"TO HILAIRE BELLOC\n\n     _For every tiny town or place\n     God made the stars especially;\n     Babies look up with owlish face\n     And see them tangled in a tree:\n     You saw a moon from Sussex Downs,\n     A Sussex moon, untravelled still,\n     I saw a moon that was the town's,\n     The largest lamp on Campden Hill._\n\n     _Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home\n     The big blue cap that always fits,\n     And so it is (be calm; they come\n     To goal at last, my wandering wits),\n     So is it with the heroic thing;\n     This shall not end for the world's end,\n     And though the sullen engines swing,\n     Be you not much afraid, my friend._\n\n     _This did not end by Nelson's urn\n     Where an immortal England sits--\n     Nor where your tall young men in turn\n     Drank death like wine at Austerlitz.\n     And when the pedants bade us mark\n     What cold mechanic happenings\n     Must come; our souls said in the dark,\n     \"Belike; but there are likelier things.\"_\n\n     _Likelier across these flats afar\n     These sulky levels smooth and free\n     The drums shall crash a waltz of war\n     And Death shall dance with Liberty;\n     Likelier the barricades shall blare\n     Slaughter below and smoke above,\n     And death and hate and hell declare\n     That men have found a thing to love._\n\n     _Far from your sunny uplands set\n     I saw the dream; the streets I trod\n     The lit straight streets shot out and met\n     The starry streets that point to God.\n     This legend of an epic hour\n     A child I dreamed, and dream it still,\n     Under the great grey water-tower\n     That strikes the stars on Campden Hill._\n\n                             G. K. C.\n\n\nCHAPTER I--_Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy_\n\n\nThe human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been\nplaying at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do\nit till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.\nAnd one of the games to which it is most attached is called \"Keep\nto-morrow dark,\" and which is also named (by the rustics in\nShropshire, I have no doubt) \"Cheat the Prophet.\" The players listen\nvery carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say\nabout what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait\nuntil all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go\nand do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes,\nhowever, it is great fun.\n\nFor human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the\nchildish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world\ndone what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the\nfalse prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets\nwith a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a\nmore or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But\nhumanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men\nare men, but Man is a woman.\n\nBut in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat the\nProphet was made far more difficult than it had ever been before. The\nreason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies,\nthat it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When a man did\nsomething free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought\nstruck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke\nclimbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really\nhappy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some\nprophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see\nthe ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was\nquite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in\ncrowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some high\npost in the State. And all these clever men were at work giving\naccounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite clear, all\nquite keen-sighted and ruthless, and all quite different. And it\nseemed that the good old game of hoodwinking your ancestors could not\nreally be managed this time, because the ancestors neglected meat and\nsleep and practical politics, so that they might meditate day and\nnight on what their descendants would be likely to do.\n\nBut the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to work was\nthis. They took something or other that was certainly going on in\ntheir time, and then said that it would go on more and more until\nsomething extraordinary happened. And very often they added that in\nsome odd place that extraordinary thing had happened, and that it\nshowed the signs of the times.\n\nThus, for instance, there were Mr. H. G. Wells and others, who thought\nthat science would take charge of the future; and just as the\nmotor-car was quicker than the coach, so some lovely thing would be\nquicker than the motor-car; and so on for ever. And there arose from\ntheir ashes Dr. Quilp, who said that a man could be sent on his\nmachine so fast round the world that he could keep up a long, chatty\nconversation in some old-world village by saying a word of a sentence\neach time he came round. And it was said that the experiment had been\ntried on an apoplectic old major, who was sent round the world so fast\nthat there seemed to be (to the inhabitants of some other star) a\ncontinuous band round the earth of white whiskers, red complexion and\ntweeds--a thing like the ring of Saturn.\n\nThen there was the opposite school. There was Mr. Edward Carpenter,\nwho thought we should in a very short time return to Nature, and live\nsimply and slowly as the animals do. And Edward Carpenter was followed\nby James Pickie, D.D. (of Pocohontas College), who said that men were\nimmensely improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly and\ncontinuously, after the manner of cows. And he said that he had, with\nthe most encouraging results, turned city men out on all fours in a\nfield covered with veal cutlets. Then Tolstoy and the Humanitarians\nsaid that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no one\nwould ever desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian,\nbut at length declared vegetarianism doomed (\"shedding,\" as he called\nit finely, \"the green blood of the silent animals\"), and predicted\nthat men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then\ncame the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the\npamphlet called \"Why should Salt suffer?\" and there was more trouble.\n\n[Illustration: CITY MEN OUT ON ALL FOURS IN A FIELD COVERED WITH VEAL\nCUTLETS.]\n\nAnd on the other hand, some people were predicting that the lines of\nkinship would become narrower and sterner. There was Mr. Cecil Rhodes,\nwho thought that the one thing of the future was the British Empire,\nand that there would be a gulf between those who were of the Empire\nand those who were not, between the Chinaman in Hong Kong and the\nChinaman outside, between the Spaniard on the Rock of Gibraltar and\nthe Spaniard off it, similar to the gulf between man and the lower\nanimals. And in the same way his impetuous friend, Dr. Zoppi (\"the\nPaul of Anglo-Saxonism\"), carried it yet further, and held that, as a\nresult of this view, cannibalism should be held to mean eating a\nmember of the Empire, not eating one of the subject peoples, who\nshould, he said, be killed without needless pain. His horror at the\nidea of eating a man in British Guiana showed how they misunderstood\nhis stoicism who thought him devoid of feeling. He was, however, in a\nhard position; as it was said that he had attempted the experiment,\nand, living in London, had to subsist entirely on Italian\norgan-grinders. And his end was terrible, for just when he had begun,\nSir Paul Swiller read his great paper at the Royal Society, proving\nthat the savages were not only quite right in eating their enemies,\nbut right on moral and hygienic grounds, since it was true that the\nqualities of the enemy, when eaten, passed into the eater. The notion\nthat the nature of an Italian organ-man was irrevocably growing and\nburgeoning inside him was almost more than the kindly old professor\ncould bear.\n\nThere was Mr. Benjamin Kidd, who said that the growing note of our\nrace would be the care for and knowledge of the future. His idea was\ndeveloped more powerfully by William Borker, who wrote that passage\nwhich every schoolboy knows by heart, about men in future ages weeping\nby the graves of their descendants, and tourists being shown over the\nscene of the historic battle which was to take place some centuries\nafterwards.\n\nAnd Mr. Stead, too, was prominent, who thought that England would in\nthe twentieth century be united to America; and his young lieutenant,\nGraham Podge, who included the states of France, Germany, and Russia\nin the American Union, the State of Russia being abbreviated to Ra.\n\nThere was Mr. Sidney Webb, also, who said that the future would see a\ncontinuously increasing order and neatness in the life of the people,\nand his poor friend Fipps, who went mad and ran about the country with\nan axe, hacking branches off the trees whenever there were not the\nsame number on both sides.\n\nAll these clever men were prophesying with every variety of ingenuity\nwhat would happen soon, and they all did it in the same way, by taking\nsomething they saw \"going strong,\" as the saying is, and carrying it\nas far as ever their imagination could stretch. This, they said, was\nthe true and simple way of anticipating the future. \"Just as,\" said\nDr. Pellkins, in a fine passage,--\"just as when we see a pig in a\nlitter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable law\nof the Inscrutable it will some day be larger than an elephant,--just\nas we know, when we see weeds and dandelions growing more and more\nthickly in a garden, that they must, in spite of all our efforts, grow\ntaller than the chimney-pots and swallow the house from sight, so we\nknow and reverently acknowledge, that when any power in human politics\nhas shown for any period of time any considerable activity, it will go\non until it reaches to the sky.\"\n\nAnd it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people\n(engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet) in a quite\nunprecedented difficulty. It seemed really hard to do anything without\nfulfilling some of their prophecies.\n\nBut there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the streets,\nof peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, and especially\nwomen, a strange look that kept the wise men in a perfect fever of\ndoubt. They could not fathom the motionless mirth in their eyes. They\nstill had something up their sleeve; they were still playing the game\nof Cheat the Prophet.\n\nThen the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither and\nthither, crying, \"What can it be? What can it be? What will London be\nlike a century hence? Is there anything we have not thought of? Houses\nupside down--more hygienic, perhaps? Men walking on hands--make feet\nflexible, don't you know? Moon ... motor-cars ... no heads....\" And so\nthey swayed and wondered until they died and were buried nicely.\n\nThen the people went and did what they liked. Let me no longer conceal\nthe painful truth. The people had cheated the prophets of the\ntwentieth century. When the curtain goes up on this story, eighty\nyears after the present date, London is almost exactly like what it is\nnow.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--_The Man in Green_\n\n\nVery few words are needed to explain why London, a hundred years\nhence, will be very like it is now, or rather, since I must slip into\na prophetic past, why London, when my story opens, was very like it\nwas in those enviable days when I was still alive.\n\nThe reason can be stated in one sentence. The people had absolutely\nlost faith in revolutions. All revolutions are doctrinal--such as the\nFrench one, or the one that introduced Christianity. For it stands to\ncommon sense that you cannot upset all existing things, customs, and\ncompromises, unless you believe in something outside them, something\npositive and divine. Now, England, during this century, lost all\nbelief in this. It believed in a thing called Evolution. And it said,\n\"All theoretic changes have ended in blood and ennui. If we change, we\nmust change slowly and safely, as the animals do. Nature's revolutions\nare the only successful ones. There has been no conservative reaction\nin favour of tails.\"\n\nAnd some things did change. Things that were not much thought of\ndropped out of sight. Things that had not often happened did not\nhappen at all. Thus, for instance, the actual physical force ruling\nthe country, the soldiers and police, grew smaller and smaller, and at\nlast vanished almost to a point. The people combined could have swept\nthe few policemen away in ten minutes: they did not, because they did\nnot believe it would do them the least good. They had lost faith in\nrevolutions.\n\nDemocracy was dead; for no one minded the governing class governing.\nEngland was now practically a despotism, but not an hereditary one.\nSome one in the official class was made King. No one cared how: no one\ncared who. He was merely an universal secretary.\n\nIn this manner it happened that everything in London was very quiet.\nThat vague and somewhat depressed reliance upon things happening as\nthey have always happened, which is with all Londoners a mood, had\nbecome an assumed condition. There was really no reason for any man\ndoing anything but the thing he had done the day before.\n\nThere was therefore no reason whatever why the three young men who had\nalways walked up to their Government office together should not walk\nup to it together on this particular wintry and cloudy morning.\nEverything in that age had become mechanical, and Government clerks\nespecially. All those clerks assembled regularly at their posts. Three\nof those clerks always walked into town together. All the\nneighbourhood knew them: two of them were tall and one short. And on\nthis particular morning the short clerk was only a few seconds late to\njoin the other two as they passed his gate: he could have overtaken\nthem in three strides; he could have called after them easily. But he\ndid not.\n\nFor some reason that will never be understood until all souls are\njudged (if they are ever judged; the idea was at this time classed\nwith fetish worship) he did not join his two companions, but walked\nsteadily behind them. The day was dull, their dress was dull,\neverything was dull; but in some odd impulse he walked through street\nafter street, through district after district, looking at the backs of\nthe two men, who would have swung round at the sound of his voice.\nNow, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and\nit is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times,\nyou are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you\nare in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.\n\nSo the short Government official looked at the coat-tails of the tall\nGovernment officials, and through street after street, and round\ncorner after corner, saw only coat-tails, coat-tails, and again\ncoat-tails--when, he did not in the least know why, something happened\nto his eyes.\n\nTwo black dragons were walking backwards in front of him. Two black\ndragons were looking at him with evil eyes. The dragons were walking\nbackwards it was true, but they kept their eyes fixed on him none the\nless. The eyes which he saw were, in truth, only the two buttons at\nthe back of a frock-coat: perhaps some traditional memory of their\nmeaningless character gave this half-witted prominence to their gaze.\nThe slit between the tails was the nose-line of the monster: whenever\nthe tails flapped in the winter wind the dragons licked their lips. It\nwas only a momentary fancy, but the small clerk found it imbedded in\nhis soul ever afterwards. He never could again think of men in\nfrock-coats except as dragons walking backwards. He explained\nafterwards, quite tactfully and nicely, to his two official friends,\nthat (while feeling an inexpressible regard for each of them) he could\nnot seriously regard the face of either of them as anything but a\nkind of tail. It was, he admitted, a handsome tail--a tail elevated in\nthe air. But if, he said, any true friend of theirs wished to see\ntheir faces, to look into the eyes of their soul, that friend must be\nallowed to walk reverently round behind them, so as to see them from\nthe rear. There he would see the two black dragons with the blind\neyes.\n\nBut when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the\nsmall clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles--they changed\nthe universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know--that\nadventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord\nof monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like\nsong. He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the four\ndead eyes glaring at him he looked round and realised the strange dead\nday.\n\nThe morning was wintry and dim, not misty, but darkened with that\nshadow of cloud or snow which steeps everything in a green or copper\ntwilight. The light there is on such a day seems not so much to come\nfrom the clear heavens as to be a phosphorescence clinging to the\nshapes themselves. The load of heaven and the clouds is like a load of\nwaters, and the men move like fishes, feeling that they are on the\nfloor of a sea. Everything in a London street completes the fantasy;\nthe carriages and cabs themselves resemble deep-sea creatures with\neyes of flame. He had been startled at first to meet two dragons. Now\nhe found he was among deep-sea dragons possessing the deep sea.\n\nThe two young men in front were like the small young man himself,\nwell-dressed. The lines of their frock-coats and silk hats had that\nluxuriant severity which makes the modern fop, hideous as he is, a\nfavourite exercise of the modern draughtsman; that element which Mr.\nMax Beerbohm has admirably expressed in speaking of \"certain\ncongruities of dark cloth and the rigid perfection of linen.\"\n\nThey walked with the gait of an affected snail, and they spoke at the\nlongest intervals, dropping a sentence at about every sixth lamp-post.\n\nThey crawled on past the lamp-posts; their mien was so immovable that\na fanciful description might almost say, that the lamp-posts crawled\npast the men, as in a dream. Then the small man suddenly ran after\nthem and said--\n\n\"I want to get my hair cut. I say, do you know a little shop anywhere\nwhere they cut your hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, but\nit keeps on growing again.\"\n\nOne of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained naturalist.\n\n\"Why, here is a little place,\" cried the small man, with a sort of\nimbecile cheerfulness, as the bright bulging window of a fashionable\ntoilet-saloon glowed abruptly out of the foggy twilight. \"Do you know,\nI often find hair-dressers when I walk about London. I'll lunch with\nyou at Cicconani's. You know, I'm awfully fond of hair-dressers'\nshops. They're miles better than those nasty butchers'.\" And he\ndisappeared into the doorway.\n\nThe man called James continued to gaze after him, a monocle screwed\ninto his eye.\n\n\"What the devil do you make of that fellow?\" he asked his companion, a\npale young man with a high nose.\n\nThe pale young man reflected conscientiously for some minutes, and\nthen said--\n\n\"Had a knock on his head when he was a kid, I should think.\"\n\n\"No, I don't think it's that,\" replied the Honourable James Barker.\n\"I've sometimes fancied he was a sort of artist, Lambert.\"\n\n\"Bosh!\" cried Mr. Lambert, briefly.\n\n\"I admit I can't make him out,\" resumed Barker, abstractedly; \"he\nnever opens his mouth without saying something so indescribably\nhalf-witted that to call him a fool seems the very feeblest attempt at\ncharacterisation. But there's another thing about him that's rather\nfunny. Do you know that he has the one collection of Japanese lacquer\nin Europe? Have you ever seen his books? All Greek poets and mediaeval\nFrench and that sort of thing. Have you ever been in his rooms? It's\nlike being inside an amethyst. And he moves about in all that and\ntalks like--like a turnip.\"\n\n\"Well, damn all books. Your blue books as well,\" said the ingenuous\nMr. Lambert, with a friendly simplicity. \"You ought to understand such\nthings. What do you make of him?\"\n\n\"He's beyond me,\" returned Barker. \"But if you asked me for my\nopinion, I should say he was a man with a taste for nonsense, as they\ncall it--artistic fooling, and all that kind of thing. And I seriously\nbelieve that he has talked nonsense so much that he has half\nbewildered his own mind and doesn't know the difference between sanity\nand insanity. He has gone round the mental world, so to speak, and\nfound the place where the East and the West are one, and extreme\nidiocy is as good as sense. But I can't explain these psychological\ngames.\"\n\n\"You can't explain them to me,\" replied Mr. Wilfrid Lambert, with\ncandour.\n\nAs they passed up the long streets towards their restaurant the copper\ntwilight cleared slowly to a pale yellow, and by the time they reached\nit they stood discernible in a tolerable winter daylight. The\nHonourable James Barker, one of the most powerful officials in the\nEnglish Government (by this time a rigidly official one), was a lean\nand elegant young man, with a blank handsome face and bleak blue eyes.\nHe had a great amount of intellectual capacity, of that peculiar kind\nwhich raises a man from throne to throne and lets him die loaded with\nhonours without having either amused or enlightened the mind of a\nsingle man. Wilfrid Lambert, the youth with the nose which appeared to\nimpoverish the rest of his face, had also contributed little to the\nenlargement of the human spirit, but he had the honourable excuse of\nbeing a fool.\n\nLambert would have been called a silly man; Barker, with all his\ncleverness, might have been called a stupid man. But mere silliness\nand stupidity sank into insignificance in the presence of the awful\nand mysterious treasures of foolishness apparently stored up in the\nsmall figure that stood waiting for them outside Cicconani's. The\nlittle man, whose name was Auberon Quin, had an appearance compounded\nof a baby and an owl. His round head, round eyes, seemed to have been\ndesigned by nature playfully with a pair of compasses. His flat dark\nhair and preposterously long frock-coat gave him something of the look\nof a child's \"Noah.\" When he entered a room of strangers, they mistook\nhim for a small boy, and wanted to take him on their knees, until he\nspoke, when they perceived that a boy would have been more\nintelligent.\n\n\"I have been waiting quite a long time,\" said Quin, mildly. \"It's\nawfully funny I should see you coming up the street at last.\"\n\n\"Why?\" asked Lambert, staring. \"You told us to come here yourself.\"\n\n\"My mother used to tell people to come to places,\" said the sage.\n\nThey were about to turn into the restaurant with a resigned air, when\ntheir eyes were caught by something in the street. The weather, though\ncold and blank, was now quite clear, and across the dull brown of the\nwood pavement and between the dull grey terraces was moving something\nnot to be seen for miles round--not to be seen perhaps at that time in\nEngland--a man dressed in bright colours. A small crowd hung on the\nman's heels.\n\nHe was a tall stately man, clad in a military uniform of brilliant\ngreen, splashed with great silver facings. From the shoulder swung a\nshort green furred cloak, somewhat like that of a Hussar, the lining\nof which gleamed every now and then with a kind of tawny crimson. His\nbreast glittered with medals; round his neck was the red ribbon and\nstar of some foreign order; and a long straight sword, with a blazing\nhilt, trailed and clattered along the pavement. At this time the\npacific and utilitarian development of Europe had relegated all such\ncustoms to the Museums. The only remaining force, the small but\nwell-organised police, were attired in a sombre and hygienic manner.\nBut even those who remembered the last Life Guards and Lancers who\ndisappeared in 1912 must have known at a glance that this was not, and\nnever had been, an English uniform; and this conviction would have\nbeen heightened by the yellow aquiline face, like Dante carved in\nbronze, which rose, crowned with white hair, out of the green military\ncollar, a keen and distinguished, but not an English face.\n\nThe magnificence with which the green-clad gentleman walked down the\ncentre of the road would be something difficult to express in human\nlanguage. For it was an ingrained simplicity and arrogance, something\nin the mere carriage of the head and body, which made ordinary moderns\nin the street stare after him; but it had comparatively little to do\nwith actual conscious gestures or expression. In the matter of these\nmerely temporary movements, the man appeared to be rather worried and\ninquisitive, but he was inquisitive with the inquisitiveness of a\ndespot and worried as with the responsibilities of a god. The men who\nlounged and wondered behind him followed partly with an astonishment\nat his brilliant uniform, that is to say, partly because of that\ninstinct which makes us all follow one who looks like a madman, but\nfar more because of that instinct which makes all men follow (and\nworship) any one who chooses to behave like a king. He had to so\nsublime an extent that great quality of royalty--an almost imbecile\nunconsciousness of everybody, that people went after him as they do\nafter kings--to see what would be the first thing or person he would\ntake notice of. And all the time, as we have said, in spite of his\nquiet splendour, there was an air about him as if he were looking for\nsomebody; an expression of inquiry.\n\nSuddenly that expression of inquiry vanished, none could tell why, and\nwas replaced by an expression of contentment. Amid the rapt attention\nof the mob of idlers, the magnificent green gentleman deflected\nhimself from his direct course down the centre of the road and walked\nto one side of it. He came to a halt opposite to a large poster of\nColman's Mustard erected on a wooden hoarding. His spectators almost\nheld their breath.\n\nHe took from a small pocket in his uniform a little penknife; with\nthis he made a slash at the stretched paper. Completing the rest of\nthe operation with his fingers, he tore off a strip or rag of paper,\nyellow in colour and wholly irregular in outline. Then for the first\ntime the great being addressed his adoring onlookers--\n\n\"Can any one,\" he said, with a pleasing foreign accent, \"lend me a\npin?\"\n\nMr. Lambert, who happened to be nearest, and who carried innumerable\npins for the purpose of attaching innumerable buttonholes, lent him\none, which was received with extravagant but dignified bows, and\nhyperboles of thanks.\n\nThe gentleman in green, then, with every appearance of being\ngratified, and even puffed up, pinned the piece of yellow paper to\nthe green silk and silver-lace adornments of his breast. Then he\nturned his eyes round again, searching and unsatisfied.\n\n\"Anything else I can do, sir?\" asked Lambert, with the absurd\npoliteness of the Englishman when once embarrassed.\n\n\"Red,\" said the stranger, vaguely, \"red.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\"\n\n\"I beg yours also, Senor,\" said the stranger, bowing. \"I was wondering\nwhether any of you had any red about you.\"\n\n\"Any red about us?--well really--no, I don't think I have--I used to\ncarry a red bandanna once, but--\"\n\n\"Barker,\" asked Auberon Quin, suddenly, \"where's your red cockatoo?\nWhere's your red cockatoo?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Barker, desperately. \"What cockatoo? You've\nnever seen me with any cockatoo!\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Auberon, vaguely mollified. \"Where's it been all the\ntime?\"\n\nBarker swung round, not without resentment.\n\n\"I am sorry, sir,\" he said, shortly but civilly, \"none of us seem to\nhave anything red to lend you. But why, if one may ask--\"\n\n\"I thank you, Senor, it is nothing. I can, since there is nothing\nelse, fulfil my own requirements.\"\n\nAnd standing for a second of thought with the penknife in his hand, he\nstabbed his left palm. The blood fell with so full a stream that it\nstruck the stones without dripping. The foreigner pulled out his\nhandkerchief and tore a piece from it with his teeth. The rag was\nimmediately soaked in scarlet.\n\n\"Since you are so generous, Senor,\" he said, \"another pin, perhaps.\"\n\nLambert held one out, with eyes protruding like a frog's.\n\nThe red linen was pinned beside the yellow paper, and the foreigner\ntook off his hat.\n\n\"I have to thank you all, gentlemen,\" he said; and wrapping the\nremainder of the handkerchief round his bleeding hand, he resumed his\nwalk with an overwhelming stateliness.\n\nWhile all the rest paused, in some disorder, little Mr. Auberon Quin\nran after the stranger and stopped him, with hat in hand. Considerably\nto everybody's astonishment, he addressed him in the purest Spanish--\n\n\"Senor,\" he said in that language, \"pardon a hospitality, perhaps\nindiscreet, towards one who appears to be a distinguished, but a\nsolitary guest in London. Will you do me and my friends, with whom\nyou have held some conversation, the honour of lunching with us at the\nadjoining restaurant?\"\n\nThe man in the green uniform had turned a fiery colour of pleasure at\nthe mere sound of his own language, and he accepted the invitation\nwith that profusion of bows which so often shows, in the case of the\nSouthern races, the falsehood of the notion that ceremony has nothing\nto do with feeling.\n\n\"Senor,\" he said, \"your language is my own; but all my love for my\npeople shall not lead me to deny to yours the possession of so\nchivalrous an entertainer. Let me say that the tongue is Spanish but\nthe heart English.\" And he passed with the rest into Cicconani's.\n\n\"Now, perhaps,\" said Barker, over the fish and sherry, intensely\npolite, but burning with curiosity, \"perhaps it would be rude of me to\nask why you did that?\"\n\n\"Did what, Senor?\" asked the guest, who spoke English quite well,\nthough in a manner indefinably American.\n\n\"Well,\" said the Englishman, in some confusion, \"I mean tore a strip\noff a hoarding and ... er ... cut yourself ... and....\"\n\n\"To tell you that, Senor,\" answered the other, with a certain sad\npride, \"involves merely telling you who I am. I am Juan del Fuego,\nPresident of Nicaragua.\"\n\nThe manner with which the President of Nicaragua leant back and drank\nhis sherry showed that to him this explanation covered all the facts\nobserved and a great deal more. Barker's brow, however, was still a\nlittle clouded.\n\n\"And the yellow paper,\" he began, with anxious friendliness, \"and the\nred rag....\"\n\n\"The yellow paper and the red rag,\" said Fuego, with indescribable\ngrandeur, \"are the colours of Nicaragua.\"\n\n\"But Nicaragua ...\" began Barker, with great hesitation, \"Nicaragua is\nno longer a....\"\n\n\"Nicaragua has been conquered like Athens. Nicaragua has been annexed\nlike Jerusalem,\" cried the old man, with amazing fire. \"The Yankee and\nthe German and the brute powers of modernity have trampled it with the\nhoofs of oxen. But Nicaragua is not dead. Nicaragua is an idea.\"\n\nAuberon Quin suggested timidly, \"A brilliant idea.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the foreigner, snatching at the word. \"You are right,\ngenerous Englishman. An idea _brillant_, a burning thought. Senor,\nyou asked me why, in my desire to see the colours of my country, I\nsnatched at paper and blood. Can you not understand the ancient\nsanctity of colours? The Church has her symbolic colours. And think of\nwhat colours mean to us--think of the position of one like myself, who\ncan see nothing but those two colours, nothing but the red and the\nyellow. To me all shapes are equal, all common and noble things are in\na democracy of combination. Wherever there is a field of marigolds and\nthe red cloak of an old woman, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a\nfield of poppies and a yellow patch of sand, there is Nicaragua.\nWherever there is a lemon and a red sunset, there is my country.\nWherever I see a red pillar-box and a yellow sunset, there my heart\nbeats. Blood and a splash of mustard can be my heraldry. If there be\nyellow mud and red mud in the same ditch, it is better to me than\nwhite stars.\"\n\n\"And if,\" said Quin, with equal enthusiasm, \"there should happen to be\nyellow wine and red wine at the same lunch, you could not confine\nyourself to sherry. Let me order some Burgundy, and complete, as it\nwere, a sort of Nicaraguan heraldry in your inside.\"\n\nBarker was fiddling with his knife, and was evidently making up his\nmind to say something, with the intense nervousness of the amiable\nEnglishman.\n\n\"I am to understand, then,\" he said at last, with a cough, \"that you,\nahem, were the President of Nicaragua when it made its--er--one must,\nof course, agree--its quite heroic resistance to--er--\"\n\nThe ex-President of Nicaragua waved his hand.\n\n\"You need not hesitate in speaking to me,\" he said. \"I'm quite fully\naware that the whole tendency of the world of to-day is against\nNicaragua and against me. I shall not consider it any diminution of\nyour evident courtesy if you say what you think of the misfortunes\nthat have laid my republic in ruins.\"\n\nBarker looked immeasurably relieved and gratified.\n\n\"You are most generous, President,\" he said, with some hesitation over\nthe title, \"and I will take advantage of your generosity to express\nthe doubts which, I must confess, we moderns have about such things\nas--er--the Nicaraguan independence.\"\n\n\"So your sympathies are,\" said Del Fuego, quite calmly, \"with the big\nnation which--\"\n\n\"Pardon me, pardon me, President,\" said Barker, warmly; \"my sympathies\nare with no nation. You misunderstand, I think, the modern intellect.\nWe do not disapprove of the fire and extravagance of such\ncommonwealths as yours only to become more extravagant on a larger\nscale. We do not condemn Nicaragua because we think Britain ought to\nbe more Nicaraguan. We do not discourage small nationalities because\nwe wish large nationalities to have all their smallness, all their\nuniformity of outlook, all their exaggeration of spirit. If I differ\nwith the greatest respect from your Nicaraguan enthusiasm, it is not\nbecause a nation or ten nations were against you; it is because\ncivilisation was against you. We moderns believe in a great\ncosmopolitan civilisation, one which shall include all the talents of\nall the absorbed peoples--\"\n\n\"The Senor will forgive me,\" said the President. \"May I ask the Senor\nhow, under ordinary circumstances, he catches a wild horse?\"\n\n\"I never catch a wild horse,\" replied Barker, with dignity.\n\n\"Precisely,\" said the other; \"and there ends your absorption of the\ntalents. That is what I complain of your cosmopolitanism. When you\nsay you want all peoples to unite, you really mean that you want all\npeoples to unite to learn the tricks of your people. If the Bedouin\nArab does not know how to read, some English missionary or\nschoolmaster must be sent to teach him to read, but no one ever says,\n'This schoolmaster does not know how to ride on a camel; let us pay a\nBedouin to teach him.' You say your civilisation will include all\ntalents. Will it? Do you really mean to say that at the moment when\nthe Esquimaux has learnt to vote for a County Council, you will have\nlearnt to spear a walrus? I recur to the example I gave. In Nicaragua\nwe had a way of catching wild horses--by lassooing the fore\nfeet--which was supposed to be the best in South America. If you are\ngoing to include all the talents, go and do it. If not, permit me to\nsay what I have always said, that something went from the world when\nNicaragua was civilised.\"\n\n\"Something, perhaps,\" replied Barker, \"but that something a mere\nbarbarian dexterity. I do not know that I could chip flints as well as\na primeval man, but I know that civilisation can make these knives\nwhich are better, and I trust to civilisation.\"\n\n\"You have good authority,\" answered the Nicaraguan. \"Many clever men\nlike you have trusted to civilisation. Many clever Babylonians, many\nclever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me,\nin a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what\nthere is particularly immortal about yours?\"\n\n\"I think you do not quite understand, President, what ours is,\"\nanswered Barker. \"You judge it rather as if England was still a poor\nand pugnacious island; you have been long out of Europe. Many things\nhave happened.\"\n\n\"And what,\" asked the other, \"would you call the summary of those\nthings?\"\n\n\"The summary of those things,\" answered Barker, with great animation,\n\"is that we are rid of the superstitions, and in becoming so we have\nnot merely become rid of the superstitions which have been most\nfrequently and most enthusiastically so described. The superstition of\nbig nationalities is bad, but the superstition of small nationalities\nis worse. The superstition of reverencing our own country is bad, but\nthe superstition of reverencing other people's countries is worse. It\nis so everywhere, and in a hundred ways. The superstition of monarchy\nis bad, and the superstition of aristocracy is bad, but the\nsuperstition of democracy is the worst of all.\"\n\nThe old gentleman opened his eyes with some surprise.\n\n\"Are you, then,\" he said, \"no longer a democracy in England?\"\n\nBarker laughed.\n\n\"The situation invites paradox,\" he said. \"We are, in a sense, the\npurest democracy. We have become a despotism. Have you not noticed how\ncontinually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it the\ndecay of democracy. It is simply its fulfilment. Why take the trouble\nto number and register and enfranchise all the innumerable John\nRobinsons, when you can take one John Robinson with the same intellect\nor lack of intellect as all the rest, and have done with it? The old\nidealistic republicans used to found democracy on the idea that all\nmen were equally intelligent. Believe me, the sane and enduring\ndemocracy is founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic. Why\nshould we not choose out of them one as much as another. All that we\nwant for Government is a man not criminal and insane, who can rapidly\nlook over some petitions and sign some proclamations. To think what\ntime was wasted in arguing about the House of Lords, Tories saying it\nought to be preserved because it was clever, and Radicals saying it\nought to be destroyed because it was stupid, and all the time no one\nsaw that it was right because it was stupid, because that chance mob\nof ordinary men thrown there by accident of blood, were a great\ndemocratic protest against the Lower House, against the eternal\ninsolence of the aristocracy of talents. We have established now in\nEngland, the thing towards which all systems have dimly groped, the\ndull popular despotism without illusions. We want one man at the head\nof our State, not because he is brilliant or virtuous, but because he\nis one man and not a chattering crowd. To avoid the possible chance of\nhereditary diseases or such things, we have abandoned hereditary\nmonarchy. The King of England is chosen like a juryman upon an\nofficial rotation list. Beyond that the whole system is quietly\ndespotic, and we have not found it raise a murmur.