!"
+
+The man obeyed with alacrity.
+
+"See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing.
+Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at the
+double."
+
+And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a perfect
+understanding.
+
+There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down
+
+stream, laid aside after sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in
+the brook. Hinchcliffe rearranged these last to make some sort of
+causeway; I brought up the hurdles; and when Pyecroft and his subaltern
+had dropped a dozen hop-poles across the stream, laid them down over all.
+
+"Talk o' the Agricultur'l Hall!" he said, mopping his brow--"'tisn't in it
+with us. The approach to the bridge must now be paved with hurdles, owin'
+to the squashy nature o' the country. Yes, an' we'd better have one or two
+on the far side to lead her on to _terror fermior_. Now, Hinch! Give her
+full steam and 'op along. If she slips off, we're done. Shall I take the
+wheel?"
+
+"No. This is my job," said the first-class engine-room artificer. "Get
+over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the uphill."
+
+We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken.
+Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her
+trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our
+arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing her
+madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the
+bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles
+which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.
+
+"She--she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished with
+'em," Hinchcliffe panted.
+
+"At the Agricultural Hall they would 'ave been fastened down with
+ribbons," said Pyecroft. "But this ain't Olympia."
+
+"She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don't you think I conned
+her like a cock-angel, Pye?"
+
+"_I_ never saw anything like it," said our guest propitiatingly. "And now,
+gentlemen, if you'll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you you won't
+hear another word from me."
+
+"Get in," said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once more.
+"We 'aven't begun on _you_ yet."
+
+"A joke's a joke," he replied. "I don't mind a little bit of a joke
+myself, but this is going beyond it."
+
+"Miles an' miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We'll want water
+pretty soon."
+
+Our guest's countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.
+
+"Let me tell you," he said earnestly, "I won't make any difference to you
+whatever happens. Barrin' a dhow or two Tajurrah-way, prizes are scarce in
+the Navy. Hence we never abandon 'em."
+
+There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.
+
+"Robert," he said, "have you a mother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you a big brother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An' a little sister?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"All right, Robert. I won't forget it."
+
+I looked for an explanation.
+
+"I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o' that
+cottage before faithful Fido turned up," Pyecroft whispered. "Ain't you
+glad it's all in the family somehow?"
+
+We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard's Forest,
+and, despite our increasing leakage, made shift to climb the ridge above
+Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final collapse
+would not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our guest well into
+the wilderness before that came.
+
+On the roof of the world--a naked plateau clothed with young heather--she
+retired from active life in floods of tears. Her feed-water-heater
+(Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was leaking
+beyond hope of repair; she had shifted most of her packing, and her water-
+pump would not lift.
+
+"If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case an'
+feed direct into the boiler. It 'ud knock down her speed, but we could get
+on," said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges that hove us
+above the panorama of Sussex. Northward we could see the London haze.
+Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the Channel's zinc-
+blue. But all our available population in that vast survey was one cow and
+a kestrel.
+
+"It's down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by gravity," I said
+at last.
+
+"Then he'll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we take
+off 'is boots first," Pyecroft replied.
+
+"That," said our guest earnestly, "would be theft atop of assault and very
+serious."
+
+"Oh, let's hang him an' be done," Hinchcliffe grunted. "It's evidently
+what he's sufferin' for."
+
+Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to smoke
+in the heather, and presently out of the valley below came the thick beat
+of a petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it till I heard
+the roar of a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home Counties.
+
+"That's the man I was going to lunch with!" I cried. "Hold on!" and I ran
+down the road.
+
+It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod;
+and it bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my own
+man, who for the first time in our acquaintance smiled.
+
+"Did they get you? What did you get? I was coming into Linghurst as
+witness to character--your man told me what happened--but I was stopped
+near Instead Wick myself," cried Kysh.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Leaving car unattended. An infernal swindle, when you think of the loose
+carts outside every pub in the county. I was jawing with the police for an
+hour, but it's no use. They've got it all their own way, and we're
+helpless."
+
+Hereupon I told him my tale, and for proof, as we topped the hill, pointed
+out the little group round my car.
+
+All supreme emotion is dumb. Kysh put on the brake and hugged me to his
+bosom till I groaned. Then, as I remember, he crooned like a mother
+returned to her suckling.
+
+"Divine! Divine!" he murmured. "Command me."
+
+"Take charge of the situation," I said. "You'll find a Mr. Pyecroft on the
+quarter-deck. I'm altogether out of it."
+
+"He shall stay there. Who am I but the instrument of vengeance in the
+hands of an over-ruling Providence? (And I put in fresh sparking-plugs
+this morning.) Salmon, take that steam-kettle home, somehow. I would be
+alone."
+
+"Leggat," I said to my man, "help Salmon home with my car."
+
+"Home? Now? It's hard. It's cruel hard," said Leggat, almost with a sob.
+
+Hinchcliffe outlined my car's condition briefly to the two engineers. Mr.
+Pyecroft clung to our guest, who stared with affrighted eyes at the
+palpitating Octopod; and the free wind of high Sussex whimpered across the
+ling.
+
+"I am quite agreeable to walkin' 'ome all the way on my feet," said our
+guest. "I wouldn't go to any railway station. It 'ud be just the proper
+finish to our little joke." He laughed nervously.
+
+"What's the evolution?" said Pyecroft. "Do we turn over to the new
+cruiser?"
+
+I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I was
+in, he sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which controls the
+door. Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh.
+
+"You drive?" Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his chequered way
+through the world.
+
+"Steam only, and I've about had my whack for to-day, thanks."
+
+"I see."
+
+The long, low car slid forward and then dropped like a bullet down the
+descent our steam toy had so painfully climbed. Our guest's face blanched,
+and he clutched the back of the tonneau.
+
+"New commander's evidently been trained on a destroyer," said Hinchcliffe.
+
+"What's 'is wonderful name?" whispered Pyecroft. "Ho! Well, I'm glad it
+ain't Saul we've run up against--nor Nimshi, for that matter. This is
+makin' me feel religious."
+
+Our impetus carried us half-way up the next slope, where we steadied to a
+resonant fifteen an hour against the collar.
+
+"What do you think?" I called to Hinchcliffe.
+
+"'Taint as sweet as steam, o' course; but for power it's twice the
+_Furious_ against half the _Jaseur_ in a head-sea."
+
+Volumes could not have touched it more exactly. His bright eyes were glued
+on Kysh's hands juggling with levers behind the discreet backward sloping
+dash.
+
+"An' what sort of a brake might you use?" he said politely.
+
+"This," Kysh replied, as the last of the hill shot up to one in eight. He
+let the car run back a few feet and caught her deftly on the brake,
+repeating the performance cup and ball fashion. It was like being daped
+above the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft held
+his breath.
+
+"It ain't fair! It ain't fair!" our guest moaned. "You're makin' me sick."
+
+"What an ungrateful blighter he is!" said Pyecroft. "Money couldn't buy
+you a run like this ... Do it well overboard!"
+
+"We'll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I think,"
+said Kysh. "There's a bit of good going hereabouts."
+
+He flung a careless knee over the low raking tiller that the ordinary
+expert puts under his armpit, and down four miles of yellow road, cut
+through barren waste, the Octopod sang like a six-inch shell.
+
+"Whew! But you know your job," said Hinchcliffe. "You're wasted here. I'd
+give something to have you in my engine-room."
+
+"He's steering with 'is little hind-legs," said Pyecroft. "Stand up and
+look at him, Robert. You'll never see such a sight again!"
+
+"Nor don't want to," was our guest's reply. "Five 'undred pounds wouldn't
+begin to cover 'is fines even since I've been with him."
+
+Park Row is reached by one hill which drops three hundred feet in half a
+mile. Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but the
+manner in which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my few
+remaining hairs much nearer the grave.
+
+"We're in Surrey now; better look out," I said.
+
+"Never mind. I'll roll her into Kent for a bit. We've lots of time; it's
+only three o'clock."
+
+"Won't you want to fill your bunkers, or take water, or oil her up?" said
+Hinchcliffe.
+
+"We don't use water, and she's good for two hundred on one tank o' petrol
+if she doesn't break down."
+
+"Two hundred miles from 'ome and mother _and_ faithful Fido to-night,
+Robert," said Pyecroft, slapping our guest on the knee. "Cheer up! Why,
+I've known a destroyer do less."
+
+We passed with some decency through some towns, till by way of the
+Hastings road we whirled into Cramberhurst, which is a deep pit.
+
+"Now," said Kysh, "we begin."
+
+"Previous service not reckoned towards pension," said Pyecroft. "We are
+doin' you lavish, Robert."
+
+"But when's this silly game to finish, any'ow?" our guest snarled.
+
+"Don't worry about the _when_ of it, Robert. The _where's_ the interestin'
+point for you just now."
+
+I had seen Kysh drive before, and I thought I knew the Octopod, but that
+afternoon he and she were exalted beyond my knowledge. He improvised on
+the keys--the snapping levers and quivering accelerators--marvellous
+variations, so that our progress was sometimes a fugue and sometimes a
+barn-dance, varied on open greens by the weaving of fairy rings. When I
+protested, all that he would say was: "I'll hypnotise the fowl! I'll
+dazzle the rooster!" or other words equally futile. And she--oh! that I
+could do her justice!--she turned her broad black bows to the westering
+light, and lifted us high upon hills that we might see and rejoice with
+her. She whooped into veiled hollows of elm and Sussex oak; she devoured
+infinite perspectives of park palings; she surged through forgotten
+hamlets, whose single streets gave back, reduplicated, the clatter of her
+exhaust, and, tireless, she repeated the motions. Over naked uplands she
+droned like a homing bee, her shadow lengthening in the sun that she
+chased to his lair. She nosed up unparochial byways and accommodation-
+roads of the least accommodation, and put old scarred turf or new-raised
+molehills under her most marvellous springs with never a jar. And since
+the King's highway is used for every purpose save traffic, in mid-career
+she stepped aside for, or flung amazing loops about, the brainless driver,
+the driverless horse, the drunken carrier, the engaged couple, the female
+student of the bicycle and her staggering instructor, the pig, the
+perambulator, and the infant school (where it disembogued yelping on
+cross-roads), with the grace of Nellie Farren (upon whom be the Peace) and
+the lithe abandon of all the Vokes family. But at heart she was ever Judic
+as I remember that Judic long ago--Judic clad in bourgeois black from
+wrist to ankle, achieving incredible improprieties.
+
+We were silent--Hinchcliffe and Pyecroft through professional
+appreciation; I with a layman's delight in the expert; and our guest
+because of fear.
+
+At the edge of the evening she smelt the sea to southward and sheered
+thither like the strong-winged albatross, to circle enormously amid green
+flats fringed by martello towers.
+
+"Ain't that Eastbourne yonder?" said our guest, reviving. "I've a aunt
+there--she's cook to a J.P.--could identify me."
+
+"Don't worry her for a little thing like that," said Pyecroft; and ere he
+had ceased to praise family love, our unpaid judiciary, and domestic
+service, the Downs rose between us and the sea, and the Long Man of
+Hillingdon lay out upon the turf.
+
+"Trevington--up yonder--is a fairly isolated little dorp," I said, for I
+was beginning to feel hungry.
+
+"No," said Kysh. "He'd get a lift to the railway in no time.... Besides,
+I'm enjoying myself.... Three pounds eighteen and sixpence. Infernal
+swindle!"
+
+I take it one of his more recent fines was rankling in Kysh's brain; but
+he drove like the Archangel of the Twilight.
+
+About the longitude of Cassocks, Hinchcliffe yawned. "Aren't we goin' to
+maroon our Robert? I'm hungry, too."
+
+"The commodore wants his money back," I answered.
+
+"If he drives like this habitual, there must be a tidyish little lump
+owin' to him," said Pyecroft. "Well, I'm agreeable."
+
+"I didn't know it could be done. S'welp me, I didn't," our guest murmured.
+
+"But you will," said Kysh. And that was the first and last time he
+addressed the man.
+
+We ran through Penfield Green, half stupefied with open air, drugged with
+the relentless boom of the Octopod, and extinct with famine.
+
+"I used to shoot about here," said Kysh, a few miles further on. "Open
+that gate, please," and he slowed as the sun touched the sky-line. At this
+point we left metalled roads and bucked vigorously amid ditches and under
+trees for twenty minutes.
+
+"Only cross-country car on the market," he said, as we wheeled into a
+straw-yard where a lone bull bellowed defiance to our growlings. "Open
+that gate, please. I hope the cattle-bridge will stand up."
+
+"I've took a few risks in my time," said Pyecroft as timbers cracked
+beneath us and we entered between thickets, "but I'm a babe to this man,
+Hinch."
+
+"Don't talk to me. Watch _him!_ It's a liberal education, as Shakespeare
+says. Fallen tree on the port bow, Sir."
+
+"Right! That's my mark. Sit tight!"
+
+She flung up her tail like a sounding whale and buried us in a fifteen-
+foot deep bridle-path buttressed with the exposed roots of enormous
+beeches. The wheels leaped from root to rounded boulder, and it was very
+dark in the shadow of the foliage.
+
+"There ought to be a hammer-pond somewhere about here." Kysh was letting
+her down this chute in brakeful spasms.
+
+"Water dead ahead, Sir. Stack o' brushwood on the starboard beam, and--no
+road," sang Pyecroft.
+
+"Cr-r-ri-key!" said Hinchcliffe, as the car on a wild cant to the left
+went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung the
+pond. "If she only had two propellers, I believe she'd talk poetry. She
+can do everything else."
+
+"We're rather on our port wheels now," said Kysh; "but I don't think
+she'll capsize. This road isn't used much by motors."
+
+"You don't say so," said Pyecroft. "What a pity!"
+
+She bored through a mass of crackling brushwood, and emerged into an
+upward sloping fern-glade fenced with woods so virgin, so untouched, that
+William Rufus might have ridden off as we entered. We climbed out of the
+violet-purple shadows towards the upland where the last of the day
+lingered. I was filled to my moist eyes with the almost sacred beauty of
+sense and association that clad the landscape.
+
+"Does 'unger produce 'alluciations?" said Pyecroft in a whisper. "Because
+I've just seen a sacred ibis walkin' arm in arm with a British cock-
+pheasant."
+
+"What are you panickin' at?" said Hinchcliffe. "I've been seein' zebra
+for the last two minutes, but I 'aven't complained."
+
+He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted zebra (Burchell's, I
+think), following our track with palpitating nostrils. The car stopped,
+and it fled away.
+
+There was a little pond in front of us from which rose a dome of irregular
+sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled beast that sat upon its haunches.
+
+"Is it catching?" said Pyecroft.
+
+"Yes. I'm seeing beaver," I replied.
+
+"It is here!" said Kysh, with the air and gesture of Captain Nemo, and
+half turned.
+
+"No--no--no! For 'Eaven's sake--not 'ere!" Our guest gasped like a sea-
+bathed child, as four efficient hands swung him far out-board on to the
+turf. The car ran back noiselessly down the slope.
+
+"Look! Look! It's sorcery!" cried Hinchcliffe.
+
+There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver dived from the roof of
+his lodge, but we watched our guest. He was on his knees, praying to
+kangaroos. Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos--gigantic,
+erect, silhouetted against the light--four buck-kangaroos in the heart of
+Sussex!
+
+And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our hind-wheels struck
+well-rolled gravel, leading us to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour
+later, the "Grapnel Inn" at Horsham.
+
+*        *        *        *        *
+
+After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings in honour
+of Kysh, who received our homage graciously, and, by the way, explained a
+few things in the natural history line that had puzzled us. England is a
+most marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows the eccentricities
+of large land-owners, trained to accept kangaroos, zebras, or beavers as
+part of its landscape.
+
+When we went to bed Pyecroft pressed my hand, his voice thick with
+emotion.
+
+"We owe it to you," he said. "We owe it all to you. Didn't I say we never
+met in _pup-pup-puris naturalibus_, if I may so put it, without a
+remarkably hectic day ahead of us?"
+
+"That's all right," I said. "Mind the candle." He was tracing smoke-
+patterns on the wall.
+
+"But what I want to know is whether we'll succeed in acclimatisin' the
+blighter, or whether Sir William Gardner's keepers 'll kill 'im before 'e
+gets accustomed to 'is surroundin's?"
+
+Some day, I think, we must go up the Linghurst Road and find out.
+
+
+
+
+"WIRELESS"
+
+
+KASPAR'S SONG IN VARDA
+
+(_From the Swedish of Stagnelius_.)
+
+  Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
+    The children follow where Psyche flies,
+  And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
+    Slash with a net at the empty skies.
+
+  So it goes they fall amid brambles,
+    And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
+  Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles
+    They wipe their brows, and the hunting stops.
+
+  Then to quiet them comes their father
+    And stills the riot of pain and grief,
+  Saying, "Little ones, go and gather
+    Out of my garden a cabbage leaf.
+
+  "You will find on it whorls and clots of
+    Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
+  Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
+    Radiant Psyches raised from the dead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"
+    The three-dimensioned preacher saith,
+  So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie
+    For Psyche's birth ... And that is our death!
+
+
+"WIRELESS"
+"It's a funny thing, this Marconi business, isn't it?" said Mr. Shaynor,
+coughing heavily. "Nothing seems to make any difference, by what they tell
+me--storms, hills, or anything; but if that's true we shall know before
+morning."
+
+"Of course it's true," I answered, stepping behind the counter. "Where's
+old Mr. Cashell?"
+
+"He's had to go to bed on account of his influenza. He said you'd very
+likely drop in."
+
+"Where's his nephew?"
+
+"Inside, getting the things ready. He told me that the last time they
+experimented they put the pole on the roof of one of the big hotels here,
+and the batteries electrified all the water-supply, and"--he giggled--"the
+ladies got shocks when they took their baths."
+
+"I never heard of that."
+
+"The hotel wouldn't exactly advertise it, would it? Just now, by what Mr.
+Cashell tells me, they're trying to signal from here to Poole, and they're
+using stronger batteries than ever. But, you see, he being the guvnor's
+nephew and all that (and it will be in the papers too), it doesn't matter
+how they electrify things in this house. Are you going to watch?"
+
+"Very much. I've never seen this game. Aren't you going to bed?"
+
+"We don't close till ten on Saturdays. There's a good deal of influenza in
+town, too, and there'll be a dozen prescriptions coming in before morning.
+I generally sleep in the chair here. It's warmer than jumping out of bed
+every time. Bitter cold, isn't it?"
+
+"Freezing hard. I'm sorry your cough's worse."
+
+"Thank you. I don't mind cold so much. It's this wind that fair cuts me to
+pieces." He coughed again hard and hackingly, as an old lady came in for
+ammoniated quinine. "We've just run out of it in bottles, madam," said Mr.
+Shaynor, returning to the professional tone, "but if you will wait two
+minutes, I'll make it up for you, madam."
+
+I had used the shop for some time, and my acquaintance with the proprietor
+had ripened into friendship. It was Mr. Cashell who revealed to me the
+purpose and power of Apothecaries' Hall what time a fellow-chemist had
+made an error in a prescription of mine, had lied to cover his sloth, and
+when error and lie were brought home to him had written vain letters.
+
+"A disgrace to our profession," said the thin, mild-eyed man, hotly, after
+studying the evidence. "You couldn't do a better service to the profession
+than report him to Apothecaries' Hall."
+
+I did so, not knowing what djinns I should evoke; and the result was such
+an apology as one might make who had spent a night on the rack. I
+conceived great respect for Apothecaries' Hall, and esteem for Mr.
+Cashell, a zealous craftsman who magnified his calling. Until Mr. Shaynor
+came down from the North his assistants had by no means agreed with Mr.
+Cashell. "They forget," said he, "that, first and foremost, the compounder
+is a medicine-man. On him depends the physician's reputation. He holds it
+literally in the hollow of his hand, Sir."
+
+Mr. Shaynor's manners had not, perhaps, the polish of the grocery and
+Italian warehouse next door, but he knew and loved his dispensary work in
+every detail. For relaxation he seemed to go no farther afield than the
+romance of drugs--their discovery, preparation packing, and export--but it
+led him to the ends of the earth, and on this subject, and the
+Pharmaceutical Formulary, and Nicholas Culpepper, most confident of
+physicians, we met.
+
+Little by little I grew to know something of his beginnings and his hopes
+--of his mother, who had been a school-teacher in one of the northern
+counties, and of his red-headed father, a small job-master at Kirby Moors,
+who died when he was a child; of the examinations he had passed and of
+their exceeding and increasing difficulty; of his dreams of a shop in
+London; of his hate for the price-cutting Co-operative stores; and, most
+interesting, of his mental attitude towards customers.
+
+"There's a way you get into," he told me, "of serving them carefully, and
+I hope, politely, without stopping your own thinking. I've been reading
+Christie's _New Commercial Plants_ all this autumn, and that needs keeping
+your mind on it, I can tell you. So long as it isn't a prescription, of
+course, I can carry as much as half a page of Christie in my head, and at
+the same time I could sell out all that window twice over, and not a penny
+wrong at the end. As to prescriptions, I think I could make up the general
+run of 'em in my sleep, almost."
+
+For reasons of my own, I was deeply interested in Marconi experiments at
+their outset in England; and it was of a piece with Mr. Cashell's
+unvarying thoughtfulness that, when his nephew the electrician
+appropriated the house for a long-range installation, he should, as I have
+said, invite me to see the result.
+
+The old lady went away with her medicine, and Mr. Shaynor and I stamped on
+the tiled floor behind the counter to keep ourselves warm. The shop, by
+the light of the many electrics, looked like a Paris-diamond mine, for Mr.
+Cashell believed in all the ritual of his craft. Three superb glass jars--
+red, green, and blue--of the sort that led Rosamund to parting with her
+shoes--blazed in the broad plate-glass windows, and there was a confused
+smell of orris, Kodak films, vulcanite, tooth-powder, sachets, and almond-
+cream in the air. Mr. Shaynor fed the dispensary stove, and we sucked
+cayenne-pepper jujubes and menthol lozenges. The brutal east wind had
+cleared the streets, and the few passers-by were muffled to their puckered
+eyes. In the Italian warehouse next door some gay feathered birds and
+game, hung upon hooks, sagged to the wind across the left edge of our
+window-frame.
+
+"They ought to take these poultry in--all knocked about like that," said
+Mr. Shaynor. "Doesn't it make you feel fair perishing? See that old hare!
+The wind's nearly blowing the fur off him."
+
+I saw the belly-fur of the dead beast blown apart in ridges and streaks as
+the wind caught it, showing bluish skin underneath. "Bitter cold," said
+Mr. Shaynor, shuddering. "Fancy going out on a night like this! Oh, here's
+young Mr. Cashell."
+
+The door of the inner office behind the dispensary opened, and an
+energetic, spade-bearded man stepped forth, rubbing his hands.
+
+"I want a bit of tin-foil, Shaynor," he said. "Good-evening. My uncle told
+me you might be coming." This to me, as I began the first of a hundred
+questions.
+
+"I've everything in order," he replied. "We're only waiting until Poole
+calls us up. Excuse me a minute. You can come in whenever you like--but
+I'd better be with the instruments. Give me that tin-foil. Thanks."
+
+While we were talking, a girl--evidently no customer--had come into the
+shop, and the face and bearing of Mr. Shaynor changed. She leaned
+confidently across the counter.
+
+"But I can't," I heard him whisper uneasily--the flush on his cheek was
+dull red, and his eyes shone like a drugged moth's. "I can't. I tell you
+I'm alone in the place."
+
+"No, you aren't. Who's _that_? Let him look after it for half an hour. A
+brisk walk will do you good. Ah, come now, John."
+
+"But he isn't----"
+
+"I don't care. I want you to; we'll only go round by St. Agnes. If you
+don't----"
+
+He crossed to where I stood in the shadow of the dispensary counter, and
+began some sort of broken apology about a lady-friend.
+
+"Yes," she interrupted. "You take the shop for half an hour--to oblige
+_me_, won't you?"
+
+She had a singularly rich and promising voice that well matched her
+outline.
+
+"All right," I said. "I'll do it--but you'd better wrap yourself up, Mr.
+Shaynor."
+
+"Oh, a brisk walk ought to help me. We're only going round by the church."
+I heard him cough grievously as they went out together.
+
+I refilled the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell's
+coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the glass-
+knobbed drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting drugs,
+and, by the aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and
+dilute alcohol, manufactured a new and wildish drink, of which I bore a
+glassful to young Mr. Cashell, busy in the back office. He laughed shortly
+when I told him that Mr. Shaynor had stepped out--but a frail coil of wire
+held all his attention, and he had no word for me bewildered among the
+batteries and rods. The noise of the sea on the beach began to make itself
+heard as the traffic in the street ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly,
+he gave me the names and uses of the mechanism that crowded the tables and
+the floor.
+
+"When do you expect to get the message from Poole?" I demanded, sipping my
+liquor out of a graduated glass.
+
+"About midnight, if everything is in order. We've got our installation-
+pole fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn't advise you to turn on a
+tap or anything tonight. We've connected up with the plumbing, and all the
+water will be electrified." He repeated to me the history of the agitated
+ladies at the hotel at the time of the first installation.
+
+"But what _is_ it?" I asked. "Electricity is out of my beat altogether."
+
+"Ah, if you knew _that_ you'd know something nobody knows. It's just It--
+what we call Electricity, but the magic--the manifestations--the Hertzian
+waves--are all revealed by _this_. The coherer, we call it."
+
+He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in which,
+almost touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an
+infinitesimal pinch of metallic dust. "That's all," he said, proudly, as
+though himself responsible for the wonder. "That is the thing that will
+reveal to us the Powers--whatever the Powers may be--at work--through
+space--a long distance away."
+
+Just then Mr. Shaynor returned alone and stood coughing his heart out on
+the mat.
+
+"Serves you right for being such a fool," said young Mr. Cashell, as
+annoyed as myself at the interruption. "Never mind--we've all the night
+before us to see wonders."
+
+Shaynor clutched the counter, his handkerchief to his lips. When he
+brought it away I saw two bright red stains.
+
+"I--I've got a bit of a rasped throat from smoking cigarettes," he panted.
+"I think I'll try a cubeb."
+
+"Better take some of this. I've been compounding while you've been away."
+I handed him the brew.
+
+"'Twon't make me drunk, will it? I'm almost a teetotaller. My word! That's
+grateful and comforting."
+
+He sat down the empty glass to cough afresh.
+
+"Brr! But it was cold out there! I shouldn't care to be lying in my grave
+a night like this. Don't _you_ ever have a sore throat from smoking?" He
+pocketed the handkerchief after a furtive peep.
+
+"Oh, yes, sometimes," I replied, wondering, while I spoke, into what
+agonies of terror I should fall if ever I saw those bright-red danger-
+signals under my nose. Young Mr. Cashell among the batteries coughed
+slightly to show that he was quite ready to continue his scientific
+explanations, but I was thinking still of the girl with the rich voice and
+the significantly cut mouth, at whose command I had taken charge of the
+shop. It flashed across me that she distantly resembled the seductive
+shape on a gold-framed toilet-water advertisement whose charms were
+unholily heightened by the glare from the red bottle in the window.
+Turning to make sure, I saw Mr. Shaynor's eyes bent in the same direction,
+and by instinct recognised that the flamboyant thing was to him a shrine.
+"What do you take for your--cough?" I asked.
+
+"Well, I'm the wrong side of the counter to believe much in patent
+medicines. But there are asthma cigarettes and there are pastilles. To
+tell you the truth, if you don't object to the smell, which is very like
+incense, I believe, though I'm not a Roman Catholic, Blaudett's Cathedral
+Pastilles relieve me as much as anything."
+
+"Let's try." I had never raided a chemist's shop before, so I was
+thorough. We unearthed the pastilles--brown, gummy cones of benzoin--and
+set them alight under the toilet-water advertisement, where they fumed in
+thin blue spirals.
+
+"Of course," said Mr. Shaynor, to my question, "what one uses in the shop
+for one's self comes out of one's pocket. Why, stock-taking in our
+business is nearly the same as with jewellers--and I can't say more than
+that. But one gets them"--he pointed to the pastille-box--"at trade
+prices." Evidently the censing of the gay, seven-tinted wench with the
+teeth was an established ritual which cost something.
+
+"And when do we shut up shop?"
+
+"We stay like this all night. The gov--old Mr. Cashell--doesn't believe
+in locks and shutters as compared with electric light. Besides it brings
+trade. I'll just sit here in the chair by the stove and write a letter,
+if you don't mind. Electricity isn't my prescription."
+
+The energetic young Mr. Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled
+himself up in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black, and
+yellow Austrian jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast about,
+amid patent medicine pamphlets, for something to read, but finding little,
+returned to the manufacture of the new drink. The Italian warehouse took
+down its game and went to bed. Across the street blank shutters flung back
+the gaslight in cold smears; the dried pavement seemed to rough up in
+goose-flesh under the scouring of the savage wind, and we could hear, long
+ere he passed, the policeman flapping his arms to keep himself warm.
+Within, the flavours of cardamoms and chloric-ether disputed those of the
+pastilles and a score of drugs and perfume and soap scents. Our electric
+lights, set low down in the windows before the tunbellied Rosamund jars,
+flung inward three monstrous daubs of red, blue, and green, that broke
+into kaleidoscopic lights on the facetted knobs of the drug-drawers, the
+cut-glass scent flagons, and the bulbs of the sparklet bottles. They
+flushed the white-tiled floor in gorgeous patches; splashed along the
+nickel-silver counter-rails, and turned the polished mahogany counter-
+panels to the likeness of intricate grained marbles--slabs of porphyry and
+malachite. Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and ere he began to write, took
+out a meagre bundle of letters. From my place by the stove, I could see
+the scalloped edges of the paper with a flaring monogram in the corner and
+could even smell the reek of chypre. At each page he turned toward the
+toilet-water lady of the advertisement and devoured her with over-luminous
+eyes. He had drawn the Austrian blanket over his shoulders, and among
+those warring lights he looked more than ever the incarnation of a drugged
+moth--a tiger-moth as I thought.
+
+He put his letter into an envelope, stamped it with stiff mechanical
+movements, and dropped it in the drawer. Then I became aware of the
+silence of a great city asleep--the silence that underlaid the even voice
+of the breakers along the sea-front--a thick, tingling quiet of warm life
+stilled down for its appointed time, and unconsciously I moved about the
+glittering shop as one moves in a sick-room. Young Mr. Cashell was
+adjusting some wire that crackled from time to time with the tense,
+knuckle-stretching sound of the electric spark. Upstairs, where a door
+shut and opened swiftly, I could hear his uncle coughing abed.
+
+"Here," I said, when the drink was properly warmed, "take some of this,
+Mr. Shaynor."
+
+He jerked in his chair with a start and a wrench, and held out his hand
+for the glass. The mixture, of a rich port-wine colour, frothed at the
+top.
+
+"It looks," he said, suddenly, "it looks--those bubbles--like a string of
+pearls winking at you--rather like the pearls round that young lady's
+neck." He turned again to the advertisement where the female in the dove-
+coloured corset had seen fit to put on all her pearls before she cleaned
+her teeth.
+
+"Not bad, is it?" I said.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+He rolled his eyes heavily full on me, and, as I stared, I beheld all
+meaning and consciousness die out of the swiftly dilating pupils. His
+figure lost its stark rigidity, softened into the chair, and, chin on
+chest, hands dropped before him, he rested open-eyed, absolutely still.
+
+"I'm afraid I've rather cooked Shaynor's goose," I said, bearing the fresh
+drink to young Mr. Cashell. "Perhaps it was the chloric-ether."
+
+"Oh, he's all right." The spade-bearded man glanced at him pityingly.
+"Consumptives go off in those sort of doses very often. It's exhaustion...
+I don't wonder. I dare say the liquor will do him good. It's grand stuff,"
+he finished his share appreciatively. "Well, as I was saying--before he
+interrupted--about this little coherer. The pinch of dust, you see, is
+nickel-filings. The Hertzian waves, you see, come out of space from the
+station that despatches 'em, and all these little particles are attracted
+together--cohere, we call it--for just so long as the current passes
+through them. Now, it's important to remember that the current is an
+induced current. There are a good many kinds of induction----"
+
+"Yes, but what _is_ induction?"
+
+"That's rather hard to explain untechnically. But the long and the short
+of it is that when a current of electricity passes through a wire there's
+a lot of magnetism present round that wire; and if you put another wire
+parallel to, and within what we call its magnetic field--why then, the
+second wire will also become charged with electricity."
+
+"On its own account?"
+
+"On its own account."
+
+"Then let's see if I've got it correctly. Miles off, at Poole, or wherever
+it is----"
+
+"It will be anywhere in ten years."
+
+"You've got a charged wire----"
+
+"Charged with Hertzian waves which vibrate, say, two hundred and thirty
+million times a second." Mr. Cashell snaked his forefinger rapidly through
+the air.
+
+"All right--a charged wire at Poole, giving out these waves into space.
+Then this wire of yours sticking out into space--on the roof of the house
+--in some mysterious way gets charged with those waves from Poole----"
+
+"Or anywhere--it only happens to be Poole tonight."
+
+"And those waves set the coherer at work, just like an ordinary telegraph-
+office ticker?"
+
+"No! That's where so many people make the mistake. The Hertzian waves
+wouldn't be strong enough to work a great heavy Morse instrument like
+ours. They can only just make that dust cohere, and while it coheres (a
+little while for a dot and a longer while for a dash) the current from
+this battery--the home battery"--he laid his hand on the thing--"can get
+through to the Morse printing-machine to record the dot or dash. Let me
+make it clearer. Do you know anything about steam?"
+
+"Very little. But go on."
+
+"Well, the coherer is like a steam-valve. Any child can open a valve and
+start a steamer's engines, because a turn of the hand lets in the main
+steam, doesn't it? Now, this home battery here ready to print is the main
+steam. The coherer is the valve, always ready to be turned on. The
+Hertzian wave is the child's hand that turns it."
+
+"I see. That's marvellous."
+
+"Marvellous, isn't it? And, remember, we're only at the beginning. There's
+nothing we sha'n't be able to do in ten years. I want to live--my God, how
+I want to live, and see it develop!" He looked through the door at Shaynor
+breathing lightly in his chair. "Poor beast! And he wants to keep company
+with Fanny Brand."
+
+"Fanny _who_?" I said, for the name struck an obscurely familiar chord in
+my brain--something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the word
+"arterial."
+
+"Fanny Brand--the girl you kept shop for." He laughed, "That's all I know
+about her, and for the life of me I can't see what Shaynor sees in her, or
+she in him."
+
+"_Can't_ you see what he sees in her?" I insisted.
+
+"Oh, yes, if _that's_ what you mean. She's a great, big, fat lump of a
+girl, and so on. I suppose that's why he's so crazy after her. She isn't
+his sort. Well, it doesn't matter. My uncle says he's bound to die before
+the year's out. Your drink's given him a good sleep, at any rate." Young
+Mr. Cashell could not catch Mr. Shaynor's face, which was half turned to
+the advertisement.
+
+I stoked the stove anew, for the room was growing cold, and lighted
+another pastille. Mr. Shaynor in his chair, never moving, looked through
+and over me with eyes as wide and lustreless as those of a dead hare.
+
+"Poole's late," said young Mr. Cashell, when I stepped back. "I'll just
+send them a call."
+
+He pressed a key in the semi-darkness, and with a rending crackle there
+leaped between two brass knobs a spark, streams of sparks, and sparks
+again.
+
+"Grand, isn't it? _That's_ the Power--our unknown Power--kicking and
+fighting to be let loose," said young Mr. Cashell. "There she goes--kick--
+kick--kick into space. I never get over the strangeness of it when I work
+a sending-machine--waves going into space, you know. T.R. is our call.
+Poole ought to answer with L.L.L."
+
+We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom of
+the tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear "_kiss--kiss--kiss_" of
+the halliards on the roof, as they were blown against the installation-
+pole.
+
+"Poole is not ready. I'll stay here and call you when he is."
+
+I returned to the shop, and set down my glass on a marble slab with a
+careless clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed once
+more on the advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the light from
+the red jar simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved without
+cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. "And threw--and threw--and threw,"
+he repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
+
+I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words--delivered
+roundly and clearly. These:--
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
+
+The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his
+place, rubbing his hands.
+
+It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading
+and prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read Keats,
+or could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a certain
+stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the highly-polished
+picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a vile chromo
+recalls some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken. Night, my drink,
+and solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a poet. He sat down
+again and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper, his lips quivering.
+
+I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made no
+sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read, amid
+half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:--
+
+  --Very cold it was. Very cold
+  The hare--the hare--the hare--
+  The birds----
+
+He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of the
+poulterer's shop where they jutted out against our window. Then one clear
+line came:--
+
+  The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.
+
+The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where
+the Blaudett's Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and went
+on:--
+
+  Incense in a censer--
+  Before her darling picture framed in gold--
+  Maiden's picture--angel's portrait--
+
+"Hsh!" said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though in the
+presence of spirits. "There's something coming through from somewhere; but
+it isn't Poole." I heard the crackle of sparks as he depressed the keys of
+the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something crackled, or it might
+have been the hair on my head. Then I heard my own voice, in a harsh
+whisper: "Mr. Cashell, there is something coming through here, too. Leave
+me alone till I tell you."
+
+"But I thought you'd come to see this wonderful thing--Sir," indignantly
+at the end.
+
+"Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet."
+
+I watched--I waited. Under the blue-veined hand--the dry hand of the
+consumptive--came away clear, without erasure:
+
+And my weak spirit fails To think how the dead must freeze--
+he shivered as he wrote--
+
+Beneath the churchyard mould.
+
+Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.
+
+For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
+rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most
+dispassionately considered my own soul as that fought with an over-
+mastering fear. Then I smelt the strong smell of cigarettes from Mr.
+Shaynor's clothing, and heard, as though it had been the rending of
+trumpets, the rattle of his breathing. I was still in my place of
+observation, much as one would watch a rifle-shot at the butts, half-bent,
+hands on my knees, and head within a few inches of the black, red, and
+yellow blanket of his shoulder. I was whispering encouragement, evidently
+to my other self, sounding sentences, such as men pronounce in dreams.
+
+"If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn't--like causes _must_
+beget like effects. There is no escape from this law. _You_ ought to be
+grateful that you know 'St. Agnes Eve' without the book; because, given
+the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is the key of the enigma, and
+approximately represents the latitude and longitude of Fanny Brawne;
+allowing also for the bright red colour of the arterial blood upon the
+handkerchief, which was just what you were puzzling over in the shop just
+now; and counting the effect of the professional environment, here almost
+perfectly duplicated--the result is logical and inevitable. As inevitable
+as induction."
+
+Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was cowering
+in some minute and inadequate corner--at an immense distance.
+
+Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my
+knees, and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers
+accept and explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of the
+dead, with excerpts from the evening hymn or the multiplication-table, so
+I had accepted the facts, whatever they might be, that I should witness,
+and had devised a theory, sane and plausible to my mind, that explained
+them all. Nay, I was even in advance of my facts, walking hurriedly before
+them, assured that they would fit my theory. And all that I now recall of
+that epoch-making theory are the lofty words: "If he has read Keats it's
+the chloric-ether. If he hasn't, it's the identical bacillus, or Hertzian
+wave of tuberculosis, _plus_ Fanny Brand and the professional status
+which, in conjunction with the main-stream of subconscious thought common
+to all mankind, has thrown up temporarily an induced Keats."
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with
+swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote,
+muttering:
+
+The little smoke of a candle that goes out.
+
+"No," he muttered. "Little smoke--little smoke--little smoke. What else?"
+He thrust his chin forward toward the advertisement, whereunder the last
+of the Blaudett's Cathedral pastilles fumed in its holder. "Ah!" Then with
+relief:--
+
+The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.
+
+Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote and
+rewrote "gold--cold--mould" many times. Again he sought inspiration from
+the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had
+overheard:
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
+
+As I remembered the original it is "fair"--a trite word--instead of
+"young," and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that the
+attempt to reproduce "its little smoke in pallid moonlight died" was a
+failure.
+
+Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose--the naked
+soul's confession of its physical yearning for its beloved--unclean as we
+count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw material,
+so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence Keats wove the
+twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem. Shame I had none in
+overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone with the smoke of the
+pastille.
+
+"That's it," I murmured. "That's how it's blocked out. Go on! Ink it in,
+man. Ink it in!"
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein "loveliness" was made to
+rhyme with a desire to look upon "her empty dress." He picked up a fold of
+the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with infinite
+tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I could not
+decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped the stuff.
+Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I do now) in
+what manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket coloured his dreams.
+
+In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the
+shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket,
+rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the
+labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie's _New Commercial
+Plants_ and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them
+side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face,
+read first in one and then in the other, and paused with pen behind his
+ear.
+
+"What wonder of Heaven's coming now?" I thought.
+
+"Manna--manna--manna," he said at last, under wrinkled brows. "That's what
+I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that's good!"
+His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:--
+
+  Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
+  And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
+  And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,
+  Manna and dates in Argosy transferred
+  From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
+  From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
+
+He repeated it once more, using "blander" for "smoother" in the second
+line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes
+missed no stroke of any word) he substituted "soother" for his atrocious
+second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is written in
+the book--as it is written in the book.
+
+A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind
+followed a spurt and rattle of rain.
+
+After a smiling pause--and good right had he to smile--he began anew,
+always tossing the last sheet over his shoulder:--
+
+  "The sharp rain falling on the window-pane,
+  Rattling sleet--the wind-blown sleet."
+
+Then prose: "It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and
+sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and thought
+of you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we could both run
+away like two lovers into the storm and get that little cottage by the
+sea which we are always thinking about, my own dear darling. We could sit
+and watch the sea beneath our windows. It would be a fairyland all of our
+own--a fairy sea--a fairy sea...."
+
+He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the
+Channel along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up a
+note to the sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to
+flood. It beat in like the change of step throughout an army--this
+renewed pulse of the sea--and filled our ears till they, accepting it,
+marked it no longer.
+
+  "A fairyland for you and me
+  Across the foam--beyond ...
+  A magic foam, a perilous sea."
+
+He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but I
+dared not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was
+drawing him nearer and nearer to the high-water mark but two of the sons
+of Adam have reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted there
+are no more than five--five little lines--of which one can say: "These
+are the pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry."
+And Mr. Shaynor was playing hot and cold with two of them!
+
+I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold
+soul, and pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and
+re-repeating:
+
+  A savage spot as holy and enchanted
+  As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
+  By woman wailing for her demon lover.
+
+But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon
+the writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals
+and cigarette-smoke.
+
+  Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,
+
+(he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then--
+
+  "Our open casements facing desolate seas
+  Forlorn--forlorn--"
+
+Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I had
+first seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was
+tenfold keener. As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It
+lighted his face from within till I thought the visibly scourged soul
+must leap forth naked between his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of sweat
+trickled from my forehead down my nose and splashed on the back of my
+hand.
+
+  "Our windows facing on the desolate seas
+  And pearly foam of magic fairyland--"
+
+  "Not yet--not yet," he muttered, "wait a minute.
+  _Please_ wait a minute. I shall get it then--"
+
+  Our magic windows fronting on the sea,
+  The dangerous foam of desolate seas ..
+  For aye.
+
+"_Ouh_, my God!"
+
+From head to heel he shook--shook from the marrow of his bones
+outwards--then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair
+screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind and
+fell with a jar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.
+
+As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.
+
+"I've had a bit of a doze," he said. "How did I come to knock the chair
+over? You look rather--"
+
+"The chair startled me," I answered. "It was so sudden in this quiet."
+
+Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.
+
+"I suppose I must have been dreaming," said Mr. Shaynor.
+
+"I suppose you must," I said. "Talking of dreams--I--I noticed you
+writing--before--"
+
+He flushed consciously.
+
+"I meant to ask you if you've ever read anything written by a man called
+Keats."
+
+"Oh! I haven't much time to read poetry, and I can't say that I remember
+the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?"
+
+"Middling. I thought you might know him because he's the only poet who
+was ever a druggist. And he's rather what's called the lover's poet."
+
+"Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?"
+
+"A lot of things. Here's a sample that may interest you."
+
+Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and
+once written not ten minutes ago.
+
+"Ah. Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the
+tinctures and syrups. It's a fine tribute to our profession."
+
+"I don't know," said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening the
+door one half-inch, "if you still happen to be interested in our trifling
+experiments. But, should such be the case----"
+
+I drew him aside, whispering, "Shaynor seemed going off into some sort of
+fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of being
+rude, it wouldn't do to take you off your instruments just as the call
+was coming through. Don't you see?"
+
+"Granted--granted as soon as asked," he said unbending. "I _did_ think it
+a shade odd at the time. So that was why he knocked the chair down?"
+
+"I hope I haven't missed anything," I said.
+"I'm afraid I can't say that, but you're just in time for the end of a
+rather curious performance. You can come in, too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen,
+while I read it off."
+
+The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted:
+"'_K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals_.'" A pause. "'_M.M.V. M.M.V.
+Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sandown Bay. Examine instruments
+to-morrow.'_ Do you know what that means? It's a couple of men-o'-war
+working Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight. They are trying to talk to
+each other. Neither can read the other's messages, but all their messages
+are being taken in by our receiver here. They've been going on for ever so
+long. I wish you could have heard it."
+
+"How wonderful!" I said. "Do you mean we're overhearing Portsmouth ships
+trying to talk to each other--that we're eavesdropping across half South
+England?"
+
+"Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are out
+of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing clear."
+
+"Why is that?"
+
+"God knows--and Science will know to-morrow. Perhaps the induction is
+faulty; perhaps the receivers aren't tuned to receive just the number of
+vibrations per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here and
+there. Just enough to tantalise."
+
+Again the Morse sprang to life.
+
+"That's one of 'em complaining now. Listen: '_Disheartening--most
+disheartening_.' It's quite pathetic. Have you ever seen a spiritualistic
+seance? It reminds me of that sometimes--odds and ends of messages coming
+out of nowhere--a word here and there--no good at all."
+
+"But mediums are all impostors," said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway,
+lighting an asthma-cigarette. "They only do it for the money they can
+make. I've seen 'em."
+
+"Here's Poole, at last--clear as a bell. L.L.L. _Now_ we sha'n't be long."
+Mr. Cashell rattled the keys merrily. "Anything you'd like to tell 'em?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," I said. "I'll go home and get to bed. I'm feeling
+a little tired."
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+SONG OF THE OLD GUARD
+
+"And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work shall the
+candlestick be made: his shaft and its branches, his bowls, his knops,
+and his flowers, shall be the same.
+
+"And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop
+under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the
+same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick.
+Their knops and their branches shall be the same."--_Exodus._
+
+  "Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
+    And all the clouds are gone--
+  The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
+    Good times are coming on"--
+  The evil that was threatened late
+    To all of our degree,
+  Hath passed in discord and debate,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  A common people strove in vain
+    To shame us unto toil,
+  But they are spent and we remain,
+    And we shall share the spoil
+  According to our several needs
+    As Beauty shall decree,
+  As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  And they that with accursed zeal
+    Our Service would amend,
+  Shall own the odds and come to heel
+    Ere worse befall their end
+  For though no naked word be wrote
+    Yet plainly shall they see
+  What pinneth Orders to their coat,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Our doorways that, in time of fear,
+    We opened overwide
+  Shall softly close from year to year
+    Till all be purified;
+  For though no fluttering fan be heard
+    Nor chaff be seen to flee--
+  The Lord shall winnow the Lord's Preferred--
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Our altars which the heathen brake
+    Shall rankly smoke anew,
+  And anise, mint, and cummin take
+    Their dread and sovereign due,
+  Whereby the buttons of our trade
+    Shall all restored be
+  With curious work in gilt and braid,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Then come, my brethren, and prepare
+    The candlesticks and bells,
+  The scarlet, brass, and badger's hair
+    Wherein our Honour dwells,
+  And straitly fence and strictly keep
+    The Ark's integrity
+  Till Armageddon break our sleep ...
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+PART I
+
+I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was entirely natural that I should be talking to "Boy" Bayley. We had
+met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside
+Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount
+Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half
+the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think
+he stayed a long, long time.
+
+But now he had come back.
+
+"Are you still a Tynesider?" I asked.
+
+"I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son," he
+replied.
+
+"Guard which? They've been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don't pull my leg,
+Boy."
+
+"I said Guard, not Guard-s. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters.
+Does that make it any clearer?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren't a step from
+barracks. Keep on my right side. I'm--I'm a bit deaf on the near."
+
+We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied
+pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I could
+see no sentry at the gates.
+
+"There ain't any," said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled
+restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the
+room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.
+
+"Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These
+are our chaps--but what am I thinking of? You must know most of 'em.
+Devine's my second in command now. There's old Luttrell--remember him at
+Cherat?--Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him), Harrison,
+Pigeon, and Kyd."
+
+With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember
+that they had all been Tynesiders.
+
+"I've never seen this sort of place," I said, looking round. "Half the
+men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children
+doing?"
+
+"Eating, I hope," Boy Bayley answered. "Our canteens would never pay if
+it wasn't for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started
+people looked on 'em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or
+two to lunch in 'em, and they've been grossly fashionable since."
+
+"So I see," I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores came
+up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of the
+corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three other
+uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.
+
+"I give it up," I said. "This is guilty splendour that I don't
+understand."
+
+"Quite simple," said Burgard across the table. "The barrack supplies
+breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard (which
+we call I. G.) when it's in barracks as well as to the Line and Militia.
+They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for them. That's
+where we make our profits. Look!"
+
+Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in
+the raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to jest
+with the uniforms about them; and when one o'clock clanged from a big
+half-built block of flats across the street, filed out.
+
+"Those," Devine explained, "are either our Line or Militiamen, as such
+entitled to the regulation whack at regulation cost. It's cheaper than
+they could buy it; an' they meet their friends too. A man'll walk a mile
+in his dinner hour to mess with his own lot."
+
+"Wait a minute," I pleaded. "Will you tell me what those plumbers and
+plasterers and bricklayers that I saw go out just now have to do with
+what I was taught to call the Line?"
+
+"Tell him," said the Boy over his shoulder to Burgard. He was busy
+talking with the large Verschoyle, my old schoolmate.
+
+"The Line comes next to the Guard. The Linesman's generally a town-bird
+who can't afford to be a Volunteer. He has to go into camp in an Area for
+two months his first year, six weeks his second, and a month the third.
+He gets about five bob a week the year round for that and for being on
+duty two days of the week, and for being liable to be ordered out to help
+the Guard in a row. He needn't live in barracks unless he wants to, and
+he and his family can feed at the regimental canteen at usual rates. The
+women like it."
+
+"All this," I said politely, but intensely, "is the raving of delirium.
+Where may your precious recruit who needn't live in barracks learn his
+drill?"
+
+"At his precious school, my child, like the rest of us. The notion of
+allowing a human being to reach his twentieth year before asking him to
+put his feet in the first position _was_ raving lunacy if you like!" Boy
+Bayley dived back into the conversation.
+
+"Very good," I said meekly. "I accept the virtuous plumber who puts in
+two months of his valuable time at Aldershot----"
+
+"Aldershot!" The table exploded. I felt a little annoyed.
+
+"A camp in an Area is not exactly Aldershot," said Burgard. "The Line
+isn't exactly what you fancy. Some of them even come to _us_!"
+
+"You recruit from 'em?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Devine with mock solemnity. "The Guard doesn't
+recruit. It selects."
+
+"It would," I said, "with a Spiers and Pond restaurant; pretty girls to
+play with; and----"
+
+"A room apiece, four bob a day and all found," said Verschoyle. "Don't
+forget that."
+
+"Of course!" I said. "It probably beats off recruits with a club."
+
+"No, with the ballot-box," said Verschoyle, laughing. "At least in all
+R.C. companies."
+
+"I didn't know Roman Catholics were so particular," I ventured.
+
+They grinned. "R.C. companies," said the Boy, "mean Right of Choice. When
+a company has been very good and pious for a long time it may, if the
+C.O. thinks fit, choose its own men--all same one-piecee club. All our
+companies are R.C.'s, and as the battalion is making up a few vacancies
+ere starting once more on the wild and trackless 'heef' into the Areas,
+the Linesman is here in force to-day sucking up to our non-coms."
+
+"Would some one mind explaining to me the meaning of every other word
+you've used," I said. "What's a trackless 'heef'? What's an Area? What's
+everything generally?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, 'heefs' part of the British Constitution," said the Boy. "It began
+long ago when they'd first mapped out the big military manoeuvring
+grounds--we call 'em Areas for short--where the I. G. spend two-thirds of
+their time and the other regiments get their training. It was slang
+originally for beef on the hoof, because in the Military Areas two-thirds
+of your meat-rations at least are handed over to you on the hoof, and you
+make your own arrangements. The word 'heef' became a parable for camping
+in the Military Areas and all its miseries. There are two Areas in
+Ireland, one in Wales for hill-work, a couple in Scotland, and a sort of
+parade-ground in the Lake District; but the real working Areas are in
+India, Africa, and Australia, and so on."
+
+"And what do you do there?"
+
+"We 'heef' under service conditions, which are rather like hard work. We
+'heef' in an English Area for about a year, coming into barracks for one
+month to make up wastage. Then we may 'heef' foreign for another year or
+eighteen months. Then we do sea-time in the war boats----"
+
+"_What-t?_" I said.
+
+"Sea-time," Bayley repeated. "Just like Marines,
+to learn about the big guns and how to embark and disembark quick. Then
+we come back to our territorial headquarters for six months, to educate
+the Line and Volunteer camps, to go to Hythe, to keep abreast of any new
+ideas, and then we fill up vacancies. We call those six months 'Schools,'
+Then we begin all over again, thus: Home 'heef,' foreign 'heef,'
+sea-time, schools. 'Heefing' isn't precisely luxurious, but it's on
+'heef' that we make our head-money."
+
+"Or lose it," said the sallow Pigeon, and all laughed, as men will, at
+regimental jokes.
+
+"The Dove never lets me forget that," said Boy Bayley. "It happened last
+March. We were out in the Second Northern Area at the top end of Scotland
+where a lot of those silly deer forests used to be. I'd sooner 'heef' in
+the middle of Australia myself--or Athabasca, with all respect to the
+Dove--he's a native of those parts. We were camped somewhere near
+Caithness, and the Armity (that's the combined Navy and Army board that
+runs our show) sent us about eight hundred raw remounts to break in to
+keep us warm."
+
+"Why horses for a foot regiment?"
+
+"I.G.'s don't foot it unless they're obliged to. No have gee-gee how can
+move? I'll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we broke those beasts
+in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we started across
+Scotland to Applecross to hand 'em over to a horse-depot there. It was
+snowing cruel, and we didn't know the country overmuch. You remember the
+30th--the old East Lancashire--at Mian Mir?
+
+"Their Guard Battalion had been 'heefing' round those parts for six
+months. We thought they'd be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but Burden,
+their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to Eschol."
+
+"Confound him," said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking. "I
+entertained one of 'em--in a red worsted comforter--under Bean Derig. He
+said he was a crofter. 'Gave him a drink too."
+
+"I don't mind admitting," said the Boy, "that, what with the cold and the
+remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden bottled us under
+Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut off a lot
+of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the dirt."
+
+"Was he allowed to do that?" I said.
+
+"There is no peace in a Military Area. If we'd
+beaten him off or got away without losing anyone, we'd have been entitled
+to a day's pay from every man engaged against us. But we didn't. He cut
+off fifty of ours, held 'em as prisoners for the regulation three days,
+and then sent in his bill--three days' pay for each man taken. Fifty men
+at twelve bob a head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured
+officer, and Kyd here, his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden
+& Co. They crowed over us horrid."
+
+"Couldn't you have appealed to an umpire or--or something?"
+
+"We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and look
+happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr Mohr. I
+spent three days huntin' 'em in the snow, but they went off on our
+remounts about twenty mile that night."
+
+"Do you always do this sham-fight business?" I asked.
+
+"Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that a
+fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week's pay isn't
+so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the long run,
+it's like whist on a P. & O. It comes out fairly level if you play long
+enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present--say, when a Line
+regiment's out on the 'heef,' and signifies that it's ready to abide by
+the rules of the game. You mustn't take head-money from a Line regiment
+in an Area unless it says that it'll play you; but, after a week or two,
+those clever Linesmen always think they see a chance of making a pot, and
+send in their compliments to the nearest I.G. Then the fun begins. We
+caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years ago in
+Ireland--caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had just
+moved in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march in
+fourteen hours, and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to
+ground like a badger--I _will_ say those Line regiments can dig--but we
+got out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to
+get its baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that
+some Sappers had made for experimental purposes (_they_ were rather
+stuffy about it) on its line of retreat, while we lay up in the mountains
+and signalled for the A.C. of those parts."
+
+"Who's an A.C.?" I asked.
+
+"The Adjustment Committee--the umpires of the Military Areas. They're a
+set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the purpose, but they
+occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our dispositions,
+and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and that we were
+entitled to our full pound of flesh--head-money for one whole regiment,
+with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line rates this worked
+out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not bad!"
+
+"But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their patent
+bridge to pieces," Devine interpolated. "That was a swindle."
+
+"That's true," the Boy went on, "but the Adjustment Committee gave our
+helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred to hear."
+
+"But isn't there a lot of unfairness in this head-money system?" I asked.
+
+"Can't have everything perfect," said the Boy. "Head-money is an attempt
+at payment by results, and it gives the men a direct interest in their
+job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C. will disallow both
+sides' claim, but there's always the chance of bringing off a coup."
+
+"Do all regiments do it?"
+
+"Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence, not
+to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It isn't
+supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than anyone.
+Why, the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at Aldershot or
+Salisbury."
+
+"Head-money's a national institution--like betting," said Burgard.
+
+"I should say it was," said Pigeon suddenly. "I was roped in the other
+day as an Adjustment Committee by the Kemptown Board School. I was riding
+under the Brighton racecourse, and I heard the whistle goin' for
+umpire--the regulation, two longs and two shorts. I didn't take any
+notice till an infant about a yard high jumped up from a furze-patch and
+shouted: 'Guard! Guard! Come 'ere! I want you _per_fessionally. Alf says
+'e ain't outflanked. Ain't 'e a liar? Come an' look 'ow I've posted my
+men.' You bet I looked. The young demon trotted by my stirrup and showed
+me his whole army (twenty of 'em) laid out under cover as nicely as you
+please round a cowhouse in a hollow. He kept on shouting: 'I've drew Alf
+into there. 'Is persition ain't tenable. Say it ain't tenable, Guard!' I
+rode round the position, and Alf with his army came out of his cowhouse
+an' sat on the roof and protested like a--like a Militia Colonel; but the
+facts were in favour of my friend and I umpired according. Well, Alf
+abode by my decision. I explained it to him at length, and he solemnly
+paid up his head-money--farthing points if you please."
+
+"Did they pay you umpire's fee?" said Kyd. "I
+umpired a whole afternoon once for a village school at home, and they
+stood me a bottle of hot ginger beer."
+
+"I compromised on a halfpenny--a sticky one--or I'd have hurt their
+feelings," said Pigeon gravely. "But I gave 'em sixpence back."
+
+"How were they manoeuvring and what with?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, by whistle and hand-signal. They had the dummy Board School guns and
+flags for positions, but they were rushing their attack much too quick
+for that open country. I told 'em so, and they admitted it."
+
+"But who taught 'em?" I said.
+
+"They had learned in their schools, of course, like the rest of us. They
+were all of 'em over ten; and squad-drill begins when they're eight. They
+knew their company-drill a heap better than they knew their King's
+English."
+
+"How much drill do the boys put in?" I asked.
+
+"All boys begin physical drill to music in the Board Schools when they're
+six; squad-drill, one hour a week, when they're eight; company-drill when
+they're ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between ten and twelve they
+get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle at twelve and record
+their first target-score at thirteen. That's what the Code lays down. But
+it's worked very loosely so long as a boy comes up to the standard of his
+age."
+
+"In Canada we don't need your physical drill. We're born fit," said
+Pigeon, "and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of your
+twelve-year-olds."
+
+"I may as well explain," said the Boy, "that the Dove is our 'swop'
+officer. He's an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when he's at home. An
+I. G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a Canadian or
+Australian or African Guard Corps. We've had a year of our Dove, an' we
+shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride. Meantime,
+Morten, our 'swop' in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck humble. When
+Pij. goes we shall swop Kyd, who's next on the roster, for a Cornstalk or
+a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can't attend First Camp, as
+we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First Musketry
+certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and the boys
+usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they've been to
+their little private camps and Boys' Fresh Air Camps and public school
+picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the young
+drafts all meet--generally at Aldershot in this part of the world. First
+Camp lasts a week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for
+vaccination and worked lightly in brigades with lots of blank cartridge.
+Second Camp--that's for the fifteen to eighteen-year-olds--lasts ten days
+or a fortnight, and that includes a final medical examination. Men don't
+like to be chucked out on medical certificates much--nowadays. I assure
+you Second Camp, at Salisbury, say, is an experience for a young I.G.
+officer. We're told off to 'em in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys isn't
+in it. The kids are apt to think 'emselves soldiers, and we have to take
+the edge off 'em with lots of picquet-work and night attacks."
+
+"And what happens after Second Camp?"
+
+"It's hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically, the
+boys needn't show up for the next three or four years after Second Camp.
+They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the young
+doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that sticks to
+the minimum of camp--ten days per annum. That gives him a holiday in the
+open air, and now that men have taken to endowing their Volunteer
+drill-halls with baths and libraries, he finds, if he can't run to a
+club, that his own drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He meets men
+there who'll be useful to him later, and he keeps himself in touch with
+what's going on while he's studying for his profession. The
+town-birds--such as the chemist's assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic,
+electrician, and so forth--generally put in for their town Volunteer
+corps as soon as they begin to walk out with the girls. They like takin'
+their true-loves to our restaurants. Look yonder!" I followed his gaze,
+and saw across the room a man and a maid at a far table, forgetting in
+each other's eyes the good food on their plates.
+
+"So it is," said I. "Go ahead."
+
+"Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out to
+attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of 'em on
+condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their county.
+Under the new county qualifications--birth or three years' residence--that
+means a great deal in League matches, and the same in County cricket."
+
+"By Jove, that's a good notion," I cried. "Who invented it?"
+
+"C. B. Fry--long ago. He said in his paper, that County cricket and
+County volunteering ought to be on the same footing--unpaid and genuine.
+'No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer' was his watchword. There
+was a row among the pro's at first, but C. B. won, and later the League
+had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when
+County matches began to be _pukka_ county, _plus_ inter-regimental,
+affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the
+regiments supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in cash.
+It's all unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call 'em, can
+take their pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten guineas
+entrance-fee, and get it too, from the young bloods that want to shine in
+the arena. I told you we catered for all tastes. Now, as regards the Line
+proper, I believe the young artisan and mechanic puts in for that before
+he marries. He likes the two-months' 'heef' in his first year, and five
+bob a week is something to go on with between times."
+
+"Do they follow their trade while they're in the Line?" I demanded.
+
+"Why not? How many well-paid artisans work more than four days a week
+anyhow? Remember a Linesman hasn't to be drilled in your sense of the
+word. He must have had at least eight years' grounding in that, as well
+as two or three years in his Volunteer battalion. He can sleep where he
+pleases. He can't leave town-limits without reporting himself, of course,
+but he can get leave if he wants it. He's on duty two days in the week as
+a rule, and he's liable to be invited out for garrison duty down the
+Mediterranean, but his benefit societies will insure him against that.
+I'll tell you about that later. If it's a hard winter and trade's slack,
+a lot of the bachelors are taken into the I. G. barracks (while the I. G.
+is out on the heef) for theoretical instruction. Oh, I assure you the
+Line hasn't half a bad time of it."
+
+"Amazing!" I murmured. "And what about the others?"
+
+"The Volunteers? Observe the beauty of our system. We're a free people.
+We get up and slay the man who says we aren't. But as a little detail we
+never mention, if we don't volunteer in some corps or another--as
+combatants if we're fit, as non-combatants, if we ain't--till we're
+thirty-five we don't vote, and we don't get poor-relief, and the women
+don't love us."
+
+"Oh, that's the compulsion of it?" said I.
+
+Bayley inclined his head gravely. "That, Sir, is the compulsion. We voted
+the legal part of it ourselves in a fit of panic, and we have not yet
+rescinded our resolution. The women attend to the unofficial penalties.
+But being free British citizens----"
+
+"_And_ snobs," put in Pigeon.
+"The point is well taken, Pij------we have supplied ourselves with every
+sort and shape and make of Volunteer corps that you can imagine, and we've
+mixed the whole show up with our Odd Fellows and our I.O.G.T.'s and our
+Buffaloes, and our Burkes and our Debretts, not to mention Leagues and
+Athletic Clubs, till you can't tell t'other from which. You remember the
+young pup who used to look on soldiering as a favour done to his
+ungrateful country--the gun-poking, ferret-pettin', landed gentleman's
+offspring--the suckin' Facey Romford? Well, he generally joins a Foreign
+Service Corps when he leaves college."
+
+"Can Volunteers go foreign, then?"
+
+"Can't they just, if their C.O. _or_ his wife has influence! The Armity
+will always send a well-connected F.S. corps out to help a guard battalion
+in a small campaign. Otherwise F.S. corps make their own arrangements
+about camps. You see, the Military Areas are always open. They can 'heef'
+there (and gamble on head-money) as long as their finances run to it; or
+they can apply to do sea-time in the ships. It's a cheap way for a young
+man to see the world, and if he's any good he can try to get into the
+Guard later."
+
+"The main point," said Pigeon, "is that F.S. corps are 'swagger'--the
+correct thing. It 'ud never do to be drawn for the Militia, don't you
+know," he drawled, trying to render the English voice.
+
+"That's what happens to a chap who doesn't volunteer," said Bayley. "Well,
+after the F.S. corps (we've about forty of 'em) come our territorial
+Volunteer battalions, and a man who can't suit himself somewhere among 'em
+must be a shade difficult. We've got those 'League' corps I was talking
+about; and those studious corps that just scrape through their ten days'
+camp; and we've crack corps of highly-paid mechanics who can afford a two
+months' 'heef' in an interesting Area every other year; and we've senior
+and junior scientific corps of earnest boilermakers and fitters and
+engineers who read papers on high explosives, and do their 'heefing' in a
+wet picket-boat--mine-droppin'--at the ports. Then we've heavy artillery--
+recruited from the big manufacturing towns and ship-building yards--and
+ferocious hard-ridin' Yeomanry (they _can_ ride--now), genteel, semi-
+genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till you come to the
+Home Defence Establishment--the young chaps knocked out under medical
+certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit behind hedges or
+clean up camp, and the old was-birds who've served their time but don't
+care to drop out of the fun of the yearly camps and the halls. They call
+'emselves veterans and do fancy-shooting at Bisley, but, between you and
+me, they're mostly Fresh Air Benefit Clubs. They contribute to the
+Volunteer journals and tell the Guard that it's no good. But I like 'em. I
+shall be one of 'em some day--a copper-nosed was-bird! ... So you see
+we're mixed to a degree on the Volunteer side."
+
+"It sounds that way," I ventured.
+
+"You've overdone it, Bayley," said Devine. "You've missed our one strong
+point." He turned to me and continued: "It's embarkation. The Volunteers
+may be as mixed as the Colonel says, but they _are_ trained to go down to
+the sea in ships. You ought to see a big Bank-Holiday roll-out. We suspend
+most of the usual railway traffic and turn on the military time-table--say
+on Friday at midnight. By 4 A.M. the trains are running from every big
+centre in England to the nearest port at two-minute intervals. As a rule,
+the Armity meets us at the other end with shipping of sorts--fleet
+reserves or regular men of war or hulks--anything you can stick a
+gang-plank to. We pile the men on to the troop-decks, stack the rifles in
+the racks, send down the sea-kit, steam about for a few hours, and land
+'em somewhere. It's a good notion, because our army to be any use _must_
+be an army of embarkation. Why, last Whit Monday we had--how many were
+down at the dock-edge in the first eight hours? Kyd, you're the Volunteer
+enthusiast last from school."
+
+"In the first ten hours over a hundred and eighteen thousand," said Kyd
+across the table, "with thirty-six thousand actually put in and taken out
+of ship. In the whole thirty-six hours we had close on ninety thousand men
+on the water and a hundred and thirty-three thousand on the quays fallen
+in with their sea-kit."
+
+"That must have been a sight," I said.
+
+"One didn't notice it much. It was scattered between Chatham, Dover,
+Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, and so on, merely to give the
+inland men a chance to get rid of their breakfasts. We don't like to
+concentrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the
+Continent jumpy. Otherwise," said Kyd, "I believe we could get two hundred
+thousand men, with their kits, away on one tide."
+
+"What d'you want with so many?" I asked.
+
+"_We_ don't want one of 'em; but the Continent used to point out, every
+time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier than to raid
+England if they got command of the sea for a week. After a few years some
+genius discovered that it cut both ways, an' there was no reason why we,
+who are supposed to command the sea and own a few ships, should not
+organise our little raids in case of need. The notion caught on among the
+Volunteers--they were getting rather sick of manoeuvres on dry land--and
+since then we haven't heard so much about raids from the Continent," said
+Bayley.
+
+"It's the offensive-defensive," said Verschoyle, "that they talk so much
+about. We learned it _all_ from the Continent--bless 'em! They insisted on
+it so."
+
+"No, we learned it from the Fleet," said Devine. "The Mediterranean Fleet
+landed ten thousand marines and sailors, with guns, in twenty minutes once
+at manoeuvres. That was long ago. I've seen the Fleet Reserve and a few
+paddle-steamers, hired for the day, land twenty-five thousand Volunteers
+at Bantry in four hours--half the men sea-sick too. You've no notion what
+a difference that sort of manoeuvre makes in the calculations of our
+friends on the mainland. The Continent knows what invasion means. It's
+like dealing with a man whose nerve has been shaken. It doesn't cost much
+after all, and it makes us better friends with the great European family.
+We're now as thick as thieves."
+
+"Where does the Imperial Guard come in in all this gorgeousness?" I asked.
+"You're unusual modest about yourselves."
+
+"As a matter of fact, we're supposed to go out and stay out. We're the
+permanently mobilised lot. I don't think there are more than eight I.G.
+battalions in England now. We're a hundred battalions all told. Mostly on
+the 'heef' in India, Africa and so forth."
+
+"A hundred thousand. Isn't that small allowance?" I suggested.
+
+"You think so? One hundred thousand _men_, without a single case of
+venereal, and an average sick list of two per cent, permanently on a war
+footing? Well, perhaps you're right, but it's a useful little force to
+begin with while the others are getting ready. There's the native Indian
+Army also, which isn't a broken reed, and, since 'no Volunteer no Vote' is
+the rule throughout the Empire, you will find a few men in Canada,
+Australia, and elsewhere, that are fairly hefty in their class."
+
+"But a hundred thousand isn't enough for garrison duty," I persisted.
+
+"A hundred thousand _sound_ men, not sick boys, go quite a way," said
+Pigeon.
+
+"We expect the Line to garrison the Mediterranean Ports and thereabouts,"
+said Bayley. "Don't sneer at the mechanic. He's deuced good stuff. He
+isn't rudely ordered out, because this ain't a military despotism, and we
+have to consider people's feelings. The Armity usually brackets three Line
+regiments together, and calls for men for six months or a year for Malta,
+Gib, or elsewhere, at a bob a day. Three battalions will give you nearly a
+whole battalion of bachelors between 'em. You fill up deficiencies with a
+call on the territorial Volunteer battalion, and away you go with what we
+call a Ports battalion. What's astonishing in that? Remember that in this
+country, where fifty per cent of the able-bodied males have got a pretty
+fair notion of soldiering, and, which is more, have all camped out in the
+open, you wake up the spirit of adventure in the young."
+
+"Not much adventure at Malta, Gib, or Cyprus," I retorted. "Don't they get
+sick of it?"
+
+"But you don't realise that we treat 'em rather differently from the
+soldier of the past. You ought to go and see a Ports battalion drawn from
+a manufacturing centre growin' vines in Cyprus in its shirt sleeves; and
+at Gib, and Malta, of course, the battalions are working with the Fleet
+half the time."
+
+"It seems to me," I said angrily, "you are knocking _esprit de corps_ on
+the head with all this Army-Navy jumble. It's as bad as----"
+
+"I know what you're going to say. As bad as what Kitchener used to do when
+he believed that a thousand details picked up on the veldt were as good as
+a column of two regiments. In the old days, when drill was a sort of holy
+sacred art learned in old age, you'd be quite right. But remember _our_
+chaps are broke to drill from childhood, and the theory we work on is that
+a thousand trained Englishmen ought to be about as good as another
+thousand trained Englishmen. We've enlarged our horizon, that's all. Some
+day the Army and the Navy will be interchangeable."
+
+"You've enlarged it enough to fall out of, I think. Now where in all this
+mess of compulsory Volunteers----?"
+
+"My dear boy, there's no compulsion. You've _got_ to be drilled when
+you're a child, same as you've got to learn to read, and if you don't
+pretend to serve in some corps or other till you're thirty-five or
+medically chucked you rank with lunatics, women, and minors. That's fair
+enough."
+
+"Compulsory conscripts," I continued. "Where, as I was going to say, does
+the Militia come in?"
+
+"As I have said--for the men who can't afford volunteering. The Militia is
+recruited by ballot--pretty comprehensively too. Volunteers are exempt,
+but most men not otherwise accounted for are bagged by the Militia. They
+have to put in a minimum three weeks' camp every other year, and they get
+fifteen bob a week and their keep when they're at it, and some sort of a
+yearly fee, I've forgotten how much. 'Tisn't a showy service, but it's
+very useful. It keeps the mass of the men between twenty-five, say, and
+thirty-five moderately fit, and gives the Armity an excuse for having more
+equipment ready--in case of emergencies."
+
+"I don't think you're quite fair on the Militia," drawled Verschoyle.
+"They're better than we give 'em credit for. Don't you remember the Middle
+Moor Collieries' strike?"
+
+"Tell me," I said quickly. Evidently the others knew.
+
+"We-ell, it was no end of a pitman's strike about eight years ago. There
+were twenty-five thousand men involved--Militia, of course. At the end of
+the first month--October--when things were looking rather blue, one of
+those clever Labour leaders got hold of the Militia Act and discovered
+that any Militia regiment could, by a two-thirds vote, go on 'heef' in a
+Military Area in addition to its usual biennial camp. Two-and-twenty
+battalions of Geordies solemnly applied, and they were turned loose into
+the Irish and Scotch Areas under an I.G. Brigadier who had private
+instructions to knock clinkers out of 'em. But the pitman is a strong and
+agile bird. He throve on snowdrifts and entrenching and draggin' guns
+through heather. _He_ was being fed and clothed for nothing, besides
+having a chance of making head-money, and his strike-pay was going clear
+to his wife and family. You see? Wily man. But wachtabittje! When that
+'heef' finished in December the strike was still on. _Then_ that same
+Labour leader found out, from the same Act, that if at any time more than
+thirty or forty men of a Militia regiment wished to volunteer to do
+sea-time and study big guns in the Fleet they were in no wise to be
+discouraged, but were to be taken on as opportunity offered and paid a bob
+a day. Accordingly, about January, Geordie began volunteering for sea-
+time--seven and eight hundred men out of each regiment. Anyhow, it made up
+seventeen thousand men! It was a splendid chance and the Armity jumped at
+it. The Home and Channel Fleets and the North Sea and Cruiser Squadrons
+were strengthened with lame ducks from the Fleet Reserve, and between 'em
+with a little stretching and pushing they accommodated all of that young
+division."
+
+"Yes, but you've forgotten how we lied to the Continent about it. All
+Europe wanted to know what the dooce we were at," said Boy Bayley, "and
+the wretched Cabinet had to stump the country in the depths of winter
+explaining our new system of poor-relief. I beg your pardon, Verschoyle."
+
+"The Armity improvised naval manoeuvres between Gib and Land's End, with
+frequent coalings and landings; ending in a cruise round England that
+fairly paralysed the pitmen. The first day out they wanted the fleet
+stopped while they went ashore and killed their Labour leader, but they
+couldn't be obliged. Then they wanted to mutiny over the coaling--it was
+too like their own job. Oh, they had a lordly timel They came back--the
+combined Fleets anchored off Hull--with a nautical hitch to their
+breeches. They'd had a free fight at Gib with the Ports battalion there;
+they cleared out the town of Lagos; and they'd fought a pitched battle
+with the dockyard-mateys at Devonport. So they'd done 'emselves well, but
+they didn't want any more military life for a bit."
+
+"And the strike?"
+
+"That ended, all right enough, when the strike-money came to an end. The
+pit-owners were furious. They said the Armity had wilfully prolonged the
+strike, and asked questions in the House. The Armity said that they had
+taken advantage of the crisis to put a six months' polish on fifteen
+thousand fine young men, and if the masters cared to come out on the same
+terms they'd be happy to do the same by them."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Palaver done set," said Bayley. "Everybody laughed."
+
+"I don't quite understand about this sea-time business," I said. "Is the
+Fleet open to take any regiment aboard?"
+
+"Rather. The I.G. must, the Line can, the Militia may, and the Volunteers
+do put in sea-time. The Coast Volunteers began it, and the fashion is
+spreading inland. Under certain circumstances, as Verschoyle told you, a
+Volunteer or Militia regiment can vote whether it 'heefs' wet or dry. If
+it votes wet and has influence (like some F.S. corps), it can sneak into
+the Channel or the Home Fleet and do a cruise round England or to Madeira
+or the North Sea. The regiment, of course, is distributed among the ships,
+and the Fleet dry nurse 'em. It rather breaks up shore discipline, but it
+gives the inland men a bit of experience, and, of course, it gives us a
+fairish supply of men behind the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet.
+Some coast corps make a specialty of it, and compete for embarking and
+disembarking records. I believe some of the Tyneside engineerin' corps put
+ten per cent of their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there's no
+need to stay talking here all the afternoon. Come and see the I.G. in his
+lair--the miserable conscript driven up to the colours at the point of the
+bayonet."
+
+PART II
+
+The great hall was emptying apace as the clocks struck two, and we passed
+out through double doors into a huge reading and smoking room, blue with
+tobacco and buzzing with voices.
+
+"We're quieter as a rule," said the Boy. "But we're filling up vacancies
+to-day. Hence the anxious faces of the Line and Militia. Look!" There were
+four tables against the walls, and at each stood a crowd of uniforms. The
+centres of disturbance were noncommissioned officers who, seated, growled
+and wrote down names.
+
+"Come to my table," said Burgard. "Well, Purvis, have you ear-marked our
+little lot?"
+
+"I've been tellin' 'em for the last hour we've only twenty-three
+vacancies," was the sergeant's answer. "I've taken nearly fifty for
+Trials, and this is what's left." Burgard smiled.
+
+"I'm very sorry," he said to the crowd, "but C Company's full."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir," said a man, "but wouldn't sea-time count in my favour?
+I've put in three months with the Fleet. Small quick-firers, Sir? Company
+guns? Any sort of light machinery?"
+
+"Come away," said a voice behind. "They've chucked the best farrier
+between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they'll take _you_ an' your potty quick-
+firers?"
+
+The speaker turned on his heel and swore.
+
+"Oh, damn the Guard, by all means!" said Sergeant Purvis, collecting his
+papers. "D'you suppose it's any pleasure to _me_ to reject chaps of your
+build and make? Vote us a second Guard battalion and we'll accommodate
+you. Now, you can come into Schools and watch Trials if you like."
+
+Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily. I
+followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a riding-
+school, under whose roof the voices of the few hundred assembled wandered
+in lost echoes.
+
+"I'll leave you, if you don't mind," said Burgard. "Company officers
+aren't supposed to assist at these games. Here, Matthews!" He called to a
+private and put me in his charge.
+
+In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of
+stripped men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.
+
+"These are our crowd," said Matthews. "They've been vetted, an' we're
+putting 'em through their paces."
+
+"They don't look a bit like raw material," I said.
+
+"No, we don't use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the
+Guard," Matthews replied. "Life's too short."
+
+Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was
+physical drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his hand
+over some man's heart.
+
+Six or seven, I noticed, were sent back at this stage of the game. Then a
+cry went up from a group of privates standing near the line of contorted
+figures. "White, Purvis, white! Number Nine is spitting white!"
+
+"I know it," said Purvis. "Don't you worry."
+
+"Unfair!" murmured the man who understood quick-firers. "If I couldn't
+shape better than that I'd hire myself out to wheel a perambulator. He's
+cooked."
+
+"Nah," said the intent Matthews. "He'll answer to a month's training like
+a horse. It's only suet. _You've_ been training for this, haven't you?"
+
+"Look at me," said the man simply.
+
+"Yes. You're overtrained," was Matthews' comment. "The Guard isn't a
+circus."
+
+"Guns!" roared Purvis, as the men broke off and panted. "Number off from
+the right. Fourteen is one, three is two, eleven's three, twenty and
+thirty-nine are four and five, and five is six." He was giving them their
+numbers at the guns as they struggled into their uniforms. In like manner
+he told off three other guncrews, and the remainder left at the double, to
+return through the further doors with four light quick-firers jerking at
+the end of man-ropes.
+
+"Knock down and assemble against time!" Purvis called.
+
+The audience closed in a little as the crews flung themselves on the guns,
+which melted, wheel by wheel, beneath their touch.
+
+"I've never seen anything like this," I whispered.
+
+"Huh!" said Matthews scornfully. "They're always doin' it in the Line and
+Militia drill-halls. It's only circus-work."
+
+The guns were assembled again and some one called the time. Then followed
+ten minutes of the quickest firing and feeding with dummy cartridges that
+was ever given man to behold.
+
+"They look as if they might amount to something--this draft," said
+Matthews softly.
+
+"What might you teach 'em after this, then?" I asked.
+
+"To be Guard," said Matthews.
+
+"Spurs," cried Purvis, as the guns disappeared through the doors into the
+stables. Each man plucked at his sleeve, and drew up first one heel and
+then the other.
+
+"What the deuce are they doing?" I asked.
+
+"This," said Matthews. He put his hand to a ticket-pocket inside his
+regulation cuff, showed me two very small black box-spurs: drawing up a
+gaitered foot, he snapped them into the box in the heel, and when I had
+inspected snapped them out again.
+
+"That's all the spur you really need," he said.
+
+Then horses were trotted out into the school barebacked, and the neophytes
+were told to ride.
+
+Evidently the beasts knew the game and enjoyed it, for they would not make
+it easy for the men.
+
+A heap of saddlery was thrown in a corner, and from this each man, as he
+captured his mount, made shift to draw proper equipment, while the
+audience laughed, derided, or called the horses towards them.
+
+It was, most literally, wild horseplay, and by the time it was finished
+the recruits and the company were weak with fatigue and laughter.
+
+"That'll do," said Purvis, while the men rocked in their saddles. "I don't
+see any particular odds between any of you. C Company! Does anybody here
+know anything against any of these men?"
+
+"That's a bit of the Regulations," Matthews whispered. "Just like
+forbiddin' the banns in church. Really, it was all settled long ago when
+the names first came up."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"You'll take 'em as they stand?"
+
+There was a grunt of assent.
+
+"Very good. There's forty men for twenty-three billets." He turned to the
+sweating horsemen. "I must put you into the Hat."
+
+With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not follow,
+an enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which numbers and
+blanks were dropped, and the whole was handed round to the riders by a
+private, evidently the joker of C Company.
+
+Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished
+receptacle (sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the final
+drawing. He was telling me how his company had once stolen the Sacred
+Article used by D Company for this purpose and of the riot that followed,
+when through the west door of the schools entered a fresh detachment of
+stripped men, and the arena was flooded with another company.
+
+Said Matthews as we withdrew, "Each company does Trials their own way. B
+Company is all for teaching men how to cook and camp. D Company keeps 'em
+to horse-work mostly. We call D the circus-riders and B the cooks. They
+call us the Gunners."
+
+"An' you've rejected _me_," said the man who had done sea-time, pushing
+out before us. "The Army's goin' to the dogs."
+
+I stood in the corridor looking for Burgard.
+
+"Come up to my room and have a smoke," said Matthews, private of the
+Imperial Guard.
+
+We climbed two flights of stone stairs ere we reached an immense landing
+flanked with numbered doors.
+
+Matthews pressed a spring-latch and led me into a little cabin-like room.
+The cot was a standing bunk, with drawers beneath. On the bed lay a
+brilliant blanket; by the bed head was an electric light and a shelf of
+books: a writing table stood in the window, and I dropped into a low
+wicker chair.
+
+"This is a cut above subaltern's quarters," I said, surveying the photos,
+the dhurri on the floor, the rifle in its rack, the field-kit hung up
+behind the door, and the knicknacks on the walls.
+
+"The Line bachelors use 'em while we're away; but they're nice to come
+back to after 'heef.'" Matthews passed me his cigarette-case.
+
+"Where have you 'heefed'?" I said.
+
+"In Scotland, Central Australia, and North-Eastern Rhodesia and the North-
+West Indian front."
+
+"What's your service?"
+
+"Four years. I'll have to go in a year. I got in when I was twenty-two--by
+a fluke--from the Militia direct--on Trials."
+
+"Trials like those we just saw?"
+
+"Not so severe. There was less competition then. I hoped to get my
+stripes, but there's no chance."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I haven't the knack of handling men. Purvis let me have a half-company
+for a month in Rhodesia--over towards Lake N'Garni. I couldn't work 'em
+properly. It's a gift."
+
+"Do colour-sergeants handle half-companies with you?"
+
+"They can command 'em on the 'heef.' We've only four company officers--
+Burgard, Luttrell, Kyd, and Harrison. Pigeon's our swop, and he's in
+charge of the ponies. Burgard got his company on the 'heef,' You see
+Burgard had been a lieutenant in the Line, but he came into the Guards on
+Trials like the men. _He_ could command. They tried him in India with a
+wing of the battalion for three months. He did well so he got his company.
+That's what made me hopeful. But it's a gift, you see--managing men--and
+so I'm only a senior private. They let ten per cent of us stay on for two
+years extra after our three are finished--to polish the others."
+
+"Aren't you even a corporal?"
+
+"We haven't corporals, or lances for that matter, in the Guard. As a
+senior private I'd take twenty men into action; but one Guard don't tell
+another how to clean himself. You've learned that before you apply. ...
+Come in!"
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Burgard entered, removing his cap.
+
+"I thought you'd be here," he said, as Matthews vacated the other chair
+and sat on the bed. "Well, has Matthews told you all about it? How did our
+Trials go, Matthews?"
+
+"Forty names in the Hat, Sir, at the finish. They'll make a fairish lot.
+Their gun-tricks weren't bad; but D company has taken the best horsemen--
+as usual."
+
+"Oh, I'll attend to that on 'heef.' Give me a man who can handle company-
+guns and I'll engage to make him a horse-master. D company will end by
+thinkin' 'emselves Captain Pigeon's private cavalry some day."
+
+I had never heard a private and a captain talking after this fashion, and
+my face must have betrayed my astonishment, for Burgard said:
+
+"These are not our parade manners. In our rooms, as we say in the Guard,
+all men are men. Outside we are officers and men."
+
+"I begin to see," I stammered. "Matthews was telling me that sergeants
+handled half-companies and rose from the ranks--and I don't see that there
+are any lieutenants--and your companies appear to be two hundred and fifty
+strong. It's a shade confusing to the layman."
+
+Burgard leaned forward didactically. "The Regulations lay down that every
+man's capacity for command must be tested to the uttermost. We construe
+that very literally when we're on the 'heef.' F'r instance, any man can
+apply to take the command next above him, and if a man's too shy to ask,
+his company officer must see that he gets his chance. A sergeant is given
+a wing of the battalion to play with for three weeks--a month, or six
+weeks--according to his capacity, and turned adrift in an Area to make his
+own arrangements. That's what Areas are for--and to experiment in. A good
+gunner--a private very often--has all four company-guns to handle through
+a week's fight, acting for the time as the major. Majors of Guard
+battalions (Verschoyle's our major) are supposed to be responsible for the
+guns, by the way. There's nothing to prevent any man who has the gift
+working his way up to the experimental command of the battalion on 'heef.'
+Purvis, my colour-sergeant, commanded the battalion for three months at
+the back of Coolgardie, an' very well he did it. Bayley 'verted to company
+officer for the time being an' took Harrison's company, and Harrison came
+over to me as my colour-sergeant. D'you see? Well, Purvis is down for a
+commission when there's a vacancy. He's been thoroughly tested, and we all
+like him. Two other sergeants have passed that three months' trial in the
+same way (just as second mates go up for extra master's certificate). They
+have E.C. after their names in the Army List. That shows they're capable
+of taking command in event of war. The result of our system is that you
+could knock out every single officer of a Guard battalion early in the
+day, and the wheels 'ud still go forward, _not_ merely round. We're
+allowed to fill up half our commissioned list from the ranks direct. _Now_
+d'you see why there's such a rush to get into a Guard battalion?"
+
+"Indeed I do. Have you commanded the regiment experimentally?"
+
+"Oh, time and again," Burgard laughed. "We've all had our E.C. turn."
+
+"Doesn't the chopping and changing upset the men?"
+
+"It takes something to upset the Guard. Besides, they're all in the game
+together. They give each other a fair show you may be sure."
+
+"That's true," said Matthews. "When I went to N'Gami with my--with the
+half-company," he sighed, "they helped me all they knew. But it's a gift--
+handling men. I found _that_ out,"
+
+"I know you did," said Burgard softly. "But you found it out in time,
+which is the great thing. You see," he turned to me, "with our limited
+strength we can't afford to have a single man who isn't more than up to
+any duty--in reason. Don't you be led away by what you saw at Trials just
+now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the monkey-tricks of the
+trade--such as mounting and dismounting guns, and making fancy scores and
+doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up before they can
+pull their weight in the boat."
+
+There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it and
+smiled.
+
+"Bayley wants to know if you'd care to come with us to the Park and see
+the kids. It's only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the
+taxpayer.... Very good. If you'll press the button we'll try to do the
+rest."
+
+He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a
+platform, not unlike a ship's bridge, immediately above the barrelled
+glass roof of the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could see B
+Company far below watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard unlocked a
+glass-fronted fire-alarm arrangement flanked with dials and speaking-
+tubes, and bade me press the centre button.
+
+Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he had
+not caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the
+multiplied purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished like
+minnows before a shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on staircases
+I heard the neighing of many horses.
+
+"What in the world have I done?" I gasped.
+
+"Turned out the Guard--horse, foot, and guns!"
+
+A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:
+
+"Yes, Sir.... _What_, Sir?... I never heard they said that," he laughed,
+"but it would be just like 'em. In an hour and a half? Yes, Sir. Opposite
+the Statue? Yes, Sir."
+
+He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.
+
+"Bayley's playing up for you. Now you'll see some fun."
+
+"Who's going to catch it?" I demanded.
+
+"Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that
+it's _en  tat de partir_, and Bayley's going to take him at his word and
+have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their
+drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the mansard
+roof!"
+
+He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the building
+to the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the flagstaff that
+crowned it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black storm-cone followed.
+
+"Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir," said Burgard down the
+telephone. "Now we'd better go to the riding-school. The battalion falls
+in there. I have to change, but you're free of the corps. Go anywhere. Ask
+anything. In another ten minutes we're off."
+
+I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of houses
+and the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open windows of
+this dial-dotted eyrie.
+
+When I descended the halls and corridors were as hushed as they had been
+noisy, and my feet echoed down the broad tiled staircases. On the third
+floor, Matthews, gaitered and armed, overtook me smiling.
+
+"I thought you might want a guide," said he. "We've five minutes yet," and
+piloted me to the sunsplashed gloom of the riding-school. Three companies
+were in close order on the tan. They moved out at a whistle, and as I
+followed in their rear I was overtaken by Pigeon on a rough black mare.
+
+"Wait a bit," he said, "till the horses are all out of stables, and come
+with us. D Company is the only one mounted just now. We do it to amuse the
+taxpayer," he explained, above the noise of horses on the tan.
+
+"Where are the guns?" I asked, as the mare lipped my coat-collar.
+
+"Gone ahead long ago. They come out of their own door at the back of
+barracks. We don't haul guns through traffic more than we can help.... If
+Belinda breathes down your neck smack her. She'll be quiet in the streets.
+She loves lookin' into the shop-windows."
+
+The mounted company clattered through vaulted concrete corridors in the
+wake of the main body, and filed out into the crowded streets.
+
+When I looked at the townsfolk on the pavement, or in the double-decked
+trams, I saw that the bulk of them saluted, not grudgingly or of
+necessity, but in a light-hearted, even flippant fashion.
+
+"Those are Line and Militia men," said Pigeon. "That old chap in the
+top-hat by the lamp-post is an ex-Guardee. That's why he's saluting in
+slow-time. No, there's no regulation governing these things, but we've all
+fallen into the way of it somehow. Steady, mare!"
+
+"I don't know whether I care about this aggressive militarism," I began,
+when the company halted, and Belinda almost knocked me down. Looking
+forward I saw the badged cuff of a policeman upraised at a crossing, his
+back towards us.
+
+"Horrid aggressive, ain't we?" said Pigeon with a chuckle when we moved on
+again and overtook the main body. Here I caught the strains of the band,
+which Pigeon told me did not accompany the battalion on 'heef,' but lived
+in barracks and made much money by playing at parties in town.
+
+"If we want anything more than drums and fifes on 'heef' we sing," said
+Pigeon. "Singin' helps the wind."
+
+I rejoiced to the marrow of my bones thus to be borne along on billows of
+surging music among magnificent men, in sunlight, through a crowded town
+whose people, I could feel, regarded us with comradeship, affection--and
+more.
+
+"By Jove," I said at last, watching the eyes about us, "these people are
+looking us over as if we were horses."
+
+"Why not? They know the game."
+
+The eyes on the pavement, in the trams, the cabs, at the upper windows,
+swept our lines back and forth with a weighed intensity of regard which at
+first seemed altogether new to me, till I recalled just such eyes, a
+thousand of them, at manoeuvres in the Channel when one crowded battleship
+drew past its sister at biscuit-toss range. Then I stared at the ground,
+overborne by those considering eyes.
+
+Suddenly the music changed to the wail of the Dead March in "Saul," and
+once more--we were crossing a large square--the regiment halted.
+
+"Damn!" said Pigeon, glancing behind him at the mounted company. "I
+believe they save up their Saturday corpses on purpose."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"A dead Volunteer. We must play him through." Again I looked forward and
+saw the top of a hearse, followed by two mourning-coaches, boring directly
+up the halted regiment, which opened out company by company to let it
+through.
+
+"But they've got the whole blessed square to funeralise in!" I exclaimed.
+"Why don't they go round?"
+
+"Not so!" Pigeon replied. "In this city it's the Volunteer's perquisite to
+be played through by any corps he happens to meet on his way to the
+cemetery. And they make the most of it. You'll see."
+
+I heard the order, "Rest on your arms," run before the poor little
+procession as the men opened out. The driver pulled the black Flanders
+beasts into a more than funeral crawl, and in the first mourning-coach I
+saw the tearful face of a fat woman (his mother, doubtless), a
+handkerchief pressed to one eye, but the other rolling vigilantly, alight
+with proper pride. Last came a knot of uniformed men--privates, I took it
+--of the dead one's corps.
+
+Said a man in the crowd beside us to the girl on his arm, "There, Jenny!
+That's what I'll get if I 'ave the luck to meet 'em when my time comes."
+
+"You an' your luck," she snapped. "'Ow can you talk such silly nonsense?"
+
+"Played through by the Guard," he repeated slowly. "The undertaker 'oo
+could guarantee _that_, mark you, for all his customers--well, 'e'd
+monopolise the trade, is all I can say. See the horses passagin'
+sideways!"
+
+"She done it a purpose," said the woman with a sniff.
+
+"An' I only hope you'll follow her example. Just as long as you think I'll
+keep, too."
+
+We reclosed when the funeral had left us twenty paces behind. A small boy
+stuck his head out of a carriage and watched us jealously.
+
+"Amazing! Amazing!" I murmured. "Is it regulation?"
+
+"No. Town-custom. It varies a little in different cities, but the people
+value being played through more than most things, I imagine. Duddell, the
+big Ipswich manufacturer--he's a Quaker--tried to bring in a bill to
+suppress it as unchristian." Pigeon laughed.
+
+"And?"
+
+"It cost him his seat next election. You see, we're all in the game."
+
+We reached the Park without further adventure, and found the four company-
+guns with their spike teams and single drivers waiting for us. Many people
+were gathered here, and we were halted, so far as I could see, that they
+might talk with the men in the ranks. The officers broke into groups.
+
+"Why on earth didn't you come along with me?" said Boy Bayley at my side.
+"I was expecting you."
+
+"Well, I had a delicacy about brigading myself with a colonel at the head
+of his regiment, so I stayed with the rear company and the horses. It's
+all too wonderful for any words. What's going to happen next?"
+
+"I've handed over to Verschoyle, who will amuse and edify the school
+children while I take you round our kindergarten. Don't kill any one, Vee.
+Are you goin' to charge 'em?"
+
+Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used to
+do at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn man.
+
+"Now!" Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding road
+towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park)
+perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the encircling
+rails leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women--the women
+outnumbering the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road flanking
+the common and disappear behind the trees.
+
+As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the ground
+inside the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform, armed and
+unarmed. I saw squads here, half-companies there; then three companies in
+an open space, wheeling with stately steps; a knot of drums and fifes near
+the railings unconcernedly slashing their way across popular airs; and a
+batch of gamins labouring through some extended attack destined to be
+swept aside by a corps crossing the ground at the double. They broke out
+of furze bushes, ducked over hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from
+hillocks and rough sandbanks till the eye wearied of their busy legs.
+
+Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of a
+freckled twelve-year-old near by.
+
+"What's your corps?" said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion to
+that child.
+
+"Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren't out
+to-day." Then, with a twinkle, "I go to First Camp next year."
+
+"What are those boys yonder--that squad at the double?"
+
+"Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir."
+
+"And that full company extending behind the three elms to the south-west?"
+
+"Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir."
+
+"Can you come with us?"
+
+"Certainly, Sir."
+
+"Here's the raw material at the beginning of the process," said Bayley to
+me.
+
+We strolled on towards the strains of "A Bicycle Built for Two," breathed
+jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some dozen infants
+with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging through the extension
+movements which that tune calls for. A stunted hawthorn overhung the
+little group, and from a branch a dirty white handkerchief flapped in the
+breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve
+as we came up.
+
+"We're all waiting for our big bruvvers," piped up one bold person in blue
+breeches--seven if he was a day.
+
+"It keeps 'em quieter, Sir," the maiden lisped. "The others are with the
+regiments."
+
+"Yeth, and they've all lots of blank for _you_," said the gentleman in
+blue breeches ferociously.
+
+"Oh, Artie! 'Ush!" the girl cried.
+
+"But why have they lots of blank for _us_?" Bayley asked. Blue Breeches
+stood firm.
+
+"'Cause--'cause the Guard's goin' to fight the Schools this afternoon; but
+my big bruvver says they'll be dam-well surprised."
+
+"_Artie!_" The girl leaped towards him. "You know your ma said I was to
+smack----"
+
+"Don't. Please don't," said Bayley, pink with suppressed mirth. "It was
+all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this. I've surprised his plan out
+of the mouths of babes and sucklings."
+
+"What plan?"
+
+"Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he told
+me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they're on to him
+already. He'll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!"
+
+Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to weep.
+
+"I didn't tell," he roared. "My big bruvver _he_ knew when he saw them go
+up the road..."
+
+"Never mind! Never mind, old man," said Bayley soothingly. "I'm not
+fighting to-day. It's all right."
+
+He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at
+feud over the spoil.
+
+"Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist," he chuckled. "We'll pull Vee's leg
+to-night."
+
+Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.
+
+"So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground," Bayley
+demanded.
+
+"Not for certain, Sir, but we're preparin' for the worst," he answered
+with a cheerful grin. "They allow the Schools a little blank ammunition
+after we've passed the third standard; and we nearly always bring it on to
+the ground of Saturdays."
+
+"The deuce you do! Why?"
+
+"On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They're always
+experimentin' upon us, Sir, comin' over from their ground an' developin'
+attacks on our flanks. Oh, it's chronic 'ere of a Saturday sometimes,
+unless you flag yourself."
+
+I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife
+band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a
+four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.
+
+"The attacks don't interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir," the boy
+explained. "That's a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools loading
+against time for a bet."
+
+We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was not
+etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the twenty-five
+pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly finished hoist
+and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe distance, when I
+became aware of a change among the scattered boys on the common, who
+disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of querulous whistles.
+A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to corps, and on their arrival
+each corps seemed to fade away.
+
+The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round
+them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley exploded
+afresh. "The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I wonder who's
+directin' 'em. Do _you_ know?"
+
+The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.
+
+"I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the
+road. 'E's our 'ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth
+District, is actin' as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most
+likely Mr. Levitt is commandin'."
+
+"How many corps are there here?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, bits of lots of 'em--thirty or forty, p'r'aps, Sir. But the whistles
+says they've all got to rally on the Board Schools. 'Ark! There's the
+whistle for the Private Schools! They've been called up the ground at the
+double."
+
+"Stop!" cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside the
+breech wiping their brows and panting.
+
+"Hullo! there's some attack on the Schools," said one. "Well, Marden, you
+owe me three half-crowns. I've beaten your record. Pay up."
+
+The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions
+melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets without
+once looking up.
+
+The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that I
+could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of blank
+in the distance.
+
+"The Saturday allowance," murmured Bayley. "War's begun, but it wouldn't
+be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my child?"
+
+"Nothin', Sir, only--only I don't think the Guard will be able to come
+through on so narrer a front, Sir. They'll all be jammed up be'ind the
+ridge if _we_'ve got there in time. It's awful sticky for guns at the end
+of our ground, Sir."
+
+"I'm inclined to think you're right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up:
+distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a pernicious
+amount of blank the kids seem to have!"
+
+It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the hillocks
+for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the "Cease Fire"
+over the ridge.
+
+"They've sent for the Umpires," the Board School boy squeaked, dancing on
+one foot. "You've been hung up, Sir. I--I thought the sand-pits 'ud stop
+you."
+
+Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat:
+"Well, that's enough for this afternoon. I'm off," and moved to the
+railings without even glancing towards the fray.
+
+"I anticipate the worst," said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.
+"Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!"
+
+The Guard was pouring over the ridge--a disorderly mob--horse, foot, and
+guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys
+cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the railings,
+and spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and waved
+handkerchiefs.
+
+Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. "We
+got 'em! We got 'em!" he squealed.
+
+The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into
+shape, coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.
+
+"Vee, Vee," said Bayley. "Give me back my legions. Well, I hope you're
+proud of yourself?"
+
+"The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too," Verschoyle
+replied. "I wish you'd seen that first attack on our flank. Rather
+impressive. Who warned 'em?"
+
+"I don't know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush breeches.
+Did they do well?"
+
+"Very decently indeed. I've complimented their C.O. and buttered the whole
+boiling." He lowered his voice. "As a matter o' fact, I halted five good
+minutes to give 'em time to get into position."
+
+"Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We sha'n't need the
+men for an hour, Vee."
+
+"Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!" cried Verschoyle, raising his voice,
+and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers left their
+men, people began to climb over the railings, and the regiment dissolved
+among the spectators and the school corps of the city.
+
+"No sense keeping men standing when you don't need 'em," said Bayley.
+"Besides, the Schools learn more from our chaps in an afternoon than they
+can pick up in a month's drill. Look at those Board-schoolmaster captains
+buttonholing old Purvis on the art of war!"
+
+"Wonder what the evening papers'll say about this," said Pigeon.
+
+"You'll know in half an hour," Burgard laughed. "What possessed you to
+take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?"
+
+"Pride. Silly pride," said the Canadian.
+
+We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a
+statue of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with
+pretty women, and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats.
+"This is distinctly social," I suggested to Kyd.
+
+"Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley'll sweat
+'em all the same."
+
+I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long sausage-
+shaped kit-bags. A band welcomed us with "A Life on the Ocean Wave."
+
+"What cheek!" muttered Verschoyle. "Give 'em beans, Bayley."
+
+"I intend to," said the Colonel, grimly. "Will each of you fellows take a
+company, please, and inspect 'em faithfully. '_En �tat de partir_' is
+their little boast, remember. When you've finished you can give 'em a
+little pillow-fighting."
+
+"What does the single cannon on those men's sleeves mean?" I asked.
+
+"That they're big gun-men, who've done time with the Fleet," Bayley
+returned. "Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per cent big-gun men thinks
+itself entitled to play 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--when it's out of
+hearing of the Navy."
+
+"What beautiful stuff they are! What's their regimental average?"
+
+"It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and twenty-four
+years, age. What is it?" Bayley asked of a Private.
+
+"Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half," was the
+reply, and he added insolently, "_En  tat de partir_." Evidently that F.S.
+corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.
+
+"What about their musketry average?" I went on.
+
+"Not my pidgin," said Bayley. "But they wouldn't be in the corps a day if
+they couldn't shoot; I know _that_ much. Now I'm going to go through 'em
+for socks and slippers."
+
+The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from
+company to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per
+cent, at least, of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone
+through in detail.
+
+"What have they got jumpers and ducks for?" I asked of Harrison.
+
+"For Fleet work, of course. _En  tat de partir_ with an F. S. corps means
+they are amphibious."
+
+"Who gives 'em their kit--Government?"
+
+"There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It's the same
+as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one's pockets.
+How much does your kit cost you?"--this to the private in front of us.
+
+"About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose," was the answer.
+
+"Very good. Pack your bag--quick."
+
+The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag,
+lashed and tied it, and fell back.
+
+"Arms," said Harrison. "Strip and show ammunition."
+
+The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one
+wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate of
+the rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to Harrison with
+one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded belt.
+
+"What baby cartridges!" I exclaimed. "No bigger than bulletted breech-
+caps."
+
+"They're the regulation .256," said Harrison. "No one has complained of
+'em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive.... Empty your bottle, please,
+and show your rations."
+
+The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency tin.
+
+Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in which
+the man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles, asking no help
+from either side.
+
+"How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?" I asked him.
+
+"Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes," he smiled. "I didn't
+see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the Club."
+
+"Weren't a good many of you out of town?"
+
+"Not _this_ Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull through
+the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for foreign
+service.... You'd better stand back. We're going to pillow-fight."
+
+The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them
+variously, piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder to
+shoulder like buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.
+
+"What's the idea?" I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded behind him, was
+controlling the display. Many women had descended from the carriages, and
+were pressing in about us admiringly.
+
+"For one thing, it's a fair test of wind and muscle, and for another it
+saves time at the docks. We'll suppose this first company to be drawn up
+on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train. How would
+you get their kit into the ship?"
+
+"Fall 'em all in on the platform, march'em to the gangways," I answered,
+"and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the baggage and drunks
+in later."
+
+"Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know _that_
+game," Verschoyle drawled. "We don't play it any more. Look!"
+
+He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and breathing
+hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing his sixty-
+pound bag.
+
+"Pack away," cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can compare
+it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed along
+either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who passed,
+stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by the
+rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five minutes
+the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.
+
+"Of course on a trooper there'd be a company below stacking the kit away,"
+said Verschoyle, "but that wasn't so bad."
+
+"Bad!" I cried. "It was miraculous!"
+
+"Circus-work--all circus-work!" said Pigeon. "It won't prevent 'em bein'
+sick as dogs when the ship rolls." The crowd round us applauded, while the
+men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.
+
+A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.
+
+"Have we made good, Bayley?" he said. "Are we _en  tat de partir_?"
+
+"That's what I shall report," said Bayley, smiling.
+
+"I thought my bit o' French 'ud draw you," said the little man, rubbing
+his hands.
+
+"Who is he?" I whispered to Pigeon.
+
+"Ramsay--their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say he
+spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns till
+he came into his property."
+
+"Take 'em home an' make 'em drunk," I heard Bayley say. "I suppose you'll
+have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the officers of E
+company that I don't think much of them. I sha'n't report it, but their
+men were all over the shop."
+
+"Well, they're young, you see," Colonel Ramsay began.
+
+"You're quite right. Send 'em to me and I'll talk to 'em. Youth is the
+time to learn."
+
+"Six hundred a year," I repeated to Pigeon. "That must be an awful tax on
+a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days."
+
+"That's where you make your mistake," said Verschoyle. "In the old days a
+man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they weren't
+the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour of putting
+in drills, didn't they? And they were, most of 'em, the children we have
+to take over at Second Camp, weren't they? Well, now that a C. O. is sure
+of his _men_, now that he hasn't to waste himself in conciliating an'
+bribin', an' beerin' _kids_, he doesn't care what he spends on his corps,
+because every pound tells. Do you understand?"
+
+"I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed----"
+
+"And trained material at that," Pigeon put in. "Eight years in the
+schools, remember, as well as----"
+
+"Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That's as it should be," I
+said.
+
+"Bayly's saying the very same to those F. S. pups," said Verschoyle.
+
+The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the
+shoulder of each.
+
+"Yes, that's all doocid interesting," he growled paternally. "But you
+forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you're trebly bound
+to put a polish on 'em. You've let your company simply go to seed. Don't
+try and explain. I've told all those lies myself in my time. It's only
+idleness. _I_ know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow and I'll give you a
+wrinkle or two in barracks." He turned to me.
+
+"Suppose we pick up Vee's defeated legion and go home. You'll dine with us
+to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you're _en �tat de partir_, right enough.
+You'd better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you want the corps
+sent foreign. I'm no politician."
+
+We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with sceptre,
+orb, and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the common,
+where the Guard battalion walked with the female of its species and the
+children of all its relatives. At sight of the officers the uniforms began
+to detach themselves and gather in companies. A Board School corps was
+moving off the ground, headed by its drums and fifes, which it assisted
+with song. As we drew nearer we caught the words, for they were launched
+with intention:--
+
+  'Oo is it mashes the country nurse?
+    The Guardsman!
+  'Oo is it takes the lydy's purse?
+    The Guardsman!
+  Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,
+  Batters a sovereign down on the bar,
+  Collars the change and says "Ta-ta!"
+    The Guardsman!
+
+"Why, that's one of old Jemmy Fawne's songs. I haven't heard it in ages,"
+I began.
+
+"Little devils!" said Pigeon.
+"Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports Edition!" a newsboy cried. "'Ere y'are,
+Captain. Defeat o' the Guard!"
+
+"I'll buy a copy," said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. "I must, to
+see how the Dove lost his mounted company." He unfolded the flapping sheet
+and we crowded round it.
+
+"'_Complete Rout of the Guard,_'" he read. "'_Too Narrow a Front._' That's
+one for you, Vee! '_Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._' Aha! '_The
+Schools Stand Fast._'"
+
+"Here's another version," said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. "'_To your
+tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._' Pij, were
+you scuppered by Jewboys?"
+
+"'_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_'" Bayley went on. "By Jove,
+there'll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!"
+
+"I'll never try to amuse the kids again," said the baited Verschoyle.
+"Children and newspapers are low things.... And I was hit on the nose by a
+wad, too! They oughtn't to be allowed blank ammunition!"
+
+So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the
+battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken
+over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum
+of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent
+above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago,
+when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.
+
+"A regular Sanna's Post, isn't it?" I said at last. "D'you remember, Vee--
+by the market-square--that night when the wagons went out?"
+
+Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we
+had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee
+himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the
+papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly, revealed to me the three-
+day old wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw
+Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of
+shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all
+in one jointless piece. Only old Vee's honest face held steady for awhile
+against the darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then
+his jaw dropped and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore
+the puffed and scornful nostril.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the
+evening papers on the table.
+
+
+
+
+"THEY"
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
+
+  Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged
+     races--
+  Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome;
+  Plucking the radiant robes of the passers by, and with pitiful faces
+  Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us
+     go home?"
+
+  Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
+  Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along
+     to the gateway--
+  Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
+  Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed
+     them straightway.
+
+  Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: "On the night that
+     I bore Thee
+  What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my
+     arm?
+  Didst Thou push from the nipple O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?
+  When we two lay in the breath of the kine?" And He said:--"Thou hast
+     done no harm."
+
+  So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,
+  Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood
+     still;
+  And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the
+     Command.
+  "Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against
+     their will?"
+
+
+"THEY"
+One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the
+county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping
+forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels. The orchid-
+studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and grey grass of
+the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees of the lower
+coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left hand for fifteen
+level miles; and when at last I turned inland through a huddle of rounded
+hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my known marks. Beyond that
+precise hamlet which stands godmother to the capital of the United States,
+I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in
+eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks
+diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex
+them again; tithe-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that
+cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple.
+Gipsies I found on a common where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it
+out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed
+a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.
+
+As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the
+bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty
+miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country would
+bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet, but I
+did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn plunged
+me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next into a
+gloomy tunnel where last year's dead leaves whispered and scuffled about
+my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had not been cut for a
+couple of generations at least, nor had any axe helped the moss-cankered
+oak and beech to spring above them. Here the road changed frankly into a
+carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent primrose-clumps showed like
+jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked bluebells nodded together. As the
+slope favoured I shut off the power and slid over the whirled leaves,
+expecting every moment to meet a keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off,
+arguing against the silence under the twilight of the trees.
+
+Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working my
+way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw
+sunshine through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.
+
+It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my fore-wheels
+took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang horsemen ten feet
+high with levelled lances, monstrous peacocks, and sleek round-headed
+maids of honour--blue, black, and glistening--all of clipped yew. Across
+the lawn--the marshalled woods besieged it on three sides--stood an
+ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with mullioned windows
+and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by semi-circular walls, also
+rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth side, and at their feet a box
+hedge grew man-high. There were doves on the roof about the slim brick
+chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an octagonal dove-house behind the
+screening wall.
+
+Here, then, I stayed; a horseman's green spear laid at my breast; held by
+the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.
+
+"If I am not packed off for a trespasser, or if this knight does not ride
+a wallop at me," thought I, "Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at least must
+come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea."
+
+A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing waved
+a friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently another
+bright head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the yew-peacocks, and
+turning to make sure (till then I had been watching the house only) I saw
+the silver of a fountain behind a hedge thrown up against the sun. The
+doves on the roof cooed to the cooing water; but between the two notes I
+caught the utterly happy chuckle of a child absorbed in some light
+mischief.
+
+The garden door--heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall--opened
+further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on the time-
+hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was forming
+some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was blind.
+
+"I heard you," she said. "Isn't that a motor car?"
+
+"I'm afraid I've made a mistake in my road. I should have turned off up
+above--I never dreamed"--I began.
+
+"But I'm very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It will be
+such a treat----" She turned and made as though looking about her. "You--
+you haven't seen any one have you--perhaps?"
+
+"No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a distance."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little
+chap in the grounds."
+
+"Oh, lucky you!" she cried, and her face brightened. "I hear them, of
+course, but that's all. You've seen them and heard them?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. "And if I know anything of children one of them's
+having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should
+imagine."
+
+"You're fond of children?"
+
+I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.
+
+"Of course, of course," she said. "Then you understand. Then you won't
+think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the gardens, once
+or twice--quite slowly. I'm sure they'd like to see it. They see so
+little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant, but----" she
+threw out her hands towards the woods. "We're so out of the world here."
+
+"That will be splendid," I said. "But I can't cut up your grass."
+
+She faced to the right. "Wait a minute," she said. "We're at the South
+gate, aren't we? Behind those peacocks there's a flagged path. We call it
+the Peacock's Walk. You can't see it from here, they tell me, but if you
+squeeze along by the edge of the wood you can turn at the first peacock
+and get on to the flags."
+
+It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of
+machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the edge
+of the wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the fountain-basin
+lay like one star-sapphire.
+
+"May I come too?" she cried. "No, please don't help me. They'll like it
+better if they see me."
+
+She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on the
+step she called: "Children, oh, children! Look and see what's going to
+happen!"
+
+The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning that
+underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an answering shout
+behind the yews. It must have been the child by the fountain, but he fled
+at our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the water. I saw the glint
+of his blue blouse among the still horsemen.
+
+Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request
+backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but
+stood far off and doubting.
+
+"The little fellow's watching us," I said. "I wonder if he'd like a ride."
+
+"They're very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see
+them! Let's listen."
+
+I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the
+scent of box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener was
+clipping; a mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been the
+doves.
+
+"Oh, unkind!" she said weariedly.
+
+"Perhaps they're only shy of the motor. The little maid at the window
+looks tremendously interested."
+
+"Yes?" She raised her head. "It was wrong of me to say that. They are
+really fond of me. It's the only thing that makes life worth living--when
+they're fond of you, isn't it? I daren't think what the place would be
+without them. By the way, is it beautiful?"
+
+"I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen."
+
+"So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn't quite the
+same thing."
+
+"Then have you never---?" I began, but stopped abashed.
+
+"Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old,
+they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream
+about colours. I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see
+_them_. I only hear them just as I do when I'm awake."
+
+"It's difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most of us
+haven't the gift," I went on, looking up at the window where the child
+stood all but hidden.
+
+"I've heard that too," she said. "And they tell me that one never sees a
+dead person's face in a dream. Is that true?"
+
+"I believe it is--now I come to think of it."
+
+"But how is it with yourself--yourself?" The blind eyes turned towards me.
+
+"I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream," I answered.
+
+"Then it must be as bad as being blind."
+
+The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing
+the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top of
+a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft black. The
+house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an hundred
+thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the shadows.
+
+"Have you ever wanted to?" she said after the silence.
+
+"Very much sometimes," I replied. The child had left the window as the
+shadows closed upon it.
+
+"Ah! So've I, but I don't suppose it's allowed. ... Where d'you live?"
+
+"Quite the other side of the county--sixty miles and more, and I must be
+going back. I've come without my big lamp."
+
+"But it's not dark yet. I can feel it."
+
+"I'm afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me someone
+to set me on my road at first? I've utterly lost myself."
+
+"I'll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the world,
+I don't wonder you were lost! I'll guide you round to the front of the
+house; but you will go slowly, won't you, till you're out of the grounds?
+It isn't foolish, do you think?"
+
+"I promise you I'll go like this," I said, and let the car start herself
+down the flagged path.
+
+We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead
+guttering alone was worth a day's journey; passed under a great rose-grown
+gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the house which in
+beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that all others I had
+seen.
+
+"Is it so very beautiful?" she said wistfully when she heard my raptures.
+"And you like the lead-figures too? There's the old azalea garden behind.
+They say that this place must have been made for children. Will you help
+me out, please? I should like to come with you as far as the cross-roads,
+but I mustn't leave them. Is that you, Madden? I want you to show this
+gentleman the way to the cross-roads. He has lost his way but--he has seen
+them."
+
+A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be
+called the front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood
+looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the
+first time that she was beautiful.
+
+"Remember," she said quietly, "if you are fond of them you will come
+again," and disappeared within the house.
+
+The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge gates,
+where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I swerved amply
+lest the devil that leads little boys to play should drag me into child-
+murder.
+
+"Excuse me," he asked of a sudden, "but why did you do that, Sir?"
+
+"The child yonder."
+
+"Our young gentleman in blue?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?"
+
+"Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?"
+
+"Yes, Sir. And did you 'appen to see them upstairs too?"
+
+"At the upper window? Yes."
+
+"Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?"
+
+"A little before that. Why d'you want to know?"
+
+He paused a little. "Only to make sure that--that they had seen the car,
+Sir, because with children running about, though I'm sure you're driving
+particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was all, Sir. Here
+are the cross-roads. You can't miss your way from now on. Thank you, Sir,
+but that isn't _our_ custom, not with----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, and thrust away the British silver.
+
+"Oh, it's quite right with the rest of 'em as a rule. Goodbye, Sir."
+
+He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked
+away. Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and
+interested, probably through a maid, in the nursery.
+
+Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the
+crumpled hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the
+house had lain. When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the fat
+woman who sold sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people with
+motor cars had small right to live--much less to "go about talking like
+carriage folk." They were not a pleasant-mannered community.
+
+When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser.
+Hawkin's Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the
+old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big
+house of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian
+embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my
+difficulty to a neighbour--a deep-rooted tree of that soil--and he gave me
+a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.
+
+A month or so later--I went again, or it may have been that my car took
+the road of her own volition. She over-ran the fruitless Downs, threaded
+every turn of the maze of lanes below the hills, drew through the high-
+walled woods, impenetrable in their full leaf, came out at the cross roads
+where the butler had left me, and a little further on developed an
+internal trouble which forced me to turn her in on a grass way-waste that
+cut into a summer-silent hazel wood. So far as I could make sure by the
+sun and a six-inch Ordnance map, this should be the road flank of that
+wood which I had first explored from the heights above. I made a mighty
+serious business of my repairs and a glittering shop of my repair kit,
+spanners, pump, and the like, which I spread out orderly upon a rug. It
+was a trap to catch all childhood, for on such a day, I argued, the
+children would not be far off. When I paused in my work I listened, but
+the wood was so full of the noises of summer (though the birds had mated)
+that I could not at first distinguish these from the tread of small
+cautious feet stealing across the dead leaves. I rang my bell in an
+alluring manner, but the feet fled, and I repented, for to a child a
+sudden noise is very real terror. I must have been at work half an hour
+when I heard in the wood the voice of the blind woman crying: "Children,
+oh children, where are you?" and the stillness made slow to close on the
+perfection of that cry. She came towards me, half feeling her way between
+the tree boles, and though a child it seemed clung to her skirt, it
+swerved into the leafage like a rabbit as she drew nearer.
+
+"Is that you?" she said, "from the other side of the county?"
+
+"Yes, it's me from the other side of the county."
+
+"Then why didn't you come through the upper woods? They were there just
+now."
+
+"They were here a few minutes ago. I expect they knew my car had broken
+down, and came to see the fun."
+
+"Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?"
+
+"In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first."
+
+She laughed merrily at the tiny joke, cooed with delicious laughter, and
+pushed her hat back.
+
+"Let me hear," she said.
+
+"Wait a moment," I cried, "and I'll get you a cushion."
+
+She set her foot on the rug all covered with spare parts, and stooped
+above it eagerly. "What delightful things!" The hands through which she
+saw glanced in the chequered sunlight. "A box here--another box! Why
+you've arranged them like playing shop!"
+
+"I confess now that I put it out to attract them. I don't need half those
+things really."
+
+"How nice of you! I heard your bell in the upper wood. You say they were
+here before that?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. Why are they so shy? That little fellow in blue who was
+with you just now ought to have got over his fright. He's been watching me
+like a Red Indian."
+
+"It must have been your bell," she said. "I heard one of them go past me
+in trouble when I was coming down. They're shy--so shy even with me." She
+turned her face over her shoulder and cried again: "Children! Oh,
+children! Look and see!"
+
+"They must have gone off together on their own affairs,"
+
+I suggested, for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by
+the sudden squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and
+she leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.
+
+"How many are they?" I said at last. The work was finished, but I saw no
+reason to go.
+
+Her forehead puckered a little in thought. "I don't quite know," she said
+simply. "Sometimes more--sometimes less. They come and stay with me
+because I love them, you see."
+
+"That must be very jolly," I said, replacing a drawer, and as I spoke I
+heard the inanity of my answer.
+
+"You--you aren't laughing at me," she cried. "I--I haven't any of my own.
+I never married. People laugh at me sometimes about them because--
+because------"
+
+"Because they're savages," I returned. "It's nothing to fret for. That
+sort laugh at everything that isn't in their own fat lives."
+
+"I don't know. How should I? I only don't like being laughed at about
+_them_. It hurts; and when one can't see.... I don't want to seem silly,"
+her chin quivered like a child's as she spoke, "but we blindies have only
+one skin, I think. Everything outside hits straight at our souls. It's
+different with you. You've such good defences in your eyes--looking out--
+before anyone can really pain you in your soul. People forget that with
+us."
+
+I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter--the more than inherited
+(since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the Christian peoples,
+beside which the mere heathendom of the West Coast nigger is clean and
+restrained. It led me a long distance into myself.
+
+"Don't do that!" she said of a sudden, putting her hands before her eyes.
+
+"What?"
+
+She made a gesture with her hand.
+
+"That! It's--it's all purple and black. Don't! That colour hurts."
+
+"But, how in the world do you know about colours?" I exclaimed, for here
+was a revelation indeed.
+
+"Colours as colours?" she asked.
+
+"No. _Those_ Colours which you saw just now."
+
+"You know as well as I do," she laughed, "else you wouldn't have asked
+that question. They aren't in the world at all. They're in _you_--when you
+went so angry."
+
+"D'you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with ink?" I said.
+
+"I've never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren't mixed. They are
+separate--all separate."
+
+"Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?"
+
+She nodded. "Yes--if they are like this," and zigzagged her finger again,
+"but it's more red than purple--that bad colour."
+
+"And what are the colours at the top of the--whatever you see?"
+
+Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg
+itself.
+
+"I see them so," she said, pointing with a grass stem, "white, green,
+yellow, red, purple, and when people are angry or bad, black across the
+red--as you were just now."
+
+"Who told you anything about it--in the beginning?" I demanded.
+
+"About the colours? No one. I used to ask what colours were when I was
+little--in table-covers and curtains and carpets, you see--because some
+colours hurt me and some made me happy. People told me; and when I got
+older that was how I saw people." Again she traced the outline of the Egg
+which it is given to very few of us to see.
+
+"All by yourself?" I repeated.
+
+"All by myself. There wasn't anyone else. I only found out afterwards that
+other people did not see the Colours."
+
+She leaned against the tree-hole plaiting and unplaiting chance-plucked
+grass stems. The children in the wood had drawn nearer. I could see them
+with the tail of my eye frolicking like squirrels.
+
+"Now I am sure you will never laugh at me," she went on after a long
+silence. "Nor at _them_."
+
+"Goodness! No!" I cried, jolted out of my train of thought. "A man who
+laughs at a child--unless the child is laughing too--is a heathen!"
+
+"I didn't mean that of course. You'd never laugh _at_ children, but I
+thought--I used to think--that perhaps you might laugh about _them_. So
+now I beg your pardon.... What are you going to laugh at?"
+
+I had made no sound, but she knew.
+
+"At the notion of your begging my pardon. If you had done your duty as a
+pillar of the state and a landed proprietress you ought to have summoned
+me for trespass when I barged through your woods the other day. It was
+disgraceful of me--inexcusable."
+
+She looked at me, her head against the tree trunk--long and steadfastly--
+this woman who could see the naked soul.
+
+"How curious," she half whispered. "How very curious."
+
+"Why, what have I done?"
+
+"You don't understand ... and yet you understood about the Colours. Don't
+you understand?"
+
+She spoke with a passion that nothing had justified, and I faced her
+bewilderedly as she rose. The children had gathered themselves in a
+roundel behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent over something smaller,
+and the set of the little shoulders told me that fingers were on lips.
+They, too, had some child's tremendous secret. I alone was hopelessly
+astray there in the broad sunlight.
+
+"No," I said, and shook my head as though the dead eyes could note.
+"Whatever it is, I don't understand yet. Perhaps I shall later--if you'll
+let me come again."
+
+"You will come again," she answered. "You will surely come again and walk
+in the wood."
+
+"Perhaps the children will know me well enough by that time to let me play
+with them--as a favour. You know what children are like."
+
+"It isn't a matter of favour but of right," she replied, and while I
+wondered what she meant, a dishevelled woman plunged round the bend of the
+road, loose-haired, purple, almost lowing with agony as she ran. It was my
+rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard and stepped
+forward. "What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?" she asked.
+
+The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the
+dust, crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local doctor
+was away fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and so forth,
+with repetitions and bellowings.
+
+"Where's the next nearest doctor?" I asked between paroxysms.
+
+"Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you. I'll
+attend to this. Be quick!" She half-supported the fat woman into the
+shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under the
+front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to the
+crisis like a butler and a man.
+
+A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles away.
+Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in motors, at
+the door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to await the verdict.
+
+"Useful things cars," said Madden, all man and no butler. "If I'd had one
+when mine took sick she wouldn't have died."
+
+"How was it?" I asked.
+
+"Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight miles
+in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back. This car
+'d ha' saved her. She'd have been close on ten now."
+
+"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought you were rather fond of children from what
+you told me going to the cross-roads the other day."
+
+"Have you seen 'em again, Sir--this mornin'?"
+
+"Yes, but they're well broke to cars. I couldn't get any of them within
+twenty yards of it."
+
+He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger--not as a menial
+should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.
+
+"I wonder why," he said just above the breath that he drew.
+
+We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long
+lines of the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with summer
+dust, rose and bowed in sallow waves.
+
+A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
+sweetmeat shop.
+
+"I've be'n listenin' in de back-yard," she said cheerily. "He says
+Arthur's unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him shruck just now? Unaccountable
+bad. I reckon t'will come Jenny's turn to walk in de wood nex' week along,
+Mr. Madden."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping," said Madden
+deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.
+
+"What does she mean by 'walking in the wood'?" I asked.
+
+"It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I'm from Norfolk myself,"
+said Madden. "They're an independent lot in this county. She took you for
+a chauffeur, Sir."
+
+I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed
+wench who clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with
+Death. "Dat sort," she wailed--"dey're just as much to us dat has 'em as
+if dey was lawful born. Just as much--just as much! An' God he'd be just
+as pleased if you saved 'un, Doctor. Don't take it from me. Miss Florence
+will tell ye de very same. Don't leave 'im, Doctor!"
+
+"I know. I know," said the man, "but he'll be quiet for a while now.
+We'll get the nurse and the medicine as fast as we can." He signalled me
+to come forward with the car, and I strove not to be privy to what
+followed; but I saw the girl's face, blotched and frozen with grief, and I
+felt the hand without a ring clutching at my knees when we moved away.
