/o^L-vv^:^^^^^ ^ "'y^ , T~t.«sHK«-j^ 'By thi iame i^uthor: IHF EARLY myrORY OF JACOB STAHI. A CANDIDA! E FOR TRL'IH THE INVISIBLE TRL'TH THE HAMPDENSHIRE WONDER GObLlNtib: A WORLD OK WOMEN THE HOUSE IN DEMETRUi. ROAD THESE LYNNEKERS HOUSEMATES MNEIF.EN IMPRESSIONS god's COUNTERPOINT I HE JERVAISE COMEDY AN IMPERFECl MOI HER REVOLUTION /////; l\i^nnfth 'J\uhmond: \V. E. ford: a BIOGRAPHY Printed in Great Britain, SIGNS & WONDERS BY j. D. BERESFORD \\ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK . . . MCMXXI TO WALTER DE LA MARE ^'■Hath icrVing nature^ bidden ofthegods^ T/iii{-scieefied •Sllans narro-^^ shy^ ^{nd hung these Stygian yei/s of fog To hide his dingied sty? — The gods iiho yet, at mortal birth^ 'Bequeathed him fantasy V 'IOG' bv \^ALTER DE LA MARE CONTENTS PA(,E prologue: the atpi akance ok man 8 SIGNS AND WONDrRS I 2 THE CACJE 16 ENLARl.EMENT 20 THE PERFECT SMILE 26 THE HIDDEN BEAST 34 THE nARRAGE 38 THE INIROVERT 44 THE BARRIER 5O THE CONNER 1 54 A NEGLIGIDI.F. EXPIkJMKNr 68 THE MIRACLE 74 VOl'NG SIRICKLANd's CAREER 80 A DIFFERENCE OF TEMPERAMENT 86 REFERENCE WANTED 92 AS THE CROW FLIES 96 THE NIGH 1 OF CREATION 102 PROLOGUE THi: APPr.ARANCi: OV MAN : •/ /'/../)• Ol'T OF •I I Ml. ^ sp u:i:. U'lifH t/u no tain riiffy two tutu ii/i<( a -nonKVi are dtsccvtred talking lufott an illiniital'le haik^rou/ul. KIRsr MAN [ihaiiu^ hands with thr man and the xuonian'\ Well! Who'd have thoujjilit olincctiMi: yoii here! WOMAN. C)r you, as far as that goes. \yc thou;.:ht v ou were li\inii; in PutiKv. FIRST MAN. So I ain. It jubt happLiicd iliat IM iuno\cr this morning. [£«/(•;• 'I\^ a n(/>u/a, s/'inning s/ow/w It f^assts viajatically across the background as the scene f>rocieds.] SECOND MAN. The World's a \cry small place. FiRsr M.\N. Ah! \'ouVc right, it is. WOMAN. And how's the famih? FIRST MAN. Capital, thanks. \'ours well, loo, I hope? woM.AN. All except Johnnie. [^€nter 'J^ a grouf> of prehistoric animals; a few hrontcsauri, titanotheres, mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers, and so on.] FIRST MAN. What's wrong with him? WOMAN. He was bit by a dog. Nasty place he's got. FIRST MAN. Did you ha\e it cauterised: They're naity things, dog-bites. W0M.\N. Oh, yes, we had it cauterised, you may he sure. SECOND MAN [reflectivelv] Dangerous things, dogs. FiRsr MAN. If they're not properly looked after, tjicy are. Now I've got a little dog. . . . [t// this point the speaker s Toice becomes inaudible oicing to the passing of the brontcsauri, "^hich gradually move ojf L.] WOMAN \becoming audible and apparently interrupting in the TliE APPEARANCE OV MAN ^9 ?niddh- of an anrcaot,-] HiouL^i I tell Johnnie it's hisown fault. He shouldn't have teased him. [€>itr'r R. a fiw thouiand uivagei vulth fdnt '^eapons.'\ SECOND MAN. Bo) s vviU be boys. WOMAN. Which is no reason, I s;\y, that they shouldn't learn tc behave themselves. FIRST MAN. Can't begin too soon, in my opinion. \Excunt iavager. enter the population of Ind'ia.'\ WOMAN. He might have been killed if a man hadn't come up and pulled the dog off him. A black man, he was, too. FIRST MAN. What? A nigger? WOMAN. Or a Turk, or something. I can't never see the difference. [If^it/j a shivn:] Ugh! I hate black men, someliow. The look of 'em gives me the shudders. SECOND MAN [on a note of faint expostulation'] My dear! FIRST MAN. V\c heard others say the same thing. WOMAN. A pretty penny, Johnnie'U cost us, with the Doctor and all. \_Snter two armies engaged in a Qivil lVar.'\ FIRST MAN [slja{ing bis head, -wisely] Ah ! I daresay it will. SECOND MAN. / doii't know what we're coming to, what with wages and prices and Lord knows what all? FIRST MAN. No niorc do I. Wh}', only yesterday .... [The rest of bis sentence is drowned hy 1 be p ring of a battery of beavy guns.] WOMAN. Oh! well, I suppose it'll all come right in time. [The ^/tvV Jf^ar moves off" L. Signs of the approaching end of the -world become manifest.] FIRST MAN. We'll hope for the best, I'm sure. [The Hosts of Heaven appear in the sky.] SECOND MAN [refecti^ely] On the whole, I should say that things looked a bit better than they did. 10 SIGNS AND WONDF.Rs [7f.f Sfa givtf up in 7)a;ru.iry liiiy in I .oiulon. 1 h.ul Ikou poiuLriiiLi tlic clcini-iitN tluit 1:0 10 the iiiak- ini;of the human ciitit\-,aiul more particularl) that new aspect of the thcoiv of the etherie ho(l\' which presents it as a visible, poiulcrahle, taiiiiihle, hiij;hl)- oiiiaiiiseil, Init ahiiost iiicictlibly tenuous, form of matter. From that I slid to tlic consideration of the possibility of some essence still more remote from our conception of the gross material of our objccti\c experience; and then for a moment I held the idea of the imiK-rccptiblc transition from tliis ultimatels' dispersing matter to thought or impulse — from the various bodies, ethcric, astral, mental, caus- al, or Buddhistic, to the free and absolute Soul. I suppose that at this point I fell asleep. I was not aware of any change of conciousness, but I cannot otherwise explain the fact that in an instant I was transported froin an open place in the Nortli of l^ondon, and from all this familiar earth of ours, to some planet without tlic knowledge of the dwellers in the solar system. This amazing change was accomplished without the least shock. It was, indeed, imperceptible. The new world upon which I opened my eyes appeared at iirst sight to differ in no particular froin that I had so recently left. I saw below mc a perfect replica of the Hampstead Garden Suburb. The wind blew from the east with no loss of its characteristic quality. The occasional people who passed had thf.- same air of tired foreboding and intense preoccupation with tlic iniscrablc im- portance of their instant lives, that has seemed to mc to mark the air of the middle-classes for the past few weeks. Also it wasj I thought, beginning to rain. SIGNS AND WONDERS 1 3 I s!ii\ crcd and tlccidcil that I might as well u;o liomc. I felt that it was not worth while to travel a distance unrecordable in any measure of earthly miles, only to renew my terrestrial experiences. And then, by an accident, possibly to verify my theory that it was certainly going to rain, I looked up and real- ised at once the unspeakable difference between that world and our own. For on this little earth of ours the sky makes no claim on our attention. It has its effects of cloud and light occasionally, and these effects no doubt may engage at times the interest of the poet or the artist. But to us, ordinary people, the sky is always pretty much the same, and we only look at it when we are expecting rain. Even then we often sluit our eyes. In that other world which re\ olves round a sun so distant that the light of it has not yet reached the earth the sky is quite different. Things happen in it. As I looked up, for instance, I saw a great door open, and out of it there marched an immense procession that trailed its glorious length across the whole width of heaven. I heard nosoimd. The eternal host moved in silent dignity from zenith to horizon. And after the procession had passed the whole visible arch of the sky was parted like a cur- tain and there looked out from the opening the semblance of a vast, intent c}'e. But what immediately followed the gaze of that over- whelming watcher I do not know, for someone touched my arm, and a voice close at my shouUler said in the \ery tones of an earthly cockney: "What yer starin' at, gu\'norr Airy planes.^ I can't see none." I looked at him and found that lie was just such a loafer as one may see any day in ]>ondon. "Aeroplanes," I repeated. "Great Heaven, can't you see what's up there? The procession and that eyer" He stared up then, and I with him, and the eye had gone; but between the still parted heavens I could see into the profundity I 4 MCSS AND WONDERS ot a space ^o rich with hc.iiity and, as it sccnicd, with promise, that I held my breath in sheer wonder. "No! I can't see nothin*, mi\'nor," my companion said. And I pii'Miinc that as he spoke I must h:i\e waked from mv dream, for the ;^lory \ anishcd and 1 found in\ self dispcnsinij; a smill alms to a shahhv man who was representing himself as mot>t unworthilv suffering through no fault of his own. As I walked home through the rain I refleett.d that the people of that incredihl)' ilistant world, walking, as they alwavs do, with their ga/.e hent upon the ground, are probably unable to sec the signs and wonders that blaze across the sk)-. They, like ourselves, are so preoccupied with the miserable import- ance of their instant lives. THE CAGE I WAS not asleep, I have watched passengers who kept their eyes shut between the stations, hut as )ct I lia\c not ^cen an iiuhsputahle case of anyone sound asleep on the HaInp^tead and Charing Cross Tu he. Of the other passages that inakc up I^ondon's greater intestine I have less experience, and it may be that some tubes are more conduci\ e to slumber than the one most familiar to me. 1 have no ambition to make a dogmatic generalisation concerning eitlior the Ntimulati\c or soporific action of the Underground. I merely wish it to be understood that I was not asleep, and that it was hardly possible that I could ha\e been, with a small portmanteau permanently on one foot, and the owner of it — a little man wlio must ha\e wished that the straps were rather longer — intermittently on theotlier. Against this, however, I ha\'e to put the fact that I could not say at which station the little nian rcmo\ ed from me the burden of himself and his portmanteau. Nor could I gi\e p.-irticulars of the appearance of such of my innumerable fellow- passengers as were most nearly presented to me, although I do knowihat most of them were reading — even the strap-hangers. It w.as, indeed, this observation that started my vision or train of thought or preoccupation — call it anything you like except a dream. ^ r^ -^ The eves in liis otlierwisc repulsive face held a wistfulncss, a hint of vague speculation that attracted me. He sat, hunched on the summit of the steeply rising ground overlooking the sea, the place where the forest comes so abruptly to an end that from a little distance it looks as if it had been giganticalU planed to a hard edge. He was alone and ruminativcly quiescent after food. He THE CAGE 17 had fed well and carelessly. Some of the bones that lay near him had been very indifferently picked. He leaned forward clasping his hairy legs with his equally hairy arms, and stared out with that hint of speculation and wistfulness in his eyes over the placid magnificence of the Western Sea — just dis- turbed enough to reflect a gorgeous road of fire that laid a vanishing track across the waters up to the open goal of the low sun. A faint breeze blew up the hill, and it seemed as if he leant his face forward to drink the first refreshment of that sweet, cool air. I approached him more nearly, trying to read his thought, rejoicing in the knowledge that he could neither sec nor appre- hend me. For though a man may know something of the past, the future is hidden from him, and I represented to him a future that could only be reckoned in a vast procession of centuries. Yet as I came nearer, so near that I could rest my hands on his knees and gaze up closely into his eyes, he shrank a little and leaned slightly away from me, as if he were uncertainly aware of an unfamiliar, distasteful presence. I fancied that the mat of hair on his chest just perceptibly bristled. I could read his thought, now, and I was thrilled to discover that the expression of his eyes had not misled me. He had at- tained to a form of conciousness. He, alone, of all the beasts had received the gift of constructive imagination. He could look forward, make plans to meet a possible emergency. He knew already