\"\n\n\"Do you really mean,\" asked the President, incredulously, \"that you\nchoose any ordinary man that comes to hand and make him despot--that\nyou trust to the chance of some alphabetical list....\"\n\n\"And why not?\" cried Barker. \"Did not half the historical nations\ntrust to the chance of the eldest sons of eldest sons, and did not\nhalf of them get on tolerably well? To have a perfect system is\nimpossible; to have a system is indispensable. All hereditary\nmonarchies were a matter of luck: so are alphabetical monarchies. Can\nyou find a deep philosophical meaning in the difference between the\nStuarts and the Hanoverians? Believe me, I will undertake to find a\ndeep philosophical meaning in the contrast between the dark tragedy of\nthe A's, and the solid success of the B's.\"\n\n\"And you risk it?\" asked the other. \"Though the man may be a tyrant or\na cynic or a criminal.\"\n\n\"We risk it,\" answered Barker, with a perfect placidity. \"Suppose he\nis a tyrant--he is still a check on a hundred tyrants. Suppose he is a\ncynic, it is to his interest to govern well. Suppose he is a\ncriminal--by removing poverty and substituting power, we put a check\non his criminality. In short, by substituting despotism we have put a\ntotal check on one criminal and a partial check on all the rest.\"\n\nThe Nicaraguan old gentleman leaned over with a queer expression in\nhis eyes.\n\n\"My church, sir,\" he said, \"has taught me to respect faith. I do not\nwish to speak with any disrespect of yours, however fantastic. But do\nyou really mean that you will trust to the ordinary man, the man who\nmay happen to come next, as a good despot?\"\n\n\"I do,\" said Barker, simply. \"He may not be a good man. But he will be\na good despot. For when he comes to a mere business routine of\ngovernment he will endeavour to do ordinary justice. Do we not assume\nthe same thing in a jury?\"\n\nThe old President smiled.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said, \"that I have any particular objection in\ndetail to your excellent scheme of Government. My only objection is a\nquite personal one. It is, that if I were asked whether I would belong\nto it, I should ask first of all, if I was not permitted, as an\nalternative, to be a toad in a ditch. That is all. You cannot argue\nwith the choice of the soul.\"\n\n\"Of the soul,\" said Barker, knitting his brows, \"I cannot pretend to\nsay anything, but speaking in the interests of the public--\"\n\nMr. Auberon Quin rose suddenly to his feet.\n\n\"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen,\" he said, \"I will step out for a\nmoment into the air.\"\n\n\"I'm so sorry, Auberon,\" said Lambert, good-naturedly; \"do you feel\nbad?\"\n\n\"Not bad exactly,\" said Auberon, with self-restraint; \"rather good, if\nanything. Strangely and richly good. The fact is, I want to reflect a\nlittle on those beautiful words that have just been uttered.\n'Speaking,' yes, that was the phrase, 'speaking in the interests of\nthe public.' One cannot get the honey from such things without being\nalone for a little.\"\n\n\"Is he really off his chump, do you think?\" asked Lambert.\n\nThe old President looked after him with queerly vigilant eyes.\n\n\"He is a man, I think,\" he said, \"who cares for nothing but a joke. He\nis a dangerous man.\"\n\nLambert laughed in the act of lifting some maccaroni to his mouth.\n\n\"Dangerous!\" he said. \"You don't know little Quin, sir!\"\n\n\"Every man is dangerous,\" said the old man without moving, \"who cares\nonly for one thing. I was once dangerous myself.\"\n\nAnd with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, bowing\nprofoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again grown dense and\nsombre. Three days afterwards they heard that he had died quietly in\nlodgings in Soho.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDrowned somewhere else in the dark sea of fog was a little figure\nshaking and quaking, with what might at first sight have seemed terror\nor ague: but which was really that strange malady, a lonely laughter.\nHe was repeating over and over to himself with a rich accent--\"But\nspeaking in the interests of the public....\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--_The Hill of Humour_\n\n\n\"In a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea,\" said\nAuberon Quin, \"there was a Nonconformist minister who had never been\nto Wimbledon. His family did not understand his sorrow or the strange\nlook in his eyes. But one day they repented their neglect, for they\nheard that a body had been found on the shore, battered, but wearing\npatent leather boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be the\nminister at all. But in the dead man's pocket there was a return\nticket to Maidstone.\"\n\nThere was a short pause as Quin and his friends Barker and Lambert\nwent swinging on through the slushy grass of Kensington Gardens. Then\nAuberon resumed.\n\n\"That story,\" he said reverently, \"is the test of humour.\"\n\nThey walked on further and faster, wading through higher grass as they\nbegan to climb a slope.\n\n\"I perceive,\" continued Auberon, \"that you have passed the test, and\nconsider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since you say nothing.\nOnly coarse humour is received with pot-house applause. The great\nanecdote is received in silence, like a benediction. You felt pretty\nbenedicted, didn't you, Barker?\"\n\n\"I saw the point,\" said Barker, somewhat loftily.\n\n\"Do you know,\" said Quin, with a sort of idiot gaiety, \"I have lots of\nstories as good as that. Listen to this one.\"\n\nAnd he slightly cleared his throat.\n\n\"Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow bimetallist.\n'There,' people of wide experience would say, 'There goes the\nsallowest bimetallist in Cheshire.' Once this was said so that he\noverheard it: it was said by an actuary, under a sunset of mauve and\ngrey. Polycarp turned upon him. 'Sallow!' he cried fiercely, 'sallow!\n_Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes._' It was said that no\nactuary ever made game of Dr. Polycarp again.\"\n\nBarker nodded with a simple sagacity. Lambert only grunted.\n\n\"Here is another,\" continued the insatiable Quin. \"In a hollow of the\ngrey-green hills of rainy Ireland, lived an old, old woman, whose\nuncle was always Cambridge at the Boat Race. But in her grey-green\nhollows, she knew nothing of this: she didn't know that there was a\nBoat Race. Also she did not know that she had an uncle. She had heard\nof nobody at all, except of George the First, of whom she had heard (I\nknow not why), and in whose historical memory she put her simple\ntrust. And by and by in God's good time, it was discovered that this\nuncle of hers was not really her uncle, and they came and told her so.\nShe smiled through her tears, and said only, 'Virtue is its own\nreward.'\"\n\nAgain there was a silence, and then Lambert said--\n\n\"It seems a bit mysterious.\"\n\n\"Mysterious!\" cried the other. \"The true humour is mysterious. Do you\nnot realise the chief incident of the nineteenth and twentieth\ncenturies?\"\n\n\"And what's that?\" asked Lambert, shortly.\n\n\"It is very simple,\" replied the other. \"Hitherto it was the ruin of a\njoke that people did not see it. Now it is the sublime victory of a\njoke that people do not see it. Humour, my friends, is the one\nsanctity remaining to mankind. It is the one thing you are thoroughly\nafraid of. Look at that tree.\"\n\nHis interlocutors looked vaguely towards a beech that leant out\ntowards them from the ridge of the hill.\n\n\"If,\" said Mr. Quin, \"I were to say that you did not see the great\ntruths of science exhibited by that tree, though they stared any man\nof intellect in the face, what would you think or say? You would\nmerely regard me as a pedant with some unimportant theory about\nvegetable cells. If I were to say that you did not see in that tree\nthe vile mismanagement of local politics, you would dismiss me as a\nSocialist crank with some particular fad about public parks. If I were\nto say that you were guilty of the supreme blasphemy of looking at\nthat tree and not seeing in it a new religion, a special revelation of\nGod, you would simply say I was a mystic, and think no more about me.\nBut if\"--and he lifted a pontifical hand--\"if I say that you cannot\nsee the humour of that tree, and that I see the humour of it--my God!\nyou will roll about at my feet.\"\n\nHe paused a moment, and then resumed.\n\n\"Yes; a sense of humour, a weird and delicate sense of humour, is the\nnew religion of mankind! It is towards that men will strain themselves\nwith the asceticism of saints. Exercises, spiritual exercises, will be\nset in it. It will be asked, 'Can you see the humour of this iron\nrailing?' or 'Can you see the humour of this field of corn? Can you\nsee the humour of the stars? Can you see the humour of the sunsets?'\nHow often I have laughed myself to sleep over a violet sunset.\"\n\n\"Quite so,\" said Mr. Barker, with an intelligent embarrassment.\n\n\"Let me tell you another story. How often it happens that the M.P.'s\nfor Essex are less punctual than one would suppose. The least punctual\nEssex M.P., perhaps, was James Wilson, who said, in the very act of\nplucking a poppy--\"\n\nLambert suddenly faced round and struck his stick into the ground in a\ndefiant attitude.\n\n\"Auberon,\" he said, \"chuck it. I won't stand it. It's all bosh.\"\n\nBoth men stared at him, for there was something very explosive about\nthe words, as if they had been corked up painfully for a long time.\n\n\"You have,\" began Quin, \"no--\"\n\n\"I don't care a curse,\" said Lambert, violently, \"whether I have 'a\ndelicate sense of humour' or not. I won't stand it. It's all a\nconfounded fraud. There's no joke in those infernal tales at all. You\nknow there isn't as well as I do.\"\n\n\"Well,\" replied Quin, slowly, \"it is true that I, with my rather\ngradual mental processes, did not see any joke in them. But the finer\nsense of Barker perceived it.\"\n\nBarker turned a fierce red, but continued to stare at the horizon.\n\n\"You ass,\" said Lambert; \"why can't you be like other people? Why\ncan't you say something really funny, or hold your tongue? The man who\nsits on his hat in a pantomime is a long sight funnier than you are.\"\n\nQuin regarded him steadily. They had reached the top of the ridge and\nthe wind struck their faces.\n\n\"Lambert,\" said Auberon, \"you are a great and good man, though I'm\nhanged if you look it. You are more. You are a great revolutionist or\ndeliverer of the world, and I look forward to seeing you carved in\nmarble between Luther and Danton, if possible in your present\nattitude, the hat slightly on one side. I said as I came up the hill\nthat the new humour was the last of the religions. You have made it\nthe last of the superstitions. But let me give you a very serious\nwarning. Be careful how you ask me to do anything _outre_, to imitate\nthe man in the pantomime, and to sit on my hat. Because I am a man\nwhose soul has been emptied of all pleasures but folly. And for\ntwopence I'd do it.\"\n\n\"Do it, then,\" said Lambert, swinging his stick impatiently. \"It would\nbe funnier than the bosh you and Barker talk.\"\n\nQuin, standing on the top of the hill, stretched his hand out towards\nthe main avenue of Kensington Gardens.\n\n\"Two hundred yards away,\" he said, \"are all your fashionable\nacquaintances with nothing on earth to do but to stare at each other\nand at us. We are standing upon an elevation under the open sky, a\npeak as it were of fantasy, a Sinai of humour. We are in a great\npulpit or platform, lit up with sunlight, and half London can see us.\nBe careful how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madness\nwhich goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you are talking about,\" said Lambert,\ncontemptuously. \"I only know I'd rather you stood on your silly head,\nthan talked so much.\"\n\n\"Auberon! for goodness' sake ...\" cried Barker, springing forward; but\nhe was too late. Faces from all the benches and avenues were turned in\ntheir direction. Groups stopped and small crowds collected; and the\nsharp sunlight picked out the whole scene in blue, green and black,\nlike a picture in a child's toy-book. And on the top of the small\nhill Mr. Auberon Quin stood with considerable athletic neatness upon\nhis head, and waved his patent-leather boots in the air.\n\n\"For God's sake, Quin, get up, and don't be an idiot,\" cried Barker,\nwringing his hands; \"we shall have the whole town here.\"\n\n\"Yes, get up, get up, man,\" said Lambert, amused and annoyed. \"I was\nonly fooling; get up.\"\n\nAuberon did so with a bound, and flinging his hat higher than the\ntrees, proceeded to hop about on one leg with a serious expression.\nBarker stamped wildly.\n\n\"Oh, let's get home, Barker, and leave him,\" said Lambert; \"some of\nyour proper and correct police will look after him. Here they come!\"\n\nTwo grave-looking men in quiet uniforms came up the hill towards them.\nOne held a paper in his hand.\n\n\"There he is, officer,\" said Lambert, cheerfully; \"we ain't\nresponsible for him.\"\n\nThe officer looked at the capering Mr. Quin with a quiet eye.\n\n\"We have not come, gentlemen,\" he said, \"about what I think you are\nalluding to. We have come from head-quarters to announce the\nselection of His Majesty the King. It is the rule, inherited from the\nold _regime_, that the news should be brought to the new Sovereign\nimmediately, wherever he is; so we have followed you across Kensington\nGardens.\"\n\nBarker's eyes were blazing in his pale face. He was consumed with\nambition throughout his life. With a certain dull magnanimity of the\nintellect he had really believed in the chance method of selecting\ndespots. But this sudden suggestion, that the selection might have\nfallen upon him, unnerved him with pleasure.\n\n\"Which of us,\" he began, and the respectful official interrupted him.\n\n\"Not you, sir, I am sorry to say. If I may be permitted to say so, we\nknow your services to the Government, and should be very thankful if\nit were. The choice has fallen....\"\n\n\"God bless my soul!\" said Lambert, jumping back two paces. \"Not me.\nDon't say I'm autocrat of all the Russias.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" said the officer, with a slight cough and a glance towards\nAuberon, who was at that moment putting his head between his legs and\nmaking a noise like a cow; \"the gentleman whom we have to congratulate\nseems at the moment--er--er--occupied.\"\n\n\"Not Quin!\" shrieked Barker, rushing up to him; \"it can't be. Auberon,\nfor God's sake pull yourself together. You've been made King!\"\n\nWith his head still upside down between his legs, Mr. Quin answered\nmodestly--\n\n\"I am not worthy. I cannot reasonably claim to equal the great men who\nhave previously swayed the sceptre of Britain. Perhaps the only\npeculiarity that I can claim is that I am probably the first monarch\nthat ever spoke out his soul to the people of England with his head\nand body in this position. This may in some sense give me, to quote a\npoem that I wrote in my youth--\n\nA nobler office on the earth\nThan valour, power of brain, or birth\nCould give the warrior kings of old.\n\nThe intellect clarified by this posture--\"\n\nLambert and Barker made a kind of rush at him.\n\n\"Don't you understand?\" cried Lambert. \"It's not a joke. They've\nreally made you King. By gosh! they must have rum taste.\"\n\n\"The great Bishops of the Middle Ages,\" said Quin, kicking his legs in\nthe air, as he was dragged up more or less upside down, \"were in the\nhabit of refusing the honour of election three times and then\naccepting it. A mere matter of detail separates me from those great\nmen. I will accept the post three times and refuse it afterwards. Oh!\nI will toil for you, my faithful people! You shall have a banquet of\nhumour.\"\n\nBy this time he had been landed the right way up, and the two men were\nstill trying in vain to impress him with the gravity of the situation.\n\n\"Did you not tell me, Wilfrid Lambert,\" he said, \"that I should be of\nmore public value if I adopted a more popular form of humour? And when\nshould a popular form of humour be more firmly riveted upon me than\nnow, when I have become the darling of a whole people? Officer,\" he\ncontinued, addressing the startled messenger, \"are there no ceremonies\nto celebrate my entry into the city?\"\n\n\"Ceremonies,\" began the official, with embarrassment, \"have been more\nor less neglected for some little time, and--\"\n\nAuberon Quin began gradually to take off his coat.\n\n\"All ceremony,\" he said, \"consists in the reversal of the obvious.\nThus men, when they wish to be priests or judges, dress up like women.\nKindly help me on with this coat.\" And he held it out.\n\n\"But, your Majesty,\" said the officer, after a moment's bewilderment\nand manipulation, \"you're putting it on with the tails in front.\"\n\n\"The reversal of the obvious,\" said the King, calmly, \"is as near as\nwe can come to ritual with our imperfect apparatus. Lead on.\"\n\nThe rest of that afternoon and evening was to Barker and Lambert a\nnightmare, which they could not properly realise or recall. The King,\nwith his coat on the wrong way, went towards the streets that were\nawaiting him, and the old Kensington Palace which was the Royal\nresidence. As he passed small groups of men, the groups turned into\ncrowds, and gave forth sounds which seemed strange in welcoming an\nautocrat. Barker walked behind, his brain reeling, and, as the crowds\ngrew thicker and thicker, the sounds became more and more unusual. And\nwhen he had reached the great market-place opposite the church,\nBarker knew that he had reached it, though he was roods behind,\nbecause a cry went up such as had never before greeted any of the\nkings of the earth.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I--_The Charter of the Cities_\n\n\nLambert was standing bewildered outside the door of the King's\napartments amid the scurry of astonishment and ridicule. He was just\npassing out into the street, in a dazed manner, when James Barker\ndashed by him.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" he asked.\n\n\"To stop all this foolery, of course,\" replied Barker; and he\ndisappeared into the room.\n\nHe entered it headlong, slamming the door, and slapping his\nincomparable silk hat on the table. His mouth opened, but before he\ncould speak, the King said--\n\n\"Your hat, if you please.\"\n\nFidgetting with his fingers, and scarcely knowing what he was doing,\nthe young politician held it out.\n\nThe King placed it on his own chair, and sat on it.\n\n\"A quaint old custom,\" he explained, smiling above the ruins. \"When\nthe King receives the representatives of the House of Barker, the hat\nof the latter is immediately destroyed in this manner. It represents\nthe absolute finality of the act of homage expressed in the removal\nof it. It declares that never until that hat shall once more appear\nupon your head (a contingency which I firmly believe to be remote)\nshall the House of Barker rebel against the Crown of England.\"\n\nBarker stood with clenched fist, and shaking lip.\n\n\"Your jokes,\" he began, \"and my property--\" and then exploded with an\noath, and stopped again.\n\n\"Continue, continue,\" said the King, waving his hands.\n\n\"What does it all mean?\" cried the other, with a gesture of passionate\nrationality. \"Are you mad?\"\n\n\"Not in the least,\" replied the King, pleasantly. \"Madmen are always\nserious; they go mad from lack of humour. You are looking serious\nyourself, James.\"\n\n\"Why can't you keep it to your own private life?\" expostulated the\nother. \"You've got plenty of money, and plenty of houses now to play\nthe fool in, but in the interests of the public--\"\n\n\"Epigrammatic,\" said the King, shaking his finger sadly at him. \"None\nof your daring scintillations here. As to why I don't do it in\nprivate, I rather fail to understand your question. The answer is of\ncomparative limpidity. I don't do it in private, because it is funnier\nto do it in public. You appear to think that it would be amusing to be\ndignified in the banquet hall and in the street, and at my own\nfireside (I could procure a fireside) to keep the company in a roar.\nBut that is what every one does. Every one is grave in public, and\nfunny in private. My sense of humour suggests the reversal of this; it\nsuggests that one should be funny in public, and solemn in private. I\ndesire to make the State functions, parliaments, coronations, and so\non, one roaring old-fashioned pantomime. But, on the other hand, I\nshut myself up alone in a small store-room for two hours a day, where\nI am so dignified that I come out quite ill.\"\n\nBy this time Barker was walking up and down the room, his frock coat\nflapping like the black wings of a bird.\n\n\"Well, you will ruin the country, that's all,\" he said shortly.\n\n\"It seems to me,\" said Auberon, \"that the tradition of ten centuries\nis being broken, and the House of Barker is rebelling against the\nCrown of England. It would be with regret (for I admire your\nappearance) that I should be obliged forcibly to decorate your head\nwith the remains of this hat, but--\"\n\n\"What I can't understand,\" said Barker flinging up his fingers with a\nfeverish American movement, \"is why you don't care about anything else\nbut your games.\"\n\nThe King stopped sharply in the act of lifting the silken remnants,\ndropped them, and walked up to Barker, looking at him steadily.\n\n\"I made a kind of vow,\" he said, \"that I would not talk seriously,\nwhich always means answering silly questions. But the strong man will\nalways be gentle with politicians.\n\n'The shape my scornful looks deride\nRequired a God to form;'\n\nif I may so theologically express myself. And for some reason I cannot\nin the least understand, I feel impelled to answer that question of\nyours, and to answer it as if there were really such a thing in the\nworld as a serious subject. You ask me why I don't care for anything\nelse. Can you tell me, in the name of all the gods you don't believe\nin, why I should care for anything else?\"\n\n\"Don't you realise common public necessities?\" cried Barker. \"Is it\npossible that a man of your intelligence does not know that it is\nevery one's interest--\"\n\n\"Don't you believe in Zoroaster? Is it possible that you neglect\nMumbo-Jumbo?\" returned the King, with startling animation. \"Does a man\nof your intelligence come to me with these damned early Victorian\nethics? If, on studying my features and manner, you detect any\nparticular resemblance to the Prince Consort, I assure you you are\nmistaken. Did Herbert Spencer ever convince you--did he ever convince\nanybody--did he ever for one mad moment convince himself--that it must\nbe to the interest of the individual to feel a public spirit? Do you\nbelieve that, if you rule your department badly, you stand any more\nchance, or one half of the chance, of being guillotined, that an\nangler stands of being pulled into the river by a strong pike? Herbert\nSpencer refrained from theft for the same reason that he refrained\nfrom wearing feathers in his hair, because he was an English gentleman\nwith different tastes. I am an English gentleman with different\ntastes. He liked philosophy. I like art. He liked writing ten books on\nthe nature of human society. I like to see the Lord Chamberlain\nwalking in front of me with a piece of paper pinned to his coat-tails.\nIt is my humour. Are you answered? At any rate, I have said my last\nserious word to-day, and my last serious word I trust for the\nremainder of my life in this Paradise of Fools. The remainder of my\nconversation with you to-day, which I trust will be long and\nstimulating, I propose to conduct in a new language of my own by means\nof rapid and symbolic movements of the left leg.\" And he began to\npirouette slowly round the room with a preoccupied expression.\n\nBarker ran round the room after him, bombarding him with demands and\nentreaties. But he received no response except in the new language. He\ncame out banging the door again, and sick like a man coming on shore.\nAs he strode along the streets he found himself suddenly opposite\nCicconani's restaurant, and for some reason there rose up before him\nthe green fantastic figure of the Spanish General, standing, as he had\nseen him last, at the door, with the words on his lips, \"You cannot\nargue with the choice of the soul.\"\n\nThe King came out from his dancing with the air of a man of business\nlegitimately tired. He put on an overcoat, lit a cigar, and went out\ninto the purple night.\n\n[Illustration: \"I'M KING OF THE CASTLE.\"]\n\n\"I will go,\" he said, \"and mingle with the people.\"\n\nHe passed swiftly up a street in the neighbourhood of Notting Hill,\nwhen suddenly he felt a hard object driven into his waistcoat. He\npaused, put up his single eye-glass, and beheld a boy with a wooden\nsword and a paper cocked hat, wearing that expression of awed\nsatisfaction with which a child contemplates his work when he has hit\nsome one very hard. The King gazed thoughtfully for some time at his\nassailant, and slowly took a note-book from his breast-pocket.\n\n\"I have a few notes,\" he said, \"for my dying speech;\" and he turned\nover the leaves. \"Dying speech for political assassination; ditto, if\nby former friend--h'm, h'm. Dying speech for death at hands of injured\nhusband (repentant). Dying speech for same (cynical). I am not quite\nsure which meets the present....\"\n\n\"I'm the King of the Castle,\" said the boy, truculently, and very\npleased with nothing in particular.\n\nThe King was a kind-hearted man, and very fond of children, like all\npeople who are fond of the ridiculous.\n\n\"Infant,\" he said, \"I'm glad you are so stalwart a defender of your\nold inviolate Notting Hill. Look up nightly to that peak, my child,\nwhere it lifts itself among the stars so ancient, so lonely, so\nunutterably Notting. So long as you are ready to die for the sacred\nmountain, even if it were ringed with all the armies of Bayswater--\"\n\nThe King stopped suddenly, and his eyes shone.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" he said, \"perhaps the noblest of all my conceptions. A\nrevival of the arrogance of the old mediaeval cities applied to our\nglorious suburbs. Clapham with a city guard. Wimbledon with a city\nwall. Surbiton tolling a bell to raise its citizens. West Hampstead\ngoing into battle with its own banner. It shall be done. I, the King,\nhave said it.\" And, hastily presenting the boy with half a crown,\nremarking, \"For the war-chest of Notting Hill,\" he ran violently home\nat such a rate of speed that crowds followed him for miles. On\nreaching his study, he ordered a cup of coffee, and plunged into\nprofound meditation upon the project. At length he called his\nfavourite Equerry, Captain Bowler, for whom he had a deep affection,\nfounded principally upon the shape of his whiskers.\n\n\"Bowler,\" he said, \"isn't there some society of historical research,\nor something of which I am an honorary member?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Captain Bowler, rubbing his nose, \"you are a member\nof 'The Encouragers of Egyptian Renaissance,' and 'The Teutonic Tombs\nClub,' and 'The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities,'\nand--\"\n\n\"That is admirable,\" said the King. \"The London Antiquities does my\ntrick. Go to the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities and\nspeak to their secretary, and their sub-secretary, and their\npresident, and their vice-president, saying, 'The King of England is\nproud, but the honorary member of the Society for the Recovery of\nLondon Antiquities is prouder than kings. I should like to tell you of\ncertain discoveries I have made touching the neglected traditions of\nthe London boroughs. The revelations may cause some excitement,\nstirring burning memories and touching old wounds in Shepherd's Bush\nand Bayswater, in Pimlico and South Kensington. The King hesitates,\nbut the honorary member is firm. I approach you invoking the vows of\nmy initiation, the Sacred Seven Cats, the Poker of Perfection, and the\nOrdeal of the Indescribable Instant (forgive me if I mix you up with\nthe Clan-na-Gael or some other club I belong to), and ask you to\npermit me to read a paper at your next meeting on the \"Wars of the\nLondon Boroughs.\"' Say all this to the Society, Bowler. Remember it\nvery carefully, for it is most important, and I have forgotten it\naltogether, and send me another cup of coffee and some of the cigars\nthat we keep for vulgar and successful people. I am going to write my\npaper.\"\n\nThe Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities met a month after\nin a corrugated iron hall on the outskirts of one of the southern\nsuburbs of London. A large number of people had collected there under\nthe coarse and flaring gas-jets when the King arrived, perspiring and\ngenial. On taking off his great-coat, he was perceived to be in\nevening dress, wearing the Garter. His appearance at the small table,\nadorned only with a glass of water, was received with respectful\ncheering.\n\nThe chairman (Mr. Huggins) said that he was sure that they had all\nbeen pleased to listen to such distinguished lecturers as they had\nheard for some time past (hear, hear). Mr. Burton (hear, hear), Mr.\nCambridge, Professor King (loud and continued cheers), our old friend\nPeter Jessop, Sir William White (loud laughter), and other eminent\nmen, had done honour to their little venture (cheers). But there were\nother circumstances which lent a certain unique quality to the present\noccasion (hear, hear). So far as his recollection went, and in\nconnection with the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities it\nwent very far (loud cheers), he did not remember that any of their\nlecturers had borne the title of King. He would therefore call upon\nKing Auberon briefly to address the meeting.\n\nThe King began by saying that this speech might be regarded as the\nfirst declaration of his new policy for the nation. \"At this supreme\nhour of my life I feel that to no one but the members of the Society\nfor the Recovery of London Antiquities can I open my heart (cheers).\nIf the world turns upon my policy, and the storms of popular hostility\nbegin to rise (no, no), I feel that it is here, with my brave\nRecoverers around me, that I can best meet them, sword in hand\" (loud\ncheers).\n\nHis Majesty then went on to explain that, now old age was creeping\nupon him, he proposed to devote his remaining strength to bringing\nabout a keener sense of local patriotism in the various municipalities\nof London. How few of them knew the legends of their own boroughs!\nHow many there were who had never heard of the true origin of the Wink\nof Wandsworth! What a large proportion of the younger generation in\nChelsea neglected to perform the old Chelsea Chuff! Pimlico no longer\npumped the Pimlies. Battersea had forgotten the name of Blick.\n\nThere was a short silence, and then a voice said \"Shame!\"\n\nThe King continued: \"Being called, however unworthily, to this high\nestate, I have resolved that, so far as possible, this neglect shall\ncease. I desire no military glory. I lay claim to no constitutional\nequality with Justinian or Alfred. If I can go down to history as the\nman who saved from extinction a few old English customs, if our\ndescendants can say it was through this man, humble as he was, that\nthe Ten Turnips are still eaten in Fulham, and the Putney parish\ncouncillor still shaves one half of his head, I shall look my great\nfathers reverently but not fearfully in the face when I go down to the\nlast house of Kings.\"\n\nThe King paused, visibly affected, but collecting himself, resumed\nonce more.\n\n\"I trust that to very few of you, at least, I need dwell on the\nsublime origins of these legends. The very names of your boroughs\nbear witness to them. So long as Hammersmith is called Hammersmith,\nits people will live in the shadow of that primal hero, the\nBlacksmith, who led the democracy of the Broadway into battle till he\ndrove the chivalry of Kensington before him and overthrew them at that\nplace which in honour of the best blood of the defeated aristocracy is\nstill called Kensington Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not fail to\nremember that the very name of Kensington originated from the lips of\ntheir hero. For at the great banquet of reconciliation held after the\nwar, when the disdainful oligarchs declined to join in the songs of\nthe men of the Broadway (which are to this day of a rude and popular\ncharacter), the great Republican leader, with his rough humour, said\nthe words which are written in gold upon his monument, 'Little birds\nthat can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing.' So that the\nEastern Knights were called Cansings or Kensings ever afterwards. But\nyou also have great memories, O men of Kensington! You showed that you\ncould sing, and sing great war-songs. Even after the dark day of\nKensington Gore, history will not forget those three Knights who\nguarded your disordered retreat from Hyde Park (so called from your\nhiding there), those three Knights after whom Knightsbridge is named.\nNor will it forget the day of your re-emergence, purged in the fire of\ncalamity, cleansed of your oligarchic corruptions, when, sword in\nhand, you drove the Empire of Hammersmith back mile by mile, swept it\npast its own Broadway, and broke it at last in a battle so long and\nbloody that the birds of prey have left their name upon it. Men have\ncalled it, with austere irony, the Ravenscourt. I shall not, I trust,\nwound the patriotism of Bayswater, or the lonelier pride of Brompton,\nor that of any other historic township, by taking these two special\nexamples. I select them, not because they are more glorious than the\nrest, but partly from personal association (I am myself descended from\none of the three heroes of Knightsbridge), and partly from the\nconsciousness that I am an amateur antiquarian, and cannot presume to\ndeal with times and places more remote and more mysterious. It is not\nfor me to settle the question between two such men as Professor Hugg\nand Sir William Whisky as to whether Notting Hill means Nutting Hill\n(in allusion to the rich woods which no longer cover it), or whether\nit is a corruption of Nothing-ill, referring to its reputation among\nthe ancients as an Earthly Paradise. When a Podkins and a Jossy\nconfess themselves doubtful about the boundaries of West Kensington\n(said to have been traced in the blood of Oxen), I need not be ashamed\nto confess a similar doubt. I will ask you to excuse me from further\nhistory, and to assist me with your encouragement in dealing with the\nproblem which faces us to-day. Is this ancient spirit of the London\ntownships to die out? Are our omnibus conductors and policemen to lose\naltogether that light which we see so often in their eyes, the dreamy\nlight of\n\n'Old unhappy far-off things\nAnd battles long ago'\n\n--to quote the words of a little-known poet who was a friend of my\nyouth? I have resolved, as I have said, so far as possible, to\npreserve the eyes of policemen and omnibus conductors in their present\ndreamy state. For what is a state without dreams? And the remedy I\npropose is as follows:--\n\n\"To-morrow morning at twenty-five minutes past ten, if Heaven spares\nmy life, I purpose to issue a Proclamation. It has been the work of my\nlife, and is about half finished. With the assistance of a whisky and\nsoda, I shall conclude the other half to-night, and my people will\nreceive it to-morrow. All these boroughs where you were born, and hope\nto lay your bones, shall be reinstated in their ancient\nmagnificence,--Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea,\nClapham, Balham, and a hundred others. Each shall immediately build a\ncity wall with gates to be closed at sunset. Each shall have a city\nguard, armed to the teeth. Each shall have a banner, a coat-of-arms,\nand, if convenient, a gathering cry. I will not enter into the details\nnow, my heart is too full. They will be found in the proclamation\nitself. You will all, however, be subject to enrolment in the local\ncity guards, to be summoned together by a thing called the Tocsin, the\nmeaning of which I am studying in my researches into history.\nPersonally, I believe a tocsin to be some kind of highly paid\nofficial. If, therefore, any of you happen to have such a thing as a\nhalberd in the house, I should advise you to practise with it in the\ngarden.\"\n\nHere the King buried his face in his handkerchief and hurriedly left\nthe platform, overcome by emotions.\n\nThe members of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities rose\nin an indescribable state of vagueness. Some were purple with\nindignation; an intellectual few were purple with laughter; the great\nmajority found their minds a blank. There remains a tradition that one\npale face with burning blue eyes remained fixed upon the lecturer, and\nafter the lecture a red-haired boy ran out of the room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--_The Council of the Provosts_\n\n\nThe King got up early next morning and came down three steps at a time\nlike a schoolboy. Having eaten his breakfast hurriedly, but with an\nappetite, he summoned one of the highest officials of the Palace, and\npresented him with a shilling. \"Go and buy me,\" he said, \"a shilling\npaint-box, which you will get, unless the mists of time mislead me, in\na shop at the corner of the second and dirtier street that leads out\nof Rochester Row. I have already requested the Master of the\nBuckhounds to provide me with cardboard. It seemed to me (I know not\nwhy) that it fell within his department.\"\n\nThe King was happy all that morning with his cardboard and his\npaint-box. He was engaged in designing the uniforms and coats-of-arms\nfor the various municipalities of London. They gave him deep and no\ninconsiderable thought. He felt the responsibility.\n\n\"I cannot think,\" he said, \"why people should think the names of\nplaces in the country more poetical than those in London. Shallow\nromanticists go away in trains and stop in places called\nHugmy-in-the-Hole, or Bumps-on-the-Puddle. And all the time they\ncould, if they liked, go and live at a place with the dim, divine name\nof St. John's Wood. I have never been to St. John's Wood. I dare not.\nI should be afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to\ncome upon a blood-red cup and the beating of the wings of the Eagle.\nBut all these things can be imagined by remaining reverently in the\nHarrow train.