+
+The Doctor was a man of some humour, for I remember he claimed my car
+under the Oath of �sculapius, and used it and me without mercy. First we
+convoyed Mrs. Madehurst and the blind woman to wait by the sick bed till
+the nurse should come. Next we invaded a neat county town for
+prescriptions (the Doctor said the trouble was cerebro-spinal meningitis),
+and when the County Institute, banked and flanked with scared market
+cattle, reported itself out of nurses for the moment we literally flung
+ourselves loose upon the county. We conferred with the owners of great
+houses--magnates at the ends of overarching avenues whose big-boned
+womenfolk strode away from their tea-tables to listen to the imperious
+Doctor. At last a white-haired lady sitting under a cedar of Lebanon and
+surrounded by a court of magnificent Borzois--all hostile to motors--gave
+the Doctor, who received them as from a princess, written orders which we
+bore many miles at top speed, through a park, to a French nunnery, where
+we took over in exchange a pallid-faced and trembling Sister. She knelt at
+the bottom of the tonneau telling her beads without pause till, by short
+cuts of the Doctor's invention, we had her to the sweetmeat shop once
+more. It was a long afternoon crowded with mad episodes that rose and
+dissolved like the dust of our wheels; cross-sections of remote and
+incomprehensible lives through which we raced at right angles; and I went
+home in the dusk, wearied out, to dream of the clashing horns of cattle;
+round-eyed nuns walking in a garden of graves; pleasant tea-parties
+beneath shaded trees; the carbolic-scented, grey-painted corridors of the
+County Institute; the steps of shy children in the wood, and the hands
+that clung to my knees as the motor began to move.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I had intended to return in a day or two, but it pleased Fate to hold me
+from that side of the county, on many pretexts, till the elder and the
+wild rose had fruited. There came at last a brilliant day, swept clear
+from the south-west, that brought the hills within hand's reach--a day of
+unstable airs and high filmy clouds. Through no merit of my own I was
+free, and set the car for the third time on that known road. As I reached
+the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the
+sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the
+Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A
+laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for deeper water and,
+across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails rise one by one on the anchored
+fishing-fleet. In a deep dene behind me an eddy of sudden wind drummed
+through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the first day sample of autumn
+leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog fumed over the
+brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groins of the gale beyond
+Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in chill grey. We
+were again the shut island of the North, all the ships of the world
+bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their outcries ran the piping
+of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped moisture, the folds of the rug held it
+in pools or sluiced it away in runnels, and the salt-rime stuck to my
+lips.
+
+Inland the smell of autumn loaded the thickened fog among the trees, and
+the drip became a continuous shower. Yet the late flowers--mallow of the
+wayside, scabious of the field, and dahlia of the garden--showed gay in
+the mist, and beyond the sea's breath there was little sign of decay in
+the leaf. Yet in the villages the house doors were all open, and bare-
+legged, bare-headed children sat at ease on the damp doorsteps to shout
+"pip-pip" at the stranger.
+
+I made bold to call at the sweetmeat shop, where Mrs. Madehurst met me
+with a fat woman's hospitable tears. Jenny's child, she said, had died two
+days after the nun had come. It was, she felt, best out of the way, even
+though insurance offices, for reasons which she did not pretend to follow,
+would not willingly insure such stray lives. "Not but what Jenny didn't
+tend to Arthur as though he'd come all proper at de end of de first year--
+like Jenny herself." Thanks to Miss Florence, the child had been buried
+with a pomp which, in Mrs. Madehurst's opinion, more than covered the
+small irregularity of its birth. She described the coffin, within and
+without, the glass hearse, and the evergreen lining of the grave.
+
+"But how's the mother?" I asked.
+
+"Jenny? Oh, she'll get over it. I've felt dat way with one or two o' my
+own. She'll get over. She's walkin' in de wood now."
+
+"In this weather?"
+
+Mrs. Madehurst looked at me with narrowed eyes across the counter.
+
+"I dunno but it opens de 'eart like. Yes, it opens de 'eart. Dat's where
+losin' and bearin' comes so alike in de long run, we do say."
+
+Now the wisdom of the old wives is greater than that of all the Fathers,
+and this last oracle sent me thinking so extendedly as I went up the road,
+that I nearly ran over a woman and a child at the wooded corner by the
+lodge gates of the House Beautiful.
+
+"Awful weather!" I cried, as I slowed dead for the turn.
+
+"Not so bad," she answered placidly out of the fog. "Mine's used to 'un.
+You'll find yours indoors, I reckon."
+
+Indoors, Madden received me with professional courtesy, and kind inquiries
+for the health of the motor, which he would put under cover.
+
+I waited in a still, nut-brown hall, pleasant with late flowers and warmed
+with a delicious wood fire--a place of good influence and great peace.
+(Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable
+lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the
+truth of those who have lived in it.) A child's cart and a doll lay on the
+black-and-white floor, where a rug had been kicked back. I felt that the
+children had only just hurried away--to hide themselves, most like--in the
+many turns of the great adzed staircase that climbed statelily out of the
+hall, or to crouch at gaze behind the lions and roses of the carven
+gallery above. Then I heard her voice above me, singing as the blind sing
+--from the soul:--
+
+
+  In the pleasant orchard-closes.
+
+And all my early summer came back at the call.
+
+  In the pleasant orchard-closes,
+  God bless all our gains say we--
+  But may God bless all our losses,
+  Better suits with our degree,
+
+She dropped the marring fifth line, and repeated--
+
+  Better suits with our degree!
+
+I saw her lean over the gallery, her linked hands white as pearl against
+the oak.
+
+"Is that you--from the other side of the county?" she called.
+
+"Yes, me--from the other side of the county," I answered laughing.
+
+"What a long time before you had to come here again." She ran down the
+stairs, one hand lightly touching the broad rail. "It's two months and
+four days. Summer's gone!"
+
+"I meant to come before, but Fate prevented."
+
+"I knew it. Please do something to that fire. They won't let me play with
+it, but I can feel it's behaving badly. Hit it!"
+
+I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a
+half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.
+
+"It never goes out, day or night," she said, as though explaining. "In
+case any one conies in with cold toes, you see."
+
+"It's even lovelier inside than it was out," I murmured. The red light
+poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor roses
+and lions of the gallery took colour and motion. An old eagle-topped
+convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart, distorting
+afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines into the
+curves of a ship. The day was shutting down in half a gale as the fog
+turned to stringy scud. Through the uncurtained mullions of the broad
+window I could see valiant horsemen of the lawn rear and recover against
+the wind that taunted them with legions of dead leaves.
+"Yes, it must be beautiful," she said. "Would you like to go over it?
+There's still light enough upstairs."
+
+I followed her up the unflinching, wagon-wide staircase to the gallery
+whence opened the thin fluted Elizabethan doors.
+
+"Feel how they put the latch low down for the sake of the children." She
+swung a light door inward.
+
+"By the way, where are they?" I asked. "I haven't even heard them to-day."
+
+She did not answer at once. Then, "I can only hear them," she replied
+softly. "This is one of their rooms--everything ready, you see."
+
+She pointed into a heavily-timbered room. There were little low gate
+tables and children's chairs. A doll's house, its hooked front half open,
+faced a great dappled rocking-horse, from whose padded saddle it was but a
+child's scramble to the broad window-seat overlooking the lawn. A toy gun
+lay in a corner beside a gilt wooden cannon.
+
+"Surely they've only just gone," I whispered. In the failing light a door
+creaked cautiously. I heard the rustle of a frock and the patter of feet--
+quick feet through a room beyond.
+
+"I heard that," she cried triumphantly. "Did you? Children, O children,
+where are you?"
+
+The voice filled the walls that held it lovingly to the last perfect note,
+but there came no answering shout such as I had heard in the garden. We
+hurried on from room to oak-floored room; up a step here, down three steps
+there; among a maze of passages; always mocked by our quarry. One might as
+well have tried to work an unstopped warren with a single ferret. There
+were bolt-holes innumerable--recesses in walls, embrasures of deep slitten
+windows now darkened, whence they could start up behind us; and abandoned
+fireplaces, six feet deep in the masonry, as well as the tangle of
+communicating doors. Above all, they had the twilight for their helper in
+our game. I had caught one or two joyous chuckles of evasion, and once or
+twice had seen the silhouette of a child's frock against some darkening
+window at the end of a passage; but we returned empty-handed to the
+gallery, just as a middle-aged woman was setting a lamp in its niche.
+
+"No, I haven't seen her either this evening, Miss Florence," I heard her
+say, "but that Turpin he says he wants to see you about his shed."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Turpin must want to see me very badly. Tell him to come to the
+hall, Mrs. Madden."
+
+I looked down into the hall whose only light was the dulled fire, and deep
+in the shadow I saw them at last. They must have slipped down while we
+were in the passages, and now thought themselves perfectly hidden behind
+an old gilt leather screen. By child's law, my fruitless chase was as good
+as an introduction, but since I had taken so much trouble I resolved to
+force them to come forward later by the simple trick, which children
+detest, of pretending not to notice them. They lay close, in a little
+huddle, no more than shadows except when a quick flame betrayed an
+outline.
+
+"And now we'll have some tea," she said. "I believe I ought to have
+offered it you at first, but one doesn't arrive at manners somehow when
+one lives alone and is considered--h'm--peculiar." Then with very pretty
+scorn, "would you like a lamp to see to eat by?" "The firelight's much
+pleasanter, I think." We descended into that delicious gloom and Madden
+brought tea.
+
+I took my chair in the direction of the screen ready to surprise or be
+surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth is
+always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.
+
+"Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?" I asked idly. "Why,
+they are tallies!"
+
+"Of course," she said. "As I can't read or write I'm driven back on the
+early English tally for my accounts. Give me one and I'll tell you what it
+meant."
+
+I passed her an unburned hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran her
+thumb down the nicks.
+
+"This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last
+year, in gallons," said she. "I don't know what I should have done without
+tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It's out of date
+now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of them's coming
+now to see me. Oh, it doesn't matter. He has no business here out of
+office hours. He's a greedy, ignorant man--very greedy or--he wouldn't
+come here after dark."
+
+"Have you much land then?"
+
+"Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six
+hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this
+Turpin is quite a new man--and a highway robber."
+
+"But are you sure I sha'n't be----?"
+
+"Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn't any children."
+
+"Ah, the children!" I said, and slid my low chair back till it nearly
+touched the screen that hid them. "I wonder whether they'll come out for
+me."
+
+There was a murmur of voices--Madden's and a deeper note--at the low, dark
+side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the unmistakable
+tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.
+
+"Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin," she said.
+
+"If--if you please, Miss, I'll--I'll be quite as well by the door." He
+clung to the latch as he spoke like a frightened child. Of a sudden I
+realised that he was in the grip of some almost overpowering fear.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"About that new shed for the young stock--that was all. These first autumn
+storms settin' in ... but I'll come again, Miss." His teeth did not
+chatter much more than the door latch.
+
+"I think not," she answered levelly. "The new shed--m'm. What did my agent
+write you on the 15th?"
+
+"I--fancied p'raps that if I came to see you--ma--man to man like, Miss.
+But----"
+
+His eyes rolled into every corner of the room wide with horror. He half
+opened the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut again
+--from without and firmly.
+
+"He wrote what I told him," she went on. "You are overstocked already.
+Dunnett's Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks--even in Mr.
+Wright's time. And _he_ used cake. You've sixty-seven and you don't cake.
+You've broken the lease in that respect. You're dragging the heart out of
+the farm."
+
+"I'm--I'm getting some minerals--superphosphates--next week. I've as good
+as ordered a truck-load already. I'll go down to the station to-morrow
+about 'em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the
+daylight.... That gentleman's not going away, is he?" He almost shrieked.
+
+I had only slid the chair a little further back, reaching behind me to tap
+on the leather of the screen, but he jumped like a rat.
+
+"No. Please attend to me, Mr. Turpin." She turned in her chair and faced
+him with his back to the door. It was an old and sordid little piece of
+scheming that she forced from him--his plea for the new cowshed at his
+landlady's expense, that he might with the covered manure pay his next
+year's rent out of the valuation after, as she made clear, he had bled the
+enriched pastures to the bone. I could not but admire the intensity of his
+greed, when I saw him out-facing for its sake whatever terror it was that
+ran wet on his forehead.
+
+I ceased to tap the leather--was, indeed, calculating the cost of the
+shed--when I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the soft
+hands of a child. So at last I had triumphed. In a moment I would turn and
+acquaint myself with those quick-footed wanderers....
+
+The little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm--as a gift on which
+the fingers were, once, expected to close: as the all faithful half-
+reproachful signal of a waiting child not used to neglect even when
+grown-ups were busiest--a fragment of the mute code devised very long ago.
+
+Then I knew. And it was as though I had known from the first day when I
+looked across the lawn at the high window.
+
+I heard the door shut. The woman turned to me in silence, and I felt that
+she knew.
+
+What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a
+log, and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place in
+the chair very close to the screen.
+
+"Now you understand," she whispered, across the packed shadows.
+
+"Yes, I understand--now. Thank you."
+
+"I--I only hear them." She bowed her head in her hands. "I have no right,
+you know--no other right. I have neither borne nor lost--neither borne nor
+lost!"
+
+"Be very glad then," said I, for my soul was torn open within me.
+
+"Forgive me!"
+
+She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.
+
+"It was because I loved them so," she said at last, brokenly. "_That_ was
+why it was, even from the first--even before I knew that they--they were
+all I should ever have. And I loved them so!"
+
+She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the
+shadow.
+
+"They came because I loved them--because I needed them. I--I must have
+made them come. Was that wrong, think you?"
+
+"No--no."
+
+"I--I grant you that the toys and--and all that sort of thing were
+nonsense, but--but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
+little." She pointed to the gallery. "And the passages all empty. ... And
+how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose----"
+
+"Don't! For pity's sake, don't!" I cried. The twilight had brought a cold
+rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded windows.
+
+"And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. _I_ don't think it
+so foolish--do you?"
+
+I looked at the broad brick hearth, saw, through tears I believe, that
+there was no unpassable iron on or near it, and bowed my head.
+
+"I did all that and lots of other things--just to make believe. Then they
+came. I heard them, but I didn't know that they were not mine by right
+till Mrs. Madden told me----"
+
+"The butler's wife? What?"
+
+"One of them--I heard--she saw. And knew. Hers! _Not_ for me. I didn't
+know at first. Perhaps I was jealous. Afterwards, I began to understand
+that it was only because I loved them, not because----... Oh, you _must_
+bear or lose," she said piteously. "There is no other way--and yet they
+love me. They must! Don't they?"
+
+There was no sound in the room except the lapping voices of the fire, but
+we two listened intently, and she at least took comfort from what she
+heard. She recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair by the
+screen.
+
+"Don't think me a wretch to whine about myself like this, but--but I'm all
+in the dark, you know, and _you_ can see."
+
+In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though
+that was like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer I
+would stay since it was the last time.
+
+"You think it is wrong, then?" she cried sharply, though I had said
+nothing.
+
+"Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right.... I am grateful
+to you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only...."
+
+"Why?" she said, but passed her hand before her face as she had done at
+our second meeting in the wood. "Oh, I see," she went on simply as a
+child. "For you it would be wrong." Then with a little indrawn laugh,
+"and, d'you remember, I called you lucky--once--at first. You who must
+never come here again!"
+
+She left me to sit a little longer by the screen, and I heard the sound of
+her feet die out along the gallery above.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+FROM LYDEN'S "IRENIUS"
+
+ACT III. Sc. II.
+
+Gow.--Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose
+there's not an astrologer of the city----
+
+PRINCE.--Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
+
+Gow.--So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha'
+sworn he'd foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught
+her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since 'tis Jack of
+the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their tablets.
+
+PRINCE.--Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the
+poor fool come by it?
+
+Gow.--_Simpliciter_ thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she
+did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He
+that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than
+"Where is the rope?" The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works God's
+will, in which holy employ he's not to be questioned. We have then left
+upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of
+Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on a sunny
+wall. Whuff! Soh!
+
+PRINCE.--Your cloak, Ferdinand. I'll sleep now.
+
+FERDINAND.--Sleep, then.. He too, loved his life?
+
+Gow.--He was born of woman ... but at the end threw life from
+him, like your Prince, for a little sleep ... "Have I any look of a
+King?" said he, clanking his chain--"to be so baited on all sides by
+Fortune, that I must e'en die now to live with myself one day longer?" I
+left him railing at Fortune and woman's love.
+
+FERDINAND.--Ah, woman's love!
+
+_(Aside)_ Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones, Stealing from
+feasts as rare to coneycatch, Privily in the hedgerows for a clown With
+that same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one
+hammer and lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
+Yesterday 'gainst some King.
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+The day that I chose to visit H.M.S. _Peridot_ in Simon's Bay was the day
+that the Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. She was just
+steaming out to sea as my train came in, and since the rest of the Fleet
+were either coaling or busy at the rifle-ranges a thousand feet up the
+hill, I found myself stranded, lunchless, on the sea-front with no hope of
+return to Cape Town before five P.M. At this crisis I had the luck to come
+across my friend Inspector Hooper, Cape Government Railways, in command of
+an engine and a brake-van chalked for repair.
+
+"If you get something to eat," he said, "I'll run you down to Glengariff
+siding till the goods comes along. It's cooler there than here, you see."
+
+I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price, and
+the engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of drifted
+sand and a plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred yards from the
+edge of the surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow, rolled far inland
+up a brown and purple valley of splintered rocks and dry scrub. A crowd of
+Malays hauled at a net beside two blue and green boats on the beach; a
+picnic party danced and shouted barefoot where a tiny river trickled
+across the flat, and a circle of dry hills, whose feet were set in sands
+of silver, locked us in against a seven-coloured sea. At either horn of
+the bay the railway line, cut just above high water-mark, ran round a
+shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.
+
+"You see there's always a breeze here," said Hooper, opening the door as
+the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong south-easter
+buffeting under Elsie's Peak dusted sand into our tickey beer. Presently
+he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had returned from a
+long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on damaged rolling-
+stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland wind on my
+eyelids; the song of it under the car roof, and high up among the rocks;
+the drift of fine grains chasing each other musically ashore; the tramp of
+the surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle of Hooper's file, and
+the presence of the assured sun, joined with the beer to cast me into
+magical slumber. The hills of False Bay were just dissolving into those of
+fairyland when I heard footsteps on the sand outside, and the clink of our
+couplings.
+
+"Stop that!" snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his work. "It's
+those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they're always playing with the
+trucks...."
+
+"Don't be hard on 'em. The railway's a general refuge in Africa," I
+replied.
+
+"'Tis--up-country at any rate. That reminds me," he felt in his waistcoat-
+pocket, "I've got a curiosity for you from Wankies--beyond Buluwayo. It's
+more of a souvenir perhaps than----"
+
+"The old hotel's inhabited," cried a voice. "White men from the language.
+Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here's your Belmont. Wha--i--i!"
+
+The last word dragged like a rope as Mr. Pyecroft ran round to the open
+door, and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous Sergeant
+of Marines trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the sand nervously
+from his fingers.
+
+"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought the _Hierophant_ was down
+the coast?"
+
+"We came in last Tuesday--from Tristan D'Acunha--for overhaul, and we
+shall be in dockyard 'ands for two months, with boiler-seatings."
+
+"Come and sit down," Hooper put away the file.
+
+"This is Mr. Hooper of the Railway," I exclaimed, as Pyecroft turned to
+haul up the black-moustached sergeant.
+
+"This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the _Agaric_, an old shipmate," said he.
+"We were strollin' on the beach." The monster blushed and nodded. He
+filled up one side of the van when he sat down.
+
+"And this is my friend, Mr. Pyecroft," I added to Hooper, already busy
+with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.
+
+"_Moi aussi_" quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a labelled
+quart bottle.
+
+"Why, it's Bass," cried Hooper.
+
+"It was Pritchard," said Pyecroft. "They can't resist him."
+
+"That's not so," said Pritchard, mildly.
+
+"Not _verbatim_ per'aps, but the look in the eye came to the same thing."
+
+"Where was it?" I demanded.
+
+"Just on beyond here--at Kalk Bay. She was slappin' a rug in a back
+verandah. Pritch hadn't more than brought his batteries to bear, before
+she stepped indoors an' sent it flyin' over the wall."
+
+Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
+
+"It was all a mistake," said Pritchard. "I shouldn't wonder if she mistook
+me for Maclean. We're about of a size."
+
+I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James's, and Kalk Bay complain
+of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the seaside, and I
+began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent Bass, and I too
+drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
+
+"It's the uniform that fetches 'em, an' they fetch it," said Pyecroft. "My
+simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin'. Now Pritch in 'is
+Number One rig is always 'purr Mary, on the terrace'--_ex officio_ as you
+might say."
+
+"She took me for Maclean, I tell you," Pritchard insisted. "Why--why--to
+listen to him you wouldn't think that only yesterday----"
+
+"Pritch," said Pyecroft, "be warned in time. If we begin tellin' what we
+know about each other we'll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention
+aggravated desertion on several occasions----"
+
+"Never anything more than absence without leaf--I defy you to prove it,"
+said the Sergeant hotly. "An' if it comes to that how about Vancouver in
+'87?"
+
+"How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
+Niven...?"
+
+"Surely you were court martialled for that?" I said. The story of Boy
+Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
+woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
+
+"Yes, we were court-martialled to rights," said Pritchard, "but we should
+have been tried for murder if Boy Niven 'adn't been unusually tough. He
+told us he had an uncle 'oo'd give us land to farm. 'E said he was born at
+the back o' Vancouver Island, and _all_ the time the beggar was a balmy
+Barnado Orphan!"
+
+"_But_ we believed him," said Pyecroft. "I did--you did--Paterson did--an'
+'oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards--him with
+the mouth?"
+
+"Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I 'aven't thought of 'im in years," said
+Pritchard. "Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an' George Anstey and Moon. We were
+very young an' very curious."
+
+"_But_ lovin' an' trustful to a degree," said Pyecroft.
+
+"Remember when 'e told us to walk in single file for fear o' bears?
+'Remember, Pye, when 'e 'opped about in that bog full o' ferns an' sniffed
+an' said 'e could smell the smoke of 'is uncle's farm? An' _all_ the time
+it was a dirty little out-lyin' uninhabited island. We walked round it in
+a day, an' come back to our boat lyin' on the beach. A whole day Boy Niven
+kept us walkin' in circles lookin' for 'is uncle's farm! He said his uncle
+was compelled by the law of the land to give us a farm!"
+
+"Don't get hot, Pritch. We believed," said Pyecroft.
+
+"He'd been readin' books. He only did it to get a run ashore an' have
+himself talked of. A day an' a night--eight of us--followin' Boy Niven
+round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the picket
+came for us an' a nice pack o' idiots we looked!"
+
+"What did you get for it?" Hooper asked.
+
+"Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter sleet-
+squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till conclusion o'
+cruise," said Pyecroft. "It was only what we expected, but what we felt,
+an' I assure you, Mr. Hooper, even a sailor-man has a heart to break, was
+bein' told that we able seamen an' promisin' marines 'ad misled Boy Niven.
+Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was supposed to 'ave misled him! He
+rounded on us, o' course, an' got off easy."
+
+"Excep' for what we gave him in the steerin'-flat when we came out o'
+cells. 'Eard anything of 'im lately, Pye?"
+
+"Signal Boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe--Mr. L.L. Niven is."
+
+"An' Anstey died o' fever in Benin," Pritchard mused. "What come to Moon?
+Spit-Kid we know about."
+
+"Moon--Moon! Now where did I last...? Oh yes, when I was in the
+_Palladium_! I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon 'ad run
+when the _Astrild_ sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years
+back. He always showed signs o' bein' a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he
+slipped off quietly an' they 'adn't time to chase 'im round the islands
+even if the navigatin' officer 'ad been equal to the job."
+
+"Wasn't he?" said Hooper.
+
+"Not so. Accordin' to Quigley the _Astrild_ spent half her commission
+rompin' up the beach like a she-turtle, an' the other half hatching
+turtles' eggs on the top o' numerous reefs. When she was docked at Sydney
+her copper looked like Aunt Maria's washing on the line--an' her 'midship
+frames was sprung. The commander swore the dockyard 'ad done it haulin'
+the pore thing on to the slips. They _do_ do strange things at sea, Mr.
+Hooper."
+
+"Ah! I'm not a tax-payer," said Hooper, and opened a fresh bottle. The
+Sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping subjects.
+
+"How it all comes back, don't it?" he said. "Why Moon must 'ave 'ad
+sixteen years' service before he ran."
+
+"It takes 'em at all ages. Look at--you know," said Pyecroft.
+
+"Who?" I asked.
+
+"A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party you're
+thinkin' of," said Pritchard. "A warrant 'oose name begins with a V.,
+isn't it?"
+
+"But, in a way o' puttin' it, we can't say that he actually did desert,"
+Pyecroft suggested.
+
+"Oh, no," said Pritchard. "It was only permanent absence up country
+without leaf. That was all."
+
+"Up country?" said Hooper. "Did they circulate his description?"
+
+"What for?" said Pritchard, most impolitely.
+
+"Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don't move away from
+the line, you see. I've known a chap caught at Salisbury that way tryin'
+to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o' course I don't know, that they
+don't ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I've heard of a
+P. and O. quartermaster in full command of an armed launch there."
+
+"Do you think Click 'ud ha' gone up that way?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"There's no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some Navy
+ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it into the
+trucks. Then there was no more Click--then or thereafter. Four months ago
+it transpired, and thus the _casus belli_ stands at present," said
+Pyecroft.
+
+"What were his marks?" said Hooper again.
+
+"Does the Railway get a reward for returnin' 'em, then?" said Pritchard.
+
+"If I did d'you suppose I'd talk about it?" Hooper retorted angrily.
+
+"You seemed so very interested," said Pritchard with equal crispness.
+
+"Why was he called Click?" I asked to tide over an uneasy little break in
+the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very fixedly.
+
+"Because of an ammunition hoist carryin' away," said Pyecroft. "And it
+carried away four of 'is teeth--on the lower port side, wasn't it, Pritch?
+The substitutes which he bought weren't screwed home in a manner o'
+sayin'. When he talked fast they used to lift a little on the bed plate.
+'Ence, 'Click.' They called 'im a superior man which is what we'd call a
+long, black-'aired, genteely speakin', 'alf-bred beggar on the lower
+deck."
+
+"Four false teeth on the lower left jaw," said Hooper, his hand in his
+waistcoat pocket. "What tattoo marks?"
+
+"Look here," began Pritchard, half rising. "I'm sure we're very grateful
+to you as a gentleman for your 'orspitality, but per'aps we may 'ave made
+an error in--"
+
+I looked at Pyecroft for aid, Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.
+
+"If the fat marine now occupying the foc'sle will kindly bring 'is _status
+quo_ to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk like gentlemen--
+not to say friends," said Pyecroft. "He regards you, Mr. Hooper, as a
+emissary of the Law."
+
+"I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar, or
+I should rather say, such a _bloomin'_ curiosity in identification marks
+as our friend here----"
+
+"Mr. Pritchard," I interposed, "I'll take all the responsibility for Mr.
+Hooper."
+
+"An' _you_'ll apologise all round," said Pyecroft. "You're a rude little
+man, Pritch."
+
+"But how was I----" he began, wavering.
+
+"I don't know an' I don't care. Apologise!"
+
+The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his vast
+grip, one by one. "I was wrong," he said meekly as a sheep. "My suspicions
+was unfounded. Mr. Hooper, I apologise."
+
+"You did quite right to look out for your own end o' the line," said
+Hooper. "I'd ha' done the same with a gentleman I didn't know, you see. If
+you don't mind I'd like to hear a little more o' your Mr. Vickery. It's
+safe with me, you see."
+
+"Why did Vickery run," I began, but Pyecroft's smile made me turn my
+question to "Who was she?"
+
+"She kep' a little hotel at Hauraki--near Auckland," said Pyecroft.
+
+"By Gawd!" roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. "Not Mrs.
+Bathurst!"
+
+Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of darkness
+to witness his bewilderment.
+
+"So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question."
+
+"But Click was married," cried Pritchard.
+
+"An' 'ad a fifteen year old daughter. 'E's shown me her photograph.
+Settin' that aside, so to say, 'ave you ever found these little things
+make much difference? Because I haven't."
+
+"Good Lord Alive an' Watchin'!... Mrs. Bathurst...." Then with another
+roar: "You can say what you please, Pye, but you don't make me believe it
+was any of 'er fault. She wasn't _that!_"
+
+"If I was going to say what I please, I'd begin by callin' you a silly ox
+an' work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I'm trying to say solely
+what transpired. M'rover, for once you're right. It wasn't her fault."
+
+"You couldn't 'aven't made me believe it if it 'ad been," was the answer.
+
+Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. "Never mind
+about that," I cried. "Tell me what she was like."
+
+"She was a widow," said Pyecroft. "Left so very young and never
+re-spliced. She kep' a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close to
+Auckland, an' she always wore black silk, and 'er neck--"
+
+"You ask what she was like," Pritchard broke in. "Let me give you an
+instance. I was at Auckland first in '97, at the end o' the _Marroquin's_
+commission, an' as I'd been promoted I went up with the others. She used
+to look after us all, an' she never lost by it--not a penny! 'Pay me now,'
+she'd say, 'or settle later. I know you won't let me suffer. Send the
+money from home if you like,' Why, gentlemen all, I tell you I've seen
+that lady take her own gold watch an' chain off her neck in the bar an'
+pass it to a bosun 'oo'd come ashore without 'is ticker an' 'ad to catch
+the last boat. 'I don't know your name,' she said, 'but when you've done
+with it, you'll find plenty that know me on the front. Send it back by one
+o' them.' And it was worth thirty pounds if it was worth 'arf a crown. The
+little gold watch, Pye, with the blue monogram at the back. But, as I was
+sayin', in those days she kep' a beer that agreed with me--Slits it was
+called. One way an' another I must 'ave punished a good few bottles of it
+while we was in the bay--comin' ashore every night or so. Chaffin across
+the bar like, once when we were alone, 'Mrs. B.,' I said, 'when next I
+call I want you to remember that this is my particular--just as you're my
+particular?' (She'd let you go _that_ far!) 'Just as you're my
+particular,' I said. 'Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says, an'
+put 'er hand up to the curl be'ind 'er ear. Remember that way she had,
+Pye?"
+
+"I think so," said the sailor.
+
+"Yes, 'Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says. 'The least I can do is to
+mark it for you in case you change your mind. There's no great demand for
+it in the Fleet,' she says, 'but to make sure I'll put it at the back o'
+the shelf,' an' she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon with that old
+dolphin cigar cutter on the bar--remember it, Pye?--an' she tied a bow
+round what was left--just four bottles. That was '97--no, '96. In '98 I
+was in the _Resiliant_--China station--full commission. In Nineteen One,
+mark you, I was in the _Carthusian_, back in Auckland Bay again. Of course
+I went up to Mrs. B.'s with the rest of us to see how things were goin'.
+They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree on the pavement by the
+side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin' in special (there was too many of us
+talkin' to her), but she saw me at once."
+
+"That wasn't difficult?" I ventured.
+
+"Ah, but wait. I was comin' up to the bar, when, 'Ada,' she says to her
+niece, 'get me Sergeant Pritchard's particular,' and, gentlemen all, I
+tell you before I could shake 'ands with the lady, there were those four
+bottles o' Slits, with 'er 'air ribbon in a bow round each o' their necks,
+set down in front o' me, an' as she drew the cork she looked at me under
+her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o' lookin', an', 'Sergeant
+Pritchard,' she says, 'I do 'ope you 'aven't changed your mind about your
+particulars.' That's the kind o' woman she was--after five years!"
+
+"I don't _see_ her yet somehow," said Hooper, but with sympathy.
+
+"She--she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set 'er foot on a scorpion
+at any time of 'er life," Pritchard added valiantly.
+
+"That don't help me either. My mother's like that for one."
+
+The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof.
+Said Pyecroft suddenly:--
+
+"How many women have you been intimate with all over the world, Pritch?"
+
+Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch
+neck.
+
+"'Undreds," said Pyecroft. "So've I. How many of 'em can you remember in
+your own mind, settin' aside the first--an' per'aps the last--_and one
+more_?"
+
+"Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself," said Sergeant Pritchard,
+relievedly.
+
+"An' how many times might you 'ave been at Aukland?"
+
+"One--two," he began. "Why, I can't make it more than three times in ten
+years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B."
+
+"So can I--an' I've only been to Auckland twice--how she stood an' what
+she was sayin' an' what she looked like. That's the secret. 'Tisn't
+beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some
+women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street, but
+most of 'em you can live with a month on end, an' next commission you'd be
+put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as one
+might say."
+
+"Ah," said Hooper. "That's more the idea. I've known just two women of
+that nature."
+
+"An' it was no fault o' theirs?" asked Pritchard.
+
+"None whatever. I know that!"
+
+"An' if a man gets struck with that kind o' woman, Mr. Hooper?" Pritchard
+went on.
+
+"He goes crazy--or just saves himself," was the slow answer.
+
+"You've hit it," said the Sergeant. "You've seen an' known somethin' in
+the course o' your life, Mr. Hooper. I'm lookin' at you!" He set down his
+bottle.
+
+"And how often had Vickery seen her?" I asked.
+
+"That's the dark an' bloody mystery," Pyecroft answered. "I'd never come
+across him till I come out in the _Hierophant_ just now, an' there wasn't
+any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was what you call
+a superior man. 'E spoke to me once or twice about Auckland and Mrs. B. on
+the voyage out. I called that to mind subsequently. There must 'ave been a
+good deal between 'em, to my way o' thinkin'. Mind you I'm only giving you
+my _sum_ of it all, because all I know is second-hand so to speak, or
+rather I should say more than second-'and."
+
+"How?" said Hooper peremptorily. "You must have seen it or heard it."
+
+"Yes," said Pyecroft. "I used to think seein' and hearin' was the only
+regulation aids to ascertainin' facts, but as we get older we get more
+accommodatin'. The cylinders work easier, I suppose.... Were you in Cape
+Town last December when Phyllis's Circus came?"
+
+"No--up country," said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue.
+
+"I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called 'Home and
+Friends for a Tickey.'"
+
+"Oh, you mean the cinematograph--the pictures of prize-fights and
+steamers. I've seen 'em up country."
+
+"Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin' to. London Bridge with
+the omnibuses--a troopship goin' to the war--marines on parade at
+Portsmouth an' the Plymouth Express arrivin' at Paddin'ton."
+
+"Seen 'em all. Seen 'em all," said Hooper impatiently.
+
+"We _Hierophants_ came in just before Christmas week an' leaf was easy."
+
+"I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on
+the station. Why, even Durban's more like Nature. We was there for
+Christmas," Pritchard put in.
+
+"Not bein' a devotee of Indian _peeris_, as our Doctor said to the Pusser,
+I can't exactly say. Phyllis's was good enough after musketry practice at
+Mozambique. I couldn't get off the first two or three nights on account of
+what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo Lieutenant in the
+submerged flat, where some pride of the West country had sugared up a
+gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our Carpenter Rigdon--
+old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus never left 'is ship
+unless an' until he was 'oisted out with a winch, but _when_ 'e went 'e
+would return noddin' like a lily gemmed with dew. We smothered him down
+below that night, but the things 'e said about Vickery as a fittin'
+playmate for a Warrant Officer of 'is cubic capacity, before we got him
+quiet, was what I should call pointed."
+
+"I've been with Crocus--in the _Redoubtable_," said the Sergeant. "He's a
+character if there is one."
+
+"Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at the
+door of the Circus I came across Vickery. 'Oh!' he says, 'you're the man
+I'm looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin' places!'
+I went astern at once, protestin' because tickey seats better suited my
+so-called finances. 'Come on,' says Vickery, 'I'm payin'.' Naturally I
+abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o' drinks to match the seats.
+'No,' he says, when this was 'inted--'not now. Not now. As many as you
+please afterwards, but I want you sober for the occasion.' I caught 'is
+face under a lamp just then, an' the appearance of it quite cured me of my
+thirsts. Don't mistake. It didn't frighten me. It made me anxious. I can't
+tell you what it was like, but that was the effect which it 'ad on me. If
+you want to know, it reminded me of those things in bottles in those
+herbalistic shops at Plymouth--preserved in spirits of wine. White an'
+crumply things--previous to birth as you might say."
+
+"You 'ave a beastial mind, Pye," said the Sergeant, relighting his pipe.
+
+"Perhaps. We were in the front row, an' 'Home an' Friends' came on early.
+Vickery touched me on the knee when the number went up. 'If you see
+anything that strikes you,' he says, 'drop me a hint'; then he went on
+clicking. We saw London Bridge an' so forth an' so on, an' it was most
+interestin'. I'd never seen it before. You 'eard a little dynamo like
+buzzin', but the pictures were the real thing--alive an' movin'."
+
+"I've seen 'em," said Hooper. "Of course they are taken from the very
+thing itself--you see."
+
+"Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin'ton on the big magic lantern
+sheet. First we saw the platform empty an' the porters standin' by. Then
+the engine come in, head on, an' the women in the front row jumped: she
+headed so straight. Then the doors opened and the passengers came out and
+the porters got the luggage--just like life. Only--only when any one came
+down too far towards us that was watchin', they walked right out o' the
+picture, so to speak. I was 'ighly interested, I can tell you. So were all
+of us. I watched an old man with a rug 'oo'd dropped a book an' was tryin'
+to pick it up, when quite slowly, from be'ind two porters--carryin' a
+little reticule an' lookin' from side to side--comes out Mrs. Bathurst.
+There was no mistakin' the walk in a hundred thousand. She come forward--
+right forward--she looked out straight at us with that blindish look which
+Pritch alluded to. She walked on and on till she melted out of the
+picture--like--like a shadow jumpin' over a candle, an' as she went I
+'eard Dawson in the ticky seats be'ind sing out: 'Christ! There's
+Mrs. B.!'"
+
+Hooper swallowed his spittle and leaned forward intently.
+
+"Vickery touched me on the knee again. He was clickin' his four false
+teeth with his jaw down like an enteric at the last kick. 'Are you sure?'
+says he. 'Sure,' I says, 'didn't you 'ear Dawson give tongue? Why, it's
+the woman herself.' 'I was sure before,' he says, 'but I brought you to
+make sure. Will you come again with me to-morrow?'
+
+"'Willingly,' I says, 'it's like meetin' old friends.'
+
+"'Yes,' he says, openin' his watch, 'very like. It will be four-and-twenty
+hours less four minutes before I see her again. Come and have a drink,' he
+says. 'It may amuse you, but it's no sort of earthly use to me.' He went
+out shaking his head an' stumblin' over people's feet as if he was drunk
+already. I anticipated a swift drink an' a speedy return, because I wanted
+to see the performin' elephants. Instead o' which Vickery began to
+navigate the town at the rate o' knots, lookin' in at a bar every three
+minutes approximate Greenwich time. I'm not a drinkin' man, though there
+are those present"--he cocked his unforgetable eye at me--"who may have
+seen me more or less imbued with the fragrant spirit. None the less, when
+I drink I like to do it at anchor an' not at an average speed of eighteen
+knots on the measured mile. There's a tank as you might say at the back o'
+that big hotel up the hill--what do they call it?"
+
+"The Molteno Reservoir," I suggested, and Hooper nodded.
+
+"That was his limit o' drift. We walked there an' we come down through the
+Gardens--there was a South-Easter blowin'--an' we finished up by the
+Docks. Then we bore up the road to Salt River, and wherever there was a
+pub Vickery put in sweatin'. He didn't look at what he drunk--he didn't
+look at the change. He walked an' he drunk an' he perspired in rivers. I
+understood why old Crocus 'ad come back in the condition 'e did, because
+Vickery an' I 'ad two an' a half hours o' this gipsy manoeuvre an' when we
+got back to the station there wasn't a dry atom on or in me."
+
+"Did he say anything?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"The sum total of 'is conversation from 7.45 P.M. till 11.15 P.M. was
+'Let's have another.' Thus the mornin' an' the evenin' were the first day,
+as Scripture says.... To abbreviate a lengthy narrative, I went into Cape
+Town for five consecutive nights with Master Vickery, and in that time I
+must 'ave logged about fifty knots over the ground an' taken in two gallon
+o' all the worst spirits south the Equator. The evolution never varied.
+Two shilling seats for us two; five minutes o' the pictures, an' perhaps
+forty-five seconds o' Mrs. B. walking down towards us with that blindish
+look in her eyes an' the reticule in her hand. Then out walk--and drink
+till train time."
+
+"What did you think?" said Hooper, his hand fingering his waistcoat
+pocket.
+
+"Several things," said Pyecroft. "To tell you the truth, I aren't quite
+done thinkin' about it yet. Mad? The man was a dumb lunatic--must 'ave
+been for months--years p'raps. I know somethin' o' maniacs, as every man
+in the Service must. I've been shipmates with a mad skipper--an' a lunatic
+Number One, but never both together I thank 'Eaven. I could give you the
+names o' three captains now 'oo ought to be in an asylum, but you don't
+find me interferin' with the mentally afflicted till they begin to lay
+about 'em with rammers an' winch-handles. Only once I crept up a little
+into the wind towards Master Vickery. 'I wonder what she's doin' in
+England,' I says. 'Don't it seem to you she's lookin' for somebody?' That
+was in the Gardens again, with the South-Easter blowin' as we were makin'
+our desperate round. 'She's lookin' for me,' he says, stoppin' dead under
+a lamp an' clickin'. When he wasn't drinkin', in which case all 'is teeth
+clicked on the glass, 'e was clickin' 'is four false teeth like a Marconi
+ticker. 'Yes! lookin' for me,' he said, an' he went on very softly an' as
+you might say affectionately. '_But?_ he went on, 'in future, Mr.
+Pyecroft, I should take it kindly of you if you'd confine your remarks to
+the drinks set before you. Otherwise,' he says, 'with the best will in the
+world towards you, I may find myself guilty of murder! Do you understand?'
+he says. 'Perfectly,' I says, 'but would it at all soothe you to know that
+in such a case the chances o' your being killed are precisely equivalent
+to the chances o' me being outed.' 'Why, no,' he says, 'I'm almost afraid
+that 'ud be a temptation,'
+
+"Then I said--we was right under the lamp by that arch at the end o' the
+Gardens where the trams came round--'Assumin' murder was done--or
+attempted murder--I put it to you that you would still be left so badly
+crippled, as one might say, that your subsequent capture by the police--to
+'oom you would 'ave to explain--would be largely inevitable.' 'That's
+better,' 'e says, passin' 'is hands over his forehead. 'That's much
+better, because,' he says, 'do you know, as I am now, Pye, I'm not so sure
+if I could explain anything much.' Those were the only particular words I
+had with 'im in our walks as I remember."
+
+"What walks!" said Hooper. "Oh my soul, what walks!"
+
+"They were chronic," said Pyecroft gravely, "but I didn't anticipate any
+danger till the Circus left. Then I anticipated that, bein' deprived of
+'is stimulant, he might react on me, so to say, with a hatchet.
+Consequently, after the final performance an' the ensuin' wet walk, I kep'
+myself aloof from my superior officer on board in the execution of 'is
+duty as you might put it. Consequently, I was interested when the sentry
+informs me while I was passin' on my lawful occasions that Click had asked
+to see the captain. As a general rule warrant officers don't dissipate
+much of the owner's time, but Click put in an hour and more be'ind that
+door. My duties kep' me within eyeshot of it. Vickery came out first, an'
+'e actually nodded at me an' smiled. This knocked me out o' the boat,
+because, havin' seen 'is face for five consecutive nights, I didn't
+anticipate any change there more than a condenser in hell, so to speak.
+The owner emerged later. His face didn't read off at all, so I fell back
+on his cox, 'oo'd been eight years with him and knew him better than boat
+signals. Lamson--that was the cox's name--crossed 'is bows once or twice
+at low speeds an' dropped down to me visibly concerned. 'He's shipped 'is
+court-martial face,' says Lamson. 'Some one's goin' to be 'ung. I've never
+seen that look but once before when they chucked the gun-sights overboard
+in the _Fantastic_.' Throwin' gun-sights overboard, Mr. Hooper, is the
+equivalent for mutiny in these degenerate days. It's done to attract the
+notice of the authorities an' the _Western Mornin' News_--generally by a
+stoker. Naturally, word went round the lower deck an' we had a private
+over'aul of our little consciences. But, barrin' a shirt which a second-
+class stoker said 'ad walked into 'is bag from the marines flat by itself,
+nothin' vital transpired. The owner went about flyin' the signal for
+'attend public execution,' so to say, but there was no corpse at the
+yardarm. 'E lunched on the beach an' 'e returned with 'is regulation
+harbour-routine face about 3 P. M. Thus Lamson lost prestige for raising
+false alarms. The only person 'oo might 'ave connected the epicycloidal
+gears correctly was one Pyecroft, when he was told that Mr. Vickery would
+go up country that same evening to take over certain naval ammunition left
+after the war in Bloemfontein Fort. No details was ordered to accompany
+Master Vickery. He was told off first person singular--as a unit---by
+himself."
+
+The marine whistled penetratingly.
+
+"That's what I thought," said Pyecroft. "I went ashore with him in the
+cutter an' 'e asked me to walk through the station. He was clickin'
+audibly, but otherwise seemed happy-ish.
+
+"'You might like to know,' he says, stoppin' just opposite the Admiral's
+front gate, 'that Phyllis's Circus will be performin' at Worcester
+to-morrow night. So I shall see 'er yet once again. You've been very
+patient with me,' he says.
+
+"'Look here, Vickery,' I said, 'this thing's come to be just as much as I
+can stand. Consume your own smoke. I don't want to know any more.'
+
+"'You!' he said. 'What have you got to complain of?--you've only 'ad to
+watch. I'm _it_,' he says, 'but that's neither here nor there,' he says.
+'I've one thing to say before shakin' 'ands. Remember,' 'e says--we were
+just by the Admiral's garden-gate then--'remember, that I am _not_ a
+murderer, because my lawful wife died in childbed six weeks after I came
+out. That much at least I am clear of,' 'e says.
+
+"'Then what have you done that signifies?' I said. 'What's the rest of
+it?'
+
+"'The rest,' 'e says, 'is silence,' an' he shook 'ands and went clickin'
+into Simons Town station."
+
+"Did he stop to see Mrs. Bathurst at Worcester?" I asked.
+
+"It's not known. He reported at Bloemfontein, saw the ammunition into the
+trucks, and then 'e disappeared. Went out--deserted, if you care to put it
+so--within eighteen months of his pension, an' if what 'e said about 'is
+wife was true he was a free man as 'e then stood. How do you read it off?"
+
+"Poor devil!" said Hooper. "To see her that way every night! I wonder what
+it was."
+
+"I've made my 'ead ache in that direction many a long night."
+
+"But I'll swear Mrs. B. 'ad no 'and in it," said the Sergeant unshaken.
+
+"No. Whatever the wrong or deceit was, he did it, I'm sure o' that. I 'ad
+to look at 'is face for five consecutive nights. I'm not so fond o'
+navigatin' about Cape Town with a South-Easter blowin' these days. I can
+hear those teeth click, so to say."
+
+"Ah, those teeth," said Hooper, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket
+once more. "Permanent things false teeth are. You read about 'em in all
+the murder trials."
+
+"What d'you suppose the captain knew--or did?" I asked.
+
+"I never turned my searchlight that way," Pyecroft answered unblushingly.
+
+We all reflected together, and drummed on empty beer bottles as the
+picnic-party, sunburned, wet, and sandy, passed our door singing "The
+Honeysuckle and the Bee."
+
+"Pretty girl under that kapje," said Pyecroft.
+
+"They never circulated his description?" said Pritchard.
+
+"I was askin' you before these gentlemen came," said Hooper to me,
+"whether you knew Wankies--on the way to the Zambesi--beyond Buluwayo?"
+
+"Would he pass there--tryin' to get to that Lake what's 'is name?" said
+Pritchard.
+
+Hooper shook his head and went on: "There's a curious bit o' line there,
+you see. It runs through solid teak forest--a sort o' mahogany really--
+seventy-two miles without a curve. I've had a train derailed there twenty-
+three times in forty miles. I was up there a month ago relievin' a sick
+inspector, you see. He told me to look out for a couple of tramps in the
+teak."
+
+"Two?" Pyecroft said. "I don't envy that other man if----"
+
+"We get heaps of tramps up there since the war. The inspector told me I'd
+find 'em at M'Bindwe siding waiting to go North. He'd given 'em some grub
+and quinine, you see. I went up on a construction train. I looked out for
+'em. I saw them miles ahead along the straight, waiting in the teak. One
+of 'em was standin' up by the dead-end of tke siding an' the other was
+squattin' down lookin' up at 'im, you see."
+
+"What did you do for 'em?" said Pritchard.
+
+"There wasn't much I could do, except bury 'em. There'd been a bit of a
+thunderstorm in the teak, you see, and they were both stone dead and as
+black as charcoal. That's what they really were, you see--charcoal. They
+fell to bits when we tried to shift 'em. The man who was standin' up had
+the false teeth. I saw 'em shinin' against the black. Fell to bits he did
+too, like his mate squatting down an' watchin' him, both of 'em all wet in
+the rain. Both burned to charcoal, you see. And--that's what made me ask
+about marks just now--the false-toother was tattooed on the arms and
+chest--a crown and foul anchor with M.V. above."
+
+"I've seen that," said Pyecroft quickly. "It was so."
+
+"But if he was all charcoal-like?" said Pritchard, shuddering.
+
+"You know how writing shows up white on a burned letter? Well, it was like
+that, you see. We buried 'em in the teak and I kept... But he was a friend
+of you two gentlemen, you see."
+
+Mr. Hooper brought his hand away from his waistcoat-pocket--empty.
+
+Pritchard covered his face with his hands for a moment, like a child
+shutting out an ugliness.
+
+"And to think of her at Hauraki!" he murmured--"with 'er 'air-ribbon on my
+beer. 'Ada,' she said to her niece... Oh, my Gawd!"...
+
+  "On a summer afternoon, when the honeysuckle blooms,
+  And all Nature seems at rest,
+  Underneath the bower, 'mid the perfume of the flower,
+  Sat a maiden with the one she loves the best----"
+
+sang the picnic-party waiting for their train at Glengariff.
+
+"Well, I don't know how you feel about it," said Pyecroft, "but 'avin'
+seen 'is face for five consecutive nights on end, I'm inclined to finish
+what's left of the beer an' thank Gawd he's dead!"
+
+
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+"OUR FATHERS ALSO"
+
+  By--they are by with mirth and tears,
+  Wit or the works of Desire--
+  Cushioned about on the kindly years
+  Between the wall and the fire.
+
+  The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked--
+  Standeth no more to glean;
+  For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
+  When they went out between.
+
+  All lore our Lady Venus bares
+  Signalled it was or told
+  By the dear lips long given to theirs
+  And longer to the mould.
+
+  All Profit, all Device, all Truth
+  Written it was or said
+  By the mighty men of their mighty youth.
+  Which is mighty being dead.
+
+  The film that floats before their eyes
+  The Temple's Veil they call;
+  And the dust that on the Shewbread lies
+  Is holy over all.
+
+  Warn them of seas that slip our yoke
+  Of slow conspiring stars--
+  The ancient Front of Things unbroke
+  But heavy with new wars?
+
+  By--they are by with mirth and tears.
+  Wit or the waste of Desire--
+  Cushioned about on the kindly years
+  Between the wall and the fire.
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" They were letting in the water for the evening
+stint at Robert's Mill, and the wooden Wheel where lived the Spirit of the
+Mill settled to its nine hundred year old song: "Here Azor, a freeman,
+held one rod, but it never paid geld. _Nun-nun-nunquam geldavit_. Here
+Reinbert has one villein and four cottars with one plough--and wood for
+six hogs and two fisheries of sixpence and a mill of ten shillings--_unum
+molinum_--one mill. Reinbert's mill--Robert's Mill. Then and afterwards
+and now--_tunc et post et modo_--Robert's Mill. Book--Book--Domesday
+Book!"
+
+"I confess," said the Black Rat on the crossbeam, luxuriously trimming his
+whiskers--"I confess I am not above appreciating my position and all it
+means." He was a genuine old English black rat, a breed which, report
+says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown variety.
+
+"Appreciation is the surest sign of inadequacy," said the Grey Cat, coiled
+up on a piece of sacking.
+
+"But I know what you mean," she added. "To sit by right at the heart of
+things--eh?"
+
+"Yes," said the Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy stones
+thuttered on the grist. "To possess--er--all this environment as an
+integral part of one's daily life must insensibly of course ... You see?"
+
+"I feel," said the Grey Cat. "Indeed, if _we_ are not saturated with the
+spirit of the Mill, who should be?"
+
+"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" the Wheel, set to his work, was running off
+the tenure of the whole rape, for he knew Domesday Book backwards and
+forwards: "_In Ferle tenuit Abbatia de Wiltuna unam hidam et unam virgam
+et dimidiam. Nunquam geldavit_. And Agemond, a freeman, has half a hide
+and one rod. I remember Agemond well. Charmin' fellow--friend of mine. He
+married a Norman girl in the days when we rather looked down on the
+Normans as upstarts. An' Agemond's dead? So he is. Eh, dearie me! dearie
+me! I remember the wolves howling outside his door in the big frost of Ten
+Fifty-Nine.... _Essewelde hundredum nunquam geldum reddidit_. Book! Book!
+Domesday Book!"
+
+"After all," the Grey Cat continued, "atmospere is life. It is the
+influences under which we live that count in the long run. Now, outside"--
+she cocked one ear towards the half-opened door--"there is an absurd
+convention that rats and cats are, I won't go so far as to say natural
+enemies, but opposed forces. Some such ruling may be crudely effective--I
+don't for a minute presume to set up my standards as final--among the
+ditches; but from the larger point of view that one gains by living at the
+heart of things, it seems for a rule of life a little overstrained. Why,
+because some of your associates have, shall I say, liberal views on the
+ultimate destination of a sack of--er--middlings don't they call them----"
+
+"Something of that sort," said the Black Rat, a most sharp and sweet-
+toothed judge of everything ground in the mill for the last three years.
+
+"Thanks--middlings be it. _Why_, as I was saying, must I disarrange my fur
+and my digestion to chase you round the dusty arena whenever we happen to
+meet?"
+
+"As little reason," said the Black Rat, "as there is for me, who, I trust,
+am a person of ordinarily decent instincts, to wait till you have gone on
+a round of calls, and then to assassinate your very charming children."
+
+"Exactly! It has its humorous side though." The Grey Cat yawned. "The
+miller seems afflicted by it. He shouted large and vague threats to my
+address, last night at tea, that he wasn't going to keep cats who 'caught
+no mice.' Those were his words. I remember the grammar sticking in my
+throat like a herring-bone."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"What does one do when a barbarian utters? One ceases to utter and
+removes. I removed--towards his pantry. It was a _riposte_ he might
+appreciate."
+
+"Really those people grow absolutely insufferable," said the Black Rat.
+"There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles--a builder--
+who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the Wheel for
+the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick where
+those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used to stand. Have you noticed?"
+
+"There has been much misdirected activity of late among the humans. They
+jabber inordinately. I haven't yet been able to arrive at their reason for
+existence." The Cat yawned.
+
+"A couple of them came in here last week with wires, and fixed them all
+about the walls. Wires protected by some abominable composition, ending in
+iron brackets with glass bulbs. Utterly useless for any purpose and
+artistically absolutely hideous. What do they mean?"
+
+"Aaah! I have known _four_-and-twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza," said
+the Cat, who kept good company with the boarders spending a summer at the
+Mill Farm. "It means nothing except that humans occasionally bring their
+dogs with them. I object to dogs in all forms."
+
+"Shouldn't object to dogs," said the Wheel sleepily.... "The Abbot of
+Wilton kept the best pack in the county. He enclosed all the Harryngton
+Woods to Sturt Common. Aluric, a freeman, was dispossessed of his holding.
+They tried the case at Lewes, but he got no change out of William de
+Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric eight and
+fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for
+blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot's brother married ...
+I've forgotten her name, but she was a charmin' little woman. The Lady
+Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was conferred. She
+rode devilish straight to hounds. They were a bit throatier than we breed
+now, but a good pack: one of the best. The Abbot kept 'em in splendid
+shape. Now, who was the woman the Abbot kept? Book--Book! I shall have to
+go right back to Domesday and work up the centuries: _Modo per omnia
+reddit burgum tunc--tunc--tunc_! Was it _burgum_ or _hundredum_? I shall
+remember in a minute. There's no hurry." He paused as he turned over
+silvered with showering drops.
+
+"This won't do," said the Waters in the sluice. "Keep moving."
+
+The Wheel swung forward; the Waters roared on the buckets and dropped down
+to the darkness below.
+
+"Noisier than usual," said the Black Rat. "It must have been raining up
+the valley."
+
+"Floods maybe," said the Wheel dreamily. "It isn't the proper season, but
+they can come without warning. I shall never forget the big one--when the
+Miller went to sleep and forgot to open the hatches. More than two hundred
+years ago it was, but I recall it distinctly. Most unsettling."
+
+"We lifted that wheel off his bearings," cried the Waters. "We said, 'Take
+away that bauble!' And in the morning he was five mile down the valley--
+hung up in a tree."
+
+"Vulgar!" said the Cat. "But I am sure he never lost his dignity."
+
+"We don't know. He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished
+with him.... Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! Get over!"
+
+"And why on this day more than any other," said the Wheel statelily. "I am
+not aware that my department requires the stimulus of external pressure to
+keep it up to its duties. I trust I have the elementary instincts of a
+gentleman."
+
+"Maybe," the Waters answered together, leaping down on the buckets. "We
+only know that you are very stiff on your bearings. Over, get over!"
+
+The Wheel creaked and groaned. There was certainly greater pressure upon
+him that he had ever felt, and his revolutions had increased from six and
+three-quarters to eight and a third per minute. But the uproar between the
+narrow, weed-hung walls annoyed the Grey Cat.
+
+"Isn't it almost time," she said plaintively, "that the person who is paid
+to understand these things shuts off those vehement drippings with that
+screw-thing on the top of that box-thing."
+
+"They'll be shut off at eight o'clock as usual," said Rat; "then we can go
+to dinner."
+
+"But we shan't be shut off till ever so late," said the Waters gaily. "We
+shall keep it up all night."
+
+"The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for by
+its eternal hopefulness," said the Cat. "Our dam is not, I am glad to say,
+designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time. Reserve is
+Life."
+
+"Thank goodness!" said the Black Rat. "Then they can return to their
+native ditches."
+
+"Ditches!" cried the Waters; "Raven's Gill Brook is no ditch. It is almost
+navigable, and _we_ come from there away." They slid over solid and
+compact till the Wheel thudded under their weight.
+
+"Raven's Gill Brook," said the Rat. "_I_ never heard of Raven's Gill."
+
+"We are the waters of Harpenden Brook--down from under Callton Rise. Phew!
+how the race stinks compared with the heather country." Another five foot
+of water flung itself against the Wheel, broke, roared, gurgled, and was
+gone.
+
+"Indeed," said the Grey Cat, "I am sorry to tell you that Raven's Gill
+Brook is cut off from this valley by an absolutely impassable range of
+mountains, and Callton Rise is more than nine miles away. It belongs to
+another system entirely."
+
+"Ah yes," said the Rat, grinning, "but we forget that, for the young,
+water always runs uphill."
+
+"Oh, hopeless! hopeless! hopeless!" cried the Waters, descending open-
+palmed upon the Wheel "There is nothing between here and Raven's Gill
+Brook that a hundred yards of channelling and a few square feet of
+concrete could not remove; and hasn't removed!"
+
+"And Harpenden Brook is north of Raven's Gill and runs into Raven's Gill
+at the foot of Callton Rise, where ilex trees are, and _we_ come from
+there!" These were the glassy, clear waters of the high chalk.
+
+"And Batten's Ponds, that are fed by springs, have been led through
+Trott's Wood, taking the spare water from the old Witches' Spring under
+Churt Haw, and we--we--_we_ are their combined waters!" Those were the
+Waters from the upland bogs and moors--a porter-coloured, dusky, and foam-
+flecked flood.
+
+"It's all very interesting," purred the Cat to the sliding waters, "and I
+have no doubt that Trott's Woods and Bott's Woods are tremendously
+important places; but if you could manage to do your work--whose value I
+don't in the least dispute--a little more soberly, I, for one, should be
+grateful."
+
+"Book--book--book--book--book--Domesday Book!" The urged Wheel was fairly
+clattering now: "In Burgelstaltone a monk holds of Earl Godwin one hide
+and a half with eight villeins. There is a church--and a monk.... I
+remember that monk. Blessed if he could rattle his rosary off any quicker
+than I am doing now ... and wood for seven hogs. I must be running twelve
+to the minute ... almost as fast as Steam. Damnable invention, Steam! ...
+Surely it's time we went to dinner or prayers--or something. Can't keep up
+this pressure, day in and day out, and not feel it. I don't mind for
+myself, of course. _Noblesse oblige_, you know. I'm only thinking of the
+Upper and the Nether Millstones. They came out of the common rock. They
+can't be expected to----"
+
+"Don't worry on our account, please," said the Millstones huskily. "So
+long as you supply the power we'll supply the weight and the bite."
+
+"Isn't it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this way?" grunted
+the Wheel. "I seem to remember something about the Mills of God grinding
+'slowly.' _Slowly_ was the word!"
+
+"But we are not the Mills of God. We're only the Upper and the Nether
+Millstones. We have received no instructions to be anything else. We are
+actuated by power transmitted through you."
+
+"Ah, but let us be merciful as we are strong. Think of all the beautiful
+little plants that grow on my woodwork. There are five varieties of rare
+moss within less than one square yard--and all these delicate jewels of
+nature are being grievously knocked about by this excessive rush of the
+water."
+
+"Umph!" growled the Millstones. "What with your religious scruples and
+your taste for botany we'd hardly know you for the Wheel that put the
+carter's son under last autumn. You never worried about _him_!"
+
+"He ought to have known better."
+
+"So ought your jewels of nature. Tell 'em to grow where it's safe."
+
+"How a purely mercantile life debases and brutalises!" said the Cat to the
+Rat.
+
+"They were such beautiful little plants too," said the Rat tenderly.
+"Maiden's-tongue and hart's-hair fern trellising all over the wall just as
+they do on the sides of churches in the Downs. Think what a joy the sight
+of them must be to our sturdy peasants pulling hay!"
+
+"Golly!" said the Millstones. "There's nothing like coming to the heart of
+things for information"; and they returned to the song that all English
+water-mills have sung from time beyond telling:
+
+  There was a jovial miller once
+  Lived on the River Dee,
+  And this the burden of his song
+  For ever used to be.
+
+Then, as fresh grist poured in and dulled the note:
+
+  I care for nobody--no not I,
+  And nobody cares for me.
+
+"Even these stones have absorbed something of our atmosphere," said the
+Grey Cat. "Nine-tenths of the trouble in this world comes from lack of
+detachment."
+
+"One of your people died from forgetting that, didn't she?" said the Rat.
+
+"One only. The example has sufficed us for generations."
+
+"Ah! but what happened to Don't Care?" the Waters demanded.
+
+"Brutal riding to death of the casual analogy is another mark of
+provincialism!" The Grey Cat raised her tufted chin. "I am going to sleep.
+With my social obligations I must snatch rest when I can; but, as our old
+friend here says, _Noblesse oblige_.... Pity me! Three functions to-night
+in the village, and a barn dance across the valley!"
+
+"There's no chance, I suppose, of your looking in on the loft about two.
+Some of our young people are going to amuse themselves with a new sacque-
+dance--best white flour only," said the Black Rat.
+
+"I believe I am officially supposed not to countenance that sort of thing,
+but youth is youth. ... By the way, the humans set my milk-bowl in the
+loft these days; I hope your youngsters respect it."
+
+"My dear lady," said the Black Rat, bowing, "you grieve me. You hurt me
+inexpressibly. After all these years, too!"
+
+"A general crush is so mixed--highways and hedges--all that sort of thing
+--and no one can answer for one's best friends. _I_ never try. So long as
+mine are amusin' and in full voice, and can hold their own at a tile-
+party, I'm as catholic as these mixed waters in the dam here!"
+
+"We aren't mixed. We _have_ mixed. We are one now," said the Waters
+sulkily.
+
+"Still uttering?" said the Cat. "Never mind, here's the Miller coming to
+shut you off. Ye-es, I have known--_four_--or five is it?--and twenty
+leaders of revolt in Faenza.... A little more babble in the dam, a little
+more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the wheel,
+and then----"
+
+"They will find that nothing has occurred," said the Black Rat. "The old
+things persist and survive and are recognised--our old friend here first
+of all. By the way," he turned toward the Wheel, "I believe we have to
+congratulate you on your latest honour."
+
+"Profoundly well deserved--even if he had never--as he has---laboured
+strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of millkind," said
+the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse committees. "Doubly
+deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified rebuke his existence
+offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands of--er--some people. What
+form did the honour take?"
+
+"It was," said the Wheel bashfully, "a machine-moulded pinion."
+
+"Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!" the Black Rat sighed. "I never see a bat
+without wishing for wings."
+
+"Not exactly that sort of pinion," said the Wheel, "but a really ornate
+circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying. Mr.
+Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally--on my left
+rim--the side that you can't see from the mill. I hadn't meant to say
+anything about it--or the new steel straps round my axles--bright red, you
+know--to be worn on all occasions--but, without false modesty, I assure
+you that the recognition cheered me not a little."
+
+"How intensely gratifying!" said the Black Rat. "I must really steal an
+hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on your left
+side."
+
+"By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr. Mangles?"
+the Grey Cat asked. "He seems to be building small houses on the far side
+of the tail-race. Believe me, I don't ask from any vulgar curiosity."
+
+"It affects our Order," said the Black Rat simply but firmly.
+
+"Thank you," said the Wheel. "Let me see if I can tabulate it properly.
+Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On the
+side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now
+was a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and two
+carts of two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards and a
+half, and one roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and
+afterwards beer in large tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three
+villeins and one very great cart, deposits on it one engine of iron and
+brass and a small iron mill of four feet, and a broad strap of leather.
+And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins, constructs the floor for the
+same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the small mill. There are
+there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number fifty-seven. The
+whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four pounds.... I'm sorry I
+can't make myself clearer, but you can see for yourself."
+
+"Amazingly lucid," said the Cat. She was the more to be admired because
+the language of Domesday Book is not, perhaps, the clearest medium wherein
+to describe a small but complete electric-light installation, deriving its
+power from a water-wheel by means of cogs and gearing.
+
+"See for yourself--by all means, see for yourself," said the Waters,
+spluttering and choking with mirth.
+
+"Upon my word," said the Black Rat furiously, "I may be at fault, but I
+wholly fail to perceive where these offensive eavesdroppers--er--come in.
+We were discussing a matter that solely affected our Order."
+
+Suddenly they heard, as they had heard many times before, the Miller
+shutting off the water. To the rattle and rumble of the labouring stones
+succeeded thick silence, punctuated with little drops from the stayed
+wheel. Then some water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as she slid to
+her nest, and the plop of a water-rat sounded like the fall of a log in
+the water.
+
+"It is all over--it always is all over at just this time. Listen, the
+Miller is going to bed--as usual. Nothing has occurred," said the Cat.
+
+Something creaked in the house where the pig-styes had stood, as metal
+engaged on metal with a clink and a burr.
+
+"Shall I turn her on?" cried the Miller.
+
+"Ay," said the voice from the dynamo-house.
+
+"A human in Mangles' new house!" the Rat squeaked.
+
+"What of it?" said the Grey Cat. "Even supposing Mr. Mangles' cats'-meat-
+coloured hovel ululated with humans, can't you see for yourself--that--?"
+
+There was a solid crash of released waters leaping upon the wheel more
+furiously than ever, a grinding of cogs, a hum like the hum of a hornet,
+and then the unvisited darkness of the old mill was scattered by
+intolerable white light. It threw up every cobweb, every burl and knot in
+the beams and the floor; till the shadows behind the flakes of rough
+plaster on the wall lay clear-cut as shadows of mountains on the
+photographed moon.
+
+"See! See! See!" hissed the Waters in full flood. "Yes, see for
+yourselves. Nothing has occurred. Can't you see?"
+
+The Rat, amazed, had fallen from his foothold and lay half-stunned on the
+floor. The Cat, following her instinct, leaped nigh to the ceiling, and
+with flattened ears and bared teeth backed in a corner ready to fight
+whatever terror might be loosed on her. But nothing happened. Through the
+long aching minutes nothing whatever happened, and her wire-brush tail
+returned slowly to its proper shape.
+
+"Whatever it is," she said at last, "it's overdone. They can never keep it
+up, you know."
+
+"Much you know," said the Waters. "Over you go, old man. You can take the
+full head of us now. Those new steel axle-straps of yours can stand
+anything. Come along, Raven's Gill, Harpenden, Callton Rise, Batten's
+Ponds, Witches' Spring, all together! Let's show these gentlemen how to
+work!"
+
+"But--but--I thought it was a decoration. Why--why--why--it only means
+more work for _me_!"
+
+"Exactly. You're to supply about sixty eight-candle lights when required.
+But they won't be all in use at once----"
+
+"Ah! I thought as much," said the Cat. "The reaction is bound to come."
+
+"_And_" said the Waters, "you will do the ordinary work of the mill as
+well."
+
+"Impossible!" the old Wheel quivered as it drove. "Aluric never did it--
+nor Azor, nor Reinbert. Not even William de Warrenne or the Papal Legate.
+There's no precedent for it. I tell you there's no precedent for working a
+wheel like this."
+
+"Wait a while! We're making one as fast as we can. Aluric and Co. are
+dead. So's the Papal Legate. You've no notion how dead they are, but we're
+here--the Waters of Five Separate Systems. We're just as interesting as
+Domesday Book. Would you like to hear about the land-tenure in Trott's
+Wood? It's squat-right, chiefly." The mocking Waters leaped one over the
+other, chuckling and chattering profanely.
+
+"In that hundred Jenkins, a tinker, with one dog--_unis canis_--holds, by
+the Grace of God and a habit he has of working hard, _unam hidam_--a large
+potato patch. Charmin' fellow, Jenkins. Friend of ours. Now, who the dooce
+did Jenkins keep? ... In the hundred of Callton is one charcoal-burner
+_irreligiosissimus homo_--a bit of a rip--but a thorough sportsman. _Ibi
+est ecclesia. Non multum_. Not much of a church, _quia_ because,
+_episcopus_ the Vicar irritated the Nonconformists _tunc et post et modo_
+--then and afterwards and now--until they built a cut-stone Congregational
+chapel with red brick facings that did not return itself--_defendebat se_
+--at four thousand pounds."
+
+"Charcoal-burners, vicars, schismatics, and red brick facings," groaned
+the Wheel. "But this is sheer blasphemy. What waters have they let in upon
+me?"
+
+"Floods from the gutters. Faugh, this light is positively sickening!" said
+the Cat, rearranging her fur.
+
+"We come down from the clouds or up from the springs, exactly like all
+other waters everywhere. Is that what's surprising you?" sang the Waters.
+
+"Of course not. I know my work if you don't. What I complain of is your
+lack of reverence and repose. You've no instinct of deference towards your
+betters--your heartless parody of the Sacred volume (the Wheel meant
+Domesday Book)--proves it."
+
+"Our betters?" said the Waters most solemnly. "What is there in all this
+dammed race that hasn't come down from the clouds, or----"
+
+"Spare me that talk, please," the Wheel persisted. "You'd _never_
+understand. It's the tone--your tone that we object to."
+
+"Yes. It's your tone," said the Black Rat, picking himself up limb by
+limb.
+
+"If you thought a trifle more about the work you're supposed to do, and a
+trifle less about your precious feelings, you'd render a little more duty
+in return for the power vested in you--we mean wasted on you," the Waters
+replied.
+
+"I have been some hundreds of years laboriously acquiring the knowledge
+which you see fit to challenge so light-heartedly," the Wheel jarred.
+
+"Challenge him! Challenge him!" clamoured the little waves riddling down
+through the tail-race. "As well now as later. Take him up!"
+
+The main mass of the Waters plunging on the Wheel shocked that well-bolted
+structure almost into box-lids by saying: "Very good. Tell us what you
+suppose yourself to be doing at the present moment."
+
+"Waiving the offensive form of your question, I answer, purely as a matter
+of courtesy, that I am engaged in the trituration of farinaceous
+substances whose ultimate destination it would be a breach of the trust
+reposed in me to reveal."
+
+"Fiddle!" said the Waters. "We knew it all along! The first direct
+question shows his ignorance of his own job. Listen, old thing. Thanks to
+us, you are now actuating a machine of whose construction you know
+nothing, that that machine may, over wires of whose ramifications you are,
+by your very position, profoundly ignorant, deliver a power which you can
+never realise, to localities beyond the extreme limits of your mental
+horizon, with the object of producing phenomena which in your wildest
+dreams (if you ever dream) you could never comprehend. Is that clear, or
+would you like it all in words of four syllables?"
+
+"Your assumptions are deliciously sweeping, but may I point out that a
+decent and--the dear old Abbot of Wilton would have put it in his resonant
+monkish Latin much better than I can--a scholarly reserve, does not
+necessarily connote blank vacuity of mind on all subjects."
+
+"Ah, the dear old Abbot of Wilton," said the Rat sympathetically, as one
+nursed in that bosom. "Charmin' fellow--thorough scholar and gentleman.
+Such a pity!"
+
+"Oh, Sacred Fountains!" the Waters were fairly boiling. "He goes out of
+his way to expose his ignorance by triple bucketfuls. He creaks to high
+Heaven that he is hopelessly behind the common order of things! He invites
+the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal
+incompetence, and then he talks as though there were untold reserves of
+knowledge behind him that he is too modest to bring forward. For a bland,
+circular, absolutely sincere impostor, you're a miracle, O Wheel!"
+
+"I do not pretend to be anything more than an integral portion of an
+accepted and not altogether mushroom institution."
+
+"Quite so," said the Waters. "Then go round--hard----"
+
+"To what end?" asked the Wheel.
+
+"Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and fume--gassing is
+the proper word."
+
+"It would be," said the Cat, sniffing.
+
+"That will show that your accumulators are full. When the accumulators are
+exhausted, and the lights burn badly, you will find us whacking you round
+and round again."
+
+"The end of life as decreed by Mangles and his creatures is to go whacking
+round and round for ever," said the Cat.
+
+"In order," the Rat said, "that you may throw raw and unnecessary
+illumination upon all the unloveliness in the world. Unloveliness which we
+shall--er--have always with us. At the same time you will riotously
+neglect the so-called little but vital graces that make up Life."
+
+"Yes, Life," said the Cat, "with its dim delicious half-tones and veiled
+indeterminate distances. Its surprisals, escapes, encounters, and dizzying
+leaps--its full-throated choruses in honour of the morning star, and its
+melting reveries beneath the sun-warmed wall."
+
+"Oh, you can go on the tiles, Pussalina, just the same as usual," said the
+laughing Waters. "_We_ sha'n't interfere with you."
+
+"On the tiles, forsooth!" hissed the Cat.
+
+"Well, that's what it amounts to," persisted the Waters. "We see a good
+deal of the minor graces of life on our way down to our job."
+
+"And--but I fear I speak to deaf ears--do they never impress you?" said
+the Wheel.
+
+"Enormously," said the Waters. "We have already learned six refined
+synonyms for loafing."
+
+"But (here again I feel as though preaching in the wilderness) it never
+occurs to you that there may exist some small difference between the
+wholly animal--ah--rumination of bovine minds and the discerning, well-
+apportioned leisure of the finer type of intellect?"
+
+"Oh, yes. The bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no bones
+about it when it's shouted at. We've seen _that_--in haying-time--all
+along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough to fudge up excuses
+for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when its excuses aren't
+accepted. Turn over!"
+
+"But, my good people, no gentleman gets stuffy as you call it. A certain
+proper pride, to put it no higher, forbids---"
+
+"Nothing that he wants to do if he really wants to do it. Get along! What
+are you giving us? D'you suppose we've scoured half heaven in the clouds,
+and half earth in the mists, to be taken in at this time of the day by a
+bone-idle, old hand-quern of your type?"
+
+"It is not for me to bandy personalities with you. I can only say that I
+simply decline to accept the situation."
+
+"Decline away. It doesn't make any odds. They'll probably put in a turbine
+if you decline too much."
+
+"What's a turbine?" said the Wheel, quickly.
+
+"A little thing you don't see, that performs surprising revolutions. But
+you won't decline. You'll hang on to your two nice red-strapped axles and
+your new machine-moulded pinions like--a--like a leech on a lily stem!
+There's centuries of work in your old bones if you'd only apply yourself
+to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel with this head of water is
+about as efficient as a turbine."
+
+"So in future I am to be considered mechanically? I have been painted by
+at least five Royal Academicians."
+
+"Oh, you can be painted by five hundred when you aren't at work, of
+course. But while you are at work you'll work. You won't half-stop and
+think and talk about rare plants and dicky-birds and farinaceous fiduciary
+interests. You'll continue to revolve, and this new head of water will see
+that you do so continue."
+
+"It is a matter on which it would be exceedingly ill-advised to form a
+hasty or a premature conclusion. I will give it my most careful
+consideration," said the Wheel.
+
+"Please do," said the Waters gravely. "Hullo! Here's the Miller again."
+
+The Cat coiled herself in a picturesque attitude on the softest corner of
+a sack, and the Rat without haste, yet certainly without rest, slipped
+behind the sacking as though an appointment had just occurred to him.
+
+In the doorway, with the young Engineer, stood the Miller grinning
+amazedly.
+
+"Well--well--well! 'tis true-ly won'erful. An' what a power o' dirt! It
+come over me now looking at these lights, that I've never rightly seen my
+own mill before. She needs a lot bein' done to her."
+
+"Ah! I suppose one must make oneself moderately agreeable to the baser
+sort. They have their uses. This thing controls the dairy." The Cat,
+pincing on her toes, came forward and rubbed her head against the Miller's
+knee.
+
+"Ay, you pretty puss," he said, stooping. "You're as big a cheat as the
+rest of 'em that catch no mice about me. A won'erful smooth-skinned,
+rough-tongued cheat you be. I've more than half a mind----"
+
+"She does her work well," said the Engineer, pointing to where the Rat's
+beady eyes showed behind the sacking. "Cats and Rats livin' together--
+see?"
+
+"Too much they do--too long they've done. I'm sick and tired of it. Go and
+take a swim and larn to find your own vittles honest when you come out,
+Pussy."
+
+"My word!" said the Waters, as a sprawling Cat landed all unannounced in
+the centre of the tail-race. "Is that you, Mewsalina? You seem to have
+been quarrelling with your best friend. Get over to the left. It's
+shallowest there. Up on that alder-root with all four paws. Good-night!"
+
+"You'll never get any they rats," said the Miller, as the young Engineer
+struck wrathfully with his stick at the sacking. "They're not the common
+sort. They're the old black English sort."
+
+"Are they, by Jove? I must catch one to stuff, some day."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Six months later, in the chill of a January afternoon, they were letting
+in the Waters as usual.
+
+"Come along! It's both gears this evening," said the Wheel, kicking
+joyously in the first rush of the icy stream. "There's a heavy load of
+grist just in from Lamber's Wood. Eleven miles it came in an hour and a
+half in our new motor-lorry, and the Miller's rigged five new five-candle
+lights in his cow-stables. I'm feeding 'em to-night. There's a cow due to
+calve. Oh, while I think of it, what's the news from Callton Rise?"
+
+"The waters are finding their level as usual--but why do you ask?" said
+the deep outpouring Waters.
+
+"Because Mangles and Felden and the Miller are talking of increasing the
+plant here and running a saw-mill by electricity. I was wondering whether
+we----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the Waters chuckling. "_What_ did you say?"
+
+"Whether _we_, of course, had power enough for the job. It will be a
+biggish contract. There's all Harpenden Brook to be considered and
+Batten's Ponds as well, and Witches' Fountain, and the Churt's Hawd
+system.
+
+"We've power enough for anything in the world," said the Waters. "The only
+question is whether you could stand the strain if we came down on you full
+head."
+
+"Of course I can," said the Wheel. "Mangles is going to turn me into a set
+of turbines--beauties."
+
+"Oh--er--I suppose it's the frost that has made us a little thick-headed,
+but to whom are we talking?" asked the amazed Waters.
+
+"To me--the Spirit of the Mill, of course."
+
+"Not to the old Wheel, then?"
+
+"I happen to be living in the old Wheel just at present. When the turbines
+are installed I shall go and live in them. What earthly difference does it
+make?"
+
+"Absolutely none," said the Waters, "in the earth or in the waters under
+the earth. But we thought turbines didn't appeal to you."
+
+"Not like turbines? Me? My dear fellows, turbines are good for fifteen
+hundred revolutions a minute--and with our power we can drive 'em at full
+speed. Why, there's nothing we couldn't grind or saw or illuminate or heat
+with a set of turbines! That's to say if all the Five Watersheds are
+agreeable."
+
+"Oh, we've been agreeable for ever so long."
+
+"Then why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Don't know. Suppose it slipped our memory."
+
+The Waters were holding themselves in for fear of bursting with mirth.
+
+"How careless of you! You should keep abreast of the age, my dear fellows.
+We might have settled it long ago, if you'd only spoken. Yes, four good
+turbines and a neat brick penstock--eh? This old Wheel's absurdly out of
+date."
+
+"Well," said the Cat, who after a little proud seclusion had returned to
+her place impenitent as ever. "Praised be Pasht and the Old Gods, that
+whatever may have happened _I_, at least, have preserved the Spirit of the
+Mill!"
+
+She looked round as expecting her faithful ally, the Black Rat; but that
+very week the Engineer had caught and stuffed him, and had put him in a
+glass case; he being a genuine old English black rat. That breed, the
+report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown
+variety.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+This file should be named 8tdsc10.txt or 8tdsc10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8tdsc11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8tdsc10a.txt
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+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:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+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.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 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:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+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:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[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*
diff --git a/old/8tdsc10.zip b/old/8tdsc10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..850683b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8tdsc10.zip
diff --git a/old/9790-8.txt b/old/9790-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..54cdbc0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/9790-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11383 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+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: Traffics and Discoveries
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Posting Date: December 11, 2011 [EBook #9790]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 17, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES
+
+
+By Rudyard Kipling
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+_from the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed(Wahabi)_
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+_Poseidon'S Law_
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+_The Runners_
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+_The Wet Litany_
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART I.
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART II.
+
+_The King's Task_
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COOPER
+
+_The Necessitarian_
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+_Kaspar's Song in "Varda"_
+
+"WIRELESS"
+
+_Song of the Old Guard_
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART I.
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART II.
+
+_The Return of the Children_
+
+"THEY"
+
+_From Lyden's "Irenius_"
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+     "_Our Fathers Also_"
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+FROM THE MASJID-AL-AQSA OF SAYYID AHMED (WAHABI)
+
+  Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
+  He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
+  When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
+  He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
+  Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
+  Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.
+  Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow
+  Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,
+  Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,
+  Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.
+  Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story;
+  And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory
+  Embroidered with names of the Djinns--a miraculous weaving--
+  But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.
+  So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture--
+  Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture--
+  Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed;
+  But on him be the Peace and the Blessing: for he was great-hearted!
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+"He that believeth shall not make haste."--_Isaiah_.
+
+The guard-boat lay across the mouth of the bathing-pool, her crew idly
+spanking the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated militia-man,
+rifle in hand, sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the stern. Between
+the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, honey-coloured rocks on the
+beach the green water was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war
+bathing. Behind their orderly tin camp and the electric-light poles rose
+those stone-dotted spurs that throw heat on Simonstown. Beneath them the
+little _Barracouta_ nodded to the big _Gibraltar_, and the old _Penelope_,
+that in ten years has been bachelors' club, natural history museum,
+kindergarten, and prison, rooted and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a
+three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in
+from the deep sea.
+
+Said the sentry, assured of the visitor's good faith, "Talk to 'em? You
+can, to any that speak English. You'll find a lot that do."
+
+Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch
+Reformed Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority
+preferred their bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused the
+visitor that day to receive two weeks' delayed mails in one from a casual
+postman, and the whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a strap, he
+dangled as bait. At the edge of the beach, cross-legged, undressed to his
+sky-blue army shirt, sat a lean, ginger-haired man, on guard over a dozen
+heaps of clothing. His eyes followed the incoming Atlantic boat.
+
+"Excuse me, Mister," he said, without turning (and the speech betrayed his
+nationality), "would you mind keeping away from these garments? I've been
+elected janitor--on the Dutch vote."
+
+The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to his
+mail. At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured man
+turned quickly, the hunger of a press-ridden people in his close-set iron-
+grey eyes.
+
+"Have you any use for papers?" said the visitor.
+
+"Have I any use?" A quick, curved forefinger was already snicking off the
+outer covers. "Why, that's the New York postmark! Give me the ads. at the
+back of _Harper's_ and _M'Clure's_ and I'm in touch with God's Country
+again! Did you know how I was aching for papers?"
+
+The visitor told the tale of the casual postman.
+
+"Providential!" said the ginger-coloured man, keen as a terrier on his
+task; "both in time and matter. Yes! ... The _Scientific American_ yet
+once more! Oh, it's good! it's good!" His voice broke as he pressed his
+hawk-like nose against the heavily-inked patent-specifications at the end.
+"Can I keep it? I thank you--I thank you! Why--why--well--well! The
+_American Tyler_ of all things created! Do you subscribe to that?"
+
+"I'm on the free list," said the visitor, nodding.
+
+He extended his blue-tanned hand with that air of Oriental spaciousness
+which distinguishes the native-born American, and met the visitor's grasp
+expertly. "I can only say that you have treated me like a Brother (yes,
+I'll take every last one you can spare), and if ever--" He plucked at the
+bosom of his shirt. "Psha! I forgot I'd no card on me; but my name's
+Zigler--Laughton G. Zigler. An American? If Ohio's still in the Union, I
+am, Sir. But I'm no extreme States'-rights man. I've used all of my native
+country and a few others as I have found occasion, and now I am the
+captive of your bow and spear. I'm not kicking at that. I am not a coerced
+alien, nor a naturalised Texas mule-tender, nor an adventurer on the
+instalment plan. _I_ don't tag after our consul when he comes around,
+expecting the American Eagle to lift me out o' this by the slack of my
+pants. No, sir! If a Britisher went into Indian Territory and shot up his
+surroundings with a Colt automatic (not that _she's_ any sort of weapon,
+but I take her for an illustration), he'd be strung up quicker'n a
+snowflake 'ud melt in hell. No ambassador of yours 'ud save him. I'm my
+neck ahead on this game, anyway. That's how I regard the proposition.
+
+"Have I gone gunning against the British? To a certain extent, I presume
+you never heard tell of the Laughton-Zigler automatic two-inch field-gun,
+with self-feeding hopper, single oil-cylinder recoil, and ballbearing gear
+throughout? Or Laughtite, the new explosive? Absolutely uniform in effect,
+and one-ninth the bulk of any present effete charge--flake, cannonite,
+cordite, troisdorf, cellulose, cocoa, cord, or prism--I don't care what it
+is. Laughtite's immense; so's the Zigler automatic. It's me. It's fifteen
+years of me. You are not a gun-sharp? I am sorry. I could have surprised
+you. Apart from my gun, my tale don't amount to much of anything. I thank
+you, but I don't use any tobacco you'd be likely to carry... Bull Durham?
+_Bull Durham!_ I take it all back--every last word. Bull Durham--here! If
+ever you strike Akron, Ohio, when this fool-war's over, remember you've
+Laughton O. Zigler in your vest pocket. Including the city of Akron. We've
+a little club there.... Hell! What's the sense of talking Akron with no
+pants?
+
+"My gun? ... For two cents I'd have shipped her to our Filipeens. 'Came
+mighty near it too; but from what I'd read in the papers, you can't trust
+Aguinaldo's crowd on scientific matters. Why don't I offer it to our army?
+Well, you've an effete aristocracy running yours, and we've a crowd of
+politicians. The results are practically identical. I am not taking any
+U.S. Army in mine.
+
+"I went to Amsterdam with her--to this Dutch junta that supposes it's
+bossing the war. I wasn't brought up to love the British for one thing,
+and for another I knew that if she got in her fine work (my gun) I'd stand
+more chance of receiving an unbiassed report from a crowd of dam-fool
+British officers than from a hatful of politicians' nephews doing duty as
+commissaries and ordnance sharps. As I said, I put the brown man out of
+the question. That's the way _I_ regarded the proposition.
+
+"The Dutch in Holland don't amount to a row of pins. Maybe I misjudge 'em.
+Maybe they've been swindled too often by self-seeking adventurers to know
+a enthusiast when they see him. Anyway, they're slower than the Wrath o'
+God. But on delusions--as to their winning out next Thursday week at 9
+A.M.--they are--if I may say so--quite British.
+
+"I'll tell you a curious thing, too. I fought 'em for ten days before I
+could get the financial side of my game fixed to my liking. I knew they
+didn't believe in the Zigler, but they'd no call to be crazy-mean. I fixed
+it--free passage and freight for me and the gun to Delagoa Bay, and beyond
+by steam and rail. Then I went aboard to see her crated, and there I
+struck my fellow-passengers--all deadheads, same as me. Well, Sir, I
+turned in my tracks where I stood and besieged the ticket-office, and I
+said, 'Look at here, Van Dunk. I'm paying for my passage and her room in
+the hold--every square and cubic foot.' 'Guess he knocked down the fare to
+himself; but I paid. I paid. I wasn't going to deadhead along o' _that_
+crowd of Pentecostal sweepings. 'Twould have hoodooed my gun for all time.
+That was the way I regarded the proposition. No, Sir, they were not pretty
+company.
+
+"When we struck Pretoria I had a hell-and-a-half of a time trying to
+interest the Dutch vote in my gun an' her potentialities. The bottom was
+out of things rather much just about that time. Kruger was praying some
+and stealing some, and the Hollander lot was singing, 'If you haven't any
+money you needn't come round,' Nobody was spending his dough on anything
+except tickets to Europe. We were both grossly neglected. When I think how
+I used to give performances in the public streets with dummy cartridges,
+filling the hopper and turning the handle till the sweat dropped off me, I
+blush, Sir. I've made her to do her stunts before Kaffirs--naked sons of
+Ham--in Commissioner Street, trying to get a holt somewhere.
+
+"Did I talk? I despise exaggeration--'tain't American or scientific--but
+as true as I'm sitting here like a blue-ended baboon in a kloof, Teddy
+Roosevelt's Western tour was a maiden's sigh compared to my advertising
+work.
+
+"'Long in the spring I was rescued by a commandant called Van Zyl--a big,
+fleshy man with a lame leg. Take away his hair and his gun and he'd make a
+first-class Schenectady bar-keep. He found me and the Zigler on the veldt
+(Pretoria wasn't wholesome at that time), and he annexed me in a
+somnambulistic sort o' way. He was dead against the war from the start,
+but, being a Dutchman, he fought a sight better than the rest of that 'God
+and the Mauser' outfit. Adrian Van Zyl. Slept a heap in the daytime--and
+didn't love niggers. I liked him. I was the only foreigner in his
+commando. The rest was Georgia Crackers and Pennsylvania Dutch--with a
+dash o' Philadelphia lawyer. I could tell you things about them would
+surprise you. Religion for one thing; women for another; but I don't know
+as their notions o' geography weren't the craziest. 'Guess that must be
+some sort of automatic compensation. There wasn't one blamed ant-hill in
+their district they didn't know _and_ use; but the world was flat, they
+said, and England was a day's trek from Cape Town.
+
+"They could fight in their own way, and don't you forget it. But I guess
+you will not. They fought to kill, and, by what I could make out, the
+British fought to be killed. So both parties were accommodated.
+
+"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir. The position has its
+obligations--on both sides. You could not be offensive or partisan to me.
+I cannot, for the same reason, be offensive to you. Therefore I will not
+give you my opinions on the conduct of your war.
+
+"Anyway, I didn't take the field as an offensive partisan, but as an
+inventor. It was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. (Yes,
+Sir, I'm a Democrat by conviction, and that was one of the best things
+Grover Cleveland ever got off.)
+
+"After three months' trek, old man Van Zyl had his commando in good shape
+and refitted off the British, and he reckoned he'd wait on a British
+General of his acquaintance that did business on a circuit between
+Stompiesneuk, Jackhalputs, Vrelegen, and Odendaalstroom, year in and year
+out. He was a fixture in that section.
+
+"'He's a dam' good man,' says Van Zyl. 'He's a friend of mine. He sent in
+a fine doctor when I was wounded and our Hollander doc. wanted to cut my
+leg off. Ya, I'll guess we'll stay with him.' Up to date, me and my Zigler
+had lived in innocuous desuetude owing to little odds and ends riding out
+of gear. How in thunder was I to know there wasn't the ghost of any road
+in the country? But raw hide's cheap and lastin'. I guess I'll make my
+next gun a thousand pounds heavier, though.
+
+"Well, Sir, we struck the General on his beat--Vrelegen it was--and our
+crowd opened with the usual compliments at two thousand yards. Van Zyl
+shook himself into his greasy old saddle and says, 'Now we shall be quite
+happy, Mr. Zigler. No more trekking. Joost twelve miles a day till the
+apricots are ripe.'
+
+"Then we hitched on to his outposts, and vedettes, and cossack-picquets,
+or whatever they was called, and we wandered around the veldt arm in arm
+like brothers.
+
+"The way we worked lodge was this way. The General, he had his breakfast
+at 8:45 A.M. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island commuter. At
+8:42 A.M. I'd go down to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry to meet him--I
+mean I'd see the Zigler into position at two thousand (I began at three
+thousand, but that was cold and distant)--and blow him off to two full
+hoppers--eighteen rounds--just as they were bringing in his coffee. If his
+crowd was busy celebrating the anniversary of Waterloo or the last royal
+kid's birthday, they'd open on me with two guns (I'll tell you about them
+later on), but if they were disengaged they'd all stand to their horses
+and pile on the ironmongery, and washers, and typewriters, and five weeks'
+grub, and in half an hour they'd sail out after me and the rest of Van
+Zyl's boys; lying down and firing till 11:45 A.M. or maybe high noon. Then
+we'd go from labour to refreshment, resooming at 2 P.M. and battling till
+tea-time. Tuesday and Friday was the General's moving days. He'd trek
+ahead ten or twelve miles, and we'd loaf around his flankers and exercise
+the ponies a piece. Sometimes he'd get hung up in a drift--stalled
+crossin' a crick--and we'd make playful snatches at his wagons. First time
+that happened I turned the Zigler loose with high hopes, Sir; but the old
+man was well posted on rearguards with a gun to 'em, and I had to haul her
+out with three mules instead of six. I was pretty mad. I wasn't looking
+for any experts back of the Royal British Artillery. Otherwise, the game
+was mostly even. He'd lay out three or four of our commando, and we'd
+gather in four or five of his once a week or thereon. One time, I
+remember, long towards dusk we saw 'em burying five of their boys. They
+stood pretty thick around the graves. We wasn't more than fifteen hundred
+yards off, but old Van Zyl wouldn't fire. He just took off his hat at the
+proper time. He said if you stretched a man at his prayers you'd have to
+hump his bad luck before the Throne as well as your own. I am inclined to
+agree with him. So we browsed along week in and week out. A war-sharp
+might have judged it sort of docile, but for an inventor needing practice
+one day and peace the next for checking his theories, it suited Laughton
+O. Zigler.
+
+"And friendly? Friendly was no word for it. We was brothers in arms.
+
+"Why, I knew those two guns of the Royal British Artillery as well as I
+used to know the old Fifth Avenoo stages. _They_ might have been brothers
+too.
+
+"They'd jolt into action, and wiggle around and skid and spit and cough
+and prize 'emselves back again during our hours of bloody battle till I
+could have wept, Sir, at the spectacle of modern white men chained up to
+these old hand-power, back-number, flint-and-steel reaping machines. One
+of 'em--I called her Baldy--she'd a long white scar all along her barrel--
+I'd made sure of twenty times. I knew her crew by sight, but she'd come
+switching and teturing out of the dust of my shells like--like a hen from
+under a buggy--and she'd dip into a gully, and next thing I'd know 'ud be
+her old nose peeking over the ridge sniffin' for us. Her runnin' mate had
+two grey mules in the lead, and a natural wood wheel repainted, and a
+whole raft of rope-ends trailin' around. 'Jever see Tom Reed with his vest
+off, steerin' Congress through a heat-wave? I've been to Washington often
+--too often--filin' my patents. I called her Tom Reed. We three 'ud play
+pussy-wants-a-corner all round the outposts on off-days--cross-lots
+through the sage and along the mezas till we was short-circuited by
+canons. O, it was great for me and Baldy and Tom Reed! I don't know as we
+didn't neglect the legitimate interests of our respective commanders
+sometimes for this ball-play. I know _I_ did.
+
+"'Long towards the fall the Royal British Artillery grew shy--hung back in
+their breeching sort of--and their shooting was way--way off. I observed
+they wasn't taking any chances, not though I acted kitten almost
+underneath 'em.
+
+"I mentioned it to Van Zyl, because it struck me I had about knocked their
+Royal British moral endways.
+
+"'No,' says he, rocking as usual on his pony. 'My Captain Mankeltow he is
+sick. That is all.'
+
+"'So's your Captain Mankeltow's guns,' I said. 'But I'm going to make 'em
+a heap sicker before he gets well.'
+
+"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'He has had the enteric a little. Now he is better,
+and he was let out from hospital at Jackhalputs. Ah, that Mankeltow! He
+always makes me laugh so. I told him--long back--at Colesberg, I had a
+little home for him at Nooitgedacht. But he would not come--no! He has
+been sick, and I am sorry.'
+
+"'How d'you know that?' I says.
+
+"'Why, only to-day he sends back his love by Johanna Van der Merwe, that
+goes to their doctor for her sick baby's eyes. He sends his love, that
+Mankeltow, and he tells her tell me he has a little garden of roses all
+ready for me in the Dutch Indies--Umballa. He is very funny, my Captain
+Mankeltow.'
+
+"The Dutch and the English ought to fraternise, Sir. They've the same
+notions of humour, to my thinking.'
+
+"'When he gets well,' says Van Zyl, 'you look out, Mr. Americaan. He comes
+back to his guns next Tuesday. Then they shoot better.'
+
+"I wasn't so well acquainted with the Royal British Artillery as old man
+Van Zyl. I knew this Captain Mankeltow by sight, of course, and,
+considering what sort of a man with the hoe he was, I thought he'd done
+right well against my Zigler. But nothing epoch-making.
+
+"Next morning at the usual hour I waited on the General, and old Van Zyl
+come along with some of the boys. Van Zyl didn't hang round the Zigler
+much as a rule, but this was his luck that day.
+
+"He was peeking through his glasses at the camp, and I was helping pepper,
+the General's sow-belly--just as usual--when he turns to me quick and
+says, 'Almighty! How all these Englishmen are liars! You cannot trust
+one,' he says. 'Captain Mankeltow tells our Johanna he comes not back till
+Tuesday, and to-day is Friday, and there he is! Almighty! The English are
+all Chamberlains!'
+
+"If the old man hadn't stopped to make political speeches he'd have had
+his supper in laager that night, I guess. I was busy attending to Tom Reed
+at two thousand when Baldy got in her fine work on me. I saw one sheet of
+white flame wrapped round the hopper, and in the middle of it there was
+one o' my mules straight on end. Nothing out of the way in a mule on end,
+but this mule hadn't any head. I remember it struck me as incongruous at
+the time, and when I'd ciphered it out I was doing the Santos-Dumont act
+without any balloon and my motor out of gear. Then I got to thinking about
+Santos-Dumont and how much better my new way was. Then I thought about
+Professor Langley and the Smithsonian, and wishing I hadn't lied so
+extravagantly in some of my specifications at Washington. Then I quit
+thinking for quite a while, and when I resumed my train of thought I was
+nude, Sir, in a very stale stretcher, and my mouth was full of fine dirt
+all flavoured with Laughtite.
+
+"I coughed up that dirt.
+
+"'Hullo!' says a man walking beside me. 'You've spoke almost in time. Have
+a drink?'
+
+"I don't use rum as a rule, but I did then, because I needed it.
+
+"'What hit us?'I said.
+
+"'Me,' he said. 'I got you fair on the hopper as you pulled out of that
+donga; but I'm sorry to say every last round in the hopper's exploded and
+your gun's in a shocking state. I'm real sorry,' he says. 'I admire your
+gun, Sir.'
+
+"'Are you Captain Mankeltow?' I says.
+
+"'Yes,' he says. 'I presoom you're Mister Zigler. Your commanding officer
+told me about you.'
+
+"'Have you gathered in old man Van Zyl?' I said.
+
+"'Commandant Van Zyl,' he says very stiff, 'was most unfortunately
+wounded, but I am glad to say it's not serious. We hope he'll be able to
+dine with us to-night; and I feel sure,' he says, 'the General would be
+delighted to see you too, though he didn't expect,' he says, 'and no one
+else either, by Jove!' he says, and blushed like the British do when
+they're embarrassed.
+
+"I saw him slide an Episcopalian Prayer-book up his sleeve, and when I
+looked over the edge of the stretcher there was half-a-dozen enlisted men
+--privates--had just quit digging and was standing to attention by their
+spades. I guess he was right on the General not expecting me to dinner;
+but it was all of a piece with their sloppy British way of doing business.
+Any God's quantity of fuss and flubdub to bury a man, and not an ounce of
+forehandedness in the whole outfit to find out whether he was rightly
+dead. And I am a Congregationalist anyway!
+
+"Well, Sir, that was my introduction to the British Army. I'd write a book
+about it if anyone would believe me. This Captain Mankeltow, Royal British
+Artillery, turned the doctor on me (I could write another book about
+_him_) and fixed me up with a suit of his own clothes, and fed me canned
+beef and biscuits, and give me a cigar--a Henry Clay and a whisky-and-
+sparklet. He was a white man.
+
+"'Ye-es, by Jove,' he said, dragging out his words like a twist of
+molasses, 'we've all admired your gun and the way you've worked it. Some
+of us betted you was a British deserter. I won a sovereign on that from a
+yeoman. And, by the way,' he says, 'you've disappointed me groom pretty
+bad.'
+
+"'Where does your groom come in?' I said.
+
+"'Oh, he was the yeoman. He's a dam poor groom,' says my captain, 'but
+he's a way-up barrister when he's at home. He's been running around the
+camp with his tongue out, waiting for the chance of defending you at the
+court-martial.'
+
+"'What court-martial?' I says.
+
+"'On you as a deserter from the Artillery. You'd have had a good run for
+your money. Anyway, you'd never have been hung after the way you worked
+your gun. Deserter ten times over,' he says, 'I'd have stuck out for
+shooting you like a gentleman.'
+
+"Well, Sir, right there it struck me at the pit of my stomach--sort of
+sickish, sweetish feeling--that my position needed regularising pretty
+bad. I ought to have been a naturalised burgher of a year's standing; but
+Ohio's my State, and I wouldn't have gone back on her for a desertful of
+Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led me to the
+existing crisis; but I couldn't expect this Captain Mankeltow to regard
+the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of
+unreconstructed American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at the
+British Army for months on end. I tell _you_, Sir, I wished I was in
+Cincinnatah that summer evening. I'd have compromised on Brooklyn.
+
+"'What d'you do about aliens?' I said, and the dirt I'd coughed up seemed
+all back of my tongue again.
+
+"'Oh,' says he, 'we don't do much of anything. They're about all the
+society we get. I'm a bit of a pro-Boer myself,' he says, 'but between you
+and me the average Boer ain't over and above intellectual. You're the
+first American we've met up with, but of course you're a burgher.'
+
+"It was what I ought to have been if I'd had the sense of a common tick,
+but the way he drawled it out made me mad.
+
+"'Of course I am not,' I says. 'Would _you_ be a naturalised Boer?'
+
+"'I'm fighting against 'em,' he says, lighting a cigarette, 'but it's all
+a matter of opinion.'
+
+"'Well,' I says, 'you can hold any blame opinion you choose, but I'm a
+white man, and my present intention is to die in that colour.'
+
+"He laughed one of those big, thick-ended, British laughs that don't lead
+anywhere, and whacked up some sort of compliment about America that made
+me mad all through.
+
+"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir, but I do not understand the
+alleged British joke. It is depressing.
+
+"I was introdooced to five or six officers that evening, and every blame
+one of 'em grinned and asked me why I wasn't in the Filipeens suppressing
+our war! And that was British humour! They all had to get it off their
+chests before they'd talk sense. But they was sound on the Zigler. They
+had all admired her. I made out a fairy-story of me being wearied of the
+war, and having pushed the gun at them these last three months in the hope
+they'd capture it and let me go home. That tickled 'em to death. They made
+me say it three times over, and laughed like kids each time. But half the
+British _are_ kids; specially the older men. My Captain Mankeltow was less
+of it than the others. He talked about the Zigler like a lover, Sir, and I
+drew him diagrams of the hopper-feed and recoil-cylinder in his note-book.
+He asked the one British question I was waiting for, 'Hadn't I made my
+working-parts too light?' The British think weight's strength.
+
+"At last--I'd been shy of opening the subject before--at last I said,
+'Gentlemen, you are the unprejudiced tribunal I've been hunting after. I
+guess you ain't interested in any other gun-factory, and politics don't
+weigh with you. How did it feel your end of the game? What's my gun done,
+anyway?'
+
+"'I hate to disappoint you,' says Captain Mankeltow, 'because I know you
+feel as an inventor.' I wasn't feeling like an inventor just then. I felt
+friendly, but the British haven't more tact than you can pick up with a
+knife out of a plate of soup.
+
+"'The honest truth,' he says, 'is that you've wounded about ten of us one
+way and another, killed two battery horses and four mules, and--oh, yes,'
+he said, 'you've bagged five Kaffirs. But, buck up,' he said, 'we've all
+had mighty close calls'--shaves, he called 'em, I remember. 'Look at my
+pants.'
+
+"They was repaired right across the seat with Minneapolis flour-bagging. I
+could see the stencil.
+
+"'I ain't bluffing,' he says. 'Get the hospital returns, Doc.'
+
+"The doctor gets 'em and reads 'em out under the proper dates. That doctor
+alone was worth the price of admission.
+
+"I was right pleased right through that I hadn't killed any of these
+cheerful kids; but none the less I couldn't help thinking that a few more
+Kaffirs would have served me just as well for advertising purposes as
+white men. No, sir. Anywhichway you regard the proposition, twenty-one
+casualties after months of close friendship like ours was--paltry.
+
+"They gave me taffy about the gun--the British use taffy where we use
+sugar. It's cheaper, and gets there just the same. They sat around and
+proved to me that my gun was too good, too uniform--shot as close as a
+Mannlicher rifle.
+
+"Says one kid chewing a bit of grass: 'I counted eight of your shells,
+Sir, burst in a radius of ten feet. All of 'em would have gone through one
+waggon-tilt. It was beautiful,' he says. 'It was too good.'
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if the boys were right. My Laughtite is too
+mathematically uniform in propelling power. Yes; she was too good for this
+refractory fool of a country. The training gear was broke, too, and we had
+to swivel her around by the trail. But I'll build my next Zigler fifteen
+hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor under the axles. I
+must think that up.
+
+"'Well, gentlemen,' I said, 'I'd hate to have been the death of any of
+you; and if a prisoner can deed away his property, I'd love to present the
+Captain here with what he's seen fit to leave of my Zigler.'
+
+"'Thanks awf'ly,' says my Captain. 'I'd like her very much. She'd look
+fine in the mess at Woolwich. That is, if you don't mind, Mr. Zigler.'
+
+"'Go right ahead,' I says. 'I've come out of all the mess I've any use
+for; but she'll do to spread the light among the Royal British Artillery.'
+
+"I tell you, Sir, there's not much of anything the matter with the Royal
+British Artillery. They're brainy men languishing under an effete system
+which, when you take good holt of it, is England--just all England. 'Times
+I'd feel I was talking with real live citizens, and times I'd feel I'd
+struck the Beef Eaters in the Tower.
+
+"How? Well, this way. I was telling my Captain Mankeltow what Van Zyl had
+said about the British being all Chamberlains when the old man saw him
+back from hospital four days ahead of time.
+
+"'Oh, damn it all!' he says, as serious as the Supreme Court. 'It's too
+bad,' he says. 'Johanna must have misunderstood me, or else I've got the
+wrong Dutch word for these blarsted days of the week. I told Johanna I'd
+be out on Friday. The woman's a fool. Oah, da-am it all!' he says. 'I
+wouldn't have sold old Van Zyl a pup like that,' he says. 'I'll hunt him
+up and apologise.'
+
+"He must have fixed it all right, for when we sailed over to the General's
+dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and bitters, as
+happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and treated him like
+their prodigal father. He'd been hit on the collarbone by a wad of
+shrapnel, and his arm was tied up.
+
+"But the General was the peach. I presume you're acquainted with the
+average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his left
+hand, and he talked like--like the _Ladies' Home Journal_. J'ever read
+that paper? It's refined, Sir--and innocuous, and full of nickel-plated
+sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He began by a Lydia
+Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped the boys had done
+me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their midst. Then he thanked
+me for the interesting and valuable lessons that I'd given his crowd--
+specially in the matter of placing artillery and rearguard attacks. He'd
+wipe his long thin moustache between drinks--lime-juice and water he used
+--and blat off into a long 'a-aah,' and ladle out more taffy for me or old
+man Van Zyl on his right. I told him how I'd had my first Pisgah-sight of
+the principles of the Zigler when I was a fourth-class postmaster on a
+star-route in Arkansas. I told him how I'd worked it up by instalments
+when I was machinist in Waterbury, where the dollar-watches come from. He
+had one on his wrist then. I told him how I'd met Zalinski (he'd never
+heard of Zalinski!) when I was an extra clerk in the Naval Construction
+Bureau at Washington. I told him how my uncle, who was a truck-farmer in
+Noo Jersey (he loaned money on mortgage too, for ten acres ain't enough
+now in Noo Jersey), how he'd willed me a quarter of a million dollars,
+because I was the only one of our kin that called him down when he used to
+come home with a hard-cider jag on him and heave ox-bows at his nieces. I
+told him how I'd turned in every red cent on the Zigler, and I told him
+the whole circus of my coming out with her, and so on, and so following;
+and every forty seconds he'd wipe his moustache and blat, 'How
+interesting. Really, now? How interesting.'
+
+"It was like being in an old English book, Sir. Like _Bracebridge Hall_.
+But an American wrote _that!_ I kept peeking around for the Boar's Head
+and the Rosemary and Magna Charta and the Cricket on the Hearth, and the
+rest of the outfit. Then Van Zyl whirled in. He was no ways jagged, but
+thawed--thawed, Sir, and among friends. They began discussing previous
+scraps all along the old man's beat--about sixty of 'em--as well as side-
+shows with other generals and columns. Van Zyl told 'im of a big beat he'd
+worked on a column a week or so before I'd joined him. He demonstrated his
+strategy with forks on the table.
+
+"'There!' said the General, when he'd finished. 'That proves my contention
+to the hilt. Maybe I'm a bit of a pro-Boer, but I stick to it,' he says,
+'that under proper officers, with due regard to his race prejudices, the
+Boer'ud make the finest mounted infantry in the Empire. Adrian,' he says,
+'you're simply squandered on a cattle-run. You ought to be at the Staff
+College with De Wet.'
+
+"'You catch De Wet and I come to your Staff College--eh,' says Adrian,
+laughing. 'But you are so slow, Generaal. Why are you so slow? For a
+month,' he says, 'you do so well and strong that we say we shall hands-up
+and come back to our farms. Then you send to England and make us a present
+of two--three--six hundred young men, with rifles and wagons and rum and
+tobacco, and such a great lot of cartridges, that our young men put up
+their tails and start all over again. If you hold an ox by the horn and
+hit him by the bottom he runs round and round. He never goes anywhere. So,
+too, this war goes round and round. You know that, Generaal!'
+
+"'Quite right, Adrian,' says the General; 'but you must believe your
+Bible.'
+
+"'Hooh!' says Adrian, and reaches for the whisky. 'I've never known a
+Dutchman a professing Atheist, but some few have been rather active
+Agnostics since the British sat down in Pretoria. Old man Van Zyl--he told
+me--had soured on religion after Bloemfontein surrendered. He was a Free
+Stater for one thing.'
+
+"'He that believeth,' says the General, 'shall not make haste. That's in
+Isaiah. We believe we're going to win, and so we don't make haste. As far
+as I'm concerned I'd like this war to last another five years. We'd have
+an army then. It's just this way, Mr. Zigler,' he says, 'our people are
+brimfull of patriotism, but they've been born and brought up between
+houses, and England ain't big enough to train 'em--not if you expect to
+preserve.'
+
+"'Preserve what?' I says. 'England?'
+
+"'No. The game,' he says; 'and that reminds me, gentlemen, we haven't
+drunk the King and Foxhunting.'
+
+"So they drank the King and Fox-hunting. I drank the King because there's
+something about Edward that tickles me (he's so blame British); but I
+rather stood out on the Fox-hunting. I've ridden wolves in the cattle-
+country, and needed a drink pretty bad afterwards, but it never struck me
+as I ought to drink about it--he-red-it-arily.
+
+"'No, as I was saying, Mr. Zigler,' he goes on, 'we have to train our men
+in the field to shoot and ride. I allow six months for it; but many
+column-commanders--not that I ought to say a word against 'em, for they're
+the best fellows that ever stepped, and most of 'em are my dearest
+friends--seem to think that if they have men and horses and guns they can
+take tea with the Boers. It's generally the other way about, ain't it, Mr.
+Zigler?'
+
+"'To some extent, Sir,' I said.
+
+"'I'm _so_ glad you agree with me,' he says. 'My command here I regard as
+a training depot, and you, if I may say so, have been one of my most
+efficient instructors. I mature my men slowly but thoroughly. First I put
+'em in a town which is liable to be attacked by night, where they can
+attend riding-school in the day. Then I use 'em with a convoy, and last I
+put 'em into a column. It takes time,' he says, 'but I flatter myself that
+any men who have worked under me are at least grounded in the rudiments of
+their profession. Adrian,' he says, 'was there anything wrong with the men
+who upset Van Bester's applecart last month when he was trying to cross
+the line to join Piper with those horses he'd stole from Gabbitas?'
+
+"'No, Generaal,' says Van Zyl. 'Your men got the horses back and eleven
+dead; and Van Besters, he ran to Delarey in his shirt. They was very good,
+those men. They shoot hard.'
+
+"_'So_ pleased to hear you say so. I laid 'em down at the beginning of
+this century--a 1900 vintage. _You_ remember 'em, Mankeltow?' he says.
+'The Central Middlesex Buncho Busters--clerks and floorwalkers mostly,'
+and he wiped his moustache. 'It was just the same with the Liverpool
+Buckjumpers, but they were stevedores. Let's see--they were a last-century
+draft, weren't they? They did well after nine months. _You_ know 'em, Van
+Zyl? You didn't get much change out of 'em at Pootfontein?'
+
+"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'At Pootfontein I lost my son Andries.'
+
+"'I beg your pardon, Commandant,' says the General; and the rest of the
+crowd sort of cooed over Adrian.
+
+"'Excoose,' says Adrian. 'It was all right. They were good men those, but
+it is just what I say. Some are so dam good we want to hands-up, and some
+are so dam bad, we say, "Take the Vierkleur into Cape Town." It is not
+upright of you, Generaal. It is not upright of you at all. I do not think
+you ever wish this war to finish.'
+
+"'It's a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,' says the General. 'With
+luck, we ought to run half a million men through the mill. Why, we might
+even be able to give our Native Army a look in. Oh, not here, of course,
+Adrian, but down in the Colony--say a camp-of-exercise at Worcester. You
+mustn't be prejudiced, Adrian. I've commanded a district in India, and I
+give you my word the native troops are splendid men.'
+
+"'Oh, I should not mind them at Worcester,' says Adrian. 'I would sell you
+forage for them at Worcester--yes, and Paarl and Stellenbosch; but
+Almighty!' he says, 'must I stay with Cronje till you have taught half a
+million of these stupid boys to ride? I shall be an old man.'
+
+"Well, Sir, then and there they began arguing whether St. Helena would
+suit Adrian's health as well as some other places they knew about, and
+fixing up letters of introduction to Dukes and Lords of their
+acquaintance, so's Van Zyl should be well looked after. We own a fair-
+sized block of real estate--America does--but it made me sickish to hear
+this crowd fluttering round the Atlas (oh yes, they had an Atlas), and
+choosing stray continents for Adrian to drink his coffee in. The old man
+allowed he didn't want to roost with Cronje, because one of Cronje's kin
+had jumped one of his farms after Paardeberg. I forget the rights of the
+case, but it was interesting. They decided on a place called Umballa in
+India, because there was a first-class doctor there.
+
+"So Adrian was fixed to drink the King and Foxhunting, and study up the
+Native Army in India (I'd like to see 'em myself), till the British
+General had taught the male white citizens of Great Britain how to ride.
+Don't misunderstand me, Sir. I loved that General. After ten minutes I
+loved him, and I wanted to laugh at him; but at the same time, sitting
+there and hearing him talk about the centuries, I tell you, Sir, it scared
+me. It scared me cold! He admitted everything--he acknowledged the corn
+before you spoke--he was more pleased to hear that his men had been used
+to wipe the geldt with than I was when I knocked out Tom Reed's two lead-
+horses--and he sat back and blew smoke through his nose and matured his
+men like cigars and--he talked of the everlastin' centuries!
+
+"I went to bed nearer nervous prostration than I'd come in a long time.
+Next morning me and Captain Mankeltow fixed up what his shrapnel had left
+of my Zigler for transport to the railroad. She went in on her own wheels,
+and I stencilled her 'Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,' on the muzzle, and
+he said he'd be grateful if I'd take charge of her to Cape Town, and hand
+her over to a man in the Ordnance there. 'How are you fixed financially?
+You'll need some money on the way home,' he says at last.
+
+"'For one thing, Cap,' I said, 'I'm not a poor man, and for another I'm
+not going home. I am the captive of your bow and spear. I decline to
+resign office.'
+
+"'Skittles!' he says (that was a great word of his), 'you'll take parole,
+and go back to America and invent another Zigler, a trifle heavier in the
+working parts--I would. We've got more prisoners than we know what to do
+with as it is,' he says. 'You'll only be an additional expense to me as a
+taxpayer. Think of Schedule D,' he says, 'and take parole.'
+
+"'I don't know anything about your tariffs,' I said, 'but when I get to
+Cape Town I write home for money, and I turn in every cent my board'll
+cost your country to any ten-century-old department that's been ordained
+to take it since William the Conqueror came along.'
+
+"'But, confound you for a thick-headed mule,' he says, 'this war ain't any
+more than just started! Do you mean to tell me you're going to play
+prisoner till it's over?'
+
+"'That's about the size of it,' I says, 'if an Englishman and an American
+could ever understand each other.'
+
+"'But, in Heaven's Holy Name, why?' he says, sitting down of a heap on an
+anthill.
+
+"'Well, Cap,' I says, 'I don't pretend to follow your ways of thought, and
+I can't see why you abuse your position to persecute a poor prisoner o'
+war on _his!_'
+
+"'My dear fellow,' he began, throwing up his hands and blushing, 'I'll
+apologise.'
+
+"'But if you insist,' I says, 'there are just one and a half things in
+this world I can't do. The odd half don't matter here; but taking parole,
+and going home, and being interviewed by the boys, and giving lectures on
+my single-handed campaign against the hereditary enemies of my beloved
+country happens to be the one. We'll let it go at that, Cap.'
+
+"'But it'll bore you to death,' he says. The British are a heap more
+afraid of what they call being bored than of dying, I've noticed.
+
+"'I'll survive,' I says, 'I ain't British. I can think,' I says.
+
+"'By God,' he says, coming up to me, and extending the right hand of
+fellowship, 'you ought to be English, Zigler!'
+
+"It's no good getting mad at a compliment like that. The English all do
+it. They're a crazy breed. When they don't know you they freeze up
+tighter'n the St. Lawrence. When they _do_, they go out like an ice-jam in
+April. Up till we prisoners left--four days--my Captain Mankeltow told me
+pretty much all about himself there was; his mother and sisters, and his
+bad brother that was a trooper in some Colonial corps, and how his father
+didn't get on with him, and--well, everything, as I've said. They're
+undomesticated, the British, compared with us. They talk about their own
+family affairs as if they belonged to someone else. 'Taint as if they
+hadn't any shame, but it sounds like it. I guess they talk out loud what
+we think, and we talk out loud what they think.
+
+"I liked my Captain Mankeltow. I liked him as well as any man I'd ever
+struck. He was white. He gave me his silver drinking-flask, and I gave him
+the formula of my Laughtite. That's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars
+in his vest-pocket, on the lowest count, if he has the knowledge to use
+it. No, I didn't tell him the money-value. He was English. He'd send his
+valet to find out.
+
+"Well, me and Adrian and a crowd of dam Dutchmen was sent down the road to
+Cape Town in first-class carriages under escort. (What did I think of your
+enlisted men? They are largely different from ours, Sir: very largely.) As
+I was saying, we slid down south, with Adrian looking out of the car-
+window and crying. Dutchmen cry mighty easy for a breed that fights as
+they do; but I never understood how a Dutchman could curse till we crossed
+into the Orange Free State Colony, and he lifted up his hand and cursed
+Steyn for a solid ten minutes. Then we got into the Colony, and the rebs--
+ministers mostly and schoolmasters--came round the cars with fruit and
+sympathy and texts. Van Zyl talked to 'em in Dutch, and one man, a big
+red-bearded minister, at Beaufort West, I remember, he jest wilted on the
+platform.
+
+"'Keep your prayers for yourself,' says Van Zyl, throwing back a bunch of
+grapes. 'You'll need 'em, and you'll need the fruit too, when the war
+comes down here. _You_ done it,' he says. 'You and your picayune Church
+that's deader than Cronje's dead horses! What sort of a God have you been
+unloading on us, you black _aas vogels_? The British came, and we beat
+'em,' he says, 'and you sat still and prayed. The British beat us, and you
+sat still,' he says. 'You told us to hang on, and we hung on, and our
+farms was burned, and you sat still--you and your God. See here,' he says,
+'I shot my Bible full of bullets after Bloemfontein went, and you and God
+didn't say anything. Take it and pray over it before we Federals help the
+British to knock hell out of you rebels.'
+
+"Then I hauled him back into the car. I judged he'd had a fit. But life's
+curious--and sudden--and mixed. I hadn't any more use for a reb than Van
+Zyl, and I knew something of the lies they'd fed us up with from the
+Colony for a year and more. I told the minister to pull his freight out of
+that, and went on with my lunch, when another man come along and shook
+hands with Van Zyl. He'd known him at close range in the Kimberley seige
+and before. Van Zyl was well seen by his neighbours, I judge. As soon as
+this other man opened his mouth I said, 'You're Kentucky, ain't you?' 'I
+am,' he says; 'and what may you be?' I told him right off, for I was
+pleased to hear good United States in any man's mouth; but he whipped his
+hands behind him and said, 'I'm not knowing any man that fights for a
+Tammany Dutchman. But I presoom you've been well paid, you dam gun-runnin'
+Yank.'
+
+"Well, Sir, I wasn't looking for that, and it near knocked me over, while
+old man Van Zyl started in to explain.
+
+"'Don't you waste your breath, Mister Van Zyl,' the man says. 'I know this
+breed. The South's full of 'em.' Then he whirls round on me and says,
+'Look at here, you Yank. A little thing like a King's neither here nor
+there, but what _you've_ done,' he says, 'is to go back on the White Man
+in six places at once--two hemispheres and four continents--America,
+England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Don't open your
+head,' he says. 'You know well if you'd been caught at this game in our
+country you'd have been jiggling in the bight of a lariat before you could
+reach for your naturalisation papers. Go on and prosper,' he says, 'and
+you'll fetch up by fighting for niggers, as the North did.' And he threw
+me half-a-crown--English money.
+
+"Sir, I do not regard the proposition in that light, but I guess I must
+have been somewhat shook by the explosion. They told me at Cape Town one
+rib was driven in on to my lungs. I am not adducing this as an excuse, but
+the cold God's truth of the matter is--the money on the floor did it.... I
+give up and cried. Put my head down and cried.
+
+"I dream about this still sometimes. He didn't know the circumstances, but
+I dream about it. And it's Hell!
+
+"How do you regard the proposition--as a Brother? If you'd invented your
+own gun, and spent fifty-seven thousand dollars on her--and had paid your
+own expenses from the word 'go'? An American citizen has a right to choose
+his own side in an unpleasantness, and Van Zyl wasn't any Krugerite ...
+and I'd risked my hide at my own expense. I got that man's address from
+Van Zyl; he was a mining man at Kimberley, and I wrote him the facts. But
+he never answered. Guess he thought I lied.... Damned Southern rebel!
+
+"Oh, say. Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord in
+Cape Town, and he fixed things so's I could lie up a piece in his house? I
+was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged
+into the lung--here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of
+the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any
+American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He
+said the British soldier had failed in every point except courage. He said
+England needed a Monroe Doctrine worse than America--a new doctrine,
+barring out all the Continent, and strictly devoting herself to developing
+her own Colonies. He said he'd abolish half the Foreign Office, and take
+all the old hereditary families clean out of it, because, he said, they
+was expressly trained to fool around with continental diplomats, and to
+despise the Colonies. His own family wasn't more than six hundred years
+old. He was a very brainy man, and a good citizen. We talked politics and
+inventions together when my lung let up on me.
+
+"Did he know my General? Yes. He knew 'em all. Called 'em Teddie and
+Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his dearest
+friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of 'em fit to command
+a column in the field. He said they were too fond of advertising. Generals
+don't seem very different from actors or doctors or--yes, Sir--inventors.
+
+"He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort of
+pull--even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless lunatic; but
+after a while I got 'em to let me keep some of their books. If I was left
+alone in the world with the British system of bookkeeping, I'd reconstruct
+the whole British Empire--beginning with the Army. Yes, I'm one of their
+most trusted accountants, and I'm paid for it. As much as a dollar a day.
+I keep that. I've earned it, and I deduct it from the cost of my board.
+When the war's over I'm going to pay up the balance to the British
+Government. Yes, Sir, that's how I regard the proposition.
+
+"Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was going
+to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn't end in a year.
+'Tisn't in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if Adrian ever
+meets up with Steyn there'll be an exception to the rule. Ye--es, when the
+war's over it'll take some of the British Army to protect Steyn from his
+fellow-patriots. But the war won't be over yet awhile. He that believeth
+don't hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers and the school-teachers and the
+rebs'll have a war all to themselves long after the north is quiet.
+
+"I'm pleased with this country--it's big. Not so many folk on the ground
+as in America. There's a boom coming sure. I've talked it over with
+Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near Bloemfontein and
+start in cattle-raising. It's big and peaceful--a ten-thousand-acre farm.
+I could go on inventing there, too. I'll sell my Zigler, I guess. I'll
+offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do the
+'reelly-now-how-interesting' act over her, I'll turn her over to Captain
+Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They'll pretty quick find some Gussie,
+or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper quarters. I'm
+beginning to know my English.
+
+"And now I'll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I haven't
+had such a good time since Willie died." He pulled the blue shirt over his
+head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and, speaking
+through the folds, added:
+
+"But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole
+proposition to America for ninety-nine years."
+
+
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+POSEIDON'S LAW
+
+  When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea
+  His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, "Mariner," said he,
+  "Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
+  That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
+
+  "Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
+  At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
+  But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test--the immediate gulfs condemn--
+  Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.
+
+  "Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
+  The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath;
+  Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
+  Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.
+
+  "Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,
+  A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts--
+  The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,
+  The soul that cannot tell a lie--except upon the land!"
+
+  In dromond and in catafract--wet, wakeful, windward-eyed--
+  He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
+  But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more,
+  Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
+  And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:
+  The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,
+  But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!
+
+  From Punt returned, from Phormio's Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
+  He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
+  And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
+  Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance,
+armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British
+Navy--the  whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches
+the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the
+Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present
+day, of the British sailorman.
+
+In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur,
+though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on
+that amateur's hard-won information. There exists--unlike some other
+publication, it is not bound in lead boards--a work by one "M. de C.,"
+based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known
+_Acolyte_ type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It
+covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type
+exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the
+average Dumas novel.
+
+I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue--it is the
+disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable
+of writing one page of lyric prose--to the eloquent, the joyful, the
+impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this
+sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at
+the mercy of his agent.
+
+"M. de C.," I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her
+boats what time H.M.S. _Archimandrite_ lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was,
+always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the
+conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist
+the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his
+histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the
+rank of "supernumerary captain's servant"--a "post which," I give his
+words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with
+opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would
+have been my destruction."
+
+From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like
+to those "M. de C." had "envisaged"--if I translate him correctly. It
+became clear to me that "M. de C." was either a pyramidal liar, or...
+
+I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the
+_Archimandrite_; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a
+third-class ticket to Plymouth.
+
+I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman-
+gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my
+feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to
+a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the
+proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides
+had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of
+the _Archimandrite_.
+
+"The _Bedlamite_, d'you mean--'er last commission, when they all went
+crazy?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," I replied. "Fetch me a sample and I'll see."
+
+"You'll excuse me, o' course, but--what d'you want 'im _for?_"
+
+"I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk--if you like. I want
+to make him drunk here."
+
+"Spoke very 'andsome. I'll do what I can." He went out towards the water
+that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he
+was a person of influence beyond Admirals.
+
+In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of
+Mr. Wessels.
+
+"'E only wants to make you drunk at 'is expense. Dessay 'e'll stand you
+all a drink. Come up an' look at 'im. 'E don't bite."
+
+A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large
+bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.
+
+"'E's the only one I could get. Transferred to the _Postulant_ six months
+back. I found 'im quite accidental." Mr. Wessels beamed.
+
+"I'm in charge o' the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin' on the beach _en
+masse_. They won't be home till mornin'," said the square man with the
+remarkable eyes.  "Are you an _Archimandrite?_" I demanded.
+
+"That's me. I was, as you might say."
+
+"Hold on. I'm a _Archimandrite._" A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to
+climb on the table. "Was you lookin' for a _Bedlamite?_ I've--I've been
+invalided, an' what with that, an' visitin' my family 'ome at Lewes,
+per'aps I've come late. 'Ave I?"
+
+"You've 'ad all that's good for you," said Tom Wessels, as the Red Marine
+sat cross-legged on the floor.