something of tomorrow. Even then he was deep in speculation. That day he had hunted a slow but cunning little beast which found a refuge among the great boulders that lay piled in gigantic profusion along the foreshore. And he had failed. Another quarry had been his, but that particular little beast had outwitted him. And now, longing for it, he ruminated clumsy lethargic plans for its capture. It may have been that the vmusual effort tired him, for presently he slept, still hunched into the same compact heap, crouching with an effect of swift alertness as if he were ready B 1 8 SIGNS AND WONDERS at the least alarm to leap up and vanish into the cover of the forest. Then, a plan came to me, also. I would bring a vision to this primitive ancestor of mankind. I would merge myself with his being and he should dream a dream of the immensely dis- tant future. Blessed and privileged above all the iuiman race, he should know for an instant to what inconceivable develop- ments, to what towering heights of intellectual and manipula- tive glory his descendants should one day be heir. I had no definite idea of the precise illustration I should choose to set forth the magnificence of man's latest attainment. Nor did I pause to consider what I myself might suffer in the process of this infamous liaison between the ages. I acted on an impulse that I found irresistible. I have myself longed so often to read the distant future of mankind, that I felt as a god bestowing an inestimable gift. But I should have known that in the mystical union it is the eod and not the man who suffers. I was wrapped in an awful darkness as wc fell stupendously through time, but presently I knew that we were rising again, weighted with the burden of primitive flesh. Then in an instant came a strange yellow unnatural light, the roaring of a terrible sound — and the fearful vision. The horror of it was unendur- able; the shock of it so great that spirit and flesh were rent asunder. I remained. He fell back to the sweetness of the cool air blowing up from the tranquil sea. Did he rush frantically into the forest or sit with dripping mouth and wide alarmed eyes, rigidly staring at the scarlet rim of the setting sun."* Yet what could he have understood of the future in that moment of detestable revelation? Could he have recognised men and women in their strange disguise of modern dress, as being even of the same species as himself? And if he had, what could he have known of them, seeing them packed so closely together, immoveably wedged into the terror of that THE CAGE 19 rocking roaring cage of unknown material; seeing them occu- pied in staring so intently and incomprehensibly at those amaz- ing little black-dotted white sheets? Impossible for him to guess that those speckled sheets held a magic that transported his descendants from the misery of their cage into imaginations so extensive and so various that some of them might, however dimly and allusively, include himself, hunched and ruminant, regarding the vast tranquillity of the sea. The tunnel suddenly broke, the roaring gave place to a rattle that by contrast was gentle and soothing. I opened my eyes. We were under the sky again, slipping, with intermittent flashes of light, into the harbour of Golder's Green Station. For a moment, I seemed to see the clumsy and violent shape of a beast that strove in panic to escape; and then I came back to my own world of the patient readers, with their white, controlled faces, forming now in solemn procession down the aisle of the carriage. But it was his dream, not mine. And I have been wonder- ing whether, if I dreamed also, the distant future might not seem equally unendurable to me? KNLARGKMKNT WHEN he heard the first signal, warning the people of London to take cover, his spirit revolted. He began to picture with a sick disgust the scene of his coming confinement in the ilirtv basement. Mrs. Gibson, his landlady, would welcome him with the air of forced cheerful- ness he knew so well. She would make the same remarks about the noise of the guns. She would say again: "Well, there's one thing, it drowns the noise of the bombs — if they've recly got here this time." Then Maunders from the first floor would say that you could always pick out the sound of the aerial torpedoes; and explain, elaborately, why. Mrs. Graham from the second floor would say that she'd rather enjoy it, if it weren't for the children. And her eldest little prig of a boy would say, "I'm not afraid, mumma," and expect everyone to praise his courage. Mrs. Gibson would praise him, of course. She would say: "There, now, 1 declare he's the bravest of anyone." She was obliged to do it. She would never be able to get new lodgers this winter And when that preliminary talk was done with, they would all begin again on the endlessly tedious topic of reprisals; and keep it up until a pause in the barrage set them on to spasmodic ejaculations of wonder whether "they" had been driven off, or gone, or been shot down, or. . . . No; definitely, h.c would not stand it. He could better endure the simultaneous explosion of every gun in London than three hours of that conversation. Moreover, he could not face the horrible drip, drip, from the scullery sink. On the night of the last raid he had been very near the sink. And the thought of that steady plop .... plop .... of water into the gally-pot Mrs. Gibson kept under the tap for some idiotic reason, was as the thought of an inferno such as could not have ENLARGEMENT 21 been conceived by Dante, nor organised by the Higher Ger- man Command. Nerves? He shrugged his shoulders. In a sense, no doubt. Suspense, dread, a long exasperation of waiting had filled every commonplace experience — more particularly that dreadful dripping of the cold water tap — with all kinds of horrible as- sociations. But if it was "nerves," it was not nervousness, not fear of being killed, nothing in the least like panic. He was quite willing to face the possible danger of the open streets. But he could not and would not face Mrs. Gibson and the scullery sink. No; he must escape — a fugitive from protection. Men had fled from strange things, but had they ever fled from a stranger thing than refuge? He must go secretly. If Mrs. Gib- son heard him she would stop him, begin an immense, unen- durable argument. She could not afford to risk the loss of a lodger this winter. She would bring Maunders and Mrs. Graham to join her in persuasion and protest. Freedom was hard to win in London, in such times as these. He crept down the long three flights of stairs like some wary criminal feeling h.is cautious way to liberty. But once he had, with infinite deliberation, slipped back the ailing latch of the front door, he lifted his head and squared his shoulders with a great gasp of relief. He could have wept tears of exultation. He was filled with a deep thankfulness for this boon of his en- largement. . . . There was no sound of guns as yet; nor any sweep of searchlights tormenting the wide gloom of the sky. It was a wonderful, calm night ; a little misty on the ground ; but, above, the moon was serene and bright as a new guinea. He had no hesitation as to his direction. He desired the greatest possible expansion of outlook; and turned his face at once towards the river. On the Embankment he would be able to see a wide arc of the sky. He had a sense of setting about a prohibited adventure, full of the most daring and deli- 2 2 SIGNS AND WONDfeRS cious excitements. His one dread was that he might be inter- fered with, stopped, sent home. The cycliriLr policemen looked at him, he thought, with peculiar suspicion. They gruffly shouted at him to take cover, with a curt note of warning, as if he were breaking the law by indulging himself in this escapade. He tried to avoid notice by slinking into the shadows. That cold, inimical moonlight made everything so conspicuous. . . . Except for the policemen, the streets were vividly empty. He could feel the spirit of London crouched in expectancy. Behind every darkened window men, women, and children waited and lojiged for the relief of the first gun. And while they waited they chattered and smiled. And all their laughter and conversation was like these streets, vividly empty; their spirits had taken cover. He alone was free, exempt, rejoicing in his liberty. . . . The ground mist was thicker on the Embankment; and for a moment he was confused by the loom of a strange obelisk that had a curiously remote, exotic air in the midst of this fam- iliar London. Then he recognised the outline as that of Cleo- patra's Needle, and went close up to the alien monument of another age and stared up at it in the proclamatory moonlight. He wondered if any magic lingered in those cryptic inscrip- tions? If they might not have endowed the very granite with curious, occult powers. He was still staring at the solemn portent of the obelisk when the barrage opened with unusual suddenness. . . . For a time he was crushed and overwhelmed by the pressure of that intimidating fury of sound. He cowered and winced like a naked soul exposed to the intimate vengeance of God. He was as beaten and battered by the personal threat of those cumulative explosions as if every gun sought him and him alone as the objective of its awful wrath. But, by degrees, he began to grow accustomed even to that world-rocking pandemonium. He became aware of the un- ENLARGEMENT 23 dertones that laced the dominant roar and thunder of artillery. He could trace, he believed, beside the shriek of shell, the humming whirr of an aeroplane he could not see. And once something whizzed past him with a high singing hiss that ended abruptly with a sharp clip. He guessed that a fragment of shrapnell had buried itself in one of the plane-trees. Yet the real danger of that warning did not terrify him as had the enormous onslaught of noise from the barrage. At the next intermission of the deafening bombardment he stood up, rested his hand on the plinth of the obelisk, and stared, won- dering and unafraid, into the great arc of the sky. He could see no aeroplanes. . . . The stillness was so profound that he could hear with a grateful distinctness the soft clucking ripple of the rising flood. Presently he dropped his regard for the heavens to the plain objective of deserted London. The mist had almost dispersed in some places, had thickened in others — churned and driven, perhaps, by the vast pressure of the sound waves. Across the road he could see the impending cliff of great buildings, pale and tall in the moonlight. At his feet the plane-trees threw trembling, skeleton shadows. All the town waited in suspense to know whether or not the bombardment would presently be renewed. He had a presentiment that it was all over. He felt the quick exaltation and vigour of one who has suffered and escaped danger. But when he looked up the Embankment and saw what he took to be the silhouettes of three towering trams emerging with furti\e silence from the mist, he was aware of a faint sense of disappointment. Nothing was left to him but to return to the common dreariness of life. He took a step towards the trams that were advancing with such a stately, such a hushed and ponderous deliberation. . . , Trams . . . ? He held his breath, staring and gaping, and then backed nervously against the pedestal of the greatEgyptian monument. 