\"\n\nAnd he thoughtfully retouched his design for the head-dress of the\nhalberdier of St. John's Wood, a design in black and red, compounded\nof a pine tree and the plumage of an eagle. Then he turned to another\ncard. \"Let us think of milder matters,\" he said. \"Lavender Hill! Could\nany of your glebes and combes and all the rest of it produce so\nfragrant an idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself in\npurple poignancy into the silver skies and filling men's nostrils with\na new breath of life--a purple hill of incense. It is true that upon\nmy few excursions of discovery on a halfpenny tram I have failed to\nhit the precise spot. But it must be there; some poet called it by\nits name. There is at least warrant enough for the solemn purple\nplumes (following the botanical formation of lavender) which I have\nrequired people to wear in the neighbourhood of Clapham Junction. It\nis so everywhere, after all. I have never been actually to\nSouthfields, but I suppose a scheme of lemons and olives represent\ntheir austral instincts. I have never visited Parson's Green, or seen\neither the Green or the Parson, but surely the pale-green shovel-hats\nI have designed must be more or less in the spirit. I must work in the\ndark and let my instincts guide me. The great love I bear to my people\nwill certainly save me from distressing their noble spirit or\nviolating their great traditions.\"\n\nAs he was reflecting in this vein, the door was flung open, and an\nofficial announced Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert.\n\nMr. Barker and Mr. Lambert were not particularly surprised to find the\nKing sitting on the floor amid a litter of water-colour sketches. They\nwere not particularly surprised because the last time they had called\non him they had found him sitting on the floor, surrounded by a litter\nof children's bricks, and the time before surrounded by a litter of\nwholly unsuccessful attempts to make paper darts. But the trend of\nthe royal infant's remarks, uttered from amid this infantile chaos,\nwas not quite the same affair.\n\nFor some time they let him babble on, conscious that his remarks meant\nnothing. And then a horrible thought began to steal over the mind of\nJames Barker. He began to think that the King's remarks did not mean\nnothing.\n\n\"In God's name, Auberon,\" he suddenly volleyed out, startling the\nquiet hall, \"you don't mean that you are really going to have these\ncity guards and city walls and things?\"\n\n\"I am, indeed,\" said the infant, in a quiet voice. \"Why shouldn't I\nhave them? I have modelled them precisely on your political\nprinciples. Do you know what I've done, Barker? I've behaved like a\ntrue Barkerian. I've ... but perhaps it won't interest you, the\naccount of my Barkerian conduct.\"\n\n\"Oh, go on, go on,\" cried Barker.\n\n\"The account of my Barkerian conduct,\" said Auberon, calmly, \"seems\nnot only to interest, but to alarm you. Yet it is very simple. It\nmerely consists in choosing all the provosts under any new scheme by\nthe same principle by which you have caused the central despot to be\nappointed. Each provost, of each city, under my charter, is to be\nappointed by rotation. Sleep, therefore, my Barker, a rosy sleep.\"\n\nBarker's wild eyes flared.\n\n\"But, in God's name, don't you see, Quin, that the thing is quite\ndifferent? In the centre it doesn't matter so much, just because the\nwhole object of despotism is to get some sort of unity. But if any\ndamned parish can go to any damned man--\"\n\n\"I see your difficulty,\" said King Auberon, calmly. \"You feel that\nyour talents may be neglected. Listen!\" And he rose with immense\nmagnificence. \"I solemnly give to my liege subject, James Barker, my\nspecial and splendid favour, the right to override the obvious text of\nthe Charter of the Cities, and to be, in his own right, Lord High\nProvost of South Kensington. And now, my dear James, you are all\nright. Good day.\"\n\n\"But--\" began Barker.\n\n\"The audience is at an end, Provost,\" said the King, smiling.\n\nHow far his confidence was justified, it would require a somewhat\ncomplicated description to explain. \"The Great Proclamation of the\nCharter of the Free Cities\" appeared in due course that morning, and\nwas posted by bill-stickers all over the front of the Palace, the King\nassisting them with animated directions, and standing in the middle of\nthe road, with his head on one side, contemplating the result. It was\nalso carried up and down the main thoroughfares by sandwichmen, and\nthe King was, with difficulty, restrained from going out in that\ncapacity himself, being, in fact, found by the Groom of the Stole and\nCaptain Bowler, struggling between two boards. His excitement had\npositively to be quieted like that of a child.\n\nThe reception which the Charter of the Cities met at the hands of the\npublic may mildly be described as mixed. In one sense it was popular\nenough. In many happy homes that remarkable legal document was read\naloud on winter evenings amid uproarious appreciation, when everything\nhad been learnt by heart from that quaint but immortal old classic,\nMr. W. W. Jacobs. But when it was discovered that the King had every\nintention of seriously requiring the provisions to be carried out, of\ninsisting that the grotesque cities, with their tocsins and city\nguards, should really come into existence, things were thrown into a\nfar angrier confusion. Londoners had no particular objection to the\nKing making a fool of himself, but they became indignant when it\nbecame evident that he wished to make fools of them; and protests\nbegan to come in.\n\nThe Lord High Provost of the Good and Valiant City of West Kensington\nwrote a respectful letter to the King, explaining that upon State\noccasions it would, of course, be his duty to observe what formalities\nthe King thought proper, but that it was really awkward for a decent\nhouseholder not to be allowed to go out and put a post-card in a\npillar-box without being escorted by five heralds, who announced, with\nformal cries and blasts of a trumpet, that the Lord High Provost\ndesired to catch the post.\n\nThe Lord High Provost of North Kensington, who was a prosperous\ndraper, wrote a curt business note, like a man complaining of a\nrailway company, stating that definite inconvenience had been caused\nhim by the presence of the halberdiers, whom he had to take with him\neverywhere. When attempting to catch an omnibus to the City, he had\nfound that while room could have been found for himself, the\nhalberdiers had a difficulty in getting in to the vehicle--believe\nhim, theirs faithfully.\n\nThe Lord High Provost of Shepherd's Bush said his wife did not like\nmen hanging round the kitchen.\n\nThe King was always delighted to listen to these grievances,\ndelivering lenient and kingly answers, but as he always insisted, as\nthe absolute _sine qua non_, that verbal complaints should be\npresented to him with the fullest pomp of trumpets, plumes, and\nhalberds, only a few resolute spirits were prepared to run the\ngauntlet of the little boys in the street.\n\nAmong these, however, was prominent the abrupt and business-like\ngentleman who ruled North Kensington. And he had before long, occasion\nto interview the King about a matter wider and even more urgent than\nthe problem of the halberdiers and the omnibus. This was the great\nquestion which then and for long afterwards brought a stir to the\nblood and a flush to the cheek of all the speculative builders and\nhouse agents from Shepherd's Bush to the Marble Arch, and from\nWestbourne Grove to High Street, Kensington. I refer to the great\naffair of the improvements in Notting Hill. The scheme was conducted\nchiefly by Mr. Buck, the abrupt North Kensington magnate, and by Mr.\nWilson, the Provost of Bayswater. A great thoroughfare was to be\ndriven through three boroughs, through West Kensington, North\nKensington and Notting Hill, opening at one end into Hammersmith\nBroadway, and at the other into Westbourne Grove. The negotiations,\nbuyings, sellings, bullying and bribing took ten years, and by the end\nof it Buck, who had conducted them almost single-handed, had proved\nhimself a man of the strongest type of material energy and material\ndiplomacy. And just as his splendid patience and more splendid\nimpatience had finally brought him victory, when workmen were already\ndemolishing houses and walls along the great line from Hammersmith, a\nsudden obstacle appeared that had neither been reckoned with nor\ndreamed of, a small and strange obstacle, which, like a speck of grit\nin a great machine, jarred the whole vast scheme and brought it to a\nstand-still, and Mr. Buck, the draper, getting with great impatience\ninto his robes of office and summoning with indescribable disgust his\nhalberdiers, hurried over to speak to the King.\n\nTen years had not tired the King of his joke. There were still new\nfaces to be seen looking out from the symbolic head-gears he had\ndesigned, gazing at him from amid the pastoral ribbons of Shepherd's\nBush or from under the sombre hoods of the Blackfriars Road. And the\ninterview which was promised him with the Provost of North Kensington\nhe anticipated with a particular pleasure, for \"he never really\nenjoyed,\" he said, \"the full richness of the mediaeval garments unless\nthe people compelled to wear them were very angry and business-like.\"\n\nMr. Buck was both. At the King's command the door of the\naudience-chamber was thrown open and a herald appeared in the purple\ncolours of Mr. Buck's commonwealth emblazoned with the Great Eagle\nwhich the King had attributed to North Kensington, in vague\nreminiscence of Russia, for he always insisted on regarding North\nKensington as some kind of semi-arctic neighbourhood. The herald\nannounced that the Provost of that city desired audience of the King.\n\n\"From North Kensington?\" said the King, rising graciously. \"What news\ndoes he bring from that land of high hills and fair women? He is\nwelcome.\"\n\nThe herald advanced into the room, and was immediately followed by\ntwelve guards clad in purple, who were followed by an attendant\nbearing the banner of the Eagle, who was followed by another attendant\nbearing the keys of the city upon a cushion, who was followed by Mr.\nBuck in a great hurry. When the King saw his strong animal face and\nsteady eyes, he knew that he was in the presence of a great man of\nbusiness, and consciously braced himself.\n\n\"Well, well,\" he said, cheerily coming down two or three steps from a\ndais, and striking his hands lightly together, \"I am glad to see you.\nNever mind, never mind. Ceremony is not everything.\"\n\n\"I don't understand your Majesty,\" said the Provost, stolidly.\n\n\"Never mind, never mind,\" said the King, gaily. \"A knowledge of Courts\nis by no means an unmixed merit; you will do it next time, no doubt.\"\n\nThe man of business looked at him sulkily from under his black brows\nand said again without show of civility--\n\n\"I don't follow you.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" replied the King, good-naturedly, \"if you ask me I don't\nmind telling you, not because I myself attach any importance to these\nforms in comparison with the Honest Heart. But it is usual--it is\nusual--that is all, for a man when entering the presence of Royalty to\nlie down on his back on the floor and elevating his feet towards\nheaven (as the source of Royal power) to say three times 'Monarchical\ninstitutions improve the manners.' But there, there--such pomp is far\nless truly dignified than your simple kindliness.\"\n\nThe Provost's face was red with anger, and he maintained silence.\n\n\"And now,\" said the King, lightly, and with the exasperating air of a\nman softening a snub; \"what delightful weather we are having! You must\nfind your official robes warm, my Lord. I designed them for your own\nsnow-bound land.\"\n\n\"They're as hot as hell,\" said Buck, briefly. \"I came here on\nbusiness.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said the King, nodding a great number of times with quite\nunmeaning solemnity; \"right, right, right. Business, as the sad glad\nold Persian said, is business. Be punctual. Rise early. Point the pen\nto the shoulder. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not\nwhence you come nor why. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know\nnot when you go nor where.\"\n\nThe Provost pulled a number of papers from his pocket and savagely\nflapped them open.\n\n\"Your Majesty may have heard,\" he began, sarcastically, \"of\nHammersmith and a thing called a road. We have been at work ten years\nbuying property and getting compulsory powers and fixing compensation\nand squaring vested interests, and now at the very end, the thing is\nstopped by a fool. Old Prout, who was Provost of Notting Hill, was a\nbusiness man, and we dealt with him quite satisfactorily. But he's\ndead, and the cursed lot has fallen on a young man named Wayne, who's\nup to some game that's perfectly incomprehensible to me. We offer him\na better price than any one ever dreamt of, but he won't let the road\ngo through. And his Council seems to be backing him up. It's midsummer\nmadness.\"\n\nThe King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing the\nProvost's nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard the last two\nwords.\n\n\"What a perfect phrase that is!\" he said. \"'Midsummer madness'!\"\n\n\"The chief point is,\" continued Buck, doggedly, \"that the only part\nthat is really in question is one dirty little street--Pump Street--a\nstreet with nothing in it but a public-house and a penny toy-shop, and\nthat sort of thing. All the respectable people of Notting Hill have\naccepted our compensation. But the ineffable Wayne sticks out over\nPump Street. Says he's Provost of Notting Hill. He's only Provost of\nPump Street.\"\n\n\"A good thought,\" replied Auberon. \"I like the idea of a Provost of\nPump Street. Why not let him alone?\"\n\n\"And drop the whole scheme!\" cried out Buck, with a burst of brutal\nspirit. \"I'll be damned if we do. No. I'm for sending in workmen to\npull down without more ado.\"\n\n\"Strike for the purple Eagle!\" cried the King, hot with historical\nassociations.\n\n\"I'll tell you what it is,\" said Buck, losing his temper altogether.\n\"If your Majesty would spend less time in insulting respectable people\nwith your silly coats-of-arms, and more time over the business of the\nnation--\"\n\nThe King's brow wrinkled thoughtfully.\n\n\"The situation is not bad,\" he said; \"the haughty burgher defying the\nKing in his own Palace. The burgher's head should be thrown back and\nthe right arm extended; the left may be lifted towards Heaven, but\nthat I leave to your private religious sentiment. I have sunk back in\nthis chair, stricken with baffled fury. Now again, please.\"\n\nBuck's mouth opened like a dog's, but before he could speak another\nherald appeared at the door.\n\n\"The Lord High Provost of Bayswater,\" he said, \"desires an audience.\"\n\n\"Admit him,\" said Auberon. \"This _is_ a jolly day.\"\n\nThe halberdiers of Bayswater wore a prevailing uniform of green, and\nthe banner which was borne after them was emblazoned with a green\nbay-wreath on a silver ground, which the King, in the course of his\nresearches into a bottle of champagne, had discovered to be the quaint\nold punning cognisance of the city of Bayswater.\n\n\"It is a fit symbol,\" said the King, \"your immortal bay-wreath. Fulham\nmay seek for wealth, and Kensington for art, but when did the men of\nBayswater care for anything but glory?\"\n\nImmediately behind the banner, and almost completely hidden by it,\ncame the Provost of the city, clad in splendid robes of green and\nsilver with white fur and crowned with bay. He was an anxious little\nman with red whiskers, originally the owner of a small sweet-stuff\nshop.\n\n\"Our cousin of Bayswater,\" said the King, with delight; \"what can we\nget for you?\" The King was heard also distinctly to mutter, \"Cold\nbeef, cold 'am, cold chicken,\" his voice dying into silence.\n\n\"I came to see your Majesty,\" said the Provost of Bayswater, whose\nname was Wilson, \"about that Pump Street affair.\"\n\n\"I have just been explaining the situation to his Majesty,\" said Buck,\ncurtly, but recovering his civility. \"I am not sure, however, whether\nhis Majesty knows how much the matter affects you also.\"\n\n\"It affects both of us, yer see, yer Majesty, as this scheme was\nstarted for the benefit of the 'ole neighbourhood. So Mr. Buck and me\nwe put our 'eads together--\"\n\nThe King clasped his hands.\n\n\"Perfect!\" he cried in ecstacy. \"Your heads together! I can see it!\nCan't you do it now? Oh, do do it now!\"\n\nA smothered sound of amusement appeared to come from the halberdiers,\nbut Mr. Wilson looked merely bewildered, and Mr. Buck merely\ndiabolical.\n\n\"I suppose,\" he began bitterly, but the King stopped him with a\ngesture of listening.\n\n\"Hush,\" he said, \"I think I hear some one else coming. I seem to hear\nanother herald, a herald whose boots creak.\"\n\nAs he spoke another voice cried from the doorway--\n\n\"The Lord High Provost of South Kensington desires an audience.\"\n\n\"The Lord High Provost of South Kensington!\" cried the King. \"Why,\nthat is my old friend James Barker! What does he want, I wonder? If\nthe tender memories of friendship have not grown misty, I fancy he\nwants something for himself, probably money. How are you, James?\"\n\nMr. James Barker, whose guard was attired in a splendid blue, and\nwhose blue banner bore three gold birds singing, rushed, in his blue\nand gold robes, into the room. Despite the absurdity of all the\ndresses, it was worth noticing that he carried his better than the\nrest, though he loathed it as much as any of them. He was a gentleman,\nand a very handsome man, and could not help unconsciously wearing even\nhis preposterous robe as it should be worn. He spoke quickly, but with\nthe slight initial hesitation he always showed in addressing the King,\ndue to suppressing an impulse to address his old acquaintance in the\nold way.\n\n\"Your Majesty--pray forgive my intrusion. It is about this man in Pump\nStreet. I see you have Buck here, so you have probably heard what is\nnecessary. I--\"\n\nThe King swept his eyes anxiously round the room, which now blazed\nwith the trappings of three cities.\n\n\"There is one thing necessary,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, your Majesty,\" said Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, a little eagerly.\n\"What does yer Majesty think necessary?\"\n\n\"A little yellow,\" said the King, firmly. \"Send for the Provost of\nWest Kensington.\"\n\nAmid some materialistic protests he was sent for, and arrived with his\nyellow halberdiers in his saffron robes, wiping his forehead with a\nhandkerchief. After all, placed as he was, he had a good deal to say\non the matter.\n\n\"Welcome, West Kensington,\" said the King. \"I have long wished to see\nyou touching that matter of the Hammersmith land to the south of the\nRowton House. Will you hold it feudally from the Provost of\nHammersmith? You have only to do him homage by putting his left arm\nin his overcoat and then marching home in state.\"\n\n\"No, your Majesty; I'd rather not,\" said the Provost of West\nKensington, who was a pale young man with a fair moustache and\nwhiskers, who kept a successful dairy.\n\nThe King struck him heartily on the shoulder.\n\n\"The fierce old West Kensington blood,\" he said; \"they are not wise\nwho ask it to do homage.\"\n\nThen he glanced again round the room. It was full of a roaring sunset\nof colour, and he enjoyed the sight, possible to so few artists--the\nsight of his own dreams moving and blazing before him. In the\nforeground the yellow of the West Kensington liveries outlined itself\nagainst the dark blue draperies of South Kensington. The crests of\nthese again brightened suddenly into green as the almost woodland\ncolours of Bayswater rose behind them. And over and behind all, the\ngreat purple plumes of North Kensington showed almost funereal and\nblack.\n\n\"There is something lacking,\" said the King--\"something lacking. What\ncan--Ah, there it is! there it is!\"\n\nIn the doorway had appeared a new figure, a herald in flaming red. He\ncried in a loud but unemotional voice--\n\n\"The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill desires an audience.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--_Enter a Lunatic_\n\n\nThe King of the Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the godfather\nof King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular day\nto his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of the\nProvost of Notting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicable\naddition to his delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men who\ncarried the colours of Bayswater or South Kensington, engaged merely\nfor the day to satisfy the Royal hobby, slouched into the room with a\ncomparatively hang-dog air, and a great part of the King's\nintellectual pleasure consisted in the contrast between the arrogance\nof their swords and feathers and the meek misery of their faces. But\nthese Notting Hill halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold\nhad the air rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to\nbe taking part in the joke. They marched and wheeled into position\nwith an almost startling dignity and discipline.\n\nThey carried a yellow banner with a great red lion, named by the King\nas the Notting Hill emblem, after a small public-house in the\nneighbourhood, which he once frequented.\n\nBetween the two lines of his followers there advanced towards the King\na tall, red-haired young man, with high features and bold blue eyes.\nHe would have been called handsome, but that a certain indefinable air\nof his nose being too big for his face, and his feet for his legs,\ngave him a look of awkwardness and extreme youth. His robes were red,\naccording to the King's heraldry, and, alone among the Provosts, he\nwas girt with a great sword. This was Adam Wayne, the intractable\nProvost of Notting Hill.\n\nThe King flung himself back in his chair, and rubbed his hands.\n\n\"What a day, what a day!\" he said to himself. \"Now there'll be a row.\nI'd no idea it would be such fun as it is. These Provosts are so very\nindignant, so very reasonable, so very right. This fellow, by the look\nin his eyes, is even more indignant than the rest. No sign in those\nlarge blue eyes, at any rate, of ever having heard of a joke. He'll\nremonstrate with the others, and they'll remonstrate with him, and\nthey'll all make themselves sumptuously happy remonstrating with me.\"\n\n\"Welcome, my Lord,\" he said aloud. \"What news from the Hill of a\nHundred Legends? What have you for the ear of your King? I know that\ntroubles have arisen between you and these others, our cousins, but\nthese troubles it shall be our pride to compose. And I doubt not, and\ncannot doubt, that your love for me is not less tender, no less\nardent, than theirs.\"\n\nMr. Buck made a bitter face, and James Barker's nostrils curled;\nWilson began to giggle faintly, and the Provost of West Kensington\nfollowed in a smothered way. But the big blue eyes of Adam Wayne never\nchanged, and he called out in an odd, boyish voice down the hall--\n\n\"I bring homage to my King. I bring him the only thing I have--my\nsword.\"\n\nAnd with a great gesture he flung it down on the ground, and knelt on\none knee behind it.\n\nThere was a dead silence.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said the King, blankly.\n\n\"You speak well, sire,\" said Adam Wayne, \"as you ever speak, when you\nsay that my love is not less than the love of these. Small would it be\nif it were not more. For I am the heir of your scheme--the child of\nthe great Charter. I stand here for the rights the Charter gave me,\nand I swear, by your sacred crown, that where I stand, I stand fast.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"I BRING HOMAGE TO MY KING.\"]\n\nThe eyes of all five men stood out of their heads.\n\nThen Buck said, in his jolly, jarring voice: \"Is the whole world mad?\"\n\nThe King sprang to his feet, and his eyes blazed.\n\n\"Yes,\" he cried, in a voice of exultation, \"the whole world is mad,\nbut Adam Wayne and me. It is true as death what I told you long ago,\nJames Barker, seriousness sends men mad. You are mad, because you care\nfor politics, as mad as a man who collects tram tickets. Buck is mad,\nbecause he cares for money, as mad as a man who lives on opium. Wilson\nis mad, because he thinks himself right, as mad as a man who thinks\nhimself God Almighty. The Provost of West Kensington is mad, because\nhe thinks he is respectable, as mad as a man who thinks he is a\nchicken. All men are mad but the humorist, who cares for nothing and\npossesses everything. I thought that there was only one humorist in\nEngland. Fools!--dolts!--open your cows' eyes; there are two! In\nNotting Hill--in that unpromising elevation--there has been born an\nartist! You thought to spoil my joke, and bully me out of it, by\nbecoming more and more modern, more and more practical, more and more\nbustling and rational. Oh, what a feast it was to answer you by\nbecoming more and more august, more and more gracious, more and more\nancient and mellow! But this lad has seen how to bowl me out. He has\nanswered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric. He has\nlifted the only shield I cannot break, the shield of an impenetrable\npomposity. Listen to him. You have come, my Lord, about Pump Street?\"\n\n\"About the city of Notting Hill,\" answered Wayne, proudly, \"of which\nPump Street is a living and rejoicing part.\"\n\n\"Not a very large part,\" said Barker, contemptuously.\n\n\"That which is large enough for the rich to covet,\" said Wayne,\ndrawing up his head, \"is large enough for the poor to defend.\"\n\nThe King slapped both his legs, and waved his feet for a second in the\nair.\n\n\"Every respectable person in Notting Hill,\" cut in Buck, with his\ncold, coarse voice, \"is for us and against you. I have plenty of\nfriends in Notting Hill.\"\n\n\"Your friends are those who have taken your gold for other men's\nhearthstones, my Lord Buck,\" said Provost Wayne. \"I can well believe\nthey are your friends.\"\n\n\"They've never sold dirty toys, anyhow,\" said Buck, laughing shortly.\n\n\"They've sold dirtier things,\" said Wayne, calmly: \"they have sold\nthemselves.\"\n\n\"It's no good, my Buckling,\" said the King, rolling about on his\nchair. \"You can't cope with this chivalrous eloquence. You can't cope\nwith an artist. You can't cope with the humorist of Notting Hill. Oh,\n_Nunc dimittis_--that I have lived to see this day! Provost Wayne, you\nstand firm?\"\n\n\"Let them wait and see,\" said Wayne. \"If I stood firm before, do you\nthink I shall weaken now that I have seen the face of the King? For I\nfight for something greater, if greater there can be, than the\nhearthstones of my people and the Lordship of the Lion. I fight for\nyour royal vision, for the great dream you dreamt of the League of the\nFree Cities. You have given me this liberty. If I had been a beggar\nand you had flung me a coin, if I had been a peasant in a dance and\nyou had flung me a favour, do you think I would have let it be taken\nby any ruffians on the road? This leadership and liberty of Notting\nHill is a gift from your Majesty, and if it is taken from me, by God!\nit shall be taken in battle, and the noise of that battle shall be\nheard in the flats of Chelsea and in the studios of St. John's Wood.\"\n\n\"It is too much--it is too much,\" said the King. \"Nature is weak. I\nmust speak to you, brother artist, without further disguise. Let me\nask you a solemn question. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting\nHill, don't you think it splendid?\"\n\n\"Splendid!\" cried Adam Wayne. \"It has the splendour of God.\"\n\n\"Bowled out again,\" said the King. \"You will keep up the pose.\nFunnily, of course, it is serious. But seriously, isn't it funny?\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Wayne, with the eyes of a baby.\n\n\"Hang it all, don't play any more. The whole business--the Charter of\nthe Cities. Isn't it immense?\"\n\n\"Immense is no unworthy word for that glorious design.\"\n\n\"Oh, hang you! But, of course, I see. You want me to clear the room of\nthese reasonable sows. You want the two humorists alone together.\nLeave us, gentlemen.\"\n\nBuck threw a sour look at Barker, and at a sullen signal the whole\npageant of blue and green, of red, gold, and purple, rolled out of\nthe room, leaving only two in the great hall, the King sitting in his\nseat on the dais, and the red-clad figure still kneeling on the floor\nbefore his fallen sword.\n\nThe King bounded down the steps and smacked Provost Wayne on the back.\n\n\"Before the stars were made,\" he cried, \"we were made for each other.\nIt is too beautiful. Think of the valiant independence of Pump Street.\nThat is the real thing. It is the deification of the ludicrous.\"\n\nThe kneeling figure sprang to his feet with a fierce stagger.\n\n\"Ludicrous!\" he cried, with a fiery face.\n\n\"Oh, come, come,\" said the King, impatiently, \"you needn't keep it up\nwith me. The augurs must wink sometimes from sheer fatigue of the\neyelids. Let us enjoy this for half an hour, not as actors, but as\ndramatic critics. Isn't it a joke?\"\n\nAdam Wayne looked down like a boy, and answered in a constrained\nvoice--\n\n\"I do not understand your Majesty. I cannot believe that while I fight\nfor your royal charter your Majesty deserts me for these dogs of the\ngold hunt.\"\n\n\"Oh, damn your--But what's this? What the devil's this?\"\n\nThe King stared into the young Provost's face, and in the twilight of\nthe room began to see that his face was quite white and his lip\nshaking.\n\n\"What in God's name is the matter?\" cried Auberon, holding his wrist.\n\nWayne flung back his face, and the tears were shining on it.\n\n\"I am only a boy,\" he said, \"but it's true. I would paint the Red Lion\non my shield if I had only my blood.\"\n\nKing Auberon dropped the hand and stood without stirring,\nthunderstruck.\n\n\"My God in Heaven!\" he said; \"is it possible that there is within the\nfour seas of Britain a man who takes Notting Hill seriously?\"\n\n\"And my God in Heaven!\" said Wayne passionately; \"is it possible that\nthere is within the four seas of Britain a man who does not take it\nseriously?\"\n\nThe King said nothing, but merely went back up the steps of the dais,\nlike a man dazed. He fell back in his chair again and kicked his\nheels.\n\n\"If this sort of thing is to go on,\" he said weakly, \"I shall begin to\ndoubt the superiority of art to life. In Heaven's name, do not play\nwith me. Do you really mean that you are--God help me!--a Notting Hill\npatriot; that you are--?\"\n\nWayne made a violent gesture, and the King soothed him wildly.\n\n\"All right--all right--I see you are; but let me take it in. You do\nreally propose to fight these modern improvers with their boards and\ninspectors and surveyors and all the rest of it?\"\n\n\"Are they so terrible?\" asked Wayne, scornfully.\n\nThe King continued to stare at him as if he were a human curiosity.\n\n\"And I suppose,\" he said, \"that you think that the dentists and small\ntradesmen and maiden ladies who inhabit Notting Hill, will rally with\nwar-hymns to your standard?\"\n\n\"If they have blood they will,\" said the Provost.\n\n\"And I suppose,\" said the King, with his head back among the cushions,\n\"that it never crossed your mind that\"--his voice seemed to lose\nitself luxuriantly--\"never crossed your mind that any one ever thought\nthat the idea of a Notting Hill idealism was--er--slightly--slightly\nridiculous?\"\n\n\"Of course they think so,\" said Wayne.\n\n\"What was the meaning of mocking the prophets?\"\n\n\"Where,\" asked the King, leaning forward--\"where in Heaven's name did\nyou get this miraculously inane idea?\"\n\n\"You have been my tutor, Sire,\" said the Provost, \"in all that is high\nand honourable.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" said the King.\n\n\"It was your Majesty who first stirred my dim patriotism into flame.\nTen years ago, when I was a boy (I am only nineteen), I was playing on\nthe slope of Pump Street, with a wooden sword and a paper helmet,\ndreaming of great wars. In an angry trance I struck out with my sword,\nand stood petrified, for I saw that I had struck you, Sire, my King,\nas you wandered in a noble secrecy, watching over your people's\nwelfare. But I need have had no fear. Then was I taught to understand\nKingliness. You neither shrank nor frowned. You summoned no guards.\nYou invoked no punishments. But in august and burning words, which are\nwritten in my soul, never to be erased, you told me ever to turn my\nsword against the enemies of my inviolate city. Like a priest pointing\nto the altar, you pointed to the hill of Notting. 'So long,' you said,\n'as you are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even if it were\nringed with all the armies of Bayswater.' I have not forgotten the\nwords, and I have reason now to remember them, for the hour is come\nand the crown of your prophecy. The sacred hill is ringed with the\narmies of Bayswater, and I am ready to die.\"\n\nThe King was lying back in his chair, a kind of wreck.\n\n\"Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord,\" he murmured, \"what a life! what a life! All my\nwork! I seem to have done it all. So you're the red-haired boy that\nhit me in the waistcoat. What have I done? God, what have I done? I\nthought I would have a joke, and I have created a passion. I tried to\ncompose a burlesque, and it seems to be turning halfway through into\nan epic. What is to be done with such a world? In the Lord's name,\nwasn't the joke broad and bold enough? I abandoned my subtle humour to\namuse you, and I seem to have brought tears to your eyes. What's to be\ndone with people when you write a pantomime for them--call the\nsausages classic festoons, and the policeman cut in two a tragedy of\npublic duty? But why am I talking? Why am I asking questions of a nice\nyoung gentleman who is totally mad? What is the good of it? What is\nthe good of anything? Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!\"\n\nSuddenly he pulled himself upright.\n\n\"Don't you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all absurd?\"\n\n\"Absurd?\" asked Wayne, blankly. \"Why should I?\"\n\nThe King stared back equally blankly.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" he said.\n\n\"Notting Hill,\" said the Provost, simply, \"is a rise or high ground of\nthe common earth, on which men have built houses to live, in which\nthey are born, fall in love, pray, marry, and die. Why should I think\nit absurd?\"\n\nThe King smiled.\n\n\"Because, my Leonidas--\" he began, then suddenly, he knew not how,\nfound his mind was a total blank. After all, why was it absurd? Why\nwas it absurd? He felt as if the floor of his mind had given way. He\nfelt as all men feel when their first principles are hit hard with a\nquestion. Barker always felt so when the King said, \"Why trouble about\npolitics?\"\n\nThe King's thoughts were in a kind of rout; he could not collect them.\n\n\"It is generally felt to be a little funny,\" he said vaguely.\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Adam, turning on him with a fierce suddenness--\"I\nsuppose you fancy crucifixion was a serious affair?\"\n\n\"Well, I--\" began Auberon--\"I admit I have generally thought it had\nits graver side.\"\n\n\"Then you are wrong,\" said Wayne, with incredible violence.\n\"Crucifixion is comic. It is exquisitely diverting. It was an absurd\nand obscene kind of impaling reserved for people who were made to be\nlaughed at--for slaves and provincials, for dentists and small\ntradesmen, as you would say. I have seen the grotesque gallows-shape,\nwhich the little Roman gutter-boys scribbled on walls as a vulgar\njoke, blazing on the pinnacles of the temples of the world. And shall\nI turn back?\"\n\nThe King made no answer.\n\nAdam went on, his voice ringing in the roof.\n\n\"This laughter with which men tyrannise is not the great power you\nthink it. Peter was crucified, and crucified head downwards. What\ncould be funnier than the idea of a respectable old Apostle upside\ndown? What could be more in the style of your modern humour? But what\nwas the good of it? Upside down or right side up, Peter was Peter to\nmankind. Upside down he stills hangs over Europe, and millions move\nand breathe only in the life of his Church.\"\n\nKing Auberon got up absently.\n\n\"There is something in what you say,\" he said. \"You seem to have been\nthinking, young man.\"\n\n\"Only feeling, sire,\" answered the Provost. \"I was born, like other\nmen, in a spot of the earth which I loved because I had played boys'\ngames there, and fallen in love, and talked with my friends through\nnights that were nights of the gods. And I feel the riddle. These\nlittle gardens where we told our loves. These streets where we brought\nout our dead. Why should they be commonplace? Why should they be\nabsurd? Why should it be grotesque to say that a pillar-box is poetic\nwhen for a year I could not see a red pillar-box against the yellow\nevening in a certain street without being wracked with something of\nwhich God keeps the secret, but which is stronger than sorrow or joy?\nWhy should any one be able to raise a laugh by saying 'the Cause of\nNotting Hill'?--Notting Hill where thousands of immortal spirits blaze\nwith alternate hope and fear.\"\n\nAuberon was flicking dust off his sleeve with quite a new seriousness\non his face, distinct from the owlish solemnity which was the pose of\nhis humour.\n\n\"It is very difficult,\" he said at last. \"It is a damned difficult\nthing. I see what you mean; I agree with you even up to a point--or I\nshould like to agree with you, if I were young enough to be a prophet\nand poet. I feel a truth in everything you say until you come to the\nwords 'Notting Hill.' And then I regret to say that the old Adam\nawakes roaring with laughter and makes short work of the new Adam,\nwhose name is Wayne.\"\n\nFor the first time Provost Wayne was silent, and stood gazing dreamily\nat the floor. Evening was closing in, and the room had grown darker.\n\n\"I know,\" he said, in a strange, almost sleepy voice, \"there is truth\nin what you say, too. It is hard not to laugh at the common names--I\nonly say we should not. I have thought of a remedy; but such thoughts\nare rather terrible.\"\n\n\"What thoughts?\" asked Auberon.\n\nThe Provost of Notting Hill seemed to have fallen into a kind of\ntrance; in his eyes was an elvish light.\n\n\"I know of a magic wand, but it is a wand that only one or two may\nrightly use, and only seldom. It is a fairy wand of great fear,\nstronger than those who use it--often frightful, often wicked to use.\nBut whatever is touched with it is never again wholly common; whatever\nis touched with it takes a magic from outside the world. If I touch,\nwith this fairy wand, the railways and the roads of Notting Hill, men\nwill love them, and be afraid of them for ever.\"\n\n\"What the devil are you talking about?\" asked the King.\n\n\"It has made mean landscapes magnificent, and hovels outlast\ncathedrals,\" went on the madman. \"Why should it not make lamp-posts\nfairer than Greek lamps; and an omnibus-ride like a painted ship? The\ntouch of it is the finger of a strange perfection.\"\n\n\"What is your wand?\" cried the King, impatiently.\n\n\"There it is,\" said Wayne; and pointed to the floor, where his sword\nlay flat and shining.