+
+"There are those 'oo haven't 'ad a thing yet!" cried a voice by the door.
+
+"I will take this _Archimandrite_" I said, "and this Marine. Will you
+please give the boat's crew a drink now, and another in half an hour if--
+if Mr.----"
+
+"Pyecroft," said the square man. "Emanuel Pyecroft, second-class petty-
+officer."
+
+"--Mr. Pyecroft doesn't object?"
+
+"He don't. Clear out. Goldin', you picket the hill by yourself, throwin'
+out a skirmishin'-line in ample time to let me know when Number One's
+comin' down from his vittles."
+
+The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red
+Marine zealously leading the way.
+
+"And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?" I said.
+
+"Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an' sugar an' per'aps a
+lemon."
+
+"Mine's beer," said the Marine. "It always was."
+
+"Look 'ere, Glass. You take an' go to sleep. The picket'll be comin' for
+you in a little time, an' per'aps you'll 'ave slep' it off by then. What's
+your ship, now?" said Mr. Wessels.
+
+"The Ship o' State--most important?" said the Red Marine magnificently,
+and shut his eyes.
+
+"That's right," said Mr. Pyecroft. "He's safest where he is. An' now--
+here's santy to us all!--what d'you want o' me?"
+
+"I want to read you something."
+
+"Tracts, again!" said the Marine, never opening his eyes. "Well. I'm
+game.... A little more 'ead to it, miss, please."
+
+"He thinks 'e's drinkin'--lucky beggar!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "I'm agreeable
+to be read to. 'Twon't alter my convictions. I may as well tell you
+beforehand I'm a Plymouth Brother."
+
+He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist's chair, and I
+began at the third page of "M. de C."
+
+"'_At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat's
+cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with
+empress_'--coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. '_By this time I judged the
+vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me
+amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded that I
+named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from the Portuguese
+conscription_.'
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed. Then
+pensively: "Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?"
+
+"It's the story of Antonio--a stowaway in the _Archimandrite's_ cutter. A
+French spy when he's at home, I fancy. What do _you_ know about it?"
+
+"An' I thought it was tracts! An' yet some'ow I didn't." Mr. Pyecroft
+nodded his head wonderingly. "Our old man was quite right--so was 'Op--so
+was I. 'Ere, Glass!" He kicked the Marine. "Here's our Antonio 'as written
+a impromptu book! He _was_ a spy all right."
+
+The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the
+half-drunk. "'As 'e got any-thin' in about my 'orrible death an'
+execution? Ex_cuse_ me, but if I open my eyes, I shan't be well. That's
+where I'm different from _all_ other men. Ahem!"
+
+"What about Glass's execution?" demanded Pyecroft.
+
+"The book's in French," I replied.
+
+"Then it's no good to me."
+
+"Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened. I'll
+check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged out of
+the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the other
+things, because they're unusual."
+
+"They were," said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. "Lookin' back on it as I set
+here more an' more I see what an 'ighly unusual affair it was. But it
+happened. It transpired in the _Archimandrite_--the ship you can trust...
+Antonio! Ther beggar!"
+
+"Take your time, Mr. Pyecroft."
+
+In a few moments we came to it thus--
+
+"The old man was displeased. I don't deny he was quite a little
+displeased. With the mail-boats trottin' into Madeira every twenty
+minutes, he didn't see why a lop-eared Portugee had to take liberties with
+a man-o'-war's first cutter. Any'ow, we couldn't turn ship round for him.
+We drew him out and took him out to Number One. 'Drown 'im,' 'e says.
+'Drown 'im before 'e dirties my fine new decks.' But our owner was
+tenderhearted. 'Take him to the galley,' 'e says. 'Boil 'im! Skin 'im!
+Cook 'im! Cut 'is bloomin' hair? Take 'is bloomin' number! We'll have him
+executed at Ascension.'
+
+"Retallick, our chief cook, an' a Carth'lic, was the on'y one any way near
+grateful; bein' short-'anded in the galley. He annexes the blighter by the
+left ear an' right foot an' sets him to work peelin' potatoes. So then,
+this Antonio that was avoidin' the conscription--"
+
+"_Sub_scription, you pink-eyed matlow!" said the Marine, with the face of
+a stone Buddha, and whimpered sadly: "Pye don't see any fun in it at all."
+
+"_Con_scription--come to his illegitimate sphere in Her Majesty's Navy,
+an' it was just then that Old 'Op, our Yeoman of Signals, an' a fastidious
+joker, made remarks to me about 'is hands.
+
+"'Those 'ands,' says 'Op, 'properly considered, never done a day's honest
+labour in their life. Tell me those hands belong to a blighted Portugee
+manual labourist and I won't call you a liar, but I'll say you an' the
+Admiralty are pretty much unique in your statements.' 'Op was always a
+fastidious joker--in his language as much as anything else. He pursued 'is
+investigations with the eye of an 'awk outside the galley. He knew better
+than to advance line-head against Retallick, so he attacked _ong eshlong_,
+speakin' his remarks as much as possible into the breech of the starboard
+four point seven, an' 'ummin' to 'imself. Our chief cook 'ated 'ummin'.
+'What's the matter of your bowels?' he says at last, fistin' out the mess-
+pork agitated like. "'Don't mind me,' says 'Op. 'I'm only a mildewed
+buntin'-tosser,' 'e says: 'but speakin' for my mess, I do hope,' 'e says,
+'you ain't goin' to boil your Portugee friend's boots along o' that pork
+you're smellin' so gay!'
+
+"'Boots! Boots! Boots!' says Retallick, an' he run round like a earwig in
+a alder-stalk. 'Boots in the galley,' 'e says. 'Cook's mate, cast out an'
+abolish this cutter-cuddlin' abori_gine's_ boots!'"
+
+"They was hove overboard in quick time, an' that was what 'Op was lyin' to
+for. As subsequently transpired.
+
+"'Fine Arab arch to that cutter-cuddler's hinstep,' he says to me. 'Run
+your eye over it, Pye,' 'e says. 'Nails all present an' correct,' 'e says.
+'Bunion on the little toe, too,' 'e says; 'which comes from wearin' a
+tight boot. What do _you_ think?'
+
+"'Dook in trouble, per'aps,' I says. 'He ain't got the hang of spud-
+skinnin'.' No more he 'ad. 'E was simply cannibalisin' 'em.
+
+"'I want to know what 'e 'as got the 'ang of,' says 'Op, obstructed-like.
+'Watch 'im,' 'e says. 'These shoulders were foreign-drilled somewhere.'
+
+'"When it comes to "Down 'ammicks!" which is our naval way o' goin' to
+bye-bye, I took particular trouble over Antonio, 'oo had 'is 'ammick 'ove
+at 'im with general instructions to sling it an' be sugared. In the
+ensuin' melly I pioneered him to the after-'atch, which is a orifice
+communicatin' with the after-flat an' similar suites of apartments. He
+havin' navigated at three fifths power immejit ahead o' me, _I_ wasn't
+goin' to volunteer any assistance, nor he didn't need it.'
+
+"'Mong Jew!' says 'e, sniffin' round. An' twice more 'Mong Jew!'--which is
+pure French. Then he slings 'is 'ammick, nips in, an' coils down. 'Not bad
+for a Portugee conscript,' I says to myself, casts off the tow, abandons
+him, and reports to 'Op.
+
+"About three minutes later I'm over'auled by our sub-lootenant, navigatin'
+under forced draught, with his bearin's 'eated. 'E had the temerity to say
+I'd instructed our Antonio to sling his carcass in the alleyway, an' 'e
+was peevish about it. O' course, I prevaricated like 'ell. You get to do
+that in the service. Nevertheless, to oblige Mr. Ducane, I went an'
+readjusted Antonio. You may not 'ave ascertained that there are two ways
+o' comin' out of an 'ammick when it's cut down. Antonio came out t'other
+way--slidin' 'andsome to his feet. That showed me two things. First, 'e
+had been in an 'ammick before, an' next, he hadn't been asleep. Then I
+reproached 'im for goin' to bed where 'e'd been told to go, instead o'
+standin' by till some one gave him entirely contradictory orders. Which is
+the essence o' naval discipline.
+
+"In the middle o' this argument the gunner protrudes his ram-bow from 'is
+cabin, an' brings it all to an 'urried conclusion with some remarks
+suitable to 'is piebald warrant-rank. Navigatin' thence under easy steam,
+an' leavin' Antonio to re-sling his little foreign self, my large flat
+foot comes in detonatin' contact with a small objec' on the deck. Not
+'altin' for the obstacle, nor changin' step, I shuffles it along under the
+ball of the big toe to the foot o' the hatchway, when, lightly stoopin', I
+catch it in my right hand and continue my evolutions in rapid time till I
+eventuates under 'Op's lee.
+
+"It was a small moroccer-bound pocket-book, full of indelible pencil-
+writin'--in French, for I could plainly discern the _doodeladays_, which
+is about as far as my education runs.
+
+"'Op fists it open and peruses. 'E'd known an 'arf-caste Frenchwoman
+pretty intricate before he was married; when he was trained man in a
+stinkin' gunboat up the Saigon River. He understood a lot o' French--
+domestic brands chiefly--the kind that isn't in print.
+
+"'Pye,' he says to me, 'you're a tattician o' no mean value. I am a trifle
+shady about the precise bearin' an' import' o' this beggar's private log
+here,' 'e says, 'but it's evidently a case for the owner. You'll 'ave your
+share o' the credit,' 'e says.
+
+"'Nay, nay, Pauline,' I says, 'You don't catch Emanuel Pyecroft mine-
+droppin' under any post-captain's bows,' I says, 'in search of honour,' I
+says. 'I've been there oft.'
+
+"'Well, if you must, you must,' 'e says, takin' me up quick. 'But I'll
+speak a good word for you, Pye.'
+
+"'You'll shut your mouth, 'Op,' I says, 'or you an' me'll part brass-rags.
+The owner has his duties, an' I have mine. We will keep station,' I says,
+'nor seek to deviate.'
+
+"'Deviate to blazes!' says 'Op. 'I'm goin' to deviate to the owner's
+comfortable cabin direct.' So he deviated."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward and dealt the Marine a large pattern Navy
+kick. "'Ere, Glass! You was sentry when 'Op went to the old man--the first
+time, with Antonio's washin'-book. Tell us what transpired. You're sober.
+You don't know how sober you are!"
+
+The Marine cautiously raised his head a few inches. As Mr. Pyecroft said,
+he was sober--after some R.M.L.I. fashion of his own devising. "'Op bounds
+in like a startled anteloper, carryin' 'is signal-slate at the ready. The
+old man was settin' down to 'is bountiful platter--not like you an' me,
+without anythin' more in sight for an 'ole night an' 'arf a day. Talkin'
+about food--"
+
+"No! No! No!" cried Pyecroft, kicking again. "What about 'Op?" I thought
+the Marine's ribs would have snapped, but he merely hiccuped.
+
+"Oh, 'im! 'E 'ad it written all down on 'is little slate--I think--an' 'e
+shoves it under the old man's nose. 'Shut the door,' says 'Op. 'For
+'Eavin's sake shut the cabin door!' Then the old man must ha' said
+somethin' 'bout irons. 'I'll put 'em on, Sir, in your very presence,' says
+'Op, 'only 'ear my prayer,' or--words to that 'fect.... It was jus' the
+same with me when I called our Sergeant a bladder-bellied, lard-'eaded,
+perspirin' pension-cheater. They on'y put on the charge-sheet 'words to
+that effect,' Spoiled the 'ole 'fect."
+
+"'Op! 'Op! 'Op! What about 'Op?" thundered Pyecroft.
+
+"'Op? Oh, shame thing. Words t' that 'fect. Door shut. Nushin' more
+transphired till 'Op comes out--nose exshtreme angle plungin' fire or--or
+words 'that effect. Proud's parrot. 'Oh, you prou' old parrot,' I says."
+
+Mr. Glass seemed to slumber again.
+
+"Lord! How a little moisture disintegrates, don't it? When we had ship's
+theatricals off Vigo, Glass 'ere played Dick Deadeye to the moral, though
+of course the lower deck wasn't pleased to see a leatherneck interpretin'
+a strictly maritime part, as you might say. It's only his repartees, which
+'e can't contain, that conquers him. Shall I resume my narrative?"
+
+Another drink was brought on this hint, and Mr. Pyecroft resumed.
+
+"The essence o' strategy bein' forethought, the essence o' tattics is
+surprise. Per'aps you didn't know that? My forethought 'avin' secured the
+initial advantage in attack, it remained for the old man to ladle out the
+surprise-packets. 'Eavens! What surprises! That night he dines with the
+wardroom, bein' of the kind--I've told you as we were a 'appy ship?--that
+likes it, and the wardroom liked it too. This ain't common in the service.
+They had up the new Madeira--awful undisciplined stuff which gives you a
+cordite mouth next morning. They told the mess-men to navigate towards the
+extreme an' remote 'orizon, an' they abrogated the sentry about fifteen
+paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner, the Bo'sun, an' the
+Carpenter, an' stood them large round drinks. It all come out later--
+wardroom joints bein' lower-deck hash, as the sayin' is--that our Number
+One stuck to it that 'e couldn't trust the ship for the job. The old man
+swore 'e could, 'avin' commanded 'er over two years. He was right. There
+wasn't a ship, I don't care in what fleet, could come near the
+_Archimandrites_ when we give our mind to a thing. We held the cruiser
+big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig) championship, an' the
+challenge-cup row round the fleet. We 'ad the best nigger-minstrels, the
+best football an' cricket teams, an' the best squee-jee band of anything
+that ever pushed in front of a brace o' screws. An' _yet_ our Number One
+mistrusted us! 'E said we'd be a floatin' hell in a week, an' it 'ud take
+the rest o' the commission to stop our way. They was arguin' it in the
+wardroom when the bridge reports a light three points off the port bow. We
+overtakes her, switches on our search-light, an' she discloses herself as
+a collier o' no mean reputation, makin' about seven knots on 'er lawful
+occasions--to the Cape most like.
+
+"Then the owner--so we 'eard in good time--broke the boom, springin' all
+mines together at close interval.
+
+"'Look 'ere, my jokers,' 'e says (I'm givin' the grist of 'is arguments,
+remember), 'Number One says we can't enlighten this cutter-cuddlin Gaulish
+lootenant on the manners an' customs o' the Navy without makin' the ship a
+market-garden. There's a lot in that,' 'e says, 'specially if we kept it
+up lavish, till we reached Ascension. But,' 'e says, 'the appearance o'
+this strange sail has put a totally new aspect on the game. We can run to
+just one day's amusement for our friend, or else what's the good o'
+discipline? An' then we can turn 'im over to our presumably short-'anded
+fellow-subject in the small-coal line out yonder. He'll be pleased,' says
+the old man, 'an' so will Antonio. M'rover,' he says to Number One, 'I'll
+lay you a dozen o' liquorice an' ink'--it must ha' been that new tawny
+port--'that I've got a ship I can trust--for one day,' 'e says.
+'Wherefore,' he says, 'will you have the extreme goodness to reduce speed
+as requisite for keepin' a proper distance behind this providential tramp
+till further orders?' Now, that's what I call tattics.
+
+"The other manoeuvres developed next day, strictly in accordance with the
+plans as laid down in the wardroom, where they sat long an' steady. 'Op
+whispers to me that Antonio was a Number One spy when 'e was in
+commission, and a French lootenant when 'e was paid off, so I navigated at
+three 'undred and ninety six revolutions to the galley, never 'avin'
+kicked a lootenant up to date. I may as well say that I did not manoeuvre
+against 'im as a Frenchman, because I like Frenchmen, but stric'ly on 'is
+rank an' ratin' in 'is own navy. I inquired after 'is health from
+Retallick.
+
+"'Don't ask me,' 'e says, sneerin' be'ind his silver spectacles. ''E's
+promoted to be captain's second supernumerary servant, to be dressed and
+addressed as such. If 'e does 'is dooties same as he skinned the spuds,
+_I_ ain't for changin' with the old man.'
+
+"In the balmy dawnin' it was given out, all among the 'olystones, by our
+sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil, that all orders after
+eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o' the
+velocity. 'The reg'lar routine,' he says, 'was arrogated for reasons o'
+state an' policy, an' any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise,
+annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly reproached.' Then
+the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some hanky-panky in the
+magazines, an' led 'em off along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say,
+our Gunnery Lootenant.
+
+"That put us on the _viva voce_--particularly when we understood how the
+owner was navigatin' abroad in his sword-belt trustin' us like brothers.
+We shifts into the dress o' the day, an' we musters _an'_ we prays _ong
+reggle_, an' we carries on anticipatory to bafflin' Antonio.
+
+"Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin' his 'ands an' weepin'.
+'E'd been talkin' to the sub-lootenant, an' it looked like as if his
+upper-works were collapsin'.
+
+"'I want a guarantee,' 'e says, wringin' 'is 'ands like this. '_I_ 'aven't
+'ad sunstroke slave-dhowin' in Tajurrah Bay, an' been compelled to live on
+quinine an' chlorodyne ever since. _I_ don't get the horrors off glasses
+o' brown sherry.'
+
+"'What 'ave you got now?' I says.
+
+"'_I_ ain't an officer,' 'e says. '_My_ sword won't be handed back to me
+at the end o' the court-martial on account o' my little weaknesses, an' no
+stain on my character. I'm only a pore beggar of a Red Marine with
+eighteen years' service, an' why for,' says he, wringin' 'is hands like
+this all the time, 'must I chuck away my pension, sub-lootenant or no
+sub-lootenant? Look at 'em,' he says, 'only look at 'em. Marines fallin'
+in for small-arm drill!'
+
+"The leathernecks was layin' aft at the double, an' a more insanitary set
+of accidents I never wish to behold. Most of 'em was in their shirts. They
+had their trousers on, of course--rolled up nearly to the knee, but what I
+mean is belts over shirts. Three or four 'ad _our_ caps, an' them that had
+drawn helmets wore their chin-straps like Portugee earrings. Oh, yes; an'
+three of 'em 'ad only one boot! I knew what our bafflin' tattics was goin'
+to be, but even I was mildly surprised when this gay fantasia of Brazee
+drummers halted under the poop, because of an 'ammick in charge of our
+Navigator, an' a small but 'ighly efficient landin'-party.
+
+"''Ard astern both screws!' says the Navigator. 'Room for the captain's
+'ammick!' The captain's servant--Cockburn 'is name was--had one end, an'
+our newly promoted Antonio, in a blue slop rig, 'ad the other. They slung
+it from the muzzle of the port poop quick-firer thort-ships to a
+stanchion. Then the old man flickered up, smokin' a cigarette, an' brought
+'is stern to an anchor slow an' oriental.
+
+"'What a blessin' it is, Mr. Ducane,' 'e says to our sub-lootenant, 'to be
+out o' sight o' the 'ole pack o' blighted admirals! What's an admiral
+after all?' 'e says. 'Why, 'e's only a post-captain with the pip, Mr.
+Ducane. The drill will now proceed. What O! Antonio, _descendez_ an' get
+me a split.'
+
+"When Antonio came back with the whisky-an'-soda, he was told off to swing
+the 'ammick in slow time, an' that massacritin' small-arm party went on
+with their oratorio. The Sergeant had been kindly excused from
+participating an' he was jumpin' round on the poop-ladder, stretchin' 'is
+leather neck to see the disgustin' exhibition an' cluckin' like a ash-
+hoist. A lot of us went on the fore an' aft bridge an' watched 'em like
+'Listen to the Band in the Park.' All these evolutions, I may as well tell
+you, are highly unusual in the Navy. After ten minutes o' muckin' about,
+Glass 'ere--pity 'e's so drunk!--says that 'e'd had enough exercise for
+'is simple needs an' he wants to go 'ome. Mr. Ducane catches him a
+sanakatowzer of a smite over the 'ead with the flat of his sword. Down
+comes Glass's rifle with language to correspond, and he fiddles with the
+bolt. Up jumps Maclean--'oo was a Gosport 'ighlander--an' lands on Glass's
+neck, thus bringin' him to the deck, fully extended.
+
+"The old man makes a great show o' wakin' up from sweet slumbers. 'Mistah
+Ducane,' he says, 'what is this painful interregnum?' or words to that
+effect. Ducane takes one step to the front, an' salutes: 'Only 'nother
+case of attempted assassination, Sir,' he says.
+
+"'Is that all?' says the old man, while Maclean sits on Glass's collar
+button. 'Take him away,' 'e says, 'he knows the penalty.'"
+
+"Ah! I suppose that is the 'invincible _morgue_ Britannic in the presence
+of brutally provoked mutiny,'" I muttered, as I turned over the pages of
+M. de C.
+
+"So, Glass, 'e was led off kickin' an' squealin', an' hove down the ladder
+into 'is Sergeant's volupshus arms. 'E run Glass forward, an' was all for
+puttin' 'im in irons as a maniac.
+
+"'You refill your waterjacket and cool off!' says Glass, sittin' down
+rather winded. 'The trouble with you is you haven't any imagination.'
+
+"'Haven't I? I've got the remnants of a little poor authority though,' 'e
+says, lookin' pretty vicious.
+
+"'You 'ave?' says Glass. 'Then for pity's sake 'ave some proper feelin'
+too. I'm goin' to be shot this evenin'. You'll take charge o' the firin'-
+party.'
+
+"Some'ow or other, that made the Sergeant froth at the mouth. 'E 'ad no
+more play to his intellects than a spit-kid. 'E just took everything as it
+come. Well, that was about all, I think.... Unless you'd care to have me
+resume my narrative."
+
+We resumed on the old terms, but with rather less hot water. The marine on
+the floor breathed evenly, and Mr. Pyecroft nodded.
+
+"I may have omitted to inform you that our Number One took a general row
+round the situation while the small-arm party was at work, an' o' course
+he supplied the outlines; but the details we coloured in by ourselves.
+These were our tattics to baffle Antonio. It occurs to the Carpenter to
+'ave the steam-cutter down for repairs. 'E gets 'is cheero-party together,
+an' down she comes. You've never seen a steam-cutter let down on the deck,
+'ave you? It's not usual, an' she takes a lot o' humourin'. Thus we 'ave
+the starboard side completely blocked an' the general traffic tricklin'
+over'ead along the fore-an'-aft bridge. Then Chips gets into her an'
+begins balin' out a mess o' small reckonin's on the deck. Simultaneous
+there come up three o' those dirty engine-room objects which we call
+'tiffies,' an' a stoker or two with orders to repair her steamin'-gadgets.
+_They_ get into her an' bale out another young Christmas-treeful of small
+reckonin's--brass mostly. Simultaneous it hits the Pusser that 'e'd better
+serve out mess pork for the poor matlow. These things half shifted
+Retallick, our chief cook, off 'is bed-plate. Yes, you might say they
+broke 'im wide open. 'E wasn't at all used to 'em.
+
+"Number One tells off five or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to the
+pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, 'ave you?
+Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now's the day an' now's the hour for
+a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they all give way
+together, and the general effect was _non plus ultra_. There was the
+cutter's innards spread out like a Fratton pawnbroker's shop; there was
+the 'tiffies' hammerin' in the stern of 'er, an' _they_ ain't antiseptic;
+there was the Maxim class in light skirmishin' order among the pork, an'
+forrard the blacksmith had 'is forge in full blast, makin' 'orse-shoes, I
+suppose. Well, that accounts for the starboard side. The on'y warrant
+officer 'oo hadn't a look in so far was the Bosun. So 'e stated, all out
+of 'is own 'ead, that Chips's reserve o' wood an' timber, which Chips 'ad
+stole at our last refit, needed restowin'. It was on the port booms--a
+young an' healthy forest of it, for Charley Peace wasn't to be named
+'longside o' Chips for burglary.
+
+"'All right,' says our Number One. 'You can 'ave the whole port watch if
+you like. Hell's Hell,' 'e says, 'an when there study to improve.'
+
+"Jarvis was our Bosun's name. He hunted up the 'ole of the port watch by
+hand, as you might say, callin' 'em by name loud an' lovin', which is not
+precisely Navy makee-pigeon. They 'ad that timber-loft off the booms, an'
+they dragged it up and down like so many sweatin' little beavers. But
+Jarvis was jealous o' Chips an' went round the starboard side to envy at
+him.
+
+"'Tain't enough,' 'e says, when he had climbed back. 'Chips 'as got his
+bazaar lookin' like a coal-hulk in a cyclone. We must adop' more drastic
+measures.' Off 'e goes to Number One and communicates with 'im. Number One
+got the old man's leave, on account of our goin' so slow (we were keepin'
+be'ind the tramp), to fit the ship with a full set of patent supernumerary
+sails. Four trysails--yes, you might call 'em trysails--was our Admiralty
+allowance in the un'eard of event of a cruiser breakin' down, but we had
+our awnin's as well. They was all extricated from the various flats an'
+'oles where they was stored, an' at the end o' two hours' hard work Number
+One 'e made out eleven sails o' different sorts and sizes. I don't know
+what exact nature of sail you'd call 'em--pyjama-stun'sles with a touch of
+Sarah's shimmy, per'aps--but the riggin' of 'em an' all the supernumerary
+details, as you might say, bein' carried on through an' over an' between
+the cutter an' the forge an' the pork an' cleanin' guns, an' the Maxim
+class an' the Bosun's calaboose _and_ the paintwork, was sublime. There's
+no other word for it. Sub-lime!
+
+"The old man keeps swimmin' up an' down through it all with the faithful
+Antonio at 'is side, fetchin' him numerous splits. 'E had eight that
+mornin', an' when Antonio was detached to get 'is spy-glass, or his
+gloves, or his lily-white 'andkerchief, the old man would waste 'em
+down a ventilator. Antonio must ha' learned a lot about our Navy thirst."
+
+"He did."
+
+"Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin' to the precise page indicated an'
+givin' me a _r�sum�_ of 'is tattics?" said Mr. Pyecroft, drinking deeply.
+"I'd like to know 'ow it looked from 'is side o' the deck."
+
+"How will this do?" I said. "'_Once clear of the land, like Voltaire's
+Habakkuk_------"'
+
+"One o' their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose," Mr. Pyecroft
+interjected.
+
+"'--_each man seemed veritably capable of all--to do according to his
+will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking.
+One cries "Aid me!" flourishing at the same time the weapons of his
+business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal
+misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a
+hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the
+utensil, colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in the
+stern of the boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the ironwork
+which impedes their brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches from on high
+wood, canvas, iron bolts, coal-dust--what do I know_?'"
+
+"That's where 'e's comin' the bloomin' _onjenew_. 'E knows a lot, reely."
+
+"'_They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot
+reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have well
+and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me
+also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They
+ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the
+vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious "Roule Britannia"--to endure
+how lomg_?'"
+
+"That was me! On'y 'twas 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--which I hate more
+than any stinkin' tune I know, havin' dragged too many nasty little guns
+to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an' I ain't
+musical, you might say."
+
+"_'Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this "tohu-
+bohu_"' (that's one of his names for the _Archimandrite_, Mr. Pyecroft),
+'_for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with
+drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the
+Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him is equal. The breech-lock
+indispensable is not there. They demand it of one who opens a barrel of
+pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He refers them to the cook,
+yesterday my master_--'"
+
+"Yes, an' Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an' observin' little
+Antonio we 'ave!"
+
+"'_It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not rebuke
+him, that he has found it by hazard_.' I'm afraid I haven't translated
+quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I've done my best."
+
+"Why, it's beautiful--you ought to be a Frenchman--you ought. You don't
+want anything o' _me_. You've got it all there."
+
+"Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here's a little thing I
+can't quite see the end of. Listen! '_Of the domain which Britannia rules
+by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator, if
+possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the indeterminate
+chaos of the grand deck, I ascended--always with a whisky-and-soda in my
+hands--to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain in plain sea, at
+issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity
+of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean
+with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by
+the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the
+Hesperides beneath his keel--vigias innumerable.'_ I don't know what a
+vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. _'He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the
+mid-Atlantic!'_ What was that, now?"
+
+"Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw 'is cap down
+an' danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They 'ad a tea-party on the
+bridge. It was the old man's contribution. Does he say anything about the
+leadsmen?"
+
+"Is this it? _'Overborne by his superior's causeless suspicion, the
+Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of my
+captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation followed. The
+argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel, crapulous'_ (that means
+drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), _'shouting. It appeared that my captain
+would chenaler'_ (I don't know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) _'to the
+Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with the sound'_ (that's the lead, I
+think) _'in his hand, garnished with suet.'_ Was it garnished with suet?"
+
+"He put two leadsmen in the chains, o' course! He didn't know that there
+mightn't be shoals there, 'e said. Morgan went an' armed his lead, to
+enter into the spirit o' the thing. They 'eaved it for twenty minutes, but
+there wasn't any suet--only tallow, o' course."
+
+"'_Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly the
+Britannic Navy is well guarded_.' Well, that's all right, Mr. Pyecroft.
+Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that happened?"
+
+"There was a good deal, one way an' another. I'd like to know what this
+Antonio thought of our sails."
+
+"He merely says that '_the engines having broken down, an officer
+extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails_.' Oh, yes! he says
+that some of them looked like '_bonnets in a needlecase_,' I think."
+
+"Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun'sles. That shows the beggar's no
+sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was
+a sailorman, an' 'e hasn't sense enough to see what extemporisin' eleven
+good an' drawin' sails out o' four trys'les an' a few awnin's means. 'E
+must have been drunk!"
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and
+the execution."
+
+"Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I
+told my crew--me bein' captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I'm a
+torpedo man now--it just showed how you can work your gun under any
+discomforts. A shell--twenty six-inch shells--burstin' inboard couldn't
+'ave begun to make the varicose collection o' tit-bits which we had
+spilled on our deck. It was a lather--a rich, creamy lather!
+
+"We took it very easy--that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary
+'Jenny-'ave-another-cup-o' tea' style, an' the crew was strictly ordered
+not to rupture 'emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn't our custom
+in the Navy when we're _in puris naturalibus_, as you might say. But we
+wasn't so then. We was impromptu. An' Antonio was busy fetchin' splits for
+the old man, and the old man was wastin' 'em down the ventilators. There
+must 'ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think--wardroom whisky-
+an'-soda.
+
+"Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my
+_bundoop_ go at fifteen 'undred--sightin' very particular. There was a
+sort of 'appy little belch like--no more, I give you my word--an' the
+shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an' dropped into the deep Atlantic.
+
+"'Government powder, Sir!' sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge,
+laughin' horrid sarcastic; an' then, of course, we all laughs, which we
+are not encouraged to do _in puris naturalibus_. Then, of course, I saw
+what our Gunnery Jack 'ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the
+magazines all the mornin' watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum,
+as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an' sickish
+notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired,
+our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin' sarcastic about Government
+stores, an' the old man fair howled. 'Op was on the bridge with 'im, an'
+'e told me--'cause 'e's a free-knowledgeist an' reads character--that
+Antonio's face was sweatin' with pure joy. 'Op wanted to kick him. Does
+Antonio say anything about that?"
+
+"Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr. Pyecroft.
+He has put all the results into a sort of appendix--a table of shots. He
+says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words."
+
+"What? Nothin' about the way the crews flinched an' hopped? Nothin' about
+the little shells rumblin' out o' the guns so casual?"
+
+"There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He
+says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of
+sight of land. Oh, yes! I've forgotten. He says, _'From the conversation
+of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small proportion of
+the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself in his
+pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below,
+who cried in a high voice: "I hope, Sir, you are making something out of
+it. It is rather monotonous." This insult, so flagrant, albeit well-
+merited, was received with a smile of drunken bonhommy'_--that's
+cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty."
+
+"Resumin' afresh," said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered interval, "I
+may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two hours, and then
+we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an' three-quarters cleaned
+up the decks an' mucked about as requisite, haulin' down the patent awnin'
+stun'sles which Number One 'ad made. The old man was a shade doubtful of
+his course, 'cause I 'eard him say to Number One, 'You were right. A week
+o' this would turn the ship into a Hayti bean-feast. But,' he says
+pathetic, 'haven't they backed the band noble?'
+
+"'Oh! it's a picnic for them,' says Number One.
+
+"'But when do we get rid o' this whisky-peddlin' blighter o' yours, Sir?'
+
+"'That's a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,' says the old man. "E's
+the bluest blood o' France when he's at home,'
+
+"'Which is the precise landfall I wish 'im to make,' says Number One.'
+It'll take all 'ands and the Captain of the Head to clean up after 'im.'
+
+"'They won't grudge it,' says the old man. 'Just as soon as it's dusk
+we'll overhaul our tramp friend an' waft him over,'
+
+"Then a sno--midshipman--Moorshed was is name--come up an' says somethin'
+in a low voice. It fetches the old man.
+
+"'You'll oblige me,' 'e says, 'by takin' the wardroom poultry for _that_.
+I've ear-marked every fowl we've shipped at Madeira, so there can't be any
+possible mistake. M'rover,' 'e says, 'tell 'em if they spill one drop of
+blood on the deck,' he says, 'they'll not be extenuated, but hung.'
+
+"Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin' unusual 'appy, even for him. The
+Marines was enjoyin' a committee-meetin' in their own flat.
+
+"After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on the
+sea--an' anythin' more chronic than the _Archimandrite_ I'd trouble you
+to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a auction-room--yes, she
+almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We'd picked up our tramp, an' was
+about four mile be'ind 'er. I noticed the wardroom as a class, you might
+say, was manoeuvrin' _en masse_, an' then come the order to cockbill the
+yards. We hadn't any yards except a couple o' signallin' sticks, but we
+cock-billed 'em. I hadn't seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the
+West Indies, when a post-captain died o' yellow jack. It means a sign o'
+mourning the yards bein' canted opposite ways, to look drunk an'
+disorderly. They do.
+
+"'An' what might our last giddy-go-round signify?' I asks of 'Op.
+
+"'Good 'Evins!' 'e says, 'Are you in the habit o' permittin' leathernecks
+to assassinate lootenants every morning at drill without immejitly 'avin'
+'em shot on the foc'sle in the horrid crawly-crawly twilight?'"
+
+"'Yes,' I murmured over my dear book, '_the infinitely lugubrious
+crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity unparalleled--hideous--cold-blooded,
+and yet touched with appalling grandeur_.'"
+
+"Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he 'ad feelin's. To
+resoom. Without anyone givin' us orders to that effect, we began to creep
+about an' whisper. Things got stiller and stiller, till they was as still
+as--mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the 'Dead March' from the upper
+bridge. He done it to cover the remarks of a cock-bird bein' killed
+forrard, but it came out paralysin' in its _tout ensemble_. You never
+heard the 'Dead March' on a bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin' for both
+watches to attend public execution, an' we came up like so many ghosts,
+the 'ole ship's company. Why, Mucky 'Arcourt, one o' our boys, was that
+took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an' was properly kicked down the
+ladder for so doin'. Well, there we lay--engines stopped, rollin' to the
+swell, all dark, yards cock-billed, an' that merry tune yowlin' from the
+upper bridge. We fell in on the foc'sle, leavin' a large open space by the
+capstan, where our sail-maker was sittin' sewin' broken firebars into the
+foot of an old 'ammick. 'E looked like a corpse, an' Mucky had another fit
+o' hysterics, an' you could 'ear us breathin' 'ard. It beat anythin' in
+the theatrical line that even us _Archimandrites_ had done--an' we was the
+ship you could trust. Then come the doctor an' lit a red lamp which he
+used for his photographic muckin's, an' chocked it on the capstan. That
+was finally gashly!
+
+"Then come twelve Marines guardin' Glass 'ere. You wouldn't think to see
+'im what a gratooitous an' aboundin' terror he was that evenin'. 'E was in
+a white shirt 'e'd stole from Cockburn, an' his regulation trousers,
+barefooted. 'E'd pipe-clayed 'is 'ands an' face an' feet an' as much of
+his chest as the openin' of his shirt showed. 'E marched under escort with
+a firm an' undeviatin' step to the capstan, an' came to attention. The old
+man reinforced by an extra strong split--his seventeenth, an' 'e didn't
+throw _that_ down the ventilator--come up on the bridge an' stood like a
+image. 'Op, 'oo was with 'im, says that 'e heard Antonio's teeth singin',
+not chatterin'--singin' like funnel-stays in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin'
+�olian harp, 'Op said.
+
+"'When you are ready, Sir, drop your 'andkerchief,' Number One whispers.
+
+"'Good Lord!' says the old man, with a jump. 'Eh! What? What a sight! What
+a sight!' an' he stood drinkin' it in, I suppose, for quite two minutes.
+
+"Glass never says a word. 'E shoved aside an 'andkerchief which the
+sub-lootenant proffered 'im to bind 'is eyes with--quiet an' collected;
+an' if we 'adn't been feelin' so very much as we did feel, his gestures
+would 'ave brought down the 'ouse." "I can't open my eyes, or I'll be
+sick," said the Marine with appalling clearness. "I'm pretty far gone--I
+know it--but there wasn't anyone could 'ave beaten Edwardo Glass,
+R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself nearly into the 'orrors. Go on,
+Pye. Glass is in support--as ever."
+
+"Then the old man drops 'is 'andkerchief, an' the firin'-party fires like
+one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin' an' 'eavin' horrid natural, into
+the shotted 'ammick all spread out before him, and the firin' party closes
+in to guard the remains of the deceased while Sails is stitchin' it up.
+An' when they lifted that 'ammick it was one wringin' mess of blood! They
+on'y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too. Did you know poultry bled that
+extravagant? _I_ never did.
+
+"The old man--so 'Op told me--stayed on the bridge, brought up on a dead
+centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser, impressed, but o' course
+'is duty was to think of 'is fine white decks an' the blood. 'Arf a mo',
+Sir,' he says, when the old man was for leavin'. 'We have to wait for the
+burial, which I am informed takes place immejit.'
+
+"'It's beyond me,' says the owner. 'There was general instructions for an
+execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of mountebanks
+aboard,' he says. 'I'm all cold up my back, still.'
+
+"The Marines carried the corpse below. Then the bugle give us some more
+'Dead March,' Then we 'eard a splash from a bow six-pounder port, an' the
+bugle struck up a cheerful tune. The whole lower deck was complimentin'
+Glass, 'oo took it very meek. 'E _is_ a good actor, for all 'e's a
+leatherneck.
+
+"'Now,' said the old man, 'we must turn over Antonio. He's in what I have
+'eard called one perspirin' funk.'
+
+"Of course, I'm tellin' it slow, but it all 'appened much quicker. We run
+down our trampo--without o' course informin' Antonio of 'is 'appy destiny
+--an' inquired of 'er if she had any use for a free and gratis stowaway.
+Oh, yes? she said she'd be highly grateful, but she seemed a shade puzzled
+at our generosity, as you might put it, an' we lay by till she lowered a
+boat. Then Antonio--who was un'appy, distinctly un'appy--was politely
+requested to navigate elsewhere, which I don't think he looked for. 'Op
+was deputed to convey the information, an' 'Op got in one sixteen-inch
+kick which 'oisted 'im all up the ladder. 'Op ain't really vindictive, an'
+'e's fond of the French, especially the women, but his chances o' kicking
+lootenants was like the cartridge--reduced to a minimum.
+
+"The boat 'adn't more than shoved off before a change, as you might say,
+came o'er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like Elphinstone an'
+Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy: 'Gentlemen,' he says,
+'for gentlemen you have shown yourselves to be--from the bottom of my
+heart I thank you. The status an' position of our late lamented shipmate
+made it obligate,' 'e says, 'to take certain steps not strictly included
+in the regulations. An' nobly,' says 'e, 'have you assisted me. Now,' 'e
+says, 'you hold the false and felonious reputation of bein' the smartest
+ship in the Service. Pigsties,' 'e says,' is plane trigonometry alongside
+our present disgustin' state. Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,'
+he says. 'Jump, you lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig
+out, you briny-eyed beggars!'"
+
+"Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
+
+"I've told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The Bosun's
+mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the lower
+deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night 'fore we got
+'er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever, and we
+resoomed. I've thought it over a lot since; yes, an' I've thought a lot of
+Antonio trimmin' coal in that tramp's bunkers. 'E must 'ave been highly
+surprised. Wasn't he?"
+
+"He was, Mr. Pyecroft," I responded. "But now we're talking of it, weren't
+you all a little surprised?"
+
+"It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+"We appreciated it as an easy way o' workin' for your country. But--the
+old man was right--a week o' similar manoeuvres would 'ave knocked our
+moral double-bottoms bung out. Now, couldn't you oblige with Antonio's
+account of Glass's execution?"
+
+I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of
+M. de C.'s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye
+of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His
+account of his descent from the side of the "_infamous vessel consecrated
+to blood_" in the "_vast and gathering dusk of the trembling ocean_" could
+only be matched by his description of the dishonoured hammock sinking
+unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played music "_of
+an indefinable brutality_"
+
+"By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass's funeral?" I asked.
+
+"Him? Oh! 'e played 'The Strict Q.T.' It's a very old song. We 'ad it in
+Fratton nearly fifteen years back," said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily.
+
+I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and
+discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.
+
+"Where is that--minutely particularised person--Glass?" said the sergeant
+of the picket.
+
+"'Ere!" The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. "An' it's no good
+smelling of my breath, because I'm strictly an' ruinously sober."
+
+"Oh! An' what may you have been doin' with yourself?"
+
+"Listenin' to tracts. You can look! I've had the evenin' of my little
+life. Lead on to the _Cornucopia's_ midmost dunjing cell. There's a crowd
+of brass-'atted blighters there which will say I've been absent without
+leaf. Never mind. I forgive them before'and. _The_ evenin' of my life, an'
+please don't forget it." Then in a tone of most ingratiating apology to
+me: "I soaked it all in be'ind my shut eyes. 'I'm"--he jerked a
+contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft--"'e's a flatfoot, a indigo-blue
+matlow. 'E never saw the fun from first to last. A mournful beggar--most
+depressin'." Private Glass departed, leaning heavily on the escort's arm.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought--the profound and far-reaching
+meditation that follows five glasses of hot whisky-and-water.
+
+"Well, I don't see anything comical--greatly--except here an' there.
+Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do _you_ see anything
+funny in it?"
+
+There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for
+argument.
+
+"No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don't," I replied. "It was a beautiful tale, and I
+thank you very much."
+
+
+
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+THE RUNNERS
+
+                                   _News!_
+  What is the word that they tell now--now--now!
+  The little drums beating in the bazaars?
+      _They_ beat (among the buyers and sellers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          God sends a gnat against Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  At the edge of the crops--now--now--where the well-wheels are halted,
+  One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
+      _They_ beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          God prepares an ill day for Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.
+
+                                   _News!_
+  By the fires of the camps--now--now--where the travellers meet
+  Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
+      _They_ beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Under the shadow of the border-peels--now--now--now!
+  In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
+      _They_ beat (among the rifles and the riders)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          Shall we go up against Nimrud_?"
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Bring out the heaps of grain--open the account-books again!
+  Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
+  Eat and lie under the trees--pitch the police-guarded  fair-grounds,
+      O dancers!
+  Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
+      _They_ beat (among all the peoples)
+          _"Now--now--now!
+          God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
+          God has given Victory to Nimrud!"
+          Let us abide under Nimrud_!"
+      O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!
+
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the _r�l_
+from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be
+paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a--trooper of the Gurgaon
+Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab
+Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh--a trooper
+of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there
+_any_ Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon
+Rissala going about his business in this devil's devising of a country,
+where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect
+paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?... God be thanked, here is such a Sahib!
+Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that
+my name is Umr Singh; I am--I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I
+have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him
+herd me with these black Kaffirs!... Yes,  I will sit by this truck till
+the Heaven-born has explained the matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who
+does not understand our tongue.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go
+down to Eshtellenbosch by the next _terain_? Good! I go with the Heaven-
+born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born's servant. Will the
+Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty
+truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus--for the sun is hot,
+though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will
+arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a
+_terain_ for Eshtellenbosch....
+
+The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My
+village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big
+white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen's by
+--by--I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal
+Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence
+know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different
+matter. The Sahib's nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That
+was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout
+nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the
+Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after
+all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay--nay;
+the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank were picked off it long
+ago, but--but it is true--mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use
+for their coats, and--the Sahib has sharp eyes--that black mark is such a
+mark as a silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says
+that troopers do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the
+Arder of Beritish India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of
+the Punjab. I am not a trooper, but I have been a Sahib's servant for
+nearly a year--bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says
+that Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib--
+my Kurban Sahib--dead these three months!
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Young--of a reddish face--with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his
+feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father
+before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father's time
+when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. _My_ father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of
+Sikhs--he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to
+his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban
+Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first--nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I
+remember--and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that
+day; and _he_ was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground
+with his ayah--all in white, Sahib--laughing at the end of our drill. And
+his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I
+dismounted, and the baba put his hand into mine--eighteen--twenty-five--
+twenty-seven years gone now--Kurban Sahib--my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were
+great friends after that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying
+is. He called me Big Umr Singh--Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak
+plain. He stood only this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but
+he knew all our troopers by name--every one.... And he went to England,
+and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk,
+and cracking his finger-joints--back to his own regiment and to me. He had
+not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart,
+Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen-
+eyed, jestful, and careless. _I_ could tell tales about him in his first
+years. There was very little he hid from _me_. I was his Umr Singh, and
+when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that
+was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on everything--about war, and
+women, and money, and advancement, and such all.
+
+We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box-
+wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city
+of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the
+Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big
+guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how
+a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log.
+The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes over the earth? There
+was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo did not come into Hind in
+a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they forget their own cleverness
+has created the _dak_ (the post), and that for an anna or two all things
+become known. We of Hind listened and heard and wondered; and when it was
+a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that
+the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us
+asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of
+those signs. _Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah_! This
+Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said, "There is no haste.
+Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all Hind in that country
+round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so.
+It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one
+place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or
+everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True--true--
+true!"
+
+So did matters ripen--a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
+think--and the Sahib sees this, too?--that it is foolish to make an army
+and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the
+Tochi--the men of the Tirah--the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand times.
+_We_ could have done it all so gently--so gently.
+
+Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, "Ho, Dada, I am sick,
+and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months." And he winked, and
+I said, "I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I bring my
+uniform?" He said, "Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean on. We go to
+Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis" (niggers). Mark
+his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the native regiments to
+get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they will not let our
+officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to take part
+in this war-game upon the road. But _he_ was clever. There was no whisper
+of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went to my
+Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am--I was--of that rank for which a
+chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, "My child goes
+sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also."
+
+And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue,
+said, "Yes, thou art truly _Sikh_"; and he called me an old devil--
+jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my Kurban
+Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last
+he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe
+again. My Sahib back again--aie me!
+
+So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black
+Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead.
+Then I said to Kurban Sahib, "What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give
+me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for
+dinner." Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson's Hotel, and that
+night I prepared Kurban Sahib's razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of
+the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my
+uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon
+the steamer, a room in all respects like to his own, and would have given
+me a servant. We spoke of many things on the way to this country; and
+Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would be the conduct of the war. He
+said, "They have taken men afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will
+foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log because it is believed that they
+are white." He said, "There is but one fault in this war, and that is that
+the Government have not employed _us_, but have made it altogether a
+Sahibs' war. Very many men will thus be killed, and no vengeance will be
+taken." True talk--true talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.
+
+And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban
+Sahib said, "Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look for
+employment fit for a sick man." I put on the uniform of my rank and went to
+the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nih�l Seyn, [Footnote: Mount Nelson?]
+and I caused the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place--is
+it known to the Sahib?--which was already full of the swords and baggage
+of officers. It is fuller now--dead men's kit all! I was careful to secure
+a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back to
+the Punjab.
+
+Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew,
+and he said, "We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to
+oversee the despatch of horses." Remember, Kurban Sahib was squadron-
+leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and _I_ was Umr Singh. So I said, speaking
+as we do--we did--when none was near, "Thou art a groom and I am a grass-
+cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?" At this he laughed, saying,
+"It is the way to better things. Have patience, Father." (Aye, he called me
+father when none were by.) "This war ends not to-morrow nor the next day.
+I have seen the new Sahibs," he said, "and they are fathers of owls--all--
+all--all!"
+
+So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing the
+service of servants in that business. And the whole business was managed
+without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had never seen
+a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but empty of all
+knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those Pathans--they are
+just like those vultures up there, Sahib--they always follow slaughter.
+And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs--Muzbees, though--and some
+Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent horses. Jhind and
+Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent horses.
+
+All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with
+them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil:
+with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the
+command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly ones--_Hubshis_--whose
+touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on
+their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were
+called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs
+--filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub
+down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers--a _jemadar_ of _mehtars_
+(headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five
+months. Evil months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men
+were slain and no vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with
+the weapons of magicians. Guns that slew at half a day's march, and men
+who, being new, walked blind into high grass and were driven off like
+cattle by the Boer-log! As to the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a
+Sahib--only a Sikh. I would have quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon
+Rissala in that city--one little troop--and I would have schooled that
+city till its men learned to kiss the shadow of a Government horse upon
+the ground. There are many _mullahs_ (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They
+preached the Jehad against us. This is true--all the camp knew it. And
+most of the houses were thatched! A war of fools indeed!
+
+At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, "The
+reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and,
+once away, I shall be too sick so return. Make ready the baggage." Thus we
+got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new
+regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by _terain_, when we were
+watering at a desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped
+out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a _jemadar_ of
+_saises_ (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a
+Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but
+the Pathan put up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented
+and added him to our service. So there were three of us--Kurban Sahib, I,
+and Sikander Khan--Sahib, Sikh, and _Sag_ (dog). But the man said truly,
+"We be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we
+see the Indus again." I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan--
+beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine's
+flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is
+written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial
+obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of
+sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where
+there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey
+gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new regiments.
+
+Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with _our_ horses on
+the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and once or
+twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was wise, and I am
+not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the front. Notably,
+there was one congregation of hard-bitten horse-thieves; tall, light
+Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for the most part, and upon all
+occasions they said, "Oah Hell!" which, in our tongue, signifies _Jehannum
+ko jao_. They bore each man a vine-leaf upon their uniforms, and they rode
+like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs!
+The Ustrelyahs, whom we met later, also spoke through their noses not
+little, and they were tall, dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily
+eyelashed like camel's eyes--very proper men--a new brand of Sahib to me.
+They said on all occasions, "No fee-ah," which in our tongue means _Durro
+mut_ ("Do not be afraid"), so we called them the _Durro Muts_. Dark, tall
+men, most excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war _as_ war, and
+drinking tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib.
+Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten
+generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a _Durro Mut_ in regard
+to horse-lifting. The _Durro Muts_ cannot walk on their feet at all. They
+are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very
+proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah--"No fee-ah," say the _Durro
+Muts_. _They_ saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. _They_ did not ask him to
+sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did substitute for
+one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day in a country full
+of little hills--like the mouth of the Khaibar; and when they returned in
+the evening, the _Durro Muts_ said, "Wallah! This is a man. Steal him!" So
+they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen anything else that
+they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to Eshtellenbosch in his
+place.
+
+Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and
+Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs'
+war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride with
+their Sahib--and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up and
+down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no flour,
+no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw corn and a
+little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but a plenty of
+gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with coffee to greet
+us, and to show us _purwanas_ (permits) from foolish English Generals who
+had gone that way before, certifying they were peaceful and well-disposed.
+When we were few, they hid behind stones and shot us. Now the order was
+that they were Sahibs, and this was a Sahibs' war. Good! But, as I
+understand it, when a Sahib goes to war, he puts on the cloth of war, and
+only those who wear that cloth may take part in the war. Good! That also I
+understand. But these people were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis
+are. They shot at their pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and
+exhibited _purwanas_, or lay in a house and said they were farmers. Even
+such farmers as cut up the Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even
+such farmers as slew Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled
+_those_ men, to be sure--fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the
+verandah in front of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib
+(the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but--no. All
+the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that
+he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth, was
+all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform to
+make a loincloth. A fool's war from first to last; for it is manifest that
+he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in one hand and a
+_purwana_ in the other, as did all these people. Yet we, when they had had
+their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and gave them
+permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and
+severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be
+done not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked
+much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, "It is a Sahibs' war. That is
+the order;" and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond
+the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border,
+he hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his
+head. Then Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like
+a sick camel, talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered
+than I, and vowed he would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me
+Kurban Sahib said we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these
+people till they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was
+not of that sort which they comprehended.
+
+They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white
+flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by
+Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. _No fee-
+ah_! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had _purwanas_ signed by mad
+Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.
+
+They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the
+roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they did
+not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the thatch,
+for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log are very
+clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are clever? Never,
+never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools. For their own honour's sake the
+Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it is the Sahibs'
+wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs should have sent
+_us_ into the game.
+
+But the _Durro Muts_ did well. They dealt faithfully with all that country
+thereabouts--not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but they were
+not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a ridge in the
+cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for the sixth part
+of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again thrice for the twelfth
+part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib, for it was a house that
+had been spared--the people having many permits and swearing fidelity at
+our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib, "Send half a troop, Child,
+and finish that house. They signal to their brethren." And he laughed
+where he lay and said, "If I listened to my bearer Umr Singh, there would
+not be left ten houses in all this land." I said, "What need to leave one?
+This is as it was in Burma. They are farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow.
+Let us deal justly with them." He laughed and curled himself up in
+his blanket, and I watched the far light in the house till day. I have
+been on the border in eight wars, not counting Burma. The first Afghan
+War; the second Afghan War; two Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two
+Black Mountain wars, if I remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not
+count Burma, or some small things. _I_ know when house signals to house!
+
+I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, "One of
+the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last night,
+lives in yonder house." I said, "How dost thou know?" He said, "Because he
+rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse fought with
+him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out of the
+camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib's glasses, and from a little
+hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house."
+I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib's glasses from his greasy hands and
+cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to their case.
+Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley
+to use glasses--whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course
+of three months' leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
+
+That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the land
+for our camp. The _Durro Muts_ moved slowly at that time. They were
+weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished to leave
+these all in some town and go on light to other business which pressed. So
+Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the line of march.
+We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came to a house under a
+high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a donga, behind it, and
+an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a kraal, before it. Two
+thorn bushes grew on either side of the door, like babul bushes, covered
+with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof was all of thatch. Before the
+house was a valley of stones that rose to another bush-covered hill. There
+was an old man in the verandah--an old man with a white beard and a wart
+upon the left side of his neck; and a fat woman with the eyes of a swine
+and the jowl of a swine; and a tall young man deprived of understanding.
+His head was hairless, no larger than an orange, and the pits of his
+nostrils were eaten away by a disease. He laughed and slavered and he
+sported sportively before Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the
+woman showed us _purwanas_ from three General Sahibs, certifying that they
+were people of peace and goodwill. Here are the _purwanas_, Sahib. Does
+the Sahib know the Generals who signed them?
+
+They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and
+swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the
+verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost scent.
+At last he took my arm and said, "See yonder! There is the sun on the
+window of the house that signalled last night. This house can see that
+house from here," and he looked at the hill behind him all hairy with
+bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the shrivelled head
+danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the roof and laughed
+like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it were, to cover some
+noise. After this passed I to the back of the house on pretence to get
+water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on the ground, and that
+the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs; and there had dropped in
+the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib called to me in our tongue,
+saying, "Is this a good place to make tea?" and I replied, knowing what he
+meant, "There are over many cooks in the cook-house. Mount and go, Child."
+Then I returned, and he said, smiling to the woman, "Prepare food, and
+when we have loosened our girths we will come in and eat;" but to his men
+he said in a whisper, "Ride away!" No. He did not cover the old man or the
+fat woman with his rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the _Durro
+Muts_, being hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and
+before we were in our saddles many shots came from the roof--from rifles
+thrust through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones,
+and men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill
+behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house--so many shots
+that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding
+low, said, "This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of the _Durro
+Muts_," and I said, "Be quiet. Keep place!" for his place was behind me,
+and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through
+five men arow! We were not hit--not one of us--and we reached the hill of
+rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his
+saddle and said, "Look at the old man!" He stood in the verandah firing
+swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the idiot also--both with
+guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by the wrist, but--his fate
+was written at that hour. The bullet passed under my arm-pit and struck
+him in the liver, and I pulled him backward between two great rocks atilt
+--Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the nullah behind the house and from
+the hills came our Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar
+Khan said, "_Now_ we see the meaning of last night's signal. Give me the
+rifle." He took Kurban Sahib's rifle--in this war of fools only the
+doctors carry swords--and lay belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib
+turned where he lay and said, "Be still. It is a Sahibs' war," and Kurban
+Sahib put up his hand--thus; and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave
+him water that he might pass the more quickly. And at the drinking his
+Spirit received permission....
+
+Thus went our fight, Sahib. We _Durro Muts_ were on a ridge working from
+the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log lay in a
+valley working from east to west. There were more than a hundred, and our
+men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley while they swiftly
+passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three Boers drop in the open.
+Then they all hid again and fired heavily at the rocks that hid our men;
+but our men were clever and did not show, but moved away and away, always
+south; and the noise of the battle withdrew itself southward, where we
+could hear the sound of big guns. So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan
+found a deep old jackal's earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of
+Kurban Sahib upright. Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his
+handkerchief and some letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round
+his neck, and Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the
+handkerchief. Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for
+Kurban Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak--even he, a Pathan, a
+Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when the
+dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses. They
+gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib's glasses, and
+the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them, and preached the
+holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought coffee; and the idiot
+capered among them and kissed their horses. Presently they went away in
+haste; they went over the hills and were not; and a black slave came out
+and washed the door-sills with bright water. Sikandar Khan saw through the
+glasses that the stain was blood, and he laughed, saying, "Wounded men lie
+there. We shall yet get vengeance."
+
+About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as a
+burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how to
+take a bearing across a hill, said, "At last we have burned the house of
+the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled." And I said: "What need now that
+they have slain my child? Let me mourn." It was a high smoke, and the old
+man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold it, and shook his
+clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight, foodless and without
+water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor to drink till we had
+accomplished the matter. I had a little opium left, of which I gave
+Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban Sahib. When it was full
+dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain softish rock which, mixed with
+water, sharpens steel well, and we took off our boots and we went down to
+the house and looked through the windows very softly. The old man sat
+reading in a book, and the woman sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on
+the floor with his head against her knee, and he counted his fingers and
+laughed, and she laughed again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I
+laughed, too, for I had suspected this when I claimed her life and her
+body from Sikandar Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered
+with bare swords.... Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel,
+for the old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan
+prevented him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down
+and held up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they
+should be silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room,
+and a door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood
+stupidly fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and
+none followed him. It was a very pretty stroke--for a Pathan. They then
+were silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar
+Khan, "Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib's sake will I defile my
+sword." So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones, and
+said, "Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit from a
+General," and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound the old
+man's hands behind his back, and unwillingly--for he laughed in my face,
+and would have fingered my beard--the idiot's. At this the woman with the
+swine's eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar Khan said,
+"Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on the division." And I
+said, "Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her. Open the door." I pushed
+out the two across the verandah into the darker shade of the thorn-trees,
+and she followed upon her knees and lay along the ground, and pawed at my
+boots and howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was
+a butler and would light the table, and I looked for a branch that would
+bear fruit. But the woman hindered me not a little with her screechings
+and plungings, and spoke fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue,
+"I am childless to-night because of thy perfidy, and _my_ child was
+praised among men and loved among women. He would have begotten men--not
+animals. Thou hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the
+greater."
+
+I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot's neck, and flung the end
+over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might well
+see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the
+spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even where the
+bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and said, "No.
+It is a Sahibs' war." And I said, "Wait a while, Child, and thou shalt
+sleep." But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my eyes, and said,
+"No. It is a Sahibs' war." And Sikandar Khan said, "Is it too heavy?" and
+set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned to tally on the rope,
+the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm's reach of us, and his face
+was very angry, and a third time he said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And a
+little wind blew out the lamp, and I heard Sikandar Khan's teeth chatter
+in his head.
+
+So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while, for
+we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his water-
+bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me and said,
+"We are absolved from our vow." So I drank, and together we waited for the
+dawn in that place where we stood--the ropes in our hand. A little after
+third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun wheels very far off,
+and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the threshold of the house,
+and the roof of the verandah that was thatched fell in and blazed before
+the windows. And I said, "What of the wounded Boer-log within?" And
+Sikandar Khan said, "We have heard the order. It is a Sahibs' war. Stand
+still." Then came a second shell--good line, but short--and scattered dust
+upon us where we stood; and then came ten of the little quick shells from
+the gun that speaks like a stammerer--yes, pompom the Sahibs call it--and
+the face of the house folded down like the nose and the chin of an old man
+mumbling, and the forefront of the house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan
+said, "If it be the fate of the wounded to die in the fire, _I_ shall not
+prevent it." And he passed to the back of the house and presently came
+back, and four wounded Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk
+upright. And I said, "What hast thou done?" And he said, "I have neither
+spoken to them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy." And I
+said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay
+still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree,
+and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches
+in the roof--one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud
+noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have
+crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees,
+and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide!
+Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' war, O Sahibs. There is no
+order that ye should depart from this war." They did not understand my
+words. Yet they abode and they lived.
+
+Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib's command, and one I
+knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I
+told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib would
+understand; and at the end I said, "An order has reached us here from the
+dead that this is a Sahibs' war. I take the soul of my Kurban Sahib to
+witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these Sahibs who
+have made me childless." Then I gave him the ropes and fell down
+senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty, except for
+the little opium.
+
+They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
+understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and two
+nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban Sahib,
+saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the _Durro Muts_--
+very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They buried my
+Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the ridge
+overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the faith, and
+Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five signalling-candles,
+which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave as if it had been the
+grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very bitterly all that night, and I
+wept with him, and he took hold of my feet and besought me to give him a
+remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I divided equally with him one of Kurban
+Sahib's handkerchiefs--not the silk ones, for those were given him by a
+certain woman; and I also gave him a button from a coat, and a little
+steel ring of no value that Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed
+them and put them into his bosom. The rest I have here in that little
+bundle, and I must get the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town--some four
+shirts we sent to be washed, for which we could not wait when we went
+up-country--and I must give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the
+Punjab. For my child is dead--my baba is dead!... I would have come away
+before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far
+from the rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come
+to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
+and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
+what they called me--orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
+did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
+after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went
+up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a troop
+there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut an
+inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and is was a
+jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the
+inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the
+jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:--
+
+  In Memory of
+  WALTER DECIES CORBYN
+  Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
+
+  The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
+
+  Treacherously shot near this place by
+  The connivance of the late
+  HENDRIK DIRK UYS
+  A Minister of God
+  Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
+  And Piet his son,
+  This little work
+
+Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
+
+
+  Was accomplished in partial
+  And inadequate recognition of their loss
+  By some men who loved him
+
+  _Si monumentum requiris circumspice_
+
+That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to
+behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house. And,
+Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank which they
+call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There is nothing
+at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire. The rest is
+like the desert here--or my hand--or my heart. Empty, Sahib--all empty!
+
+
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
+
+THE WET LITANY
+
+  When the water's countenance
+  Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance;
+  When the tattered smokes forerun
+  Ashen 'neath a silvered sun;
+  When the curtain of the haze
+  Shuts upon our helpless ways--
+       Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+       _Libera nos domine_!
+
+  When the engines' bated pulse
+  Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
+  When the wash along the side
+  Sounds, a sudden, magnified
+  When the intolerable blast
+  Marks each blindfold minute passed.
+
+  When the fog-buoy's squattering flight
+  Guides us through the haggard night;
+  When the warning bugle blows;
+  When the lettered doorways close;
+  When our brittle townships press,
+  Impotent, on emptiness.
+
+  When the unseen leadsmen lean
+  Questioning a deep unseen;
+  When their lessened count they tell
+  To a bridge invisible;
+  When the hid and perilous
+  Cliffs return our cry to us.
+
+  When the treble thickness spread
+  Swallows up our next-ahead;
+  When her siren's frightened whine
+  Shows her sheering out of line;
+  When, her passage undiscerned,
+  We must turn where she has turned--
+       Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+       _Libera nos Domine_!
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
+
+PART I
+
+  ... "And a security for such as pass on the seas upon
+  their lawful occasions."--_Navy Prayer_.
+
+Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is
+Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.
+
+H.M.S. _Caryatid_ went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manoeuvres. I
+travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
+friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. _Caryatid_, whose guest I was to
+have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous
+off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red
+Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with
+unstinted hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A.L. Hignett, in
+charge of three destroyers, _Wraith, Stiletto_, and _Kobbold_, due to
+depart at 6 P.M. that evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot
+flagship, but I preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in
+H.M.S. _Pedantic_ (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining
+aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the
+battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance
+from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no
+wrong. I truly intended to return to the _Pedantic_ and help to fight Blue
+Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a chemist in
+a side street at 9:15 P. M. As I turned to go, one entered seeking
+alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster, a black
+silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure brass
+spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh from
+leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light fell on
+his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late second-class petty
+officer of H.M.S. _Archimandrite_, an unforgettable man, met a year before
+under Tom Wessel's roof in Plymouth. It occurred to me that when a petty
+officer takes to spurs he may conceivably meditate desertion. For that
+reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign. Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft,
+following me out of the shop, who said hollowly: "What might you be doing
+here?"
+
+"I'm going on manoeuvres in the _Pedantic_," I replied.
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "An' what manner o' manoeuvres d'you expect to
+see in a blighted cathedral like the _Pedantic_? _I_ know 'er. I knew her
+in Malta, when the _Vulcan_ was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres! You
+won't see more than 'Man an' arm watertight doors!' in your little woollen
+undervest."
+
+"I'm sorry for that."
+
+"Why?" He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like tuning-
+forks. "War's declared at midnight. _Pedantics_ be sugared! Buy an 'am an'
+see life!"
+
+For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice, purposed
+that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands of Dorset.
+The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much. "Them!" he said,
+coming to an intricate halt. "They're part of the _prima facie_ evidence.
+But as for me--let me carry your bag--I'm second in command, leadin'-hand,
+cook, steward, an' lavatory man, with a few incidentals for sixpence a day
+extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat."
+
+"They wear spurs there?"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Peycroft, "seein' that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue
+Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative. It
+transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral Master
+Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin' Blue Fleet, can't be bothered with
+one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin' in the Reserve four
+years, an' what with the new kind o' tiffy which cleans dynamos with
+brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won't render!), Two Six
+Seven's steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed done his painstakin'
+best--it's his first command of a war-canoe, matoor age nineteen (down
+that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His Holiness Frankie is
+aware of us crabbin' ourselves round the breakwater at five knots, an'
+steerin' _pari passu_, as the French say. (Up this alley-way, please!) If
+he'd given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer, a little time, it would
+never have transpired, for what Hinch can't drive he can coax; but the new
+port bein' a trifle cloudy, an' 'is joints tinglin' after a post-captain
+dinner, Frankie come on the upper bridge seekin' for a sacrifice. We,
+offerin' a broadside target, got it. He told us what 'is grandmamma, 'oo
+was a lady an' went to sea in stick-and string-batteaus, had told him
+about steam. He throwed in his own prayers for the 'ealth an' safety of
+all steam-packets an' their officers. Then he give us several distinct
+orders. The first few--I kept tally--was all about going to Hell; the next
+many was about not evolutin' in his company, when there; an' the last all
+was simply repeatin' the motions in quick time. Knowin' Frankie's groovin'
+to be badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn't much panic; but
+our Mr. Moorshed, 'e took it a little to heart. Me an' Mr. Hinchcliffe
+consoled 'im as well as service conditions permits of, an' we had a
+_r�sum�_-supper at the back o' the Camber--secluded _an'_ lugubrious! Then
+one thing leadin' up to another, an' our orders, except about anchorin'
+where he's booked for, leavin' us a clear 'orizon, Number Two Six Seven is
+now--mind the edge of the wharf--here!"
+
+By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a narrow
+strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up into
+Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the
+round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured,
+unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type--but I am no expert--between the
+first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic
+torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she
+must have dated from the early nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with
+spurts of steam and fumes of hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure
+in a striped jersey squatted on the engine-room gratings.
+
+"She ain't much of a war-canoe, but you'll see more life in 'er than on an
+whole squadron of bleedin' _Pedantics."_
+
+"But she's laid up here--and Blue Fleet have gone," I protested.
+"Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn't put us out of
+action. Thus we're a non-neglectable fightin' factor which you mightn't
+think from this elevation; _an'_ m'rover, Red Fleet don't know we're 'ere.
+Most of us"--he glanced proudly at his boots--"didn't run to spurs, but
+we're disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser,
+when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was
+naturally a German waiter, and me you behold as a squire of low degree;
+while yonder Levantine dragoman on the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was
+the second cutter's snotty--_my_ snotty--on the _Archimandrite_--two
+years--Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin', an'
+gettin' the cutter stove in on small an' unlikely bars, an' manufacturin'
+lies to correspond. What I don't know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the
+same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don't know about me--half a millimetre, as
+you might say. He comes into awful opulence of his own when 'e's of age;
+an' judgin' from what passed between us when Frankie cursed 'im, I don't
+think 'e cares whether he's broke to-morrow or--the day after. Are you
+beginnin' to follow our tattics? They'll be worth followin'. Or _are_ you
+goin' back to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_--which I lay
+they've just dismounted the third engineer out of--to eat four fat meals
+per diem, an' smoke in the casement?"
+
+The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.
+
+"Yes, Sir," was Mr. Pyecroft's answer. "I 'ave ascertained that _Stiletto,
+Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P. M. with the first division o' Red
+Fleet's cruisers except _Devolotion_ and _Cryptic_, which are delayed by
+engine-room defects." Then to me: "Won't you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed 'ud
+like some one to talk to. You buy an 'am an see life."
+
+At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower
+myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267.
+
+"What d'you want?" said the striped jersey.
+
+"I want to join Blue Fleet if I can," I replied. "I've been left behind
+by--an accident.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
+you need?"
+
+"I don't want any ham, thank you. That's the way up the wharf. _Good_-
+night."
+
+"Good-night!" I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a
+shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
+salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop
+supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I,
+sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of
+a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I
+laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the face of
+it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me very far from
+the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched
+it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft--I heard spurs clink--passed me. Then the
+jersey voice said: "What the mischief's that?"
+
+"'Asn't the visitor come aboard, Sir? 'E told me he'd purposely abandoned
+the _Pedantic_ for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me he was
+official correspondent for the _Times_; an' I know he's littery by the way
+'e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven't you seen 'im, Sir?"
+
+Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; "Pye, you
+are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!"
+
+"Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It's marked with his name." There
+was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said "Oh!" in a tone which the listener
+might construe precisely as he pleased.
+
+"_He_ was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life--was he? If he
+goes back to the _Pedantic_--"
+
+"Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir."
+
+"Then what possessed _you_ to give it away to him, you owl?"
+
+"I've got his bag. If 'e gives anything away, he'll have to go naked."
+
+At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the
+shadow of the crane.
+
+"I've bought the ham," I called sweetly. "Have you still any objection to
+my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?"
+
+"All right, if you're insured. Won't you come down?"
+
+I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of
+all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.
+
+"Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?" said my host.
+
+"Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?"
+
+"What do _you_ think of him?"
+
+"I've left the _Pedantic_--her boat will be waiting for me at ten o'clock,
+too--simply because I happened to meet him," I replied.
+
+"That's all right. If you'll come down below, we may get some grub."
+
+We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve
+feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a
+swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other
+furniture there was none.
+
+"You can't shave here, of course. We don't wash, and, as a rule, we eat
+with our fingers when we're at sea. D'you mind?"
+
+Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me
+over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but
+his smile drew the heart. "You didn't happen to hear what Frankie told me
+from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I've logged them
+here in shorthand, were"--he opened a neat pocket-book--"_'Get out of this
+and conduct your own damned manoeuvres in your own damned tinker fashion!
+You're a disgrace to the Service, and your boat's offal.'"_
+
+"Awful?" I said.
+
+"No--offal--tripes--swipes--ullage." Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume
+of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he
+dealt out like cards.
+
+"I shall take these as my orders," said Mr. Moorshed. "I'm chucking the
+Service at the end of the year, so it doesn't matter."
+
+We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with
+whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an
+uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.
+
+"That's Mr. Hinchcliffe," said Pyecroft. "He's what is called a first-
+class engine-room artificer. If you hand 'im a drum of oil an' leave 'im
+alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin'."
+
+Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a
+folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manoeuvres, with the
+rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.
+
+"Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral,"
+he said, yawning. "Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?"
+
+As a preparation for naval manoeuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I
+followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big
+lumber-ship's side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No.
+267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels--soft, for they
+gave as I touched them.
+
+"More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an' aft, an' you erects
+perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops,
+thus 'avin' as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o' command, up
+they go like a pair of concertinas, an' consequently collapses equally
+'andy when requisite. Comin' aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish
+bathin'-machine proprietor fittin' on her bustle."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at
+the stern.
+
+"None of us who ain't built that way can be destroyers, but we can look as
+near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a
+Thorneycroft boat, which we are _not_, comes out in a pretty bulge,
+totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on
+the other 'and, _Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn_, and _A-frite_--Red
+Fleet dee-stroyers, with 'oom we hope to consort later on terms o' perfect
+equality--_are_ Thorneycrofts, an' carry that Grecian bend which we are
+now adjustin' to our _arriere-pens�e_--as the French would put it--by
+means of painted canvas an' iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an'
+me an' Frankie, we are the _Gnome_, now in the Fleet Reserve at Pompey--
+Portsmouth, I should say."
+
+"The first sea will carry it all away," said Moorshed, leaning gloomily
+outboard, "but it will do for the present."
+
+"We've a lot of _prima facie_ evidence about us," Mr. Pyecroft went on. "A
+first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer. Hence
+we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak to
+represent extra freeboard; _at_ the same time paddin' out the cover of the
+forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an' variously
+fakin' up the bows of 'er. As you might say, we've took thought an' added
+a cubic to our stature. It's our len'th that sugars us. A 'undred an'
+forty feet, which is our len'th into two 'undred and ten, which is about
+the _Gnome's,_ leaves seventy feet over, which we haven't got."
+
+"Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
+
+"In spots, you might say--yes; though we all contributed to make up
+deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin' for further Navy after
+what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity."
+
+"What the dickens are we going to do?"
+
+"Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we'd wait till the sights came
+on, an' then fire. Speakin' as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I., M.D.,
+etc., I presume we fall in--Number One in rear of the tube, etc., secure
+tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin'-bar, release safety-pin
+from lockin-levers, an' pray Heaven to look down on us. As second in
+command o' 267, I say wait an' see!"
+
+"What's happened? We're off," I said. The timber ship had slid away from
+us.
+
+"We are. Stern first, an' broadside on! If we don't hit anything too hard,
+we'll do."
+
+"Come on the bridge," said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over
+some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next
+few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the
+science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth
+Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in
+what appeared to be surf.
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, "_I_ don't mind rammin' a
+bathin'-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters has
+thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we'll rip our plates open on
+it; 267 isn't the _Archimandrite's_ old cutter."
+
+"I am hugging the shore," was the answer.
+
+"There's no actual 'arm in huggin', but it can come expensive if
+pursooed."
+
+"Right-O!" said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those
+scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.
+
+A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.
+
+"Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?" said Moorshed.
+
+"I merely wished to report that she is still continuin' to go, Sir."
+
+"Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d'you think?"
+
+"I'll try, Sir; but we'd prefer to have the engine-room hatch open--at
+first, Sir."
+
+Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through
+the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the
+narrow deck.
+
+"This," said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock
+receives a shadow, "represents the _Gnome_ arrivin' cautious from the
+direction o' Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders."
+
+He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes
+opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.
+
+"Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic
+about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and
+several millimetres too excited over the approachin' war to keep a look-
+out inshore. Hence our tattics!"
+
+We wailed through our siren--a long, malignant, hyena-like howl--and a
+voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.
+
+"The _Gnome_--Carteret-Jones--from Portsmouth, with orders--mm--mm--
+_Stiletto_," Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a high, whining
+voice, rather like a chaplain's.
+
+"_Who_?" was the answer.
+
+"Carter--et--Jones."
+
+"Oh, Lord!"
+
+There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, "It's Podgie, adrift
+on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!"
+
+Another voice echoed, "Podgie!" and from its note I gathered that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.
+
+"Who's your sub?" said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the
+_Dirk_.
+
+"A gunner, at present, Sir. The _Stiletto_--broken down--turns over to
+us."
+
+"When did the _Stiletto_ break down?"
+
+"Off the Start, Sir; two hours after--after she left here this evening, I
+believe. My orders are to report to you for the manoeuvre signal-codes,
+and join Commander Hignett's flotilla, which is in attendance on
+_Stiletto_."
+
+A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed's voice was high and
+uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: "The amount o' trouble me an' my
+bright spurs 'ad fishin' out that information from torpedo coxswains and
+similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never believe."
+
+"But has the _Stiletto_ broken down?" I asked weakly.
+
+"How else are we to get Red Fleet's private signal-code? Any way, if she
+'asn't now, she will before manoeuvres are ended. It's only executin' in
+anticipation."
+
+"Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones." Water
+carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear the
+next sentence: "They must have given him _one_ intelligent keeper."
+
+"That's me," said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy--I did
+not foresee how well I should come to know her--was flung overside by
+three men.
+
+"Havin' bought an 'am, we will now see life." He stepped into the boat and
+was away.
+
+"I say, Podgie!"--the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers,
+as we thumped astern--"aren't you lonely out there?"
+
+"Oh, don't rag me!" said Moorshed. "Do you suppose I'll have to manoeuvre
+with your flo-tilla?"
+
+"No, Podgie! I'm pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders in
+Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla."
+
+"Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds."
+
+Two men laughed together.
+
+"By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he's at home?" I whispered.
+
+"I was with him in the _Britannia_. I didn't like him much, but I'm
+grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day."
+
+"They seemed to know him hereabouts."
+
+"He rammed the _Caryatid_ twice with her own steam-pinnace."
+
+Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming across
+the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel spurned it.
+
+"Commander Fasset's compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the sooner
+he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at Portsmouth,
+the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there's a lot more----"
+
+"Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it as
+we go. Well?"
+
+Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.
+
+"Day an' night private signals of Red Fleet _com_plete, Sir!" He handed a
+little paper to Moorshed. "You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones bein', so to say, a little new to his duties, 'ad forgot to
+give 'is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin', but, as I told Commander
+Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin' 'em to me, nervous-like, most of the
+way from Portsmouth, so I knew 'em by heart--an' better. The Commander,
+recognisin' in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a father an' mother
+to Mr. Carteret-Jones."
+
+"Didn't he know you?" I asked, thinking for the moment that there could be
+no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.
+
+"What's a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding six
+thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? 'E seemed to cherish the 'ope
+that 'e might use the _Gnome_ for 'is own 'orrible purposes; but what I
+told him about Mr. Jones's sad lack o' nerve comin' from Pompey, an' going
+dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited _that_ connection.
+'M'rover,' I says to him, 'our orders is explicit; _Stiletto's_ reported
+broke down somewhere off the Start, an' we've been tryin' to coil down a
+new stiff wire hawser all the evenin', so it looks like towin' 'er back,
+don't it?' I says. That more than ever jams his turrets, an' makes him
+keen to get rid of us. 'E even hinted that Mr. Carteret-Jones passin'
+hawsers an' assistin' the impotent in a sea-way might come pretty
+expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a disciplined way. I ain't proud.
+Gawd knows I ain't proud! But when I'm really diggin' out in the fancy
+line, I sometimes think that me in a copper punt, single-'anded, 'ud beat
+a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in a row round the fleet."
+
+At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft's bosom, supported
+by his quivering arm.
+
+"Well?" said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267's bows snapped
+at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed together.
+
+"'You'd better go on,' says Commander Fassett, 'an' do what you're told to
+do. I don't envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the _Gnome's_ commander.
+But what d'you want with signals?' 'e says. 'It's criminal lunacy to trust
+Mr. Jones with anything that steams.'
+
+"'May I make an observation, Sir?' I says. 'Suppose,' I says, 'you was
+torpedo-gunner on the _Gnome_, an' Mr. Carteret-Jones was your commandin'
+officer, an' you had your reputation _as_ a second in command for the
+first time,' I says, well knowin' it was his first command of a flotilla,
+'what 'ud you do, Sir?' That gouged 'is unprotected ends open--clear back
+to the citadel."
+
+"What did he say?" Moorshed jerked over is shoulder.
+
+"If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to repeat
+it, Sir."
+
+"Go ahead," I heard the boy chuckle.
+
+"'Do?' 'e says. 'I'd rub the young blighter's nose into it till I made a
+perishin' man of him, or a perspirin' pillow-case,' 'e says, 'which,' he
+adds, 'is forty per cent, more than he is at present.'
+
+"Whilst he's gettin' the private signals--they're rather particular ones--
+I went forrard to see the _Dirk's_ gunner about borrowin' a holdin'-down
+bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was rovin' over his
+packet, got the followin' authentic particulars." I heard his voice
+change, and his feet shifted. "There's been a last council o' war of
+destroyer-captains at the flagship, an' a lot of things 'as come out. To
+begin with _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, Captain Panke and Captain Malan--"
+
+"_Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, first-class cruisers," said Mr. Moorshed
+dreamily. "Go on, Pyecroft."
+
+"--bein' delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did _not_, as we know,
+accompany Red Fleet's first division of scouting cruisers, whose
+rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard.
+_Cryptic_ an' _Devolution_ left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin' copious minor
+defects in engine-room. Admiral's final instructions was they was to put
+into Torbay, an' mend themselves there. If they can do it in twenty-four
+hours, they're to come on and join the battle squadron at the first
+rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn't get that, Sir.) If they
+can't, he'll think about sendin' them some destroyers for escort. But his
+present intention is to go 'ammer and tongs down Channel, usin' 'is
+destroyers for all they're worth, an' thus keepin' Blue Fleet too busy off
+the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries."
+
+"But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let 'em out of
+Weymouth at all?" I asked.
+
+"The tax-payer," said Mr. Moorshed.
+
+"An' newspapers," added Mr. Pyecroft. "In Torbay they'll look as they was
+muckin' about for strategical purposes--hammerin' like blazes in the
+engine room all the weary day, an' the skipper droppin' questions down the
+engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. _I've_ been there. Now,
+Sir?" I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.
+
+The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.
+
+"Mr. Hinchcliffe, what's her extreme economical radius?"
+
+"Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers."
+
+"Can do," said Moorshed. "By the way, have her revolutions any bearing on
+her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
+
+"None that I can make out yet, Sir."
+
+"Then slow to eight knots. We'll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or
+four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by
+nine o'clock to-morrow morning. We'll have to muck about till dusk before
+we run in and try our luck with the cruisers."
+
+"Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin' round them all night. It's
+considered good for the young gentlemen."
+
+"Hallo! War's declared! They're off!" said Moorshed.
+
+He swung 267's head round to get a better view. A few miles to our right
+the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while nearer ran a
+procession of tiny cigar ends.
+
+"Red hot! Set 'em alight," said Mr. Pyecroft. "That's the second destroyer
+flotilla diggin' out for Commander Fassett's reputation."
+
+The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers' funnels
+dwindled even as we watched.
+
+"They're going down Channel with lights out, thus showin' their zeal an'
+drivin' all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll
+get you your pyjamas, an' you'll turn in," said Pyecroft.
+
+He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung majestically
+over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a coat with a monk's
+hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.
+
+"If you fall over in these you'll be drowned. They're lammies. I'll chock
+you off with a pillow; but sleepin' in a torpedo-boat's what you might
+call an acquired habit."
+
+I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering steel
+wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267's skin, worried me
+with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed tackily to gather my
+attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and, on the eve of that
+portentous communication, retired up stage as a multitude whispering.
+Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum of crowded cities
+awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and dry roaring of wild
+beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold floor was, naturally
+enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking uplift across the crest
+of some little swell, nothing less than the haling forth of new worlds;
+our half-turning descent into the hollow of its mate, the abysmal plunge
+of God-forgotten planets. Through all these phenomena and more--though I
+ran with wild horses over illimitable plains of rustling grass; though I
+crouched belly-flat under appalling fires of musketry; though I was
+Livingstone, painless, and incurious in the grip of his lion--my shut eyes
+saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the irregularly gliding patch of
+light on the steel ladder, and every elastic shadow in the corners of the
+frail angle-irons; while my body strove to accommodate itself to the
+infernal vibration of the machine. At the last I rolled limply on the
+floor, and woke to real life with a bruised nose and a great call to go on
+deck at once.
+
+"It's all right," said a voice in my booming ears. "Morgan and Laughton
+are worse than you!"
+
+I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two bundles
+beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller and a most
+able seaman. "She'd do better in a bigger sea," said Mr. Pyecroft. "This
+lop is what fetches it up."
+
+The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down
+the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round
+wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good
+omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to
+267's heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves--such waves as I
+had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton
+liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped, and
+splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops along
+their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey cutting of
+water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge, beheld the
+Channel traffic--full-sailed to that fair breeze--all about us, and swung
+slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into the next furrow.
+Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to living, leaping opal,
+the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many sails to pearl, and the
+little steam-plume of our escape to an inconstant rainbow.
+
+"A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!" said Emanuel Pyecroft,
+throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was pitted
+with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes shone
+like a gull's.
+
+"I told you you'd see life. Think o' the _Pedantic_ now. Think o' her
+Number One chasin' the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats. Think
+o' the pore little snotties now bein' washed, fed, and taught, an' the
+yeoman o' signals with a pink eye wakin' bright 'an brisk to another
+perishin' day of five-flag hoists. Whereas _we_ shall caulk an' smoke
+cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks after war
+was declared." He dropped into the wardroom singing:--
+
+If you're going to marry me, marry me, Bill, It's no use muckin' about!
+
+The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o'-shanter, a
+pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a black
+sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava and a
+brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our supplementary funnel
+guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho restaurant sat at the head of
+the engine-room ladder exhorting the unseen below. The following wind beat
+down our smoke and covered all things with an inch-thick layer of stokers,
+so that eyelids, teeth, and feet gritted in their motions. I began to see
+that my previous experiences among battleships and cruisers had been
+altogether beside the mark.
+
+
+PART II
+
+  The wind went down with the sunset--
+    The fog came up with the tide,
+  When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (_bis_)
+    With a little Blue Devil inside.
+  "Sink," she said, "or swim," she said,
+    "It's all you will get from me.
+  And that is the finish of him!" she said,
+    And the Egg-shell went to sea.
+
+  The wind got up with the morning,
+    And the fog blew off with the rain,
+  When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
+    And the little Blue Devil again.
+  "Did you swim?" she said. "Did you sink?" she said,
+    And the little Blue Devil replied:
+  "For myself I swam, but I think," he said,
+    "There's somebody sinking outside."
+
+But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and might
+not alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all that
+priceless day. Moorshed, after breakfast--frizzled ham and a devil that
+Pyecroft made out of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard smashed
+together with a spanner--showed me his few and simple navigating tools,
+and took an observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the chamois
+leathers while he cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be better equipped
+with electricity than most of our class), that lived under a bulbous
+umbrella-cover amidship. Then Pyecroft and Morgan, standing easy, talked
+together of the King's Service as reformers and revolutionists, so
+notably, that were I not engaged on this tale I would, for its conclusion,
+substitute theirs.
+
+I would speak of Hinchcliffe--Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class engine-
+room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of having taken
+part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his daring, his skill,
+and his nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for an hour in the packed
+and dancing engine-room, when Moorshed suggested "whacking her up" to
+eighteen knots, to see if she would stand it. The floor was ankle-deep in
+a creamy batter of oil and water; each moving part flicking more oil in
+zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible for their dizzy chattering on
+the chattering steel bulkhead. Leading stoker Grant, said to be a
+bigamist, an ox-eyed man smothered in hair, took me to the stokehold and
+planted me between a searing white furnace and some hell-hot iron plate
+for fifteen minutes, while I listened to the drone of fans and the worry
+of the sea without, striving to wrench all that palpitating firepot wide
+open.
+
+Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed--revolving in his orbit from the
+canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room, conning-tower,
+and wheel, to the doll's house of a foc'sle--learned in experience
+withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge, authoritative,
+entirely adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his play. _I_ could not
+take ten steps along the crowded deck but I collided with some body or
+thing; but he and his satellites swung, passed, and returned on their
+vocations with the freedom and spaciousness of the well-poised stars.
+
+Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each dissolving
+picture inboard or overside--Hinchcliffe's white arm buried to the
+shoulder in a hornet's nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed's halt and
+jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft's back bent over
+the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men in expanding it
+swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a homeward-bound Chinaman
+not a hundred yards away, and her shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails
+bulging sideways like insolent cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on
+our decks, all iridescent under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled
+the shadows of our funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and
+dulling over of the short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell:
+the swell that crumbled up and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant,
+almost audible roll inward of wandering fog-walls that had been stalking
+us for two hours, and--welt upon welt, chill as the grave--the drive of
+the interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than
+steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred
+like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship literally
+above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we scrooped by, and
+the little drops of dew gathered below them.
+
+"Wonder why they're always barks--always steel--always four-masted--an'
+never less than two thousand tons. But they are," said Pyecroft. He was
+out on the turtle-backed bows of her; Moorshed was at the wheel, and
+another man worked the whistle.
+
+"This fog is the best thing could ha' happened to us," said Moorshed. "It
+gives us our chance to run in on the quiet.... Hal-lo!"
+
+A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a
+bowsprit surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially hooking
+itself into our forward rail.
+
+I saw Pyecroft's arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of the
+tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed's voice down the tube
+saying, "Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!" and Pyecroft's cry,
+"Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our propeller, Sir, or we'll be
+wrapped up in the rope."
+
+267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the downward-bearing
+bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc'sle had already thrown
+out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible bulwark.
+
+Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive
+crunching of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler, her
+crew struck dumb.
+
+"Any luck?" said Moorshed politely.
+
+"Not till we met yeou," was the answer. "The Lard he saved us from they
+big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be'e gwine tu with our
+fine new bobstay?"
+
+"Yah! You've had time to splice it by now," said Pyecroft with contempt.
+
+"Aie; but we'm all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin' twenty-seven
+knots, us reckoned it. Didn't us, Albert?"
+
+"Liker twenty-nine, an' niver no whistle."
+
+"Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?" said Moorshed.
+
+A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.
+
+We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing
+crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a
+mere picket-boat.
+
+"What for?" said a puzzled voice.
+
+"For love; for nothing. You'll be abed in Brixham by midnight."
+
+"Yiss; but trawl's down."
+
+"No hurry. I'll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when you're ready."
+A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they made it fast; we slid
+forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet of the wire rope
+running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of debate.
+
+"Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog," said Moorshed
+listening.
+
+"But what in the world do you want him for?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, he'll came in handy later."
+
+"Was that your first collision?"
+
+"Yes." I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice rose muffled and wailing. "After
+us've upped trawl, us'll be glad of a tow. Leave line just slack abaout as
+'tis now, and kip a good fine look-out be'ind 'ee."
+
+"There's an accommodatin' blighter for you!" said Pyecroft. "Where does he
+expect we'll be, with these currents evolutin' like sailormen at the
+Agricultural Hall?"
+
+I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out and
+smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept it from
+fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The fog now
+thickened and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like the glare of
+intermittent flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision of a sick sun
+that leered and fled, or burying all a thousand fathom deep in gulfs of
+vapours. At no time could we see the trawler though we heard the click of
+her windlass, the jar of her trawl-beam, and the very flap of the fish on
+her deck. Forward was Pyecroft with the lead; on the bridge Moorshed pawed
+a Channel chart; aft sat I, listening to the whole of the British
+Mercantile Marine (never a keel less) returning to England, and watching
+the fog-dew run round the bight of the tow back to its mother-fog.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war! We'm done with trawl. You can take us home
+if you know the road."
+
+"Right O!" said Moorshed. "We'll give the fishmonger a run for his money.
+Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe."
+
+The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be
+afraid, but more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of my
+neck) that any fear which would begin to do justice to the situation
+would, if yielded to, incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow of
+spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us like
+the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and, miraculously
+withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance that I should
+reach the beach--any beach--alive, if not dry; and (this was when an
+economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser water) were I so
+spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.
+
+Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added
+herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they, too,
+should melt in the general dissolution.
+
+"Where's that prevaricatin' fishmonger?" said Pyecroft, turning a lantern
+on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a stick to my
+left. "He's doin' some fancy steerin' on his own. No wonder Mr.
+Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow's sheered off to starboard, Sir.
+He'll fair pull the stern out of us."
+
+Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice butted through the fog with the
+monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep's. "We don't all like the road
+you'm takin'. 'Tis no road to Brixham. You'll be buckled up under Prawle
+Point by'mbye."
+
+"Do you pretend to know where you are?" the megaphone roared.
+
+"Iss, I reckon; but there's no pretence to me!"
+
+"O Peter!" said Pyecroft. "Let's hang him at 'is own gaff."
+
+I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: "Take another man with
+you. If you lose the tow, you're done. I'll slow her down."
+
+I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry "Murder!" Heard the
+rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my
+ear, Pyecroft's enormous and jubilant bellow astern: "Why, he's here!
+Right atop of us! The blighter 'as pouched half the tow, like a shark!" A
+long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then Pyecroft, _solo
+arpeggio_: "Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come an' try it, uncle."
+
+I lifted my face to where once God's sky had been, and besought The Trues
+I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles, but live at
+least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as happy as I was
+happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow--slow as the processes of
+evolution--till the boat-hook rasped again.
+
+"He's not what you might call a scientific navigator," said Pyecroft,
+still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap. "The
+lead's what 'e goes by mostly; rum is what he's come for; an' Brixham is
+'is 'ome. Lay on, Mucduff!"
+
+A white whiskered man in a frock-coat--as I live by bread, a frock-coat!--
+sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube into Moorshed's
+grip and vanished forward.
+
+"'E'll probably 'old three gallon (look sharp with that dinghy!); but 'is
+nephew, left in charge of the _Agatha_, wants two bottles command-
+allowance. You're a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that excessive?"
+
+"Lead there! Lead!" rang out from forward.
+
+"Didn't I say 'e wouldn't understand compass deviations? Watch him close.
+It'll be worth it!"
+
+As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: "Let me zmell un!" and to
+his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King's Navy.
+
+"I'll tell 'ee where to goo, if yeou'll tell your donkey-man what to du.
+I'm no hand wi' steam." On these lines we proceeded miraculously, and,
+under Moorshed's orders--I was the fisherman's Ganymede, even as
+"M. de C." had served the captain--I found both rum and cura�oa in
+a locker, and mixed them equal bulk in an enamelled iron cup.
+
+"Now we'm just abeam o' where we should be," he said at last, "an' here
+we'll lay till she lifts. I'd take 'e in for another bottle--and wan for
+my nevvy; but I reckon yeou'm shart-allowanced for rum. That's nivver no
+Navy rum yeou'm give me. Knowed 'ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!"
+
+I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them spring
+to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet to port
+caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar at gaze,
+for not far away an unmistakable ship's bell was ringing. It ceased, and
+another began.
+
+"Them!" said Pyecroft. "Anchored!"
+
+"More!" said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The trawler
+astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk of his arm
+threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the back-sight was
+heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.
+
+"No--they wouldn't have their picket-boats out in this weather, though
+they ought to." He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.
+
+"Be yeou gwine to anchor?" said Macduff, smacking his lips, "or be yeou
+gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?"
+
+"Tell him what we're driving at. Get it into his head somehow," said
+Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man
+with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.
+
+"And if you pull it off," said Moorshed at the last, "I'll give you a
+fiver."
+
+"Lard! What's fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes 'em; but I do
+cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o' God's good weeks.
+Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall 'ee, gentlemen, I hain't
+the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before the mast
+I've fared in my time; fisherman I've been since I seed the unsense of
+sea-dangerin'. Baccy and spirits--yiss, an' cigars too, I've run a plenty.
+I'm no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your forty-mile free towin'
+and rum atop of all. There's none more sober to Brix'am this tide, I don't
+care who 'tis--than me. _I_ know--_I_ know. Yander'm two great King's
+ships. Yeou'm wishful to sink, burn, and destroy they while us kips 'em
+busy sellin' fish. No need tall me so twanty taime over. Us'll find they
+ships! Us'll find 'em, if us has to break our fine new bowsprit so close
+as Crump's bull's horn!"
+
+"Good egg!" quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide
+shoulders with the smack of a beaver's tail.
+
+"Us'll go look for they by hand. Us'll give they something to play upon;
+an' do 'ee deal with them faithfully, an' may the Lard have mercy on your
+sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again."
+
+The fog was as dense as ever--we moved in the very womb of night--but I
+cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by
+the tow-rope, disappeared toward the _Agatha_, Pyecroft rowing. The bell
+began again on the starboard bow.
+
+"We're pretty near," said Moorshed, slowing down. "Out with the Berthon.
+(_We'll_ sell 'em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke, I'll break
+his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the tube), "you'll
+stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the engine-room staff.
+Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes." A deep groan broke from
+Morgan's chest, but he said nothing. "If the fog thins and you're seen by
+any one, keep'em quiet with the signals. I can't think of the precise lie
+just now, but _you_ can, Morgan."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?" I whispered, shivering with
+excitement.
+
+"If they've been repairing minor defects all day, they won't have any one
+to spare from the engine-room, and 'Out nets!' is a job for the whole
+ship's company. I expect they've trusted to the fog--like us. Well,
+Pyecroft?"
+
+That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. "'Ad to see
+the first o' the rum into the _Agathites_, Sir. They was a bit jealous o'
+their commandin' officer comin' 'ome so richly lacquered, and at first the
+_conversazione_ languished, as you might say. But they sprang to attention
+ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any of 'em are sober enough
+to keep tally, will be the signal that our consort 'as cast off her tow
+an' is manceuvrin' on 'er own."
+
+"Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over
+quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
+
+I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into the
+Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved me in
+generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of the dinghy.
+
+"I want you for _prima facie_ evidence, in case the vaccination don't
+take," said Pyecroft in my ear. "Push off, Alf!"
+
+The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little
+tinkles from the _Agatha_, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of
+pans, and loose shouting.
+
+"Where be gwine tu? Port your 'ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the fairway,
+goo astern! Out boats! She'll sink us!"
+
+A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: "Quiet! you gardeners
+there. This is the _Cryptic_ at anchor."
+
+"Thank you for the range," said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. "Feel well
+out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only Marconi
+installation." The voices resumed:
+
+"Bournemouth steamer he says she be."
+
+"Then where be Brixham Harbor?"
+
+"Damme, I'm a tax-payer tu. They've no right to cruise about this way.
+I'll have the laa on 'ee if anything carries away."
+
+Then the man-of-war:
+
+"Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You'll get
+yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift."
+
+The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung.
+I passed one hand down Laughton's stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck
+and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I
+laid on broad, cold iron--even the flanks of H.M.S. _Cryptic_, which is
+twelve thousand tons.
+
+I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to
+shave, and I smelled paint. "Drop aft a bit, Alf; we'll put a stencil
+under the stern six-inch casements."
+
+Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall.
+Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was
+renewed.
+
+"Umpires are 'ard-'earted blighters, but this ought to convince 'em....
+Captain Panke's stern-walk is now above our defenceless 'eads. Repeat the
+evolution up the starboard side, Alf."
+
+I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with
+life. Though my knowledge was all by touch--as, for example, when Pyecroft
+led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson, or when my
+palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it timidly--yet I
+felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless ship was withdrawn,
+and we drifted away into the void where voices sang:
+
+
+  Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,
+  All along, out along, down along lea!
+  I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair
+  With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,
+  Old Uncle Tom Cobley an' all!
+
+"That's old Sinbad an' 'is little lot from the _Agatha_! Give way, Alf!
+_You_ might sing somethin', too."
+
+"I'm no burnin' Patti. Ain't there noise enough for you, Pye?"
+
+"Yes, but it's only amateurs. Give me the tones of 'earth and 'ome. Ha!
+List to the blighter on the 'orizon sayin' his prayers, Navy-fashion.
+'Eaven 'elp me argue that way when I'm a warrant-officer!"
+
+We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a fair-
+sized riot.
+
+"An' I've 'eard the _Devolution_ called a happy ship, too," said Pyecroft.
+"Just shows 'ow a man's misled by prejudice. She's peevish--that's what
+she is--nasty-peevish. Prob'ly all because the _Agathites_ are scratching
+'er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I've got the lymph!"
+
+A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was
+speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower
+deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced
+rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the _Devolution_ at
+anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.
+
+"Mark how the Navy 'olds it's own. He's sober. The _Agathites_ are not, as
+you might say, an' yet they can't live with 'im. It's the discipline that
+does it. 'Ark to the bald an' unconvincin' watch-officer chimin' in. I
+wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?"
+
+We drifted down the _Devolution's_ side, as we had drifted down her
+sister's; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt with
+her sister.
+
+"Whai! 'Tis a man-o'-war, after all! I can see the captain's whisker all
+gilt at the edges! We took 'ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three cheers
+for the real man-o'-war!"
+
+That cry came from under the _Devolution's_ stern. Pyecroft held something
+in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, "Our Mister Moorshed!"
+
+Said a boy's voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from
+some valve: "I don't half like that cheer. If I'd been the old man I'd ha'
+turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren't they rowing
+Navy-stroke, yonder?"
+
+"True," said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. "It's time to go 'ome
+when snotties begin to think. The fog's thinnin', too."
+
+I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel
+stand out darker than the darkness, disappear--it was then the dinghy shot
+away from it--and emerge once more.
+
+"Hallo! what boat's that?" said the voice suspiciously.
+
+"Why, I do believe it's a real man-o'-war, after all," said Pyecroft, and
+kicked Laughton.
+
+"What's that for?" Laughton was no dramatist.
+
+"Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin' opposite."
+
+"What boat's _thatt_?" The hail was repeated.
+
+"What do yee say-ay?" Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me:
+"Give us a hand."
+
+"It's called the _Marietta_--F. J. Stokes--Torquay," I began, quaveringly.
+"At least, that's the name on the name-board. I've been dining--on a
+yacht."
+
+"I see." The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with
+disgraceful ease.
+
+"Yesh. Dining private yacht. _Eshmesheralda_. I belong to Torquay Yacht
+Club. _Are_ you member Torquay Yacht Club?"
+
+"You'd better go to bed, Sir. Good-night." We slid into the rapidly
+thinning fog.
+
+"Dig out, Alf. Put your _nix mangiare_ back into it. The fog's peelin'
+off like a petticoat. Where's Two Six Seven?"
+
+"I can't see her," I replied, "but there's a light low down ahead."
+
+"The _Agatha_!" They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of the
+fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler's bow.
+
+"Well, Emanuel means 'God with us'--so far." Pyecroft wiped his brow, laid
+a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I saw
+Moorshed's face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.
+
+"Was it all right?" said he, over the bulwarks.
+
+"Vaccination ain't in it. She's took beautiful. But where's 267, Sir?"
+Pyecroft replied.
+
+"Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the _Devolution_ four. Was
+that you behind us?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the _Devolution_. I gave the
+_Cryptic_ nine, though. They're what you might call more or less
+vaccinated."
+
+He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the
+_Agatha's_ hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.
+
+"Where is the old man?" I asked.
+
+"Still selling 'em fish, I suppose. He's a darling! But I wish I could get
+this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the _Cryptic_
+signalling?"
+
+A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was answered
+by a white pencil to the southward.
+
+"Destroyer signalling with searchlight." Pyecroft leaped on the stern-
+rail. "The first part is private signals. Ah! now she's Morsing against
+the fog. 'P-O-S-T'--yes, 'postpone'--'D-E-P-' (go on)! 'departure--till--
+further--orders--which--will--be com" (he's dropped the other m)
+"'unicated--verbally. End,'." He swung round. "_Cryptic_ is now answering:
+'Ready--proceed--immediately. What--news--promised--destroyer--
+flotilla?'"
+
+"Hallo!" said Moorshed. "Well, never mind, They'll come too late."
+
+"Whew! That's some 'igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer signals:
+'Care not. All will be known later.' What merry beehive's broken loose
+now?"
+
+"What odds! We've done our little job."
+
+"Why--why--it's Two Six Seven!"
+
+Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the
+_Agatha_ with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over the
+stern, and fell into his subordinate's arms. I heard the guggle of
+engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards
+away, a cough, and Morgan's subdued hail. ... So far as I remember, it was
+Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were Pyecroft and
+Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.
+
+There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the _Agatha's_
+side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common safety,
+because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open by hand for
+the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like wild geese, and
+crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the _Agatha's_ boat,
+returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: "Have 'ee done the trick?
+Have 'ee done the trick?" and we could only shout hoarsely over the stern,
+guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.
+
+"Fog got patchy here at 12:27," said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing
+clearer every instant in the dawn. "Went down to Brixham Harbour to keep
+out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I had her
+up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet signals out
+of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was answered by three
+destroyers. Morgan signalled 'em by searchlight: 'Alter course to South
+Seventeen East, so as not to lose time,' They came round quick. We kept
+well away--on their port beam--and Morgan gave 'em their orders." He
+looked at Morgan and coughed.
+
+"The signalman, acting as second in command," said Morgan, swelling, "then
+informed destroyer flotilla that _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_ had made good
+defects, and, in obedience to Admiral's supplementary orders (I was afraid
+they might suspect that, but they didn't), had proceeded at seven knots at
+11:23 p. M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven miles N.N.W. the
+Casquet light. (I've rendezvoused there myself, Sir.) Destroyer flotilla
+would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with them on their course.
+Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course indicated, all funnels sparking
+briskly."
+
+"Who were the destroyers?"
+
+"_Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto_, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, acting
+under Admiral's orders to escort cruisers received off the Dodman at 7 P.
+M. They'd come slow on account of fog."
+
+"Then who were you?"
+
+"We were the _Afrite_, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and there
+instructed by _Cryptic_, previous to her departure with _Devolution_) to
+inform Commander Hignett of change of plans. Lieutenant-Commander Hignett
+signalled that our meeting was quite providential. After this we returned
+to pick up our commanding officer, and being interrogated by _Cryptic_,
+marked time signalling as requisite, which you may have seen. The _Agatha_
+representing the last known rallying-point--or, as I should say, pivot-
+ship of the evolution--it was decided to repair to the _Agatha_ at
+conclusion of manoeuvre."
+
+"Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine big
+battleship?" "Can do, sir," said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr.
+Moorshed and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker,
+we drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of
+stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other's face, and we
+nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.
+
+Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a
+captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke
+over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our
+victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had
+made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet long
+and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece, and
+they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were ours, and
+they did not know it. Indeed, the _Cryptic_, senior ship, was signalling
+vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.
+
+"If you take these glasses, you'll get the general run o' last night's
+vaccination," said Pyecroft. "Each one represents a torpedo got 'ome, as
+you might say."
+
+I saw on the _Cryptic's_ port side, as she lay half a mile away across the
+glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in the
+centre.
+
+"There are five more to starboard. 'Ere's the original!" He handed me a
+paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the centre
+the six-inch initials, "G.M."
+
+"Ten minutes ago I'd ha' eulogised about that little trick of ours, but
+Morgan's performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?"
+
+"Bustin'," said the signalman briefly.
+
+"You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen 'Enrietta said to the
+'ousemaid, _I_ never will. I'd ha' given a year's pay for ten minutes o'
+your signallin' work this mornin'."
+
+"I wouldn't 'ave took it up," was the answer. "Perishin' 'Eavens above!
+Look at the _Devolution's_ semaphore!" Two black wooden arms waved from
+the junior ship's upper bridge. "They've seen it."
+
+"_The_ mote _on_ their neighbour's beam, of course," said Pyecroft, and
+read syllable by syllable: "'Captain Malan to Captain Panke. Is--sten--
+cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or your Number
+One's private expense?' Now _Cryptic_ is saying, 'Not understood.' Poor
+old _Crippy_, the _Devolute's_ raggin' 'er sore. 'Who is G.M.?' she says.
+That's fetched the _Cryptic_. She's answerin': 'You ought to know. Examine
+own paintwork.' Oh, Lord! they're both on to it now. This is balm. This is
+beginning to be balm. I forgive you, Morgan!"
+
+Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into the
+water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose to the
+_Cryptic's_ yardarm: "Destroyer will close at once. Wish to speak by
+semaphore." Then on the bridge semaphore itself: "Have been trying to
+attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding officer aboard at
+once."
+
+"Our attention? After all the attention we've given 'er, too," said
+Pyecroft. "What a greedy old woman!" To Moorshed: "Signal from the
+_Cryptic_, Sir."
+
+"Never mind that!" said the boy, peering through his glasses. "Our dinghy
+quick, or they'll paint our marks out. Come along!"
+
+By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft's bending
+back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed
+the _Cryptic's_ ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler
+when we barged fairly into him.
+
+"Mind my paint!" he yelled.
+
+"You mind mine, snotty," said Moorshed. "I was all night putting these
+little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave 'em alone."
+
+We splashed past him to the _Devolution's_ boat, where sat no one less
+than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.
+
+"What the deuce is the meaning of this?" he roared, with an accusing
+forefinger.
+
+"You're sunk, that's all. You've been dead half a tide."
+
+"Dead, am I? I'll show you whether I'm dead or not, Sir!"
+
+"Well, you may be a survivor," said Moorshed ingratiatingly, "though it
+isn't at all likely."
+
+The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern said,
+half aloud: "Then I _was_ right--last night."
+
+"Yesh," I gasped from the dinghy's coal-dust. "Are you member Torquay
+Yacht Club?"
+
+"Hell!" said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The _Cryptic's_ boat was
+already at that cruiser's side, and semaphores flicked zealously from ship
+to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls, while the
+pipes went for the captain's galley on the _Devolution_.
+
+"That's all right," said Moorshed. "Wait till the gangway's down and then
+board her decently. We oughtn't to be expected to climb up a ship we've
+sunk."
+
+Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed,
+descended the _Devolution's_ side. With due compliments--not acknowledged,
+I grieve to say--we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and at last, upon
+pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of
+the _Cryptic_. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as
+ever sang together of a morning on a King's ship. Every one who could get
+within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able
+seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines
+zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine
+midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks
+past all census.
+
+"If I die o' joy," said Pyecroft behind his hand, "remember I died
+forgivin' Morgan from the bottom of my 'eart, because, like Martha, we
+'ave scoffed the better part. You'd better try to come to attention, Sir."
+
+Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge
+beam, and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and Captain
+Malan stood on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling hatch.
+Precisely over the flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her black
+petticoat half hitched up, meekly floating on the still sea. She looked
+like the pious Abigail who has just spoken her mind, and, with folded
+hands, sits thanking Heaven among the pieces. I could almost have sworn
+that she wore black worsted gloves and had a little dry cough. But it was
+Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He favoured us with a lecture on
+uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of answering signals from a
+senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of masquerading, that he loved
+discipline, and would be obliged by an explanation. And while he delivered
+himself deeper and more deeply into our hands, I saw Captain Malan wince.
+He was watching Moorshed's eye.
+
+"I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven," said
+Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. "Have you such a thing as a frame-
+plan of the _Cryptic_ aboard?" He spoke with winning politeness as he
+opened a small and neatly folded paper.
+
+"I have, sir." The little man's face was working with passion.
+
+"Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were torpedoed
+last night in"--he consulted the paper with one finely arched eyebrow--"in
+nine places. And since the _Devolution_ is, I understand, a sister ship"--
+he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan--"the same plan----"
+
+I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement
+which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan's eye
+turn from Moorshed and seek that of the _Cryptic's_ commander. And he
+telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: "My dear friend and
+brother officer, _I_ know Panke; _you_ know Panke; _we_ know Panke--good
+little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will
+make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight,
+unless you who are a man of tact and discernment----"
+
+"Carry on." The Commander's order supplied the unspoken word. The cruiser
+boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers together, up
+to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan turn to his senior.
+
+"Come to my cabin!" said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and I
+stayed still.
+
+"It's all right," said Pyecroft. "They daren't leave us loose aboard for
+one revolution," and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.
+
+"You, too!" said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the sentry
+between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that
+Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I
+winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass-
+fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was
+demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S. _Cryptic_.
+
+"--making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.," I heard him say.
+"Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir"--he
+bowed to Captain Malan yet again--"one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice
+torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I have
+sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have requested them
+to judge on the facts as they--appear." He nodded through the large window
+to the stencilled _Devolution_ awink with brass work in the morning sun,
+and ceased.
+
+Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and caught
+myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.
+
+"Good God, Johnny!" he said, dropping his lower lip like a child, "this
+young pup says he has put us both out of action. Inconceivable--eh? My
+first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we do with him? What
+shall we do with him--eh?"
+
+"As far as I can see, there's no getting over the stencils," his companion
+answered.
+
+"Why didn't I have the nets down? Why didn't I have the nets down?" The
+cry tore itself from Captain Panke's chest as he twisted his hands.
+
+"I suppose we'd better wait and find out what the umpires will say. The
+Admiral won't be exactly pleased." Captain Malan spoke very soothingly.
+Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven. Pyecroft and
+I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had dropped
+into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.
+
+Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for a
+lead. "What--what are you going to do about it, Johnny--eh?"
+
+"Well, if you don't want him, I'm going to ask this young gentleman to
+breakfast, and then we'll make and mend clothes till the umpires have
+decided."
+
+Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.
+
+"Come with me," said Captain Malan. "Your men had better go back in the
+dinghy to--their--own--ship."
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Moorshed, and passed out behind the captain. We
+followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended the
+ladder.
+
+Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: "For Gawd's
+sake! 'Ere, come 'ere! For Gawd's sake! What's 'appened? Oh! come '_ere_
+an' tell."
+
+"Tell? You?" said Pyecroft. Neither man's lips moved, and the words were
+whispers: "Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might begin to
+understand, not you--nor ever will."
+
+"Captain Malan's galley away, Sir," cried a voice above; and one replied:
+"Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the blue peter.
+We're out of action."
+
+"Can you do it, Sir?" said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder. "Do you
+think it is in the English language, or do you not?"
+
+"I don't think I can, but I'll try. If it takes me two years, I'll try."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I have,
+on the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of _opus alexandrinum_. My gold
+I have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with sepia of
+the sea, and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have substituted
+pale amethyst and mere jargoon. Because I would say again "Disregarding
+the inventions of the Marine Captain whose other name is Gubbins, let a
+plain statement suffice."
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+THE KING'S TASK
+
+  After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
+  In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came.
+  Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing,
+  Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.
+
+  Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde--
+  Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword;
+  Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood,
+  And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood ...
+
+  They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,
+  Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine;
+  Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,
+  The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
+  Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome
+  Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
+  Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman's ire,
+  Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.
+  Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now
+  If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+Private Copper's father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper
+had studied under him. Five years' army service had somewhat blunted
+Private Copper's pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory of
+the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one across
+turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger, or in this
+case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet back-first advanced
+with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full a mile behind. The
+picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not protest. A year ago it
+would have been an officer's command, moving as such. To-day it paid
+casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a sergeant, actually a trooper
+of Irregular Horse, discovered convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and
+forthwith employed on odd jobs. Private Copper crawled up the side of a
+bluish rock-strewn hill thinly fringed with brush atop, and remembering
+how he had peered at Sussex conies through the edge of furze-clumps,
+cautiously parted the dry stems before his face. At the foot of the long
+slope sat three farmers smoking. To his natural lust for tobacco was added
+personal wrath because spiky plants were pricking his belly, and Private
+Copper slid the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards....
+
+"Good evening, Khaki. Please don't move," said a voice on his left, and as
+he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a well-kept
+Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn. Very few
+graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through the next ten
+seconds.
+
+"It's nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen," said a young man in an
+obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of Private
+Copper's rifle. "Thank _you_. We've got a post of thirty-seven men out
+yonder. You've eleven--eh? We don't want to kill 'em. We have no quarrel
+with poor uneducated Khakis, and we do not want prisoners we do not keep.
+It is demoralising to both sides--eh?"
+
+Private Cooper did not feel called upon to lay down the conduct of
+guerilla warfare. This dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed stranger
+was his first intimate enemy. He spoke, allowing for a clipped cadence
+that recalled to Copper vague memories of Umballa, in precisely the same
+offensive accent that the young squire of Wilmington had used fifteen
+years ago when he caught and kicked Alf Copper, a rabbit in each pocket,
+out of the ditches of Cuckmere. The enemy looked Copper up and down,
+folded and re-pocketed a copy of an English weekly which he had been
+reading, and said: "You seem an inarticulate sort of swine--like the rest
+of them--eh?"
+
+"You," said Copper, thinking, somehow, of the crushing answers he had
+never given to the young squire, "are a renegid. Why, you ain't Dutch.
+You're English, same as me."
+
+"_No_, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow your
+head off."
+
+Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some six
+or eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain was
+working with a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience of Alf
+Copper. While he rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own jaws amazed
+him: "If you did, 'twouldn't make you any less of a renegid." As a useful
+afterthought he added: "I've sprained my ankle."
+
+The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to rise,
+but, cross-legged under the rock, grunted: "'Ow much did old Krujer pay
+you for this? What was you wanted for at 'ome? Where did you desert from?"
+
+"Khaki," said the young man, sitting down in his turn, "you are a shade
+better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a yoke of
+oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant diseased
+beast like the rest of your people--eh? When you were at the Ragged
+Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy--'istory I mean?"
+
+"Don't need no schoolin' to know a renegid," said Copper. He had made
+three yards down the hill--out of sight, unless they could see through
+rocks, of the enemy's smoking party.
+
+The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of
+"True Affection." (Private Copper had not smoked a pipe for three weeks.)
+
+"_You_ don't get this--eh?" said the young man. "_We_ do. We take it from
+the trains as we want it. You can keep the cake--you po-ah Tommee." Copper
+rammed the good stuff into his long-cold pipe and puffed luxuriously. Two
+years ago the sister of gunner-guard De Souza, East India Railway, had, at
+a dance given by the sergeants to the Allahabad Railway Volunteers,
+informed Copper that she could not think of waltzing with "a poo-ah
+Tommee." Private Copper wondered why that memory should have returned at
+this hour.
+
+"I'm going to waste a little trouble on you before I send you back to your
+picket _quite_ naked--eh? Then you can say how you were overpowered by
+twenty of us and fired off your last round--like the men we picked up at
+the drift playing cards at Stryden's farm--eh? What's your name--eh?"
+
+Private Copper thought for a moment of a far-away housemaid who might
+still, if the local postman had not gone too far, be interested in his
+fate. On the other hand, he was, by temperament, economical of the truth.
+"Pennycuik," he said, "John Pennycuik."
+
+"Thank you. Well, Mr. John Pennycuik, I'm going to teach you a little
+'istory, as you'd call it--eh?"
+
+"'Ow!" said Copper, stuffing his left hand in his mouth. "So long since
+I've smoked I've burned my 'and--an' the pipe's dropped too. No objection
+to my movin' down to fetch it, is there--Sir?"
+
+"I've got you covered," said the young man, graciously, and Private
+Copper, hopping on one leg, because of his sprain, recovered the pipe yet
+another three yards downhill and squatted under another rock slightly
+larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest for his
+captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his rifle across
+his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard.
+
+"Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you were
+born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave country,
+England, sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie, to say that
+so long as the sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses the Transvaal
+would belong to England. Did you ever hear that, khaki--eh?"
+
+"Oh no, Sir," said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the rivers
+happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist of D
+Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war. Copper had
+thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and dry camps for
+intoning it.
+
+"_Of_ course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen." He spat aside
+and cleared his throat. "Because of that little promise, my father he
+moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm--a little place of twenty or
+thirty thousand acres, don't--you--know."
+
+The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured
+parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington
+squire's, and Copper found himself saying: "I ought to. I've 'elped burn
+some."
+
+"Yes, you'll pay for that later. _And_ he opened a store."
+
+"Ho! Shopkeeper was he?"
+
+"The kind you call "Sir" and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik.... You see,
+in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father
+did. _Then_ the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat
+them six times running. You know _thatt_--eh?"
+
+"Isn't what we've come 'ere for."
+
+"_But_ my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the English. I
+suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that cheated him--eh?
+Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own country. _So_--you
+see--he was a little startled when he found himself handed over to the
+Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That's what it came to, Tommy--a prisoner
+of war. You know what that is--eh? England was too honourable and too
+gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms made for my father."
+
+"So 'e made 'em 'imself. Useful old bird." Private Copper sliced up
+another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea of kopjes, through
+which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike quiet Cuckmere.
+
+The young man's face darkened. "I think I shall sjambok you myself when
+I've quite done with you. _No_, my father (he was a fool) made no terms
+for eight years--ninety-six months--and for every day of them the
+Transvaal made his life hell for my father and--his people."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," said the impenitent Copper.
+
+"Are you? You can think of it when I'm taking the skin off your back--
+eh?... My father, he lost everything--everything down to his self-respect.
+You don't know what _thatt_ means--eh?"
+
+"Why?" said Copper. "I'm smokin' baccy stole by a renegid. Why wouldn't I
+know?"
+
+If it came to a flogging on that hillside there might be a chance of
+reprisals. Of course, he might be marched to the Boer camp in the next
+valley and there operated upon; but Army life teaches no man to cross
+bridges unnecessarily.
+
+"Yes, after eight years, my father, cheated by your bitch of a country, he
+found out who was the upper dog in South Africa."
+
+"That's me," said Copper valiantly. "If it takes another 'alf century,
+it's me an' the likes of me."
+
+"You? Heaven help you! You'll be screaming at a wagon-wheel in an hour....
+Then it struck my father that he'd like to shoot the people who'd betrayed
+him. You--you--_you_! He told his son all about it. He told him never to
+trust the English. He told him to do them all the harm he could. Mann, I
+tell you, I don't want much telling. I was born in the Transvaal--I'm a
+burgher. If my father didn't love the English, by the Lord, mann, I tell
+you, I hate them from the bottom of my soul."
+
+The voice quavered and ran high. Once more, for no conceivable reason,
+Private Copper found his inward eye turned upon Umballa cantonments of a
+dry dusty afternoon, when the saddle-coloured son of a local hotel-keeper
+came to the barracks to complain of a theft of fowls. He saw the dark
+face, the plover's-egg-tinted eyeballs, and the thin excited hands. Above
+all, he remembered the passionate, queerly-strung words. Slowly he
+returned to South Africa, using the very sentence his sergeant had used to
+the poultry man.
+
+"Go on with your complaint. I'm listenin'."
+
+"Complaint! Complaint about _you_, you ox! We strip and kick your sort by
+thousands."
+
+The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus
+deflected itself from the pit of Private Copper's stomach. His face was
+dusky with rage.
+
+"Yess, I'm a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to find out
+how rotten you were. _We_ know and you know it now. Your army--it is the
+laughing-stock of the Continent." He tapped the newspaper in his pocket,
+"You think you're going to win, you poor fools. Your people--your own
+people--your silly rotten fools of people will crawl out of it as they did
+after Majuba. They are beginning now. Look what your own working classes,
+the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff that you come out of, are
+saying." He thrust the English weekly, doubled at the leading article, on
+Copper's knee. "See what dirty dogs your masters are. They do not even
+back you in your dirty work. _We_ cleared the country down to Ladysmith--
+to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to Colesberg."
+
+"Yes, we 'ad to clean up be'ind you. Messy, I call it."
+
+"You've had to stop farm-burning because your people daren't do it. They
+were afraid. You daren't kill a spy. You daren't shoot a spy when you
+catch him in your own uniform. You daren't touch our loyall people in Cape
+Town! Your masters wont let you. You will feed our women and children till
+we are quite ready to take them back. _You_ can't put your cowardly noses
+out of the towns you say you've occupied. _You_ daren't move a convoy
+twenty miles. You think you've done something? You've done nothing, and
+you've taken a quarter of a million of men to do it! There isn't a nigger
+in South Africa that doesn't obey us if we lift our finger. You pay the
+stuff four pounds a month and they lie to you. _We_ flog 'em, as I shall
+flog you."
+
+He clasped his hands together and leaned forward his out-thrust chin
+within two feet of Copper's left, or pipe hand.
+
+"Yuss," said Copper, "it's a fair knock-out." The fist landed to a hair on
+the chin-point, the neck snicked like a gun-lock, and the back of the head
+crashed on the boulder behind.
+
+Copper grabbed up both rifles, unshipped the cross-bandoliers, drew forth
+the English weekly, and picking up the lax hands, looked long and intently
+at the fingernails.
+
+"No! Not a sign of it there," he said. "'Is nails are as clean as mine--
+but he talks just like 'em, though. And he's a landlord too! A landed
+proprietor! Shockin', I call it."
+
+The arms began to flap with returning consciousness. Private Copper rose
+up and whispered: "If you open your head, I'll bash it." There was no
+suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. "Now walk in front of
+me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I'm only a third-class shot, so,
+if you don't object, I'll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly but firmly
+on your collar-button--coverin' the serviceable vertebree. If your friends
+see us thus engaged, you pray--'ard."
+
+Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of the
+afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.
+
+"There's a lot of things I could say to you," Copper observed, at the
+close of the paroxysm, "but it doesn't matter. Look 'ere, you call me
+'pore Tommy' again."
+
+The prisoner hesitated.
+
+"Oh, I ain't goin' to do anythin' _to_ you. I'm recon-noiterin' in my own.
+Say 'pore Tommy' 'alf-a-dozen times."
+
+The prisoner obeyed.
+
+"_That's_ what's been puzzlin' me since I 'ad the pleasure o' meetin'
+you," said Copper. "You ain't 'alf-caste, but you talk _chee-chee_--
+_pukka_ bazar chee-chee. Proceed."
+
+"Hullo," said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later, "where did
+you round him up?"
+
+"On the top o' yonder craggy mounting. There's a mob of 'em sitting round
+their Bibles seventeen 'undred yards (you said it was seventeen 'undred?)
+t'other side--an' I want some coffee." He sat down on the smoke-blackened
+stones by the fire.
+
+"'Ow did you get 'im?" said McBride, professional humorist, quietly
+filching the English weekly from under Copper's armpit.
+
+"On the chin--while 'e was waggin' it at me."
+
+"What is 'e? 'Nother Colonial rebel to be 'orribly disenfranchised, or a
+Cape Minister, or only a loyal farmer with dynamite in both boots. Tell us
+all about it, Burjer!"
+
+"You leave my prisoner alone," said Private Copper. "'E's 'ad losses an'
+trouble; an' it's in the family too. 'E thought I never read the papers,
+so 'e kindly lent me his very own _Jerrold's Weekly_--an' 'e explained it
+to me as patronisin' as a--as a militia subaltern doin' Railway Staff
+Officer. 'E's a left-over from Majuba--one of the worst kind, an' 'earin'
+the evidence as I did, I don't exactly blame 'im. It was this way."
+
+To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life-
+history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an
+absolute fair rendering.
+
+"But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin' beggar, 'oo's people, on 'is
+own showin', couldn't 'ave been more than thirty or forty years in the
+coun--on this Gawd-forsaken dust-'eap, comin' the squire over me. They're
+all parsons--we know _that_, but parson _an'_ squire is a bit too thick
+for Alf Copper. Why, I caught 'im in the shameful act of tryin' to start a
+aristocracy on a gun an' a wagon an' a _shambuk_! Yes; that's what it was:
+a bloomin' aristocracy."
+
+"No, it weren't," said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the
+purloined weekly. "You're the aristocrat, Alf. Old _Jerrold's_ givin' it
+you 'ot. You're the uneducated 'ireling of a callous aristocracy which 'as
+sold itself to the 'Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky"--he ran his finger
+down a column of assorted paragraphs--"you're slakin' your brutal
+instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin' women an' desolated 'omesteads is
+what you enjoy, Alf ..., Halloa! What's a smokin' 'ektacomb?"
+
+"'Ere! Let's look. 'Aven't seen a proper spicy paper for a year. Good old
+_Jerrold's!"_ Pinewood and Moppet, reservists, flung themselves on
+McBride's shoulders, pinning him to the ground.
+
+"Lie over your own bloomin' side of the bed, an' we can all look," he
+protested.
+
+"They're only po-ah Tommies," said Copper, apologetically, to the
+prisoner. "Po-ah unedicated Khakis. _They_ don't know what they're
+fightin' for. They're lookin' for what the diseased, lying, drinkin' white
+stuff that they come from is sayin' about 'em!"
+
+The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the
+circle.
+
+"I--I don't understand them."
+
+The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded
+sympathetically:
+
+"If it comes to that, _we_ don't in my country!... Say, boys, when you're
+through with your English mail you might's well provide an escort for your
+prisoner. He's waitin'."
+
+"Arf a mo', Sergeant," said McBride, still reading.
+
+"'Ere's Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of 'is lady friends, 'oo
+don't like concentration camps. Wish they'd visit ours. Pinewood's a
+married man. He'd know how to be'ave!"
+
+"Well, I ain't goin' to amuse my prisoner alone. 'E's gettin' 'omesick,"
+cried Copper. "One of you thieves read out what's vexin' Old Barbarity an'
+'is 'arem these days. You'd better listen, Burjer, because, afterwards,
+I'm goin' to fall out an' perpetrate those nameless barbarities all over
+you to keep up the reputation of the British Army."
+
+From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff of
+Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did Pinewood of
+the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the accredited
+leaders of His Majesty's Opposition. The night-picket arrived in the
+middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any compliments, till
+Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article, and several occasional
+notes.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury," said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left to
+him of trousers--"you've 'eard what 'e's been fed up with. _Do_ you blame
+the beggar? 'Cause I don't! ... Leave 'im alone, McBride. He's my first
+and only cap-ture, an' I'm goin' to walk 'ome with 'im, ain't I, Ducky?
+... Fall in, Burjer. It's Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for you--and I'd
+give a month's pay to be in your little shoes."
+
+As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the
+prisoner's nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and
+began to struggle--kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all
+together.
+
+"Pore beggar--oh pore, _pore_ beggar!" said Alf, leaning in on one side of
+him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.
+
+"Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go----"
+
+"'E screams like a woman!" said McBride. "They'll 'ear 'im five miles
+off."