2 4 SIC NS AND WONDERS H.iJ tlic shock of th;it awful bomb.irdincnt broken his ncrsc? Was ho mail? Hcwitchcti by some aiuicnt ma;^ic? Or was it, perhaps, that in one swift inappreciable moment he hail been instantly killed by a fragment of shrapnel, and that, now, his emerging spirit could, even as it watched these familiar surroundings, peer back deep into the hidden mysteries of tinu? He pressed himself, shivering and fascinated, against tlie hard, insistent reality of cold granite; but still in single file these three colossal shapes advanced, solemn and majestic, rock- ing magnificently with a slow and powerful gravity. They were almost abreast of him now, sombre and siolid — three vast, prehistoric, unattended Elephants, imperturbably exploring the silences of this dead and lonely city. They passed, and left him weak and trembling, but indes- cribably happy. Two minutes later, a blind and insensible policeman, fol- lowing the very path of those magical evocations of the thouglu of ancient Egypt, rode carelessly by, bearing the banal message that all was clear. But the adventurer walked home in a dieam of ecstasy. Whatever the future might hold for him, he luid pierced the veil of the commonplace. He had seen and heard on the Thames Embankment that sacred, mystical procession of the Elephants. 7^ ^ 'r: He looked at Mrs. Gibson with something of contempt when she brought him his breakfast next morning. He could not respond to her chatter concerning the foolish detail of last night's raid. She, poor woman, was afraid that she might, in some unknown way, have offended him. Her last cHbrt was meant as an aimiable diversion. One never knew whether people weren't more scared than they chose to admit. "There's one amusin' bit," she said, laying his morning paper on the table, "as I just glanced at while I was waitin' for the water to boil. It's in Hincidents of the Raid. It seems ENLARGEMENT 2$ as three performin' elephunts goin' 'ome from the 'Ippodrome or somewhere got loose — their keeper done a bolt, I suppose, when the guns began — and got walkin' off by theirselves all down the Embankment. They must 'a been a comic sight, poor things. Terrified they was, no doubt. . . ." Now, why should God explain his miracles through the mouth of a Mrs. Gibson? 'ini:ri:Rn:cr SMILE THE REALISATION ofii fust cunc to Douglas Owcii when he was not quite five years olil. From his babyhood he had been spoilt, more particularly by his father. He could be such a charmiiii:; little boy, and his frequent outbreaks of real iiau^:2;htiiiess wore overlooked or gently reproved. They were even admired in private by his parents, who regarded these first signs of disobedience, temper, and selfishness as the marks of an independent and original spirit. Nevertheless, when DougLis was nearly five years old, he achieved a minor climax that the most indulgent father could not overlook. Despite all warnings and commands, Douglas would steal from the larder. When there were cakes or tarts he took those for preference, but when there was nothing else he would steal bread, merely, as it seemed, for the pleasure of stealing it. His father had protested to his mother that every- thing should be kept under lock and key, but as Mrs. Owen explained: "You can't expect a cook to be for ever locking things up." And the little Douglas was ingenious in Jiis de- predations. He chose liis moment with cunning. Also he knew, as the cook herself confessed, how 'to gjt round her.' Mr. Owen, who was a tender-hearted idealist, admitted at last that stern measures were called for, and he took Doug- las into his study and remonstrated with him gently, even lovingly, but with great earnestness. The remonstrance gained strength from Mrs. Owen's fear that Douglas might make himself seriously ill by his illicit feastings. Douglas, who was forward for his age, listened witli attention to his father's ser- ious lecture and promised reform. "I won't do it again, father. Promise," he said with apparent sincerity. And his father, be- 1'HE Perfect smile 27 lieving absolutely in his child's truthfulness, and remembering his wife's adjuration to be "really firm," was tempted to clinch the thing once for all by issuing an ultimatum. "I'm sure you won't, little son," he said, "because you see if you did, daddy would have to whack you. He'd hate doing it, but he'd have to do it all the same." Douglas's expression was faintly speculative. He had heard something like this before, from his mother. "But you've promised faithfully that you'll never, never take anything out of the larder, or the kitchen, or the pantry again, haven't you, darling?" Mr. Owen persisted, by way of having everything quite clear. "Promised faithfully," agreed Douglas; parted from his father with a hug of forgiveness; and was found a quarter of an hour later in the larder, eating jam with a spoon from a newly- opened jar. "You threatened to whack him if he didn't keep his pro- mise, and you must do it," Mrs. Owen said firmly to her hus- band. "If you don't keep your promises, how can you expect him to keep his?" "Damn!" murmured Mr. Owen with great intensity. "I shall bring him in and leave him with you," his wife said, cor rectly interpreting her husband's method of reluctantly accepting the inevitable. Douglas was brought, and it was evident that on this oc- casion he was truly conscious of sin and apprehensive of the result. All his nonchalance was gone from him. He did not cry, but his eyes were wide and terrified. He looked a tho- roughly guilty and scared child. Mr. Owen hardened his heart. He thought of the con- tempt shown for his authority, of the wilfully broken promise, and of the threat to his son's future unless he were made to realise that sin cannot go unpunished. Mrs. Owen, looking at her husband's stern face, was sat- isfied that justice would be done. 28 SIGNS AND WONDERS Ai)J then, when father aiul son were alone and sentence had been pronounced, the smile came for the first time. Douglas did not know wiiy or how it came. He was only conscious of it as something that illuminated his whole being, put him among the angels, and gave him immunity from all earthly terrors. To his father, the smile was simply blinding. It was so radiant, so tender, forgiving, and altogether godlike. It condes- cended to his weakness and mortality, and made him feel how unworthy he was of such splendid recognition. His little son's face glowed with a perfect consciousness of power, and yet he seemed to surrender himself with a dignified humility to this threatened infamy of corporal punishment. Moreover, it was a smile that expressed the ultimate degree of innocence. It was impossible for anjone who saw it to b^^licve that Douglas could have sinned in pcrvcrsit)-, or with any evil intention. And there was one other amazing peculiarity about this rare smile of Douglas's, for it not only permeated the finer feelings of those who witnessed it, but was also reflected weak- ly in their faces, as the outer and larger rainbow reflects the intensified beauty of the inner. So now Mr. Owen's smile faintly echoed his son's. "I'm sorry. Daddy," said Douglas confidently. And Mrs. Owen waiting outside, listening in tremulous agitation for the wail that should announce her husband's re- solution, heard no sound. And presently Douglas came out, still wearing the last pale evidences of his recent halo. "But why didn't your" Mrs. Owen asked her husband, when their son was out of earshot. She would have overlooked the essential omission, almost with gratitude, if she had not believed it her duty to reprove her husband's characteristic weakness. "He — he smiled," Mr. Owen said. "But Harold !" his wife protested. Mr. Owen wrinkled his forehead and looked exceedingly THE PERFECT SMILE 29 distressed. "I don't know that I can explain/' he said. "It wasn't an ordinary smile. I've never seen him do it before. I — I have never seen anything like it, I can only say that I would defy anyone to punish him when he smiled like that." "I noticed as he came out. ..." began Mrs. Owen. "It was practically over then," her husband interrupted, and added with a slightly literary turn of speech he sometimes adopted: "That was only the afterglow." But it is worth recording that, from that time, Douglas, although he was naughty enough in other ways, never robbed the larder again. Nine years passed before Douglas's great gift was once more manifested. There was undoubtedly something unusually charming about the boy that protected him from punishment; and as he had been spoilt by his father at home, so was he also treated rather too leniently at school. But Dr. Watson, his head- master, came at last to the end of his weakness. Douglas was becoming a bad influence in the school. His careless evasions of discipline set an example of insubordination that was all too readily followed by the other boys. Dr. Watson braced himself to the inevitable. In his heart he regretted the necessity, but he knew that Douglas must be sacrificed for the good of the school. He had been warned and mildly punished a hundred times. Now he must pay the full penalty. The choice lay between expulsion and a public flogging, and when Douglas chose the latter, Dr. Watson resolved that the flogging should be of unusual severity. When the whole school was assembled, he made a very earnest and moving speech, deploring the causes that had given rise to the occasion, and showing how inevitable was the disgraceful result. Pouglas, white and terrified, made ready in a trembling 30 SKINS AND WONDERS silence, then, turninij his hack on tlic tensely expectant audi- ence, he faced Itis headmaster. Artiiur Cohurn, DouL;las's humanitarian house-master, was so upset by these preliminaries that for one moment he was tempted to leave the hall. Corporal punishment had al- ways seemed to him a horrible thin:;;, but never had it seemed quite so revolting as on this occasion. Yet he fought against ilic feeling. He knew that his chief was neither a stern nor a cruel man, and had been driven into the present position by the shcerly impudent persistence of Douglas's disobedience. By v/ay of alleviating as far as possible his own nervous distress, therefore, Coburn took up a position with his back to the ros- trum, and faced the great crowd of just perceptibly intimidated boys. And waiting, much as Douglas's mother had waited in shamed anxiety some nine years before, Coburn was amazed to see a sudden and incomprehensible change in the massed faces before him. The tensity, the look of half eager, half ap- prehensive expectation strangely relaxed. A wave of what looked like relief ran back in a long ripple of emotion from the front to the back of the many ranks of v/atching boys. In one instant everyone was wearing a faint smile of almost holy se- renity. Coburn turned with a leap of astonishment and stared at Dr. Watson. And the smile he saw on the headmaster's face outshone that on the faces of his audience as the sun outshines the moon. But no one save Dr. Watson saw the perfect radiance that flowed out from the face of Douglas Owen. . . . "I'm sorry, sir," was all that Douglas said. Dr. Watson dropped his birch as if it had burnt him. His second address to the school was hesitating and apolo- getic. He tried to explain that when the clear signs of repen- tance and of reform were so evident as they were in the case of Owen, corporal punishment was superfluous and would be THE PERFECT SMILE 3 1 little short of criminal. Yet even Coburn, v/ho so profoundly agreed with the principle expounded, found the explanation unsatisfying. He could not help feeling that Dr. Watson was concealing his true reason. Nevertheless, it is well to note that after this reprieve Douglas passed the remainder of his school-life without com- mitting any other serious offence. He was only thirty-two when he came before the last and most terrible tribunal possible in our society. After he left Cambridge, he was taken into a city office by a friend of his father's. Everyone liked him, and he might have made an excellent position for himself if he had not led such a loose life out of business hours. He seemed