\n\n\"The sword!\" cried the King; and sprang up straight on the dais.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" cried Wayne, hoarsely. \"The things touched by that are\nnot vulgar; the things touched by that--\"\n\nKing Auberon made a gesture of horror.\n\n\"You will shed blood for that!\" he cried. \"For a cursed point of\nview--\"\n\n\"Oh, you kings, you kings!\" cried out Adam, in a burst of scorn. \"How\nhumane you are, how tender, how considerate! You will make war for a\nfrontier, or the imports of a foreign harbour; you will shed blood for\nthe precise duty on lace, or the salute to an admiral. But for the\nthings that make life itself worthy or miserable--how humane you are!\nI say here, and I know well what I speak of, there were never any\nnecessary wars but the religious wars. There were never any just wars\nbut the religious wars. There were never any humane wars but the\nreligious wars. For these men were fighting for something that\nclaimed, at least, to be the happiness of a man, the virtue of a man.\nA Crusader thought, at least, that Islam hurt the soul of every man,\nking or tinker, that it could really capture. I think Buck and Barker\nand these rich vultures hurt the soul of every man, hurt every inch of\nthe ground, hurt every brick of the houses, that they can really\ncapture. Do you think I have no right to fight for Notting Hill, you\nwhose English Government has so often fought for tomfooleries? If, as\nyour rich friends say, there are no gods, and the skies are dark above\nus, what should a man fight for, but the place where he had the Eden\nof childhood and the short heaven of first love? If no temples and no\nscriptures are sacred, what is sacred if a man's own youth is not\nsacred?\"\n\nThe King walked a little restlessly up and down the dais.\n\n\"It is hard,\" he said, biting his lips, \"to assent to a view so\ndesperate--so responsible....\"\n\nAs he spoke, the door of the audience chamber fell ajar, and through\nthe aperture came, like the sudden chatter of a bird, the high, nasal,\nbut well-bred voice of Barker.\n\n\"I said to him quite plainly--the public interests--\"\n\nAuberon turned on Wayne with violence.\n\n\"What the devil is all this? What am I saying? What are you saying?\nHave you hypnotised me? Curse your uncanny blue eyes! Let me go. Give\nme back my sense of humour. Give it me back--give it me back, I say!\"\n\n\"I solemnly assure you,\" said Wayne, uneasily, with a gesture, as if\nfeeling all over himself, \"that I haven't got it.\"\n\nThe King fell back in his chair, and went into a roar of Rabelaisian\nlaughter.\n\n\"I don't think you have,\" he cried.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I--_The Mental Condition of Adam Wayne_\n\n\nA little while after the King's accession a small book of poems\nappeared, called \"Hymns on the Hill.\" They were not good poems, nor\nwas the book successful, but it attracted a certain amount of\nattention from one particular school of critics. The King himself, who\nwas a member of the school, reviewed it in his capacity of literary\ncritic to \"Straight from the Stables,\" a sporting journal. They were\nknown as the Hammock School, because it had been calculated\nmalignantly by an enemy that no less than thirteen of their delicate\ncriticisms had begun with the words, \"I read this book in a hammock:\nhalf asleep in the sleepy sunlight, I ...\"; after that there were\nimportant differences. Under these conditions they liked everything,\nbut especially everything silly. \"Next to authentic goodness in a\nbook,\" they said--\"next to authentic goodness in a book (and that,\nalas! we never find) we desire a rich badness.\" Thus it happened that\ntheir praise (as indicating the presence of a rich badness) was not\nuniversally sought after, and authors became a little disquieted when\nthey found the eye of the Hammock School fixed upon them with peculiar\nfavour.\n\nThe peculiarity of \"Hymns on the Hill\" was the celebration of the\npoetry of London as distinct from the poetry of the country. This\nsentiment or affectation was, of course, not uncommon in the twentieth\ncentury, nor was it, although sometimes exaggerated, and sometimes\nartificial, by any means without a great truth at its root, for there\nis one respect in which a town must be more poetical than the country,\nsince it is closer to the spirit of man; for London, if it be not one\nof the masterpieces of man, is at least one of his sins. A street is\nreally more poetical than a meadow, because a street has a secret. A\nstreet is going somewhere, and a meadow nowhere. But, in the case of\nthe book called \"Hymns on the Hill,\" there was another peculiarity,\nwhich the King pointed out with great acumen in his review. He was\nnaturally interested in the matter, for he had himself published a\nvolume of lyrics about London under his pseudonym of \"Daisy Daydream.\"\n\nThis difference, as the King pointed out, consisted in the fact that,\nwhile mere artificers like \"Daisy Daydream\" (on whose elaborate style\nthe King, over his signature of \"Thunderbolt,\" was perhaps somewhat\ntoo severe) thought to praise London by comparing it to the\ncountry--using nature, that is, as a background from which all\npoetical images had to be drawn--the more robust author of \"Hymns on\nthe Hill\" praised the country, or nature, by comparing it to the town,\nand used the town itself as a background. \"Take,\" said the critic,\n\"the typically feminine lines, 'To the Inventor of The Hansom Cab'--\n\n'Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell,\n           Where twain may dwell.'\"\n\n\"Surely,\" wrote the King, \"no one but a woman could have written those\nlines. A woman has always a weakness for nature; with her art is only\nbeautiful as an echo or shadow of it. She is praising the hansom cab\nby theme and theory, but her soul is still a child by the sea, picking\nup shells. She can never be utterly of the town, as a man can; indeed,\ndo we not speak (with sacred propriety) of 'a man about town'? Who\never spoke of a woman about town? However much, physically, 'about\ntown' a woman may be, she still models herself on nature; she tries to\ncarry nature with her; she bids grasses to grow on her head, and furry\nbeasts to bite her about the throat. In the heart of a dim city, she\nmodels her hat on a flaring cottage garden of flowers. We, with our\nnobler civic sentiment, model ours on a chimney pot; the ensign of\ncivilisation. And rather than be without birds, she will commit\nmassacre, that she may turn her head into a tree, with dead birds to\nsing on it.\"\n\nThis kind of thing went on for several pages, and then the critic\nremembered his subject, and returned to it.\n\n\"Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell,\n          Where twain may dwell.\"\n\n\"The peculiarity of these fine though feminine lines,\" continued\n\"Thunderbolt,\" \"is, as we have said, that they praise the hansom cab\nby comparing it to the shell, to a natural thing. Now, hear the author\nof 'Hymns on the Hill,' and how he deals with the same subject. In his\nfine nocturne, entitled 'The Last Omnibus' he relieves the rich and\npoignant melancholy of the theme by a sudden sense of rushing at the\nend--\n\n'The wind round the old street corner\nSwung sudden and quick as a cab.'\n\n\"Here the distinction is obvious. 'Daisy Daydream' thinks it a great\ncompliment to a hansom cab to be compared to one of the spiral\nchambers of the sea. And the author of 'Hymns on the Hill' thinks it a\ngreat compliment to the immortal whirlwind to be compared to a hackney\ncoach. He surely is the real admirer of London. We have no space to\nspeak of all his perfect applications of the idea; of the poem in\nwhich, for instance, a lady's eyes are compared, not to stars, but to\ntwo perfect street-lamps guiding the wanderer. We have no space to\nspeak of the fine lyric, recalling the Elizabethan spirit, in which\nthe poet, instead of saying that the rose and the lily contend in her\ncomplexion, says, with a purer modernism, that the red omnibus of\nHammersmith and the white omnibus of Fulham fight there for the\nmastery. How perfect the image of two contending omnibuses!\"\n\nHere, somewhat abruptly, the review concluded, probably because the\nKing had to send off his copy at that moment, as he was in some want\nof money. But the King was a very good critic, whatever he may have\nbeen as King, and he had, to a considerable extent, hit the right nail\non the head. \"Hymns on the Hill\" was not at all like the poems\noriginally published in praise of the poetry of London. And the\nreason was that it was really written by a man who had seen nothing\nelse but London, and who regarded it, therefore, as the universe. It\nwas written by a raw, red-headed lad of seventeen, named Adam Wayne,\nwho had been born in Notting Hill. An accident in his seventh year\nprevented his being taken away to the seaside, and thus his whole life\nhad been passed in his own Pump Street, and in its neighbourhood. And\nthe consequence was, that he saw the street-lamps as things quite as\neternal as the stars; the two fires were mingled. He saw the houses as\nthings enduring, like the mountains, and so he wrote about them as one\nwould write about mountains. Nature puts on a disguise when she speaks\nto every man; to this man she put on the disguise of Notting Hill.\nNature would mean to a poet born in the Cumberland hills, a stormy\nsky-line and sudden rocks. Nature would mean to a poet born in the\nEssex flats, a waste of splendid waters and splendid sunsets. So\nnature meant to this man Wayne a line of violet roofs and lemon lamps,\nthe chiaroscuro of the town. He did not think it clever or funny to\npraise the shadows and colours of the town; he had seen no other\nshadows or colours, and so he praised them--because they were shadows\nand colours. He saw all this because he was a poet, though in practice\na bad poet. It is too often forgotten that just as a bad man is\nnevertheless a man, so a bad poet is nevertheless a poet.\n\nMr. Wayne's little volume of verse was a complete failure; and he\nsubmitted to the decision of fate with a quite rational humility, went\nback to his work, which was that of a draper's assistant, and wrote no\nmore. He still retained his feeling about the town of Notting Hill,\nbecause he could not possibly have any other feeling, because it was\nthe back and base of his brain. But he does not seem to have made any\nparticular attempt to express it or insist upon it.\n\nHe was a genuine natural mystic, one of those who live on the border\nof fairyland. But he was perhaps the first to realise how often the\nboundary of fairyland runs through a crowded city. Twenty feet from\nhim (for he was very short-sighted) the red and white and yellow suns\nof the gas-lights thronged and melted into each other like an orchard\nof fiery trees, the beginning of the woods of elf-land.\n\nBut, oddly enough, it was because he was a small poet that he came to\nhis strange and isolated triumph. It was because he was a failure in\nliterature that he became a portent in English history. He was one of\nthose to whom nature has given the desire without the power of\nartistic expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might\nhave been so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a\ntreasure of new and sensational song. But he was born under the lucky\nstar of a single coincidence. He happened to be at the head of his\ndingy municipality at the time of the King's jest, at the time when\nall municipalities were suddenly commanded to break out into banners\nand flowers. Out of the long procession of the silent poets, who have\nbeen passing since the beginning of the world, this one man found\nhimself in the midst of an heraldic vision, in which he could act and\nspeak and live lyrically. While the author and the victims alike\ntreated the whole matter as a silly public charade, this one man, by\ntaking it seriously, sprang suddenly into a throne of artistic\nomnipotence. Armour, music, standards, watch-fires, the noise of\ndrums, all the theatrical properties were thrown before him. This one\npoor rhymster, having burnt his own rhymes, began to live that life of\nopen air and acted poetry of which all the poets of the earth have\ndreamed in vain; the life for which the Iliad is only a cheap\nsubstitute.\n\nUpwards from his abstracted childhood, Adam Wayne had grown strongly\nand silently in a certain quality or capacity which is in modern\ncities almost entirely artificial, but which can be natural, and was\nprimarily almost brutally natural in him, the quality or capacity of\npatriotism. It exists, like other virtues and vices, in a certain\nundiluted reality. It is not confused with all kinds of other things.\nA child speaking of his country or his village may make every mistake\nin Mandeville or tell every lie in Munchausen, but in his statement\nthere will be no psychological lies any more than there can be in a\ngood song. Adam Wayne, as a boy, had for his dull streets in Notting\nHill the ultimate and ancient sentiment that went out to Athens or\nJerusalem. He knew the secret of the passion, those secrets which make\nreal old national songs sound so strange to our civilisation. He knew\nthat real patriotism tends to sing about sorrows and forlorn hopes\nmuch more than about victory. He knew that in proper names themselves\nis half the poetry of all national poems. Above all, he knew the\nsupreme psychological fact about patriotism, as certain in connection\nwith it as that a fine shame comes to all lovers, the fact that the\npatriot never under any circumstances boasts of the largeness of his\ncountry, but always, and of necessity, boasts of the smallness of it.\n\nAll this he knew, not because he was a philosopher or a genius, but\nbecause he was a child. Any one who cares to walk up a side slum like\nPump Street, can see a little Adam claiming to be king of a\npaving-stone. And he will always be proudest if the stone is almost\ntoo narrow for him to keep his feet inside it.\n\nIt was while he was in such a dream of defensive battle, marking out\nsome strip of street or fortress of steps as the limit of his haughty\nclaim, that the King had met him, and, with a few words flung in\nmockery, ratified for ever the strange boundaries of his soul.\nThenceforward the fanciful idea of the defence of Notting Hill in war\nbecame to him a thing as solid as eating or drinking or lighting a\npipe. He disposed his meals for it, altered his plans for it, lay\nawake in the night and went over it again. Two or three shops were to\nhim an arsenal; an area was to him a moat; corners of balconies and\nturns of stone steps were points for the location of a culverin or an\narcher. It is almost impossible to convey to any ordinary imagination\nthe degree to which he had transmitted the leaden London landscape to\na romantic gold. The process began almost in babyhood, and became\nhabitual like a literal madness. It was felt most keenly at night,\nwhen London is really herself, when her lights shine in the dark like\nthe eyes of innumerable cats, and the outline of the dark houses has\nthe bold simplicity of blue hills. But for him the night revealed\ninstead of concealing, and he read all the blank hours of morning and\nafternoon, by a contradictory phrase, in the light of that darkness.\nTo this man, at any rate, the inconceivable had happened. The\nartificial city had become to him nature, and he felt the curbstones\nand gas-lamps as things as ancient as the sky.\n\nOne instance may suffice. Walking along Pump Street with a friend, he\nsaid, as he gazed dreamily at the iron fence of a little front garden,\n\"How those railings stir one's blood!\"\n\nHis friend, who was also a great intellectual admirer, looked at them\npainfully, but without any particular emotion. He was so troubled\nabout it that he went back quite a large number of times on quiet\nevenings and stared at the railings, waiting for something to happen\nto his blood, but without success. At last he took refuge in asking\nWayne himself. He discovered that the ecstacy lay in the one point he\nhad never noticed about the railings even after his six visits--the\nfact that they were, like the great majority of others--in London,\nshaped at the top after the manner of a spear. As a child, Wayne had\nhalf unconsciously compared them with the spears in pictures of\nLancelot and St. George, and had grown up under the shadow of the\ngraphic association. Now, whenever he looked at them, they were simply\nthe serried weapons that made a hedge of steel round the sacred homes\nof Notting Hill. He could not have cleansed his mind of that meaning\neven if he tried. It was not a fanciful comparison, or anything like\nit. It would not have been true to say that the familiar railings\nreminded him of spears; it would have been far truer to say that the\nfamiliar spears occasionally reminded him of railings.\n\nA couple of days after his interview with the King, Adam Wayne was\npacing like a caged lion in front of five shops that occupied the\nupper end of the disputed street. They were a grocer's, a chemist's, a\nbarber's, an old curiosity shop and a toy-shop that sold also\nnewspapers. It was these five shops which his childish fastidiousness\nhad first selected as the essentials of the Notting Hill campaign, the\ncitadel of the city. If Notting Hill was the heart of the universe,\nand Pump Street was the heart of Notting Hill, this was the heart of\nPump Street. The fact that they were all small and side by side\nrealised that feeling for a formidable comfort and compactness which,\nas we have said, was the heart of his patriotism, and of all\npatriotism. The grocer (who had a wine and spirit licence) was\nincluded because he could provision the garrison; the old curiosity\nshop because it contained enough swords, pistols, partisans,\ncross-bows, and blunderbusses to arm a whole irregular regiment; the\ntoy and paper shop because Wayne thought a free press an essential\ncentre for the soul of Pump Street; the chemist's to cope with\noutbreaks of disease among the besieged; and the barber's because it\nwas in the middle of all the rest, and the barber's son was an\nintimate friend and spiritual affinity.\n\nIt was a cloudless October evening settling down through purple into\npure silver around the roofs and chimneys of the steep little street,\nwhich looked black and sharp and dramatic. In the deep shadows the\ngas-lit shop fronts gleamed like five fires in a row, and before them,\ndarkly outlined like a ghost against some purgatorial furnaces, passed\nto and fro the tall bird-like figure and eagle nose of Adam Wayne.\n\nHe swung his stick restlessly, and seemed fitfully talking to himself.\n\n\"There are, after all, enigmas,\" he said \"even to the man who has\nfaith. There are doubts that remain even after the true philosophy is\ncompleted in every rung and rivet. And here is one of them. Is the\nnormal human need, the normal human condition, higher or lower than\nthose special states of the soul which call out a doubtful and\ndangerous glory? those special powers of knowledge or sacrifice which\nare made possible only by the existence of evil? Which should come\nfirst to our affections, the enduring sanities of peace or the\nhalf-maniacal virtues of battle? Which should come first, the man\ngreat in the daily round or the man great in emergency? Which should\ncome first, to return to the enigma before me, the grocer or the\nchemist? Which is more certainly the stay of the city, the swift\nchivalrous chemist or the benignant all-providing grocer? In such\nultimate spiritual doubts it is only possible to choose a side by the\nhigher instincts, and to abide the issue. In any case, I have made my\nchoice. May I be pardoned if I choose wrongly, but I choose the\ngrocer.\"\n\n\"Good morning, sir,\" said the grocer, who was a middle-aged man,\npartially bald, with harsh red whiskers and beard, and forehead lined\nwith all the cares of the small tradesman. \"What can I do for you,\nsir?\"\n\nWayne removed his hat on entering the shop, with a ceremonious\ngesture, which, slight as it was, made the tradesman eye him with the\nbeginnings of wonder.\n\n\"I come, sir,\" he said soberly, \"to appeal to your patriotism.\"\n\n\"Why, sir,\" said the grocer, \"that sounds like the times when I was a\nboy and we used to have elections.\"\n\n\"You will have them again,\" said Wayne, firmly, \"and far greater\nthings. Listen, Mr. Mead. I know the temptations which a grocer has to\na too cosmopolitan philosophy. I can imagine what it must be to sit\nall day as you do surrounded with wares from all the ends of the\nearth, from strange seas that we have never sailed and strange forests\nthat we could not even picture. No Eastern king ever had such\nargosies or such cargoes coming from the sunrise and the sunset, and\nSolomon in all his glory was not enriched like one of you. India is at\nyour elbow,\" he cried, lifting his voice and pointing his stick at a\ndrawer of rice, the grocer making a movement of some alarm, \"China is\nbefore you, Demerara is behind you, America is above your head, and at\nthis very moment, like some old Spanish admiral, you hold Tunis in\nyour hands.\"\n\nMr. Mead dropped the box of dates which he was just lifting, and then\npicked it up again vaguely.\n\nWayne went on with a heightened colour, but a lowered voice,\n\n\"I know, I say, the temptations of so international, so universal a\nvision of wealth. I know that it must be your danger not to fall like\nmany tradesmen into too dusty and mechanical a narrowness, but rather\nto be too broad, to be too general, too liberal. If a narrow\nnationalism be the danger of the pastry-cook, who makes his own wares\nunder his own heavens, no less is cosmopolitanism the danger of the\ngrocer. But I come to you in the name of that patriotism which no\nwanderings or enlightenments should ever wholly extinguish, and I ask\nyou to remember Notting Hill. For, after all, in this cosmopolitan\nmagnificence, she has played no small part. Your dates may come from\nthe tall palms of Barbary, your sugar from the strange islands of the\ntropics, your tea from the secret villages of the Empire of the\nDragon. That this room might be furnished, forests may have been\nspoiled under the Southern Cross, and leviathans speared under the\nPolar Star. But you yourself--surely no inconsiderable treasure--you\nyourself, the brain that wields these vast interests--you yourself, at\nleast, have grown to strength and wisdom between these grey houses and\nunder this rainy sky. This city which made you, and thus made your\nfortunes, is threatened with war. Come forth and tell to the ends of\nthe earth this lesson. Oil is from the North and fruits from the\nSouth; rices are from India and spices from Ceylon; sheep are from New\nZealand and men from Notting Hill.\"\n\nThe grocer sat for some little while, with dim eyes and his mouth\nopen, looking rather like a fish. Then he scratched the back of his\nhead, and said nothing. Then he said--\n\n\"Anything out of the shop, sir?\"\n\nWayne looked round in a dazed way. Seeing a pile of tins of pine-apple\nchunks, he waved his stick generally towards them.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said; \"I'll take those.\"\n\n\"All those, sir?\" said the grocer, with greatly increased interest.\n\n\"Yes, yes; all those,\" replied Wayne, still a little bewildered, like\na man splashed with cold water.\n\n\"Very good, sir; thank you, sir,\" said the grocer with animation. \"You\nmay count upon my patriotism, sir.\"\n\n\"I count upon it already,\" said Wayne, and passed out into the\ngathering night.\n\nThe grocer put the box of dates back in its place.\n\n\"What a nice fellow he is!\" he said. \"It's odd how often they are\nnice. Much nicer than those as are all right.\"\n\nMeanwhile Adam Wayne stood outside the glowing chemist's shop,\nunmistakably wavering.\n\n\"What a weakness it is!\" he muttered. \"I have never got rid of it from\nchildhood--the fear of this magic shop. The grocer is rich, he is\nromantic, he is poetical in the truest sense, but he is not--no, he is\nnot supernatural. But the chemist! All the other shops stand in\nNotting Hill, but this stands in Elf-land. Look at those great burning\nbowls of colour. It must be from them that God paints the sunsets. It\nis superhuman, and the superhuman is all the more uncanny when it is\nbeneficent. That is the root of the fear of God. I am afraid. But I\nmust be a man and enter.\"\n\nHe was a man, and entered. A short, dark young man was behind the\ncounter with spectacles, and greeted him with a bright but entirely\nbusiness-like smile.\n\n\"A fine evening, sir,\" he said.\n\n\"Fine indeed, strange Father,\" said Adam, stretching his hands\nsomewhat forward. \"It is on such clear and mellow nights that your\nshop is most itself. Then they appear most perfect, those moons of\ngreen and gold and crimson, which from afar oft guide the pilgrim of\npain and sickness to this house of merciful witchcraft.\"\n\n\"Can I get you anything?\" asked the chemist.\n\n\"Let me see,\" said Wayne, in a friendly but vague manner. \"Let me have\nsome sal volatile.\"\n\n\"Eightpence, tenpence, or one and sixpence a bottle?\" said the young\nman, genially.\n\n\"One and six--one and six,\" replied Wayne, with a wild submissiveness.\n\"I come to ask you, Mr. Bowles, a terrible question.\"\n\nHe paused and collected himself.\n\n\"It is necessary,\" he muttered--\"it is necessary to be tactful, and to\nsuit the appeal to each profession in turn.\"\n\n\"I come,\" he resumed aloud, \"to ask you a question which goes to the\nroots of your miraculous toils. Mr. Bowles, shall all this witchery\ncease?\" And he waved his stick around the shop.\n\nMeeting with no answer, he continued with animation--\n\n\"In Notting Hill we have felt to its core the elfish mystery of your\nprofession. And now Notting Hill itself is threatened.\"\n\n\"Anything more, sir?\" asked the chemist.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Wayne, somewhat disturbed--\"oh, what is it chemists sell?\nQuinine, I think. Thank you. Shall it be destroyed? I have met these\nmen of Bayswater and North Kensington--Mr. Bowles, they are\nmaterialists. They see no witchery in your work, even when it is\nwrought within their own borders. They think the chemist is\ncommonplace. They think him human.\"\n\nThe chemist appeared to pause, only a moment, to take in the insult,\nand immediately said--\n\n\"And the next article, please?\"\n\n\"Alum,\" said the Provost, wildly. \"I resume. It is in this sacred\ntown alone that your priesthood is reverenced. Therefore, when you\nfight for us you fight not only for yourself, but for everything you\ntypify. You fight not only for Notting Hill, but for Fairyland, for as\nsurely as Buck and Barker and such men hold sway, the sense of\nFairyland in some strange manner diminishes.\"\n\n\"Anything more, sir?\" asked Mr. Bowles, with unbroken cheerfulness.\n\n\"Oh yes, jujubes--Gregory powder--magnesia. The danger is imminent. In\nall this matter I have felt that I fought not merely for my own city\n(though to that I owe all my blood), but for all places in which these\ngreat ideas could prevail. I am fighting not merely for Notting Hill,\nbut for Bayswater itself; for North Kensington itself. For if the\ngold-hunters prevail, these also will lose all their ancient\nsentiments and all the mystery of their national soul. I know I can\ncount upon you.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, sir,\" said the chemist, with great animation; \"we are always\nglad to oblige a good customer.\"\n\nAdam Wayne went out of the shop with a deep sense of fulfilment of\nsoul.\n\n\"It is so fortunate,\" he said, \"to have tact, to be able to play upon\nthe peculiar talents and specialities, the cosmopolitanism of the\ngrocer and the world-old necromancy of the chemist. Where should I be\nwithout tact?\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--_The Remarkable Mr. Turnbull_\n\n\nAfter two more interviews with shopmen, however, the patriot's\nconfidence in his own psychological diplomacy began vaguely to wane.\nDespite the care with which he considered the peculiar rationale and\nthe peculiar glory of each separate shop, there seemed to be something\nunresponsive about the shopmen. Whether it was a dark resentment\nagainst the uninitiate for peeping into their masonic magnificence, he\ncould not quite conjecture.\n\nHis conversation with the man who kept the shop of curiosities had\nbegun encouragingly. The man who kept the shop of curiosities had,\nindeed, enchanted him with a phrase. He was standing drearily at the\ndoor of his shop, a wrinkled man with a grey pointed beard, evidently\na gentleman who had come down in the world.\n\n\"And how does your commerce go, you strange guardian of the past?\"\nsaid Wayne, affably.\n\n\"Well, sir, not very well,\" replied the man, with that patient voice\nof his class which is one of the most heart-breaking things in the\nworld. \"Things are terribly quiet.\"\n\nWayne's eyes shone suddenly.\n\n\"A great saying,\" he said, \"worthy of a man whose merchandise is human\nhistory. Terribly quiet; that is in two words the spirit of this age,\nas I have felt it from my cradle. I sometimes wondered how many other\npeople felt the oppression of this union between quietude and terror.\nI see blank well-ordered streets and men in black moving about\ninoffensively, sullenly. It goes on day after day, day after day, and\nnothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from which I might wake\nscreaming. To me the straightness of our life is the straightness of a\nthin cord stretched tight. Its stillness is terrible. It might snap\nwith a noise like thunder. And you who sit, amid the _debris_ of the\ngreat wars, you who sit, as it were, upon a battlefield, you know that\nwar was less terrible than this evil peace; you know that the idle\nlads who carried those swords under Francis or Elizabeth, the rude\nSquire or Baron who swung that mace about in Picardy or Northumberland\nbattles, may have been terribly noisy, but were not like us, terribly\nquiet.\"\n\nWhether it was a faint embarrassment of conscience as to the original\nsource and date of the weapons referred to, or merely an engrained\ndepression, the guardian of the past looked, if anything, a little\nmore worried.\n\n\"But I do not think,\" continued Wayne, \"that this horrible silence of\nmodernity will last, though I think for the present it will increase.\nWhat a farce is this modern liberality! Freedom of speech means\npractically, in our modern civilisation, that we must only talk about\nunimportant things. We must not talk about religion, for that is\nilliberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that is\ntalking shop; we must not talk about death, for that is depressing; we\nmust not talk about birth, for that is indelicate. It cannot last.\nSomething must break this strange indifference, this strange dreamy\negoism, this strange loneliness of millions in a crowd. Something must\nbreak it. Why should it not be you and I? Can you do nothing else but\nguard relics?\"\n\nThe shopman wore a gradually clearing expression, which would have led\nthose unsympathetic with the cause of the Red Lion to think that the\nlast sentence was the only one to which he had attached any meaning.\n\n\"I am rather old to go into a new business,\" he said, \"and I don't\nquite know what to be, either.\"\n\n\"Why not,\" said Wayne, gently having reached the crisis of his\ndelicate persuasion--\"why not be a colonel?\"\n\nIt was at this point, in all probability, that the interview began to\nyield more disappointing results. The man appeared inclined at first\nto regard the suggestion of becoming a colonel as outside the sphere\nof immediate and relevant discussion. A long exposition of the\ninevitable war of independence, coupled with the purchase of a\ndoubtful sixteenth-century sword for an exaggerated price, seemed to\nresettle matters. Wayne left the shop, however, somewhat infected with\nthe melancholy of its owner.\n\nThat melancholy was completed at the barber's.\n\n\"Shaving, sir?\" inquired that artist from inside his shop.\n\n\"War!\" replied Wayne, standing on the threshold.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said the other, sharply.\n\n\"War!\" said Wayne, warmly. \"But not for anything inconsistent with the\nbeautiful and the civilised arts. War for beauty. War for society. War\nfor peace. A great chance is offered you of repelling that slander\nwhich, in defiance of the lives of so many artists, attributes\npoltroonery to those who beautify and polish the surface of our lives.\nWhy should not hairdressers be heroes? Why should not--\"\n\n\"Now, you get out,\" said the barber, irascibly. \"We don't want any of\nyour sort here. You get out.\"\n\nAnd he came forward with the desperate annoyance of a mild person when\nenraged.\n\nAdam Wayne laid his hand for a moment on the sword, then dropped it.\n\n\"Notting Hill,\" he said, \"will need her bolder sons;\" and he turned\ngloomily to the toy-shop.\n\nIt was one of those queer little shops so constantly seen in the side\nstreets of London, which must be called toy-shops only because toys\nupon the whole predominate; for the remainder of goods seem to consist\nof almost everything else in the world--tobacco, exercise-books,\nsweet-stuff, novelettes, halfpenny paper clips, halfpenny pencil\nsharpeners, bootlaces, and cheap fireworks. It also sold newspapers,\nand a row of dirty-looking posters hung along the front of it.\n\n\"I am afraid,\" said Wayne, as he entered, \"that I am not getting on\nwith these tradesmen as I should. Is it that I have neglected to rise\nto the full meaning of their work? Is there some secret buried in each\nof these shops which no mere poet can discover?\"\n\nHe stepped to the counter with a depression which he rapidly conquered\nas he addressed the man on the other side of it,--a man of short\nstature, and hair prematurely white, and the look of a large baby.\n\n\"Sir,\" said Wayne, \"I am going from house to house in this street of\nours, seeking to stir up some sense of the danger which now threatens\nour city. Nowhere have I felt my duty so difficult as here. For the\ntoy-shop keeper has to do with all that remains to us of Eden before\nthe first wars began. You sit here meditating continually upon the\nwants of that wonderful time when every staircase leads to the stars,\nand every garden-path to the other end of nowhere. Is it\nthoughtlessly, do you think, that I strike the dark old drum of peril\nin the paradise of children? But consider a moment; do not condemn me\nhastily. Even that paradise itself contains the rumour or beginning of\nthat danger, just as the Eden that was made for perfection contained\nthe terrible tree. For judge childhood, even by your own arsenal of\nits pleasures. You keep bricks; you make yourself thus, doubtless,\nthe witness of the constructive instinct older than the destructive.\nYou keep dolls; you make yourself the priest of that divine idolatry.\nYou keep Noah's Arks; you perpetuate the memory of the salvation of\nall life as a precious, an irreplaceable thing. But do you keep only,\nsir, the symbols of this prehistoric sanity, this childish rationality\nof the earth? Do you not keep more terrible things? What are those\nboxes, seemingly of lead soldiers, that I see in that glass case? Are\nthey not witnesses to that terror and beauty, that desire for a lovely\ndeath, which could not be excluded even from the immortality of Eden?\nDo not despise the lead soldiers, Mr. Turnbull.\"\n\n\"I don't,\" said Mr. Turnbull, of the toy-shop, shortly, but with great\nemphasis.\n\n\"I am glad to hear it,\" replied Wayne. \"I confess that I feared for my\nmilitary schemes the awful innocence of your profession. How, I\nthought to myself, will this man, used only to the wooden swords that\ngive pleasure, think of the steel swords that give pain? But I am at\nleast partly reassured. Your tone suggests to me that I have at least\nthe entry of a gate of your fairyland--the gate through which the\nsoldiers enter, for it cannot be denied--I ought, sir, no longer to\ndeny, that it is of soldiers that I come to speak. Let your gentle\nemployment make you merciful towards the troubles of the world. Let\nyour own silvery experience tone down our sanguine sorrows. For there\nis war in Notting Hill.\"\n\nThe little toy-shop keeper sprang up suddenly, slapping his fat hands\nlike two fans on the counter.\n\n\"War?\" he cried. \"Not really, sir? Is it true? Oh, what a joke! Oh,\nwhat a sight for sore eyes!\"\n\nWayne was almost taken aback by this outburst.\n\n\"I am delighted,\" he stammered. \"I had no notion--\"\n\nHe sprang out of the way just in time to avoid Mr. Turnbull, who took\na flying leap over the counter and dashed to the front of the shop.\n\n\"You look here, sir,\" he said; \"you just look here.\"\n\nHe came back with two of the torn posters in his hand which were\nflapping outside his shop.\n\n\"Look at those, sir,\" he said, and flung them down on the counter.\n\nWayne bent over them, and read on one--\n\n\"LAST FIGHTING.\nREDUCTION OF THE CENTRAL DERVISH CITY.\nREMARKABLE, ETC.\"\n\nOn the other he read--\n\n\"LAST SMALL REPUBLIC ANNEXED.\nNICARAGUAN CAPITAL SURRENDERS AFTER A\nMONTH'S FIGHTING.\nGREAT SLAUGHTER.\"\n\nWayne bent over them again, evidently puzzled; then he looked at the\ndates. They were both dated in August fifteen years before.\n\n\"Why do you keep these old things?\" he said, startled entirely out of\nhis absurd tact of mysticism. \"Why do you hang them outside your\nshop?\"\n\n\"Because,\" said the other, simply, \"they are the records of the last\nwar. You mentioned war just now. It happens to be my hobby.\"\n\nWayne lifted his large blue eyes with an infantile wonder.\n\n\"Come with me,\" said Turnbull, shortly, and led him into a parlour at\nthe back of the shop.\n\nIn the centre of the parlour stood a large deal table. On it were set\nrows and rows of the tin and lead soldiers which were part of the\nshopkeeper's stock. The visitor would have thought nothing of it if it\nhad not been for a certain odd grouping of them, which did not seem\neither entirely commercial or entirely haphazard.\n\n\"You are acquainted, no doubt,\" said Turnbull, turning his big eyes\nupon Wayne--\"you are acquainted, no doubt, with the arrangement of the\nAmerican and Nicaraguan troops in the last battle;\" and he waved his\nhand towards the table.\n\n\"I am afraid not,\" said Wayne. \"I--\"\n\n\"Ah! you were at that time occupied too much, perhaps, with the\nDervish affair. You will find it in this corner.\" And he pointed to a\npart of the floor where there was another arrangement of children's\nsoldiers grouped here and there.\n\n\"You seem,\" said Wayne, \"to be interested in military matters.\"\n\n\"I am interested in nothing else,\" answered the toy-shop keeper,\nsimply.\n\nWayne appeared convulsed with a singular, suppressed excitement.