+
+"There's one or two ought to 'ear 'im--in England," said Copper, putting
+aside a wildly waving arm.
+
+"Married, ain't 'e?" said Pinewood. "I've seen 'em go like this before--
+just at the last. '_Old_ on, old man, No one's goin' to 'urt you."
+
+The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the little,
+anxious, wriggling group.
+
+"Quit that," said the Serjeant of a sudden. "You're only making him worse.
+Hands _up_, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this'll go off."
+
+And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man's panting chest seemed to
+act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between Copper
+and Pinewood.
+
+As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among the
+officers' tents:
+
+  'E sent us 'is blessin' from London town,
+    (The beggar that kep' the cordite down,)
+  But what do we care if 'e smile or frown,
+    The beggar that kep' the cordite down?
+  The mildly nefarious
+  Wildly barbarious
+    Beggar that kept the cordite down!
+
+Said a captain a mile away: "Why are they singing _that?_ We haven't had a
+mail for a month, have we?"
+
+An hour later the same captain said to his servant: "Jenkins, I understand
+the picket have got a--got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day. I wish you
+could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the _Times_, I think."
+
+"Yes, Sir. Copy of the _Times_, Sir," said Jenkins, without a quiver, and
+went forth to make his own arrangements.
+
+"Copy of the _Times_" said the blameless Alf, from beneath his blanket. "I
+ain't a member of the Soldier's Institoot. Go an' look in the reg'mental
+Readin'-room--Veldt Row, Kopje Street, second turnin' to the left between
+'ere an' Naauwport."
+
+Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper
+need not be.
+
+"But my particular copy of the _Times_ is specially pro'ibited by the
+censor from corruptin' the morals of the Army. Get a written order from K.
+o' K., properly countersigned, an' I'll think about it."
+
+"I've got all _you_ want," said Jenkins. "'Urry up. I want to 'ave a
+squint myself."
+
+Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back smacking
+his lips.
+
+"Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. 'Ere you are,
+Jenkins. It's dirt cheap at a tot."
+
+
+
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+
+THE NECESSITARIAN
+
+  I know not in whose hands are laid
+    To empty upon earth
+  From unsuspected ambuscade
+    The very Urns of Mirth:
+
+  Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
+    And cheer our solemn round--
+  The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
+    And grovellings on the ground;
+
+  Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
+    Behind the prey preferred,
+  And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
+    The Sacredly Absurd,
+
+  Till Laughter, voiceless through excess.
+    Waves mute appeal and sore,
+  Above the midriff's deep distress,
+    For breath to laugh once more.
+
+  No creed hath dared to hail him Lord,
+    No raptured choirs proclaim,
+  And Nature's strenuous Overword
+    Hath nowhere breathed his name.
+
+  Yet, may it be, on wayside jape,
+    The selfsame Power bestows
+  The selfsame power as went to shape
+    His Planet or His Rose.
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the narrow
+Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o'clock, they were both asleep.
+
+That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference to
+his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and
+specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces of
+superior coachmen. Then he pulled slantwise across me.
+
+There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could be
+applied at pleasure....
+
+The cart was removed about a bowshot's length in seven and a quarter
+seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the
+next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the tail-board.
+
+My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.
+
+"The blighted egg-boiler has steam up," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, pausing to
+gather a large stone. "Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the sights
+come on!"
+
+"I can't leave my 'orse!" roared the carrier; "but bring 'em up 'ere, an'
+I'll kill 'em all over again."
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft," I called cheerfully. "Can I give you a lift
+anywhere?"
+
+The attack broke up round my forewheels.
+
+"Well, we _do_ 'ave the knack o' meeting _in puris naturalibus,_ as I've
+so often said." Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. "Yes, I'm on leaf. So's Hinch.
+We're visiting friends among these kopjes."
+
+A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was still
+calling for corpses.
+
+"That's Agg. He's Hinch's cousin. You aren't fortunit in your family
+connections, Hinch. 'E's usin' language in derogation of good manners. Go
+and abolish 'im."
+
+Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his cousin. I
+recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the carrier's. It
+seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid throes.
+
+"'Ave it your own silly way, then," roared the carrier, "an' get into
+Linghurst on your own silly feet. I've done with you two runagates." He
+lashed his horse and passed out of sight still rumbling.
+
+"The fleet's sailed," said Pyecroft, "leavin' us on the beach as before.
+Had you any particular port in your mind?"
+
+"Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don't mind--"
+
+"Oh! that'll do as well as anything! We're on leaf, you see."
+
+"She'll hardly hold four," said my engineer. I had broken him of the
+foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.
+
+Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he
+walked in narrowing circles.
+
+"What's her speed?" he demanded of the engineer.
+
+"Twenty-five," said that loyal man.
+
+"Easy to run?"
+
+"No; very difficult," was the emphatic answer.
+
+"That just shows that you ain't fit for your rating. D'you suppose that a
+man who earns his livin' by runnin' 30-knot destroyers for a parstime--for
+a parstime, mark you!--is going to lie down before any blighted land-
+crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?"
+
+Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked upward
+into pipes--petrol, steam, and water--with a keen and searching eye.
+
+I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.
+
+"Not--in--the--least," was the answer. "Steam gadgets always take him that
+way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through his tryin' to show a
+traction-engine haulin' gipsy-wagons how to turn corners."
+
+"Tell him everything he wants to know," I said to the engineer, as I
+dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.
+
+"_He_ don't want much showing," said the engineer. Now, the two men had
+not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more than
+three minutes.
+
+"This," said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure of the
+hedge-foot, "is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn't let too much
+o' that hot muckings drop in my eyes, Your leaf's up in a fortnight, an'
+you'll be wantin' 'em."
+
+"Here!" said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. "Come here
+and show me the lead of this pipe." And the engineer lay down beside him.
+
+"That's all right," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. "But she's more of a bag
+of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft"--he pointed to
+the back seat--"and I'll have a look at the forced draught."
+
+The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he
+had a brother an artificer in the Navy.
+
+"They couple very well, those two," said Pyecroft critically, while
+Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay
+jets of steam.
+
+"Now take me up the road," he said. My man, for form's sake, looked at me.
+
+"Yes, take him," I said. "He's all right."
+
+"No, I'm not," said Hinchcliffe of a sudden--"not if I'm expected to judge
+my water out of a little shaving-glass."
+
+The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right
+of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.
+
+"Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how
+you steer while you're doing it, or you'll get ditched!" I cried, as the
+car ran down the road.
+
+"I wonder!" said Pyecroft, musing. "But, after all, it's your steamin'
+gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me
+after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours,
+that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a runnin' bulgine till the
+nineteenth prox. Now look at him! Only look at 'im!"
+
+We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his
+seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge to
+hedge.
+
+"What happens if he upsets?"
+
+"The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up."
+
+"How rambunkshus! And"--Pyecroft blew a slow cloud--"Agg's about three
+hoops up this mornin', too."
+
+"What's that to do with us? He's gone down the road," I retorted.
+
+"Ye--es, but we'll overtake him. He's a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch
+'ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O' course, Hinch don't know the
+elements o' that evolution; but he fell back on 'is naval rank an' office,
+an' Agg grew peevish. I wasn't sorry to get out of the cart ... Have you
+ever considered how, when you an' I meet, so to say, there's nearly always
+a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat
+returnin'!"
+
+He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: "In bow! Way 'nuff!"
+
+"You be quiet!" cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his dark
+face shining with joy. "She's the Poetry o' Motion! She's the Angel's
+Dream. She's------" He shut off steam, and the slope being against her,
+the car slid soberly downhill again.
+
+"What's this? I've got the brake on!" he yelled.
+
+"It doesn't hold backwards," I said. "Put her on the mid-link."
+
+"That's a nasty one for the chief engineer o' the _Djinn_, 31-knot,
+T.B.D.," said Pyecroft. "_Do_ you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?"
+
+Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the
+rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she
+retired backwards into her own steam.
+
+"Apparently 'e don't," said Pyecroft. "What's he done now, Sir?"
+
+"Reversed her. I've done it myself."
+
+"But he's an engineer."
+
+For the third time the car manoeuvred up the hill.
+
+"I'll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you 'tiffies out all
+night!" shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation. Hinchcliffe's face
+grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working on the throttle, the
+car buzzed twenty yards uphill.
+
+"That's enough. We'll take your word for it. The mountain will go to
+Ma'ommed. Stand _fast_!"
+
+Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed
+together.
+
+"Not as easy as it looks--eh, Hinch?"
+
+"It is dead easy. I'm going to drive her to Instead Wick--aren't I?" said
+the first-class engine-room artificer. I thought of his performances with
+No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small privilege to accord to pure
+genius.
+
+"But my engineer will stand by--at first," I added.
+
+"An' you a family man, too," muttered Pyecroft, swinging himself into the
+right rear seat. "Sure to be a remarkably hectic day when we meet."
+
+We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor,
+paved our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.
+
+Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the
+engineer, and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had
+enjoyed the rack on which he voluntarily extended himself.
+
+And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.
+
+"How cautious is the 'tiffy-bird!" said Pyecroft.
+
+"Even in a destroyer," Hinch snapped over his shoulder, "you ain't
+expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don't address any remarks to
+_me!_"
+
+"Pump!" said the engineer. "Your water's droppin'."
+
+"_I_ know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pass?"
+
+He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he
+found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting
+all else, twisted it furiously.
+
+My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching into
+a ditch.
+
+"If I was a burnin' peacock, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my shinin'
+tail, I'd need 'em all on this job!" said Hinch.
+
+"Don't talk! Steer! This ain't the North Atlantic," Pyecroft replied.
+
+"Blast my stokers! Why, the steam's dropped fifty pounds!" Hinchcliffe
+cried.
+
+"Fire's blown out," said the engineer. "Stop her!"
+
+"Does she do that often?" said Hinch, descending.
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Anytime?"
+
+"Any time a cross-wind catches her."
+
+The engineer produced a match and stooped.
+
+That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit twice
+in the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and Pyecroft went
+out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow flame.
+
+"I've seen a mine explode at Bantry--once--prematoor," he volunteered.
+
+"That's all right," said Hinchcliffe, brushing down his singed beard with
+a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.) "Has she any more
+little surprises up her dainty sleeve?"
+
+"She hasn't begun yet," said my engineer, with a scornful cough. "Some one
+'as opened the petrol-supply-valve too wide."
+
+"Change places with me, Pyecroft," I commanded, for I remembered that the
+petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all controlled
+from the right rear seat.
+
+"Me? Why? There's a whole switchboard full o' nickel-plated muckin's which
+I haven't begun to play with yet. The starboard side's crawlin' with 'em."
+
+"Change, or I'll kill you!" said Hinchcliffe, and he looked like it.
+
+"That's the 'tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame it on the
+lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! _I_ won't help you any
+more."
+
+We navigated for a mile in dead silence.
+
+"Talkin' o' wakes----" said Pyecroft suddenly.
+
+"We weren't," Hinchcliffe grunted.
+
+"There's some wakes would break a snake's back; but this of yours, so to
+speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That's all I wish to observe,
+Hinch. ... Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It's Agg!"
+
+Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier's
+cart at rest before the post-office.
+
+"He's bung in the fairway. How'm I to get past?" said Hinchcliffe.
+"There's no room. Here, Pye, come and relieve the wheel!"
+
+"Nay, nay, Pauline. You've made your own bed. You've as good as left your
+happy home an' family cart to steal it. Now you lie on it."
+
+"Ring your bell," I suggested.
+
+"Glory!" said Pyecroft, falling forward into the nape of Hinchcliffe's
+neck as the car stopped dead.
+
+"Get out o' my back-hair! That must have been the brake I touched off,"
+Hinchcliffe muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.
+
+We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from the
+port-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered later
+that the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.
+
+Hinchcliffe wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the
+first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.
+
+"You needn't grip so hard," said my engineer. "She steers as easy as a
+bicycle."
+
+"Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an' down my engine-room?" was the
+answer. "I've other things to think about. She's a terror. She's a
+whistlin' lunatic. I'd sooner run the old South-Easter at Simon's Town
+than her!"
+
+"One of the nice things they say about her," I interrupted, "is that no
+engineer is needed to run this machine."
+
+"No. They'd need about seven."
+
+"'Common-sense only is needed,'" I quoted.
+
+"Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common-sense," Pyecroft put in.
+
+"And now," I said, "we'll have to take in water. There isn't more than a
+couple of inches of water in the tank."
+
+"Where d'you get it from?"
+
+"Oh!--cottages and such-like."
+
+"Yes, but that being so, where does your much-advertised twenty-five miles
+an hour come in? Ain't a dung-cart more to the point?"
+
+"If you want to go anywhere, I suppose it would be," I replied.
+
+"_I_ don't want to go anywhere. I'm thinkin' of you who've got to live
+with her. She'll burn her tubes if she loses her water?"
+
+"She will."
+
+"I've never scorched yet, and I not beginnin' now." He shut off steam
+firmly. "Out you get, Pye, an' shove her along by hand."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"The nearest water-tank," was the reply. "And Sussex is a dry county."
+
+"She ought to have drag-ropes--little pipe-clayed ones," said Pyecroft.
+
+We got out and pushed under the hot sun for half-a-mile till we came to a
+cottage, sparsely inhabited by one child who wept.
+
+"All out haymakin', o' course," said Pyecroft, thrusting his head into the
+parlour for an instant. "What's the evolution now?"
+
+"Skirmish till we find a well," I said.
+
+"Hmm! But they wouldn't 'ave left that kid without a chaperon, so to
+say... I thought so! Where's a stick?"
+
+A bluish and silent beast of the true old sheep-dog breed glided from
+behind an outhouse and without words fell to work.
+
+Pyecroft kept him at bay with a rake-handle while our party, in rallying-
+square, retired along the box-bordered brick-path to the car.
+
+At the garden gate the dumb devil halted, looked back on the child, and
+sat down to scratch.
+
+"That's his three-mile limit, thank Heaven!" said Pyecroft. "Fall in,
+push-party, and proceed with land-transport o' pinnace. I'll protect your
+flanks in case this sniffin' flea-bag is tempted beyond 'is strength."
+
+We pushed off in silence. The car weighed 1,200 lb., and even on
+ball-bearings was a powerful sudorific. From somewhere behind a hedge we
+heard a gross rustic laugh.
+
+"Those are the beggars we lie awake for, patrollin' the high seas. There
+ain't a port in China where we wouldn't be better treated. Yes, a Boxer
+'ud be ashamed of it," said Pyecroft.
+
+A cloud of fine dust boomed down the road.
+
+"Some happy craft with a well-found engine-room! How different!" panted
+Hinchcliffe, bent over the starboard mudguard.
+
+It was a claret-coloured petrol car, and it stopped courteously, as good
+cars will at sight of trouble.
+
+"Water, only water," I answered in reply to offers of help.
+
+"There's a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They'll give you all you
+want. Say I sent you. Gregory--Michael Gregory. Good-bye!"
+
+"Ought to 'ave been in the Service. Prob'ly is," was Pyecroft's comment.
+
+At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not quote
+Mr. Hinchcliffe's remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber bucket with
+which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir Michael Gregory
+owned many acres, and that his park ran for miles.
+
+"No objection to your going through it," said the lodge-keeper. "It'll
+save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick."
+
+But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few miles
+farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had decreed.
+
+"We've come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far," said Hinchcliffe
+(he was driving with greater freedom and less responsibility), "and now we
+have to fill our bunkers. This is worse than the Channel Fleet."
+
+At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and lavishly
+oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our engineer on the
+grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely abreast of his work. To
+this I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in the language of the road,
+held up for a day and a half, and by most bitter experience I suspected
+that her time was very near. Therefore, three miles short of Linghurst, I
+was less surprised than any one, excepting always my engineer, when the
+engines set up a lunatic clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.
+
+"Heaven forgive me all the harsh things I may have said about destroyers
+in my sinful time!" wailed Hinchcliffe, snapping back the throttle.
+"What's worryin' Ada now?"
+
+"The forward eccentric-strap screw's dropped off," said the engineer,
+investigating.
+
+"That all? I thought it was a propeller-blade."
+
+"We must go an' look for it. There isn't another."
+
+"Not me," said Pyecroft from his seat. "Out pinnace, Hinch, an' creep for
+it. It won't be more than five miles back."
+
+The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road.
+
+"Look like etymologists, don't they? Does she decant her innards often, so
+to speak?" Pyecroft asked.
+
+I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four miles
+along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was profoundly
+touched.
+
+"Poor Hinch! Poor--poor Hinch!" he said. "And that's only one of her
+little games, is it? He'll be homesick for the Navy by night."
+
+When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was
+Hinchcliffe who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my engineer
+looked on admiringly.
+
+"Your boiler's only seated on four little paperclips," he said, crawling
+from beneath her. "She's a wicker-willow lunch-basket below. She's a
+runnin' miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp long?"
+
+I told him.
+
+"And yet you were afraid to come into the _Nightmare's_ engine-room when
+we were runnin' trials!"
+
+"It's all a matter of taste," Pyecroft volunteered. "But I will say for
+you, Hinch, you've certainly got the hang of her steamin' gadgets in quick
+time."
+
+He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and a
+tremor in his arm.
+
+"She don't seem so answer her helm somehow," he said.
+
+"There's a lot of play to the steering-gear," said my engineer. "We
+generally tighten it up every few miles."
+
+"'Like me to stop now? We've run as much as one mile and a half without
+incident," he replied tartly.
+
+"Then you're lucky," said my engineer, bristling in turn.
+
+"They'll wreck the whole turret out o' nasty professional spite in a
+minute," said Pyecroft. "That's the worst o' machinery. Man dead ahead,
+Hinch--semaphorin' like the flagship in a fit!"
+
+"Amen!" said Hinchcliffe. "Shall I stop, or shall I cut him down?"
+
+He stopped, for full in the centre of the Linghurst Road stood a person in
+pepper-and-salt raiment (ready-made), with a brown telegraph envelope in
+his hands.
+
+"Twenty-three and a half miles an hour," he began, weighing a small beam-
+engine of a Waterbury in one red paw. "From the top of the hill over our
+measured quarter-mile--twenty-three and a half."
+
+"You manurial gardener----" Hinchcliffe began. I prodded him warningly
+from behind, and laid the other hand on Pyecroft's stiffening knee.
+
+"Also--on information received--drunk and disorderly in charge of a
+motor-car--to the common danger--two men like sailors in appearance,"
+the man went on.
+
+"Like sailors! ... That's Agg's little _roose_. No wonder he smiled at
+us," said Pyecroft.
+
+"I've been waiting for you some time," the man concluded, folding up the
+telegram.
+
+"Who's the owner?"
+
+I indicated myself.
+
+"Then I want you as well as the two seafaring men. Drunk and disorderly
+can be treated summary. You come on."
+
+My relations with the Sussex constabulary have, so far, been of the best,
+but I could not love this person.
+
+"Of course you have your authority to show?" I hinted.
+
+"I'll show it you at Linghurst," he retorted hotly----"all the authority
+you want."
+
+"I only want the badge, or warrant, or whatever it is a plain-clothes man
+has to show."
+
+He made as though to produce it, but checked himself, repeating less
+politely the invitation to Linghurst. The action and the tone confirmed my
+many-times tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing institutions
+are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious inaccuracy. I
+reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of the front seat
+that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping with his knuckles.
+The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe's brow had given place to a greasy
+imbecility, and he nodded over the steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as
+laid down by the pious and immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, "Sham
+drunk. Get him in the car."
+
+"I can't stay here all day," said the constable.
+
+Pyecroft raised his head. Then was seen with what majesty the British
+sailor-man envisages a new situation.
+
+"Met gennelman heavy sheeway," said he. "Do tell me British gelman can't
+give 'ole Brish Navy lif' own blighted ste' cart. Have another drink!"
+
+"I didn't know they were as drunk as all that when they stopped me," I
+explained.
+
+"You can say all that at Linghurst," was the answer. "Come on."
+
+"Quite right," I said. "But the question is, if you take these two out on
+the road, they'll fall down or start killing you."
+
+"Then I'd call on you to assist me in the execution o' my duty."
+
+"But I'd see you further first. You'd better come with us in the car. I'll
+turn this passenger out." (This was my engineer, sitting quite silent.)
+"You don't want him, and, anyhow, he'd only be a witness for the defence."
+
+"That's true," said the constable. "But it wouldn't make any odds--at
+Linghurst."
+
+My engineer skipped into the bracken like a rabbit. I bade him cut across
+Sir Michael Gregory's park, and if he caught my friend, to tell him I
+should probably be rather late for lunch.
+
+"I ain't going to be driven by _him_." Our destined prey pointed at
+Hinchcliffe with apprehension.
+
+"Of course not. You sake my seat and keep the big sailor in order. He's
+too drunk to do much. I'll change places with the other one. Only be
+quick; I want to pay my fine and get it over."
+
+"That's the way to look at it," he said, dropping into the left rear seat.
+"We're making quite a lot out o' you motor gentry." He folded his arms
+judicially as the car gathered way under Hinchcliffe's stealthy hand.
+
+"But _you_ aren't driving?" he cried, half rising.
+
+"You've noticed it?" said Pyecroft, and embraced him with one anaconda-
+like left arm.
+
+"Don't kill him," said Hinchcliffe briefly. "I want to show him what
+twenty-three and a quarter is." We were going a fair twelve, which was
+about the car's limit.
+
+Our passenger swore something and then groaned.
+
+"Hush, darling!" said Pyecroft, "or I'll have to hug you."
+
+The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running
+north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.
+
+"And now," said I, "I want to see your authority."
+
+"The badge of your ratin'?" Pyecroft added.
+
+"I'm a constable," he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have
+bewrayed him across half a county's plough; but boots are not legal
+evidence.
+
+"I want your authority," I repeated coldly; "some evidence that you are
+not a common drunken tramp."
+
+It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had
+neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money
+and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite
+trouble to supplement his deficiencies.
+
+"If you don't believe me, come to Linghurst," was the burden of his almost
+national anthem.
+
+"But I can't run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up and
+says he is a policeman."
+
+"Why, it's quite close," he persisted.
+
+"'Twon't be--soon," said Hinchcliffe.
+
+"None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, _they_ was
+gentlemen," he cried. "All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it
+ain't fair."
+
+I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten his
+badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub or
+barracks where he had left it.
+
+Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.
+
+"If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn't expect much more," he
+observed. "Now, suppose I'd been a lady in a delicate state o' health--
+you'd ha' made me very ill with your doings."
+
+"I wish I 'ad. 'Ere! 'Elp! 'Elp! Hi!"
+
+The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane
+ran into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked
+her up that lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable
+came running heavily.
+
+It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform
+smiled as we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.
+
+"You'll know all about it in a little time," said our guest. "You've only
+yourselves to thank for runnin' your 'ead into a trap." And he whistled
+ostentatiously.
+
+We made no answer.
+
+"If that man 'ad chose, 'e could have identified me," he said.
+
+Still we were silent.
+
+"But 'e'll do it later, when you're caught."
+
+"Not if you go on talking. 'E won't be able to," said Pyecroft. "I don't
+know what traverse you think you're workin', but your duty till you're put
+in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an' cherish _me_ most
+special--performin' all evolutions signalled in rapid time. I tell you
+this, in case o' anything turnin' up."
+
+"Don't you fret about things turnin' up," was the reply.
+
+Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set to
+work, when, without warning, the road--there are two or three in Sussex
+like it--turned down and ceased.
+
+"Holy Muckins!" he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless tyres
+slithered over wet grass and bracken--down and down into forest--early
+British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and that all should
+fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred our way. On the far
+side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits and fern, gently sloped
+upwards and away, but behind us was no hope. Forty horse-power would never
+have rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that verdurous cliff we had descended.
+
+"H'm!" Our guest coughed significantly. "A great many cars thinks they can
+take this road; but they all come back. We walks after 'em at our
+convenience."
+
+"Meanin' that the other jaunty is now pursuin' us on his lily feet?" said
+Pyecroft.
+
+"_Pre_cisely."
+
+"An' you think," said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of the
+words), "_that'll_ make any odds? Get out!"
+
+The man obeyed with alacrity.
+
+"See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing.
+Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at the
+double."
+
+And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a perfect
+understanding.
+
+There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down
+
+stream, laid aside after sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in
+the brook. Hinchcliffe rearranged these last to make some sort of
+causeway; I brought up the hurdles; and when Pyecroft and his subaltern
+had dropped a dozen hop-poles across the stream, laid them down over all.
+
+"Talk o' the Agricultur'l Hall!" he said, mopping his brow--"'tisn't in it
+with us. The approach to the bridge must now be paved with hurdles, owin'
+to the squashy nature o' the country. Yes, an' we'd better have one or two
+on the far side to lead her on to _terror fermior_. Now, Hinch! Give her
+full steam and 'op along. If she slips off, we're done. Shall I take the
+wheel?"
+
+"No. This is my job," said the first-class engine-room artificer. "Get
+over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the uphill."
+
+We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken.
+Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her
+trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our
+arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing her
+madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the
+bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles
+which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.
+
+"She--she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished with
+'em," Hinchcliffe panted.
+
+"At the Agricultural Hall they would 'ave been fastened down with
+ribbons," said Pyecroft. "But this ain't Olympia."
+
+"She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don't you think I conned
+her like a cock-angel, Pye?"
+
+"_I_ never saw anything like it," said our guest propitiatingly. "And now,
+gentlemen, if you'll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you you won't
+hear another word from me."
+
+"Get in," said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once more.
+"We 'aven't begun on _you_ yet."
+
+"A joke's a joke," he replied. "I don't mind a little bit of a joke
+myself, but this is going beyond it."
+
+"Miles an' miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We'll want water
+pretty soon."
+
+Our guest's countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.
+
+"Let me tell you," he said earnestly, "It won't make any difference to you
+whatever happens. Barrin' a dhow or two Tajurrah-way, prizes are scarce in
+the Navy. Hence we never abandon 'em."
+
+There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.
+
+"Robert," he said, "have you a mother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you a big brother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An' a little sister?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"All right, Robert. I won't forget it."
+
+I looked for an explanation.
+
+"I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o' that
+cottage before faithful Fido turned up," Pyecroft whispered. "Ain't you
+glad it's all in the family somehow?"
+
+We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard's Forest,
+and, despite our increasing leakage, made shift to climb the ridge above
+Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final collapse
+would not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our guest well into
+the wilderness before that came.
+
+On the roof of the world--a naked plateau clothed with young heather--she
+retired from active life in floods of tears. Her feed-water-heater
+(Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was leaking
+beyond hope of repair; she had shifted most of her packing, and her water-
+pump would not lift.
+
+"If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case an'
+feed direct into the boiler. It 'ud knock down her speed, but we could get
+on," said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges that hove us
+above the panorama of Sussex. Northward we could see the London haze.
+Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the Channel's zinc-
+blue. But all our available population in that vast survey was one cow and
+a kestrel.
+
+"It's down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by gravity," I said
+at last.
+
+"Then he'll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we take
+off 'is boots first," Pyecroft replied.
+
+"That," said our guest earnestly, "would be theft atop of assault and very
+serious."
+
+"Oh, let's hang him an' be done," Hinchcliffe grunted. "It's evidently
+what he's sufferin' for."
+
+Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to smoke
+in the heather, and presently out of the valley below came the thick beat
+of a petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it till I heard
+the roar of a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home Counties.
+
+"That's the man I was going to lunch with!" I cried. "Hold on!" and I ran
+down the road.
+
+It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod;
+and it bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my own
+man, who for the first time in our acquaintance smiled.
+
+"Did they get you? What did you get? I was coming into Linghurst as
+witness to character--your man told me what happened--but I was stopped
+near Instead Wick myself," cried Kysh.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Leaving car unattended. An infernal swindle, when you think of the loose
+carts outside every pub in the county. I was jawing with the police for an
+hour, but it's no use. They've got it all their own way, and we're
+helpless."
+
+Hereupon I told him my tale, and for proof, as we topped the hill, pointed
+out the little group round my car.
+
+All supreme emotion is dumb. Kysh put on the brake and hugged me to his
+bosom till I groaned. Then, as I remember, he crooned like a mother
+returned to her suckling.
+
+"Divine! Divine!" he murmured. "Command me."
+
+"Take charge of the situation," I said. "You'll find a Mr. Pyecroft on the
+quarter-deck. I'm altogether out of it."
+
+"He shall stay there. Who am I but the instrument of vengeance in the
+hands of an over-ruling Providence? (And I put in fresh sparking-plugs
+this morning.) Salmon, take that steam-kettle home, somehow. I would be
+alone."
+
+"Leggat," I said to my man, "help Salmon home with my car."
+
+"Home? Now? It's hard. It's cruel hard," said Leggat, almost with a sob.
+
+Hinchcliffe outlined my car's condition briefly to the two engineers. Mr.
+Pyecroft clung to our guest, who stared with affrighted eyes at the
+palpitating Octopod; and the free wind of high Sussex whimpered across the
+ling.
+
+"I am quite agreeable to walkin' 'ome all the way on my feet," said our
+guest. "I wouldn't go to any railway station. It 'ud be just the proper
+finish to our little joke." He laughed nervously.
+
+"What's the evolution?" said Pyecroft. "Do we turn over to the new
+cruiser?"
+
+I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I was
+in, he sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which controls the
+door. Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh.
+
+"You drive?" Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his chequered way
+through the world.
+
+"Steam only, and I've about had my whack for to-day, thanks."
+
+"I see."
+
+The long, low car slid forward and then dropped like a bullet down the
+descent our steam toy had so painfully climbed. Our guest's face blanched,
+and he clutched the back of the tonneau.
+
+"New commander's evidently been trained on a destroyer," said Hinchcliffe.
+
+"What's 'is wonderful name?" whispered Pyecroft. "Ho! Well, I'm glad it
+ain't Saul we've run up against--nor Nimshi, for that matter. This is
+makin' me feel religious."
+
+Our impetus carried us half-way up the next slope, where we steadied to a
+resonant fifteen an hour against the collar.
+
+"What do you think?" I called to Hinchcliffe.
+
+"'Taint as sweet as steam, o' course; but for power it's twice the
+_Furious_ against half the _Jaseur_ in a head-sea."
+
+Volumes could not have touched it more exactly. His bright eyes were glued
+on Kysh's hands juggling with levers behind the discreet backward sloping
+dash.
+
+"An' what sort of a brake might you use?" he said politely.
+
+"This," Kysh replied, as the last of the hill shot up to one in eight. He
+let the car run back a few feet and caught her deftly on the brake,
+repeating the performance cup and ball fashion. It was like being daped
+above the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft held
+his breath.
+
+"It ain't fair! It ain't fair!" our guest moaned. "You're makin' me sick."
+
+"What an ungrateful blighter he is!" said Pyecroft. "Money couldn't buy
+you a run like this ... Do it well overboard!"
+
+"We'll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I think,"
+said Kysh. "There's a bit of good going hereabouts."
+
+He flung a careless knee over the low raking tiller that the ordinary
+expert puts under his armpit, and down four miles of yellow road, cut
+through barren waste, the Octopod sang like a six-inch shell.
+
+"Whew! But you know your job," said Hinchcliffe. "You're wasted here. I'd
+give something to have you in my engine-room."
+
+"He's steering with 'is little hind-legs," said Pyecroft. "Stand up and
+look at him, Robert. You'll never see such a sight again!"
+
+"Nor don't want to," was our guest's reply. "Five 'undred pounds wouldn't
+begin to cover 'is fines even since I've been with him."
+
+Park Row is reached by one hill which drops three hundred feet in half a
+mile. Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but the
+manner in which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my few
+remaining hairs much nearer the grave.
+
+"We're in Surrey now; better look out," I said.
+
+"Never mind. I'll roll her into Kent for a bit. We've lots of time; it's
+only three o'clock."
+
+"Won't you want to fill your bunkers, or take water, or oil her up?" said
+Hinchcliffe.
+
+"We don't use water, and she's good for two hundred on one tank o' petrol
+if she doesn't break down."
+
+"Two hundred miles from 'ome and mother _and_ faithful Fido to-night,
+Robert," said Pyecroft, slapping our guest on the knee. "Cheer up! Why,
+I've known a destroyer do less."
+
+We passed with some decency through some towns, till by way of the
+Hastings road we whirled into Cramberhurst, which is a deep pit.
+
+"Now," said Kysh, "we begin."
+
+"Previous service not reckoned towards pension," said Pyecroft. "We are
+doin' you lavish, Robert."
+
+"But when's this silly game to finish, any'ow?" our guest snarled.
+
+"Don't worry about the _when_ of it, Robert. The _where's_ the interestin'
+point for you just now."
+
+I had seen Kysh drive before, and I thought I knew the Octopod, but that
+afternoon he and she were exalted beyond my knowledge. He improvised on
+the keys--the snapping levers and quivering accelerators--marvellous
+variations, so that our progress was sometimes a fugue and sometimes a
+barn-dance, varied on open greens by the weaving of fairy rings. When I
+protested, all that he would say was: "I'll hypnotise the fowl! I'll
+dazzle the rooster!" or other words equally futile. And she--oh! that I
+could do her justice!--she turned her broad black bows to the westering
+light, and lifted us high upon hills that we might see and rejoice with
+her. She whooped into veiled hollows of elm and Sussex oak; she devoured
+infinite perspectives of park palings; she surged through forgotten
+hamlets, whose single streets gave back, reduplicated, the clatter of her
+exhaust, and, tireless, she repeated the motions. Over naked uplands she
+droned like a homing bee, her shadow lengthening in the sun that she
+chased to his lair. She nosed up unparochial byways and accommodation-
+roads of the least accommodation, and put old scarred turf or new-raised
+molehills under her most marvellous springs with never a jar. And since
+the King's highway is used for every purpose save traffic, in mid-career
+she stepped aside for, or flung amazing loops about, the brainless driver,
+the driverless horse, the drunken carrier, the engaged couple, the female
+student of the bicycle and her staggering instructor, the pig, the
+perambulator, and the infant school (where it disembogued yelping on
+cross-roads), with the grace of Nellie Farren (upon whom be the Peace) and
+the lithe abandon of all the Vokes family. But at heart she was ever Judic
+as I remember that Judic long ago--Judic clad in bourgeois black from
+wrist to ankle, achieving incredible improprieties.
+
+We were silent--Hinchcliffe and Pyecroft through professional
+appreciation; I with a layman's delight in the expert; and our guest
+because of fear.
+
+At the edge of the evening she smelt the sea to southward and sheered
+thither like the strong-winged albatross, to circle enormously amid green
+flats fringed by martello towers.
+
+"Ain't that Eastbourne yonder?" said our guest, reviving. "I've a aunt
+there--she's cook to a J.P.--could identify me."
+
+"Don't worry her for a little thing like that," said Pyecroft; and ere he
+had ceased to praise family love, our unpaid judiciary, and domestic
+service, the Downs rose between us and the sea, and the Long Man of
+Hillingdon lay out upon the turf.
+
+"Trevington--up yonder--is a fairly isolated little dorp," I said, for I
+was beginning to feel hungry.
+
+"No," said Kysh. "He'd get a lift to the railway in no time.... Besides,
+I'm enjoying myself.... Three pounds eighteen and sixpence. Infernal
+swindle!"
+
+I take it one of his more recent fines was rankling in Kysh's brain; but
+he drove like the Archangel of the Twilight.
+
+About the longitude of Cassocks, Hinchcliffe yawned. "Aren't we goin' to
+maroon our Robert? I'm hungry, too."
+
+"The commodore wants his money back," I answered.
+
+"If he drives like this habitual, there must be a tidyish little lump
+owin' to him," said Pyecroft. "Well, I'm agreeable."
+
+"I didn't know it could be done. S'welp me, I didn't," our guest murmured.
+
+"But you will," said Kysh. And that was the first and last time he
+addressed the man.
+
+We ran through Penfield Green, half stupefied with open air, drugged with
+the relentless boom of the Octopod, and extinct with famine.
+
+"I used to shoot about here," said Kysh, a few miles further on. "Open
+that gate, please," and he slowed as the sun touched the sky-line. At this
+point we left metalled roads and bucked vigorously amid ditches and under
+trees for twenty minutes.
+
+"Only cross-country car on the market," he said, as we wheeled into a
+straw-yard where a lone bull bellowed defiance to our growlings. "Open
+that gate, please. I hope the cattle-bridge will stand up."
+
+"I've took a few risks in my time," said Pyecroft as timbers cracked
+beneath us and we entered between thickets, "but I'm a babe to this man,
+Hinch."
+
+"Don't talk to me. Watch _him!_ It's a liberal education, as Shakespeare
+says. Fallen tree on the port bow, Sir."
+
+"Right! That's my mark. Sit tight!"
+
+She flung up her tail like a sounding whale and buried us in a fifteen-
+foot deep bridle-path buttressed with the exposed roots of enormous
+beeches. The wheels leaped from root to rounded boulder, and it was very
+dark in the shadow of the foliage.
+
+"There ought to be a hammer-pond somewhere about here." Kysh was letting
+her down this chute in brakeful spasms.
+
+"Water dead ahead, Sir. Stack o' brushwood on the starboard beam, and--no
+road," sang Pyecroft.
+
+"Cr-r-ri-key!" said Hinchcliffe, as the car on a wild cant to the left
+went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung the
+pond. "If she only had two propellers, I believe she'd talk poetry. She
+can do everything else."
+
+"We're rather on our port wheels now," said Kysh; "but I don't think
+she'll capsize. This road isn't used much by motors."
+
+"You don't say so," said Pyecroft. "What a pity!"
+
+She bored through a mass of crackling brushwood, and emerged into an
+upward sloping fern-glade fenced with woods so virgin, so untouched, that
+William Rufus might have ridden off as we entered. We climbed out of the
+violet-purple shadows towards the upland where the last of the day
+lingered. I was filled to my moist eyes with the almost sacred beauty of
+sense and association that clad the landscape.
+
+"Does 'unger produce 'alluciations?" said Pyecroft in a whisper. "Because
+I've just seen a sacred ibis walkin' arm in arm with a British cock-
+pheasant."
+
+"What are you panickin' at?" said Hinchcliffe. "I've been seein' zebra
+for the last two minutes, but I 'aven't complained."
+
+He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted zebra (Burchell's, I
+think), following our track with palpitating nostrils. The car stopped,
+and it fled away.
+
+There was a little pond in front of us from which rose a dome of irregular
+sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled beast that sat upon its haunches.
+
+"Is it catching?" said Pyecroft.
+
+"Yes. I'm seeing beaver," I replied.
+
+"It is here!" said Kysh, with the air and gesture of Captain Nemo, and
+half turned.
+
+"No--no--no! For 'Eaven's sake--not 'ere!" Our guest gasped like a sea-
+bathed child, as four efficient hands swung him far out-board on to the
+turf. The car ran back noiselessly down the slope.
+
+"Look! Look! It's sorcery!" cried Hinchcliffe.
+
+There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver dived from the roof of
+his lodge, but we watched our guest. He was on his knees, praying to
+kangaroos. Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos--gigantic,
+erect, silhouetted against the light--four buck-kangaroos in the heart of
+Sussex!
+
+And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our hind-wheels struck
+well-rolled gravel, leading us to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour
+later, the "Grapnel Inn" at Horsham.
+
+*        *        *        *        *
+
+After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings in honour
+of Kysh, who received our homage graciously, and, by the way, explained a
+few things in the natural history line that had puzzled us. England is a
+most marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows the eccentricities
+of large land-owners, trained to accept kangaroos, zebras, or beavers as
+part of its landscape.
+
+When we went to bed Pyecroft pressed my hand, his voice thick with
+emotion.
+
+"We owe it to you," he said. "We owe it all to you. Didn't I say we never
+met in _pup-pup-puris naturalibus_, if I may so put it, without a
+remarkably hectic day ahead of us?"
+
+"That's all right," I said. "Mind the candle." He was tracing smoke-
+patterns on the wall.
+
+"But what I want to know is whether we'll succeed in acclimatisin' the
+blighter, or whether Sir William Gardner's keepers 'll kill 'im before 'e
+gets accustomed to 'is surroundin's?"
+
+Some day, I think, we must go up the Linghurst Road and find out.
+
+
+
+
+"WIRELESS"
+
+
+KASPAR'S SONG IN VARDA
+
+(_From the Swedish of Stagnelius_.)
+
+  Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
+    The children follow where Psyche flies,
+  And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
+    Slash with a net at the empty skies.
+
+  So it goes they fall amid brambles,
+    And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
+  Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles
+    They wipe their brows, and the hunting stops.
+
+  Then to quiet them comes their father
+    And stills the riot of pain and grief,
+  Saying, "Little ones, go and gather
+    Out of my garden a cabbage leaf.
+
+  "You will find on it whorls and clots of
+    Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
+  Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
+    Radiant Psyches raised from the dead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"
+    The three-dimensioned preacher saith,
+  So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie
+    For Psyche's birth ... And that is our death!
+
+
+"WIRELESS"
+"It's a funny thing, this Marconi business, isn't it?" said Mr. Shaynor,
+coughing heavily. "Nothing seems to make any difference, by what they tell
+me--storms, hills, or anything; but if that's true we shall know before
+morning."
+
+"Of course it's true," I answered, stepping behind the counter. "Where's
+old Mr. Cashell?"
+
+"He's had to go to bed on account of his influenza. He said you'd very
+likely drop in."
+
+"Where's his nephew?"
+
+"Inside, getting the things ready. He told me that the last time they
+experimented they put the pole on the roof of one of the big hotels here,
+and the batteries electrified all the water-supply, and"--he giggled--"the
+ladies got shocks when they took their baths."
+
+"I never heard of that."
+
+"The hotel wouldn't exactly advertise it, would it? Just now, by what Mr.
+Cashell tells me, they're trying to signal from here to Poole, and they're
+using stronger batteries than ever. But, you see, he being the guvnor's
+nephew and all that (and it will be in the papers too), it doesn't matter
+how they electrify things in this house. Are you going to watch?"
+
+"Very much. I've never seen this game. Aren't you going to bed?"
+
+"We don't close till ten on Saturdays. There's a good deal of influenza in
+town, too, and there'll be a dozen prescriptions coming in before morning.
+I generally sleep in the chair here. It's warmer than jumping out of bed
+every time. Bitter cold, isn't it?"
+
+"Freezing hard. I'm sorry your cough's worse."
+
+"Thank you. I don't mind cold so much. It's this wind that fair cuts me to
+pieces." He coughed again hard and hackingly, as an old lady came in for
+ammoniated quinine. "We've just run out of it in bottles, madam," said Mr.
+Shaynor, returning to the professional tone, "but if you will wait two
+minutes, I'll make it up for you, madam."
+
+I had used the shop for some time, and my acquaintance with the proprietor
+had ripened into friendship. It was Mr. Cashell who revealed to me the
+purpose and power of Apothecaries' Hall what time a fellow-chemist had
+made an error in a prescription of mine, had lied to cover his sloth, and
+when error and lie were brought home to him had written vain letters.
+
+"A disgrace to our profession," said the thin, mild-eyed man, hotly, after
+studying the evidence. "You couldn't do a better service to the profession
+than report him to Apothecaries' Hall."
+
+I did so, not knowing what djinns I should evoke; and the result was such
+an apology as one might make who had spent a night on the rack. I
+conceived great respect for Apothecaries' Hall, and esteem for Mr.
+Cashell, a zealous craftsman who magnified his calling. Until Mr. Shaynor
+came down from the North his assistants had by no means agreed with Mr.
+Cashell. "They forget," said he, "that, first and foremost, the compounder
+is a medicine-man. On him depends the physician's reputation. He holds it
+literally in the hollow of his hand, Sir."
+
+Mr. Shaynor's manners had not, perhaps, the polish of the grocery and
+Italian warehouse next door, but he knew and loved his dispensary work in
+every detail. For relaxation he seemed to go no farther afield than the
+romance of drugs--their discovery, preparation packing, and export--but it
+led him to the ends of the earth, and on this subject, and the
+Pharmaceutical Formulary, and Nicholas Culpepper, most confident of
+physicians, we met.
+
+Little by little I grew to know something of his beginnings and his hopes
+--of his mother, who had been a school-teacher in one of the northern
+counties, and of his red-headed father, a small job-master at Kirby Moors,
+who died when he was a child; of the examinations he had passed and of
+their exceeding and increasing difficulty; of his dreams of a shop in
+London; of his hate for the price-cutting Co-operative stores; and, most
+interesting, of his mental attitude towards customers.
+
+"There's a way you get into," he told me, "of serving them carefully, and
+I hope, politely, without stopping your own thinking. I've been reading
+Christie's _New Commercial Plants_ all this autumn, and that needs keeping
+your mind on it, I can tell you. So long as it isn't a prescription, of
+course, I can carry as much as half a page of Christie in my head, and at
+the same time I could sell out all that window twice over, and not a penny
+wrong at the end. As to prescriptions, I think I could make up the general
+run of 'em in my sleep, almost."
+
+For reasons of my own, I was deeply interested in Marconi experiments at
+their outset in England; and it was of a piece with Mr. Cashell's
+unvarying thoughtfulness that, when his nephew the electrician
+appropriated the house for a long-range installation, he should, as I have
+said, invite me to see the result.
+
+The old lady went away with her medicine, and Mr. Shaynor and I stamped on
+the tiled floor behind the counter to keep ourselves warm. The shop, by
+the light of the many electrics, looked like a Paris-diamond mine, for Mr.
+Cashell believed in all the ritual of his craft. Three superb glass jars--
+red, green, and blue--of the sort that led Rosamund to parting with her
+shoes--blazed in the broad plate-glass windows, and there was a confused
+smell of orris, Kodak films, vulcanite, tooth-powder, sachets, and almond-
+cream in the air. Mr. Shaynor fed the dispensary stove, and we sucked
+cayenne-pepper jujubes and menthol lozenges. The brutal east wind had
+cleared the streets, and the few passers-by were muffled to their puckered
+eyes. In the Italian warehouse next door some gay feathered birds and
+game, hung upon hooks, sagged to the wind across the left edge of our
+window-frame.
+
+"They ought to take these poultry in--all knocked about like that," said
+Mr. Shaynor. "Doesn't it make you feel fair perishing? See that old hare!
+The wind's nearly blowing the fur off him."
+
+I saw the belly-fur of the dead beast blown apart in ridges and streaks as
+the wind caught it, showing bluish skin underneath. "Bitter cold," said
+Mr. Shaynor, shuddering. "Fancy going out on a night like this! Oh, here's
+young Mr. Cashell."
+
+The door of the inner office behind the dispensary opened, and an
+energetic, spade-bearded man stepped forth, rubbing his hands.
+
+"I want a bit of tin-foil, Shaynor," he said. "Good-evening. My uncle told
+me you might be coming." This to me, as I began the first of a hundred
+questions.
+
+"I've everything in order," he replied. "We're only waiting until Poole
+calls us up. Excuse me a minute. You can come in whenever you like--but
+I'd better be with the instruments. Give me that tin-foil. Thanks."
+
+While we were talking, a girl--evidently no customer--had come into the
+shop, and the face and bearing of Mr. Shaynor changed. She leaned
+confidently across the counter.
+
+"But I can't," I heard him whisper uneasily--the flush on his cheek was
+dull red, and his eyes shone like a drugged moth's. "I can't. I tell you
+I'm alone in the place."
+
+"No, you aren't. Who's _that_? Let him look after it for half an hour. A
+brisk walk will do you good. Ah, come now, John."
+
+"But he isn't----"
+
+"I don't care. I want you to; we'll only go round by St. Agnes. If you
+don't----"
+
+He crossed to where I stood in the shadow of the dispensary counter, and
+began some sort of broken apology about a lady-friend.
+
+"Yes," she interrupted. "You take the shop for half an hour--to oblige
+_me_, won't you?"
+
+She had a singularly rich and promising voice that well matched her
+outline.
+
+"All right," I said. "I'll do it--but you'd better wrap yourself up, Mr.
+Shaynor."
+
+"Oh, a brisk walk ought to help me. We're only going round by the church."
+I heard him cough grievously as they went out together.
+
+I refilled the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell's
+coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the glass-
+knobbed drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting drugs,
+and, by the aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and
+dilute alcohol, manufactured a new and wildish drink, of which I bore a
+glassful to young Mr. Cashell, busy in the back office. He laughed shortly
+when I told him that Mr. Shaynor had stepped out--but a frail coil of wire
+held all his attention, and he had no word for me bewildered among the
+batteries and rods. The noise of the sea on the beach began to make itself
+heard as the traffic in the street ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly,
+he gave me the names and uses of the mechanism that crowded the tables and
+the floor.
+
+"When do you expect to get the message from Poole?" I demanded, sipping my
+liquor out of a graduated glass.
+
+"About midnight, if everything is in order. We've got our installation-
+pole fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn't advise you to turn on a
+tap or anything tonight. We've connected up with the plumbing, and all the
+water will be electrified." He repeated to me the history of the agitated
+ladies at the hotel at the time of the first installation.
+
+"But what _is_ it?" I asked. "Electricity is out of my beat altogether."
+
+"Ah, if you knew _that_ you'd know something nobody knows. It's just It--
+what we call Electricity, but the magic--the manifestations--the Hertzian
+waves--are all revealed by _this_. The coherer, we call it."
+
+He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in which,
+almost touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an
+infinitesimal pinch of metallic dust. "That's all," he said, proudly, as
+though himself responsible for the wonder. "That is the thing that will
+reveal to us the Powers--whatever the Powers may be--at work--through
+space--a long distance away."
+
+Just then Mr. Shaynor returned alone and stood coughing his heart out on
+the mat.
+
+"Serves you right for being such a fool," said young Mr. Cashell, as
+annoyed as myself at the interruption. "Never mind--we've all the night
+before us to see wonders."
+
+Shaynor clutched the counter, his handkerchief to his lips. When he
+brought it away I saw two bright red stains.
+
+"I--I've got a bit of a rasped throat from smoking cigarettes," he panted.
+"I think I'll try a cubeb."
+
+"Better take some of this. I've been compounding while you've been away."
+I handed him the brew.
+
+"'Twon't make me drunk, will it? I'm almost a teetotaller. My word! That's
+grateful and comforting."
+
+He sat down the empty glass to cough afresh.
+
+"Brr! But it was cold out there! I shouldn't care to be lying in my grave
+a night like this. Don't _you_ ever have a sore throat from smoking?" He
+pocketed the handkerchief after a furtive peep.
+
+"Oh, yes, sometimes," I replied, wondering, while I spoke, into what
+agonies of terror I should fall if ever I saw those bright-red danger-
+signals under my nose. Young Mr. Cashell among the batteries coughed
+slightly to show that he was quite ready to continue his scientific
+explanations, but I was thinking still of the girl with the rich voice and
+the significantly cut mouth, at whose command I had taken charge of the
+shop. It flashed across me that she distantly resembled the seductive
+shape on a gold-framed toilet-water advertisement whose charms were
+unholily heightened by the glare from the red bottle in the window.
+Turning to make sure, I saw Mr. Shaynor's eyes bent in the same direction,
+and by instinct recognised that the flamboyant thing was to him a shrine.
+"What do you take for your--cough?" I asked.
+
+"Well, I'm the wrong side of the counter to believe much in patent
+medicines. But there are asthma cigarettes and there are pastilles. To
+tell you the truth, if you don't object to the smell, which is very like
+incense, I believe, though I'm not a Roman Catholic, Blaudett's Cathedral
+Pastilles relieve me as much as anything."
+
+"Let's try." I had never raided a chemist's shop before, so I was
+thorough. We unearthed the pastilles--brown, gummy cones of benzoin--and
+set them alight under the toilet-water advertisement, where they fumed in
+thin blue spirals.
+
+"Of course," said Mr. Shaynor, to my question, "what one uses in the shop
+for one's self comes out of one's pocket. Why, stock-taking in our
+business is nearly the same as with jewellers--and I can't say more than
+that. But one gets them"--he pointed to the pastille-box--"at trade
+prices." Evidently the censing of the gay, seven-tinted wench with the
+teeth was an established ritual which cost something.
+
+"And when do we shut up shop?"
+
+"We stay like this all night. The gov--old Mr. Cashell--doesn't believe
+in locks and shutters as compared with electric light. Besides it brings
+trade. I'll just sit here in the chair by the stove and write a letter,
+if you don't mind. Electricity isn't my prescription."
+
+The energetic young Mr. Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled
+himself up in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black, and
+yellow Austrian jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast about,
+amid patent medicine pamphlets, for something to read, but finding little,
+returned to the manufacture of the new drink. The Italian warehouse took
+down its game and went to bed. Across the street blank shutters flung back
+the gaslight in cold smears; the dried pavement seemed to rough up in
+goose-flesh under the scouring of the savage wind, and we could hear, long
+ere he passed, the policeman flapping his arms to keep himself warm.
+Within, the flavours of cardamoms and chloric-ether disputed those of the
+pastilles and a score of drugs and perfume and soap scents. Our electric
+lights, set low down in the windows before the tunbellied Rosamund jars,
+flung inward three monstrous daubs of red, blue, and green, that broke
+into kaleidoscopic lights on the facetted knobs of the drug-drawers, the
+cut-glass scent flagons, and the bulbs of the sparklet bottles. They
+flushed the white-tiled floor in gorgeous patches; splashed along the
+nickel-silver counter-rails, and turned the polished mahogany counter-
+panels to the likeness of intricate grained marbles--slabs of porphyry and
+malachite. Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and ere he began to write, took
+out a meagre bundle of letters. From my place by the stove, I could see
+the scalloped edges of the paper with a flaring monogram in the corner and
+could even smell the reek of chypre. At each page he turned toward the
+toilet-water lady of the advertisement and devoured her with over-luminous
+eyes. He had drawn the Austrian blanket over his shoulders, and among
+those warring lights he looked more than ever the incarnation of a drugged
+moth--a tiger-moth as I thought.
+
+He put his letter into an envelope, stamped it with stiff mechanical
+movements, and dropped it in the drawer. Then I became aware of the
+silence of a great city asleep--the silence that underlaid the even voice
+of the breakers along the sea-front--a thick, tingling quiet of warm life
+stilled down for its appointed time, and unconsciously I moved about the
+glittering shop as one moves in a sick-room. Young Mr. Cashell was
+adjusting some wire that crackled from time to time with the tense,
+knuckle-stretching sound of the electric spark. Upstairs, where a door
+shut and opened swiftly, I could hear his uncle coughing abed.
+
+"Here," I said, when the drink was properly warmed, "take some of this,
+Mr. Shaynor."
+
+He jerked in his chair with a start and a wrench, and held out his hand
+for the glass. The mixture, of a rich port-wine colour, frothed at the
+top.
+
+"It looks," he said, suddenly, "it looks--those bubbles--like a string of
+pearls winking at you--rather like the pearls round that young lady's
+neck." He turned again to the advertisement where the female in the dove-
+coloured corset had seen fit to put on all her pearls before she cleaned
+her teeth.
+
+"Not bad, is it?" I said.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+He rolled his eyes heavily full on me, and, as I stared, I beheld all
+meaning and consciousness die out of the swiftly dilating pupils. His
+figure lost its stark rigidity, softened into the chair, and, chin on
+chest, hands dropped before him, he rested open-eyed, absolutely still.
+
+"I'm afraid I've rather cooked Shaynor's goose," I said, bearing the fresh
+drink to young Mr. Cashell. "Perhaps it was the chloric-ether."
+
+"Oh, he's all right." The spade-bearded man glanced at him pityingly.
+"Consumptives go off in those sort of doses very often. It's exhaustion...
+I don't wonder. I dare say the liquor will do him good. It's grand stuff,"
+he finished his share appreciatively. "Well, as I was saying--before he
+interrupted--about this little coherer. The pinch of dust, you see, is
+nickel-filings. The Hertzian waves, you see, come out of space from the
+station that despatches 'em, and all these little particles are attracted
+together--cohere, we call it--for just so long as the current passes
+through them. Now, it's important to remember that the current is an
+induced current. There are a good many kinds of induction----"
+
+"Yes, but what _is_ induction?"
+
+"That's rather hard to explain untechnically. But the long and the short
+of it is that when a current of electricity passes through a wire there's
+a lot of magnetism present round that wire; and if you put another wire
+parallel to, and within what we call its magnetic field--why then, the
+second wire will also become charged with electricity."
+
+"On its own account?"
+
+"On its own account."
+
+"Then let's see if I've got it correctly. Miles off, at Poole, or wherever
+it is----"
+
+"It will be anywhere in ten years."
+
+"You've got a charged wire----"
+
+"Charged with Hertzian waves which vibrate, say, two hundred and thirty
+million times a second." Mr. Cashell snaked his forefinger rapidly through
+the air.
+
+"All right--a charged wire at Poole, giving out these waves into space.
+Then this wire of yours sticking out into space--on the roof of the house
+--in some mysterious way gets charged with those waves from Poole----"
+
+"Or anywhere--it only happens to be Poole tonight."
+
+"And those waves set the coherer at work, just like an ordinary telegraph-
+office ticker?"
+
+"No! That's where so many people make the mistake. The Hertzian waves
+wouldn't be strong enough to work a great heavy Morse instrument like
+ours. They can only just make that dust cohere, and while it coheres (a
+little while for a dot and a longer while for a dash) the current from
+this battery--the home battery"--he laid his hand on the thing--"can get
+through to the Morse printing-machine to record the dot or dash. Let me
+make it clearer. Do you know anything about steam?"
+
+"Very little. But go on."
+
+"Well, the coherer is like a steam-valve. Any child can open a valve and
+start a steamer's engines, because a turn of the hand lets in the main
+steam, doesn't it? Now, this home battery here ready to print is the main
+steam. The coherer is the valve, always ready to be turned on. The
+Hertzian wave is the child's hand that turns it."
+
+"I see. That's marvellous."
+
+"Marvellous, isn't it? And, remember, we're only at the beginning. There's
+nothing we sha'n't be able to do in ten years. I want to live--my God, how
+I want to live, and see it develop!" He looked through the door at Shaynor
+breathing lightly in his chair. "Poor beast! And he wants to keep company
+with Fanny Brand."
+
+"Fanny _who_?" I said, for the name struck an obscurely familiar chord in
+my brain--something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the word
+"arterial."
+
+"Fanny Brand--the girl you kept shop for." He laughed, "That's all I know
+about her, and for the life of me I can't see what Shaynor sees in her, or
+she in him."
+
+"_Can't_ you see what he sees in her?" I insisted.
+
+"Oh, yes, if _that's_ what you mean. She's a great, big, fat lump of a
+girl, and so on. I suppose that's why he's so crazy after her. She isn't
+his sort. Well, it doesn't matter. My uncle says he's bound to die before
+the year's out. Your drink's given him a good sleep, at any rate." Young
+Mr. Cashell could not catch Mr. Shaynor's face, which was half turned to
+the advertisement.
+
+I stoked the stove anew, for the room was growing cold, and lighted
+another pastille. Mr. Shaynor in his chair, never moving, looked through
+and over me with eyes as wide and lustreless as those of a dead hare.
+
+"Poole's late," said young Mr. Cashell, when I stepped back. "I'll just
+send them a call."
+
+He pressed a key in the semi-darkness, and with a rending crackle there
+leaped between two brass knobs a spark, streams of sparks, and sparks
+again.
+
+"Grand, isn't it? _That's_ the Power--our unknown Power--kicking and
+fighting to be let loose," said young Mr. Cashell. "There she goes--kick--
+kick--kick into space. I never get over the strangeness of it when I work
+a sending-machine--waves going into space, you know. T.R. is our call.
+Poole ought to answer with L.L.L."
+
+We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom of
+the tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear "_kiss--kiss--kiss_" of
+the halliards on the roof, as they were blown against the installation-
+pole.
+
+"Poole is not ready. I'll stay here and call you when he is."
+
+I returned to the shop, and set down my glass on a marble slab with a
+careless clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed once
+more on the advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the light from
+the red jar simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved without
+cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. "And threw--and threw--and threw,"
+he repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
+
+I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words--delivered
+roundly and clearly. These:--
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
+
+The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his
+place, rubbing his hands.
+
+It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading
+and prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read Keats,
+or could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a certain
+stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the highly-polished
+picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a vile chromo
+recalls some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken. Night, my drink,
+and solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a poet. He sat down
+again and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper, his lips quivering.
+
+I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made no
+sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read, amid
+half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:--
+
+  --Very cold it was. Very cold
+  The hare--the hare--the hare--
+  The birds----
+
+He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of the
+poulterer's shop where they jutted out against our window. Then one clear
+line came:--
+
+  The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.
+
+The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where
+the Blaudett's Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and went
+on:--
+
+  Incense in a censer--
+  Before her darling picture framed in gold--
+  Maiden's picture--angel's portrait--
+
+"Hsh!" said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though in the
+presence of spirits. "There's something coming through from somewhere; but
+it isn't Poole." I heard the crackle of sparks as he depressed the keys of
+the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something crackled, or it might
+have been the hair on my head. Then I heard my own voice, in a harsh
+whisper: "Mr. Cashell, there is something coming through here, too. Leave
+me alone till I tell you."
+
+"But I thought you'd come to see this wonderful thing--Sir," indignantly
+at the end.
+
+"Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet."
+
+I watched--I waited. Under the blue-veined hand--the dry hand of the
+consumptive--came away clear, without erasure:
+
+And my weak spirit fails To think how the dead must freeze--
+he shivered as he wrote--
+
+Beneath the churchyard mould.
+
+Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.
+
+For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
+rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most
+dispassionately considered my own soul as that fought with an over-
+mastering fear. Then I smelt the strong smell of cigarettes from Mr.
+Shaynor's clothing, and heard, as though it had been the rending of
+trumpets, the rattle of his breathing. I was still in my place of
+observation, much as one would watch a rifle-shot at the butts, half-bent,
+hands on my knees, and head within a few inches of the black, red, and
+yellow blanket of his shoulder. I was whispering encouragement, evidently
+to my other self, sounding sentences, such as men pronounce in dreams.
+
+"If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn't--like causes _must_
+beget like effects. There is no escape from this law. _You_ ought to be
+grateful that you know 'St. Agnes Eve' without the book; because, given
+the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is the key of the enigma, and
+approximately represents the latitude and longitude of Fanny Brawne;
+allowing also for the bright red colour of the arterial blood upon the
+handkerchief, which was just what you were puzzling over in the shop just
+now; and counting the effect of the professional environment, here almost
+perfectly duplicated--the result is logical and inevitable. As inevitable
+as induction."
+
+Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was cowering
+in some minute and inadequate corner--at an immense distance.
+
+Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my
+knees, and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers
+accept and explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of the
+dead, with excerpts from the evening hymn or the multiplication-table, so
+I had accepted the facts, whatever they might be, that I should witness,
+and had devised a theory, sane and plausible to my mind, that explained
+them all. Nay, I was even in advance of my facts, walking hurriedly before
+them, assured that they would fit my theory. And all that I now recall of
+that epoch-making theory are the lofty words: "If he has read Keats it's
+the chloric-ether. If he hasn't, it's the identical bacillus, or Hertzian
+wave of tuberculosis, _plus_ Fanny Brand and the professional status
+which, in conjunction with the main-stream of subconscious thought common
+to all mankind, has thrown up temporarily an induced Keats."
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with
+swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote,
+muttering:
+
+The little smoke of a candle that goes out.
+
+"No," he muttered. "Little smoke--little smoke--little smoke. What else?"
+He thrust his chin forward toward the advertisement, whereunder the last
+of the Blaudett's Cathedral pastilles fumed in its holder. "Ah!" Then with
+relief:--
+
+The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.
+
+Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote and
+rewrote "gold--cold--mould" many times. Again he sought inspiration from
+the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had
+overheard:
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
+
+As I remembered the original it is "fair"--a trite word--instead of
+"young," and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that the
+attempt to reproduce "its little smoke in pallid moonlight died" was a
+failure.
+
+Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose--the naked
+soul's confession of its physical yearning for its beloved--unclean as we
+count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw material,
+so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence Keats wove the
+twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem. Shame I had none in
+overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone with the smoke of the
+pastille.
+
+"That's it," I murmured. "That's how it's blocked out. Go on! Ink it in,
+man. Ink it in!"
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein "loveliness" was made to
+rhyme with a desire to look upon "her empty dress." He picked up a fold of
+the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with infinite
+tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I could not
+decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped the stuff.
+Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I do now) in
+what manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket coloured his dreams.
+
+In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the
+shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket,
+rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the
+labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie's _New Commercial
+Plants_ and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them
+side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face,
+read first in one and then in the other, and paused with pen behind his
+ear.
+
+"What wonder of Heaven's coming now?" I thought.
+
+"Manna--manna--manna," he said at last, under wrinkled brows. "That's what
+I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that's good!"
+His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:--
+
+  Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
+  And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
+  And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,
+  Manna and dates in Argosy transferred
+  From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
+  From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
+
+He repeated it once more, using "blander" for "smoother" in the second
+line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes
+missed no stroke of any word) he substituted "soother" for his atrocious
+second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is written in
+the book--as it is written in the book.
+
+A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind
+followed a spurt and rattle of rain.
+
+After a smiling pause--and good right had he to smile--he began anew,
+always tossing the last sheet over his shoulder:--
+
+  "The sharp rain falling on the window-pane,
+  Rattling sleet--the wind-blown sleet."
+
+Then prose: "It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and
+sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and thought
+of you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we could both run
+away like two lovers into the storm and get that little cottage by the
+sea which we are always thinking about, my own dear darling. We could sit
+and watch the sea beneath our windows. It would be a fairyland all of our
+own--a fairy sea--a fairy sea...."
+
+He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the
+Channel along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up a
+note to the sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to
+flood. It beat in like the change of step throughout an army--this
+renewed pulse of the sea--and filled our ears till they, accepting it,
+marked it no longer.
+
+  "A fairyland for you and me
+  Across the foam--beyond ...
+  A magic foam, a perilous sea."
+
+He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but I
+dared not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was
+drawing him nearer and nearer to the high-water mark but two of the sons
+of Adam have reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted there
+are no more than five--five little lines--of which one can say: "These
+are the pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry."
+And Mr. Shaynor was playing hot and cold with two of them!
+
+I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold
+soul, and pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and
+re-repeating:
+
+  A savage spot as holy and enchanted
+  As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
+  By woman wailing for her demon lover.
+
+But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon
+the writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals
+and cigarette-smoke.
+
+  Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,
+
+(he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then--
+
+  "Our open casements facing desolate seas
+  Forlorn--forlorn--"
+
+Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I had
+first seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was
+tenfold keener. As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It
+lighted his face from within till I thought the visibly scourged soul
+must leap forth naked between his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of sweat
+trickled from my forehead down my nose and splashed on the back of my
+hand.
+
+  "Our windows facing on the desolate seas
+  And pearly foam of magic fairyland--"
+
+  "Not yet--not yet," he muttered, "wait a minute.
+  _Please_ wait a minute. I shall get it then--"
+
+  Our magic windows fronting on the sea,
+  The dangerous foam of desolate seas ..
+  For aye.
+
+"_Ouh_, my God!"
+
+From head to heel he shook--shook from the marrow of his bones
+outwards--then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair
+screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind and
+fell with a jar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.
+
+As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.
+
+"I've had a bit of a doze," he said. "How did I come to knock the chair
+over? You look rather--"
+
+"The chair startled me," I answered. "It was so sudden in this quiet."
+
+Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.
+
+"I suppose I must have been dreaming," said Mr. Shaynor.
+
+"I suppose you must," I said. "Talking of dreams--I--I noticed you
+writing--before--"
+
+He flushed consciously.
+
+"I meant to ask you if you've ever read anything written by a man called
+Keats."
+
+"Oh! I haven't much time to read poetry, and I can't say that I remember
+the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?"
+
+"Middling. I thought you might know him because he's the only poet who
+was ever a druggist. And he's rather what's called the lover's poet."
+
+"Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?"
+
+"A lot of things. Here's a sample that may interest you."
+
+Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and
+once written not ten minutes ago.
+
+"Ah. Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the
+tinctures and syrups. It's a fine tribute to our profession."
+
+"I don't know," said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening the
+door one half-inch, "if you still happen to be interested in our trifling
+experiments. But, should such be the case----"
+
+I drew him aside, whispering, "Shaynor seemed going off into some sort of
+fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of being
+rude, it wouldn't do to take you off your instruments just as the call
+was coming through. Don't you see?"
+
+"Granted--granted as soon as asked," he said unbending. "I _did_ think it
+a shade odd at the time. So that was why he knocked the chair down?"
+
+"I hope I haven't missed anything," I said.
+"I'm afraid I can't say that, but you're just in time for the end of a
+rather curious performance. You can come in, too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen,
+while I read it off."
+
+The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted:
+"'_K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals_.'" A pause. "'_M.M.V. M.M.V.
+Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sandown Bay. Examine instruments
+to-morrow.'_ Do you know what that means? It's a couple of men-o'-war
+working Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight. They are trying to talk to
+each other. Neither can read the other's messages, but all their messages
+are being taken in by our receiver here. They've been going on for ever so
+long. I wish you could have heard it."
+
+"How wonderful!" I said. "Do you mean we're overhearing Portsmouth ships
+trying to talk to each other--that we're eavesdropping across half South
+England?"
+
+"Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are out
+of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing clear."
+
+"Why is that?"
+
+"God knows--and Science will know to-morrow. Perhaps the induction is
+faulty; perhaps the receivers aren't tuned to receive just the number of
+vibrations per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here and
+there. Just enough to tantalise."
+
+Again the Morse sprang to life.
+
+"That's one of 'em complaining now. Listen: '_Disheartening--most
+disheartening_.' It's quite pathetic. Have you ever seen a spiritualistic
+seance? It reminds me of that sometimes--odds and ends of messages coming
+out of nowhere--a word here and there--no good at all."
+
+"But mediums are all impostors," said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway,
+lighting an asthma-cigarette. "They only do it for the money they can
+make. I've seen 'em."
+
+"Here's Poole, at last--clear as a bell. L.L.L. _Now_ we sha'n't be long."
+Mr. Cashell rattled the keys merrily. "Anything you'd like to tell 'em?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," I said. "I'll go home and get to bed. I'm feeling
+a little tired."
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+SONG OF THE OLD GUARD
+
+"And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work shall the
+candlestick be made: his shaft and its branches, his bowls, his knops,
+and his flowers, shall be the same.
+
+"And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop
+under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the
+same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick.
+Their knops and their branches shall be the same."--_Exodus._
+
+  "Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
+    And all the clouds are gone--
+  The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
+    Good times are coming on"--
+  The evil that was threatened late
+    To all of our degree,
+  Hath passed in discord and debate,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  A common people strove in vain
+    To shame us unto toil,
+  But they are spent and we remain,
+    And we shall share the spoil
+  According to our several needs
+    As Beauty shall decree,
+  As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  And they that with accursed zeal
+    Our Service would amend,
+  Shall own the odds and come to heel
+    Ere worse befall their end
+  For though no naked word be wrote
+    Yet plainly shall they see
+  What pinneth Orders to their coat,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Our doorways that, in time of fear,
+    We opened overwide
+  Shall softly close from year to year
+    Till all be purified;
+  For though no fluttering fan be heard
+    Nor chaff be seen to flee--
+  The Lord shall winnow the Lord's Preferred--
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Our altars which the heathen brake
+    Shall rankly smoke anew,
+  And anise, mint, and cummin take
+    Their dread and sovereign due,
+  Whereby the buttons of our trade
+    Shall all restored be
+  With curious work in gilt and braid,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Then come, my brethren, and prepare
+    The candlesticks and bells,
+  The scarlet, brass, and badger's hair
+    Wherein our Honour dwells,
+  And straitly fence and strictly keep
+    The Ark's integrity
+  Till Armageddon break our sleep ...
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+PART I
+
+I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was entirely natural that I should be talking to "Boy" Bayley. We had
+met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside
+Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount
+Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half
+the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think
+he stayed a long, long time.
+
+But now he had come back.
+
+"Are you still a Tynesider?" I asked.
+
+"I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son," he
+replied.
+
+"Guard which? They've been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don't pull my leg,
+Boy."
+
+"I said Guard, not Guard-s. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters.
+Does that make it any clearer?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren't a step from
+barracks. Keep on my right side. I'm--I'm a bit deaf on the near."
+
+We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied
+pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I could
+see no sentry at the gates.
+
+"There ain't any," said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled
+restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the
+room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.
+
+"Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These
+are our chaps--but what am I thinking of? You must know most of 'em.
+Devine's my second in command now. There's old Luttrell--remember him at
+Cherat?--Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him), Harrison,
+Pigeon, and Kyd."
+
+With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember
+that they had all been Tynesiders.
+
+"I've never seen this sort of place," I said, looking round. "Half the
+men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children
+doing?"
+
+"Eating, I hope," Boy Bayley answered. "Our canteens would never pay if
+it wasn't for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started
+people looked on 'em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or
+two to lunch in 'em, and they've been grossly fashionable since."
+
+"So I see," I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores came
+up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of the
+corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three other
+uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.
+
+"I give it up," I said. "This is guilty splendour that I don't
+understand."
+
+"Quite simple," said Burgard across the table. "The barrack supplies
+breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard (which
+we call I. G.) when it's in barracks as well as to the Line and Militia.
+They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for them. That's
+where we make our profits. Look!"
+
+Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in
+the raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to jest
+with the uniforms about them; and when one o'clock clanged from a big
+half-built block of flats across the street, filed out.
+
+"Those," Devine explained, "are either our Line or Militiamen, as such
+entitled to the regulation whack at regulation cost. It's cheaper than
+they could buy it; an' they meet their friends too. A man'll walk a mile
+in his dinner hour to mess with his own lot."
+
+"Wait a minute," I pleaded. "Will you tell me what those plumbers and
+plasterers and bricklayers that I saw go out just now have to do with
+what I was taught to call the Line?"
+
+"Tell him," said the Boy over his shoulder to Burgard. He was busy
+talking with the large Verschoyle, my old schoolmate.
+
+"The Line comes next to the Guard. The Linesman's generally a town-bird
+who can't afford to be a Volunteer. He has to go into camp in an Area for
+two months his first year, six weeks his second, and a month the third.
+He gets about five bob a week the year round for that and for being on
+duty two days of the week, and for being liable to be ordered out to help
+the Guard in a row. He needn't live in barracks unless he wants to, and
+he and his family can feed at the regimental canteen at usual rates. The
+women like it."
+
+"All this," I said politely, but intensely, "is the raving of delirium.
+Where may your precious recruit who needn't live in barracks learn his
+drill?"
+
+"At his precious school, my child, like the rest of us. The notion of
+allowing a human being to reach his twentieth year before asking him to
+put his feet in the first position _was_ raving lunacy if you like!" Boy
+Bayley dived back into the conversation.
+
+"Very good," I said meekly. "I accept the virtuous plumber who puts in
+two months of his valuable time at Aldershot----"
+
+"Aldershot!" The table exploded. I felt a little annoyed.
+
+"A camp in an Area is not exactly Aldershot," said Burgard. "The Line
+isn't exactly what you fancy. Some of them even come to _us_!"
+
+"You recruit from 'em?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Devine with mock solemnity. "The Guard doesn't
+recruit. It selects."
+
+"It would," I said, "with a Spiers and Pond restaurant; pretty girls to
+play with; and----"
+
+"A room apiece, four bob a day and all found," said Verschoyle. "Don't
+forget that."
+
+"Of course!" I said. "It probably beats off recruits with a club."
+
+"No, with the ballot-box," said Verschoyle, laughing. "At least in all
+R.C. companies."
+
+"I didn't know Roman Catholics were so particular," I ventured.
+
+They grinned. "R.C. companies," said the Boy, "mean Right of Choice. When
+a company has been very good and pious for a long time it may, if the
+C.O. thinks fit, choose its own men--all same one-piecee club. All our
+companies are R.C.'s, and as the battalion is making up a few vacancies
+ere starting once more on the wild and trackless 'heef' into the Areas,
+the Linesman is here in force to-day sucking up to our non-coms."
+
+"Would some one mind explaining to me the meaning of every other word
+you've used," I said. "What's a trackless 'heef'? What's an Area? What's
+everything generally?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, 'heefs' part of the British Constitution," said the Boy. "It began
+long ago when they'd first mapped out the big military manoeuvring
+grounds--we call 'em Areas for short--where the I. G. spend two-thirds of
+their time and the other regiments get their training. It was slang
+originally for beef on the hoof, because in the Military Areas two-thirds
+of your meat-rations at least are handed over to you on the hoof, and you
+make your own arrangements. The word 'heef' became a parable for camping
+in the Military Areas and all its miseries. There are two Areas in
+Ireland, one in Wales for hill-work, a couple in Scotland, and a sort of
+parade-ground in the Lake District; but the real working Areas are in
+India, Africa, and Australia, and so on."
+
+"And what do you do there?"
+
+"We 'heef' under service conditions, which are rather like hard work. We
+'heef' in an English Area for about a year, coming into barracks for one
+month to make up wastage. Then we may 'heef' foreign for another year or
+eighteen months. Then we do sea-time in the war boats----"
+
+"_What-t?_" I said.
+
+"Sea-time," Bayley repeated. "Just like Marines,
+to learn about the big guns and how to embark and disembark quick. Then
+we come back to our territorial headquarters for six months, to educate
+the Line and Volunteer camps, to go to Hythe, to keep abreast of any new
+ideas, and then we fill up vacancies. We call those six months 'Schools,'
+Then we begin all over again, thus: Home 'heef,' foreign 'heef,'
+sea-time, schools. 'Heefing' isn't precisely luxurious, but it's on
+'heef' that we make our head-money."
+
+"Or lose it," said the sallow Pigeon, and all laughed, as men will, at
+regimental jokes.
+
+"The Dove never lets me forget that," said Boy Bayley. "It happened last
+March. We were out in the Second Northern Area at the top end of Scotland
+where a lot of those silly deer forests used to be. I'd sooner 'heef' in
+the middle of Australia myself--or Athabasca, with all respect to the
+Dove--he's a native of those parts. We were camped somewhere near
+Caithness, and the Armity (that's the combined Navy and Army board that
+runs our show) sent us about eight hundred raw remounts to break in to
+keep us warm."
+
+"Why horses for a foot regiment?"
+
+"I.G.'s don't foot it unless they're obliged to. No have gee-gee how can
+move? I'll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we broke those beasts
+in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we started across
+Scotland to Applecross to hand 'em over to a horse-depot there. It was
+snowing cruel, and we didn't know the country overmuch. You remember the
+30th--the old East Lancashire--at Mian Mir?
+
+"Their Guard Battalion had been 'heefing' round those parts for six
+months. We thought they'd be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but Burden,
+their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to Eschol."
+
+"Confound him," said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking. "I
+entertained one of 'em--in a red worsted comforter--under Bean Derig. He
+said he was a crofter. 'Gave him a drink too."
+
+"I don't mind admitting," said the Boy, "that, what with the cold and the
+remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden bottled us under
+Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut off a lot
+of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the dirt."
+
+"Was he allowed to do that?" I said.
+
+"There is no peace in a Military Area. If we'd
+beaten him off or got away without losing anyone, we'd have been entitled
+to a day's pay from every man engaged against us. But we didn't. He cut
+off fifty of ours, held 'em as prisoners for the regulation three days,
+and then sent in his bill--three days' pay for each man taken. Fifty men
+at twelve bob a head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured
+officer, and Kyd here, his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden
+& Co. They crowed over us horrid."
+
+"Couldn't you have appealed to an umpire or--or something?"
+
+"We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and look
+happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr Mohr. I
+spent three days huntin' 'em in the snow, but they went off on our
+remounts about twenty mile that night."
+
+"Do you always do this sham-fight business?" I asked.
+
+"Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that a
+fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week's pay isn't
+so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the long run,
+it's like whist on a P. & O. It comes out fairly level if you play long
+enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present--say, when a Line
+regiment's out on the 'heef,' and signifies that it's ready to abide by
+the rules of the game. You mustn't take head-money from a Line regiment
+in an Area unless it says that it'll play you; but, after a week or two,
+those clever Linesmen always think they see a chance of making a pot, and
+send in their compliments to the nearest I.G. Then the fun begins. We
+caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years ago in
+Ireland--caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had just
+moved in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march in
+fourteen hours, and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to
+ground like a badger--I _will_ say those Line regiments can dig--but we
+got out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to
+get its baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that
+some Sappers had made for experimental purposes (_they_ were rather
+stuffy about it) on its line of retreat, while we lay up in the mountains
+and signalled for the A.C. of those parts."
+
+"Who's an A.C.?" I asked.
+
+"The Adjustment Committee--the umpires of the Military Areas. They're a
+set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the purpose, but they
+occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our dispositions,
+and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and that we were
+entitled to our full pound of flesh--head-money for one whole regiment,
+with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line rates this worked
+out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not bad!"
+
+"But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their patent
+bridge to pieces," Devine interpolated. "That was a swindle."
+
+"That's true," the Boy went on, "but the Adjustment Committee gave our
+helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred to hear."
+
+"But isn't there a lot of unfairness in this head-money system?" I asked.
+
+"Can't have everything perfect," said the Boy. "Head-money is an attempt
+at payment by results, and it gives the men a direct interest in their
+job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C. will disallow both
+sides' claim, but there's always the chance of bringing off a coup."
+
+"Do all regiments do it?"
+
+"Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence, not
+to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It isn't
+supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than anyone.
+Why, the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at Aldershot or
+Salisbury."
+
+"Head-money's a national institution--like betting," said Burgard.
+
+"I should say it was," said Pigeon suddenly. "I was roped in the other
+day as an Adjustment Committee by the Kemptown Board School. I was riding
+under the Brighton racecourse, and I heard the whistle goin' for
+umpire--the regulation, two longs and two shorts. I didn't take any
+notice till an infant about a yard high jumped up from a furze-patch and
+shouted: 'Guard! Guard! Come 'ere! I want you _per_fessionally. Alf says
+'e ain't outflanked. Ain't 'e a liar? Come an' look 'ow I've posted my
+men.' You bet I looked. The young demon trotted by my stirrup and showed
+me his whole army (twenty of 'em) laid out under cover as nicely as you
+please round a cowhouse in a hollow. He kept on shouting: 'I've drew Alf
+into there. 'Is persition ain't tenable. Say it ain't tenable, Guard!' I
+rode round the position, and Alf with his army came out of his cowhouse
+an' sat on the roof and protested like a--like a Militia Colonel; but the
+facts were in favour of my friend and I umpired according. Well, Alf
+abode by my decision. I explained it to him at length, and he solemnly
+paid up his head-money--farthing points if you please."
+
+"Did they pay you umpire's fee?" said Kyd. "I
+umpired a whole afternoon once for a village school at home, and they
+stood me a bottle of hot ginger beer."
+
+"I compromised on a halfpenny--a sticky one--or I'd have hurt their
+feelings," said Pigeon gravely. "But I gave 'em sixpence back."
+
+"How were they manoeuvring and what with?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, by whistle and hand-signal. They had the dummy Board School guns and
+flags for positions, but they were rushing their attack much too quick
+for that open country. I told 'em so, and they admitted it."
+
+"But who taught 'em?" I said.
+
+"They had learned in their schools, of course, like the rest of us. They
+were all of 'em over ten; and squad-drill begins when they're eight. They
+knew their company-drill a heap better than they knew their King's
+English."
+
+"How much drill do the boys put in?" I asked.
+
+"All boys begin physical drill to music in the Board Schools when they're
+six; squad-drill, one hour a week, when they're eight; company-drill when
+they're ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between ten and twelve they
+get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle at twelve and record
+their first target-score at thirteen. That's what the Code lays down. But
+it's worked very loosely so long as a boy comes up to the standard of his
+age."
+
+"In Canada we don't need your physical drill. We're born fit," said
+Pigeon, "and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of your
+twelve-year-olds."
+
+"I may as well explain," said the Boy, "that the Dove is our 'swop'
+officer. He's an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when he's at home. An
+I. G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a Canadian or
+Australian or African Guard Corps. We've had a year of our Dove, an' we
+shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride. Meantime,
+Morten, our 'swop' in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck humble. When
+Pij. goes we shall swop Kyd, who's next on the roster, for a Cornstalk or
+a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can't attend First Camp, as
+we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First Musketry
+certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and the boys
+usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they've been to
+their little private camps and Boys' Fresh Air Camps and public school
+picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the young
+drafts all meet--generally at Aldershot in this part of the world. First
+Camp lasts a week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for
+vaccination and worked lightly in brigades with lots of blank cartridge.
+Second Camp--that's for the fifteen to eighteen-year-olds--lasts ten days
+or a fortnight, and that includes a final medical examination. Men don't
+like to be chucked out on medical certificates much--nowadays. I assure
+you Second Camp, at Salisbury, say, is an experience for a young I.G.
+officer. We're told off to 'em in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys isn't
+in it. The kids are apt to think 'emselves soldiers, and we have to take
+the edge off 'em with lots of picquet-work and night attacks."
+
+"And what happens after Second Camp?"
+
+"It's hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically, the
+boys needn't show up for the next three or four years after Second Camp.
+They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the young
+doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that sticks to
+the minimum of camp--ten days per annum. That gives him a holiday in the
+open air, and now that men have taken to endowing their Volunteer
+drill-halls with baths and libraries, he finds, if he can't run to a
+club, that his own drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He meets men
+there who'll be useful to him later, and he keeps himself in touch with
+what's going on while he's studying for his profession. The
+town-birds--such as the chemist's assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic,
+electrician, and so forth--generally put in for their town Volunteer
+corps as soon as they begin to walk out with the girls. They like takin'
+their true-loves to our restaurants. Look yonder!" I followed his gaze,
+and saw across the room a man and a maid at a far table, forgetting in
+each other's eyes the good food on their plates.
+
+"So it is," said I. "Go ahead."
+
+"Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out to
+attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of 'em on
+condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their county.
+Under the new county qualifications--birth or three years' residence--that
+means a great deal in League matches, and the same in County cricket."
+
+"By Jove, that's a good notion," I cried. "Who invented it?"
+
+"C. B. Fry--long ago. He said in his paper, that County cricket and
+County volunteering ought to be on the same footing--unpaid and genuine.
+'No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer' was his watchword. There
+was a row among the pro's at first, but C. B. won, and later the League
+had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when
+County matches began to be _pukka_ county, _plus_ inter-regimental,
+affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the
+regiments supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in cash.
+It's all unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call 'em, can
+take their pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten guineas
+entrance-fee, and get it too, from the young bloods that want to shine in
+the arena. I told you we catered for all tastes. Now, as regards the Line
+proper, I believe the young artisan and mechanic puts in for that before
+he marries. He likes the two-months' 'heef' in his first year, and five
+bob a week is something to go on with between times."
+
+"Do they follow their trade while they're in the Line?" I demanded.
+
+"Why not? How many well-paid artisans work more than four days a week
+anyhow? Remember a Linesman hasn't to be drilled in your sense of the
+word. He must have had at least eight years' grounding in that, as well
+as two or three years in his Volunteer battalion. He can sleep where he
+pleases. He can't leave town-limits without reporting himself, of course,
+but he can get leave if he wants it. He's on duty two days in the week as
+a rule, and he's liable to be invited out for garrison duty down the
+Mediterranean, but his benefit societies will insure him against that.
+I'll tell you about that later. If it's a hard winter and trade's slack,
+a lot of the bachelors are taken into the I. G. barracks (while the I. G.
+is out on the heef) for theoretical instruction. Oh, I assure you the
+Line hasn't half a bad time of it."
+
+"Amazing!" I murmured. "And what about the others?"
+
+"The Volunteers? Observe the beauty of our system. We're a free people.
+We get up and slay the man who says we aren't. But as a little detail we
+never mention, if we don't volunteer in some corps or another--as
+combatants if we're fit, as non-combatants, if we ain't--till we're
+thirty-five we don't vote, and we don't get poor-relief, and the women
+don't love us."
+
+"Oh, that's the compulsion of it?" said I.
+
+Bayley inclined his head gravely. "That, Sir, is the compulsion. We voted
+the legal part of it ourselves in a fit of panic, and we have not yet
+rescinded our resolution. The women attend to the unofficial penalties.
+But being free British citizens----"
+
+"_And_ snobs," put in Pigeon.
+"The point is well taken, Pij------we have supplied ourselves with every
+sort and shape and make of Volunteer corps that you can imagine, and we've
+mixed the whole show up with our Odd Fellows and our I.O.G.T.'s and our
+Buffaloes, and our Burkes and our Debretts, not to mention Leagues and
+Athletic Clubs, till you can't tell t'other from which. You remember the
+young pup who used to look on soldiering as a favour done to his
+ungrateful country--the gun-poking, ferret-pettin', landed gentleman's
+offspring--the suckin' Facey Romford? Well, he generally joins a Foreign
+Service Corps when he leaves college."
+
+"Can Volunteers go foreign, then?"
+
+"Can't they just, if their C.O. _or_ his wife has influence! The Armity
+will always send a well-connected F.S. corps out to help a guard battalion
+in a small campaign. Otherwise F.S. corps make their own arrangements
+about camps. You see, the Military Areas are always open. They can 'heef'
+there (and gamble on head-money) as long as their finances run to it; or
+they can apply to do sea-time in the ships. It's a cheap way for a young
+man to see the world, and if he's any good he can try to get into the
+Guard later."
+
+"The main point," said Pigeon, "is that F.S. corps are 'swagger'--the
+correct thing. It 'ud never do to be drawn for the Militia, don't you
+know," he drawled, trying to render the English voice.
+
+"That's what happens to a chap who doesn't volunteer," said Bayley. "Well,
+after the F.S. corps (we've about forty of 'em) come our territorial
+Volunteer battalions, and a man who can't suit himself somewhere among 'em
+must be a shade difficult. We've got those 'League' corps I was talking
+about; and those studious corps that just scrape through their ten days'
+camp; and we've crack corps of highly-paid mechanics who can afford a two
+months' 'heef' in an interesting Area every other year; and we've senior
+and junior scientific corps of earnest boilermakers and fitters and
+engineers who read papers on high explosives, and do their 'heefing' in a
+wet picket-boat--mine-droppin'--at the ports. Then we've heavy artillery--
+recruited from the big manufacturing towns and ship-building yards--and
+ferocious hard-ridin' Yeomanry (they _can_ ride--now), genteel, semi-
+genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till you come to the
+Home Defence Establishment--the young chaps knocked out under medical
+certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit behind hedges or
+clean up camp, and the old was-birds who've served their time but don't
+care to drop out of the fun of the yearly camps and the halls. They call
+'emselves veterans and do fancy-shooting at Bisley, but, between you and
+me, they're mostly Fresh Air Benefit Clubs. They contribute to the
+Volunteer journals and tell the Guard that it's no good. But I like 'em. I
+shall be one of 'em some day--a copper-nosed was-bird! ... So you see
+we're mixed to a degree on the Volunteer side."
+
+"It sounds that way," I ventured.
+
+"You've overdone it, Bayley," said Devine. "You've missed our one strong
+point." He turned to me and continued: "It's embarkation. The Volunteers
+may be as mixed as the Colonel says, but they _are_ trained to go down to
+the sea in ships. You ought to see a big Bank-Holiday roll-out. We suspend
+most of the usual railway traffic and turn on the military time-table--say
+on Friday at midnight. By 4 A.M. the trains are running from every big
+centre in England to the nearest port at two-minute intervals. As a rule,
+the Armity meets us at the other end with shipping of sorts--fleet
+reserves or regular men of war or hulks--anything you can stick a
+gang-plank to. We pile the men on to the troop-decks, stack the rifles in
+the racks, send down the sea-kit, steam about for a few hours, and land
+'em somewhere. It's a good notion, because our army to be any use _must_
+be an army of embarkation. Why, last Whit Monday we had--how many were
+down at the dock-edge in the first eight hours? Kyd, you're the Volunteer
+enthusiast last from school."
+
+"In the first ten hours over a hundred and eighteen thousand," said Kyd
+across the table, "with thirty-six thousand actually put in and taken out
+of ship. In the whole thirty-six hours we had close on ninety thousand men
+on the water and a hundred and thirty-three thousand on the quays fallen
+in with their sea-kit."
+
+"That must have been a sight," I said.
+
+"One didn't notice it much. It was scattered between Chatham, Dover,
+Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, and so on, merely to give the
+inland men a chance to get rid of their breakfasts. We don't like to
+concentrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the
+Continent jumpy. Otherwise," said Kyd, "I believe we could get two hundred
+thousand men, with their kits, away on one tide."
+
+"What d'you want with so many?" I asked.
+
+"_We_ don't want one of 'em; but the Continent used to point out, every
+time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier than to raid
+England if they got command of the sea for a week. After a few years some
+genius discovered that it cut both ways, an' there was no reason why we,
+who are supposed to command the sea and own a few ships, should not
+organise our little raids in case of need. The notion caught on among the
+Volunteers--they were getting rather sick of manoeuvres on dry land--and
+since then we haven't heard so much about raids from the Continent," said
+Bayley.
+
+"It's the offensive-defensive," said Verschoyle, "that they talk so much
+about. We learned it _all_ from the Continent--bless 'em! They insisted on
+it so."
+
+"No, we learned it from the Fleet," said Devine. "The Mediterranean Fleet
+landed ten thousand marines and sailors, with guns, in twenty minutes once
+at manoeuvres. That was long ago. I've seen the Fleet Reserve and a few
+paddle-steamers, hired for the day, land twenty-five thousand Volunteers
+at Bantry in four hours--half the men sea-sick too. You've no notion what
+a difference that sort of manoeuvre makes in the calculations of our
+friends on the mainland. The Continent knows what invasion means. It's
+like dealing with a man whose nerve has been shaken. It doesn't cost much
+after all, and it makes us better friends with the great European family.
+We're now as thick as thieves."
+
+"Where does the Imperial Guard come in in all this gorgeousness?" I asked.
+"You're unusual modest about yourselves."
+
+"As a matter of fact, we're supposed to go out and stay out. We're the
+permanently mobilised lot. I don't think there are more than eight I.G.
+battalions in England now. We're a hundred battalions all told. Mostly on
+the 'heef' in India, Africa and so forth."
+
+"A hundred thousand. Isn't that small allowance?" I suggested.
+
+"You think so? One hundred thousand _men_, without a single case of
+venereal, and an average sick list of two per cent, permanently on a war
+footing? Well, perhaps you're right, but it's a useful little force to
+begin with while the others are getting ready. There's the native Indian
+Army also, which isn't a broken reed, and, since 'no Volunteer no Vote' is
+the rule throughout the Empire, you will find a few men in Canada,
+Australia, and elsewhere, that are fairly hefty in their class."
+
+"But a hundred thousand isn't enough for garrison duty," I persisted.
+
+"A hundred thousand _sound_ men, not sick boys, go quite a way," said
+Pigeon.
+
+"We expect the Line to garrison the Mediterranean Ports and thereabouts,"
+said Bayley. "Don't sneer at the mechanic. He's deuced good stuff. He
+isn't rudely ordered out, because this ain't a military despotism, and we
+have to consider people's feelings. The Armity usually brackets three Line
+regiments together, and calls for men for six months or a year for Malta,
+Gib, or elsewhere, at a bob a day. Three battalions will give you nearly a
+whole battalion of bachelors between 'em. You fill up deficiencies with a
+call on the territorial Volunteer battalion, and away you go with what we
+call a Ports battalion. What's astonishing in that? Remember that in this
+country, where fifty per cent of the able-bodied males have got a pretty
+fair notion of soldiering, and, which is more, have all camped out in the
+open, you wake up the spirit of adventure in the young."
+
+"Not much adventure at Malta, Gib, or Cyprus," I retorted. "Don't they get
+sick of it?"
+
+"But you don't realise that we treat 'em rather differently from the
+soldier of the past. You ought to go and see a Ports battalion drawn from
+a manufacturing centre growin' vines in Cyprus in its shirt sleeves; and
+at Gib, and Malta, of course, the battalions are working with the Fleet
+half the time."
+
+"It seems to me," I said angrily, "you are knocking _esprit de corps_ on
+the head with all this Army-Navy jumble. It's as bad as----"
+
+"I know what you're going to say. As bad as what Kitchener used to do when
+he believed that a thousand details picked up on the veldt were as good as
+a column of two regiments. In the old days, when drill was a sort of holy
+sacred art learned in old age, you'd be quite right. But remember _our_
+chaps are broke to drill from childhood, and the theory we work on is that
+a thousand trained Englishmen ought to be about as good as another
+thousand trained Englishmen. We've enlarged our horizon, that's all. Some
+day the Army and the Navy will be interchangeable."
+
+"You've enlarged it enough to fall out of, I think. Now where in all this
+mess of compulsory Volunteers----?"
+
+"My dear boy, there's no compulsion. You've _got_ to be drilled when
+you're a child, same as you've got to learn to read, and if you don't
+pretend to serve in some corps or other till you're thirty-five or
+medically chucked you rank with lunatics, women, and minors. That's fair
+enough."
+
+"Compulsory conscripts," I continued. "Where, as I was going to say, does
+the Militia come in?"
+
+"As I have said--for the men who can't afford volunteering. The Militia is
+recruited by ballot--pretty comprehensively too. Volunteers are exempt,
+but most men not otherwise accounted for are bagged by the Militia. They
+have to put in a minimum three weeks' camp every other year, and they get
+fifteen bob a week and their keep when they're at it, and some sort of a
+yearly fee, I've forgotten how much. 'Tisn't a showy service, but it's
+very useful. It keeps the mass of the men between twenty-five, say, and
+thirty-five moderately fit, and gives the Armity an excuse for having more
+equipment ready--in case of emergencies."
+
+"I don't think you're quite fair on the Militia," drawled Verschoyle.
+"They're better than we give 'em credit for. Don't you remember the Middle
+Moor Collieries' strike?"
+
+"Tell me," I said quickly. Evidently the others knew.
+
+"We-ell, it was no end of a pitman's strike about eight years ago. There
+were twenty-five thousand men involved--Militia, of course. At the end of
+the first month--October--when things were looking rather blue, one of
+those clever Labour leaders got hold of the Militia Act and discovered
+that any Militia regiment could, by a two-thirds vote, go on 'heef' in a
+Military Area in addition to its usual biennial camp. Two-and-twenty
+battalions of Geordies solemnly applied, and they were turned loose into
+the Irish and Scotch Areas under an I.G. Brigadier who had private
+instructions to knock clinkers out of 'em. But the pitman is a strong and
+agile bird. He throve on snowdrifts and entrenching and draggin' guns
+through heather. _He_ was being fed and clothed for nothing, besides
+having a chance of making head-money, and his strike-pay was going clear
+to his wife and family. You see? Wily man. But wachtabittje! When that
+'heef' finished in December the strike was still on. _Then_ that same
+Labour leader found out, from the same Act, that if at any time more than
+thirty or forty men of a Militia regiment wished to volunteer to do
+sea-time and study big guns in the Fleet they were in no wise to be
+discouraged, but were to be taken on as opportunity offered and paid a bob
+a day. Accordingly, about January, Geordie began volunteering for sea-
+time--seven and eight hundred men out of each regiment. Anyhow, it made up
+seventeen thousand men! It was a splendid chance and the Armity jumped at
+it. The Home and Channel Fleets and the North Sea and Cruiser Squadrons
+were strengthened with lame ducks from the Fleet Reserve, and between 'em
+with a little stretching and pushing they accommodated all of that young
+division."
+
+"Yes, but you've forgotten how we lied to the Continent about it. All
+Europe wanted to know what the dooce we were at," said Boy Bayley, "and
+the wretched Cabinet had to stump the country in the depths of winter
+explaining our new system of poor-relief. I beg your pardon, Verschoyle."
+
+"The Armity improvised naval manoeuvres between Gib and Land's End, with
+frequent coalings and landings; ending in a cruise round England that
+fairly paralysed the pitmen. The first day out they wanted the fleet
+stopped while they went ashore and killed their Labour leader, but they
+couldn't be obliged. Then they wanted to mutiny over the coaling--it was
+too like their own job. Oh, they had a lordly timel They came back--the
+combined Fleets anchored off Hull--with a nautical hitch to their
+breeches. They'd had a free fight at Gib with the Ports battalion there;
+they cleared out the town of Lagos; and they'd fought a pitched battle
+with the dockyard-mateys at Devonport. So they'd done 'emselves well, but
+they didn't want any more military life for a bit."
+
+"And the strike?"
+
+"That ended, all right enough, when the strike-money came to an end. The
+pit-owners were furious. They said the Armity had wilfully prolonged the
+strike, and asked questions in the House. The Armity said that they had
+taken advantage of the crisis to put a six months' polish on fifteen
+thousand fine young men, and if the masters cared to come out on the same
+terms they'd be happy to do the same by them."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Palaver done set," said Bayley. "Everybody laughed."
+
+"I don't quite understand about this sea-time business," I said. "Is the
+Fleet open to take any regiment aboard?"
+
+"Rather. The I.G. must, the Line can, the Militia may, and the Volunteers
+do put in sea-time. The Coast Volunteers began it, and the fashion is
+spreading inland. Under certain circumstances, as Verschoyle told you, a
+Volunteer or Militia regiment can vote whether it 'heefs' wet or dry. If
+it votes wet and has influence (like some F.S. corps), it can sneak into
+the Channel or the Home Fleet and do a cruise round England or to Madeira
+or the North Sea. The regiment, of course, is distributed among the ships,
+and the Fleet dry nurse 'em. It rather breaks up shore discipline, but it
+gives the inland men a bit of experience, and, of course, it gives us a
+fairish supply of men behind the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet.
+Some coast corps make a specialty of it, and compete for embarking and
+disembarking records. I believe some of the Tyneside engineerin' corps put
+ten per cent of their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there's no
+need to stay talking here all the afternoon. Come and see the I.G. in his
+lair--the miserable conscript driven up to the colours at the point of the
+bayonet."
+
+PART II
+
+The great hall was emptying apace as the clocks struck two, and we passed
+out through double doors into a huge reading and smoking room, blue with
+tobacco and buzzing with voices.
+
+"We're quieter as a rule," said the Boy. "But we're filling up vacancies
+to-day. Hence the anxious faces of the Line and Militia. Look!" There were
+four tables against the walls, and at each stood a crowd of uniforms. The
+centres of disturbance were noncommissioned officers who, seated, growled
+and wrote down names.
+
+"Come to my table," said Burgard. "Well, Purvis, have you ear-marked our
+little lot?"
+
+"I've been tellin' 'em for the last hour we've only twenty-three
+vacancies," was the sergeant's answer. "I've taken nearly fifty for
+Trials, and this is what's left." Burgard smiled.
+
+"I'm very sorry," he said to the crowd, "but C Company's full."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir," said a man, "but wouldn't sea-time count in my favour?
+I've put in three months with the Fleet. Small quick-firers, Sir? Company
+guns? Any sort of light machinery?"
+
+"Come away," said a voice behind. "They've chucked the best farrier
+between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they'll take _you_ an' your potty quick-
+firers?"
+
+The speaker turned on his heel and swore.
+
+"Oh, damn the Guard, by all means!" said Sergeant Purvis, collecting his
+papers. "D'you suppose it's any pleasure to _me_ to reject chaps of your
+build and make? Vote us a second Guard battalion and we'll accommodate
+you. Now, you can come into Schools and watch Trials if you like."
+
+Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily. I
+followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a riding-
+school, under whose roof the voices of the few hundred assembled wandered
+in lost echoes.
+
+"I'll leave you, if you don't mind," said Burgard. "Company officers
+aren't supposed to assist at these games. Here, Matthews!" He called to a
+private and put me in his charge.
+
+In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of
+stripped men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.
+
+"These are our crowd," said Matthews. "They've been vetted, an' we're
+putting 'em through their paces."
+
+"They don't look a bit like raw material," I said.
+
+"No, we don't use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the
+Guard," Matthews replied. "Life's too short."
+
+Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was
+physical drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his hand
+over some man's heart.
+
+Six or seven, I noticed, were sent back at this stage of the game. Then a
+cry went up from a group of privates standing near the line of contorted
+figures. "White, Purvis, white! Number Nine is spitting white!"
+
+"I know it," said Purvis. "Don't you worry."
+
+"Unfair!" murmured the man who understood quick-firers. "If I couldn't
+shape better than that I'd hire myself out to wheel a perambulator. He's
+cooked."
+
+"Nah," said the intent Matthews. "He'll answer to a month's training like
+a horse. It's only suet. _You've_ been training for this, haven't you?"
+
+"Look at me," said the man simply.
+
+"Yes. You're overtrained," was Matthews' comment. "The Guard isn't a
+circus."
+
+"Guns!" roared Purvis, as the men broke off and panted. "Number off from
+the right. Fourteen is one, three is two, eleven's three, twenty and
+thirty-nine are four and five, and five is six." He was giving them their
+numbers at the guns as they struggled into their uniforms. In like manner
+he told off three other guncrews, and the remainder left at the double, to
+return through the further doors with four light quick-firers jerking at
+the end of man-ropes.
+
+"Knock down and assemble against time!" Purvis called.
+
+The audience closed in a little as the crews flung themselves on the guns,
+which melted, wheel by wheel, beneath their touch.
+
+"I've never seen anything like this," I whispered.
+
+"Huh!" said Matthews scornfully. "They're always doin' it in the Line and
+Militia drill-halls. It's only circus-work."
+
+The guns were assembled again and some one called the time. Then followed
+ten minutes of the quickest firing and feeding with dummy cartridges that
+was ever given man to behold.
+
+"They look as if they might amount to something--this draft," said
+Matthews softly.
+
+"What might you teach 'em after this, then?" I asked.
+
+"To be Guard," said Matthews.
+
+"Spurs," cried Purvis, as the guns disappeared through the doors into the
+stables. Each man plucked at his sleeve, and drew up first one heel and
+then the other.
+
+"What the deuce are they doing?" I asked.
+
+"This," said Matthews. He put his hand to a ticket-pocket inside his
+regulation cuff, showed me two very small black box-spurs: drawing up a
+gaitered foot, he snapped them into the box in the heel, and when I had
+inspected snapped them out again.
+
+"That's all the spur you really need," he said.
+
+Then horses were trotted out into the school barebacked, and the neophytes
+were told to ride.
+
+Evidently the beasts knew the game and enjoyed it, for they would not make
+it easy for the men.
+
+A heap of saddlery was thrown in a corner, and from this each man, as he
+captured his mount, made shift to draw proper equipment, while the
+audience laughed, derided, or called the horses towards them.
+
+It was, most literally, wild horseplay, and by the time it was finished
+the recruits and the company were weak with fatigue and laughter.
+
+"That'll do," said Purvis, while the men rocked in their saddles. "I don't
+see any particular odds between any of you. C Company! Does anybody here
+know anything against any of these men?"
+
+"That's a bit of the Regulations," Matthews whispered. "Just like
+forbiddin' the banns in church. Really, it was all settled long ago when
+the names first came up."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"You'll take 'em as they stand?"
+
+There was a grunt of assent.
+
+"Very good. There's forty men for twenty-three billets." He turned to the
+sweating horsemen. "I must put you into the Hat."
+
+With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not follow,
+an enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which numbers and
+blanks were dropped, and the whole was handed round to the riders by a
+private, evidently the joker of C Company.
+
+Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished
+receptacle (sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the final
+drawing. He was telling me how his company had once stolen the Sacred
+Article used by D Company for this purpose and of the riot that followed,
+when through the west door of the schools entered a fresh detachment of
+stripped men, and the arena was flooded with another company.
+
+Said Matthews as we withdrew, "Each company does Trials their own way. B
+Company is all for teaching men how to cook and camp. D Company keeps 'em
+to horse-work mostly. We call D the circus-riders and B the cooks. They
+call us the Gunners."
+
+"An' you've rejected _me_," said the man who had done sea-time, pushing
+out before us. "The Army's goin' to the dogs."
+
+I stood in the corridor looking for Burgard.
+
+"Come up to my room and have a smoke," said Matthews, private of the
+Imperial Guard.
+
+We climbed two flights of stone stairs ere we reached an immense landing
+flanked with numbered doors.
+
+Matthews pressed a spring-latch and led me into a little cabin-like room.
+The cot was a standing bunk, with drawers beneath. On the bed lay a
+brilliant blanket; by the bed head was an electric light and a shelf of
+books: a writing table stood in the window, and I dropped into a low
+wicker chair.
+
+"This is a cut above subaltern's quarters," I said, surveying the photos,
+the dhurri on the floor, the rifle in its rack, the field-kit hung up
+behind the door, and the knicknacks on the walls.
+
+"The Line bachelors use 'em while we're away; but they're nice to come
+back to after 'heef.'" Matthews passed me his cigarette-case.
+
+"Where have you 'heefed'?" I said.
+
+"In Scotland, Central Australia, and North-Eastern Rhodesia and the North-
+West Indian front."
+
+"What's your service?"
+
+"Four years. I'll have to go in a year. I got in when I was twenty-two--by
+a fluke--from the Militia direct--on Trials."
+
+"Trials like those we just saw?"
+
+"Not so severe. There was less competition then. I hoped to get my
+stripes, but there's no chance."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I haven't the knack of handling men. Purvis let me have a half-company
+for a month in Rhodesia--over towards Lake N'Garni. I couldn't work 'em
+properly. It's a gift."
+
+"Do colour-sergeants handle half-companies with you?"
+
+"They can command 'em on the 'heef.' We've only four company officers--
+Burgard, Luttrell, Kyd, and Harrison. Pigeon's our swop, and he's in
+charge of the ponies. Burgard got his company on the 'heef,' You see
+Burgard had been a lieutenant in the Line, but he came into the Guards on
+Trials like the men. _He_ could command. They tried him in India with a
+wing of the battalion for three months. He did well so he got his company.
+That's what made me hopeful. But it's a gift, you see--managing men--and
+so I'm only a senior private. They let ten per cent of us stay on for two
+years extra after our three are finished--to polish the others."
+
+"Aren't you even a corporal?"
+
+"We haven't corporals, or lances for that matter, in the Guard. As a
+senior private I'd take twenty men into action; but one Guard don't tell
+another how to clean himself. You've learned that before you apply. ...
+Come in!"
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Burgard entered, removing his cap.
+
+"I thought you'd be here," he said, as Matthews vacated the other chair
+and sat on the bed. "Well, has Matthews told you all about it? How did our
+Trials go, Matthews?"
+
+"Forty names in the Hat, Sir, at the finish. They'll make a fairish lot.
+Their gun-tricks weren't bad; but D company has taken the best horsemen--
+as usual."
+
+"Oh, I'll attend to that on 'heef.' Give me a man who can handle company-
+guns and I'll engage to make him a horse-master. D company will end by
+thinkin' 'emselves Captain Pigeon's private cavalry some day."
+
+I had never heard a private and a captain talking after this fashion, and
+my face must have betrayed my astonishment, for Burgard said:
+
+"These are not our parade manners. In our rooms, as we say in the Guard,
+all men are men. Outside we are officers and men."
+
+"I begin to see," I stammered. "Matthews was telling me that sergeants
+handled half-companies and rose from the ranks--and I don't see that there
+are any lieutenants--and your companies appear to be two hundred and fifty
+strong. It's a shade confusing to the layman."
+
+Burgard leaned forward didactically. "The Regulations lay down that every
+man's capacity for command must be tested to the uttermost. We construe
+that very literally when we're on the 'heef.' F'r instance, any man can
+apply to take the command next above him, and if a man's too shy to ask,
+his company officer must see that he gets his chance. A sergeant is given
+a wing of the battalion to play with for three weeks--a month, or six
+weeks--according to his capacity, and turned adrift in an Area to make his
+own arrangements. That's what Areas are for--and to experiment in. A good
+gunner--a private very often--has all four company-guns to handle through
+a week's fight, acting for the time as the major. Majors of Guard
+battalions (Verschoyle's our major) are supposed to be responsible for the
+guns, by the way. There's nothing to prevent any man who has the gift
+working his way up to the experimental command of the battalion on 'heef.'
+Purvis, my colour-sergeant, commanded the battalion for three months at
+the back of Coolgardie, an' very well he did it. Bayley 'verted to company
+officer for the time being an' took Harrison's company, and Harrison came
+over to me as my colour-sergeant. D'you see? Well, Purvis is down for a
+commission when there's a vacancy. He's been thoroughly tested, and we all
+like him. Two other sergeants have passed that three months' trial in the
+same way (just as second mates go up for extra master's certificate). They
+have E.C. after their names in the Army List. That shows they're capable
+of taking command in event of war. The result of our system is that you
+could knock out every single officer of a Guard battalion early in the
+day, and the wheels 'ud still go forward, _not_ merely round. We're
+allowed to fill up half our commissioned list from the ranks direct. _Now_
+d'you see why there's such a rush to get into a Guard battalion?"
+
+"Indeed I do. Have you commanded the regiment experimentally?"
+
+"Oh, time and again," Burgard laughed. "We've all had our E.C. turn."
+
+"Doesn't the chopping and changing upset the men?"
+
+"It takes something to upset the Guard. Besides, they're all in the game
+together. They give each other a fair show you may be sure."
+
+"That's true," said Matthews. "When I went to N'Gami with my--with the
+half-company," he sighed, "they helped me all they knew. But it's a gift--
+handling men. I found _that_ out,"
+
+"I know you did," said Burgard softly. "But you found it out in time,
+which is the great thing. You see," he turned to me, "with our limited
+strength we can't afford to have a single man who isn't more than up to
+any duty--in reason. Don't you be led away by what you saw at Trials just
+now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the monkey-tricks of the
+trade--such as mounting and dismounting guns, and making fancy scores and
+doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up before they can
+pull their weight in the boat."
+
+There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it and
+smiled.
+
+"Bayley wants to know if you'd care to come with us to the Park and see
+the kids. It's only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the
+taxpayer.... Very good. If you'll press the button we'll try to do the
+rest."
+
+He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a
+platform, not unlike a ship's bridge, immediately above the barrelled
+glass roof of the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could see B
+Company far below watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard unlocked a
+glass-fronted fire-alarm arrangement flanked with dials and speaking-
+tubes, and bade me press the centre button.
+
+Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he had
+not caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the
+multiplied purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished like
+minnows before a shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on staircases
+I heard the neighing of many horses.
+
+"What in the world have I done?" I gasped.
+
+"Turned out the Guard--horse, foot, and guns!"
+
+A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:
+
+"Yes, Sir.... _What_, Sir?... I never heard they said that," he laughed,
+"but it would be just like 'em. In an hour and a half? Yes, Sir. Opposite
+the Statue? Yes, Sir."
+
+He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.
+
+"Bayley's playing up for you. Now you'll see some fun."
+
+"Who's going to catch it?" I demanded.
+
+"Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that
+it's _en  �tat de partir_, and Bayley's going to take him at his word and
+have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their
+drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the mansard
+roof!"
+
+He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the building
+to the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the flagstaff that
+crowned it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black storm-cone followed.
+
+"Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir," said Burgard down the
+telephone. "Now we'd better go to the riding-school. The battalion falls
+in there. I have to change, but you're free of the corps. Go anywhere. Ask
+anything. In another ten minutes we're off."
+
+I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of houses
+and the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open windows of
+this dial-dotted eyrie.
+
+When I descended the halls and corridors were as hushed as they had been
+noisy, and my feet echoed down the broad tiled staircases. On the third
+floor, Matthews, gaitered and armed, overtook me smiling.
+
+"I thought you might want a guide," said he. "We've five minutes yet," and
+piloted me to the sunsplashed gloom of the riding-school. Three companies
+were in close order on the tan. They moved out at a whistle, and as I
+followed in their rear I was overtaken by Pigeon on a rough black mare.
+
+"Wait a bit," he said, "till the horses are all out of stables, and come
+with us. D Company is the only one mounted just now. We do it to amuse the
+taxpayer," he explained, above the noise of horses on the tan.
+
+"Where are the guns?" I asked, as the mare lipped my coat-collar.
+
+"Gone ahead long ago. They come out of their own door at the back of
+barracks. We don't haul guns through traffic more than we can help.... If
+Belinda breathes down your neck smack her. She'll be quiet in the streets.
+She loves lookin' into the shop-windows."
+
+The mounted company clattered through vaulted concrete corridors in the
+wake of the main body, and filed out into the crowded streets.
+
+When I looked at the townsfolk on the pavement, or in the double-decked
+trams, I saw that the bulk of them saluted, not grudgingly or of
+necessity, but in a light-hearted, even flippant fashion.
+
+"Those are Line and Militia men," said Pigeon. "That old chap in the
+top-hat by the lamp-post is an ex-Guardee. That's why he's saluting in
+slow-time. No, there's no regulation governing these things, but we've all
+fallen into the way of it somehow. Steady, mare!"
+
+"I don't know whether I care about this aggressive militarism," I began,
+when the company halted, and Belinda almost knocked me down. Looking
+forward I saw the badged cuff of a policeman upraised at a crossing, his
+back towards us.
+
+"Horrid aggressive, ain't we?" said Pigeon with a chuckle when we moved on
+again and overtook the main body. Here I caught the strains of the band,
+which Pigeon told me did not accompany the battalion on 'heef,' but lived
+in barracks and made much money by playing at parties in town.
+
+"If we want anything more than drums and fifes on 'heef' we sing," said
+Pigeon. "Singin' helps the wind."
+
+I rejoiced to the marrow of my bones thus to be borne along on billows of
+surging music among magnificent men, in sunlight, through a crowded town
+whose people, I could feel, regarded us with comradeship, affection--and
+more.
+
+"By Jove," I said at last, watching the eyes about us, "these people are
+looking us over as if we were horses."
+
+"Why not? They know the game."
+
+The eyes on the pavement, in the trams, the cabs, at the upper windows,
+swept our lines back and forth with a weighed intensity of regard which at
+first seemed altogether new to me, till I recalled just such eyes, a
+thousand of them, at manoeuvres in the Channel when one crowded battleship
+drew past its sister at biscuit-toss range. Then I stared at the ground,
+overborne by those considering eyes.
+
+Suddenly the music changed to the wail of the Dead March in "Saul," and
+once more--we were crossing a large square--the regiment halted.
+
+"Damn!" said Pigeon, glancing behind him at the mounted company. "I
+believe they save up their Saturday corpses on purpose."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"A dead Volunteer. We must play him through." Again I looked forward and
+saw the top of a hearse, followed by two mourning-coaches, boring directly
+up the halted regiment, which opened out company by company to let it
+through.
+
+"But they've got the whole blessed square to funeralise in!" I exclaimed.
+"Why don't they go round?"
+
+"Not so!" Pigeon replied. "In this city it's the Volunteer's perquisite to
+be played through by any corps he happens to meet on his way to the
+cemetery. And they make the most of it. You'll see."
+
+I heard the order, "Rest on your arms," run before the poor little
+procession as the men opened out. The driver pulled the black Flanders
+beasts into a more than funeral crawl, and in the first mourning-coach I
+saw the tearful face of a fat woman (his mother, doubtless), a
+handkerchief pressed to one eye, but the other rolling vigilantly, alight
+with proper pride. Last came a knot of uniformed men--privates, I took it
+--of the dead one's corps.
+
+Said a man in the crowd beside us to the girl on his arm, "There, Jenny!
+That's what I'll get if I 'ave the luck to meet 'em when my time comes."
+
+"You an' your luck," she snapped. "'Ow can you talk such silly nonsense?"
+
+"Played through by the Guard," he repeated slowly. "The undertaker 'oo
+could guarantee _that_, mark you, for all his customers--well, 'e'd
+monopolise the trade, is all I can say. See the horses passagin'
+sideways!"
+
+"She done it a purpose," said the woman with a sniff.
+
+"An' I only hope you'll follow her example. Just as long as you think I'll
+keep, too."
+
+We reclosed when the funeral had left us twenty paces behind. A small boy
+stuck his head out of a carriage and watched us jealously.
+
+"Amazing! Amazing!" I murmured. "Is it regulation?"
+
+"No. Town-custom. It varies a little in different cities, but the people
+value being played through more than most things, I imagine. Duddell, the
+big Ipswich manufacturer--he's a Quaker--tried to bring in a bill to
+suppress it as unchristian." Pigeon laughed.
+
+"And?"
+
+"It cost him his seat next election. You see, we're all in the game."
+
+We reached the Park without further adventure, and found the four company-
+guns with their spike teams and single drivers waiting for us. Many people
+were gathered here, and we were halted, so far as I could see, that they
+might talk with the men in the ranks. The officers broke into groups.
+
+"Why on earth didn't you come along with me?" said Boy Bayley at my side.
+"I was expecting you."
+
+"Well, I had a delicacy about brigading myself with a colonel at the head
+of his regiment, so I stayed with the rear company and the horses. It's
+all too wonderful for any words. What's going to happen next?"
+
+"I've handed over to Verschoyle, who will amuse and edify the school
+children while I take you round our kindergarten. Don't kill any one, Vee.
+Are you goin' to charge 'em?"
+
+Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used to
+do at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn man.
+
+"Now!" Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding road
+towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park)
+perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the encircling
+rails leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women--the women
+outnumbering the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road flanking
+the common and disappear behind the trees.
+
+As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the ground
+inside the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform, armed and
+unarmed. I saw squads here, half-companies there; then three companies in
+an open space, wheeling with stately steps; a knot of drums and fifes near
+the railings unconcernedly slashing their way across popular airs; and a
+batch of gamins labouring through some extended attack destined to be
+swept aside by a corps crossing the ground at the double. They broke out
+of furze bushes, ducked over hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from
+hillocks and rough sandbanks till the eye wearied of their busy legs.
+
+Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of a
+freckled twelve-year-old near by.
+
+"What's your corps?" said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion to
+that child.
+
+"Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren't out
+to-day." Then, with a twinkle, "I go to First Camp next year."
+
+"What are those boys yonder--that squad at the double?"
+
+"Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir."
+
+"And that full company extending behind the three elms to the south-west?"
+
+"Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir."
+
+"Can you come with us?"
+
+"Certainly, Sir."
+
+"Here's the raw material at the beginning of the process," said Bayley to
+me.
+
+We strolled on towards the strains of "A Bicycle Built for Two," breathed
+jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some dozen infants
+with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging through the extension
+movements which that tune calls for. A stunted hawthorn overhung the
+little group, and from a branch a dirty white handkerchief flapped in the
+breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve
+as we came up.
+
+"We're all waiting for our big bruvvers," piped up one bold person in blue
+breeches--seven if he was a day.
+
+"It keeps 'em quieter, Sir," the maiden lisped. "The others are with the
+regiments."
+
+"Yeth, and they've all lots of blank for _you_," said the gentleman in
+blue breeches ferociously.
+
+"Oh, Artie! 'Ush!" the girl cried.
+
+"But why have they lots of blank for _us_?" Bayley asked. Blue Breeches
+stood firm.
+
+"'Cause--'cause the Guard's goin' to fight the Schools this afternoon; but
+my big bruvver says they'll be dam-well surprised."
+
+"_Artie!_" The girl leaped towards him. "You know your ma said I was to
+smack----"
+
+"Don't. Please don't," said Bayley, pink with suppressed mirth. "It was
+all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this. I've surprised his plan out
+of the mouths of babes and sucklings."
+
+"What plan?"
+
+"Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he told
+me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they're on to him
+already. He'll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!"
+
+Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to weep.
+
+"I didn't tell," he roared. "My big bruvver _he_ knew when he saw them go
+up the road..."
+
+"Never mind! Never mind, old man," said Bayley soothingly. "I'm not
+fighting to-day. It's all right."
+
+He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at
+feud over the spoil.
+
+"Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist," he chuckled. "We'll pull Vee's leg
+to-night."
+
+Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.
+
+"So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground," Bayley
+demanded.
+
+"Not for certain, Sir, but we're preparin' for the worst," he answered
+with a cheerful grin. "They allow the Schools a little blank ammunition
+after we've passed the third standard; and we nearly always bring it on to
+the ground of Saturdays."
+
+"The deuce you do! Why?"
+
+"On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They're always
+experimentin' upon us, Sir, comin' over from their ground an' developin'
+attacks on our flanks. Oh, it's chronic 'ere of a Saturday sometimes,
+unless you flag yourself."
+
+I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife
+band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a
+four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.
+
+"The attacks don't interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir," the boy
+explained. "That's a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools loading
+against time for a bet."
+
+We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was not
+etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the twenty-five
+pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly finished hoist
+and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe distance, when I
+became aware of a change among the scattered boys on the common, who
+disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of querulous whistles.
+A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to corps, and on their arrival
+each corps seemed to fade away.
+
+The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round
+them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley exploded
+afresh. "The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I wonder who's
+directin' 'em. Do _you_ know?"
+
+The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.
+
+"I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the
+road. 'E's our 'ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth
+District, is actin' as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most
+likely Mr. Levitt is commandin'."
+
+"How many corps are there here?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, bits of lots of 'em--thirty or forty, p'r'aps, Sir. But the whistles
+says they've all got to rally on the Board Schools. 'Ark! There's the
+whistle for the Private Schools! They've been called up the ground at the
+double."
+
+"Stop!" cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside the
+breech wiping their brows and panting.
+
+"Hullo! there's some attack on the Schools," said one. "Well, Marden, you
+owe me three half-crowns. I've beaten your record. Pay up."
+
+The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions
+melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets without
+once looking up.
+
+The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that I
+could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of blank
+in the distance.
+
+"The Saturday allowance," murmured Bayley. "War's begun, but it wouldn't
+be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my child?"
+
+"Nothin', Sir, only--only I don't think the Guard will be able to come
+through on so narrer a front, Sir. They'll all be jammed up be'ind the
+ridge if _we_'ve got there in time. It's awful sticky for guns at the end
+of our ground, Sir."
+
+"I'm inclined to think you're right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up:
+distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a pernicious
+amount of blank the kids seem to have!"
+
+It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the hillocks
+for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the "Cease Fire"
+over the ridge.
+
+"They've sent for the Umpires," the Board School boy squeaked, dancing on
+one foot. "You've been hung up, Sir. I--I thought the sand-pits 'ud stop
+you."
+
+Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat:
+"Well, that's enough for this afternoon. I'm off," and moved to the
+railings without even glancing towards the fray.
+
+"I anticipate the worst," said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.
+"Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!"
+
+The Guard was pouring over the ridge--a disorderly mob--horse, foot, and
+guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys
+cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the railings,
+and spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and waved
+handkerchiefs.
+
+Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. "We
+got 'em! We got 'em!" he squealed.
+
+The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into
+shape, coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.
+
+"Vee, Vee," said Bayley. "Give me back my legions. Well, I hope you're
+proud of yourself?"
+
+"The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too," Verschoyle
+replied. "I wish you'd seen that first attack on our flank. Rather
+impressive. Who warned 'em?"
+
+"I don't know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush breeches.
+Did they do well?"
+
+"Very decently indeed. I've complimented their C.O. and buttered the whole
+boiling." He lowered his voice. "As a matter o' fact, I halted five good
+minutes to give 'em time to get into position."
+
+"Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We sha'n't need the
+men for an hour, Vee."
+
+"Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!" cried Verschoyle, raising his voice,
+and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers left their
+men, people began to climb over the railings, and the regiment dissolved
+among the spectators and the school corps of the city.
+
+"No sense keeping men standing when you don't need 'em," said Bayley.
+"Besides, the Schools learn more from our chaps in an afternoon than they
+can pick up in a month's drill. Look at those Board-schoolmaster captains
+buttonholing old Purvis on the art of war!"
+
+"Wonder what the evening papers'll say about this," said Pigeon.
+
+"You'll know in half an hour," Burgard laughed. "What possessed you to
+take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?"
+
+"Pride. Silly pride," said the Canadian.
+
+We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a
+statue of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with
+pretty women, and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats.
+"This is distinctly social," I suggested to Kyd.
+
+"Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley'll sweat
+'em all the same."
+
+I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long sausage-
+shaped kit-bags. A band welcomed us with "A Life on the Ocean Wave."
+
+"What cheek!" muttered Verschoyle. "Give 'em beans, Bayley."
+
+"I intend to," said the Colonel, grimly. "Will each of you fellows take a
+company, please, and inspect 'em faithfully. '_En �tat de partir_' is
+their little boast, remember. When you've finished you can give 'em a
+little pillow-fighting."
+
+"What does the single cannon on those men's sleeves mean?" I asked.
+
+"That they're big gun-men, who've done time with the Fleet," Bayley
+returned. "Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per cent big-gun men thinks
+itself entitled to play 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--when it's out of
+hearing of the Navy."
+
+"What beautiful stuff they are! What's their regimental average?"
+
+"It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and twenty-four
+years, age. What is it?" Bayley asked of a Private.
+
+"Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half," was the
+reply, and he added insolently, "_En �tat de partir_." Evidently that F.S.
+corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.
+
+"What about their musketry average?" I went on.
+
+"Not my pidgin," said Bayley. "But they wouldn't be in the corps a day if
+they couldn't shoot; I know _that_ much. Now I'm going to go through 'em
+for socks and slippers."
+
+The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from
+company to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per
+cent, at least, of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone
+through in detail.
+
+"What have they got jumpers and ducks for?" I asked of Harrison.
+
+"For Fleet work, of course. _En �tat de partir_ with an F. S. corps means
+they are amphibious."
+
+"Who gives 'em their kit--Government?"
+
+"There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It's the same
+as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one's pockets.
+How much does your kit cost you?"--this to the private in front of us.
+
+"About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose," was the answer.
+
+"Very good. Pack your bag--quick."
+
+The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag,
+lashed and tied it, and fell back.
+
+"Arms," said Harrison. "Strip and show ammunition."
+
+The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one
+wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate of
+the rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to Harrison with
+one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded belt.
+
+"What baby cartridges!" I exclaimed. "No bigger than bulletted breech-
+caps."
+
+"They're the regulation .256," said Harrison. "No one has complained of
+'em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive.... Empty your bottle, please,
+and show your rations."
+
+The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency tin.
+
+Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in which
+the man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles, asking no help
+from either side.
+
+"How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?" I asked him.
+
+"Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes," he smiled. "I didn't
+see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the Club."
+
+"Weren't a good many of you out of town?"