unable to resist any temptation, and the inevitable result was that he got into debt. When his father's friend discovered the extent of Douglas's thefts from the firm, he had no choice but to dismiss him; al- though for the young man's sake not less than for the sake of his friendship with his father, he never even threatened prose- cution. For a time Douglas lived at home. Later he went to Ca- nada for a couple of years. Then his father died, leaving him some five or six thousand pounds, and he came home again — to spend it. When that money was all gone, he lived on the charity of his many friends. They all knew him for an incor- rigible scamp, but he still retained much of his old charm. The crime for which he came at last to be tried for his life at the Old Bailey was too disgraceful an affair to be reported in detail. The only possible defence was that Douglas was unquestionably drunk when the murder was actually commit- ted. Yet despite the weakness of the case for the defending counsel, everyone in court including the jury and possibly even Lord Justice Ducie himself, could not restrain a feeling of sym- pathy for the prisoner. He had not lost, despite all his excesses, his engaging air of ingenuous youth. And his manner through- ^2 SIGNS AND WONDERS out the trial naturally evoked n strong sense of pity. The jury did all they could for him by bringing in a ver- dict of manslaughter. The judge leaned forward with a kindly, almost fatherly nir, as he nskcd the prisoner if he had aii)thing to say in his own defence. And at that supreme moment, as he stood white and ter- rified in the dock, Douglas was aware that once more, for the third time in his life, that wonderful glow of power, peace, and condescension was beginning to thrill through him. He straightened himself and raised his head. He looked the judge in the face. He believed that the perfect smile had come again to save him. But he looked in vain for the old res- ponse. The judge's mouth had twitched as Douglas looked at him, and for one instant all those who were waiting so anxious- ly for the pronouncement of the sentence were astounded to see a look of horrible bestiality flicker across the face of the old man who was accounted the most gentle and philanthropic judge who had ever sat in the criminal court. It was only a momentary impression, for Lord Ducie at once put both hands before his face as if to shut off the sight of some terrible infamy; but Bateson, the defending counsel, who was watching the judge, says that he never afterwards could quite recover his old respect for him. It is unquestionably true that the hideous, depraved, and insulting grimace which had so unexpectedly revealed the soul of Douglas Owen, was solely responsible for the maximum sentence of twenty years' penal servitude that was imposed upon him. If a man continually flouts the angels of grace, he must expect at last to be delivered over to the devil he so devotedly serves. Tin: HIDDEN beast HIS HOUSE is the last in the village. Towards the forest the houses become more and more scattered, reaching out to the wild of the wood as if they yearned to separate them- selves from the swarm that clusters about the church and the iim. And his house has taken so long a stride from the others that it is held to the village by no more than the slender thread of a long footpath. Yet the house is set with its face towards us, and has an air of resolutely holding on to the safety of our common life, as if dismayed at its boldness in swimming so far it had turned and desperately grasped the life-line of that foot- path. He lived alone, a strange man, surly and reticent. Some said that he had a siin'stcr look; and on those rare occasions when he joined us at the inn, after sunset, he sat aside and spoke little. I was surprised when, as we came out of the inn one night, he took my arm and asked me if I would go home with him. The moon was at the full, and the black shadows of the dis- persing crowd that lunged down the street seemed to gesticu- late an alarm of weird dismay. The village was momentarily mad with the clatter of footsteps and the noise of laughter, and somewhere down towards the forest a dog was baying. I wondered if I had not misunderstood him. As he watched my hesitation his face pleaded with me. "There are times when a man is glad of company," he said. We spoke little as we passed through the village towards thesilenccsof his lonely house. But wjien we came to the foot- path he stopped and looked back. "I live between two worlds," he said, "the wild and. . . — he paused before he rejected the obvious antithesis, and con- THE HIDDEN BEAST 35 eluded — "the restrained." "Are we so restrained?" I asked, staring at the huddle of black-and-silver houses clinging to their refuge on the hill. He murmured something about a "compact," and my thoughts turned to the symbol of the chalk-white church- tower that dominated the honeycomb of the village. "The compact of public opinion," he said more boldly. My imagination lagged. I was thinking less of him than of the transfiguration of the familiar scene before me. I did not remember ever to have studied it thus under the reflections of a full moon. An echo of his word, differently accented, drif- ted through my mind. I saw our life as being in truth compact, little and limited. He took up his theme again when we had entered the house and were facing each other across the table, in a room that looked out over the forest. The shutters were unfastened, the window open, and I could see how, on the further shore of the waste-lands, the light feebly ebbed and died against the black cliff of the wood. "We have to choose between freedom and safety," he said. "The individual is too wild and dangerous for the common life. He must make his agreement v/ith the community; sub- mit to become a member of the people's body. But I" — he paused and laughed — "/ have taken the liberty of looking out of the back window." While he spoke I had been aware of a sound that seemed to come from below the floor of the room in which we were sitting. And when he laughed I fancied that I heard the res- ponse of a snuffling cry. He looked at me mockingly across tlie table. *'It's an echo from the jungle," he said. "Some trick of reflected sound. I can always hear it in this room at night." I shivered and stood up. "I prefer the safety of our com- mon life," I told him. "It may be that I have a limited mind and am afraid, but I find my happiness in the joys of security 36 SIGNS AND WONDERS ai)d shelter. The wild terrifies mc." "A limited mind?" he commented. "Probably it is rather that you lack a fire in the blood." I was glad to leave him, and he on his part made no efl'ort to detain mc. It was not long after this visit of mine that the people first began to whisper about him in the village. At the beginning they brought no charge against him, talking only of his strange- ness and of his separation from our common interests. But pre- sently I heard a story of some fierce wild animal that he caged and tortured in the prison of his house. One said that he had heard it screaming fn the night, and another that he had heard it beating against the door. And some argued that it was a threat to our safety, since the beast might escape and make its way into the village; and some that such brutality, even though it were to a wild animal, could not be tolerated. But I won- dered inwardly whether the affair were any business of ours so long as he kept the beast to himself. I was a member of the Council that year, and so took part in the voting when presently the case was laid before us. But no vote of mine would have helped him if I had dared to over- come my reluctance and speak in his favour. For whatever reservations may have been secretly withheld by the members of the Council, they were unanimous in condemning him. We went, six of us, in full daylight, to search his house. He received us with a laugh, and told us that we might seek at our leisure. But though we sought high and low, peering and tapping, we found no evidence that any wild thing had ever been concealed there. And within a montli of the day of our search he left the village. I saw him alone once before he went, and he told me that he had chosen for the wild and freedom, that he could no lon- ger endure to be held to the village even by the thread of the footpath. THE HIDDEN BEAST 37 But he did not thank me for having allowed the search of his house to be conducted by daylight, although he knew that I at least was sure no echo of the forest could be heard in that little room of his save in the transfigured hours between the dusk and the dawn. THE HARRAGE A STUDY IN EA'TROFERSION MY FRIEND has a wonderful voice, a primitive voice, open-throated and resonant, the great chest roar of the wild. When he shouts he docs it witliout visible eflort. The full red of iiis face may deepen to the opening shades of purple, but that evidence of constriction is due solely to emotion. The lift of a major third in his tone is accomplished without any ap- pearance of muscular effort. He opens another cylinder and lets the additional power find its own pitch in the reverberating brass of the fog-horn. And the efl'ect is as if the devastating crash of the barrage had come suddenly and horribly near. Perhaps, for one instant, the attack of his voice ceases, and tlien while the room still trembles to the echo of his last state- ment, the barrage leaps forward and spills its explosion into the secret refuges of my being. Behind that cover, the sense of the statements he gives forth with such enormous assurance creeps up and falls upon me while I am still insensible. It is as though his argument bayoneted me treacherously while I am paralysed from shock. If my mind were free I could defeat the simple attack of his argument; but should I be given one trifling opportunity for speech I can never take it. My mind is battered, crushed and inert. I dare not lift my head for fear of exposing myself again to that awful approach of the barrage. My friend has described himself so conclusively in a term of the old free-trade dispute, that nothing could be added to enlighten his definition. He is, and prides himself vociferously on the fact, a whole-hogger. He gets that ofFon his lower regis- ter which is just bearable. There is no need for the barrage to defend the approach of that statement. It is self-evident. THE BARRAGE 39 The great welt of his boots, massive as an Egyptian plinth; the stiiF hairiness of his bristling tweeds; the honest amaze- ment of his ripe face; the very solidity of the signet ring that is nevertheless not too heavy for his hirsute finger — all these proclaim him as the type and consummation of the whole- hogger. He adopted the label with pride some time in the middle 'nineties, when he was already a mature, determined and un- alterable man of twenty-eight. He was a fervent patriot throughout the Boer War. He has, since December, 1905, spent a fount of energy that would have wrecked the physique of ten average men in denouncing such things as Education Bills, Old Age Pensions, the Reform of the House of Lords, Home Rule — in brief, the Government — or, as he always called it, ^this Government.' And since the beginning of the war he has demonstrated — proving every statement of the Times by the evidence of the T>aily Mail — that there will never be any truth or sanity in the world until the whole Ger- man race is beaten to its perjured knees (his metaphors some- times have an effect of concentration); until it is so thrashed, scourged, humiliated, broken and defeated (a barrage is nec- essarily redundant) that the last remaining descendants of the Prussian shall crawl, pitifully exposed and humbled, about