\n\n\"In that case,\" he said, \"I may approach you with an unusual degree\nof confidence. Touching the matter of the defence of Notting Hill,\nI--\"\n\n\"Defence of Notting Hill? Yes, sir. This way, sir,\" said Turnbull,\nwith great perturbation. \"Just step into this side room;\" and he led\nWayne into another apartment, in which the table was entirely covered\nwith an arrangement of children's bricks. A second glance at it told\nWayne that the bricks were arranged in the form of a precise and\nperfect plan of Notting Hill. \"Sir,\" said Turnbull, impressively, \"you\nhave, by a kind of accident, hit upon the whole secret of my life. As\na boy, I grew up among the last wars of the world, when Nicaragua was\ntaken and the dervishes wiped out. And I adopted it as a hobby, sir,\nas you might adopt astronomy or bird-stuffing. I had no ill-will to\nany one, but I was interested in war as a science, as a game. And\nsuddenly I was bowled out. The big Powers of the world, having\nswallowed up all the small ones, came to that confounded agreement,\nand there was no more war. There was nothing more for me to do but to\ndo what I do now--to read the old campaigns in dirty old newspapers,\nand to work them out with tin soldiers. One other thing had occurred\nto me. I thought it an amusing fancy to make a plan of how this\ndistrict or ours ought to be defended if it were ever attacked. It\nseems to interest you too.\"\n\n\"If it were ever attacked,\" repeated Wayne, awed into an almost\nmechanical enunciation. \"Mr. Turnbull, it is attacked. Thank Heaven, I\nam bringing to at least one human being the news that is at bottom the\nonly good news to any son of Adam. Your life has not been useless.\nYour work has not been play. Now, when the hair is already grey on\nyour head, Turnbull, you shall have your youth. God has not destroyed,\nHe has only deferred it. Let us sit down here, and you shall explain\nto me this military map of Notting Hill. For you and I have to defend\nNotting Hill together.\"\n\nMr. Turnbull looked at the other for a moment, then hesitated, and\nthen sat down beside the bricks and the stranger. He did not rise\nagain for seven hours, when the dawn broke.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe headquarters of Provost Adam Wayne and his Commander-in-Chief\nconsisted of a small and somewhat unsuccessful milk-shop at the corner\nof Pump Street. The blank white morning had only just begun to break\nover the blank London buildings when Wayne and Turnbull were to be\nfound seated in the cheerless and unswept shop. Wayne had something\nfeminine in his character; he belonged to that class of persons who\nforget their meals when anything interesting is in hand. He had had\nnothing for sixteen hours but hurried glasses of milk, and, with a\nglass standing empty beside him, he was writing and sketching and\ndotting and crossing out with inconceivable rapidity with a pencil and\na piece of paper. Turnbull was of that more masculine type in which a\nsense of responsibility increases the appetite, and with his\nsketch-map beside him he was dealing strenuously with a pile of\nsandwiches in a paper packet, and a tankard of ale from the tavern\nopposite, whose shutters had just been taken down. Neither of them\nspoke, and there was no sound in the living stillness except the\nscratching of Wayne's pencil and the squealing of an aimless-looking\ncat. At length Wayne broke the silence by saying--\n\n\"Seventeen pounds eight shillings and ninepence.\"\n\nTurnbull nodded and put his head in the tankard.\n\n\"That,\" said Wayne, \"is not counting the five pounds you took\nyesterday. What did you do with it?\"\n\n\"Ah, that is rather interesting!\" replied Turnbull, with his mouth\nfull. \"I used that five pounds in a kindly and philanthropic act.\"\n\nWayne was gazing with mystification in his queer and innocent eyes.\n\n\"I used that five pounds,\" continued the other, \"in giving no less\nthan forty little London boys rides in hansom cabs.\"\n\n\"Are you insane?\" asked the Provost.\n\n\"It is only my light touch,\" returned Turnbull. \"These hansom-cab\nrides will raise the tone--raise the tone, my dear fellow--of our\nLondon youths, widen their horizon, brace their nervous system, make\nthem acquainted with the various public monuments of our great city.\nEducation, Wayne, education. How many excellent thinkers have pointed\nout that political reform is useless until we produce a cultured\npopulace. So that twenty years hence, when these boys are grown up--\"\n\n\"Mad!\" said Wayne, laying down his pencil; \"and five pounds gone!\"\n\n\"You are in error,\" explained Turnbull. \"You grave creatures can never\nbe brought to understand how much quicker work really goes with the\nassistance of nonsense and good meals. Stripped of its decorative\nbeauties, my statement was strictly accurate. Last night I gave forty\nhalf-crowns to forty little boys, and sent them all over London to\ntake hansom cabs. I told them in every case to tell the cabman to\nbring them to this spot. In half an hour from now the declaration of\nwar will be posted up. At the same time the cabs will have begun to\ncome in, you will have ordered out the guard, the little boys will\ndrive up in state, we shall commandeer the horses for cavalry, use the\ncabs for barricade, and give the men the choice between serving in our\nranks and detention in our basements and cellars. The little boys we\ncan use as scouts. The main thing is that we start the war with an\nadvantage unknown in all the other armies--horses. And now,\" he said,\nfinishing his beer, \"I will go and drill the troops.\"\n\nAnd he walked out of the milk-shop, leaving the Provost staring.\n\nA minute or two afterwards, the Provost laughed. He only laughed once\nor twice in his life, and then he did it in a queer way as if it were\nan art he had not mastered. Even he saw something funny in the\npreposterous coup of the half-crowns and the little boys. He did not\nsee the monstrous absurdity of the whole policy and the whole war. He\nenjoyed it seriously as a crusade, that is, he enjoyed it far more\nthan any joke can be enjoyed. Turnbull enjoyed it partly as a joke,\neven more perhaps as a reversion from the things he hated--modernity\nand monotony and civilisation. To break up the vast machinery of\nmodern life and use the fragments as engines of war, to make the\nbarricade of omnibuses and points of vantage of chimney-pots, was to\nhim a game worth infinite risk and trouble. He had that rational and\ndeliberate preference which will always to the end trouble the peace\nof the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short life\nand a merry one.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--_The Experiment of Mr. Buck_\n\n\nAn earnest and eloquent petition was sent up to the King signed with\nthe names of Wilson, Barker, Buck, Swindon, and others. It urged that\nat the forthcoming conference to be held in his Majesty's presence\ntouching the final disposition of the property in Pump Street, it\nmight be held not inconsistent with political decorum and with the\nunutterable respect they entertained for his Majesty if they appeared\nin ordinary morning dress, without the costume decreed for them as\nProvosts. So it happened that the company appeared at that council in\nfrock-coats and that the King himself limited his love of ceremony to\nappearing (after his not unusual manner), in evening dress with one\norder--in this case not the Garter, but the button of the Club of Old\nClipper's Best Pals, a decoration obtained (with difficulty) from a\nhalfpenny boy's paper. Thus also it happened that the only spot of\ncolour in the room was Adam Wayne, who entered in great dignity with\nthe great red robes and the great sword.\n\n\"We have met,\" said Auberon, \"to decide the most arduous of modern\nproblems. May we be successful.\" And he sat down gravely.\n\nBuck turned his chair a little, and flung one leg over the other.\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" he said, quite good-humouredly, \"there is only one\nthing I can't understand, and that is why this affair is not settled\nin five minutes. Here's a small property which is worth a thousand to\nus and is not worth a hundred to any one else. We offer the thousand.\nIt's not business-like, I know, for we ought to get it for less, and\nit's not reasonable and it's not fair on us, but I'm damned if I can\nsee why it's difficult.\"\n\n\"The difficulty may be very simply stated,\" said Wayne. \"You may offer\na million and it will be very difficult for you to get Pump Street.\"\n\n\"But look here, Mr. Wayne,\" cried Barker, striking in with a kind of\ncold excitement. \"Just look here. You've no right to take up a\nposition like that. You've a right to stand out for a bigger price,\nbut you aren't doing that. You're refusing what you and every sane man\nknows to be a splendid offer simply from malice or spite--it must be\nmalice or spite. And that kind of thing is really criminal; it's\nagainst the public good. The King's Government would be justified in\nforcing you.\"\n\nWith his lean fingers spread on the table, he stared anxiously at\nWayne's face, which did not move.\n\n\"In forcing you ... it would,\" he repeated.\n\n\"It shall,\" said Buck, shortly, turning to the table with a jerk. \"We\nhave done our best to be decent.\"\n\nWayne lifted his large eyes slowly.\n\n\"Was it my Lord Buck,\" he inquired, \"who said that the King of England\n'shall' do something?\"\n\nBuck flushed and said testily--\n\n\"I mean it must--it ought to. As I say, we've done our best to be\ngenerous; I defy any one to deny it. As it is, Mr. Wayne, I don't want\nto say a word that's uncivil. I hope it's not uncivil to say that you\ncan be, and ought to be, in gaol. It is criminal to stop public works\nfor a whim. A man might as well burn ten thousand onions in his front\ngarden or bring up his children to run naked in the street, as do what\nyou say you have a right to do. People have been compelled to sell\nbefore now. The King could compel you, and I hope he will.\"\n\n\"Until he does,\" said Wayne, calmly, \"the power and government of\nthis great nation is on my side and not yours, and I defy you to defy\nit.\"\n\n\"In what sense,\" cried Barker, with his feverish eyes and hands, \"is\nthe Government on your side?\"\n\nWith one ringing movement Wayne unrolled a great parchment on the\ntable. It was decorated down the sides with wild water-colour sketches\nof vestrymen in crowns and wreaths.\n\n\"The Charter of the Cities,\" he began.\n\nBuck exploded in a brutal oath and laughed.\n\n\"That tomfool's joke. Haven't we had enough--\"\n\n\"And there you sit,\" cried Wayne, springing erect and with a voice\nlike a trumpet, \"with no argument but to insult the King before his\nface.\"\n\nBuck rose also with blazing eyes.\n\n\"I am hard to bully,\" he began--and the slow tones of the King struck\nin with incomparable gravity--\n\n\"My Lord Buck, I must ask you to remember that your King is present.\nIt is not often that he needs to protect himself among his subjects.\"\n\nBarker turned to him with frantic gestures.\n\n\"For God's sake don't back up the madman now,\" he implored. \"Have\nyour joke another time. Oh, for Heaven's sake--\"\n\n\"My Lord Provost of South Kensington,\" said King Auberon, steadily, \"I\ndo not follow your remarks, which are uttered with a rapidity unusual\nat Court. Nor do your well-meant efforts to convey the rest with your\nfingers materially assist me. I say that my Lord Provost of North\nKensington, to whom I spoke, ought not in the presence of his\nSovereign to speak disrespectfully of his Sovereign's ordinances. Do\nyou disagree?\"\n\nBarker turned restlessly in his chair, and Buck cursed without\nspeaking. The King went on in a comfortable voice--\n\n\"My Lord Provost of Notting Hill, proceed.\"\n\nWayne turned his blue eyes on the King, and to every one's surprise\nthere was a look in them not of triumph, but of a certain childish\ndistress.\n\n\"I am sorry, your Majesty,\" he said; \"I fear I was more than equally\nto blame with the Lord Provost of North Kensington. We were debating\nsomewhat eagerly, and we both rose to our feet. I did so first, I am\nashamed to say. The Provost of North Kensington is, therefore,\ncomparatively innocent. I beseech your Majesty to address your rebuke\nchiefly, at least, to me. Mr. Buck is not innocent, for he did no\ndoubt, in the heat of the moment, speak disrespectfully. But the rest\nof the discussion he seems to me to have conducted with great good\ntemper.\"\n\nBuck looked genuinely pleased, for business men are all simple-minded,\nand have therefore that degree of communion with fanatics. The King,\nfor some reason, looked, for the first time in his life, ashamed.\n\n\"This very kind speech of the Provost of Notting Hill,\" began Buck,\npleasantly, \"seems to me to show that we have at least got on to a\nfriendly footing. Now come, Mr. Wayne. Five hundred pounds have been\noffered to you for a property you admit not to be worth a hundred.\nWell, I am a rich man and I won't be outdone in generosity. Let us say\nfifteen hundred pounds, and have done with it. And let us shake\nhands;\" and he rose, glowing and laughing.\n\n\"Fifteen hundred pounds,\" whispered Mr. Wilson of Bayswater; \"can we\ndo fifteen hundred pounds?\"\n\n\"I'll stand the racket,\" said Buck, heartily. \"Mr. Wayne is a\ngentleman and has spoken up for me. So I suppose the negotiations are\nat an end.\"\n\nWayne bowed.\n\n\"They are indeed at an end. I am sorry I cannot sell you the\nproperty.\"\n\n\"What?\" cried Mr. Barker, starting to his feet.\n\n\"Mr. Buck has spoken correctly,\" said the King.\n\n\"I have, I have,\" cried Buck, springing up also; \"I said--\"\n\n\"Mr. Buck has spoken correctly,\" said the King; \"the negotiations are\nat an end.\"\n\nAll the men at the table rose to their feet; Wayne alone rose without\nexcitement.\n\n\"Have I, then,\" he said, \"your Majesty's permission to depart? I have\ngiven my last answer.\"\n\n\"You have it,\" said Auberon, smiling, but not lifting his eyes from\nthe table. And amid a dead silence the Provost of Notting Hill passed\nout of the room.\n\n\"Well?\" said Wilson, turning round to Barker--\"well?\"\n\nBarker shook his head desperately.\n\n\"The man ought to be in an asylum,\" he said. \"But one thing is\nclear--we need not bother further about him. The man can be treated as\nmad.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Buck, turning to him with sombre decisiveness.\n\"You're perfectly right, Barker. He is a good enough fellow, but he\ncan be treated as mad. Let's put it in simple form. Go and tell any\ntwelve men in any town, go and tell any doctor in any town, that there\nis a man offered fifteen hundred pounds for a thing he could sell\ncommonly for four hundred, and that when asked for a reason for not\naccepting it he pleads the inviolate sanctity of Notting Hill and\ncalls it the Holy Mountain. What would they say? What more can we have\non our side than the common sense of everybody? On what else do all\nlaws rest? I'll tell you, Barker, what's better than any further\ndiscussion. Let's send in workmen on the spot to pull down Pump\nStreet. And if old Wayne says a word, arrest him as a lunatic. That's\nall.\"\n\nBarker's eyes kindled.\n\n\"I always regarded you, Buck, if you don't mind my saying so, as a\nvery strong man. I'll follow you.\"\n\n\"So, of course, will I,\" said Wilson.\n\nBuck rose again impulsively.\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" he said, glowing with popularity, \"I beseech your\nMajesty to consider favourably the proposal to which we have committed\nourselves. Your Majesty's leniency, our own offers, have fallen in\nvain on that extraordinary man. He may be right. He may be God. He\nmay be the devil. But we think it, for practical purposes, more\nprobable that he is off his head. Unless that assumption were acted\non, all human affairs would go to pieces. We act on it, and we propose\nto start operations in Notting Hill at once.\"\n\nThe King leaned back in his chair.\n\n\"The Charter of the Cities ...,\" he said with a rich intonation.\n\nBut Buck, being finally serious, was also cautious, and did not again\nmake the mistake of disrespect.\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" he said, bowing, \"I am not here to say a word against\nanything your Majesty has said or done. You are a far better educated\nman than I, and no doubt there were reasons, upon intellectual\ngrounds, for those proceedings. But may I ask you and appeal to your\ncommon good-nature for a sincere answer? When you drew up the Charter\nof the Cities, did you contemplate the rise of a man like Adam Wayne?\nDid you expect that the Charter--whether it was an experiment, or a\nscheme of decoration, or a joke--could ever really come to this--to\nstopping a vast scheme of ordinary business, to shutting up a road,\nto spoiling the chances of cabs, omnibuses, railway stations, to\ndisorganising half a city, to risking a kind of civil war? Whatever\nwere your objects, were they that?\"\n\nBarker and Wilson looked at him admiringly; the King more admiringly\nstill.\n\n\"Provost Buck,\" said Auberon, \"you speak in public uncommonly well. I\ngive you your point with the magnanimity of an artist. My scheme did\nnot include the appearance of Mr. Wayne. Alas! would that my poetic\npower had been great enough.\"\n\n\"I thank your Majesty,\" said Buck, courteously, but quickly. \"Your\nMajesty's statements are always clear and studied; therefore I may\ndraw a deduction. As the scheme, whatever it was, on which you set\nyour heart did not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne, it will\nsurvive his removal. Why not let us clear away this particular Pump\nStreet, which does interfere with our plans, and which does not, by\nyour Majesty's own statement, interfere with yours.\"\n\n\"Caught out!\" said the King, enthusiastically and quite impersonally,\nas if he were watching a cricket match.\n\n\"This man Wayne,\" continued Buck, \"would be shut up by any doctors in\nEngland. But we only ask to have it put before them. Meanwhile no\none's interests, not even in all probability his own, can be really\ndamaged by going on with the improvements in Notting Hill. Not our\ninterests, of course, for it has been the hard and quiet work of ten\nyears. Not the interests of Notting Hill, for nearly all its educated\ninhabitants desire the change. Not the interests of your Majesty, for\nyou say, with characteristic sense, that you never contemplated the\nrise of the lunatic at all. Not, as I say, his own interests, for the\nman has a kind heart and many talents, and a couple of good doctors\nwould probably put him righter than all the free cities and sacred\nmountains in creation. I therefore assume, if I may use so bold a\nword, that your Majesty will not offer any obstacle to our proceeding\nwith the improvements.\"\n\nAnd Mr. Buck sat down amid subdued but excited applause among the\nallies.\n\n\"Mr. Buck,\" said the King, \"I beg your pardon, for a number of\nbeautiful and sacred thoughts, in which you were generally classified\nas a fool. But there is another thing to be considered. Suppose you\nsend in your workmen, and Mr. Wayne does a thing regrettable indeed,\nbut of which, I am sorry to say, I think him quite capable--knocks\ntheir teeth out?\"\n\n\"I have thought of that, your Majesty,\" said Mr. Buck, easily, \"and I\nthink it can simply be guarded against. Let us send in a strong guard\nof, say, a hundred men--a hundred of the North Kensington Halberdiers\"\n(he smiled grimly), \"of whom your Majesty is so fond. Or say a hundred\nand fifty. The whole population of Pump Street, I fancy, is only about\na hundred.\"\n\n\"Still they might stand together and lick you,\" said the King,\ndubiously.\n\n\"Then say two hundred,\" said Buck, gaily.\n\n\"It might happen,\" said the King, restlessly, \"that one Notting Hiller\nfought better than two North Kensingtons.\"\n\n\"It might,\" said Buck, coolly; \"then say two hundred and fifty.\"\n\nThe King bit his lip.\n\n\"And if they are beaten too?\" he said viciously.\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" said Buck, and leaned back easily in his chair,\n\"suppose they are. If anything be clear, it is clear that all fighting\nmatters are mere matters of arithmetic. Here we have a hundred and\nfifty, say, of Notting Hill soldiers. Or say two hundred. If one of\nthem can fight two of us--we can send in, not four hundred, but six\nhundred, and smash him. That is all. It is out of all immediate\nprobability that one of them could fight four of us. So what I say is\nthis. Run no risks. Finish it at once. Send in eight hundred men and\nsmash him--smash him almost without seeing him. And go on with the\nimprovements.\"\n\nAnd Mr. Buck pulled out a bandanna and blew his nose.\n\n\"Do you know, Mr. Buck,\" said the King, staring gloomily at the table,\n\"the admirable clearness of your reason produces in my mind a\nsentiment which I trust I shall not offend you by describing as an\naspiration to punch your head. You irritate me sublimely. What can it\nbe in me? Is it the relic of a moral sense?\"\n\n\"But your Majesty,\" said Barker, eagerly and suavely, \"does not refuse\nour proposals?\"\n\n\"My dear Barker, your proposals are as damnable as your manners. I\nwant to have nothing to do with them. Suppose I stopped them\naltogether. What would happen?\"\n\nBarker answered in a very low voice--\n\n\"Revolution.\"\n\nThe King glanced quickly at the men round the table. They were all\nlooking down silently: their brows were red.\n\nHe rose with a startling suddenness, and an unusual pallor.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he said, \"you have overruled me. Therefore I can speak\nplainly. I think Adam Wayne, who is as mad as a hatter, worth more\nthan a million of you. But you have the force, and, I admit, the\ncommon sense, and he is lost. Take your eight hundred halberdiers and\nsmash him. It would be more sportsmanlike to take two hundred.\"\n\n\"More sportsmanlike,\" said Buck, grimly, \"but a great deal less\nhumane. We are not artists, and streets purple with gore do not catch\nour eye in the right way.\"\n\n\"It is pitiful,\" said Auberon. \"With five or six times their number,\nthere will be no fight at all.\"\n\n\"I hope not,\" said Buck, rising and adjusting his gloves. \"We desire\nno fight, your Majesty. We are peaceable business men.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the King, wearily, \"the conference is at an end at last.\"\n\nAnd he went out of the room before any one else could stir.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nForty workmen, a hundred Bayswater Halberdiers, two hundred from\nSouth, and three from North Kensington, assembled at the foot of\nHolland Walk and marched up it, under the general direction of Barker,\nwho looked flushed and happy in full dress. At the end of the\nprocession a small and sulky figure lingered like an urchin. It was\nthe King.\n\n\"Barker,\" he said at length, appealingly, \"you are an old friend of\nmine--you understand my hobbies as I understand yours. Why can't you\nlet it alone? I hoped that such fun might come out of this Wayne\nbusiness. Why can't you let it alone? It doesn't really so much matter\nto you--what's a road or so? For me it's the one joke that may save me\nfrom pessimism. Take fewer men and give me an hour's fun. Really and\ntruly, James, if you collected coins or humming-birds, and I could buy\none with the price of your road, I would buy it. I collect\nincidents--those rare, those precious things. Let me have one. Pay a\nfew pounds for it. Give these Notting Hillers a chance. Let them\nalone.\"\n\n\"Auberon,\" said Barker, kindly, forgetting all royal titles in a rare\nmoment of sincerity, \"I do feel what you mean. I have had moments when\nthese hobbies have hit me. I have had moments when I have sympathised\nwith your humours. I have had moments, though you may not easily\nbelieve it, when I have sympathised with the madness of Adam Wayne.\nBut the world, Auberon, the real world, is not run on these hobbies.\nIt goes on great brutal wheels of facts--wheels on which you are the\nbutterfly; and Wayne is the fly on the wheel.\"\n\nAuberon's eyes looked frankly at the other's.\n\n\"Thank you, James; what you say is true. It is only a parenthetical\nconsolation to me to compare the intelligence of flies somewhat\nfavourably with the intelligence of wheels. But it is the nature of\nflies to die soon, and the nature of wheels to go on for ever. Go on\nwith the wheel. Good-bye, old man.\"\n\nAnd James Barker went on, laughing, with a high colour, slapping his\nbamboo on his leg.\n\nThe King watched the tail of the retreating regiment with a look of\ngenuine depression, which made him seem more like a baby than ever.\nThen he swung round and struck his hands together.\n\n\"In a world without humour,\" he said, \"the only thing to do is to eat.\nAnd how perfect an exception! How can these people strike dignified\nattitudes, and pretend that things matter, when the total\nludicrousness of life is proved by the very method by which it is\nsupported? A man strikes the lyre, and says, 'Life is real, life is\nearnest,' and then goes into a room and stuffs alien substances into a\nhole in his head. I think Nature was indeed a little broad in her\nhumour in these matters. But we all fall back on the pantomime, as I\nhave in this municipal affair. Nature has her farces, like the act of\neating or the shape of the kangaroo, for the more brutal appetite. She\nkeeps her stars and mountains for those who can appreciate something\nmore subtly ridiculous.\" He turned to his equerry. \"But, as I said\n'eating,' let us have a picnic like two nice little children. Just run\nand bring me a table and a dozen courses or so, and plenty of\nchampagne, and under these swinging boughs, Bowler, we will return to\nNature.\"\n\nIt took about an hour to erect in Holland Lane the monarch's simple\nrepast, during which time he walked up and down and whistled, but\nstill with an unaffected air of gloom. He had really been done out of\na pleasure he had promised himself, and had that empty and sickened\nfeeling which a child has when disappointed of a pantomime. When he\nand the equerry had sat down, however, and consumed a fair amount of\ndry champagne, his spirits began mildly to revive.\n\n\"Things take too long in this world,\" he said. \"I detest all this\nBarkerian business about evolution and the gradual modification of\nthings. I wish the world had been made in six days, and knocked to\npieces again in six more. And I wish I had done it. The joke's good\nenough in a broad way, sun and moon and the image of God, and all\nthat, but they keep it up so damnably long. Did you ever long for a\nmiracle, Bowler?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" said Bowler, who was an evolutionist, and had been\ncarefully brought up.\n\n\"Then I have,\" answered the King. \"I have walked along a street with\nthe best cigar in the cosmos in my mouth, and more Burgundy inside me\nthan you ever saw in your life, and longed that the lamp-post would\nturn into an elephant to save me from the hell of blank existence.\nTake my word for it, my evolutionary Bowler, don't you believe people\nwhen they tell you that people sought for a sign, and believed in\nmiracles because they were ignorant. They did it because they were\nwise, filthily, vilely wise--too wise to eat or sleep or put on their\nboots with patience. This seems delightfully like a new theory of the\norigin of Christianity, which would itself be a thing of no mean\nabsurdity. Take some more wine.\"\n\nThe wind blew round them as they sat at their little table, with its\nwhite cloth and bright wine-cups, and flung the tree-tops of Holland\nPark against each other, but the sun was in that strong temper which\nturns green into gold. The King pushed away his plate, lit a cigar\nslowly, and went on--\n\n\"Yesterday I thought that something next door to a really entertaining\nmiracle might happen to me before I went to amuse the worms. To see\nthat red-haired maniac waving a great sword, and making speeches to\nhis incomparable followers, would have been a glimpse of that Land of\nYouth from which the Fates shut us out. I had planned some quite\ndelightful things. A Congress of Knightsbridge with a treaty, and\nmyself in the chair, and perhaps a Roman triumph, with jolly old\nBarker led in chains. And now these wretched prigs have gone and\nstamped out the exquisite Mr. Wayne altogether, and I suppose they\nwill put him in a private asylum somewhere in their damned humane way.\nThink of the treasures daily poured out to his unappreciative keeper!\nI wonder whether they would let me be his keeper. But life is a vale.\nNever forget at any moment of your existence to regard it in the light\nof a vale. This graceful habit, if not acquired in youth--\"\n\nThe King stopped, with his cigar lifted, for there had slid into his\neyes the startled look of a man listening. He did not move for a few\nmoments; then he turned his head sharply towards the high, thin, and\nlath-like paling which fenced certain long gardens and similar spaces\nfrom the lane. From behind it there was coming a curious scrambling\nand scraping noise, as of a desperate thing imprisoned in this box of\nthin wood. The King threw away his cigar, and jumped on to the table.\nFrom this position he saw a pair of hands hanging with a hungry clutch\non the top of the fence. Then the hands quivered with a convulsive\neffort, and a head shot up between them--the head of one of the\nBayswater Town Council, his eyes and whiskers wild with fear. He swung\nhimself over, and fell on the other side on his face, and groaned\nopenly and without ceasing. The next moment the thin, taut wood of the\nfence was struck as by a bullet, so that it reverberated like a drum,\nand over it came tearing and cursing, with torn clothes and broken\nnails and bleeding faces, twenty men at one rush. The King sprang five\nfeet clear off the table on to the ground. The moment after the table\nwas flung over, sending bottles and glasses flying, and the _debris_\nwas literally swept along the ground by that stream of men pouring\npast, and Bowler was borne along with them, as the King said in his\nfamous newspaper article, \"like a captured bride.\" The great fence\nswung and split under the load of climbers that still scaled and\ncleared it. Tremendous gaps were torn in it by this living artillery;\nand through them the King could see more and more frantic faces, as in\na dream, and more and more men running. They were as miscellaneous as\nif some one had taken the lid off a human dustbin. Some were\nuntouched, some were slashed and battered and bloody, some were\nsplendidly dressed, some tattered and half naked, some were in the\nfantastic garb of the burlesque cities, some in the dullest modern\ndress. The King stared at all of them, but none of them looked at the\nKing. Suddenly he stepped forward.\n\n\"Barker,\" he said, \"what is all this?\"\n\n\"Beaten,\" said the politician--\"beaten all to hell!\" And he plunged\npast with nostrils shaking like a horse's, and more and more men\nplunged after him.\n\nAlmost as he spoke, the last standing strip of fence bowed and\nsnapped, flinging, as from a catapult, a new figure upon the road. He\nwore the flaming red of the halberdiers of Notting Hill, and on his\nweapon there was blood, and in his face victory. In another moment\nmasses of red glowed through the gaps of the fence, and the pursuers,\nwith their halberds, came pouring down the lane. Pursued and pursuers\nalike swept by the little figure with the owlish eyes, who had not\ntaken his hands out of his pockets.\n\nThe King had still little beyond the confused sense of a man caught in\na torrent--the feeling of men eddying by. Then something happened\nwhich he was never able afterwards to describe, and which we cannot\ndescribe for him. Suddenly in the dark entrance, between the broken\ngates of a garden, there appeared framed a flaming figure.\n\nAdam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back, and his mane like\na lion's, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment of\nhis office flapping round him like the red wings of an archangel. And\nthe King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The\ngreat green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind.\nThe sword seemed made for the sunlight. The preposterous masquerade,\nborn of his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. This\nwas the normal, this was sanity, this was nature; and he himself,\nwith his rationality and his detachment and his black frock-coat, he\nwas the exception and the accident--a blot of black upon a world of\ncrimson and gold.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I--_The Battle of the Lamps_\n\n\nMr. Buck, who, though retired, frequently went down to his big drapery\nstores in Kensington High Street, was locking up those premises, being\nthe last to leave. It was a wonderful evening of green and gold, but\nthat did not trouble him very much. If you had pointed it out, he\nwould have agreed seriously, for the rich always desire to be\nartistic.\n\nHe stepped out into the cool air, buttoning up his light yellow coat,\nand blowing great clouds from his cigar, when a figure dashed up to\nhim in another yellow overcoat, but unbuttoned and flying behind him.\n\n\"Hullo, Barker!\" said the draper. \"Any of our summer articles? You're\ntoo late. Factory Acts, Barker. Humanity and progress, my boy.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't chatter,\" cried Barker, stamping. \"We've been beaten.\"\n\n\"Beaten--by what?\" asked Buck, mystified.\n\n\"By Wayne.\"\n\nBuck looked at Barker's fierce white face for the first time, as it\ngleamed in the lamplight.\n\n\"Come and have a drink,\" he said.\n\nThey adjourned to a cushioned and glaring buffet, and Buck established\nhimself slowly and lazily in a seat, and pulled out his cigar-case.\n\n\"Have a smoke,\" he said.\n\nBarker was still standing, and on the fret, but after a moment's\nhesitation, he sat down as if he might spring up again the next\nminute. They ordered drinks in silence.\n\n\"How did it happen?\" asked Buck, turning his big bold eyes on him.\n\n\"How the devil do I know?\" cried Barker. \"It happened like--like a\ndream. How can two hundred men beat six hundred? How can they?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Buck, coolly, \"how did they? You ought to know.\"\n\n\"I don't know; I can't describe,\" said the other, drumming on the\ntable. \"It seemed like this. We were six hundred, and marched with\nthose damned poleaxes of Auberon's--the only weapons we've got. We\nmarched two abreast. We went up Holland Walk, between the high palings\nwhich seemed to me to go straight as an arrow for Pump Street. I was\nnear the tail of the line, and it was a long one. When the end of it\nwas still between the high palings, the head of the line was already\ncrossing Holland Park Avenue. Then the head plunged into the\nnetwork of narrow streets on the other side, and the tail and myself\ncame out on the great crossing. When we also had reached the northern\nside and turned up a small street that points, crookedly as it were,\ntowards Pump Street, the whole thing felt different. The streets\ndodged and bent so much that the head of our line seemed lost\naltogether: it might as well have been in North America. And all this\ntime we hadn't seen a soul.\"\n\n[Illustration: Map of the SEAT of WAR.]\n\nBuck, who was idly dabbing the ash of his cigar on the ash-tray, began\nto move it deliberately over the table, making feathery grey lines, a\nkind of map.\n\n\"But though the little streets were all deserted (which got a trifle\non my nerves), as we got deeper and deeper into them, a thing began to\nhappen that I couldn't understand. Sometimes a long way ahead--three\nturns or corners ahead, as it were--there broke suddenly a sort of\nnoise, clattering, and confused cries, and then stopped. Then, when it\nhappened, something, I can't describe it--a kind of shake or stagger\nwent down the line, as if the line were a live thing, whose head had\nbeen struck, or had been an electric cord. None of us knew why we were\nmoving, but we moved and jostled. Then we recovered, and went on\nthrough the little dirty streets, round corners, and up twisted ways.\nThe little crooked streets began to give me a feeling I can't\nexplain--as if it were a dream. I felt as if things had lost their\nreason, and we should never get out of the maze. Odd to hear me talk\nlike that, isn't it? The streets were quite well-known streets, all\ndown on the map. But the fact remains. I wasn't afraid of something\nhappening. I was afraid of nothing ever happening--nothing ever\nhappening for all God's eternity.\"\n\nHe drained his glass and called for more whisky. He drank it, and went\non.\n\n\"And then something did happen. Buck, it's the solemn truth, that\nnothing has ever happened to you in your life. Nothing had ever\nhappened to me in my life.\"\n\n\"Nothing ever happened!\" said Buck, staring. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Nothing has ever happened,\" repeated Barker, with a morbid obstinacy.\n\"You don't know what a thing happening means? You sit in your office\nexpecting customers, and customers come; you walk in the street\nexpecting friends, and friends meet you; you want a drink, and get it;\nyou feel inclined for a bet, and make it. You expect either to win or\nlose, and you do either one or the other. But things happening!\" and\nhe shuddered ungovernably.\n\n\"Go on,\" said Buck, shortly. \"Get on.\"\n\n\"As we walked wearily round the corners, something happened. When\nsomething happens, it happens first, and you see it afterwards. It\nhappens of itself, and you have nothing to do with it. It proves a\ndreadful thing--that there are other things besides one's self. I can\nonly put it in this way. We went round one turning, two turnings,\nthree turnings, four turnings, five. Then I lifted myself slowly up\nfrom the gutter where I had been shot half senseless, and was beaten\ndown again by living men crashing on top of me, and the world was full\nof roaring, and big men rolling about like nine-pins.\"\n\nBuck looked at his map with knitted brows.\n\n\"Was that Portobello Road?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Barker--\"yes; Portobello Road. I saw it afterwards; but,\nmy God, what a place it was! Buck, have you ever stood and let a six\nfoot of man lash and lash at your head with six feet of pole with six\npounds of steel at the end? Because, when you have had that\nexperience, as Walt Whitman says, 'you re-examine philosophies and\nreligions.'\"\n\n\"I have no doubt,\" said Buck. \"If that was Portobello Road, don't you\nsee what happened?\"\n\n\"I know what happened exceedingly well. I was knocked down four times;\nan experience which, as I say, has an effect on the mental attitude.\nAnd another thing happened, too. I knocked down two men. After the\nfourth fall (there was not much bloodshed--more brutal rushing and\nthrowing--for nobody could use their weapons), after the fourth fall,\nI say, I got up like a devil, and I tore a poleaxe out of a man's hand\nand struck where I saw the scarlet of Wayne's fellows, struck again\nand again. Two of them went over, bleeding on the stones, thank God;\nand I laughed and found myself sprawling in the gutter again, and got\nup again, and struck again, and broke my halberd to pieces. I hurt a\nman's head, though.\"\n\nBuck set down his glass with a bang, and spat out curses through his\nthick moustache.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" asked Barker, stopping, for the man had been\ncalm up to now, and now his agitation was far more violent than his\nown.