+
+"Not _this_ Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull through
+the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for foreign
+service.... You'd better stand back. We're going to pillow-fight."
+
+The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them
+variously, piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder to
+shoulder like buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.
+
+"What's the idea?" I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded behind him, was
+controlling the display. Many women had descended from the carriages, and
+were pressing in about us admiringly.
+
+"For one thing, it's a fair test of wind and muscle, and for another it
+saves time at the docks. We'll suppose this first company to be drawn up
+on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train. How would
+you get their kit into the ship?"
+
+"Fall 'em all in on the platform, march'em to the gangways," I answered,
+"and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the baggage and drunks
+in later."
+
+"Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know _that_
+game," Verschoyle drawled. "We don't play it any more. Look!"
+
+He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and breathing
+hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing his sixty-
+pound bag.
+
+"Pack away," cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can compare
+it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed along
+either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who passed,
+stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by the
+rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five minutes
+the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.
+
+"Of course on a trooper there'd be a company below stacking the kit away,"
+said Verschoyle, "but that wasn't so bad."
+
+"Bad!" I cried. "It was miraculous!"
+
+"Circus-work--all circus-work!" said Pigeon. "It won't prevent 'em bein'
+sick as dogs when the ship rolls." The crowd round us applauded, while the
+men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.
+
+A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.
+
+"Have we made good, Bayley?" he said. "Are we _en �tat de partir_?"
+
+"That's what I shall report," said Bayley, smiling.
+
+"I thought my bit o' French 'ud draw you," said the little man, rubbing
+his hands.
+
+"Who is he?" I whispered to Pigeon.
+
+"Ramsay--their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say he
+spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns till
+he came into his property."
+
+"Take 'em home an' make 'em drunk," I heard Bayley say. "I suppose you'll
+have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the officers of E
+company that I don't think much of them. I sha'n't report it, but their
+men were all over the shop."
+
+"Well, they're young, you see," Colonel Ramsay began.
+
+"You're quite right. Send 'em to me and I'll talk to 'em. Youth is the
+time to learn."
+
+"Six hundred a year," I repeated to Pigeon. "That must be an awful tax on
+a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days."
+
+"That's where you make your mistake," said Verschoyle. "In the old days a
+man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they weren't
+the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour of putting
+in drills, didn't they? And they were, most of 'em, the children we have
+to take over at Second Camp, weren't they? Well, now that a C. O. is sure
+of his _men_, now that he hasn't to waste himself in conciliating an'
+bribin', an' beerin' _kids_, he doesn't care what he spends on his corps,
+because every pound tells. Do you understand?"
+
+"I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed----"
+
+"And trained material at that," Pigeon put in. "Eight years in the
+schools, remember, as well as----"
+
+"Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That's as it should be," I
+said.
+
+"Bayly's saying the very same to those F. S. pups," said Verschoyle.
+
+The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the
+shoulder of each.
+
+"Yes, that's all doocid interesting," he growled paternally. "But you
+forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you're trebly bound
+to put a polish on 'em. You've let your company simply go to seed. Don't
+try and explain. I've told all those lies myself in my time. It's only
+idleness. _I_ know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow and I'll give you a
+wrinkle or two in barracks." He turned to me.
+
+"Suppose we pick up Vee's defeated legion and go home. You'll dine with us
+to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you're _en �tat de partir_, right enough.
+You'd better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you want the corps
+sent foreign. I'm no politician."
+
+We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with sceptre,
+orb, and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the common,
+where the Guard battalion walked with the female of its species and the
+children of all its relatives. At sight of the officers the uniforms began
+to detach themselves and gather in companies. A Board School corps was
+moving off the ground, headed by its drums and fifes, which it assisted
+with song. As we drew nearer we caught the words, for they were launched
+with intention:--
+
+  'Oo is it mashes the country nurse?
+    The Guardsman!
+  'Oo is it takes the lydy's purse?
+    The Guardsman!
+  Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,
+  Batters a sovereign down on the bar,
+  Collars the change and says "Ta-ta!"
+    The Guardsman!
+
+"Why, that's one of old Jemmy Fawne's songs. I haven't heard it in ages,"
+I began.
+
+"Little devils!" said Pigeon.
+"Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports Edition!" a newsboy cried. "'Ere y'are,
+Captain. Defeat o' the Guard!"
+
+"I'll buy a copy," said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. "I must, to
+see how the Dove lost his mounted company." He unfolded the flapping sheet
+and we crowded round it.
+
+"'_Complete Rout of the Guard,_'" he read. "'_Too Narrow a Front._' That's
+one for you, Vee! '_Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._' Aha! '_The
+Schools Stand Fast._'"
+
+"Here's another version," said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. "'_To your
+tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._' Pij, were
+you scuppered by Jewboys?"
+
+"'_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_'" Bayley went on. "By Jove,
+there'll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!"
+
+"I'll never try to amuse the kids again," said the baited Verschoyle.
+"Children and newspapers are low things.... And I was hit on the nose by a
+wad, too! They oughtn't to be allowed blank ammunition!"
+
+So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the
+battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken
+over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum
+of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent
+above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago,
+when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.
+
+"A regular Sanna's Post, isn't it?" I said at last. "D'you remember, Vee--
+by the market-square--that night when the wagons went out?"
+
+Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we
+had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee
+himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the
+papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly, revealed to me the three-
+day old wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw
+Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of
+shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all
+in one jointless piece. Only old Vee's honest face held steady for awhile
+against the darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then
+his jaw dropped and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore
+the puffed and scornful nostril.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the
+evening papers on the table.
+
+
+
+
+"THEY"
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
+
+  Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged
+     races--
+  Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome;
+  Plucking the radiant robes of the passers by, and with pitiful faces
+  Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us
+     go home?"
+
+  Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
+  Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along
+     to the gateway--
+  Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
+  Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed
+     them straightway.
+
+  Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: "On the night that
+     I bore Thee
+  What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my
+     arm?
+  Didst Thou push from the nipple O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?
+  When we two lay in the breath of the kine?" And He said:--"Thou hast
+     done no harm."
+
+  So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,
+  Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood
+     still;
+  And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the
+     Command.
+  "Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against
+     their will?"
+
+
+"THEY"
+One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the
+county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping
+forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels. The orchid-
+studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and grey grass of
+the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees of the lower
+coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left hand for fifteen
+level miles; and when at last I turned inland through a huddle of rounded
+hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my known marks. Beyond that
+precise hamlet which stands godmother to the capital of the United States,
+I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in
+eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks
+diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex
+them again; tithe-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that
+cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple.
+Gipsies I found on a common where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it
+out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed
+a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.
+
+As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the
+bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty
+miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country would
+bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet, but I
+did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn plunged
+me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next into a
+gloomy tunnel where last year's dead leaves whispered and scuffled about
+my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had not been cut for a
+couple of generations at least, nor had any axe helped the moss-cankered
+oak and beech to spring above them. Here the road changed frankly into a
+carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent primrose-clumps showed like
+jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked bluebells nodded together. As the
+slope favoured I shut off the power and slid over the whirled leaves,
+expecting every moment to meet a keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off,
+arguing against the silence under the twilight of the trees.
+
+Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working my
+way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw
+sunshine through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.
+
+It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my fore-wheels
+took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang horsemen ten feet
+high with levelled lances, monstrous peacocks, and sleek round-headed
+maids of honour--blue, black, and glistening--all of clipped yew. Across
+the lawn--the marshalled woods besieged it on three sides--stood an
+ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with mullioned windows
+and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by semi-circular walls, also
+rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth side, and at their feet a box
+hedge grew man-high. There were doves on the roof about the slim brick
+chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an octagonal dove-house behind the
+screening wall.
+
+Here, then, I stayed; a horseman's green spear laid at my breast; held by
+the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.
+
+"If I am not packed off for a trespasser, or if this knight does not ride
+a wallop at me," thought I, "Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at least must
+come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea."
+
+A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing waved
+a friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently another
+bright head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the yew-peacocks, and
+turning to make sure (till then I had been watching the house only) I saw
+the silver of a fountain behind a hedge thrown up against the sun. The
+doves on the roof cooed to the cooing water; but between the two notes I
+caught the utterly happy chuckle of a child absorbed in some light
+mischief.
+
+The garden door--heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall--opened
+further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on the time-
+hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was forming
+some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was blind.
+
+"I heard you," she said. "Isn't that a motor car?"
+
+"I'm afraid I've made a mistake in my road. I should have turned off up
+above--I never dreamed"--I began.
+
+"But I'm very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It will be
+such a treat----" She turned and made as though looking about her. "You--
+you haven't seen any one have you--perhaps?"
+
+"No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a distance."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little
+chap in the grounds."
+
+"Oh, lucky you!" she cried, and her face brightened. "I hear them, of
+course, but that's all. You've seen them and heard them?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. "And if I know anything of children one of them's
+having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should
+imagine."
+
+"You're fond of children?"
+
+I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.
+
+"Of course, of course," she said. "Then you understand. Then you won't
+think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the gardens, once
+or twice--quite slowly. I'm sure they'd like to see it. They see so
+little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant, but----" she
+threw out her hands towards the woods. "We're so out of the world here."
+
+"That will be splendid," I said. "But I can't cut up your grass."
+
+She faced to the right. "Wait a minute," she said. "We're at the South
+gate, aren't we? Behind those peacocks there's a flagged path. We call it
+the Peacock's Walk. You can't see it from here, they tell me, but if you
+squeeze along by the edge of the wood you can turn at the first peacock
+and get on to the flags."
+
+It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of
+machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the edge
+of the wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the fountain-basin
+lay like one star-sapphire.
+
+"May I come too?" she cried. "No, please don't help me. They'll like it
+better if they see me."
+
+She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on the
+step she called: "Children, oh, children! Look and see what's going to
+happen!"
+
+The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning that
+underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an answering shout
+behind the yews. It must have been the child by the fountain, but he fled
+at our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the water. I saw the glint
+of his blue blouse among the still horsemen.
+
+Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request
+backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but
+stood far off and doubting.
+
+"The little fellow's watching us," I said. "I wonder if he'd like a ride."
+
+"They're very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see
+them! Let's listen."
+
+I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the
+scent of box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener was
+clipping; a mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been the
+doves.
+
+"Oh, unkind!" she said weariedly.
+
+"Perhaps they're only shy of the motor. The little maid at the window
+looks tremendously interested."
+
+"Yes?" She raised her head. "It was wrong of me to say that. They are
+really fond of me. It's the only thing that makes life worth living--when
+they're fond of you, isn't it? I daren't think what the place would be
+without them. By the way, is it beautiful?"
+
+"I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen."
+
+"So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn't quite the
+same thing."
+
+"Then have you never---?" I began, but stopped abashed.
+
+"Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old,
+they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream
+about colours. I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see
+_them_. I only hear them just as I do when I'm awake."
+
+"It's difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most of us
+haven't the gift," I went on, looking up at the window where the child
+stood all but hidden.
+
+"I've heard that too," she said. "And they tell me that one never sees a
+dead person's face in a dream. Is that true?"
+
+"I believe it is--now I come to think of it."
+
+"But how is it with yourself--yourself?" The blind eyes turned towards me.
+
+"I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream," I answered.
+
+"Then it must be as bad as being blind."
+
+The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing
+the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top of
+a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft black. The
+house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an hundred
+thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the shadows.
+
+"Have you ever wanted to?" she said after the silence.
+
+"Very much sometimes," I replied. The child had left the window as the
+shadows closed upon it.
+
+"Ah! So've I, but I don't suppose it's allowed. ... Where d'you live?"
+
+"Quite the other side of the county--sixty miles and more, and I must be
+going back. I've come without my big lamp."
+
+"But it's not dark yet. I can feel it."
+
+"I'm afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me someone
+to set me on my road at first? I've utterly lost myself."
+
+"I'll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the world,
+I don't wonder you were lost! I'll guide you round to the front of the
+house; but you will go slowly, won't you, till you're out of the grounds?
+It isn't foolish, do you think?"
+
+"I promise you I'll go like this," I said, and let the car start herself
+down the flagged path.
+
+We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead
+guttering alone was worth a day's journey; passed under a great rose-grown
+gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the house which in
+beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that all others I had
+seen.
+
+"Is it so very beautiful?" she said wistfully when she heard my raptures.
+"And you like the lead-figures too? There's the old azalea garden behind.
+They say that this place must have been made for children. Will you help
+me out, please? I should like to come with you as far as the cross-roads,
+but I mustn't leave them. Is that you, Madden? I want you to show this
+gentleman the way to the cross-roads. He has lost his way but--he has seen
+them."
+
+A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be
+called the front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood
+looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the
+first time that she was beautiful.
+
+"Remember," she said quietly, "if you are fond of them you will come
+again," and disappeared within the house.
+
+The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge gates,
+where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I swerved amply
+lest the devil that leads little boys to play should drag me into child-
+murder.
+
+"Excuse me," he asked of a sudden, "but why did you do that, Sir?"
+
+"The child yonder."
+
+"Our young gentleman in blue?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?"
+
+"Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?"
+
+"Yes, Sir. And did you 'appen to see them upstairs too?"
+
+"At the upper window? Yes."
+
+"Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?"
+
+"A little before that. Why d'you want to know?"
+
+He paused a little. "Only to make sure that--that they had seen the car,
+Sir, because with children running about, though I'm sure you're driving
+particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was all, Sir. Here
+are the cross-roads. You can't miss your way from now on. Thank you, Sir,
+but that isn't _our_ custom, not with----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, and thrust away the British silver.
+
+"Oh, it's quite right with the rest of 'em as a rule. Goodbye, Sir."
+
+He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked
+away. Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and
+interested, probably through a maid, in the nursery.
+
+Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the
+crumpled hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the
+house had lain. When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the fat
+woman who sold sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people with
+motor cars had small right to live--much less to "go about talking like
+carriage folk." They were not a pleasant-mannered community.
+
+When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser.
+Hawkin's Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the
+old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big
+house of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian
+embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my
+difficulty to a neighbour--a deep-rooted tree of that soil--and he gave me
+a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.
+
+A month or so later--I went again, or it may have been that my car took
+the road of her own volition. She over-ran the fruitless Downs, threaded
+every turn of the maze of lanes below the hills, drew through the high-
+walled woods, impenetrable in their full leaf, came out at the cross roads
+where the butler had left me, and a little further on developed an
+internal trouble which forced me to turn her in on a grass way-waste that
+cut into a summer-silent hazel wood. So far as I could make sure by the
+sun and a six-inch Ordnance map, this should be the road flank of that
+wood which I had first explored from the heights above. I made a mighty
+serious business of my repairs and a glittering shop of my repair kit,
+spanners, pump, and the like, which I spread out orderly upon a rug. It
+was a trap to catch all childhood, for on such a day, I argued, the
+children would not be far off. When I paused in my work I listened, but
+the wood was so full of the noises of summer (though the birds had mated)
+that I could not at first distinguish these from the tread of small
+cautious feet stealing across the dead leaves. I rang my bell in an
+alluring manner, but the feet fled, and I repented, for to a child a
+sudden noise is very real terror. I must have been at work half an hour
+when I heard in the wood the voice of the blind woman crying: "Children,
+oh children, where are you?" and the stillness made slow to close on the
+perfection of that cry. She came towards me, half feeling her way between
+the tree boles, and though a child it seemed clung to her skirt, it
+swerved into the leafage like a rabbit as she drew nearer.
+
+"Is that you?" she said, "from the other side of the county?"
+
+"Yes, it's me from the other side of the county."
+
+"Then why didn't you come through the upper woods? They were there just
+now."
+
+"They were here a few minutes ago. I expect they knew my car had broken
+down, and came to see the fun."
+
+"Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?"
+
+"In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first."
+
+She laughed merrily at the tiny joke, cooed with delicious laughter, and
+pushed her hat back.
+
+"Let me hear," she said.
+
+"Wait a moment," I cried, "and I'll get you a cushion."
+
+She set her foot on the rug all covered with spare parts, and stooped
+above it eagerly. "What delightful things!" The hands through which she
+saw glanced in the chequered sunlight. "A box here--another box! Why
+you've arranged them like playing shop!"
+
+"I confess now that I put it out to attract them. I don't need half those
+things really."
+
+"How nice of you! I heard your bell in the upper wood. You say they were
+here before that?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. Why are they so shy? That little fellow in blue who was
+with you just now ought to have got over his fright. He's been watching me
+like a Red Indian."
+
+"It must have been your bell," she said. "I heard one of them go past me
+in trouble when I was coming down. They're shy--so shy even with me." She
+turned her face over her shoulder and cried again: "Children! Oh,
+children! Look and see!"
+
+"They must have gone off together on their own affairs,"
+
+I suggested, for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by
+the sudden squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and
+she leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.
+
+"How many are they?" I said at last. The work was finished, but I saw no
+reason to go.
+
+Her forehead puckered a little in thought. "I don't quite know," she said
+simply. "Sometimes more--sometimes less. They come and stay with me
+because I love them, you see."
+
+"That must be very jolly," I said, replacing a drawer, and as I spoke I
+heard the inanity of my answer.
+
+"You--you aren't laughing at me," she cried. "I--I haven't any of my own.
+I never married. People laugh at me sometimes about them because--
+because------"
+
+"Because they're savages," I returned. "It's nothing to fret for. That
+sort laugh at everything that isn't in their own fat lives."
+
+"I don't know. How should I? I only don't like being laughed at about
+_them_. It hurts; and when one can't see.... I don't want to seem silly,"
+her chin quivered like a child's as she spoke, "but we blindies have only
+one skin, I think. Everything outside hits straight at our souls. It's
+different with you. You've such good defences in your eyes--looking out--
+before anyone can really pain you in your soul. People forget that with
+us."
+
+I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter--the more than inherited
+(since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the Christian peoples,
+beside which the mere heathendom of the West Coast nigger is clean and
+restrained. It led me a long distance into myself.
+
+"Don't do that!" she said of a sudden, putting her hands before her eyes.
+
+"What?"
+
+She made a gesture with her hand.
+
+"That! It's--it's all purple and black. Don't! That colour hurts."
+
+"But, how in the world do you know about colours?" I exclaimed, for here
+was a revelation indeed.
+
+"Colours as colours?" she asked.
+
+"No. _Those_ Colours which you saw just now."
+
+"You know as well as I do," she laughed, "else you wouldn't have asked
+that question. They aren't in the world at all. They're in _you_--when you
+went so angry."
+
+"D'you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with ink?" I said.
+
+"I've never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren't mixed. They are
+separate--all separate."
+
+"Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?"
+
+She nodded. "Yes--if they are like this," and zigzagged her finger again,
+"but it's more red than purple--that bad colour."
+
+"And what are the colours at the top of the--whatever you see?"
+
+Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg
+itself.
+
+"I see them so," she said, pointing with a grass stem, "white, green,
+yellow, red, purple, and when people are angry or bad, black across the
+red--as you were just now."
+
+"Who told you anything about it--in the beginning?" I demanded.
+
+"About the colours? No one. I used to ask what colours were when I was
+little--in table-covers and curtains and carpets, you see--because some
+colours hurt me and some made me happy. People told me; and when I got
+older that was how I saw people." Again she traced the outline of the Egg
+which it is given to very few of us to see.
+
+"All by yourself?" I repeated.
+
+"All by myself. There wasn't anyone else. I only found out afterwards that
+other people did not see the Colours."
+
+She leaned against the tree-hole plaiting and unplaiting chance-plucked
+grass stems. The children in the wood had drawn nearer. I could see them
+with the tail of my eye frolicking like squirrels.
+
+"Now I am sure you will never laugh at me," she went on after a long
+silence. "Nor at _them_."
+
+"Goodness! No!" I cried, jolted out of my train of thought. "A man who
+laughs at a child--unless the child is laughing too--is a heathen!"
+
+"I didn't mean that of course. You'd never laugh _at_ children, but I
+thought--I used to think--that perhaps you might laugh about _them_. So
+now I beg your pardon.... What are you going to laugh at?"
+
+I had made no sound, but she knew.
+
+"At the notion of your begging my pardon. If you had done your duty as a
+pillar of the state and a landed proprietress you ought to have summoned
+me for trespass when I barged through your woods the other day. It was
+disgraceful of me--inexcusable."
+
+She looked at me, her head against the tree trunk--long and steadfastly--
+this woman who could see the naked soul.
+
+"How curious," she half whispered. "How very curious."
+
+"Why, what have I done?"
+
+"You don't understand ... and yet you understood about the Colours. Don't
+you understand?"
+
+She spoke with a passion that nothing had justified, and I faced her
+bewilderedly as she rose. The children had gathered themselves in a
+roundel behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent over something smaller,
+and the set of the little shoulders told me that fingers were on lips.
+They, too, had some child's tremendous secret. I alone was hopelessly
+astray there in the broad sunlight.
+
+"No," I said, and shook my head as though the dead eyes could note.
+"Whatever it is, I don't understand yet. Perhaps I shall later--if you'll
+let me come again."
+
+"You will come again," she answered. "You will surely come again and walk
+in the wood."
+
+"Perhaps the children will know me well enough by that time to let me play
+with them--as a favour. You know what children are like."
+
+"It isn't a matter of favour but of right," she replied, and while I
+wondered what she meant, a dishevelled woman plunged round the bend of the
+road, loose-haired, purple, almost lowing with agony as she ran. It was my
+rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard and stepped
+forward. "What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?" she asked.
+
+The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the
+dust, crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local doctor
+was away fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and so forth,
+with repetitions and bellowings.
+
+"Where's the next nearest doctor?" I asked between paroxysms.
+
+"Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you. I'll
+attend to this. Be quick!" She half-supported the fat woman into the
+shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under the
+front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to the
+crisis like a butler and a man.
+
+A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles away.
+Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in motors, at
+the door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to await the verdict.
+
+"Useful things cars," said Madden, all man and no butler. "If I'd had one
+when mine took sick she wouldn't have died."
+
+"How was it?" I asked.
+
+"Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight miles
+in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back. This car
+'d ha' saved her. She'd have been close on ten now."
+
+"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought you were rather fond of children from what
+you told me going to the cross-roads the other day."
+
+"Have you seen 'em again, Sir--this mornin'?"
+
+"Yes, but they're well broke to cars. I couldn't get any of them within
+twenty yards of it."
+
+He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger--not as a menial
+should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.
+
+"I wonder why," he said just above the breath that he drew.
+
+We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long
+lines of the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with summer
+dust, rose and bowed in sallow waves.
+
+A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
+sweetmeat shop.
+
+"I've be'n listenin' in de back-yard," she said cheerily. "He says
+Arthur's unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him shruck just now? Unaccountable
+bad. I reckon t'will come Jenny's turn to walk in de wood nex' week along,
+Mr. Madden."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping," said Madden
+deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.
+
+"What does she mean by 'walking in the wood'?" I asked.
+
+"It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I'm from Norfolk myself,"
+said Madden. "They're an independent lot in this county. She took you for
+a chauffeur, Sir."
+
+I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed
+wench who clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with
+Death. "Dat sort," she wailed--"dey're just as much to us dat has 'em as
+if dey was lawful born. Just as much--just as much! An' God he'd be just
+as pleased if you saved 'un, Doctor. Don't take it from me. Miss Florence
+will tell ye de very same. Don't leave 'im, Doctor!"
+
+"I know. I know," said the man, "but he'll be quiet for a while now.
+We'll get the nurse and the medicine as fast as we can." He signalled me
+to come forward with the car, and I strove not to be privy to what
+followed; but I saw the girl's face, blotched and frozen with grief, and I
+felt the hand without a ring clutching at my knees when we moved away.
+
+The Doctor was a man of some humour, for I remember he claimed my car
+under the Oath of �sculapius, and used it and me without mercy. First we
+convoyed Mrs. Madehurst and the blind woman to wait by the sick bed till
+the nurse should come. Next we invaded a neat county town for
+prescriptions (the Doctor said the trouble was cerebro-spinal meningitis),
+and when the County Institute, banked and flanked with scared market
+cattle, reported itself out of nurses for the moment we literally flung
+ourselves loose upon the county. We conferred with the owners of great
+houses--magnates at the ends of overarching avenues whose big-boned
+womenfolk strode away from their tea-tables to listen to the imperious
+Doctor. At last a white-haired lady sitting under a cedar of Lebanon and
+surrounded by a court of magnificent Borzois--all hostile to motors--gave
+the Doctor, who received them as from a princess, written orders which we
+bore many miles at top speed, through a park, to a French nunnery, where
+we took over in exchange a pallid-faced and trembling Sister. She knelt at
+the bottom of the tonneau telling her beads without pause till, by short
+cuts of the Doctor's invention, we had her to the sweetmeat shop once
+more. It was a long afternoon crowded with mad episodes that rose and
+dissolved like the dust of our wheels; cross-sections of remote and
+incomprehensible lives through which we raced at right angles; and I went
+home in the dusk, wearied out, to dream of the clashing horns of cattle;
+round-eyed nuns walking in a garden of graves; pleasant tea-parties
+beneath shaded trees; the carbolic-scented, grey-painted corridors of the
+County Institute; the steps of shy children in the wood, and the hands
+that clung to my knees as the motor began to move.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I had intended to return in a day or two, but it pleased Fate to hold me
+from that side of the county, on many pretexts, till the elder and the
+wild rose had fruited. There came at last a brilliant day, swept clear
+from the south-west, that brought the hills within hand's reach--a day of
+unstable airs and high filmy clouds. Through no merit of my own I was
+free, and set the car for the third time on that known road. As I reached
+the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the
+sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the
+Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A
+laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for deeper water and,
+across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails rise one by one on the anchored
+fishing-fleet. In a deep dene behind me an eddy of sudden wind drummed
+through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the first day sample of autumn
+leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog fumed over the
+brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groins of the gale beyond
+Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in chill grey. We
+were again the shut island of the North, all the ships of the world
+bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their outcries ran the piping
+of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped moisture, the folds of the rug held it
+in pools or sluiced it away in runnels, and the salt-rime stuck to my
+lips.
+
+Inland the smell of autumn loaded the thickened fog among the trees, and
+the drip became a continuous shower. Yet the late flowers--mallow of the
+wayside, scabious of the field, and dahlia of the garden--showed gay in
+the mist, and beyond the sea's breath there was little sign of decay in
+the leaf. Yet in the villages the house doors were all open, and bare-
+legged, bare-headed children sat at ease on the damp doorsteps to shout
+"pip-pip" at the stranger.
+
+I made bold to call at the sweetmeat shop, where Mrs. Madehurst met me
+with a fat woman's hospitable tears. Jenny's child, she said, had died two
+days after the nun had come. It was, she felt, best out of the way, even
+though insurance offices, for reasons which she did not pretend to follow,
+would not willingly insure such stray lives. "Not but what Jenny didn't
+tend to Arthur as though he'd come all proper at de end of de first year--
+like Jenny herself." Thanks to Miss Florence, the child had been buried
+with a pomp which, in Mrs. Madehurst's opinion, more than covered the
+small irregularity of its birth. She described the coffin, within and
+without, the glass hearse, and the evergreen lining of the grave.
+
+"But how's the mother?" I asked.
+
+"Jenny? Oh, she'll get over it. I've felt dat way with one or two o' my
+own. She'll get over. She's walkin' in de wood now."
+
+"In this weather?"
+
+Mrs. Madehurst looked at me with narrowed eyes across the counter.
+
+"I dunno but it opens de 'eart like. Yes, it opens de 'eart. Dat's where
+losin' and bearin' comes so alike in de long run, we do say."
+
+Now the wisdom of the old wives is greater than that of all the Fathers,
+and this last oracle sent me thinking so extendedly as I went up the road,
+that I nearly ran over a woman and a child at the wooded corner by the
+lodge gates of the House Beautiful.
+
+"Awful weather!" I cried, as I slowed dead for the turn.
+
+"Not so bad," she answered placidly out of the fog. "Mine's used to 'un.
+You'll find yours indoors, I reckon."
+
+Indoors, Madden received me with professional courtesy, and kind inquiries
+for the health of the motor, which he would put under cover.
+
+I waited in a still, nut-brown hall, pleasant with late flowers and warmed
+with a delicious wood fire--a place of good influence and great peace.
+(Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable
+lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the
+truth of those who have lived in it.) A child's cart and a doll lay on the
+black-and-white floor, where a rug had been kicked back. I felt that the
+children had only just hurried away--to hide themselves, most like--in the
+many turns of the great adzed staircase that climbed statelily out of the
+hall, or to crouch at gaze behind the lions and roses of the carven
+gallery above. Then I heard her voice above me, singing as the blind sing
+--from the soul:--
+
+
+  In the pleasant orchard-closes.
+
+And all my early summer came back at the call.
+
+  In the pleasant orchard-closes,
+  God bless all our gains say we--
+  But may God bless all our losses,
+  Better suits with our degree,
+
+She dropped the marring fifth line, and repeated--
+
+  Better suits with our degree!
+
+I saw her lean over the gallery, her linked hands white as pearl against
+the oak.
+
+"Is that you--from the other side of the county?" she called.
+
+"Yes, me--from the other side of the county," I answered laughing.
+
+"What a long time before you had to come here again." She ran down the
+stairs, one hand lightly touching the broad rail. "It's two months and
+four days. Summer's gone!"
+
+"I meant to come before, but Fate prevented."
+
+"I knew it. Please do something to that fire. They won't let me play with
+it, but I can feel it's behaving badly. Hit it!"
+
+I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a
+half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.
+
+"It never goes out, day or night," she said, as though explaining. "In
+case any one conies in with cold toes, you see."
+
+"It's even lovelier inside than it was out," I murmured. The red light
+poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor roses
+and lions of the gallery took colour and motion. An old eagle-topped
+convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart, distorting
+afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines into the
+curves of a ship. The day was shutting down in half a gale as the fog
+turned to stringy scud. Through the uncurtained mullions of the broad
+window I could see valiant horsemen of the lawn rear and recover against
+the wind that taunted them with legions of dead leaves.
+"Yes, it must be beautiful," she said. "Would you like to go over it?
+There's still light enough upstairs."
+
+I followed her up the unflinching, wagon-wide staircase to the gallery
+whence opened the thin fluted Elizabethan doors.
+
+"Feel how they put the latch low down for the sake of the children." She
+swung a light door inward.
+
+"By the way, where are they?" I asked. "I haven't even heard them to-day."
+
+She did not answer at once. Then, "I can only hear them," she replied
+softly. "This is one of their rooms--everything ready, you see."
+
+She pointed into a heavily-timbered room. There were little low gate
+tables and children's chairs. A doll's house, its hooked front half open,
+faced a great dappled rocking-horse, from whose padded saddle it was but a
+child's scramble to the broad window-seat overlooking the lawn. A toy gun
+lay in a corner beside a gilt wooden cannon.
+
+"Surely they've only just gone," I whispered. In the failing light a door
+creaked cautiously. I heard the rustle of a frock and the patter of feet--
+quick feet through a room beyond.
+
+"I heard that," she cried triumphantly. "Did you? Children, O children,
+where are you?"
+
+The voice filled the walls that held it lovingly to the last perfect note,
+but there came no answering shout such as I had heard in the garden. We
+hurried on from room to oak-floored room; up a step here, down three steps
+there; among a maze of passages; always mocked by our quarry. One might as
+well have tried to work an unstopped warren with a single ferret. There
+were bolt-holes innumerable--recesses in walls, embrasures of deep slitten
+windows now darkened, whence they could start up behind us; and abandoned
+fireplaces, six feet deep in the masonry, as well as the tangle of
+communicating doors. Above all, they had the twilight for their helper in
+our game. I had caught one or two joyous chuckles of evasion, and once or
+twice had seen the silhouette of a child's frock against some darkening
+window at the end of a passage; but we returned empty-handed to the
+gallery, just as a middle-aged woman was setting a lamp in its niche.
+
+"No, I haven't seen her either this evening, Miss Florence," I heard her
+say, "but that Turpin he says he wants to see you about his shed."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Turpin must want to see me very badly. Tell him to come to the
+hall, Mrs. Madden."
+
+I looked down into the hall whose only light was the dulled fire, and deep
+in the shadow I saw them at last. They must have slipped down while we
+were in the passages, and now thought themselves perfectly hidden behind
+an old gilt leather screen. By child's law, my fruitless chase was as good
+as an introduction, but since I had taken so much trouble I resolved to
+force them to come forward later by the simple trick, which children
+detest, of pretending not to notice them. They lay close, in a little
+huddle, no more than shadows except when a quick flame betrayed an
+outline.
+
+"And now we'll have some tea," she said. "I believe I ought to have
+offered it you at first, but one doesn't arrive at manners somehow when
+one lives alone and is considered--h'm--peculiar." Then with very pretty
+scorn, "would you like a lamp to see to eat by?" "The firelight's much
+pleasanter, I think." We descended into that delicious gloom and Madden
+brought tea.
+
+I took my chair in the direction of the screen ready to surprise or be
+surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth is
+always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.
+
+"Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?" I asked idly. "Why,
+they are tallies!"
+
+"Of course," she said. "As I can't read or write I'm driven back on the
+early English tally for my accounts. Give me one and I'll tell you what it
+meant."
+
+I passed her an unburned hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran her
+thumb down the nicks.
+
+"This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last
+year, in gallons," said she. "I don't know what I should have done without
+tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It's out of date
+now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of them's coming
+now to see me. Oh, it doesn't matter. He has no business here out of
+office hours. He's a greedy, ignorant man--very greedy or--he wouldn't
+come here after dark."
+
+"Have you much land then?"
+
+"Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six
+hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this
+Turpin is quite a new man--and a highway robber."
+
+"But are you sure I sha'n't be----?"
+
+"Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn't any children."
+
+"Ah, the children!" I said, and slid my low chair back till it nearly
+touched the screen that hid them. "I wonder whether they'll come out for
+me."
+
+There was a murmur of voices--Madden's and a deeper note--at the low, dark
+side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the unmistakable
+tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.
+
+"Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin," she said.
+
+"If--if you please, Miss, I'll--I'll be quite as well by the door." He
+clung to the latch as he spoke like a frightened child. Of a sudden I
+realised that he was in the grip of some almost overpowering fear.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"About that new shed for the young stock--that was all. These first autumn
+storms settin' in ... but I'll come again, Miss." His teeth did not
+chatter much more than the door latch.
+
+"I think not," she answered levelly. "The new shed--m'm. What did my agent
+write you on the 15th?"
+
+"I--fancied p'raps that if I came to see you--ma--man to man like, Miss.
+But----"
+
+His eyes rolled into every corner of the room wide with horror. He half
+opened the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut again
+--from without and firmly.
+
+"He wrote what I told him," she went on. "You are overstocked already.
+Dunnett's Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks--even in Mr.
+Wright's time. And _he_ used cake. You've sixty-seven and you don't cake.
+You've broken the lease in that respect. You're dragging the heart out of
+the farm."
+
+"I'm--I'm getting some minerals--superphosphates--next week. I've as good
+as ordered a truck-load already. I'll go down to the station to-morrow
+about 'em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the
+daylight.... That gentleman's not going away, is he?" He almost shrieked.
+
+I had only slid the chair a little further back, reaching behind me to tap
+on the leather of the screen, but he jumped like a rat.
+
+"No. Please attend to me, Mr. Turpin." She turned in her chair and faced
+him with his back to the door. It was an old and sordid little piece of
+scheming that she forced from him--his plea for the new cowshed at his
+landlady's expense, that he might with the covered manure pay his next
+year's rent out of the valuation after, as she made clear, he had bled the
+enriched pastures to the bone. I could not but admire the intensity of his
+greed, when I saw him out-facing for its sake whatever terror it was that
+ran wet on his forehead.
+
+I ceased to tap the leather--was, indeed, calculating the cost of the
+shed--when I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the soft
+hands of a child. So at last I had triumphed. In a moment I would turn and
+acquaint myself with those quick-footed wanderers....
+
+The little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm--as a gift on which
+the fingers were, once, expected to close: as the all faithful half-
+reproachful signal of a waiting child not used to neglect even when
+grown-ups were busiest--a fragment of the mute code devised very long ago.
+
+Then I knew. And it was as though I had known from the first day when I
+looked across the lawn at the high window.
+
+I heard the door shut. The woman turned to me in silence, and I felt that
+she knew.
+
+What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a
+log, and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place in
+the chair very close to the screen.
+
+"Now you understand," she whispered, across the packed shadows.
+
+"Yes, I understand--now. Thank you."
+
+"I--I only hear them." She bowed her head in her hands. "I have no right,
+you know--no other right. I have neither borne nor lost--neither borne nor
+lost!"
+
+"Be very glad then," said I, for my soul was torn open within me.
+
+"Forgive me!"
+
+She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.
+
+"It was because I loved them so," she said at last, brokenly. "_That_ was
+why it was, even from the first--even before I knew that they--they were
+all I should ever have. And I loved them so!"
+
+She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the
+shadow.
+
+"They came because I loved them--because I needed them. I--I must have
+made them come. Was that wrong, think you?"
+
+"No--no."
+
+"I--I grant you that the toys and--and all that sort of thing were
+nonsense, but--but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
+little." She pointed to the gallery. "And the passages all empty. ... And
+how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose----"
+
+"Don't! For pity's sake, don't!" I cried. The twilight had brought a cold
+rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded windows.
+
+"And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. _I_ don't think it
+so foolish--do you?"
+
+I looked at the broad brick hearth, saw, through tears I believe, that
+there was no unpassable iron on or near it, and bowed my head.
+
+"I did all that and lots of other things--just to make believe. Then they
+came. I heard them, but I didn't know that they were not mine by right
+till Mrs. Madden told me----"
+
+"The butler's wife? What?"
+
+"One of them--I heard--she saw. And knew. Hers! _Not_ for me. I didn't
+know at first. Perhaps I was jealous. Afterwards, I began to understand
+that it was only because I loved them, not because----... Oh, you _must_
+bear or lose," she said piteously. "There is no other way--and yet they
+love me. They must! Don't they?"
+
+There was no sound in the room except the lapping voices of the fire, but
+we two listened intently, and she at least took comfort from what she
+heard. She recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair by the
+screen.
+
+"Don't think me a wretch to whine about myself like this, but--but I'm all
+in the dark, you know, and _you_ can see."
+
+In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though
+that was like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer I
+would stay since it was the last time.
+
+"You think it is wrong, then?" she cried sharply, though I had said
+nothing.
+
+"Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right.... I am grateful
+to you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only...."
+
+"Why?" she said, but passed her hand before her face as she had done at
+our second meeting in the wood. "Oh, I see," she went on simply as a
+child. "For you it would be wrong." Then with a little indrawn laugh,
+"and, d'you remember, I called you lucky--once--at first. You who must
+never come here again!"
+
+She left me to sit a little longer by the screen, and I heard the sound of
+her feet die out along the gallery above.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+FROM LYDEN'S "IRENIUS"
+
+ACT III. Sc. II.
+
+Gow.--Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose
+there's not an astrologer of the city----
+
+PRINCE.--Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
+
+Gow.--So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha'
+sworn he'd foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught
+her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since 'tis Jack of
+the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their tablets.
+
+PRINCE.--Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the
+poor fool come by it?
+
+Gow.--_Simpliciter_ thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she
+did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He
+that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than
+"Where is the rope?" The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works God's
+will, in which holy employ he's not to be questioned. We have then left
+upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of
+Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on a sunny
+wall. Whuff! Soh!
+
+PRINCE.--Your cloak, Ferdinand. I'll sleep now.
+
+FERDINAND.--Sleep, then.. He too, loved his life?
+
+Gow.--He was born of woman ... but at the end threw life from
+him, like your Prince, for a little sleep ... "Have I any look of a
+King?" said he, clanking his chain--"to be so baited on all sides by
+Fortune, that I must e'en die now to live with myself one day longer?" I
+left him railing at Fortune and woman's love.
+
+FERDINAND.--Ah, woman's love!
+
+_(Aside)_ Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones, Stealing from
+feasts as rare to coneycatch, Privily in the hedgerows for a clown With
+that same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one
+hammer and lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
+Yesterday 'gainst some King.
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+The day that I chose to visit H.M.S. _Peridot_ in Simon's Bay was the day
+that the Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. She was just
+steaming out to sea as my train came in, and since the rest of the Fleet
+were either coaling or busy at the rifle-ranges a thousand feet up the
+hill, I found myself stranded, lunchless, on the sea-front with no hope of
+return to Cape Town before five P.M. At this crisis I had the luck to come
+across my friend Inspector Hooper, Cape Government Railways, in command of
+an engine and a brake-van chalked for repair.
+
+"If you get something to eat," he said, "I'll run you down to Glengariff
+siding till the goods comes along. It's cooler there than here, you see."
+
+I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price, and
+the engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of drifted
+sand and a plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred yards from the
+edge of the surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow, rolled far inland
+up a brown and purple valley of splintered rocks and dry scrub. A crowd of
+Malays hauled at a net beside two blue and green boats on the beach; a
+picnic party danced and shouted barefoot where a tiny river trickled
+across the flat, and a circle of dry hills, whose feet were set in sands
+of silver, locked us in against a seven-coloured sea. At either horn of
+the bay the railway line, cut just above high water-mark, ran round a
+shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.
+
+"You see there's always a breeze here," said Hooper, opening the door as
+the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong south-easter
+buffeting under Elsie's Peak dusted sand into our tickey beer. Presently
+he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had returned from a
+long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on damaged rolling-
+stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland wind on my
+eyelids; the song of it under the car roof, and high up among the rocks;
+the drift of fine grains chasing each other musically ashore; the tramp of
+the surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle of Hooper's file, and
+the presence of the assured sun, joined with the beer to cast me into
+magical slumber. The hills of False Bay were just dissolving into those of
+fairyland when I heard footsteps on the sand outside, and the clink of our
+couplings.
+
+"Stop that!" snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his work. "It's
+those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they're always playing with the
+trucks...."
+
+"Don't be hard on 'em. The railway's a general refuge in Africa," I
+replied.
+
+"'Tis--up-country at any rate. That reminds me," he felt in his waistcoat-
+pocket, "I've got a curiosity for you from Wankies--beyond Buluwayo. It's
+more of a souvenir perhaps than----"
+
+"The old hotel's inhabited," cried a voice. "White men from the language.
+Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here's your Belmont. Wha--i--i!"
+
+The last word dragged like a rope as Mr. Pyecroft ran round to the open
+door, and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous Sergeant
+of Marines trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the sand nervously
+from his fingers.
+
+"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought the _Hierophant_ was down
+the coast?"
+
+"We came in last Tuesday--from Tristan D'Acunha--for overhaul, and we
+shall be in dockyard 'ands for two months, with boiler-seatings."
+
+"Come and sit down," Hooper put away the file.
+
+"This is Mr. Hooper of the Railway," I exclaimed, as Pyecroft turned to
+haul up the black-moustached sergeant.
+
+"This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the _Agaric_, an old shipmate," said he.
+"We were strollin' on the beach." The monster blushed and nodded. He
+filled up one side of the van when he sat down.
+
+"And this is my friend, Mr. Pyecroft," I added to Hooper, already busy
+with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.
+
+"_Moi aussi_" quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a labelled
+quart bottle.
+
+"Why, it's Bass," cried Hooper.
+
+"It was Pritchard," said Pyecroft. "They can't resist him."
+
+"That's not so," said Pritchard, mildly.
+
+"Not _verbatim_ per'aps, but the look in the eye came to the same thing."
+
+"Where was it?" I demanded.
+
+"Just on beyond here--at Kalk Bay. She was slappin' a rug in a back
+verandah. Pritch hadn't more than brought his batteries to bear, before
+she stepped indoors an' sent it flyin' over the wall."
+
+Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
+
+"It was all a mistake," said Pritchard. "I shouldn't wonder if she mistook
+me for Maclean. We're about of a size."
+
+I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James's, and Kalk Bay complain
+of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the seaside, and I
+began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent Bass, and I too
+drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
+
+"It's the uniform that fetches 'em, an' they fetch it," said Pyecroft. "My
+simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin'. Now Pritch in 'is
+Number One rig is always 'purr Mary, on the terrace'--_ex officio_ as you
+might say."
+
+"She took me for Maclean, I tell you," Pritchard insisted. "Why--why--to
+listen to him you wouldn't think that only yesterday----"
+
+"Pritch," said Pyecroft, "be warned in time. If we begin tellin' what we
+know about each other we'll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention
+aggravated desertion on several occasions----"
+
+"Never anything more than absence without leaf--I defy you to prove it,"
+said the Sergeant hotly. "An' if it comes to that how about Vancouver in
+'87?"
+
+"How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
+Niven...?"
+
+"Surely you were court martialled for that?" I said. The story of Boy
+Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
+woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
+
+"Yes, we were court-martialled to rights," said Pritchard, "but we should
+have been tried for murder if Boy Niven 'adn't been unusually tough. He
+told us he had an uncle 'oo'd give us land to farm. 'E said he was born at
+the back o' Vancouver Island, and _all_ the time the beggar was a balmy
+Barnado Orphan!"
+
+"_But_ we believed him," said Pyecroft. "I did--you did--Paterson did--an'
+'oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards--him with
+the mouth?"
+
+"Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I 'aven't thought of 'im in years," said
+Pritchard. "Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an' George Anstey and Moon. We were
+very young an' very curious."
+
+"_But_ lovin' an' trustful to a degree," said Pyecroft.
+
+"Remember when 'e told us to walk in single file for fear o' bears?
+'Remember, Pye, when 'e 'opped about in that bog full o' ferns an' sniffed
+an' said 'e could smell the smoke of 'is uncle's farm? An' _all_ the time
+it was a dirty little out-lyin' uninhabited island. We walked round it in
+a day, an' come back to our boat lyin' on the beach. A whole day Boy Niven
+kept us walkin' in circles lookin' for 'is uncle's farm! He said his uncle
+was compelled by the law of the land to give us a farm!"
+
+"Don't get hot, Pritch. We believed," said Pyecroft.
+
+"He'd been readin' books. He only did it to get a run ashore an' have
+himself talked of. A day an' a night--eight of us--followin' Boy Niven
+round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the picket
+came for us an' a nice pack o' idiots we looked!"
+
+"What did you get for it?" Hooper asked.
+
+"Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter sleet-
+squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till conclusion o'
+cruise," said Pyecroft. "It was only what we expected, but what we felt,
+an' I assure you, Mr. Hooper, even a sailor-man has a heart to break, was
+bein' told that we able seamen an' promisin' marines 'ad misled Boy Niven.
+Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was supposed to 'ave misled him! He
+rounded on us, o' course, an' got off easy."
+
+"Excep' for what we gave him in the steerin'-flat when we came out o'
+cells. 'Eard anything of 'im lately, Pye?"
+
+"Signal Boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe--Mr. L.L. Niven is."
+
+"An' Anstey died o' fever in Benin," Pritchard mused. "What come to Moon?
+Spit-Kid we know about."
+
+"Moon--Moon! Now where did I last...? Oh yes, when I was in the
+_Palladium_! I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon 'ad run
+when the _Astrild_ sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years
+back. He always showed signs o' bein' a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he
+slipped off quietly an' they 'adn't time to chase 'im round the islands
+even if the navigatin' officer 'ad been equal to the job."
+
+"Wasn't he?" said Hooper.
+
+"Not so. Accordin' to Quigley the _Astrild_ spent half her commission
+rompin' up the beach like a she-turtle, an' the other half hatching
+turtles' eggs on the top o' numerous reefs. When she was docked at Sydney
+her copper looked like Aunt Maria's washing on the line--an' her 'midship
+frames was sprung. The commander swore the dockyard 'ad done it haulin'
+the pore thing on to the slips. They _do_ do strange things at sea, Mr.
+Hooper."
+
+"Ah! I'm not a tax-payer," said Hooper, and opened a fresh bottle. The
+Sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping subjects.
+
+"How it all comes back, don't it?" he said. "Why Moon must 'ave 'ad
+sixteen years' service before he ran."
+
+"It takes 'em at all ages. Look at--you know," said Pyecroft.
+
+"Who?" I asked.
+
+"A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party you're
+thinkin' of," said Pritchard. "A warrant 'oose name begins with a V.,
+isn't it?"
+
+"But, in a way o' puttin' it, we can't say that he actually did desert,"
+Pyecroft suggested.
+
+"Oh, no," said Pritchard. "It was only permanent absence up country
+without leaf. That was all."
+
+"Up country?" said Hooper. "Did they circulate his description?"
+
+"What for?" said Pritchard, most impolitely.
+
+"Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don't move away from
+the line, you see. I've known a chap caught at Salisbury that way tryin'
+to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o' course I don't know, that they
+don't ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I've heard of a
+P. and O. quartermaster in full command of an armed launch there."
+
+"Do you think Click 'ud ha' gone up that way?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"There's no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some Navy
+ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it into the
+trucks. Then there was no more Click--then or thereafter. Four months ago
+it transpired, and thus the _casus belli_ stands at present," said
+Pyecroft.
+
+"What were his marks?" said Hooper again.
+
+"Does the Railway get a reward for returnin' 'em, then?" said Pritchard.
+
+"If I did d'you suppose I'd talk about it?" Hooper retorted angrily.
+
+"You seemed so very interested," said Pritchard with equal crispness.
+
+"Why was he called Click?" I asked to tide over an uneasy little break in
+the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very fixedly.
+
+"Because of an ammunition hoist carryin' away," said Pyecroft. "And it
+carried away four of 'is teeth--on the lower port side, wasn't it, Pritch?
+The substitutes which he bought weren't screwed home in a manner o'
+sayin'. When he talked fast they used to lift a little on the bed plate.
+'Ence, 'Click.' They called 'im a superior man which is what we'd call a
+long, black-'aired, genteely speakin', 'alf-bred beggar on the lower
+deck."
+
+"Four false teeth on the lower left jaw," said Hooper, his hand in his
+waistcoat pocket. "What tattoo marks?"
+
+"Look here," began Pritchard, half rising. "I'm sure we're very grateful
+to you as a gentleman for your 'orspitality, but per'aps we may 'ave made
+an error in--"
+
+I looked at Pyecroft for aid, Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.
+
+"If the fat marine now occupying the foc'sle will kindly bring 'is _status
+quo_ to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk like gentlemen--
+not to say friends," said Pyecroft. "He regards you, Mr. Hooper, as a
+emissary of the Law."
+
+"I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar, or
+I should rather say, such a _bloomin'_ curiosity in identification marks
+as our friend here----"
+
+"Mr. Pritchard," I interposed, "I'll take all the responsibility for Mr.
+Hooper."
+
+"An' _you_'ll apologise all round," said Pyecroft. "You're a rude little
+man, Pritch."
+
+"But how was I----" he began, wavering.
+
+"I don't know an' I don't care. Apologise!"
+
+The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his vast
+grip, one by one. "I was wrong," he said meekly as a sheep. "My suspicions
+was unfounded. Mr. Hooper, I apologise."
+
+"You did quite right to look out for your own end o' the line," said
+Hooper. "I'd ha' done the same with a gentleman I didn't know, you see. If
+you don't mind I'd like to hear a little more o' your Mr. Vickery. It's
+safe with me, you see."
+
+"Why did Vickery run," I began, but Pyecroft's smile made me turn my
+question to "Who was she?"
+
+"She kep' a little hotel at Hauraki--near Auckland," said Pyecroft.
+
+"By Gawd!" roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. "Not Mrs.
+Bathurst!"
+
+Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of darkness
+to witness his bewilderment.
+
+"So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question."
+
+"But Click was married," cried Pritchard.
+
+"An' 'ad a fifteen year old daughter. 'E's shown me her photograph.
+Settin' that aside, so to say, 'ave you ever found these little things
+make much difference? Because I haven't."
+
+"Good Lord Alive an' Watchin'!... Mrs. Bathurst...." Then with another
+roar: "You can say what you please, Pye, but you don't make me believe it
+was any of 'er fault. She wasn't _that!_"
+
+"If I was going to say what I please, I'd begin by callin' you a silly ox
+an' work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I'm trying to say solely
+what transpired. M'rover, for once you're right. It wasn't her fault."
+
+"You couldn't 'aven't made me believe it if it 'ad been," was the answer.
+
+Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. "Never mind
+about that," I cried. "Tell me what she was like."
+
+"She was a widow," said Pyecroft. "Left so very young and never
+re-spliced. She kep' a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close to
+Auckland, an' she always wore black silk, and 'er neck--"
+
+"You ask what she was like," Pritchard broke in. "Let me give you an
+instance. I was at Auckland first in '97, at the end o' the _Marroquin's_
+commission, an' as I'd been promoted I went up with the others. She used
+to look after us all, an' she never lost by it--not a penny! 'Pay me now,'
+she'd say, 'or settle later. I know you won't let me suffer. Send the
+money from home if you like,' Why, gentlemen all, I tell you I've seen
+that lady take her own gold watch an' chain off her neck in the bar an'
+pass it to a bosun 'oo'd come ashore without 'is ticker an' 'ad to catch
+the last boat. 'I don't know your name,' she said, 'but when you've done
+with it, you'll find plenty that know me on the front. Send it back by one
+o' them.' And it was worth thirty pounds if it was worth 'arf a crown. The
+little gold watch, Pye, with the blue monogram at the back. But, as I was
+sayin', in those days she kep' a beer that agreed with me--Slits it was
+called. One way an' another I must 'ave punished a good few bottles of it
+while we was in the bay--comin' ashore every night or so. Chaffin across
+the bar like, once when we were alone, 'Mrs. B.,' I said, 'when next I
+call I want you to remember that this is my particular--just as you're my
+particular?' (She'd let you go _that_ far!) 'Just as you're my
+particular,' I said. 'Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says, an'
+put 'er hand up to the curl be'ind 'er ear. Remember that way she had,
+Pye?"
+
+"I think so," said the sailor.
+
+"Yes, 'Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says. 'The least I can do is to
+mark it for you in case you change your mind. There's no great demand for
+it in the Fleet,' she says, 'but to make sure I'll put it at the back o'
+the shelf,' an' she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon with that old
+dolphin cigar cutter on the bar--remember it, Pye?--an' she tied a bow
+round what was left--just four bottles. That was '97--no, '96. In '98 I
+was in the _Resiliant_--China station--full commission. In Nineteen One,
+mark you, I was in the _Carthusian_, back in Auckland Bay again. Of course
+I went up to Mrs. B.'s with the rest of us to see how things were goin'.
+They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree on the pavement by the
+side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin' in special (there was too many of us
+talkin' to her), but she saw me at once."
+
+"That wasn't difficult?" I ventured.
+
+"Ah, but wait. I was comin' up to the bar, when, 'Ada,' she says to her
+niece, 'get me Sergeant Pritchard's particular,' and, gentlemen all, I
+tell you before I could shake 'ands with the lady, there were those four
+bottles o' Slits, with 'er 'air ribbon in a bow round each o' their necks,
+set down in front o' me, an' as she drew the cork she looked at me under
+her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o' lookin', an', 'Sergeant
+Pritchard,' she says, 'I do 'ope you 'aven't changed your mind about your
+particulars.' That's the kind o' woman she was--after five years!"
+
+"I don't _see_ her yet somehow," said Hooper, but with sympathy.
+
+"She--she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set 'er foot on a scorpion
+at any time of 'er life," Pritchard added valiantly.
+
+"That don't help me either. My mother's like that for one."
+
+The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof.
+Said Pyecroft suddenly:--
+
+"How many women have you been intimate with all over the world, Pritch?"
+
+Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch
+neck.
+
+"'Undreds," said Pyecroft. "So've I. How many of 'em can you remember in
+your own mind, settin' aside the first--an' per'aps the last--_and one
+more_?"
+
+"Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself," said Sergeant Pritchard,
+relievedly.
+
+"An' how many times might you 'ave been at Aukland?"
+
+"One--two," he began. "Why, I can't make it more than three times in ten
+years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B."
+
+"So can I--an' I've only been to Auckland twice--how she stood an' what
+she was sayin' an' what she looked like. That's the secret. 'Tisn't
+beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some
+women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street, but
+most of 'em you can live with a month on end, an' next commission you'd be
+put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as one
+might say."
+
+"Ah," said Hooper. "That's more the idea. I've known just two women of
+that nature."
+
+"An' it was no fault o' theirs?" asked Pritchard.
+
+"None whatever. I know that!"
+
+"An' if a man gets struck with that kind o' woman, Mr. Hooper?" Pritchard
+went on.
+
+"He goes crazy--or just saves himself," was the slow answer.
+
+"You've hit it," said the Sergeant. "You've seen an' known somethin' in
+the course o' your life, Mr. Hooper. I'm lookin' at you!" He set down his
+bottle.
+
+"And how often had Vickery seen her?" I asked.
+
+"That's the dark an' bloody mystery," Pyecroft answered. "I'd never come
+across him till I come out in the _Hierophant_ just now, an' there wasn't
+any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was what you call
+a superior man. 'E spoke to me once or twice about Auckland and Mrs. B. on
+the voyage out. I called that to mind subsequently. There must 'ave been a
+good deal between 'em, to my way o' thinkin'. Mind you I'm only giving you
+my _sum_ of it all, because all I know is second-hand so to speak, or
+rather I should say more than second-'and."
+
+"How?" said Hooper peremptorily. "You must have seen it or heard it."
+
+"Yes," said Pyecroft. "I used to think seein' and hearin' was the only
+regulation aids to ascertainin' facts, but as we get older we get more
+accommodatin'. The cylinders work easier, I suppose.... Were you in Cape
+Town last December when Phyllis's Circus came?"
+
+"No--up country," said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue.
+
+"I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called 'Home and
+Friends for a Tickey.'"
+
+"Oh, you mean the cinematograph--the pictures of prize-fights and
+steamers. I've seen 'em up country."
+
+"Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin' to. London Bridge with
+the omnibuses--a troopship goin' to the war--marines on parade at
+Portsmouth an' the Plymouth Express arrivin' at Paddin'ton."
+
+"Seen 'em all. Seen 'em all," said Hooper impatiently.
+
+"We _Hierophants_ came in just before Christmas week an' leaf was easy."
+
+"I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on
+the station. Why, even Durban's more like Nature. We was there for
+Christmas," Pritchard put in.
+
+"Not bein' a devotee of Indian _peeris_, as our Doctor said to the Pusser,
+I can't exactly say. Phyllis's was good enough after musketry practice at
+Mozambique. I couldn't get off the first two or three nights on account of
+what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo Lieutenant in the
+submerged flat, where some pride of the West country had sugared up a
+gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our Carpenter Rigdon--
+old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus never left 'is ship
+unless an' until he was 'oisted out with a winch, but _when_ 'e went 'e
+would return noddin' like a lily gemmed with dew. We smothered him down
+below that night, but the things 'e said about Vickery as a fittin'
+playmate for a Warrant Officer of 'is cubic capacity, before we got him
+quiet, was what I should call pointed."
+
+"I've been with Crocus--in the _Redoubtable_," said the Sergeant. "He's a
+character if there is one."
+
+"Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at the
+door of the Circus I came across Vickery. 'Oh!' he says, 'you're the man
+I'm looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin' places!'
+I went astern at once, protestin' because tickey seats better suited my
+so-called finances. 'Come on,' says Vickery, 'I'm payin'.' Naturally I
+abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o' drinks to match the seats.
+'No,' he says, when this was 'inted--'not now. Not now. As many as you
+please afterwards, but I want you sober for the occasion.' I caught 'is
+face under a lamp just then, an' the appearance of it quite cured me of my
+thirsts. Don't mistake. It didn't frighten me. It made me anxious. I can't
+tell you what it was like, but that was the effect which it 'ad on me. If
+you want to know, it reminded me of those things in bottles in those
+herbalistic shops at Plymouth--preserved in spirits of wine. White an'
+crumply things--previous to birth as you might say."
+
+"You 'ave a beastial mind, Pye," said the Sergeant, relighting his pipe.
+
+"Perhaps. We were in the front row, an' 'Home an' Friends' came on early.
+Vickery touched me on the knee when the number went up. 'If you see
+anything that strikes you,' he says, 'drop me a hint'; then he went on
+clicking. We saw London Bridge an' so forth an' so on, an' it was most
+interestin'. I'd never seen it before. You 'eard a little dynamo like
+buzzin', but the pictures were the real thing--alive an' movin'."
+
+"I've seen 'em," said Hooper. "Of course they are taken from the very
+thing itself--you see."
+
+"Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin'ton on the big magic lantern
+sheet. First we saw the platform empty an' the porters standin' by. Then
+the engine come in, head on, an' the women in the front row jumped: she
+headed so straight. Then the doors opened and the passengers came out and
+the porters got the luggage--just like life. Only--only when any one came
+down too far towards us that was watchin', they walked right out o' the
+picture, so to speak. I was 'ighly interested, I can tell you. So were all
+of us. I watched an old man with a rug 'oo'd dropped a book an' was tryin'
+to pick it up, when quite slowly, from be'ind two porters--carryin' a
+little reticule an' lookin' from side to side--comes out Mrs. Bathurst.
+There was no mistakin' the walk in a hundred thousand. She come forward--
+right forward--she looked out straight at us with that blindish look which
+Pritch alluded to. She walked on and on till she melted out of the
+picture--like--like a shadow jumpin' over a candle, an' as she went I
+'eard Dawson in the ticky seats be'ind sing out: 'Christ! There's
+Mrs. B.!'"
+
+Hooper swallowed his spittle and leaned forward intently.
+
+"Vickery touched me on the knee again. He was clickin' his four false
+teeth with his jaw down like an enteric at the last kick. 'Are you sure?'
+says he. 'Sure,' I says, 'didn't you 'ear Dawson give tongue? Why, it's
+the woman herself.' 'I was sure before,' he says, 'but I brought you to
+make sure. Will you come again with me to-morrow?'
+
+"'Willingly,' I says, 'it's like meetin' old friends.'
+
+"'Yes,' he says, openin' his watch, 'very like. It will be four-and-twenty
+hours less four minutes before I see her again. Come and have a drink,' he
+says. 'It may amuse you, but it's no sort of earthly use to me.' He went
+out shaking his head an' stumblin' over people's feet as if he was drunk
+already. I anticipated a swift drink an' a speedy return, because I wanted
+to see the performin' elephants. Instead o' which Vickery began to
+navigate the town at the rate o' knots, lookin' in at a bar every three
+minutes approximate Greenwich time. I'm not a drinkin' man, though there
+are those present"--he cocked his unforgetable eye at me--"who may have
+seen me more or less imbued with the fragrant spirit. None the less, when
+I drink I like to do it at anchor an' not at an average speed of eighteen
+knots on the measured mile. There's a tank as you might say at the back o'
+that big hotel up the hill--what do they call it?"
+
+"The Molteno Reservoir," I suggested, and Hooper nodded.
+
+"That was his limit o' drift. We walked there an' we come down through the
+Gardens--there was a South-Easter blowin'--an' we finished up by the
+Docks. Then we bore up the road to Salt River, and wherever there was a
+pub Vickery put in sweatin'. He didn't look at what he drunk--he didn't
+look at the change. He walked an' he drunk an' he perspired in rivers. I
+understood why old Crocus 'ad come back in the condition 'e did, because
+Vickery an' I 'ad two an' a half hours o' this gipsy manoeuvre an' when we
+got back to the station there wasn't a dry atom on or in me."
+
+"Did he say anything?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"The sum total of 'is conversation from 7.45 P.M. till 11.15 P.M. was
+'Let's have another.' Thus the mornin' an' the evenin' were the first day,
+as Scripture says.... To abbreviate a lengthy narrative, I went into Cape
+Town for five consecutive nights with Master Vickery, and in that time I
+must 'ave logged about fifty knots over the ground an' taken in two gallon
+o' all the worst spirits south the Equator. The evolution never varied.
+Two shilling seats for us two; five minutes o' the pictures, an' perhaps
+forty-five seconds o' Mrs. B. walking down towards us with that blindish
+look in her eyes an' the reticule in her hand. Then out walk--and drink
+till train time."
+
+"What did you think?" said Hooper, his hand fingering his waistcoat
+pocket.
+
+"Several things," said Pyecroft. "To tell you the truth, I aren't quite
+done thinkin' about it yet. Mad? The man was a dumb lunatic--must 'ave
+been for months--years p'raps. I know somethin' o' maniacs, as every man
+in the Service must. I've been shipmates with a mad skipper--an' a lunatic
+Number One, but never both together I thank 'Eaven. I could give you the
+names o' three captains now 'oo ought to be in an asylum, but you don't
+find me interferin' with the mentally afflicted till they begin to lay
+about 'em with rammers an' winch-handles. Only once I crept up a little
+into the wind towards Master Vickery. 'I wonder what she's doin' in
+England,' I says. 'Don't it seem to you she's lookin' for somebody?' That
+was in the Gardens again, with the South-Easter blowin' as we were makin'
+our desperate round. 'She's lookin' for me,' he says, stoppin' dead under
+a lamp an' clickin'. When he wasn't drinkin', in which case all 'is teeth
+clicked on the glass, 'e was clickin' 'is four false teeth like a Marconi
+ticker. 'Yes! lookin' for me,' he said, an' he went on very softly an' as
+you might say affectionately. '_But?_ he went on, 'in future, Mr.
+Pyecroft, I should take it kindly of you if you'd confine your remarks to
+the drinks set before you. Otherwise,' he says, 'with the best will in the
+world towards you, I may find myself guilty of murder! Do you understand?'
+he says. 'Perfectly,' I says, 'but would it at all soothe you to know that
+in such a case the chances o' your being killed are precisely equivalent
+to the chances o' me being outed.' 'Why, no,' he says, 'I'm almost afraid
+that 'ud be a temptation,'
+
+"Then I said--we was right under the lamp by that arch at the end o' the
+Gardens where the trams came round--'Assumin' murder was done--or
+attempted murder--I put it to you that you would still be left so badly
+crippled, as one might say, that your subsequent capture by the police--to
+'oom you would 'ave to explain--would be largely inevitable.' 'That's
+better,' 'e says, passin' 'is hands over his forehead. 'That's much
+better, because,' he says, 'do you know, as I am now, Pye, I'm not so sure
+if I could explain anything much.' Those were the only particular words I
+had with 'im in our walks as I remember."
+
+"What walks!" said Hooper. "Oh my soul, what walks!"
+
+"They were chronic," said Pyecroft gravely, "but I didn't anticipate any
+danger till the Circus left. Then I anticipated that, bein' deprived of
+'is stimulant, he might react on me, so to say, with a hatchet.
+Consequently, after the final performance an' the ensuin' wet walk, I kep'
+myself aloof from my superior officer on board in the execution of 'is
+duty as you might put it. Consequently, I was interested when the sentry
+informs me while I was passin' on my lawful occasions that Click had asked
+to see the captain. As a general rule warrant officers don't dissipate
+much of the owner's time, but Click put in an hour and more be'ind that
+door. My duties kep' me within eyeshot of it. Vickery came out first, an'
+'e actually nodded at me an' smiled. This knocked me out o' the boat,
+because, havin' seen 'is face for five consecutive nights, I didn't
+anticipate any change there more than a condenser in hell, so to speak.
+The owner emerged later. His face didn't read off at all, so I fell back
+on his cox, 'oo'd been eight years with him and knew him better than boat
+signals. Lamson--that was the cox's name--crossed 'is bows once or twice
+at low speeds an' dropped down to me visibly concerned. 'He's shipped 'is
+court-martial face,' says Lamson. 'Some one's goin' to be 'ung. I've never
+seen that look but once before when they chucked the gun-sights overboard
+in the _Fantastic_.' Throwin' gun-sights overboard, Mr. Hooper, is the
+equivalent for mutiny in these degenerate days. It's done to attract the
+notice of the authorities an' the _Western Mornin' News_--generally by a
+stoker. Naturally, word went round the lower deck an' we had a private
+over'aul of our little consciences. But, barrin' a shirt which a second-
+class stoker said 'ad walked into 'is bag from the marines flat by itself,
+nothin' vital transpired. The owner went about flyin' the signal for
+'attend public execution,' so to say, but there was no corpse at the
+yardarm. 'E lunched on the beach an' 'e returned with 'is regulation
+harbour-routine face about 3 P. M. Thus Lamson lost prestige for raising
+false alarms. The only person 'oo might 'ave connected the epicycloidal
+gears correctly was one Pyecroft, when he was told that Mr. Vickery would
+go up country that same evening to take over certain naval ammunition left
+after the war in Bloemfontein Fort. No details was ordered to accompany
+Master Vickery. He was told off first person singular--as a unit---by
+himself."
+
+The marine whistled penetratingly.
+
+"That's what I thought," said Pyecroft. "I went ashore with him in the
+cutter an' 'e asked me to walk through the station. He was clickin'
+audibly, but otherwise seemed happy-ish.
+
+"'You might like to know,' he says, stoppin' just opposite the Admiral's
+front gate, 'that Phyllis's Circus will be performin' at Worcester
+to-morrow night. So I shall see 'er yet once again. You've been very
+patient with me,' he says.
+
+"'Look here, Vickery,' I said, 'this thing's come to be just as much as I
+can stand. Consume your own smoke. I don't want to know any more.'
+
+"'You!' he said. 'What have you got to complain of?--you've only 'ad to
+watch. I'm _it_,' he says, 'but that's neither here nor there,' he says.
+'I've one thing to say before shakin' 'ands. Remember,' 'e says--we were
+just by the Admiral's garden-gate then--'remember, that I am _not_ a
+murderer, because my lawful wife died in childbed six weeks after I came
+out. That much at least I am clear of,' 'e says.
+
+"'Then what have you done that signifies?' I said. 'What's the rest of
+it?'
+
+"'The rest,' 'e says, 'is silence,' an' he shook 'ands and went clickin'
+into Simons Town station."
+
+"Did he stop to see Mrs. Bathurst at Worcester?" I asked.
+
+"It's not known. He reported at Bloemfontein, saw the ammunition into the
+trucks, and then 'e disappeared. Went out--deserted, if you care to put it
+so--within eighteen months of his pension, an' if what 'e said about 'is
+wife was true he was a free man as 'e then stood. How do you read it off?"
+
+"Poor devil!" said Hooper. "To see her that way every night! I wonder what
+it was."
+
+"I've made my 'ead ache in that direction many a long night."
+
+"But I'll swear Mrs. B. 'ad no 'and in it," said the Sergeant unshaken.
+
+"No. Whatever the wrong or deceit was, he did it, I'm sure o' that. I 'ad
+to look at 'is face for five consecutive nights. I'm not so fond o'
+navigatin' about Cape Town with a South-Easter blowin' these days. I can
+hear those teeth click, so to say."
+
+"Ah, those teeth," said Hooper, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket
+once more. "Permanent things false teeth are. You read about 'em in all
+the murder trials."
+
+"What d'you suppose the captain knew--or did?" I asked.
+
+"I never turned my searchlight that way," Pyecroft answered unblushingly.
+
+We all reflected together, and drummed on empty beer bottles as the
+picnic-party, sunburned, wet, and sandy, passed our door singing "The
+Honeysuckle and the Bee."
+
+"Pretty girl under that kapje," said Pyecroft.
+
+"They never circulated his description?" said Pritchard.
+
+"I was askin' you before these gentlemen came," said Hooper to me,
+"whether you knew Wankies--on the way to the Zambesi--beyond Buluwayo?"
+
+"Would he pass there--tryin' to get to that Lake what's 'is name?" said
+Pritchard.
+
+Hooper shook his head and went on: "There's a curious bit o' line there,
+you see. It runs through solid teak forest--a sort o' mahogany really--
+seventy-two miles without a curve. I've had a train derailed there twenty-
+three times in forty miles. I was up there a month ago relievin' a sick
+inspector, you see. He told me to look out for a couple of tramps in the
+teak."
+
+"Two?" Pyecroft said. "I don't envy that other man if----"
+
+"We get heaps of tramps up there since the war. The inspector told me I'd
+find 'em at M'Bindwe siding waiting to go North. He'd given 'em some grub
+and quinine, you see. I went up on a construction train. I looked out for
+'em. I saw them miles ahead along the straight, waiting in the teak. One
+of 'em was standin' up by the dead-end of tke siding an' the other was
+squattin' down lookin' up at 'im, you see."
+
+"What did you do for 'em?" said Pritchard.
+
+"There wasn't much I could do, except bury 'em. There'd been a bit of a
+thunderstorm in the teak, you see, and they were both stone dead and as
+black as charcoal. That's what they really were, you see--charcoal. They
+fell to bits when we tried to shift 'em. The man who was standin' up had
+the false teeth. I saw 'em shinin' against the black. Fell to bits he did
+too, like his mate squatting down an' watchin' him, both of 'em all wet in
+the rain. Both burned to charcoal, you see. And--that's what made me ask
+about marks just now--the false-toother was tattooed on the arms and
+chest--a crown and foul anchor with M.V. above."
+
+"I've seen that," said Pyecroft quickly. "It was so."
+
+"But if he was all charcoal-like?" said Pritchard, shuddering.
+
+"You know how writing shows up white on a burned letter? Well, it was like
+that, you see. We buried 'em in the teak and I kept... But he was a friend
+of you two gentlemen, you see."
+
+Mr. Hooper brought his hand away from his waistcoat-pocket--empty.
+
+Pritchard covered his face with his hands for a moment, like a child
+shutting out an ugliness.
+
+"And to think of her at Hauraki!" he murmured--"with 'er 'air-ribbon on my
+beer. 'Ada,' she said to her niece... Oh, my Gawd!"...
+
+  "On a summer afternoon, when the honeysuckle blooms,
+  And all Nature seems at rest,
+  Underneath the bower, 'mid the perfume of the flower,
+  Sat a maiden with the one she loves the best----"
+
+sang the picnic-party waiting for their train at Glengariff.
+
+"Well, I don't know how you feel about it," said Pyecroft, "but 'avin'
+seen 'is face for five consecutive nights on end, I'm inclined to finish
+what's left of the beer an' thank Gawd he's dead!"
+
+
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+"OUR FATHERS ALSO"
+
+  By--they are by with mirth and tears,
+  Wit or the works of Desire--
+  Cushioned about on the kindly years
+  Between the wall and the fire.
+
+  The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked--
+  Standeth no more to glean;
+  For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
+  When they went out between.
+
+  All lore our Lady Venus bares
+  Signalled it was or told
+  By the dear lips long given to theirs
+  And longer to the mould.
+
+  All Profit, all Device, all Truth
+  Written it was or said
+  By the mighty men of their mighty youth.
+  Which is mighty being dead.
+
+  The film that floats before their eyes
+  The Temple's Veil they call;
+  And the dust that on the Shewbread lies
+  Is holy over all.
+
+  Warn them of seas that slip our yoke
+  Of slow conspiring stars--
+  The ancient Front of Things unbroke
+  But heavy with new wars?
+
+  By--they are by with mirth and tears.
+  Wit or the waste of Desire--
+  Cushioned about on the kindly years
+  Between the wall and the fire.
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" They were letting in the water for the evening
+stint at Robert's Mill, and the wooden Wheel where lived the Spirit of the
+Mill settled to its nine hundred year old song: "Here Azor, a freeman,
+held one rod, but it never paid geld. _Nun-nun-nunquam geldavit_. Here
+Reinbert has one villein and four cottars with one plough--and wood for
+six hogs and two fisheries of sixpence and a mill of ten shillings--_unum
+molinum_--one mill. Reinbert's mill--Robert's Mill. Then and afterwards
+and now--_tunc et post et modo_--Robert's Mill. Book--Book--Domesday
+Book!"
+
+"I confess," said the Black Rat on the crossbeam, luxuriously trimming his
+whiskers--"I confess I am not above appreciating my position and all it
+means." He was a genuine old English black rat, a breed which, report
+says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown variety.
+
+"Appreciation is the surest sign of inadequacy," said the Grey Cat, coiled
+up on a piece of sacking.
+
+"But I know what you mean," she added. "To sit by right at the heart of
+things--eh?"
+
+"Yes," said the Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy stones
+thuttered on the grist. "To possess--er--all this environment as an
+integral part of one's daily life must insensibly of course ... You see?"
+
+"I feel," said the Grey Cat. "Indeed, if _we_ are not saturated with the
+spirit of the Mill, who should be?"
+
+"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" the Wheel, set to his work, was running off
+the tenure of the whole rape, for he knew Domesday Book backwards and
+forwards: "_In Ferle tenuit Abbatia de Wiltuna unam hidam et unam virgam
+et dimidiam. Nunquam geldavit_. And Agemond, a freeman, has half a hide
+and one rod. I remember Agemond well. Charmin' fellow--friend of mine. He
+married a Norman girl in the days when we rather looked down on the
+Normans as upstarts. An' Agemond's dead? So he is. Eh, dearie me! dearie
+me! I remember the wolves howling outside his door in the big frost of Ten
+Fifty-Nine.... _Essewelde hundredum nunquam geldum reddidit_. Book! Book!
+Domesday Book!"
+
+"After all," the Grey Cat continued, "atmospere is life. It is the
+influences under which we live that count in the long run. Now, outside"--
+she cocked one ear towards the half-opened door--"there is an absurd
+convention that rats and cats are, I won't go so far as to say natural
+enemies, but opposed forces. Some such ruling may be crudely effective--I
+don't for a minute presume to set up my standards as final--among the
+ditches; but from the larger point of view that one gains by living at the
+heart of things, it seems for a rule of life a little overstrained. Why,
+because some of your associates have, shall I say, liberal views on the
+ultimate destination of a sack of--er--middlings don't they call them----"
+
+"Something of that sort," said the Black Rat, a most sharp and sweet-
+toothed judge of everything ground in the mill for the last three years.
+
+"Thanks--middlings be it. _Why_, as I was saying, must I disarrange my fur
+and my digestion to chase you round the dusty arena whenever we happen to
+meet?"
+
+"As little reason," said the Black Rat, "as there is for me, who, I trust,
+am a person of ordinarily decent instincts, to wait till you have gone on
+a round of calls, and then to assassinate your very charming children."
+
+"Exactly! It has its humorous side though." The Grey Cat yawned. "The
+miller seems afflicted by it. He shouted large and vague threats to my
+address, last night at tea, that he wasn't going to keep cats who 'caught
+no mice.' Those were his words. I remember the grammar sticking in my
+throat like a herring-bone."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"What does one do when a barbarian utters? One ceases to utter and
+removes. I removed--towards his pantry. It was a _riposte_ he might
+appreciate."
+
+"Really those people grow absolutely insufferable," said the Black Rat.
+"There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles--a builder--
+who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the Wheel for
+the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick where
+those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used to stand. Have you noticed?"
+
+"There has been much misdirected activity of late among the humans. They
+jabber inordinately. I haven't yet been able to arrive at their reason for
+existence." The Cat yawned.
+
+"A couple of them came in here last week with wires, and fixed them all
+about the walls. Wires protected by some abominable composition, ending in
+iron brackets with glass bulbs. Utterly useless for any purpose and
+artistically absolutely hideous. What do they mean?"
+
+"Aaah! I have known _four_-and-twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza," said
+the Cat, who kept good company with the boarders spending a summer at the
+Mill Farm. "It means nothing except that humans occasionally bring their
+dogs with them. I object to dogs in all forms."
+
+"Shouldn't object to dogs," said the Wheel sleepily.... "The Abbot of
+Wilton kept the best pack in the county. He enclosed all the Harryngton
+Woods to Sturt Common. Aluric, a freeman, was dispossessed of his holding.
+They tried the case at Lewes, but he got no change out of William de
+Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric eight and
+fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for
+blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot's brother married ...
+I've forgotten her name, but she was a charmin' little woman. The Lady
+Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was conferred. She
+rode devilish straight to hounds. They were a bit throatier than we breed
+now, but a good pack: one of the best. The Abbot kept 'em in splendid
+shape. Now, who was the woman the Abbot kept? Book--Book! I shall have to
+go right back to Domesday and work up the centuries: _Modo per omnia
+reddit burgum tunc--tunc--tunc_! Was it _burgum_ or _hundredum_? I shall
+remember in a minute. There's no hurry." He paused as he turned over
+silvered with showering drops.
+
+"This won't do," said the Waters in the sluice. "Keep moving."
+
+The Wheel swung forward; the Waters roared on the buckets and dropped down
+to the darkness below.
+
+"Noisier than usual," said the Black Rat. "It must have been raining up
+the valley."
+
+"Floods maybe," said the Wheel dreamily. "It isn't the proper season, but
+they can come without warning. I shall never forget the big one--when the
+Miller went to sleep and forgot to open the hatches. More than two hundred
+years ago it was, but I recall it distinctly. Most unsettling."
+
+"We lifted that wheel off his bearings," cried the Waters. "We said, 'Take
+away that bauble!' And in the morning he was five mile down the valley--
+hung up in a tree."
+
+"Vulgar!" said the Cat. "But I am sure he never lost his dignity."
+
+"We don't know. He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished
+with him.... Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! Get over!"
+
+"And why on this day more than any other," said the Wheel statelily. "I am
+not aware that my department requires the stimulus of external pressure to
+keep it up to its duties. I trust I have the elementary instincts of a
+gentleman."
+
+"Maybe," the Waters answered together, leaping down on the buckets. "We
+only know that you are very stiff on your bearings. Over, get over!"
+
+The Wheel creaked and groaned. There was certainly greater pressure upon
+him that he had ever felt, and his revolutions had increased from six and
+three-quarters to eight and a third per minute. But the uproar between the
+narrow, weed-hung walls annoyed the Grey Cat.
+
+"Isn't it almost time," she said plaintively, "that the person who is paid
+to understand these things shuts off those vehement drippings with that
+screw-thing on the top of that box-thing."
+
+"They'll be shut off at eight o'clock as usual," said Rat; "then we can go
+to dinner."
+
+"But we shan't be shut off till ever so late," said the Waters gaily. "We
+shall keep it up all night."
+
+"The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for by
+its eternal hopefulness," said the Cat. "Our dam is not, I am glad to say,
+designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time. Reserve is
+Life."
+
+"Thank goodness!" said the Black Rat. "Then they can return to their
+native ditches."
+
+"Ditches!" cried the Waters; "Raven's Gill Brook is no ditch. It is almost
+navigable, and _we_ come from there away." They slid over solid and
+compact till the Wheel thudded under their weight.
+
+"Raven's Gill Brook," said the Rat. "_I_ never heard of Raven's Gill."
+
+"We are the waters of Harpenden Brook--down from under Callton Rise. Phew!
+how the race stinks compared with the heather country." Another five foot
+of water flung itself against the Wheel, broke, roared, gurgled, and was
+gone.
+
+"Indeed," said the Grey Cat, "I am sorry to tell you that Raven's Gill
+Brook is cut off from this valley by an absolutely impassable range of
+mountains, and Callton Rise is more than nine miles away. It belongs to
+another system entirely."
+
+"Ah yes," said the Rat, grinning, "but we forget that, for the young,
+water always runs uphill."
+
+"Oh, hopeless! hopeless! hopeless!" cried the Waters, descending open-
+palmed upon the Wheel "There is nothing between here and Raven's Gill
+Brook that a hundred yards of channelling and a few square feet of
+concrete could not remove; and hasn't removed!"
+
+"And Harpenden Brook is north of Raven's Gill and runs into Raven's Gill
+at the foot of Callton Rise, where ilex trees are, and _we_ come from
+there!" These were the glassy, clear waters of the high chalk.
+
+"And Batten's Ponds, that are fed by springs, have been led through
+Trott's Wood, taking the spare water from the old Witches' Spring under
+Churt Haw, and we--we--_we_ are their combined waters!" Those were the
+Waters from the upland bogs and moors--a porter-coloured, dusky, and foam-
+flecked flood.
+
+"It's all very interesting," purred the Cat to the sliding waters, "and I
+have no doubt that Trott's Woods and Bott's Woods are tremendously
+important places; but if you could manage to do your work--whose value I
+don't in the least dispute--a little more soberly, I, for one, should be
+grateful."
+
+"Book--book--book--book--book--Domesday Book!" The urged Wheel was fairly
+clattering now: "In Burgelstaltone a monk holds of Earl Godwin one hide
+and a half with eight villeins. There is a church--and a monk.... I
+remember that monk. Blessed if he could rattle his rosary off any quicker
+than I am doing now ... and wood for seven hogs. I must be running twelve
+to the minute ... almost as fast as Steam. Damnable invention, Steam! ...
+Surely it's time we went to dinner or prayers--or something. Can't keep up
+this pressure, day in and day out, and not feel it. I don't mind for
+myself, of course. _Noblesse oblige_, you know. I'm only thinking of the
+Upper and the Nether Millstones. They came out of the common rock. They
+can't be expected to----"
+
+"Don't worry on our account, please," said the Millstones huskily. "So
+long as you supply the power we'll supply the weight and the bite."
+
+"Isn't it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this way?" grunted
+the Wheel. "I seem to remember something about the Mills of God grinding
+'slowly.' _Slowly_ was the word!"
+
+"But we are not the Mills of God. We're only the Upper and the Nether
+Millstones. We have received no instructions to be anything else. We are
+actuated by power transmitted through you."
+
+"Ah, but let us be merciful as we are strong. Think of all the beautiful
+little plants that grow on my woodwork. There are five varieties of rare
+moss within less than one square yard--and all these delicate jewels of
+nature are being grievously knocked about by this excessive rush of the
+water."
+
+"Umph!" growled the Millstones. "What with your religious scruples and
+your taste for botany we'd hardly know you for the Wheel that put the
+carter's son under last autumn. You never worried about _him_!"
+
+"He ought to have known better."
+
+"So ought your jewels of nature. Tell 'em to grow where it's safe."
+
+"How a purely mercantile life debases and brutalises!" said the Cat to the
+Rat.
+
+"They were such beautiful little plants too," said the Rat tenderly.
+"Maiden's-tongue and hart's-hair fern trellising all over the wall just as
+they do on the sides of churches in the Downs. Think what a joy the sight
+of them must be to our sturdy peasants pulling hay!"
+
+"Golly!" said the Millstones. "There's nothing like coming to the heart of
+things for information"; and they returned to the song that all English
+water-mills have sung from time beyond telling:
+
+  There was a jovial miller once
+  Lived on the River Dee,
+  And this the burden of his song
+  For ever used to be.
+
+Then, as fresh grist poured in and dulled the note:
+
+  I care for nobody--no not I,
+  And nobody cares for me.
+
+"Even these stones have absorbed something of our atmosphere," said the
+Grey Cat. "Nine-tenths of the trouble in this world comes from lack of
+detachment."
+
+"One of your people died from forgetting that, didn't she?" said the Rat.
+
+"One only. The example has sufficed us for generations."
+
+"Ah! but what happened to Don't Care?" the Waters demanded.
+
+"Brutal riding to death of the casual analogy is another mark of
+provincialism!" The Grey Cat raised her tufted chin. "I am going to sleep.
+With my social obligations I must snatch rest when I can; but, as our old
+friend here says, _Noblesse oblige_.... Pity me! Three functions to-night
+in the village, and a barn dance across the valley!"
+
+"There's no chance, I suppose, of your looking in on the loft about two.
+Some of our young people are going to amuse themselves with a new sacque-
+dance--best white flour only," said the Black Rat.
+
+"I believe I am officially supposed not to countenance that sort of thing,
+but youth is youth. ... By the way, the humans set my milk-bowl in the
+loft these days; I hope your youngsters respect it."
+
+"My dear lady," said the Black Rat, bowing, "you grieve me. You hurt me
+inexpressibly. After all these years, too!"
+
+"A general crush is so mixed--highways and hedges--all that sort of thing
+--and no one can answer for one's best friends. _I_ never try. So long as
+mine are amusin' and in full voice, and can hold their own at a tile-
+party, I'm as catholic as these mixed waters in the dam here!"
+
+"We aren't mixed. We _have_ mixed. We are one now," said the Waters
+sulkily.
+
+"Still uttering?" said the Cat. "Never mind, here's the Miller coming to
+shut you off. Ye-es, I have known--_four_--or five is it?--and twenty
+leaders of revolt in Faenza.... A little more babble in the dam, a little
+more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the wheel,
+and then----"
+
+"They will find that nothing has occurred," said the Black Rat. "The old
+things persist and survive and are recognised--our old friend here first
+of all. By the way," he turned toward the Wheel, "I believe we have to
+congratulate you on your latest honour."
+
+"Profoundly well deserved--even if he had never--as he has---laboured
+strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of millkind," said
+the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse committees. "Doubly
+deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified rebuke his existence
+offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands of--er--some people. What
+form did the honour take?"
+
+"It was," said the Wheel bashfully, "a machine-moulded pinion."
+
+"Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!" the Black Rat sighed. "I never see a bat
+without wishing for wings."
+
+"Not exactly that sort of pinion," said the Wheel, "but a really ornate
+circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying. Mr.
+Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally--on my left
+rim--the side that you can't see from the mill. I hadn't meant to say
+anything about it--or the new steel straps round my axles--bright red, you
+know--to be worn on all occasions--but, without false modesty, I assure
+you that the recognition cheered me not a little."
+
+"How intensely gratifying!" said the Black Rat. "I must really steal an
+hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on your left
+side."
+
+"By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr. Mangles?"
+the Grey Cat asked. "He seems to be building small houses on the far side
+of the tail-race. Believe me, I don't ask from any vulgar curiosity."
+
+"It affects our Order," said the Black Rat simply but firmly.
+
+"Thank you," said the Wheel. "Let me see if I can tabulate it properly.
+Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On the
+side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now
+was a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and two
+carts of two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards and a
+half, and one roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and
+afterwards beer in large tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three
+villeins and one very great cart, deposits on it one engine of iron and
+brass and a small iron mill of four feet, and a broad strap of leather.
+And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins, constructs the floor for the
+same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the small mill. There are
+there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number fifty-seven. The
+whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four pounds.... I'm sorry I
+can't make myself clearer, but you can see for yourself."
+
+"Amazingly lucid," said the Cat. She was the more to be admired because
+the language of Domesday Book is not, perhaps, the clearest medium wherein
+to describe a small but complete electric-light installation, deriving its
+power from a water-wheel by means of cogs and gearing.
+
+"See for yourself--by all means, see for yourself," said the Waters,
+spluttering and choking with mirth.
+
+"Upon my word," said the Black Rat furiously, "I may be at fault, but I
+wholly fail to perceive where these offensive eavesdroppers--er--come in.
+We were discussing a matter that solely affected our Order."
+
+Suddenly they heard, as they had heard many times before, the Miller
+shutting off the water. To the rattle and rumble of the labouring stones
+succeeded thick silence, punctuated with little drops from the stayed
+wheel. Then some water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as she slid to
+her nest, and the plop of a water-rat sounded like the fall of a log in
+the water.
+
+"It is all over--it always is all over at just this time. Listen, the
+Miller is going to bed--as usual. Nothing has occurred," said the Cat.
+
+Something creaked in the house where the pig-styes had stood, as metal
+engaged on metal with a clink and a burr.
+
+"Shall I turn her on?" cried the Miller.
+
+"Ay," said the voice from the dynamo-house.
+
+"A human in Mangles' new house!" the Rat squeaked.
+
+"What of it?" said the Grey Cat. "Even supposing Mr. Mangles' cats'-meat-
+coloured hovel ululated with humans, can't you see for yourself--that--?"
+
+There was a solid crash of released waters leaping upon the wheel more
+furiously than ever, a grinding of cogs, a hum like the hum of a hornet,
+and then the unvisited darkness of the old mill was scattered by
+intolerable white light. It threw up every cobweb, every burl and knot in
+the beams and the floor; till the shadows behind the flakes of rough
+plaster on the wall lay clear-cut as shadows of mountains on the
+photographed moon.
+
+"See! See! See!" hissed the Waters in full flood. "Yes, see for
+yourselves. Nothing has occurred. Can't you see?"
+
+The Rat, amazed, had fallen from his foothold and lay half-stunned on the
+floor. The Cat, following her instinct, leaped nigh to the ceiling, and
+with flattened ears and bared teeth backed in a corner ready to fight
+whatever terror might be loosed on her. But nothing happened. Through the
+long aching minutes nothing whatever happened, and her wire-brush tail
+returned slowly to its proper shape.
+
+"Whatever it is," she said at last, "it's overdone. They can never keep it
+up, you know."
+
+"Much you know," said the Waters. "Over you go, old man. You can take the
+full head of us now. Those new steel axle-straps of yours can stand
+anything. Come along, Raven's Gill, Harpenden, Callton Rise, Batten's
+Ponds, Witches' Spring, all together! Let's show these gentlemen how to
+work!"
+
+"But--but--I thought it was a decoration. Why--why--why--it only means
+more work for _me_!"
+
+"Exactly. You're to supply about sixty eight-candle lights when required.
+But they won't be all in use at once----"
+
+"Ah! I thought as much," said the Cat. "The reaction is bound to come."
+
+"_And_" said the Waters, "you will do the ordinary work of the mill as
+well."
+
+"Impossible!" the old Wheel quivered as it drove. "Aluric never did it--
+nor Azor, nor Reinbert. Not even William de Warrenne or the Papal Legate.
+There's no precedent for it. I tell you there's no precedent for working a
+wheel like this."
+
+"Wait a while! We're making one as fast as we can. Aluric and Co. are
+dead. So's the Papal Legate. You've no notion how dead they are, but we're
+here--the Waters of Five Separate Systems. We're just as interesting as
+Domesday Book. Would you like to hear about the land-tenure in Trott's
+Wood? It's squat-right, chiefly." The mocking Waters leaped one over the
+other, chuckling and chattering profanely.
+
+"In that hundred Jenkins, a tinker, with one dog--_unis canis_--holds, by
+the Grace of God and a habit he has of working hard, _unam hidam_--a large
+potato patch. Charmin' fellow, Jenkins. Friend of ours. Now, who the dooce
+did Jenkins keep? ... In the hundred of Callton is one charcoal-burner
+_irreligiosissimus homo_--a bit of a rip--but a thorough sportsman. _Ibi
+est ecclesia. Non multum_. Not much of a church, _quia_ because,
+_episcopus_ the Vicar irritated the Nonconformists _tunc et post et modo_
+--then and afterwards and now--until they built a cut-stone Congregational
+chapel with red brick facings that did not return itself--_defendebat se_
+--at four thousand pounds."
+
+"Charcoal-burners, vicars, schismatics, and red brick facings," groaned
+the Wheel. "But this is sheer blasphemy. What waters have they let in upon
+me?"
+
+"Floods from the gutters. Faugh, this light is positively sickening!" said
+the Cat, rearranging her fur.
+
+"We come down from the clouds or up from the springs, exactly like all
+other waters everywhere. Is that what's surprising you?" sang the Waters.
+
+"Of course not. I know my work if you don't. What I complain of is your
+lack of reverence and repose. You've no instinct of deference towards your
+betters--your heartless parody of the Sacred volume (the Wheel meant
+Domesday Book)--proves it."
+
+"Our betters?" said the Waters most solemnly. "What is there in all this
+dammed race that hasn't come down from the clouds, or----"
+
+"Spare me that talk, please," the Wheel persisted. "You'd _never_
+understand. It's the tone--your tone that we object to."
+
+"Yes. It's your tone," said the Black Rat, picking himself up limb by
+limb.
+
+"If you thought a trifle more about the work you're supposed to do, and a
+trifle less about your precious feelings, you'd render a little more duty
+in return for the power vested in you--we mean wasted on you," the Waters
+replied.
+
+"I have been some hundreds of years laboriously acquiring the knowledge
+which you see fit to challenge so light-heartedly," the Wheel jarred.
+
+"Challenge him! Challenge him!" clamoured the little waves riddling down
+through the tail-race. "As well now as later. Take him up!"
+
+The main mass of the Waters plunging on the Wheel shocked that well-bolted
+structure almost into box-lids by saying: "Very good. Tell us what you
+suppose yourself to be doing at the present moment."
+
+"Waiving the offensive form of your question, I answer, purely as a matter
+of courtesy, that I am engaged in the trituration of farinaceous
+substances whose ultimate destination it would be a breach of the trust
+reposed in me to reveal."
+
+"Fiddle!" said the Waters. "We knew it all along! The first direct
+question shows his ignorance of his own job. Listen, old thing. Thanks to
+us, you are now actuating a machine of whose construction you know
+nothing, that that machine may, over wires of whose ramifications you are,
+by your very position, profoundly ignorant, deliver a power which you can
+never realise, to localities beyond the extreme limits of your mental
+horizon, with the object of producing phenomena which in your wildest
+dreams (if you ever dream) you could never comprehend. Is that clear, or
+would you like it all in words of four syllables?"
+
+"Your assumptions are deliciously sweeping, but may I point out that a
+decent and--the dear old Abbot of Wilton would have put it in his resonant
+monkish Latin much better than I can--a scholarly reserve, does not
+necessarily connote blank vacuity of mind on all subjects."
+
+"Ah, the dear old Abbot of Wilton," said the Rat sympathetically, as one
+nursed in that bosom. "Charmin' fellow--thorough scholar and gentleman.
+Such a pity!"
+
+"Oh, Sacred Fountains!" the Waters were fairly boiling. "He goes out of
+his way to expose his ignorance by triple bucketfuls. He creaks to high
+Heaven that he is hopelessly behind the common order of things! He invites
+the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal
+incompetence, and then he talks as though there were untold reserves of
+knowledge behind him that he is too modest to bring forward. For a bland,
+circular, absolutely sincere impostor, you're a miracle, O Wheel!"
+
+"I do not pretend to be anything more than an integral portion of an
+accepted and not altogether mushroom institution."
+
+"Quite so," said the Waters. "Then go round--hard----"
+
+"To what end?" asked the Wheel.
+
+"Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and fume--gassing is
+the proper word."
+
+"It would be," said the Cat, sniffing.
+
+"That will show that your accumulators are full. When the accumulators are
+exhausted, and the lights burn badly, you will find us whacking you round
+and round again."
+
+"The end of life as decreed by Mangles and his creatures is to go whacking
+round and round for ever," said the Cat.
+
+"In order," the Rat said, "that you may throw raw and unnecessary
+illumination upon all the unloveliness in the world. Unloveliness which we
+shall--er--have always with us. At the same time you will riotously
+neglect the so-called little but vital graces that make up Life."
+
+"Yes, Life," said the Cat, "with its dim delicious half-tones and veiled
+indeterminate distances. Its surprisals, escapes, encounters, and dizzying
+leaps--its full-throated choruses in honour of the morning star, and its
+melting reveries beneath the sun-warmed wall."
+
+"Oh, you can go on the tiles, Pussalina, just the same as usual," said the
+laughing Waters. "_We_ sha'n't interfere with you."
+
+"On the tiles, forsooth!" hissed the Cat.
+
+"Well, that's what it amounts to," persisted the Waters. "We see a good
+deal of the minor graces of life on our way down to our job."
+
+"And--but I fear I speak to deaf ears--do they never impress you?" said
+the Wheel.
+
+"Enormously," said the Waters. "We have already learned six refined
+synonyms for loafing."
+
+"But (here again I feel as though preaching in the wilderness) it never
+occurs to you that there may exist some small difference between the
+wholly animal--ah--rumination of bovine minds and the discerning, well-
+apportioned leisure of the finer type of intellect?"
+
+"Oh, yes. The bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no bones
+about it when it's shouted at. We've seen _that_--in haying-time--all
+along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough to fudge up excuses
+for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when its excuses aren't
+accepted. Turn over!"
+
+"But, my good people, no gentleman gets stuffy as you call it. A certain
+proper pride, to put it no higher, forbids---"
+
+"Nothing that he wants to do if he really wants to do it. Get along! What
+are you giving us? D'you suppose we've scoured half heaven in the clouds,
+and half earth in the mists, to be taken in at this time of the day by a
+bone-idle, old hand-quern of your type?"
+
+"It is not for me to bandy personalities with you. I can only say that I
+simply decline to accept the situation."
+
+"Decline away. It doesn't make any odds. They'll probably put in a turbine
+if you decline too much."
+
+"What's a turbine?" said the Wheel, quickly.
+
+"A little thing you don't see, that performs surprising revolutions. But
+you won't decline. You'll hang on to your two nice red-strapped axles and
+your new machine-moulded pinions like--a--like a leech on a lily stem!
+There's centuries of work in your old bones if you'd only apply yourself
+to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel with this head of water is
+about as efficient as a turbine."
+
+"So in future I am to be considered mechanically? I have been painted by
+at least five Royal Academicians."
+
+"Oh, you can be painted by five hundred when you aren't at work, of
+course. But while you are at work you'll work. You won't half-stop and
+think and talk about rare plants and dicky-birds and farinaceous fiduciary
+interests. You'll continue to revolve, and this new head of water will see
+that you do so continue."
+
+"It is a matter on which it would be exceedingly ill-advised to form a
+hasty or a premature conclusion. I will give it my most careful
+consideration," said the Wheel.
+
+"Please do," said the Waters gravely. "Hullo! Here's the Miller again."
+
+The Cat coiled herself in a picturesque attitude on the softest corner of
+a sack, and the Rat without haste, yet certainly without rest, slipped
+behind the sacking as though an appointment had just occurred to him.
+
+In the doorway, with the young Engineer, stood the Miller grinning
+amazedly.
+
+"Well--well--well! 'tis true-ly won'erful. An' what a power o' dirt! It
+come over me now looking at these lights, that I've never rightly seen my
+own mill before. She needs a lot bein' done to her."
+
+"Ah! I suppose one must make oneself moderately agreeable to the baser
+sort. They have their uses. This thing controls the dairy." The Cat,
+pincing on her toes, came forward and rubbed her head against the Miller's
+knee.
+
+"Ay, you pretty puss," he said, stooping. "You're as big a cheat as the
+rest of 'em that catch no mice about me. A won'erful smooth-skinned,
+rough-tongued cheat you be. I've more than half a mind----"
+
+"She does her work well," said the Engineer, pointing to where the Rat's
+beady eyes showed behind the sacking. "Cats and Rats livin' together--
+see?"
+
+"Too much they do--too long they've done. I'm sick and tired of it. Go and
+take a swim and larn to find your own vittles honest when you come out,
+Pussy."
+
+"My word!" said the Waters, as a sprawling Cat landed all unannounced in
+the centre of the tail-race. "Is that you, Mewsalina? You seem to have
+been quarrelling with your best friend. Get over to the left. It's
+shallowest there. Up on that alder-root with all four paws. Good-night!"
+
+"You'll never get any they rats," said the Miller, as the young Engineer
+struck wrathfully with his stick at the sacking. "They're not the common
+sort. They're the old black English sort."
+
+"Are they, by Jove? I must catch one to stuff, some day."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Six months later, in the chill of a January afternoon, they were letting
+in the Waters as usual.
+
+"Come along! It's both gears this evening," said the Wheel, kicking
+joyously in the first rush of the icy stream. "There's a heavy load of
+grist just in from Lamber's Wood. Eleven miles it came in an hour and a
+half in our new motor-lorry, and the Miller's rigged five new five-candle
+lights in his cow-stables. I'm feeding 'em to-night. There's a cow due to
+calve. Oh, while I think of it, what's the news from Callton Rise?"
+
+"The waters are finding their level as usual--but why do you ask?" said
+the deep outpouring Waters.
+
+"Because Mangles and Felden and the Miller are talking of increasing the
+plant here and running a saw-mill by electricity. I was wondering whether
+we----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the Waters chuckling. "_What_ did you say?"
+
+"Whether _we_, of course, had power enough for the job. It will be a
+biggish contract. There's all Harpenden Brook to be considered and
+Batten's Ponds as well, and Witches' Fountain, and the Churt's Hawd
+system.
+
+"We've power enough for anything in the world," said the Waters. "The only
+question is whether you could stand the strain if we came down on you full
+head."
+
+"Of course I can," said the Wheel. "Mangles is going to turn me into a set
+of turbines--beauties."
+
+"Oh--er--I suppose it's the frost that has made us a little thick-headed,
+but to whom are we talking?" asked the amazed Waters.
+
+"To me--the Spirit of the Mill, of course."
+
+"Not to the old Wheel, then?"
+
+"I happen to be living in the old Wheel just at present. When the turbines
+are installed I shall go and live in them. What earthly difference does it
+make?"
+
+"Absolutely none," said the Waters, "in the earth or in the waters under
+the earth. But we thought turbines didn't appeal to you."
+
+"Not like turbines? Me? My dear fellows, turbines are good for fifteen
+hundred revolutions a minute--and with our power we can drive 'em at full
+speed. Why, there's nothing we couldn't grind or saw or illuminate or heat
+with a set of turbines! That's to say if all the Five Watersheds are
+agreeable."
+
+"Oh, we've been agreeable for ever so long."
+
+"Then why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Don't know. Suppose it slipped our memory."
+
+The Waters were holding themselves in for fear of bursting with mirth.
+
+"How careless of you! You should keep abreast of the age, my dear fellows.
+We might have settled it long ago, if you'd only spoken. Yes, four good
+turbines and a neat brick penstock--eh? This old Wheel's absurdly out of
+date."
+
+"Well," said the Cat, who after a little proud seclusion had returned to
+her place impenitent as ever. "Praised be Pasht and the Old Gods, that
+whatever may have happened _I_, at least, have preserved the Spirit of the
+Mill!"
+
+She looked round as expecting her faithful ally, the Black Rat; but that
+very week the Engineer had caught and stuffed him, and had put him in a
+glass case; he being a genuine old English black rat. That breed, the
+report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown
+variety.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+***** This file should be named 9790-8.txt or 9790-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/9/7/9/9790/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+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
+https://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 1.F.3.  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 are 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 https://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
+https://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 https://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 https://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 including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was 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:
+
+     https://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/old/9790-8.zip b/old/9790-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ddbb76c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/9790-8.zip
diff --git a/old/9790.txt b/old/9790.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0eda17b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/9790.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11383 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+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: Traffics and Discoveries
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Posting Date: December 11, 2011 [EBook #9790]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 17, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES
+
+
+By Rudyard Kipling
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+_from the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed(Wahabi)_
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+_Poseidon'S Law_
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+_The Runners_
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+_The Wet Litany_
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART I.
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART II.
+
+_The King's Task_
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COOPER
+
+_The Necessitarian_
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+_Kaspar's Song in "Varda"_
+
+"WIRELESS"
+
+_Song of the Old Guard_
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART I.
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART II.
+
+_The Return of the Children_
+
+"THEY"
+
+_From Lyden's "Irenius_"
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+     "_Our Fathers Also_"
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+FROM THE MASJID-AL-AQSA OF SAYYID AHMED (WAHABI)
+
+  Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
+  He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
+  When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
+  He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
+  Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
+  Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.
+  Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow
+  Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,
+  Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,
+  Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.
+  Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story;
+  And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory
+  Embroidered with names of the Djinns--a miraculous weaving--
+  But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.
+  So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture--
+  Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture--
+  Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed;
+  But on him be the Peace and the Blessing: for he was great-hearted!
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE
+
+"He that believeth shall not make haste."--_Isaiah_.
+
+The guard-boat lay across the mouth of the bathing-pool, her crew idly
+spanking the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated militia-man,
+rifle in hand, sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the stern. Between
+the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, honey-coloured rocks on the
+beach the green water was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war
+bathing. Behind their orderly tin camp and the electric-light poles rose
+those stone-dotted spurs that throw heat on Simonstown. Beneath them the
+little _Barracouta_ nodded to the big _Gibraltar_, and the old _Penelope_,
+that in ten years has been bachelors' club, natural history museum,
+kindergarten, and prison, rooted and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a
+three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in
+from the deep sea.
+
+Said the sentry, assured of the visitor's good faith, "Talk to 'em? You
+can, to any that speak English. You'll find a lot that do."
+
+Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch
+Reformed Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority
+preferred their bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused the
+visitor that day to receive two weeks' delayed mails in one from a casual
+postman, and the whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a strap, he
+dangled as bait. At the edge of the beach, cross-legged, undressed to his
+sky-blue army shirt, sat a lean, ginger-haired man, on guard over a dozen
+heaps of clothing. His eyes followed the incoming Atlantic boat.
+
+"Excuse me, Mister," he said, without turning (and the speech betrayed his
+nationality), "would you mind keeping away from these garments? I've been
+elected janitor--on the Dutch vote."
+
+The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to his
+mail. At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured man
+turned quickly, the hunger of a press-ridden people in his close-set iron-
+grey eyes.
+
+"Have you any use for papers?" said the visitor.
+
+"Have I any use?" A quick, curved forefinger was already snicking off the
+outer covers. "Why, that's the New York postmark! Give me the ads. at the
+back of _Harper's_ and _M'Clure's_ and I'm in touch with God's Country
+again! Did you know how I was aching for papers?"
+
+The visitor told the tale of the casual postman.
+
+"Providential!" said the ginger-coloured man, keen as a terrier on his
+task; "both in time and matter. Yes! ... The _Scientific American_ yet
+once more! Oh, it's good! it's good!" His voice broke as he pressed his
+hawk-like nose against the heavily-inked patent-specifications at the end.
+"Can I keep it? I thank you--I thank you! Why--why--well--well! The
+_American Tyler_ of all things created! Do you subscribe to that?"
+
+"I'm on the free list," said the visitor, nodding.
+
+He extended his blue-tanned hand with that air of Oriental spaciousness
+which distinguishes the native-born American, and met the visitor's grasp
+expertly. "I can only say that you have treated me like a Brother (yes,
+I'll take every last one you can spare), and if ever--" He plucked at the
+bosom of his shirt. "Psha! I forgot I'd no card on me; but my name's
+Zigler--Laughton G. Zigler. An American? If Ohio's still in the Union, I
+am, Sir. But I'm no extreme States'-rights man. I've used all of my native
+country and a few others as I have found occasion, and now I am the
+captive of your bow and spear. I'm not kicking at that. I am not a coerced
+alien, nor a naturalised Texas mule-tender, nor an adventurer on the
+instalment plan. _I_ don't tag after our consul when he comes around,
+expecting the American Eagle to lift me out o' this by the slack of my
+pants. No, sir! If a Britisher went into Indian Territory and shot up his
+surroundings with a Colt automatic (not that _she's_ any sort of weapon,
+but I take her for an illustration), he'd be strung up quicker'n a
+snowflake 'ud melt in hell. No ambassador of yours 'ud save him. I'm my
+neck ahead on this game, anyway. That's how I regard the proposition.
+
+"Have I gone gunning against the British? To a certain extent, I presume
+you never heard tell of the Laughton-Zigler automatic two-inch field-gun,
+with self-feeding hopper, single oil-cylinder recoil, and ballbearing gear
+throughout? Or Laughtite, the new explosive? Absolutely uniform in effect,
+and one-ninth the bulk of any present effete charge--flake, cannonite,
+cordite, troisdorf, cellulose, cocoa, cord, or prism--I don't care what it
+is. Laughtite's immense; so's the Zigler automatic. It's me. It's fifteen
+years of me. You are not a gun-sharp? I am sorry. I could have surprised
+you. Apart from my gun, my tale don't amount to much of anything. I thank
+you, but I don't use any tobacco you'd be likely to carry... Bull Durham?
+_Bull Durham!_ I take it all back--every last word. Bull Durham--here! If
+ever you strike Akron, Ohio, when this fool-war's over, remember you've
+Laughton O. Zigler in your vest pocket. Including the city of Akron. We've
+a little club there.... Hell! What's the sense of talking Akron with no
+pants?
+
+"My gun? ... For two cents I'd have shipped her to our Filipeens. 'Came
+mighty near it too; but from what I'd read in the papers, you can't trust
+Aguinaldo's crowd on scientific matters. Why don't I offer it to our army?
+Well, you've an effete aristocracy running yours, and we've a crowd of
+politicians. The results are practically identical. I am not taking any
+U.S. Army in mine.
+
+"I went to Amsterdam with her--to this Dutch junta that supposes it's
+bossing the war. I wasn't brought up to love the British for one thing,
+and for another I knew that if she got in her fine work (my gun) I'd stand
+more chance of receiving an unbiassed report from a crowd of dam-fool
+British officers than from a hatful of politicians' nephews doing duty as
+commissaries and ordnance sharps. As I said, I put the brown man out of
+the question. That's the way _I_ regarded the proposition.
+
+"The Dutch in Holland don't amount to a row of pins. Maybe I misjudge 'em.
+Maybe they've been swindled too often by self-seeking adventurers to know
+a enthusiast when they see him. Anyway, they're slower than the Wrath o'
+God. But on delusions--as to their winning out next Thursday week at 9
+A.M.--they are--if I may say so--quite British.
+
+"I'll tell you a curious thing, too. I fought 'em for ten days before I
+could get the financial side of my game fixed to my liking. I knew they
+didn't believe in the Zigler, but they'd no call to be crazy-mean. I fixed
+it--free passage and freight for me and the gun to Delagoa Bay, and beyond
+by steam and rail. Then I went aboard to see her crated, and there I
+struck my fellow-passengers--all deadheads, same as me. Well, Sir, I
+turned in my tracks where I stood and besieged the ticket-office, and I
+said, 'Look at here, Van Dunk. I'm paying for my passage and her room in
+the hold--every square and cubic foot.' 'Guess he knocked down the fare to
+himself; but I paid. I paid. I wasn't going to deadhead along o' _that_
+crowd of Pentecostal sweepings. 'Twould have hoodooed my gun for all time.
+That was the way I regarded the proposition. No, Sir, they were not pretty
+company.
+
+"When we struck Pretoria I had a hell-and-a-half of a time trying to
+interest the Dutch vote in my gun an' her potentialities. The bottom was
+out of things rather much just about that time. Kruger was praying some
+and stealing some, and the Hollander lot was singing, 'If you haven't any
+money you needn't come round,' Nobody was spending his dough on anything
+except tickets to Europe. We were both grossly neglected. When I think how
+I used to give performances in the public streets with dummy cartridges,
+filling the hopper and turning the handle till the sweat dropped off me, I
+blush, Sir. I've made her to do her stunts before Kaffirs--naked sons of
+Ham--in Commissioner Street, trying to get a holt somewhere.
+
+"Did I talk? I despise exaggeration--'tain't American or scientific--but
+as true as I'm sitting here like a blue-ended baboon in a kloof, Teddy
+Roosevelt's Western tour was a maiden's sigh compared to my advertising
+work.
+
+"'Long in the spring I was rescued by a commandant called Van Zyl--a big,
+fleshy man with a lame leg. Take away his hair and his gun and he'd make a
+first-class Schenectady bar-keep. He found me and the Zigler on the veldt
+(Pretoria wasn't wholesome at that time), and he annexed me in a
+somnambulistic sort o' way. He was dead against the war from the start,
+but, being a Dutchman, he fought a sight better than the rest of that 'God
+and the Mauser' outfit. Adrian Van Zyl. Slept a heap in the daytime--and
+didn't love niggers. I liked him. I was the only foreigner in his
+commando. The rest was Georgia Crackers and Pennsylvania Dutch--with a
+dash o' Philadelphia lawyer. I could tell you things about them would
+surprise you. Religion for one thing; women for another; but I don't know
+as their notions o' geography weren't the craziest. 'Guess that must be
+some sort of automatic compensation. There wasn't one blamed ant-hill in
+their district they didn't know _and_ use; but the world was flat, they
+said, and England was a day's trek from Cape Town.
+
+"They could fight in their own way, and don't you forget it. But I guess
+you will not. They fought to kill, and, by what I could make out, the
+British fought to be killed. So both parties were accommodated.
+
+"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir. The position has its
+obligations--on both sides. You could not be offensive or partisan to me.
+I cannot, for the same reason, be offensive to you. Therefore I will not
+give you my opinions on the conduct of your war.
+
+"Anyway, I didn't take the field as an offensive partisan, but as an
+inventor. It was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. (Yes,
+Sir, I'm a Democrat by conviction, and that was one of the best things
+Grover Cleveland ever got off.)
+
+"After three months' trek, old man Van Zyl had his commando in good shape
+and refitted off the British, and he reckoned he'd wait on a British
+General of his acquaintance that did business on a circuit between
+Stompiesneuk, Jackhalputs, Vrelegen, and Odendaalstroom, year in and year
+out. He was a fixture in that section.
+
+"'He's a dam' good man,' says Van Zyl. 'He's a friend of mine. He sent in
+a fine doctor when I was wounded and our Hollander doc. wanted to cut my
+leg off. Ya, I'll guess we'll stay with him.' Up to date, me and my Zigler
+had lived in innocuous desuetude owing to little odds and ends riding out
+of gear. How in thunder was I to know there wasn't the ghost of any road
+in the country? But raw hide's cheap and lastin'. I guess I'll make my
+next gun a thousand pounds heavier, though.
+
+"Well, Sir, we struck the General on his beat--Vrelegen it was--and our
+crowd opened with the usual compliments at two thousand yards. Van Zyl
+shook himself into his greasy old saddle and says, 'Now we shall be quite
+happy, Mr. Zigler. No more trekking. Joost twelve miles a day till the
+apricots are ripe.'
+
+"Then we hitched on to his outposts, and vedettes, and cossack-picquets,
+or whatever they was called, and we wandered around the veldt arm in arm
+like brothers.
+
+"The way we worked lodge was this way. The General, he had his breakfast
+at 8:45 A.M. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island commuter. At
+8:42 A.M. I'd go down to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry to meet him--I
+mean I'd see the Zigler into position at two thousand (I began at three
+thousand, but that was cold and distant)--and blow him off to two full
+hoppers--eighteen rounds--just as they were bringing in his coffee. If his
+crowd was busy celebrating the anniversary of Waterloo or the last royal
+kid's birthday, they'd open on me with two guns (I'll tell you about them
+later on), but if they were disengaged they'd all stand to their horses
+and pile on the ironmongery, and washers, and typewriters, and five weeks'
+grub, and in half an hour they'd sail out after me and the rest of Van
+Zyl's boys; lying down and firing till 11:45 A.M. or maybe high noon. Then
+we'd go from labour to refreshment, resooming at 2 P.M. and battling till
+tea-time. Tuesday and Friday was the General's moving days. He'd trek
+ahead ten or twelve miles, and we'd loaf around his flankers and exercise
+the ponies a piece. Sometimes he'd get hung up in a drift--stalled
+crossin' a crick--and we'd make playful snatches at his wagons. First time
+that happened I turned the Zigler loose with high hopes, Sir; but the old
+man was well posted on rearguards with a gun to 'em, and I had to haul her
+out with three mules instead of six. I was pretty mad. I wasn't looking
+for any experts back of the Royal British Artillery. Otherwise, the game
+was mostly even. He'd lay out three or four of our commando, and we'd
+gather in four or five of his once a week or thereon. One time, I
+remember, long towards dusk we saw 'em burying five of their boys. They
+stood pretty thick around the graves. We wasn't more than fifteen hundred
+yards off, but old Van Zyl wouldn't fire. He just took off his hat at the
+proper time. He said if you stretched a man at his prayers you'd have to
+hump his bad luck before the Throne as well as your own. I am inclined to
+agree with him. So we browsed along week in and week out. A war-sharp
+might have judged it sort of docile, but for an inventor needing practice
+one day and peace the next for checking his theories, it suited Laughton
+O. Zigler.
+
+"And friendly? Friendly was no word for it. We was brothers in arms.
+
+"Why, I knew those two guns of the Royal British Artillery as well as I
+used to know the old Fifth Avenoo stages. _They_ might have been brothers
+too.
+
+"They'd jolt into action, and wiggle around and skid and spit and cough
+and prize 'emselves back again during our hours of bloody battle till I
+could have wept, Sir, at the spectacle of modern white men chained up to
+these old hand-power, back-number, flint-and-steel reaping machines. One
+of 'em--I called her Baldy--she'd a long white scar all along her barrel--
+I'd made sure of twenty times. I knew her crew by sight, but she'd come
+switching and teturing out of the dust of my shells like--like a hen from
+under a buggy--and she'd dip into a gully, and next thing I'd know 'ud be
+her old nose peeking over the ridge sniffin' for us. Her runnin' mate had
+two grey mules in the lead, and a natural wood wheel repainted, and a
+whole raft of rope-ends trailin' around. 'Jever see Tom Reed with his vest
+off, steerin' Congress through a heat-wave? I've been to Washington often
+--too often--filin' my patents. I called her Tom Reed. We three 'ud play
+pussy-wants-a-corner all round the outposts on off-days--cross-lots
+through the sage and along the mezas till we was short-circuited by
+canons. O, it was great for me and Baldy and Tom Reed! I don't know as we
+didn't neglect the legitimate interests of our respective commanders
+sometimes for this ball-play. I know _I_ did.
+
+"'Long towards the fall the Royal British Artillery grew shy--hung back in
+their breeching sort of--and their shooting was way--way off. I observed
+they wasn't taking any chances, not though I acted kitten almost
+underneath 'em.
+
+"I mentioned it to Van Zyl, because it struck me I had about knocked their
+Royal British moral endways.
+
+"'No,' says he, rocking as usual on his pony. 'My Captain Mankeltow he is
+sick. That is all.'
+
+"'So's your Captain Mankeltow's guns,' I said. 'But I'm going to make 'em
+a heap sicker before he gets well.'
+
+"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'He has had the enteric a little. Now he is better,
+and he was let out from hospital at Jackhalputs. Ah, that Mankeltow! He
+always makes me laugh so. I told him--long back--at Colesberg, I had a
+little home for him at Nooitgedacht. But he would not come--no! He has
+been sick, and I am sorry.'
+
+"'How d'you know that?' I says.
+
+"'Why, only to-day he sends back his love by Johanna Van der Merwe, that
+goes to their doctor for her sick baby's eyes. He sends his love, that
+Mankeltow, and he tells her tell me he has a little garden of roses all
+ready for me in the Dutch Indies--Umballa. He is very funny, my Captain
+Mankeltow.'
+
+"The Dutch and the English ought to fraternise, Sir. They've the same
+notions of humour, to my thinking.'
+
+"'When he gets well,' says Van Zyl, 'you look out, Mr. Americaan. He comes
+back to his guns next Tuesday. Then they shoot better.'
+
+"I wasn't so well acquainted with the Royal British Artillery as old man
+Van Zyl. I knew this Captain Mankeltow by sight, of course, and,
+considering what sort of a man with the hoe he was, I thought he'd done
+right well against my Zigler. But nothing epoch-making.
+
+"Next morning at the usual hour I waited on the General, and old Van Zyl
+come along with some of the boys. Van Zyl didn't hang round the Zigler
+much as a rule, but this was his luck that day.
+
+"He was peeking through his glasses at the camp, and I was helping pepper,
+the General's sow-belly--just as usual--when he turns to me quick and
+says, 'Almighty! How all these Englishmen are liars! You cannot trust
+one,' he says. 'Captain Mankeltow tells our Johanna he comes not back till
+Tuesday, and to-day is Friday, and there he is! Almighty! The English are
+all Chamberlains!'
+
+"If the old man hadn't stopped to make political speeches he'd have had
+his supper in laager that night, I guess. I was busy attending to Tom Reed
+at two thousand when Baldy got in her fine work on me. I saw one sheet of
+white flame wrapped round the hopper, and in the middle of it there was
+one o' my mules straight on end. Nothing out of the way in a mule on end,
+but this mule hadn't any head. I remember it struck me as incongruous at
+the time, and when I'd ciphered it out I was doing the Santos-Dumont act
+without any balloon and my motor out of gear. Then I got to thinking about
+Santos-Dumont and how much better my new way was. Then I thought about
+Professor Langley and the Smithsonian, and wishing I hadn't lied so
+extravagantly in some of my specifications at Washington. Then I quit
+thinking for quite a while, and when I resumed my train of thought I was
+nude, Sir, in a very stale stretcher, and my mouth was full of fine dirt
+all flavoured with Laughtite.
+
+"I coughed up that dirt.
+
+"'Hullo!' says a man walking beside me. 'You've spoke almost in time. Have
+a drink?'
+
+"I don't use rum as a rule, but I did then, because I needed it.
+
+"'What hit us?'I said.
+
+"'Me,' he said. 'I got you fair on the hopper as you pulled out of that
+donga; but I'm sorry to say every last round in the hopper's exploded and
+your gun's in a shocking state. I'm real sorry,' he says. 'I admire your
+gun, Sir.'
+
+"'Are you Captain Mankeltow?' I says.
+
+"'Yes,' he says. 'I presoom you're Mister Zigler. Your commanding officer
+told me about you.'
+
+"'Have you gathered in old man Van Zyl?' I said.
+
+"'Commandant Van Zyl,' he says very stiff, 'was most unfortunately
+wounded, but I am glad to say it's not serious. We hope he'll be able to
+dine with us to-night; and I feel sure,' he says, 'the General would be
+delighted to see you too, though he didn't expect,' he says, 'and no one
+else either, by Jove!' he says, and blushed like the British do when
+they're embarrassed.
+
+"I saw him slide an Episcopalian Prayer-book up his sleeve, and when I
+looked over the edge of the stretcher there was half-a-dozen enlisted men
+--privates--had just quit digging and was standing to attention by their
+spades. I guess he was right on the General not expecting me to dinner;
+but it was all of a piece with their sloppy British way of doing business.
+Any God's quantity of fuss and flubdub to bury a man, and not an ounce of
+forehandedness in the whole outfit to find out whether he was rightly
+dead. And I am a Congregationalist anyway!
+
+"Well, Sir, that was my introduction to the British Army. I'd write a book
+about it if anyone would believe me. This Captain Mankeltow, Royal British
+Artillery, turned the doctor on me (I could write another book about
+_him_) and fixed me up with a suit of his own clothes, and fed me canned
+beef and biscuits, and give me a cigar--a Henry Clay and a whisky-and-
+sparklet. He was a white man.
+
+"'Ye-es, by Jove,' he said, dragging out his words like a twist of
+molasses, 'we've all admired your gun and the way you've worked it. Some
+of us betted you was a British deserter. I won a sovereign on that from a
+yeoman. And, by the way,' he says, 'you've disappointed me groom pretty
+bad.'
+
+"'Where does your groom come in?' I said.
+
+"'Oh, he was the yeoman. He's a dam poor groom,' says my captain, 'but
+he's a way-up barrister when he's at home. He's been running around the
+camp with his tongue out, waiting for the chance of defending you at the
+court-martial.'
+
+"'What court-martial?' I says.
+
+"'On you as a deserter from the Artillery. You'd have had a good run for
+your money. Anyway, you'd never have been hung after the way you worked
+your gun. Deserter ten times over,' he says, 'I'd have stuck out for
+shooting you like a gentleman.'
+
+"Well, Sir, right there it struck me at the pit of my stomach--sort of
+sickish, sweetish feeling--that my position needed regularising pretty
+bad. I ought to have been a naturalised burgher of a year's standing; but
+Ohio's my State, and I wouldn't have gone back on her for a desertful of
+Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led me to the
+existing crisis; but I couldn't expect this Captain Mankeltow to regard
+the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of
+unreconstructed American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at the
+British Army for months on end. I tell _you_, Sir, I wished I was in
+Cincinnatah that summer evening. I'd have compromised on Brooklyn.
+
+"'What d'you do about aliens?' I said, and the dirt I'd coughed up seemed
+all back of my tongue again.
+
+"'Oh,' says he, 'we don't do much of anything. They're about all the
+society we get. I'm a bit of a pro-Boer myself,' he says, 'but between you
+and me the average Boer ain't over and above intellectual. You're the
+first American we've met up with, but of course you're a burgher.'
+
+"It was what I ought to have been if I'd had the sense of a common tick,
+but the way he drawled it out made me mad.
+
+"'Of course I am not,' I says. 'Would _you_ be a naturalised Boer?'
+
+"'I'm fighting against 'em,' he says, lighting a cigarette, 'but it's all
+a matter of opinion.'
+
+"'Well,' I says, 'you can hold any blame opinion you choose, but I'm a
+white man, and my present intention is to die in that colour.'
+
+"He laughed one of those big, thick-ended, British laughs that don't lead
+anywhere, and whacked up some sort of compliment about America that made
+me mad all through.
+
+"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir, but I do not understand the
+alleged British joke. It is depressing.
+
+"I was introdooced to five or six officers that evening, and every blame
+one of 'em grinned and asked me why I wasn't in the Filipeens suppressing
+our war! And that was British humour! They all had to get it off their
+chests before they'd talk sense. But they was sound on the Zigler. They
+had all admired her. I made out a fairy-story of me being wearied of the
+war, and having pushed the gun at them these last three months in the hope
+they'd capture it and let me go home. That tickled 'em to death. They made
+me say it three times over, and laughed like kids each time. But half the
+British _are_ kids; specially the older men. My Captain Mankeltow was less
+of it than the others. He talked about the Zigler like a lover, Sir, and I
+drew him diagrams of the hopper-feed and recoil-cylinder in his note-book.
+He asked the one British question I was waiting for, 'Hadn't I made my
+working-parts too light?' The British think weight's strength.
+
+"At last--I'd been shy of opening the subject before--at last I said,
+'Gentlemen, you are the unprejudiced tribunal I've been hunting after. I
+guess you ain't interested in any other gun-factory, and politics don't
+weigh with you. How did it feel your end of the game? What's my gun done,
+anyway?'
+
+"'I hate to disappoint you,' says Captain Mankeltow, 'because I know you
+feel as an inventor.' I wasn't feeling like an inventor just then. I felt
+friendly, but the British haven't more tact than you can pick up with a
+knife out of a plate of soup.
+
+"'The honest truth,' he says, 'is that you've wounded about ten of us one
+way and another, killed two battery horses and four mules, and--oh, yes,'
+he said, 'you've bagged five Kaffirs. But, buck up,' he said, 'we've all
+had mighty close calls'--shaves, he called 'em, I remember. 'Look at my
+pants.'
+
+"They was repaired right across the seat with Minneapolis flour-bagging. I
+could see the stencil.
+
+"'I ain't bluffing,' he says. 'Get the hospital returns, Doc.'
+
+"The doctor gets 'em and reads 'em out under the proper dates. That doctor
+alone was worth the price of admission.
+
+"I was right pleased right through that I hadn't killed any of these
+cheerful kids; but none the less I couldn't help thinking that a few more
+Kaffirs would have served me just as well for advertising purposes as
+white men. No, sir. Anywhichway you regard the proposition, twenty-one
+casualties after months of close friendship like ours was--paltry.