the earth, begging God and man for forgiveness. My friend is, in fact, the perfect type of what is known to psycho-analysts as the extrovert. He has never questioned himself, never doubted the infallibility of his own gospel, never known fear. He docs not understand the meaning of the word introspection, and feels nothing but pity for a man who halts between two opinions. He divides all mankind into two cat- egories — splendid fellows and damned fools — although I have found the suggestion of a third division in his description of a querulous Tory as 'a damned fool on the right side.' On the wrong side, however, there are no splendid fellows. As he says, he 'hasn't patience' with anyone who is either so thick- 40 SIGNS AND WONDERS hcailcd or so unscrupulous as to disagree with liiin in politics. Hy way ofa hobby he farms 8oo acres of l.uul, and he has never had any trouble with his labourers. I will admit that he is generous with a careless, exuberant generosity that docs not ask for gratitude. But it is not his generosity that has won for him the devotion of his servants and employees. They bow before his certainty. He is a religion to them, a trust- worthy holdfast in this world of unstable things. And I suppose that is also why he is still 'my friend.' His conversation is nothing but a string of affirmations with none of which I can agree. He is an intolerable bote, and his voice hurts me. But I regard him with wonder and admiration, and when the terrors and oppressions of the world threaten to break my spirit I go to him for strength. In the early days of our acquaintanceship I used to try, by facial contortions and parenthetic gesture, to indicate my pal- try disagreement with his political and social creed. Perhaps I came near at that time to inclusion in the 'Damfool' cate- gory; but the nearness of my house, his generosity in overlook- ing the preliminary marks of my idiocy, and (deciding factor) the inappcasable craving for company which is his only means of expression, influenced him to give me another and yet another chance. He took to putting up the barrage at the least sign of my disapproval, and so converted me — outwardly. While I am with him I relax myself. I stare at him and won- der. I sometimes find myself wishing that I could be like him ! It was, indeed, the thought of so impossible and outrageous an ambition that prompted me to attempt this portrait of him. I have failed, I know, to convey his proper quality. Anyone who has never met my friend will find nothing but the echo and shadow of him in this sketch. But is there anyone who has not met him or some member of his family? Down here I associate him with the land, but he has business interests connected with the Stock Exchange. And he has brothers, uncles and sons — any number of them — all of the same virtue. THE BARRAGE 4! They are in the Army, the Law, Medicine, in the Pulpit, in Trade, in the House — in everything. They are all successful, and they have all given their services with immense vigour and volubility to the great task that my friend defines as 'down- ing the Hun.' They are all men of action, and their thinking is done by a method as simple as simple addition. A few ster- ling principles are taken for granted, principles that can be applied in such phrases as 'the good of the country,' 'playing the game,' 'Rome was not built in a day,' or 'what I go by is facts,' and from these elementary premisses any and every argument can be deduced by the two-plus-two method. It is the apotheosis and triumph of a priorism. They do not believe in induction, and what they do not believe in does not exist for them. Their strength is in loudness and confidence, and they are very strong. Nevertheless, puzzling over my friend and his family in my own hair-splitting way, I have been wondering if this loud- ness is not a sign that the family has lost something of its old power? Their ancestors, also, were men of simple ideas and strong passions, men of inflexible purpose. But they were not, so far as one can judge from history, so blatantly loud. They bear the same kind of relation to my friend that Lincoln does to Roosevelt. Is the type changing, I ask myself, or only the conditions? And if the latter, is the man of intense convictions and rigid principles become so much of an anomaly in this new world of ours that the development of the barrage has become neces- sary as a means of assertion against a people who will question even such a simple premiss as that two added to two invariably produces four? For they do that. Your characteristic man of the age will warn you that the mathematical statement is an assumption only, not a universal truth. He will probably add that in any case it is useless as an analogy, since it disregards entirely the qualitative value of 'two.' From the over-conscientious mind such criticisms as this 41 SIGNS AND WONDERS to.ir aw.iy the last hopes of stability. One loses f.iith in the Cosmos. Hut my friend smiles his pity for all such damfoolish- ncss. His solid feet are planted on the solid earth. He knows that two and two make four. His ancestors have proved it by their actions. And if such silly questioning of sound principlcR is persisted in, he waves it aside and asserts himself in his usual effective way. Nevertheless, as I have said, it seems that that form of bar- rage was once unnecessary. r I THi: INTROVERT NC^THING is more dispiriting than the practice ofclassi- hiiv^ humanity according to "types." Your professional psycliologist docs it for his own purposes. This is his way of collating material for the large generalisation he is always chasing. His ideal is a complete record. He would like to present us as so many samples on a labelled card — the dif- ferences between the samples on any one card being ascribed to an initial carelessness in manufacture. His method is the apotheosis of that of the gay Italian fortune-teller one used to see about the streets, with her little cage of love-birds that sized you up and picked you out a suitable future. Presently, we hope, the psychologist will be able to do that for us with a greater discrimination. He will take a few measurements, test our reaction times, consult an index, and hand us out an in- fallible analysis of our "type." After that we shall know precisely what we are fitted for, and whether our ultimate destination is the Woolsack or the Workhouse. But your psychologist has his uses, and it is the amateur in this sort, particularly the novel-writing amateur, who arouses our protest. He — I use the pronoun asexually — docs not spend himself in prophecy, but he deals us out into packs with an air of knowing just where we belong. And his novels prove how right he was, because you can prove anything in a novel. His readers like this method. It is easy to understand, and it pro- vides them with an articulate description of the inevitable Jones. I cling to that as some justification for the habit, as an ex- cuse for my own exhibition of the weakness, however dispirit- ing. It is so convenient to have a shorthand reference for Jones and other of our acquaintances. The proper understanding of THE INTROVERT 45 any one of them might engage the leisure of a lifetime; and if for general purposes we can tuck our friends into some neat category, we serve the purposes of lucidity. Lastly, to conclude this apology, I would plead that a new scheme of classification, such as that provided by psycho-ana- lysis, is altogether too fascinating to be resisted. There is, for example, my friend David Wince, the typical "introvert," and an almost perfect foil for my friend the "ex- trovert," previously described. The two men loathe the sight of one another. Contempt on one side and fear on the other is a sufficient explanation of their mutual aversion. Wince, in- deed, has an instinctive fear of anything that bellows, and a rooted distrust of most other things. He suffers from a kind of spiritual agoraphobia that makes him scared and suspicious of large generalisations, broad horizons and cognate phenomena. He likes, as he says, to be "sure of one step" before he takes the next. The open distances of a political argument astound and terrify him. He takes all discussions with a great serious- ness, and displays an obstructive passion for definition and the right use of words. "What I should like to understand" is a favourite opening of his, and the thing he would like to under- stand is almost invariably some abstruse and fundamental de- finition. The d priori method is anathema to him. He is, in fact, characteristically unable to comprehend it. He has little res- pect for a syllogism as such, because his mind seems to work backwards, and all his logical faculty is used in the dissection of premisses. When my exasperation reaches the stage at which I say: "But, my dear fellow, let us take it for granted, for the sake of argument. ..." he wrings his hands in despair and replies : "But that's the whole point, We cant take these things for granted. If you don't examine your premisses, where are you?" He has a habit in conversation of emphasizing such words as those I have underlined, and a look of desolation comes into his face when he plaintively enquires where we arc. 46 SIGNS AND WONDERS At those times I sec his timid, irresolute spirit momentarily starinu; aghast at the threat of this world's immense distances; before it ducks hack with a sigh of relief into the shelter affor- ded bv his intn^pectivc analyses. "Let us be quite sure of our ground," he says, "before we draw any deductions." His ground is, I fancy, a kind of Mug-out.' He h.is had an unfortunate matrimonial experience. His wife ran away with another man, some three or four years ago, and he is trying to screw himself up to the pitch of divorcing her. For a vnMi of his sensitiveness, the giving of evidence in Court upon such a delicate subject will be a very trying ordeal. He has confided very little of his trouble to me, but occasional hints of his, and the reports of another friend who knew Mrs. Wince personally, lead mc to suppose that she was rather a large-minded, robust sort of woman. Perhaps he bored her. I can imagine that he would bore anyone who had a lust for ac- tion; and as they had been married for eight years and had no children, I am not prepared to condemn Mrs. Wince, off-hand, for her desertion of him. I have no doubt that Wince might be able to make out a good ethical case for himself. I picture his attitude towards his wife as being extremely self-denying, deprecatory and almost passionately virtuous. But I prefer to reserve judgment on the issue between them. I can imagine that his habit of procrastinating may have annoyed her to des- peration. He has told me with a kind of meek pride that he has often been to the door of a shop, and then postponed the purchase he had come to make until the next day. He loathes shopping. He finds the mildest shopkeeper an intimidating creature. I do not know what would happen to him if his hair- dresser died. He has been to the same man for over twenty years. In politics he is a conscientious Radical, and his one test of politicians is "Are they sincere?" He distrusts the Tories because he believes that they must be working for their own personal ends, but he has had a private weakness for Mr. Bal- THE INTROVERT 47 four ever since he read The Foundations of belief. His hero is W. E. Gladstone, whose opinions represent to him, I fancy, some aspect of his ow^n, while Gladstone's courage, Wince says, was "perfectly glorious." He adores courage, but only when it is the self-conscious kind. Our friend Bellows, for instance, does not appear to Wince as brave, but as callous, thick-skinned, or "simply a braggart." All Wince's resentment comes to