\n\n\"The matter?\" said Buck, bitterly; \"don't you see how these maniacs\nhave got us? Why should two idiots, one a clown and the other a\nscreaming lunatic, make sane men so different from themselves? Look\nhere, Barker; I will give you a picture. A very well-bred young man of\nthis century is dancing about in a frock-coat. He has in his hands a\nnonsensical seventeenth-century halberd, with which he is trying to\nkill men in a street in Notting Hill. Damn it! don't you see how\nthey've got us? Never mind how you felt--that is how you looked. The\nKing would put his cursed head on one side and call it exquisite. The\nProvost of Notting Hill would put his cursed nose in the air and call\nit heroic. But in Heaven's name what would you have called it--two\ndays before?\"\n\nBarker bit his lip.\n\n\"You haven't been through it, Buck,\" he said. \"You don't understand\nfighting--the atmosphere.\"\n\n\"I don't deny the atmosphere,\" said Buck, striking the table. \"I only\nsay it's their atmosphere. It's Adam Wayne's atmosphere. It's the\natmosphere which you and I thought had vanished from an educated world\nfor ever.\"\n\n\"Well, it hasn't,\" said Barker; \"and if you have any lingering doubts,\nlend me a poleaxe, and I'll show you.\"\n\nThere was a long silence, and then Buck turned to his neighbour and\nspoke in that good-tempered tone that comes of a power of looking\nfacts in the face--the tone in which he concluded great bargains.\n\n\"Barker,\" he said, \"you are right. This old thing--this fighting, has\ncome back. It has come back suddenly and taken us by surprise. So it\nis first blood to Adam Wayne. But, unless reason and arithmetic and\neverything else have gone crazy, it must be next and last blood to us.\nBut when an issue has really arisen, there is only one thing to do--to\nstudy that issue as such and win in it. Barker, since it is fighting,\nwe must understand fighting. I must understand fighting as coolly and\ncompletely as I understand drapery; you must understand fighting as\ncoolly and completely as you understand politics. Now, look at the\nfacts. I stick without hesitation to my original formula. Fighting,\nwhen we have the stronger force, is only a matter of arithmetic. It\nmust be. You asked me just now how two hundred men could defeat six\nhundred. I can tell you. Two hundred men can defeat six hundred when\nthe six hundred behave like fools. When they forget the very\nconditions they are fighting in; when they fight in a swamp as if it\nwere a mountain; when they fight in a forest as if it were a plain;\nwhen they fight in streets without remembering the object of streets.\"\n\n\"What is the object of streets?\" asked Barker.\n\n\"What is the object of supper?\" cried Buck, furiously. \"Isn't it\nobvious? This military science is mere common sense. The object of a\nstreet is to lead from one place to another; therefore all streets\njoin; therefore street fighting is quite a peculiar thing. You\nadvanced into that hive of streets as if you were advancing into an\nopen plain where you could see everything. Instead of that, you were\nadvancing into the bowels of a fortress, with streets pointing at you,\nstreets turning on you, streets jumping out at you, and all in the\nhands of the enemy. Do you know what Portobello Road is? It is the\nonly point on your journey where two side streets run up opposite each\nother. Wayne massed his men on the two sides, and when he had let\nenough of your line go past, cut it in two like a worm. Don't you see\nwhat would have saved you?\"\n\nBarker shook his head.\n\n\"Can't your 'atmosphere' help you?\" asked Buck, bitterly. \"Must I\nattempt explanations in the romantic manner? Suppose that, as you were\nfighting blindly with the red Notting Hillers who imprisoned you on\nboth sides, you had heard a shout from behind them. Suppose, oh,\nromantic Barker! that behind the red tunics you had seen the blue and\ngold of South Kensington taking them in the rear, surrounding them in\ntheir turn and hurling them on to your halberds.\"\n\n\"If the thing had been possible,\" began Barker, cursing.\n\n\"The thing would have been as possible,\" said Buck, simply, \"as simple\nas arithmetic. There are a certain number of street entries that lead\nto Pump Street. There are not nine hundred; there are not nine\nmillion. They do not grow in the night. They do not increase like\nmushrooms. It must be possible, with such an overwhelming force as we\nhave, to advance by all of them at once. In every one of the arteries,\nor approaches, we can put almost as many men as Wayne can put into the\nfield altogether. Once do that, and we have him to demonstration. It\nis like a proposition of Euclid.\"\n\n\"You think that is certain?\" said Barker, anxious, but dominated\ndelightfully.\n\n\"I'll tell you what I think,\" said Buck, getting up jovially. \"I\nthink Adam Wayne made an uncommonly spirited little fight; and I think\nI am confoundedly sorry for him.\"\n\n\"Buck, you are a great man!\" cried Barker, rising also. \"You've\nknocked me sensible again. I am ashamed to say it, but I was getting\nromantic. Of course, what you say is adamantine sense. Fighting, being\nphysical, must be mathematical. We were beaten because we were neither\nmathematical nor physical nor anything else--because we deserved to be\nbeaten. Hold all the approaches, and with our force we must have him.\nWhen shall we open the next campaign?\"\n\n\"Now,\" said Buck, and walked out of the bar.\n\n\"Now!\" cried Barker, following him eagerly. \"Do you mean now? It is so\nlate.\"\n\nBuck turned on him, stamping.\n\n\"Do you think fighting is under the Factory Acts?\" he said; and he\ncalled a cab. \"Notting Hill Gate Station,\" he said; and the two drove\noff.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA genuine reputation can sometimes be made in an hour. Buck, in the\nnext sixty or eighty minutes, showed himself a really great man of\naction. His cab carried him like a thunderbolt from the King to\nWilson, from Wilson to Swindon, from Swindon to Barker again; if his\ncourse was jagged, it had the jaggedness of the lightning. Only two\nthings he carried with him--his inevitable cigar and the map of North\nKensington and Notting Hill. There were, as he again and again pointed\nout, with every variety of persuasion and violence, only nine possible\nways of approaching Pump Street within a quarter of a mile round it;\nthree out of Westbourne Grove, two out of Ladbroke Grove, and four out\nof Notting Hill High Street. And he had detachments of two hundred\neach, stationed at every one of the entrances before the last green of\nthat strange sunset had sunk out of the black sky.\n\nThe sky was particularly black, and on this alone was one false\nprotest raised against the triumphant optimism of the Provost of North\nKensington. He overruled it with his infectious common sense.\n\n\"There is no such thing,\" he said, \"as night in London. You have only\nto follow the line of street lamps. Look, here is the map. Two hundred\npurple North Kensington soldiers under myself march up Ossington\nStreet, two hundred more under Captain Bruce, of the North Kensington\nGuard, up Clanricarde Gardens.[1] Two hundred yellow West Kensingtons\nunder Provost Swindon attack from Pembridge Road. Two hundred more of\nmy men from the eastern streets, leading away from Queen's Road. Two\ndetachments of yellows enter by two roads from Westbourne Grove.\nLastly, two hundred green Bayswaters come down from the North through\nChepstow Place, and two hundred more under Provost Wilson himself,\nthrough the upper part of Pembridge Road. Gentlemen, it is mate in two\nmoves. The enemy must either mass in Pump Street and be cut to pieces;\nor they must retreat past the Gaslight & Coke Co., and rush on my four\nhundred; or they must retreat past St. Luke's Church, and rush on the\nsix hundred from the West. Unless we are all mad, it's plain. Come on.\nTo your quarters and await Captain Brace's signal to advance. Then you\nhave only to walk up a line of gas-lamps and smash this nonsense by\npure mathematics. To-morrow we shall all be civilians again.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: Clanricarde Gardens at this time was no longer a\n_cul-de-sac_, but was connected by Pump Street to Pembridge Square.\nSee map.]\n\nHis optimism glowed like a great fire in the night, and ran round the\nterrible ring in which Wayne was now held helpless. The fight was\nalready over. One man's energy for one hour had saved the city from\nwar.\n\nFor the next ten minutes Buck walked up and down silently beside the\nmotionless clump of his two hundred. He had not changed his appearance\nin any way, except to sling across his yellow overcoat a case with a\nrevolver in it. So that his light-clad modern figure showed up oddly\nbeside the pompous purple uniforms of his halberdiers, which darkly\nbut richly coloured the black night.\n\nAt length a shrill trumpet rang from some way up the street; it was\nthe signal of advance. Buck briefly gave the word, and the whole\npurple line, with its dimly shining steel, moved up the side alley.\nBefore it was a slope of street, long, straight, and shining in the\ndark. It was a sword pointed at Pump Street, the heart at which nine\nother swords were pointed that night.\n\nA quarter of an hour's silent marching brought them almost within\nearshot of any tumult in the doomed citadel. But still there was no\nsound and no sign of the enemy. This time, at any rate, they knew that\nthey were closing in on it mechanically, and they marched on under the\nlamplight and the dark without any of that eerie sense of ignorance\nwhich Barker had felt when entering the hostile country by one avenue\nalone.\n\n\"Halt--point arms!\" cried Buck, suddenly, and as he spoke there came a\nclatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But the halberds were\nlevelled in vain. The figure that rushed up was a messenger from the\ncontingent of the North.\n\n\"Victory, Mr. Buck!\" he cried, panting; \"they are ousted. Provost\nWilson of Bayswater has taken Pump Street.\"\n\nBuck ran forward in his excitement.\n\n\"Then, which way are they retreating? It must be either by St. Luke's\nto meet Swindon, or by the Gas Company to meet us. Run like mad to\nSwindon, and see that the yellows are holding the St. Luke's Road. We\nwill hold this, never fear. We have them in an iron trap. Run!\"\n\nAs the messenger dashed away into the darkness, the great guard of\nNorth Kensington swung on with the certainty of a machine. Yet\nscarcely a hundred yards further their halberd-points again fell in\nline gleaming in the gaslight; for again a clatter of feet was heard\non the stones, and again it proved to be only the messenger.\n\n\"Mr. Provost,\" he said, \"the yellow West Kensingtons have been\nholding the road by St. Luke's for twenty minutes since the capture of\nPump Street. Pump Street is not two hundred yards away; they cannot be\nretreating down that road.\"\n\n\"Then they are retreating down this,\" said Provost Buck, with a final\ncheerfulness, \"and by good fortune down a well-lighted road, though it\ntwists about. Forward!\"\n\nAs they moved along the last three hundred yards of their journey,\nBuck fell, for the first time in his life, perhaps, into a kind of\nphilosophical reverie, for men of his type are always made kindly, and\nas it were melancholy, by success.\n\n\"I am sorry for poor old Wayne, I really am,\" he thought. \"He spoke up\nsplendidly for me at that Council. And he blacked old Barker's eye\nwith considerable spirit. But I don't see what a man can expect when\nhe fights against arithmetic, to say nothing of civilisation. And what\na wonderful hoax all this military genius is! I suspect I've just\ndiscovered what Cromwell discovered, that a sensible tradesman is the\nbest general, and that a man who can buy men and sell men can lead and\nkill them. The thing's simply like adding up a column in a ledger. If\nWayne has two hundred men, he can't put two hundred men in nine\nplaces at once. If they're ousted from Pump Street they're flying\nsomewhere. If they're not flying past the church they're flying past\nthe Works. And so we have them. We business men should have no chance\nat all except that cleverer people than we get bees in their bonnets\nthat prevent them from reasoning properly--so we reason alone. And so\nI, who am comparatively stupid, see things as God sees them, as a vast\nmachine. My God, what's this?\" and he clapped his hands to his eyes\nand staggered back.\n\nThen through the darkness he cried in a dreadful voice--\n\n\"Did I blaspheme God? I am struck blind.\"\n\n\"What?\" wailed another voice behind him, the voice of a certain\nWilfred Jarvis of North Kensington.\n\n\"Blind!\" cried Buck; \"blind!\"\n\n\"I'm blind too!\" cried Jarvis, in an agony.\n\n\"Fools, all of you,\" said a gross voice behind them; \"we're all blind.\nThe lamps have gone out.\"\n\n\"The lamps! But why? where?\" cried Buck, turning furiously in the\ndarkness. \"How are we to get on? How are we to chase the enemy? Where\nhave they gone?\"\n\n\"The enemy went--\" said the rough voice behind, and then stopped\ndoubtfully.\n\n\"Where?\" shouted Buck, stamping like a madman.\n\n\"They went,\" said the gruff voice, \"past the Gas Works, and they've\nused their chance.\"\n\n\"Great God!\" thundered Buck, and snatched at his revolver; \"do you\nmean they've turned out--\"\n\nBut almost before he had spoken the words, he was hurled like a stone\nfrom catapult into the midst of his own men.\n\n\"Notting Hill! Notting Hill!\" cried frightful voices out of the\ndarkness, and they seemed to come from all sides, for the men of North\nKensington, unacquainted with the road, had lost all their bearings in\nthe black world of blindness.\n\n\"Notting Hill! Notting Hill!\" cried the invisible people, and the\ninvaders were hewn down horribly with black steel, with steel that\ngave no glint against any light.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBuck, though badly maimed with the blow of a halberd, kept an angry\nbut splendid sanity. He groped madly for the wall and found it.\nStruggling with crawling fingers along it, he found a side opening and\nretreated into it with the remnants of his men. Their adventures\nduring that prodigious night are not to be described. They did not\nknow whether they were going towards or away from the enemy. Not\nknowing where they themselves were, or where their opponents were, it\nwas mere irony to ask where was the rest of their army. For a thing\nhad descended upon them which London does not know--darkness, which\nwas before the stars were made, and they were as much lost in it as if\nthey had been made before the stars. Every now and then, as those\nfrightful hours wore on, they buffeted in the darkness against living\nmen, who struck at them and at whom they struck, with an idiot fury.\nWhen at last the grey dawn came, they found they had wandered back to\nthe edge of the Uxbridge Road. They found that in those horrible\neyeless encounters, the North Kensingtons and the Bayswaters and the\nWest Kensingtons had again and again met and butchered each other, and\nthey heard that Adam Wayne was barricaded in Pump Street.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--_The Correspondent of the Court Journal_\n\n\nJournalism had become, like most other such things in England under\nthe cautious government and philosophy represented by James Barker,\nsomewhat sleepy and much diminished in importance. This was partly due\nto the disappearance of party government and public speaking, partly\nto the compromise or dead-lock which had made foreign wars impossible,\nbut mostly, of course, to the temper of the whole nation which was\nthat of a people in a kind of back-water. Perhaps the most well known\nof the remaining newspapers was the _Court Journal_, which was\npublished in a dusty but genteel-looking office just out of Kensington\nHigh Street. For when all the papers of a people have been for years\ngrowing more and more dim and decorous and optimistic, the dimmest and\nmost decorous and most optimistic is very likely to win. In the\njournalistic competition which was still going on at the beginning of\nthe twentieth century, the final victor was the _Court Journal_.\n\nFor some mysterious reason the King had a great affection for hanging\nabout in the _Court Journal_ office, smoking a morning cigarette and\nlooking over files. Like all ingrainedly idle men, he was very fond of\nlounging and chatting in places where other people were doing work.\nBut one would have thought that, even in the prosaic England of his\nday, he might have found a more bustling centre.\n\nOn this particular morning, however, he came out of Kensington Palace\nwith a more alert step and a busier air than usual. He wore an\nextravagantly long frock-coat, a pale-green waistcoat, a very full and\n_degage_ black tie, and curious yellow gloves. This was his uniform as\nColonel of a regiment of his own creation, the 1st Decadents Green. It\nwas a beautiful sight to see him drilling them. He walked quickly\nacross the Park and the High Street, lighting his cigarette as he\nwent, and flung open the door of the _Court Journal_ office.\n\n\"You've heard the news, Pally--you've heard the news?\" he said.\n\nThe Editor's name was Hoskins, but the King called him Pally, which\nwas an abbreviation of Paladium of our Liberties.\n\n\"Well, your Majesty,\" said Hoskins, slowly (he was a worried,\ngentlemanly looking person, with a wandering brown beard)--\"well,\nyour Majesty, I have heard rather curious things, but I--\"\n\n\"You'll hear more of them,\" said the King, dancing a few steps of a\nkind of negro shuffle. \"You'll hear more of them, my blood-and-thunder\ntribune. Do you know what I am going to do for you?\"\n\n\"No, your Majesty,\" replied the Paladium, vaguely.\n\n\"I'm going to put your paper on strong, dashing, enterprising lines,\"\nsaid the King. \"Now, where are your posters of last night's defeat?\"\n\n\"I did not propose, your Majesty,\" said the Editor, \"to have any\nposters exactly--\"\n\n\"Paper, paper!\" cried the King, wildly; \"bring me paper as big as a\nhouse. I'll do you posters. Stop, I must take my coat off.\" He began\nremoving that garment with an air of set intensity, flung it playfully\nat Mr. Hoskins' head, entirely enveloping him, and looked at himself\nin the glass. \"The coat off,\" he said, \"and the hat on. That looks\nlike a sub-editor. It is indeed the very essence of sub-editing.\nWell,\" he continued, turning round abruptly, \"come along with that\npaper.\"\n\nThe Paladium had only just extricated himself reverently from the\nfolds of the King's frock-coat, and said bewildered--\n\n\"I am afraid, your Majesty--\"\n\n\"Oh, you've got no enterprise,\" said Auberon. \"What's that roll in the\ncorner? Wall-paper? Decorations for your private residence? Art in the\nhome, Pally? Fling it over here, and I'll paint such posters on the\nback of it that when you put it up in your drawing-room you'll paste\nthe original pattern against the wall.\" And the King unrolled the\nwall-paper, spreading it over the whole floor. \"Now give me the\nscissors,\" he cried, and took them himself before the other could\nstir.\n\nHe slit the paper into about five pieces, each nearly as big as a\ndoor. Then he took a big blue pencil, and went down on his knees on\nthe dusty oil-cloth and began to write on them, in huge letters--\n\n\"FROM THE FRONT.\nGENERAL BUCK DEFEATED.\nDARKNESS, DANGER, AND DEATH.\nWAYNE SAID TO BE IN PUMP STREET.\nFEELING IN THE CITY.\"\n\nHe contemplated it for some time, with his head on one side, and got\nup, with a sigh.\n\n\"Not quite intense enough,\" he said--\"not alarming. I want the _Court\nJournal_ to be feared as well as loved. Let's try something more\nhard-hitting.\" And he went down on his knees again. After sucking the\nblue pencil for some time, he began writing again busily. \"How will\nthis do?\" he said--\n\n     \"WAYNE'S WONDERFUL VICTORY.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" he said, looking up appealingly, and sucking the\npencil--\"I suppose we couldn't say 'wictory'--'Wayne's wonderful\nwictory'? No, no. Refinement, Pally, refinement. I have it.\"\n\n\"WAYNE WINS.\nASTOUNDING FIGHT IN THE DARK.\n_The gas-lamps in their courses fought against Buck._\"\n\n\"(Nothing like our fine old English translation.) What else can we\nsay? Well, anything to annoy old Buck;\" and he added, thoughtfully, in\nsmaller letters--\n\n     \"Rumoured Court-martial on General Buck.\"\n\n\"Those will do for the present,\" he said, and turned them both face\ndownwards. \"Paste, please.\"\n\nThe Paladium, with an air of great terror, brought the paste out of an\ninner room.\n\nThe King slabbed it on with the enjoyment of a child messing with\ntreacle. Then taking one of his huge compositions fluttering in each\nhand, he ran outside, and began pasting them up in prominent positions\nover the front of the office.\n\n\"And now,\" said Auberon, entering again with undiminished\nvivacity--\"now for the leading article.\"\n\nHe picked up another of the large strips of wall-paper, and, laying it\nacross a desk, pulled out a fountain-pen and began writing with\nfeverish intensity, reading clauses and fragments aloud to himself,\nand rolling them on his tongue like wine, to see if they had the pure\njournalistic flavour.\n\n\"The news of the disaster to our forces in Notting Hill, awful as it\nis--awful as it is--(no, distressing as it is), may do some good if it\ndraws attention to the what's-his-name inefficiency (scandalous\ninefficiency, of course) of the Government's preparations. In our\npresent state of information, it would be premature (what a jolly\nword!)--it would be premature to cast any reflections upon the conduct\nof General Buck, whose services upon so many stricken fields (ha,\nha!), and whose honourable scars and laurels, give him a right to have\njudgment upon him at least suspended. But there is one matter on which\nwe must speak plainly. We have been silent on it too long, from\nfeelings, perhaps of mistaken caution, perhaps of mistaken loyalty.\nThis situation would never have arisen but for what we can only call\nthe indefensible conduct of the King. It pains us to say such things,\nbut, speaking as we do in the public interests (I plagiarise from\nBarker's famous epigram), we shall not shrink because of the distress\nwe may cause to any individual, even the most exalted. At this crucial\nmoment of our country, the voice of the People demands with a single\ntongue, 'Where is the King?' What is he doing while his subjects tear\neach other in pieces in the streets of a great city? Are his\namusements and his dissipations (of which we cannot pretend to be\nignorant) so engrossing that he can spare no thought for a perishing\nnation? It is with a deep sense of our responsibility that we warn\nthat exalted person that neither his great position nor his\nincomparable talents will save him in the hour of delirium from the\nfate of all those who, in the madness of luxury or tyranny, have met\nthe English people in the rare day of its wrath.\"\n\n\"I am now,\" said the King, \"going to write an account of the battle by\nan eye-witness.\" And he picked up a fourth sheet of wall-paper. Almost\nat the same moment Buck strode quickly into the office. He had a\nbandage round his head.\n\n\"I was told,\" he said, with his usual gruff civility, \"that your\nMajesty was here.\"\n\n\"And of all things on earth,\" cried the King, with delight, \"here is\nan eye-witness! An eye-witness who, I regret to observe, has at\npresent only one eye to witness with. Can you write us the special\narticle, Buck? Have you a rich style?\"\n\nBuck, with a self-restraint which almost approached politeness, took\nno notice whatever of the King's maddening geniality.\n\n\"I took the liberty, your Majesty,\" he said shortly, \"of asking Mr.\nBarker to come here also.\"\n\nAs he spoke, indeed, Barker came swinging into the office, with his\nusual air of hurry.\n\n\"What is happening now?\" asked Buck, turning to him with a kind of\nrelief.\n\n\"Fighting still going on,\" said Barker. \"The four hundred from West\nKensington were hardly touched last night. They hardly got near the\nplace. Poor Wilson's Bayswater men got cut about, though. They fought\nconfoundedly well. They took Pump Street once. What mad things do\nhappen in the world. To think that of all of us it should be little\nWilson with the red whiskers who came out best.\"\n\nThe King made a note on his paper--\n\n     \"_Romantic Conduct of Mr. Wilson_.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Buck; \"it makes one a bit less proud of one's _h's_.\"\n\nThe King suddenly folded or crumpled up the paper, and put it in his\npocket.\n\n\"I have an idea,\" he said. \"I will be an eye-witness. I will write you\nsuch letters from the Front as will be more gorgeous than the real\nthing. Give me my coat, Paladium. I entered this room a mere King of\nEngland. I leave it, Special War Correspondent of the _Court Journal_.\nIt is useless to stop me, Pally; it is vain to cling to my knees,\nBuck; it is hopeless, Barker, to weep upon my neck. 'When duty\ncalls'--the remainder of the sentiment escapes me. You will receive my\nfirst article this evening by the eight-o'clock post.\"\n\nAnd, running out of the office, he jumped upon a blue Bayswater\nomnibus that went swinging by.\n\n\"Well,\" said Barker, gloomily, \"well.\"\n\n\"Barker,\" said Buck, \"business may be lower than politics, but war is,\nas I discovered last night, a long sight more like business. You\npoliticians are such ingrained demagogues that even when you have a\ndespotism you think of nothing but public opinion. So you learn to\ntack and run, and are afraid of the first breeze. Now we stick to a\nthing and get it. And our mistakes help us. Look here! at this moment\nwe've beaten Wayne.\"\n\n\"Beaten Wayne,\" repeated Barker.\n\n\"Why the dickens not?\" cried the other, flinging out his hands. \"Look\nhere. I said last night that we had them by holding the nine\nentrances. Well, I was wrong. We should have had them but for a\nsingular event--the lamps went out. But for that it was certain. Has\nit occurred to you, my brilliant Barker, that another singular event\nhas happened since that singular event of the lamps going out?\"\n\n\"What event?\" asked Barker.\n\n\"By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen,\" cried out Buck,\nwith a savage air of patience. \"Why the hell aren't we holding all\nthose approaches now, and passing in on them again? It should have\nbeen done at sunrise. The confounded doctor wouldn't let me go out.\nYou were in command.\"\n\nBarker smiled grimly.\n\n\"It is a gratification to me, my dear Buck, to be able to say that we\nanticipated your suggestions precisely. We went as early as possible\nto reconnoitre the nine entrances. Unfortunately, while we were\nfighting each other in the dark, like a lot of drunken navvies, Mr.\nWayne's friends were working very hard indeed. Three hundred yards\nfrom Pump Street, at every one of those entrances, there is a\nbarricade nearly as high as the houses. They were finishing the last,\nin Pembridge Road, when we arrived. Our mistakes,\" he cried bitterly,\nand flung his cigarette on the ground. \"It is not we who learn from\nthem.\"\n\nThere was a silence for a few moments, and Barker lay back wearily in\na chair. The office clock ticked exactly in the stillness.\n\nAt length Barker said suddenly--\n\n\"Buck, does it ever cross your mind what this is all about? The\nHammersmith to Maida Vale thoroughfare was an uncommonly good\nspeculation. You and I hoped a great deal from it. But is it worth it?\nIt will cost us thousands to crush this ridiculous riot. Suppose we\nlet it alone?\"\n\n\"And be thrashed in public by a red-haired madman whom any two doctors\nwould lock up?\" cried out Buck, starting to his feet. \"What do you\npropose to do, Mr. Barker? To apologise to the admirable Mr. Wayne? To\nkneel to the Charter of the Cities? To clasp to your bosom the flag of\nthe Red Lion? To kiss in succession every sacred lamp-post that saved\nNotting Hill? No, by God! My men fought jolly well--they were beaten\nby a trick. And they'll fight again.\"\n\n\"Buck,\" said Barker, \"I always admired you. And you were quite right\nin what you said the other day.\"\n\n\"In what?\"\n\n\"In saying,\" said Barker, rising quietly, \"that we had all got into\nAdam Wayne's atmosphere and out of our own. My friend, the whole\nterritorial kingdom of Adam Wayne extends to about nine streets, with\nbarricades at the end of them. But the spiritual kingdom of Adam Wayne\nextends, God knows where--it extends to this office, at any rate. The\nred-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up is filling this\nroom with his roaring, unreasonable soul. And it was the red-haired\nmadman who said the last word you spoke.\"\n\nBuck walked to the window without replying. \"You understand, of\ncourse,\" he said at last, \"I do not dream of giving in.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe King, meanwhile, was rattling along on the top of his blue\nomnibus. The traffic of London as a whole had not, of course, been\ngreatly disturbed by these events, for the affair was treated as a\nNotting Hill riot, and that area was marked off as if it had been in\nthe hands of a gang of recognised rioters. The blue omnibuses simply\nwent round as they would have done if a road were being mended, and\nthe omnibus on which the correspondent of the _Court Journal_ was\nsitting swept round the corner of Queen's Road, Bayswater.\n\nThe King was alone on the top of the vehicle, and was enjoying the\nspeed at which it was going.\n\n\"Forward, my beauty, my Arab,\" he said, patting the omnibus\nencouragingly, \"fleetest of all thy bounding tribe. Are thy relations\nwith thy driver, I wonder, those of the Bedouin and his steed? Does he\nsleep side by side with thee--\"\n\nHis meditations were broken by a sudden and jarring stoppage. Looking\nover the edge, he saw that the heads of the horses were being held\nby men in the uniform of Wayne's army, and heard the voice of an\nofficer calling out orders.\n\n[Illustration: KING AUBERON DESCENDED FROM THE OMNIBUS WITH DIGNITY.]\n\nKing Auberon descended from the omnibus with dignity. The guard or\npicket of red halberdiers who had stopped the vehicle did not number\nmore than twenty, and they were under the command of a short, dark,\nclever-looking young man, conspicuous among the rest as being clad in\nan ordinary frock-coat, but girt round the waist with a red sash and a\nlong seventeenth-century sword. A shiny silk hat and spectacles\ncompleted the outfit in a pleasing manner.\n\n\"To whom have I the honour of speaking?\" said the King, endeavouring\nto look like Charles I., in spite of personal difficulties.\n\nThe dark man in spectacles lifted his hat with equal gravity.\n\n\"My name is Bowles,\" he said. \"I am a chemist. I am also a captain of\nO company of the army of Notting Hill. I am distressed at having to\nincommode you by stopping the omnibus, but this area is covered by our\nproclamation, and we intercept all traffic. May I ask to whom I have\nthe honour--Why, good gracious, I beg your Majesty's pardon. I am\nquite overwhelmed at finding myself concerned with the King.\"\n\nAuberon put up his hand with indescribable grandeur.\n\n\"Not with the King,\" he said; \"with the special war correspondent of\nthe _Court Journal_.\"\n\n\"I beg your Majesty's pardon,\" began Mr. Bowles, doubtfully.\n\n\"Do you call me Majesty? I repeat,\" said Auberon, firmly, \"I am a\nrepresentative of the press. I have chosen, with a deep sense of\nresponsibility, the name of Pinker. I should desire a veil to be drawn\nover the past.\"\n\n\"Very well, sir,\" said Mr. Bowles, with an air of submission, \"in our\neyes the sanctity of the press is at least as great as that of the\nthrone. We desire nothing better than that our wrongs and our glories\nshould be widely known. May I ask, Mr. Pinker, if you have any\nobjection to being presented to the Provost and to General Turnbull?\"\n\n\"The Provost I have had the honour of meeting,\" said Auberon, easily.\n\"We old journalists, you know, meet everybody. I should be most\ndelighted to have the same honour again. General Turnbull, also, it\nwould be a gratification to know. The younger men are so interesting.\nWe of the old Fleet Street gang lose touch with them.\"\n\n\"Will you be so good as to step this way?\" said the leader of O\ncompany.\n\n\"I am always good,\" said Mr. Pinker. \"Lead on.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--_The Great Army of South Kensington_\n\n\nThe article from the special correspondent of the _Court Journal_\narrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King's\narabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet\nwere illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at\nfirst, as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer\nappeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several\njournalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, \"Try\nAmerican style,\" and the fragment began--\n\n\"The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all very ...;\"\nand then broke off, followed by the note, \"Good sound journalism\nsafer. Try it.\"\n\nThe experiment in good sound journalism appeared to begin--\n\n\"The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by any ...\"\n\nThis also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side was almost\nundecipherable, but seemed to be something like--\n\n\"How about old Steevens and the _mot juste_? E.g....\"\n\n\"Morning winked a little wearily at me over the curt edge of Campden\nHill and its houses with their sharp shadows. Under the abrupt black\ncardboard of the outline, it took some little time to detect colours;\nbut at length I saw a brownish yellow shifting in the obscurity, and I\nknew that it was the guard of Swindon's West Kensington army. They are\nbeing held as a reserve, and lining the whole ridge above the\nBayswater Road. Their camp and their main force is under the great\nWaterworks Tower on Campden Hill. I forgot to say that the Waterworks\nTower looked swart.\n\n\"As I passed them and came over the curve of Silver Street, I saw the\nblue cloudy masses of Barker's men blocking the entrance to the\nhigh-road like a sapphire smoke (good). The disposition of the allied\ntroops, under the general management of Mr. Wilson, appears to be as\nfollows: The Yellow army (if I may so describe the West\nKensingtonians) lies, as I have said, in a strip along the ridge, its\nfurthest point westward being the west side of Campden Hill Road, its\nfurthest point eastward the beginning of Kensington Gardens. The Green\narmy of Wilson lines the Notting Hill High Road itself from Queen's\nRoad to the corner of Pembridge Road, curving round the latter, and\nextending some three hundred yards up towards Westbourne Grove.\nWestbourne Grove itself is occupied by Barker of South Kensington. The\nfourth side of this rough square, the Queen's Road side, is held by\nsome of Buck's Purple warriors.\n\n\"The whole resembles some ancient and dainty Dutch flower-bed. Along\nthe crest of Campden Hill lie the golden crocuses of West Kensington.\nThey are, as it were, the first fiery fringe of the whole. Northward\nlies our hyacinth Barker, with all his blue hyacinths. Round to the\nsouth-west run the green rushes of Wilson of Bayswater, and a line of\nviolet irises (aptly symbolised by Mr. Buck) complete the whole. The\nargent exterior ... (I am losing the style. I should have said\n'Curving with a whisk' instead of merely 'Curving.' Also I should have\ncalled the hyacinths 'sudden.' I cannot keep this up. War is too rapid\nfor this style of writing. Please ask office-boy to insert _mots\njustes_.)\n\n\"The truth is that there is nothing to report. That commonplace\nelement which is always ready to devour all beautiful things (as the\nBlack Pig in the Irish Mythology will finally devour the stars and\ngods); that commonplace element, as I say, has in its Black Piggish\nway devoured finally the chances of any romance in this affair; that\nwhich once consisted of absurd but thrilling combats in the streets,\nhas degenerated into something which is the very prose of warfare--it\nhas degenerated into a siege. A siege may be defined as a peace plus\nthe inconvenience of war. Of course Wayne cannot hold out. There is no\nmore chance of help from anywhere else than of ships from the moon.\nAnd if old Wayne had stocked his street with tinned meats till all his\ngarrison had to sit on them, he couldn't hold out for more than a\nmonth or two. As a matter of melancholy fact, he has done something\nrather like this. He has stocked his street with food until there must\nbe uncommonly little room to turn round. But what is the good? To hold\nout for all that time and then to give in of necessity, what does it\nmean? It means waiting until your victories are forgotten, and then\ntaking the trouble to be defeated. I cannot understand how Wayne can\nbe so inartistic.\n\n\"And how odd it is that one views a thing quite differently when one\nknows it is defeated! I always thought Wayne was rather fine. But now,\nwhen I know that he is done for, there seem to be nothing else but\nWayne. All the streets seem to point at him, all the chimneys seem to\nlean towards him. I suppose it is a morbid feeling; but Pump Street\nseems to be the only part of London that I feel physically. I suppose,\nI say, that it is morbid. I suppose it is exactly how a man feels\nabout his heart when his heart is weak. 'Pump Street'--the heart is a\npump. And I am drivelling.\n\n\"Our finest leader at the front is, beyond all question, General\nWilson. He has adopted alone among the other Provosts the uniform of\nhis own halberdiers, although that fine old sixteenth-century garb was\nnot originally intended to go with red side-whiskers. It was he who,\nagainst a most admirable and desperate defence, broke last night into\nPump Street and held it for at least half an hour. He was afterwards\nexpelled from it by General Turnbull, of Notting Hill, but only after\ndesperate fighting and the sudden descent of that terrible darkness\nwhich proved so much more fatal to the forces of General Buck and\nGeneral Swindon.\n\n\"Provost Wayne himself, with whom I had, with great good fortune, a\nmost interesting interview, bore the most eloquent testimony to the\nconduct of General Wilson and his men. His precise words are as\nfollows: 'I have bought sweets at his funny little shop when I was\nfour years old, and ever since. I never noticed anything, I am ashamed\nto say, except that he talked through his nose, and didn't wash\nhimself particularly. And he came over our barricade like a devil from\nhell.' I repeated this speech to General Wilson himself, with some\ndelicate improvements, and he seemed pleased with it. He does not,\nhowever, seem pleased with anything so much just now as he is with the\nwearing of a sword. I have it from the front on the best authority\nthat General Wilson was not completely shaved yesterday. It is\nbelieved in military circles that he is growing a moustache....\n\n\"As I have said, there is nothing to report. I walk wearily to the\npillar-box at the corner of Pembridge Road to post my copy. Nothing\nwhatever has happened, except the preparations for a particularly long\nand feeble siege, during which I trust I shall not be required to be\nat the Front. As I glance up Pembridge Road in the growing dusk, the\naspect of that road reminds me that there is one note worth adding.