+
+"They gave me taffy about the gun--the British use taffy where we use
+sugar. It's cheaper, and gets there just the same. They sat around and
+proved to me that my gun was too good, too uniform--shot as close as a
+Mannlicher rifle.
+
+"Says one kid chewing a bit of grass: 'I counted eight of your shells,
+Sir, burst in a radius of ten feet. All of 'em would have gone through one
+waggon-tilt. It was beautiful,' he says. 'It was too good.'
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if the boys were right. My Laughtite is too
+mathematically uniform in propelling power. Yes; she was too good for this
+refractory fool of a country. The training gear was broke, too, and we had
+to swivel her around by the trail. But I'll build my next Zigler fifteen
+hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor under the axles. I
+must think that up.
+
+"'Well, gentlemen,' I said, 'I'd hate to have been the death of any of
+you; and if a prisoner can deed away his property, I'd love to present the
+Captain here with what he's seen fit to leave of my Zigler.'
+
+"'Thanks awf'ly,' says my Captain. 'I'd like her very much. She'd look
+fine in the mess at Woolwich. That is, if you don't mind, Mr. Zigler.'
+
+"'Go right ahead,' I says. 'I've come out of all the mess I've any use
+for; but she'll do to spread the light among the Royal British Artillery.'
+
+"I tell you, Sir, there's not much of anything the matter with the Royal
+British Artillery. They're brainy men languishing under an effete system
+which, when you take good holt of it, is England--just all England. 'Times
+I'd feel I was talking with real live citizens, and times I'd feel I'd
+struck the Beef Eaters in the Tower.
+
+"How? Well, this way. I was telling my Captain Mankeltow what Van Zyl had
+said about the British being all Chamberlains when the old man saw him
+back from hospital four days ahead of time.
+
+"'Oh, damn it all!' he says, as serious as the Supreme Court. 'It's too
+bad,' he says. 'Johanna must have misunderstood me, or else I've got the
+wrong Dutch word for these blarsted days of the week. I told Johanna I'd
+be out on Friday. The woman's a fool. Oah, da-am it all!' he says. 'I
+wouldn't have sold old Van Zyl a pup like that,' he says. 'I'll hunt him
+up and apologise.'
+
+"He must have fixed it all right, for when we sailed over to the General's
+dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and bitters, as
+happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and treated him like
+their prodigal father. He'd been hit on the collarbone by a wad of
+shrapnel, and his arm was tied up.
+
+"But the General was the peach. I presume you're acquainted with the
+average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his left
+hand, and he talked like--like the _Ladies' Home Journal_. J'ever read
+that paper? It's refined, Sir--and innocuous, and full of nickel-plated
+sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He began by a Lydia
+Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped the boys had done
+me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their midst. Then he thanked
+me for the interesting and valuable lessons that I'd given his crowd--
+specially in the matter of placing artillery and rearguard attacks. He'd
+wipe his long thin moustache between drinks--lime-juice and water he used
+--and blat off into a long 'a-aah,' and ladle out more taffy for me or old
+man Van Zyl on his right. I told him how I'd had my first Pisgah-sight of
+the principles of the Zigler when I was a fourth-class postmaster on a
+star-route in Arkansas. I told him how I'd worked it up by instalments
+when I was machinist in Waterbury, where the dollar-watches come from. He
+had one on his wrist then. I told him how I'd met Zalinski (he'd never
+heard of Zalinski!) when I was an extra clerk in the Naval Construction
+Bureau at Washington. I told him how my uncle, who was a truck-farmer in
+Noo Jersey (he loaned money on mortgage too, for ten acres ain't enough
+now in Noo Jersey), how he'd willed me a quarter of a million dollars,
+because I was the only one of our kin that called him down when he used to
+come home with a hard-cider jag on him and heave ox-bows at his nieces. I
+told him how I'd turned in every red cent on the Zigler, and I told him
+the whole circus of my coming out with her, and so on, and so following;
+and every forty seconds he'd wipe his moustache and blat, 'How
+interesting. Really, now? How interesting.'
+
+"It was like being in an old English book, Sir. Like _Bracebridge Hall_.
+But an American wrote _that!_ I kept peeking around for the Boar's Head
+and the Rosemary and Magna Charta and the Cricket on the Hearth, and the
+rest of the outfit. Then Van Zyl whirled in. He was no ways jagged, but
+thawed--thawed, Sir, and among friends. They began discussing previous
+scraps all along the old man's beat--about sixty of 'em--as well as side-
+shows with other generals and columns. Van Zyl told 'im of a big beat he'd
+worked on a column a week or so before I'd joined him. He demonstrated his
+strategy with forks on the table.
+
+"'There!' said the General, when he'd finished. 'That proves my contention
+to the hilt. Maybe I'm a bit of a pro-Boer, but I stick to it,' he says,
+'that under proper officers, with due regard to his race prejudices, the
+Boer'ud make the finest mounted infantry in the Empire. Adrian,' he says,
+'you're simply squandered on a cattle-run. You ought to be at the Staff
+College with De Wet.'
+
+"'You catch De Wet and I come to your Staff College--eh,' says Adrian,
+laughing. 'But you are so slow, Generaal. Why are you so slow? For a
+month,' he says, 'you do so well and strong that we say we shall hands-up
+and come back to our farms. Then you send to England and make us a present
+of two--three--six hundred young men, with rifles and wagons and rum and
+tobacco, and such a great lot of cartridges, that our young men put up
+their tails and start all over again. If you hold an ox by the horn and
+hit him by the bottom he runs round and round. He never goes anywhere. So,
+too, this war goes round and round. You know that, Generaal!'
+
+"'Quite right, Adrian,' says the General; 'but you must believe your
+Bible.'
+
+"'Hooh!' says Adrian, and reaches for the whisky. 'I've never known a
+Dutchman a professing Atheist, but some few have been rather active
+Agnostics since the British sat down in Pretoria. Old man Van Zyl--he told
+me--had soured on religion after Bloemfontein surrendered. He was a Free
+Stater for one thing.'
+
+"'He that believeth,' says the General, 'shall not make haste. That's in
+Isaiah. We believe we're going to win, and so we don't make haste. As far
+as I'm concerned I'd like this war to last another five years. We'd have
+an army then. It's just this way, Mr. Zigler,' he says, 'our people are
+brimfull of patriotism, but they've been born and brought up between
+houses, and England ain't big enough to train 'em--not if you expect to
+preserve.'
+
+"'Preserve what?' I says. 'England?'
+
+"'No. The game,' he says; 'and that reminds me, gentlemen, we haven't
+drunk the King and Foxhunting.'
+
+"So they drank the King and Fox-hunting. I drank the King because there's
+something about Edward that tickles me (he's so blame British); but I
+rather stood out on the Fox-hunting. I've ridden wolves in the cattle-
+country, and needed a drink pretty bad afterwards, but it never struck me
+as I ought to drink about it--he-red-it-arily.
+
+"'No, as I was saying, Mr. Zigler,' he goes on, 'we have to train our men
+in the field to shoot and ride. I allow six months for it; but many
+column-commanders--not that I ought to say a word against 'em, for they're
+the best fellows that ever stepped, and most of 'em are my dearest
+friends--seem to think that if they have men and horses and guns they can
+take tea with the Boers. It's generally the other way about, ain't it, Mr.
+Zigler?'
+
+"'To some extent, Sir,' I said.
+
+"'I'm _so_ glad you agree with me,' he says. 'My command here I regard as
+a training depot, and you, if I may say so, have been one of my most
+efficient instructors. I mature my men slowly but thoroughly. First I put
+'em in a town which is liable to be attacked by night, where they can
+attend riding-school in the day. Then I use 'em with a convoy, and last I
+put 'em into a column. It takes time,' he says, 'but I flatter myself that
+any men who have worked under me are at least grounded in the rudiments of
+their profession. Adrian,' he says, 'was there anything wrong with the men
+who upset Van Bester's applecart last month when he was trying to cross
+the line to join Piper with those horses he'd stole from Gabbitas?'
+
+"'No, Generaal,' says Van Zyl. 'Your men got the horses back and eleven
+dead; and Van Besters, he ran to Delarey in his shirt. They was very good,
+those men. They shoot hard.'
+
+"_'So_ pleased to hear you say so. I laid 'em down at the beginning of
+this century--a 1900 vintage. _You_ remember 'em, Mankeltow?' he says.
+'The Central Middlesex Buncho Busters--clerks and floorwalkers mostly,'
+and he wiped his moustache. 'It was just the same with the Liverpool
+Buckjumpers, but they were stevedores. Let's see--they were a last-century
+draft, weren't they? They did well after nine months. _You_ know 'em, Van
+Zyl? You didn't get much change out of 'em at Pootfontein?'
+
+"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'At Pootfontein I lost my son Andries.'
+
+"'I beg your pardon, Commandant,' says the General; and the rest of the
+crowd sort of cooed over Adrian.
+
+"'Excoose,' says Adrian. 'It was all right. They were good men those, but
+it is just what I say. Some are so dam good we want to hands-up, and some
+are so dam bad, we say, "Take the Vierkleur into Cape Town." It is not
+upright of you, Generaal. It is not upright of you at all. I do not think
+you ever wish this war to finish.'
+
+"'It's a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,' says the General. 'With
+luck, we ought to run half a million men through the mill. Why, we might
+even be able to give our Native Army a look in. Oh, not here, of course,
+Adrian, but down in the Colony--say a camp-of-exercise at Worcester. You
+mustn't be prejudiced, Adrian. I've commanded a district in India, and I
+give you my word the native troops are splendid men.'
+
+"'Oh, I should not mind them at Worcester,' says Adrian. 'I would sell you
+forage for them at Worcester--yes, and Paarl and Stellenbosch; but
+Almighty!' he says, 'must I stay with Cronje till you have taught half a
+million of these stupid boys to ride? I shall be an old man.'
+
+"Well, Sir, then and there they began arguing whether St. Helena would
+suit Adrian's health as well as some other places they knew about, and
+fixing up letters of introduction to Dukes and Lords of their
+acquaintance, so's Van Zyl should be well looked after. We own a fair-
+sized block of real estate--America does--but it made me sickish to hear
+this crowd fluttering round the Atlas (oh yes, they had an Atlas), and
+choosing stray continents for Adrian to drink his coffee in. The old man
+allowed he didn't want to roost with Cronje, because one of Cronje's kin
+had jumped one of his farms after Paardeberg. I forget the rights of the
+case, but it was interesting. They decided on a place called Umballa in
+India, because there was a first-class doctor there.
+
+"So Adrian was fixed to drink the King and Foxhunting, and study up the
+Native Army in India (I'd like to see 'em myself), till the British
+General had taught the male white citizens of Great Britain how to ride.
+Don't misunderstand me, Sir. I loved that General. After ten minutes I
+loved him, and I wanted to laugh at him; but at the same time, sitting
+there and hearing him talk about the centuries, I tell you, Sir, it scared
+me. It scared me cold! He admitted everything--he acknowledged the corn
+before you spoke--he was more pleased to hear that his men had been used
+to wipe the geldt with than I was when I knocked out Tom Reed's two lead-
+horses--and he sat back and blew smoke through his nose and matured his
+men like cigars and--he talked of the everlastin' centuries!
+
+"I went to bed nearer nervous prostration than I'd come in a long time.
+Next morning me and Captain Mankeltow fixed up what his shrapnel had left
+of my Zigler for transport to the railroad. She went in on her own wheels,
+and I stencilled her 'Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,' on the muzzle, and
+he said he'd be grateful if I'd take charge of her to Cape Town, and hand
+her over to a man in the Ordnance there. 'How are you fixed financially?
+You'll need some money on the way home,' he says at last.
+
+"'For one thing, Cap,' I said, 'I'm not a poor man, and for another I'm
+not going home. I am the captive of your bow and spear. I decline to
+resign office.'
+
+"'Skittles!' he says (that was a great word of his), 'you'll take parole,
+and go back to America and invent another Zigler, a trifle heavier in the
+working parts--I would. We've got more prisoners than we know what to do
+with as it is,' he says. 'You'll only be an additional expense to me as a
+taxpayer. Think of Schedule D,' he says, 'and take parole.'
+
+"'I don't know anything about your tariffs,' I said, 'but when I get to
+Cape Town I write home for money, and I turn in every cent my board'll
+cost your country to any ten-century-old department that's been ordained
+to take it since William the Conqueror came along.'
+
+"'But, confound you for a thick-headed mule,' he says, 'this war ain't any
+more than just started! Do you mean to tell me you're going to play
+prisoner till it's over?'
+
+"'That's about the size of it,' I says, 'if an Englishman and an American
+could ever understand each other.'
+
+"'But, in Heaven's Holy Name, why?' he says, sitting down of a heap on an
+anthill.
+
+"'Well, Cap,' I says, 'I don't pretend to follow your ways of thought, and
+I can't see why you abuse your position to persecute a poor prisoner o'
+war on _his!_'
+
+"'My dear fellow,' he began, throwing up his hands and blushing, 'I'll
+apologise.'
+
+"'But if you insist,' I says, 'there are just one and a half things in
+this world I can't do. The odd half don't matter here; but taking parole,
+and going home, and being interviewed by the boys, and giving lectures on
+my single-handed campaign against the hereditary enemies of my beloved
+country happens to be the one. We'll let it go at that, Cap.'
+
+"'But it'll bore you to death,' he says. The British are a heap more
+afraid of what they call being bored than of dying, I've noticed.
+
+"'I'll survive,' I says, 'I ain't British. I can think,' I says.
+
+"'By God,' he says, coming up to me, and extending the right hand of
+fellowship, 'you ought to be English, Zigler!'
+
+"It's no good getting mad at a compliment like that. The English all do
+it. They're a crazy breed. When they don't know you they freeze up
+tighter'n the St. Lawrence. When they _do_, they go out like an ice-jam in
+April. Up till we prisoners left--four days--my Captain Mankeltow told me
+pretty much all about himself there was; his mother and sisters, and his
+bad brother that was a trooper in some Colonial corps, and how his father
+didn't get on with him, and--well, everything, as I've said. They're
+undomesticated, the British, compared with us. They talk about their own
+family affairs as if they belonged to someone else. 'Taint as if they
+hadn't any shame, but it sounds like it. I guess they talk out loud what
+we think, and we talk out loud what they think.
+
+"I liked my Captain Mankeltow. I liked him as well as any man I'd ever
+struck. He was white. He gave me his silver drinking-flask, and I gave him
+the formula of my Laughtite. That's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars
+in his vest-pocket, on the lowest count, if he has the knowledge to use
+it. No, I didn't tell him the money-value. He was English. He'd send his
+valet to find out.
+
+"Well, me and Adrian and a crowd of dam Dutchmen was sent down the road to
+Cape Town in first-class carriages under escort. (What did I think of your
+enlisted men? They are largely different from ours, Sir: very largely.) As
+I was saying, we slid down south, with Adrian looking out of the car-
+window and crying. Dutchmen cry mighty easy for a breed that fights as
+they do; but I never understood how a Dutchman could curse till we crossed
+into the Orange Free State Colony, and he lifted up his hand and cursed
+Steyn for a solid ten minutes. Then we got into the Colony, and the rebs--
+ministers mostly and schoolmasters--came round the cars with fruit and
+sympathy and texts. Van Zyl talked to 'em in Dutch, and one man, a big
+red-bearded minister, at Beaufort West, I remember, he jest wilted on the
+platform.
+
+"'Keep your prayers for yourself,' says Van Zyl, throwing back a bunch of
+grapes. 'You'll need 'em, and you'll need the fruit too, when the war
+comes down here. _You_ done it,' he says. 'You and your picayune Church
+that's deader than Cronje's dead horses! What sort of a God have you been
+unloading on us, you black _aas vogels_? The British came, and we beat
+'em,' he says, 'and you sat still and prayed. The British beat us, and you
+sat still,' he says. 'You told us to hang on, and we hung on, and our
+farms was burned, and you sat still--you and your God. See here,' he says,
+'I shot my Bible full of bullets after Bloemfontein went, and you and God
+didn't say anything. Take it and pray over it before we Federals help the
+British to knock hell out of you rebels.'
+
+"Then I hauled him back into the car. I judged he'd had a fit. But life's
+curious--and sudden--and mixed. I hadn't any more use for a reb than Van
+Zyl, and I knew something of the lies they'd fed us up with from the
+Colony for a year and more. I told the minister to pull his freight out of
+that, and went on with my lunch, when another man come along and shook
+hands with Van Zyl. He'd known him at close range in the Kimberley seige
+and before. Van Zyl was well seen by his neighbours, I judge. As soon as
+this other man opened his mouth I said, 'You're Kentucky, ain't you?' 'I
+am,' he says; 'and what may you be?' I told him right off, for I was
+pleased to hear good United States in any man's mouth; but he whipped his
+hands behind him and said, 'I'm not knowing any man that fights for a
+Tammany Dutchman. But I presoom you've been well paid, you dam gun-runnin'
+Yank.'
+
+"Well, Sir, I wasn't looking for that, and it near knocked me over, while
+old man Van Zyl started in to explain.
+
+"'Don't you waste your breath, Mister Van Zyl,' the man says. 'I know this
+breed. The South's full of 'em.' Then he whirls round on me and says,
+'Look at here, you Yank. A little thing like a King's neither here nor
+there, but what _you've_ done,' he says, 'is to go back on the White Man
+in six places at once--two hemispheres and four continents--America,
+England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Don't open your
+head,' he says. 'You know well if you'd been caught at this game in our
+country you'd have been jiggling in the bight of a lariat before you could
+reach for your naturalisation papers. Go on and prosper,' he says, 'and
+you'll fetch up by fighting for niggers, as the North did.' And he threw
+me half-a-crown--English money.
+
+"Sir, I do not regard the proposition in that light, but I guess I must
+have been somewhat shook by the explosion. They told me at Cape Town one
+rib was driven in on to my lungs. I am not adducing this as an excuse, but
+the cold God's truth of the matter is--the money on the floor did it.... I
+give up and cried. Put my head down and cried.
+
+"I dream about this still sometimes. He didn't know the circumstances, but
+I dream about it. And it's Hell!
+
+"How do you regard the proposition--as a Brother? If you'd invented your
+own gun, and spent fifty-seven thousand dollars on her--and had paid your
+own expenses from the word 'go'? An American citizen has a right to choose
+his own side in an unpleasantness, and Van Zyl wasn't any Krugerite ...
+and I'd risked my hide at my own expense. I got that man's address from
+Van Zyl; he was a mining man at Kimberley, and I wrote him the facts. But
+he never answered. Guess he thought I lied.... Damned Southern rebel!
+
+"Oh, say. Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord in
+Cape Town, and he fixed things so's I could lie up a piece in his house? I
+was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged
+into the lung--here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of
+the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any
+American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He
+said the British soldier had failed in every point except courage. He said
+England needed a Monroe Doctrine worse than America--a new doctrine,
+barring out all the Continent, and strictly devoting herself to developing
+her own Colonies. He said he'd abolish half the Foreign Office, and take
+all the old hereditary families clean out of it, because, he said, they
+was expressly trained to fool around with continental diplomats, and to
+despise the Colonies. His own family wasn't more than six hundred years
+old. He was a very brainy man, and a good citizen. We talked politics and
+inventions together when my lung let up on me.
+
+"Did he know my General? Yes. He knew 'em all. Called 'em Teddie and
+Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his dearest
+friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of 'em fit to command
+a column in the field. He said they were too fond of advertising. Generals
+don't seem very different from actors or doctors or--yes, Sir--inventors.
+
+"He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort of
+pull--even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless lunatic; but
+after a while I got 'em to let me keep some of their books. If I was left
+alone in the world with the British system of bookkeeping, I'd reconstruct
+the whole British Empire--beginning with the Army. Yes, I'm one of their
+most trusted accountants, and I'm paid for it. As much as a dollar a day.
+I keep that. I've earned it, and I deduct it from the cost of my board.
+When the war's over I'm going to pay up the balance to the British
+Government. Yes, Sir, that's how I regard the proposition.
+
+"Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was going
+to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn't end in a year.
+'Tisn't in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if Adrian ever
+meets up with Steyn there'll be an exception to the rule. Ye--es, when the
+war's over it'll take some of the British Army to protect Steyn from his
+fellow-patriots. But the war won't be over yet awhile. He that believeth
+don't hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers and the school-teachers and the
+rebs'll have a war all to themselves long after the north is quiet.
+
+"I'm pleased with this country--it's big. Not so many folk on the ground
+as in America. There's a boom coming sure. I've talked it over with
+Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near Bloemfontein and
+start in cattle-raising. It's big and peaceful--a ten-thousand-acre farm.
+I could go on inventing there, too. I'll sell my Zigler, I guess. I'll
+offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do the
+'reelly-now-how-interesting' act over her, I'll turn her over to Captain
+Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They'll pretty quick find some Gussie,
+or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper quarters. I'm
+beginning to know my English.
+
+"And now I'll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I haven't
+had such a good time since Willie died." He pulled the blue shirt over his
+head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and, speaking
+through the folds, added:
+
+"But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole
+proposition to America for ninety-nine years."
+
+
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+POSEIDON'S LAW
+
+  When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea
+  His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, "Mariner," said he,
+  "Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
+  That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
+
+  "Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
+  At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
+  But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test--the immediate gulfs condemn--
+  Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.
+
+  "Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
+  The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath;
+  Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
+  Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.
+
+  "Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,
+  A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts--
+  The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,
+  The soul that cannot tell a lie--except upon the land!"
+
+  In dromond and in catafract--wet, wakeful, windward-eyed--
+  He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
+  But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more,
+  Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
+  And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:
+  The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,
+  But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!
+
+  From Punt returned, from Phormio's Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
+  He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
+  And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
+  Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!
+
+
+THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
+
+As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance,
+armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British
+Navy--the  whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches
+the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the
+Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present
+day, of the British sailorman.
+
+In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur,
+though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on
+that amateur's hard-won information. There exists--unlike some other
+publication, it is not bound in lead boards--a work by one "M. de C.,"
+based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known
+_Acolyte_ type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It
+covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type
+exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the
+average Dumas novel.
+
+I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue--it is the
+disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable
+of writing one page of lyric prose--to the eloquent, the joyful, the
+impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this
+sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at
+the mercy of his agent.
+
+"M. de C.," I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her
+boats what time H.M.S. _Archimandrite_ lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was,
+always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the
+conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist
+the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his
+histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the
+rank of "supernumerary captain's servant"--a "post which," I give his
+words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with
+opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would
+have been my destruction."
+
+From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like
+to those "M. de C." had "envisaged"--if I translate him correctly. It
+became clear to me that "M. de C." was either a pyramidal liar, or...
+
+I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the
+_Archimandrite_; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a
+third-class ticket to Plymouth.
+
+I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman-
+gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my
+feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to
+a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the
+proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides
+had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of
+the _Archimandrite_.
+
+"The _Bedlamite_, d'you mean--'er last commission, when they all went
+crazy?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," I replied. "Fetch me a sample and I'll see."
+
+"You'll excuse me, o' course, but--what d'you want 'im _for?_"
+
+"I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk--if you like. I want
+to make him drunk here."
+
+"Spoke very 'andsome. I'll do what I can." He went out towards the water
+that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he
+was a person of influence beyond Admirals.
+
+In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of
+Mr. Wessels.
+
+"'E only wants to make you drunk at 'is expense. Dessay 'e'll stand you
+all a drink. Come up an' look at 'im. 'E don't bite."
+
+A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large
+bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.
+
+"'E's the only one I could get. Transferred to the _Postulant_ six months
+back. I found 'im quite accidental." Mr. Wessels beamed.
+
+"I'm in charge o' the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin' on the beach _en
+masse_. They won't be home till mornin'," said the square man with the
+remarkable eyes.  "Are you an _Archimandrite?_" I demanded.
+
+"That's me. I was, as you might say."
+
+"Hold on. I'm a _Archimandrite._" A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to
+climb on the table. "Was you lookin' for a _Bedlamite?_ I've--I've been
+invalided, an' what with that, an' visitin' my family 'ome at Lewes,
+per'aps I've come late. 'Ave I?"
+
+"You've 'ad all that's good for you," said Tom Wessels, as the Red Marine
+sat cross-legged on the floor.
+
+"There are those 'oo haven't 'ad a thing yet!" cried a voice by the door.
+
+"I will take this _Archimandrite_" I said, "and this Marine. Will you
+please give the boat's crew a drink now, and another in half an hour if--
+if Mr.----"
+
+"Pyecroft," said the square man. "Emanuel Pyecroft, second-class petty-
+officer."
+
+"--Mr. Pyecroft doesn't object?"
+
+"He don't. Clear out. Goldin', you picket the hill by yourself, throwin'
+out a skirmishin'-line in ample time to let me know when Number One's
+comin' down from his vittles."
+
+The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red
+Marine zealously leading the way.
+
+"And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?" I said.
+
+"Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an' sugar an' per'aps a
+lemon."
+
+"Mine's beer," said the Marine. "It always was."
+
+"Look 'ere, Glass. You take an' go to sleep. The picket'll be comin' for
+you in a little time, an' per'aps you'll 'ave slep' it off by then. What's
+your ship, now?" said Mr. Wessels.
+
+"The Ship o' State--most important?" said the Red Marine magnificently,
+and shut his eyes.
+
+"That's right," said Mr. Pyecroft. "He's safest where he is. An' now--
+here's santy to us all!--what d'you want o' me?"
+
+"I want to read you something."
+
+"Tracts, again!" said the Marine, never opening his eyes. "Well. I'm
+game.... A little more 'ead to it, miss, please."
+
+"He thinks 'e's drinkin'--lucky beggar!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "I'm agreeable
+to be read to. 'Twon't alter my convictions. I may as well tell you
+beforehand I'm a Plymouth Brother."
+
+He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist's chair, and I
+began at the third page of "M. de C."
+
+"'_At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat's
+cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with
+empress_'--coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. '_By this time I judged the
+vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me
+amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded that I
+named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from the Portuguese
+conscription_.'
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed. Then
+pensively: "Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?"
+
+"It's the story of Antonio--a stowaway in the _Archimandrite's_ cutter. A
+French spy when he's at home, I fancy. What do _you_ know about it?"
+
+"An' I thought it was tracts! An' yet some'ow I didn't." Mr. Pyecroft
+nodded his head wonderingly. "Our old man was quite right--so was 'Op--so
+was I. 'Ere, Glass!" He kicked the Marine. "Here's our Antonio 'as written
+a impromptu book! He _was_ a spy all right."
+
+The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the
+half-drunk. "'As 'e got any-thin' in about my 'orrible death an'
+execution? Ex_cuse_ me, but if I open my eyes, I shan't be well. That's
+where I'm different from _all_ other men. Ahem!"
+
+"What about Glass's execution?" demanded Pyecroft.
+
+"The book's in French," I replied.
+
+"Then it's no good to me."
+
+"Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened. I'll
+check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged out of
+the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the other
+things, because they're unusual."
+
+"They were," said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. "Lookin' back on it as I set
+here more an' more I see what an 'ighly unusual affair it was. But it
+happened. It transpired in the _Archimandrite_--the ship you can trust...
+Antonio! Ther beggar!"
+
+"Take your time, Mr. Pyecroft."
+
+In a few moments we came to it thus--
+
+"The old man was displeased. I don't deny he was quite a little
+displeased. With the mail-boats trottin' into Madeira every twenty
+minutes, he didn't see why a lop-eared Portugee had to take liberties with
+a man-o'-war's first cutter. Any'ow, we couldn't turn ship round for him.
+We drew him out and took him out to Number One. 'Drown 'im,' 'e says.
+'Drown 'im before 'e dirties my fine new decks.' But our owner was
+tenderhearted. 'Take him to the galley,' 'e says. 'Boil 'im! Skin 'im!
+Cook 'im! Cut 'is bloomin' hair? Take 'is bloomin' number! We'll have him
+executed at Ascension.'
+
+"Retallick, our chief cook, an' a Carth'lic, was the on'y one any way near
+grateful; bein' short-'anded in the galley. He annexes the blighter by the
+left ear an' right foot an' sets him to work peelin' potatoes. So then,
+this Antonio that was avoidin' the conscription--"
+
+"_Sub_scription, you pink-eyed matlow!" said the Marine, with the face of
+a stone Buddha, and whimpered sadly: "Pye don't see any fun in it at all."
+
+"_Con_scription--come to his illegitimate sphere in Her Majesty's Navy,
+an' it was just then that Old 'Op, our Yeoman of Signals, an' a fastidious
+joker, made remarks to me about 'is hands.
+
+"'Those 'ands,' says 'Op, 'properly considered, never done a day's honest
+labour in their life. Tell me those hands belong to a blighted Portugee
+manual labourist and I won't call you a liar, but I'll say you an' the
+Admiralty are pretty much unique in your statements.' 'Op was always a
+fastidious joker--in his language as much as anything else. He pursued 'is
+investigations with the eye of an 'awk outside the galley. He knew better
+than to advance line-head against Retallick, so he attacked _ong eshlong_,
+speakin' his remarks as much as possible into the breech of the starboard
+four point seven, an' 'ummin' to 'imself. Our chief cook 'ated 'ummin'.
+'What's the matter of your bowels?' he says at last, fistin' out the mess-
+pork agitated like. "'Don't mind me,' says 'Op. 'I'm only a mildewed
+buntin'-tosser,' 'e says: 'but speakin' for my mess, I do hope,' 'e says,
+'you ain't goin' to boil your Portugee friend's boots along o' that pork
+you're smellin' so gay!'
+
+"'Boots! Boots! Boots!' says Retallick, an' he run round like a earwig in
+a alder-stalk. 'Boots in the galley,' 'e says. 'Cook's mate, cast out an'
+abolish this cutter-cuddlin' abori_gine's_ boots!'"
+
+"They was hove overboard in quick time, an' that was what 'Op was lyin' to
+for. As subsequently transpired.
+
+"'Fine Arab arch to that cutter-cuddler's hinstep,' he says to me. 'Run
+your eye over it, Pye,' 'e says. 'Nails all present an' correct,' 'e says.
+'Bunion on the little toe, too,' 'e says; 'which comes from wearin' a
+tight boot. What do _you_ think?'
+
+"'Dook in trouble, per'aps,' I says. 'He ain't got the hang of spud-
+skinnin'.' No more he 'ad. 'E was simply cannibalisin' 'em.
+
+"'I want to know what 'e 'as got the 'ang of,' says 'Op, obstructed-like.
+'Watch 'im,' 'e says. 'These shoulders were foreign-drilled somewhere.'
+
+'"When it comes to "Down 'ammicks!" which is our naval way o' goin' to
+bye-bye, I took particular trouble over Antonio, 'oo had 'is 'ammick 'ove
+at 'im with general instructions to sling it an' be sugared. In the
+ensuin' melly I pioneered him to the after-'atch, which is a orifice
+communicatin' with the after-flat an' similar suites of apartments. He
+havin' navigated at three fifths power immejit ahead o' me, _I_ wasn't
+goin' to volunteer any assistance, nor he didn't need it.'
+
+"'Mong Jew!' says 'e, sniffin' round. An' twice more 'Mong Jew!'--which is
+pure French. Then he slings 'is 'ammick, nips in, an' coils down. 'Not bad
+for a Portugee conscript,' I says to myself, casts off the tow, abandons
+him, and reports to 'Op.
+
+"About three minutes later I'm over'auled by our sub-lootenant, navigatin'
+under forced draught, with his bearin's 'eated. 'E had the temerity to say
+I'd instructed our Antonio to sling his carcass in the alleyway, an' 'e
+was peevish about it. O' course, I prevaricated like 'ell. You get to do
+that in the service. Nevertheless, to oblige Mr. Ducane, I went an'
+readjusted Antonio. You may not 'ave ascertained that there are two ways
+o' comin' out of an 'ammick when it's cut down. Antonio came out t'other
+way--slidin' 'andsome to his feet. That showed me two things. First, 'e
+had been in an 'ammick before, an' next, he hadn't been asleep. Then I
+reproached 'im for goin' to bed where 'e'd been told to go, instead o'
+standin' by till some one gave him entirely contradictory orders. Which is
+the essence o' naval discipline.
+
+"In the middle o' this argument the gunner protrudes his ram-bow from 'is
+cabin, an' brings it all to an 'urried conclusion with some remarks
+suitable to 'is piebald warrant-rank. Navigatin' thence under easy steam,
+an' leavin' Antonio to re-sling his little foreign self, my large flat
+foot comes in detonatin' contact with a small objec' on the deck. Not
+'altin' for the obstacle, nor changin' step, I shuffles it along under the
+ball of the big toe to the foot o' the hatchway, when, lightly stoopin', I
+catch it in my right hand and continue my evolutions in rapid time till I
+eventuates under 'Op's lee.
+
+"It was a small moroccer-bound pocket-book, full of indelible pencil-
+writin'--in French, for I could plainly discern the _doodeladays_, which
+is about as far as my education runs.
+
+"'Op fists it open and peruses. 'E'd known an 'arf-caste Frenchwoman
+pretty intricate before he was married; when he was trained man in a
+stinkin' gunboat up the Saigon River. He understood a lot o' French--
+domestic brands chiefly--the kind that isn't in print.
+
+"'Pye,' he says to me, 'you're a tattician o' no mean value. I am a trifle
+shady about the precise bearin' an' import' o' this beggar's private log
+here,' 'e says, 'but it's evidently a case for the owner. You'll 'ave your
+share o' the credit,' 'e says.
+
+"'Nay, nay, Pauline,' I says, 'You don't catch Emanuel Pyecroft mine-
+droppin' under any post-captain's bows,' I says, 'in search of honour,' I
+says. 'I've been there oft.'
+
+"'Well, if you must, you must,' 'e says, takin' me up quick. 'But I'll
+speak a good word for you, Pye.'
+
+"'You'll shut your mouth, 'Op,' I says, 'or you an' me'll part brass-rags.
+The owner has his duties, an' I have mine. We will keep station,' I says,
+'nor seek to deviate.'
+
+"'Deviate to blazes!' says 'Op. 'I'm goin' to deviate to the owner's
+comfortable cabin direct.' So he deviated."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward and dealt the Marine a large pattern Navy
+kick. "'Ere, Glass! You was sentry when 'Op went to the old man--the first
+time, with Antonio's washin'-book. Tell us what transpired. You're sober.
+You don't know how sober you are!"
+
+The Marine cautiously raised his head a few inches. As Mr. Pyecroft said,
+he was sober--after some R.M.L.I. fashion of his own devising. "'Op bounds
+in like a startled anteloper, carryin' 'is signal-slate at the ready. The
+old man was settin' down to 'is bountiful platter--not like you an' me,
+without anythin' more in sight for an 'ole night an' 'arf a day. Talkin'
+about food--"
+
+"No! No! No!" cried Pyecroft, kicking again. "What about 'Op?" I thought
+the Marine's ribs would have snapped, but he merely hiccuped.
+
+"Oh, 'im! 'E 'ad it written all down on 'is little slate--I think--an' 'e
+shoves it under the old man's nose. 'Shut the door,' says 'Op. 'For
+'Eavin's sake shut the cabin door!' Then the old man must ha' said
+somethin' 'bout irons. 'I'll put 'em on, Sir, in your very presence,' says
+'Op, 'only 'ear my prayer,' or--words to that 'fect.... It was jus' the
+same with me when I called our Sergeant a bladder-bellied, lard-'eaded,
+perspirin' pension-cheater. They on'y put on the charge-sheet 'words to
+that effect,' Spoiled the 'ole 'fect."
+
+"'Op! 'Op! 'Op! What about 'Op?" thundered Pyecroft.
+
+"'Op? Oh, shame thing. Words t' that 'fect. Door shut. Nushin' more
+transphired till 'Op comes out--nose exshtreme angle plungin' fire or--or
+words 'that effect. Proud's parrot. 'Oh, you prou' old parrot,' I says."
+
+Mr. Glass seemed to slumber again.
+
+"Lord! How a little moisture disintegrates, don't it? When we had ship's
+theatricals off Vigo, Glass 'ere played Dick Deadeye to the moral, though
+of course the lower deck wasn't pleased to see a leatherneck interpretin'
+a strictly maritime part, as you might say. It's only his repartees, which
+'e can't contain, that conquers him. Shall I resume my narrative?"
+
+Another drink was brought on this hint, and Mr. Pyecroft resumed.
+
+"The essence o' strategy bein' forethought, the essence o' tattics is
+surprise. Per'aps you didn't know that? My forethought 'avin' secured the
+initial advantage in attack, it remained for the old man to ladle out the
+surprise-packets. 'Eavens! What surprises! That night he dines with the
+wardroom, bein' of the kind--I've told you as we were a 'appy ship?--that
+likes it, and the wardroom liked it too. This ain't common in the service.
+They had up the new Madeira--awful undisciplined stuff which gives you a
+cordite mouth next morning. They told the mess-men to navigate towards the
+extreme an' remote 'orizon, an' they abrogated the sentry about fifteen
+paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner, the Bo'sun, an' the
+Carpenter, an' stood them large round drinks. It all come out later--
+wardroom joints bein' lower-deck hash, as the sayin' is--that our Number
+One stuck to it that 'e couldn't trust the ship for the job. The old man
+swore 'e could, 'avin' commanded 'er over two years. He was right. There
+wasn't a ship, I don't care in what fleet, could come near the
+_Archimandrites_ when we give our mind to a thing. We held the cruiser
+big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig) championship, an' the
+challenge-cup row round the fleet. We 'ad the best nigger-minstrels, the
+best football an' cricket teams, an' the best squee-jee band of anything
+that ever pushed in front of a brace o' screws. An' _yet_ our Number One
+mistrusted us! 'E said we'd be a floatin' hell in a week, an' it 'ud take
+the rest o' the commission to stop our way. They was arguin' it in the
+wardroom when the bridge reports a light three points off the port bow. We
+overtakes her, switches on our search-light, an' she discloses herself as
+a collier o' no mean reputation, makin' about seven knots on 'er lawful
+occasions--to the Cape most like.
+
+"Then the owner--so we 'eard in good time--broke the boom, springin' all
+mines together at close interval.
+
+"'Look 'ere, my jokers,' 'e says (I'm givin' the grist of 'is arguments,
+remember), 'Number One says we can't enlighten this cutter-cuddlin Gaulish
+lootenant on the manners an' customs o' the Navy without makin' the ship a
+market-garden. There's a lot in that,' 'e says, 'specially if we kept it
+up lavish, till we reached Ascension. But,' 'e says, 'the appearance o'
+this strange sail has put a totally new aspect on the game. We can run to
+just one day's amusement for our friend, or else what's the good o'
+discipline? An' then we can turn 'im over to our presumably short-'anded
+fellow-subject in the small-coal line out yonder. He'll be pleased,' says
+the old man, 'an' so will Antonio. M'rover,' he says to Number One, 'I'll
+lay you a dozen o' liquorice an' ink'--it must ha' been that new tawny
+port--'that I've got a ship I can trust--for one day,' 'e says.
+'Wherefore,' he says, 'will you have the extreme goodness to reduce speed
+as requisite for keepin' a proper distance behind this providential tramp
+till further orders?' Now, that's what I call tattics.
+
+"The other manoeuvres developed next day, strictly in accordance with the
+plans as laid down in the wardroom, where they sat long an' steady. 'Op
+whispers to me that Antonio was a Number One spy when 'e was in
+commission, and a French lootenant when 'e was paid off, so I navigated at
+three 'undred and ninety six revolutions to the galley, never 'avin'
+kicked a lootenant up to date. I may as well say that I did not manoeuvre
+against 'im as a Frenchman, because I like Frenchmen, but stric'ly on 'is
+rank an' ratin' in 'is own navy. I inquired after 'is health from
+Retallick.
+
+"'Don't ask me,' 'e says, sneerin' be'ind his silver spectacles. ''E's
+promoted to be captain's second supernumerary servant, to be dressed and
+addressed as such. If 'e does 'is dooties same as he skinned the spuds,
+_I_ ain't for changin' with the old man.'
+
+"In the balmy dawnin' it was given out, all among the 'olystones, by our
+sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil, that all orders after
+eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o' the
+velocity. 'The reg'lar routine,' he says, 'was arrogated for reasons o'
+state an' policy, an' any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise,
+annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly reproached.' Then
+the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some hanky-panky in the
+magazines, an' led 'em off along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say,
+our Gunnery Lootenant.
+
+"That put us on the _viva voce_--particularly when we understood how the
+owner was navigatin' abroad in his sword-belt trustin' us like brothers.
+We shifts into the dress o' the day, an' we musters _an'_ we prays _ong
+reggle_, an' we carries on anticipatory to bafflin' Antonio.
+
+"Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin' his 'ands an' weepin'.
+'E'd been talkin' to the sub-lootenant, an' it looked like as if his
+upper-works were collapsin'.
+
+"'I want a guarantee,' 'e says, wringin' 'is 'ands like this. '_I_ 'aven't
+'ad sunstroke slave-dhowin' in Tajurrah Bay, an' been compelled to live on
+quinine an' chlorodyne ever since. _I_ don't get the horrors off glasses
+o' brown sherry.'
+
+"'What 'ave you got now?' I says.
+
+"'_I_ ain't an officer,' 'e says. '_My_ sword won't be handed back to me
+at the end o' the court-martial on account o' my little weaknesses, an' no
+stain on my character. I'm only a pore beggar of a Red Marine with
+eighteen years' service, an' why for,' says he, wringin' 'is hands like
+this all the time, 'must I chuck away my pension, sub-lootenant or no
+sub-lootenant? Look at 'em,' he says, 'only look at 'em. Marines fallin'
+in for small-arm drill!'
+
+"The leathernecks was layin' aft at the double, an' a more insanitary set
+of accidents I never wish to behold. Most of 'em was in their shirts. They
+had their trousers on, of course--rolled up nearly to the knee, but what I
+mean is belts over shirts. Three or four 'ad _our_ caps, an' them that had
+drawn helmets wore their chin-straps like Portugee earrings. Oh, yes; an'
+three of 'em 'ad only one boot! I knew what our bafflin' tattics was goin'
+to be, but even I was mildly surprised when this gay fantasia of Brazee
+drummers halted under the poop, because of an 'ammick in charge of our
+Navigator, an' a small but 'ighly efficient landin'-party.
+
+"''Ard astern both screws!' says the Navigator. 'Room for the captain's
+'ammick!' The captain's servant--Cockburn 'is name was--had one end, an'
+our newly promoted Antonio, in a blue slop rig, 'ad the other. They slung
+it from the muzzle of the port poop quick-firer thort-ships to a
+stanchion. Then the old man flickered up, smokin' a cigarette, an' brought
+'is stern to an anchor slow an' oriental.
+
+"'What a blessin' it is, Mr. Ducane,' 'e says to our sub-lootenant, 'to be
+out o' sight o' the 'ole pack o' blighted admirals! What's an admiral
+after all?' 'e says. 'Why, 'e's only a post-captain with the pip, Mr.
+Ducane. The drill will now proceed. What O! Antonio, _descendez_ an' get
+me a split.'
+
+"When Antonio came back with the whisky-an'-soda, he was told off to swing
+the 'ammick in slow time, an' that massacritin' small-arm party went on
+with their oratorio. The Sergeant had been kindly excused from
+participating an' he was jumpin' round on the poop-ladder, stretchin' 'is
+leather neck to see the disgustin' exhibition an' cluckin' like a ash-
+hoist. A lot of us went on the fore an' aft bridge an' watched 'em like
+'Listen to the Band in the Park.' All these evolutions, I may as well tell
+you, are highly unusual in the Navy. After ten minutes o' muckin' about,
+Glass 'ere--pity 'e's so drunk!--says that 'e'd had enough exercise for
+'is simple needs an' he wants to go 'ome. Mr. Ducane catches him a
+sanakatowzer of a smite over the 'ead with the flat of his sword. Down
+comes Glass's rifle with language to correspond, and he fiddles with the
+bolt. Up jumps Maclean--'oo was a Gosport 'ighlander--an' lands on Glass's
+neck, thus bringin' him to the deck, fully extended.
+
+"The old man makes a great show o' wakin' up from sweet slumbers. 'Mistah
+Ducane,' he says, 'what is this painful interregnum?' or words to that
+effect. Ducane takes one step to the front, an' salutes: 'Only 'nother
+case of attempted assassination, Sir,' he says.
+
+"'Is that all?' says the old man, while Maclean sits on Glass's collar
+button. 'Take him away,' 'e says, 'he knows the penalty.'"
+
+"Ah! I suppose that is the 'invincible _morgue_ Britannic in the presence
+of brutally provoked mutiny,'" I muttered, as I turned over the pages of
+M. de C.
+
+"So, Glass, 'e was led off kickin' an' squealin', an' hove down the ladder
+into 'is Sergeant's volupshus arms. 'E run Glass forward, an' was all for
+puttin' 'im in irons as a maniac.
+
+"'You refill your waterjacket and cool off!' says Glass, sittin' down
+rather winded. 'The trouble with you is you haven't any imagination.'
+
+"'Haven't I? I've got the remnants of a little poor authority though,' 'e
+says, lookin' pretty vicious.
+
+"'You 'ave?' says Glass. 'Then for pity's sake 'ave some proper feelin'
+too. I'm goin' to be shot this evenin'. You'll take charge o' the firin'-
+party.'
+
+"Some'ow or other, that made the Sergeant froth at the mouth. 'E 'ad no
+more play to his intellects than a spit-kid. 'E just took everything as it
+come. Well, that was about all, I think.... Unless you'd care to have me
+resume my narrative."
+
+We resumed on the old terms, but with rather less hot water. The marine on
+the floor breathed evenly, and Mr. Pyecroft nodded.
+
+"I may have omitted to inform you that our Number One took a general row
+round the situation while the small-arm party was at work, an' o' course
+he supplied the outlines; but the details we coloured in by ourselves.
+These were our tattics to baffle Antonio. It occurs to the Carpenter to
+'ave the steam-cutter down for repairs. 'E gets 'is cheero-party together,
+an' down she comes. You've never seen a steam-cutter let down on the deck,
+'ave you? It's not usual, an' she takes a lot o' humourin'. Thus we 'ave
+the starboard side completely blocked an' the general traffic tricklin'
+over'ead along the fore-an'-aft bridge. Then Chips gets into her an'
+begins balin' out a mess o' small reckonin's on the deck. Simultaneous
+there come up three o' those dirty engine-room objects which we call
+'tiffies,' an' a stoker or two with orders to repair her steamin'-gadgets.
+_They_ get into her an' bale out another young Christmas-treeful of small
+reckonin's--brass mostly. Simultaneous it hits the Pusser that 'e'd better
+serve out mess pork for the poor matlow. These things half shifted
+Retallick, our chief cook, off 'is bed-plate. Yes, you might say they
+broke 'im wide open. 'E wasn't at all used to 'em.
+
+"Number One tells off five or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to the
+pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, 'ave you?
+Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now's the day an' now's the hour for
+a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they all give way
+together, and the general effect was _non plus ultra_. There was the
+cutter's innards spread out like a Fratton pawnbroker's shop; there was
+the 'tiffies' hammerin' in the stern of 'er, an' _they_ ain't antiseptic;
+there was the Maxim class in light skirmishin' order among the pork, an'
+forrard the blacksmith had 'is forge in full blast, makin' 'orse-shoes, I
+suppose. Well, that accounts for the starboard side. The on'y warrant
+officer 'oo hadn't a look in so far was the Bosun. So 'e stated, all out
+of 'is own 'ead, that Chips's reserve o' wood an' timber, which Chips 'ad
+stole at our last refit, needed restowin'. It was on the port booms--a
+young an' healthy forest of it, for Charley Peace wasn't to be named
+'longside o' Chips for burglary.
+
+"'All right,' says our Number One. 'You can 'ave the whole port watch if
+you like. Hell's Hell,' 'e says, 'an when there study to improve.'
+
+"Jarvis was our Bosun's name. He hunted up the 'ole of the port watch by
+hand, as you might say, callin' 'em by name loud an' lovin', which is not
+precisely Navy makee-pigeon. They 'ad that timber-loft off the booms, an'
+they dragged it up and down like so many sweatin' little beavers. But
+Jarvis was jealous o' Chips an' went round the starboard side to envy at
+him.
+
+"'Tain't enough,' 'e says, when he had climbed back. 'Chips 'as got his
+bazaar lookin' like a coal-hulk in a cyclone. We must adop' more drastic
+measures.' Off 'e goes to Number One and communicates with 'im. Number One
+got the old man's leave, on account of our goin' so slow (we were keepin'
+be'ind the tramp), to fit the ship with a full set of patent supernumerary
+sails. Four trysails--yes, you might call 'em trysails--was our Admiralty
+allowance in the un'eard of event of a cruiser breakin' down, but we had
+our awnin's as well. They was all extricated from the various flats an'
+'oles where they was stored, an' at the end o' two hours' hard work Number
+One 'e made out eleven sails o' different sorts and sizes. I don't know
+what exact nature of sail you'd call 'em--pyjama-stun'sles with a touch of
+Sarah's shimmy, per'aps--but the riggin' of 'em an' all the supernumerary
+details, as you might say, bein' carried on through an' over an' between
+the cutter an' the forge an' the pork an' cleanin' guns, an' the Maxim
+class an' the Bosun's calaboose _and_ the paintwork, was sublime. There's
+no other word for it. Sub-lime!
+
+"The old man keeps swimmin' up an' down through it all with the faithful
+Antonio at 'is side, fetchin' him numerous splits. 'E had eight that
+mornin', an' when Antonio was detached to get 'is spy-glass, or his
+gloves, or his lily-white 'andkerchief, the old man would waste 'em
+down a ventilator. Antonio must ha' learned a lot about our Navy thirst."
+
+"He did."
+
+"Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin' to the precise page indicated an'
+givin' me a _resume_ of 'is tattics?" said Mr. Pyecroft, drinking deeply.
+"I'd like to know 'ow it looked from 'is side o' the deck."
+
+"How will this do?" I said. "'_Once clear of the land, like Voltaire's
+Habakkuk_------"'
+
+"One o' their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose," Mr. Pyecroft
+interjected.
+
+"'--_each man seemed veritably capable of all--to do according to his
+will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking.
+One cries "Aid me!" flourishing at the same time the weapons of his
+business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal
+misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a
+hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the
+utensil, colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in the
+stern of the boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the ironwork
+which impedes their brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches from on high
+wood, canvas, iron bolts, coal-dust--what do I know_?'"
+
+"That's where 'e's comin' the bloomin' _onjenew_. 'E knows a lot, reely."
+
+"'_They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot
+reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have well
+and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me
+also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They
+ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the
+vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious "Roule Britannia"--to endure
+how lomg_?'"
+
+"That was me! On'y 'twas 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--which I hate more
+than any stinkin' tune I know, havin' dragged too many nasty little guns
+to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an' I ain't
+musical, you might say."
+
+"_'Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this "tohu-
+bohu_"' (that's one of his names for the _Archimandrite_, Mr. Pyecroft),
+'_for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with
+drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the
+Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him is equal. The breech-lock
+indispensable is not there. They demand it of one who opens a barrel of
+pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He refers them to the cook,
+yesterday my master_--'"
+
+"Yes, an' Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an' observin' little
+Antonio we 'ave!"
+
+"'_It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not rebuke
+him, that he has found it by hazard_.' I'm afraid I haven't translated
+quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I've done my best."
+
+"Why, it's beautiful--you ought to be a Frenchman--you ought. You don't
+want anything o' _me_. You've got it all there."
+
+"Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here's a little thing I
+can't quite see the end of. Listen! '_Of the domain which Britannia rules
+by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator, if
+possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the indeterminate
+chaos of the grand deck, I ascended--always with a whisky-and-soda in my
+hands--to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain in plain sea, at
+issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity
+of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean
+with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by
+the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the
+Hesperides beneath his keel--vigias innumerable.'_ I don't know what a
+vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. _'He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the
+mid-Atlantic!'_ What was that, now?"
+
+"Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw 'is cap down
+an' danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They 'ad a tea-party on the
+bridge. It was the old man's contribution. Does he say anything about the
+leadsmen?"
+
+"Is this it? _'Overborne by his superior's causeless suspicion, the
+Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of my
+captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation followed. The
+argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel, crapulous'_ (that means
+drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), _'shouting. It appeared that my captain
+would chenaler'_ (I don't know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) _'to the
+Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with the sound'_ (that's the lead, I
+think) _'in his hand, garnished with suet.'_ Was it garnished with suet?"
+
+"He put two leadsmen in the chains, o' course! He didn't know that there
+mightn't be shoals there, 'e said. Morgan went an' armed his lead, to
+enter into the spirit o' the thing. They 'eaved it for twenty minutes, but
+there wasn't any suet--only tallow, o' course."
+
+"'_Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly the
+Britannic Navy is well guarded_.' Well, that's all right, Mr. Pyecroft.
+Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that happened?"
+
+"There was a good deal, one way an' another. I'd like to know what this
+Antonio thought of our sails."
+
+"He merely says that '_the engines having broken down, an officer
+extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails_.' Oh, yes! he says
+that some of them looked like '_bonnets in a needlecase_,' I think."
+
+"Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun'sles. That shows the beggar's no
+sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was
+a sailorman, an' 'e hasn't sense enough to see what extemporisin' eleven
+good an' drawin' sails out o' four trys'les an' a few awnin's means. 'E
+must have been drunk!"
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and
+the execution."
+
+"Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I
+told my crew--me bein' captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I'm a
+torpedo man now--it just showed how you can work your gun under any
+discomforts. A shell--twenty six-inch shells--burstin' inboard couldn't
+'ave begun to make the varicose collection o' tit-bits which we had
+spilled on our deck. It was a lather--a rich, creamy lather!
+
+"We took it very easy--that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary
+'Jenny-'ave-another-cup-o' tea' style, an' the crew was strictly ordered
+not to rupture 'emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn't our custom
+in the Navy when we're _in puris naturalibus_, as you might say. But we
+wasn't so then. We was impromptu. An' Antonio was busy fetchin' splits for
+the old man, and the old man was wastin' 'em down the ventilators. There
+must 'ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think--wardroom whisky-
+an'-soda.
+
+"Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my
+_bundoop_ go at fifteen 'undred--sightin' very particular. There was a
+sort of 'appy little belch like--no more, I give you my word--an' the
+shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an' dropped into the deep Atlantic.
+
+"'Government powder, Sir!' sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge,
+laughin' horrid sarcastic; an' then, of course, we all laughs, which we
+are not encouraged to do _in puris naturalibus_. Then, of course, I saw
+what our Gunnery Jack 'ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the
+magazines all the mornin' watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum,
+as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an' sickish
+notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired,
+our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin' sarcastic about Government
+stores, an' the old man fair howled. 'Op was on the bridge with 'im, an'
+'e told me--'cause 'e's a free-knowledgeist an' reads character--that
+Antonio's face was sweatin' with pure joy. 'Op wanted to kick him. Does
+Antonio say anything about that?"
+
+"Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr. Pyecroft.
+He has put all the results into a sort of appendix--a table of shots. He
+says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words."
+
+"What? Nothin' about the way the crews flinched an' hopped? Nothin' about
+the little shells rumblin' out o' the guns so casual?"
+
+"There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He
+says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of
+sight of land. Oh, yes! I've forgotten. He says, _'From the conversation
+of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small proportion of
+the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself in his
+pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below,
+who cried in a high voice: "I hope, Sir, you are making something out of
+it. It is rather monotonous." This insult, so flagrant, albeit well-
+merited, was received with a smile of drunken bonhommy'_--that's
+cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty."
+
+"Resumin' afresh," said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered interval, "I
+may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two hours, and then
+we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an' three-quarters cleaned
+up the decks an' mucked about as requisite, haulin' down the patent awnin'
+stun'sles which Number One 'ad made. The old man was a shade doubtful of
+his course, 'cause I 'eard him say to Number One, 'You were right. A week
+o' this would turn the ship into a Hayti bean-feast. But,' he says
+pathetic, 'haven't they backed the band noble?'
+
+"'Oh! it's a picnic for them,' says Number One.
+
+"'But when do we get rid o' this whisky-peddlin' blighter o' yours, Sir?'
+
+"'That's a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,' says the old man. "E's
+the bluest blood o' France when he's at home,'
+
+"'Which is the precise landfall I wish 'im to make,' says Number One.'
+It'll take all 'ands and the Captain of the Head to clean up after 'im.'
+
+"'They won't grudge it,' says the old man. 'Just as soon as it's dusk
+we'll overhaul our tramp friend an' waft him over,'
+
+"Then a sno--midshipman--Moorshed was is name--come up an' says somethin'
+in a low voice. It fetches the old man.
+
+"'You'll oblige me,' 'e says, 'by takin' the wardroom poultry for _that_.
+I've ear-marked every fowl we've shipped at Madeira, so there can't be any
+possible mistake. M'rover,' 'e says, 'tell 'em if they spill one drop of
+blood on the deck,' he says, 'they'll not be extenuated, but hung.'
+
+"Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin' unusual 'appy, even for him. The
+Marines was enjoyin' a committee-meetin' in their own flat.
+
+"After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on the
+sea--an' anythin' more chronic than the _Archimandrite_ I'd trouble you
+to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a auction-room--yes, she
+almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We'd picked up our tramp, an' was
+about four mile be'ind 'er. I noticed the wardroom as a class, you might
+say, was manoeuvrin' _en masse_, an' then come the order to cockbill the
+yards. We hadn't any yards except a couple o' signallin' sticks, but we
+cock-billed 'em. I hadn't seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the
+West Indies, when a post-captain died o' yellow jack. It means a sign o'
+mourning the yards bein' canted opposite ways, to look drunk an'
+disorderly. They do.
+
+"'An' what might our last giddy-go-round signify?' I asks of 'Op.
+
+"'Good 'Evins!' 'e says, 'Are you in the habit o' permittin' leathernecks
+to assassinate lootenants every morning at drill without immejitly 'avin'
+'em shot on the foc'sle in the horrid crawly-crawly twilight?'"
+
+"'Yes,' I murmured over my dear book, '_the infinitely lugubrious
+crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity unparalleled--hideous--cold-blooded,
+and yet touched with appalling grandeur_.'"
+
+"Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he 'ad feelin's. To
+resoom. Without anyone givin' us orders to that effect, we began to creep
+about an' whisper. Things got stiller and stiller, till they was as still
+as--mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the 'Dead March' from the upper
+bridge. He done it to cover the remarks of a cock-bird bein' killed
+forrard, but it came out paralysin' in its _tout ensemble_. You never
+heard the 'Dead March' on a bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin' for both
+watches to attend public execution, an' we came up like so many ghosts,
+the 'ole ship's company. Why, Mucky 'Arcourt, one o' our boys, was that
+took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an' was properly kicked down the
+ladder for so doin'. Well, there we lay--engines stopped, rollin' to the
+swell, all dark, yards cock-billed, an' that merry tune yowlin' from the
+upper bridge. We fell in on the foc'sle, leavin' a large open space by the
+capstan, where our sail-maker was sittin' sewin' broken firebars into the
+foot of an old 'ammick. 'E looked like a corpse, an' Mucky had another fit
+o' hysterics, an' you could 'ear us breathin' 'ard. It beat anythin' in
+the theatrical line that even us _Archimandrites_ had done--an' we was the
+ship you could trust. Then come the doctor an' lit a red lamp which he
+used for his photographic muckin's, an' chocked it on the capstan. That
+was finally gashly!
+
+"Then come twelve Marines guardin' Glass 'ere. You wouldn't think to see
+'im what a gratooitous an' aboundin' terror he was that evenin'. 'E was in
+a white shirt 'e'd stole from Cockburn, an' his regulation trousers,
+barefooted. 'E'd pipe-clayed 'is 'ands an' face an' feet an' as much of
+his chest as the openin' of his shirt showed. 'E marched under escort with
+a firm an' undeviatin' step to the capstan, an' came to attention. The old
+man reinforced by an extra strong split--his seventeenth, an' 'e didn't
+throw _that_ down the ventilator--come up on the bridge an' stood like a
+image. 'Op, 'oo was with 'im, says that 'e heard Antonio's teeth singin',
+not chatterin'--singin' like funnel-stays in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin'
+aeolian harp, 'Op said.
+
+"'When you are ready, Sir, drop your 'andkerchief,' Number One whispers.
+
+"'Good Lord!' says the old man, with a jump. 'Eh! What? What a sight! What
+a sight!' an' he stood drinkin' it in, I suppose, for quite two minutes.
+
+"Glass never says a word. 'E shoved aside an 'andkerchief which the
+sub-lootenant proffered 'im to bind 'is eyes with--quiet an' collected;
+an' if we 'adn't been feelin' so very much as we did feel, his gestures
+would 'ave brought down the 'ouse." "I can't open my eyes, or I'll be
+sick," said the Marine with appalling clearness. "I'm pretty far gone--I
+know it--but there wasn't anyone could 'ave beaten Edwardo Glass,
+R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself nearly into the 'orrors. Go on,
+Pye. Glass is in support--as ever."
+
+"Then the old man drops 'is 'andkerchief, an' the firin'-party fires like
+one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin' an' 'eavin' horrid natural, into
+the shotted 'ammick all spread out before him, and the firin' party closes
+in to guard the remains of the deceased while Sails is stitchin' it up.
+An' when they lifted that 'ammick it was one wringin' mess of blood! They
+on'y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too. Did you know poultry bled that
+extravagant? _I_ never did.
+
+"The old man--so 'Op told me--stayed on the bridge, brought up on a dead
+centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser, impressed, but o' course
+'is duty was to think of 'is fine white decks an' the blood. 'Arf a mo',
+Sir,' he says, when the old man was for leavin'. 'We have to wait for the
+burial, which I am informed takes place immejit.'
+
+"'It's beyond me,' says the owner. 'There was general instructions for an
+execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of mountebanks
+aboard,' he says. 'I'm all cold up my back, still.'
+
+"The Marines carried the corpse below. Then the bugle give us some more
+'Dead March,' Then we 'eard a splash from a bow six-pounder port, an' the
+bugle struck up a cheerful tune. The whole lower deck was complimentin'
+Glass, 'oo took it very meek. 'E _is_ a good actor, for all 'e's a
+leatherneck.
+
+"'Now,' said the old man, 'we must turn over Antonio. He's in what I have
+'eard called one perspirin' funk.'
+
+"Of course, I'm tellin' it slow, but it all 'appened much quicker. We run
+down our trampo--without o' course informin' Antonio of 'is 'appy destiny
+--an' inquired of 'er if she had any use for a free and gratis stowaway.
+Oh, yes? she said she'd be highly grateful, but she seemed a shade puzzled
+at our generosity, as you might put it, an' we lay by till she lowered a
+boat. Then Antonio--who was un'appy, distinctly un'appy--was politely
+requested to navigate elsewhere, which I don't think he looked for. 'Op
+was deputed to convey the information, an' 'Op got in one sixteen-inch
+kick which 'oisted 'im all up the ladder. 'Op ain't really vindictive, an'
+'e's fond of the French, especially the women, but his chances o' kicking
+lootenants was like the cartridge--reduced to a minimum.
+
+"The boat 'adn't more than shoved off before a change, as you might say,
+came o'er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like Elphinstone an'
+Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy: 'Gentlemen,' he says,
+'for gentlemen you have shown yourselves to be--from the bottom of my
+heart I thank you. The status an' position of our late lamented shipmate
+made it obligate,' 'e says, 'to take certain steps not strictly included
+in the regulations. An' nobly,' says 'e, 'have you assisted me. Now,' 'e
+says, 'you hold the false and felonious reputation of bein' the smartest
+ship in the Service. Pigsties,' 'e says,' is plane trigonometry alongside
+our present disgustin' state. Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,'
+he says. 'Jump, you lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig
+out, you briny-eyed beggars!'"
+
+"Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
+
+"I've told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The Bosun's
+mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the lower
+deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night 'fore we got
+'er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever, and we
+resoomed. I've thought it over a lot since; yes, an' I've thought a lot of
+Antonio trimmin' coal in that tramp's bunkers. 'E must 'ave been highly
+surprised. Wasn't he?"
+
+"He was, Mr. Pyecroft," I responded. "But now we're talking of it, weren't
+you all a little surprised?"
+
+"It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+"We appreciated it as an easy way o' workin' for your country. But--the
+old man was right--a week o' similar manoeuvres would 'ave knocked our
+moral double-bottoms bung out. Now, couldn't you oblige with Antonio's
+account of Glass's execution?"
+
+I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of
+M. de C.'s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye
+of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His
+account of his descent from the side of the "_infamous vessel consecrated
+to blood_" in the "_vast and gathering dusk of the trembling ocean_" could
+only be matched by his description of the dishonoured hammock sinking
+unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played music "_of
+an indefinable brutality_"
+
+"By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass's funeral?" I asked.
+
+"Him? Oh! 'e played 'The Strict Q.T.' It's a very old song. We 'ad it in
+Fratton nearly fifteen years back," said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily.
+
+I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and
+discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.
+
+"Where is that--minutely particularised person--Glass?" said the sergeant
+of the picket.
+
+"'Ere!" The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. "An' it's no good
+smelling of my breath, because I'm strictly an' ruinously sober."
+
+"Oh! An' what may you have been doin' with yourself?"
+
+"Listenin' to tracts. You can look! I've had the evenin' of my little
+life. Lead on to the _Cornucopia's_ midmost dunjing cell. There's a crowd
+of brass-'atted blighters there which will say I've been absent without
+leaf. Never mind. I forgive them before'and. _The_ evenin' of my life, an'
+please don't forget it." Then in a tone of most ingratiating apology to
+me: "I soaked it all in be'ind my shut eyes. 'I'm"--he jerked a
+contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft--"'e's a flatfoot, a indigo-blue
+matlow. 'E never saw the fun from first to last. A mournful beggar--most
+depressin'." Private Glass departed, leaning heavily on the escort's arm.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought--the profound and far-reaching
+meditation that follows five glasses of hot whisky-and-water.
+
+"Well, I don't see anything comical--greatly--except here an' there.
+Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do _you_ see anything
+funny in it?"
+
+There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for
+argument.
+
+"No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don't," I replied. "It was a beautiful tale, and I
+thank you very much."
+
+
+
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+THE RUNNERS
+
+                                   _News!_
+  What is the word that they tell now--now--now!
+  The little drums beating in the bazaars?
+      _They_ beat (among the buyers and sellers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          God sends a gnat against Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  At the edge of the crops--now--now--where the well-wheels are halted,
+  One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
+      _They_ beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          God prepares an ill day for Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.
+
+                                   _News!_
+  By the fires of the camps--now--now--where the travellers meet
+  Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
+      _They_ beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud_!"
+      Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Under the shadow of the border-peels--now--now--now!
+  In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
+      _They_ beat (among the rifles and the riders)
+          _"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
+          Shall we go up against Nimrud_?"
+      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?
+
+                                   _News!_
+  Bring out the heaps of grain--open the account-books again!
+  Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
+  Eat and lie under the trees--pitch the police-guarded  fair-grounds,
+      O dancers!
+  Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
+      _They_ beat (among all the peoples)
+          _"Now--now--now!
+          God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
+          God has given Victory to Nimrud!"
+          Let us abide under Nimrud_!"
+      O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!
+
+
+A SAHIBS' WAR
+
+Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the _rel_
+from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be
+paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a--trooper of the Gurgaon
+Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab
+Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh--a trooper
+of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there
+_any_ Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon
+Rissala going about his business in this devil's devising of a country,
+where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect
+paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?... God be thanked, here is such a Sahib!
+Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that
+my name is Umr Singh; I am--I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I
+have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him
+herd me with these black Kaffirs!... Yes,  I will sit by this truck till
+the Heaven-born has explained the matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who
+does not understand our tongue.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go
+down to Eshtellenbosch by the next _terain_? Good! I go with the Heaven-
+born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born's servant. Will the
+Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty
+truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus--for the sun is hot,
+though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will
+arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a
+_terain_ for Eshtellenbosch....
+
+The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My
+village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big
+white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen's by
+--by--I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal
+Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence
+know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different
+matter. The Sahib's nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That
+was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout
+nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the
+Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after
+all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay--nay;
+the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank were picked off it long
+ago, but--but it is true--mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use
+for their coats, and--the Sahib has sharp eyes--that black mark is such a
+mark as a silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says
+that troopers do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the
+Arder of Beritish India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of
+the Punjab. I am not a trooper, but I have been a Sahib's servant for
+nearly a year--bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says
+that Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib--
+my Kurban Sahib--dead these three months!
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Young--of a reddish face--with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his
+feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father
+before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father's time
+when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. _My_ father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of
+Sikhs--he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to
+his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban
+Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first--nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I
+remember--and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that
+day; and _he_ was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground
+with his ayah--all in white, Sahib--laughing at the end of our drill. And
+his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I
+dismounted, and the baba put his hand into mine--eighteen--twenty-five--
+twenty-seven years gone now--Kurban Sahib--my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were
+great friends after that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying
+is. He called me Big Umr Singh--Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak
+plain. He stood only this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but
+he knew all our troopers by name--every one.... And he went to England,
+and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk,
+and cracking his finger-joints--back to his own regiment and to me. He had
+not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart,
+Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen-
+eyed, jestful, and careless. _I_ could tell tales about him in his first
+years. There was very little he hid from _me_. I was his Umr Singh, and
+when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that
+was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on everything--about war, and
+women, and money, and advancement, and such all.
+
+We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box-
+wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city
+of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the
+Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big
+guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how
+a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log.
+The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes over the earth? There
+was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo did not come into Hind in
+a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they forget their own cleverness
+has created the _dak_ (the post), and that for an anna or two all things
+become known. We of Hind listened and heard and wondered; and when it was
+a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that
+the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us
+asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of
+those signs. _Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah_! This
+Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said, "There is no haste.
+Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all Hind in that country
+round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so.
+It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one
+place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or
+everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True--true--
+true!"
+
+So did matters ripen--a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
+think--and the Sahib sees this, too?--that it is foolish to make an army
+and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the
+Tochi--the men of the Tirah--the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand times.
+_We_ could have done it all so gently--so gently.
+
+Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, "Ho, Dada, I am sick,
+and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months." And he winked, and
+I said, "I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I bring my
+uniform?" He said, "Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean on. We go to
+Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis" (niggers). Mark
+his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the native regiments to
+get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they will not let our
+officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to take part
+in this war-game upon the road. But _he_ was clever. There was no whisper
+of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went to my
+Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am--I was--of that rank for which a
+chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, "My child goes
+sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also."
+
+And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue,
+said, "Yes, thou art truly _Sikh_"; and he called me an old devil--
+jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my Kurban
+Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last
+he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe
+again. My Sahib back again--aie me!
+
+So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black
+Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead.
+Then I said to Kurban Sahib, "What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give
+me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for
+dinner." Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson's Hotel, and that
+night I prepared Kurban Sahib's razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of
+the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my
+uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon
+the steamer, a room in all respects like to his own, and would have given
+me a servant. We spoke of many things on the way to this country; and
+Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would be the conduct of the war. He
+said, "They have taken men afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will
+foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log because it is believed that they
+are white." He said, "There is but one fault in this war, and that is that
+the Government have not employed _us_, but have made it altogether a
+Sahibs' war. Very many men will thus be killed, and no vengeance will be
+taken." True talk--true talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.
+
+And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban
+Sahib said, "Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look for
+employment fit for a sick man." I put on the uniform of my rank and went to
+the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nihal Seyn, [Footnote: Mount Nelson?]
+and I caused the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place--is
+it known to the Sahib?--which was already full of the swords and baggage
+of officers. It is fuller now--dead men's kit all! I was careful to secure
+a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back to
+the Punjab.
+
+Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew,
+and he said, "We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to
+oversee the despatch of horses." Remember, Kurban Sahib was squadron-
+leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and _I_ was Umr Singh. So I said, speaking
+as we do--we did--when none was near, "Thou art a groom and I am a grass-
+cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?" At this he laughed, saying,
+"It is the way to better things. Have patience, Father." (Aye, he called me
+father when none were by.) "This war ends not to-morrow nor the next day.
+I have seen the new Sahibs," he said, "and they are fathers of owls--all--
+all--all!"
+
+So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing the
+service of servants in that business. And the whole business was managed
+without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had never seen
+a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but empty of all
+knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those Pathans--they are
+just like those vultures up there, Sahib--they always follow slaughter.
+And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs--Muzbees, though--and some
+Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent horses. Jhind and
+Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent horses.
+
+All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with
+them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil:
+with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the
+command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly ones--_Hubshis_--whose
+touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on
+their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were
+called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs
+--filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub
+down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers--a _jemadar_ of _mehtars_
+(headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five
+months. Evil months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men
+were slain and no vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with
+the weapons of magicians. Guns that slew at half a day's march, and men
+who, being new, walked blind into high grass and were driven off like
+cattle by the Boer-log! As to the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a
+Sahib--only a Sikh. I would have quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon
+Rissala in that city--one little troop--and I would have schooled that
+city till its men learned to kiss the shadow of a Government horse upon
+the ground. There are many _mullahs_ (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They
+preached the Jehad against us. This is true--all the camp knew it. And
+most of the houses were thatched! A war of fools indeed!
+
+At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, "The
+reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and,
+once away, I shall be too sick so return. Make ready the baggage." Thus we
+got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new
+regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by _terain_, when we were
+watering at a desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped
+out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a _jemadar_ of
+_saises_ (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a
+Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but
+the Pathan put up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented
+and added him to our service. So there were three of us--Kurban Sahib, I,
+and Sikander Khan--Sahib, Sikh, and _Sag_ (dog). But the man said truly,
+"We be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we
+see the Indus again." I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan--
+beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine's
+flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is
+written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial
+obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of
+sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where
+there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey
+gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new regiments.
+
+Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with _our_ horses on
+the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and once or
+twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was wise, and I am
+not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the front. Notably,
+there was one congregation of hard-bitten horse-thieves; tall, light
+Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for the most part, and upon all
+occasions they said, "Oah Hell!" which, in our tongue, signifies _Jehannum
+ko jao_. They bore each man a vine-leaf upon their uniforms, and they rode
+like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs!
+The Ustrelyahs, whom we met later, also spoke through their noses not
+little, and they were tall, dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily
+eyelashed like camel's eyes--very proper men--a new brand of Sahib to me.
+They said on all occasions, "No fee-ah," which in our tongue means _Durro
+mut_ ("Do not be afraid"), so we called them the _Durro Muts_. Dark, tall
+men, most excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war _as_ war, and
+drinking tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib.
+Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten
+generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a _Durro Mut_ in regard
+to horse-lifting. The _Durro Muts_ cannot walk on their feet at all. They
+are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very
+proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah--"No fee-ah," say the _Durro
+Muts_. _They_ saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. _They_ did not ask him to
+sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did substitute for
+one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day in a country full
+of little hills--like the mouth of the Khaibar; and when they returned in
+the evening, the _Durro Muts_ said, "Wallah! This is a man. Steal him!" So
+they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen anything else that
+they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to Eshtellenbosch in his
+place.
+
+Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and
+Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs'
+war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride with
+their Sahib--and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up and
+down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no flour,
+no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw corn and a
+little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but a plenty of
+gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with coffee to greet
+us, and to show us _purwanas_ (permits) from foolish English Generals who
+had gone that way before, certifying they were peaceful and well-disposed.
+When we were few, they hid behind stones and shot us. Now the order was
+that they were Sahibs, and this was a Sahibs' war. Good! But, as I
+understand it, when a Sahib goes to war, he puts on the cloth of war, and
+only those who wear that cloth may take part in the war. Good! That also I
+understand. But these people were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis
+are. They shot at their pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and
+exhibited _purwanas_, or lay in a house and said they were farmers. Even
+such farmers as cut up the Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even
+such farmers as slew Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled
+_those_ men, to be sure--fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the
+verandah in front of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib
+(the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but--no. All
+the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that
+he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth, was
+all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform to
+make a loincloth. A fool's war from first to last; for it is manifest that
+he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in one hand and a
+_purwana_ in the other, as did all these people. Yet we, when they had had
+their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and gave them
+permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and
+severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be
+done not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked
+much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, "It is a Sahibs' war. That is
+the order;" and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond
+the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border,
+he hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his
+head. Then Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like
+a sick camel, talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered
+than I, and vowed he would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me
+Kurban Sahib said we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these
+people till they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was
+not of that sort which they comprehended.
+
+They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white
+flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by
+Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. _No fee-
+ah_! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had _purwanas_ signed by mad
+Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.
+
+They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the
+roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they did
+not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the thatch,
+for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log are very
+clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are clever? Never,
+never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools. For their own honour's sake the
+Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it is the Sahibs'
+wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs should have sent
+_us_ into the game.
+
+But the _Durro Muts_ did well. They dealt faithfully with all that country
+thereabouts--not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but they were
+not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a ridge in the
+cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for the sixth part
+of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again thrice for the twelfth
+part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib, for it was a house that
+had been spared--the people having many permits and swearing fidelity at
+our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib, "Send half a troop, Child,
+and finish that house. They signal to their brethren." And he laughed
+where he lay and said, "If I listened to my bearer Umr Singh, there would
+not be left ten houses in all this land." I said, "What need to leave one?
+This is as it was in Burma. They are farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow.
+Let us deal justly with them." He laughed and curled himself up in
+his blanket, and I watched the far light in the house till day. I have
+been on the border in eight wars, not counting Burma. The first Afghan
+War; the second Afghan War; two Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two
+Black Mountain wars, if I remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not
+count Burma, or some small things. _I_ know when house signals to house!
+
+I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, "One of
+the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last night,
+lives in yonder house." I said, "How dost thou know?" He said, "Because he
+rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse fought with
+him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out of the
+camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib's glasses, and from a little
+hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house."
+I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib's glasses from his greasy hands and
+cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to their case.
+Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley
+to use glasses--whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course
+of three months' leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
+
+That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the land
+for our camp. The _Durro Muts_ moved slowly at that time. They were
+weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished to leave
+these all in some town and go on light to other business which pressed. So
+Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the line of march.
+We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came to a house under a
+high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a donga, behind it, and
+an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a kraal, before it. Two
+thorn bushes grew on either side of the door, like babul bushes, covered
+with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof was all of thatch. Before the
+house was a valley of stones that rose to another bush-covered hill. There
+was an old man in the verandah--an old man with a white beard and a wart
+upon the left side of his neck; and a fat woman with the eyes of a swine
+and the jowl of a swine; and a tall young man deprived of understanding.
+His head was hairless, no larger than an orange, and the pits of his
+nostrils were eaten away by a disease. He laughed and slavered and he
+sported sportively before Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the
+woman showed us _purwanas_ from three General Sahibs, certifying that they
+were people of peace and goodwill. Here are the _purwanas_, Sahib. Does
+the Sahib know the Generals who signed them?
+
+They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and
+swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the
+verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost scent.
+At last he took my arm and said, "See yonder! There is the sun on the
+window of the house that signalled last night. This house can see that
+house from here," and he looked at the hill behind him all hairy with
+bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the shrivelled head
+danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the roof and laughed
+like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it were, to cover some
+noise. After this passed I to the back of the house on pretence to get
+water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on the ground, and that
+the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs; and there had dropped in
+the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib called to me in our tongue,
+saying, "Is this a good place to make tea?" and I replied, knowing what he
+meant, "There are over many cooks in the cook-house. Mount and go, Child."
+Then I returned, and he said, smiling to the woman, "Prepare food, and
+when we have loosened our girths we will come in and eat;" but to his men
+he said in a whisper, "Ride away!" No. He did not cover the old man or the
+fat woman with his rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the _Durro
+Muts_, being hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and
+before we were in our saddles many shots came from the roof--from rifles
+thrust through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones,
+and men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill
+behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house--so many shots
+that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding
+low, said, "This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of the _Durro
+Muts_," and I said, "Be quiet. Keep place!" for his place was behind me,
+and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through
+five men arow! We were not hit--not one of us--and we reached the hill of
+rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his
+saddle and said, "Look at the old man!" He stood in the verandah firing
+swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the idiot also--both with
+guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by the wrist, but--his fate
+was written at that hour. The bullet passed under my arm-pit and struck
+him in the liver, and I pulled him backward between two great rocks atilt
+--Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the nullah behind the house and from
+the hills came our Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar
+Khan said, "_Now_ we see the meaning of last night's signal. Give me the
+rifle." He took Kurban Sahib's rifle--in this war of fools only the
+doctors carry swords--and lay belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib
+turned where he lay and said, "Be still. It is a Sahibs' war," and Kurban
+Sahib put up his hand--thus; and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave
+him water that he might pass the more quickly. And at the drinking his
+Spirit received permission....
+
+Thus went our fight, Sahib. We _Durro Muts_ were on a ridge working from
+the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log lay in a
+valley working from east to west. There were more than a hundred, and our
+men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley while they swiftly
+passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three Boers drop in the open.
+Then they all hid again and fired heavily at the rocks that hid our men;
+but our men were clever and did not show, but moved away and away, always
+south; and the noise of the battle withdrew itself southward, where we
+could hear the sound of big guns. So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan
+found a deep old jackal's earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of
+Kurban Sahib upright. Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his
+handkerchief and some letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round
+his neck, and Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the
+handkerchief. Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for
+Kurban Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak--even he, a Pathan, a
+Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when the
+dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses. They
+gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib's glasses, and
+the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them, and preached the
+holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought coffee; and the idiot
+capered among them and kissed their horses. Presently they went away in
+haste; they went over the hills and were not; and a black slave came out
+and washed the door-sills with bright water. Sikandar Khan saw through the
+glasses that the stain was blood, and he laughed, saying, "Wounded men lie
+there. We shall yet get vengeance."
+
+About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as a
+burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how to
+take a bearing across a hill, said, "At last we have burned the house of
+the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled." And I said: "What need now that
+they have slain my child? Let me mourn." It was a high smoke, and the old
+man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold it, and shook his
+clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight, foodless and without
+water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor to drink till we had
+accomplished the matter. I had a little opium left, of which I gave
+Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban Sahib. When it was full
+dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain softish rock which, mixed with
+water, sharpens steel well, and we took off our boots and we went down to
+the house and looked through the windows very softly. The old man sat
+reading in a book, and the woman sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on
+the floor with his head against her knee, and he counted his fingers and
+laughed, and she laughed again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I
+laughed, too, for I had suspected this when I claimed her life and her
+body from Sikandar Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered
+with bare swords.... Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel,
+for the old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan
+prevented him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down
+and held up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they
+should be silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room,
+and a door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood
+stupidly fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and
+none followed him. It was a very pretty stroke--for a Pathan. They then
+were silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar
+Khan, "Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib's sake will I defile my
+sword." So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones, and
+said, "Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit from a
+General," and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound the old
+man's hands behind his back, and unwillingly--for he laughed in my face,
+and would have fingered my beard--the idiot's. At this the woman with the
+swine's eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar Khan said,
+"Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on the division." And I
+said, "Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her. Open the door." I pushed
+out the two across the verandah into the darker shade of the thorn-trees,
+and she followed upon her knees and lay along the ground, and pawed at my
+boots and howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was
+a butler and would light the table, and I looked for a branch that would
+bear fruit. But the woman hindered me not a little with her screechings
+and plungings, and spoke fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue,
+"I am childless to-night because of thy perfidy, and _my_ child was
+praised among men and loved among women. He would have begotten men--not
+animals. Thou hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the
+greater."
+
+I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot's neck, and flung the end
+over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might well
+see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the
+spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even where the
+bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and said, "No.
+It is a Sahibs' war." And I said, "Wait a while, Child, and thou shalt
+sleep." But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my eyes, and said,
+"No. It is a Sahibs' war." And Sikandar Khan said, "Is it too heavy?" and
+set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned to tally on the rope,
+the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm's reach of us, and his face
+was very angry, and a third time he said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And a
+little wind blew out the lamp, and I heard Sikandar Khan's teeth chatter
+in his head.
+
+So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while, for
+we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his water-
+bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me and said,
+"We are absolved from our vow." So I drank, and together we waited for the
+dawn in that place where we stood--the ropes in our hand. A little after
+third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun wheels very far off,
+and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the threshold of the house,
+and the roof of the verandah that was thatched fell in and blazed before
+the windows. And I said, "What of the wounded Boer-log within?" And
+Sikandar Khan said, "We have heard the order. It is a Sahibs' war. Stand
+still." Then came a second shell--good line, but short--and scattered dust
+upon us where we stood; and then came ten of the little quick shells from
+the gun that speaks like a stammerer--yes, pompom the Sahibs call it--and
+the face of the house folded down like the nose and the chin of an old man
+mumbling, and the forefront of the house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan
+said, "If it be the fate of the wounded to die in the fire, _I_ shall not
+prevent it." And he passed to the back of the house and presently came
+back, and four wounded Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk
+upright. And I said, "What hast thou done?" And he said, "I have neither
+spoken to them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy." And I
+said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay
+still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree,
+and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches
+in the roof--one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud
+noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have
+crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees,
+and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide!
+Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' war, O Sahibs. There is no
+order that ye should depart from this war." They did not understand my
+words. Yet they abode and they lived.
+
+Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib's command, and one I
+knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I
+told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib would
+understand; and at the end I said, "An order has reached us here from the
+dead that this is a Sahibs' war. I take the soul of my Kurban Sahib to
+witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these Sahibs who
+have made me childless." Then I gave him the ropes and fell down
+senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty, except for
+the little opium.
+
+They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
+understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and two
+nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban Sahib,
+saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the _Durro Muts_--
+very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They buried my
+Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the ridge
+overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the faith, and
+Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five signalling-candles,
+which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave as if it had been the
+grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very bitterly all that night, and I
+wept with him, and he took hold of my feet and besought me to give him a
+remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I divided equally with him one of Kurban
+Sahib's handkerchiefs--not the silk ones, for those were given him by a
+certain woman; and I also gave him a button from a coat, and a little
+steel ring of no value that Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed
+them and put them into his bosom. The rest I have here in that little
+bundle, and I must get the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town--some four
+shirts we sent to be washed, for which we could not wait when we went
+up-country--and I must give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the
+Punjab. For my child is dead--my baba is dead!... I would have come away
+before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far
+from the rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come
+to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
+and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
+what they called me--orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
+did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
+after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went
+up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a troop
+there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut an
+inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and is was a
+jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the
+inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the
+jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:--
+
+  In Memory of
+  WALTER DECIES CORBYN
+  Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
+
+  The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
+
+  Treacherously shot near this place by
+  The connivance of the late
+  HENDRIK DIRK UYS
+  A Minister of God
+  Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
+  And Piet his son,
+  This little work
+
+Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
+
+
+  Was accomplished in partial
+  And inadequate recognition of their loss
+  By some men who loved him
+
+  _Si monumentum requiris circumspice_
+
+That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to
+behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house. And,
+Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank which they
+call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There is nothing
+at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire. The rest is
+like the desert here--or my hand--or my heart. Empty, Sahib--all empty!
+
+
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
+
+THE WET LITANY
+
+  When the water's countenance
+  Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance;
+  When the tattered smokes forerun
+  Ashen 'neath a silvered sun;
+  When the curtain of the haze
+  Shuts upon our helpless ways--
+       Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+       _Libera nos domine_!
+
+  When the engines' bated pulse
+  Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
+  When the wash along the side
+  Sounds, a sudden, magnified
+  When the intolerable blast
+  Marks each blindfold minute passed.
+
+  When the fog-buoy's squattering flight
+  Guides us through the haggard night;
+  When the warning bugle blows;
+  When the lettered doorways close;
+  When our brittle townships press,
+  Impotent, on emptiness.
+
+  When the unseen leadsmen lean
+  Questioning a deep unseen;
+  When their lessened count they tell
+  To a bridge invisible;
+  When the hid and perilous
+  Cliffs return our cry to us.
+
+  When the treble thickness spread
+  Swallows up our next-ahead;
+  When her siren's frightened whine
+  Shows her sheering out of line;
+  When, her passage undiscerned,
+  We must turn where she has turned--
+       Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
+       _Libera nos Domine_!
+
+"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
+
+PART I
+
+  ... "And a security for such as pass on the seas upon
+  their lawful occasions."--_Navy Prayer_.
+
+Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is
+Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.
+
+H.M.S. _Caryatid_ went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manoeuvres. I
+travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
+friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. _Caryatid_, whose guest I was to
+have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous
+off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red
+Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with
+unstinted hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A.L. Hignett, in
+charge of three destroyers, _Wraith, Stiletto_, and _Kobbold_, due to
+depart at 6 P.M. that evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot
+flagship, but I preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in
+H.M.S. _Pedantic_ (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining
+aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the
+battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance
+from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no
+wrong. I truly intended to return to the _Pedantic_ and help to fight Blue
+Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a chemist in
+a side street at 9:15 P. M. As I turned to go, one entered seeking
+alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster, a black
+silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure brass
+spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh from
+leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light fell on
+his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late second-class petty
+officer of H.M.S. _Archimandrite_, an unforgettable man, met a year before
+under Tom Wessel's roof in Plymouth. It occurred to me that when a petty
+officer takes to spurs he may conceivably meditate desertion. For that
+reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign. Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft,
+following me out of the shop, who said hollowly: "What might you be doing
+here?"
+
+"I'm going on manoeuvres in the _Pedantic_," I replied.
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "An' what manner o' manoeuvres d'you expect to
+see in a blighted cathedral like the _Pedantic_? _I_ know 'er. I knew her
+in Malta, when the _Vulcan_ was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres! You
+won't see more than 'Man an' arm watertight doors!' in your little woollen
+undervest."
+
+"I'm sorry for that."
+
+"Why?" He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like tuning-
+forks. "War's declared at midnight. _Pedantics_ be sugared! Buy an 'am an'
+see life!"
+
+For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice, purposed
+that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands of Dorset.
+The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much. "Them!" he said,
+coming to an intricate halt. "They're part of the _prima facie_ evidence.
+But as for me--let me carry your bag--I'm second in command, leadin'-hand,
+cook, steward, an' lavatory man, with a few incidentals for sixpence a day
+extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat."
+
+"They wear spurs there?"
+
+"Well," said Mr. Peycroft, "seein' that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue
+Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative. It
+transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral Master
+Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin' Blue Fleet, can't be bothered with
+one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin' in the Reserve four
+years, an' what with the new kind o' tiffy which cleans dynamos with
+brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won't render!), Two Six
+Seven's steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed done his painstakin'
+best--it's his first command of a war-canoe, matoor age nineteen (down
+that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His Holiness Frankie is
+aware of us crabbin' ourselves round the breakwater at five knots, an'
+steerin' _pari passu_, as the French say. (Up this alley-way, please!) If
+he'd given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer, a little time, it would
+never have transpired, for what Hinch can't drive he can coax; but the new
+port bein' a trifle cloudy, an' 'is joints tinglin' after a post-captain
+dinner, Frankie come on the upper bridge seekin' for a sacrifice. We,
+offerin' a broadside target, got it. He told us what 'is grandmamma, 'oo
+was a lady an' went to sea in stick-and string-batteaus, had told him
+about steam. He throwed in his own prayers for the 'ealth an' safety of
+all steam-packets an' their officers. Then he give us several distinct
+orders. The first few--I kept tally--was all about going to Hell; the next
+many was about not evolutin' in his company, when there; an' the last all
+was simply repeatin' the motions in quick time. Knowin' Frankie's groovin'
+to be badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn't much panic; but
+our Mr. Moorshed, 'e took it a little to heart. Me an' Mr. Hinchcliffe
+consoled 'im as well as service conditions permits of, an' we had a
+_resume_-supper at the back o' the Camber--secluded _an'_ lugubrious! Then
+one thing leadin' up to another, an' our orders, except about anchorin'
+where he's booked for, leavin' us a clear 'orizon, Number Two Six Seven is
+now--mind the edge of the wharf--here!"
+
+By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a narrow
+strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up into
+Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the
+round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured,
+unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type--but I am no expert--between the
+first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic
+torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she
+must have dated from the early nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with
+spurts of steam and fumes of hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure
+in a striped jersey squatted on the engine-room gratings.
+
+"She ain't much of a war-canoe, but you'll see more life in 'er than on an
+whole squadron of bleedin' _Pedantics."_
+
+"But she's laid up here--and Blue Fleet have gone," I protested.
+"Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn't put us out of
+action. Thus we're a non-neglectable fightin' factor which you mightn't
+think from this elevation; _an'_ m'rover, Red Fleet don't know we're 'ere.
+Most of us"--he glanced proudly at his boots--"didn't run to spurs, but
+we're disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser,
+when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was
+naturally a German waiter, and me you behold as a squire of low degree;
+while yonder Levantine dragoman on the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was
+the second cutter's snotty--_my_ snotty--on the _Archimandrite_--two
+years--Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin', an'
+gettin' the cutter stove in on small an' unlikely bars, an' manufacturin'
+lies to correspond. What I don't know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the
+same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don't know about me--half a millimetre, as
+you might say. He comes into awful opulence of his own when 'e's of age;
+an' judgin' from what passed between us when Frankie cursed 'im, I don't
+think 'e cares whether he's broke to-morrow or--the day after. Are you
+beginnin' to follow our tattics? They'll be worth followin'. Or _are_ you
+goin' back to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_--which I lay
+they've just dismounted the third engineer out of--to eat four fat meals
+per diem, an' smoke in the casement?"
+
+The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.
+
+"Yes, Sir," was Mr. Pyecroft's answer. "I 'ave ascertained that _Stiletto,
+Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P. M. with the first division o' Red
+Fleet's cruisers except _Devolotion_ and _Cryptic_, which are delayed by
+engine-room defects." Then to me: "Won't you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed 'ud
+like some one to talk to. You buy an 'am an see life."
+
+At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower
+myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267.
+
+"What d'you want?" said the striped jersey.
+
+"I want to join Blue Fleet if I can," I replied. "I've been left behind
+by--an accident.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
+you need?"
+
+"I don't want any ham, thank you. That's the way up the wharf. _Good_-
+night."
+
+"Good-night!" I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a
+shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
+salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop
+supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I,
+sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of
+a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I
+laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the face of
+it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me very far from
+the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched
+it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft--I heard spurs clink--passed me. Then the
+jersey voice said: "What the mischief's that?"
+
+"'Asn't the visitor come aboard, Sir? 'E told me he'd purposely abandoned
+the _Pedantic_ for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me he was
+official correspondent for the _Times_; an' I know he's littery by the way
+'e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven't you seen 'im, Sir?"
+
+Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; "Pye, you
+are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!"
+
+"Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It's marked with his name." There
+was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said "Oh!" in a tone which the listener
+might construe precisely as he pleased.
+
+"_He_ was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life--was he? If he
+goes back to the _Pedantic_--"
+
+"Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir."
+
+"Then what possessed _you_ to give it away to him, you owl?"
+
+"I've got his bag. If 'e gives anything away, he'll have to go naked."
+
+At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the
+shadow of the crane.
+
+"I've bought the ham," I called sweetly. "Have you still any objection to
+my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?"
+
+"All right, if you're insured. Won't you come down?"
+
+I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of
+all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.
+
+"Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?" said my host.
+
+"Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?"
+
+"What do _you_ think of him?"
+
+"I've left the _Pedantic_--her boat will be waiting for me at ten o'clock,
+too--simply because I happened to meet him," I replied.
+
+"That's all right. If you'll come down below, we may get some grub."
+
+We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve
+feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a
+swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other
+furniture there was none.
+
+"You can't shave here, of course. We don't wash, and, as a rule, we eat
+with our fingers when we're at sea. D'you mind?"
+
+Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me
+over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but
+his smile drew the heart. "You didn't happen to hear what Frankie told me
+from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I've logged them
+here in shorthand, were"--he opened a neat pocket-book--"_'Get out of this
+and conduct your own damned manoeuvres in your own damned tinker fashion!
+You're a disgrace to the Service, and your boat's offal.'"_
+
+"Awful?" I said.
+
+"No--offal--tripes--swipes--ullage." Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume
+of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he
+dealt out like cards.
+
+"I shall take these as my orders," said Mr. Moorshed. "I'm chucking the
+Service at the end of the year, so it doesn't matter."
+
+We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with
+whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an
+uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.
+
+"That's Mr. Hinchcliffe," said Pyecroft. "He's what is called a first-
+class engine-room artificer. If you hand 'im a drum of oil an' leave 'im
+alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin'."
+
+Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a
+folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manoeuvres, with the
+rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.
+
+"Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral,"
+he said, yawning. "Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?"
+
+As a preparation for naval manoeuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I
+followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big
+lumber-ship's side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No.
+267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels--soft, for they
+gave as I touched them.
+
+"More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an' aft, an' you erects
+perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops,
+thus 'avin' as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o' command, up
+they go like a pair of concertinas, an' consequently collapses equally
+'andy when requisite. Comin' aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish
+bathin'-machine proprietor fittin' on her bustle."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at
+the stern.
+
+"None of us who ain't built that way can be destroyers, but we can look as
+near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a
+Thorneycroft boat, which we are _not_, comes out in a pretty bulge,
+totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on
+the other 'and, _Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn_, and _A-frite_--Red
+Fleet dee-stroyers, with 'oom we hope to consort later on terms o' perfect
+equality--_are_ Thorneycrofts, an' carry that Grecian bend which we are
+now adjustin' to our _arriere-pensee_--as the French would put it--by
+means of painted canvas an' iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an'
+me an' Frankie, we are the _Gnome_, now in the Fleet Reserve at Pompey--
+Portsmouth, I should say."
+
+"The first sea will carry it all away," said Moorshed, leaning gloomily
+outboard, "but it will do for the present."
+
+"We've a lot of _prima facie_ evidence about us," Mr. Pyecroft went on. "A
+first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer. Hence
+we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak to
+represent extra freeboard; _at_ the same time paddin' out the cover of the
+forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an' variously
+fakin' up the bows of 'er. As you might say, we've took thought an' added
+a cubic to our stature. It's our len'th that sugars us. A 'undred an'
+forty feet, which is our len'th into two 'undred and ten, which is about
+the _Gnome's,_ leaves seventy feet over, which we haven't got."
+
+"Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
+
+"In spots, you might say--yes; though we all contributed to make up
+deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin' for further Navy after
+what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity."
+
+"What the dickens are we going to do?"
+
+"Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we'd wait till the sights came
+on, an' then fire. Speakin' as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I., M.D.,
+etc., I presume we fall in--Number One in rear of the tube, etc., secure
+tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin'-bar, release safety-pin
+from lockin-levers, an' pray Heaven to look down on us. As second in
+command o' 267, I say wait an' see!"
+
+"What's happened? We're off," I said. The timber ship had slid away from
+us.
+
+"We are. Stern first, an' broadside on! If we don't hit anything too hard,
+we'll do."
+
+"Come on the bridge," said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over
+some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next
+few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the
+science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth
+Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in
+what appeared to be surf.
+
+"Excuse me," said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, "_I_ don't mind rammin' a
+bathin'-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters has
+thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we'll rip our plates open on
+it; 267 isn't the _Archimandrite's_ old cutter."
+
+"I am hugging the shore," was the answer.
+
+"There's no actual 'arm in huggin', but it can come expensive if
+pursooed."
+
+"Right-O!" said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those
+scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.
+
+A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.
+
+"Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?" said Moorshed.
+
+"I merely wished to report that she is still continuin' to go, Sir."
+
+"Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d'you think?"
+
+"I'll try, Sir; but we'd prefer to have the engine-room hatch open--at
+first, Sir."
+
+Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through
+the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the
+narrow deck.
+
+"This," said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock
+receives a shadow, "represents the _Gnome_ arrivin' cautious from the
+direction o' Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders."
+
+He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes
+opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.
+
+"Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic
+about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and
+several millimetres too excited over the approachin' war to keep a look-
+out inshore. Hence our tattics!"
+
+We wailed through our siren--a long, malignant, hyena-like howl--and a
+voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.
+
+"The _Gnome_--Carteret-Jones--from Portsmouth, with orders--mm--mm--
+_Stiletto_," Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a high, whining
+voice, rather like a chaplain's.
+
+"_Who_?" was the answer.
+
+"Carter--et--Jones."
+
+"Oh, Lord!"
+
+There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, "It's Podgie, adrift
+on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!"
+
+Another voice echoed, "Podgie!" and from its note I gathered that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.
+
+"Who's your sub?" said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the
+_Dirk_.
+
+"A gunner, at present, Sir. The _Stiletto_--broken down--turns over to
+us."
+
+"When did the _Stiletto_ break down?"
+
+"Off the Start, Sir; two hours after--after she left here this evening, I
+believe. My orders are to report to you for the manoeuvre signal-codes,
+and join Commander Hignett's flotilla, which is in attendance on
+_Stiletto_."
+
+A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed's voice was high and
+uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: "The amount o' trouble me an' my
+bright spurs 'ad fishin' out that information from torpedo coxswains and
+similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never believe."
+
+"But has the _Stiletto_ broken down?" I asked weakly.
+
+"How else are we to get Red Fleet's private signal-code? Any way, if she
+'asn't now, she will before manoeuvres are ended. It's only executin' in
+anticipation."
+
+"Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones." Water
+carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear the
+next sentence: "They must have given him _one_ intelligent keeper."
+
+"That's me," said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy--I did
+not foresee how well I should come to know her--was flung overside by
+three men.
+
+"Havin' bought an 'am, we will now see life." He stepped into the boat and
+was away.
+
+"I say, Podgie!"--the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers,
+as we thumped astern--"aren't you lonely out there?"
+
+"Oh, don't rag me!" said Moorshed. "Do you suppose I'll have to manoeuvre
+with your flo-tilla?"
+
+"No, Podgie! I'm pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders in
+Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla."
+
+"Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds."
+
+Two men laughed together.
+
+"By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he's at home?" I whispered.
+
+"I was with him in the _Britannia_. I didn't like him much, but I'm
+grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day."
+
+"They seemed to know him hereabouts."
+
+"He rammed the _Caryatid_ twice with her own steam-pinnace."
+
+Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming across
+the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel spurned it.
+
+"Commander Fasset's compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the sooner
+he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at Portsmouth,
+the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there's a lot more----"
+
+"Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it as
+we go. Well?"
+
+Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.
+
+"Day an' night private signals of Red Fleet _com_plete, Sir!" He handed a
+little paper to Moorshed. "You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr.
+Carteret-Jones bein', so to say, a little new to his duties, 'ad forgot to
+give 'is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin', but, as I told Commander
+Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin' 'em to me, nervous-like, most of the
+way from Portsmouth, so I knew 'em by heart--an' better. The Commander,
+recognisin' in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a father an' mother
+to Mr. Carteret-Jones."
+
+"Didn't he know you?" I asked, thinking for the moment that there could be
+no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.
+
+"What's a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding six
+thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? 'E seemed to cherish the 'ope
+that 'e might use the _Gnome_ for 'is own 'orrible purposes; but what I
+told him about Mr. Jones's sad lack o' nerve comin' from Pompey, an' going
+dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited _that_ connection.
+'M'rover,' I says to him, 'our orders is explicit; _Stiletto's_ reported
+broke down somewhere off the Start, an' we've been tryin' to coil down a
+new stiff wire hawser all the evenin', so it looks like towin' 'er back,
+don't it?' I says. That more than ever jams his turrets, an' makes him
+keen to get rid of us. 'E even hinted that Mr. Carteret-Jones passin'
+hawsers an' assistin' the impotent in a sea-way might come pretty
+expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a disciplined way. I ain't proud.
+Gawd knows I ain't proud! But when I'm really diggin' out in the fancy
+line, I sometimes think that me in a copper punt, single-'anded, 'ud beat
+a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in a row round the fleet."
+
+At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft's bosom, supported
+by his quivering arm.
+
+"Well?" said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267's bows snapped
+at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed together.
+
+"'You'd better go on,' says Commander Fassett, 'an' do what you're told to
+do. I don't envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the _Gnome's_ commander.
+But what d'you want with signals?' 'e says. 'It's criminal lunacy to trust
+Mr. Jones with anything that steams.'
+
+"'May I make an observation, Sir?' I says. 'Suppose,' I says, 'you was
+torpedo-gunner on the _Gnome_, an' Mr. Carteret-Jones was your commandin'
+officer, an' you had your reputation _as_ a second in command for the
+first time,' I says, well knowin' it was his first command of a flotilla,
+'what 'ud you do, Sir?' That gouged 'is unprotected ends open--clear back
+to the citadel."
+
+"What did he say?" Moorshed jerked over is shoulder.
+
+"If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to repeat
+it, Sir."
+
+"Go ahead," I heard the boy chuckle.
+
+"'Do?' 'e says. 'I'd rub the young blighter's nose into it till I made a
+perishin' man of him, or a perspirin' pillow-case,' 'e says, 'which,' he
+adds, 'is forty per cent, more than he is at present.'
+
+"Whilst he's gettin' the private signals--they're rather particular ones--
+I went forrard to see the _Dirk's_ gunner about borrowin' a holdin'-down
+bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was rovin' over his
+packet, got the followin' authentic particulars." I heard his voice
+change, and his feet shifted. "There's been a last council o' war of
+destroyer-captains at the flagship, an' a lot of things 'as come out. To
+begin with _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, Captain Panke and Captain Malan--"
+
+"_Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, first-class cruisers," said Mr. Moorshed
+dreamily. "Go on, Pyecroft."
+
+"--bein' delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did _not_, as we know,
+accompany Red Fleet's first division of scouting cruisers, whose
+rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard.
+_Cryptic_ an' _Devolution_ left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin' copious minor
+defects in engine-room. Admiral's final instructions was they was to put
+into Torbay, an' mend themselves there. If they can do it in twenty-four
+hours, they're to come on and join the battle squadron at the first
+rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn't get that, Sir.) If they
+can't, he'll think about sendin' them some destroyers for escort. But his
+present intention is to go 'ammer and tongs down Channel, usin' 'is
+destroyers for all they're worth, an' thus keepin' Blue Fleet too busy off
+the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries."
+
+"But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let 'em out of
+Weymouth at all?" I asked.
+
+"The tax-payer," said Mr. Moorshed.
+
+"An' newspapers," added Mr. Pyecroft. "In Torbay they'll look as they was
+muckin' about for strategical purposes--hanmerin' like blazes in the
+engine room all the weary day, an' the skipper droppin' questions down the
+engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. _I've_ been there. Now,
+Sir?" I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.
+
+The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.
+
+"Mr. Hinchcliffe, what's her extreme economical radius?"
+
+"Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers."
+
+"Can do," said Moorshed. "By the way, have her revolutions any bearing on
+her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
+
+"None that I can make out yet, Sir."
+
+"Then slow to eight knots. We'll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or
+four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by
+nine o'clock to-morrow morning. We'll have to muck about till dusk before
+we run in and try our luck with the cruisers."
+
+"Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin' round them all night. It's
+considered good for the young gentlemen."
+
+"Hallo! War's declared! They're off!" said Moorshed.
+
+He swung 267's head round to get a better view. A few miles to our right
+the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while nearer ran a
+procession of tiny cigar ends.
+
+"Red hot! Set 'em alight," said Mr. Pyecroft. "That's the second destroyer
+flotilla diggin' out for Commander Fassett's reputation."
+
+The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers' funnels
+dwindled even as we watched.
+
+"They're going down Channel with lights out, thus showin' their zeal an'
+drivin' all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll
+get you your pyjamas, an' you'll turn in," said Pyecroft.
+
+He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung majestically
+over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a coat with a monk's
+hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.
+
+"If you fall over in these you'll be drowned. They're lammies. I'll chock
+you off with a pillow; but sleepin' in a torpedo-boat's what you might
+call an acquired habit."
+
+I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering steel
+wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267's skin, worried me
+with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed tackily to gather my
+attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and, on the eve of that
+portentous communication, retired up stage as a multitude whispering.
+Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum of crowded cities
+awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and dry roaring of wild
+beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold floor was, naturally
+enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking uplift across the crest
+of some little swell, nothing less than the haling forth of new worlds;
+our half-turning descent into the hollow of its mate, the abysmal plunge
+of God-forgotten planets. Through all these phenomena and more--though I
+ran with wild horses over illimitable plains of rustling grass; though I
+crouched belly-flat under appalling fires of musketry; though I was
+Livingstone, painless, and incurious in the grip of his lion--my shut eyes
+saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the irregularly gliding patch of
+light on the steel ladder, and every elastic shadow in the corners of the
+frail angle-irons; while my body strove to accommodate itself to the
+infernal vibration of the machine. At the last I rolled limply on the
+floor, and woke to real life with a bruised nose and a great call to go on
+deck at once.
+
+"It's all right," said a voice in my booming ears. "Morgan and Laughton
+are worse than you!"
+
+I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two bundles
+beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller and a most
+able seaman. "She'd do better in a bigger sea," said Mr. Pyecroft. "This
+lop is what fetches it up."
+
+The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down
+the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round
+wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good
+omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to
+267's heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves--such waves as I
+had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton
+liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped, and
+splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops along
+their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey cutting of
+water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge, beheld the
+Channel traffic--full-sailed to that fair breeze--all about us, and swung
+slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into the next furrow.
+Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to living, leaping opal,
+the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many sails to pearl, and the
+little steam-plume of our escape to an inconstant rainbow.
+
+"A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!" said Emanuel Pyecroft,
+throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was pitted
+with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes shone
+like a gull's.
+
+"I told you you'd see life. Think o' the _Pedantic_ now. Think o' her
+Number One chasin' the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats. Think
+o' the pore little snotties now bein' washed, fed, and taught, an' the
+yeoman o' signals with a pink eye wakin' bright 'an brisk to another
+perishin' day of five-flag hoists. Whereas _we_ shall caulk an' smoke
+cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks after war
+was declared." He dropped into the wardroom singing:--
+
+If you're going to marry me, marry me, Bill, It's no use muckin' about!
+
+The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o'-shanter, a
+pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a black
+sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava and a
+brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our supplementary funnel
+guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho restaurant sat at the head of
+the engine-room ladder exhorting the unseen below. The following wind beat
+down our smoke and covered all things with an inch-thick layer of stokers,
+so that eyelids, teeth, and feet gritted in their motions. I began to see
+that my previous experiences among battleships and cruisers had been
+altogether beside the mark.
+
+
+PART II
+
+  The wind went down with the sunset--
+    The fog came up with the tide,
+  When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (_bis_)
+    With a little Blue Devil inside.
+  "Sink," she said, "or swim," she said,
+    "It's all you will get from me.
+  And that is the finish of him!" she said,
+    And the Egg-shell went to sea.
+
+  The wind got up with the morning,
+    And the fog blew off with the rain,
+  When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
+    And the little Blue Devil again.
+  "Did you swim?" she said. "Did you sink?" she said,
+    And the little Blue Devil replied:
+  "For myself I swam, but I think," he said,
+    "There's somebody sinking outside."
+
+But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and might
+not alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all that
+priceless day. Moorshed, after breakfast--frizzled ham and a devil that
+Pyecroft made out of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard smashed
+together with a spanner--showed me his few and simple navigating tools,
+and took an observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the chamois
+leathers while he cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be better equipped
+with electricity than most of our class), that lived under a bulbous
+umbrella-cover amidship. Then Pyecroft and Morgan, standing easy, talked
+together of the King's Service as reformers and revolutionists, so
+notably, that were I not engaged on this tale I would, for its conclusion,
+substitute theirs.
+
+I would speak of Hinchcliffe--Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class engine-
+room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of having taken
+part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his daring, his skill,
+and his nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for an hour in the packed
+and dancing engine-room, when Moorshed suggested "whacking her up" to
+eighteen knots, to see if she would stand it. The floor was ankle-deep in
+a creamy batter of oil and water; each moving part flicking more oil in
+zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible for their dizzy chattering on
+the chattering steel bulkhead. Leading stoker Grant, said to be a
+bigamist, an ox-eyed man smothered in hair, took me to the stokehold and
+planted me between a searing white furnace and some hell-hot iron plate
+for fifteen minutes, while I listened to the drone of fans and the worry
+of the sea without, striving to wrench all that palpitating firepot wide
+open.
+
+Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed--revolving in his orbit from the
+canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room, conning-tower,
+and wheel, to the doll's house of a foc'sle--learned in experience
+withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge, authoritative,
+entirely adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his play. _I_ could not
+take ten steps along the crowded deck but I collided with some body or
+thing; but he and his satellites swung, passed, and returned on their
+vocations with the freedom and spaciousness of the well-poised stars.
+
+Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each dissolving
+picture inboard or overside--Hinchcliffe's white arm buried to the
+shoulder in a hornet's nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed's halt and
+jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft's back bent over
+the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men in expanding it
+swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a homeward-bound Chinaman
+not a hundred yards away, and her shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails
+bulging sideways like insolent cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on
+our decks, all iridescent under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled
+the shadows of our funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and
+dulling over of the short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell:
+the swell that crumbled up and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant,
+almost audible roll inward of wandering fog-walls that had been stalking
+us for two hours, and--welt upon welt, chill as the grave--the drive of
+the interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than
+steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred
+like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship literally
+above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we scrooped by, and
+the little drops of dew gathered below them.
+
+"Wonder why they're always barks--always steel--always four-masted--an'
+never less than two thousand tons. But they are," said Pyecroft. He was
+out on the turtle-backed bows of her; Moorshed was at the wheel, and
+another man worked the whistle.
+
+"This fog is the best thing could ha' happened to us," said Moorshed. "It
+gives us our chance to run in on the quiet.... Hal-lo!"
+
+A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a
+bowsprit surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially hooking
+itself into our forward rail.
+
+I saw Pyecroft's arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of the
+tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed's voice down the tube
+saying, "Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!" and Pyecroft's cry,
+"Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our propeller, Sir, or we'll be
+wrapped up in the rope."
+
+267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the downward-bearing
+bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc'sle had already thrown
+out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible bulwark.
+
+Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive
+crunching of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler, her
+crew struck dumb.
+
+"Any luck?" said Moorshed politely.
+
+"Not till we met yeou," was the answer. "The Lard he saved us from they
+big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be'e gwine tu with our
+fine new bobstay?"
+
+"Yah! You've had time to splice it by now," said Pyecroft with contempt.
+
+"Aie; but we'm all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin' twenty-seven
+knots, us reckoned it. Didn't us, Albert?"
+
+"Liker twenty-nine, an' niver no whistle."
+
+"Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?" said Moorshed.
+
+A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.
+
+We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing
+crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a
+mere picket-boat.
+
+"What for?" said a puzzled voice.
+
+"For love; for nothing. You'll be abed in Brixham by midnight."
+
+"Yiss; but trawl's down."
+
+"No hurry. I'll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when you're ready."
+A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they made it fast; we slid
+forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet of the wire rope
+running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of debate.
+
+"Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog," said Moorshed
+listening.
+
+"But what in the world do you want him for?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, he'll came in handy later."
+
+"Was that your first collision?"
+
+"Yes." I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice rose muffled and wailing. "After
+us've upped trawl, us'll be glad of a tow. Leave line just slack abaout as
+'tis now, and kip a good fine look-out be'ind 'ee."
+
+"There's an accommodatin' blighter for you!" said Pyecroft. "Where does he
+expect we'll be, with these currents evolutin' like sailormen at the
+Agricultural Hall?"
+
+I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out and
+smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept it from
+fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The fog now
+thickened and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like the glare of
+intermittent flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision of a sick sun
+that leered and fled, or burying all a thousand fathom deep in gulfs of
+vapours. At no time could we see the trawler though we heard the click of
+her windlass, the jar of her trawl-beam, and the very flap of the fish on
+her deck. Forward was Pyecroft with the lead; on the bridge Moorshed pawed
+a Channel chart; aft sat I, listening to the whole of the British
+Mercantile Marine (never a keel less) returning to England, and watching
+the fog-dew run round the bight of the tow back to its mother-fog.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war! We'm done with trawl. You can take us home
+if you know the road."
+
+"Right O!" said Moorshed. "We'll give the fishmonger a run for his money.
+Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe."
+
+The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be
+afraid, but more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of my
+neck) that any fear which would begin to do justice to the situation
+would, if yielded to, incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow of
+spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us like
+the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and, miraculously
+withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance that I should
+reach the beach--any beach--alive, if not dry; and (this was when an
+economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser water) were I so
+spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.
+
+Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added
+herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they, too,
+should melt in the general dissolution.
+
+"Where's that prevaricatin' fishmonger?" said Pyecroft, turning a lantern
+on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a stick to my
+left. "He's doin' some fancy steerin' on his own. No wonder Mr.
+Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow's sheered off to starboard, Sir.
+He'll fair pull the stern out of us."
+
+Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.
+
+"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice butted through the fog with the
+monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep's. "We don't all like the road
+you'm takin'. 'Tis no road to Brixham. You'll be buckled up under Prawle
+Point by'mbye."
+
+"Do you pretend to know where you are?" the megaphone roared.
+
+"Iss, I reckon; but there's no pretence to me!"
+
+"O Peter!" said Pyecroft. "Let's hang him at 'is own gaff."
+
+I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: "Take another man with
+you. If you lose the tow, you're done. I'll slow her down."
+
+I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry "Murder!" Heard the
+rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my
+ear, Pyecroft's enormous and jubilant bellow astern: "Why, he's here!
+Right atop of us! The blighter 'as pouched half the tow, like a shark!" A
+long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then Pyecroft, _solo
+arpeggio_: "Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come an' try it, uncle."
+
+I lifted my face to where once God's sky had been, and besought The Trues
+I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles, but live at
+least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as happy as I was
+happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow--slow as the processes of
+evolution--till the boat-hook rasped again.
+
+"He's not what you might call a scientific navigator," said Pyecroft,
+still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap. "The
+lead's what 'e goes by mostly; rum is what he's come for; an' Brixham is
+'is 'ome. Lay on, Mucduff!"
+
+A white whiskered man in a frock-coat--as I live by bread, a frock-coat!--
+sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube into Moorshed's
+grip and vanished forward.
+
+"'E'll probably 'old three gallon (look sharp with that dinghy!); but 'is
+nephew, left in charge of the _Agatha_, wants two bottles command-
+allowance. You're a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that excessive?"
+
+"Lead there! Lead!" rang out from forward.
+
+"Didn't I say 'e wouldn't understand compass deviations? Watch him close.
+It'll be worth it!"
+
+As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: "Let me zmell un!" and to
+his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King's Navy.
+
+"I'll tell 'ee where to goo, if yeou'll tell your donkey-man what to du.
+I'm no hand wi' steam." On these lines we proceeded miraculously, and,
+under Moorshed's orders--I was the fisherman's Ganymede, even as
+"M. de C." had served the captain--I found both rum and curacoa in
+a locker, and mixed them equal bulk in an enamelled iron cup.
+
+"Now we'm just abeam o' where we should be," he said at last, "an' here
+we'll lay till she lifts. I'd take 'e in for another bottle--and wan for
+my nevvy; but I reckon yeou'm shart-allowanced for rum. That's nivver no
+Navy rum yeou'm give me. Knowed 'ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!"
+
+I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them spring
+to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet to port
+caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar at gaze,
+for not far away an unmistakable ship's bell was ringing. It ceased, and
+another began.
+
+"Them!" said Pyecroft. "Anchored!"
+
+"More!" said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The trawler
+astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk of his arm
+threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the back-sight was
+heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.
+
+"No--they wouldn't have their picket-boats out in this weather, though
+they ought to." He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.
+
+"Be yeou gwine to anchor?" said Macduff, smacking his lips, "or be yeou
+gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?"
+
+"Tell him what we're driving at. Get it into his head somehow," said
+Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man
+with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.
+
+"And if you pull it off," said Moorshed at the last, "I'll give you a
+fiver."
+
+"Lard! What's fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes 'em; but I do
+cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o' God's good weeks.
+Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall 'ee, gentlemen, I hain't
+the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before the mast
+I've fared in my time; fisherman I've been since I seed the unsense of
+sea-dangerin'. Baccy and spirits--yiss, an' cigars too, I've run a plenty.
+I'm no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your forty-mile free towin'
+and rum atop of all. There's none more sober to Brix'am this tide, I don't
+care who 'tis--than me. _I_ know--_I_ know. Yander'm two great King's
+ships. Yeou'm wishful to sink, burn, and destroy they while us kips 'em
+busy sellin' fish. No need tall me so twanty taime over. Us'll find they
+ships! Us'll find 'em, if us has to break our fine new bowsprit so close
+as Crump's bull's horn!"
+
+"Good egg!" quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide
+shoulders with the smack of a beaver's tail.
+
+"Us'll go look for they by hand. Us'll give they something to play upon;
+an' do 'ee deal with them faithfully, an' may the Lard have mercy on your
+sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again."
+
+The fog was as dense as ever--we moved in the very womb of night--but I
+cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by
+the tow-rope, disappeared toward the _Agatha_, Pyecroft rowing. The bell
+began again on the starboard bow.
+
+"We're pretty near," said Moorshed, slowing down. "Out with the Berthon.
+(_We'll_ sell 'em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke, I'll break
+his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the tube), "you'll
+stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the engine-room staff.
+Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes." A deep groan broke from
+Morgan's chest, but he said nothing. "If the fog thins and you're seen by
+any one, keep'em quiet with the signals. I can't think of the precise lie
+just now, but _you_ can, Morgan."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?" I whispered, shivering with
+excitement.
+
+"If they've been repairing minor defects all day, they won't have any one
+to spare from the engine-room, and 'Out nets!' is a job for the whole
+ship's company. I expect they've trusted to the fog--like us. Well,
+Pyecroft?"
+
+That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. "'Ad to see
+the first o' the rum into the _Agathites_, Sir. They was a bit jealous o'
+their commandin' officer comin' 'ome so richly lacquered, and at first the
+_conversazione_ languished, as you might say. But they sprang to attention
+ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any of 'em are sober enough
+to keep tally, will be the signal that our consort 'as cast off her tow
+an' is manceuvrin' on 'er own."
+
+"Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over
+quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
+
+I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into the
+Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved me in
+generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of the dinghy.
+
+"I want you for _prima facie_ evidence, in case the vaccination don't
+take," said Pyecroft in my ear. "Push off, Alf!"
+
+The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little
+tinkles from the _Agatha_, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of
+pans, and loose shouting.
+
+"Where be gwine tu? Port your 'ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the fairway,
+goo astern! Out boats! She'll sink us!"
+
+A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: "Quiet! you gardeners
+there. This is the _Cryptic_ at anchor."
+
+"Thank you for the range," said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. "Feel well
+out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only Marconi
+installation." The voices resumed:
+
+"Bournemouth steamer he says she be."
+
+"Then where be Brixham Harbor?"
+
+"Damme, I'm a tax-payer tu. They've no right to cruise about this way.
+I'll have the laa on 'ee if anything carries away."
+
+Then the man-of-war:
+
+"Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You'll get
+yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift."
+
+The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung.
+I passed one hand down Laughton's stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck
+and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I
+laid on broad, cold iron--even the flanks of H.M.S. _Cryptic_, which is
+twelve thousand tons.
+
+I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to
+shave, and I smelled paint. "Drop aft a bit, Alf; we'll put a stencil
+under the stern six-inch casements."
+
+Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall.
+Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was
+renewed.
+
+"Umpires are 'ard-'earted blighters, but this ought to convince 'em....
+Captain Panke's stern-walk is now above our defenceless 'eads. Repeat the
+evolution up the starboard side, Alf."
+
+I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with
+life. Though my knowledge was all by touch--as, for example, when Pyecroft
+led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson, or when my
+palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it timidly--yet I
+felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless ship was withdrawn,
+and we drifted away into the void where voices sang:
+
+
+  Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,
+  All along, out along, down along lea!
+  I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair
+  With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,
+  Old Uncle Tom Cobley an' all!
+
+"That's old Sinbad an' 'is little lot from the _Agatha_! Give way, Alf!
+_You_ might sing somethin', too."
+
+"I'm no burnin' Patti. Ain't there noise enough for you, Pye?"
+
+"Yes, but it's only amateurs. Give me the tones of 'earth and 'ome. Ha!
+List to the blighter on the 'orizon sayin' his prayers, Navy-fashion.
+'Eaven 'elp me argue that way when I'm a warrant-officer!"
+
+We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a fair-
+sized riot.
+
+"An' I've 'eard the _Devolution_ called a happy ship, too," said Pyecroft.
+"Just shows 'ow a man's misled by prejudice. She's peevish--that's what
+she is--nasty-peevish. Prob'ly all because the _Agathites_ are scratching
+'er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I've got the lymph!"
+
+A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was
+speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower
+deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced
+rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the _Devolution_ at
+anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.
+
+"Mark how the Navy 'olds it's own. He's sober. The _Agathites_ are not, as
+you might say, an' yet they can't live with 'im. It's the discipline that
+does it. 'Ark to the bald an' unconvincin' watch-officer chimin' in. I
+wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?"
+
+We drifted down the _Devolution's_ side, as we had drifted down her
+sister's; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt with
+her sister.
+
+"Whai! 'Tis a man-o'-war, after all! I can see the captain's whisker all
+gilt at the edges! We took 'ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three cheers
+for the real man-o'-war!"
+
+That cry came from under the _Devolution's_ stern. Pyecroft held something
+in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, "Our Mister Moorshed!"
+
+Said a boy's voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from
+some valve: "I don't half like that cheer. If I'd been the old man I'd ha'
+turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren't they rowing
+Navy-stroke, yonder?"
+
+"True," said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. "It's time to go 'ome
+when snotties begin to think. The fog's thinnin', too."
+
+I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel
+stand out darker than the darkness, disappear--it was then the dinghy shot
+away from it--and emerge once more.
+
+"Hallo! what boat's that?" said the voice suspiciously.
+
+"Why, I do believe it's a real man-o'-war, after all," said Pyecroft, and
+kicked Laughton.
+
+"What's that for?" Laughton was no dramatist.
+
+"Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin' opposite."
+
+"What boat's _thatt_?" The hail was repeated.
+
+"What do yee say-ay?" Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me:
+"Give us a hand."
+
+"It's called the _Marietta_--F. J. Stokes--Torquay," I began, quaveringly.
+"At least, that's the name on the name-board. I've been dining--on a
+yacht."
+
+"I see." The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with
+disgraceful ease.
+
+"Yesh. Dining private yacht. _Eshmesheralda_. I belong to Torquay Yacht
+Club. _Are_ you member Torquay Yacht Club?"
+
+"You'd better go to bed, Sir. Good-night." We slid into the rapidly
+thinning fog.
+
+"Dig out, Alf. Put your _nix mangiare_ back into it. The fog's peelin'
+off like a petticoat. Where's Two Six Seven?"
+
+"I can't see her," I replied, "but there's a light low down ahead."
+
+"The _Agatha_!" They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of the
+fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler's bow.
+
+"Well, Emanuel means 'God with us'--so far." Pyecroft wiped his brow, laid
+a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I saw
+Moorshed's face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.
+
+"Was it all right?" said he, over the bulwarks.
+
+"Vaccination ain't in it. She's took beautiful. But where's 267, Sir?"
+Pyecroft replied.
+
+"Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the _Devolution_ four. Was
+that you behind us?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the _Devolution_. I gave the
+_Cryptic_ nine, though. They're what you might call more or less
+vaccinated."
+
+He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the
+_Agatha's_ hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.
+
+"Where is the old man?" I asked.
+
+"Still selling 'em fish, I suppose. He's a darling! But I wish I could get
+this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the _Cryptic_
+signalling?"
+
+A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was answered
+by a white pencil to the southward.
+
+"Destroyer signalling with searchlight." Pyecroft leaped on the stern-
+rail. "The first part is private signals. Ah! now she's Morsing against
+the fog. 'P-O-S-T'--yes, 'postpone'--'D-E-P-' (go on)! 'departure--till--
+further--orders--which--will--be com" (he's dropped the other m)
+"'unicated--verbally. End,'." He swung round. "_Cryptic_ is now answering:
+'Ready--proceed--immediately. What--news--promised--destroyer--
+flotilla?'"
+
+"Hallo!" said Moorshed. "Well, never mind, They'll come too late."
+
+"Whew! That's some 'igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer signals:
+'Care not. All will be known later.' What merry beehive's broken loose
+now?"
+
+"What odds! We've done our little job."
+
+"Why--why--it's Two Six Seven!"
+
+Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the
+_Agatha_ with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over the
+stern, and fell into his subordinate's arms. I heard the guggle of
+engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards
+away, a cough, and Morgan's subdued hail. ... So far as I remember, it was
+Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were Pyecroft and
+Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.
+
+There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the _Agatha's_
+side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common safety,
+because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open by hand for
+the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like wild geese, and
+crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the _Agatha's_ boat,
+returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: "Have 'ee done the trick?
+Have 'ee done the trick?" and we could only shout hoarsely over the stern,
+guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.
+
+"Fog got patchy here at 12:27," said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing
+clearer every instant in the dawn. "Went down to Brixham Harbour to keep
+out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I had her
+up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet signals out
+of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was answered by three
+destroyers. Morgan signalled 'em by searchlight: 'Alter course to South
+Seventeen East, so as not to lose time,' They came round quick. We kept
+well away--on their port beam--and Morgan gave 'em their orders." He
+looked at Morgan and coughed.
+
+"The signalman, acting as second in command," said Morgan, swelling, "then
+informed destroyer flotilla that _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_ had made good
+defects, and, in obedience to Admiral's supplementary orders (I was afraid
+they might suspect that, but they didn't), had proceeded at seven knots at
+11:23 p. M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven miles N.N.W. the
+Casquet light. (I've rendezvoused there myself, Sir.) Destroyer flotilla
+would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with them on their course.
+Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course indicated, all funnels sparking
+briskly."
+
+"Who were the destroyers?"
+
+"_Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto_, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, acting
+under Admiral's orders to escort cruisers received off the Dodman at 7 P.
+M. They'd come slow on account of fog."
+
+"Then who were you?"