the surface when the two men meet by some untoward accident. On one such occasion he magnificently left the room and slammed the door after him, but I think that he probably regretted that act of violence before he reached home. He has a nervous horror of making enemies. He need have no fear in this case. Bellows considers Wince as beneath his notice, and always speaks of him to me as "your hair-splittin' friend." Now that I have documented Wince I feel chiefly sorry for him, but when I am in his company I frequently have a strong desire to shake him. I wonder if his wife began by being sorry for him, and if her escapade was incidentally intended as a shaking? Did she flaunt her wickedness at him in the hope of 'rousing him up'? If so, she failed, ignominiously. Shakings of that sort only aggravate his terror of life. Indeed, I do not think that anything can be done for him. If he survives the war, the coming of the New Democracy will certainly finish him. Talking of the possibility of a November Election, he told me that he meant to abstain from voting. He said that he could not vote for Lloyd George, and was afraid of putting too much power into the hands of the Labour Party. He did not think that they had yet had enough experience of government to be trusted with the control of a nation. In the hallowed protections of the Victorian era he had his place and throve after his fashion. Life was so secure and the future apparently so certain. But he was not fitted to stand the strain of coming out into the open. He is horrified by the war, but in his heart he is still more horrified by the thought 48 SIGNS AND WONDERS ofthc conditions that will come with peace. He sees the future, I know, asa vast, formless threat. Hcsees life exposed to a great gale of revolution. He is afraid that his retreat will be no longer available, that one day he will find his burrow stopped and himself called upon to face, and to work with, his fellow-men. Hut no doubt his natural timidity tends to over-estimate the probability of these dangers. THK l?.\RRir.R THE 1K)D"\' seems to have a separate ami iiulustrious life of its own. It carries on works of ama/.ing intricacy bc- NcMid the reach of consciousness; works, tlie \cry existence of wliich arc unknown to us so long as they are being successfully performed. Only when there is some hitch or impediment, is the consciousness crudely signalled by the message of pain. Attention is demanded, but no detail is given of the nature of the trouble, nor of liow it may be overcome. All that tlie mes- sage con\cys is a plea for rest, for tlie suspension of those acti- vities within the consciousness whicii are — may we assume? — using up energy from some additional source that the workers now wish to draw upon themsch es. Can we assume further, that this corporate life of the cells is not entirely mechanical; is not a series of ciiemico-biological reflexes or re-actions, somehow mysteriously initiated at the birth of life and continued by the stimulus of some unknown unconscious force so long as tin's plastic, suggestible association of cells remains active? For example, it would appear that al- though strangers from another like community will be accepted and treated as fellow members, some lack of sympathy, or dif- ferent habit of work mars the perfection of the building. In renewing the bone structure after trephining, for instance, it has been found that a graft from the patient's own body — thin slices from the tibia are now being used — produces better results than can be achieved by the workers with strange mat- erial. The graft in this case is only used as a scaffolding. (Our assumed workers with all their ingenuity are not equal to the task of tiirowing out cantilevers into tlie void.) But the planks of the scaffolding become an organic part of the new structure, and when the new material used is foreign, we find the marks of divided purpose in plan and construction. The new bone THE BARRIER 5 I takes longer to form and the work is not so well done. (Incidentally, it is interesting to notice how impossible our mechanical metaphors become when we are speaking of this work of the cells. I have spoken of throwing out a cantilever, and incorporating the planks of a scaffold in the new structure, but cantilevers and planks are themselves, also, workers ! And, indeed, the fact that tlie process cannot be truly stated or even conceived in mechanical terms may be taken as a contribution to the metaphysical argument.) Yet astounding and difficult as is this problem of the civic, corporate life that is being lived without our knowledge, a still more inconceivable partnership awaits our investigation. So far, we JKive touched only on two domains; the first peculiar to those who study the body from a more or less mechanical aspect, such as the surgeon or the histologist; the second to the psychologist. There remains, I believe, a third peculiar to the practical experiments of biology and psycholog}'. Such reflections as these have often haunted me, and my mind was confusedly feeling for some key to the whole mys- tery as I stood by the death-bed of old Henry Sturton. He had been fatally injured by a motor omnibus as he stood in the gut- ter with his pitiful tray of useless twopenny toys. No one else had been hurt; the accident would have been no accident, no- thing more than a violent and harmless skidding of the jugger- naut, if Henry Sturton had not been standing on that precise spot. A difference of a few inches either way would have saved him. As it was the whole performance seemed to liave been fastidiously planned in order to destroy him. And in his pocket tiiey had found a begging letter addressed to me that he had perhaps forgotten to post. Or it may be that for once he had honestly intended to stamp it? I had egotistically wondered if I was the person for whose benefit this casual killing had been undertaken. When I reached the hospital, he was either asleep or un- conscious, but they allowed me to wait within the loop of the screen that was to hide the spectacle of his passing from the 52 SIGNS AND WONDERS Other p.iticiits in the ward. And I stood there pondering on the marvel of the bodily functions. I got no further than that until he opened his eyes and I saw my vision. He had been a gross man. I had always disliked and des- pised him since a certain occasion on which I had lunched with him at his Club. That was more than twenty years ago. I was young then, full of eagerness for the spiritual adventure of life, and he was a successful business man of nearly fifty, coarse and stupid, drugged by his perpetual indulgence in physical satis- factions. But, indeed, he had always been stupid. He w.as, I have heard, the typical lout of his school, too lethargic to be vicious, living entirely, as it seemed, for his stomach and his bed. Heaven knows what his life would have been, if he had always been forced to work for his bare living, but Providence has a habit of pandering to fat men, and he succeeded to his father's business, and let it run itself on its own familiar lines. He had never married. He was too selfish for that, but he had, so someone told me, bought and mistreated more than one young woman for his own office — his only positive sin in the eyes of the moralists; though I used to feci that his whole existence was one vast overwhelming sin from first to last. That, however, is the common error of judgment of the ascetic, self-immolating type. He found no friends when his business failed. His intimates were men of the same calibre as himself, and rejected him in those circumstances as he would have rejected them. The failure itself was an unlucky accident. The man who ran the business proved unfaithful; he was the victim of a confidence that begot in him the lust for power. He gambled, lost, and absconded. Sturton's descent into the gutter was delayed for a few years by a clerical appointment he begged from some firm with whom he had traded before his bankruptcy. The ap- pointment could not have been lucrative. He attended the of- fice every day, but nothing else seemed to have been expected of him. He could have been capable of nothing else. Whatever THE BARRIER 53 his potentialities may once have been, they were hopelessly stultified by then. I used to meet him now and again in those days of his clerkship; and let him gorge himself at my expense. That was his single pleasure and desire. Poverty had exagger- ated the cravings of his gluttony. And as I stood respectfully within the fold of the screen and looked down at the flabby coarseness of the horrible old man in the bed, I reflected that his body must in its own way have represented a highly successful community of cells. There had been no distractions of purpose in the entity we knew as Henry Sturton; no rending uncertainties to upset his nerves and interfere with the steady industry of his bodily functions. I was thinking that when he opened his eyes and I caught a glimpse of the fierce and splendid thing his body had always hidden from us. I saw it then, beyond any shadow of doubt — the spirit that had been imprisoned for seventy years, lying in wait eternally patient and vigilant, for this one brief instant of expression. It looked at me without recognition, yet with an amazing intensity, as if it knevv^ that all its long agony of sup- pression would find no other compensation than this. So near release, his soul, still longing to touch life at some point, had seized its opportunity when that intolerably gross barrier of his body had been mangled and dislocated by this long-delayed accident. Then Henry Sturton coughed, and I saw the beautiful eager stare die out of his eyes, and give place to that look of gross desire I had always loathed. Even then, I believe, he craved for food. But the next moment his eyes closed and his lips spurted a stream of blood. The nurse was with him instantly, pushing me aside. I took advantage of her preoccupation to stay till the end. I hoped for one more sight of his soul. I thought it might take advantage of another intermission before the work of the com- munity was abruptly closed. But I did not see it again. He spoke once, two minutes before he died. "God blast," was what he said. THE CONVERT FOR the first time in his life, Heiir)- Wolvcrton h.ul hecii seriousl)' upset. His had been ail orderl)- life. Even when he was at Shrews- bury, he had escaped bullying and other disturbances. He had been marked out as a future scholar who would be a credit to the school; and his calm air of reserve had also protected him. He might be classed as a 'sw.it,' but he was not the kind of swat who gets singled out for bull) ing. He was no good at games, but he had a handsome, dignified presence, and he was never known to put on side. At Oxford he passed from triumph to triumph. After he got his fellowship at Balliol, he married a girl-graduate from Lady Margaret Hall, and they worked happily together on his research. He was writing in many volumes, the 6co>io?uic History of the Sixteenth bf Seventeenth Centuries; and at twent)- ninc he was already an authority. His wife died rather inci- dently when they had been married three years, but that had not seriously interfered with his life work. Nor did the war, although it was a terrible nuisance, have any considerable effect upon him. He undertook work of "national importance" in Whitehall, and when he returned home in tlie afternoon to the house he had taken at tlic corner of Bedford Square, he found that he could still put in four or five \aluable hours' work on his history. And if he wanted extra time for research in the British Museum library, he could alwa)s get leave. E\ eryone in his department recognized the fact that he was an