\nGeneral Buck has suggested, with characteristic acumen, to General\nWilson that, in order to obviate the possibility of such a catastrophe\nas overwhelmed the allied forces in the last advance on Notting Hill\n(the catastrophe, I mean, of the extinguished lamps), each soldier\nshould have a lighted lantern round his neck. This is one of the\nthings which I really admire about General Buck. He possesses what\npeople used to mean by 'the humility of the man of science,' that is,\nhe learns steadily from his mistakes. Wayne may score off him in some\nother way, but not in that way. The lanterns look like fairy lights as\nthey curve round the end of Pembridge Road.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"_Later_.--I write with some difficulty, because the blood will run\ndown my face and make patterns on the paper. Blood is a very beautiful\nthing; that is why it is concealed. If you ask why blood runs down my\nface, I can only reply that I was kicked by a horse. If you ask me\nwhat horse, I can reply with some pride that it was a war-horse. If\nyou ask me how a war-horse came on the scene in our simple pedestrian\nwarfare, I am reduced to the necessity, so painful to a special\ncorrespondent, of recounting my experiences.\n\n\"I was, as I have said, in the very act of posting my copy at the\npillar-box, and of glancing as I did so up the glittering curve of\nPembridge Road, studded with the lights of Wilson's men. I don't know\nwhat made me pause to examine the matter, but I had a fancy that the\nline of lights, where it melted into the indistinct brown twilight,\nwas more indistinct than usual. I was almost certain that in a certain\nstretch of the road where there had been five lights there were now\nonly four. I strained my eyes; I counted them again, and there were\nonly three. A moment after there were only two; an instant after only\none; and an instant after that the lanterns near to me swung like\njangled bells, as if struck suddenly. They flared and fell; and for\nthe moment the fall of them was like the fall of the sun and stars out\nof heaven. It left everything in a primal blindness. As a matter of\nfact, the road was not yet legitimately dark. There were still red\nrays of a sunset in the sky, and the brown gloaming was still warmed,\nas it were, with a feeling as of firelight. But for three seconds\nafter the lanterns swung and sank, I saw in front of me a blackness\nblocking the sky. And with the fourth second I knew that this\nblackness which blocked the sky was a man on a great horse; and I was\ntrampled and tossed aside as a swirl of horsemen swept round the\ncorner. As they turned I saw that they were not black, but scarlet;\nthey were a sortie of the besieged, Wayne riding ahead.\n\n\"I lifted myself from the gutter, blinded with blood from a very\nslight skin-wound, and, queerly enough, not caring either for the\nblindness or for the slightness of the wound. For one mortal minute\nafter that amazing cavalcade had spun past, there was dead stillness\non the empty road. And then came Barker and all his halberdiers\nrunning like devils in the track of them. It had been their business\nto guard the gate by which the sortie had broken out; but they had not\nreckoned, and small blame to them, on cavalry. As it was, Barker and\nhis men made a perfectly splendid run after them, almost catching\nWayne's horses by the tails.\n\n\"Nobody can understand the sortie. It consists only of a small number\nof Wayne's garrison. Turnbull himself, with the vast mass of it, is\nundoubtedly still barricaded in Pump Street. Sorties of this kind are\nnatural enough in the majority of historical sieges, such as the siege\nof Paris in 1870, because in such cases the besieged are certain of\nsome support outside. But what can be the object of it in this case?\nWayne knows (or if he is too mad to know anything, at least Turnbull\nknows) that there is not, and never has been, the smallest chance of\nsupport for him outside; that the mass of the sane modern inhabitants\nof London regard his farcical patriotism with as much contempt as they\ndo the original idiotcy that gave it birth--the folly of our miserable\nKing. What Wayne and his horsemen are doing nobody can even\nconjecture. The general theory round here is that he is simply a\ntraitor, and has abandoned the besieged. But all such larger but yet\nmore soluble riddles are as nothing compared to the one small but\nunanswerable riddle: Where did they get the horses?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"_Later_.--I have heard a most extraordinary account of the origin of\nthe appearance of the horses. It appears that that amazing person,\nGeneral Turnbull, who is now ruling Pump Street in the absence of\nWayne, sent out, on the morning of the declaration of war, a vast\nnumber of little boys (or cherubs of the gutter, as we pressmen say),\nwith half-crowns in their pockets, to take cabs all over London. No\nless than a hundred and sixty cabs met at Pump Street; were\ncommandeered by the garrison. The men were set free, the cabs used to\nmake barricades, and the horses kept in Pump Street, where they were\nfed and exercised for several days, until they were sufficiently\nrapid and efficient to be used for this wild ride out of the town. If\nthis is so, and I have it on the best possible authority, the method\nof the sortie is explained. But we have no explanation of its object.\nJust as Barker's Blues were swinging round the corner after them, they\nwere stopped, but not by an enemy; only by the voice of one man, and\nhe a friend. Red Wilson of Bayswater ran alone along the main road\nlike a madman, waving them back with a halberd snatched from a\nsentinel. He was in supreme command, and Barker stopped at the corner,\nstaring and bewildered. We could hear Wilson's voice loud and distinct\nout of the dusk, so that it seemed strange that the great voice should\ncome out of the little body. 'Halt, South Kensington! Guard this\nentry, and prevent them returning. I will pursue. Forward, the Green\nGuards!'\n\n\"A wall of dark blue uniforms and a wood of pole-axes was between me\nand Wilson, for Barker's men blocked the mouth of the road in two\nrigid lines. But through them and through the dusk I could hear the\nclear orders and the clank of arms, and see the green army of Wilson\nmarching by towards the west. They were our great fighting-men. Wilson\nhad filled them with his own fire; in a few days they had become\nveterans. Each of them wore a silver medal of a pump, to boast that\nthey alone of all the allied armies had stood victorious in Pump\nStreet.\n\n\"I managed to slip past the detachment of Barker's Blues, who are\nguarding the end of Pembridge Road, and a sharp spell of running\nbrought me to the tail of Wilson's green army as it swung down the\nroad in pursuit of the flying Wayne. The dusk had deepened into almost\ntotal darkness; for some time I only heard the throb of the marching\npace. Then suddenly there was a cry, and the tall fighting men were\nflung back on me, almost crushing me, and again the lanterns swung and\njingled, and the cold nozzles of great horses pushed into the press of\nus. They had turned and charged us.\n\n\"'You fools!' came the voice of Wilson, cleaving our panic with a\nsplendid cold anger. 'Don't you see? the horses have no riders!'\n\n\"It was true. We were being plunged at by a stampede of horses with\nempty saddles. What could it mean? Had Wayne met some of our men and\nbeen defeated? Or had he flung these horses at us as some kind of ruse\nor mad new mode of warfare, such as he seemed bent on inventing? Or\ndid he and his men want to get away in disguise? Or did they want to\nhide in houses somewhere?\n\n\"Never did I admire any man's intellect (even my own) so much as I did\nWilson's at that moment. Without a word, he simply pointed the halberd\n(which he still grasped) to the southern side of the road. As you\nknow, the streets running up to the ridge of Campden Hill from the\nmain road are peculiarly steep, they are more like sudden flights of\nstairs. We were just opposite Aubrey Road, the steepest of all; up\nthat it would have been far more difficult to urge half-trained horses\nthan to run up on one's feet.\n\n\"'Left wheel!' hallooed Wilson. 'They have gone up here,' he added to\nme, who happened to be at his elbow.\n\n\"'Why?' I ventured to ask.\n\n\"'Can't say for certain,' replied the Bayswater General. 'They've gone\nup here in a great hurry, anyhow. They've simply turned their horses\nloose, because they couldn't take them up. I fancy I know. I fancy\nthey're trying to get over the ridge to Kensingston or Hammersmith, or\nsomewhere, and are striking up here because it's just beyond the end\nof our line. Damned fools, not to have gone further along the road,\nthough. They've only just shaved our last outpost. Lambert is hardly\nfour hundred yards from here. And I've sent him word.'\n\n\"'Lambert!' I said. 'Not young Wilfrid Lambert--my old friend.'\n\n\"'Wilfrid Lambert's his name,' said the General; 'used to be a \"man\nabout town;\" silly fellow with a big nose. That kind of man always\nvolunteers for some war or other; and what's funnier, he generally\nisn't half bad at it. Lambert is distinctly good. The yellow West\nKensingtons I always reckoned the weakest part of the army; but he has\npulled them together uncommonly well, though he's subordinate to\nSwindon, who's a donkey. In the attack from Pembridge Road the other\nnight he showed great pluck.'\n\n\"'He has shown greater pluck than that,' I said. 'He has criticised my\nsense of humour. That was his first engagement.'\n\n\"This remark was, I am sorry to say, lost on the admirable commander\nof the allied forces. We were in the act of climbing the last half of\nAubrey Road, which is so abrupt a slope that it looks like an\nold-fashioned map leaning up against the wall. There are lines of\nlittle trees, one above the other, as in the old-fashioned map.\n\n\"We reached the top of it, panting somewhat, and were just about to\nturn the corner by a place called (in chivalrous anticipation of our\nwars of sword and axe) Tower Crecy, when we were suddenly knocked in\nthe stomach (I can use no other term) by a horde of men hurled back\nupon us. They wore the red uniform of Wayne; their halberds were\nbroken; their foreheads bleeding; but the mere impetus of their\nretreat staggered us as we stood at the last ridge of the slope.\n\n\"'Good old Lambert!' yelled out suddenly the stolid Mr. Wilson of\nBayswater, in an uncontrollable excitement. 'Damned jolly old Lambert!\nHe's got there already! He's driving them back on us! Hurrah! hurrah!\nForward, the Green Guards!'\n\n\"We swung round the corner eastwards, Wilson running first,\nbrandishing the halberd--\n\n\"Will you pardon a little egotism? Every one likes a little egotism,\nwhen it takes the form, as mine does in this case, of a disgraceful\nconfession. The thing is really a little interesting, because it shows\nhow the merely artistic habit has bitten into men like me. It was the\nmost intensely exciting occurrence that had ever come to me in my\nlife; and I was really intensely excited about it. And yet, as we\nturned that corner, the first impression I had was of something that\nhad nothing to do with the fight at all. I was stricken from the sky\nas by a thunderbolt, by the height of the Waterworks Tower on Campden\nHill. I don't know whether Londoners generally realise how high it\nlooks when one comes out, in this way, almost immediately under it.\nFor the second it seemed to me that at the foot of it even human war\nwas a triviality. For the second I felt as if I had been drunk with\nsome trivial orgie, and that I had been sobered by the shock of that\nshadow. A moment afterwards, I realised that under it was going on\nsomething more enduring than stone, and something wilder than the\ndizziest height--the agony of man. And I knew that, compared to that,\nthis overwhelming tower was itself a triviality; it was a mere stalk\nof stone which humanity could snap like a stick.\n\n\"I don't know why I have talked so much about this silly old\nWaterworks Tower, which at the very best was only a tremendous\nbackground. It was that, certainly, a sombre and awful landscape,\nagainst which our figures were relieved. But I think the real reason\nwas, that there was in my own mind so sharp a transition from the\ntower of stone to the man of flesh. For what I saw first when I had\nshaken off, as it were, the shadow of the tower, was a man, and a man\nI knew.\n\n\"Lambert stood at the further corner of the street that curved round\nthe tower, his figure outlined in some degree by the beginning of\nmoonrise. He looked magnificent, a hero; but he looked something much\nmore interesting than that. He was, as it happened, in almost\nprecisely the same swaggering attitude in which he had stood nearly\nfifteen years ago, when he swung his walking-stick and struck it into\nthe ground, and told me that all my subtlety was drivel. And, upon my\nsoul, I think he required more courage to say that than to fight as he\ndoes now. For then he was fighting against something that was in the\nascendant, fashionable, and victorious. And now he is fighting (at the\nrisk of his life, no doubt) merely against something which is already\ndead, which is impossible, futile; of which nothing has been more\nimpossible and futile than this very sortie which has brought him into\ncontact with it. People nowadays allow infinitely too little for the\npsychological sense of victory as a factor in affairs. Then he was\nattacking the degraded but undoubtedly victorious Quin; now he is\nattacking the interesting but totally extinguished Wayne.\n\n\"His name recalls me to the details of the scene. The facts were\nthese. A line of red halberdiers, headed by Wayne, were marching up\nthe street, close under the northern wall, which is, in fact, the\nbottom of a sort of dyke or fortification of the Waterworks. Lambert\nand his yellow West Kensingtons had that instant swept round the\ncorner and had shaken the Waynites heavily, hurling back a few of the\nmore timid, as I have just described, into our very arms. When our\nforce struck the tail of Wayne's, every one knew that all was up with\nhim. His favourite military barber was struck down. His grocer was\nstunned. He himself was hurt in the thigh, and reeled back against the\nwall. We had him in a trap with two jaws. 'Is that you?' shouted\nLambert, genially, to Wilson, across the hemmed-in host of Notting\nHill. 'That's about the ticket,' replied General Wilson; 'keep them\nunder the wall.'\n\n\"The men of Notting Hill were falling fast. Adam Wayne threw up his\nlong arms to the wall above him, and with a spring stood upon it; a\ngigantic figure against the moon. He tore the banner out of the hands\nof the standard-bearer below him, and shook it out suddenly above our\nheads, so that it was like thunder in the heavens.\n\n\"'Round the Red Lion!' he cried. 'Swords round the Red Lion! Halberds\nround the Red Lion! They are the thorns round rose.'\n\n\"His voice and the crack of the banner made a momentary rally, and\nLambert, whose idiotic face was almost beautiful with battle, felt it\nas by an instinct, and cried--\n\n\"'Drop your public-house flag, you footler! Drop it!'\n\n\"'The banner of the Red Lion seldom stoops,' said Wayne, proudly,\nletting it out luxuriantly on the night wind.\n\n\"The next moment I knew that poor Adam's sentimental theatricality had\ncost him much. Lambert was on the wall at a bound, his sword in his\nteeth, and had slashed at Wayne's head before he had time to draw his\nsword, his hands being busy with the enormous flag. He stepped back\nonly just in time to avoid the first cut, and let the flag-staff fall,\nso that the spear-blade at the end of it pointed to Lambert.\n\n\"'The banner stoops,' cried Wayne, in a voice that must have startled\nstreets. 'The banner of Notting Hill stoops to a hero.' And with the\nwords he drove the spear-point and half the flag-staff through\nLambert's body and dropped him dead upon the road below, a stone upon\nthe stones of the street.\n\n\"'Notting Hill! Notting Hill!' cried Wayne, in a sort of divine rage.\n'Her banner is all the holier for the blood of a brave enemy! Up on\nthe wall, patriots! Up on the wall! Notting Hill!'\n\n\"With his long strong arm he actually dragged a man up on to the wall\nto be silhouetted against the moon, and more and more men climbed up\nthere, pulled themselves and were pulled, till clusters and crowds of\nthe half-massacred men of Pump Street massed upon the wall above us.\n\n\"'Notting Hill! Notting Hill!' cried Wayne, unceasingly.\n\n\"'Well, what about Bayswater?' said a worthy working-man in Wilson's\narmy, irritably. 'Bayswater for ever!'\n\n\"'We have won!' cried Wayne, striking his flag-staff in the ground.\n'Bayswater for ever! We have taught our enemies patriotism!'\n\n\"'Oh, cut these fellows up and have done with it!' cried one of\nLambert's lieutenants, who was reduced to something bordering on\nmadness by the responsibility of succeeding to the command.\n\n\"'Let us by all means try,' said Wilson, grimly; and the two armies\nclosed round the third.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I simply cannot describe what followed. I am sorry, but there is such\na thing as physical fatigue, as physical nausea, and, I may add, as\nphysical terror. Suffice it to say that the above paragraph was\nwritten about 11 p.m., and that it is now about 2 a.m., and that the\nbattle is not finished, and is not likely to be. Suffice it further to\nsay that down the steep streets which lead from the Waterworks Tower\nto the Notting Hill High Road, blood has been running, and is running,\nin great red serpents, that curl out into the main thoroughfare and\nshine in the moon.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"_Later._--The final touch has been given to all this terrible\nfutility. Hours have passed; morning has broken; men are still swaying\nand fighting at the foot of the tower and round the corner of Aubrey\nRoad; the fight has not finished. But I know it is a farce.\n\n\"News has just come to show that Wayne's amazing sortie, followed by\nthe amazing resistance through a whole night on the wall of the\nWaterworks, is as if it had not been. What was the object of that\nstrange exodus we shall probably never know, for the simple reason\nthat every one who knew will probably be cut to pieces in the course\nof the next two or three hours.\n\n\"I have heard, about three minutes ago, that Buck and Buck's methods\nhave won after all. He was perfectly right, of course, when one comes\nto think of it, in holding that it was physically impossible for a\nstreet to defeat a city. While we thought he was patrolling the\neastern gates with his Purple army; while we were rushing about the\nstreets and waving halberds and lanterns; while poor old Wilson was\nscheming like Moltke and fighting like Achilles to entrap the wild\nProvost of Notting Hill--Mr. Buck, retired draper, has simply driven\ndown in a hansom cab and done something about as plain as butter and\nabout as useful and nasty. He has gone down to South Kensington,\nBrompton, and Fulham, and by spending about four thousand pounds of\nhis private means, has raised an army of nearly as many men; that is\nto say, an army big enough to beat, not only Wayne, but Wayne and all\nhis present enemies put together. The army, I understand, is encamped\nalong High Street, Kensington, and fills it from the Church to Addison\nRoad Bridge. It is to advance by ten different roads uphill to the\nnorth.\n\n\"I cannot endure to remain here. Everything makes it worse than it\nneed be. The dawn, for instance, has broken round Campden Hill;\nsplendid spaces of silver, edged with gold, are torn out of the sky.\nWorse still, Wayne and his men feel the dawn; their faces, though\nbloody and pale, are strangely hopeful ... insupportably pathetic.\nWorst of all, for the moment they are winning. If it were not for Buck\nand the new army they might just, and only just, win.\n\n\"I repeat, I cannot stand it. It is like watching that wonderful play\nof old Maeterlinck's (you know my partiality for the healthy, jolly\nold authors of the nineteenth century), in which one has to watch the\nquiet conduct of people inside a parlour, while knowing that the very\nmen are outside the door whose word can blast it all with tragedy. And\nthis is worse, for the men are not talking, but writhing and bleeding\nand dropping dead for a thing that is already settled--and settled\nagainst them. The great grey masses of men still toil and tug and\nsway hither and thither around the great grey tower; and the tower is\nstill motionless, as it will always be motionless. These men will be\ncrushed before the sun is set; and new men will arise and be crushed,\nand new wrongs done, and tyranny will always rise again like the sun,\nand injustice will always be as fresh as the flowers of spring. And\nthe stone tower will always look down on it. Matter, in its brutal\nbeauty, will always look down on those who are mad enough to consent\nto die, and yet more mad, since they consent to live.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus ended abruptly the first and last contribution of the Special\nCorrespondent of the _Court Journal_ to that valued periodical.\n\nThe Correspondent himself, as has been said, was simply sick and\ngloomy at the last news of the triumph of Buck. He slouched sadly down\nthe steep Aubrey Road, up which he had the night before run in so\nunusual an excitement, and strolled out into the empty dawn-lit main\nroad, looking vaguely for a cab. He saw nothing in the vacant space\nexcept a blue-and-gold glittering thing, running very fast, which\nlooked at first like a very tall beetle, but turned out, to his great\nastonishment, to be Barker.\n\n\"Have you heard the good news?\" asked that gentleman.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Quin, with a measured voice. \"I have heard the glad\ntidings of great joy. Shall we take a hansom down to Kensington? I see\none over there.\"\n\nThey took the cab, and were, in four minutes, fronting the ranks of\nthe multitudinous and invincible army. Quin had not spoken a word all\nthe way, and something about him had prevented the essentially\nimpressionable Barker from speaking either.\n\nThe great army, as it moved up Kensington High Street, calling many\nheads to the numberless windows, for it was long indeed--longer than\nthe lives of most of the tolerably young--since such an army had been\nseen in London. Compared with the vast organisation which was now\nswallowing up the miles, with Buck at its head as leader, and the King\nhanging at its tail as journalist, the whole story of our problem was\ninsignificant. In the presence of that army the red Notting Hills and\nthe green Bayswaters were alike tiny and straggling groups. In its\npresence the whole struggle round Pump Street was like an ant-hill\nunder the hoof of an ox. Every man who felt or looked at that\ninfinity of men knew that it was the triumph of Buck's brutal\narithmetic. Whether Wayne was right or wrong, wise or foolish, was\nquite a fair matter for discussion. But it was a matter of history. At\nthe foot of Church Street, opposite Kensington Church, they paused in\ntheir glowing good humour.\n\n\"Let us send some kind of messenger or herald up to them,\" said Buck,\nturning to Barker and the King. \"Let us send and ask them to cave in\nwithout more muddle.\"\n\n\"What shall we say to them?\" said Barker, doubtfully.\n\n\"The facts of the case are quite sufficient,\" rejoined Buck. \"It is\nthe facts of the case that make an army surrender. Let us simply say\nthat our army that is fighting their army, and their army that is\nfighting our army, amount altogether to about a thousand men. Say that\nwe have four thousand. It is very simple. Of the thousand fighting,\nthey have at the very most, three hundred, so that, with those three\nhundred, they have now to fight four thousand seven hundred men. Let\nthem do it if it amuses them.\"\n\nAnd the Provost of North Kensington laughed.\n\nThe herald who was despatched up Church Street in all the pomp of the\nSouth Kensington blue and gold, with the Three Birds on his tabard,\nwas attended by two trumpeters.\n\n\"What will they do when they consent?\" asked Barker, for the sake of\nsaying something in the sudden stillness of that immense army.\n\n\"I know my Wayne very well,\" said Buck, laughing. \"When he submits he\nwill send a red herald flaming with the Lion of Notting Hill. Even\ndefeat will be delightful to him, since it is formal and romantic.\"\n\nThe King, who had strolled up to the head of the line, broke silence\nfor the first time.\n\n\"I shouldn't wonder,\" he said, \"if he defied you, and didn't send the\nherald after all. I don't think you do know your Wayne quite so well\nas you think.\"\n\n\"All right, your Majesty,\" said Buck, easily; \"if it isn't\ndisrespectful, I'll put my political calculations in a very simple\nform. I'll lay you ten pounds to a shilling the herald comes with the\nsurrender.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Auberon. \"I may be wrong, but it's my notion of Adam\nWayne that he'll die in his city, and that, till he is dead, it will\nnot be a safe property.\"\n\n\"The bet's made, your Majesty,\" said Buck.\n\nAnother long silence ensued, in the course of which Barker alone, amid\nthe motionless army, strolled and stamped in his restless way.\n\nThen Buck suddenly leant forward.\n\n\"It's taking your money, your Majesty,\" he said. \"I knew it was. There\ncomes the herald from Adam Wayne.\"\n\n\"It's not,\" cried the King, peering forward also. \"You brute, it's a\nred omnibus.\"\n\n\"It's not,\" said Buck, calmly; and the King did not answer, for down\nthe centre of the spacious and silent Church Street was walking,\nbeyond question, the herald of the Red Lion, with two trumpeters.\n\nBuck had something in him which taught him how to be magnanimous. In\nhis hour of success he felt magnanimous towards Wayne, whom he really\nadmired; magnanimous towards the King, off whom he had scored so\npublicly; and, above all, magnanimous towards Barker, who was the\ntitular leader of this vast South Kensington army, which his own\ntalent had evoked.\n\n\"General Barker,\" he said, bowing, \"do you propose now to receive the\nmessage from the besieged?\"\n\nBarker bowed also, and advanced towards the herald.\n\n\"Has your master, Mr. Adam Wayne, received our request for surrender?\"\nhe asked.\n\nThe herald conveyed a solemn and respectful affirmative.\n\nBarker resumed, coughing slightly, but encouraged.\n\n\"What answer does your master send?\"\n\nThe herald again inclined himself submissively, and answered in a kind\nof monotone.\n\n\"My message is this. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting Hill,\nunder the charter of King Auberon and the laws of God and all mankind,\nfree and of a free city, greets James Barker, Lord High Provost of\nSouth Kensington, by the same rights free and honourable, leader of\nthe army of the South. With all friendly reverence, and with all\nconstitutional consideration, he desires James Barker to lay down his\narms, and the whole army under his command to lay down their arms\nalso.\"\n\nBefore the words were ended the King had run forward into the open\nspace with shining eyes. The rest of the staff and the forefront of\nthe army were literally struck breathless. When they recovered they\nbegan to laugh beyond restraint; the revulsion was too sudden.\n\n\"The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill,\" continued the herald, \"does\nnot propose, in the event of your surrender, to use his victory for\nany of those repressive purposes which others have entertained against\nhim. He will leave you your free laws and your free cities, your flags\nand your governments. He will not destroy the religion of South\nKensington, or crush the old customs of Bayswater.\"\n\nAn irrepressible explosion of laughter went up from the forefront of\nthe great army.\n\n\"The King must have had something to do with this humour,\" said Buck,\nslapping his thigh. \"It's too deliciously insolent. Barker, have a\nglass of wine.\"\n\nAnd in his conviviality he actually sent a soldier across to the\nrestaurant opposite the church and brought out two glasses for a\ntoast.\n\nWhen the laughter had died down, the herald continued quite\nmonotonously--\n\n\"In the event of your surrendering your arms and dispersing under the\nsuperintendence of our forces, these local rights of yours shall be\ncarefully observed. In the event of your not doing so, the Lord High\nProvost of Notting Hill desires to announce that he has just captured\nthe Waterworks Tower, just above you, on Campden Hill, and that within\nten minutes from now, that is, on the reception through me of your\nrefusal, he will open the great reservoir and flood the whole valley\nwhere you stand in thirty feet of water. God save King Auberon!\"\n\nBuck had dropped his glass and sent a great splash of wine over the\nroad.\n\n\"But--but--\" he said; and then by a last and splendid effort of his\ngreat sanity, looked the facts in the face.\n\n\"We must surrender,\" he said. \"You could do nothing against fifty\nthousand tons of water coming down a steep hill, ten minutes hence. We\nmust surrender. Our four thousand men might as well be four. _Vicisti\nGalilaee!_ Perkins, you may as well get me another glass of wine.\"\n\nIn this way the vast army of South Kensington surrendered and the\nEmpire of Notting Hill began. One further fact in this connection is\nperhaps worth mentioning--the fact that, after his victory, Adam Wayne\ncaused the great tower on Campden Hill to be plated with gold and\ninscribed with a great epitaph, saying that it was the monument of\nWilfrid Lambert, the heroic defender of the place, and surmounted with\na statue, in which his large nose was done something less than justice\nto.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK V\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I--_The Empire of Notting Hill_\n\n\nOn the evening of the third of October, twenty years after the great\nvictory of Notting Hill, which gave it the dominion of London, King\nAuberon came, as of old, out of Kensington Palace.\n\nHe had changed little, save for a streak or two of grey in his hair,\nfor his face had always been old, and his step slow, and, as it were,\ndecrepit.\n\nIf he looked old, it was not because of anything physical or mental.\nIt was because he still wore, with a quaint conservatism, the\nfrock-coat and high hat of the days before the great war. \"I have\nsurvived the Deluge,\" he said. \"I am a pyramid, and must behave as\nsuch.\"\n\nAs he passed up the street the Kensingtonians, in their picturesque\nblue smocks, saluted him as a King, and then looked after him as a\ncuriosity. It seemed odd to them that men had once worn so elvish an\nattire.\n\nThe King, cultivating the walk attributed to the oldest inhabitant\n(\"Gaffer Auberon\" his friends were now confidentially desired to call\nhim), went toddling northward. He paused, with reminiscence in his\neye, at the Southern Gate of Notting Hill, one of those nine great\ngates of bronze and steel, wrought with reliefs of the old battles, by\nthe hand of Chiffy himself.\n\n\"Ah!\" he said, shaking his head and assuming an unnecessary air of\nage, and a provincialism of accent--\"Ah! I mind when there warn't none\nof this here.\"\n\nHe passed through the Ossington Gate, surmounted by a great lion,\nwrought in red copper on yellow brass, with the motto, \"Nothing Ill.\"\nThe guard in red and gold saluted him with his halberd.\n\nIt was about sunset, and the lamps were being lit. Auberon paused to\nlook at them, for they were Chiffy's finest work, and his artistic eye\nnever failed to feast on them. In memory of the Great Battle of the\nLamps, each great iron lamp was surmounted by a veiled figure, sword\nin hand, holding over the flame an iron hood or extinguisher, as if\nready to let it fall if the armies of the South and West should again\nshow their flags in the city. Thus no child in Notting Hill could play\nabout the streets without the very lamp-posts reminding him of the\nsalvation of his country in the dreadful year.\n\n\"Old Wayne was right in a way,\" commented the King. \"The sword does\nmake things beautiful. It has made the whole world romantic by now.\nAnd to think people once thought me a buffoon for suggesting a\nromantic Notting Hill. Deary me, deary me! (I think that is the\nexpression)--it seems like a previous existence.\"\n\nTurning a corner, he found himself in Pump Street, opposite the four\nshops which Adam Wayne had studied twenty years before. He entered\nidly the shop of Mr. Mead, the grocer. Mr. Mead was somewhat older,\nlike the rest of the world, and his red beard, which he now wore with\na moustache, and long and full, was partly blanched and discoloured.\nHe was dressed in a long and richly embroidered robe of blue, brown,\nand crimson, interwoven with an Eastern complexity of pattern, and\ncovered with obscure symbols and pictures, representing his wares\npassing from hand to hand and from nation to nation. Round his neck\nwas the chain with the Blue Argosy cut in turquoise, which he wore as\nGrand Master of the Grocers. The whole shop had the sombre and\nsumptuous look of its owner. The wares were displayed as prominently\nas in the old days, but they were now blended and arranged with a\nsense of tint and grouping, too often neglected by the dim grocers of\nthose forgotten days. The wares were shown plainly, but shown not so\nmuch as an old grocer would have shown his stock, but rather as an\neducated virtuoso would have shown his treasures. The tea was stored\nin great blue and green vases, inscribed with the nine indispensable\nsayings of the wise men of China. Other vases of a confused orange and\npurple, less rigid and dominant, more humble and dreamy, stored\nsymbolically the tea of India. A row of caskets of a simple silvery\nmetal contained tinned meats. Each was wrought with some rude but\nrhythmic form, as a shell, a horn, a fish, or an apple, to indicate\nwhat material had been canned in it.\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" said Mr. Mead, sweeping an Oriental reverence. \"This\nis an honour to me, but yet more an honour to the city.\"\n\nAuberon took off his hat.\n\n\"Mr. Mead,\" he said, \"Notting Hill, whether in giving or taking, can\ndeal in nothing but honour. Do you happen to sell liquorice?\"\n\n\"Liquorice, sire,\" said Mr. Mead, \"is not the least important of our\nbenefits out of the dark heart of Arabia.\"\n\nAnd going reverently towards a green and silver canister, made in the\nform of an Arabian mosque, he proceeded to serve his customer.\n\n\"I was just thinking, Mr. Mead,\" said the King, reflectively, \"I don't\nknow why I should think about it just now, but I was just thinking of\ntwenty years ago. Do you remember the times before the war?\"\n\nThe grocer, having wrapped up the liquorice sticks in a piece of paper\n(inscribed with some appropriate sentiment), lifted his large grey\neyes dreamily, and looked at the darkening sky outside.\n\n\"Oh yes, your Majesty,\" he said. \"I remember these streets before the\nLord Provost began to rule us. I can't remember how we felt very well.\nAll the great songs and the fighting change one so; and I don't think\nwe can really estimate all we owe to the Provost; but I can remember\nhis coming into this very shop twenty-two years ago, and I remember\nthe things he said. The singular thing is that, as far as I remember,\nI thought the things he said odd at that time. Now it's the things\nthat I said, as far as I can recall them, that seem to me odd--as odd\nas a madman's antics.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the King; and looked at him with an unfathomable quietness.\n\n\"I thought nothing of being a grocer then,\" he said. \"Isn't that odd\nenough for anybody? I thought nothing of all the wonderful places that\nmy goods come from, and wonderful ways that they are made. I did not\nknow that I was for all practical purposes a king with slaves spearing\nfishes near the secret pool, and gathering fruits in the islands under\nthe world. My mind was a blank on the thing. I was as mad as a\nhatter.\"\n\nThe King turned also, and stared out into the dark, where the great\nlamps that commemorated the battle were already flaming.\n\n\"And is this the end of poor old Wayne?\" he said, half to himself. \"To\ninflame every one so much that he is lost himself in the blaze. Is\nthis his victory that he, my incomparable Wayne, is now only one in a\nworld of Waynes? Has he conquered and become by conquest commonplace?\nMust Mr. Mead, the grocer, talk as high as he? Lord! what a strange\nworld in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble\nto go mad!\"\n\nAnd he went dreamily out of the shop.\n\nHe paused outside the next one almost precisely as the Provost had\ndone two decades before.\n\n[Illustration: \"A FINE EVENING, SIR,\" SAID THE CHEMIST.]\n\n\"How uncommonly creepy this shop looks!\" he said. \"But yet somehow\nencouragingly creepy, invitingly creepy. It looks like something in a\njolly old nursery story in which you are frightened out of your skin,\nand yet know that things always end well. The way those low sharp\ngables are carved like great black bat's wings folded down, and the\nway those queer-coloured bowls underneath are made to shine like\ngiants eye-balls. It looks like a benevolent warlock's hut. It is\napparently a chemist's.\"\n\nAlmost as he spoke, Mr. Bowles, the chemist, came to his shop door in\na long black velvet gown and hood, monastic as it were, but yet with a\ntouch of the diabolic. His hair was still quite black, and his face\neven paler than of old. The only spot of colour he carried was a red\nstar cut in some precious stone of strong tint, hung on his breast. He\nbelonged to the Society of the Red Star of Charity, founded on the\nlamps displayed by doctors and chemists.\n\n\"A fine evening, sir,\" said the chemist. \"Why, I can scarcely be\nmistaken in supposing it to be your Majesty. Pray step inside and\nshare a bottle of sal-volatile, or anything that may take your fancy.\nAs it happens, there is an old acquaintance of your Majesty's in my\nshop carousing (if I may be permitted the term) upon that beverage at\nthis moment.\"\n\nThe King entered the shop, which was an Aladdin's garden of shades and\nhues, for as the chemist's scheme of colour was more brilliant than\nthe grocer's scheme, so it was arranged with even more delicacy and\nfancy. Never, if the phrase may be employed, had such a nosegay of\nmedicines been presented to the artistic eye.\n\nBut even the solemn rainbow of that evening interior was rivalled or\neven eclipsed by the figure standing in the centre of the shop. His\nform, which was a large and stately one, was clad in a brilliant blue\nvelvet, cut in the richest Renaissance fashion, and slashed so as to\nshow gleams and gaps of a wonderful lemon or pale yellow. He had\nseveral chains round his neck, and his plumes, which were of several\ntints of bronze and gold, hung down to the great gold hilt of his long\nsword. He was drinking a dose of sal-volatile, and admiring its opal\ntint. The King advanced with a slight mystification towards the tall\nfigure, whose face was in shadow; then he said--\n\n\"By the Great Lord of Luck, Barker!