+
+"We were the _Afrite_, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and there
+instructed by _Cryptic_, previous to her departure with _Devolution_) to
+inform Commander Hignett of change of plans. Lieutenant-Commander Hignett
+signalled that our meeting was quite providential. After this we returned
+to pick up our commanding officer, and being interrogated by _Cryptic_,
+marked time signalling as requisite, which you may have seen. The _Agatha_
+representing the last known rallying-point--or, as I should say, pivot-
+ship of the evolution--it was decided to repair to the _Agatha_ at
+conclusion of manoeuvre."
+
+"Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine big
+battleship?" "Can do, sir," said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr.
+Moorshed and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker,
+we drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of
+stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other's face, and we
+nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.
+
+Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a
+captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke
+over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our
+victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had
+made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet long
+and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece, and
+they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were ours, and
+they did not know it. Indeed, the _Cryptic_, senior ship, was signalling
+vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.
+
+"If you take these glasses, you'll get the general run o' last night's
+vaccination," said Pyecroft. "Each one represents a torpedo got 'ome, as
+you might say."
+
+I saw on the _Cryptic's_ port side, as she lay half a mile away across the
+glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in the
+centre.
+
+"There are five more to starboard. 'Ere's the original!" He handed me a
+paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the centre
+the six-inch initials, "G.M."
+
+"Ten minutes ago I'd ha' eulogised about that little trick of ours, but
+Morgan's performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?"
+
+"Bustin'," said the signalman briefly.
+
+"You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen 'Enrietta said to the
+'ousemaid, _I_ never will. I'd ha' given a year's pay for ten minutes o'
+your signallin' work this mornin'."
+
+"I wouldn't 'ave took it up," was the answer. "Perishin' 'Eavens above!
+Look at the _Devolution's_ semaphore!" Two black wooden arms waved from
+the junior ship's upper bridge. "They've seen it."
+
+"_The_ mote _on_ their neighbour's beam, of course," said Pyecroft, and
+read syllable by syllable: "'Captain Malan to Captain Panke. Is--sten--
+cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or your Number
+One's private expense?' Now _Cryptic_ is saying, 'Not understood.' Poor
+old _Crippy_, the _Devolute's_ raggin' 'er sore. 'Who is G.M.?' she says.
+That's fetched the _Cryptic_. She's answerin': 'You ought to know. Examine
+own paintwork.' Oh, Lord! they're both on to it now. This is balm. This is
+beginning to be balm. I forgive you, Morgan!"
+
+Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into the
+water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose to the
+_Cryptic's_ yardarm: "Destroyer will close at once. Wish to speak by
+semaphore." Then on the bridge semaphore itself: "Have been trying to
+attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding officer aboard at
+once."
+
+"Our attention? After all the attention we've given 'er, too," said
+Pyecroft. "What a greedy old woman!" To Moorshed: "Signal from the
+_Cryptic_, Sir."
+
+"Never mind that!" said the boy, peering through his glasses. "Our dinghy
+quick, or they'll paint our marks out. Come along!"
+
+By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft's bending
+back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed
+the _Cryptic's_ ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler
+when we barged fairly into him.
+
+"Mind my paint!" he yelled.
+
+"You mind mine, snotty," said Moorshed. "I was all night putting these
+little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave 'em alone."
+
+We splashed past him to the _Devolution's_ boat, where sat no one less
+than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.
+
+"What the deuce is the meaning of this?" he roared, with an accusing
+forefinger.
+
+"You're sunk, that's all. You've been dead half a tide."
+
+"Dead, am I? I'll show you whether I'm dead or not, Sir!"
+
+"Well, you may be a survivor," said Moorshed ingratiatingly, "though it
+isn't at all likely."
+
+The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern said,
+half aloud: "Then I _was_ right--last night."
+
+"Yesh," I gasped from the dinghy's coal-dust. "Are you member Torquay
+Yacht Club?"
+
+"Hell!" said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The _Cryptic's_ boat was
+already at that cruiser's side, and semaphores flicked zealously from ship
+to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls, while the
+pipes went for the captain's galley on the _Devolution_.
+
+"That's all right," said Moorshed. "Wait till the gangway's down and then
+board her decently. We oughtn't to be expected to climb up a ship we've
+sunk."
+
+Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed,
+descended the _Devolution's_ side. With due compliments--not acknowledged,
+I grieve to say--we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and at last, upon
+pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of
+the _Cryptic_. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as
+ever sang together of a morning on a King's ship. Every one who could get
+within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able
+seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines
+zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine
+midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks
+past all census.
+
+"If I die o' joy," said Pyecroft behind his hand, "remember I died
+forgivin' Morgan from the bottom of my 'eart, because, like Martha, we
+'ave scoffed the better part. You'd better try to come to attention, Sir."
+
+Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge
+beam, and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and Captain
+Malan stood on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling hatch.
+Precisely over the flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her black
+petticoat half hitched up, meekly floating on the still sea. She looked
+like the pious Abigail who has just spoken her mind, and, with folded
+hands, sits thanking Heaven among the pieces. I could almost have sworn
+that she wore black worsted gloves and had a little dry cough. But it was
+Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He favoured us with a lecture on
+uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of answering signals from a
+senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of masquerading, that he loved
+discipline, and would be obliged by an explanation. And while he delivered
+himself deeper and more deeply into our hands, I saw Captain Malan wince.
+He was watching Moorshed's eye.
+
+"I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven," said
+Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. "Have you such a thing as a frame-
+plan of the _Cryptic_ aboard?" He spoke with winning politeness as he
+opened a small and neatly folded paper.
+
+"I have, sir." The little man's face was working with passion.
+
+"Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were torpedoed
+last night in"--he consulted the paper with one finely arched eyebrow--"in
+nine places. And since the _Devolution_ is, I understand, a sister ship"--
+he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan--"the same plan----"
+
+I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement
+which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan's eye
+turn from Moorshed and seek that of the _Cryptic's_ commander. And he
+telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: "My dear friend and
+brother officer, _I_ know Panke; _you_ know Panke; _we_ know Panke--good
+little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will
+make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight,
+unless you who are a man of tact and discernment----"
+
+"Carry on." The Commander's order supplied the unspoken word. The cruiser
+boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers together, up
+to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan turn to his senior.
+
+"Come to my cabin!" said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and I
+stayed still.
+
+"It's all right," said Pyecroft. "They daren't leave us loose aboard for
+one revolution," and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.
+
+"You, too!" said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the sentry
+between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that
+Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I
+winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass-
+fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was
+demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S. _Cryptic_.
+
+"--making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.," I heard him say.
+"Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir"--he
+bowed to Captain Malan yet again--"one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice
+torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I have
+sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have requested them
+to judge on the facts as they--appear." He nodded through the large window
+to the stencilled _Devolution_ awink with brass work in the morning sun,
+and ceased.
+
+Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and caught
+myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.
+
+"Good God, Johnny!" he said, dropping his lower lip like a child, "this
+young pup says he has put us both out of action. Inconceivable--eh? My
+first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we do with him? What
+shall we do with him--eh?"
+
+"As far as I can see, there's no getting over the stencils," his companion
+answered.
+
+"Why didn't I have the nets down? Why didn't I have the nets down?" The
+cry tore itself from Captain Panke's chest as he twisted his hands.
+
+"I suppose we'd better wait and find out what the umpires will say. The
+Admiral won't be exactly pleased." Captain Malan spoke very soothingly.
+Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven. Pyecroft and
+I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had dropped
+into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.
+
+Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for a
+lead. "What--what are you going to do about it, Johnny--eh?"
+
+"Well, if you don't want him, I'm going to ask this young gentleman to
+breakfast, and then we'll make and mend clothes till the umpires have
+decided."
+
+Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.
+
+"Come with me," said Captain Malan. "Your men had better go back in the
+dinghy to--their--own--ship."
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Moorshed, and passed out behind the captain. We
+followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended the
+ladder.
+
+Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: "For Gawd's
+sake! 'Ere, come 'ere! For Gawd's sake! What's 'appened? Oh! come '_ere_
+an' tell."
+
+"Tell? You?" said Pyecroft. Neither man's lips moved, and the words were
+whispers: "Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might begin to
+understand, not you--nor ever will."
+
+"Captain Malan's galley away, Sir," cried a voice above; and one replied:
+"Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the blue peter.
+We're out of action."
+
+"Can you do it, Sir?" said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder. "Do you
+think it is in the English language, or do you not?"
+
+"I don't think I can, but I'll try. If it takes me two years, I'll try."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I have,
+on the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of _opus alexandrinum_. My gold
+I have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with sepia of
+the sea, and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have substituted
+pale amethyst and mere jargoon. Because I would say again "Disregarding
+the inventions of the Marine Captain whose other name is Gubbins, let a
+plain statement suffice."
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+THE KING'S TASK
+
+  After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
+  In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came.
+  Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing,
+  Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.
+
+  Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde--
+  Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword;
+  Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood,
+  And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood ...
+
+  They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,
+  Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine;
+  Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,
+  The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
+  Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome
+  Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
+  Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman's ire,
+  Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.
+  Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now
+  If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.
+
+
+THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER
+
+Private Copper's father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper
+had studied under him. Five years' army service had somewhat blunted
+Private Copper's pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory of
+the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one across
+turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger, or in this
+case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet back-first advanced
+with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full a mile behind. The
+picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not protest. A year ago it
+would have been an officer's command, moving as such. To-day it paid
+casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a sergeant, actually a trooper
+of Irregular Horse, discovered convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and
+forthwith employed on odd jobs. Private Copper crawled up the side of a
+bluish rock-strewn hill thinly fringed with brush atop, and remembering
+how he had peered at Sussex conies through the edge of furze-clumps,
+cautiously parted the dry stems before his face. At the foot of the long
+slope sat three farmers smoking. To his natural lust for tobacco was added
+personal wrath because spiky plants were pricking his belly, and Private
+Copper slid the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards....
+
+"Good evening, Khaki. Please don't move," said a voice on his left, and as
+he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a well-kept
+Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn. Very few
+graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through the next ten
+seconds.
+
+"It's nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen," said a young man in an
+obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of Private
+Copper's rifle. "Thank _you_. We've got a post of thirty-seven men out
+yonder. You've eleven--eh? We don't want to kill 'em. We have no quarrel
+with poor uneducated Khakis, and we do not want prisoners we do not keep.
+It is demoralising to both sides--eh?"
+
+Private Cooper did not feel called upon to lay down the conduct of
+guerilla warfare. This dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed stranger
+was his first intimate enemy. He spoke, allowing for a clipped cadence
+that recalled to Copper vague memories of Umballa, in precisely the same
+offensive accent that the young squire of Wilmington had used fifteen
+years ago when he caught and kicked Alf Copper, a rabbit in each pocket,
+out of the ditches of Cuckmere. The enemy looked Copper up and down,
+folded and re-pocketed a copy of an English weekly which he had been
+reading, and said: "You seem an inarticulate sort of swine--like the rest
+of them--eh?"
+
+"You," said Copper, thinking, somehow, of the crushing answers he had
+never given to the young squire, "are a renegid. Why, you ain't Dutch.
+You're English, same as me."
+
+"_No_, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow your
+head off."
+
+Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some six
+or eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain was
+working with a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience of Alf
+Copper. While he rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own jaws amazed
+him: "If you did, 'twouldn't make you any less of a renegid." As a useful
+afterthought he added: "I've sprained my ankle."
+
+The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to rise,
+but, cross-legged under the rock, grunted: "'Ow much did old Krujer pay
+you for this? What was you wanted for at 'ome? Where did you desert from?"
+
+"Khaki," said the young man, sitting down in his turn, "you are a shade
+better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a yoke of
+oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant diseased
+beast like the rest of your people--eh? When you were at the Ragged
+Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy--'istory I mean?"
+
+"Don't need no schoolin' to know a renegid," said Copper. He had made
+three yards down the hill--out of sight, unless they could see through
+rocks, of the enemy's smoking party.
+
+The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of
+"True Affection." (Private Copper had not smoked a pipe for three weeks.)
+
+"_You_ don't get this--eh?" said the young man. "_We_ do. We take it from
+the trains as we want it. You can keep the cake--you po-ah Tommee." Copper
+rammed the good stuff into his long-cold pipe and puffed luxuriously. Two
+years ago the sister of gunner-guard De Souza, East India Railway, had, at
+a dance given by the sergeants to the Allahabad Railway Volunteers,
+informed Copper that she could not think of waltzing with "a poo-ah
+Tommee." Private Copper wondered why that memory should have returned at
+this hour.
+
+"I'm going to waste a little trouble on you before I send you back to your
+picket _quite_ naked--eh? Then you can say how you were overpowered by
+twenty of us and fired off your last round--like the men we picked up at
+the drift playing cards at Stryden's farm--eh? What's your name--eh?"
+
+Private Copper thought for a moment of a far-away housemaid who might
+still, if the local postman had not gone too far, be interested in his
+fate. On the other hand, he was, by temperament, economical of the truth.
+"Pennycuik," he said, "John Pennycuik."
+
+"Thank you. Well, Mr. John Pennycuik, I'm going to teach you a little
+'istory, as you'd call it--eh?"
+
+"'Ow!" said Copper, stuffing his left hand in his mouth. "So long since
+I've smoked I've burned my 'and--an' the pipe's dropped too. No objection
+to my movin' down to fetch it, is there--Sir?"
+
+"I've got you covered," said the young man, graciously, and Private
+Copper, hopping on one leg, because of his sprain, recovered the pipe yet
+another three yards downhill and squatted under another rock slightly
+larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest for his
+captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his rifle across
+his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard.
+
+"Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you were
+born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave country,
+England, sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie, to say that
+so long as the sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses the Transvaal
+would belong to England. Did you ever hear that, khaki--eh?"
+
+"Oh no, Sir," said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the rivers
+happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist of D
+Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war. Copper had
+thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and dry camps for
+intoning it.
+
+"_Of_ course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen." He spat aside
+and cleared his throat. "Because of that little promise, my father he
+moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm--a little place of twenty or
+thirty thousand acres, don't--you--know."
+
+The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured
+parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington
+squire's, and Copper found himself saying: "I ought to. I've 'elped burn
+some."
+
+"Yes, you'll pay for that later. _And_ he opened a store."
+
+"Ho! Shopkeeper was he?"
+
+"The kind you call "Sir" and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik.... You see,
+in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father
+did. _Then_ the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat
+them six times running. You know _thatt_--eh?"
+
+"Isn't what we've come 'ere for."
+
+"_But_ my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the English. I
+suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that cheated him--eh?
+Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own country. _So_--you
+see--he was a little startled when he found himself handed over to the
+Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That's what it came to, Tommy--a prisoner
+of war. You know what that is--eh? England was too honourable and too
+gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms made for my father."
+
+"So 'e made 'em 'imself. Useful old bird." Private Copper sliced up
+another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea of kopjes, through
+which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike quiet Cuckmere.
+
+The young man's face darkened. "I think I shall sjambok you myself when
+I've quite done with you. _No_, my father (he was a fool) made no terms
+for eight years--ninety-six months--and for every day of them the
+Transvaal made his life hell for my father and--his people."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," said the impenitent Copper.
+
+"Are you? You can think of it when I'm taking the skin off your back--
+eh?... My father, he lost everything--everything down to his self-respect.
+You don't know what _thatt_ means--eh?"
+
+"Why?" said Copper. "I'm smokin' baccy stole by a renegid. Why wouldn't I
+know?"
+
+If it came to a flogging on that hillside there might be a chance of
+reprisals. Of course, he might be marched to the Boer camp in the next
+valley and there operated upon; but Army life teaches no man to cross
+bridges unnecessarily.
+
+"Yes, after eight years, my father, cheated by your bitch of a country, he
+found out who was the upper dog in South Africa."
+
+"That's me," said Copper valiantly. "If it takes another 'alf century,
+it's me an' the likes of me."
+
+"You? Heaven help you! You'll be screaming at a wagon-wheel in an hour....
+Then it struck my father that he'd like to shoot the people who'd betrayed
+him. You--you--_you_! He told his son all about it. He told him never to
+trust the English. He told him to do them all the harm he could. Mann, I
+tell you, I don't want much telling. I was born in the Transvaal--I'm a
+burgher. If my father didn't love the English, by the Lord, mann, I tell
+you, I hate them from the bottom of my soul."
+
+The voice quavered and ran high. Once more, for no conceivable reason,
+Private Copper found his inward eye turned upon Umballa cantonments of a
+dry dusty afternoon, when the saddle-coloured son of a local hotel-keeper
+came to the barracks to complain of a theft of fowls. He saw the dark
+face, the plover's-egg-tinted eyeballs, and the thin excited hands. Above
+all, he remembered the passionate, queerly-strung words. Slowly he
+returned to South Africa, using the very sentence his sergeant had used to
+the poultry man.
+
+"Go on with your complaint. I'm listenin'."
+
+"Complaint! Complaint about _you_, you ox! We strip and kick your sort by
+thousands."
+
+The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus
+deflected itself from the pit of Private Copper's stomach. His face was
+dusky with rage.
+
+"Yess, I'm a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to find out
+how rotten you were. _We_ know and you know it now. Your army--it is the
+laughing-stock of the Continent." He tapped the newspaper in his pocket,
+"You think you're going to win, you poor fools. Your people--your own
+people--your silly rotten fools of people will crawl out of it as they did
+after Majuba. They are beginning now. Look what your own working classes,
+the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff that you come out of, are
+saying." He thrust the English weekly, doubled at the leading article, on
+Copper's knee. "See what dirty dogs your masters are. They do not even
+back you in your dirty work. _We_ cleared the country down to Ladysmith--
+to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to Colesberg."
+
+"Yes, we 'ad to clean up be'ind you. Messy, I call it."
+
+"You've had to stop farm-burning because your people daren't do it. They
+were afraid. You daren't kill a spy. You daren't shoot a spy when you
+catch him in your own uniform. You daren't touch our loyall people in Cape
+Town! Your masters wont let you. You will feed our women and children till
+we are quite ready to take them back. _You_ can't put your cowardly noses
+out of the towns you say you've occupied. _You_ daren't move a convoy
+twenty miles. You think you've done something? You've done nothing, and
+you've taken a quarter of a million of men to do it! There isn't a nigger
+in South Africa that doesn't obey us if we lift our finger. You pay the
+stuff four pounds a month and they lie to you. _We_ flog 'em, as I shall
+flog you."
+
+He clasped his hands together and leaned forward his out-thrust chin
+within two feet of Copper's left, or pipe hand.
+
+"Yuss," said Copper, "it's a fair knock-out." The fist landed to a hair on
+the chin-point, the neck snicked like a gun-lock, and the back of the head
+crashed on the boulder behind.
+
+Copper grabbed up both rifles, unshipped the cross-bandoliers, drew forth
+the English weekly, and picking up the lax hands, looked long and intently
+at the fingernails.
+
+"No! Not a sign of it there," he said. "'Is nails are as clean as mine--
+but he talks just like 'em, though. And he's a landlord too! A landed
+proprietor! Shockin', I call it."
+
+The arms began to flap with returning consciousness. Private Copper rose
+up and whispered: "If you open your head, I'll bash it." There was no
+suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. "Now walk in front of
+me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I'm only a third-class shot, so,
+if you don't object, I'll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly but firmly
+on your collar-button--coverin' the serviceable vertebree. If your friends
+see us thus engaged, you pray--'ard."
+
+Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of the
+afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.
+
+"There's a lot of things I could say to you," Copper observed, at the
+close of the paroxysm, "but it doesn't matter. Look 'ere, you call me
+'pore Tommy' again."
+
+The prisoner hesitated.
+
+"Oh, I ain't goin' to do anythin' _to_ you. I'm recon-noiterin' in my own.
+Say 'pore Tommy' 'alf-a-dozen times."
+
+The prisoner obeyed.
+
+"_That's_ what's been puzzlin' me since I 'ad the pleasure o' meetin'
+you," said Copper. "You ain't 'alf-caste, but you talk _chee-chee_--
+_pukka_ bazar chee-chee. Proceed."
+
+"Hullo," said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later, "where did
+you round him up?"
+
+"On the top o' yonder craggy mounting. There's a mob of 'em sitting round
+their Bibles seventeen 'undred yards (you said it was seventeen 'undred?)
+t'other side--an' I want some coffee." He sat down on the smoke-blackened
+stones by the fire.
+
+"'Ow did you get 'im?" said McBride, professional humorist, quietly
+filching the English weekly from under Copper's armpit.
+
+"On the chin--while 'e was waggin' it at me."
+
+"What is 'e? 'Nother Colonial rebel to be 'orribly disenfranchised, or a
+Cape Minister, or only a loyal farmer with dynamite in both boots. Tell us
+all about it, Burjer!"
+
+"You leave my prisoner alone," said Private Copper. "'E's 'ad losses an'
+trouble; an' it's in the family too. 'E thought I never read the papers,
+so 'e kindly lent me his very own _Jerrold's Weekly_--an' 'e explained it
+to me as patronisin' as a--as a militia subaltern doin' Railway Staff
+Officer. 'E's a left-over from Majuba--one of the worst kind, an' 'earin'
+the evidence as I did, I don't exactly blame 'im. It was this way."
+
+To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life-
+history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an
+absolute fair rendering.
+
+"But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin' beggar, 'oo's people, on 'is
+own showin', couldn't 'ave been more than thirty or forty years in the
+coun--on this Gawd-forsaken dust-'eap, comin' the squire over me. They're
+all parsons--we know _that_, but parson _an'_ squire is a bit too thick
+for Alf Copper. Why, I caught 'im in the shameful act of tryin' to start a
+aristocracy on a gun an' a wagon an' a _shambuk_! Yes; that's what it was:
+a bloomin' aristocracy."
+
+"No, it weren't," said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the
+purloined weekly. "You're the aristocrat, Alf. Old _Jerrold's_ givin' it
+you 'ot. You're the uneducated 'ireling of a callous aristocracy which 'as
+sold itself to the 'Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky"--he ran his finger
+down a column of assorted paragraphs--"you're slakin' your brutal
+instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin' women an' desolated 'omesteads is
+what you enjoy, Alf ..., Halloa! What's a smokin' 'ektacomb?"
+
+"'Ere! Let's look. 'Aven't seen a proper spicy paper for a year. Good old
+_Jerrold's!"_ Pinewood and Moppet, reservists, flung themselves on
+McBride's shoulders, pinning him to the ground.
+
+"Lie over your own bloomin' side of the bed, an' we can all look," he
+protested.
+
+"They're only po-ah Tommies," said Copper, apologetically, to the
+prisoner. "Po-ah unedicated Khakis. _They_ don't know what they're
+fightin' for. They're lookin' for what the diseased, lying, drinkin' white
+stuff that they come from is sayin' about 'em!"
+
+The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the
+circle.
+
+"I--I don't understand them."
+
+The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded
+sympathetically:
+
+"If it comes to that, _we_ don't in my country!... Say, boys, when you're
+through with your English mail you might's well provide an escort for your
+prisoner. He's waitin'."
+
+"Arf a mo', Sergeant," said McBride, still reading.
+
+"'Ere's Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of 'is lady friends, 'oo
+don't like concentration camps. Wish they'd visit ours. Pinewood's a
+married man. He'd know how to be'ave!"
+
+"Well, I ain't goin' to amuse my prisoner alone. 'E's gettin' 'omesick,"
+cried Copper. "One of you thieves read out what's vexin' Old Barbarity an'
+'is 'arem these days. You'd better listen, Burjer, because, afterwards,
+I'm goin' to fall out an' perpetrate those nameless barbarities all over
+you to keep up the reputation of the British Army."
+
+From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff of
+Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did Pinewood of
+the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the accredited
+leaders of His Majesty's Opposition. The night-picket arrived in the
+middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any compliments, till
+Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article, and several occasional
+notes.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury," said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left to
+him of trousers--"you've 'eard what 'e's been fed up with. _Do_ you blame
+the beggar? 'Cause I don't! ... Leave 'im alone, McBride. He's my first
+and only cap-ture, an' I'm goin' to walk 'ome with 'im, ain't I, Ducky?
+... Fall in, Burjer. It's Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for you--and I'd
+give a month's pay to be in your little shoes."
+
+As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the
+prisoner's nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and
+began to struggle--kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all
+together.
+
+"Pore beggar--oh pore, _pore_ beggar!" said Alf, leaning in on one side of
+him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.
+
+"Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go----"
+
+"'E screams like a woman!" said McBride. "They'll 'ear 'im five miles
+off."
+
+"There's one or two ought to 'ear 'im--in England," said Copper, putting
+aside a wildly waving arm.
+
+"Married, ain't 'e?" said Pinewood. "I've seen 'em go like this before--
+just at the last. '_Old_ on, old man, No one's goin' to 'urt you."
+
+The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the little,
+anxious, wriggling group.
+
+"Quit that," said the Serjeant of a sudden. "You're only making him worse.
+Hands _up_, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this'll go off."
+
+And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man's panting chest seemed to
+act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between Copper
+and Pinewood.
+
+As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among the
+officers' tents:
+
+  'E sent us 'is blessin' from London town,
+    (The beggar that kep' the cordite down,)
+  But what do we care if 'e smile or frown,
+    The beggar that kep' the cordite down?
+  The mildly nefarious
+  Wildly barbarious
+    Beggar that kept the cordite down!
+
+Said a captain a mile away: "Why are they singing _that?_ We haven't had a
+mail for a month, have we?"
+
+An hour later the same captain said to his servant: "Jenkins, I understand
+the picket have got a--got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day. I wish you
+could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the _Times_, I think."
+
+"Yes, Sir. Copy of the _Times_, Sir," said Jenkins, without a quiver, and
+went forth to make his own arrangements.
+
+"Copy of the _Times_" said the blameless Alf, from beneath his blanket. "I
+ain't a member of the Soldier's Institoot. Go an' look in the reg'mental
+Readin'-room--Veldt Row, Kopje Street, second turnin' to the left between
+'ere an' Naauwport."
+
+Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper
+need not be.
+
+"But my particular copy of the _Times_ is specially pro'ibited by the
+censor from corruptin' the morals of the Army. Get a written order from K.
+o' K., properly countersigned, an' I'll think about it."
+
+"I've got all _you_ want," said Jenkins. "'Urry up. I want to 'ave a
+squint myself."
+
+Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back smacking
+his lips.
+
+"Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. 'Ere you are,
+Jenkins. It's dirt cheap at a tot."
+
+
+
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+
+
+THE NECESSITARIAN
+
+  I know not in whose hands are laid
+    To empty upon earth
+  From unsuspected ambuscade
+    The very Urns of Mirth:
+
+  Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
+    And cheer our solemn round--
+  The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
+    And grovellings on the ground;
+
+  Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
+    Behind the prey preferred,
+  And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
+    The Sacredly Absurd,
+
+  Till Laughter, voiceless through excess.
+    Waves mute appeal and sore,
+  Above the midriff's deep distress,
+    For breath to laugh once more.
+
+  No creed hath dared to hail him Lord,
+    No raptured choirs proclaim,
+  And Nature's strenuous Overword
+    Hath nowhere breathed his name.
+
+  Yet, may it be, on wayside jape,
+    The selfsame Power bestows
+  The selfsame power as went to shape
+    His Planet or His Rose.
+
+STEAM TACTICS
+I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the narrow
+Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o'clock, they were both asleep.
+
+That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference to
+his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and
+specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces of
+superior coachmen. Then he pulled slantwise across me.
+
+There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could be
+applied at pleasure....
+
+The cart was removed about a bowshot's length in seven and a quarter
+seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the
+next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the tail-board.
+
+My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.
+
+"The blighted egg-boiler has steam up," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, pausing to
+gather a large stone. "Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the sights
+come on!"
+
+"I can't leave my 'orse!" roared the carrier; "but bring 'em up 'ere, an'
+I'll kill 'em all over again."
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft," I called cheerfully. "Can I give you a lift
+anywhere?"
+
+The attack broke up round my forewheels.
+
+"Well, we _do_ 'ave the knack o' meeting _in puris naturalibus,_ as I've
+so often said." Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. "Yes, I'm on leaf. So's Hinch.
+We're visiting friends among these kopjes."
+
+A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was still
+calling for corpses.
+
+"That's Agg. He's Hinch's cousin. You aren't fortunit in your family
+connections, Hinch. 'E's usin' language in derogation of good manners. Go
+and abolish 'im."
+
+Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his cousin. I
+recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the carrier's. It
+seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid throes.
+
+"'Ave it your own silly way, then," roared the carrier, "an' get into
+Linghurst on your own silly feet. I've done with you two runagates." He
+lashed his horse and passed out of sight still rumbling.
+
+"The fleet's sailed," said Pyecroft, "leavin' us on the beach as before.
+Had you any particular port in your mind?"
+
+"Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don't mind--"
+
+"Oh! that'll do as well as anything! We're on leaf, you see."
+
+"She'll hardly hold four," said my engineer. I had broken him of the
+foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.
+
+Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he
+walked in narrowing circles.
+
+"What's her speed?" he demanded of the engineer.
+
+"Twenty-five," said that loyal man.
+
+"Easy to run?"
+
+"No; very difficult," was the emphatic answer.
+
+"That just shows that you ain't fit for your rating. D'you suppose that a
+man who earns his livin' by runnin' 30-knot destroyers for a parstime--for
+a parstime, mark you!--is going to lie down before any blighted land-
+crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?"
+
+Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked upward
+into pipes--petrol, steam, and water--with a keen and searching eye.
+
+I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.
+
+"Not--in--the--least," was the answer. "Steam gadgets always take him that
+way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through his tryin' to show a
+traction-engine haulin' gipsy-wagons how to turn corners."
+
+"Tell him everything he wants to know," I said to the engineer, as I
+dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.
+
+"_He_ don't want much showing," said the engineer. Now, the two men had
+not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more than
+three minutes.
+
+"This," said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure of the
+hedge-foot, "is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn't let too much
+o' that hot muckings drop in my eyes, Your leaf's up in a fortnight, an'
+you'll be wantin' 'em."
+
+"Here!" said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. "Come here
+and show me the lead of this pipe." And the engineer lay down beside him.
+
+"That's all right," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. "But she's more of a bag
+of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft"--he pointed to
+the back seat--"and I'll have a look at the forced draught."
+
+The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he
+had a brother an artificer in the Navy.
+
+"They couple very well, those two," said Pyecroft critically, while
+Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay
+jets of steam.
+
+"Now take me up the road," he said. My man, for form's sake, looked at me.
+
+"Yes, take him," I said. "He's all right."
+
+"No, I'm not," said Hinchcliffe of a sudden--"not if I'm expected to judge
+my water out of a little shaving-glass."
+
+The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right
+of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.
+
+"Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how
+you steer while you're doing it, or you'll get ditched!" I cried, as the
+car ran down the road.
+
+"I wonder!" said Pyecroft, musing. "But, after all, it's your steamin'
+gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me
+after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours,
+that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a runnin' bulgine till the
+nineteenth prox. Now look at him! Only look at 'im!"
+
+We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his
+seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge to
+hedge.
+
+"What happens if he upsets?"
+
+"The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up."
+
+"How rambunkshus! And"--Pyecroft blew a slow cloud--"Agg's about three
+hoops up this mornin', too."
+
+"What's that to do with us? He's gone down the road," I retorted.
+
+"Ye--es, but we'll overtake him. He's a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch
+'ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O' course, Hinch don't know the
+elements o' that evolution; but he fell back on 'is naval rank an' office,
+an' Agg grew peevish. I wasn't sorry to get out of the cart ... Have you
+ever considered how, when you an' I meet, so to say, there's nearly always
+a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat
+returnin'!"
+
+He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: "In bow! Way 'nuff!"
+
+"You be quiet!" cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his dark
+face shining with joy. "She's the Poetry o' Motion! She's the Angel's
+Dream. She's------" He shut off steam, and the slope being against her,
+the car slid soberly downhill again.
+
+"What's this? I've got the brake on!" he yelled.
+
+"It doesn't hold backwards," I said. "Put her on the mid-link."
+
+"That's a nasty one for the chief engineer o' the _Djinn_, 31-knot,
+T.B.D.," said Pyecroft. "_Do_ you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?"
+
+Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the
+rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she
+retired backwards into her own steam.
+
+"Apparently 'e don't," said Pyecroft. "What's he done now, Sir?"
+
+"Reversed her. I've done it myself."
+
+"But he's an engineer."
+
+For the third time the car manoeuvred up the hill.
+
+"I'll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you 'tiffies out all
+night!" shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation. Hinchcliffe's face
+grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working on the throttle, the
+car buzzed twenty yards uphill.
+
+"That's enough. We'll take your word for it. The mountain will go to
+Ma'ommed. Stand _fast_!"
+
+Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed
+together.
+
+"Not as easy as it looks--eh, Hinch?"
+
+"It is dead easy. I'm going to drive her to Instead Wick--aren't I?" said
+the first-class engine-room artificer. I thought of his performances with
+No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small privilege to accord to pure
+genius.
+
+"But my engineer will stand by--at first," I added.
+
+"An' you a family man, too," muttered Pyecroft, swinging himself into the
+right rear seat. "Sure to be a remarkably hectic day when we meet."
+
+We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor,
+paved our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.
+
+Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the
+engineer, and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had
+enjoyed the rack on which he voluntarily extended himself.
+
+And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.
+
+"How cautious is the 'tiffy-bird!" said Pyecroft.
+
+"Even in a destroyer," Hinch snapped over his shoulder, "you ain't
+expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don't address any remarks to
+_me!_"
+
+"Pump!" said the engineer. "Your water's droppin'."
+
+"_I_ know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pass?"
+
+He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he
+found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting
+all else, twisted it furiously.
+
+My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching into
+a ditch.
+
+"If I was a burnin' peacock, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my shinin'
+tail, I'd need 'em all on this job!" said Hinch.
+
+"Don't talk! Steer! This ain't the North Atlantic," Pyecroft replied.
+
+"Blast my stokers! Why, the steam's dropped fifty pounds!" Hinchcliffe
+cried.
+
+"Fire's blown out," said the engineer. "Stop her!"
+
+"Does she do that often?" said Hinch, descending.
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Anytime?"
+
+"Any time a cross-wind catches her."
+
+The engineer produced a match and stooped.
+
+That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit twice
+in the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and Pyecroft went
+out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow flame.
+
+"I've seen a mine explode at Bantry--once--prematoor," he volunteered.
+
+"That's all right," said Hinchcliffe, brushing down his singed beard with
+a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.) "Has she any more
+little surprises up her dainty sleeve?"
+
+"She hasn't begun yet," said my engineer, with a scornful cough. "Some one
+'as opened the petrol-supply-valve too wide."
+
+"Change places with me, Pyecroft," I commanded, for I remembered that the
+petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all controlled
+from the right rear seat.
+
+"Me? Why? There's a whole switchboard full o' nickel-plated muckin's which
+I haven't begun to play with yet. The starboard side's crawlin' with 'em."
+
+"Change, or I'll kill you!" said Hinchcliffe, and he looked like it.
+
+"That's the 'tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame it on the
+lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! _I_ won't help you any
+more."
+
+We navigated for a mile in dead silence.
+
+"Talkin' o' wakes----" said Pyecroft suddenly.
+
+"We weren't," Hinchcliffe grunted.
+
+"There's some wakes would break a snake's back; but this of yours, so to
+speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That's all I wish to observe,
+Hinch. ... Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It's Agg!"
+
+Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier's
+cart at rest before the post-office.
+
+"He's bung in the fairway. How'm I to get past?" said Hinchcliffe.
+"There's no room. Here, Pye, come and relieve the wheel!"
+
+"Nay, nay, Pauline. You've made your own bed. You've as good as left your
+happy home an' family cart to steal it. Now you lie on it."
+
+"Ring your bell," I suggested.
+
+"Glory!" said Pyecroft, falling forward into the nape of Hinchcliffe's
+neck as the car stopped dead.
+
+"Get out o' my back-hair! That must have been the brake I touched off,"
+Hinchcliffe muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.
+
+We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from the
+port-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered later
+that the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.
+
+Hinchcliffe wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the
+first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.
+
+"You needn't grip so hard," said my engineer. "She steers as easy as a
+bicycle."
+
+"Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an' down my engine-room?" was the
+answer. "I've other things to think about. She's a terror. She's a
+whistlin' lunatic. I'd sooner run the old South-Easter at Simon's Town
+than her!"
+
+"One of the nice things they say about her," I interrupted, "is that no
+engineer is needed to run this machine."
+
+"No. They'd need about seven."
+
+"'Common-sense only is needed,'" I quoted.
+
+"Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common-sense," Pyecroft put in.
+
+"And now," I said, "we'll have to take in water. There isn't more than a
+couple of inches of water in the tank."
+
+"Where d'you get it from?"
+
+"Oh!--cottages and such-like."
+
+"Yes, but that being so, where does your much-advertised twenty-five miles
+an hour come in? Ain't a dung-cart more to the point?"
+
+"If you want to go anywhere, I suppose it would be," I replied.
+
+"_I_ don't want to go anywhere. I'm thinkin' of you who've got to live
+with her. She'll burn her tubes if she loses her water?"
+
+"She will."
+
+"I've never scorched yet, and I not beginnin' now." He shut off steam
+firmly. "Out you get, Pye, an' shove her along by hand."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"The nearest water-tank," was the reply. "And Sussex is a dry county."
+
+"She ought to have drag-ropes--little pipe-clayed ones," said Pyecroft.
+
+We got out and pushed under the hot sun for half-a-mile till we came to a
+cottage, sparsely inhabited by one child who wept.
+
+"All out haymakin', o' course," said Pyecroft, thrusting his head into the
+parlour for an instant. "What's the evolution now?"
+
+"Skirmish till we find a well," I said.
+
+"Hmm! But they wouldn't 'ave left that kid without a chaperon, so to
+say... I thought so! Where's a stick?"
+
+A bluish and silent beast of the true old sheep-dog breed glided from
+behind an outhouse and without words fell to work.
+
+Pyecroft kept him at bay with a rake-handle while our party, in rallying-
+square, retired along the box-bordered brick-path to the car.
+
+At the garden gate the dumb devil halted, looked back on the child, and
+sat down to scratch.
+
+"That's his three-mile limit, thank Heaven!" said Pyecroft. "Fall in,
+push-party, and proceed with land-transport o' pinnace. I'll protect your
+flanks in case this sniffin' flea-bag is tempted beyond 'is strength."
+
+We pushed off in silence. The car weighed 1,200 lb., and even on
+ball-bearings was a powerful sudorific. From somewhere behind a hedge we
+heard a gross rustic laugh.
+
+"Those are the beggars we lie awake for, patrollin' the high seas. There
+ain't a port in China where we wouldn't be better treated. Yes, a Boxer
+'ud be ashamed of it," said Pyecroft.
+
+A cloud of fine dust boomed down the road.
+
+"Some happy craft with a well-found engine-room! How different!" panted
+Hinchcliffe, bent over the starboard mudguard.
+
+It was a claret-coloured petrol car, and it stopped courteously, as good
+cars will at sight of trouble.
+
+"Water, only water," I answered in reply to offers of help.
+
+"There's a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They'll give you all you
+want. Say I sent you. Gregory--Michael Gregory. Good-bye!"
+
+"Ought to 'ave been in the Service. Prob'ly is," was Pyecroft's comment.
+
+At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not quote
+Mr. Hinchcliffe's remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber bucket with
+which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir Michael Gregory
+owned many acres, and that his park ran for miles.
+
+"No objection to your going through it," said the lodge-keeper. "It'll
+save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick."
+
+But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few miles
+farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had decreed.
+
+"We've come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far," said Hinchcliffe
+(he was driving with greater freedom and less responsibility), "and now we
+have to fill our bunkers. This is worse than the Channel Fleet."
+
+At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and lavishly
+oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our engineer on the
+grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely abreast of his work. To
+this I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in the language of the road,
+held up for a day and a half, and by most bitter experience I suspected
+that her time was very near. Therefore, three miles short of Linghurst, I
+was less surprised than any one, excepting always my engineer, when the
+engines set up a lunatic clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.
+
+"Heaven forgive me all the harsh things I may have said about destroyers
+in my sinful time!" wailed Hinchcliffe, snapping back the throttle.
+"What's worryin' Ada now?"
+
+"The forward eccentric-strap screw's dropped off," said the engineer,
+investigating.
+
+"That all? I thought it was a propeller-blade."
+
+"We must go an' look for it. There isn't another."
+
+"Not me," said Pyecroft from his seat. "Out pinnace, Hinch, an' creep for
+it. It won't be more than five miles back."
+
+The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road.
+
+"Look like etymologists, don't they? Does she decant her innards often, so
+to speak?" Pyecroft asked.
+
+I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four miles
+along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was profoundly
+touched.
+
+"Poor Hinch! Poor--poor Hinch!" he said. "And that's only one of her
+little games, is it? He'll be homesick for the Navy by night."
+
+When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was
+Hinchcliffe who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my engineer
+looked on admiringly.
+
+"Your boiler's only seated on four little paperclips," he said, crawling
+from beneath her. "She's a wicker-willow lunch-basket below. She's a
+runnin' miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp long?"
+
+I told him.
+
+"And yet you were afraid to come into the _Nightmare's_ engine-room when
+we were runnin' trials!"
+
+"It's all a matter of taste," Pyecroft volunteered. "But I will say for
+you, Hinch, you've certainly got the hang of her steamin' gadgets in quick
+time."
+
+He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and a
+tremor in his arm.
+
+"She don't seem so answer her helm somehow," he said.
+
+"There's a lot of play to the steering-gear," said my engineer. "We
+generally tighten it up every few miles."
+
+"'Like me to stop now? We've run as much as one mile and a half without
+incident," he replied tartly.
+
+"Then you're lucky," said my engineer, bristling in turn.
+
+"They'll wreck the whole turret out o' nasty professional spite in a
+minute," said Pyecroft. "That's the worst o' machinery. Man dead ahead,
+Hinch--semaphorin' like the flagship in a fit!"
+
+"Amen!" said Hinchcliffe. "Shall I stop, or shall I cut him down?"
+
+He stopped, for full in the centre of the Linghurst Road stood a person in
+pepper-and-salt raiment (ready-made), with a brown telegraph envelope in
+his hands.
+
+"Twenty-three and a half miles an hour," he began, weighing a small beam-
+engine of a Waterbury in one red paw. "From the top of the hill over our
+measured quarter-mile--twenty-three and a half."
+
+"You manurial gardener----" Hinchcliffe began. I prodded him warningly
+from behind, and laid the other hand on Pyecroft's stiffening knee.
+
+"Also--on information received--drunk and disorderly in charge of a
+motor-car--to the common danger--two men like sailors in appearance,"
+the man went on.
+
+"Like sailors! ... That's Agg's little _roose_. No wonder he smiled at
+us," said Pyecroft.
+
+"I've been waiting for you some time," the man concluded, folding up the
+telegram.
+
+"Who's the owner?"
+
+I indicated myself.
+
+"Then I want you as well as the two seafaring men. Drunk and disorderly
+can be treated summary. You come on."
+
+My relations with the Sussex constabulary have, so far, been of the best,
+but I could not love this person.
+
+"Of course you have your authority to show?" I hinted.
+
+"I'll show it you at Linghurst," he retorted hotly----"all the authority
+you want."
+
+"I only want the badge, or warrant, or whatever it is a plain-clothes man
+has to show."
+
+He made as though to produce it, but checked himself, repeating less
+politely the invitation to Linghurst. The action and the tone confirmed my
+many-times tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing institutions
+are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious inaccuracy. I
+reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of the front seat
+that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping with his knuckles.
+The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe's brow had given place to a greasy
+imbecility, and he nodded over the steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as
+laid down by the pious and immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, "Sham
+drunk. Get him in the car."
+
+"I can't stay here all day," said the constable.
+
+Pyecroft raised his head. Then was seen with what majesty the British
+sailor-man envisages a new situation.
+
+"Met gennelman heavy sheeway," said he. "Do tell me British gelman can't
+give 'ole Brish Navy lif' own blighted ste' cart. Have another drink!"
+
+"I didn't know they were as drunk as all that when they stopped me," I
+explained.
+
+"You can say all that at Linghurst," was the answer. "Come on."
+
+"Quite right," I said. "But the question is, if you take these two out on
+the road, they'll fall down or start killing you."
+
+"Then I'd call on you to assist me in the execution o' my duty."
+
+"But I'd see you further first. You'd better come with us in the car. I'll
+turn this passenger out." (This was my engineer, sitting quite silent.)
+"You don't want him, and, anyhow, he'd only be a witness for the defence."
+
+"That's true," said the constable. "But it wouldn't make any odds--at
+Linghurst."
+
+My engineer skipped into the bracken like a rabbit. I bade him cut across
+Sir Michael Gregory's park, and if he caught my friend, to tell him I
+should probably be rather late for lunch.
+
+"I ain't going to be driven by _him_." Our destined prey pointed at
+Hinchcliffe with apprehension.
+
+"Of course not. You sake my seat and keep the big sailor in order. He's
+too drunk to do much. I'll change places with the other one. Only be
+quick; I want to pay my fine and get it over."
+
+"That's the way to look at it," he said, dropping into the left rear seat.
+"We're making quite a lot out o' you motor gentry." He folded his arms
+judicially as the car gathered way under Hinchcliffe's stealthy hand.
+
+"But _you_ aren't driving?" he cried, half rising.
+
+"You've noticed it?" said Pyecroft, and embraced him with one anaconda-
+like left arm.
+
+"Don't kill him," said Hinchcliffe briefly. "I want to show him what
+twenty-three and a quarter is." We were going a fair twelve, which was
+about the car's limit.
+
+Our passenger swore something and then groaned.
+
+"Hush, darling!" said Pyecroft, "or I'll have to hug you."
+
+The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running
+north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.
+
+"And now," said I, "I want to see your authority."
+
+"The badge of your ratin'?" Pyecroft added.
+
+"I'm a constable," he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have
+bewrayed him across half a county's plough; but boots are not legal
+evidence.
+
+"I want your authority," I repeated coldly; "some evidence that you are
+not a common drunken tramp."
+
+It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had
+neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money
+and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite
+trouble to supplement his deficiencies.
+
+"If you don't believe me, come to Linghurst," was the burden of his almost
+national anthem.
+
+"But I can't run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up and
+says he is a policeman."
+
+"Why, it's quite close," he persisted.
+
+"'Twon't be--soon," said Hinchcliffe.
+
+"None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, _they_ was
+gentlemen," he cried. "All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it
+ain't fair."
+
+I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten his
+badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub or
+barracks where he had left it.
+
+Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.
+
+"If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn't expect much more," he
+observed. "Now, suppose I'd been a lady in a delicate state o' health--
+you'd ha' made me very ill with your doings."
+
+"I wish I 'ad. 'Ere! 'Elp! 'Elp! Hi!"
+
+The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane
+ran into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked
+her up that lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable
+came running heavily.
+
+It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform
+smiled as we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.
+
+"You'll know all about it in a little time," said our guest. "You've only
+yourselves to thank for runnin' your 'ead into a trap." And he whistled
+ostentatiously.
+
+We made no answer.
+
+"If that man 'ad chose, 'e could have identified me," he said.
+
+Still we were silent.
+
+"But 'e'll do it later, when you're caught."
+
+"Not if you go on talking. 'E won't be able to," said Pyecroft. "I don't
+know what traverse you think you're workin', but your duty till you're put
+in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an' cherish _me_ most
+special--performin' all evolutions signalled in rapid time. I tell you
+this, in case o' anything turnin' up."
+
+"Don't you fret about things turnin' up," was the reply.
+
+Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set to
+work, when, without warning, the road--there are two or three in Sussex
+like it--turned down and ceased.
+
+"Holy Muckins!" he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless tyres
+slithered over wet grass and bracken--down and down into forest--early
+British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and that all should
+fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred our way. On the far
+side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits and fern, gently sloped
+upwards and away, but behind us was no hope. Forty horse-power would never
+have rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that verdurous cliff we had descended.
+
+"H'm!" Our guest coughed significantly. "A great many cars thinks they can
+take this road; but they all come back. We walks after 'em at our
+convenience."
+
+"Meanin' that the other jaunty is now pursuin' us on his lily feet?" said
+Pyecroft.
+
+"_Pre_cisely."
+
+"An' you think," said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of the
+words), "_that'll_ make any odds? Get out!"
+
+The man obeyed with alacrity.
+
+"See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing.
+Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at the
+double."
+
+And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a perfect
+understanding.
+
+There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down
+
+stream, laid aside after sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in
+the brook. Hinchcliffe rearranged these last to make some sort of
+causeway; I brought up the hurdles; and when Pyecroft and his subaltern
+had dropped a dozen hop-poles across the stream, laid them down over all.
+
+"Talk o' the Agricultur'l Hall!" he said, mopping his brow--"'tisn't in it
+with us. The approach to the bridge must now be paved with hurdles, owin'
+to the squashy nature o' the country. Yes, an' we'd better have one or two
+on the far side to lead her on to _terror fermior_. Now, Hinch! Give her
+full steam and 'op along. If she slips off, we're done. Shall I take the
+wheel?"
+
+"No. This is my job," said the first-class engine-room artificer. "Get
+over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the uphill."
+
+We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken.
+Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her
+trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our
+arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing her
+madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the
+bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles
+which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.
+
+"She--she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished with
+'em," Hinchcliffe panted.
+
+"At the Agricultural Hall they would 'ave been fastened down with
+ribbons," said Pyecroft. "But this ain't Olympia."
+
+"She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don't you think I conned
+her like a cock-angel, Pye?"
+
+"_I_ never saw anything like it," said our guest propitiatingly. "And now,
+gentlemen, if you'll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you you won't
+hear another word from me."
+
+"Get in," said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once more.
+"We 'aven't begun on _you_ yet."
+
+"A joke's a joke," he replied. "I don't mind a little bit of a joke
+myself, but this is going beyond it."
+
+"Miles an' miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We'll want water
+pretty soon."
+
+Our guest's countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.
+
+"Let me tell you," he said earnestly, "It won't make any difference to you
+whatever happens. Barrin' a dhow or two Tajurrah-way, prizes are scarce in
+the Navy. Hence we never abandon 'em."
+
+There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.
+
+"Robert," he said, "have you a mother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you a big brother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An' a little sister?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"All right, Robert. I won't forget it."
+
+I looked for an explanation.
+
+"I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o' that
+cottage before faithful Fido turned up," Pyecroft whispered. "Ain't you
+glad it's all in the family somehow?"
+
+We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard's Forest,
+and, despite our increasing leakage, made shift to climb the ridge above
+Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final collapse
+would not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our guest well into
+the wilderness before that came.
+
+On the roof of the world--a naked plateau clothed with young heather--she
+retired from active life in floods of tears. Her feed-water-heater
+(Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was leaking
+beyond hope of repair; she had shifted most of her packing, and her water-
+pump would not lift.
+
+"If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case an'
+feed direct into the boiler. It 'ud knock down her speed, but we could get
+on," said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges that hove us
+above the panorama of Sussex. Northward we could see the London haze.
+Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the Channel's zinc-
+blue. But all our available population in that vast survey was one cow and
+a kestrel.
+
+"It's down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by gravity," I said
+at last.
+
+"Then he'll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we take
+off 'is boots first," Pyecroft replied.
+
+"That," said our guest earnestly, "would be theft atop of assault and very
+serious."
+
+"Oh, let's hang him an' be done," Hinchcliffe grunted. "It's evidently
+what he's sufferin' for."
+
+Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to smoke
+in the heather, and presently out of the valley below came the thick beat
+of a petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it till I heard
+the roar of a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home Counties.
+
+"That's the man I was going to lunch with!" I cried. "Hold on!" and I ran
+down the road.
+
+It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod;
+and it bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my own
+man, who for the first time in our acquaintance smiled.
+
+"Did they get you? What did you get? I was coming into Linghurst as
+witness to character--your man told me what happened--but I was stopped
+near Instead Wick myself," cried Kysh.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Leaving car unattended. An infernal swindle, when you think of the loose
+carts outside every pub in the county. I was jawing with the police for an
+hour, but it's no use. They've got it all their own way, and we're
+helpless."
+
+Hereupon I told him my tale, and for proof, as we topped the hill, pointed
+out the little group round my car.
+
+All supreme emotion is dumb. Kysh put on the brake and hugged me to his
+bosom till I groaned. Then, as I remember, he crooned like a mother
+returned to her suckling.
+
+"Divine! Divine!" he murmured. "Command me."
+
+"Take charge of the situation," I said. "You'll find a Mr. Pyecroft on the
+quarter-deck. I'm altogether out of it."
+
+"He shall stay there. Who am I but the instrument of vengeance in the
+hands of an over-ruling Providence? (And I put in fresh sparking-plugs
+this morning.) Salmon, take that steam-kettle home, somehow. I would be
+alone."
+
+"Leggat," I said to my man, "help Salmon home with my car."
+
+"Home? Now? It's hard. It's cruel hard," said Leggat, almost with a sob.
+
+Hinchcliffe outlined my car's condition briefly to the two engineers. Mr.
+Pyecroft clung to our guest, who stared with affrighted eyes at the
+palpitating Octopod; and the free wind of high Sussex whimpered across the
+ling.
+
+"I am quite agreeable to walkin' 'ome all the way on my feet," said our
+guest. "I wouldn't go to any railway station. It 'ud be just the proper
+finish to our little joke." He laughed nervously.
+
+"What's the evolution?" said Pyecroft. "Do we turn over to the new
+cruiser?"
+
+I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I was
+in, he sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which controls the
+door. Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh.
+
+"You drive?" Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his chequered way
+through the world.
+
+"Steam only, and I've about had my whack for to-day, thanks."
+
+"I see."
+
+The long, low car slid forward and then dropped like a bullet down the
+descent our steam toy had so painfully climbed. Our guest's face blanched,
+and he clutched the back of the tonneau.
+
+"New commander's evidently been trained on a destroyer," said Hinchcliffe.
+
+"What's 'is wonderful name?" whispered Pyecroft. "Ho! Well, I'm glad it
+ain't Saul we've run up against--nor Nimshi, for that matter. This is
+makin' me feel religious."
+
+Our impetus carried us half-way up the next slope, where we steadied to a
+resonant fifteen an hour against the collar.
+
+"What do you think?" I called to Hinchcliffe.
+
+"'Taint as sweet as steam, o' course; but for power it's twice the
+_Furious_ against half the _Jaseur_ in a head-sea."
+
+Volumes could not have touched it more exactly. His bright eyes were glued
+on Kysh's hands juggling with levers behind the discreet backward sloping
+dash.
+
+"An' what sort of a brake might you use?" he said politely.
+
+"This," Kysh replied, as the last of the hill shot up to one in eight. He
+let the car run back a few feet and caught her deftly on the brake,
+repeating the performance cup and ball fashion. It was like being daped
+above the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft held
+his breath.
+
+"It ain't fair! It ain't fair!" our guest moaned. "You're makin' me sick."
+
+"What an ungrateful blighter he is!" said Pyecroft. "Money couldn't buy
+you a run like this ... Do it well overboard!"
+
+"We'll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I think,"
+said Kysh. "There's a bit of good going hereabouts."
+
+He flung a careless knee over the low raking tiller that the ordinary
+expert puts under his armpit, and down four miles of yellow road, cut
+through barren waste, the Octopod sang like a six-inch shell.
+
+"Whew! But you know your job," said Hinchcliffe. "You're wasted here. I'd
+give something to have you in my engine-room."
+
+"He's steering with 'is little hind-legs," said Pyecroft. "Stand up and
+look at him, Robert. You'll never see such a sight again!"
+
+"Nor don't want to," was our guest's reply. "Five 'undred pounds wouldn't
+begin to cover 'is fines even since I've been with him."
+
+Park Row is reached by one hill which drops three hundred feet in half a
+mile. Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but the
+manner in which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my few
+remaining hairs much nearer the grave.
+
+"We're in Surrey now; better look out," I said.
+
+"Never mind. I'll roll her into Kent for a bit. We've lots of time; it's
+only three o'clock."
+
+"Won't you want to fill your bunkers, or take water, or oil her up?" said
+Hinchcliffe.
+
+"We don't use water, and she's good for two hundred on one tank o' petrol
+if she doesn't break down."
+
+"Two hundred miles from 'ome and mother _and_ faithful Fido to-night,
+Robert," said Pyecroft, slapping our guest on the knee. "Cheer up! Why,
+I've known a destroyer do less."
+
+We passed with some decency through some towns, till by way of the
+Hastings road we whirled into Cramberhurst, which is a deep pit.
+
+"Now," said Kysh, "we begin."
+
+"Previous service not reckoned towards pension," said Pyecroft. "We are
+doin' you lavish, Robert."
+
+"But when's this silly game to finish, any'ow?" our guest snarled.
+
+"Don't worry about the _when_ of it, Robert. The _where's_ the interestin'
+point for you just now."
+
+I had seen Kysh drive before, and I thought I knew the Octopod, but that
+afternoon he and she were exalted beyond my knowledge. He improvised on
+the keys--the snapping levers and quivering accelerators--marvellous
+variations, so that our progress was sometimes a fugue and sometimes a
+barn-dance, varied on open greens by the weaving of fairy rings. When I
+protested, all that he would say was: "I'll hypnotise the fowl! I'll
+dazzle the rooster!" or other words equally futile. And she--oh! that I
+could do her justice!--she turned her broad black bows to the westering
+light, and lifted us high upon hills that we might see and rejoice with
+her. She whooped into veiled hollows of elm and Sussex oak; she devoured
+infinite perspectives of park palings; she surged through forgotten
+hamlets, whose single streets gave back, reduplicated, the clatter of her
+exhaust, and, tireless, she repeated the motions. Over naked uplands she
+droned like a homing bee, her shadow lengthening in the sun that she
+chased to his lair. She nosed up unparochial byways and accommodation-
+roads of the least accommodation, and put old scarred turf or new-raised
+molehills under her most marvellous springs with never a jar. And since
+the King's highway is used for every purpose save traffic, in mid-career
+she stepped aside for, or flung amazing loops about, the brainless driver,
+the driverless horse, the drunken carrier, the engaged couple, the female
+student of the bicycle and her staggering instructor, the pig, the
+perambulator, and the infant school (where it disembogued yelping on
+cross-roads), with the grace of Nellie Farren (upon whom be the Peace) and
+the lithe abandon of all the Vokes family. But at heart she was ever Judic
+as I remember that Judic long ago--Judic clad in bourgeois black from
+wrist to ankle, achieving incredible improprieties.
+
+We were silent--Hinchcliffe and Pyecroft through professional
+appreciation; I with a layman's delight in the expert; and our guest
+because of fear.
+
+At the edge of the evening she smelt the sea to southward and sheered
+thither like the strong-winged albatross, to circle enormously amid green
+flats fringed by martello towers.
+
+"Ain't that Eastbourne yonder?" said our guest, reviving. "I've a aunt
+there--she's cook to a J.P.--could identify me."
+
+"Don't worry her for a little thing like that," said Pyecroft; and ere he
+had ceased to praise family love, our unpaid judiciary, and domestic
+service, the Downs rose between us and the sea, and the Long Man of
+Hillingdon lay out upon the turf.
+
+"Trevington--up yonder--is a fairly isolated little dorp," I said, for I
+was beginning to feel hungry.
+
+"No," said Kysh. "He'd get a lift to the railway in no time.... Besides,
+I'm enjoying myself.... Three pounds eighteen and sixpence. Infernal
+swindle!"
+
+I take it one of his more recent fines was rankling in Kysh's brain; but
+he drove like the Archangel of the Twilight.
+
+About the longitude of Cassocks, Hinchcliffe yawned. "Aren't we goin' to
+maroon our Robert? I'm hungry, too."
+
+"The commodore wants his money back," I answered.
+
+"If he drives like this habitual, there must be a tidyish little lump
+owin' to him," said Pyecroft. "Well, I'm agreeable."
+
+"I didn't know it could be done. S'welp me, I didn't," our guest murmured.
+
+"But you will," said Kysh. And that was the first and last time he
+addressed the man.
+
+We ran through Penfield Green, half stupefied with open air, drugged with
+the relentless boom of the Octopod, and extinct with famine.
+
+"I used to shoot about here," said Kysh, a few miles further on. "Open
+that gate, please," and he slowed as the sun touched the sky-line. At this
+point we left metalled roads and bucked vigorously amid ditches and under
+trees for twenty minutes.
+
+"Only cross-country car on the market," he said, as we wheeled into a
+straw-yard where a lone bull bellowed defiance to our growlings. "Open
+that gate, please. I hope the cattle-bridge will stand up."
+
+"I've took a few risks in my time," said Pyecroft as timbers cracked
+beneath us and we entered between thickets, "but I'm a babe to this man,
+Hinch."
+
+"Don't talk to me. Watch _him!_ It's a liberal education, as Shakespeare
+says. Fallen tree on the port bow, Sir."
+
+"Right! That's my mark. Sit tight!"
+
+She flung up her tail like a sounding whale and buried us in a fifteen-
+foot deep bridle-path buttressed with the exposed roots of enormous
+beeches. The wheels leaped from root to rounded boulder, and it was very
+dark in the shadow of the foliage.
+
+"There ought to be a hammer-pond somewhere about here." Kysh was letting
+her down this chute in brakeful spasms.
+
+"Water dead ahead, Sir. Stack o' brushwood on the starboard beam, and--no
+road," sang Pyecroft.
+
+"Cr-r-ri-key!" said Hinchcliffe, as the car on a wild cant to the left
+went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung the
+pond. "If she only had two propellers, I believe she'd talk poetry. She
+can do everything else."
+
+"We're rather on our port wheels now," said Kysh; "but I don't think
+she'll capsize. This road isn't used much by motors."
+
+"You don't say so," said Pyecroft. "What a pity!"
+
+She bored through a mass of crackling brushwood, and emerged into an
+upward sloping fern-glade fenced with woods so virgin, so untouched, that
+William Rufus might have ridden off as we entered. We climbed out of the
+violet-purple shadows towards the upland where the last of the day
+lingered. I was filled to my moist eyes with the almost sacred beauty of
+sense and association that clad the landscape.
+
+"Does 'unger produce 'alluciations?" said Pyecroft in a whisper. "Because
+I've just seen a sacred ibis walkin' arm in arm with a British cock-
+pheasant."
+
+"What are you panickin' at?" said Hinchcliffe. "I've been seein' zebra
+for the last two minutes, but I 'aven't complained."
+
+He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted zebra (Burchell's, I
+think), following our track with palpitating nostrils. The car stopped,
+and it fled away.
+
+There was a little pond in front of us from which rose a dome of irregular
+sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled beast that sat upon its haunches.
+
+"Is it catching?" said Pyecroft.
+
+"Yes. I'm seeing beaver," I replied.
+
+"It is here!" said Kysh, with the air and gesture of Captain Nemo, and
+half turned.
+
+"No--no--no! For 'Eaven's sake--not 'ere!" Our guest gasped like a sea-
+bathed child, as four efficient hands swung him far out-board on to the
+turf. The car ran back noiselessly down the slope.
+
+"Look! Look! It's sorcery!" cried Hinchcliffe.
+
+There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver dived from the roof of
+his lodge, but we watched our guest. He was on his knees, praying to
+kangaroos. Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos--gigantic,
+erect, silhouetted against the light--four buck-kangaroos in the heart of
+Sussex!
+
+And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our hind-wheels struck
+well-rolled gravel, leading us to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour
+later, the "Grapnel Inn" at Horsham.
+
+*        *        *        *        *
+
+After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings in honour
+of Kysh, who received our homage graciously, and, by the way, explained a
+few things in the natural history line that had puzzled us. England is a
+most marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows the eccentricities
+of large land-owners, trained to accept kangaroos, zebras, or beavers as
+part of its landscape.
+
+When we went to bed Pyecroft pressed my hand, his voice thick with
+emotion.
+
+"We owe it to you," he said. "We owe it all to you. Didn't I say we never
+met in _pup-pup-puris naturalibus_, if I may so put it, without a
+remarkably hectic day ahead of us?"
+
+"That's all right," I said. "Mind the candle." He was tracing smoke-
+patterns on the wall.
+
+"But what I want to know is whether we'll succeed in acclimatisin' the
+blighter, or whether Sir William Gardner's keepers 'll kill 'im before 'e
+gets accustomed to 'is surroundin's?"
+
+Some day, I think, we must go up the Linghurst Road and find out.
+
+
+
+
+"WIRELESS"
+
+
+KASPAR'S SONG IN VARDA
+
+(_From the Swedish of Stagnelius_.)
+
+  Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
+    The children follow where Psyche flies,
+  And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
+    Slash with a net at the empty skies.
+
+  So it goes they fall amid brambles,
+    And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
+  Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles
+    They wipe their brows, and the hunting stops.
+
+  Then to quiet them comes their father
+    And stills the riot of pain and grief,
+  Saying, "Little ones, go and gather
+    Out of my garden a cabbage leaf.
+
+  "You will find on it whorls and clots of
+    Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
+  Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
+    Radiant Psyches raised from the dead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"
+    The three-dimensioned preacher saith,
+  So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie
+    For Psyche's birth ... And that is our death!
+
+
+"WIRELESS"
+"It's a funny thing, this Marconi business, isn't it?" said Mr. Shaynor,
+coughing heavily. "Nothing seems to make any difference, by what they tell
+me--storms, hills, or anything; but if that's true we shall know before
+morning."
+
+"Of course it's true," I answered, stepping behind the counter. "Where's
+old Mr. Cashell?"
+
+"He's had to go to bed on account of his influenza. He said you'd very
+likely drop in."
+
+"Where's his nephew?"
+
+"Inside, getting the things ready. He told me that the last time they
+experimented they put the pole on the roof of one of the big hotels here,
+and the batteries electrified all the water-supply, and"--he giggled--"the
+ladies got shocks when they took their baths."
+
+"I never heard of that."
+
+"The hotel wouldn't exactly advertise it, would it? Just now, by what Mr.
+Cashell tells me, they're trying to signal from here to Poole, and they're
+using stronger batteries than ever. But, you see, he being the guvnor's
+nephew and all that (and it will be in the papers too), it doesn't matter
+how they electrify things in this house. Are you going to watch?"
+
+"Very much. I've never seen this game. Aren't you going to bed?"
+
+"We don't close till ten on Saturdays. There's a good deal of influenza in
+town, too, and there'll be a dozen prescriptions coming in before morning.
+I generally sleep in the chair here. It's warmer than jumping out of bed
+every time. Bitter cold, isn't it?"
+
+"Freezing hard. I'm sorry your cough's worse."
+
+"Thank you. I don't mind cold so much. It's this wind that fair cuts me to
+pieces." He coughed again hard and hackingly, as an old lady came in for
+ammoniated quinine. "We've just run out of it in bottles, madam," said Mr.
+Shaynor, returning to the professional tone, "but if you will wait two
+minutes, I'll make it up for you, madam."
+
+I had used the shop for some time, and my acquaintance with the proprietor
+had ripened into friendship. It was Mr. Cashell who revealed to me the
+purpose and power of Apothecaries' Hall what time a fellow-chemist had
+made an error in a prescription of mine, had lied to cover his sloth, and
+when error and lie were brought home to him had written vain letters.
+
+"A disgrace to our profession," said the thin, mild-eyed man, hotly, after
+studying the evidence. "You couldn't do a better service to the profession
+than report him to Apothecaries' Hall."
+
+I did so, not knowing what djinns I should evoke; and the result was such
+an apology as one might make who had spent a night on the rack. I
+conceived great respect for Apothecaries' Hall, and esteem for Mr.
+Cashell, a zealous craftsman who magnified his calling. Until Mr. Shaynor
+came down from the North his assistants had by no means agreed with Mr.
+Cashell. "They forget," said he, "that, first and foremost, the compounder
+is a medicine-man. On him depends the physician's reputation. He holds it
+literally in the hollow of his hand, Sir."
+
+Mr. Shaynor's manners had not, perhaps, the polish of the grocery and
+Italian warehouse next door, but he knew and loved his dispensary work in
+every detail. For relaxation he seemed to go no farther afield than the
+romance of drugs--their discovery, preparation packing, and export--but it
+led him to the ends of the earth, and on this subject, and the
+Pharmaceutical Formulary, and Nicholas Culpepper, most confident of
+physicians, we met.
+
+Little by little I grew to know something of his beginnings and his hopes
+--of his mother, who had been a school-teacher in one of the northern
+counties, and of his red-headed father, a small job-master at Kirby Moors,
+who died when he was a child; of the examinations he had passed and of
+their exceeding and increasing difficulty; of his dreams of a shop in
+London; of his hate for the price-cutting Co-operative stores; and, most
+interesting, of his mental attitude towards customers.
+
+"There's a way you get into," he told me, "of serving them carefully, and
+I hope, politely, without stopping your own thinking. I've been reading
+Christie's _New Commercial Plants_ all this autumn, and that needs keeping
+your mind on it, I can tell you. So long as it isn't a prescription, of
+course, I can carry as much as half a page of Christie in my head, and at
+the same time I could sell out all that window twice over, and not a penny
+wrong at the end. As to prescriptions, I think I could make up the general
+run of 'em in my sleep, almost."
+
+For reasons of my own, I was deeply interested in Marconi experiments at
+their outset in England; and it was of a piece with Mr. Cashell's
+unvarying thoughtfulness that, when his nephew the electrician
+appropriated the house for a long-range installation, he should, as I have
+said, invite me to see the result.
+
+The old lady went away with her medicine, and Mr. Shaynor and I stamped on
+the tiled floor behind the counter to keep ourselves warm. The shop, by
+the light of the many electrics, looked like a Paris-diamond mine, for Mr.
+Cashell believed in all the ritual of his craft. Three superb glass jars--
+red, green, and blue--of the sort that led Rosamund to parting with her
+shoes--blazed in the broad plate-glass windows, and there was a confused
+smell of orris, Kodak films, vulcanite, tooth-powder, sachets, and almond-
+cream in the air. Mr. Shaynor fed the dispensary stove, and we sucked
+cayenne-pepper jujubes and menthol lozenges. The brutal east wind had
+cleared the streets, and the few passers-by were muffled to their puckered
+eyes. In the Italian warehouse next door some gay feathered birds and
+game, hung upon hooks, sagged to the wind across the left edge of our
+window-frame.
+
+"They ought to take these poultry in--all knocked about like that," said
+Mr. Shaynor. "Doesn't it make you feel fair perishing? See that old hare!
+The wind's nearly blowing the fur off him."
+
+I saw the belly-fur of the dead beast blown apart in ridges and streaks as
+the wind caught it, showing bluish skin underneath. "Bitter cold," said
+Mr. Shaynor, shuddering. "Fancy going out on a night like this! Oh, here's
+young Mr. Cashell."
+
+The door of the inner office behind the dispensary opened, and an
+energetic, spade-bearded man stepped forth, rubbing his hands.
+
+"I want a bit of tin-foil, Shaynor," he said. "Good-evening. My uncle told
+me you might be coming." This to me, as I began the first of a hundred
+questions.
+
+"I've everything in order," he replied. "We're only waiting until Poole
+calls us up. Excuse me a minute. You can come in whenever you like--but
+I'd better be with the instruments. Give me that tin-foil. Thanks."
+
+While we were talking, a girl--evidently no customer--had come into the
+shop, and the face and bearing of Mr. Shaynor changed. She leaned
+confidently across the counter.
+
+"But I can't," I heard him whisper uneasily--the flush on his cheek was
+dull red, and his eyes shone like a drugged moth's. "I can't. I tell you
+I'm alone in the place."
+
+"No, you aren't. Who's _that_? Let him look after it for half an hour. A
+brisk walk will do you good. Ah, come now, John."
+
+"But he isn't----"
+
+"I don't care. I want you to; we'll only go round by St. Agnes. If you
+don't----"
+
+He crossed to where I stood in the shadow of the dispensary counter, and
+began some sort of broken apology about a lady-friend.
+
+"Yes," she interrupted. "You take the shop for half an hour--to oblige
+_me_, won't you?"
+
+She had a singularly rich and promising voice that well matched her
+outline.
+
+"All right," I said. "I'll do it--but you'd better wrap yourself up, Mr.
+Shaynor."
+
+"Oh, a brisk walk ought to help me. We're only going round by the church."
+I heard him cough grievously as they went out together.
+
+I refilled the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell's
+coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the glass-
+knobbed drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting drugs,
+and, by the aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and
+dilute alcohol, manufactured a new and wildish drink, of which I bore a
+glassful to young Mr. Cashell, busy in the back office. He laughed shortly
+when I told him that Mr. Shaynor had stepped out--but a frail coil of wire
+held all his attention, and he had no word for me bewildered among the
+batteries and rods. The noise of the sea on the beach began to make itself
+heard as the traffic in the street ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly,
+he gave me the names and uses of the mechanism that crowded the tables and
+the floor.
+
+"When do you expect to get the message from Poole?" I demanded, sipping my
+liquor out of a graduated glass.
+
+"About midnight, if everything is in order. We've got our installation-
+pole fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn't advise you to turn on a
+tap or anything tonight. We've connected up with the plumbing, and all the
+water will be electrified." He repeated to me the history of the agitated
+ladies at the hotel at the time of the first installation.
+
+"But what _is_ it?" I asked. "Electricity is out of my beat altogether."
+
+"Ah, if you knew _that_ you'd know something nobody knows. It's just It--
+what we call Electricity, but the magic--the manifestations--the Hertzian
+waves--are all revealed by _this_. The coherer, we call it."
+
+He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in which,
+almost touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an
+infinitesimal pinch of metallic dust. "That's all," he said, proudly, as
+though himself responsible for the wonder. "That is the thing that will
+reveal to us the Powers--whatever the Powers may be--at work--through
+space--a long distance away."
+
+Just then Mr. Shaynor returned alone and stood coughing his heart out on
+the mat.
+
+"Serves you right for being such a fool," said young Mr. Cashell, as
+annoyed as myself at the interruption. "Never mind--we've all the night
+before us to see wonders."
+
+Shaynor clutched the counter, his handkerchief to his lips. When he
+brought it away I saw two bright red stains.
+
+"I--I've got a bit of a rasped throat from smoking cigarettes," he panted.
+"I think I'll try a cubeb."
+
+"Better take some of this. I've been compounding while you've been away."
+I handed him the brew.
+
+"'Twon't make me drunk, will it? I'm almost a teetotaller. My word! That's
+grateful and comforting."
+
+He sat down the empty glass to cough afresh.
+
+"Brr! But it was cold out there! I shouldn't care to be lying in my grave
+a night like this. Don't _you_ ever have a sore throat from smoking?" He
+pocketed the handkerchief after a furtive peep.
+
+"Oh, yes, sometimes," I replied, wondering, while I spoke, into what
+agonies of terror I should fall if ever I saw those bright-red danger-
+signals under my nose. Young Mr. Cashell among the batteries coughed
+slightly to show that he was quite ready to continue his scientific
+explanations, but I was thinking still of the girl with the rich voice and
+the significantly cut mouth, at whose command I had taken charge of the
+shop. It flashed across me that she distantly resembled the seductive
+shape on a gold-framed toilet-water advertisement whose charms were
+unholily heightened by the glare from the red bottle in the window.
+Turning to make sure, I saw Mr. Shaynor's eyes bent in the same direction,
+and by instinct recognised that the flamboyant thing was to him a shrine.
+"What do you take for your--cough?" I asked.
+
+"Well, I'm the wrong side of the counter to believe much in patent
+medicines. But there are asthma cigarettes and there are pastilles. To
+tell you the truth, if you don't object to the smell, which is very like
+incense, I believe, though I'm not a Roman Catholic, Blaudett's Cathedral
+Pastilles relieve me as much as anything."
+
+"Let's try." I had never raided a chemist's shop before, so I was
+thorough. We unearthed the pastilles--brown, gummy cones of benzoin--and
+set them alight under the toilet-water advertisement, where they fumed in
+thin blue spirals.
+
+"Of course," said Mr. Shaynor, to my question, "what one uses in the shop
+for one's self comes out of one's pocket. Why, stock-taking in our
+business is nearly the same as with jewellers--and I can't say more than
+that. But one gets them"--he pointed to the pastille-box--"at trade
+prices." Evidently the censing of the gay, seven-tinted wench with the
+teeth was an established ritual which cost something.
+
+"And when do we shut up shop?"
+
+"We stay like this all night. The gov--old Mr. Cashell--doesn't believe
+in locks and shutters as compared with electric light. Besides it brings
+trade. I'll just sit here in the chair by the stove and write a letter,
+if you don't mind. Electricity isn't my prescription."
+
+The energetic young Mr. Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled
+himself up in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black, and
+yellow Austrian jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast about,
+amid patent medicine pamphlets, for something to read, but finding little,
+returned to the manufacture of the new drink. The Italian warehouse took
+down its game and went to bed. Across the street blank shutters flung back
+the gaslight in cold smears; the dried pavement seemed to rough up in
+goose-flesh under the scouring of the savage wind, and we could hear, long
+ere he passed, the policeman flapping his arms to keep himself warm.
+Within, the flavours of cardamoms and chloric-ether disputed those of the
+pastilles and a score of drugs and perfume and soap scents. Our electric
+lights, set low down in the windows before the tunbellied Rosamund jars,
+flung inward three monstrous daubs of red, blue, and green, that broke
+into kaleidoscopic lights on the facetted knobs of the drug-drawers, the
+cut-glass scent flagons, and the bulbs of the sparklet bottles. They
+flushed the white-tiled floor in gorgeous patches; splashed along the
+nickel-silver counter-rails, and turned the polished mahogany counter-
+panels to the likeness of intricate grained marbles--slabs of porphyry and
+malachite. Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and ere he began to write, took
+out a meagre bundle of letters. From my place by the stove, I could see
+the scalloped edges of the paper with a flaring monogram in the corner and
+could even smell the reek of chypre. At each page he turned toward the
+toilet-water lady of the advertisement and devoured her with over-luminous
+eyes. He had drawn the Austrian blanket over his shoulders, and among
+those warring lights he looked more than ever the incarnation of a drugged
+moth--a tiger-moth as I thought.
+
+He put his letter into an envelope, stamped it with stiff mechanical
+movements, and dropped it in the drawer. Then I became aware of the
+silence of a great city asleep--the silence that underlaid the even voice
+of the breakers along the sea-front--a thick, tingling quiet of warm life
+stilled down for its appointed time, and unconsciously I moved about the
+glittering shop as one moves in a sick-room. Young Mr. Cashell was
+adjusting some wire that crackled from time to time with the tense,
+knuckle-stretching sound of the electric spark. Upstairs, where a door
+shut and opened swiftly, I could hear his uncle coughing abed.
+
+"Here," I said, when the drink was properly warmed, "take some of this,
+Mr. Shaynor."
+
+He jerked in his chair with a start and a wrench, and held out his hand
+for the glass. The mixture, of a rich port-wine colour, frothed at the
+top.
+
+"It looks," he said, suddenly, "it looks--those bubbles--like a string of
+pearls winking at you--rather like the pearls round that young lady's
+neck." He turned again to the advertisement where the female in the dove-
+coloured corset had seen fit to put on all her pearls before she cleaned
+her teeth.
+
+"Not bad, is it?" I said.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+He rolled his eyes heavily full on me, and, as I stared, I beheld all
+meaning and consciousness die out of the swiftly dilating pupils. His
+figure lost its stark rigidity, softened into the chair, and, chin on
+chest, hands dropped before him, he rested open-eyed, absolutely still.
+
+"I'm afraid I've rather cooked Shaynor's goose," I said, bearing the fresh
+drink to young Mr. Cashell. "Perhaps it was the chloric-ether."
+
+"Oh, he's all right." The spade-bearded man glanced at him pityingly.
+"Consumptives go off in those sort of doses very often. It's exhaustion...
+I don't wonder. I dare say the liquor will do him good. It's grand stuff,"
+he finished his share appreciatively. "Well, as I was saying--before he
+interrupted--about this little coherer. The pinch of dust, you see, is
+nickel-filings. The Hertzian waves, you see, come out of space from the
+station that despatches 'em, and all these little particles are attracted
+together--cohere, we call it--for just so long as the current passes
+through them. Now, it's important to remember that the current is an
+induced current. There are a good many kinds of induction----"
+
+"Yes, but what _is_ induction?"
+
+"That's rather hard to explain untechnically. But the long and the short
+of it is that when a current of electricity passes through a wire there's
+a lot of magnetism present round that wire; and if you put another wire
+parallel to, and within what we call its magnetic field--why then, the
+second wire will also become charged with electricity."
+
+"On its own account?"
+
+"On its own account."
+
+"Then let's see if I've got it correctly. Miles off, at Poole, or wherever
+it is----"
+
+"It will be anywhere in ten years."
+
+"You've got a charged wire----"
+
+"Charged with Hertzian waves which vibrate, say, two hundred and thirty
+million times a second." Mr. Cashell snaked his forefinger rapidly through
+the air.
+
+"All right--a charged wire at Poole, giving out these waves into space.
+Then this wire of yours sticking out into space--on the roof of the house
+--in some mysterious way gets charged with those waves from Poole----"
+
+"Or anywhere--it only happens to be Poole tonight."
+
+"And those waves set the coherer at work, just like an ordinary telegraph-
+office ticker?"
+
+"No! That's where so many people make the mistake. The Hertzian waves
+wouldn't be strong enough to work a great heavy Morse instrument like
+ours. They can only just make that dust cohere, and while it coheres (a
+little while for a dot and a longer while for a dash) the current from
+this battery--the home battery"--he laid his hand on the thing--"can get
+through to the Morse printing-machine to record the dot or dash. Let me
+make it clearer. Do you know anything about steam?"
+
+"Very little. But go on."
+
+"Well, the coherer is like a steam-valve. Any child can open a valve and
+start a steamer's engines, because a turn of the hand lets in the main
+steam, doesn't it? Now, this home battery here ready to print is the main
+steam. The coherer is the valve, always ready to be turned on. The
+Hertzian wave is the child's hand that turns it."
+
+"I see. That's marvellous."
+
+"Marvellous, isn't it? And, remember, we're only at the beginning. There's
+nothing we sha'n't be able to do in ten years. I want to live--my God, how
+I want to live, and see it develop!" He looked through the door at Shaynor
+breathing lightly in his chair. "Poor beast! And he wants to keep company
+with Fanny Brand."
+
+"Fanny _who_?" I said, for the name struck an obscurely familiar chord in
+my brain--something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the word
+"arterial."
+
+"Fanny Brand--the girl you kept shop for." He laughed, "That's all I know
+about her, and for the life of me I can't see what Shaynor sees in her, or
+she in him."
+
+"_Can't_ you see what he sees in her?" I insisted.
+
+"Oh, yes, if _that's_ what you mean. She's a great, big, fat lump of a
+girl, and so on. I suppose that's why he's so crazy after her. She isn't
+his sort. Well, it doesn't matter. My uncle says he's bound to die before
+the year's out. Your drink's given him a good sleep, at any rate." Young
+Mr. Cashell could not catch Mr. Shaynor's face, which was half turned to
+the advertisement.
+
+I stoked the stove anew, for the room was growing cold, and lighted
+another pastille. Mr. Shaynor in his chair, never moving, looked through
+and over me with eyes as wide and lustreless as those of a dead hare.
+
+"Poole's late," said young Mr. Cashell, when I stepped back. "I'll just
+send them a call."
+
+He pressed a key in the semi-darkness, and with a rending crackle there
+leaped between two brass knobs a spark, streams of sparks, and sparks
+again.
+
+"Grand, isn't it? _That's_ the Power--our unknown Power--kicking and
+fighting to be let loose," said young Mr. Cashell. "There she goes--kick--
+kick--kick into space. I never get over the strangeness of it when I work
+a sending-machine--waves going into space, you know. T.R. is our call.
+Poole ought to answer with L.L.L."
+
+We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom of
+the tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear "_kiss--kiss--kiss_" of
+the halliards on the roof, as they were blown against the installation-
+pole.
+
+"Poole is not ready. I'll stay here and call you when he is."
+
+I returned to the shop, and set down my glass on a marble slab with a
+careless clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed once
+more on the advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the light from
+the red jar simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved without
+cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. "And threw--and threw--and threw,"
+he repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
+
+I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words--delivered
+roundly and clearly. These:--
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
+
+The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his
+place, rubbing his hands.
+
+It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading
+and prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read Keats,
+or could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a certain
+stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the highly-polished
+picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a vile chromo
+recalls some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken. Night, my drink,
+and solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a poet. He sat down
+again and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper, his lips quivering.
+
+I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made no
+sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read, amid
+half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:--
+
+  --Very cold it was. Very cold
+  The hare--the hare--the hare--
+  The birds----
+
+He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of the
+poulterer's shop where they jutted out against our window. Then one clear
+line came:--
+
+  The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.
+
+The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where
+the Blaudett's Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and went
+on:--
+
+  Incense in a censer--
+  Before her darling picture framed in gold--
+  Maiden's picture--angel's portrait--
+
+"Hsh!" said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though in the
+presence of spirits. "There's something coming through from somewhere; but
+it isn't Poole." I heard the crackle of sparks as he depressed the keys of
+the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something crackled, or it might
+have been the hair on my head. Then I heard my own voice, in a harsh
+whisper: "Mr. Cashell, there is something coming through here, too. Leave
+me alone till I tell you."
+
+"But I thought you'd come to see this wonderful thing--Sir," indignantly
+at the end.
+
+"Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet."
+
+I watched--I waited. Under the blue-veined hand--the dry hand of the
+consumptive--came away clear, without erasure:
+
+And my weak spirit fails To think how the dead must freeze--
+he shivered as he wrote--
+
+Beneath the churchyard mould.
+
+Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.
+
+For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
+rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most
+dispassionately considered my own soul as that fought with an over-
+mastering fear. Then I smelt the strong smell of cigarettes from Mr.
+Shaynor's clothing, and heard, as though it had been the rending of
+trumpets, the rattle of his breathing. I was still in my place of
+observation, much as one would watch a rifle-shot at the butts, half-bent,
+hands on my knees, and head within a few inches of the black, red, and
+yellow blanket of his shoulder. I was whispering encouragement, evidently
+to my other self, sounding sentences, such as men pronounce in dreams.
+
+"If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn't--like causes _must_
+beget like effects. There is no escape from this law. _You_ ought to be
+grateful that you know 'St. Agnes Eve' without the book; because, given
+the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is the key of the enigma, and
+approximately represents the latitude and longitude of Fanny Brawne;
+allowing also for the bright red colour of the arterial blood upon the
+handkerchief, which was just what you were puzzling over in the shop just
+now; and counting the effect of the professional environment, here almost
+perfectly duplicated--the result is logical and inevitable. As inevitable
+as induction."
+
+Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was cowering
+in some minute and inadequate corner--at an immense distance.
+
+Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my
+knees, and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers
+accept and explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of the
+dead, with excerpts from the evening hymn or the multiplication-table, so
+I had accepted the facts, whatever they might be, that I should witness,
+and had devised a theory, sane and plausible to my mind, that explained
+them all. Nay, I was even in advance of my facts, walking hurriedly before
+them, assured that they would fit my theory. And all that I now recall of
+that epoch-making theory are the lofty words: "If he has read Keats it's
+the chloric-ether. If he hasn't, it's the identical bacillus, or Hertzian
+wave of tuberculosis, _plus_ Fanny Brand and the professional status
+which, in conjunction with the main-stream of subconscious thought common
+to all mankind, has thrown up temporarily an induced Keats."
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with
+swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote,
+muttering:
+
+The little smoke of a candle that goes out.
+
+"No," he muttered. "Little smoke--little smoke--little smoke. What else?"
+He thrust his chin forward toward the advertisement, whereunder the last
+of the Blaudett's Cathedral pastilles fumed in its holder. "Ah!" Then with
+relief:--
+
+The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.
+
+Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote and
+rewrote "gold--cold--mould" many times. Again he sought inspiration from
+the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had
+overheard:
+
+And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
+
+As I remembered the original it is "fair"--a trite word--instead of
+"young," and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that the
+attempt to reproduce "its little smoke in pallid moonlight died" was a
+failure.
+
+Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose--the naked
+soul's confession of its physical yearning for its beloved--unclean as we
+count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw material,
+so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence Keats wove the
+twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem. Shame I had none in
+overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone with the smoke of the
+pastille.
+
+"That's it," I murmured. "That's how it's blocked out. Go on! Ink it in,
+man. Ink it in!"
+
+Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein "loveliness" was made to
+rhyme with a desire to look upon "her empty dress." He picked up a fold of
+the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with infinite
+tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I could not
+decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped the stuff.
+Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I do now) in
+what manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket coloured his dreams.
+
+In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the
+shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket,
+rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the
+labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie's _New Commercial
+Plants_ and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them
+side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face,
+read first in one and then in the other, and paused with pen behind his
+ear.
+
+"What wonder of Heaven's coming now?" I thought.
+
+"Manna--manna--manna," he said at last, under wrinkled brows. "That's what
+I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that's good!"
+His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:--
+
+  Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
+  And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
+  And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,
+  Manna and dates in Argosy transferred
+  From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
+  From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
+
+He repeated it once more, using "blander" for "smoother" in the second
+line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes
+missed no stroke of any word) he substituted "soother" for his atrocious
+second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is written in
+the book--as it is written in the book.
+
+A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind
+followed a spurt and rattle of rain.
+
+After a smiling pause--and good right had he to smile--he began anew,
+always tossing the last sheet over his shoulder:--
+
+  "The sharp rain falling on the window-pane,
+  Rattling sleet--the wind-blown sleet."
+
+Then prose: "It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and
+sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and thought
+of you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we could both run
+away like two lovers into the storm and get that little cottage by the
+sea which we are always thinking about, my own dear darling. We could sit
+and watch the sea beneath our windows. It would be a fairyland all of our
+own--a fairy sea--a fairy sea...."
+
+He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the
+Channel along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up a
+note to the sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to
+flood. It beat in like the change of step throughout an army--this
+renewed pulse of the sea--and filled our ears till they, accepting it,
+marked it no longer.
+
+  "A fairyland for you and me
+  Across the foam--beyond ...
+  A magic foam, a perilous sea."
+
+He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but I
+dared not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was
+drawing him nearer and nearer to the high-water mark but two of the sons
+of Adam have reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted there
+are no more than five--five little lines--of which one can say: "These
+are the pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only poetry."
+And Mr. Shaynor was playing hot and cold with two of them!
+
+I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold
+soul, and pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and
+re-repeating:
+
+  A savage spot as holy and enchanted
+  As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
+  By woman wailing for her demon lover.
+
+But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon
+the writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals
+and cigarette-smoke.
+
+  Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,
+
+(he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then--
+
+  "Our open casements facing desolate seas
+  Forlorn--forlorn--"
+
+Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I had
+first seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was
+tenfold keener. As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It
+lighted his face from within till I thought the visibly scourged soul
+must leap forth naked between his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of sweat
+trickled from my forehead down my nose and splashed on the back of my
+hand.
+
+  "Our windows facing on the desolate seas
+  And pearly foam of magic fairyland--"
+
+  "Not yet--not yet," he muttered, "wait a minute.
+  _Please_ wait a minute. I shall get it then--"
+
+  Our magic windows fronting on the sea,
+  The dangerous foam of desolate seas ..
+  For aye.
+
+"_Ouh_, my God!"
+
+From head to heel he shook--shook from the marrow of his bones
+outwards--then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair
+screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind and
+fell with a jar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.
+
+As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.
+
+"I've had a bit of a doze," he said. "How did I come to knock the chair
+over? You look rather--"
+
+"The chair startled me," I answered. "It was so sudden in this quiet."
+
+Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.
+
+"I suppose I must have been dreaming," said Mr. Shaynor.
+
+"I suppose you must," I said. "Talking of dreams--I--I noticed you
+writing--before--"
+
+He flushed consciously.
+
+"I meant to ask you if you've ever read anything written by a man called
+Keats."
+
+"Oh! I haven't much time to read poetry, and I can't say that I remember
+the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?"
+
+"Middling. I thought you might know him because he's the only poet who
+was ever a druggist. And he's rather what's called the lover's poet."
+
+"Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?"
+
+"A lot of things. Here's a sample that may interest you."
+
+Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and
+once written not ten minutes ago.
+
+"Ah. Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the
+tinctures and syrups. It's a fine tribute to our profession."
+
+"I don't know," said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening the
+door one half-inch, "if you still happen to be interested in our trifling
+experiments. But, should such be the case----"
+
+I drew him aside, whispering, "Shaynor seemed going off into some sort of
+fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of being
+rude, it wouldn't do to take you off your instruments just as the call
+was coming through. Don't you see?"
+
+"Granted--granted as soon as asked," he said unbending. "I _did_ think it
+a shade odd at the time. So that was why he knocked the chair down?"
+
+"I hope I haven't missed anything," I said.
+"I'm afraid I can't say that, but you're just in time for the end of a
+rather curious performance. You can come in, too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen,
+while I read it off."
+
+The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted:
+"'_K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals_.'" A pause. "'_M.M.V. M.M.V.
+Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sandown Bay. Examine instruments
+to-morrow.'_ Do you know what that means? It's a couple of men-o'-war
+working Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight. They are trying to talk to
+each other. Neither can read the other's messages, but all their messages
+are being taken in by our receiver here. They've been going on for ever so
+long. I wish you could have heard it."
+
+"How wonderful!" I said. "Do you mean we're overhearing Portsmouth ships
+trying to talk to each other--that we're eavesdropping across half South
+England?"
+
+"Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are out
+of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing clear."
+
+"Why is that?"
+
+"God knows--and Science will know to-morrow. Perhaps the induction is
+faulty; perhaps the receivers aren't tuned to receive just the number of
+vibrations per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here and
+there. Just enough to tantalise."
+
+Again the Morse sprang to life.
+
+"That's one of 'em complaining now. Listen: '_Disheartening--most
+disheartening_.' It's quite pathetic. Have you ever seen a spiritualistic
+seance? It reminds me of that sometimes--odds and ends of messages coming
+out of nowhere--a word here and there--no good at all."
+
+"But mediums are all impostors," said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway,
+lighting an asthma-cigarette. "They only do it for the money they can
+make. I've seen 'em."
+
+"Here's Poole, at last--clear as a bell. L.L.L. _Now_ we sha'n't be long."
+Mr. Cashell rattled the keys merrily. "Anything you'd like to tell 'em?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," I said. "I'll go home and get to bed. I'm feeling
+a little tired."
+
+
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+SONG OF THE OLD GUARD
+
+"And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work shall the
+candlestick be made: his shaft and its branches, his bowls, his knops,
+and his flowers, shall be the same.
+
+"And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop
+under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the
+same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick.
+Their knops and their branches shall be the same."--_Exodus._
+
+  "Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
+    And all the clouds are gone--
+  The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
+    Good times are coming on"--
+  The evil that was threatened late
+    To all of our degree,
+  Hath passed in discord and debate,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  A common people strove in vain
+    To shame us unto toil,
+  But they are spent and we remain,
+    And we shall share the spoil
+  According to our several needs
+    As Beauty shall decree,
+  As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  And they that with accursed zeal
+    Our Service would amend,
+  Shall own the odds and come to heel
+    Ere worse befall their end
+  For though no naked word be wrote
+    Yet plainly shall they see
+  What pinneth Orders to their coat,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Our doorways that, in time of fear,
+    We opened overwide
+  Shall softly close from year to year
+    Till all be purified;
+  For though no fluttering fan be heard
+    Nor chaff be seen to flee--
+  The Lord shall winnow the Lord's Preferred--
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Our altars which the heathen brake
+    Shall rankly smoke anew,
+  And anise, mint, and cummin take
+    Their dread and sovereign due,
+  Whereby the buttons of our trade
+    Shall all restored be
+  With curious work in gilt and braid,
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+  Then come, my brethren, and prepare
+    The candlesticks and bells,
+  The scarlet, brass, and badger's hair
+    Wherein our Honour dwells,
+  And straitly fence and strictly keep
+    The Ark's integrity
+  Till Armageddon break our sleep ...
+    And, _Hey then up go we!_
+
+
+THE ARMY OF A DREAM
+
+PART I
+
+I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was entirely natural that I should be talking to "Boy" Bayley. We had
+met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside
+Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount
+Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half
+the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think
+he stayed a long, long time.
+
+But now he had come back.
+
+"Are you still a Tynesider?" I asked.
+
+"I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son," he
+replied.
+
+"Guard which? They've been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don't pull my leg,
+Boy."
+
+"I said Guard, not Guard-s. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters.
+Does that make it any clearer?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren't a step from
+barracks. Keep on my right side. I'm--I'm a bit deaf on the near."
+
+We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied
+pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I could
+see no sentry at the gates.
+
+"There ain't any," said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled
+restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the
+room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.
+
+"Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These
+are our chaps--but what am I thinking of? You must know most of 'em.
+Devine's my second in command now. There's old Luttrell--remember him at
+Cherat?--Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him), Harrison,
+Pigeon, and Kyd."
+
+With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember
+that they had all been Tynesiders.
+
+"I've never seen this sort of place," I said, looking round. "Half the
+men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children
+doing?"
+
+"Eating, I hope," Boy Bayley answered. "Our canteens would never pay if
+it wasn't for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started
+people looked on 'em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or
+two to lunch in 'em, and they've been grossly fashionable since."
+
+"So I see," I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores came
+up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of the
+corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three other
+uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.
+
+"I give it up," I said. "This is guilty splendour that I don't
+understand."
+
+"Quite simple," said Burgard across the table. "The barrack supplies
+breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard (which
+we call I. G.) when it's in barracks as well as to the Line and Militia.
+They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for them. That's
+where we make our profits. Look!"
+
+Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in
+the raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to jest
+with the uniforms about them; and when one o'clock clanged from a big
+half-built block of flats across the street, filed out.
+
+"Those," Devine explained, "are either our Line or Militiamen, as such
+entitled to the regulation whack at regulation cost. It's cheaper than
+they could buy it; an' they meet their friends too. A man'll walk a mile
+in his dinner hour to mess with his own lot."
+
+"Wait a minute," I pleaded. "Will you tell me what those plumbers and
+plasterers and bricklayers that I saw go out just now have to do with
+what I was taught to call the Line?"
+
+"Tell him," said the Boy over his shoulder to Burgard. He was busy
+talking with the large Verschoyle, my old schoolmate.
+
+"The Line comes next to the Guard. The Linesman's generally a town-bird
+who can't afford to be a Volunteer. He has to go into camp in an Area for
+two months his first year, six weeks his second, and a month the third.
+He gets about five bob a week the year round for that and for being on
+duty two days of the week, and for being liable to be ordered out to help
+the Guard in a row. He needn't live in barracks unless he wants to, and
+he and his family can feed at the regimental canteen at usual rates. The
+women like it."
+
+"All this," I said politely, but intensely, "is the raving of delirium.
+Where may your precious recruit who needn't live in barracks learn his
+drill?"
+
+"At his precious school, my child, like the rest of us. The notion of
+allowing a human being to reach his twentieth year before asking him to
+put his feet in the first position _was_ raving lunacy if you like!" Boy
+Bayley dived back into the conversation.
+
+"Very good," I said meekly. "I accept the virtuous plumber who puts in
+two months of his valuable time at Aldershot----"
+
+"Aldershot!" The table exploded. I felt a little annoyed.
+
+"A camp in an Area is not exactly Aldershot," said Burgard. "The Line
+isn't exactly what you fancy. Some of them even come to _us_!"
+
+"You recruit from 'em?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Devine with mock solemnity. "The Guard doesn't
+recruit. It selects."
+
+"It would," I said, "with a Spiers and Pond restaurant; pretty girls to
+play with; and----"
+
+"A room apiece, four bob a day and all found," said Verschoyle. "Don't
+forget that."
+
+"Of course!" I said. "It probably beats off recruits with a club."
+
+"No, with the ballot-box," said Verschoyle, laughing. "At least in all
+R.C. companies."
+
+"I didn't know Roman Catholics were so particular," I ventured.
+
+They grinned. "R.C. companies," said the Boy, "mean Right of Choice. When
+a company has been very good and pious for a long time it may, if the
+C.O. thinks fit, choose its own men--all same one-piecee club. All our
+companies are R.C.'s, and as the battalion is making up a few vacancies
+ere starting once more on the wild and trackless 'heef' into the Areas,
+the Linesman is here in force to-day sucking up to our non-coms."
+
+"Would some one mind explaining to me the meaning of every other word
+you've used," I said. "What's a trackless 'heef'? What's an Area? What's
+everything generally?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, 'heefs' part of the British Constitution," said the Boy. "It began
+long ago when they'd first mapped out the big military manoeuvring
+grounds--we call 'em Areas for short--where the I. G. spend two-thirds of
+their time and the other regiments get their training. It was slang
+originally for beef on the hoof, because in the Military Areas two-thirds
+of your meat-rations at least are handed over to you on the hoof, and you
+make your own arrangements. The word 'heef' became a parable for camping
+in the Military Areas and all its miseries. There are two Areas in
+Ireland, one in Wales for hill-work, a couple in Scotland, and a sort of
+parade-ground in the Lake District; but the real working Areas are in
+India, Africa, and Australia, and so on."
+
+"And what do you do there?"
+
+"We 'heef' under service conditions, which are rather like hard work. We
+'heef' in an English Area for about a year, coming into barracks for one
+month to make up wastage. Then we may 'heef' foreign for another year or
+eighteen months. Then we do sea-time in the war boats----"
+
+"_What-t?_" I said.
+
+"Sea-time," Bayley repeated. "Just like Marines,
+to learn about the big guns and how to embark and disembark quick. Then
+we come back to our territorial headquarters for six months, to educate
+the Line and Volunteer camps, to go to Hythe, to keep abreast of any new
+ideas, and then we fill up vacancies. We call those six months 'Schools,'
+Then we begin all over again, thus: Home 'heef,' foreign 'heef,'
+sea-time, schools. 'Heefing' isn't precisely luxurious, but it's on
+'heef' that we make our head-money."
+
+"Or lose it," said the sallow Pigeon, and all laughed, as men will, at
+regimental jokes.
+
+"The Dove never lets me forget that," said Boy Bayley. "It happened last
+March. We were out in the Second Northern Area at the top end of Scotland
+where a lot of those silly deer forests used to be. I'd sooner 'heef' in
+the middle of Australia myself--or Athabasca, with all respect to the
+Dove--he's a native of those parts. We were camped somewhere near
+Caithness, and the Armity (that's the combined Navy and Army board that
+runs our show) sent us about eight hundred raw remounts to break in to
+keep us warm."
+
+"Why horses for a foot regiment?"
+
+"I.G.'s don't foot it unless they're obliged to. No have gee-gee how can
+move? I'll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we broke those beasts
+in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we started across
+Scotland to Applecross to hand 'em over to a horse-depot there. It was
+snowing cruel, and we didn't know the country overmuch. You remember the
+30th--the old East Lancashire--at Mian Mir?
+
+"Their Guard Battalion had been 'heefing' round those parts for six
+months. We thought they'd be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but Burden,
+their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to Eschol."
+
+"Confound him," said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking. "I
+entertained one of 'em--in a red worsted comforter--under Bean Derig. He
+said he was a crofter. 'Gave him a drink too."
+
+"I don't mind admitting," said the Boy, "that, what with the cold and the
+remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden bottled us under
+Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut off a lot
+of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the dirt."
+
+"Was he allowed to do that?" I said.
+
+"There is no peace in a Military Area. If we'd
+beaten him off or got away without losing anyone, we'd have been entitled
+to a day's pay from every man engaged against us. But we didn't. He cut
+off fifty of ours, held 'em as prisoners for the regulation three days,
+and then sent in his bill--three days' pay for each man taken. Fifty men
+at twelve bob a head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured
+officer, and Kyd here, his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden
+& Co. They crowed over us horrid."
+
+"Couldn't you have appealed to an umpire or--or something?"
+
+"We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and look
+happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr Mohr. I
+spent three days huntin' 'em in the snow, but they went off on our
+remounts about twenty mile that night."
+
+"Do you always do this sham-fight business?" I asked.
+
+"Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that a
+fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week's pay isn't
+so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the long run,
+it's like whist on a P. & O. It comes out fairly level if you play long
+enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present--say, when a Line
+regiment's out on the 'heef,' and signifies that it's ready to abide by
+the rules of the game. You mustn't take head-money from a Line regiment
+in an Area unless it says that it'll play you; but, after a week or two,
+those clever Linesmen always think they see a chance of making a pot, and
+send in their compliments to the nearest I.G. Then the fun begins. We
+caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years ago in
+Ireland--caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had just
+moved in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march in
+fourteen hours, and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to
+ground like a badger--I _will_ say those Line regiments can dig--but we
+got out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to
+get its baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that
+some Sappers had made for experimental purposes (_they_ were rather
+stuffy about it) on its line of retreat, while we lay up in the mountains
+and signalled for the A.C. of those parts."
+
+"Who's an A.C.?" I asked.
+
+"The Adjustment Committee--the umpires of the Military Areas. They're a
+set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the purpose, but they
+occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our dispositions,
+and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and that we were
+entitled to our full pound of flesh--head-money for one whole regiment,
+with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line rates this worked
+out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not bad!"
+
+"But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their patent
+bridge to pieces," Devine interpolated. "That was a swindle."
+
+"That's true," the Boy went on, "but the Adjustment Committee gave our
+helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred to hear."
+
+"But isn't there a lot of unfairness in this head-money system?" I asked.
+
+"Can't have everything perfect," said the Boy. "Head-money is an attempt
+at payment by results, and it gives the men a direct interest in their
+job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C. will disallow both
+sides' claim, but there's always the chance of bringing off a coup."
+
+"Do all regiments do it?"
+
+"Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence, not
+to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It isn't
+supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than anyone.
+Why, the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at Aldershot or
+Salisbury."
+
+"Head-money's a national institution--like betting," said Burgard.
+
+"I should say it was," said Pigeon suddenly. "I was roped in the other
+day as an Adjustment Committee by the Kemptown Board School. I was riding
+under the Brighton racecourse, and I heard the whistle goin' for
+umpire--the regulation, two longs and two shorts. I didn't take any
+notice till an infant about a yard high jumped up from a furze-patch and
+shouted: 'Guard! Guard! Come 'ere! I want you _per_fessionally. Alf says
+'e ain't outflanked. Ain't 'e a liar? Come an' look 'ow I've posted my
+men.' You bet I looked. The young demon trotted by my stirrup and showed
+me his whole army (twenty of 'em) laid out under cover as nicely as you
+please round a cowhouse in a hollow. He kept on shouting: 'I've drew Alf
+into there. 'Is persition ain't tenable. Say it ain't tenable, Guard!' I
+rode round the position, and Alf with his army came out of his cowhouse
+an' sat on the roof and protested like a--like a Militia Colonel; but the
+facts were in favour of my friend and I umpired according. Well, Alf
+abode by my decision. I explained it to him at length, and he solemnly
+paid up his head-money--farthing points if you please."
+
+"Did they pay you umpire's fee?" said Kyd. "I
+umpired a whole afternoon once for a village school at home, and they
+stood me a bottle of hot ginger beer."
+
+"I compromised on a halfpenny--a sticky one--or I'd have hurt their
+feelings," said Pigeon gravely. "But I gave 'em sixpence back."
+
+"How were they manoeuvring and what with?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, by whistle and hand-signal. They had the dummy Board School guns and
+flags for positions, but they were rushing their attack much too quick
+for that open country. I told 'em so, and they admitted it."
+
+"But who taught 'em?" I said.
+
+"They had learned in their schools, of course, like the rest of us. They
+were all of 'em over ten; and squad-drill begins when they're eight. They
+knew their company-drill a heap better than they knew their King's
+English."
+
+"How much drill do the boys put in?" I asked.
+
+"All boys begin physical drill to music in the Board Schools when they're
+six; squad-drill, one hour a week, when they're eight; company-drill when
+they're ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between ten and twelve they
+get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle at twelve and record
+their first target-score at thirteen. That's what the Code lays down. But
+it's worked very loosely so long as a boy comes up to the standard of his
+age."
+
+"In Canada we don't need your physical drill. We're born fit," said
+Pigeon, "and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of your
+twelve-year-olds."
+
+"I may as well explain," said the Boy, "that the Dove is our 'swop'
+officer. He's an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when he's at home. An
+I. G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a Canadian or
+Australian or African Guard Corps. We've had a year of our Dove, an' we
+shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride. Meantime,
+Morten, our 'swop' in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck humble. When
+Pij. goes we shall swop Kyd, who's next on the roster, for a Cornstalk or
+a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can't attend First Camp, as
+we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First Musketry
+certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and the boys
+usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they've been to
+their little private camps and Boys' Fresh Air Camps and public school
+picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the young
+drafts all meet--generally at Aldershot in this part of the world. First
+Camp lasts a week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for
+vaccination and worked lightly in brigades with lots of blank cartridge.
+Second Camp--that's for the fifteen to eighteen-year-olds--lasts ten days
+or a fortnight, and that includes a final medical examination. Men don't
+like to be chucked out on medical certificates much--nowadays. I assure
+you Second Camp, at Salisbury, say, is an experience for a young I.G.
+officer. We're told off to 'em in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys isn't
+in it. The kids are apt to think 'emselves soldiers, and we have to take
+the edge off 'em with lots of picquet-work and night attacks."
+
+"And what happens after Second Camp?"
+
+"It's hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically, the
+boys needn't show up for the next three or four years after Second Camp.
+They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the young
+doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that sticks to
+the minimum of camp--ten days per annum. That gives him a holiday in the
+open air, and now that men have taken to endowing their Volunteer
+drill-halls with baths and libraries, he finds, if he can't run to a
+club, that his own drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He meets men
+there who'll be useful to him later, and he keeps himself in touch with
+what's going on while he's studying for his profession. The
+town-birds--such as the chemist's assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic,
+electrician, and so forth--generally put in for their town Volunteer
+corps as soon as they begin to walk out with the girls. They like takin'
+their true-loves to our restaurants. Look yonder!" I followed his gaze,
+and saw across the room a man and a maid at a far table, forgetting in
+each other's eyes the good food on their plates.
+
+"So it is," said I. "Go ahead."
+
+"Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out to
+attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of 'em on
+condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their county.
+Under the new county qualifications--birth or three years' residence--that
+means a great deal in League matches, and the same in County cricket."
+
+"By Jove, that's a good notion," I cried. "Who invented it?"
+
+"C. B. Fry--long ago. He said in his paper, that County cricket and
+County volunteering ought to be on the same footing--unpaid and genuine.
+'No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer' was his watchword. There
+was a row among the pro's at first, but C. B. won, and later the League
+had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when
+County matches began to be _pukka_ county, _plus_ inter-regimental,
+affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the
+regiments supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in cash.
+It's all unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call 'em, can
+take their pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten guineas
+entrance-fee, and get it too, from the young bloods that want to shine in
+the arena. I told you we catered for all tastes. Now, as regards the Line
+proper, I believe the young artisan and mechanic puts in for that before
+he marries. He likes the two-months' 'heef' in his first year, and five
+bob a week is something to go on with between times."
+
+"Do they follow their trade while they're in the Line?" I demanded.
+
+"Why not? How many well-paid artisans work more than four days a week
+anyhow? Remember a Linesman hasn't to be drilled in your sense of the
+word. He must have had at least eight years' grounding in that, as well
+as two or three years in his Volunteer battalion. He can sleep where he
+pleases. He can't leave town-limits without reporting himself, of course,
+but he can get leave if he wants it. He's on duty two days in the week as
+a rule, and he's liable to be invited out for garrison duty down the
+Mediterranean, but his benefit societies will insure him against that.
+I'll tell you about that later. If it's a hard winter and trade's slack,
+a lot of the bachelors are taken into the I. G. barracks (while the I. G.
+is out on the heef) for theoretical instruction. Oh, I assure you the
+Line hasn't half a bad time of it."
+
+"Amazing!" I murmured. "And what about the others?"
+
+"The Volunteers? Observe the beauty of our system. We're a free people.
+We get up and slay the man who says we aren't. But as a little detail we
+never mention, if we don't volunteer in some corps or another--as
+combatants if we're fit, as non-combatants, if we ain't--till we're
+thirty-five we don't vote, and we don't get poor-relief, and the women
+don't love us."
+
+"Oh, that's the compulsion of it?" said I.
+
+Bayley inclined his head gravely. "That, Sir, is the compulsion. We voted
+the legal part of it ourselves in a fit of panic, and we have not yet
+rescinded our resolution. The women attend to the unofficial penalties.
+But being free British citizens----"
+
+"_And_ snobs," put in Pigeon.
+"The point is well taken, Pij------we have supplied ourselves with every
+sort and shape and make of Volunteer corps that you can imagine, and we've
+mixed the whole show up with our Odd Fellows and our I.O.G.T.'s and our
+Buffaloes, and our Burkes and our Debretts, not to mention Leagues and
+Athletic Clubs, till you can't tell t'other from which. You remember the
+young pup who used to look on soldiering as a favour done to his
+ungrateful country--the gun-poking, ferret-pettin', landed gentleman's
+offspring--the suckin' Facey Romford? Well, he generally joins a Foreign
+Service Corps when he leaves college."
+
+"Can Volunteers go foreign, then?"
+
+"Can't they just, if their C.O. _or_ his wife has influence! The Armity
+will always send a well-connected F.S. corps out to help a guard battalion
+in a small campaign. Otherwise F.S. corps make their own arrangements
+about camps. You see, the Military Areas are always open. They can 'heef'
+there (and gamble on head-money) as long as their finances run to it; or
+they can apply to do sea-time in the ships. It's a cheap way for a young
+man to see the world, and if he's any good he can try to get into the
+Guard later."
+
+"The main point," said Pigeon, "is that F.S. corps are 'swagger'--the
+correct thing. It 'ud never do to be drawn for the Militia, don't you
+know," he drawled, trying to render the English voice.
+
+"That's what happens to a chap who doesn't volunteer," said Bayley. "Well,
+after the F.S. corps (we've about forty of 'em) come our territorial
+Volunteer battalions, and a man who can't suit himself somewhere among 'em
+must be a shade difficult. We've got those 'League' corps I was talking
+about; and those studious corps that just scrape through their ten days'
+camp; and we've crack corps of highly-paid mechanics who can afford a two
+months' 'heef' in an interesting Area every other year; and we've senior
+and junior scientific corps of earnest boilermakers and fitters and
+engineers who read papers on high explosives, and do their 'heefing' in a
+wet picket-boat--mine-droppin'--at the ports. Then we've heavy artillery--
+recruited from the big manufacturing towns and ship-building yards--and
+ferocious hard-ridin' Yeomanry (they _can_ ride--now), genteel, semi-
+genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till you come to the
+Home Defence Establishment--the young chaps knocked out under medical
+certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit behind hedges or
+clean up camp, and the old was-birds who've served their time but don't
+care to drop out of the fun of the yearly camps and the halls. They call
+'emselves veterans and do fancy-shooting at Bisley, but, between you and
+me, they're mostly Fresh Air Benefit Clubs. They contribute to the
+Volunteer journals and tell the Guard that it's no good. But I like 'em. I
+shall be one of 'em some day--a copper-nosed was-bird! ... So you see
+we're mixed to a degree on the Volunteer side."
+
+"It sounds that way," I ventured.
+
+"You've overdone it, Bayley," said Devine. "You've missed our one strong
+point." He turned to me and continued: "It's embarkation. The Volunteers
+may be as mixed as the Colonel says, but they _are_ trained to go down to
+the sea in ships. You ought to see a big Bank-Holiday roll-out. We suspend
+most of the usual railway traffic and turn on the military time-table--say
+on Friday at midnight. By 4 A.M. the trains are running from every big
+centre in England to the nearest port at two-minute intervals. As a rule,
+the Armity meets us at the other end with shipping of sorts--fleet
+reserves or regular men of war or hulks--anything you can stick a
+gang-plank to. We pile the men on to the troop-decks, stack the rifles in
+the racks, send down the sea-kit, steam about for a few hours, and land
+'em somewhere. It's a good notion, because our army to be any use _must_
+be an army of embarkation. Why, last Whit Monday we had--how many were
+down at the dock-edge in the first eight hours? Kyd, you're the Volunteer
+enthusiast last from school."
+
+"In the first ten hours over a hundred and eighteen thousand," said Kyd
+across the table, "with thirty-six thousand actually put in and taken out
+of ship. In the whole thirty-six hours we had close on ninety thousand men
+on the water and a hundred and thirty-three thousand on the quays fallen
+in with their sea-kit."
+
+"That must have been a sight," I said.
+
+"One didn't notice it much. It was scattered between Chatham, Dover,
+Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, and so on, merely to give the
+inland men a chance to get rid of their breakfasts. We don't like to
+concentrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the
+Continent jumpy. Otherwise," said Kyd, "I believe we could get two hundred
+thousand men, with their kits, away on one tide."
+
+"What d'you want with so many?" I asked.
+
+"_We_ don't want one of 'em; but the Continent used to point out, every
+time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier than to raid
+England if they got command of the sea for a week. After a few years some
+genius discovered that it cut both ways, an' there was no reason why we,
+who are supposed to command the sea and own a few ships, should not
+organise our little raids in case of need. The notion caught on among the
+Volunteers--they were getting rather sick of manoeuvres on dry land--and
+since then we haven't heard so much about raids from the Continent," said
+Bayley.
+
+"It's the offensive-defensive," said Verschoyle, "that they talk so much
+about. We learned it _all_ from the Continent--bless 'em! They insisted on
+it so."
+
+"No, we learned it from the Fleet," said Devine. "The Mediterranean Fleet
+landed ten thousand marines and sailors, with guns, in twenty minutes once
+at manoeuvres. That was long ago. I've seen the Fleet Reserve and a few
+paddle-steamers, hired for the day, land twenty-five thousand Volunteers
+at Bantry in four hours--half the men sea-sick too. You've no notion what
+a difference that sort of manoeuvre makes in the calculations of our
+friends on the mainland. The Continent knows what invasion means. It's
+like dealing with a man whose nerve has been shaken. It doesn't cost much
+after all, and it makes us better friends with the great European family.
+We're now as thick as thieves."
+
+"Where does the Imperial Guard come in in all this gorgeousness?" I asked.
+"You're unusual modest about yourselves."
+
+"As a matter of fact, we're supposed to go out and stay out. We're the
+permanently mobilised lot. I don't think there are more than eight I.G.
+battalions in England now. We're a hundred battalions all told. Mostly on
+the 'heef' in India, Africa and so forth."
+
+"A hundred thousand. Isn't that small allowance?" I suggested.
+
+"You think so? One hundred thousand _men_, without a single case of
+venereal, and an average sick list of two per cent, permanently on a war
+footing? Well, perhaps you're right, but it's a useful little force to
+begin with while the others are getting ready. There's the native Indian
+Army also, which isn't a broken reed, and, since 'no Volunteer no Vote' is
+the rule throughout the Empire, you will find a few men in Canada,
+Australia, and elsewhere, that are fairly hefty in their class."
+
+"But a hundred thousand isn't enough for garrison duty," I persisted.
+
+"A hundred thousand _sound_ men, not sick boys, go quite a way," said
+Pigeon.
+
+"We expect the Line to garrison the Mediterranean Ports and thereabouts,"
+said Bayley. "Don't sneer at the mechanic. He's deuced good stuff. He
+isn't rudely ordered out, because this ain't a military despotism, and we
+have to consider people's feelings. The Armity usually brackets three Line
+regiments together, and calls for men for six months or a year for Malta,
+Gib, or elsewhere, at a bob a day. Three battalions will give you nearly a
+whole battalion of bachelors between 'em. You fill up deficiencies with a
+call on the territorial Volunteer battalion, and away you go with what we
+call a Ports battalion. What's astonishing in that? Remember that in this
+country, where fifty per cent of the able-bodied males have got a pretty
+fair notion of soldiering, and, which is more, have all camped out in the
+open, you wake up the spirit of adventure in the young."
+
+"Not much adventure at Malta, Gib, or Cyprus," I retorted. "Don't they get
+sick of it?"
+
+"But you don't realise that we treat 'em rather differently from the
+soldier of the past. You ought to go and see a Ports battalion drawn from
+a manufacturing centre growin' vines in Cyprus in its shirt sleeves; and
+at Gib, and Malta, of course, the battalions are working with the Fleet
+half the time."
+
+"It seems to me," I said angrily, "you are knocking _esprit de corps_ on
+the head with all this Army-Navy jumble. It's as bad as----"
+
+"I know what you're going to say. As bad as what Kitchener used to do when
+he believed that a thousand details picked up on the veldt were as good as
+a column of two regiments. In the old days, when drill was a sort of holy
+sacred art learned in old age, you'd be quite right. But remember _our_
+chaps are broke to drill from childhood, and the theory we work on is that
+a thousand trained Englishmen ought to be about as good as another
+thousand trained Englishmen. We've enlarged our horizon, that's all. Some
+day the Army and the Navy will be interchangeable."
+
+"You've enlarged it enough to fall out of, I think. Now where in all this
+mess of compulsory Volunteers----?"
+
+"My dear boy, there's no compulsion. You've _got_ to be drilled when
+you're a child, same as you've got to learn to read, and if you don't
+pretend to serve in some corps or other till you're thirty-five or
+medically chucked you rank with lunatics, women, and minors. That's fair
+enough."
+
+"Compulsory conscripts," I continued. "Where, as I was going to say, does
+the Militia come in?"
+
+"As I have said--for the men who can't afford volunteering. The Militia is
+recruited by ballot--pretty comprehensively too. Volunteers are exempt,
+but most men not otherwise accounted for are bagged by the Militia. They
+have to put in a minimum three weeks' camp every other year, and they get
+fifteen bob a week and their keep when they're at it, and some sort of a
+yearly fee, I've forgotten how much. 'Tisn't a showy service, but it's
+very useful. It keeps the mass of the men between twenty-five, say, and
+thirty-five moderately fit, and gives the Armity an excuse for having more
+equipment ready--in case of emergencies."
+
+"I don't think you're quite fair on the Militia," drawled Verschoyle.
+"They're better than we give 'em credit for. Don't you remember the Middle
+Moor Collieries' strike?"
+
+"Tell me," I said quickly. Evidently the others knew.
+
+"We-ell, it was no end of a pitman's strike about eight years ago. There
+were twenty-five thousand men involved--Militia, of course. At the end of
+the first month--October--when things were looking rather blue, one of
+those clever Labour leaders got hold of the Militia Act and discovered
+that any Militia regiment could, by a two-thirds vote, go on 'heef' in a
+Military Area in addition to its usual biennial camp. Two-and-twenty
+battalions of Geordies solemnly applied, and they were turned loose into
+the Irish and Scotch Areas under an I.G. Brigadier who had private
+instructions to knock clinkers out of 'em. But the pitman is a strong and
+agile bird. He throve on snowdrifts and entrenching and draggin' guns
+through heather. _He_ was being fed and clothed for nothing, besides
+having a chance of making head-money, and his strike-pay was going clear
+to his wife and family. You see? Wily man. But wachtabittje! When that
+'heef' finished in December the strike was still on. _Then_ that same
+Labour leader found out, from the same Act, that if at any time more than
+thirty or forty men of a Militia regiment wished to volunteer to do
+sea-time and study big guns in the Fleet they were in no wise to be
+discouraged, but were to be taken on as opportunity offered and paid a bob
+a day. Accordingly, about January, Geordie began volunteering for sea-
+time--seven and eight hundred men out of each regiment. Anyhow, it made up
+seventeen thousand men! It was a splendid chance and the Armity jumped at
+it. The Home and Channel Fleets and the North Sea and Cruiser Squadrons
+were strengthened with lame ducks from the Fleet Reserve, and between 'em
+with a little stretching and pushing they accommodated all of that young
+division."
+
+"Yes, but you've forgotten how we lied to the Continent about it. All
+Europe wanted to know what the dooce we were at," said Boy Bayley, "and
+the wretched Cabinet had to stump the country in the depths of winter
+explaining our new system of poor-relief. I beg your pardon, Verschoyle."
+
+"The Armity improvised naval manoeuvres between Gib and Land's End, with
+frequent coalings and landings; ending in a cruise round England that
+fairly paralysed the pitmen. The first day out they wanted the fleet
+stopped while they went ashore and killed their Labour leader, but they
+couldn't be obliged. Then they wanted to mutiny over the coaling--it was
+too like their own job. Oh, they had a lordly timel They came back--the
+combined Fleets anchored off Hull--with a nautical hitch to their
+breeches. They'd had a free fight at Gib with the Ports battalion there;
+they cleared out the town of Lagos; and they'd fought a pitched battle
+with the dockyard-mateys at Devonport. So they'd done 'emselves well, but
+they didn't want any more military life for a bit."
+
+"And the strike?"
+
+"That ended, all right enough, when the strike-money came to an end. The
+pit-owners were furious. They said the Armity had wilfully prolonged the
+strike, and asked questions in the House. The Armity said that they had
+taken advantage of the crisis to put a six months' polish on fifteen
+thousand fine young men, and if the masters cared to come out on the same
+terms they'd be happy to do the same by them."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Palaver done set," said Bayley. "Everybody laughed."
+
+"I don't quite understand about this sea-time business," I said. "Is the
+Fleet open to take any regiment aboard?"
+
+"Rather. The I.G. must, the Line can, the Militia may, and the Volunteers
+do put in sea-time. The Coast Volunteers began it, and the fashion is
+spreading inland. Under certain circumstances, as Verschoyle told you, a
+Volunteer or Militia regiment can vote whether it 'heefs' wet or dry. If
+it votes wet and has influence (like some F.S. corps), it can sneak into
+the Channel or the Home Fleet and do a cruise round England or to Madeira
+or the North Sea. The regiment, of course, is distributed among the ships,
+and the Fleet dry nurse 'em. It rather breaks up shore discipline, but it
+gives the inland men a bit of experience, and, of course, it gives us a
+fairish supply of men behind the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet.
+Some coast corps make a specialty of it, and compete for embarking and
+disembarking records. I believe some of the Tyneside engineerin' corps put
+ten per cent of their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there's no
+need to stay talking here all the afternoon. Come and see the I.G. in his
+lair--the miserable conscript driven up to the colours at the point of the
+bayonet."
+
+PART II
+
+The great hall was emptying apace as the clocks struck two, and we passed
+out through double doors into a huge reading and smoking room, blue with
+tobacco and buzzing with voices.
+
+"We're quieter as a rule," said the Boy. "But we're filling up vacancies
+to-day. Hence the anxious faces of the Line and Militia. Look!" There were
+four tables against the walls, and at each stood a crowd of uniforms. The
+centres of disturbance were noncommissioned officers who, seated, growled
+and wrote down names.
+
+"Come to my table," said Burgard. "Well, Purvis, have you ear-marked our
+little lot?"
+
+"I've been tellin' 'em for the last hour we've only twenty-three
+vacancies," was the sergeant's answer. "I've taken nearly fifty for
+Trials, and this is what's left." Burgard smiled.
+
+"I'm very sorry," he said to the crowd, "but C Company's full."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir," said a man, "but wouldn't sea-time count in my favour?
+I've put in three months with the Fleet. Small quick-firers, Sir? Company
+guns? Any sort of light machinery?"
+
+"Come away," said a voice behind. "They've chucked the best farrier
+between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they'll take _you_ an' your potty quick-
+firers?"
+
+The speaker turned on his heel and swore.
+
+"Oh, damn the Guard, by all means!" said Sergeant Purvis, collecting his
+papers. "D'you suppose it's any pleasure to _me_ to reject chaps of your
+build and make? Vote us a second Guard battalion and we'll accommodate
+you. Now, you can come into Schools and watch Trials if you like."
+
+Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily. I
+followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a riding-
+school, under whose roof the voices of the few hundred assembled wandered
+in lost echoes.
+
+"I'll leave you, if you don't mind," said Burgard. "Company officers
+aren't supposed to assist at these games. Here, Matthews!" He called to a
+private and put me in his charge.
+
+In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of
+stripped men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.
+
+"These are our crowd," said Matthews. "They've been vetted, an' we're
+putting 'em through their paces."
+
+"They don't look a bit like raw material," I said.
+
+"No, we don't use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the
+Guard," Matthews replied. "Life's too short."
+
+Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was
+physical drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his hand
+over some man's heart.
+
+Six or seven, I noticed, were sent back at this stage of the game. Then a
+cry went up from a group of privates standing near the line of contorted
+figures. "White, Purvis, white! Number Nine is spitting white!"
+
+"I know it," said Purvis. "Don't you worry."
+
+"Unfair!" murmured the man who understood quick-firers. "If I couldn't
+shape better than that I'd hire myself out to wheel a perambulator. He's
+cooked."
+
+"Nah," said the intent Matthews. "He'll answer to a month's training like
+a horse. It's only suet. _You've_ been training for this, haven't you?"
+
+"Look at me," said the man simply.
+
+"Yes. You're overtrained," was Matthews' comment. "The Guard isn't a
+circus."
+
+"Guns!" roared Purvis, as the men broke off and panted. "Number off from
+the right. Fourteen is one, three is two, eleven's three, twenty and
+thirty-nine are four and five, and five is six." He was giving them their
+numbers at the guns as they struggled into their uniforms. In like manner
+he told off three other guncrews, and the remainder left at the double, to
+return through the further doors with four light quick-firers jerking at
+the end of man-ropes.
+
+"Knock down and assemble against time!" Purvis called.
+
+The audience closed in a little as the crews flung themselves on the guns,
+which melted, wheel by wheel, beneath their touch.
+
+"I've never seen anything like this," I whispered.
+
+"Huh!" said Matthews scornfully. "They're always doin' it in the Line and
+Militia drill-halls. It's only circus-work."
+
+The guns were assembled again and some one called the time. Then followed
+ten minutes of the quickest firing and feeding with dummy cartridges that
+was ever given man to behold.
+
+"They look as if they might amount to something--this draft," said
+Matthews softly.
+
+"What might you teach 'em after this, then?" I asked.
+
+"To be Guard," said Matthews.
+
+"Spurs," cried Purvis, as the guns disappeared through the doors into the
+stables. Each man plucked at his sleeve, and drew up first one heel and
+then the other.