exceptional man, and that the work he was engaged upon would be a lasting monument to English scho- larship. By comparison, the war itself was almost an ephemeral THE CONVERT 55 thing. Since the signing of the armistice, he had settled down to make up for lost time. He had his whole future planned. He hoped to finish his immediate task by tJie time he was sixty- five, but he foresaw that there would still be other work for him to do. He would, for example, almost certainly find it necessary by then to make revision in his earlier volumes. It was no trifle that had upset him on this particular day. But even the fact that the English re\'olution had at last bro- ken into the fiame of civil war would not have disturbed him so seriously, if he had not conclusively proved in the course of the past five weeks that tlie revolution was impossible. Throughout the welter of the national strike disturbances, editors of any importance from the editor of the Times down- wards had begged him for articles. Although he had specialized upon a study of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he was regarded as the first authority on the entire history of the Eng- lish people. And in his articles, he had proved conclusively from liis vast knowledge of precedents and tradition, that the temper of the English people would never seek the arbitrament of an armed revolution. He was still convinced of that, although, so far as he could judge, the revolution had already begun. He had been startled in the middle of his best hours of the day, by what lie had at first imagined to be the back-firing of a rapidly driven motor-bicycle. He went to the window, opened it wide (he always kept it closed when he was working, to shut out the noise of the traffic), and listened with an anxious attention. He had a peculiar and unprecedented feeling of nervousness. He felt, for no assignable reason, as if someone had discovered a bad anachronism in his book. And then he was reluctantly driven to the conclusion that, indeed, some mistake had been committed, although he could not admit that it was his own. For the motor-bicycle continued to back-fire in short, spasmodic bursts, while it remained stationary; and 56 SIGNS AND WONDERS he could no longer avoid the inference tli.it it was as a matter of fact a machine gun, no further awa\- than Oxford Street. He could, also, hear dim and terrible shouting, and more faint- ly, occasional cries of dismay, of anger, or of fear. The Square was completely deserted, but when he saw a scattered rout of people flying north, up Hloomsbury Street, he closed the window and began to pace up and down his well- fitted writing room, sanctified now, by the five years' work he had done there. \Vhat so annojed and disturbed him was that some offi- cious, politiail fool should have upset his scholarly deductions from the vast precedents of history. He would not admit for one moment that he had been mistaken; his chain of rc.isoning was unassailable. But, so he inferred, some blundering, mal- icious idiot had made a gross error in the conduct of the nego- tiations that, no longer ago than yesterday, had promised so hopefull}'. The result of that error was incalculable. There could be no doubt that the rioters had been fired upon, and so given a sound cause, and what would perhaps be more eflfective still, a rallying cry, to the great mass of unemployed workers. And the army could not be depended upon. The more loyal part of it was in Germany enforcing the peace terms. It was just possible in the circumstances that there might be something very like an armed revolution, despite the fact that his argu- ments had been so indubitably sound and right. Henry Wol- verton was exceedingly annoyed and upset. His troubles did not end there. Just as he had succeeded, by a masterly effort of concentration, in putting away the thought of this stupid anomaly and returning to his work, his house- keeper came and tapped at his door — a thing she had been explicitly forbidden to do, at that time of day, in any circum- stances whate\'er. He ignored the first knock, and then she knocked again, more loudly. He frowned, and br.dc her come in. She was stupid, like THE CONVEkT 57 most women, and would probably continue to pester him until she was admitted. She came in trembling with agitation. "Oh ! I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir, coming now, against all orders," she said; "but William has just come in — it's his evening off, you know, sir — and he says there's been firin' in Oxford Circus, and people killed, and — " "I inferred that," Henry Wolverton interrupted her calm- ly. "I heard the machine guns. You had better tell William not to go out again." "Oh! sir, but he says we're none of us safe," the house- keeper wailed, on the verge of hysterics. "He says there'll be looting and Heaven only knows what, and us so near Oxford Street." "I do not anticipate any effects of that kind, to-night, Mrs. Perry," Wolverton replied frigidly. "And, by the way, I should be glad if you could let me have dinner half an hour earlier, this evening. After these annoying disturbances, I may not be able to settle down again until I have dined, and I shall work longer afterwards to make up for lost time. Can you arrange that?" "Yes, sir," gasped Mrs. Perry. "Then, you don't believe, sir—" "I do not," Wolverton returned with the dignity of the assured. "You may lock the outer doors, if it gives you any sense of security. I shall expect dinner in half an hour from now." Mrs. Perry returned to the kitchen greatly comforted by her master's magnificent confidence. She told William that things were not so bad as he was afraid of! And William in his turn derived a sense of security from the knowledge that he was living in the house of Henry Wolverton. Nevertheless, they locked and bolted all the doors with a fine attention to detail. Henry Wolverton worked rather intermittently after din- SS SIGNS AND WONDERS iicr tli.u night. lie w.is not vli^tiubfil b) an\' noises frotii without. Loi\ilon was ciuictct tlian ho hail c\cr known it. He could hear no sound of traflic cither along lilo()nisbur\' Street or Tottenham Court Road. No paper boys came. No one passed his window. He could not even hear the sound of the policeman on his beat. IJut he found the absence of noise on this occasion more d'sturbini: than the presence o( it would have been. He found himself hailed out of his profoundcst efforts of attention by his conciousness of this abiding, deathly silence. He would discover himself, sitting idly, li>tening to the stillness of the night. A little after twelve o'clock, he got up and went to the front door. And after he had somewhat impatiently unlocked it, drawn back the bottom bolt and the top bolt, released the night latcli, and undone tlie chain, he opened the door and stood on the top step, looking out o\er the darkness of the Square. After a moment or two, he realized with a little shock of dismay why the Square looked unfamiliar to him. The street lamps had not been lighted. Only a clear and brilliant moon in its second quarter, brooded o\ cr the unprecedented silence; weakly illuminating the apparently deserted city. . . . The thin scream of fear that suddenly pierced the stillness, came with an effect of audacious irreverence. Henry Wolverton stiffened and a cold thrill of apprehen- sion ran down his spine. Tlie scream was succeeded b)' a faint, eager patter of hurrying feet; and then more distantly, by the brutal intrusion of hoarse shouts, and the clutter of heavy boots vehemently running. Wolverton did not mo\ e. Until now fear had never en- tered his life and he had the courage of a man who has never faced a real danger. The lighter footsteps were approaching very rapidly, com- ing up Blooinsbury Street; and the sound of them seemed suddenly to lift and acquire precision as a figure came round tnfe CONVERT 5^ the corner and turned swiftly into the Square. Wolverton could see then that the runner was a young woman in a light dress. He would ha\'e let her pass without trying to attract her attention. He was watching the whole incident with the detached and careful interest of the historian. But the young woman, herself, had evidently seen the beacon of his open door before she actually reached it, and had settled upon her course of action. She came straight up the steps without an instant's hesitation, pushed Henry Wolverton back into the hall, and closed the door with the intent and silent urgency of a conspir- ator. He made no attempt to speak, and the )oung woman crouched in silence behind the door, until they had heard the clutter of heavy footsteps pass by and hurry on, up the Square. The men were not shouting now, but even through the heavy door, Woherton could hear them gasping and panting as tliey ran. The sound of it made him think of the hoarse panting of great dogs. When the flurry of that passing had dwindled again into silence, the young woman got up, locked and bolted the door and faced Henry Woh erton under the light of the hall lamp. "So, that's all riglit," she said, with a little laugh of exul- tation. "Do I understand — r" Woherton began. "Probabl)^, I should imagine," she interrupted him. "The scum's let loose — the hooligans; tlie Apaches. After tlie figlit- ing comes pillage and rapine." She frowned slightly as she added, "I suppose rapine has got to do with rape:" "It is not used specifically in that sense, now," Woh erton replied. "But it had that meaning, earlier." "Oh, thanks! Well that was what I meant," the young woman said. "Do you mind if I come in and sit down? Is that your room? I'm a bit blown." Wolverton stood aside for her to enter the sacred places 60 SIGNS AND WONDERS of his writing-room. She nodded by way of tlianks, as she passed him, went in, looked round the room and then having thrown herself with a sigh of relief into his reading chair, proceeded to take off her hnt. "Jolly room," she remarked pleasantly, as her deft fingers twitched and patted at her hair. "You a writer?" "My name is Henry Wolvcrton," he informed her with a modest dignity. "Whatr" she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright and staring at him eagerly. "Henry Wolvcrton, the iiistorianr" He nodded gravely. "Oh, Lord!" she said, and went on, "Well, I was wrong about one thing. I said you must be a dried up little mummy of a man, all beard and spectacles. And you're not a bit like that. In fact you're quite unusually goodlooking." The f;iintest adumbration of a flush tinged Wolvcrton's white forehead. "My name appears to be known to you," he remarked, ignoring the compliment. "Obviously," his visitor retorted. "Pretty well known to everyone, I should imagine, just now." "May I ask whyr" he put in. "Well, considering that you're the man who's responsible for the revolution, I suppose you're more famous at the present moment than any man in Great Britain," she said. "Though you're not exactly popular with either side, to-night, I should think," she added thoughtfully. Henry Wolvcrton made a little noise in his tliroat that sounded like an asthmatic cough. With him that noise did duty for a laugh. "I'm afraid I don't follow you," he said. "Doyou mean that you don't admit )'our own responsibility for the revolution?" she asked. "I cannot see that I am even remotely connected with it," he replied. The young woman pursed her lovely mouth, and clasped THE CONVERT 6 1 her hands round her knee. After a reflective pause she remarked v/ith apparent inconsequence, "My name is Susan Jeffery j but I don't suppose that conveys anything to yoiu" "I believe I saw the name on a committee list of the 'League of Youth,' " Wolverton said. "Lord, what a memory he has," commented Susan Jeffery in a soft voice. "But I must plead ignorance of the general scope of your activities," he continued. "But you know something about our leaguer" she put in. "Something," he admitted. "Such as our policy of percolation?" "I understand that your endeavour is to be represented in every imaginable grade of society." "Precisely. From royalty down to the criminal and the gutter-snipe," Susan confirmed. "We have only one qualifi- cation for membership; we admit no one over twenty-five." "And have you many members, now?" Wolverton inquir- ed politely. "Nine thousand, eight hundred and forty-three," Susan replied. "We admitted a hundred and seven new members after our grand meeting tonight, including a royal prince and two hooligans." Henry Wolverton nodded his head encouragingly. "Most satisfactory," he murmured. Susan dropped her knee and sat up. "I'm telling you this," she said in a firm voice, "for your own good. We discussed you at our meeting, and it was re- solved unanimously that you were largely responsible for the revolution that broke out to-day, and will end God knows where or when." Wolverton made his noise again — Susan had not yet re- cognized it as a laugh. "I must confess that I don't quite follow your train of reasoning," he said. "You don't look like a fool, cither," Susan commented, 62 Sir.NS AND WONDER!