\"\n\nThe figure removed his plumed cap, showing the same dark head and\nlong, almost equine face which the King had so often seen rising out\nof the high collar of Bond Street. Except for a grey patch on each\ntemple, it was totally unchanged.\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" said Barker, \"this is a meeting nobly retrospective, a\nmeeting that has about it a certain October gold. I drink to old\ndays;\" and he finished his sal-volatile with simple feeling.\n\n\"I am delighted to see you again, Barker,\" said the King. \"It is\nindeed long since we met. What with my travels in Asia Minor, and my\nbook having to be written (you have read my 'Life of Prince Albert for\nChildren,' of course?), we have scarcely met twice since the Great\nWar. That is twenty years ago.\"\n\n\"I wonder,\" said Barker, thoughtfully, \"if I might speak freely to\nyour Majesty?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Auberon, \"it's rather late in the day to start speaking\nrespectfully. Flap away, my bird of freedom.\"\n\n\"Well, your Majesty,\" replied Barker, lowering his voice, \"I don't\nthink it will be so long to the next war.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Auberon.\n\n\"We will stand this insolence no longer,\" burst out Barker, fiercely.\n\"We are not slaves because Adam Wayne twenty years ago cheated us with\na water-pipe. Notting Hill is Notting Hill; it is not the world. We\nin South Kensington, we also have memories--ay, and hopes. If they\nfought for these trumpery shops and a few lamp-posts, shall we not\nfight for the great High Street and the sacred Natural History\nMuseum?\"\n\n\"Great Heavens!\" said the astounded Auberon. \"Will wonders never\ncease? Have the two greatest marvels been achieved? Have you turned\naltruistic, and has Wayne turned selfish? Are you the patriot, and he\nthe tyrant?\"\n\n\"It is not from Wayne himself altogether that the evil comes,\"\nanswered Barker. \"He, indeed, is now mostly wrapped in dreams, and\nsits with his old sword beside the fire. But Notting Hill is the\ntyrant, your Majesty. Its Council and its crowds have been so\nintoxicated by the spreading over the whole city of Wayne's old ways\nand visions, that they try to meddle with every one, and rule every\none, and civilise every one, and tell every one what is good for him.\nI do not deny the great impulse which his old war, wild as it seemed,\ngave to the civic life of our time. It came when I was still a young\nman, and I admit it enlarged my career. But we are not going to see\nour own cities flouted and thwarted from day to day because of\nsomething Wayne did for us all nearly a quarter of a century ago. I am\njust waiting here for news upon this very matter. It is rumoured that\nNotting Hill has vetoed the statue of General Wilson they are putting\nup opposite Chepstow Place. If that is so, it is a black and white\nshameless breach of the terms on which we surrendered to Turnbull\nafter the battle of the Tower. We were to keep our own customs and\nself-government. If that is so--\"\n\n\"It is so,\" said a deep voice; and both men turned round.\n\nA burly figure in purple robes, with a silver eagle hung round his\nneck and moustaches almost as florid as his plumes, stood in the\ndoorway.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, acknowledging the King's start, \"I am Provost Buck,\nand the news is true. These men of the Hill have forgotten that we\nfought round the Tower as well as they, and that it is sometimes\nfoolish, as well as base, to despise the conquered.\"\n\n\"Let us step outside,\" said Barker, with a grim composure.\n\nBuck did so, and stood rolling his eyes up and down the lamp-lit\nstreet.\n\n\"I would like to have a go at smashing all this,\" he muttered,\n\"though I am over sixty. I would like--\"\n\nHis voice ended in a cry, and he reeled back a step, with his hands to\nhis eyes, as he had done in those streets twenty years before.\n\n\"Darkness!\" he cried--\"darkness again! What does it mean?\"\n\nFor in truth every lamp in the street had gone out, so that they could\nnot see even each other's outline, except faintly. The voice of the\nchemist came with startling cheerfulness out of the density.\n\n\"Oh, don't you know?\" he said. \"Did they never tell you this is the\nFeast of the Lamps, the anniversary of the great battle that almost\nlost and just saved Notting Hill? Don't you know, your Majesty, that\non this night twenty-one years ago we saw Wilson's green uniforms\ncharging down this street, and driving Wayne and Turnbull back upon\nthe gas-works, fighting with their handful like fiends from hell? And\nthat then, in that great hour, Wayne sprang through a window of the\ngas-works, with one blow of his hand brought darkness on the whole\ncity, and then with a cry like a lion's, that was heard through four\nstreets, flew at Wilson's men, sword in hand, and swept them,\nbewildered as they were, and ignorant of the map, clear out of the\nsacred street again? And don't you know that upon that night every\nyear all lights are turned out for half an hour while we sing the\nNotting Hill anthem in the darkness? Hark! there it begins.\"\n\nThrough the night came a crash of drums, and then a strong swell of\nhuman voices--\n\n\"When the world was in the balance, there was night on Notting Hill,\n(There was night on Notting Hill): it was nobler than the day;\nOn the cities where the lights are and the firesides glow,\nFrom the seas and from the deserts came the thing we did not know,\nCame the darkness, came the darkness, came the darkness on the foe,\n      And the old guard of God turned to bay.\n  For the old guard of God turns to bay, turns to bay,\n  And the stars fall down before it ere its banners fall to-day:\n  For when armies were around us as a howling and a horde,\n  When falling was the citadel and broken was the sword,\n  The darkness came upon them like the Dragon of the Lord,\n      When the old guard of God turned to bay.\"\n\nThe voices were just uplifting themselves in a second verse when they\nwere stopped by a scurry and a yell. Barker had bounded into the\nstreet with a cry of \"South Kensington!\" and a drawn dagger. In less\ntime than a man could blink, the whole packed street was full of\ncurses and struggling. Barker was flung back against the shop-front,\nbut used the second only to draw his sword as well as his dagger, and\ncalling out, \"This is not the first time I've come through the thick\nof you,\" flung himself again into the press. It was evident that he\nhad drawn blood at last, for a more violent outcry arose, and many\nother knives and swords were discernible in the faint light. Barker,\nafter having wounded more than one man, seemed on the point of being\nflung back again, when Buck suddenly stepped out into the street. He\nhad no weapon, for he affected rather the peaceful magnificence of the\ngreat burgher, than the pugnacious dandyism which had replaced the old\nsombre dandyism in Barker. But with a blow of his clenched fist he\nbroke the pane of the next shop, which was the old curiosity shop,\nand, plunging in his hand, snatched a kind of Japanese scimitar, and\ncalling out, \"Kensington! Kensington!\" rushed to Barker's assistance.\n\nBarker's sword was broken, but he was laying about him with his\ndagger. Just as Buck ran up, a man of Notting Hill struck Barker down,\nbut Buck struck the man down on top of him, and Barker sprang up\nagain, the blood running down his face.\n\nSuddenly all these cries were cloven by a great voice, that seemed to\nfall out of heaven. It was terrible to Buck and Barker and the King,\nfrom its seeming to come out the empty skies; but it was more terrible\nbecause it was a familiar voice, and one which at the same time they\nhad not heard for so long.\n\n\"Turn up the lights,\" said the voice from above them, and for a moment\nthere was no reply, but only a tumult.\n\n\"In the name of Notting Hill and of the great Council of the City,\nturn up the lights.\"\n\nThere was again a tumult and a vagueness for a moment, then the whole\nstreet and every object in it sprang suddenly out of the darkness, as\nevery lamp sprang into life. And looking up they saw, standing upon a\nbalcony near the roof of one of the highest houses, the figure and the\nface of Adam Wayne, his red hair blowing behind him, a little streaked\nwith grey.\n\n\n\"What is this, my people?\" he said. \"Is it altogether impossible to\nmake a thing good without it immediately insisting on being wicked?\nThe glory of Notting Hill in having achieved its independence, has\nbeen enough for me to dream of for many years, as I sat beside the\nfire. Is it really not enough for you, who have had so many other\naffairs to excite and distract you? Notting Hill is a nation. Why\nshould it condescend to be a mere Empire? You wish to pull down the\nstatue of General Wilson, which the men of Bayswater have so rightly\nerected in Westbourne Grove. Fools! Who erected that statue? Did\nBayswater erect it? No. Notting Hill erected it. Do you not see that\nit is the glory of our achievement that we have infected the other\ncities with the idealism of Notting Hill? It is we who have created\nnot only our own side, but both sides of this controversy. O too\nhumble fools, why should you wish to destroy your enemies? You have\ndone something more to them. You have created your enemies. You wish\nto pull down that gigantic silver hammer, which stands, like an\nobelisk, in the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. Fools! Before\nNotting Hill arose, did any person passing through Hammersmith\nBroadway expect to see there a gigantic silver hammer? You wish to\nabolish the great bronze figure of a knight standing upon the\nartificial bridge at Knightsbridge. Fools! Who would have thought of\nit before Notting Hill arose? I have even heard, and with deep pain I\nhave heard it, that the evil eye of our imperial envy has been cast\ntowards the remote horizon of the west, and that we have objected to\nthe great black monument of a crowned raven, which commemorates the\nskirmish of Ravenscourt Park. Who created all these things? Were they\nthere before we came? Cannot you be content with that destiny which\nwas enough for Athens, which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, the\nhumble purpose, of creating a new world. Is Athens angry because\nRomans and Florentines have adopted her phraseology for expressing\ntheir own patriotism? Is Nazareth angry because as a little village it\nhas become the type of all little villages out of which, as the Snobs\nsay, no good can come? Has Athens asked every one to wear the chlamys?\nAre all followers of the Nazarene compelled to wear turbans. No! but\nthe soul of Athens went forth and made men drink hemlock, and the soul\nof Nazareth went forth and made men consent to be crucified. So has\nthe soul of Notting Hill gone forth and made men realise what it is to\nlive in a city. Just as we inaugurated our symbols and ceremonies, so\nthey have inaugurated theirs; and are you so mad as to contend against\nthem? Notting Hill is right; it has always been right. It has moulded\nitself on its own necessities, its own _sine qua non_; it has accepted\nits own ultimatum. Because it is a nation it has created itself; and\nbecause it is a nation it can destroy itself. Notting Hill shall\nalways be the judge. If it is your will because of this matter of\nGeneral Wilson's statue to make war upon Bayswater--\"\n\nA roar of cheers broke in upon his words, and further speech was\nimpossible. Pale to the lips, the great patriot tried again and again\nto speak; but even his authority could not keep down the dark and\nroaring masses in the street below him. He said something further, but\nit was not audible. He descended at last sadly from the garret in\nwhich he lived, and mingled with the crowd at the foot of the houses.\nFinding General Turnbull, he put his hand on his shoulder with a queer\naffection and gravity, and said--\n\n\"To-morrow, old man, we shall have a new experience, as fresh as the\nflowers of spring. We shall be defeated. You and I have been through\nthree battles together, and have somehow or other missed this peculiar\ndelight. It is unfortunate that we shall not probably be able to\nexchange our experiences, because, as it most annoyingly happens, we\nshall probably both be dead.\"\n\nTurnbull looked dimly surprised.\n\n\"I don't mind so much about being dead,\" he said, \"but why should you\nsay that we shall be defeated?\"\n\n\"The answer is very simple,\" replied Wayne, calmly. \"It is because we\nought to be defeated. We have been in the most horrible holes before\nnow; but in all those I was perfectly certain that the stars were on\nour side, and that we ought to get out. Now I know that we ought not\nto get out; and that takes away from me everything with which I won.\"\n\nAs Wayne spoke he started a little, for both men became aware that a\nthird figure was listening to them--a small figure with wondering\neyes.\n\n\"Is it really true, my dear Wayne,\" said the King, interrupting, \"that\nyou think you will be beaten to-morrow?\"\n\n\"There can be no doubt about it whatever,\" replied Adam Wayne; \"the\nreal reason is the one of which I have just spoken. But as a\nconcession to your materialism, I will add that they have an organised\narmy of a hundred allied cities against our one. That in itself,\nhowever, would be unimportant.\"\n\nQuin, with his round eyes, seemed strangely insistent.\n\n\"You are quite sure,\" he said, \"that you must be beaten?\"\n\n\"I am afraid,\" said Turnbull, gloomily, \"that there can be no doubt\nabout it.\"\n\n\"Then,\" cried the King, flinging out his arms, \"give me a halberd!\nGive me a halberd, somebody! I desire all men to witness that I,\nAuberon, King of England, do here and now abdicate, and implore the\nProvost of Notting Hill to permit me to enlist in his army. Give me a\nhalberd!\"\n\nHe seized one from some passing guard, and, shouldering it, stamped\nsolemnly after the shouting columns of halberdiers which were, by this\ntime, parading the streets. He had, however, nothing to do with the\nwrecking of the statue of General Wilson, which took place before\nmorning.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--_The Last Battle_\n\n\nThe day was cloudy when Wayne went down to die with all his army in\nKensington Gardens; it was cloudy again when that army had been\nswallowed up by the vast armies of a new world. There had been an\nalmost uncanny interval of sunshine, in which the Provost of Notting\nHill, with all the placidity of an onlooker, had gazed across to the\nhostile armies on the great spaces of verdure opposite; the long\nstrips of green and blue and gold lay across the park in squares and\noblongs like a proposition in Euclid wrought in a rich embroidery. But\nthe sunlight was a weak and, as it were, a wet sunlight, and was soon\nswallowed up. Wayne spoke to the King, with a queer sort of coldness\nand languor, as to the military operations. It was as he had said the\nnight before--that being deprived of his sense of an impracticable\nrectitude, he was, in effect, being deprived of everything. He was out\nof date, and at sea in a mere world of compromise and competition, of\nEmpire against Empire, of the tolerably right and the tolerably wrong.\nWhen his eye fell on the King, however, who was marching very gravely\nwith a top hat and a halberd, it brightened slightly.\n\n\"Well, your Majesty,\" he said, \"you at least ought to be proud to-day.\nIf your children are fighting each other, at least those who win are\nyour children. Other kings have distributed justice, you have\ndistributed life. Other kings have ruled a nation, you have created\nnations. Others have made kingdoms, you have begotten them. Look at\nyour children, father!\" and he stretched his hand out towards the\nenemy.\n\nAuberon did not raise his eyes.\n\n\"See how splendidly,\" cried Wayne, \"the new cities come on--the new\ncities from across the river. See where Battersea advances over\nthere--under the flag of the Lost Dog; and Putney--don't you see the\nMan on the White Boar shining on their standard as the sun catches it?\nIt is the coming of a new age, your Majesty. Notting Hill is not a\ncommon empire; it is a thing like Athens, the mother of a mode of\nlife, of a manner of living, which shall renew the youth of the\nworld--a thing like Nazareth. When I was young I remember, in the old\ndreary days, wiseacres used to write books about how trains would get\nfaster, and all the world be one empire, and tram-cars go to the moon.\nAnd even as a child I used to say to myself, 'Far more likely that we\nshall go on the crusades again, or worship the gods of the city.' And\nso it has been. And I am glad, though this is my last battle.\"\n\nEven as he spoke there came a crash of steel from the left, and he\nturned his head.\n\n\"Wilson!\" he cried, with a kind of joy. \"Red Wilson has charged our\nleft. No one can hold him in; he eats swords. He is as keen a soldier\nas Turnbull, but less patient--less really great. Ha! and Barker is\nmoving. How Barker has improved; how handsome he looks! It is not all\nhaving plumes; it is also having a soul in one's daily life. Ha!\"\n\nAnd another crash of steel on the right showed that Barker had closed\nwith Notting Hill on the other side.\n\n\"Turnbull is there!\" cried Wayne. \"See him hurl them back! Barker is\nchecked! Turnbull charges--wins! But our left is broken. Wilson has\nsmashed Bowles and Mead, and may turn our flank. Forward, the\nProvost's Guard!\"\n\nAnd the whole centre moved forward, Wayne's face and hair and sword\nflaming in the van.\n\nThe King ran suddenly forward.\n\nThe next instant a great jar that went through it told that it had met\nthe enemy. And right over against them through the wood of their own\nweapons Auberon saw the Purple Eagle of Buck of North Kensington.\n\nOn the left Red Wilson was storming the broken ranks, his little green\nfigure conspicuous even in the tangle of men and weapons, with the\nflaming red moustaches and the crown of laurel. Bowles slashed at his\nhead and tore away some of the wreath, leaving the rest bloody, and,\nwith a roar like a bull's, Wilson sprang at him, and, after a rattle\nof fencing, plunged his point into the chemist, who fell, crying,\n\"Notting Hill!\" Then the Notting Hillers wavered, and Bayswater swept\nthem back in confusion. Wilson had carried everything before him.\n\nOn the right, however, Turnbull had carried the Red Lion banner with a\nrush against Barker's men, and the banner of the Golden Birds bore up\nwith difficulty against it. Barker's men fell fast. In the centre\nWayne and Buck were engaged, stubborn and confused. So far as the\nfighting went, it was precisely equal. But the fighting was a farce.\nFor behind the three small armies with which Wayne's small army was\nengaged lay the great sea of the allied armies, which looked on as yet\nas scornful spectators, but could have broken all four armies by\nmoving a finger.\n\nSuddenly they did move. Some of the front contingents, the pastoral\nchiefs from Shepherd's Bush, with their spears and fleeces, were seen\nadvancing, and the rude clans from Paddington Green. They were\nadvancing for a very good reason. Buck, of North Kensington, was\nsignalling wildly; he was surrounded, and totally cut off. His\nregiments were a struggling mass of people, islanded in a red sea of\nNotting Hill.\n\nThe allies had been too careless and confident. They had allowed\nBarker's force to be broken to pieces by Turnbull, and the moment that\nwas done, the astute old leader of Notting Hill swung his men round\nand attacked Buck behind and on both sides. At the same moment Wayne\ncried, \"Charge!\" and struck him in front like a thunderbolt.\n\nTwo-thirds of Buck's men were cut to pieces before their allies could\nreach them. Then the sea of cities came on with their banners like\nbreakers, and swallowed Notting Hill for ever. The battle was not\nover, for not one of Wayne's men would surrender, and it lasted till\nsundown, and long after. But it was decided; the story of Notting Hill\nwas ended.\n\nWhen Turnbull saw it, he ceased a moment from fighting, and looked\nround him. The evening sunlight struck his face; it looked like a\nchild's.\n\n\"I have had my youth,\" he said. Then, snatching an axe from a man, he\ndashed into the thick of the spears of Shepherd's Bush, and died\nsomewhere far in the depths of their reeling ranks. Then the battle\nroared on; every man of Notting Hill was slain before night.\n\nWayne was standing by a tree alone after the battle. Several men\napproached him with axes. One struck at him. His foot seemed partly to\nslip; but he flung his hand out, and steadied himself against the\ntree.\n\nBarker sprang after him, sword in hand, and shaking with excitement.\n\n\"How large now, my lord,\" he cried, \"is the Empire of Notting Hill?\"\n\nWayne smiled in the gathering dark.\n\n\"Always as large as this,\" he said, and swept his sword round in a\nsemicircle of silver.\n\nBarker dropped, wounded in the neck; and Wilson sprang over his body\nlike a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there came\nbehind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare of yellow, and a\nmass of the West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope,\nknee-deep in grass, bearing the yellow banner of the city before them,\nand shouting aloud.\n\nAt the same second Wilson went down under Wayne's sword, seemingly\nsmashed like a fly. The great sword rose again like a bird, but Wilson\nseemed to rise with it, and, his sword being broken, sprang at Wayne's\nthroat like a dog. The foremost of the yellow halberdiers had reached\nthe tree and swung his axe above the struggling Wayne. With a curse\nthe King whirled up his own halberd, and dashed the blade in the man's\nface. He reeled and rolled down the slope, just as the furious Wilson\nwas flung on his back again. And again he was on his feet, and again\nat Wayne's throat. Then he was flung again, but this time laughing\ntriumphantly. Grasped in his hand was the red and yellow favour that\nWayne wore as Provost of Notting Hill. He had torn it from the place\nwhere it had been carried for twenty-five years.\n\nWith a shout the West Kensington men closed round Wayne, the great\nyellow banner flapping over his head.\n\n\"Where is your favour now, Provost?\" cried the West Kensington leader.\n\nAnd a laugh went up.\n\nAdam struck at the standard-bearer and brought him reeling forward. As\nthe banner stooped, he grasped the yellow folds and tore off a shred.\nA halberdier struck him on the shoulder, wounding bloodily.\n\n\"Here is one colour!\" he cried, pushing the yellow into his belt; \"and\nhere!\" he cried, pointing to his own blood--\"here is the other.\"\n\nAt the same instant the shock of a sudden and heavy halberd laid the\nKing stunned or dead. In the wild visions of vanishing consciousness,\nhe saw again something that belonged to an utterly forgotten time,\nsomething that he had seen somewhere long ago in a restaurant. He saw,\nwith his swimming eyes, red and yellow, the colours of Nicaragua.\n\nQuin did not see the end. Wilson, wild with joy, sprang again at Adam\nWayne, and the great sword of Notting Hill was whirled above once\nmore. Then men ducked instinctively at the rushing noise of the sword\ncoming down out of the sky, and Wilson of Bayswater was smashed and\nwiped down upon the floor like a fly. Nothing was left of him but a\nwreck; but the blade that had broken him was broken. In dying he had\nsnapped the great sword and the spell of it; the sword of Wayne was\nbroken at the hilt. One rush of the enemy carried Wayne by force\nagainst the tree. They were too close to use halberd or even sword;\nthey were breast to breast, even nostrils to nostrils. But Buck got\nhis dagger free.\n\n\"Kill him!\" he cried, in a strange stifled voice. \"Kill him! Good or\nbad, he is none of us! Do not be blinded by the face!... God! have we\nnot been blinded all along!\" and he drew his arm back for a stab, and\nseemed to close his eyes.\n\nWayne did not drop the hand that hung on to the tree-branch. But a\nmighty heave went over his breast and his whole huge figure, like an\nearthquake over great hills. And with that convulsion of effort he\nrent the branch out of the tree, with tongues of torn wood; and,\nswaying it once only, he let the splintered club fall on Buck,\nbreaking his neck. The planner of the Great Road fell face foremost\ndead, with his dagger in a grip of steel.\n\n\"For you and me, and for all brave men, my brother,\" said Wayne, in\nhis strange chant, \"there is good wine poured in the inn at the end of\nthe world.\"\n\nThe packed men made another lurch or heave towards him; it was almost\ntoo dark to fight clearly. He caught hold of the oak again, this time\ngetting his hand into a wide crevice and grasping, as it were, the\nbowels of the tree. The whole crowd, numbering some thirty men, made a\nrush to tear him away from it; they hung on with all their weight and\nnumbers, and nothing stirred. A solitude could not have been stiller\nthan that group of straining men. Then there was a faint sound.\n\n\"His hand is slipping,\" cried two men in exultation.\n\n\"You don't know much of him,\" said another, grimly (a man of the old\nwar). \"More likely his bone cracks.\"\n\n\"It is neither--by God, it is neither!\" said one of the first two.\n\n\"What is it, then?\" asked the second.\n\n\"The tree is falling,\" he replied.\n\n\"As the tree falleth, so shall it lie,\" said Wayne's voice out of the\ndarkness, and it had the same sweet and yet horrible air that it had\nhad throughout, of coming from a great distance, from before or after\nthe event. Even when he was struggling like an eel or battering like a\nmadman, he spoke like a spectator. \"As the tree falleth, so shall it\nlie,\" he said. \"Men have called that a gloomy text. It is the essence\nof all exultation. I am doing now what I have done all my life, what\nis the only happiness, what is the only universality. I am clinging to\nsomething. Let it fall, and there let it lie. Fools, you go about and\nsee the kingdoms of the earth, and are liberal and wise and\ncosmopolitan, which is all that the devil can give you--all that he\ncould offer to Christ, only to be spurned away. I am doing what the\ntruly wise do. When a child goes out into the garden and takes hold of\na tree, saying, 'Let this tree be all I have,' that moment its roots\ntake hold on hell and its branches on the stars. The joy I have is\nwhat the lover knows when a woman is everything. It is what a savage\nknows when his idol is everything. It is what I know when Notting Hill\nis everything. I have a city. Let it stand or fall.\"\n\nAs he spoke, the turf lifted itself like a living thing, and out of it\nrose slowly, like crested serpents, the roots of the oak. Then the\ngreat head of the tree, that seemed a green cloud among grey ones,\nswept the sky suddenly like a broom, and the whole tree heeled over\nlike a ship, smashing every one in its fall.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--_Two Voices_\n\n\nIn a place in which there was total darkness for hours, there was also\nfor hours total silence. Then a voice spoke out of the darkness, no\none could have told from where, and said aloud--\n\n\"So ends the Empire of Notting Hill. As it began in blood, so it ended\nin blood, and all things are always the same.\"\n\nAnd there was silence again, and then again there was a voice, but it\nhad not the same tone; it seemed that it was not the same voice.\n\n\"If all things are always the same, it is because they are always\nheroic. If all things are always the same, it is because they are\nalways new. To each man one soul only is given; to each soul only is\ngiven a little power--the power at some moments to outgrow and swallow\nup the stars. If age after age that power comes upon men, whatever\ngives it to them is great. Whatever makes men feel old is mean--an\nempire or a skin-flint shop. Whatever makes men feel young is great--a\ngreat war or a love-story. And in the darkest of the books of God\nthere is written a truth that is also a riddle. It is of the new\nthings that men tire--of fashions and proposals and improvements and\nchange. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is the\nold things that are young. There is no sceptic who does not feel that\nmany have doubted before. There is no rich and fickle man who does not\nfeel that all his novelties are ancient. There is no worshipper of\nchange who does not feel upon his neck the vast weight of the\nweariness of the universe. But we who do the old things are fed by\nnature with a perpetual infancy. No man who is in love thinks that any\none has been in love before. No woman who has a child thinks that\nthere have been such things as children. No people that fight for\ntheir own city are haunted with the burden of the broken empires. Yes,\nO dark voice, the world is always the same, for it is always\nunexpected.\"\n\nA little gust of wind blew through the night, and then the first voice\nanswered--\n\n\"But in this world there are some, be they wise or foolish, whom\nnothing intoxicates. There are some who see all your disturbances like\na cloud of flies. They know that while men will laugh at your Notting\nHill, and will study and rehearse and sing of Athens and Jerusalem,\nAthens and Jerusalem were silly suburbs like your Notting Hill. They\nknow that the earth itself is a suburb, and can feel only drearily\nand respectably amused as they move upon it.\"\n\n\"They are philosophers or they are fools,\" said the other voice. \"They\nare not men. Men live, as I say, rejoicing from age to age in\nsomething fresher than progress--in the fact that with every baby a\nnew sun and a new moon are made. If our ancient humanity were a single\nman, it might perhaps be that he would break down under the memory of\nso many loyalties, under the burden of so many diverse heroisms, under\nthe load and terror of all the goodness of men. But it has pleased God\nso to isolate the individual soul that it can only learn of all other\nsouls by hearsay, and to each one goodness and happiness come with the\nyouth and violence of lightning, as momentary and as pure. And the\ndoom of failure that lies on all human systems does not in real fact\naffect them any more than the worms of the inevitable grave affect a\nchildren's game in a meadow. Notting Hill has fallen; Notting Hill has\ndied. But that is not the tremendous issue. Notting Hill has lived.\"\n\n\"But if,\" answered the other voice, \"if what is achieved by all these\nefforts be only the common contentment of humanity, why do men so\nextravagantly toil and die in them? Has nothing been done by Notting\nHill than any chance clump of farmers or clan of savages would not\nhave done without it? What might have been done to Notting Hill if the\nworld had been different may be a deep question; but there is a\ndeeper. What could have happened to the world if Notting Hill had\nnever been?\"\n\nThe other voice replied--\n\n\"The same that would have happened to the world and all the starry\nsystems if an apple-tree grew six apples instead of seven; something\nwould have been eternally lost. There has never been anything in the\nworld absolutely like Notting Hill. There will never be anything quite\nlike it to the crack of doom. I cannot believe anything but that God\nloved it as He must surely love anything that is itself and\nunreplaceable. But even for that I do not care. If God, with all His\nthunders, hated it, I loved it.\"\n\nAnd with the voice a tall, strange figure lifted itself out of the\n_debris_ in the half-darkness.\n\nThe other voice came after a long pause, and as it were hoarsely.\n\n\"But suppose the whole matter were really a hocus-pocus. Suppose that\nwhatever meaning you may choose in your fancy to give to it, the real\nmeaning of the whole was mockery. Suppose it was all folly. Suppose--\"\n\n\"I have been in it,\" answered the voice from the tall and strange\nfigure, \"and I know it was not.\"\n\nA smaller figure seemed half to rise in the dark.\n\n\"Suppose I am God,\" said the voice, \"and suppose I made the world in\nidleness. Suppose the stars, that you think eternal, are only the\nidiot fireworks of an everlasting schoolboy. Suppose the sun and the\nmoon, to which you sing alternately, are only the two eyes of one vast\nand sneering giant, opened alternately in a never-ending wink. Suppose\nthe trees, in my eyes, are as foolish as enormous toad-stools. Suppose\nSocrates and Charlemagne are to me only beasts, made funnier by\nwalking on their hind legs. Suppose I am God, and having made things,\nlaugh at them.\"\n\n\"And suppose I am man,\" answered the other. \"And suppose that I give\nthe answer that shatters even a laugh. Suppose I do not laugh back at\nyou, do not blaspheme you, do not curse you. But suppose, standing up\nstraight under the sky, with every power of my being, I thank you for\nthe fools' paradise you have made. Suppose I praise you, with a\nliteral pain of ecstasy, for the jest that has brought me so terrible\na joy. If we have taken the child's games, and given them the\nseriousness of a Crusade, if we have drenched your grotesque Dutch\ngarden with the blood of martyrs, we have turned a nursery into a\ntemple. I ask you, in the name of Heaven, who wins?\"\n\nThe sky close about the crests of the hills and trees was beginning to\nturn from black to grey, with a random suggestion of the morning. The\nslight figure seemed to crawl towards the larger one, and the voice\nwas more human.\n\n\"But suppose, friend,\" it said, \"suppose that, in a bitterer and more\nreal sense, it was all a mockery. Suppose that there had been, from\nthe beginning of these great wars, one who watched them with a sense\nthat is beyond expression, a sense of detachment, of responsibility,\nof irony, of agony. Suppose that there were one who knew it was all a\njoke.\"\n\nThe tall figure answered--\n\n\"He could not know it. For it was not all a joke.\"\n\nAnd a gust of wind blew away some clouds that sealed the sky-line, and\nshowed a strip of silver behind his great dark legs. Then the other\nvoice came, having crept nearer still.\n\n[Illustration: \"WAYNE, IT WAS ALL A JOKE.\"]\n\n\"Adam Wayne,\" it said, \"there are men who confess only in _articulo\nmortis_; there are people who blame themselves only when they can no\nlonger help others. I am one of them. Here, upon the field of the\nbloody end of it all, I come to tell you plainly what you would never\nunderstand before. Do you know who I am?\"\n\n\"I know you, Auberon Quin,\" answered the tall figure, \"and I shall be\nglad to unburden your spirit of anything that lies upon it.\"\n\n\"Adam Wayne,\" said the other voice, \"of what I have to say you cannot\nin common reason be glad to unburden me. Wayne, it was all a joke.\nWhen I made these cities, I cared no more for them than I care for a\ncentaur, or a merman, or a fish with legs, or a pig with feathers, or\nany other absurdity. When I spoke to you solemnly and encouragingly\nabout the flag of your freedom and the peace of your city, I was\nplaying a vulgar practical joke on an honest gentleman, a vulgar\npractical joke that has lasted for twenty years. Though no one could\nbelieve it of me, perhaps, it is the truth that I am a man both timid\nand tender-hearted. I never dared in the early days of your hope, or\nthe central days of your supremacy, to tell you this; I never dared to\nbreak the colossal calm of your face. God knows why I should do it\nnow, when my farce has ended in tragedy and the ruin of all your\npeople! But I say it now. Wayne, it was done as a joke.\"\n\nThere was silence, and the freshening breeze blew the sky clearer and\nclearer, leaving great spaces of the white dawn.\n\nAt last Wayne said, very slowly--\n\n\"You did it all only as a joke?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Quin, briefly.\n\n\"When you conceived the idea,\" went on Wayne, dreamily, \"of an army\nfor Bayswater and a flag for Notting Hill, there was no gleam, no\nsuggestion in your mind that such things might be real and\npassionate?\"\n\n\"No,\" answered Auberon, turning his round white face to the morning\nwith a dull and splendid sincerity; \"I had none at all.\"\n\nWayne sprang down from the height above him and held out his hand.\n\n\"I will not stop to thank you,\" he said, with a curious joy in his\nvoice, \"for the great good for the world you have actually wrought.\nAll that I think of that I have said to you a moment ago, even when I\nthought that your voice was the voice of a derisive omnipotence, its\nlaughter older than the winds of heaven. But let me say what is\nimmediate and true. You and I, Auberon Quin, have both of us\nthroughout our lives been again and again called mad. And we are mad.\nWe are mad, because we are not two men, but one man. We are mad,\nbecause we are two lobes of the same brain, and that brain has been\ncloven in two. And if you ask for the proof of it, it is not hard to\nfind. It is not merely that you, the humorist, have been in these dark\ndays stripped of the joy of gravity. It is not merely that I, the\nfanatic, have had to grope without humour. It is that, though we seem\nto be opposite in everything, we have been opposite like man and\nwoman, aiming at the same moment at the same practical thing. We are\nthe father and the mother of the Charter of the Cities.\"\n\nQuin looked down at the _debris_ of leaves and timber, the relics of\nthe battle and stampede, now glistening in the growing daylight, and\nfinally said--\n\n\"Yet nothing can alter the antagonism--the fact that I laughed at\nthese things and you adored them.\"\n\nWayne's wild face flamed with something god-like, as he turned it to\nbe struck by the sunrise.\n\n\"I know of something that will alter that antagonism, something that\nis outside us, something that you and I have all our lives perhaps\ntaken too little account of. The equal and eternal human being will\nalter that antagonism, for the human being sees no real antagonism\nbetween laughter and respect, the human being, the common man, whom\nmere geniuses like you and me can only worship like a god. When dark\nand dreary days come, you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic, the\npure satirist. We have between us remedied a great wrong. We have\nlifted the modern cities into that poetry which every one who knows\nmankind knows to be immeasurably more common than the commonplace. But\nin healthy people there is no war between us. We are but the two lobes\nof the brain of a ploughman. Laughter and love are everywhere. The\ncathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of blasphemous\ngrotesques. The mother laughs continually at the child, the lover\nlaughs continually at the lover, the wife at the husband, the friend\nat the friend. Auberon Quin, we have been too long separated; let us\ngo out together. You have a halberd and I a sword, let us start our\nwanderings over the world. For we are its two essentials. Come, it is\nalready day.\"\n\nIn the blank white light Auberon hesitated a moment. Then he made the\nformal salute with his halberd, and they went away together into the\nunknown world."