+
+"What the deuce are they doing?" I asked.
+
+"This," said Matthews. He put his hand to a ticket-pocket inside his
+regulation cuff, showed me two very small black box-spurs: drawing up a
+gaitered foot, he snapped them into the box in the heel, and when I had
+inspected snapped them out again.
+
+"That's all the spur you really need," he said.
+
+Then horses were trotted out into the school barebacked, and the neophytes
+were told to ride.
+
+Evidently the beasts knew the game and enjoyed it, for they would not make
+it easy for the men.
+
+A heap of saddlery was thrown in a corner, and from this each man, as he
+captured his mount, made shift to draw proper equipment, while the
+audience laughed, derided, or called the horses towards them.
+
+It was, most literally, wild horseplay, and by the time it was finished
+the recruits and the company were weak with fatigue and laughter.
+
+"That'll do," said Purvis, while the men rocked in their saddles. "I don't
+see any particular odds between any of you. C Company! Does anybody here
+know anything against any of these men?"
+
+"That's a bit of the Regulations," Matthews whispered. "Just like
+forbiddin' the banns in church. Really, it was all settled long ago when
+the names first came up."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"You'll take 'em as they stand?"
+
+There was a grunt of assent.
+
+"Very good. There's forty men for twenty-three billets." He turned to the
+sweating horsemen. "I must put you into the Hat."
+
+With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not follow,
+an enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which numbers and
+blanks were dropped, and the whole was handed round to the riders by a
+private, evidently the joker of C Company.
+
+Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished
+receptacle (sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the final
+drawing. He was telling me how his company had once stolen the Sacred
+Article used by D Company for this purpose and of the riot that followed,
+when through the west door of the schools entered a fresh detachment of
+stripped men, and the arena was flooded with another company.
+
+Said Matthews as we withdrew, "Each company does Trials their own way. B
+Company is all for teaching men how to cook and camp. D Company keeps 'em
+to horse-work mostly. We call D the circus-riders and B the cooks. They
+call us the Gunners."
+
+"An' you've rejected _me_," said the man who had done sea-time, pushing
+out before us. "The Army's goin' to the dogs."
+
+I stood in the corridor looking for Burgard.
+
+"Come up to my room and have a smoke," said Matthews, private of the
+Imperial Guard.
+
+We climbed two flights of stone stairs ere we reached an immense landing
+flanked with numbered doors.
+
+Matthews pressed a spring-latch and led me into a little cabin-like room.
+The cot was a standing bunk, with drawers beneath. On the bed lay a
+brilliant blanket; by the bed head was an electric light and a shelf of
+books: a writing table stood in the window, and I dropped into a low
+wicker chair.
+
+"This is a cut above subaltern's quarters," I said, surveying the photos,
+the dhurri on the floor, the rifle in its rack, the field-kit hung up
+behind the door, and the knicknacks on the walls.
+
+"The Line bachelors use 'em while we're away; but they're nice to come
+back to after 'heef.'" Matthews passed me his cigarette-case.
+
+"Where have you 'heefed'?" I said.
+
+"In Scotland, Central Australia, and North-Eastern Rhodesia and the North-
+West Indian front."
+
+"What's your service?"
+
+"Four years. I'll have to go in a year. I got in when I was twenty-two--by
+a fluke--from the Militia direct--on Trials."
+
+"Trials like those we just saw?"
+
+"Not so severe. There was less competition then. I hoped to get my
+stripes, but there's no chance."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I haven't the knack of handling men. Purvis let me have a half-company
+for a month in Rhodesia--over towards Lake N'Garni. I couldn't work 'em
+properly. It's a gift."
+
+"Do colour-sergeants handle half-companies with you?"
+
+"They can command 'em on the 'heef.' We've only four company officers--
+Burgard, Luttrell, Kyd, and Harrison. Pigeon's our swop, and he's in
+charge of the ponies. Burgard got his company on the 'heef,' You see
+Burgard had been a lieutenant in the Line, but he came into the Guards on
+Trials like the men. _He_ could command. They tried him in India with a
+wing of the battalion for three months. He did well so he got his company.
+That's what made me hopeful. But it's a gift, you see--managing men--and
+so I'm only a senior private. They let ten per cent of us stay on for two
+years extra after our three are finished--to polish the others."
+
+"Aren't you even a corporal?"
+
+"We haven't corporals, or lances for that matter, in the Guard. As a
+senior private I'd take twenty men into action; but one Guard don't tell
+another how to clean himself. You've learned that before you apply. ...
+Come in!"
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Burgard entered, removing his cap.
+
+"I thought you'd be here," he said, as Matthews vacated the other chair
+and sat on the bed. "Well, has Matthews told you all about it? How did our
+Trials go, Matthews?"
+
+"Forty names in the Hat, Sir, at the finish. They'll make a fairish lot.
+Their gun-tricks weren't bad; but D company has taken the best horsemen--
+as usual."
+
+"Oh, I'll attend to that on 'heef.' Give me a man who can handle company-
+guns and I'll engage to make him a horse-master. D company will end by
+thinkin' 'emselves Captain Pigeon's private cavalry some day."
+
+I had never heard a private and a captain talking after this fashion, and
+my face must have betrayed my astonishment, for Burgard said:
+
+"These are not our parade manners. In our rooms, as we say in the Guard,
+all men are men. Outside we are officers and men."
+
+"I begin to see," I stammered. "Matthews was telling me that sergeants
+handled half-companies and rose from the ranks--and I don't see that there
+are any lieutenants--and your companies appear to be two hundred and fifty
+strong. It's a shade confusing to the layman."
+
+Burgard leaned forward didactically. "The Regulations lay down that every
+man's capacity for command must be tested to the uttermost. We construe
+that very literally when we're on the 'heef.' F'r instance, any man can
+apply to take the command next above him, and if a man's too shy to ask,
+his company officer must see that he gets his chance. A sergeant is given
+a wing of the battalion to play with for three weeks--a month, or six
+weeks--according to his capacity, and turned adrift in an Area to make his
+own arrangements. That's what Areas are for--and to experiment in. A good
+gunner--a private very often--has all four company-guns to handle through
+a week's fight, acting for the time as the major. Majors of Guard
+battalions (Verschoyle's our major) are supposed to be responsible for the
+guns, by the way. There's nothing to prevent any man who has the gift
+working his way up to the experimental command of the battalion on 'heef.'
+Purvis, my colour-sergeant, commanded the battalion for three months at
+the back of Coolgardie, an' very well he did it. Bayley 'verted to company
+officer for the time being an' took Harrison's company, and Harrison came
+over to me as my colour-sergeant. D'you see? Well, Purvis is down for a
+commission when there's a vacancy. He's been thoroughly tested, and we all
+like him. Two other sergeants have passed that three months' trial in the
+same way (just as second mates go up for extra master's certificate). They
+have E.C. after their names in the Army List. That shows they're capable
+of taking command in event of war. The result of our system is that you
+could knock out every single officer of a Guard battalion early in the
+day, and the wheels 'ud still go forward, _not_ merely round. We're
+allowed to fill up half our commissioned list from the ranks direct. _Now_
+d'you see why there's such a rush to get into a Guard battalion?"
+
+"Indeed I do. Have you commanded the regiment experimentally?"
+
+"Oh, time and again," Burgard laughed. "We've all had our E.C. turn."
+
+"Doesn't the chopping and changing upset the men?"
+
+"It takes something to upset the Guard. Besides, they're all in the game
+together. They give each other a fair show you may be sure."
+
+"That's true," said Matthews. "When I went to N'Gami with my--with the
+half-company," he sighed, "they helped me all they knew. But it's a gift--
+handling men. I found _that_ out,"
+
+"I know you did," said Burgard softly. "But you found it out in time,
+which is the great thing. You see," he turned to me, "with our limited
+strength we can't afford to have a single man who isn't more than up to
+any duty--in reason. Don't you be led away by what you saw at Trials just
+now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the monkey-tricks of the
+trade--such as mounting and dismounting guns, and making fancy scores and
+doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up before they can
+pull their weight in the boat."
+
+There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it and
+smiled.
+
+"Bayley wants to know if you'd care to come with us to the Park and see
+the kids. It's only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the
+taxpayer.... Very good. If you'll press the button we'll try to do the
+rest."
+
+He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a
+platform, not unlike a ship's bridge, immediately above the barrelled
+glass roof of the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could see B
+Company far below watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard unlocked a
+glass-fronted fire-alarm arrangement flanked with dials and speaking-
+tubes, and bade me press the centre button.
+
+Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he had
+not caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the
+multiplied purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished like
+minnows before a shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on staircases
+I heard the neighing of many horses.
+
+"What in the world have I done?" I gasped.
+
+"Turned out the Guard--horse, foot, and guns!"
+
+A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:
+
+"Yes, Sir.... _What_, Sir?... I never heard they said that," he laughed,
+"but it would be just like 'em. In an hour and a half? Yes, Sir. Opposite
+the Statue? Yes, Sir."
+
+He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.
+
+"Bayley's playing up for you. Now you'll see some fun."
+
+"Who's going to catch it?" I demanded.
+
+"Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that
+it's _en �tat de partir_, and Bayley's going to take him at his word and
+have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their
+drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the mansard
+roof!"
+
+He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the building
+to the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the flagstaff that
+crowned it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black storm-cone followed.
+
+"Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir," said Burgard down the
+telephone. "Now we'd better go to the riding-school. The battalion falls
+in there. I have to change, but you're free of the corps. Go anywhere. Ask
+anything. In another ten minutes we're off."
+
+I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of houses
+and the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open windows of
+this dial-dotted eyrie.
+
+When I descended the halls and corridors were as hushed as they had been
+noisy, and my feet echoed down the broad tiled staircases. On the third
+floor, Matthews, gaitered and armed, overtook me smiling.
+
+"I thought you might want a guide," said he. "We've five minutes yet," and
+piloted me to the sunsplashed gloom of the riding-school. Three companies
+were in close order on the tan. They moved out at a whistle, and as I
+followed in their rear I was overtaken by Pigeon on a rough black mare.
+
+"Wait a bit," he said, "till the horses are all out of stables, and come
+with us. D Company is the only one mounted just now. We do it to amuse the
+taxpayer," he explained, above the noise of horses on the tan.
+
+"Where are the guns?" I asked, as the mare lipped my coat-collar.
+
+"Gone ahead long ago. They come out of their own door at the back of
+barracks. We don't haul guns through traffic more than we can help.... If
+Belinda breathes down your neck smack her. She'll be quiet in the streets.
+She loves lookin' into the shop-windows."
+
+The mounted company clattered through vaulted concrete corridors in the
+wake of the main body, and filed out into the crowded streets.
+
+When I looked at the townsfolk on the pavement, or in the double-decked
+trams, I saw that the bulk of them saluted, not grudgingly or of
+necessity, but in a light-hearted, even flippant fashion.
+
+"Those are Line and Militia men," said Pigeon. "That old chap in the
+top-hat by the lamp-post is an ex-Guardee. That's why he's saluting in
+slow-time. No, there's no regulation governing these things, but we've all
+fallen into the way of it somehow. Steady, mare!"
+
+"I don't know whether I care about this aggressive militarism," I began,
+when the company halted, and Belinda almost knocked me down. Looking
+forward I saw the badged cuff of a policeman upraised at a crossing, his
+back towards us.
+
+"Horrid aggressive, ain't we?" said Pigeon with a chuckle when we moved on
+again and overtook the main body. Here I caught the strains of the band,
+which Pigeon told me did not accompany the battalion on 'heef,' but lived
+in barracks and made much money by playing at parties in town.
+
+"If we want anything more than drums and fifes on 'heef' we sing," said
+Pigeon. "Singin' helps the wind."
+
+I rejoiced to the marrow of my bones thus to be borne along on billows of
+surging music among magnificent men, in sunlight, through a crowded town
+whose people, I could feel, regarded us with comradeship, affection--and
+more.
+
+"By Jove," I said at last, watching the eyes about us, "these people are
+looking us over as if we were horses."
+
+"Why not? They know the game."
+
+The eyes on the pavement, in the trams, the cabs, at the upper windows,
+swept our lines back and forth with a weighed intensity of regard which at
+first seemed altogether new to me, till I recalled just such eyes, a
+thousand of them, at manoeuvres in the Channel when one crowded battleship
+drew past its sister at biscuit-toss range. Then I stared at the ground,
+overborne by those considering eyes.
+
+Suddenly the music changed to the wail of the Dead March in "Saul," and
+once more--we were crossing a large square--the regiment halted.
+
+"Damn!" said Pigeon, glancing behind him at the mounted company. "I
+believe they save up their Saturday corpses on purpose."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"A dead Volunteer. We must play him through." Again I looked forward and
+saw the top of a hearse, followed by two mourning-coaches, boring directly
+up the halted regiment, which opened out company by company to let it
+through.
+
+"But they've got the whole blessed square to funeralise in!" I exclaimed.
+"Why don't they go round?"
+
+"Not so!" Pigeon replied. "In this city it's the Volunteer's perquisite to
+be played through by any corps he happens to meet on his way to the
+cemetery. And they make the most of it. You'll see."
+
+I heard the order, "Rest on your arms," run before the poor little
+procession as the men opened out. The driver pulled the black Flanders
+beasts into a more than funeral crawl, and in the first mourning-coach I
+saw the tearful face of a fat woman (his mother, doubtless), a
+handkerchief pressed to one eye, but the other rolling vigilantly, alight
+with proper pride. Last came a knot of uniformed men--privates, I took it
+--of the dead one's corps.
+
+Said a man in the crowd beside us to the girl on his arm, "There, Jenny!
+That's what I'll get if I 'ave the luck to meet 'em when my time comes."
+
+"You an' your luck," she snapped. "'Ow can you talk such silly nonsense?"
+
+"Played through by the Guard," he repeated slowly. "The undertaker 'oo
+could guarantee _that_, mark you, for all his customers--well, 'e'd
+monopolise the trade, is all I can say. See the horses passagin'
+sideways!"
+
+"She done it a purpose," said the woman with a sniff.
+
+"An' I only hope you'll follow her example. Just as long as you think I'll
+keep, too."
+
+We reclosed when the funeral had left us twenty paces behind. A small boy
+stuck his head out of a carriage and watched us jealously.
+
+"Amazing! Amazing!" I murmured. "Is it regulation?"
+
+"No. Town-custom. It varies a little in different cities, but the people
+value being played through more than most things, I imagine. Duddell, the
+big Ipswich manufacturer--he's a Quaker--tried to bring in a bill to
+suppress it as unchristian." Pigeon laughed.
+
+"And?"
+
+"It cost him his seat next election. You see, we're all in the game."
+
+We reached the Park without further adventure, and found the four company-
+guns with their spike teams and single drivers waiting for us. Many people
+were gathered here, and we were halted, so far as I could see, that they
+might talk with the men in the ranks. The officers broke into groups.
+
+"Why on earth didn't you come along with me?" said Boy Bayley at my side.
+"I was expecting you."
+
+"Well, I had a delicacy about brigading myself with a colonel at the head
+of his regiment, so I stayed with the rear company and the horses. It's
+all too wonderful for any words. What's going to happen next?"
+
+"I've handed over to Verschoyle, who will amuse and edify the school
+children while I take you round our kindergarten. Don't kill any one, Vee.
+Are you goin' to charge 'em?"
+
+Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used to
+do at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn man.
+
+"Now!" Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding road
+towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park)
+perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the encircling
+rails leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women--the women
+outnumbering the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road flanking
+the common and disappear behind the trees.
+
+As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the ground
+inside the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform, armed and
+unarmed. I saw squads here, half-companies there; then three companies in
+an open space, wheeling with stately steps; a knot of drums and fifes near
+the railings unconcernedly slashing their way across popular airs; and a
+batch of gamins labouring through some extended attack destined to be
+swept aside by a corps crossing the ground at the double. They broke out
+of furze bushes, ducked over hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from
+hillocks and rough sandbanks till the eye wearied of their busy legs.
+
+Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of a
+freckled twelve-year-old near by.
+
+"What's your corps?" said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion to
+that child.
+
+"Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren't out
+to-day." Then, with a twinkle, "I go to First Camp next year."
+
+"What are those boys yonder--that squad at the double?"
+
+"Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir."
+
+"And that full company extending behind the three elms to the south-west?"
+
+"Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir."
+
+"Can you come with us?"
+
+"Certainly, Sir."
+
+"Here's the raw material at the beginning of the process," said Bayley to
+me.
+
+We strolled on towards the strains of "A Bicycle Built for Two," breathed
+jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some dozen infants
+with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging through the extension
+movements which that tune calls for. A stunted hawthorn overhung the
+little group, and from a branch a dirty white handkerchief flapped in the
+breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve
+as we came up.
+
+"We're all waiting for our big bruvvers," piped up one bold person in blue
+breeches--seven if he was a day.
+
+"It keeps 'em quieter, Sir," the maiden lisped. "The others are with the
+regiments."
+
+"Yeth, and they've all lots of blank for _you_," said the gentleman in
+blue breeches ferociously.
+
+"Oh, Artie! 'Ush!" the girl cried.
+
+"But why have they lots of blank for _us_?" Bayley asked. Blue Breeches
+stood firm.
+
+"'Cause--'cause the Guard's goin' to fight the Schools this afternoon; but
+my big bruvver says they'll be dam-well surprised."
+
+"_Artie!_" The girl leaped towards him. "You know your ma said I was to
+smack----"
+
+"Don't. Please don't," said Bayley, pink with suppressed mirth. "It was
+all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this. I've surprised his plan out
+of the mouths of babes and sucklings."
+
+"What plan?"
+
+"Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he told
+me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they're on to him
+already. He'll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!"
+
+Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to weep.
+
+"I didn't tell," he roared. "My big bruvver _he_ knew when he saw them go
+up the road..."
+
+"Never mind! Never mind, old man," said Bayley soothingly. "I'm not
+fighting to-day. It's all right."
+
+He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at
+feud over the spoil.
+
+"Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist," he chuckled. "We'll pull Vee's leg
+to-night."
+
+Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.
+
+"So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground," Bayley
+demanded.
+
+"Not for certain, Sir, but we're preparin' for the worst," he answered
+with a cheerful grin. "They allow the Schools a little blank ammunition
+after we've passed the third standard; and we nearly always bring it on to
+the ground of Saturdays."
+
+"The deuce you do! Why?"
+
+"On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They're always
+experimentin' upon us, Sir, comin' over from their ground an' developin'
+attacks on our flanks. Oh, it's chronic 'ere of a Saturday sometimes,
+unless you flag yourself."
+
+I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife
+band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a
+four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.
+
+"The attacks don't interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir," the boy
+explained. "That's a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools loading
+against time for a bet."
+
+We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was not
+etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the twenty-five
+pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly finished hoist
+and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe distance, when I
+became aware of a change among the scattered boys on the common, who
+disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of querulous whistles.
+A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to corps, and on their arrival
+each corps seemed to fade away.
+
+The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round
+them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley exploded
+afresh. "The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I wonder who's
+directin' 'em. Do _you_ know?"
+
+The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.
+
+"I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the
+road. 'E's our 'ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth
+District, is actin' as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most
+likely Mr. Levitt is commandin'."
+
+"How many corps are there here?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, bits of lots of 'em--thirty or forty, p'r'aps, Sir. But the whistles
+says they've all got to rally on the Board Schools. 'Ark! There's the
+whistle for the Private Schools! They've been called up the ground at the
+double."
+
+"Stop!" cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside the
+breech wiping their brows and panting.
+
+"Hullo! there's some attack on the Schools," said one. "Well, Marden, you
+owe me three half-crowns. I've beaten your record. Pay up."
+
+The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions
+melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets without
+once looking up.
+
+The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that I
+could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of blank
+in the distance.
+
+"The Saturday allowance," murmured Bayley. "War's begun, but it wouldn't
+be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my child?"
+
+"Nothin', Sir, only--only I don't think the Guard will be able to come
+through on so narrer a front, Sir. They'll all be jammed up be'ind the
+ridge if _we_'ve got there in time. It's awful sticky for guns at the end
+of our ground, Sir."
+
+"I'm inclined to think you're right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up:
+distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a pernicious
+amount of blank the kids seem to have!"
+
+It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the hillocks
+for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the "Cease Fire"
+over the ridge.
+
+"They've sent for the Umpires," the Board School boy squeaked, dancing on
+one foot. "You've been hung up, Sir. I--I thought the sand-pits 'ud stop
+you."
+
+Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat:
+"Well, that's enough for this afternoon. I'm off," and moved to the
+railings without even glancing towards the fray.
+
+"I anticipate the worst," said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.
+"Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!"
+
+The Guard was pouring over the ridge--a disorderly mob--horse, foot, and
+guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys
+cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the railings,
+and spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and waved
+handkerchiefs.
+
+Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. "We
+got 'em! We got 'em!" he squealed.
+
+The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into
+shape, coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.
+
+"Vee, Vee," said Bayley. "Give me back my legions. Well, I hope you're
+proud of yourself?"
+
+"The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too," Verschoyle
+replied. "I wish you'd seen that first attack on our flank. Rather
+impressive. Who warned 'em?"
+
+"I don't know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush breeches.
+Did they do well?"
+
+"Very decently indeed. I've complimented their C.O. and buttered the whole
+boiling." He lowered his voice. "As a matter o' fact, I halted five good
+minutes to give 'em time to get into position."
+
+"Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We sha'n't need the
+men for an hour, Vee."
+
+"Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!" cried Verschoyle, raising his voice,
+and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers left their
+men, people began to climb over the railings, and the regiment dissolved
+among the spectators and the school corps of the city.
+
+"No sense keeping men standing when you don't need 'em," said Bayley.
+"Besides, the Schools learn more from our chaps in an afternoon than they
+can pick up in a month's drill. Look at those Board-schoolmaster captains
+buttonholing old Purvis on the art of war!"
+
+"Wonder what the evening papers'll say about this," said Pigeon.
+
+"You'll know in half an hour," Burgard laughed. "What possessed you to
+take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?"
+
+"Pride. Silly pride," said the Canadian.
+
+We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a
+statue of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with
+pretty women, and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats.
+"This is distinctly social," I suggested to Kyd.
+
+"Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley'll sweat
+'em all the same."
+
+I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long sausage-
+shaped kit-bags. A band welcomed us with "A Life on the Ocean Wave."
+
+"What cheek!" muttered Verschoyle. "Give 'em beans, Bayley."
+
+"I intend to," said the Colonel, grimly. "Will each of you fellows take a
+company, please, and inspect 'em faithfully. '_En etat de partir_' is
+their little boast, remember. When you've finished you can give 'em a
+little pillow-fighting."
+
+"What does the single cannon on those men's sleeves mean?" I asked.
+
+"That they're big gun-men, who've done time with the Fleet," Bayley
+returned. "Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per cent big-gun men thinks
+itself entitled to play 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--when it's out of
+hearing of the Navy."
+
+"What beautiful stuff they are! What's their regimental average?"
+
+"It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and twenty-four
+years, age. What is it?" Bayley asked of a Private.
+
+"Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half," was the
+reply, and he added insolently, "_En  etat de partir_." Evidently that F.S.
+corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.
+
+"What about their musketry average?" I went on.
+
+"Not my pidgin," said Bayley. "But they wouldn't be in the corps a day if
+they couldn't shoot; I know _that_ much. Now I'm going to go through 'em
+for socks and slippers."
+
+The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from
+company to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per
+cent, at least, of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone
+through in detail.
+
+"What have they got jumpers and ducks for?" I asked of Harrison.
+
+"For Fleet work, of course. _En  etat de partir_ with an F. S. corps means
+they are amphibious."
+
+"Who gives 'em their kit--Government?"
+
+"There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It's the same
+as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one's pockets.
+How much does your kit cost you?"--this to the private in front of us.
+
+"About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose," was the answer.
+
+"Very good. Pack your bag--quick."
+
+The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag,
+lashed and tied it, and fell back.
+
+"Arms," said Harrison. "Strip and show ammunition."
+
+The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one
+wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate of
+the rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to Harrison with
+one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded belt.
+
+"What baby cartridges!" I exclaimed. "No bigger than bulletted breech-
+caps."
+
+"They're the regulation .256," said Harrison. "No one has complained of
+'em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive.... Empty your bottle, please,
+and show your rations."
+
+The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency tin.
+
+Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in which
+the man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles, asking no help
+from either side.
+
+"How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?" I asked him.
+
+"Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes," he smiled. "I didn't
+see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the Club."
+
+"Weren't a good many of you out of town?"
+
+"Not _this_ Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull through
+the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for foreign
+service.... You'd better stand back. We're going to pillow-fight."
+
+The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them
+variously, piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder to
+shoulder like buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.
+
+"What's the idea?" I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded behind him, was
+controlling the display. Many women had descended from the carriages, and
+were pressing in about us admiringly.
+
+"For one thing, it's a fair test of wind and muscle, and for another it
+saves time at the docks. We'll suppose this first company to be drawn up
+on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train. How would
+you get their kit into the ship?"
+
+"Fall 'em all in on the platform, march'em to the gangways," I answered,
+"and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the baggage and drunks
+in later."
+
+"Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know _that_
+game," Verschoyle drawled. "We don't play it any more. Look!"
+
+He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and breathing
+hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing his sixty-
+pound bag.
+
+"Pack away," cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can compare
+it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed along
+either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who passed,
+stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by the
+rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five minutes
+the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.
+
+"Of course on a trooper there'd be a company below stacking the kit away,"
+said Verschoyle, "but that wasn't so bad."
+
+"Bad!" I cried. "It was miraculous!"
+
+"Circus-work--all circus-work!" said Pigeon. "It won't prevent 'em bein'
+sick as dogs when the ship rolls." The crowd round us applauded, while the
+men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.
+
+A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.
+
+"Have we made good, Bayley?" he said. "Are we _en  etat de partir_?"
+
+"That's what I shall report," said Bayley, smiling.
+
+"I thought my bit o' French 'ud draw you," said the little man, rubbing
+his hands.
+
+"Who is he?" I whispered to Pigeon.
+
+"Ramsay--their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say he
+spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns till
+he came into his property."
+
+"Take 'em home an' make 'em drunk," I heard Bayley say. "I suppose you'll
+have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the officers of E
+company that I don't think much of them. I sha'n't report it, but their
+men were all over the shop."
+
+"Well, they're young, you see," Colonel Ramsay began.
+
+"You're quite right. Send 'em to me and I'll talk to 'em. Youth is the
+time to learn."
+
+"Six hundred a year," I repeated to Pigeon. "That must be an awful tax on
+a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days."
+
+"That's where you make your mistake," said Verschoyle. "In the old days a
+man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they weren't
+the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour of putting
+in drills, didn't they? And they were, most of 'em, the children we have
+to take over at Second Camp, weren't they? Well, now that a C. O. is sure
+of his _men_, now that he hasn't to waste himself in conciliating an'
+bribin', an' beerin' _kids_, he doesn't care what he spends on his corps,
+because every pound tells. Do you understand?"
+
+"I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed----"
+
+"And trained material at that," Pigeon put in. "Eight years in the
+schools, remember, as well as----"
+
+"Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That's as it should be," I
+said.
+
+"Bayly's saying the very same to those F. S. pups," said Verschoyle.
+
+The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the
+shoulder of each.
+
+"Yes, that's all doocid interesting," he growled paternally. "But you
+forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you're trebly bound
+to put a polish on 'em. You've let your company simply go to seed. Don't
+try and explain. I've told all those lies myself in my time. It's only
+idleness. _I_ know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow and I'll give you a
+wrinkle or two in barracks." He turned to me.
+
+"Suppose we pick up Vee's defeated legion and go home. You'll dine with us
+to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you're _en etat de partir_, right enough.
+You'd better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you want the corps
+sent foreign. I'm no politician."
+
+We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with sceptre,
+orb, and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the common,
+where the Guard battalion walked with the female of its species and the
+children of all its relatives. At sight of the officers the uniforms began
+to detach themselves and gather in companies. A Board School corps was
+moving off the ground, headed by its drums and fifes, which it assisted
+with song. As we drew nearer we caught the words, for they were launched
+with intention:--
+
+  'Oo is it mashes the country nurse?
+    The Guardsman!
+  'Oo is it takes the lydy's purse?
+    The Guardsman!
+  Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,
+  Batters a sovereign down on the bar,
+  Collars the change and says "Ta-ta!"
+    The Guardsman!
+
+"Why, that's one of old Jemmy Fawne's songs. I haven't heard it in ages,"
+I began.
+
+"Little devils!" said Pigeon.
+"Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports Edition!" a newsboy cried. "'Ere y'are,
+Captain. Defeat o' the Guard!"
+
+"I'll buy a copy," said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. "I must, to
+see how the Dove lost his mounted company." He unfolded the flapping sheet
+and we crowded round it.
+
+"'_Complete Rout of the Guard,_'" he read. "'_Too Narrow a Front._' That's
+one for you, Vee! '_Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._' Aha! '_The
+Schools Stand Fast._'"
+
+"Here's another version," said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. "'_To your
+tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._' Pij, were
+you scuppered by Jewboys?"
+
+"'_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_'" Bayley went on. "By Jove,
+there'll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!"
+
+"I'll never try to amuse the kids again," said the baited Verschoyle.
+"Children and newspapers are low things.... And I was hit on the nose by a
+wad, too! They oughtn't to be allowed blank ammunition!"
+
+So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the
+battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken
+over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum
+of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent
+above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago,
+when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.
+
+"A regular Sanna's Post, isn't it?" I said at last. "D'you remember, Vee--
+by the market-square--that night when the wagons went out?"
+
+Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we
+had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee
+himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the
+papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly, revealed to me the three-
+day old wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw
+Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of
+shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all
+in one jointless piece. Only old Vee's honest face held steady for awhile
+against the darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then
+his jaw dropped and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore
+the puffed and scornful nostril.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the
+evening papers on the table.
+
+
+
+
+"THEY"
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
+
+  Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged
+     races--
+  Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome;
+  Plucking the radiant robes of the passers by, and with pitiful faces
+  Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us
+     go home?"
+
+  Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
+  Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along
+     to the gateway--
+  Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
+  Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed
+     them straightway.
+
+  Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: "On the night that
+     I bore Thee
+  What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my
+     arm?
+  Didst Thou push from the nipple O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?
+  When we two lay in the breath of the kine?" And He said:--"Thou hast
+     done no harm."
+
+  So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,
+  Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood
+     still;
+  And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the
+     Command.
+  "Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against
+     their will?"
+
+
+"THEY"
+One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the
+county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping
+forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels. The orchid-
+studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and grey grass of
+the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees of the lower
+coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left hand for fifteen
+level miles; and when at last I turned inland through a huddle of rounded
+hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my known marks. Beyond that
+precise hamlet which stands godmother to the capital of the United States,
+I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in
+eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks
+diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex
+them again; tithe-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that
+cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple.
+Gipsies I found on a common where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it
+out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed
+a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.
+
+As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the
+bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty
+miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country would
+bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet, but I
+did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn plunged
+me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next into a
+gloomy tunnel where last year's dead leaves whispered and scuffled about
+my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had not been cut for a
+couple of generations at least, nor had any axe helped the moss-cankered
+oak and beech to spring above them. Here the road changed frankly into a
+carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent primrose-clumps showed like
+jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked bluebells nodded together. As the
+slope favoured I shut off the power and slid over the whirled leaves,
+expecting every moment to meet a keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off,
+arguing against the silence under the twilight of the trees.
+
+Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working my
+way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw
+sunshine through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.
+
+It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my fore-wheels
+took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang horsemen ten feet
+high with levelled lances, monstrous peacocks, and sleek round-headed
+maids of honour--blue, black, and glistening--all of clipped yew. Across
+the lawn--the marshalled woods besieged it on three sides--stood an
+ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with mullioned windows
+and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by semi-circular walls, also
+rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth side, and at their feet a box
+hedge grew man-high. There were doves on the roof about the slim brick
+chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an octagonal dove-house behind the
+screening wall.
+
+Here, then, I stayed; a horseman's green spear laid at my breast; held by
+the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.
+
+"If I am not packed off for a trespasser, or if this knight does not ride
+a wallop at me," thought I, "Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at least must
+come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea."
+
+A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing waved
+a friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently another
+bright head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the yew-peacocks, and
+turning to make sure (till then I had been watching the house only) I saw
+the silver of a fountain behind a hedge thrown up against the sun. The
+doves on the roof cooed to the cooing water; but between the two notes I
+caught the utterly happy chuckle of a child absorbed in some light
+mischief.
+
+The garden door--heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall--opened
+further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on the time-
+hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was forming
+some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was blind.
+
+"I heard you," she said. "Isn't that a motor car?"
+
+"I'm afraid I've made a mistake in my road. I should have turned off up
+above--I never dreamed"--I began.
+
+"But I'm very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It will be
+such a treat----" She turned and made as though looking about her. "You--
+you haven't seen any one have you--perhaps?"
+
+"No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a distance."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little
+chap in the grounds."
+
+"Oh, lucky you!" she cried, and her face brightened. "I hear them, of
+course, but that's all. You've seen them and heard them?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. "And if I know anything of children one of them's
+having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should
+imagine."
+
+"You're fond of children?"
+
+I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.
+
+"Of course, of course," she said. "Then you understand. Then you won't
+think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the gardens, once
+or twice--quite slowly. I'm sure they'd like to see it. They see so
+little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant, but----" she
+threw out her hands towards the woods. "We're so out of the world here."
+
+"That will be splendid," I said. "But I can't cut up your grass."
+
+She faced to the right. "Wait a minute," she said. "We're at the South
+gate, aren't we? Behind those peacocks there's a flagged path. We call it
+the Peacock's Walk. You can't see it from here, they tell me, but if you
+squeeze along by the edge of the wood you can turn at the first peacock
+and get on to the flags."
+
+It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of
+machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the edge
+of the wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the fountain-basin
+lay like one star-sapphire.
+
+"May I come too?" she cried. "No, please don't help me. They'll like it
+better if they see me."
+
+She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on the
+step she called: "Children, oh, children! Look and see what's going to
+happen!"
+
+The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning that
+underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an answering shout
+behind the yews. It must have been the child by the fountain, but he fled
+at our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the water. I saw the glint
+of his blue blouse among the still horsemen.
+
+Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request
+backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but
+stood far off and doubting.
+
+"The little fellow's watching us," I said. "I wonder if he'd like a ride."
+
+"They're very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see
+them! Let's listen."
+
+I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the
+scent of box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener was
+clipping; a mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been the
+doves.
+
+"Oh, unkind!" she said weariedly.
+
+"Perhaps they're only shy of the motor. The little maid at the window
+looks tremendously interested."
+
+"Yes?" She raised her head. "It was wrong of me to say that. They are
+really fond of me. It's the only thing that makes life worth living--when
+they're fond of you, isn't it? I daren't think what the place would be
+without them. By the way, is it beautiful?"
+
+"I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen."
+
+"So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn't quite the
+same thing."
+
+"Then have you never---?" I began, but stopped abashed.
+
+"Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old,
+they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream
+about colours. I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see
+_them_. I only hear them just as I do when I'm awake."
+
+"It's difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most of us
+haven't the gift," I went on, looking up at the window where the child
+stood all but hidden.
+
+"I've heard that too," she said. "And they tell me that one never sees a
+dead person's face in a dream. Is that true?"
+
+"I believe it is--now I come to think of it."
+
+"But how is it with yourself--yourself?" The blind eyes turned towards me.
+
+"I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream," I answered.
+
+"Then it must be as bad as being blind."
+
+The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing
+the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top of
+a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft black. The
+house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an hundred
+thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the shadows.
+
+"Have you ever wanted to?" she said after the silence.
+
+"Very much sometimes," I replied. The child had left the window as the
+shadows closed upon it.
+
+"Ah! So've I, but I don't suppose it's allowed. ... Where d'you live?"
+
+"Quite the other side of the county--sixty miles and more, and I must be
+going back. I've come without my big lamp."
+
+"But it's not dark yet. I can feel it."
+
+"I'm afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me someone
+to set me on my road at first? I've utterly lost myself."
+
+"I'll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the world,
+I don't wonder you were lost! I'll guide you round to the front of the
+house; but you will go slowly, won't you, till you're out of the grounds?
+It isn't foolish, do you think?"
+
+"I promise you I'll go like this," I said, and let the car start herself
+down the flagged path.
+
+We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead
+guttering alone was worth a day's journey; passed under a great rose-grown
+gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the house which in
+beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that all others I had
+seen.
+
+"Is it so very beautiful?" she said wistfully when she heard my raptures.
+"And you like the lead-figures too? There's the old azalea garden behind.
+They say that this place must have been made for children. Will you help
+me out, please? I should like to come with you as far as the cross-roads,
+but I mustn't leave them. Is that you, Madden? I want you to show this
+gentleman the way to the cross-roads. He has lost his way but--he has seen
+them."
+
+A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be
+called the front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood
+looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the
+first time that she was beautiful.
+
+"Remember," she said quietly, "if you are fond of them you will come
+again," and disappeared within the house.
+
+The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge gates,
+where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I swerved amply
+lest the devil that leads little boys to play should drag me into child-
+murder.
+
+"Excuse me," he asked of a sudden, "but why did you do that, Sir?"
+
+"The child yonder."
+
+"Our young gentleman in blue?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?"
+
+"Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?"
+
+"Yes, Sir. And did you 'appen to see them upstairs too?"
+
+"At the upper window? Yes."
+
+"Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?"
+
+"A little before that. Why d'you want to know?"
+
+He paused a little. "Only to make sure that--that they had seen the car,
+Sir, because with children running about, though I'm sure you're driving
+particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was all, Sir. Here
+are the cross-roads. You can't miss your way from now on. Thank you, Sir,
+but that isn't _our_ custom, not with----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, and thrust away the British silver.
+
+"Oh, it's quite right with the rest of 'em as a rule. Goodbye, Sir."
+
+He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked
+away. Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and
+interested, probably through a maid, in the nursery.
+
+Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the
+crumpled hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the
+house had lain. When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the fat
+woman who sold sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people with
+motor cars had small right to live--much less to "go about talking like
+carriage folk." They were not a pleasant-mannered community.
+
+When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser.
+Hawkin's Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the
+old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big
+house of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian
+embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my
+difficulty to a neighbour--a deep-rooted tree of that soil--and he gave me
+a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.
+
+A month or so later--I went again, or it may have been that my car took
+the road of her own volition. She over-ran the fruitless Downs, threaded
+every turn of the maze of lanes below the hills, drew through the high-
+walled woods, impenetrable in their full leaf, came out at the cross roads
+where the butler had left me, and a little further on developed an
+internal trouble which forced me to turn her in on a grass way-waste that
+cut into a summer-silent hazel wood. So far as I could make sure by the
+sun and a six-inch Ordnance map, this should be the road flank of that
+wood which I had first explored from the heights above. I made a mighty
+serious business of my repairs and a glittering shop of my repair kit,
+spanners, pump, and the like, which I spread out orderly upon a rug. It
+was a trap to catch all childhood, for on such a day, I argued, the
+children would not be far off. When I paused in my work I listened, but
+the wood was so full of the noises of summer (though the birds had mated)
+that I could not at first distinguish these from the tread of small
+cautious feet stealing across the dead leaves. I rang my bell in an
+alluring manner, but the feet fled, and I repented, for to a child a
+sudden noise is very real terror. I must have been at work half an hour
+when I heard in the wood the voice of the blind woman crying: "Children,
+oh children, where are you?" and the stillness made slow to close on the
+perfection of that cry. She came towards me, half feeling her way between
+the tree boles, and though a child it seemed clung to her skirt, it
+swerved into the leafage like a rabbit as she drew nearer.
+
+"Is that you?" she said, "from the other side of the county?"
+
+"Yes, it's me from the other side of the county."
+
+"Then why didn't you come through the upper woods? They were there just
+now."
+
+"They were here a few minutes ago. I expect they knew my car had broken
+down, and came to see the fun."
+
+"Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?"
+
+"In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first."
+
+She laughed merrily at the tiny joke, cooed with delicious laughter, and
+pushed her hat back.
+
+"Let me hear," she said.
+
+"Wait a moment," I cried, "and I'll get you a cushion."
+
+She set her foot on the rug all covered with spare parts, and stooped
+above it eagerly. "What delightful things!" The hands through which she
+saw glanced in the chequered sunlight. "A box here--another box! Why
+you've arranged them like playing shop!"
+
+"I confess now that I put it out to attract them. I don't need half those
+things really."
+
+"How nice of you! I heard your bell in the upper wood. You say they were
+here before that?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. Why are they so shy? That little fellow in blue who was
+with you just now ought to have got over his fright. He's been watching me
+like a Red Indian."
+
+"It must have been your bell," she said. "I heard one of them go past me
+in trouble when I was coming down. They're shy--so shy even with me." She
+turned her face over her shoulder and cried again: "Children! Oh,
+children! Look and see!"
+
+"They must have gone off together on their own affairs,"
+
+I suggested, for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by
+the sudden squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and
+she leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.
+
+"How many are they?" I said at last. The work was finished, but I saw no
+reason to go.
+
+Her forehead puckered a little in thought. "I don't quite know," she said
+simply. "Sometimes more--sometimes less. They come and stay with me
+because I love them, you see."
+
+"That must be very jolly," I said, replacing a drawer, and as I spoke I
+heard the inanity of my answer.
+
+"You--you aren't laughing at me," she cried. "I--I haven't any of my own.
+I never married. People laugh at me sometimes about them because--
+because------"
+
+"Because they're savages," I returned. "It's nothing to fret for. That
+sort laugh at everything that isn't in their own fat lives."
+
+"I don't know. How should I? I only don't like being laughed at about
+_them_. It hurts; and when one can't see.... I don't want to seem silly,"
+her chin quivered like a child's as she spoke, "but we blindies have only
+one skin, I think. Everything outside hits straight at our souls. It's
+different with you. You've such good defences in your eyes--looking out--
+before anyone can really pain you in your soul. People forget that with
+us."
+
+I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter--the more than inherited
+(since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the Christian peoples,
+beside which the mere heathendom of the West Coast nigger is clean and
+restrained. It led me a long distance into myself.
+
+"Don't do that!" she said of a sudden, putting her hands before her eyes.
+
+"What?"
+
+She made a gesture with her hand.
+
+"That! It's--it's all purple and black. Don't! That colour hurts."
+
+"But, how in the world do you know about colours?" I exclaimed, for here
+was a revelation indeed.
+
+"Colours as colours?" she asked.
+
+"No. _Those_ Colours which you saw just now."
+
+"You know as well as I do," she laughed, "else you wouldn't have asked
+that question. They aren't in the world at all. They're in _you_--when you
+went so angry."
+
+"D'you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with ink?" I said.
+
+"I've never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren't mixed. They are
+separate--all separate."
+
+"Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?"
+
+She nodded. "Yes--if they are like this," and zigzagged her finger again,
+"but it's more red than purple--that bad colour."
+
+"And what are the colours at the top of the--whatever you see?"
+
+Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg
+itself.
+
+"I see them so," she said, pointing with a grass stem, "white, green,
+yellow, red, purple, and when people are angry or bad, black across the
+red--as you were just now."
+
+"Who told you anything about it--in the beginning?" I demanded.
+
+"About the colours? No one. I used to ask what colours were when I was
+little--in table-covers and curtains and carpets, you see--because some
+colours hurt me and some made me happy. People told me; and when I got
+older that was how I saw people." Again she traced the outline of the Egg
+which it is given to very few of us to see.
+
+"All by yourself?" I repeated.
+
+"All by myself. There wasn't anyone else. I only found out afterwards that
+other people did not see the Colours."
+
+She leaned against the tree-hole plaiting and unplaiting chance-plucked
+grass stems. The children in the wood had drawn nearer. I could see them
+with the tail of my eye frolicking like squirrels.
+
+"Now I am sure you will never laugh at me," she went on after a long
+silence. "Nor at _them_."
+
+"Goodness! No!" I cried, jolted out of my train of thought. "A man who
+laughs at a child--unless the child is laughing too--is a heathen!"
+
+"I didn't mean that of course. You'd never laugh _at_ children, but I
+thought--I used to think--that perhaps you might laugh about _them_. So
+now I beg your pardon.... What are you going to laugh at?"
+
+I had made no sound, but she knew.
+
+"At the notion of your begging my pardon. If you had done your duty as a
+pillar of the state and a landed proprietress you ought to have summoned
+me for trespass when I barged through your woods the other day. It was
+disgraceful of me--inexcusable."
+
+She looked at me, her head against the tree trunk--long and steadfastly--
+this woman who could see the naked soul.
+
+"How curious," she half whispered. "How very curious."
+
+"Why, what have I done?"
+
+"You don't understand ... and yet you understood about the Colours. Don't
+you understand?"
+
+She spoke with a passion that nothing had justified, and I faced her
+bewilderedly as she rose. The children had gathered themselves in a
+roundel behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent over something smaller,
+and the set of the little shoulders told me that fingers were on lips.
+They, too, had some child's tremendous secret. I alone was hopelessly
+astray there in the broad sunlight.
+
+"No," I said, and shook my head as though the dead eyes could note.
+"Whatever it is, I don't understand yet. Perhaps I shall later--if you'll
+let me come again."
+
+"You will come again," she answered. "You will surely come again and walk
+in the wood."
+
+"Perhaps the children will know me well enough by that time to let me play
+with them--as a favour. You know what children are like."
+
+"It isn't a matter of favour but of right," she replied, and while I
+wondered what she meant, a dishevelled woman plunged round the bend of the
+road, loose-haired, purple, almost lowing with agony as she ran. It was my
+rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard and stepped
+forward. "What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?" she asked.
+
+The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the
+dust, crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local doctor
+was away fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and so forth,
+with repetitions and bellowings.
+
+"Where's the next nearest doctor?" I asked between paroxysms.
+
+"Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you. I'll
+attend to this. Be quick!" She half-supported the fat woman into the
+shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under the
+front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to the
+crisis like a butler and a man.
+
+A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles away.
+Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in motors, at
+the door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to await the verdict.
+
+"Useful things cars," said Madden, all man and no butler. "If I'd had one
+when mine took sick she wouldn't have died."
+
+"How was it?" I asked.
+
+"Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight miles
+in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back. This car
+'d ha' saved her. She'd have been close on ten now."
+
+"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought you were rather fond of children from what
+you told me going to the cross-roads the other day."
+
+"Have you seen 'em again, Sir--this mornin'?"
+
+"Yes, but they're well broke to cars. I couldn't get any of them within
+twenty yards of it."
+
+He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger--not as a menial
+should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.
+
+"I wonder why," he said just above the breath that he drew.
+
+We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long
+lines of the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with summer
+dust, rose and bowed in sallow waves.
+
+A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
+sweetmeat shop.
+
+"I've be'n listenin' in de back-yard," she said cheerily. "He says
+Arthur's unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him shruck just now? Unaccountable
+bad. I reckon t'will come Jenny's turn to walk in de wood nex' week along,
+Mr. Madden."
+
+"Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping," said Madden
+deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.
+
+"What does she mean by 'walking in the wood'?" I asked.
+
+"It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I'm from Norfolk myself,"
+said Madden. "They're an independent lot in this county. She took you for
+a chauffeur, Sir."
+
+I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed
+wench who clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with
+Death. "Dat sort," she wailed--"dey're just as much to us dat has 'em as
+if dey was lawful born. Just as much--just as much! An' God he'd be just
+as pleased if you saved 'un, Doctor. Don't take it from me. Miss Florence
+will tell ye de very same. Don't leave 'im, Doctor!"
+
+"I know. I know," said the man, "but he'll be quiet for a while now.
+We'll get the nurse and the medicine as fast as we can." He signalled me
+to come forward with the car, and I strove not to be privy to what
+followed; but I saw the girl's face, blotched and frozen with grief, and I
+felt the hand without a ring clutching at my knees when we moved away.
+
+The Doctor was a man of some humour, for I remember he claimed my car
+under the Oath of AEsculapius, and used it and me without mercy. First we
+convoyed Mrs. Madehurst and the blind woman to wait by the sick bed till
+the nurse should come. Next we invaded a neat county town for
+prescriptions (the Doctor said the trouble was cerebro-spinal meningitis),
+and when the County Institute, banked and flanked with scared market
+cattle, reported itself out of nurses for the moment we literally flung
+ourselves loose upon the county. We conferred with the owners of great
+houses--magnates at the ends of overarching avenues whose big-boned
+womenfolk strode away from their tea-tables to listen to the imperious
+Doctor. At last a white-haired lady sitting under a cedar of Lebanon and
+surrounded by a court of magnificent Borzois--all hostile to motors--gave
+the Doctor, who received them as from a princess, written orders which we
+bore many miles at top speed, through a park, to a French nunnery, where
+we took over in exchange a pallid-faced and trembling Sister. She knelt at
+the bottom of the tonneau telling her beads without pause till, by short
+cuts of the Doctor's invention, we had her to the sweetmeat shop once
+more. It was a long afternoon crowded with mad episodes that rose and
+dissolved like the dust of our wheels; cross-sections of remote and
+incomprehensible lives through which we raced at right angles; and I went
+home in the dusk, wearied out, to dream of the clashing horns of cattle;
+round-eyed nuns walking in a garden of graves; pleasant tea-parties
+beneath shaded trees; the carbolic-scented, grey-painted corridors of the
+County Institute; the steps of shy children in the wood, and the hands
+that clung to my knees as the motor began to move.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I had intended to return in a day or two, but it pleased Fate to hold me
+from that side of the county, on many pretexts, till the elder and the
+wild rose had fruited. There came at last a brilliant day, swept clear
+from the south-west, that brought the hills within hand's reach--a day of
+unstable airs and high filmy clouds. Through no merit of my own I was
+free, and set the car for the third time on that known road. As I reached
+the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the
+sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the
+Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A
+laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for deeper water and,
+across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails rise one by one on the anchored
+fishing-fleet. In a deep dene behind me an eddy of sudden wind drummed
+through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the first day sample of autumn
+leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog fumed over the
+brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groins of the gale beyond
+Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in chill grey. We
+were again the shut island of the North, all the ships of the world
+bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their outcries ran the piping
+of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped moisture, the folds of the rug held it
+in pools or sluiced it away in runnels, and the salt-rime stuck to my
+lips.
+
+Inland the smell of autumn loaded the thickened fog among the trees, and
+the drip became a continuous shower. Yet the late flowers--mallow of the
+wayside, scabious of the field, and dahlia of the garden--showed gay in
+the mist, and beyond the sea's breath there was little sign of decay in
+the leaf. Yet in the villages the house doors were all open, and bare-
+legged, bare-headed children sat at ease on the damp doorsteps to shout
+"pip-pip" at the stranger.
+
+I made bold to call at the sweetmeat shop, where Mrs. Madehurst met me
+with a fat woman's hospitable tears. Jenny's child, she said, had died two
+days after the nun had come. It was, she felt, best out of the way, even
+though insurance offices, for reasons which she did not pretend to follow,
+would not willingly insure such stray lives. "Not but what Jenny didn't
+tend to Arthur as though he'd come all proper at de end of de first year--
+like Jenny herself." Thanks to Miss Florence, the child had been buried
+with a pomp which, in Mrs. Madehurst's opinion, more than covered the
+small irregularity of its birth. She described the coffin, within and
+without, the glass hearse, and the evergreen lining of the grave.
+
+"But how's the mother?" I asked.
+
+"Jenny? Oh, she'll get over it. I've felt dat way with one or two o' my
+own. She'll get over. She's walkin' in de wood now."
+
+"In this weather?"
+
+Mrs. Madehurst looked at me with narrowed eyes across the counter.
+
+"I dunno but it opens de 'eart like. Yes, it opens de 'eart. Dat's where
+losin' and bearin' comes so alike in de long run, we do say."
+
+Now the wisdom of the old wives is greater than that of all the Fathers,
+and this last oracle sent me thinking so extendedly as I went up the road,
+that I nearly ran over a woman and a child at the wooded corner by the
+lodge gates of the House Beautiful.
+
+"Awful weather!" I cried, as I slowed dead for the turn.
+
+"Not so bad," she answered placidly out of the fog. "Mine's used to 'un.
+You'll find yours indoors, I reckon."
+
+Indoors, Madden received me with professional courtesy, and kind inquiries
+for the health of the motor, which he would put under cover.
+
+I waited in a still, nut-brown hall, pleasant with late flowers and warmed
+with a delicious wood fire--a place of good influence and great peace.
+(Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable
+lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the
+truth of those who have lived in it.) A child's cart and a doll lay on the
+black-and-white floor, where a rug had been kicked back. I felt that the
+children had only just hurried away--to hide themselves, most like--in the
+many turns of the great adzed staircase that climbed statelily out of the
+hall, or to crouch at gaze behind the lions and roses of the carven
+gallery above. Then I heard her voice above me, singing as the blind sing
+--from the soul:--
+
+
+  In the pleasant orchard-closes.
+
+And all my early summer came back at the call.
+
+  In the pleasant orchard-closes,
+  God bless all our gains say we--
+  But may God bless all our losses,
+  Better suits with our degree,
+
+She dropped the marring fifth line, and repeated--
+
+  Better suits with our degree!
+
+I saw her lean over the gallery, her linked hands white as pearl against
+the oak.
+
+"Is that you--from the other side of the county?" she called.
+
+"Yes, me--from the other side of the county," I answered laughing.
+
+"What a long time before you had to come here again." She ran down the
+stairs, one hand lightly touching the broad rail. "It's two months and
+four days. Summer's gone!"
+
+"I meant to come before, but Fate prevented."
+
+"I knew it. Please do something to that fire. They won't let me play with
+it, but I can feel it's behaving badly. Hit it!"
+
+I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a
+half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.
+
+"It never goes out, day or night," she said, as though explaining. "In
+case any one conies in with cold toes, you see."
+
+"It's even lovelier inside than it was out," I murmured. The red light
+poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor roses
+and lions of the gallery took colour and motion. An old eagle-topped
+convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart, distorting
+afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines into the
+curves of a ship. The day was shutting down in half a gale as the fog
+turned to stringy scud. Through the uncurtained mullions of the broad
+window I could see valiant horsemen of the lawn rear and recover against
+the wind that taunted them with legions of dead leaves.
+"Yes, it must be beautiful," she said. "Would you like to go over it?
+There's still light enough upstairs."
+
+I followed her up the unflinching, wagon-wide staircase to the gallery
+whence opened the thin fluted Elizabethan doors.
+
+"Feel how they put the latch low down for the sake of the children." She
+swung a light door inward.
+
+"By the way, where are they?" I asked. "I haven't even heard them to-day."
+
+She did not answer at once. Then, "I can only hear them," she replied
+softly. "This is one of their rooms--everything ready, you see."
+
+She pointed into a heavily-timbered room. There were little low gate
+tables and children's chairs. A doll's house, its hooked front half open,
+faced a great dappled rocking-horse, from whose padded saddle it was but a
+child's scramble to the broad window-seat overlooking the lawn. A toy gun
+lay in a corner beside a gilt wooden cannon.
+
+"Surely they've only just gone," I whispered. In the failing light a door
+creaked cautiously. I heard the rustle of a frock and the patter of feet--
+quick feet through a room beyond.
+
+"I heard that," she cried triumphantly. "Did you? Children, O children,
+where are you?"
+
+The voice filled the walls that held it lovingly to the last perfect note,
+but there came no answering shout such as I had heard in the garden. We
+hurried on from room to oak-floored room; up a step here, down three steps
+there; among a maze of passages; always mocked by our quarry. One might as
+well have tried to work an unstopped warren with a single ferret. There
+were bolt-holes innumerable--recesses in walls, embrasures of deep slitten
+windows now darkened, whence they could start up behind us; and abandoned
+fireplaces, six feet deep in the masonry, as well as the tangle of
+communicating doors. Above all, they had the twilight for their helper in
+our game. I had caught one or two joyous chuckles of evasion, and once or
+twice had seen the silhouette of a child's frock against some darkening
+window at the end of a passage; but we returned empty-handed to the
+gallery, just as a middle-aged woman was setting a lamp in its niche.
+
+"No, I haven't seen her either this evening, Miss Florence," I heard her
+say, "but that Turpin he says he wants to see you about his shed."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Turpin must want to see me very badly. Tell him to come to the
+hall, Mrs. Madden."
+
+I looked down into the hall whose only light was the dulled fire, and deep
+in the shadow I saw them at last. They must have slipped down while we
+were in the passages, and now thought themselves perfectly hidden behind
+an old gilt leather screen. By child's law, my fruitless chase was as good
+as an introduction, but since I had taken so much trouble I resolved to
+force them to come forward later by the simple trick, which children
+detest, of pretending not to notice them. They lay close, in a little
+huddle, no more than shadows except when a quick flame betrayed an
+outline.
+
+"And now we'll have some tea," she said. "I believe I ought to have
+offered it you at first, but one doesn't arrive at manners somehow when
+one lives alone and is considered--h'm--peculiar." Then with very pretty
+scorn, "would you like a lamp to see to eat by?" "The firelight's much
+pleasanter, I think." We descended into that delicious gloom and Madden
+brought tea.
+
+I took my chair in the direction of the screen ready to surprise or be
+surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth is
+always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.
+
+"Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?" I asked idly. "Why,
+they are tallies!"
+
+"Of course," she said. "As I can't read or write I'm driven back on the
+early English tally for my accounts. Give me one and I'll tell you what it
+meant."
+
+I passed her an unburned hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran her
+thumb down the nicks.
+
+"This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last
+year, in gallons," said she. "I don't know what I should have done without
+tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It's out of date
+now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of them's coming
+now to see me. Oh, it doesn't matter. He has no business here out of
+office hours. He's a greedy, ignorant man--very greedy or--he wouldn't
+come here after dark."
+
+"Have you much land then?"
+
+"Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six
+hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this
+Turpin is quite a new man--and a highway robber."
+
+"But are you sure I sha'n't be----?"
+
+"Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn't any children."
+
+"Ah, the children!" I said, and slid my low chair back till it nearly
+touched the screen that hid them. "I wonder whether they'll come out for
+me."
+
+There was a murmur of voices--Madden's and a deeper note--at the low, dark
+side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the unmistakable
+tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.
+
+"Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin," she said.
+
+"If--if you please, Miss, I'll--I'll be quite as well by the door." He
+clung to the latch as he spoke like a frightened child. Of a sudden I
+realised that he was in the grip of some almost overpowering fear.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"About that new shed for the young stock--that was all. These first autumn
+storms settin' in ... but I'll come again, Miss." His teeth did not
+chatter much more than the door latch.
+
+"I think not," she answered levelly. "The new shed--m'm. What did my agent
+write you on the 15th?"
+
+"I--fancied p'raps that if I came to see you--ma--man to man like, Miss.
+But----"
+
+His eyes rolled into every corner of the room wide with horror. He half
+opened the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut again
+--from without and firmly.
+
+"He wrote what I told him," she went on. "You are overstocked already.
+Dunnett's Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks--even in Mr.
+Wright's time. And _he_ used cake. You've sixty-seven and you don't cake.
+You've broken the lease in that respect. You're dragging the heart out of
+the farm."
+
+"I'm--I'm getting some minerals--superphosphates--next week. I've as good
+as ordered a truck-load already. I'll go down to the station to-morrow
+about 'em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the
+daylight.... That gentleman's not going away, is he?" He almost shrieked.
+
+I had only slid the chair a little further back, reaching behind me to tap
+on the leather of the screen, but he jumped like a rat.
+
+"No. Please attend to me, Mr. Turpin." She turned in her chair and faced
+him with his back to the door. It was an old and sordid little piece of
+scheming that she forced from him--his plea for the new cowshed at his
+landlady's expense, that he might with the covered manure pay his next
+year's rent out of the valuation after, as she made clear, he had bled the
+enriched pastures to the bone. I could not but admire the intensity of his
+greed, when I saw him out-facing for its sake whatever terror it was that
+ran wet on his forehead.
+
+I ceased to tap the leather--was, indeed, calculating the cost of the
+shed--when I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the soft
+hands of a child. So at last I had triumphed. In a moment I would turn and
+acquaint myself with those quick-footed wanderers....
+
+The little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm--as a gift on which
+the fingers were, once, expected to close: as the all faithful half-
+reproachful signal of a waiting child not used to neglect even when
+grown-ups were busiest--a fragment of the mute code devised very long ago.
+
+Then I knew. And it was as though I had known from the first day when I
+looked across the lawn at the high window.
+
+I heard the door shut. The woman turned to me in silence, and I felt that
+she knew.
+
+What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a
+log, and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place in
+the chair very close to the screen.
+
+"Now you understand," she whispered, across the packed shadows.
+
+"Yes, I understand--now. Thank you."
+
+"I--I only hear them." She bowed her head in her hands. "I have no right,
+you know--no other right. I have neither borne nor lost--neither borne nor
+lost!"
+
+"Be very glad then," said I, for my soul was torn open within me.
+
+"Forgive me!"
+
+She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.
+
+"It was because I loved them so," she said at last, brokenly. "_That_ was
+why it was, even from the first--even before I knew that they--they were
+all I should ever have. And I loved them so!"
+
+She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the
+shadow.
+
+"They came because I loved them--because I needed them. I--I must have
+made them come. Was that wrong, think you?"
+
+"No--no."
+
+"I--I grant you that the toys and--and all that sort of thing were
+nonsense, but--but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
+little." She pointed to the gallery. "And the passages all empty. ... And
+how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose----"
+
+"Don't! For pity's sake, don't!" I cried. The twilight had brought a cold
+rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded windows.
+
+"And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. _I_ don't think it
+so foolish--do you?"
+
+I looked at the broad brick hearth, saw, through tears I believe, that
+there was no unpassable iron on or near it, and bowed my head.
+
+"I did all that and lots of other things--just to make believe. Then they
+came. I heard them, but I didn't know that they were not mine by right
+till Mrs. Madden told me----"
+
+"The butler's wife? What?"
+
+"One of them--I heard--she saw. And knew. Hers! _Not_ for me. I didn't
+know at first. Perhaps I was jealous. Afterwards, I began to understand
+that it was only because I loved them, not because----... Oh, you _must_
+bear or lose," she said piteously. "There is no other way--and yet they
+love me. They must! Don't they?"
+
+There was no sound in the room except the lapping voices of the fire, but
+we two listened intently, and she at least took comfort from what she
+heard. She recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair by the
+screen.
+
+"Don't think me a wretch to whine about myself like this, but--but I'm all
+in the dark, you know, and _you_ can see."
+
+In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though
+that was like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer I
+would stay since it was the last time.
+
+"You think it is wrong, then?" she cried sharply, though I had said
+nothing.
+
+"Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right.... I am grateful
+to you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only...."
+
+"Why?" she said, but passed her hand before her face as she had done at
+our second meeting in the wood. "Oh, I see," she went on simply as a
+child. "For you it would be wrong." Then with a little indrawn laugh,
+"and, d'you remember, I called you lucky--once--at first. You who must
+never come here again!"
+
+She left me to sit a little longer by the screen, and I heard the sound of
+her feet die out along the gallery above.
+
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+
+FROM LYDEN'S "IRENIUS"
+
+ACT III. Sc. II.
+
+Gow.--Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose
+there's not an astrologer of the city----
+
+PRINCE.--Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
+
+Gow.--So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha'
+sworn he'd foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught
+her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since 'tis Jack of
+the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their tablets.
+
+PRINCE.--Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the
+poor fool come by it?
+
+Gow.--_Simpliciter_ thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she
+did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He
+that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than
+"Where is the rope?" The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works God's
+will, in which holy employ he's not to be questioned. We have then left
+upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of
+Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on a sunny
+wall. Whuff! Soh!
+
+PRINCE.--Your cloak, Ferdinand. I'll sleep now.
+
+FERDINAND.--Sleep, then.. He too, loved his life?
+
+Gow.--He was born of woman ... but at the end threw life from
+him, like your Prince, for a little sleep ... "Have I any look of a
+King?" said he, clanking his chain--"to be so baited on all sides by
+Fortune, that I must e'en die now to live with myself one day longer?" I
+left him railing at Fortune and woman's love.
+
+FERDINAND.--Ah, woman's love!
+
+_(Aside)_ Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones, Stealing from
+feasts as rare to coneycatch, Privily in the hedgerows for a clown With
+that same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one
+hammer and lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
+Yesterday 'gainst some King.
+
+
+
+MRS. BATHURST
+The day that I chose to visit H.M.S. _Peridot_ in Simon's Bay was the day
+that the Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. She was just
+steaming out to sea as my train came in, and since the rest of the Fleet
+were either coaling or busy at the rifle-ranges a thousand feet up the
+hill, I found myself stranded, lunchless, on the sea-front with no hope of
+return to Cape Town before five P.M. At this crisis I had the luck to come
+across my friend Inspector Hooper, Cape Government Railways, in command of
+an engine and a brake-van chalked for repair.
+
+"If you get something to eat," he said, "I'll run you down to Glengariff
+siding till the goods comes along. It's cooler there than here, you see."
+
+I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price, and
+the engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of drifted
+sand and a plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred yards from the
+edge of the surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow, rolled far inland
+up a brown and purple valley of splintered rocks and dry scrub. A crowd of
+Malays hauled at a net beside two blue and green boats on the beach; a
+picnic party danced and shouted barefoot where a tiny river trickled
+across the flat, and a circle of dry hills, whose feet were set in sands
+of silver, locked us in against a seven-coloured sea. At either horn of
+the bay the railway line, cut just above high water-mark, ran round a
+shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.
+
+"You see there's always a breeze here," said Hooper, opening the door as
+the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong south-easter
+buffeting under Elsie's Peak dusted sand into our tickey beer. Presently
+he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had returned from a
+long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on damaged rolling-
+stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland wind on my
+eyelids; the song of it under the car roof, and high up among the rocks;
+the drift of fine grains chasing each other musically ashore; the tramp of
+the surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle of Hooper's file, and
+the presence of the assured sun, joined with the beer to cast me into
+magical slumber. The hills of False Bay were just dissolving into those of
+fairyland when I heard footsteps on the sand outside, and the clink of our
+couplings.
+
+"Stop that!" snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his work. "It's
+those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they're always playing with the
+trucks...."
+
+"Don't be hard on 'em. The railway's a general refuge in Africa," I
+replied.
+
+"'Tis--up-country at any rate. That reminds me," he felt in his waistcoat-
+pocket, "I've got a curiosity for you from Wankies--beyond Buluwayo. It's
+more of a souvenir perhaps than----"
+
+"The old hotel's inhabited," cried a voice. "White men from the language.
+Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here's your Belmont. Wha--i--i!"
+
+The last word dragged like a rope as Mr. Pyecroft ran round to the open
+door, and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous Sergeant
+of Marines trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the sand nervously
+from his fingers.
+
+"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought the _Hierophant_ was down
+the coast?"
+
+"We came in last Tuesday--from Tristan D'Acunha--for overhaul, and we
+shall be in dockyard 'ands for two months, with boiler-seatings."
+
+"Come and sit down," Hooper put away the file.
+
+"This is Mr. Hooper of the Railway," I exclaimed, as Pyecroft turned to
+haul up the black-moustached sergeant.
+
+"This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the _Agaric_, an old shipmate," said he.
+"We were strollin' on the beach." The monster blushed and nodded. He
+filled up one side of the van when he sat down.
+
+"And this is my friend, Mr. Pyecroft," I added to Hooper, already busy
+with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.
+
+"_Moi aussi_" quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a labelled
+quart bottle.
+
+"Why, it's Bass," cried Hooper.
+
+"It was Pritchard," said Pyecroft. "They can't resist him."
+
+"That's not so," said Pritchard, mildly.
+
+"Not _verbatim_ per'aps, but the look in the eye came to the same thing."
+
+"Where was it?" I demanded.
+
+"Just on beyond here--at Kalk Bay. She was slappin' a rug in a back
+verandah. Pritch hadn't more than brought his batteries to bear, before
+she stepped indoors an' sent it flyin' over the wall."
+
+Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
+
+"It was all a mistake," said Pritchard. "I shouldn't wonder if she mistook
+me for Maclean. We're about of a size."
+
+I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James's, and Kalk Bay complain
+of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the seaside, and I
+began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent Bass, and I too
+drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
+
+"It's the uniform that fetches 'em, an' they fetch it," said Pyecroft. "My
+simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin'. Now Pritch in 'is
+Number One rig is always 'purr Mary, on the terrace'--_ex officio_ as you
+might say."
+
+"She took me for Maclean, I tell you," Pritchard insisted. "Why--why--to
+listen to him you wouldn't think that only yesterday----"
+
+"Pritch," said Pyecroft, "be warned in time. If we begin tellin' what we
+know about each other we'll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention
+aggravated desertion on several occasions----"
+
+"Never anything more than absence without leaf--I defy you to prove it,"
+said the Sergeant hotly. "An' if it comes to that how about Vancouver in
+'87?"
+
+"How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
+Niven...?"
+
+"Surely you were court martialled for that?" I said. The story of Boy
+Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
+woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
+
+"Yes, we were court-martialled to rights," said Pritchard, "but we should
+have been tried for murder if Boy Niven 'adn't been unusually tough. He
+told us he had an uncle 'oo'd give us land to farm. 'E said he was born at
+the back o' Vancouver Island, and _all_ the time the beggar was a balmy
+Barnado Orphan!"
+
+"_But_ we believed him," said Pyecroft. "I did--you did--Paterson did--an'
+'oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards--him with
+the mouth?"
+
+"Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I 'aven't thought of 'im in years," said
+Pritchard. "Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an' George Anstey and Moon. We were
+very young an' very curious."
+
+"_But_ lovin' an' trustful to a degree," said Pyecroft.
+
+"Remember when 'e told us to walk in single file for fear o' bears?
+'Remember, Pye, when 'e 'opped about in that bog full o' ferns an' sniffed
+an' said 'e could smell the smoke of 'is uncle's farm? An' _all_ the time
+it was a dirty little out-lyin' uninhabited island. We walked round it in
+a day, an' come back to our boat lyin' on the beach. A whole day Boy Niven
+kept us walkin' in circles lookin' for 'is uncle's farm! He said his uncle
+was compelled by the law of the land to give us a farm!"
+
+"Don't get hot, Pritch. We believed," said Pyecroft.
+
+"He'd been readin' books. He only did it to get a run ashore an' have
+himself talked of. A day an' a night--eight of us--followin' Boy Niven
+round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the picket
+came for us an' a nice pack o' idiots we looked!"
+
+"What did you get for it?" Hooper asked.
+
+"Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter sleet-
+squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till conclusion o'
+cruise," said Pyecroft. "It was only what we expected, but what we felt,
+an' I assure you, Mr. Hooper, even a sailor-man has a heart to break, was
+bein' told that we able seamen an' promisin' marines 'ad misled Boy Niven.
+Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was supposed to 'ave misled him! He
+rounded on us, o' course, an' got off easy."
+
+"Excep' for what we gave him in the steerin'-flat when we came out o'
+cells. 'Eard anything of 'im lately, Pye?"
+
+"Signal Boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe--Mr. L.L. Niven is."
+
+"An' Anstey died o' fever in Benin," Pritchard mused. "What come to Moon?
+Spit-Kid we know about."
+
+"Moon--Moon! Now where did I last...? Oh yes, when I was in the
+_Palladium_! I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon 'ad run
+when the _Astrild_ sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years
+back. He always showed signs o' bein' a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he
+slipped off quietly an' they 'adn't time to chase 'im round the islands
+even if the navigatin' officer 'ad been equal to the job."
+
+"Wasn't he?" said Hooper.
+
+"Not so. Accordin' to Quigley the _Astrild_ spent half her commission
+rompin' up the beach like a she-turtle, an' the other half hatching
+turtles' eggs on the top o' numerous reefs. When she was docked at Sydney
+her copper looked like Aunt Maria's washing on the line--an' her 'midship
+frames was sprung. The commander swore the dockyard 'ad done it haulin'
+the pore thing on to the slips. They _do_ do strange things at sea, Mr.
+Hooper."
+
+"Ah! I'm not a tax-payer," said Hooper, and opened a fresh bottle. The
+Sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping subjects.
+
+"How it all comes back, don't it?" he said. "Why Moon must 'ave 'ad
+sixteen years' service before he ran."
+
+"It takes 'em at all ages. Look at--you know," said Pyecroft.
+
+"Who?" I asked.
+
+"A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party you're
+thinkin' of," said Pritchard. "A warrant 'oose name begins with a V.,
+isn't it?"
+
+"But, in a way o' puttin' it, we can't say that he actually did desert,"
+Pyecroft suggested.
+
+"Oh, no," said Pritchard. "It was only permanent absence up country
+without leaf. That was all."
+
+"Up country?" said Hooper. "Did they circulate his description?"
+
+"What for?" said Pritchard, most impolitely.
+
+"Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don't move away from
+the line, you see. I've known a chap caught at Salisbury that way tryin'
+to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o' course I don't know, that they
+don't ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I've heard of a
+P. and O. quartermaster in full command of an armed launch there."
+
+"Do you think Click 'ud ha' gone up that way?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"There's no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some Navy
+ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it into the
+trucks. Then there was no more Click--then or thereafter. Four months ago
+it transpired, and thus the _casus belli_ stands at present," said
+Pyecroft.
+
+"What were his marks?" said Hooper again.
+
+"Does the Railway get a reward for returnin' 'em, then?" said Pritchard.
+
+"If I did d'you suppose I'd talk about it?" Hooper retorted angrily.
+
+"You seemed so very interested," said Pritchard with equal crispness.
+
+"Why was he called Click?" I asked to tide over an uneasy little break in
+the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very fixedly.
+
+"Because of an ammunition hoist carryin' away," said Pyecroft. "And it
+carried away four of 'is teeth--on the lower port side, wasn't it, Pritch?
+The substitutes which he bought weren't screwed home in a manner o'
+sayin'. When he talked fast they used to lift a little on the bed plate.
+'Ence, 'Click.' They called 'im a superior man which is what we'd call a
+long, black-'aired, genteely speakin', 'alf-bred beggar on the lower
+deck."
+
+"Four false teeth on the lower left jaw," said Hooper, his hand in his
+waistcoat pocket. "What tattoo marks?"
+
+"Look here," began Pritchard, half rising. "I'm sure we're very grateful
+to you as a gentleman for your 'orspitality, but per'aps we may 'ave made
+an error in--"
+
+I looked at Pyecroft for aid, Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.
+
+"If the fat marine now occupying the foc'sle will kindly bring 'is _status
+quo_ to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk like gentlemen--
+not to say friends," said Pyecroft. "He regards you, Mr. Hooper, as a
+emissary of the Law."
+
+"I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar, or
+I should rather say, such a _bloomin'_ curiosity in identification marks
+as our friend here----"
+
+"Mr. Pritchard," I interposed, "I'll take all the responsibility for Mr.
+Hooper."
+
+"An' _you_'ll apologise all round," said Pyecroft. "You're a rude little
+man, Pritch."
+
+"But how was I----" he began, wavering.
+
+"I don't know an' I don't care. Apologise!"
+
+The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his vast
+grip, one by one. "I was wrong," he said meekly as a sheep. "My suspicions
+was unfounded. Mr. Hooper, I apologise."
+
+"You did quite right to look out for your own end o' the line," said
+Hooper. "I'd ha' done the same with a gentleman I didn't know, you see. If
+you don't mind I'd like to hear a little more o' your Mr. Vickery. It's
+safe with me, you see."
+
+"Why did Vickery run," I began, but Pyecroft's smile made me turn my
+question to "Who was she?"
+
+"She kep' a little hotel at Hauraki--near Auckland," said Pyecroft.
+
+"By Gawd!" roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. "Not Mrs.
+Bathurst!"
+
+Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of darkness
+to witness his bewilderment.
+
+"So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question."
+
+"But Click was married," cried Pritchard.
+
+"An' 'ad a fifteen year old daughter. 'E's shown me her photograph.
+Settin' that aside, so to say, 'ave you ever found these little things
+make much difference? Because I haven't."
+
+"Good Lord Alive an' Watchin'!... Mrs. Bathurst...." Then with another
+roar: "You can say what you please, Pye, but you don't make me believe it
+was any of 'er fault. She wasn't _that!_"
+
+"If I was going to say what I please, I'd begin by callin' you a silly ox
+an' work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I'm trying to say solely
+what transpired. M'rover, for once you're right. It wasn't her fault."
+
+"You couldn't 'aven't made me believe it if it 'ad been," was the answer.
+
+Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. "Never mind
+about that," I cried. "Tell me what she was like."
+
+"She was a widow," said Pyecroft. "Left so very young and never
+re-spliced. She kep' a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close to
+Auckland, an' she always wore black silk, and 'er neck--"
+
+"You ask what she was like," Pritchard broke in. "Let me give you an
+instance. I was at Auckland first in '97, at the end o' the _Marroquin's_
+commission, an' as I'd been promoted I went up with the others. She used
+to look after us all, an' she never lost by it--not a penny! 'Pay me now,'
+she'd say, 'or settle later. I know you won't let me suffer. Send the
+money from home if you like,' Why, gentlemen all, I tell you I've seen
+that lady take her own gold watch an' chain off her neck in the bar an'
+pass it to a bosun 'oo'd come ashore without 'is ticker an' 'ad to catch
+the last boat. 'I don't know your name,' she said, 'but when you've done
+with it, you'll find plenty that know me on the front. Send it back by one
+o' them.' And it was worth thirty pounds if it was worth 'arf a crown. The
+little gold watch, Pye, with the blue monogram at the back. But, as I was
+sayin', in those days she kep' a beer that agreed with me--Slits it was
+called. One way an' another I must 'ave punished a good few bottles of it
+while we was in the bay--comin' ashore every night or so. Chaffin across
+the bar like, once when we were alone, 'Mrs. B.,' I said, 'when next I
+call I want you to remember that this is my particular--just as you're my
+particular?' (She'd let you go _that_ far!) 'Just as you're my
+particular,' I said. 'Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says, an'
+put 'er hand up to the curl be'ind 'er ear. Remember that way she had,
+Pye?"
+
+"I think so," said the sailor.
+
+"Yes, 'Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says. 'The least I can do is to
+mark it for you in case you change your mind. There's no great demand for
+it in the Fleet,' she says, 'but to make sure I'll put it at the back o'
+the shelf,' an' she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon with that old
+dolphin cigar cutter on the bar--remember it, Pye?--an' she tied a bow
+round what was left--just four bottles. That was '97--no, '96. In '98 I
+was in the _Resiliant_--China station--full commission. In Nineteen One,
+mark you, I was in the _Carthusian_, back in Auckland Bay again. Of course
+I went up to Mrs. B.'s with the rest of us to see how things were goin'.
+They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree on the pavement by the
+side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin' in special (there was too many of us
+talkin' to her), but she saw me at once."
+
+"That wasn't difficult?" I ventured.
+
+"Ah, but wait. I was comin' up to the bar, when, 'Ada,' she says to her
+niece, 'get me Sergeant Pritchard's particular,' and, gentlemen all, I
+tell you before I could shake 'ands with the lady, there were those four
+bottles o' Slits, with 'er 'air ribbon in a bow round each o' their necks,
+set down in front o' me, an' as she drew the cork she looked at me under
+her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o' lookin', an', 'Sergeant
+Pritchard,' she says, 'I do 'ope you 'aven't changed your mind about your
+particulars.' That's the kind o' woman she was--after five years!"
+
+"I don't _see_ her yet somehow," said Hooper, but with sympathy.
+
+"She--she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set 'er foot on a scorpion
+at any time of 'er life," Pritchard added valiantly.
+
+"That don't help me either. My mother's like that for one."
+
+The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof.
+Said Pyecroft suddenly:--
+
+"How many women have you been intimate with all over the world, Pritch?"
+
+Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch
+neck.
+
+"'Undreds," said Pyecroft. "So've I. How many of 'em can you remember in
+your own mind, settin' aside the first--an' per'aps the last--_and one
+more_?"
+
+"Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself," said Sergeant Pritchard,
+relievedly.
+
+"An' how many times might you 'ave been at Aukland?"
+
+"One--two," he began. "Why, I can't make it more than three times in ten
+years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B."
+
+"So can I--an' I've only been to Auckland twice--how she stood an' what
+she was sayin' an' what she looked like. That's the secret. 'Tisn't
+beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some
+women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street, but
+most of 'em you can live with a month on end, an' next commission you'd be
+put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as one
+might say."
+
+"Ah," said Hooper. "That's more the idea. I've known just two women of
+that nature."
+
+"An' it was no fault o' theirs?" asked Pritchard.
+
+"None whatever. I know that!"
+
+"An' if a man gets struck with that kind o' woman, Mr. Hooper?" Pritchard
+went on.
+
+"He goes crazy--or just saves himself," was the slow answer.
+
+"You've hit it," said the Sergeant. "You've seen an' known somethin' in
+the course o' your life, Mr. Hooper. I'm lookin' at you!" He set down his
+bottle.
+
+"And how often had Vickery seen her?" I asked.
+
+"That's the dark an' bloody mystery," Pyecroft answered. "I'd never come
+across him till I come out in the _Hierophant_ just now, an' there wasn't
+any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was what you call
+a superior man. 'E spoke to me once or twice about Auckland and Mrs. B. on
+the voyage out. I called that to mind subsequently. There must 'ave been a
+good deal between 'em, to my way o' thinkin'. Mind you I'm only giving you
+my _sum_ of it all, because all I know is second-hand so to speak, or
+rather I should say more than second-'and."
+
+"How?" said Hooper peremptorily. "You must have seen it or heard it."
+
+"Yes," said Pyecroft. "I used to think seein' and hearin' was the only
+regulation aids to ascertainin' facts, but as we get older we get more
+accommodatin'. The cylinders work easier, I suppose.... Were you in Cape
+Town last December when Phyllis's Circus came?"
+
+"No--up country," said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue.
+
+"I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called 'Home and
+Friends for a Tickey.'"
+
+"Oh, you mean the cinematograph--the pictures of prize-fights and
+steamers. I've seen 'em up country."
+
+"Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin' to. London Bridge with
+the omnibuses--a troopship goin' to the war--marines on parade at
+Portsmouth an' the Plymouth Express arrivin' at Paddin'ton."
+
+"Seen 'em all. Seen 'em all," said Hooper impatiently.
+
+"We _Hierophants_ came in just before Christmas week an' leaf was easy."
+
+"I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on
+the station. Why, even Durban's more like Nature. We was there for
+Christmas," Pritchard put in.
+
+"Not bein' a devotee of Indian _peeris_, as our Doctor said to the Pusser,
+I can't exactly say. Phyllis's was good enough after musketry practice at
+Mozambique. I couldn't get off the first two or three nights on account of
+what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo Lieutenant in the
+submerged flat, where some pride of the West country had sugared up a
+gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our Carpenter Rigdon--
+old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus never left 'is ship
+unless an' until he was 'oisted out with a winch, but _when_ 'e went 'e
+would return noddin' like a lily gemmed with dew. We smothered him down
+below that night, but the things 'e said about Vickery as a fittin'
+playmate for a Warrant Officer of 'is cubic capacity, before we got him
+quiet, was what I should call pointed."
+
+"I've been with Crocus--in the _Redoubtable_," said the Sergeant. "He's a
+character if there is one."
+
+"Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at the
+door of the Circus I came across Vickery. 'Oh!' he says, 'you're the man
+I'm looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin' places!'
+I went astern at once, protestin' because tickey seats better suited my
+so-called finances. 'Come on,' says Vickery, 'I'm payin'.' Naturally I
+abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o' drinks to match the seats.
+'No,' he says, when this was 'inted--'not now. Not now. As many as you
+please afterwards, but I want you sober for the occasion.' I caught 'is
+face under a lamp just then, an' the appearance of it quite cured me of my
+thirsts. Don't mistake. It didn't frighten me. It made me anxious. I can't
+tell you what it was like, but that was the effect which it 'ad on me. If
+you want to know, it reminded me of those things in bottles in those
+herbalistic shops at Plymouth--preserved in spirits of wine. White an'
+crumply things--previous to birth as you might say."
+
+"You 'ave a beastial mind, Pye," said the Sergeant, relighting his pipe.
+
+"Perhaps. We were in the front row, an' 'Home an' Friends' came on early.
+Vickery touched me on the knee when the number went up. 'If you see
+anything that strikes you,' he says, 'drop me a hint'; then he went on
+clicking. We saw London Bridge an' so forth an' so on, an' it was most
+interestin'. I'd never seen it before. You 'eard a little dynamo like
+buzzin', but the pictures were the real thing--alive an' movin'."
+
+"I've seen 'em," said Hooper. "Of course they are taken from the very
+thing itself--you see."
+
+"Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin'ton on the big magic lantern
+sheet. First we saw the platform empty an' the porters standin' by. Then
+the engine come in, head on, an' the women in the front row jumped: she
+headed so straight. Then the doors opened and the passengers came out and
+the porters got the luggage--just like life. Only--only when any one came
+down too far towards us that was watchin', they walked right out o' the
+picture, so to speak. I was 'ighly interested, I can tell you. So were all
+of us. I watched an old man with a rug 'oo'd dropped a book an' was tryin'
+to pick it up, when quite slowly, from be'ind two porters--carryin' a
+little reticule an' lookin' from side to side--comes out Mrs. Bathurst.
+There was no mistakin' the walk in a hundred thousand. She come forward--
+right forward--she looked out straight at us with that blindish look which
+Pritch alluded to. She walked on and on till she melted out of the
+picture--like--like a shadow jumpin' over a candle, an' as she went I
+'eard Dawson in the ticky seats be'ind sing out: 'Christ! There's
+Mrs. B.!'"
+
+Hooper swallowed his spittle and leaned forward intently.
+
+"Vickery touched me on the knee again. He was clickin' his four false
+teeth with his jaw down like an enteric at the last kick. 'Are you sure?'
+says he. 'Sure,' I says, 'didn't you 'ear Dawson give tongue? Why, it's
+the woman herself.' 'I was sure before,' he says, 'but I brought you to
+make sure. Will you come again with me to-morrow?'
+
+"'Willingly,' I says, 'it's like meetin' old friends.'
+
+"'Yes,' he says, openin' his watch, 'very like. It will be four-and-twenty
+hours less four minutes before I see her again. Come and have a drink,' he
+says. 'It may amuse you, but it's no sort of earthly use to me.' He went
+out shaking his head an' stumblin' over people's feet as if he was drunk
+already. I anticipated a swift drink an' a speedy return, because I wanted
+to see the performin' elephants. Instead o' which Vickery began to
+navigate the town at the rate o' knots, lookin' in at a bar every three
+minutes approximate Greenwich time. I'm not a drinkin' man, though there
+are those present"--he cocked his unforgetable eye at me--"who may have
+seen me more or less imbued with the fragrant spirit. None the less, when
+I drink I like to do it at anchor an' not at an average speed of eighteen
+knots on the measured mile. There's a tank as you might say at the back o'
+that big hotel up the hill--what do they call it?"
+
+"The Molteno Reservoir," I suggested, and Hooper nodded.
+
+"That was his limit o' drift. We walked there an' we come down through the
+Gardens--there was a South-Easter blowin'--an' we finished up by the
+Docks. Then we bore up the road to Salt River, and wherever there was a
+pub Vickery put in sweatin'. He didn't look at what he drunk--he didn't
+look at the change. He walked an' he drunk an' he perspired in rivers. I
+understood why old Crocus 'ad come back in the condition 'e did, because
+Vickery an' I 'ad two an' a half hours o' this gipsy manoeuvre an' when we
+got back to the station there wasn't a dry atom on or in me."
+
+"Did he say anything?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"The sum total of 'is conversation from 7.45 P.M. till 11.15 P.M. was
+'Let's have another.' Thus the mornin' an' the evenin' were the first day,
+as Scripture says.... To abbreviate a lengthy narrative, I went into Cape
+Town for five consecutive nights with Master Vickery, and in that time I
+must 'ave logged about fifty knots over the ground an' taken in two gallon
+o' all the worst spirits south the Equator. The evolution never varied.
+Two shilling seats for us two; five minutes o' the pictures, an' perhaps
+forty-five seconds o' Mrs. B. walking down towards us with that blindish
+look in her eyes an' the reticule in her hand. Then out walk--and drink
+till train time."
+
+"What did you think?" said Hooper, his hand fingering his waistcoat
+pocket.
+
+"Several things," said Pyecroft. "To tell you the truth, I aren't quite
+done thinkin' about it yet. Mad? The man was a dumb lunatic--must 'ave
+been for months--years p'raps. I know somethin' o' maniacs, as every man
+in the Service must. I've been shipmates with a mad skipper--an' a lunatic
+Number One, but never both together I thank 'Eaven. I could give you the
+names o' three captains now 'oo ought to be in an asylum, but you don't
+find me interferin' with the mentally afflicted till they begin to lay
+about 'em with rammers an' winch-handles. Only once I crept up a little
+into the wind towards Master Vickery. 'I wonder what she's doin' in
+England,' I says. 'Don't it seem to you she's lookin' for somebody?' That
+was in the Gardens again, with the South-Easter blowin' as we were makin'
+our desperate round. 'She's lookin' for me,' he says, stoppin' dead under
+a lamp an' clickin'. When he wasn't drinkin', in which case all 'is teeth
+clicked on the glass, 'e was clickin' 'is four false teeth like a Marconi
+ticker. 'Yes! lookin' for me,' he said, an' he went on very softly an' as
+you might say affectionately. '_But?_ he went on, 'in future, Mr.
+Pyecroft, I should take it kindly of you if you'd confine your remarks to
+the drinks set before you. Otherwise,' he says, 'with the best will in the
+world towards you, I may find myself guilty of murder! Do you understand?'
+he says. 'Perfectly,' I says, 'but would it at all soothe you to know that
+in such a case the chances o' your being killed are precisely equivalent
+to the chances o' me being outed.' 'Why, no,' he says, 'I'm almost afraid
+that 'ud be a temptation,'
+
+"Then I said--we was right under the lamp by that arch at the end o' the
+Gardens where the trams came round--'Assumin' murder was done--or
+attempted murder--I put it to you that you would still be left so badly
+crippled, as one might say, that your subsequent capture by the police--to
+'oom you would 'ave to explain--would be largely inevitable.' 'That's
+better,' 'e says, passin' 'is hands over his forehead. 'That's much
+better, because,' he says, 'do you know, as I am now, Pye, I'm not so sure
+if I could explain anything much.' Those were the only particular words I
+had with 'im in our walks as I remember."
+
+"What walks!" said Hooper. "Oh my soul, what walks!"
+
+"They were chronic," said Pyecroft gravely, "but I didn't anticipate any
+danger till the Circus left. Then I anticipated that, bein' deprived of
+'is stimulant, he might react on me, so to say, with a hatchet.
+Consequently, after the final performance an' the ensuin' wet walk, I kep'
+myself aloof from my superior officer on board in the execution of 'is
+duty as you might put it. Consequently, I was interested when the sentry
+informs me while I was passin' on my lawful occasions that Click had asked
+to see the captain. As a general rule warrant officers don't dissipate
+much of the owner's time, but Click put in an hour and more be'ind that
+door. My duties kep' me within eyeshot of it. Vickery came out first, an'
+'e actually nodded at me an' smiled. This knocked me out o' the boat,
+because, havin' seen 'is face for five consecutive nights, I didn't
+anticipate any change there more than a condenser in hell, so to speak.
+The owner emerged later. His face didn't read off at all, so I fell back
+on his cox, 'oo'd been eight years with him and knew him better than boat
+signals. Lamson--that was the cox's name--crossed 'is bows once or twice
+at low speeds an' dropped down to me visibly concerned. 'He's shipped 'is
+court-martial face,' says Lamson. 'Some one's goin' to be 'ung. I've never
+seen that look but once before when they chucked the gun-sights overboard
+in the _Fantastic_.' Throwin' gun-sights overboard, Mr. Hooper, is the
+equivalent for mutiny in these degenerate days. It's done to attract the
+notice of the authorities an' the _Western Mornin' News_--generally by a
+stoker. Naturally, word went round the lower deck an' we had a private
+over'aul of our little consciences. But, barrin' a shirt which a second-
+class stoker said 'ad walked into 'is bag from the marines flat by itself,
+nothin' vital transpired. The owner went about flyin' the signal for
+'attend public execution,' so to say, but there was no corpse at the
+yardarm. 'E lunched on the beach an' 'e returned with 'is regulation
+harbour-routine face about 3 P. M. Thus Lamson lost prestige for raising
+false alarms. The only person 'oo might 'ave connected the epicycloidal
+gears correctly was one Pyecroft, when he was told that Mr. Vickery would
+go up country that same evening to take over certain naval ammunition left
+after the war in Bloemfontein Fort. No details was ordered to accompany
+Master Vickery. He was told off first person singular--as a unit---by
+himself."
+
+The marine whistled penetratingly.
+
+"That's what I thought," said Pyecroft. "I went ashore with him in the
+cutter an' 'e asked me to walk through the station. He was clickin'
+audibly, but otherwise seemed happy-ish.
+
+"'You might like to know,' he says, stoppin' just opposite the Admiral's
+front gate, 'that Phyllis's Circus will be performin' at Worcester
+to-morrow night. So I shall see 'er yet once again. You've been very
+patient with me,' he says.
+
+"'Look here, Vickery,' I said, 'this thing's come to be just as much as I
+can stand. Consume your own smoke. I don't want to know any more.'
+
+"'You!' he said. 'What have you got to complain of?--you've only 'ad to
+watch. I'm _it_,' he says, 'but that's neither here nor there,' he says.
+'I've one thing to say before shakin' 'ands. Remember,' 'e says--we were
+just by the Admiral's garden-gate then--'remember, that I am _not_ a
+murderer, because my lawful wife died in childbed six weeks after I came
+out. That much at least I am clear of,' 'e says.
+
+"'Then what have you done that signifies?' I said. 'What's the rest of
+it?'
+
+"'The rest,' 'e says, 'is silence,' an' he shook 'ands and went clickin'
+into Simons Town station."
+
+"Did he stop to see Mrs. Bathurst at Worcester?" I asked.
+
+"It's not known. He reported at Bloemfontein, saw the ammunition into the
+trucks, and then 'e disappeared. Went out--deserted, if you care to put it
+so--within eighteen months of his pension, an' if what 'e said about 'is
+wife was true he was a free man as 'e then stood. How do you read it off?"
+
+"Poor devil!" said Hooper. "To see her that way every night! I wonder what
+it was."
+
+"I've made my 'ead ache in that direction many a long night."
+
+"But I'll swear Mrs. B. 'ad no 'and in it," said the Sergeant unshaken.
+
+"No. Whatever the wrong or deceit was, he did it, I'm sure o' that. I 'ad
+to look at 'is face for five consecutive nights. I'm not so fond o'
+navigatin' about Cape Town with a South-Easter blowin' these days. I can
+hear those teeth click, so to say."
+
+"Ah, those teeth," said Hooper, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket
+once more. "Permanent things false teeth are. You read about 'em in all
+the murder trials."
+
+"What d'you suppose the captain knew--or did?" I asked.
+
+"I never turned my searchlight that way," Pyecroft answered unblushingly.
+
+We all reflected together, and drummed on empty beer bottles as the
+picnic-party, sunburned, wet, and sandy, passed our door singing "The
+Honeysuckle and the Bee."
+
+"Pretty girl under that kapje," said Pyecroft.
+
+"They never circulated his description?" said Pritchard.
+
+"I was askin' you before these gentlemen came," said Hooper to me,
+"whether you knew Wankies--on the way to the Zambesi--beyond Buluwayo?"
+
+"Would he pass there--tryin' to get to that Lake what's 'is name?" said
+Pritchard.
+
+Hooper shook his head and went on: "There's a curious bit o' line there,
+you see. It runs through solid teak forest--a sort o' mahogany really--
+seventy-two miles without a curve. I've had a train derailed there twenty-
+three times in forty miles. I was up there a month ago relievin' a sick
+inspector, you see. He told me to look out for a couple of tramps in the
+teak."
+
+"Two?" Pyecroft said. "I don't envy that other man if----"
+
+"We get heaps of tramps up there since the war. The inspector told me I'd
+find 'em at M'Bindwe siding waiting to go North. He'd given 'em some grub
+and quinine, you see. I went up on a construction train. I looked out for
+'em. I saw them miles ahead along the straight, waiting in the teak. One
+of 'em was standin' up by the dead-end of tke siding an' the other was
+squattin' down lookin' up at 'im, you see."
+
+"What did you do for 'em?" said Pritchard.
+
+"There wasn't much I could do, except bury 'em. There'd been a bit of a
+thunderstorm in the teak, you see, and they were both stone dead and as
+black as charcoal. That's what they really were, you see--charcoal. They
+fell to bits when we tried to shift 'em. The man who was standin' up had
+the false teeth. I saw 'em shinin' against the black. Fell to bits he did
+too, like his mate squatting down an' watchin' him, both of 'em all wet in
+the rain. Both burned to charcoal, you see. And--that's what made me ask
+about marks just now--the false-toother was tattooed on the arms and
+chest--a crown and foul anchor with M.V. above."
+
+"I've seen that," said Pyecroft quickly. "It was so."
+
+"But if he was all charcoal-like?" said Pritchard, shuddering.
+
+"You know how writing shows up white on a burned letter? Well, it was like
+that, you see. We buried 'em in the teak and I kept... But he was a friend
+of you two gentlemen, you see."
+
+Mr. Hooper brought his hand away from his waistcoat-pocket--empty.
+
+Pritchard covered his face with his hands for a moment, like a child
+shutting out an ugliness.
+
+"And to think of her at Hauraki!" he murmured--"with 'er 'air-ribbon on my
+beer. 'Ada,' she said to her niece... Oh, my Gawd!"...
+
+  "On a summer afternoon, when the honeysuckle blooms,
+  And all Nature seems at rest,
+  Underneath the bower, 'mid the perfume of the flower,
+  Sat a maiden with the one she loves the best----"
+
+sang the picnic-party waiting for their train at Glengariff.
+
+"Well, I don't know how you feel about it," said Pyecroft, "but 'avin'
+seen 'is face for five consecutive nights on end, I'm inclined to finish
+what's left of the beer an' thank Gawd he's dead!"
+
+
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+"OUR FATHERS ALSO"
+
+  By--they are by with mirth and tears,
+  Wit or the works of Desire--
+  Cushioned about on the kindly years
+  Between the wall and the fire.
+
+  The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked--
+  Standeth no more to glean;
+  For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
+  When they went out between.
+
+  All lore our Lady Venus bares
+  Signalled it was or told
+  By the dear lips long given to theirs
+  And longer to the mould.
+
+  All Profit, all Device, all Truth
+  Written it was or said
+  By the mighty men of their mighty youth.
+  Which is mighty being dead.
+
+  The film that floats before their eyes
+  The Temple's Veil they call;
+  And the dust that on the Shewbread lies
+  Is holy over all.
+
+  Warn them of seas that slip our yoke
+  Of slow conspiring stars--
+  The ancient Front of Things unbroke
+  But heavy with new wars?
+
+  By--they are by with mirth and tears.
+  Wit or the waste of Desire--
+  Cushioned about on the kindly years
+  Between the wall and the fire.
+
+
+BELOW THE MILL DAM
+
+"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" They were letting in the water for the evening
+stint at Robert's Mill, and the wooden Wheel where lived the Spirit of the
+Mill settled to its nine hundred year old song: "Here Azor, a freeman,
+held one rod, but it never paid geld. _Nun-nun-nunquam geldavit_. Here
+Reinbert has one villein and four cottars with one plough--and wood for
+six hogs and two fisheries of sixpence and a mill of ten shillings--_unum
+molinum_--one mill. Reinbert's mill--Robert's Mill. Then and afterwards
+and now--_tunc et post et modo_--Robert's Mill. Book--Book--Domesday
+Book!"
+
+"I confess," said the Black Rat on the crossbeam, luxuriously trimming his
+whiskers--"I confess I am not above appreciating my position and all it
+means." He was a genuine old English black rat, a breed which, report
+says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown variety.
+
+"Appreciation is the surest sign of inadequacy," said the Grey Cat, coiled
+up on a piece of sacking.
+
+"But I know what you mean," she added. "To sit by right at the heart of
+things--eh?"
+
+"Yes," said the Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy stones
+thuttered on the grist. "To possess--er--all this environment as an
+integral part of one's daily life must insensibly of course ... You see?"
+
+"I feel," said the Grey Cat. "Indeed, if _we_ are not saturated with the
+spirit of the Mill, who should be?"
+
+"Book--Book--Domesday Book!" the Wheel, set to his work, was running off
+the tenure of the whole rape, for he knew Domesday Book backwards and
+forwards: "_In Ferle tenuit Abbatia de Wiltuna unam hidam et unam virgam
+et dimidiam. Nunquam geldavit_. And Agemond, a freeman, has half a hide
+and one rod. I remember Agemond well. Charmin' fellow--friend of mine. He
+married a Norman girl in the days when we rather looked down on the
+Normans as upstarts. An' Agemond's dead? So he is. Eh, dearie me! dearie
+me! I remember the wolves howling outside his door in the big frost of Ten
+Fifty-Nine.... _Essewelde hundredum nunquam geldum reddidit_. Book! Book!
+Domesday Book!"
+
+"After all," the Grey Cat continued, "atmospere is life. It is the
+influences under which we live that count in the long run. Now, outside"--
+she cocked one ear towards the half-opened door--"there is an absurd
+convention that rats and cats are, I won't go so far as to say natural
+enemies, but opposed forces. Some such ruling may be crudely effective--I
+don't for a minute presume to set up my standards as final--among the
+ditches; but from the larger point of view that one gains by living at the
+heart of things, it seems for a rule of life a little overstrained. Why,
+because some of your associates have, shall I say, liberal views on the
+ultimate destination of a sack of--er--middlings don't they call them----"
+
+"Something of that sort," said the Black Rat, a most sharp and sweet-
+toothed judge of everything ground in the mill for the last three years.
+
+"Thanks--middlings be it. _Why_, as I was saying, must I disarrange my fur
+and my digestion to chase you round the dusty arena whenever we happen to
+meet?"
+
+"As little reason," said the Black Rat, "as there is for me, who, I trust,
+am a person of ordinarily decent instincts, to wait till you have gone on
+a round of calls, and then to assassinate your very charming children."
+
+"Exactly! It has its humorous side though." The Grey Cat yawned. "The
+miller seems afflicted by it. He shouted large and vague threats to my
+address, last night at tea, that he wasn't going to keep cats who 'caught
+no mice.' Those were his words. I remember the grammar sticking in my
+throat like a herring-bone."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"What does one do when a barbarian utters? One ceases to utter and
+removes. I removed--towards his pantry. It was a _riposte_ he might
+appreciate."
+
+"Really those people grow absolutely insufferable," said the Black Rat.
+"There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles--a builder--
+who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the Wheel for
+the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick where
+those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used to stand. Have you noticed?"
+
+"There has been much misdirected activity of late among the humans. They
+jabber inordinately. I haven't yet been able to arrive at their reason for
+existence." The Cat yawned.
+
+"A couple of them came in here last week with wires, and fixed them all
+about the walls. Wires protected by some abominable composition, ending in
+iron brackets with glass bulbs. Utterly useless for any purpose and
+artistically absolutely hideous. What do they mean?"
+
+"Aaah! I have known _four_-and-twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza," said
+the Cat, who kept good company with the boarders spending a summer at the
+Mill Farm. "It means nothing except that humans occasionally bring their
+dogs with them. I object to dogs in all forms."
+
+"Shouldn't object to dogs," said the Wheel sleepily.... "The Abbot of
+Wilton kept the best pack in the county. He enclosed all the Harryngton
+Woods to Sturt Common. Aluric, a freeman, was dispossessed of his holding.
+They tried the case at Lewes, but he got no change out of William de
+Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric eight and
+fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for
+blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot's brother married ...
+I've forgotten her name, but she was a charmin' little woman. The Lady
+Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was conferred. She
+rode devilish straight to hounds. They were a bit throatier than we breed
+now, but a good pack: one of the best. The Abbot kept 'em in splendid
+shape. Now, who was the woman the Abbot kept? Book--Book! I shall have to
+go right back to Domesday and work up the centuries: _Modo per omnia
+reddit burgum tunc--tunc--tunc_! Was it _burgum_ or _hundredum_? I shall
+remember in a minute. There's no hurry." He paused as he turned over
+silvered with showering drops.
+
+"This won't do," said the Waters in the sluice. "Keep moving."
+
+The Wheel swung forward; the Waters roared on the buckets and dropped down
+to the darkness below.
+
+"Noisier than usual," said the Black Rat. "It must have been raining up
+the valley."
+
+"Floods maybe," said the Wheel dreamily. "It isn't the proper season, but
+they can come without warning. I shall never forget the big one--when the
+Miller went to sleep and forgot to open the hatches. More than two hundred
+years ago it was, but I recall it distinctly. Most unsettling."
+
+"We lifted that wheel off his bearings," cried the Waters. "We said, 'Take
+away that bauble!' And in the morning he was five mile down the valley--
+hung up in a tree."
+
+"Vulgar!" said the Cat. "But I am sure he never lost his dignity."
+
+"We don't know. He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished
+with him.... Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! Get over!"
+
+"And why on this day more than any other," said the Wheel statelily. "I am
+not aware that my department requires the stimulus of external pressure to
+keep it up to its duties. I trust I have the elementary instincts of a
+gentleman."
+
+"Maybe," the Waters answered together, leaping down on the buckets. "We
+only know that you are very stiff on your bearings. Over, get over!"
+
+The Wheel creaked and groaned. There was certainly greater pressure upon
+him that he had ever felt, and his revolutions had increased from six and
+three-quarters to eight and a third per minute. But the uproar between the
+narrow, weed-hung walls annoyed the Grey Cat.
+
+"Isn't it almost time," she said plaintively, "that the person who is paid
+to understand these things shuts off those vehement drippings with that
+screw-thing on the top of that box-thing."
+
+"They'll be shut off at eight o'clock as usual," said Rat; "then we can go
+to dinner."
+
+"But we shan't be shut off till ever so late," said the Waters gaily. "We
+shall keep it up all night."
+
+"The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for by
+its eternal hopefulness," said the Cat. "Our dam is not, I am glad to say,
+designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time. Reserve is
+Life."
+
+"Thank goodness!" said the Black Rat. "Then they can return to their
+native ditches."
+
+"Ditches!" cried the Waters; "Raven's Gill Brook is no ditch. It is almost
+navigable, and _we_ come from there away." They slid over solid and
+compact till the Wheel thudded under their weight.
+
+"Raven's Gill Brook," said the Rat. "_I_ never heard of Raven's Gill."
+
+"We are the waters of Harpenden Brook--down from under Callton Rise. Phew!
+how the race stinks compared with the heather country." Another five foot
+of water flung itself against the Wheel, broke, roared, gurgled, and was
+gone.
+
+"Indeed," said the Grey Cat, "I am sorry to tell you that Raven's Gill
+Brook is cut off from this valley by an absolutely impassable range of
+mountains, and Callton Rise is more than nine miles away. It belongs to
+another system entirely."
+
+"Ah yes," said the Rat, grinning, "but we forget that, for the young,
+water always runs uphill."
+
+"Oh, hopeless! hopeless! hopeless!" cried the Waters, descending open-
+palmed upon the Wheel "There is nothing between here and Raven's Gill
+Brook that a hundred yards of channelling and a few square feet of
+concrete could not remove; and hasn't removed!"
+
+"And Harpenden Brook is north of Raven's Gill and runs into Raven's Gill
+at the foot of Callton Rise, where ilex trees are, and _we_ come from
+there!" These were the glassy, clear waters of the high chalk.
+
+"And Batten's Ponds, that are fed by springs, have been led through
+Trott's Wood, taking the spare water from the old Witches' Spring under
+Churt Haw, and we--we--_we_ are their combined waters!" Those were the
+Waters from the upland bogs and moors--a porter-coloured, dusky, and foam-
+flecked flood.
+
+"It's all very interesting," purred the Cat to the sliding waters, "and I
+have no doubt that Trott's Woods and Bott's Woods are tremendously
+important places; but if you could manage to do your work--whose value I
+don't in the least dispute--a little more soberly, I, for one, should be
+grateful."
+
+"Book--book--book--book--book--Domesday Book!" The urged Wheel was fairly
+clattering now: "In Burgelstaltone a monk holds of Earl Godwin one hide
+and a half with eight villeins. There is a church--and a monk.... I
+remember that monk. Blessed if he could rattle his rosary off any quicker
+than I am doing now ... and wood for seven hogs. I must be running twelve
+to the minute ... almost as fast as Steam. Damnable invention, Steam! ...
+Surely it's time we went to dinner or prayers--or something. Can't keep up
+this pressure, day in and day out, and not feel it. I don't mind for
+myself, of course. _Noblesse oblige_, you know. I'm only thinking of the
+Upper and the Nether Millstones. They came out of the common rock. They
+can't be expected to----"
+
+"Don't worry on our account, please," said the Millstones huskily. "So
+long as you supply the power we'll supply the weight and the bite."
+
+"Isn't it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this way?" grunted
+the Wheel. "I seem to remember something about the Mills of God grinding
+'slowly.' _Slowly_ was the word!"
+
+"But we are not the Mills of God. We're only the Upper and the Nether
+Millstones. We have received no instructions to be anything else. We are
+actuated by power transmitted through you."
+
+"Ah, but let us be merciful as we are strong. Think of all the beautiful
+little plants that grow on my woodwork. There are five varieties of rare
+moss within less than one square yard--and all these delicate jewels of
+nature are being grievously knocked about by this excessive rush of the
+water."
+
+"Umph!" growled the Millstones. "What with your religious scruples and
+your taste for botany we'd hardly know you for the Wheel that put the
+carter's son under last autumn. You never worried about _him_!"
+
+"He ought to have known better."
+
+"So ought your jewels of nature. Tell 'em to grow where it's safe."
+
+"How a purely mercantile life debases and brutalises!" said the Cat to the
+Rat.
+
+"They were such beautiful little plants too," said the Rat tenderly.
+"Maiden's-tongue and hart's-hair fern trellising all over the wall just as
+they do on the sides of churches in the Downs. Think what a joy the sight
+of them must be to our sturdy peasants pulling hay!"
+
+"Golly!" said the Millstones. "There's nothing like coming to the heart of
+things for information"; and they returned to the song that all English
+water-mills have sung from time beyond telling:
+
+  There was a jovial miller once
+  Lived on the River Dee,
+  And this the burden of his song
+  For ever used to be.
+
+Then, as fresh grist poured in and dulled the note:
+
+  I care for nobody--no not I,
+  And nobody cares for me.
+
+"Even these stones have absorbed something of our atmosphere," said the
+Grey Cat. "Nine-tenths of the trouble in this world comes from lack of
+detachment."
+
+"One of your people died from forgetting that, didn't she?" said the Rat.
+
+"One only. The example has sufficed us for generations."
+
+"Ah! but what happened to Don't Care?" the Waters demanded.
+
+"Brutal riding to death of the casual analogy is another mark of
+provincialism!" The Grey Cat raised her tufted chin. "I am going to sleep.
+With my social obligations I must snatch rest when I can; but, as our old
+friend here says, _Noblesse oblige_.... Pity me! Three functions to-night
+in the village, and a barn dance across the valley!"
+
+"There's no chance, I suppose, of your looking in on the loft about two.
+Some of our young people are going to amuse themselves with a new sacque-
+dance--best white flour only," said the Black Rat.
+
+"I believe I am officially supposed not to countenance that sort of thing,
+but youth is youth. ... By the way, the humans set my milk-bowl in the
+loft these days; I hope your youngsters respect it."
+
+"My dear lady," said the Black Rat, bowing, "you grieve me. You hurt me
+inexpressibly. After all these years, too!"
+
+"A general crush is so mixed--highways and hedges--all that sort of thing
+--and no one can answer for one's best friends. _I_ never try. So long as
+mine are amusin' and in full voice, and can hold their own at a tile-
+party, I'm as catholic as these mixed waters in the dam here!"
+
+"We aren't mixed. We _have_ mixed. We are one now," said the Waters
+sulkily.
+
+"Still uttering?" said the Cat. "Never mind, here's the Miller coming to
+shut you off. Ye-es, I have known--_four_--or five is it?--and twenty
+leaders of revolt in Faenza.... A little more babble in the dam, a little
+more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the wheel,
+and then----"
+
+"They will find that nothing has occurred," said the Black Rat. "The old
+things persist and survive and are recognised--our old friend here first
+of all. By the way," he turned toward the Wheel, "I believe we have to
+congratulate you on your latest honour."
+
+"Profoundly well deserved--even if he had never--as he has---laboured
+strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of millkind," said
+the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse committees. "Doubly
+deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified rebuke his existence
+offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands of--er--some people. What
+form did the honour take?"
+
+"It was," said the Wheel bashfully, "a machine-moulded pinion."
+
+"Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!" the Black Rat sighed. "I never see a bat
+without wishing for wings."
+
+"Not exactly that sort of pinion," said the Wheel, "but a really ornate
+circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying. Mr.
+Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally--on my left
+rim--the side that you can't see from the mill. I hadn't meant to say
+anything about it--or the new steel straps round my axles--bright red, you
+know--to be worn on all occasions--but, without false modesty, I assure
+you that the recognition cheered me not a little."
+
+"How intensely gratifying!" said the Black Rat. "I must really steal an
+hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on your left
+side."
+
+"By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr. Mangles?"
+the Grey Cat asked. "He seems to be building small houses on the far side
+of the tail-race. Believe me, I don't ask from any vulgar curiosity."
+
+"It affects our Order," said the Black Rat simply but firmly.
+
+"Thank you," said the Wheel. "Let me see if I can tabulate it properly.
+Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On the
+side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now
+was a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and two
+carts of two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards and a
+half, and one roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and
+afterwards beer in large tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three
+villeins and one very great cart, deposits on it one engine of iron and
+brass and a small iron mill of four feet, and a broad strap of leather.
+And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins, constructs the floor for the
+same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the small mill. There are
+there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number fifty-seven. The
+whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four pounds.... I'm sorry I
+can't make myself clearer, but you can see for yourself."
+
+"Amazingly lucid," said the Cat. She was the more to be admired because
+the language of Domesday Book is not, perhaps, the clearest medium wherein
+to describe a small but complete electric-light installation, deriving its
+power from a water-wheel by means of cogs and gearing.
+
+"See for yourself--by all means, see for yourself," said the Waters,
+spluttering and choking with mirth.
+
+"Upon my word," said the Black Rat furiously, "I may be at fault, but I
+wholly fail to perceive where these offensive eavesdroppers--er--come in.
+We were discussing a matter that solely affected our Order."
+
+Suddenly they heard, as they had heard many times before, the Miller
+shutting off the water. To the rattle and rumble of the labouring stones
+succeeded thick silence, punctuated with little drops from the stayed
+wheel. Then some water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as she slid to
+her nest, and the plop of a water-rat sounded like the fall of a log in
+the water.
+
+"It is all over--it always is all over at just this time. Listen, the
+Miller is going to bed--as usual. Nothing has occurred," said the Cat.
+
+Something creaked in the house where the pig-styes had stood, as metal
+engaged on metal with a clink and a burr.
+
+"Shall I turn her on?" cried the Miller.
+
+"Ay," said the voice from the dynamo-house.
+
+"A human in Mangles' new house!" the Rat squeaked.
+
+"What of it?" said the Grey Cat. "Even supposing Mr. Mangles' cats'-meat-
+coloured hovel ululated with humans, can't you see for yourself--that--?"
+
+There was a solid crash of released waters leaping upon the wheel more
+furiously than ever, a grinding of cogs, a hum like the hum of a hornet,
+and then the unvisited darkness of the old mill was scattered by
+intolerable white light. It threw up every cobweb, every burl and knot in
+the beams and the floor; till the shadows behind the flakes of rough
+plaster on the wall lay clear-cut as shadows of mountains on the
+photographed moon.
+
+"See! See! See!" hissed the Waters in full flood. "Yes, see for
+yourselves. Nothing has occurred. Can't you see?"
+
+The Rat, amazed, had fallen from his foothold and lay half-stunned on the
+floor. The Cat, following her instinct, leaped nigh to the ceiling, and
+with flattened ears and bared teeth backed in a corner ready to fight
+whatever terror might be loosed on her. But nothing happened. Through the
+long aching minutes nothing whatever happened, and her wire-brush tail
+returned slowly to its proper shape.
+
+"Whatever it is," she said at last, "it's overdone. They can never keep it
+up, you know."
+
+"Much you know," said the Waters. "Over you go, old man. You can take the
+full head of us now. Those new steel axle-straps of yours can stand
+anything. Come along, Raven's Gill, Harpenden, Callton Rise, Batten's
+Ponds, Witches' Spring, all together! Let's show these gentlemen how to
+work!"
+
+"But--but--I thought it was a decoration. Why--why--why--it only means
+more work for _me_!"
+
+"Exactly. You're to supply about sixty eight-candle lights when required.
+But they won't be all in use at once----"
+
+"Ah! I thought as much," said the Cat. "The reaction is bound to come."
+
+"_And_" said the Waters, "you will do the ordinary work of the mill as
+well."
+
+"Impossible!" the old Wheel quivered as it drove. "Aluric never did it--
+nor Azor, nor Reinbert. Not even William de Warrenne or the Papal Legate.
+There's no precedent for it. I tell you there's no precedent for working a
+wheel like this."
+
+"Wait a while! We're making one as fast as we can. Aluric and Co. are
+dead. So's the Papal Legate. You've no notion how dead they are, but we're
+here--the Waters of Five Separate Systems. We're just as interesting as
+Domesday Book. Would you like to hear about the land-tenure in Trott's
+Wood? It's squat-right, chiefly." The mocking Waters leaped one over the
+other, chuckling and chattering profanely.
+
+"In that hundred Jenkins, a tinker, with one dog--_unis canis_--holds, by
+the Grace of God and a habit he has of working hard, _unam hidam_--a large
+potato patch. Charmin' fellow, Jenkins. Friend of ours. Now, who the dooce
+did Jenkins keep? ... In the hundred of Callton is one charcoal-burner
+_irreligiosissimus homo_--a bit of a rip--but a thorough sportsman. _Ibi
+est ecclesia. Non multum_. Not much of a church, _quia_ because,
+_episcopus_ the Vicar irritated the Nonconformists _tunc et post et modo_
+--then and afterwards and now--until they built a cut-stone Congregational
+chapel with red brick facings that did not return itself--_defendebat se_
+--at four thousand pounds."
+
+"Charcoal-burners, vicars, schismatics, and red brick facings," groaned
+the Wheel. "But this is sheer blasphemy. What waters have they let in upon
+me?"
+
+"Floods from the gutters. Faugh, this light is positively sickening!" said
+the Cat, rearranging her fur.
+
+"We come down from the clouds or up from the springs, exactly like all
+other waters everywhere. Is that what's surprising you?" sang the Waters.
+
+"Of course not. I know my work if you don't. What I complain of is your
+lack of reverence and repose. You've no instinct of deference towards your
+betters--your heartless parody of the Sacred volume (the Wheel meant
+Domesday Book)--proves it."
+
+"Our betters?" said the Waters most solemnly. "What is there in all this
+dammed race that hasn't come down from the clouds, or----"
+
+"Spare me that talk, please," the Wheel persisted. "You'd _never_
+understand. It's the tone--your tone that we object to."
+
+"Yes. It's your tone," said the Black Rat, picking himself up limb by
+limb.
+
+"If you thought a trifle more about the work you're supposed to do, and a
+trifle less about your precious feelings, you'd render a little more duty
+in return for the power vested in you--we mean wasted on you," the Waters
+replied.
+
+"I have been some hundreds of years laboriously acquiring the knowledge
+which you see fit to challenge so light-heartedly," the Wheel jarred.
+
+"Challenge him! Challenge him!" clamoured the little waves riddling down
+through the tail-race. "As well now as later. Take him up!"
+
+The main mass of the Waters plunging on the Wheel shocked that well-bolted
+structure almost into box-lids by saying: "Very good. Tell us what you
+suppose yourself to be doing at the present moment."
+
+"Waiving the offensive form of your question, I answer, purely as a matter
+of courtesy, that I am engaged in the trituration of farinaceous
+substances whose ultimate destination it would be a breach of the trust
+reposed in me to reveal."
+
+"Fiddle!" said the Waters. "We knew it all along! The first direct
+question shows his ignorance of his own job. Listen, old thing. Thanks to
+us, you are now actuating a machine of whose construction you know
+nothing, that that machine may, over wires of whose ramifications you are,
+by your very position, profoundly ignorant, deliver a power which you can
+never realise, to localities beyond the extreme limits of your mental
+horizon, with the object of producing phenomena which in your wildest
+dreams (if you ever dream) you could never comprehend. Is that clear, or
+would you like it all in words of four syllables?"
+
+"Your assumptions are deliciously sweeping, but may I point out that a
+decent and--the dear old Abbot of Wilton would have put it in his resonant
+monkish Latin much better than I can--a scholarly reserve, does not
+necessarily connote blank vacuity of mind on all subjects."
+
+"Ah, the dear old Abbot of Wilton," said the Rat sympathetically, as one
+nursed in that bosom. "Charmin' fellow--thorough scholar and gentleman.
+Such a pity!"
+
+"Oh, Sacred Fountains!" the Waters were fairly boiling. "He goes out of
+his way to expose his ignorance by triple bucketfuls. He creaks to high
+Heaven that he is hopelessly behind the common order of things! He invites
+the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal
+incompetence, and then he talks as though there were untold reserves of
+knowledge behind him that he is too modest to bring forward. For a bland,
+circular, absolutely sincere impostor, you're a miracle, O Wheel!"
+
+"I do not pretend to be anything more than an integral portion of an
+accepted and not altogether mushroom institution."
+
+"Quite so," said the Waters. "Then go round--hard----"
+
+"To what end?" asked the Wheel.
+
+"Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and fume--gassing is
+the proper word."
+
+"It would be," said the Cat, sniffing.
+
+"That will show that your accumulators are full. When the accumulators are
+exhausted, and the lights burn badly, you will find us whacking you round
+and round again."
+
+"The end of life as decreed by Mangles and his creatures is to go whacking
+round and round for ever," said the Cat.
+
+"In order," the Rat said, "that you may throw raw and unnecessary
+illumination upon all the unloveliness in the world. Unloveliness which we
+shall--er--have always with us. At the same time you will riotously
+neglect the so-called little but vital graces that make up Life."
+
+"Yes, Life," said the Cat, "with its dim delicious half-tones and veiled
+indeterminate distances. Its surprisals, escapes, encounters, and dizzying
+leaps--its full-throated choruses in honour of the morning star, and its
+melting reveries beneath the sun-warmed wall."
+
+"Oh, you can go on the tiles, Pussalina, just the same as usual," said the
+laughing Waters. "_We_ sha'n't interfere with you."
+
+"On the tiles, forsooth!" hissed the Cat.
+
+"Well, that's what it amounts to," persisted the Waters. "We see a good
+deal of the minor graces of life on our way down to our job."
+
+"And--but I fear I speak to deaf ears--do they never impress you?" said
+the Wheel.
+
+"Enormously," said the Waters. "We have already learned six refined
+synonyms for loafing."
+
+"But (here again I feel as though preaching in the wilderness) it never
+occurs to you that there may exist some small difference between the
+wholly animal--ah--rumination of bovine minds and the discerning, well-
+apportioned leisure of the finer type of intellect?"
+
+"Oh, yes. The bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no bones
+about it when it's shouted at. We've seen _that_--in haying-time--all
+along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough to fudge up excuses
+for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when its excuses aren't
+accepted. Turn over!"
+
+"But, my good people, no gentleman gets stuffy as you call it. A certain
+proper pride, to put it no higher, forbids---"
+
+"Nothing that he wants to do if he really wants to do it. Get along! What
+are you giving us? D'you suppose we've scoured half heaven in the clouds,
+and half earth in the mists, to be taken in at this time of the day by a
+bone-idle, old hand-quern of your type?"
+
+"It is not for me to bandy personalities with you. I can only say that I
+simply decline to accept the situation."
+
+"Decline away. It doesn't make any odds. They'll probably put in a turbine
+if you decline too much."
+
+"What's a turbine?" said the Wheel, quickly.
+
+"A little thing you don't see, that performs surprising revolutions. But
+you won't decline. You'll hang on to your two nice red-strapped axles and
+your new machine-moulded pinions like--a--like a leech on a lily stem!
+There's centuries of work in your old bones if you'd only apply yourself
+to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel with this head of water is
+about as efficient as a turbine."
+
+"So in future I am to be considered mechanically? I have been painted by
+at least five Royal Academicians."
+
+"Oh, you can be painted by five hundred when you aren't at work, of
+course. But while you are at work you'll work. You won't half-stop and
+think and talk about rare plants and dicky-birds and farinaceous fiduciary
+interests. You'll continue to revolve, and this new head of water will see
+that you do so continue."
+
+"It is a matter on which it would be exceedingly ill-advised to form a
+hasty or a premature conclusion. I will give it my most careful
+consideration," said the Wheel.
+
+"Please do," said the Waters gravely. "Hullo! Here's the Miller again."
+
+The Cat coiled herself in a picturesque attitude on the softest corner of
+a sack, and the Rat without haste, yet certainly without rest, slipped
+behind the sacking as though an appointment had just occurred to him.
+
+In the doorway, with the young Engineer, stood the Miller grinning
+amazedly.
+
+"Well--well--well! 'tis true-ly won'erful. An' what a power o' dirt! It
+come over me now looking at these lights, that I've never rightly seen my
+own mill before. She needs a lot bein' done to her."
+
+"Ah! I suppose one must make oneself moderately agreeable to the baser
+sort. They have their uses. This thing controls the dairy." The Cat,
+pincing on her toes, came forward and rubbed her head against the Miller's
+knee.
+
+"Ay, you pretty puss," he said, stooping. "You're as big a cheat as the
+rest of 'em that catch no mice about me. A won'erful smooth-skinned,
+rough-tongued cheat you be. I've more than half a mind----"
+
+"She does her work well," said the Engineer, pointing to where the Rat's
+beady eyes showed behind the sacking. "Cats and Rats livin' together--
+see?"
+
+"Too much they do--too long they've done. I'm sick and tired of it. Go and
+take a swim and larn to find your own vittles honest when you come out,
+Pussy."
+
+"My word!" said the Waters, as a sprawling Cat landed all unannounced in
+the centre of the tail-race. "Is that you, Mewsalina? You seem to have
+been quarrelling with your best friend. Get over to the left. It's
+shallowest there. Up on that alder-root with all four paws. Good-night!"
+
+"You'll never get any they rats," said the Miller, as the young Engineer
+struck wrathfully with his stick at the sacking. "They're not the common
+sort. They're the old black English sort."
+
+"Are they, by Jove? I must catch one to stuff, some day."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Six months later, in the chill of a January afternoon, they were letting
+in the Waters as usual.
+
+"Come along! It's both gears this evening," said the Wheel, kicking
+joyously in the first rush of the icy stream. "There's a heavy load of
+grist just in from Lamber's Wood. Eleven miles it came in an hour and a
+half in our new motor-lorry, and the Miller's rigged five new five-candle
+lights in his cow-stables. I'm feeding 'em to-night. There's a cow due to
+calve. Oh, while I think of it, what's the news from Callton Rise?"
+
+"The waters are finding their level as usual--but why do you ask?" said
+the deep outpouring Waters.
+
+"Because Mangles and Felden and the Miller are talking of increasing the
+plant here and running a saw-mill by electricity. I was wondering whether
+we----"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the Waters chuckling. "_What_ did you say?"
+
+"Whether _we_, of course, had power enough for the job. It will be a
+biggish contract. There's all Harpenden Brook to be considered and
+Batten's Ponds as well, and Witches' Fountain, and the Churt's Hawd
+system.
+
+"We've power enough for anything in the world," said the Waters. "The only
+question is whether you could stand the strain if we came down on you full
+head."
+
+"Of course I can," said the Wheel. "Mangles is going to turn me into a set
+of turbines--beauties."
+
+"Oh--er--I suppose it's the frost that has made us a little thick-headed,
+but to whom are we talking?" asked the amazed Waters.
+
+"To me--the Spirit of the Mill, of course."
+
+"Not to the old Wheel, then?"
+
+"I happen to be living in the old Wheel just at present. When the turbines
+are installed I shall go and live in them. What earthly difference does it
+make?"
+
+"Absolutely none," said the Waters, "in the earth or in the waters under
+the earth. But we thought turbines didn't appeal to you."
+
+"Not like turbines? Me? My dear fellows, turbines are good for fifteen
+hundred revolutions a minute--and with our power we can drive 'em at full
+speed. Why, there's nothing we couldn't grind or saw or illuminate or heat
+with a set of turbines! That's to say if all the Five Watersheds are
+agreeable."
+
+"Oh, we've been agreeable for ever so long."
+
+"Then why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Don't know. Suppose it slipped our memory."
+
+The Waters were holding themselves in for fear of bursting with mirth.
+
+"How careless of you! You should keep abreast of the age, my dear fellows.
+We might have settled it long ago, if you'd only spoken. Yes, four good
+turbines and a neat brick penstock--eh? This old Wheel's absurdly out of
+date."
+
+"Well," said the Cat, who after a little proud seclusion had returned to
+her place impenitent as ever. "Praised be Pasht and the Old Gods, that
+whatever may have happened _I_, at least, have preserved the Spirit of the
+Mill!"
+
+She looked round as expecting her faithful ally, the Black Rat; but that
+very week the Engineer had caught and stuffed him, and had put him in a
+glass case; he being a genuine old English black rat. That breed, the
+report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown
+variety.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Traffics and Discoveries, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES ***
+
+***** This file should be named 9790.txt or 9790.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/9/7/9/9790/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich and PG
+Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+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
+https://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 1.F.3.  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 are 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 https://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
+https://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 https://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 https://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 including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was 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:
+
+     https://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/old/9790.zip b/old/9790.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..79ebe88
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/9790.zip