^ frankly. *'I suppose that's just your one hlind spot. Most of us have OIK." "Perhaps you wouUl explain," VVolverton suggested, *'It'sso bally ob\ ious," Sus;ui replied. "You've been writ- ing articles for the last six weeks — they'\e appeared all over the shop — rubbing it in about the English temper. It wouldn't liavc mattered if it had been anybody else, Init people believe \ou. All sorts of people. We know that, through the activities of the league, because we're represented everywhere. Well, what has been the eft'ect of those articles? One side, the side in power, has believed you and decided on your authority not to give way. The other side, the workers, has believed you, too, and they're so annoyed to think that you arc right that they've determined to prove you're wrong." "But, in that case, I was right," Wolverton put in with his first sign of excitement. "You were, until you put )Our opinion on record," Susan corrected iu'm. "You see," she explained, "it's like knowing the future. You can only know it for certain about other people as long as you keep it to yourself. If )'ou tell a man that next Friday he'll walk under a ladder in Fleet Street, and that a brick will drop on his head and kill him, he'll keep out of Fleet Street next Friday, if he believes )ou." "I admit the instance," Wol\ erton murmured. "Well, it's just the same in your case. The workers have been saying, 'Here's tliat chap Wolverton convincing every- body that there'll be no revolution, that we'll have to give in, in the end, and make terms. And all the politicians, and the owners and the middle classes believe him, and they'll stick it out to the last minute, because they're sure wc have got the "English temper" and won't fight. Well, we'll jolly well prove that Mr. Wolverton is wrong for once.' You see," Su- san concluded with a graceful gesture. "Our league knows these things. And it comes to this: if you want your prophecies to como off, you must keep them to yourself until after the THE CONVERT 63 event. Hasn't your study of history taught you that much?" Henry Wolverton leaned forward in his chair and covered his face with his hands. "I'm sorry if I've upset you," Susan said gently. "I'm sure you're a very nice man, really." Wolverton groaned. "I'm finally discredited," he mut- tered. "Oh, no!" Susan comforted him. "Not in your own line. Remember the motto of our League: 'These things are hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes.' No man, however clever he is, can be expected to know everything." Henry Wolverton lifted his head. "I shall never write again," he said, in the tone of one who makes the great renunciation; and he looked at Susan a trifle nervously, as if he feared this immense announcement might be a little too much for her. "Just as well," she replied soothingly. "In any case we've pretty well scrapped history now. It was never any practical use except as a reference for precedents; and now we're chuck- ing precedents down the sink as fast as we can. We're all going to begin again presently — when the fighting is over — on a new basis." Henry Wolverton jumped to his feet and began to pace up and down the room. "It's sure to be a wrench at first, of course," Susan consoled him. "These things always are. But if I can help you in any >» way — He turned on her with the first sign of emotional passion he had ever displayed. "You!" he said fiercely. "Don't you realize that you've destroyed my whole life's work; that you've robbed me in ten minutes of e\ery happiness and satisfaction I've ever had. Good God, if I'd known, I'd have slammed the door in your face, just now. I would have delivered you over to the scum of London to do what they would with you." 64 Sir.NS AND WONDERS Susan blushed. "I don't think that's a very nice thinsx to say," she remarked, gently. "JJut perhaps it's just as well for you to blow oft* steam a bit. It does help when you've had a real facer. And honestly, you know, although I'm very sorry in a wa)',I do think it's all for your good th;it I came in tonight; because you would have been bound to fuid it out for yourself sooner or later." Henry VVolvcrton stared at her, and his look of anger slowly gave place to one of bewilderment. "But what am I to doV he asked. "I've always worked for ten hours a day. I can't live without work of some kind, and now. ..." Sus.in got up and came across the room to him, with an expression of bright and eager helpfulness. "Oh! look here, we'll find a use for you," she said, laying her hand on his arm. "You're too old to join the league, of course — " "I'm thirty-seven," he interpolated. "It's quite young, really," she comforted him. "I'm twen- ty-three. But what I was going to say was that we arc founding a reference committee of experts of all kinds to advise the league. The members of that committee will have no voice in our decisions, you understand; they'll be simply advisory. And it would be absolutely splendid to have you as chairman. I shall get no end of prestige from the league for having found you." Her face shone with the joy of the successful discoverer. "I understand you to suggest," Henry Wohcrton com- mented dryly, "that I should devote the rest of my life, and the — er — fruits of my scholarship, to instructing young men and women under twenty-fi\e years of age in the lessons of history; always with the distinct understanding that they are in no way pledged to apply my advice in the prosecution of their own policy r" Susan did not miss the implications of his tone. "My dear man," she said, "whatever is the good of scholarship, if it isn't THE CONVERT 6$ to advise the young? Surely you haven't been studying history all these years just in order to swap opinions with all the other old fogies?" Henry Woh'erton turned his back on herand walked over to the window. After a short pause he faced lier again and said, "You have a remarkable power of statement, Miss JefFery. I must admit that I ha\e ne\er before considered the precise use, in the pragmatical sense, to which I might apply my — er — scholarship; and I am ready to grant that your point is a good one. Where your otherwise admirable logic seems to fail, however, is in the admission that though I might turn my knowledge to good effect by ad\ising youth, I may be wasting all my effort since j'outh will probably not be guided by my teaching." "I don't know much about logic," replied Susan, "but I should have thought it must be pretty evident to you, to-day of all days, that if we were going to be guided only by the lessons of history, our league would be a back-number in a v/eek. Isn't it possible for you to get it into your head that history isn't everything?" She put her last question with the appealing gesture of a mother addressing a refractory and rather stupid child. "How is history going to get us out of the mess you've landed us in, for example?" she continued, as Henry Wolver- ton made no attempt to answer her. "How is history, alone, going to help us presently to start everything afresh on a new basis? You must know, yourself, that it's no good trying to get back to the old way of doing things. That could only mean, by your own showing, that we should just be preparing the way for all this to happen again." Henry Wolverton threw up his hands with a gesture of despair. "But if I admit that you're right," he said, "I have to face the conclusion that I've wasted my whole life." "Well, in a way, I'm afraid you ha\'e, rather," Susan ad- E 66 SIGNS AND WONDERS mittcil. "It's a ijrcat phVy loi instance, abovit this rtnolution of ) ours. It means such a lot of ModiI and disoiilcr; and people do get so out of haiul when there's fi^htini: j^oing on. Now if the owners and the niiiidic-classcs hadn't been so cocksure, and had gi\ en wav, we could have starteil in on our new methods of government witlunit any bother," She paused a moment, before she ailded, "We've got it all worked out, )0u know, but, of course, I can't tell )0u anything about it, )'et." "I am, in fact, what )'ou would call a back-number," Hen- ry Wol\ erton said. Susan puckered her forehead. "I tiiink there's still a liope for you," she remarked. "After all these years?" he asked. "If you'd let me take )'ou in hand for a bit," she said. "You seem willing to learn." "But you have surely more important work to dor You couldn't spare time to teach me?" he suggested. "I think I might work it in," she said reflectively. "I'd take )0u about with me and show you things — real things, you know. What's chiefly wrong with )ou is that you've spent all your time over your old books." "You suggest that I ought to study life in — in action?" Henry Wolvcrton inquired. "Rather," Susan agreed. "You ought to come to one of our meetings." She stopped abruptly, and her hand went up to her mouth with a gesture of dismay. "Oh! Great Scott!" she ejaculated; "that reminds me, I was going on to another frightfully important meeting when those hooligans started chasing me; and that and our talk put it right out of my head." "At what time was tliis important meeting to be held?" Henry Wohcrton asked, looking at his watch. "One o'clock," she told him. THE COXVERT 67 ^*You Still have ten minutes," he said. Susan shuddered. "I daren't go out again alone," she con- fessed, "I simply daren't. I'd — I'd sooner stay here all night with you." "I shall be delighted to come with you," Henry Wolver- ton said. "You!" Susan exclaimed. "But don't you understand the risk? The mob's loose. What good would you be against three or four chunky hooligans r" Henry Wohertoii squared his shoulders. He was a tall, finely-built man, and his face had the cool assurance of one who has never known fear. "I am not afraid of hooligans," he said. Susan gazed at him with frank admiration. "You know you're a perfect topper in some ways," she complimejitcd him. He bowed gravely. "If I might be admitted to this meet- ing of yours," he said; "it would perhaps afford me an oppor- tunity to begin my education." ^^If )^ou're sure you're not afraid," Susan replied, picking up her hat. "I'm not in the least afraid," he said. "Will you take my arm?" At the open door they paused a moment, looking out into the darkness; listening to the profound silence of the empty night — creative youth and patient scholarship, hand-in-hand, facing the immense void of the unforctcllablc future. A NEGLIGIBLE EXPERIMENT " T CAN'T get him right, somehow," the )oung sculptor X'^-iiil, hut he lo